BACKGROUND AND EXPERIENCE:

Our school is a public general high schools in Athens. Currently, we have 300 pupils and 30 teachers working trying to make a friendly and attractive environment for our pupils. Our school is located in the center of Athens, 5 minutes from the closest metro station. It is an urban low / middle class area with many shops and companies. Many immigrants live in our neighborhood but most of their children, currently our pupils, have been born in Greece but a lot of them have a different culture in many aspects. The Greek school system aims primarily towards university studies, however we have realized the difficulties our pupils face to set a future target regarding their orientation / job that really suits their talents, interests and of course abilities. Another significant issue we have to deal with is the early school leavers due to different reasons (ie. economic crisis, family problems etc). In order to avoid early drop out of school we try to design more attractive and interesting activities for all students and especially for those with learning difficulties and low income background so that we prevent them from disappointment that results into dropping out of school very early. During the 3 last years we have been trying to combine formal and non-formal education and in order to achieve that we participate in different partnerships and school networks so that we promote teamwork and exchange of experiences among students. Some of the latest approved by the Ministry of Education programs in which our school participates are: • The innovative educational program “I Care & Act” which is implemented by the Desmos Non Profit Foundation and the Lambrakis Foundation • Athens Eco Schools • International network of Eco Schools • International Network S.A.M.E. World • “The kid, the city and the monuments”, organized by the municipality of Athens. We have also participated in a KA2 program "Entrepreneurship in Secondary Schools" and have implemented a KA1 training about ICT. Most of the activities are related to environmental projects and this is one of our motives to combine the environment with business and entrepreneurship which incited the interest of our students. The key persons are: Elissavet Lampropoulou (Math teacher with a MBA-TQM master degree) and Eleni Pappa (Literature teacher). They have both participated in the european as well the environmental school projects during the last years. Moreover, there are also other teachers who were involved in the aforementioned projects and are willing to be active participants in this one as well. However, the challenge will be to have even more teachers as participants in the project activities.