Please find attached the first edition of the DDLETB Erasmus Newsletter 2025
Welcome to the Erasmus+ page of Luttrellstown Community College!
Since 2018 we have been involved in Erasmus+ programmes for students and staff. With our partners we have been working on several topics for Europe in Dublin and abroad. While staying with their partner’s families and visiting European countries’ tourist attractions, our students get to know the culture of other European communities better. Students and staff involved in this programme get the opportunity to live and develop the European spirit.
Find out more about our current and past projects for LCC students and staff.
Erasmus 2020-2022
Week beginning April 4th saw the arrival of our Erasmus partners from Poland, Italy and Germany. Our international student visitors stayed with LCC Host families for the week. The students along with their Irish counterparts had a very active, educational and entertaining week. See below for a snapshot of our week. Many thanks to our LCC students and their families especially host families. Thanks to our visitors and their teachers for a wonderful experience. A special thanks to our fantastic LCC Erasmus team of teachers, Oide Murray, Oide Craven, Oide Fennell, Oide Maguire and Oide Reid.
Monday: What an amazing week we had with our lovely Erasmus partners. All participants got to know each through team building games led by Oide Mahony & they gave presentations about their country. The students also designed a logo for our current programme.
Tuesday: In preparation of LCC's Erasmus week, TY students prepared envelopes with sunflower seeds as a sign of solidarity with Ukraine. The sunflower is not only the national flower of Ukraine, but also stands symbolically for our current Erasmus programme: "Our Environment Is Our Future". At the end of the week, each student participant received an envelope with three sunflower seeds to plant in their homes. Once they produce seeds, we will bring them along to our next meetings in Poland, Germany and Italy.
Wednesday: We enjoyed several workshops in the fashion and furniture upcycling department in the Rediscovery Centre, Ballymun, toured the Centre and their Eco store and learned about a more sustainable lifestyle. Then we visited Dublin city centre.
Thursday: On Thursday we had great fun doing more team building exercises. In the afternoon we visited Glendalough with its beautiful scenery.
Friday: Friday saw the final day for our Erasmus partners. We had a surprise visit by Minister Jack Chambers who has been a great support in our plea to make the Strawberry Beds road safe for cyclists & pedestrians. A fantastic week!
2018-2020 Youth Vote for Europe
“The main aim of the project “Youth Votes for Europe” is to enable young people to take an active role in the political and social life of European society as well as to reinforce their participation in the democratic process in Europe. This will convey common European values, intercultural awareness and the feeling of belonging to the European community.”
The European Election 2019 stood at the centre of the workshops in Ireland and abroad (Germany and Poland). The main goal of the project was to engage more young people in the democratic life of Europe. Participating students were able to find out how exactly they can take part in the democratic processes towards developing Europe further.
Activities involved workshops in Berlin, Dublin and Elk with our partners from Germany, Poland and Italy. There we met MEPs, visited our countries’ parliaments and places that had been financed by European support programmes. Other highlights were strolling across a German Christmas market or zip-lining in an out-door park in Elk (Poland).
Back in Dublin we held a junior European election and a Europe Day to pass on our newly gain knowledge to the school community of LCC.
Working together – the European idea
Visiting Halle/Germany 
Friendships for life are made 
Sightseeing in Warsaw 
BBQ in the Polish countryside 
Think tank Erasmus style at LCC 
Bye, bye Dublin 
2020-2022 Our Environment Is Our Future
Our project has been inspired by global concerns about climate change and the international protest movement "Fridays for Future". It aims to raise awareness of the problematic use of natural resources that endanger the survival of future generations.
Due to the pandemic we have only been in touch with our partners remotely. However, we were creating collages to introduce ourselves and our environmental passion to our Erasmus family. We each also started a personal sustainability diary and measured our daily water consumptions. In April we attended an online ”Fast Fashion” talk by Rethink Ireland during Eco-week.
Here are some examples of our work so far.
Find out more about our current Erasmus+ programme for LCC staff:
2020-2022 Staff exchange with Martinique (France)
In March 2019 we received a visit by Science teacher Valérie Telle from Martinique (West Indies/France) as part of her school’s Erasmus programme. We hope that in the future we can send teachers and perhaps student to the Lycee Victor Schoelcher.
Erasmus Exchange Novemeber 2022
12 students and 2 teachers from the "Beethoven Gymnasium" in Berlin visited LCC and CnT this week for our first Senior German Erasmus + Exchange Programme.
German learners from all three senior years enjoyed hosting their exchange partners and introducing them to everything Irish.
Auf Wiedersehen Berliners, see you in four weeks in Deutschland!
Erasmus+ Finale 2022/23
Last Thursday our Erasmus+ group "Our Environment is our Future" walked from LCC to the Liffey and tried out a local amenity that could be 100% save to reach if only a Strawberry Beds footpath was there. This was their last activity of a three-year-programme which saw many such environmental awareness projects.
The Erasmus Program – Written by Daniel Cryan Gradam Lotrail 2025.
With LCC, I have gone on three Erasmus trips. One to Cholet, to the west of Nantes in France. One to Bremerhaven in the north of Germany, quite close to Hamburg. Finally, I went on a trip to Martinique, a Caribbean island. These trips have each had their own benefits and each of them has taught me something different.
For example, in France, the point was to understand our European heritage and how it links all of us. With the trip to Germany, the basis was the integration of technology in gardening. The school in Germany was a vocational school and they placed a lot of emphasis on how to employ computer science and incorporate it into gardening, for example, taking stock of crops for apple trees and whatnot. They also had bees and polytunnels and they could use the technology to constantly monitor the temperature within the polytunnel. Finally in Martinique, the aim was to share history and music. So all about history, music, and culture all morphed into one, which was fascinating.
Along with this, I think that Erasmus brings out different talents and skills. So, a big skill for me was planning, working in my country to plan trips for the exchange students outside of school. For example, we were lucky with the Martiniquais because the Paddy’s Day parade was on, we had our school show (Legally Blonde) and there was a lot going on. But at other times, for example with the French, there were fewer public events, so we took them around town, Stephen’s Green, Phoenix Park, Farmleigh. It gets you to, I wouldn't say “think on your feet” but gets you to forward plan.
Another huge benefit of Erasmus is appreciating how other schools work. Martinique is an overseas territory of France so their school system is the same and in France, they have the baccalauréat, which is like our Leaving Cert, except that they do specialities which would be like the subjects that we choose, but more specific and more niche. Things like philosophy, and other subjects people might overlook and ones we do overlook here in Ireland.
In Germany, because it was a vocational school we didn’t get to see the full German school system, but they had their own system within the school that was heavily practical. We saw one of their technology classes where they were making go-karts. Quite a far cry from our technology courses here in Ireland. In summary, a lot of things are quite surprising.
Obviously, the buildings as well, something that’s quite obscure but you really notice the buildings in Martinique because of the sweltering heat over there. The buildings are much more open plan. We did a concert there, within the school, and we did it out in the open. It was something else, to be honest.
For Martinique, we flew from Paris to Fort-de-France, the capital. In a lot of Irish shops, they have these AC units that blow out hot air, because obviously the Irish weather’s so cold. However, when we left the airport, we got this big blast of hot air, and I thought it was a bit ridiculous that they had one of those hot-air blasters but I was pretty shocked to find out that was actually the weather there and it was like a constant sweltering oven. But you get used to it and it’s quite enjoyable. It also shows you how different we live to other countries.
In conclusion, Erasmus has broadened my horizons and I’m so grateful to Oide Murray and everyone else who helped with the Erasmus trips. They’re taking time out of their busy lives to look after us and make sure we’re behaving ourselves - which we definitely were. It was such a really great opportunity, and I’d encourage anyone who’s thinking about it to go headfirst into it because it really is amazing.