The foundations of Areteia School are particularly centred on an educational project which is specific and focused on personalised education for each pupil. In this way, it also fits well with attention to diversity. Every person is unique and special, and stands out from the rest in skills which others may not be as proficient in, and conversely, has difficulties which should at no time eclipse the strengths that all people possess.

At Areteia School, we respect Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences. Intelligence is composed of a set of intelligences, it is not one single factor. This set of diverse intelligences develops differently in each person according to how their mind is stimulated. For this reason, Areteia School believes it is important to create these Excellent Programmes for pupils at the school.

The Excellent Programmes help the child to learn about a subject and to develop, to the highest degree possible, that potential which can help them reach excellence. For this reason, the workshops are always suited to their skills, interests and motivations, and help pupils to explore and understand their own strengths in order to maximise them.

Areteia School’s aim is that from knowledge of multiple intelligences, pupils can identify their own capacity for knowledge, discover their strong points in order to work on them, and that these strengths become excellences.

The Excellent workshops at the school can be included within the different types of Multiple Intelligences which Gardner speaks of:

• For those who love words, we offer linguistic intelligence workshops such as “Writers who read and readers who write”, one about radio, or even theatre.
• To enhance scientific-mathematical intelligence and logical reasoning abilities, the pupils are offered the opportunity to take part in experiments workshops.
• Workshops focused on spatial intelligence are centred on understanding visual information and learning to think by using images. To do this we offer workshops in artistic techniques (drawing, painting, modelling…), comics, graphic design, photography or video production.
• When it comes to developing naturalistic intelligence we hold workshops about health, which enable pupils to understand the needs in people’s lives.
• Those pupils who are interested in understanding and coordinating body and mind can channel their training in bodily–kinaesthetic intelligence through workshops related to sport, self-defence or dance.
• The development of musical intelligence is perfect for pupils who have a certain sensitivity for and interest in this art. We offer workshops in singing, violin and rock music.
• There are also workshops on developing interpersonal intelligence for those who are naturally empathetic and who understand and interact effectively with people.
• Lastly, we also place special importance on intrapersonal intelligence, which we can contrast with the previous type. The objective here is for pupils to understand themselves in order to be able to manage and master every situation in their daily life.