Focus Group ESLA

Focus Group ESLA, Portugal

Agrupamento de Escolas Dra Laura Ayres

Date and venue: 22nd February 2022, School conference hall

Name and role of participants:

Maria Luísa de Pinho Prates Dordio	Portuguese and English teacher. Collaborates in the “All Included” project.
Maria Daniela Cabica Nunes	English teacher. Collaborates in the “All Included” project.
Marisa Isabel Correia Cruz Mártires	Teacher of visual arts. Collaborates in the “All Included” project.
Pedro José Félix Baptista Neves	Member of the school board
Ana Lúcia Correia da Cruz	Teacher of visual arts.
Dalila Maria Palma Afonso	School vice principal. Coordinator of the “All Included” project.
Cátia Cristina Gomes Silva	English teacher. Collaborates in the “All Included” project.
Felismina Maria Caliço Martins Faustino	Computer science teacher. Coordinator of the “All Included” project. Previous experience working in inclusive institutions.

Working program:

Total time: about 2 hours and 30 minutes. Steps:

1. Welcome and presentation of the participants: 10 minutes (Hugo)
2. Presentation of All in School Project (rationale, aims, duration, outputs): 10 minutes (Hugo)
3. Presentation of Syllabus and Inventory: 15 minutes (Felismina & Cátia)
4. Debate among participants: 1 hour and 40 minutes (All)
5. Conclusion: 15 minutes (Dalila)

Supporting material used:

Computer, projector, PowerPoint presentation with the general lines of the project, the documents with the indicators and questions for analysis and debate.

Feedback received from participants:

It is an indispensable tool while we are working as it helps us to do a better assessment of our work, to develop our skills, improve them and allows us to reflect, in order to find out if we are effectively working at an inclusive level, relationship with the community. The indicators are useful and allow a self – reflection, being a good work basis either individually or in group, helping us to improve the inclusive values of our community.

Conclusions:

Strengths: allows us to identify the inclusive level of our school, trying to make it more inclusive; importance of the issues that were discussed; the questions are relevant and useful.
Weaknesses: some of the questions were too long and complex which made it difficult to understand some of the ideas that were conveyed.

Suggestions: reduce the number of questions for each indicator, making them shorter and easier to understand.
Suggestions of improvement: After applying there should be a time for analysis of the results in small groups, to promote workshops with activities, in order to promote the improvement of the weaknesses detected, the application should be held in schools in a sectorial way.