Aver-o-Mar

The Aver-o-Mar Cluster is located in the municipality of Póvoa de Varzim, in Porto district. It’s located on the northwest atlantic coast of Portugal, 2km northwards of the city of Póvoa de Varzim. Migrant population has been established here, in particular from Morocco, and in a smaller number from Ukraine, Moldova, France, Germany, Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil and Pakistan. The main activities are fishing, agriculture, trade, restaurants and other services. The main tourist attraction is the beach. There are some local cultural collectivities for the students who attend this school. In this small town fishermen and farmers work side by side although some severe labour and economic adversities. Nowadays farming is almost extinguished and completely replaced by the growth of houses construction. You can also find some migrant families with very different cultural backgrounds as well as the language .
Students come from four small towns that make part of this school cluster. Aver-o-Mar, Aguçadoura, Navais and Estela inhabitants have a predominantly low social and economic status, based mainly in agriculture, small family businesses, fishing and tourism.

This Cluster was formed in 2003/2004 and at that time comprised 10 primary schools with and pre-school education and the school headquarters EB of Aver-o-Mar working as a network of schools.
Nowadays, it consists of a host school (EB2/ 3); the Aver-o-Mar Basic School; 5 kindergarten schools: Teso, Aldeia and Agro-Velho, Barros and Navais and 9 primary schools: Refojos, Fieiro, Navais and Barros.

The school system within this cluster has four major strategic goals to achieve at the end of every school year to improve learning, create more effective learners and get outstanding results:
1. Educational Service: Academic results - Intervene to consolidate, reinforce and improve students' academic results;
2. Educational Service: Social Results – procedures to control and reduce negative behaviour in the classroom;
3. Organization and Management - Intervene to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the group's performance in promoting educational success and the interaction between school, social backgrounds and family relationships;
4. Self-regulation, Improvement and Monitoring - Intervene to promote self-assessment in a logic of improvement.

The Cluster has about 109 teachers, a psychologist and a school social service technician. The administrative board has 7 workers and 37 make part of the school auxiliary staff, Altogether there is a total of 45 non-teaching staff.
There are at the moment 1293 students enrolled. The Aver-o-Mar School Cluster is an educational model of an inclusive, dynamic School, open to change, promoting a culture of freedom and decision-making, accepting the diversity of all its members to develop and look every student as a whole being in all its aspects.