Cifuentes, Guadalajara

http://ies-donjuanmanuel.centros.castillalamancha.es/

The school IES “Don Juan Manuel” is located in Cifuentes, a small but beautiful village which has a population of nearly 2,000 inhabitants. It is in the centre of Spain, 125 kilometres from Madrid. There are 23 teachers, one of them being the support teacher. There are 137 students, aged between 12 and 17 years. They are attending the four grades of compulsory secondary education (ESO) and the two optional levels of Bachillerato.

It is a rural area that has been suffering from severe depopulation for years. Consequently the number of our students is decreasing every year as many families move to Guadalajara or Madrid to work or in anticipation their children can have the chance of studying there.

Most families work in agriculture and the nuclear power plant in Trillo, a small village 13 kilometres away from Cifuentes. Some students travel by bus from different small villages since Cifuentes is the biggest one of the area. Many of our students are not really used to travelling to other countries as some of them feel that it is not necessary for them. The number of pupils with special needs is not very high. We have a low population of immigrants, mainly coming from Romania, Morocco and Dominican Republic. Up to now, we don't have any refugees.

Our students like doing sports, meeting friends, using their mobiles phones and bullfights, especially boys -in this area the tradition of bullfighting is quite strong. Their motivation is generally low, some of them do not want to study but working in the area, although they know the work opportunities are limited.

Our school has also some advantages. As the number of students is low, we can put into practice more flexible groups, pay attention to diversity in an easier way and have a closer relationship with families as we all already know each other. In addition, we also have a frequent contact with environment as the students feel it as being part of their lives; many of the families work in agriculture or surrounded by animals or plants.

We have worked on some Etwinning projects. Last year the French teacher worked on a project about cultural heritage that was highly motivated for the students. As a consequence they organized an exchange with other highshool in Rambouillet, France.

Our essential needs and interests are therefore the following:

• The number of students from immigrant families is very low, so we need our students can have a contact with pupils from other countries and cultures, different from theirs. This means they could improve from a linguistic and cultural perspective. International contact would also be useful for them if they study abroad or to improve their work conditions in the future.
• Our school is far from big cities and towns. As a consequence, they lack some educational and cultural experiences, especially those related to the learning of foreign languages.
• Many families are not aware of the importance of learning foreign languages for their children to become citizens of the future. In line with them, many of our students are not really used to travelling to other countries as some of them feel that it is not relevant for them.

On the other hand, our school also has some advantages. As the number of students is low, we can put into practice more flexible groups, pay attention to diversity in an easier way and have a closer relationship with families as we all already know each other. In addition to this we have a frequent contact with environment since the students feel it as being part of their lives; some families work in agriculture or surrounded by animals or plants.

Every year, our school works on a project called “Ecoescuela” whose aim is the students can become aware of the importance of taking care of the environment. Quite often they recycle, clean the classes and the schoolyard, bring to schools objects that they reuse later, etc. In addition, we organize reading clubs where the students’ parents read the books that their children have to read for the subject of Spanish or Literature. They are highly motivated to do it as they later can help their children with their homework. There is another reading course focused on writers that wrote about towns and villages in the area where our school is located, la Alcarria. Finally, our school is aimed at fostering healthy life, so we often organize charity runs and healthy breakfasts, among others. At this webpage you can have a look at some of these activities:

http://ies-donjuanmanuel.centros.castillalamancha.es/