School failure, in the form of retention and school drop-out, is becoming ever more important in a society where 12 years of compulsory schooling threaten to worsen the situation. Whereas school failure has been attributed to students’ (lack of) abilities for decades, since the 70s the socio-institutional trend has been putting more emphasis on the role of schools and their relationship with students in success promotion. Thus, schools, their structure, concepts and practices need to undergo a transformation in order to adapt to different students and promote the necessary learning. The Mais Sucesso Project of the Escola Secundária do Castêlo da Maia (and the present work) stemmed from this necessity. Through document analysis, interviews and questionnaires, we tried to understand the expectations and points of view of those directly involved in the project – students, teachers and parents – and to compile the strategies that, in their opinion, contributed the most to these students’ success. We concluded that whereas putting all of the weakest students in the same class was not approved by everyone, the existence of a reduced number of students seems to have contributed to a better learning process. The most successful strategies were the existence of an assistant teacher working in class with the head teacher in the most difficult subjects – Portuguese, Mathematics and English and appointing tutors for some of the students. Other essential aspects were collaborative work among teachers and a continual search for the most adequate methods and strategies to promote students’ success. The students involved in the project consider this experience to have been invaluable for their future.
Date of Award | 2012 |
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Original language | Portuguese |
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Awarding Institution | - Universidade Católica Portuguesa
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Supervisor | José Matias Alves (Supervisor) & Lília Ana Santos Silva (Co-Supervisor) |
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- School failure
- School success
- Educational success
- Mestrado em Ciências da Educação
Turmas mais sucesso : expectativas e perspetivas dos atores envolvidos num projeto : um estudo de caso na Escola Secundária do Castêlo da Maia
Fernandes, M. E. S. C. D. G. (Student). 2012
Student thesis: Master's Thesis