The “Escola Básica D.Duarte” is a small public school for children aged from 10 to 15. It is situated near Viseu, in the centre of Portugal. Four years ago, we became part of the “Agrupamento de Escolas Viseu Norte”, a set of schools formed by several primary schools and two secondary schools: ours and the Escola Básica Dr. Azeredo PerdigãoWe have currently around 2000 students attending this “Agrupamento” (group) of schools. Our school was formed in 1988 and hosts around 500 students and 40 teachers. It is set in a rural zone of the region, despite being close to the city (6 km). This feature is quite important to understand the nature of our students, their needs and all the problems that can come from such a social, economic and cultural environment.

    We are developing a project with disabled children taking care of their basic needs and seeking to integrate them in society through different kinds of protocols with several local associations.

  In our school students learn English as their first foreign language and French as their second (Spanish is learned as well in the other secondary school). They can also participate in several extracurricular activities, such as sports and theatre. They can also attend different support classes to develop their knowledge as far as certain school subject are concerned and they can attend what we call “the study rooms” where they can find teachers from different areas whose purpose is to help students to overcome their difficulties.

  These last few years, our school has participated in some international projects involving mainly science and technology.

   Three years ago, we were involved in a Comenius project with three other foreign schools (from Luxemburg, Romania and Austria) “Cities for Us”.