A BOURNEMOUTH education trust has helped leave a lasting legacy across Europe by helping students become more employable internationally.

For the last two years Avonbourne Trust – along with schools in the Czech Republic and the Netherlands – has been heading a ground-breaking EU Erasmus+ project called LEGACY.

Together with business partners Microsoft, Bournemouth University (BU), J.P Morgan and the Peter Jones Foundation, Avonbourne and the other schools have designed a range of materials to help students acquire international employability skills.

The completion of that work was marked with a special gathering of everyone involved at Bournemouth University.

Executive principal of Avonbourne Trust, Adam Coshan, said: “This has been an absolutely fantastic project to be involved with.

“Not only have we worked with other schools in Europe to learn from each other but we’ve also involved our own students, staff, stakeholders and parents.

“We now have a piece of work that can help ensure young people across the EU are developing skills and competences which are acknowledged across Europe.”

Thanks to the work undertaken by Avonbourne and the other schools, a range of materials and tools are now available for other education establishments to utilise.

These include a programme of study, a guide to designing the curriculum and extra curriculum to enable the teaching of employability skills and a package to help schools engage with employers.

Partners, including BU, played an active role in the research, providing a unique insight to their industry as well as expertise to support the development of materials.

BU’s School Liaison Officer, Helen Stevenson, said: “We are proud to be working alongside Avonbourne Trust on the Legacy Project. Our involvement has enabled university staff to visit colleagues in the Czech Republic and host them at Bournemouth University in return.

“The project has developed a shared knowledge of the skills required for employment and educational progression, encouraging an on-going reciprocal and dynamic dialogue to aid the sharing of ideas and best practice.”

Erasmus+ is a European Union programme for education, training, youth and sport. It aims to modernise education, training and youth work across Europe and provides grants for projects that help to achieve that. In 2019, €187 million was reserved specifically for UK organisations.