What we wanted to achieve by implementing the project was the introduction of innovative teaching methods as well as the use of tools and applications that would support and facilitate the integration of migrant and refugee students in the educational process. In addition, we considered that the implementation of the flipped classroom approach would work towards all students’ benefit but at the same time, it would ease the migrant and refugee students’ adapting to the school reality. Upon completion of the project we aimed at enhancing the teaching process and at creating conditions of equality and cooperation so that all children, with no exception, can participate and interact in the classroom. Moreover, we aimed at a quick as well as proper integration of refugee and migrant students and at the same time we pursued the update of those means that promote the learning process.
During the school year 2018-2019, which was the year our mobility project was submitted, the 2nd Senior High School hosted about 230 students and 18 state teachers of various subjects, ten of whom working in more than one schools to complete their full-time working hours as well as 2 people working as support personnel. Many of the students who usually attend school in Nea Philadelphia come from middle-class families who invest in their children’s education, but there are also students from working-class families as well as immigrant. During the school year 2018-19 five refugee children from different countries (2 from Afghanistan, 1 from Iraq and 1 from Syria) registered in our school. The number of the refugees attending our school was expected to rise in the following years since the municipality of Nea Philadelphia- Nea Halkidona participated in a project aiming at the settlement and integration of refugees. These children do not know Greek and they face challenges in the learning process while their social integration is delayed. For the above reasons, we decided to look for ways in order to contribute to the integration of these children and of all the children who face similar difficulties.