Tamasos Primary School

Description:

Our school has a regional character since 2007, with children from three villages like Pera Orinis, Episkopio and Politiko. The school is located in a village, Pera Orinis, surrounded by beautiful views through all seasons. It is really near Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, just 19km, but at the same time people here enjoy the village life. At school there are 150 children. The staff number is 16 teachers. Today our school has a sophisticated logistics infrastructure. It has nine classrooms, workshops of Natural Sciences – Informatics, Visual Arts – Design and Technology, Health and Music Education. It has a multipurpose hall, a special speech therapy room, a canteen, offices and a teacher’s room. There are two football fields, a basketball court, an open-air amphitheater and an indoor paved courtyard with many trees. There are rich teaching materials, interactive whiteboards, microphones, projectors, computers and other interactive material. The kids have several court games, sports games, board games for their breaks.

At school there is a culture of programs, training activities and extra-curricular activities. The school previously participated in a Comenius program and recently in Erasmus plus KA2 with a wealth of action, as the programs required, and at the same time the school unit embraced and implemented them accordingly. Erasmus topic was about outdoor activities and cooperative learning. We had the opportunity to be involved with a range of outdoor learning activities in the area around the villages and also in urban places of the island. We continue applying non formal education methods inside and outside the classroom in order to empower an inclusive school.

Indicatively we also mention:

• Participation in a one-day, two-day and three-day environmental programs,
• Participation in a research competition on sustainable mobility,
• Participation in the week of Volunteering,
• Educational visit to Athens of the 6th class,
• Participation in a contest of philology and magazine publishing,
• Participation in museum programs, in nautical, skiing, athletics, athletic, table tennis,
• Applying environmental programs: recycling, frying, collecting animal fodder, study of the cultural heritage of the region,
• Organization of workshops: “I meet Cyprus”, “All about fairy tales”, “Environment – Culture”, “Against Racism and Xenophobia”, Celebration of National Anniversaries and Feast for the End of the year with Theatrical, Music and Dance happenings.

Our goal this year is active citizenship. Children, through their lessons and actions inside and outside the classroom, are engaged in initiatives in areas such as: volunteering, antiracist culture, study of the traditional architecture of the area. They are organized in committees; they take decisions and seek change in matters that concern them.

It is important for our school to develop active citizenship that encourages students to have a voice in the learning process (e.g. creating newspapers). It is crucial to enhance participation, which improves students’ self-confidence through creative thinking and fantasy cultivation (e.g. publishing a magazine promoting reading books). We believe that we can boost entrepreneurship by giving children the opportunity to acquire the appropriate tools for their implementation (e.g.: (a) preparing new products that based in materials from the wider area and selling them to school for the purchase of table games; (b) Christmas decorations and a Christmas bazaar for the purpose of collecting money to support educational programs). Finally, it is a vision for our school unit to empower and include all children in the learning process by developing an active and constructive engagement of pupils and students with work done both inside and outside the classroom.

In our school are working teachers, specializing in cognitive subjects: Art, English, Music, Physical Education and Special Needs Education. Because of its place and actions, the school is a pole of attraction for creative and notable teachers who are willing to contribute to the implementation and support of such programs, enriching and strengthening the teaching approaches and at the same time giving separate experiences to children. The school unit works neatly with the community, parents and other stakeholders.

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