PARTNERS
Portugal
INSIGNARE is a non-profit association located at Ourém, in the center of Portugal. They have several working areas - two VET secondary schools, with more than 550 students (EPO - Ourem Vocational School and EHF - Fátima Hospitality Vocational School), an adult training centre (CFC), with more than one thousand trainees each year, one local employment centre (GIP, with more than five hundred people enrolled) and one guidance and validation centre (CQEP).
Both schools have diversified teaching staff, full-time and part-time, because as much of the teaching staff is also integrated with the labour market, knowledge and experience of the labour force can be and is transmitted to the students. All the courses are level IV and grant equivalence to 12th grade.
Ourém Vocational School (EPO), founded in 1990, has Management, IT and Multimedia, Metalworking, Industrial Maintenance, Mechatronic and Electronics courses, following the strategic decision of becoming an industrially focused VET school. EPO is fully equipped with the facilities needed to proper and efficient work environment training.
Fátima Hospitality Vocational School has Cook, Waiter, Receptionist and Tourism courses, and has fully equipped facilities for a practical training of these subjects, highlighting the two training kitchens, one industrial kitchen, one training restaurant and bar. Almost daily they have external catering services following companies’ requests.
- Broadband internet access: cable and Wi-Fi.
- IT rooms, both with 24 PCs and smart boards;
- Air conditioned classrooms with projectors;
The students and learners come from two regions, as municipality is the border between those two - we cover an area of almost half a million inhabitants: the two VET schools and the adult centre have a regional scope, but the employment service is mainly local.
All of the working areas have experience dealing with LLLP and already under Erasmus +, with several projects already approved.
he main aim of the school is to provide hard skills to the students but they also have to develop their soft skills. To achieve the goal, a proper communication between teachers and students is required. As students tend to like more practical subjects, socio cultural teachers feel uncomfortable because of this lack of interest. It sometimes spoils the learning process and causes discipline problems.
This project will allow students and teachers of Multimedia and Cook/Waiter to put into practice what they’ve learned, but also to deepen their hard skills over these curricular areas, besides the soft skills will be developed working with their international colleagues.
Key persons involved
Francisco Vieira, Chief Executive Officer has a degree in History. He has over three decades of professional experience, two of which as s senior management in the public and private sector, often in the area of Education and Training. He was a teacher at the secondary school and at higher education level and was also an international consultant in the VET area. He is a businessman and chairman of the Business Association Ourém Fatima, being fluent in French.
EHF’s Pedagogic Head has a degree in Management but made his entire career in the Hospitality sector, after being one of EHF’s first students, as a professional and a trainer. For two years now he has been the Head. He’s fluent in English and French.
EPO’s Pedagogic Head has a degree in Maths and he has been working for the school for about 10 years. He’s fluent in English and German, as he lived in Germany for many years.
All of them have participated in international projects.
The project coordinator, Sérgio Fernandes has been working with international projects for several years, as coordinator of INSIGNARE’s International Cooperation Unit, not only as a participant but as a coordinator for the majority of them (Comenius Bilateral and Multilateral partnerships, Leonardo IVT and VETPRO, Grundtvig partnerships, Transversal Study Visits (as a participant and as a hosting coordinator) and Erasmus + KA 1, KA 2 and Youth. He’s fluent in English and communicative in Spanish and Italian.
Italy
IPSSAR "P.pi Grimaldi"
The Institute "Grimaldi" is located in the province of Ragusa, in Hyblaean, corresponding to the former County of Modica, in Sicily.
During the last thirty years the modernization of agriculture and the development of tourism have led to dramatic socio-cultural changes that have deeply changed the local framework with a growing demand for new professionals intourism / catering and agrifood: in fact, agriculture and animal husbandry that are the most traditional activities of this area, have been overcome by tourist activity, which involves production sectors of a different nature and which has significantly changed the province and its cultural and gastronomic features.
The headquarters of the Institute is spread across several buildings surrounded by a magnificent green space, with a large square and local transport facilities. The Institute now has 55 classes, divided into 41 for HoReCa, 5 for agrarian and 9 located in Chiaramonte Gulfi town. The complex has got a boarding school, a greenhouse (where new techniques of cultivation and production including aeroponics are tested) and a farm. The School is a member of AEHT (European Association of Hotel&Tourism Schools) and RENAIA (National Network of H&T Institutes).
The farm of about 30 hectares is used for teaching exercises. There are herbaceous crops and trees, both in the open field and in the greenhouse. There are carobs and olive trees in the vineyard with the planting of native cultivars the main purpose of which is to preserve the germplasm of these crops. The school has a botanical garden in the city centre in which many varieties of bamboo are planted from several parts of th world.
The Institute has the following structures, equipment and educational services:
• chemistry and microbiology laboratories
• meristematic micropropagation laboratories
• multimedia computer labs
• language labs
• laboratories of computerized meteorology
• greenhouse
• cooking and pastry labs
• reception activities labs
• food&drink labs
Bartolomeo Saitta – Headmaster
Giovanni Rosario Sparacino – Teacher of agricultural sciences and
environmental management techniques
Giuseppe Gulino –Teacher of chemistry
Roberta Iurato – English Teacher
Veronica Roccasalva – Teacher of Mathematics
Liliana Raudino – Administration Manager
Turkey
Kumburgaz Mesleki ve Teknik Anadolu Lisesi.
Kumburgaz Mesleki ve Teknik Anadolu Lisesi is a vocational high school situated in Istanbul, one of the most important tourism centres in Turkey. That's why the school is located in a strategically and logistically important area. Placed on a field of 18 acres, the school comprises of a school building and a practice hotel. At school there are 16 classrooms, 5 workshops, 1 IT class, 1 conference room and 1 library as well as teachers' and principals' rooms. The hotel has 12 standard and 2 suite rooms; the total amount of beds is 30.
At Anatolian Hotel and Tourism Vocational Schools, accordingly with the Turkish National Educational general aims and principles, programs are applied to provide students with a general knowledge, to make them know the common social and individual problems and to try to find the solutions for them, to give them consciousness and power to contribute economic, social and cultural development of the country. They should also gain vocational formation in professional and technical fields and be prepared according to their abilities and interests to work and/or start higher education.
The school aims to provide students with contemporary cultural and vocational education and to prepare them for their future careers in tourism industry by providing them with theoretical and practical courses that meets the needs of the tourism industry. The curriculum equips students with core skills in Accommodation&Travelling Services and Food&Beverage Services. In addtion, they focus on foreign language education as speaking a second and even a third language is very advantegous and must be known in tourism sector. In 9th grade students take a six -hour English course, in 10th grade they have four hours of English and five hours of vocational English course. In the summer of 10th grade, the students start their practical training in different establishments related to tourism. During this period they understand better that to be successful in this sector requires being good at communicating in a foreign language. In 11th grade they take 10- hour English course and in 12th grade they take 8 hours of English.
Each semester students at high school take 2 or 3 exams and at the end of each academic year they move up to the next grade according to their grade point averages.
At the end of the four year course (secondary school), they take a university entrance exams.
Graduates of vocational high schools can be placed to 2 year associate degree programs without taking the university entrance exam. The students completing the associate degree programs can make vertical transfer to 4 year universities if they are successful at the DGS (The Exam for Vertical Transfer).
Every year nearly 150 students complete their high school education and are placed to different tourism programs at prestigous universities according to their choices.
In a broader sense the school aims to ensure its students to understand how individuals can take personal responsibility in their professional lives and to equip them accordingly.
For better English and vocational knowledge especially among youngsters, they strongly believe in the necessity of international projects.
Romania
Liceul Tehnologic "Constantin Brancusi"
iceul Tehnologic “Constantin Brancusi” is located in Satu Mare, a town in the north-western part of Romania. The school has a tradition of more than one hundred years. It is a technical school, with 450 students and 40 teachers and employers stuff. The school is very big where we have classroom, labs and workshops. In the workshops the students practice carpentry and wood manufacturing. We also have a library where students can study in their free time
Our students are mainly commuters, because they live quite far from the town.
The students are between 15 and 19 years old and even older ones because the school has evening classes, too. The high-school has different profiles starting from carpentry, furniture designer, forestry, wooden manufacturing to environmental protection. All the profiles are dealing with wood or environment.
The institution has also Hungarian classes, one class per each level, so we are a bilingual school where Romanian and Hungarian students learn together.
Many of our students have emotional problems as they come from families with difficult social background: divorces, one or even both parents working abroad and there are even cases of students brought up in single parent families or in step families.
Poland
Poland is a really charming country with funny, friendly and open-minded people- that’s why we are very happy to be a partner in this project.
Our school is located in a small town of Ryglice, 25 km from Tarnów and 100 km from Cracow, the capital of MaÅ‚opolska region.
The aim of the school is to provide students with a high level of education needed at university as well as job qualifications in accordance with the current market needs. Our offer includes mainly Gastronomy, Information Technology and Logistics classes as well as vocational school with variety of jobs. We also provide secondary education for adults. Students take maturity exams as well as vocational exams which proves they have gained qualifications relevant to their specialities. Afterwards they can go to university or start their professional career.
The school has got a modern cooking laboratory and computer rooms with latest technologies, high final exams results (IT and culinary exams), a very good relationships with parents, friendly atmosphere among teachers and students as well as a wide range of extra classes and events organized with the cooperation of the local library and schools- Poetry Evening, decoupage classes, literature, language, IT and culinary competitions both for our students and for students from lower secondary schools.
We are very happy to be a partner in the “Cook healthy- eat healthy- live healthy” project.
We hope to make friends with students from different countries and to increase our interpersonal skills. We would also like to get better at English, cooking and IT skills as well as become more aware European citizens in a general sense. We know that tolerance and lack of discrimination is vital in today’s world full of hatred, fear and various prejudices.
We are different but after all we are same and equal and we do we need one another.
