We are a public school, headquarters of all the Ferreira do Zêzere schools. It includes six schools from the first grade, six kinder gardens, one school center and our school, that is from the fifth to the twelfth form, because it has second grade, third grade and secondary. At night it offers an adult’s education.
This school has thirty-three classes including two Courses of Education and Formation and three Profissional Courses; about five hundred and forty-four day pupils, one hundred and five students at night and ninety-one teachers. The school has twenty-five general employees and nine administrative.
The school is situated in a rural municipality in the center of the country that has about ten thousand habitants. The village of Ferreira do Zêzere has two thousand habitants. Most of our pupils use the public bus to get to school. The school activities occur between nine o’clock and half past five. There are no public buses at night but there are classes from seven o’clock to twelve o’clock in the evening.
The students from Pedro Ferreiro School are between ten and eighteen years old. They are mainly girls, though the difference between the number of boys and girls isn’t very significant.
It’s a municipality with little economic resources. The agriculture and wood production still have a main role. There are few industries and those are related to the production and transformation of meat.
In the village most people work at public services. Tourism is an area with a growing importance because Ferreira do Zêzere is situated near Castelo do Bode lagoon, in Europe’s biggest artificial lake, that gives it a special natural heritage.
The school population is the result of this social and economic figure, there are several students with economic needs that are supported by School Social Help. Their parents are low educated with a small cultural level and a conservative philosophy of life.
Ferreira do Zêzere has a strong history of emigration but now it is also receiving immigrants from Holland and Germany that want to live in a beautiful and natural environment and foreign workers from east countries and China that are looking for better jobs.
The school tries to give answers to the pupils with social and economic needs and lack of ambitions, it gives them some financial support with the canteen and snack bar service and motivates them to choose appropriated professional and educational ways: Professional Courses and Courses of Education and Formation. The school prevents school failure and dropout participating in several projects as the National Reading Project, The Math’s in Action Project and the Education for Health Project. It also offers several extra curricular activities such as school sports, journalism or art courses and looks for the increasing use of foreign languages with the German Project, Languages courses and Comenius Assistant Project.
Ferreira do Zêzere
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