Barcelos inaugurates works in three schools

The Municipality inaugurated, yesterday and today, the rehabilitation works of the EB1-JI Basic School of Carapeços, the requalification and expansion of the 1st Cycle Basic School/Kindergarten of Pousa and the rehabilitation and expansion works of the Basic School of Martin.

At the same time, three new School Libraries were also inaugurated, one in each educational establishment, as announced today by the Chamber in a statement.

In addition to the president of the City Council and the Education councilor, the directors of the Groups to which the schools belong, the patrons of the School Libraries, and the presidents of the Board of each of the parishes were present at the inauguration events.

In the requalification and expansion of these three buildings, the Municipality invested 3.260 million euros, and these operations were co-financed by ERDF community funds.

According to the president, Mário Constantino Lopes, “the Municipal Executive’s commitment to the Education sector is a priority and fundamental for the development of young people from Barcelona”.

Stressing that “this investment is made on two axes, equipment and promotion of learning”, the mayor praised “the work carried out by the entire educational community: directors, teachers, staff, parents and students”, considering that “from this work, commitment and dedication will result in new generations that are better prepared in terms of school education, civic education, ethics, values ​​and principles”.

The mayor of Barcelona added that he particularly enjoys inaugurating works in schools, “because schools are or represent the best we can give in terms of the future to our population. If we manage to have good schools, we are providing good conditions for students to have a better education, creating conditions to better face the future”.

Mário Constantino Lopes made a point of remembering that some of these works were launched by the previous Executive.

For her part, councilor Mariana Carvalho said that, having been in charge of Education for two and a half years, during this period she already realized that “the time for political will is not the time for executing projects and works”.

However, he highlighted that “when there is a union of wills and efforts, things happen and today they are happening”, he said, referring to the mayors, group directors and teachers, who he thanked for the work they carry out in their respective schools. .

The presidents of the Parish Council, who saw their schools completely requalified, welcomed the municipal investment made in the recovery of this equipment and thanked the City Council for its commitment in carrying out the works.

The president of the Junta de Carapeços, Armindo Vilas Boas, assured that this work was fundamental to solving the problems that affected the school community in the parish. “The rehabilitation of this school was very important, which now has all the conditions for teachers to teach, there are much better conditions than before”.

In the same sense, the mayor of the parish of Pousa spoke out. José Pedro Ribeiro Gomes demonstrated his “satisfaction and joy” at seeing “a years-old ambition” come to fruition.

“The new Pousa School, desired for so long, is finally completed. Here everyone will have all the comfort and means necessary for their development. I want to thank all the people who directly or indirectly contributed to the execution of this work, and I would like to thank the City Council in a very special way,” he said.

In Martim, the president of the Board, António Carvalho, highlighted that “the inauguration of the requalification works are the culmination of one of the great victories that any human being, regardless of the role he occupies, should be proud of”, since “the school is one of the most important features in a parish.”

The local mayor also left a word of gratitude to the Mayor, recalling that in 2005, as councilor for Education, he had been there to sign a consignment notice for works to improve the school park.

EB1-JI School of Carapeços

The requalification of the building was based on solutions considered “most advantageous from a thermal-constructive point of view”, responding to the proposals of the Operational Program Sustainability and Efficiency in the Use of Resources.

In a statement, the municipality states that the main objective was to increase energy efficiency, achieved through improving the building’s surroundings, through interventions in the facades, roofs and glazed spaces.

In the thermal rehabilitation strategy, in the insulation of the exterior walls, care was taken to preserve the ornamental image of the facades. There were also interventions in the classroom areas, with emphasis on the floors, reducing climate losses by almost 50%.

The roofs were also completely renovated and sandwich panels with 8 cm of insulation were installed. The intervention cost 917 thousand euros.

Basic School of the 1st Cycle / Kindergarten of Pousa

The requalification and expansion of the facilities of the Basic School of the 1st Cycle / Kindergarten of Pousa consisted of improving the conditions of this school establishment, which now has six classrooms, a library, a cafeteria, support areas, a teachers’ room and sanitary facilities for the Basic School and Kindergarten.

The intervention ensured new accessibility to the building, now adapted for people with reduced mobility. The architectural design of the main building (the Centenários Plan building) was privileged, adapting the expansion to the existing construction, topography and surroundings.

The cost of the intervention amounted to more than 1.5 million euros.

Martim Basic School

The rehabilitation and expansion of the Martim Basic School involved an investment of 800 thousand euros. The objective of the work was to recover, improve and expand the existing building.

The Martim school is part of the group of school buildings called “Plano dos Centenários”, with two floors, and a gross construction area of ​​approximately 612 square meters. The school had already been expanded and redeveloped in 2006/2007.

The new intervention in the building included the replacement of exterior floors, interior floors, roofs, frames and sanitary equipment. The expansion created new spaces to support the eight existing classrooms.

António Carvalho, mayor of Martim, is a mirror of the land’s pride with the new school. “This work was extremely important for our community, because we had a school that was very dilapidated for today’s requirements. We are all happy and satisfied with the completion of this work,” he said.

3 more school libraries

Simultaneously with the inauguration of the renovation works on the school buildings in Carapeços, Pousa and Martim, new School Library spaces were inaugurated, one in each parish, and patrons were assigned to them.

Thus, the Library of the Escola Básica de Carapeços has the writer, José Fanha, as its patron, the Library of the Escola da Pousa now has the writer, António Mota, as its patron; and in the Library of the Escola Básica de Martim, the patron is the writer, Álvaro Magalhães.

Manuela Pargana, Coordinator of the Library Network of the Ministry of Education, was present at the inauguration ceremony of these Libraries.

“The School Libraries Network Program is an organization of the Ministry of Education that aims to install and develop libraries in public schools at all levels of education, providing users with the resources and learning necessary for reading, access, use and production of information and knowledge, in analog, electronic and digital formats”, reads the municipality’s statement.