The group of schools is composed of four elementary schools with kindergarten, one elementary school with classes from 5th to 9th years, and a secondary school, with 1876 students from preschool to secondary, 159 teachers and 48 educational action professionals. Our student audience belongs to a lower middle class, where 41 % of students receiving economic support, and 136 are disabled students. It is situated in the village of S. João da Talha in the suburbs of Lisbon. It has about 17,252 inhabitants (census 2011), spread over several neighborhoods. It is an urban village, where single-family dwellings or horizontal housing estates kind prevail. A small industry and trade are the dominant sectors. The majority of the population exerts its activity mainly in Lisbon and surroundings. Professional obligations prevents them to be more responsible for properly accompany their children to school level education. Near schools lies the Reception Centre for Refugees, that’s why there’s a need for the integration of different nationalities (28 in total) in the various schools and the existence of a large multicultural classrooms. The group hosts a large majority of pupils with special educational needs and is headquartered in school a Unit of Support for multidisabled students (6 to 14 years). This unit has 2 certified teachers to work with the disabled students, and there are five more teachers in the different schools that help other teachers to handle with the disabled students. We participate in several national projects regarding environmental education, science projects and languages activities.

Our recent international experience provided us exchanges of knowlegde regarding innovative education, for example the project BLEND-IT gave us the possibility of having online platforms, a future classroom lab and the possibility of using cloud computing tools among teachers work and students learning (http://erasmusproject.wixsite.com/blend-it; http://www.aesjt.pt/plataforma).

Besides that we started, with the Lisbon University partnership, promoting courses to foreign teachers (http://jcruz3.wixsite.com/ tscemlab).

Our organisation aims to promote the development of fundamental behaviors, attitudes and values that favor the safety and wellbeing of students and promote the acquisition and construction of knowledge and learning, aiming the school success of students and the education of responsible citizens.