Escola Secundária de Rocha Peixoto has about 1800 students, 12 – 18 years old, as school population. Its offer includes the 7th, 8th and 9th grade of secondary education with about 306 students, high school courses (Sciences and Technologies, Socioeconomic Sciences, Languages and Literature and Arts) with about 870, students, vocational courses in eleven different areas with about 446 students and adults’ education by night with about 175 students. There’s also a Centre for Qualification and Professional Education running, an autonomous organism, adding to the recognition, validation and certification of adults informal lifelong learning skills the vocational guidance of students in professional courses. There’s still a lifelong training centre for teachers and staff.
The school’s influence area is large as we have students from the municipality and from all the municipalities around our town, too (Vila do Conde, Esposende, Barcelos, VilaNova de Famalicão, Maia and Trofa).
Besides the classes held at school there’s a wide range of complementary activities (a study supported room, exams support, tutorials, conflict management, school library activities, study visits, …) and an interesting range of extracurricular activities (drama club, school choir, dance groups, radio, journalism, School Sports with eleven different sports, town hall activities, …) performed most of the time in partnerships with the parents’ council, the local authorities, lots of companies and institutions and the local community in general.
Escola Secundária de Rocha Peixoto has already got some experience in European projects. The school has already participated in three Comenius projects, two of them as coordinator, in one Gruntvig partnership, in the design of a Leonardo da Vinci project and involving some school teachers in activities of Transversal Programme.
Now, in the scope of Erasmus+ Program, the school has already runned a KA1 Mobilities (work training for Informatics and Mechanics students in Poland, 2019) and a strategic partnership (DRAMA technics – 2017/2019). Now the School is partner in 3 strategic partnerships running the 1st year.
Escola Secundária de Rocha Peixoto has an inclusive policy, incorporating students with special needs in regular classes. Nevertheless, as a school in the outskirts of a big city, Oporto, it already experiences some problems related to social exclusion. Another aspect is the growing number of students from other countries who need help to have a better integration.
Our school offers vocational courses since 2004. There has been a continuous increase in the frequency of these courses in the last years. This school year we have 12 different courses with 21 classes running.
All the students in vocational courses have work training and the school have nowadays about 200 cooperation agreements signed with institutions and companies. Some of these partners participate every year on the evaluation of the final vocational projects of our students. The accuracy put in education and training, the excellent relationship with the local community and the different kind of events promoted in partnership (technical journeys, conferences, seminars, workshops) turned our school as a reference on a local and regional level.
The advantages of work training activities in a foreign country for our students are taken for granted in our school: knowledge of different ways of life and enrichment of social, cultural, linguistic and technological skills. That’s why the school’s management has decided to participate as partner in mobilities’ projects. In 2019 the school sent to Poland 20 students of Magement of IT Equipments, Management and Programming of IT Systems and Mechanics Production (Programming and Machining) and in 2021 will send 15 students of Hotel Recepcionists to Bulgaria. The school is convinced that these initiatives have a positive impact in the school community with a greater involvement of students in the next school years.
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