Scuola Ladina di Fassa
Pozza di Fassa, Italy

Liceo Artistico “G. Soraperra” is a semi-vocational art school located in Val di Fassa, a ski resort in the Dolomites, the mountain range which has recently been proclaimed UNESCO World Heritage. The local economy is mainly based on tourism. Val di Fassa is a bilingual valley in Trentino: two co-official languages are spoken, Italian and a minority language called Ladin. Our bilingualism is formally recognized by the Italian government and the EU. Ladin is also used in school, together with Italian and other foreign languages, above all English. We currently have 161 students and 33 teachers. Our students come from Val di Fassa as well as from its neighbouring areas and other parts of Italy.

Some students of ours are athletes who practise skiing, snowboarding, hockey and figure ice-skating at a professional or semi-professional level. We run two projects called “Ski College” and “Ghiaccio Scuola” to support athlete students and to help them accomplish their studies; in this way, we also try to prevent dropouts. We offer boarding for students who are away from home, too. We don’t have many different nationalities attending our school (most of our students are Italian, while just a few students come from Albania, Romania, Ukraine, north African countries and South America) as our area has not experienced significant migration from other countries up to now.

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Our school dates back to 1941 and was the first in the area to offer upper secondary education. It used to be a vocational school in the past but it turned into a semi-vocational one after the reform of the Italian upper education system in 2010. Students are aged 14-19 and compulsory education lasts until the age of 16. They are taught both academic and practical subjects. In the past it was possible for students to sit for exams and leave school with a qualification after three years but now, if students leave school earlier than five years, they get no qualification. They have to complete 5 years of high school in order to obtain a leaving certificate which leads to university. After the first two years of compulsory education they have to choose from two specializations: Art & Design or Visual Arts.

Our concept of education includes:

• A technical approach to core subjects –  through projects, students become familiar with the codes of visual communication so that they can use them coherently in graphic research and workshop experimentation;
  
• A practical approach to core subjects – students master and experiment with different expressive techniques (painting, architecture, multimedia) and relate them to other art languages;
  
• Teaching and learning across the curriculum;
  
• Employing both traditional and innovative research methods;
  
• Interaction with the territory and local businesses to investigate new needs and identify new trends in the market with the aim of defining our research focus and constantly improving our artistic production;
  
• Developing a good knowledge of history of art in different cultures;
  
• Organizing, promoting, visiting and taking part in important cultural and art events both on a regional and national level;
  
• Offering optional training courses held by internal and external experts in a wide range of subjects;
  
• Boosting our students’ ICT know-how in terms of skills and abilities which can be transferable to the job market or useful for university;
  
• Getting in touch with other cultures, nationalities and ethnicities for an intercultural approach to teaching and learning.
  

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Location

Strada G. Soraperra 6,
38036 Pozza di Fassa (TN)
ITALY


Telephone:  +39 0462 763702 – 760340
Contact person:  Ms Deborah Rooney
Email:  deborah.rooney@scuole.provincia.tn.it
Web:  www.scuoladifassa.it

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Gallery