Passing On, Reflection, Setting Out: Two LoLE Cohorts Meet at Leuphana

LoLE goes round two. In mid-February 2026, the rooms on the sixth floor of the central building of Leuphana University Lüneburg fill with school leaders from all over the region. Coffee cups in hand, notebooks on the tables, expectations in their luggage. Some already know each other, some meet for the first time. And the international partners of the LoLE project have travelled from South Africa, Japan, Canada, Ethiopia, Costa Rica and the USA, bringing their own projects, questions and perspectives.

Led by Prof. Dr. Daniel Fischer and Daria Brendel-Humburg, this two-day LoLE training meeting brings together both national cohorts of about 10 to 12 school leaders each for the first time. Cohort 1 completes its one-year ESD training, while cohort 2 starts the programme. This deliberately designed moment of transition, wrap-up and kick-off in one, stands under the sign of passing on, reflection and setting out.

The cooperation partner Edustain plays a key role in the training. Founded in 2023 by Ulrike Stroh and Reiner Mathar, the organisation supports school communities in aligning themselves holistically and systemically with the thinking and action of sustainable development. At the heart of their work is the WSA Navigator, a practical compass for school development that translates the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals into concrete development goals for schools and serves as the methodological backbone of the LoLE training.

In the LoLE training, school leaders work on so-called change projects with an ESD focus, within the framework of the Whole School Approach and learner empowerment.

The core of the first day is a Gallery Walk. The school leaders of the first cohort present their change projects along the dimensions of Edustain's Whole School Approach Navigator and make visible what has emerged over one year of LoLE training. The range is wide: implementing FreiDay as a participatory learning format, integrating outdoor schooling into the school programme, building project-based, SDG-related learning formats in STEM, introducing a compulsory UNESCO subject with ESD principles, as well as new formats for democracy education, student participation and the structural anchoring of ESD in the curriculum. From an idea, to a tangible project, to school development.

The international guests, including Dr. John Bhurekeni (Rhodes University, South Africa), Prof. Charles Hopkins and Katrin Kohl (York University/LSF Canada), Prof. Hiroki Fujii (Okayama University, Japan), Dr. Tara Bartlett (Arizona State University, USA), Ruth Mekuria (Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology, Ethiopia) and Alicia Jiménez (Earth Charter International, Costa Rica), accompany the Gallery Walk with observing questions and contribute their own research perspectives on learner empowerment, participation and ESD assessment.

On the second day, cohort 2 takes the stage. Twelve school leaders pitch their first project ideas, ranging from a school garden for sustainable nutrition and the development of a school-wide climate week to strengthening student councils and self-organised learning. Peer groups are formed and first appointments are made. Cohort 1 takes on the role of a critical and constructive sounding board and passes on what it has learned: experiences, stumbling blocks and honest assessments in the spirit of collegial exchange.

The methodological conclusion is the Provocative Intention, a pointed, future-oriented guiding vision with which each school leader sums up their change project and uses it as a common thread through the training programme.

Cohort 1 carries its projects further into everyday school life, and cohort 2 sets out with new ideas, new connections and a clear guiding vision in their luggage.

We are curious to see what comes next… Next stop: Wrap-Up on 26 August.

More about the project, its partner universities and collaboration partners is on the LoLE project page.