TEXTILES FOR THE FUTURE - ART OF TEXTILESThis project is following our long-lasting cooperation with the partnering schools in Finland - Tavastia Educational Consortium, Hämeenlinna, and Salpaus Further Education, Lahti, which are in some of their departments similarly focused as our school. This experience together with our personal acquaintance of the participating schools and lecturers provides a solid base for further collaboration. In the past, we have carried out several student exchanges, joint exhibition and workshops. Also this year, we are expecting another group of students from Finland in March 2016.This current project follows the main topics of the Erasmus+ call for proposals - from which the transfer of knowledge and good experience is most inspiring for us. One of our important aims is to transfer the best ways of teaching and learning methods in textile crafts, fashion design and millinery into our school curricula. The participants, on the basis of their research of traditional crafts, different technologies and techniques or the new or non-traditional materials and their use in contemporary design, will gain new practical skills for their own creative activities. We also expect that all participants will improve their language and communication skills especially when using professional language in their respective fields of study. On top of this all, we believe that younger students, and those with some learning disabilities, will strengthen their self-esteem as well as their own self-evaluation in completely different cultural milieu which is extremely beneficial for their further personal development. There will be sixteen students, and one teacher within the frame of teachers training mobility. Activity A1: Students from our departments New Media and Interior Design will acquire new skills while working on Jacquard looms, will broaden their knowledge of textile craft techniques by learning the wool reserve-felting technique, they will try their hands at different technique of weaving, the use of non-traditional materials etc. Based on their research they will create their own design of an interior accessory inspired by traditional Finnish design, and they will process its realisation. Students from our Fashion Design department will get acquainted with a different approach to art creation in fashion, and with a different way of technical computer pattern-making. Based on their research, they will make a simple fashion piece of their own design. Activity A2: Our teacher, Mrs Kobylková, will attend her professional training in the millinery department of the textile section of the school in Tavastia. She will improve her skills in making traditional fur felt hats, will learn a new technique of making a hat block from buckram, will extend her knowledge of hat making materials and will prepare their sampler. Her newly acquired skills, experience and methodological records will help us to open a long planned new branch at the Higher Vocational School - Design of Fashion Accessories. It literary means to transfer knowledge and a good practise into our school curricula together with practical educational materials.All participants will test their self-sufficiency while working in a different cultural milieu, they will learn if, and how much they are able to adapt themselves to new conditions, and to what extent they can rely on their communication skills in English. Beyond price there is a benefit of recognition of a different culture, the mode of education, acquisition of new skills and their use in one's own creative work; and last but not least, in making new friends, and possibly new contacts for their future work.Both, sending and receiving organisations, gain through the motilities of their students and teachers deeper mutual understanding, they can compare their, often very different, conceptions of education, as well as their problem solving attitudes. Mutual opinion exchange and professional discussions lead to formation of strong bonds and understanding amongst all partners, which will support future cooperation; which is our main concern. Planned enrichment of the range of our educational programmes at the higher vocational school by a newly accredited specialization - Design of Fashion Accessories - will have a national impact. It is a great asset mainly because this specific programme is not taught anywhere else in the Czech Republic. Indeed, one of our aims is to introduce a programme whose content will be comparable with the programmes abroad. The Solent University in Southampton has offered us collaboration in a link-up one-year study and scholarship ended with a bachelor degree, as a follow-on of the graduation at our higher vocational school's programme - Design of Fashion Accessories. This is a concrete example of European cooperation, and the impact of our project.