There is also a spa in a nearby village called Monte Real. This mixture of sunny beaches, green woods, history and health care makes this region a special place to live in and worth a visit. Inspite of all this natural beauty, we can consider this a disadvantaged area, as cultural and social events are not available for everybody and unemployment is a hard reality in the last years. Our school is part of network of general compulsory education units which ensure the acquisition of the necessary knowledge in order to pass on the next level of education. At the same time our school tries to take part in the local community by promoting values, by continuously improving the quality of teaching and by aiming at creating a good relationship between pupil-teacher-parents-local community. This school coordinates 18 primary schools and 12 kindergarten and in the whole there are around 1500 pupils in our big cluster. There are some pupils with special needs and others at risk of leaving school. In the first group, students as well as teachers are involved in the process of implementing various projects, which help children overcome their hindrances and develop their talent and for the second ones our school created some professional courses in order to avoid that the pupils leave school before finishing compulsory education. They finish their studies and get ready to work with qualification in areas such as: electricity and computers. This multi-cultured and challenging reality is a great motivation to take part in international projects to improve our pupils' knowledge in what concerns foreign languages and different cultures. This is why we offer our pupils the opportunity to learn several foreign languages. English is compulsory and they can choose German or French as a second language. There is a big will and effort to prepare our pupils to be open minded and in close contact with other European schools and making friends all over Europe. The internationalization of our school is one of our goals.
Escola Rainha Santa Isabel has a lot of experience in different activities, related to international mobilities of students and teachers; job shadowing; work under various projects funded by national and European funds. The competences of our organization and its staff are connected with the following main areas: • Capacity of the staff in coordination, technical and financial management of activities at international, national and local level; • Establishment of efficient network with local and regional authorities, as well as representatives of the business sector in order to facilitate the relationships and make the school and its policy relevant and open to the community; • Creation of efficient systems for internal control in the school. Besides decades of experience in coordinating and participating in many Comenius projects, under the selection procedure in 2014 we were a beneficiary under a, Key activity 1 project. The implementation of the planned joint initiatives, meetings and different types of collaboration between the partners has a strong positive effect upon our organization. The acquired experience and competences in the field of international cooperation, management and coordination of such projects lead to improved capacity and ability to future multiplication of gained practices among the school and its partners as well as among other stakeholders.
Our key persons are a team and it includes several teachers and also staff. Here is a brief summary of their curricula and their responsibilities: - The school's Director, PhD in Educational Sciences, responsible for establishing agreements and partnerships, management and resolution of conflicts, as well as supervision of all projects; - The Coordinator of clubs and projects, PhD in Educational Sciences, coordinating all projects, responsible for the preparation of applications, international contacts, financial and accounting monitoring, coordination, monitoring, development, completion and closing of the projects; - A Computer Teacher, completing a Master's thesis in Computer Engineering - Mobile Computing, responsible for developing applications, cooperation and dissemination of projects; - A teacher of Physical Education, Master in Exercise and Health, responsible for the establishment of protocols with training providers in different countries and in the country itself and completion/closure of the projects; - A teacher of Natural Sciences, Master of Science of Coastal Areas, Postgraduate in Distance Learning, responsible for the coordination, establishment of protocols with training providers in different countries and in the country itself and dissemination of projects; - A teacher of Religious Sciences, responsible for monitoring and project development, cooperation and management and conflict mediation; - The technical from the school administration services, responsible for financial monitoring.
The key team of this project is quite strong and is prepared to go ahead with the internationalization of our school. The team has gained experience with previous projects and these experiences are vital to the success of tasks to be undertaken throughout the proposed project. With the international experience they develop and qualify their skills at the level of foreign language, moreover had training in multicultural environments in pedagogical and technical level. It is considered that the team that will develop, monitor and complete this project, has the necessary skills to fulfill the mission to which they propose.