A DEMOCRATIC LEARNING COMMUNITY IN THE CENTRE OF PORTUGAL

Cerejeiras is a community based project . We aim to provide a progressive form of education based on democratic values, to Portuguese and foreigners nationals.

We are located in a small school building in Rabaçal, a village in Penela, just 20 minutes south of beautiful Coimbra. The Caminho de Santiago is passing through our small street, which gives our place a magic feeling as many pilgrims are passing all year round, enjoying the many olive trees and vineries.

With 5 to 6 teachers present on average, the max 50 children have a lot of support to ensure they are guided in their learning journey on a daily basis. This is needed because we strongly believe in educating children based on their needs, not on their age. This means we sometimes work with age groups, but many times we work with teams based on interest and proficiency. We also encourage children to work together: younger kids learning from the older, the older learning to help others.

It is an intensive process to plan every week, month and trimester this way, but the reward is always there.

At Cerejeiras we believe every child has talent, and that it is the duty of a school to help the child discover his or her many talents and build a strong foundation upon which the child can thrive and be happy developing this and other talents. It means that our education is broad and meets the standards you can expect from a school, but that the way we go about teaching is very different from traditional schools. At Cerejeiras we want to make a child's learning journey uniquely fitted to the needs and desires of each child, to a certain degree. It means that our teachers as, besides focusing on teaching, always working with children to explore what they are curious about, what they want to learn and how they want to learn. We see the mind, the heart and the soul as equally important areas to develop. Arts, dance and music are as important as math and English. And with this approach we aim to let children be part of a group or class, but based on their needs and level of competence, sometimes team up with older or younger kids. They will have the option to choose a lot of the subjects they want to learn, while also needing to understand that there are certain subjects that have to be part of your education if you want to build that strong foundation to thrive. Exploring talents, building foundation, choosing your journey and nurturing a love for learning is at the core of who we are.