Escola Básica Rio Tinto is located in the city by the same name, in the suburbs of Porto. It is the main school (5th to 9th grades: 900 pupils, 90 teachers) of a cluster of 10 schools with a total of 1600 children and 160 staff. We also have special education teachers because we host a large group of students with disabilities & 2 psychologists working with us full time. The curricula for our 5-9th graders (10-15 year-old) include Portuguese, Maths, Science, Chemistry, Geography, History, English, French, Spanish, Arts, PE, Music and Citizenship. The school offers after-class clubs in the following areas: sports, arts, drama, solidarity, multimedia, astronomy and robotics, writing, first aid, civil protection and environment.
The cluster is located in a problematic urban area with some community neighbourhoods where drugs & poverty are a reality. The social level is low; most parents didn’t complete basic elementary education & live on social welfare while others work in the services sector. Most mothers choose to work outside the home which causes a serious lack of parent-child interaction, as children are left with grandparents or other members of the family. Many come from broken, one-parent or problematic families, so they don’t expect much from school or life. Our main objective is to prevent drop-out and to show these teenagers alternative life paths, educating them to be reliable citizens & providing them with the basic knowledge that makes them feel part of the UE. Thus, we provide them with work exits either nationally or abroad, by enhancing their undertstanding about the different heritages of each country and learning to deal with them, adapting their social behaviour.
I teach English and Citizenship to the 7th, 8th and 9th graders, and I also run the club for civil protection and am the coordinator of the students’ examination area and the person responsible for the Cluster’s Security. I will be the key person in charge of running the project at school. I have participated in several Erasmus projects and am used to hosting partner countries and attending mobility meetings. Other people working full time in Erasmus projects are the ICT teacher, with experience in creating and managing content management websites used for sharing and publishing materials, the Geography and Multimedia teacher, who is the coordinator of an ongoing Erasmus project and is also experienced in setting up team collaboration environments useful for cooperation over the web, the assistant Head Teacher and Physical Education teacher, who handles the communication with local authorities, and a large group of well-intended and hardworking teachers from other areas who are included in different parts of the projects, as needs arise.
In the remote case that one of these people should leave their post, a large group of teachers have international exchange experience and will be active to help with CLIL, project activities, hosting and implementing the project.