SchulePLUS is an innovative matching platform for schools and their external partners. It allows stakeholders like foundations, universities, companies, individual experts, NGOs or cultural institutions to post their cooperation offers for schools. On the other side, teachers are able to very easily find the offers that best meet their needs due to a tagging and matching algorithm.
Within the first 9 months after the launch of the very basic prototype version, 51% of all schools in Berlin and more than 700 external institutions registered to use the platform. In total, there are 3.700 active individual users, with 6.100 offers and needs posted. Nearly 500 new and successful cooperations between a school and an outside partner were agreed. The approach taken by SchulePLUS has been prominently praised by the media, such as in SPIEGEL and the Huffington Post.
In the course of establishing bridges between formal and non-formal education the team of SchulePLUS noticed that there is a real need for supporting pupils in their practical vocational orientation. In order to meet these needs SchulePLUS identified the opportunity to develop a convenient app for pupils to discover their interests and talents.
SchulePLUS is programming a web app that helps pupils to better understand and evaluate what kind of talents and interests they have. At the end of the so called “talent test” they are able to browse organisations that offer internships for pupils that are in their field of interest and within close range. The app therefore enables students to find the internships that they are best suited to their circumstances. The SchulePLUS app enhances the product’s scope and relevance, facilitates co-operation and provides flexibility for users.
Such is the progress being made by SchulePLUS that they have partners not just in Berlin, but throughout Germany – in regions including Brandenburg, Baden-Wurttemberg, Bavaria, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, North Rhine-Westphalia and Thuringia.
Further demonstration of the impact of SchulePLUS comes from their nomination as one of the finalists in the Google Impact Challenge Germany earlier this year – a great achievement!
To learn more about SchulePLUS you can visit their official website: https://www.schule-plus.de/
You can also follow SchulePLUS on Twitter (@SchulePLUS) and find them on Facebook (schuleplus).
