Pafos Press 16 December 2023
During the previous school year, Talas Primary School obtained the ERASMUS+ KA121-SCH accreditation, Accreditation for an individual organization, which is valid from 2022 to 2027 and concerns the mobility of staff and students.
According to the relevant announcement of the Municipal Council, this accreditation certifies that the school organization intends to participate in quality cross-border mobilities within the framework of Key Action 1 of the Erasmus+ program (2021-2027). The first year of the program was completed in August 2023 with five mobilities by school teachers.
Briefly, the goals of the program, the announcement adds, are the inclusive culture, the training of school teachers in special education and intercultural education, the use of New Technologies, non-formal education, environmental protection and ensuring sustainable living conditions and the internationalization of the school organization.
As mentioned in the first mobility, the teacher of the school, Mr. Antonis Antoniou, visited Barcelona (Spain) from July 4 to 9, 2022. There he attended the "Facing Diversity: Intercultural Classroom Management" seminar of the Europass Teacher Academy organization with three other teachers from Greece.
In this seminar the teachers had the opportunity to get to know innovative intercultural educational practices and to be taught methods that strengthen communication and acceptance among students. Also, they learned about various strategies aimed at meeting the needs of students with an immigrant background. They also acquired the ability to choose appropriate methods and activities for different classrooms and environments. Finally, they acquired the know-how about intercultural education and received the necessary supplies to turn diversity into opportunity.
In the second mobility, the Assistant Director of the school Mrs. Christina Lachaniati visited Nice (France) from November 14 to 19, 2022. There she attended the seminar "The Collaborative Classroom: Teachers as Coaches, Classrooms as Teams" of the Europass Teacher Academy organization with a group of eleven other teachers from Cyprus, Spain, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Estonia and Germany.
In the seminar the teachers dealt with the role of the teacher and the student in group work and discovered the basic parameters of group learning, dialogue and discussion in the classroom. Furthermore, they studied techniques for guiding students during interactive activities and techniques for creating a learning environment that supports group learning. Finally, during the last two working days of the seminar, the teachers designed cooperative tasks for students and created a strategic plan for the introduction of group learning in the school.
The third mobility was done by the director of the school, Mrs. Anastasia Andreou Artemis, and concerned job shadowing at Escola Casablanca in Barcelona (Spain) from February 20 to 24, 2023.
The school Escola Casablanca has 430 children, mostly children with an immigrant background. The school operates as a full day until 4:00 pm. As mentioned, Ms. Artemi had the opportunity to attend courses using technology during the educational process, the results of which were excellent. She also took part in discussions with the teachers about the lessons they had presented and the methods they had used and in discussions with the school's management team about the ways in which Technology is helping to run the school and communicate with parents and teachers.
Her experience of monitoring the work of the school was extremely helpful in terms of teaching techniques, new methods, new teaching approaches and ideas.
Everything that has been mentioned above is disseminated on a daily basis in the school unit by the principal, as well as what she obtained from her involvement in various social activities and regarding the cultural heritage and historical sights of Spain.
In the fourth mobility, the teacher of our school Mr. Antonis Antoniou visited Lisbon (Portugal) from 5 to 10 June 2023. There he attended the seminar "Digital Tools for Collaboration, Communication, Cooperation and Creativity (4Cs)" of the Europass Teacher Academy organization with another twelve teachers from Italy, Portugal, Germany and Finland.
In this seminar the teachers had the opportunity to learn strategies for integrating the skills: collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking (4Cs Collaboration, Communication, Creativity and Critical Thinking) in our daily work.
Specifically, teachers had the opportunity to design activities using digital tools such as: Qr code generator, Padlet, Google Slides, tricider, Jamboard, Hyperdocs. With the use of these tools it was seen that cooperation, communication, creativity and critical thinking among students can be strengthened much more easily and quickly than with traditional methods.
These digital tools can be used in different classes depending on the equipment available at each school.
In the fifth and last mobility, the teacher of the school, Mrs Paraskevi Hatziiosif, visited Athens from June 12 to 16, 2023. She attended the "Competencies and Awareness for a Multicultural Classroom" seminar of the Europass Teacher Academy organization with a group of fifteen other teachers from Cyprus, Spain, Italy, Germany, Finland and Tenerife.
In the seminar, the teachers dealt with the role played by the teacher in the development of Intercultural Awareness in students, after assessing the similarities and differences between different cultures. Thus, the students, the announcement adds, will communicate successfully, gain empathy and open up to other cultures. Productive techniques, strategies and games on how to introduce and teach Intercultural Competence in an intercultural classroom were applied throughout the course.
The results of the seminars and the school attendance [job shadowing] were presented to the other teachers of the school in staff meetings and the new knowledge was then applied both in the teaching of the lessons in all classes and in other intra- and extra- curricular activities of the school.
All mobilities were co-financed by the European Erasmus+ Program, the announcement concludes.
