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Agrupamento de Escolas D. João II
Our school is located in a town called Caldas da Rainha, 80 kms north from Lisbon. The town was founded in the 16th century by Rainha Dona Leonor (Queen Leonor), who established a hospital and a church at the site of some thermal hot springs. The Hospital Termal Rainha D. Leonor (Queen Leonor Spring Water Hospital, or Thermal Hospital) is the oldest purpose-built institution of its kind in the world, with five centuries of history.
The students follow a standard curriculum, where English is the first foreign language (starting at the age of 6) and at the age of 11/12 they can choose French, German or Spanish as a second foreign language. This is, in our opinion, crucial to better understand the values and multicultural dimension of the present European Union. Apart from this choice of languages they can also learn robotics, dance, music, video skills attempting to develop creativity and innovation. There are exchange programmes with schools in Eskilstuna (Sweden) and Leer (Germany). We also participated in an eTwinning activity called “Christmas around Europe” Recently our school has been trying to create synergies with other institutions.The city's name, often shortened to simply "Caldas", can be translated as "Queen's Hot Springs", "Queen's Spa", or "Queen's Baths". Agrupamento de Escolas D. João II has about 190 staff and 2,000 students, aged from 3 to 15, from the area of the town of Caldas da Rainha and the rural area around it. The main school is called D. João II and it has about 116 staff and 900 students aged from 10 to 15. Although at the moment there is only a limited number of students of foreign origin (most of them already born in Portugal), the school has been preparing itself for the new migratory challenges, creating tools to welcome and integrate the future new students from Africa, Middle East and recently from countries like Venezuela, where there is a large Portuguese community.
Therefore we were invited to join a Goethe Institut project: “Pilotsprojekt – PEPA” that supports the teaching and learning of German. Since October we can also count on the presence of a German assistant teacher from the “Projekt Schulwärts”. “Parlamento dos Jovens D. João II” (Youth Parliament D. João II) is another initiative that together with the Portuguese Parliament and the Ministry of Education promotes the awareness of Portuguese students to the world’s problems such as climate changes or the pollution of the oceans as well as the discussion of these problems among them to find solutions.
Agrupamento de Escolas D. João II will organize the first learning, teaching, and training activity as well as undertake the evaluation of the project meetings and the annual project reviews. The Erasmus team is composed by two teachers, the project coordinator Maria Joao Proenca (German and English) and Luis Sousa (History and Citizenship). There is also a group of students called Erasmus Club. Together we organize, carry on the tasks related to the project as well as its dissemination.