Erasmus Accreditation

The period of various restrictions brought about by the coronavirus has significantly impacted and shaken the international cooperation in the field of school education. Despite numerous obstacles, we maintained connections and remained active. Our commitment to seeking different paths and steadfastly following our vision has paid off. We took advantage of the more favourable time for networking and visiting various institutions across Europe.

During the implementation of two accredited projects, 20 educators from our kindergarten participated in job shadowing activities abroad. Throughout the year, we also hosted foreign teachers and educators from various educational environments in Spain, France, Croatia and beyond. Through reciprocal collaboration, we enrich our program and broaden the horizons of both children and adults. International engagement and networking allow us to explore different languages and cultures, singing traditional children’s songs, dancing traditional dances, reading fairy tales and discovering our local surroundings with our guests.

The bonds forged during such exchanges are lasting and provide us with opportunities to exchange best practices, ideas, and teaching methods, whether as participants in job shadowing activities or as a hosting organization for foreign teachers and educators. By graciously opening the doors of our pedagogical stage, we are becoming a disseminating centre for our educational concept of Project Work with Puppets.

A particularly memorable experience for all of us was the visit of six educational advisors from the French Academy who came to us from the distant island Réunion, which is part of the European community as a French overseas department. Together with the children, we explored an exotic, distant world, learned about their Creole culture, and marvelled at the power of the volcano. With our friend Larga, we conducted a volcano eruption experiment and observed how substances mix and change properties.

Both children and adults showed a high interest for our guests and their presentation about their culturally and linguistically diverse environment, which fascinates for us in terms of observing cultural coexistence and its integration into the school system. There was a strong interest in further collaboration from both organizations – our guests were enthusiastic about our kindergarten, our work, and of course, our children and staff. Their impressions and how were the children discovering a piece of Creole culture has been captured on video and can be seen here. What we discovered and learned during our time with our French colleagues has sparked additional interest and a desire for further collaboration and deeper understanding of diversity.

All our staff who participated in international activities in schools and kindergartens across Europe have benefited from such positive experiences, best practices, idea exchanges, and the remarkable hospitality of host organizations.

We have summarized what they discovered and learned in various European preschool and school organizations, and we share their highlights with you, hoping that our Erasmus+ project collaboration experience will also awaken your spirit of exploration and enrich your horizons.