ELTE Radnóti Miklós Primary and Secondary Teacher Training School is a public school based in Budapest. It is a well-established school with long-standing traditions and offers comprehensive education to students from grade 1 to grade 12 when students take their school-leaving exams. Our students come mainly from Budapest and its vicinity. They are academically motivated and prepare for university studies. 

Radnóti School is known for its high standards of education and a strong emphasis on academic achievement, while focusing on the students’ personalities. The overall aim of the school is to encourage all pupils to become independent learners and thinkers. The school provides general primary and secondary education with one specialised class where students learn English intensively in grade 7. After this language year they follow the general curriculum. Students are encouraged to develop their own interests and in the last two academic years they have a free choice to study two or three subjects at an advanced level. There are also optional English language classes in grade 12 where students can learn about psychology, economy, British culture, art or current issues depending on teachers’ offering and their choice. Both types of optional subjects help students to prepare for higher education. 

Our school is one of the largest schools in Budapest. There are altogether 27 classes with almost 1000 students and about 100 teachers. Radnóti School is affiliated with Eötvös Lóránd University as one of the university’s teacher training schools – university students do their practice teaching at our school. This means that they are directly involved not only in teaching lessons but also in other activities of the school. During the previous Erasmus+ projects university students had an opportunity to follow the project work and become familiar with its aims and achievements. 

One of the main characteristics of the school has always been its openness to new ideas while preserving old values. This applies to both the content and the methods of teaching. In recent years have started using new approaches in our teaching such as competency-based learning, project work and the latest development is using CLIL (content and language integrated learning) as nowadays students need to learn English not only as a foreign language, but also, they need it more and more in their studies. Participating in this Erasmus+ project is in line with these pedagogical aims. 

Special attention is paid in our curriculum to raising students’ awareness of social and global issues. Taking part in a project focusing on sustainability helps students develop a better understanding of this urgent global problem, through exchanging ideas they find out about other European perspectives concerning sustainability. Besides becoming better-informed about this issue, they also learn practical activities that might be implemented in the school, so in the long run our school can become a greener, more sustainable institution. 

Erasmus+ projects have become an important part of our school life in the past few years, in forms of job shadowing, exchange programs and courses for teachers. Accounts of these programs are available both on our Facebook page and on the Erasmus ELTE Radnóti website.