The Open Discovery Space Summer school 2015 development and innovation course is addressed to school leaders and leading members of school staff, who can act as change and innovation agents. The aim of the course is to support school innovation and to train you to act as successful change agents in your schools and to promote the development of your schools into open learning communities, and thus improve the quality of all aspects of schooling. The course is thus addressed to members of school staff who are already acting or are willing to act as committed mediators of innovation in their schools. It will be a participatory learning course, that  will address participants’ and schools' real needs. The participants will therefore be invited to monitor their schools' profiles and assess their needs, as well as to acknowledge their own professional competences, so as to then set specific development goals. The course will also  focus on promoting the opening-up of the school, and will therefore explore parental engagement in schooling as a key aspect that can foster innovation and facilitate school development and quality of learning. The course will include presentations of actual experiences, lectures, interviews, group-work, observations and some playful activities aimed to stimulate out-of-the-box thinking and innovation.

More particularly, the objectives of the course are to equip teachers and school leaders with skills that will enable them to promote innovation and development in their schools, so as to improve the quality of schooling and support the modernisation of the education provided in their schools. Throughout the course, the concept of "school innovation" will be approached as context-specific and variable, based on each school's current status, strengths and weaknesses, socio-economic environment, vision etc. Therefore the participants will be engaged in a series of participatory activities, during which they will be invited to monitor the current situation in their schools and to set specific goals that they will then implement in their schools. 

At the end of this 5-day course the participants are expected to:

• Understand how to use the Open Discovery Space school innovation tool-kit in order to implement an innovation strategy in their schools.
• Have a clear picture of their own professional competences and their role as change agents in their schools.
• Improve their leadership and change management skills.
• Increase their understanding on how the use of technology can facilitate innovation.
• Have a clear vision about the progress of their schools that they will then set out to share with the rest of their school community.
• Develop a clear strategy for helping their schools to innovate and to develop as a learning community, in which other stakeholders, such as parents, are actively involved.
• Network with teachers from European countries, share ideas and successful practices and be empowered by a collaborating group of peers that will be engaged in follow-up interactions after the completion of the course. 

The course is also planned to have a long-term impact on European schools by setting-up a Pan-European network of school leaders and change-agents that will be sustained and expanded after the end of the course, through the Open Discovery Space platform.