C3 – Short Term Exchange of Students
The meeting was attended by 10 partner teachers, 31 partner students, 10 Portuguese teachers and 15 Portuguese students.
After the welcoming ceremony by the school Principal, Mr. Salvador Ferreira, a few ice-breaking activities took place as well as a tour around school and a reception event in the Town Hall.
The students worked in international teams from day 1. The groups were assigned a task named “Kiss and Make Up”, which was divided in 3 different parts, corresponding to 3 different days. The aim of the activity was to brainstorm, recall peer-to-peer mediation steps, solve the conflicts accordingly and role play them in the end.
The 2nd day was devoted to workshops regarding the topic of the meeting by 4 teachers from AEJAC (Mrs. Ana Comenda, Mrs. Helena Ventura, Mrs. Martha Fernandes and Mrs. Sofia Reis) and 2 Phd teachers/experts from UTAD University (Mrs. Ana Paula Monteiro and Mrs. Inês Relva).
On the 4th day, students presented both the work done in their home schools concerning the topic of the meeting and the “Kiss and Make Up” role play. The certificates ceremony took place after the students’ presentations.
As for cultural events, the group visited the Douro Museum, Galafura, Casa de Mateus in Vila Real, Lamego Sanctuary, a wine estate in Douro Valley and Porto.
Teachers and students evaluated the meeting and disseminated it via Twinspace.
Portugal – AEJAC 11/10/2021 – 15/10/2021
Topic: School Mediation and conflict resolution in the perspective of civic engagement and European Citizenship Skills
Day 1
On Monday 11th the Mobility in Peso da Régua started with the presentation of the schools with videos created by the pupils, then a student performed two songs created for the project that were appreciated a lot.
Then the head teacher of the school introduced the weekly activities and thanked all the partners.
Next some ice-breaking games were suggested:
– Kahoot about Portugal and other countries involved in the Erasmus+ Project
– order the dialogue
– Grammar test – Future tenses https://learningapps.org/view6434631
– Numbers in ecology https://learningapps.org/view6596593
– Augmented reality 3DQR
After the introductory activities the delegations visited the school and were then taken to the Town Hall were they were welcomed by the Mayor.
In the afternoon students and teachers from all partner schools went on a trip to Galafura, where the pupils worked in small groups and prepared the activities for the next days.
Day 2
On the second day Martha Ferdandes, one of the English teachers at AEJAC, introduced “Escola Secundária João Araújo Correia” activities in the field of conflict mediation, she gave an insight into Portuguese education and focused on “Civic engagement and conflict mediation: from government education policies to school practice”. Then she illustrated the project “Dress a girl around the world”.
The morning activites also included two contributions by the University of Tras-of-Montes and Alto Douro in Vila Real:
– “Sibling conflict resolution from home to school” Ines Moura De Sousa Carvalho Revla, University of Vila Real – Portugal;
– “School Mediation: a culture of peaceful coexistence” Ana Paula Monteiro, University of Vila Real – Portugal.
In the afternoon the delegations visited the Douro Museum, where they participated in an interesting group activity called “Babel”, a funny project focused on the importance of all languages and different cultures.
Day 3
On the third day a trip was organised to Vila Real. The Erasmus+ group went on a walking trip around the town, tasted a typical dessert in the famous Pastelaria Gomes, visited “ Palacio do Mateus” and “Quinta do Vilar” after climbing a difficult path.
Vila Real, the capital of the Tras-o-Montes province, is located above the confluence of the Rio Cabril and the Rio Corgo.
The most famous building to visit, located about four kilometers east of Vila Real, is the Palacio do Mateus used as a holiday home by the Portuguese royal family during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Palacio do Mateus, which is featured on bottles of well-known Mateus rose wine, was built in 1745 to a design by the fashionable Italian architect, Nicola Nasoni.
With a striking Baroque facade, an ornate balustrated stairway, granite wings, rooftop statues and a garden that boasts an impressive thirty-five meter cedar tunnel, the Mateus Palace is considered by many to be one of the best country houses in Europe and a near-perfect example of Baroque architecture. In 1971 the Mateus Palace became a private foundation and now hosts various music concerts, art exhibitions and literary prizes.
Other buildings of interest in Vila Real include a fifteenth century Gothic cathedral, once part of a fifteenth century Dominican monastery, the Baroque Igreja de Sao Pedro, with its ceiling of carved and gilded wood and the Baroque Capela Nova, also attributed to Nicola Nasoni, which features an outrageous Baroque facade and eighteenth century Azulejos (hand-painted tiles).
Vila Real flourished as a result of the wine and port trade, which used to be headquartered here before moving to Porto. Every year on the 28th and 29th June a huge market takes over the streets of Vila Real to celebrate the Festa e Sao Pedro.
Vila Real is well-placed to explore the Parque Natural da Serra do Alvao, with its lush valleys and towering mountains.
Day 4
On the fourth day in the morning the students from all the partner schools showed with a digital presentation the work done the previous year to be ready to mediate conflicts and the link between conflict mediation and active citizenship.
After the presentations the students performed what they had planned on Monday in Galafura in small groups and simulated the mediation of conflicts whereas the teachers had a meeting to plan the next steps of the project.
In the afternoon the delegations visited Lamego.
Day 5
On the last day the Erasmus teams visited the city of Porto.
Porto, Portuguese Oporto, city and port, northern Portugal. The city lies along the Douro River, 2 miles (3 km) from the river’s mouth on the Atlantic Ocean and 175 miles (280 km) north of Lisbon. World-famous for its port wine, Porto is Portugal’s second largest city and is the commercial and industrial centre for the zone north of the Mondego River. The historic centre of Porto was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996.
Porto is chiefly famous for the export of the wine named for it, a popular fortified wine usually served after meals.
As for culture, the city has a university (founded 1911), district archives, museums including the Soares do Reis National Museum (prehistoric and Roman artifacts, sculpture, paintings, and numismatics) and one for contemporary art in a striking Art Deco building, an opera house, a fine-arts school, a symphony orchestra, and several scientific institutes. A concert hall, designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, opened in 2005. Other contemporary public buildings include the county hall, university hospital, and football (soccer) stadium.