Our school consists of 365 students and 44 teachers. It is one of the two most historical schools in the area and was the only Girls' School in the city. It is considered a predominantly urban school. However, among the pupils attending there are several cases of immigrant children, thus making it necessary to develop the best modern pedagogical practices on the one hand and to acquire such intercultural learning skills capable of opening channels of communication for the school and its scientific staff in the context of the single European policy we are pursuing. A school open to Europe is a pole of attraction not only for children from ethnic minorities but also for those parents who are interested in and seek to have such educators for their children, capable of imbuing them with modern moral values and ideals which are appropriate to the culture of the present, transparent Greek education, integrated in international standards. The objectives of our school: to be adequately prepared for the reception of the new unified European ideology and pedagogical mentality, which does not discriminate, does not put labels and clearly does not target students from different ethnic minorities.
Our school, the 3rd High School of Trikala ''Odysseas Elytis'', has been participating in various Lifelong Learning and European programmes for about 10 years. Out of 44 colleagues out of the whole school, the 3 who were interested in the benchmarking and monitoring of best pedagogical practices were the headmaster, the English colleague who in 2018 obtained the postgraduate diploma with the title "Organization and Management of Educational Units" and the school legal representative because they clearly hoped to compare and evaluate other educational systems, (the best ones in Europe) having the vision of a European recognized organization for our school. The second flow was exclusively aimed at updating and internationalising the school unit. This is also the reason why the unique cultural crossroads of Guadeloupe/Martinique was chosen for 3 simultaneous but separate training courses in different areas. We considered the training and specialised training of the colleagues who would participate to be absolutely necessary, so that there would be a proper organisation and at the same time the knowledge and experience gained from the seminar training would be disseminated to the rest of the teaching staff.