On Thursday, March 27, 2025, we had the great pleasure of welcoming the representatives of the French organization for social solidarity and innovation, Cultiver l'Avenir, Mathis Farrhouil and Tiphaine Guehenneuc, to our school. They are traveling through six European countries to visit selected public schools with distinctive educational cultures and to observe the pedagogical methods employed by their teachers in promoting European and global citizenship, sustainability, and inclusion. The aim of the 2025 project is to create a repository of best practices related to the prevention and management of school bullying, adolescent mental health and wellbeing, the autonomy of students within the school system, and the integration of international educational priorities into the teaching and learning of various subjects. In addition to Greece, the program plans visits to schools in Spain, Italy, Romania, Finland, and Germany.
The visit was coordinated by Ralleio European and international programs coordinator, English teacher Katerina Christodoulou, who guided the visitors around the school and engaged in a detailed discussion with them about Ralleio holistic school culture, its extrovert identity, and its involvement in European and international programs, networks, and competitions over the past 30 years. They showed particular interest in the school’s long-standing and multifaceted collaboration with UNESCO Culture Sector, the Ministry of Culture, and UNESCO ASPnet on the topic of integrating Intangible Cultural Heritage into teaching practices, as well as in the current Erasmus+ KA1 program “CULT/ Sustaining and Empowering Our School Culture”, which focuses on peer mentoring. The discussion was also attended by Andromachi Siambani (Greek Language teacher), who emphasized individualized teaching, differentiated assessment, and techniques for improving classroom group dynamics, and Maria Georgoutzou Biology teacher), who discussed the curriculum for her subject and the organization of the school's 19th Biology Conference.
The discussion with Katerina Christodoulou about methods for integrating international educational priorities into daily teaching practices, place-based learning , and linking the classroom to the world was recorded on video and will be included in the documentary “Feeding in the Face of Inequalities in Europe”, which will be one of the outputs of the project, along with a written report and a best practices toolkit.