EBSPMA (PT)

Escola Básica e Secundária Padre Manuel Álvares (EBSPMA) is located on the western coast of Madeira Island, in the village of Ribeira Brava and integrates the Portuguese Public Educational System, regulated by the Ministry of Education. As Madeira is an autonomous region, also by the Regional Secretary of Education. The school recently underwent construction work, the old building being demolished and replaced by more modern facilities, inaugurated in September 2021. It teaches the second and third cycles of basic education and the secondary level (10 to 18 years old), with a team of around 140 teachers for 900 students. As of 2022, a neighbouring school was merged with EBSPMA, which now manages two separate buildings.
The school, however, was first founded in 1973, and in its beginning operated outdoors for lack of adequate facilities, furniture, and equipment, using all the space provided by the community (the market, the streets, the church, the beach, …) to develop an innovative teaching methodology.The school choose as its motto the message of Jonathan Livingston Seagull (a book by Richard Bach), a seagull that wanted to learn more than flying for survival and wanted to fly higher than other seagulls, learning from its own mistakes, the perfect metaphor for learning, personal development and ultimately education.