Portugal

EBI Francisco Ferreira Drummond is a small countryside primary school in Terceira Island, Azores, hosting around 500 students and 70 teachers. We provide schooling, both regular and vocational, to students between the ages of 3 and 14-15 (from kindergarten to the 9th grade) in São Sebastião, a rural community where most families are traditionally involved in farming, and traditional fishery.

This community, however, is very dynamic in traditional and popular culture. Our school is very well equipped in what concerns technology and classrooms for specific classes, and we have wi-fi connection in some classrooms, where pupils can freely use their own mobile devices (tablets and mobile phones) in class.We are a brand new school (opening in 2011) and our mission is to provide quality education to our educational community –around 6000 people in three small villages. In order to do that, our educational project is strongly rooted in innovation, Europe and inclusive education and we aim at promoting digital skills, citizenship values and competencies-oriented education for all.To overcome our ultra-peripheral situation – both in the borders of Europe and far from the main cities on the island – we engaged, since 2014, in a Europeanization process, through eTwinning projects, Erasmus+ Programme, in KA1 and KA2 projects, and also becoming a UNESCO ASPnet School, with a strong participation in Portugal’s ASPnet programme and activities. We are, therefore, an experienced school in Erasmus+ partnerships. We are also a leading school in the Azores when it comes to innovation processes in education and new pedagogical experiences. These European educational dimension activities and the advances they foster are supported by a dynamic and dedicated leadership and by a set of innovative teachers, committed to collaborative work and peer learning strategies. That is why we think our school can add value to this partnership, having experienced teachers in designing, implementing, assessing and reporting on Erasmus+ projects. On the other hand, this project can enhance our European school project and there is always a lot to be learned with new experienced partners and newcomers. Furthermore, the alliance aesthetics-ethics-citizenship is a very challenging framework and matches entirely the school’s educational project we are trying to develop.

The project’s execution will be allocated to the classes of a specific grades, thus included in regular learning activities, for students, and in regular service, for those classes’ teachers, taking advantage of a Portuguese experimental project which our school joined from the start, Curricular Autonomy and Flexibility (AFC), according to which we can determine, upon a school decision, up to 25% of the curriculum. The project’s activities will be supervised by the school’s Erasmus+ Coordination, which has been responsible for all the projects we implemented so far.