The Agrupamento de Escolas do Cerco (AE Cerco) is located in the eastern part of the city of Oporto, in the Cerco neighbourhood.

This neighbourhood was built in the 60’s and its primary purpose was housing families from poor and deprived areas of Porto, with low social and cultural resources and low expectations, mainly due to the existence of unemployment and consequent lack of life projects. Many of these families were forced to maintain a tight struggle for survival, dragging them sometimes to deviant life styles, causing the total exclusion within the community where they lived and reflecting the effects on their offspring.

The AE Cerco School

Our school arises due to the growth of the local population in the 80´s, in order to respond to the education of the children of these families and to enable them to raise their socio-cultural level, which facilitates integration into the local community.

The AE Cerco currently includes seven education and teaching establishments: six Primary schools with Kindergarten and the Basic and Secondary headquarters school, in a total of 2018 students (4.03% of our school population has Special Educational Needs (SEN) and are integrated in regular classes):

• Pré school: 164 students (3 to 6 years old);
• 1^st cycle (1^st to 4^th grade): 659 students (6 to 10 years old);
• 2^nd cycle (5^th and 6^th grade): 280 students (10 to 12 years old);
• 3^th cycle (7^th to 9^th grade): 376 students (12 to 15 years old);
• Secondary (10^th to 12^th grade): 200 students (15 to 18 years old).

Our school system has other educational offerings and so we still have students enrolled in courses like:

• Integrated Education and Training Program: 84 students;
• Youth Education and Training Courses: 79 students;
• Professional courses: 115 students;
• Adult Education and Training Courses: 25 students

The teaching staff consists of 246 teachers and 58 non-teaching professionals.

The needs of the AEC are in line with the objectives of Erasmus + program in this regard we have to improve and update the methods and approaches used in teaching, more effective activities for the benefit of local communities, improve practices allow involve actively disadvantaged groups, improve skills at management level, to take knowledge about the teaching methods of the XXI century and examples of good practice in this area. The experience abroad will help our team improve their skills and language skills and increase the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship.