WELCOME TO
Agrupamento de Escolas Padre Benjamim Salgado
Agrupamento de Escolas Padre Benjamim Salgado (AEPBS) is situated in Joane, Vila Nova de Famalicão, in the North of Portugal. Our school prides itself on the quality of its educational programmes, the professionalism of its staff, the enthusiasm of its students and the high level of support provided by parents and community members. We are an open school in a safe and welcoming environment with high standards of teaching and learning and we actively seek participation and involvement from the whole school community and our partners on international level.
Joane is a small town which is expanding strongly and benefits from a good geographical location. It is situated in a highly industrialized area, in a semi-urban space, with socio-economic and cultural specificities. Being an expanding development hub, many business companies and fabric firms, as well as several other entities of social and cultural relevance, are school partners, who provide training to our students.
The AEPBS is a cluster of a secondary school and a group of pre-schools and primary schools formed in 2012. Its educational offer covers all levels of education, from pre-school to secondary education, Scientific-Humanistic Courses such as: Arts, Languages and Literature, Socioeconomic Sciences and Sciences and Technologies; Professional Courses (VET) in the following areas: Industrial maintenance and Mechatronics, Electronics, Management and Programming of Computer systems, Equipment Design, Computer Programmer, Multimedia and Health. We also have Adult Education and Training Courses, as well as Modular Training, entailing diversified curricula and plurality of formative offerings, resulting in an institution open to the needs of the community. We are also an eco-school with several activities concerning environmental issues.
It has around 2600 students, 250 teachers and 85 technical or administrative assistants. Socioeconomically, the community of students is quite diverse, but some students’ background is not well structured, and some of them face lack of resources. Having multimedia and computer programming vocational courses, the school’s staff, and students, are familiarised with ICT tools. In 2022 our school has applied for a public grant of a technological centre specialized in ICT, it has been approved in the current year of 2023 and will be implemented in the following years. There is also expertise in project-based approach methods and flexible curricular teaching, with articulated methodology. Considering the importance of communication in a global and international way, CLIL is being implemented since the previous school year.
Thus, it is the school’s concern to provide students with a good educational platform upon which they can gain skills to fulfil their goals for life.
The Headmaster of Agrupamento de Escolas Padre Benjamim Salgado is Dr. José Manuel da Silva Moreira. He has focused his professional activity, in the last two years, in guiding this school to its very highest in what refers to obtaining the best results out of all his team. He has been working in the field of education for many years. His academical training is around Theology. He also has accomplished in obtaining other credits in the following areas: master’s degree in educational /School Administration and Bioethics.
As Headmaster of the school, he is also a member of the local city council, being one of the minds behind some of the most important political decisions related to educational issues.
He has participated in several Erasmus+ Projects, as a partner of the several projects in which our school has been involved in, he has done Job Shadowing in different countries, pursuing the development of competences and looking for new practices in the area of school management. He intends to boost the performance of our school in preparing students for challenges, such as high education pursuing paths, career entailing diversified curricula and plurality of formative offerings, having always in mind the entrepreneurs’ and industry partners’ necessities, resulting in an institution open to the needs of the community. He also encourages the members of the community in engaging in several activities concerning environmental issues and has provided for the ICT preparation of the whole community in order to contribute to the development and innovation in education.