Erasmus+ Preparatory Visits: Why We Run One Before Any Participant Arrives
Earlier this month we hosted a sending organisation in Malta for four days.
No participants travelled. No placements started. Nothing was signed.
By most measures, nothing happened. It was one of the most useful weeks of the project.
What an Erasmus+ preparatory visit is
A Erasmus+ preparatory visit is a short trip made by staff from the sending organisation before a mobility goes ahead. Within Erasmus+ it is a recognised activity in its own right, and depending on the action type and your National Agency's rules, the costs can often be covered by the project itself.
The purpose is straightforward: to see the places where participants will work, meet the people who will supervise them, and make decisions about the project while those decisions can still be changed.
Why it matters more than it sounds
A coordinator planning a mobility is accountable for it. They sign the agreements, they answer to the head of school, and in the case of younger participants they answer to families. That is a lot of responsibility to carry on the basis of a website and an email thread.
A preparatory visit changes what the school is working from. Instead of a description of a sector, they see the workplace. Instead of a promise about supervision, they meet the person who will do it. Instead of a list of available placements, they get a realistic sense of which ones actually fit the students they have.
It is also the easiest moment to ask the uncomfortable questions. What are the working hours really like? What happens if a participant struggles? Which sectors can you not cover? Those conversations are simple face to face and awkward once a group has already been selected.
What four days actually look like
The programme is built around the study fields of the students the school intends to send, and it moves quickly. Over four days, the visiting team met organisations across a wide range of sectors:
Restaurants and catering venues, for food service and hospitality placements
Hotels and a language school, covering tourism, guest services and language learning
Childcare centres, which shared their approach to early childhood education
A youth organisation working with young people and local communities
Fitness and wellbeing, automotive and real estate, rounding out the range
Our local team accompanied the group throughout, facilitating each meeting and translating where needed. That part matters: a coordinator arriving alone in an unfamiliar country spends the week on logistics. Accompanied, they spend it on the thing they came for.
The point of covering eight or nine sectors in four days is not volume. It is that a coordinator leaves able to match specific study fields to specific workplaces, rather than hoping the match happens later.
What the school takes home
A realistic picture of what is possible. Which sectors are genuinely available, in which periods, and for how many participants at a time.
A basis for the learning agreements. Learning outcomes written after seeing the workplace are specific. Written from a brochure, they are generic — and generic outcomes are hard to assess at the end.
Something to show internally. Photos, notes and first-hand answers for the staff meeting, the families and the students who will be selected.
A relationship instead of a contract. When something needs solving mid-mobility, and something always does, it is solved faster between people who have met.
When a preparatory visit is worth it
It is not always necessary. A school running its fourth project with a partner it knows well rarely needs one.
It is worth the time when the destination or the hosting organisation is new, when the group has specific requirements such as supported mobility or regulated sectors, when participants are minors, or when the group is large enough that a mismatch would be expensive to fix.
In those cases the four days are not preparation for the project. They are part of it.
Planning a visit
If you are considering Malta for a mobility and would like to see it before committing, we build preparatory visit programmes around the study fields of the students you intend to send.
Tell us four things to start: how many participants you expect to send, what they study, your planned dates, and how long the mobility will last. Write us: info@lexema.net
Your Erasmus project, our mission.
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