Neapolis Gymnasium

Neapolis Gymnasium is a secondary school in Limassol, Cyprus. There are forty-nine teachers working in this school, employed by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Youth. Fifteen of them will participate in the PLEIADE project. The school has 315 students aged 12 to 15. A hundred of them are students with immigrant background/biography who are part of fourteen mixed-ability classes. The exceptionally high percentage of students with a migrant background in the school determines a strong need for teacher training in social inclusion that participation to the PLEADE project will address. The school already deals with the newly arrived children with immigrant background by enrolling them in three classes attending an Intensive Learning Programme for Greek as second language.

People

Christos Kyriakides received a Bahelor’s Degree in Music (B.M) at Berklee College of Music in Boston, a Master’s Degree in Education (M.Ed) in Technology Management in Education at Northcentral University, Arizona and a Ph.D in Curriculum and instruction from Saint Louis University. He has been teaching for 18 years Music in high-schools of the Cyprus Public Education Department. Christos Kyriakides believes that one of the basic goals of education is not knowledge acquisition, but knowledge management. Students of today and tomorrow will be able to access data, information, and knowledge instantly. Therefore, the successful future citizen is not the one that has the knowledge, but the one who knows what to do with it. Through technology and knowledge management software and techniques, including informal face-to-face conversations, knowledge management becomes dynamic and it should be integrated within the educational system. Dynamic knowledge, collaboration and learning through action promotes human capabilities and in depth learning. Christos Kyriakides explores ways of how technology enhances learning. In addition, he likes to observe and find out how students think when using computers to learn, suggests on how to adjust teaching accordingly to maximize and enhance student learning using technology as well as the incorporation of e-learning to complement the traditional classroom.

Georgia Aristidou holds a Bachelors degree in Philology and a M.Ed in leadership in Education. She has worked as a Greek teacher for 12 years, in several Lyceums and Gymnasiums in Cyprus. She has worked at the Neapolis school for six years, where she has been involved in a special programme for children coming from different countries, as a Greek teacher. She is also involved in the organisation of special events intended to promote the integration of different cultures, such as, for example, a food festival where traditional music and pictures from the diverse countries of origin of the children are brought to the school by the children themselves and their parents. She has no specific experience with European projects.