Following the programme of our week visit to Agrupamento de Escolas de Canelas, in Vilanova de Gaia, Portugal, we are mainly going to meet teachers, see lessons and project development as well as participate in workshops and meetings.

We will be able to talk and share teaching experiences with our colleagues in this school, language teachers, Eco-school coordinators and members of the Erasmus school team and Erasmus project coordinators.

We already know Paula and Olga as they were in our school last year during their job shadowing at IES Ángel de Saavedra

In addition, we could also meet Portuguese students before, during and after lessons and at school.

We are sure all sessions will be enriched by the wonderful hospitality and welcome of the Erasmus school team and the teachers who will generously welcome us in their classrooms. We feel very lucky and thankful.

In short, we expect to enjoy getting to know their school and their way of working.

in the afternoon we plan to visit the cities of Vilanova de Gaia and Oporto (8 kilometres away)

Agrupamento de escolas de Canelas was created in the school year 2007-2008, and is located in the municipality of Vila Nova de Gaia.

It covers 11 schools. This in the photos is the main building and the  secondary education one; the rest are primary schools.

The School Grouping is attended by 2747 students (121 groups/classes) in pre-school education, 1st cycle, 2nd cycle and 3rd cycle, the scientific-humanistic courses (Sciences and Technologies and Humanities Languages) and the vocational courses (Tourism Technician, Catering Technician and Computer Technician).

The teaching staff is made up of 212 people, 91% of whom are permanent staff. The non-teaching staff consists of 32 professionals: two senior technicians, 9 technical assistants and 21 operational assistants. 

Lessons begin at 8:15 and finish at 13:00 in the morning and at 5 in the afternoon, with three breaks of five, twenty and five minutes in the morning. Most students have got five mornings and two afternoons in their school schedule.

The jewel of the school is its library. 

It is the starting point for reading projects that have a great impact on the school, as well as a multitude of activities related to reading: storytelling, visits from writers, gatherings, free readings, presentation of works, loans, film projections, etc...

Apart from these activities, there are five projects related to reading, from the project "Oriented reading" or guided reading (ten minutes in class daily), "Reading and thinking" project, personal reading project (Reading Passport), "The book at hand" project, "I take you with me" project, "Reading Clubs" project and the ERASMUS project on the Holocaust. 

Digital tools are a training subject for all teachers involved in the school library work, mainly Padlet and Genially, among many others

See  School library webpage and Digital resources as well as the video of the library on the left

We met the students in several lessons (French, English...). They have always shown good behaviour, followed teachers´ instructions, participated when they were asked to and interacted among them in pairs or in small groups.

We saw some activities that motivated them: singing a song, playing a kahoot, etc... As we were there a 14th February, there was a wall full of messages beginning "Love is..."

They also spent free time at the library, playing with their mobile devices or at the radio station at breaks, selecting their music.

Portuguese cuisine can awake everyone's appetite. 

There are not to be missed specialties, such as Porto style tripe, francesinhas [little frenchies], Bacalhau (codfish) which locals will tell you there are over 1,000 ways to prepare. We tried gratin de bacalhau, bacalhau a la Zé do Pipo (gratin with mayonnaise), bolinhos de bacalhau (salt cod fritters), green soup, (made from stewed greens, potatoes, garlic, onion and black pepper), sardines, lulas grelhadas, polvo en molho verde, and the typical francesinha  from Oporto, among others.

We also tried Superbock beer, vinho verde and porto wine. With a long history dating back to the 1600s, port wine is produced locally with the grapes grown in the UNESCO-protected Douro Valley just an hour from Porto by car. 

Among the sweet dishes, pastéis de nata (delicious).

On Thursday we were invited to a Carnival lunch in which we tasted Brazilian food prepared by the students and teachers in the restoration vocational training courses.  We ate pão de queijo , Feijoada (slow-cooked black beans) and drank caipirinha.

Vila Nova de Gaia: It is located south of the city of Porto on the other side of the Douro River. The city proper had a population of 178,255 in 2001.[1] The municipality has a total population of 302,295 inhabitants (2011),[3] making it the most populous municipality in Norte Region. Gaia along with Porto and 12 other municipalities make up the commonly designated Porto Metropolitan Area.

The city contains many cellars (locally known as "caves") where port wine is stored and aged. These cellars have become a major tourist attraction.

Oporto: Located along the Douro River estuary in northern Portugal, Porto is one of the oldest European centres, and its core was proclaimed a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996, as "Historic Centre of Porto, Luiz I Bridge and Monastery of Serra do Pilar". The historic area is also a National Monument of Portugal. The western part of its urban area extends to the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean. Its settlement dates back many centuries, when it was an outpost of the Roman Empire. Its combined Celtic-Latin name, Portus Cale, has been referred to as the origin of the name Portugal, based on transliteration and oral evolution from Latin. In Portuguese, the name of the city includes a definite article: o Porto ("the port" or "the harbor"), which is where its sometimes used English name "Oporto" comes from. 

Among the architectural highlights of the city, Oporto Cathedral is the oldest surviving structure, together with the small romanesque Church of Cedofeita, the gothic Igreja de São Francisco (Church of Saint Francis), the remnants of the city walls and a few 15th-century houses. The baroque style is well represented in the city in the elaborate gilt work interior decoration of the churches of St. Francis (São Francisco) and St. Claire (Santa Clara), the church of the Clerics (Clérigos). The neoclassicism and romanticism of the 19th and 20th centuries also added interesting monuments to the landscape of the city, like the magnificent Stock Exchange Palace (Palácio da Bolsa), the Hospital of Saint Anthony, the Municipality, the buildings in the Liberdade Square and the Avenida dos Aliados, the tile-adorned São Bento railway station and the gardens of the Crystal Palace (Palácio de Cristal). A guided visit to the Palácio da Bolsa, and in particular, the Arab Room is a major tourist attraction.