Spanish School system - Working Page

 

DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL YEAR

In our high school, we are a lot of pupils, so teachers divided us at the first day of school that is the reason why we are a lot of classes. We don’t have a fix class in which teachers come and we don’t move. We have lots of classes in which teachers impart the same subjects but usually we only use one class each year. Teachers and students don’t have only classes; once a year we go to the cinema, we also go to museums, and each year we make an exchange with some country and we have a great time, we become friends and sometimes we meet in summer. This year we had gone to Milan and in May, they will come here, to Spain. We stay in homes of pupils of our ages and we also go to their classes and then, we go to visit the city. One day of the week, we stay with the family and we have a really good time. It’s a great opportunity that our high school gives to us, and we are very grateful.

SCHOLAR YEARS

In our country, the scholar system is divided; when we are little, we go to primary school, where we learn basic things and we get prepared to go to the high school. We spend four years in the high school, and then we have two more optative years to study harder before the university. We are in the fourth year of high school, which some people say it is the easiest, but that obviously depends on the person.

In our case, after spending six hours of class in the mornings, we have to continue and finish our work at home. Spain is one of the countries with more homework, so we have less time to study and spend time with our families and friends. In our everyday classes, almost every teacher give us some homework to do, and that make us hate even more the high school. Sometimes we get overwhelmed because of the quantity of homework we have to do, and we hope that this will change.

TIMETABLES

Although every Spanish school does not have the same scholar system, most of them are very similar.

Timetables in Spain are very different from timetables in other countries;

We usually get up relatively late, between 7:30 and 8:00, depending on how far is the high school from our houses. People who live in the outskirts have school buses, and they have to get up earlier, while people who live near the high school, do not.

Classes start at 8:15 or 8:30 normally, depending on the high school, and they last around 50 minutes or an hour. In some schools, breaks are divided into two, which last around 15 minutes each, and in some others there is just one of 30 minutes. In our school, we have time to rest in between the classes of 5 minutes. In that time, we change to the next class, go to the bathroom, have a snack, go to the bar (some schools have bars where students and teachers can have something to eat or drink during the breaks and rests), talk with the people, etc.

We every day have 6 classes which last the same amount of time. We leave our school at 14:20, and the rest of schools more or less at the same time. As our school has a bilingual section and we have some subjects in English, we have a seventh period one or more days of the week. Those days we leave school at 15:15. We always eat at home. There, we study and do our homework.

Not many schools have classes in the evenings, just extra lessons for the ones who need help in some subjects, such as in English and Mathematics. We also practice different types of sports in the evenings, such as basketball, football, voleyball, etc

We go on holidays at Christmas for two weeks, at summer for 3 months, and at Easter for about 10 days. We do not have half-terms like other countries do, and the rest of the year we have class except the days which are bank holidays.

4ª ESO OPTATIVES

In 4ºESO we have special optional courses because it’s an important year and the last one in the ESO.

First we have to choose between two big branches: Sciences in which we have compulsory biology and chemistry with physics and the other option, Letters, in which economy and latin are the compulsory ones.

We also can choose between two types of mathematics: applied ones and academic. Applied mathematics are like the easier ones in which, in the future you have less opportunities in university studies and the other ones are the difficult ones and with them you will be able to study more open subjects.

However, these are not the only options that we have. We can also choose between music, technology and scientific culture.

Another interesting thing is the second language: the French, it isn’t compulsory, if you don’t study it, you can replace it with a philosophical workshop or programming, we have twice a week French or the other options.

If we aren’t religious or we don’t like studying it, we can also choose ethic values in which we learn very interesting aspects about humans.

These are our 4ª ESO specific options.