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Production School Learning and Teaching in an International Context
Start date: Jun 1, 2014, End date: May 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The International Production School Organization (IPSO) works towards developing the production schools in order for it to be the most beneficial school for the learners who at the time of attendance are at some kind of crossroads in their lives. The background of this mobility project was to establish contact between, respectively, teachers and learners from production schools in Austria, Germany, France and Denmark. Production schools are not as widespread as formal education and, thus, there is a need for knowledge sharing and peer learning between our European schools. It is our belief that a strengthened cooperation – both in IPSO and through an extensive European network – will benefit the teachers and the learners in production schools. This project was two-fold and carried two sub-projects: One for VET staff and one for VET learners. They were carried out individually and will in the beneficiary report be described as such. VET Staff: 9 workshop trainers were sent to Austria, Germany and France in 2015/16. For the teachers the primary objective was to work together with colleagues from the same working profession from another country. As the number of trainers approved to go abroad was rather small, it was decided to reschedule for the year 2015/16 instead of 14-16 and, thus, let our Mobility of Trainers under the Leonardo program run out instead of having the two overlap, as they had the exact same purpose and program in place. 3 trainers were sent to France in November 2015, 3 trainers to Austria in March 2016 and 1 trainer to Germany in May 2016. They worked together with the host workshop trainer in the relevant workshop for one week. They were integrated into the normal life of a Austrian/German/French production school. Additionally, time were set aside both formally (bus mostly informally) to discuss and exchange practices, expertise, ideas etc. for the purpose of obtaining new knowledge and insight into pedagogical practices, practical learning and other methods as well as gaining inspiration for new production school tasks for educational purposes. This was to a high degree very successful. It is symptomatic for Danish production school trainers being in Germany or Austria, to have newfound respect for the political stability that the Danish production schools have, and how much it influences their jobs. In comparison, Danish production schools are 40 years old, while Germany and Austrian have existed in 10-20 years. Other impacts on the trainers are not new professional skills but e.g. stronger cultural awareness, enforced professional network, knowledge on the VET/production school system in the host country, and have shared their knowledge and skills. In France in particular, there were a very clear language barrier which caused the lowest satisfaction rate (albeit all would recommend the experience to others). The participating trainers all shared their experiences with colleagues at home. All shared at staff meetings and informally in the workshops. In PSF we shared the experiences of the trainers in our newsletter. More publicity have been put on the exchanges in the host countries, which is also the case of PSF and the Danish production school who received German and Austrian trainers within the same time period (example attached). The Mobility exchange project was assessed at the IPSO Board Meeting May 24th 2016, where it was decided not to attempt to plan mobility for learners, but instead assist production schools with finding partner schools in the other IPSO countries. It was also decided not to reapply of trainers as a group as the other IPSO partners feels “full”. However, they would like to receive Danish trainers, as PSF knows that the number of trainers in Denmark is still big enough to find trainers to go on mobility exchange. VET Learners: For the learners, the primary objective was to work with peers at a production school abroad. 19 learners with 3 accompanying staff members were approved. The learners in production schools are under 25 years of age who have not yet settled on a professional area, and have not yet finished any form of formal education. They benefit from a more practical approach to learning for them to be motivated and start a formal education. We know that production school learners grow and mature even from a shorter trip abroad. The learners’ mobility exchange’s purpose was for the learners to participate on equal terms in a relevant workshop for two weeks. This was the main activity as the main purpose of the learner exchange was for the two national learner groups to be integrated and learn from each other. This part of the project, proved to be a lesson in how to be involved in learner mobility exchanges, as no learners were sent on mobility. A more detailed description on this is annexed to the report.
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