Schools in Athens, Disctrict of Attica, Greece (4)

(con'nued from previous)

If you have children, small or otherwise...
...that would be private schools.

Costea-Geitona (CGS) has nice facilities attesting to wise use of funds -- and lots of them. Private secondary school is good business in Greece, nay, getting better and better as public (grammar & local) schooling gets worse and gradually abandoned. You just have to see CGS' buildings to realise - goodness, the schools has been around for ~30 years. Not that long, considering the likes of Jeanne d'Arc.

And yet.

CGS -- I started out as a hard-working nobody and now am a fully fledged somebody, with solid foundations &, some, very good points to make in secondary schooling.

CGS management had the bright idea to join the IB bandwagon very early and to supplement the Greek Ministry of Education curriculum (admittedly, more of a hindrance as private eductational institutions in Greece probably know education better than Ministry apparatchiks with questionable credentials) with IB's skills-centred appraoch to learning. Its IB programme is also reputed to have results - i.e. many students get offers at first choice universities.
And, they are welcoming, and... expensive. You are convinced The only setback is, there is nothing particularly obvious to choose this school rather than another. No offense meant; as a matter of fact, there is nothing to dissuade one from actually chosing CGS, despite its "youth".

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Another well-known institution, albeit with a much longer history, is Ziridi. Here, there is a 75 year history and a strong family undercurrent -- the Ziridi family, that is, with Ms Ziridi (amazingly for her apparent age, only 2nd generation) on the home page. To give credit where it's due, the P.A. is well supported and active, too and, the point being made is that this school is also a family -- not an institution.

SO far so good.

"We're a family of school-children and our school family name is Ziridi."

Having stated this, the old tradition that came with the original "Lykeion i Athena" is no longer. As a matter of fact, the present name is "new gen Ziridi". Unlike new gen coke that bombed, this one hasn't.

The school is heavy on competencies, things environmental (Greeks are into these, as long as it doesn't require them to actually do anything more than talk and, occasionally, switch off the lights for an hour) -- and sports a "botanical garden" (i.e. nice looking and scenting herbs planted in its grounds); some traditions are still favoured the highlight (IMO) being the inauguration of the new campus with the presence of no less than His All Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople and New Rome.

Wow.

Of course, Ziridi is "connected" to the legendary Great School of the Nation -- Megali tou Genous Scholi (in Greek) -- the school of all schools, with a list of Principals going back to 1454. Now that's prestigious. That, is also the one school that is supervised by the Patriarchate.
{Unfortunately, the school, situated in Turkish territory, is regularly attacked & pillaged after the Turkish government in 1945 simply kicked out 250.000 people of Greek origin and, of course, pocketed their belongings.}

So, does one choose the "new gen Ziridi", with its penchant for competencies in 1-6th formers and a preference for IB?

Let's stay tuned.

p.s. is it necessary to repeat that teaching of English as a second language is excellent in both schools?