Conference at Nicosia, Cyprus – May 2017

The conference of research project entitled “Improving Educational Effectiveness of Primary Schools (IEEPS)” (538992-LLP-1-2013-1-RS-COMENIUS-CM), was held at the University of Cyprus,University House “Anastasios G. Leventis”, Nicosia, Cyprus (20th of May 2017).

The conference was attended by more than 90 primary and secondary school teachers, policy-makers and academics. The team of educational effectiveness research of the Department of Education of the University of Cyprus has also participated in the conference. All presentations were given in Greek and connections with the results of an Erasmus+ project for promoting quality and equity in education were made. A conference was also held on May 19th for the purposes of this Erasmus+ project which has also made use of the dynamic approach to school improvement (DASI), therefore teachers, policy-makers and researchers joined both conferences and discussed their results and implications for policy and practice.

Specifically, at the IEEPS Conference, a presentation was given by Prof. Leonidas Kyriakides and his colleagues at the University of Cyprus who are members of the research team on Educational Effectiveness (e.g., Anastasia Panayiotou, Andrie Dimosthenous) describing DASI and how it was implemented at teacher level (i.e. stages of effective teaching). The main results of the intervention were presented and discussed. Furthermore, teachers participating in the project expressed their comments and concerns and explained how DASI was implemented in their school. Actions plans and effective strategies were presented and then policy-makers and researchers discussed about the implications of the findings of the intervention for teacher professional development in Cyprus.