Context Monte da Lua School Cluster (Agrupamento Escolas Monte da Lua) - Sintra - Portugal - Organizational diagnosis Areas of Improvement (W) - Success rates/ completion of high school education - Students' results in external evaluation - Management of teachers' collaborative work - Link between teacher training - classroom practices Opportunities (O) - Quality and dynamism of organizational partnership network - Sociocultural and economical context favourable to the theme of the project (drama, cultural tourism) - Partcipation of the School Cluster in local, national and international projects Areas of intervention: Providing a higher quality teaching with innovative strategies, using digital technologies and creating a safe and inclusive learning environment Objectives The teachers involved in the project are supposed to acquire specific knowledge in each of the main aspects of the project - areas of intervention: 1) Teaching learning of English - To keep abreast of British life, language and culture - To gain a huge variety of new teaching methodologies and strategies in TEFL - To keep in touch with innovative materials and the use of digital/ mobile technology in the classroom - To improve language skills 2) Decrease of dropout rates/ failure rates - inclusiveness of education/ multifaceted feature of education and the importance of different school paths - implementation of innovative and motivating methodologies - using different strategies in the classroom Number and profile of Participants Seven Permanent teachers of English - (Disciplinary Group of English 330) Description of activities - 2 Week course for European teachers of English at secondary level - Focus on Ireland, Belfast, Northern Ireland, International Study Programmes (I.S.P.) - attended by three teachers - 1 week coursefor European teachers of English at secondary level - Language Development and Britain Today, Chelmsford, England, International Study Programmes (I.S.P.) - attended by four teachers - Registration in the etwinning platform - Attending etwinning training - Development of projetc/s with international schools Methodology - Training - training programmes - Implementation - Pedagogical supervision of classroom practices - we had moments of open classes to share good practices - Monitoring - Results (long term), application of surveys/ questionnaires; teachers' reports - Dissemination - Sharing good practices among teachers - broadness and cross-curricular Knowledge/ implemented pedagogical strategies. So far we've only had internal dissemination, but we are going to present a workshop in a local cluster (Mem-Martins) Results/ Impact Participants - Acquisition of knowledge/ innovative strategies, new methodologies in the teaching of English, digital technologies skills Organization - Improvement in school quality Students - Increased motivation to school life in general (attendance and success rates), willingness to learn English and to use English as a foreign language Sustainability Teachers - The participants will carry out the dissemination of the project to the other teachers of the school cluster, not only through the institutional structures (Pedagogical Council, Curricular Department, Disciplinary Group) but also through the organization of workshops and conferences (i.e. Jornadas Pedagógicas). School Community - Publishing the results of the training in the school website. Partnerships - The school Board of Diretors will get in touch with the teachers' training centre of Sintra in order to provide training to other teachers of the municipality of Sintra, which will take place in Agrupamento Escolas de Mem-Martins; international projects/ partnerships.