Apostolos Varnavas Lyceum was founded in 1994 and is located in the outskirt of Nicosia. Its name is to honor Apostle Varnavas, the founder of the Christian Orthodox Church of Cyprus.

This academic year, our school has 645 students, 55 full-time teachers and 19 part-time teachers.

We have students from different social backgrounds.  As in the region, we have students that come from wealthy families as well as students that need financial aid and support.  Moreover, students are coming from the city of Nicosia, from refugee’s camps as well as the suburban areas.  We have also students coming from different countries such as Syria, Irak, Palestine, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, UK and Greece.  In addition to this, six foreign languages are being taught – English, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Turkish.

We have a group of students with special needs who work with more and less specialized teachers.

Apostolos Varnavas Lyceum has a reputation of being pioneer in extra curriculum activities.  We have theatre, photography, music and dancing classes.  Our school participated in many European projects with wide range of activities and themes.  Moreover, every year it organizes the annual school seminar and this year the topic will be “racism”.

As it was mentioned above, one of the main goals of our school is to participate in many National and European projects and programmes with a wide range of activities and themes.  As a result, we have experience both in multilateral partnerships (Comenius), and Etwinning programs .  These were all very rewarding projects.

As the economic crisis in Cyprus is still very high many students do not have the chance to go and know other European countries and cultures.  So, these European inter cultural exchanges give them the opportunity to broaden their horizons and effect them on their way of thinking towards other cultures. Tourism is very a important aspect in Cyprus so this project will help students a lot and broaden their cultural perspectives.

At school we have various subjects that include tourism in their syllabus.  For example,  in home economics we give emphasis to traditional cuisine, food, folk culture, traditional architecture and we emphasise how important it is for tourists to come and get to know our culture.

We also have some clubs for example the “Getting to know Nicosia” club, and the students organise trips and see archaeological places in the town, churches, museums.  Another club is called “food and healthy lifestyle” and students go to see traditional restaurants, confectionery shops etc .

We have many teachers who have some experience in this kind of projects but also new ones that are interested in participating and learning from this experience.