Our training staff suggested to solve two issues by organizing training programs abroad. The first one is the insufficient foreign language skills of teachers. The lack of English-speaking staff was often a problem in previous projects. Two colleagues undertook to start and continue learning English at their own expense, by participating in a two-week Erasmus+ mobility course in English. The development of their English skills is expected to help the school better manage international relations and more effective sharing of project management responsibilities. The other issue was enrolment. One of our objectives was to improve school marketing. With the help of the CJD (Christliches Jugenddorfwerk Deutschlands), we wanted to learn about new trends and best practices of institutional marketing in Europe. We were looking for innovative ideas how to upgrade our external communication and to make aware parents and potential students of our values and activities. We were interested how to involve parents, students, and relevant NGOs in communicating the results. We also hoped to build close relations with a school in Germany, which offers further opportunities for student exchange, language learning and internship programmes.
In 2017, the owner of our school was changed. As the only Greek-Catholic school in the capital, we got into a new situation. To change the school’s image was a major challenge for the teaching staff. We had to make significant changes. On one hand we tried to keep the good old traditions of our school, while introducing the positive aspects of a church school. In addition to the restructuring of the educational structure, institutional human resources development and increasing the number of students became a priority too. We aimed to continue to involve our school in international networks. We were counting on Erasmus+ to provide us with significant help in achieving these goals.