Vialonga Group of Schools – EB 2,3 This group of schools (AEV) consists of three nursery schools (children from 3 to 5 years old), six primary schools (children from 6 to 10 years old) and a secondary school (young people from 11 to 16 years old).
The main school of this cluster – EB 2,3 - has almost 1000 pupils - 130 teachers, and was built in the late 80’s, and, by that time, welcomed many pupils coming from former Portuguese colonies (most of them in Africa). Currently, with the new European reality, this school has been also receiving many pupils from Western Europe countries like Ukraine, Romania, Moldavia or Russia (with complete families coming to Portugal). It's a regular peripheral school.
The school is located 15 km north from Lisbon, Portuguese capital city, in a special social and economic environment with several problems related to that. Some of these problems are school abandon and unfruitful learning. Considering that, school has been challenged by the creation of diversified professional courses which may prepare young people with little or no interest in school to be active citizens.
The needs of these pupils’ families and the necessity of their total integration led, in 1996, the Ministry of Education to establish that our schools formed a Território Educativo de Intervenção Prioritária - TEIP, which means a group of schools with special needs due to social, economic and cultural problems of the local resident population.
The involvement in European Projects started six years ago and nowadays is an excellent opportunity to change students' perspective of school, showing different (European) horizons, helping them to grow and be more interested in knowledge and learning. At the present time AEV - EB 2,3 is involved in two LLP European partnerships – Comenius : CATRi (MLP - 2008.2010) and ARS LONGA, FILM BREVIS (MLP - 2007.2009). Both related to ICT and video learning.
The CHIEF guidelines, as far as we understood them, offer a whole lot of learning opportunities for students and teachers. We are willing to participate! The idea of having another school from Portugal involved is also very interesting and... new!
http://projectos.ese.ips.pt/vialonga/
