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Our school is a public one, located in Athens, the capital of Greece. It is near the centre of the city, in a quite depressed area, where the majority of residents are immigrants, refuges and asylum seekers. Our school has 213 pupils, aged 6-12 years. Most of them come from families with very poor economic background. Until recently most of the students were from Albania, Eastern Europe and Africa. In the last two years due to the crisis in Asia most of them are from Iraq, Iran and Syria. 80 of them are natives, 100 are second generation immigrants and 30 newly arrived migrants with disadvantaged backgrounds. In our school the newly arrived migrants attend the regular class according to their age group but they also attend Greek language learning programs (not from a trained teacher however) for only one hour per day. We have 12 students with special educational needs, especially dyslexia and learning difficulties, who are attending supporting programmes from a specialized teacher on either an individual or a team basis.
The curriculum includes the main subjects i.e. maths, language , science e.t.c..There are also subjects such as music ,art, ICT, theatrical education e.t.c.
The age group 6-8 have an English course for one hour a week while the age group 8-12 three hours a week.
The students 10-12 are also taught either france or german language for two hours a week.
Bearing in mind that a number of our students may have learning difficulties and that each student learns in a different way we practice differential teaching methods depending on the students’ needs or difficulties.
Since we aim at promoting collaboration and a friendly atmosphere in class where kids learn at their own pace we carry out projects using team work and ICT to achieve interactive learning.
The teaching staff is stable, experienced, with increased competence and well qualified. They have all participated in in-school training and in courses on the knowledge of ICT programs.
All classrooms are equipped with interactive systems and teachers use ICT and WEB 2.0 tools in the learning process.
Each year innovative actions are developed by all teachers and students at national and international level in cooperation with other schools, local and national networks, local agencies, institutions and NGOs.
The school’s vision is also to be an active member of the European School Community helping thus the students to be successfully embedded in a European both educational and social environment , since many of them may have to live and work in another European country.
Moreover it aspires us to help them develop in active European citizens knowing their rights and obligations contributing in this way to the creation and development of European multiculturalism. Therefore , as a school , we have been trying to do so through a number of actions on the grounds that they promote tolerance ,and respect for other cultures and civilizations and develop multicultural interests and attitudes. We strongly feel that a European orientation is necessary to get to know and integrate in the European Community.
a. E-twinning . A lot of our classes have taken part in projects and one of them was awarded the national and European quality label for the project "A Treasure Chest of Wisdom".
b. Out of Eden Learn (project ZERO) a project carried out by Paul Salopek organized by the Harvard University giving children the chance to work with schools all over the world and exchange stories ,perspectives and engage in a “learning journey” .
c. Last but not least , two of our teachers are members in the Greek national network if T4E(Teachers for Europe) held by the European Commission in Greece
Our main needs are:
1.Our staff wants to develop in the linguistic and methodological area.
2. To develop new strategies to attend to diversity and foster integration.
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