International Student Exchange at DFG-LFA

Erasmus+ Accreditation – General Objectives

The German-French High School in Saarbrücken has been awarded the Erasmus+ accreditation, which enables us to carry out a wide range of international activities with financial support from the EU.

Thanks to this Erasmus+ accreditation, we have been able to expand our European projects.

We are now more flexible and have a broader scope, enabling us to support activities that were not previously covered by the Erasmus+ programme.

For example, we can now provide financial support…

• for professional development programmes that enable teaching staff to gain an insight into the education systems of other European countries.
• for individual pupil exchanges within Europe.
• for the exchange programme with Bilbao.
• for the European Student Parliament.
• for a new project on technology in collaboration with our partner school in Madrid, in which pupils are introduced to robot programming.

Once the current projects have been completed, we will be able to continue working with our network of partner schools, which we have built up over the years.

Erasmus+ is all about mobility and exchanges within the European Union.

In a broader sense, the general objectives of an Erasmus+ programme are

• Promoting and facilitating the mobility of school pupils and students in Europe
• Using education and culture to address the challenges facing Europe
• Creating a more inclusive European society with greater cohesion
• Developing language skills
• Strengthening the sense of belonging in Europe
• Contributing to the development of young people, their autonomy and their ability to participate actively in democratic life in Europe
• Making effective use of Europe’s potential in terms of talent and social resources

PRojeCTS und PartnerS 2025-2026

Food project with Madrid, Spain 🇪🇸

– Learning about food bank (chain of distribution, sustainable practices)

– Learning about and helping in a soup kitchen

– Learning to read food labels

Food Oliveira, Portugal 🇵🇹

– Organising a Christmas food festival

– Exchanging Cristmas traditions

– Conference about junk food

Theatre project Gouda, Netherlands 🇳🇱

– Acting

– Visiting art museums

– Discovering life in a Dutch family

Project environmentally-friendly suncream Bilbao, Spain 🇪🇸

– Pupils design an environmentally-friendly suncream collaboratively with their Spanish partners

– Cultural visits

– Discovering life in a Spanish family

Cultural exchange with Liepaja, Latvia 🇱🇻

– Cultural visits

– Discovering life in a Latvian family

Cultural exchange with Rome, Italy 🇮🇹

– Cultural visits of Roman landmarks

– Visiting art museums

– Discovering life in an Italian family

Parlement européen des lycées 🇪🇺

– Together with other European schools, students design, propose laws, and try to have them voted through in the European Parliament in Strasburg.

– The purpose is to experience democracy at work

Teachers job-shadowing in Helsinki (Finland) 🇫🇮 and Rome (Italy) 🇮🇹

– Learning and exporting good practices from abroad

Students short-term mobilities 🇪🇸 🇮🇹

– These exchanges occur most often with our partners in Spain and Italy.

– Together with their partners, our students attend classes with their partners.

– The purpose is to learn about another educational system and to improve linguistic skills

2020-2023 The Soil under my Feet

 Partners:

Spain : Colegio Zola, Las Rozas de Madrid 🇪🇸

Germany/France : DFG-LFA, Saarbrücken 🇨🇵 🇩🇪

Greece : Lyceum of Vrachneika, Patras 🇬🇷

Croatia : Gimnazija Lucijana Vranjanina, Zagreb 🇭🇷

Italy : Istituto d’Istuzione Secondaria Superiore, Palazzolo Acreide 🇮🇹 

Objectives:

In the six countries involved in the project (Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Croatia and Spain), population movements linked to conflicts or catastrophic economic crises have long since moved from the news into our towns and classrooms.

Managing immigration is at the top of the European agenda, and one of the key issues is ensuring the proper integration of displaced populations.

We believe it is important for our pupils to engage with the topic of immigration within a school context in order to avoid the pitfalls of simplistic and populist explanations. They must also be aware of the danger of stigmatising social groups that would, in effect, be excluded from the European community, which would sow the seeds of future social conflict.

Through a combination of workshops, artistic projects, research, visits and encounters with refugees, we aim to raise our pupils’ awareness of their changing social environment.

Project website :

The Soil under my Feet

2018-2020 Headlines : More than Meets the Eye

Partners:

Spain : Colegio Zola, Las Rozas de Madrid 🇪🇸

Finland : Virtain Lukio, Virrat 🇫🇮

Greece : Lyceum of Vrachneika, Patras 🇬🇷

Germany/France : DFG-LFA Saarbrücken 🇨🇵 🇩🇪

Objectives:

The main motivation behind our project is the conviction that the media and the information they disseminate are essential components of a healthy, democratic and progressive society.

Our aim is to shed light on the creation and dissemination of information through a combination of practical activities and analysis.

We also wish to compare how the partners view one another in the media, in order to identify commonalities and examine differences in the coverage of current issues across the various participating countries.

In short, we aim to promote civic awareness and democratic values amongst our pupils.

We also aim to promote the use of IT tools and foreign languages, which are always an important by-product of Erasmus projects.

Through activities such as comparing the front pages of their country’s newspapers, journalistic exercises and the production of podcasts, we will encourage them to take an active role themselves rather than merely being passive consumers of information.

2015-2018 “JobTrotter”

Partners:

Germany/France: Deutsch-Französisches Gymnasium Saarbrücken 🇨🇵 🇩🇪

Spain: Grupo Zola Educación SL in Madrid 🇪🇸

Bulgaria: “Sv. Kliment Ohridski”, Montana 🇧🇬

Italy: Istituto di Istruzione Superiore “Enrico Fermi”, Vittoria 🇮🇹 

Turkey: Zeytinburnu İMKB MTAL, Istanbul 🇹🇷

United Kingdom: Lancaster and Morecambe College, Lancaster 🇬🇧

Objectives:

Each project addresses strategic themes set by the European Union.

In this project, the focus centred on the key concepts of work and mobility.

Through various activities, such as simulated job interviews, presentations on sales strategies and artistic projects, the pupils gained an understanding of working in international teams.

The main aim was to make it easier for them to look for work within the EU in the future, to start building networks, to be open to new experiences, to boost their self-confidence and to open up new prospects for the future.

Project page:

JobTrotter on Facebook

2012-2014 « Waste not, Want not! »

Partners:

Germany/France : Deutsch-Fanzösisches Gymnasium Saarbrücken 🇨🇵 🇩🇪

Spain : Grupo Zola Educación SL in Madrid 🇪🇸

Hungary : Zoltan Kodaly School, High School ed AMI, Szekesfehervar 🇭🇺

Turkey : Muruvvet Evyap private school in Istanbul 🇹🇷

United Kingdom : Heston Community School, London 🇬🇧

Objectives :

The project name refers to an English proverb that urges people not to waste anything, so as not to find themselves in a difficult situation later on.

The values that the pupils were intended to learn here were linked to environmental awareness and sustainable management.

How can waste be avoided? How does recycling work? How can new things be created from waste products? How can sensible and responsible consumption be achieved?

Project site:

« Waste not, Want not! »

WHAT HAVE WE DONE TOGETHER WITH OUR PARTNERS?

The list is quite long, but here we highlight a few key activities.

Pupils turn into reporters in Greece

https://www.eu-in-the-media.eu/index.php/topics/contact-component/single-contact/152-greece-results-of-activity-3-pupils-turn-into-reporters

Media literacy

https://www.eu-in-the-media.eu/index.php/finland-results/172-finland-result-animation

The pupils must also present, in English, the career field in which they would like to work.

Objectives: to boost self-confidence, improve language skills, acquire technical skills in video production, and reflect on their own future.

Presentation by the Bulgarian pupils

A simple but original video by the Bulgarian pupils, in which they present their dream jobs.

The pupil who produced this clip would like to become a film director.

Set up shop – Italy

The activity, developed by the English teaching team for the first meeting in Sicily, was designed to foster the pupils’ imagination and teamwork skills.

Each team must use an identical starter kit to invent, manufacture and then sell a product. An international jury decides which product is the most convincing.

The key concepts for this exercise are imagination, persuasiveness and language skills.

Chalk outline – Madrid

Preparing for a job interview.

What factors influence a job interview?

Devise a profession and outline all the elements that are important for practising it: hairstyle, behaviour, jewellery, choice of words, …

Objectives: To raise awareness of key aspects of job-seeking and self-perception

Looking in the Mirror – Montana, Bulgaria

Each project partner was required to carry out research into a serious issue in the fields of politics, economics and sociology within Europe.

The pupils presented their work in Montana. A game was developed based on the information gathered.

Objectives: Objectivity, source analysis.

My dream job – Germany-France

In each participating school, the pupils were tasked with conducting interviews with people who work in a profession that they would also like to pursue or dream of having.

For Louis, Bastian and Joël, this would be a professional footballer.

Objectives: familiarisation with video technology for all those who chose this form of presentation; reflecting on the future; building the self-confidence needed to make contact and hold a conversation

My Dream Job – Germany–France

Also on the theme of the ideal job, the pupils have designed artworks to depict the ideal profession they would pursue if they ever had to emigrate.

Aims: To stimulate creativity, encourage reflection on the future, and promote self-awareness

Taking chances – Lancaster, United Kingdom

Why do people leave their home country? How does a foreigner view their host country? Do new residents regret their decision?

Each participating country provides interviews on the topic to help answer these questions.

The pupils from Lancaster interviewed a maths teacher originally from Zimbabwe.

Objectives: To change perspectives, and to promote self-confidence and open-mindedness.

Work and gender – Istanbul, Turkey

Men working in traditionally female-dominated professions and women working in traditionally male-dominated professions.

How do they experience their jobs? How are they treated? Do they feel discriminated against?

Büsra from Istanbul spoke to a ladies’ hairdresser.

Objectives: To broaden perspectives, and to foster self-confidence and open-mindedness.

Setting up and presenting one’s own business – Saarbrücken, Germany

Role play

Working in international teams, the pupils must invent a product, develop a sales strategy and, in an English-language presentation, convince a panel acting as the financing bank.

Objectives: To develop entrepreneurial spirit, creativity and teamwork skills; to apply language skills; and to boost self-confidence.

Trips – Germany–France

As part of the international Erasmus+ exchanges, there are also talks and visits to businesses and political institutions.

The aim is also to carry out activities outside the school setting in order to emphasise the connection to real life.

Objectives: To foster a sense of civic responsibility amongst pupils; to broaden their horizons.

LONG-TERM IMPACTS

An Erasmus+ project offers all participating schools an exciting opportunity to bring pupils and teachers together around a shared theme. It combines hard work, creativity and socialising, with the meetings with exchange partners being real highlights, as partners often become true friends.

Perhaps this is the essence of such a programme, because its impact is by no means limited to the project itself: friendships endure, the desire to discover new things grows, and a genuine sense of belonging develops. The desire to repeat these experiences is unmistakable, and so this type of project often serves as a springboard for other Erasmus programmes during university studies.

After every Erasmus exchange, we ask the pupils involved about their impressions, highlighting both the positive aspects and those that could be improved. The feedback clearly demonstrates the long-term impact.

Would you take part in similar activities in the future?

On a scale of 1 to 10, to what extent do you regard the Erasmus meet-up as an interesting social experience?

I now feel closer to Europe.

Laura

I learnt some interesting things about Sicily and that the people there are very friendly.

Niya

Communicating with people who, until then, had been complete strangers to me.

Elisa

Has this experience changed you?

 

This experience has made me more confident and helped me to approach others and overcome my shyness.

Iciar

I feel more confident and am less prejudiced towards others. I accept people as they are and have a more positive attitude towards strangers.

Léontin

I now have friends in Spain, Italy, Turkey, England and Bulgaria.

Sandro