TORRES VEDRAS MUNICIPALITY
The public education network in Torres Vedras county is constituted by 4 groups of schools (Henriques Nogueira, Madeira Torres, Padre Vítor Melícias and S. Gonçalo), covering 857 teachers, 398 non-teaching staff and 9.799 students in 72 education establishments, serving the 13 parishes in the municipality within a radius of 405.89 km2 with 79.465 inhabitants.
In the legal framework of the city council responsibilities, the guidelines defined for preschool education at the local level are those contained in the normative document of the Service of Family Support, concerning to the meals service and the activities of socio-educational animation in the time extension. In this context, and in what the socio-educational activities concerns, the municipality has the capacity to advise and decide, together with the groups of schools, on the activities to be carried out in each educational establishment, according to children´s interests, needs and characteristics, having as primary concern and objective their overall development. In this way, the physical activity, as an activity that favors a global approach in the child's learning, through the development of the body's awareness and mastery, is admittedly one of the priorities when making decisions for the choices of the socio-educational activities in preschool establishments.
Also, and in this line of reasoning, the new Curricular Guidelines for Preschool Education, which review those that have been in force since 1997, introduce a new field into their content areas, the Physical Education. The recognition of the importance of this domain and of the Physical Education inclusion in kindergarten defends the creation of "challenging and diversified experiences and opportunities in which the child learns to: know and to use her body better, creating a favorable image of herself; to participate in healthy cooperation and competition; to follow rules to act together; to organize themselves to reach to a common end accepting and surpassing the difficulties and failures".
It should also be noted that the municipality, concerned with the sparse outdoor recreational habits is, together with the Human Kinetics University, through the working group "Center for Study of Play and Recreational Spaces" coordinated by Professor Carlos Neto, to develop a project to reform the concept of school outer space. This study center, which has developed excellent work in the field of children's motor development, seeks to adapt the existing physical conditions in schools and public spaces to the development needs of its users. This partnership, in articulation with the concept that this application presents, aims, therefore, to make a decisive contribution to the development of new methodologies of intervention with our children.

Torres Vedras Municipality - Torres Vedras, Portugal