ABOUT THE SCHOOL

Agrupamento de Escolas D. Maria II is a cluster of schools located in Famalicão and it is composed by Basic School D. Maria II (students from 10-15 years old), which will be the school directly involved in this project, and another 19 schools, from pre school to low secondary. The cluster have about 2300 students and 240 teachers. However, School D. Maria has about 800 students and 110 teachers. We have several students with special needs and learning disabilities, integrated in the school.  

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The school is located in a small city, highly industrialized with low levels of unemployment. However, the families´ socio cultural level is middle-low and sometimes we don’t have the necessary family support to carry out many activities. However, several projects and initiatives have been developed with a high level of participation and enthusiasm. For example, projects like “Eco Schools”, “Education for Entrepreneurship”, “Young Parliament”, “Participative Budget for Schools”, ”Science at School Awards”, “European Clube” or initiatives related with the national plan for reading are examples of projects that allowed the development of important transversal skills and promoted engagement of community.  

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At European level, some teachers have developed eTwinning projects, creating opportunities for students to collaborate with partners from other cultures and realities. We have an Erasmus Project (Key Action 1), devoted to teachers training in topics related with the development of more inclusive work methodologies. However, don’t have any experience in Erasmus Key Action 2.  

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The teacher who will coordinate this project is Mrs. Elisa Saraiva. She has experience on developing eTwinning projects and she is part of the school team for European projects. Manuela Ventura will be the second teacher for this project. She also coordinates the KA1 alongside with Elisa. Elisa Saraiva is a chemistry teacher with great experience in participation, coordination and development of projects at national and European level. She has experience on Erasmus projects from previous schools where she worked, and experience in other European projects (Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Scientix). Manuela is a History teacher with large experience coordinating projects at national level and she is the main person for the internationalization strategy of our school. In the team we also have Mr. Henrique Faria (Arts teacher). He also has experience in project implementation and coordination. The fourth teacher in our team is Mrs. Ana Forte. She also has experience in European projects. These teachers will be in charge for implementation of the project and will be in contact with other teachers for implementation of project activities. Since Elisa Saraiva has more experience in eTwinning she will be the main person for use this platform during the project. All four teachers have a fix place in the school.