AIS presents a curriculum that seeks to respond to the educational needs of each child, favouring learning in a bilingual context and pedagogical innovation, which privileges contact with Nature and the exploration of individuality, the environment, as well as digital media. A curriculum built with the happiness of our children in mind.
We implement active learning methodologies, through a set of educational experiences that focus on the students, depending on their responsibility/ autonomy and involvement. These processes are achieved by working on projects, conducting experiments, solving problems, responding to challenges, and mobilizing other approaches that allow children to make sense of what they learn, placing new acquisitions in context, and integrating them with other knowledge.
By promoting this collective work, interpersonal intelligence, principles, and practices of collaboration and communication are developed. In this way, the values and dynamics of the community, the principles of sharing, equality, respect, and cooperation are also instilled.
We believe that being immersed in a bilingual environment will create new opportunities for our students. At the end of primary, we will offer all our students the option of continuing with a bilingual Portuguese or a fully international curriculum.
We are a Cambridge candidate school and we hope to offer IGCSEs followed by the IB DP programme. With this, we will provide our students with different paths to suit their personal ambitions for the future.
Following the bilingual curriculum from the Portuguese Ministry of Education and combining it with the Cambridge Primary School curriculum, our School promotes linguistic proficiency as well as intercultural literacy.
Our goal is to develop all the dimensions of the child together with the ideals and values of each family. In all age groups, our students will always have both native English speakers and Portuguese native speakers in class, with the exception of additional languages classes, where the language of the course will be spoken.
We have an outdoor space designed to provide children with a wide variety of experiences and resources that inspire and challenge. Children have the opportunity to experience the outdoors in a calm, active and purposeful atmosphere. The skills they learn at ‘AIS Farm’ will transfer to the classroom, creating a positive and happy attitude toward learning.
A child-led space, where practitioners observe children rather than direct them. This allows children space and time to play, reconnect with nature and their environment, learn to take risks, and have adventures.
Of Oneself: We guide our students toward self-awareness. In a world that is constantly changing, recognizing the importance of self-knowledge, critical thinking, resilience, collaboration, and how to deal with conflict situations is crucial for our students’ well-being and happiness.
Of the Physical World: Children’s socio-emotional development skills will be encouraged, as well as communication, collaboration, perseverance, and critical thinking skills, among others that are essential for children to grow harmoniously and confidently.
Of the Digital World: Innovation in educational practices, using the immense opportunities opened up by the use of technology, will be a constant support and will improve learning. Always taking into account the characteristics, age, and development level, in enriched and stimulating environments, students will be challenged to take advantage of the digital world, programming, computational thinking, and robotics.
Understanding art as a manifestation of the human need to express oneself, we promote creativity and wonder with all forms of artistic expression, as a stimulating and constructive factor during all phases of child development. Through art, the child interprets, creates, and imagines!
At Almada International School the children’s happiness is our priority. We share with their families the privilege of seeing them grow up and the deep love with which we want to educate them, so that they develop physically, intellectually, and emotionally.
