Unified Special School of Aigaleo, March 26-29, 2024

Within the framework of the Erasmus+ program, six children from the Special Unit were given the opportunity to participate in this exchange, along with six other children. More particularly, the group consisted of 12 students age 15-17 years old 6 of them are currently students of our schools Special Needs Unit. One of our main target is Inclusion therefore we created this mixed ability group. The SEN students are based in the Unit which essentially is a school classroom, and follow an adjusted curricullum with diferentiated activities (ICT, Art, Theatre, Home Economics, Cooking, Greek , Maths) They also follow a work experience programme twice a week. The rest of the students participating, attend various programmes. Some have Ancient Greek, Latin, History, Modern Greek as their core lessons while the others have Economics, Extended Math and Technology and English. They are all fluent in Greek and have English as their second language and French as a foreign language.

Our school collaborated with the Unified Special Vocational Gymnasium and Lyceum of Aigaleo. The aim was for them to meet children with similar learning difficulties and come into contact with the specialized teaching methods of their school unit.

During the three-day visit, the students had a guided School tour and our students presented Paralimni Lyceum to the students of ENEGYL. All students had the chance to get to know each other by playing role games. The students experienced working at the school greenhouse and then they visited Antonis Tritsis Metropolitan park where they took part in an educational program during which, after a tour of the park, they made constructions with materials they had collected. 

They had the opportunity to attend classes such as Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, and Agriculture. Within the framework of these classes, they created a recycling bin and played games around the topic of recycling. The students also visited Diomidio Botanical park and took part in a work shop about Wild birds.

Parents and teachers who were accompaying the SEN students had the opportunity to talk with parents and teachers of the Greek School and exchange ideas and good practices. 

The activities concluded with a poetry workshop on the theme of friendship. Our students presented a traditional program with a screening, "tsiattista" (Cypriot folk poetry), and traditional songs. All the activities of the program were completed successfully, and the children, under the Athenian sky, gained invaluable experiences and beautiful memories!