The British Council is undertaking an international project – Challenges in Schools – on the social and economic issues facing education systems across Europe between 2008 March and May 2009.

We work with ’the next generation of European influencers' – students, innovative teachers and education professionals in partnership with ministries of education, leading educationalists, and representatives from schools in the UK and central and norhtern Europe.

International teams of schools develop a vision of ‘the school of the future' in order to

- use ICT tools extensively,
- develop the skills of negotiation, co-operation, tolerance, and
  intercultural awareness that are needed in the new Europe,
- develop a participative, constructive and safe learning environment.

	FEBRUARY			We selected 50 secondary schools in 12 countries.
	March			We formed international teams of the schools.
	April			The leading teachers started online collaboration.
	May			Online research - Fill in the questionnaire

The partneships choose one or more topics within the themes “the safe school” and “the knowledge economy” and start to develop their visions.

	Safe school			- dealing with bullying and violence - preventing drug and alcohol abuse - role of the school in the community - intercultural understanding - defusing violence in the school and at home - the healthy citizen – diet and fitness - fostering equity
	Knowledge society			- environmental awareness - entrepreneurship - promoting creativity, flexibility and risk-taking - the role of ICT in the learning process - making knowledge accessible to all

Final conference in Spring 2009

We plan a final regional conference where the students can present their vision of the future school for key decision makers.

We aim to generate a wider debate around these topics later. Please, send us your contact details if would like to be involved.
Join the project.

We believe that the vision of the ‘school of the future’ has the potential to influence positively the decision-making processes in ministries of education and that there will be opportunities for the principles of the ‘school of the future’ to be embedded in national education systems

The British Council is well positioned to make a difference in this area – we already have an excellent track record of working in the education sector, especially in developing school links and leadership and in supporting English language teaching.

Our Dreams and Teams project has developed the leadership skills of young people through sport and international school partnerships. Find out more here. Globally we are very active in many other school partnership projects such as Connecting Classrooms. Find out more here.

If you have further questions, please contact Stasa Zavitkovska.