Ploutarcheio-4th Gymnasium of Livadeia
We are a public high school. Students are between the age of 12-15. We have 280 students that all follow the general compulsory education curriculum of a junior high school in Greece.Our school is located in mainland of Greece in the city of Livadeia, capital of Viotia Prefecture with 26.000 inhabitants. It is 120 Km north of Athens between the mountain of Elikon and Parnassos. There is the beautiful and famous from mythology river Erkyna passing through the city. The area is more agricultural and partially industrial. There is a rich and long historical, archeological and natural monuments and beauties around our city that we often visit in school excursions. Our school has an open philosophy to new educational methods and practices and seeking ways to increase students motivations and interest for the learning process. We believe that multilateral school partnerships increase teachers’ motivation to improve their work in efficiency and get better knowledge on matters that are affecting daily school life and eventually offer better learning experience to students. Teachers are asked to work in a multicultural environment and try to understand cultures that are sometime unknown to us.The method of role playing is a cross cultural method to rich the knowledge through experience. Our attitudes and alternative uses of learning tools for increasing motivation can vary from group of students to a high extend and we always try to use in the best possible way.
Základní škola Josefa Bublíka
Josef Bublik Elementary School is of medium-size rural school, located near the Slovakian borderline. Currently, there are about 100 pupils attending the first stage – aged 6-10 (only from Bánov) and 148 pupils in the second stage – aged 11-15. All the staff (19 teachers, 3 assistants and 3 after-school teachers) is fully pedagogically qualified. We as school want to follow traditions of school which are closely linked to the region. Our aim is to emphasize the heritage of the micro-region Východní Slovácko, namely its unique nature-biospheric reservation, oral literature, history and culture well known in the world.
For many year we have been organizing both staff and pupils meetings with our partner school in Bánov, Slovakia. From 2012 we have been in contact with Norwegian school in Sorreisa and work on short-term projects focused on different topics. In September we finished KA219 with our partner schools in Germany, Poland and Sweden. We still keep in touch and share our experience.
All our teachers are really active and feel the necessity to improve themselves. So, they take part in the wide range of workshops focused on new methods, approaches and skills not only dealing with SEN learners (one of the priorities of our school curriculum) but they want to find out how to motivate some others who are distracted for different reasons and not motivated enough to further education.
Our school should be more open to further cooperation with schools of different cultural background, size, area (rural school vs. schools in cities), regular schools vs. specials schools, public vs private.
To help our students become aware of their strengths and weaknesses and therefore to define their role and position within a group of peers of different origin/culture. To improve students´ITC and language skills, as well as other competences necessary for cooperation, success of the team, tolerance.
To help our students become aware of the environment and their responsibility for the sustainability.
We as teachers would like to learn more how to motivate distracted students and find out new teaching methods and techniques our partners are using successfully to involve SEN learners more efficiently.
Fondazione Sant’Agostino
Manfredini is one of the biggest private schools of the city of Varese recognised by the Italian Ministry of Education that offers all levels of general education from elementary until high school with 215 students and 29 staff members.
This project will be coordinated by the artistic high school (Liceo Artistico), given its motivation to develop and promote education outside the classroom linked to its potential: Our school’s plan is not only to design and promote outdoor education but also to create and develop these “educational paths”, given the students’ competences on plastic arts and construction, as part of the curriculum. Furthermore, students will practice their knowledge on multimedia arts and website creation. To this end, different stakeholders will be engaged enhancing available resources under the patronage of the European collaboration and best practice exchange.
Özel Fener Rum Ortaokulu
The Great School of the Nation, one of the first Greek schools in the whole world, was founded in 1454 and since then it never stopped educating students. The current school building is located near the Patriarchal Church of St. George in the neighborhood Fener. It is known among the locals with nicknames such as The Red Castle and The Red School.
The architect of the building is Kostandinos Dimadis who was also one of the graduates. Georgios Zarifis, a prominent Greek Ottoman banker and financier belonging to the Rum community of Istanbul, gave grant to the costs of building of the school. Dimitrie Cantemir, another graduate of the school, provided the land. Graduates of the Great School of the Nation played an important role not only in Greek community in Istanbul but also in many other foreign countries, too. The influence of distinguishing graduate scholars and leaders, Simon Kabasilas, Theofilos Koridalleas, John Karyofillos, Alexander Mavrokordatos, Diamantis Risios and sage Evgenios Voulgaris made the school exceed its limits.
There was one and only aim of the School: educating Greek students of the Ottoman Empire. It never had converting ambitions and worked for the maintenance and development of common values and religious belief of the nation.
Today, the school functions as a middle and high school. The overall number of students including both middle and high school is 43 while there are 18 teachers. All the lessons are taught in Greek except Turkish, geography and history classes.
The school is housed in a four- storey building. On the ground floor, there is a porters’ lodge, cookhouse, dining room, library, surgery of the school doctor, gym and changing rooms and installation of the central heating system. On the first floor, you will find the office of high school Headmaster, the vice-directors office, the accounts department, the secretary, teachers’ room and three classrooms. The second floor has the resplendent ceremony hall and five teaching rooms. On the third floor, there are chemistry and physics laboratories, the well-known store of scientific instruments, the amphitheatre, the biology lab with its rich and varied biological, zoological and mineral exhibits, a small seminar room, a pleasant room for informatics and computer learning, a maths lab as well as an English classroom. Above this floor, there is a tower with its remarkable dome with a veranda which offers view all around the city.
The school has participated in various projects and programmes so far. One of them is the Erasmus + project with Bulgaria, Romania and Greece with the theme “Traveling words”. It lasted two years and only high school students were involved. In addition to that, the Great School of the Nation has partnership with Malpighi secondary school and students had the opportunity to meet both in Italy and Turkey. Furthermore, students had published their own school magazine that allowed them to share their thoughts with everyone.