Agrupamento de Escolas de Paredes de Coura
Agrupamento de Escolas de Paredes de Coura is a non-profit public elementary, basic and secondary aggregation of schools located in Paredes de Coura. It is located in Northern Portugal, a municipality with about 9500 inhabitants and is the only public school in the county. It is a rural área but in the last years, some factories have been established locally enriching the area, bringing more employment.
It comprises three schools, one of which is a Kindergarten, the Kindergarten of Moselos, the second one has pre-school and primary education, the basic school of Paredes de Coura, and the third, the Basic and Secondary School of Coura from the 5th to the 12th grade. 42% of the students are covered by school social action and the vast majority reside in the parishes outside the county seat and move in public transport. 6.2% are students to whom selective and additional measures have been applied as they are special needs students. It carries out specific work in this area and it has protocols of partnership with public institutions and companies with whom these students do work experience preparing them for an active and productive life outside school.
The AEPC is part of a municipality with a medium-low economic development index, and only 2% of those in charge of education have a higher level of education. Therefore, the school seeks to provide diversified and meaningful cultural, scientific, sports and civic responses to our students. The school has projects in the area of health and healthy living habits, protection of nature and the environment, in the scope of information and communication technologies (ICT). It has different clubs such as Sports, Arts, Theatre and Photography. It has participated in the "Innovative Leaders" project, which was the responsibility of the General Directorate of Education and Microsoft and during the year 2015 developed the "AEPC Innovation Project" which led to all the teaching and non-teaching staff is trained and all the work being done currently supported on web platforms. The AEPC is integrated into the pilot project "Project of Autonomy and Flexibility Curriculum", of the Ministry of Education which started in June 2017. A work that aims to change practices in the context of the classroom, being the same to be implemented in all classes of the 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th and 11th years of schooling.