In the early days of the college we ran only the first and second year of primary school with few pupils later went on to teach until the fifth year (now ninth year) and from a hundred we went up to 300 students, because parents began to feel important that children come to school. As we grow in numbers we decided to lease a building that was once an inn. It had large rooms, it was an old building, but I had physical conditions for the purpose and we only had to make some changes. We tried to make a new building from scratch, but we could not do it, because we did not have definitive permit, we needed to have parallel teaching, i.e., for every two licensed teachers we could only have one unlicensed and in our case only about 50% of body teacher had a diploma. A percentage that varied from year to year, because there were teachers that remained only one academic year and then went back to teach in Funchal. In addition, the classes of physics and chemistry had to have a sole classroom and as we did not have all these conditions, so we could not apply for the license.
Still, we've never had reason to complain, or problems with students, was above all a very familiar environment. In my geography lessons one of the hardest things to explain was the concept of plain, there was no television, so they had never seen one, I told them it was like the sea only instead of water was land. The manuals have illustrations, but they were not very helpful. Because of our provisional license, our students had to do exams at the national level. The tests were sent from the mainland and delivered at the police who would then take them and bring them only at the time of examination and we had teachers coming from Funchal to monitor and correct the proofs. It was very good for students and we had many praises. The students were always in good spirits and the teachers of the city thought it was strange, but the fact is that they knew since they entered school that would take an examination in all subjects at the end of the year. Although there were schools that did not need to impose these measures, as was the case of Ribeira Brava, just beside, curiously simple people saw more advantages in taking the exam, because they knew that the national curriculum was all given at school, while there were many official institutions that did not meet this parameter, so our school was strict. I think we were one day-school at the national level in which students were assessed through a test. If it were not for the college many good high school students would have been lost, because it was much easier for parents with less financial capacity to send their children to Funchal with only had to go two more years of compulsory education and then it was worth doing the sacrifice so that they could go to university. In 1988 was created the official education, we had to negotiate the passage, because then the college already had to be paid, which was successful and now the students still designate the primary and secondary school of St. Vincent as the college. The name stuck.
