An institute rooted in the territory, open to the future
The Comprehensive Institute of San Pietro in Vincoli (a comprehensive institute comprising nursery school, primary school and lower secondary school) covers a vast area in the southern part of the Municipality of Ravenna, bordering the municipalities of Forlì, Cesena, Russi and Cervia. From Filetto to San Zaccaria it extends for about 20 km and includes 9 school sites — three preschools, four primary schools and two lower secondary schools — distributed across the hamlets of San Pietro in Vincoli, San Pietro in Campiano, Roncalceci, Osteria and San Zaccaria.
A territory that lives and works
The productive landscape is marked by a specialized agricultural vocation, flanked by food processing and preservation activities and by mechanical maintenance of machinery, which constitutes a thriving productive fabric. Farm stays and B&Bs attract visitors who love rural tourism as well as those looking for accommodation near the area’s amusement parks. Employment is characterized by seasonality and commuting towards Ravenna, Forlì and Cesena, and the socio-economic background of families is heterogeneous.
A school that builds networks
Many stakeholders collaborate with the school, which benefits from a strong participatory tradition actively involving families, Territorial Councils, Citizens’ Committees, sports and cultural associations, and the Municipality of Ravenna in its various project and service branches. The Comprehensive Institute “San Pietro in Vincoli” was founded in 1998 through the merger of the individual schools in the area.
Origins: the Rural School of San Pietro in Campiano (1913)
The foundations of the comprehensive institute lie in the rural primary school of San Pietro in Campiano, a building constructed in 1913 and a point of reference for generations of students. It remained active until 1994; in 1999 it was converted into a cultural and museum centre, becoming the seat of the Didactic Museum of the Territory. Today the museum, managed in collaboration with the RavennaAntica Foundation and the Comprehensive Institute, houses archaeological finds and ethnographic material and continues to play an important educational role. Not only archaeology: the museum also hosts an ethnographic section that reconstructs environments of rural civilization — the room with the fireplace, the loom room, the grandparents’ school — making it a living place and potentially interesting for families and intergenerational activities as well.
A recent history of growth and memory
- Expansions and maintenance: over the years the Institute has seen expansion and maintenance work, such as the inauguration of the “Vittorino da Feltre” school building in San Pietro in Campiano in 2019 and extraordinary maintenance projects as early as 2006.
- Preserving memory: in 2015 a plaque dedicated to the fallen of the Great War, originally placed in the old primary school building, was relocated to the San Pietro in Vincoli site to preserve its memory.
- Awards and dedications: in 2025 a square adjacent to the Institute was named after Ermanno Pasini, primary school teacher, educationalist and partisan, to celebrate his educational and civic commitment; the Filetto preschool was named after Giancarlo Cerini, technical director at the Ministry.
- Educational innovations: from the 2026/2027 school year, Montessori-inspired sections are active in the Osteria and Filetto preschools and in the Roncalceci and San Zaccaria primary schools.
A curriculum that puts the person at the centre
Since its foundation, the Institute has carried out learning projects during school hours aimed at its pupils. The curriculum, characterized by a strong pedagogical and inclusive focus, stands out for its reading projects (Book Exhibition, public libraries within the school sites, collaborations with the Classense Library, Read more and others), for the active participation of families in school life and for the theatrical experience as a cross-cutting tool for personal and expressive growth. A concrete example is the “Giocare al Teatro” (Playing at Theatre) module, part of the “Crescendo mi metto in gioco” project, aimed at the San Pietro in Vincoli lower secondary school: afternoon sessions dedicated to public speaking, body and voice management, culminating in a final performance.
Experiencing school has thus become, over the years, a valuable tool for growth and a stimulus for learning, respecting developmental stages, fostering self-knowledge and self-expression and relationships with others.
The strategic areas of the PTOF
To guide families and educators, the Three-Year Educational Offer Plan organizes its initiatives around nine well-defined strategic areas:
- Guidance and Continuity
- Promotion of reading and writing, theatre and expressiveness
- Combating school dropout
- Internationalization
- Interculture
- Safety, prevention and well-being
- L2 Learning (English – Spanish)
- STEAM Area
- Non-violent education and prevention of bullying and cyberbullying
Networks and collaborations
The Institute is the lead school of the “Fare storia con la Storia” Network and has historically managed the direction and archive of the Museum of the Territory, still partly managed by volunteer teachers. Since last year it has also been the district lead for Training. It adheres to the Il Mondo di Apollo network and coordinates the quality improvement network for the 0/6 age group. It actively participates in the ASL Health-Promoting Schools network.
School population
The Institute comprises 9 school sites: 3 preschools, 4 primary schools and 2 lower secondary schools. The school community has 971 pupils distributed across 54 classes, with an average of 17 pupils per class: a large dimension but with contained groups, which favours the educational relationship. The demographic composition of the territory has changed in recent decades, with the arrival of newly settled family units that have also led to new built-up areas. The new settlement is not always stable, so there are entries and exits during the school year. The international composition of the school population is constant.
Territory and social capital
The participatory tradition of the Institute enables a positive synergy between school and territory, which takes shape in services (for example, the Roncalceci school transport is managed by families), in fruitful dialogue and in an osmosis between tradition and innovation. From the 2025/26 school year, the school has adopted a regulation for requesting benefits that integrates social support measures from public bodies with its own funds (donations, competition prizes, concession revenues).
Economic and material resources
Funding comes largely from the State and Local Authorities. Families, through voluntary contributions, support expenses for expanding the educational offer (purchase of consumables and devices). There are laboratory classrooms (Art, Science and IT in both secondary schools, ateliers), equipped and networked libraries, open to the public thanks to projects funded by banking foundations, gyms, multi-purpose rooms, innovative learning environments and music rooms in the larger sites.
In all classrooms of the secondary, primary and preschool levels there are PCs, LIMs or Digital Boards. In the San Pietro in Campiano site there is a room used as a creative atelier, available to the primary and secondary schools.
The school, with its facilities, represents a resource for the territory. Public transport, although mainly concentrated during school hours, manages to ensure the right to education but not easy mobility across the territory outside the start and end times of teaching activities. Regarding safety, significant upgrades have been made to the buildings in accordance with current regulations and with a view to overcoming architectural barriers.
Professional resources
The headteacher has been tenured since 2019 and comes from the upper secondary cycle, but has held the regency of a complex and articulated mountain Comprehensive Institute. The DSGA (Administrative Director) has more than three years of experience and was elected to the Institute. The administrative staff is mostly tenured, with long-standing experience in the same territory.
The teaching staff is tenured in a very high percentage and three quarters of tenured teachers have been serving in the same institute for more than five years: a stability that represents added value for educational continuity and knowledge of the territory.