Emanuela, a mathematics teacher at the Istituto di Istruzione Secondaria Superiore “G. Penna” of Asti, an agricultural technical institute and professional institute for food and wine, tells of her experience in Bulgaria

“The school, a partner of the ENNE Project, was present from 30 May to 3 June 2022 for the Erasmus quality standards workshop held in Sofia. 

The week was rich of content that immediately aroused my interest and curiosity and motivated me to undertake a mobility course at the school where I teach. During my school career, I spent a year in London to learn the English language much better, but also enriched my knowledges. 

 I was totally in agreement with the principles of inclusion, digital education, active participation in the Erasmus network and sustainability and environmental responsibility of the Erasmus system and I tried to learn as much as possible from the experienced teachers I met during the week.

I believe that confrontation with people who have experience in the field is the most formative thing there is for a novice teacher and I thank everyone for their patience with me, answering my questions that may have seemed obvious to them. 

I was very happy and when I came back to Italy, I immediately felt the need to tell the Headmaster about my experience and we scheduled a meeting for 27 June to share the experience with all interested colleagues.

During the meeting, I illustrated the slides on the Erasmus Quality Standards for a correct management of VET mobility activities with a focus on the practical activities we should have undertaken to start a mobility scheme for our students and teachers.

The aim of the meeting was mainly to convey some of my enthusiasm to my colleagues and the many questions I received were testimony to my small success.

The first step was to set up a working group for the school’s accreditation and to gather signatures, I had to schedule a second meeting about ten days later. 

During this second meeting, which was attended by the most interested teachers, who are now part of the working group, we addressed more specific topics concerning our accreditation project in vocational education and training.

The working team became “official” during the Teachers’ Board meeting and it composed of the institute’s project manager (was the person who allowed me to get in touch with the entire Enne project group) the school headmaster, the director of administrative services, PCTO (school-job experience) contact persons and two English language teachers were included in. It is a very close-knit team because we have all worked together on projects before.

Because of our lack of experience in mobility and the tight deadline for our school’s application for accreditation (the deadline is mid-October), we chose to get in contact with the accredited training agency EGInA, active in the field of European projects and partner in the ENNE project.

The motivation is there, the enthusiasm is not lacking, we just have to get going”.