School reception

• We were driven to school by Filomena and, once in the school, we were welcomed by Mrs. Gracinda Machado and Mrs. María Paula Aires, adjunta and teacher of the school as well as ERASMUS team member, and by the principal, Mr. Artur Manuel Vieira, 

• A student called Allison showed us around the school. So we got to know the offices and departments, the teachers´room, the cantine, the radio station, the sport tracks, the Erasmus office and the Library. We also met Mrs. Carla María, the viceprincipal and french teachers, Mrs. Cristina Lucas and Mr. Luis Ferreira.

• After a coffee, we had our first observation with the french teacher, Mrs. Cristina Lucas. She taught a group of 13 year old students in their first year of French. 19 students attended this lesson, two of them were students with special educational needs who were being taught by a remedial teacher in the same classroom. The lesson was in French. They practised descriptions using a guessing game in a youtube video.  Special attention was paid to pronunciation.

• From 11:00 to 12:00 we visited the school library and met its coordinator, Mr. Augusto Oliveira. He presented and explained us all the projects in which reading and the school library is involved, described in the introduction page of this site.

• Finally, we finished with an English lesson by Mrs. María Paula Aires, whose students presented their project about "Saving water", work developed in an Erasmus project. The students presented the project belonged to another group, so the students listening to them had to answer a kahoot about this topic when they finished listening to their presentation. The lesson finished with students designing a heart in cardboard (Saint Valentines´day is tomorrow) in which they had to write recommendations to do in order to love and care our planet (as saving water)

• We had lunch at María Paula´s home and spent the afternoon with her, visiting the SERRALVES museum (Contemporary art museum), as well as the gardens surrounding it. We had a beer by the seashore in Oporto´s light beach and finish our day having dinner at Bom Sucesso Market

The day began as usual: having a delicious breakfast at the Clip hotel and taking an Uber to go to school. There we met Filomena and she took us to the building of the former 5th and 6th grade students classrooms.

This building is now the headquarters of an social innovative project for youngsters with special talents. The project name is "Sim somos capazes" and it is an iniciative that provides young people with the opportunity to develop several entrepreneurial, cultural and leisure projects, thus giving wings to their dreams and their ambition to show that they are capable.

In 2017 some students were finishing compulsory schooling at the Canelas School Grouping and had no answers in their adult lives. The institutions were full and the young people were considered immature for vocational training. Unhappy with this situation, a teacher, a father and a social worker presented an alternative based on the dreams of young people and their families. The school and the Santa Isabel Sports and Cultural Association joined hands and Sim, Somos Capazes was born. 

The teacher, Mr. Luís Baião, explained us all the details of the work they do and projects they develop. It is impressive how, when school can´t, they help them take the steps of their dreams to achieve them.

In the building and the surroundings these young disabled people (some of them some are autistic, others have Down's Syndrome, diverse cognitive disabilities, etc...) plant, take care of hens and rabbits, make cakes that are sold at the school,  play music, prepare digital resources and story telling, practise sports as sailing, etc.. just to show that young people have a great desire to show that they can make a difference and make school more inclusive. 

A social worker is with them too to in order to help them to find out their talent and contact with their future employers to make their dream come true.

Project webpage

They had prepared a surprise for us and played music and sang for us. We also were invited to have a wonderful tea they had prepared using the herbs they grow.

The day at school finished with the Spanish lesson by Ms. Manuela Nunez who used the song "Despacito" to introduce gerunds and periphrasis with gerund to her students (9th grade)

After school, we had lunch by the river at porto Douro Marina and visited la ribeira and the historic centre (San Francisco church and the station of  Porto-São Bento 

Our day at the school began with the attendance, together with a group of students form 7th grade, to a workshop on "The importance of water" 

It was the biologist Mr. Miguel Leal, who works at the Gaia Streams Environmental Education Centre, who raised students´ awareness about the importance of water and informed about the riverside ecosystems and the environmental strategy of Vila Nova de Gaia municipality, making us aware of our environmental responsibilities, particularly for issues related to water, waste and nature conservation. Students were asked to suggest ways to save water and they made excellent contributions.

Then, we attended the seminar of another of the Erasmus projects in this school. The seminar topic was "Gender and equity in medicine and sport" with doctor Paulo Santos, the representative of the Portuguese Olympic Committee, and the teacher and football player, Rita Nunes.

The doctor discovered the anatomical, physical and physiological differences between the two sexes to conclude that the question is what we can do so that, despite the existing differences, we can find equity, which is not the same as equality. See HERE his presentation on Gender and equity in medicine & sport.

After this seminar, we could see one of the activities the school library promotes: Story telling. In this occasion, a group of 5th grade students presented other students the shoe-box models they had made of folk tales.

The day finished at the school with a carnival lunch in which we could taste delicious Brazilian food.

In the afternoon we could walk the Ribeira, the Douro riverside below the Sé Cathedral and Baixa. It is a jumble of fascinating old houses. History, tradition and a unique landscape, the result of the cluster of colourful houses and narrow streets that look out over the Douro River and Vila Nova de Gaia.

Ribeira is one of the oldest, most sought after and typical places in the city and is part of the Historic Centre of Oporto, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Of medieval origin, it has always been an area of much commerce and movement of people due to its proximity to the river.

Ribeira is today full of lively cafés and restaurants. Rabelo boats (wooden sailing boats) are moored along the shore and there are splendid views to the other side where Vila Nova de Gaia is.

Today it was the last day of our job shadowing. So, It was time to evaluate this experience and give feedback to our hosts. 

But let's not get ahead of ourselves and go back to the beginning.

The day started as it has all week at nine o'clock in the morning. At that time we attended English teacher Mrs. Lilia Santos' lesson. In her class there were twenty two 9th grade students and today the lesson has focused on teenagers and their changes. They saw a video, learnt and practised vocabulary related to the subject. They had a lot of input from the teacher to develop the task, talking about teens, problems and self-steem.

After having a coffee at the canteen at the break (from 10 to 10:20) we attended a seminar on eco-school by Mrs. Cristina Lucas. She explained us the way to register in order to apply to be an eco.school in the FEE network of eco-schools in the world. FEE (Fundation for Environmental Education).

She also spoke to us about the seven steps in methodology a school in this network must commit to take, which include to prepare an annual action plan, a portfolio of activities with responsibles, deadlines and evaluation, as well as a final evaluation of the plan at the end of the year. There is a commitee of students in each eco-school that is the engine for the action plan to work in  coordination with the rest of the community.

We even visited their greenhouse where the kids have seeds of flowers and aromatic herbs as well as tomatoes that they will plant soon. See Ecocanelas in Instagram

The last activity we attended was the wonderful workshop on "Women in literature" by Mrs. Paula Aires. It was an activity within the project they have got with a school in Turin, Italy. With great passion and mastery, arousing the interest of the students and teachers who were listening to her, Paula spoke of the role of women in 19th century literature, the relegation to the background, even having to resort to pseudonyms to publish their work. 

We must not forget that the stereotype of woman that prevailed in the 19th century was that of the perfect married woman, pious, queen of her home, good mother and wife, always subservient to the man. The domestic sphere belonged to her, while the public sphere belonged to the man. Attempts to integrate her into the education system were aimed more at training Christian women than at making them literate in order to broaden their horizons; good education was identified with excellence in domestic work, for a better functioning of the home and the family. Marriage for most of them meant happiness and stability. When they married, their rights practically passed to their spouses, who took care of them and controlled them. The role of women was thus to love, honour and obey their husbands. For unmarried women, on the other hand, a life of hardship awaited them on many levels, from economic to sexual.

Finally, the podcast we did consisted of an interview in English and in Spanish about how this job shadowing can influence professional teaching skills development, our evaluation of the experience and about which teaching practices we consider interesting to take to our school.

The podcast will be sent to us soon and will be uploaded here.

The day and job shadowing finished with a farewell lunch by the sea, in Miramar beach, Vila Nova de Gaia, with our host teachers and the visit to the Chapel of Senhor da Pedra. 

The afternoon stroll led us to taste some delicious "pasteis de nata" in Rúa de Santa Catarina, a commercial street near the city centre. Then we visited the cathedral and finally we could also taste another typical dish in Portugal, the Francesinha. 

There is a specific section in this site dedicated to portuguese gastronomy because we have tasted many typical foods and gastronomy is also an important part of the culture of a country, therefore, of interest for an Erasmus project.

Thank you to all teachers in Agropamento de Escolas de Canelas, for opening their classroom doors for us, for their generosity to share with us their teaching practice. And thank you to Erasmus team members, Gracinda, Filomena, Augusto, Paula and Olga, for their hospitality during all the week and for having spent their time with us in the school in the mornings and in the afternoons, showing us their city. I also underline their good sense of humour , as can be seen in the videos below. We have spent a really good time together. May the future allows us to collaborate in other projects.  

Watch the news of this job shadowing in their school webpage.

Thanks to the school management team because without their support none of these Erasmus activities would be possible.

And last but not least, thanks to my workmate in this Erasmus experience, Noemí Navarro. This activity has given us the chance to share beautiful moments at work and getting to know the places together, finding out personally that she is a devoted teacher and a great colleague. She has made most of the photos and has helped to draft these texts. Thanks, Noemí.