“Augusto Cabrita School Group” is located in Barreiro, Portugal. It is a public school that is under the supervision of the Portuguese Ministry of Education, like all the public schools in our country.Our school patron, Augusto Cabrita, is a well-known photographer in our town and country. There is a photo of him in the main entrance of our school.
In our group of schools there are:
- 3 kindergartens;
- 3 primary schools;
- 1 elementary school;
- 1 secondary school.
Our main school is a Secondary school and it was built in 1987-1988. The administration of our group of schools is composed by five teachers who work together as a team in Augusto Cabrita Secondary head office.
We have around a thousand and one hundred students and about two hundred teachers. Augusto Cabrita Secondary School has got regular courses and professional courses. The regular courses are aimed to all the students who wish to continue their studies until university offering a wide range of career choices in different areas such as: Economics; Humanities; Science and Technology. The professional courses are divided in five different areas: Informatics and Programming; Informatics; Electronics Maintenance and Computer Repairing; Management; Sports Management and Tourism. Around 60% of our school courses are regular and 40% are professional and vocational courses. Both professional and vocational courses are aimed to prepare our students to work in a trade or craft. These courses are usually based on manual or practical activities.
In the past, the city of Barreiro was one of the largest industrial cities in Portugal. Located on the south Bank of the Tagus River estuary, in the District of Setúbal, Barreiro is part of the metropolitan area of Lisbon. The County takes on a strategic position of great prominence since (while bathed in the river Tagus and supported by road, rail and river traffic terminal) it allows the movement of goods and people, moving daily to the capital whether for work or to study.
During the period that followed the Carnation revolution (25th April 1975), with the independence of the Portuguese colonies and later on with the nationalization of the factories, Barreiro endured some economic difficulties and many of its factories were closed.
In 1993 Portugal was already a member of the European Economic Community (EEC) and there were many strict rules in what concerned the factories pollution. Since then few factories remain working. Nowadays Barreiro is no longer seen as an important industrial city.
Over the years Barreiro has received many citizens who have left the Portuguese former colonies, like Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. Other immigrants come from Eastern Europe countries, such as Ukraine, Moldavia, Russia, Croatia and Romania. To sum up, we can say that our city, as well as our school, is a melting pot of cultures with students of different nationalities.