Escola Secundária de Loulé (ESL) is an only secondary school, located in Loulé. Currently 1100 students, aged 14 -19, attend our school, and about 270 adults take after-work courses. The school workforce includes 138 teachers and 53 administrative and operational staff. ESL offers 4 areas of scientific and humanities studies and vocational qualification courses. The school population includes students from all social strata and several nationalities In order to respond to the economic insufficiencies of some students and families associated with other social problems, the school has support structures which seek to minimize the socio-economic difficulties of some youngsters.
ESL has an Environmental Sustainability Office in which teachers and students are involved in projects that aim to increase the environmental awareness and sustainable consumption. The school strongly encourages its staff to the development of scientific and professional skills, to get involved in international exchange projects and sharing of good practices, in order to improve the quality of teaching/learning and promoting educational success.
ESL has several teachers who are or have been involved in various and successful European projects. The Educational and European Projects aim at spreading and applying knowledge based on the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, focusing on freedom and plurality of critical judgment, sustainable development, welfare and solidarity. In this regard, our priority areas are the diversification of methodologies and teaching/learning strategies to enhance skills at affective and psychomotor cognitive levels, the willingness for innovation,the promotion of educational partnerships at local, national and international levels, the creation of conditions conducive to active European citizenship by involving as many students and teachers as possible in exchange and research experiments,the sharing of good practices, the development of social and academic skills and the motivation of professionals to help minimize dropout rates. ESL has a considerable number of teachers widely experienced in coordinating European projects. Therefore the occasional need to replace a team member would be easily adressed. However, it is our intention, and one of the school’s priorities,to involve in this project, not only the more experienced teachers in coordination and in direct work with students, but
also new teachers who have shown their avid interest in taking up this challenge.
ESL has a wide experience in the main fields on which this project focuses, namely the departments of Visual Arts, Multimedia, Graphic Design, Computer Science, Science and Environment, and Foreign Languages with experienced, active and motivated teachers, who know-how to engage their students in the project work, who can contribute their know-how and who are also receptive to the sharing of good practices, to help in the construction of this specific project.