The Agrupamento de Escolas de Alcanena is the name given to the group of schools from the council of Alcanena - from kindergarden to secondary school, including adult education. The council of Alcanena is an economically disadvantaged area due to the decline of its major industries - tanning and textiles, which, together with the present economic crisis, has led to some situations of socio-economic difficulties among students' families. There's a high number of unemployed people which contributes to a social crisis, putting at risk the learning process of many students.
There are some students at risk of social exclusion with an irregular school process. For these students the school has been offering alternative courses, like Education and Training Courses for Basic Education, and Vocational courses for secondary
students. Our school has laso been a member of the network of ECO-Schools in the recent years, with several projects.
In the last few years the school has received some students from Eastern Europe and Brazil (immigrants' children) whose integration process at school was easy and successful for the great majority of students.
The school has also been developing another type of project dedicated to elderly people, whose objective is to teach those people how to read and write.They have been integrated in the school life and there have been several activities promoted by younger students dedicated to this special class and the results have been very positive.
Our school has already participated in European projects with the main goal of providing our students the opportunity to learn about this bigger community we all are a part of and to become aware of their role in it.
Our institution consider that our participation in this project will provide us a great opportunity to develop new skills and competence for our students, teachers , parents and community, as well as an European dimension.
Moreover, there are some local school partners that will be able to cooperate and collaborate in this project: the Town Council of Alcanena and Santarém; the Live Science Centre "Carsoscópio", whose main topic is water; Natural Park of Serra
d'Aire e Candeeiros; CTIC - Technological Centre of the Leather Industries, "Museu dos Rios e Actividades Marítimas" (The Rivers Museum), among others.