Cuenca
http://ceip-sanjulian.centros.castillalamancha.es/
CEIP San Julián is a Public School located in Cuenca, a small town in the middle of Spain that is really close to Madrid (1 h and a half by car, and 45 minutes by high speed train). The population is around 50.000 people. Our town is a historical place, full of monuments, art, nature and a privileged environment.
Our school is located outside the town, 3 Km away, in an area surrounded by a splendid natural environment and tries to develop a sustainable management of it, as well as fostering an education based on values of respect and love to nature.There are about 60 students in our school. Kindergarten (ages from 3 to 5) and Primary (ages from 6 to 12), bilingual approach (Development level).Our school has students from 9 different nationalities. The economic status is mostly medium or medium-low. There are several students living in host families. There are also students with special needs: two autism students, some students with different language disorders, learning disorders and one student who shows severe unknown disorders and is taking part in a education program combined with a Special Education School as well. Nowadays the school counts with 13 teachers and 2 teacher assistants.The school is made up of two buildings surrounded by a nature environment. It has different outdoor playgrounds, gymnasium and lots of rooms because previously it was a boarding school.We are recently implementing a bilingual English program (Development level). We teach English Language subject and also, Physical Education, Art and Music are taught in English. Unfortunately, we don’t have more previous experience in Erasmus+ or similar programs but we are very keen on participate and learn.
Our main needs are:
1. The school shows a great diversity of students, coming from different backgrounds and with different special educational needs. There are students showing a high degree of absenteeism and students from 9 different nationalities as well. All this makes attention to diversity a must that needs to be constantly redefined.
2. In addition, our School is the only one that belongs to the town and has a large area of land within big trees (mostly pine trees) and botanic paths. This is the reason why we want to set up sustainable management systems, as well as promoting educational values based on respecting nature and the environment.
3. Improve our English language skills for developing successfully the different levels of the bilingual program in which we are actually working on with our students.
4. Attract students to our school. The School has been gradually loosing students due to it is not located exactly in town (it is 2 km away) although the buildings and the environment are great. We want to be more, and we want to achieve this through the combination of learning based on the inclusion of students with special educational needs, the development of the bilingual program and respect for nature and the environment.
Our main targets, in few words, are promote values based on respecting environment and nature, respecting people what includes diversity and improving our students English language skills.
We have participated in 2 eTwinning projects with different European Schools.
We are implementing a bilingual English program (Development level). We teach English Language subject and also, Physical Education, Art and Music are taught in English. All students, from 3 to 12 years old, study this subjects in english. Since last school year we have an ecological scholar orchard. Students, families, different organisations, teachers and other school staff participate in this project and was very successful and productive last Spring and Summer. We actually continue this activity. Gradual introduction of ecological food in the school cafeteria since 2015-2016 school year. Botanical cataloging of school trees and shrubs (we said before we have an amazing environment) as well as creation of trails and refuges for birds within Educagea and Agenda Local 21 programs. We collaborate with the Universidad de Castilla -la Mancha in its Practice Teacher`s Programs, tutoring their students. We have recently started a workgroup to adapt our school with an alternative communication system based on pictograms to facilitate communication with all our students and improve communication skills of some them that deal with specific special needs. Participation in +Activa Project during 3 school years, sport activities with different local and county schools.
We are satisfied with the school atmosphere and we can see that our students shows a very good attitude of respect for nature and diversity. That make us to want to work harder on it,
Four teachers are taking part of this project:
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Marta Torrero Culebras, Head Mistresss and teacher of Terapeutic Pedagogy with double major in Hearing and Language. Participating in Comenius, projects + Activa, Educagea, Ecoescuela
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Gema María Rubio Muñoz: Secretary and School Counselor. Coordinator of the Learnership guidance and support team. Participating in Comenius, + active, Educagea, eco-schools projects
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María del Mar Mora Pérez: Teacher of music and art (English subject). B 2 certificate. Visitor teacher in USA working as a bilingual teacher (Spanish-English in 2015-2016) in Casa View Elementary School.
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Alfonso Lúcas Ferrer: PE teacher, B2 certificate, Participating in two different Comenius program, Grundtvig and a especial needs course in the University South Africa.
The city of Cuenca: