Erasmus+ Policy Statement

The Institut of Palamós (INS Palamós) is a public secondary school in Catalonia. It was created by the Department of Education of the Government of Catalonia in 1990, October 23th. The school is located in the centre of the Costa Brava, one of the most popular areas of tourism services.

It has the levels of ESO (compulsory secondary teachings. Ages: from 12 to 16), Bachelor's degree (from 16 to 18 years old) and five different VET courses (over 16). The total of students in the school is close to 850.

The specialities that are taught in VET are from 2 families: Computer and Comunications, and Health. These are: Microcomputer Systems and Networks, Multiplatform Applications Development, Nursing Care Assistant, Care for Dependent People, and Pharmacy and Parapharmacy.

These VET courses represent more than the 20% of the students. One of these degrees is an upper VET course: Multiplatform Applications Development. It represents the 8% of VET students.

Being a public school, INS Palamós is under the supervision of the Department of Education of the Catalonian government and the Ministry of Education of Spain which evaluates it by the annual final results, national tests and the visits of the inspector.

Our European Development Plan has three priority lines:

1. To encourage our community to sense the feeling of being European citizens.
2. To use different languages (not only Catalan and Spanish), like English, in the process of teaching-learning some subjects of the curriculum.
3. To improve the use of ICT, internet and social networks, taking care of applying the best practices in using them.

About the experience of the school in European Projects, the Institut de Palamós has in its short life a long tradition. In Comenius (previously by the name of Socrates…) we participated in:

• 1996 SOCRATES PROJECT. ESP05-502LZ-50214. LES VILES D'ART IET LEUR REGION
• 1997 SOCRATES PROJECT. ESP09-503LE6-00014-1. SALUD EN EUROPA
• 2001 COMENIUS PROJECT. ESP01-52CO2-00116-1. ESTUDIO COMPARATIVO DE AGUAS
• 2007 COMENIUS PROJECT. 07-ESP01-CO06-01356-2. LA MÁGIA DEL LABORATORIO, PARTICIPA!
• 2012 COMENIUS PROJECT. 2012-ES1-COM06-523941. WATER: THE LIFE OF MY RIVER, MY LIFE
• 2014 ERASMUS+ PROJECT. 2014-1-ES01-KA201-004478. TRANSMEDIA: A NEW NARRATIVE THAT INVOLVES COMMUNICATION AND EDUCATION TOWARDS THE FUTURE CLASSROOM
• 2016 ERASMUS+ PROJECT. 2016-1-ES01-KA219-025022. AID REFUGEES AND IMMIGRANTS

The current goal is to extend the mobility already done in other studies to the higher education. Our main interest is that students can do internships abroad and also teachers can participate in mobility projects. This way, we will promote European values at the same time as we learn foreign languages and increase professional experience.

We choose the partners in several ways, but most of them from existing partners (and sometimes also through their contacts). Another source is the eTwinning platform promoted by the European Union. Exceptionally, but if necessary, also through the Catalan Ministry of Education.

The geographic areas in which we focus are mainly those who have a tradition of English as a second language or those whose language is from the same family as ours (Latin). These cases would include Germany (whose city is twinned with Palamós) and Italy, where we spent years as partner in various projects.