European Schoolnet's Future Classroom Lab (FCL), has been progressively building a community of key stakeholders in the field of innovation in education. It is crucial for such a community to have the chance to meet, both in person and online, and explore new ways of working together more closely and transforming teaching and learning. Because of this, European Schoolnet happily hosted the first edition of the School Innovation Forum on 20 and 21 June 2019 in Brussels.

On 20 June 2019, 23 national and European policy makers in the field of education, 20 Future Classroom Lab partners, 14 Future Classroom Lab Ambassadors, 20 Initial Teacher Education Lab partner representatives among which teacher, student teachers and experts gathered in the Microsoft Executive Briefing Center. Marc Durando, Executive Director of European Schoolnet and Alexa Joyce, Director of Educational Leadership at Microsoft education warmly welcomed the participants, before leaving the floor to inspiring success stories from the education world. Examples of how innovation can impact schools were shared by Xavier Garnier, FCL Lead Ambassador in France, as well as by Chloe Stanley, Seamus O Súilleabháin, Elin Maria Berg and Maria Albuquerque, student teachers from Ireland, Norway and Portugal. Their stories surely inspired the conversations that followed.

On the first day, participants took part in two thematic exchanges, based on their preferred topics, in the broader focus areas of initial teacher education, innovative learning and school innovation. These brainstorming activities and informal networking session over dinner brought up interesting and fruitful discussions on which second day in-depth discussions build upon.

On the second day participants attended three interactive workshops at the Future Classroom Lab: Design & Interactive exploration of the FCL 2.0 which focused on the design of the learning spaces; Initial Teacher Education & Training which provided a space for debate how initial teacher education can contribute to ignite and sustain innovation in education; and Innovative Learning & School Innovation where participants selected topics discussed on the first day and focused on how technology, training and pedagogy are relevant to their upscaling. During the workshops, participants drafted priority maps that target one of the key topic and identified key priorities and action steps to be undertaken in the future. The results are currently being curated and gathered and will be soon shared with all the participants.

This event provided a space for exchange, reflection and dialogue among different stakeholders and got a positive feedback from key actors of the European Schoolnet community. The School Innovation Forum brought together successfully different key actors with the common goal of designing the future of education. We look forward for more to come!