IDEAL SCHOOL GUIDE

CONTEXT:

We want to create a center prepared for the new model of education established in the 21st century which implies a transformation in the methodologies and training of teachers in relation to the new proposals of materials for the classroom, therefore, we will combat violence in our society. Violence is present in our society and we want to bet on the struggle that eradicates it or at least fight against it. It is necessary to raise awareness among students through the use of games and other kinds of activities such as group dynamics to sensitize students while being trained in values. The superior courses will be in charge of giving support or explanation to the children to help them with their own experience. We will encourage non-violence and tolerance of differences, since we are all different and in our own way, but we are in the same school. The topics of violence will be discussed in daily assemblies with teachers and each end of the quarter will be held covenants involving the whole school in which the higher courses will be mixed with the inferior and help and support the dynamics.

"Ten percent of fifth and sixth grade students suffer psychological abuse" (Gutiérrez J. M.). In these generations, bullying can begin with isolation, insults or intimidating messages through the new technologies that surround children today. In order to prevent such events and prevent them from passing through physical abuse in our educational center we will encourage the inclusion of the use of applications that can improve the coexistence of the educational community. We will use the Bullying Semaphore application (created by Fundación en Movimiento) with the aim of conducting a questionnaire to find out if a child is being bullied and to remedy this situation. From our education center we want to avoid that in the higher courses they begin to give this type of violent actions and to prevent them from earlier ages for that reason our center has as main objective the creation of a community in which the parents, Teachers and students are equally involved in school life. This, together with the promotion of self-esteem and teamwork by students and teachers, would reduce it considerably. As another measure to take, we will form at the beginning of the course, a group of student assistants to observe and control potential conflicts and inform teachers to treat them among the students themselves.

The dynamics that we will use for the work of emotions and values, will bring together students from different courses to help each other in reading and understanding using for example the collection of stories "I am value / I am emotion" by the author Begoña Ibarrola, a psychologist and expert in Multiple intelligences and emotions. In the case of the smaller ones, the material that we will use is called Emotiblocks that will help them to treat and to know their first emotions through manipulation and observation. They will carry out these activities in the corresponding assemblies with their teachers.

LEARNING MODELS:

We are committed to an inclusive model in which we will form an educational community with our motto "Somos Unión". All its members (students, teachers, parents and non-teaching educators share, integrate and enrich from the complementarity ofthe same education project). Participation will guide the achievement of educational objectives. The contribution of each member promotes personal growth and common enrichment. We want to avoid that our learning is based on content out of context so our children will acquire the necessary skills that will help them for their day-to-day and future. Knowledge is about actively engaging in the world  so our children are agents of change. We will promote teamwork with the aim of creating our own community so that they learn to coexist with the members of the community as they live in society. Wenger L., 1991)  "Learning is one aspect of changes in participation in different communities of practice wherever people engage for periods of time doing things in which their ongoing activities are interdependent, learning is part of their changing involvement in practices Changing ") Communities of practice are everywhere: families, companies ... that is why our students will create their first community of practice in which they will collaborate in such a way that they feel part of it (Wenger E., 2014) Returning to our inclusive education, we will work for projects in cooperative groups in each subject in which each student will have strengths and weaknesses to contribute to the team, in this way we achieve a great complementation. The tutors  will decide role each child should manage and throughout the courses they will discover autonomously, which is the role with which he feels more identified and is more closely linked to his personality.

               

Work well in small groups, improve peer relationships, and integration  in the classroom. The members of the group will rotate to help and get to know each other. Regarding the evaluation method implemented for these projects, it will be a self-assessment, a co-evaluation and an evaluation by the teacher. We trust that the teaching method must vary, so we are committed to the motto of "learning by doing" that we will see reflected by activities such as outdoor classes on the mountain or field closest to the school. In a natural space our mind becomes more creative and thanks to nature, we learn to discern between the superfluous and the necessary. The nature and environment, power our intuition and space capacity, since looking for visual points of reference, we will know more. Finally, to emphasize that nature educates us in patience and effort as we will use the books "Monterapia" and "Slow Mountain" (Garbizu, Mountain of life, 2017). We also support solidarity and therefore we propose projects such as the ecological orchard. It final objective will be to donate crops to associations that need it. There are three fundamental pillars in which we will focus to carry out the project and they are the sensitization, donation and diffusion. We will closely follow Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences in our school. The theory reformulates the concept of intellectual capacity since this is multiple and not only exist the mathematical or linguistic ability measured in the intelligence tests. There is also physical, emotional, interpersonal, visual-spatial, naturalistic or musical ability. These skills are also part of the intelligence. According to Gardner, all people possess them to a greater or lesser degree. Recognizing these intelligences and working on them serves to give more opportunities to the students and thus develop their talent  and to grow in an integral way. Our center wants to eradicate the classic vision of intelligence in talented people in areas of logic and language, and to emphasize the new intelligences that allow students to become global people capable of facing new challenges and proposing alternatives. It is an active pedagogy with great student participation and the improvement plans for each student also help it (Gutiérrez M., 2013).

In relation to multiple intelligences, we will develop a method of teaching that is based on surprise. Avoiding  routine is so important.  The surprise causes an improvement in learning that improves the ability to remember. The memory can be worked mainly by breaking the routine or even by music, as it helps us to wake up and activate multiple regions of the brain (Ballarini, 2017)

METHODOLOGY AND PROJECTS:

Our inclusive school will use cooperative learning in the classroom as a main methodology with the aim of students learning how to work together among all of them. For getting this, we will use a layout of the classroom so that the tables will be joined four by four in the form of a square for a better communication among the four members that will form the groups. Students should observed at all times  the teacher from their tables. The groups will be chosen by the teacher in a heterogeneous way and this will be who chooses the roles of students. In higher courses, students will be able to identify which role is most appropriate for their group skills and effectiveness. Each subject will work with projects, which will be evaluated from three perspectives: that of the teacher, that of the students towards the other groups (co-evaluation) and that of the student (self-assessment) that will encourage critical reflection about their work. This way the teacher is not the only one who teaches, we all learn from everyone. In addition to the projects, there will be written tests to evaluate the knowledge of the content individually. We believe each student is different and each of them will have a different way of learning using a constructivist model in which the teacher will be responsible for delivering the necessary tools to the student and will be the same actively to build their own procedures to solve Problems or find solutions. Through the laboratories they will obtain new information and will be able to investigate and discover for themselves in subjects such as Technology or  Natural Sciences ... They will be able to interact with the environment thanks to the projects that we will explain that are in the educational offer of the centre.

We want to establish a series of projects in which cooperation will be very present, and for which an active participation by all members of the community will be essential. As Piaget said "When you teach a child something, you take away forever the opportunity to discover it for their self." piaget

In our school we will promote creative writing and theatre that are in harmony with musical creation, audio-visual or kitchen and orchard projects.

In the first place, we have made the proposal and creation of an ecological orchard in which the students will participate once a week. It will be three spaces with different crops that will rotate of responsible group as the quarters change. The groups will be pre-school, odd  courses (first, third and fifth of primary) and pairs  courses (second, fourth and sixth of primary). The operation is about cultivating vegetables that we will later donate to associations. That needs to raise awareness of the importance of solidarity. In the daily assembly time, one day a week will be dedicated to the garden; Mondays for pre-school, Wednesdays for the pairs  and  Fridays for the odds.

Secondly, we propose the option of cooking in which we will use the products that can be provided by the orchard and which will not be donated. This second project, called "Science Chunks", students will learn aspects of cooking in our dining kitchen facilities. While half of the cooking class, others will investigate the historical and geographical origin of food used (Social Science) or nutritional properties (Natural Science) adapted to the level of each class. When finished the students themselves will be in charge of collecting and cleaning all the utensils used during the kitchen. The cooked food will be used for special festivities at the school (Trimester End )This project will be directed to fifth and sixth grade of  primary.

Thirdly, we give great importance to the art and the integral development of all the students' capacities so that we will work with the raw material: their emotions. We believe that art is the means par excellence for an individual to be able to construct their opinions to achieve a critical spirit.

Fourthly, in order to foster a direct relationship between students of different ages, we have included the project of "reading sponsors" that will consist of the formation of pairs of a student of a high school course with students from lower courses, that is, among others. The division of courses will be like third and fourth superiors who will be in charge of helping five years, first and second of primary. The assembly will be very important so we will make 25 minutes of daily teacher-student assembly except the days in which this activity is performed in the indicated courses.

Fifth and lastly, we will have an extensive bilingual project to promote knowledge of a second language, which will be English. She will be taught in subjects such as Natural Science, Social Science, English, Arts and Crafts. We will count with the help of native assistants to help students with their pronunciation or knowledge of the English-speaking culture.

VALUES AND CRITERIA OF OUR EDUCATIONAL PROJECT:

It is imperative that children discover questions for themselves that help them reflect and understand who they are and what their goals are. We want them to learn to answer questions such as: What footprint do I want to leave? What do I want to dedicate my talent to? Or what does the world expect of me?

Our main value is that each of our students, be educated in happiness and all our methodologies and dynamics, revolve around the students who will have voice and vote in the decisions that must be taken.

We will attach great importance to the tolerance and respect that are found in direct relation to our inclusive centre. Tolerance will work through group dynamics that will favor the acceptance and integration of all children.

TYPES OF LEADERSHIP AND DECISION-MAKING PROCESS:

Good leadership helps us and facilitates the prevailing culture in our centre, which we seek from the first moment. We must be participants in a type of leadership where we can find some awareness about the reality and the needs that the school will need (González & Quesada) We are looking for a leadership that is democratic in such a way to promote collaboration and importance Of sharing decision-making.  We are not looking for a model in which teachers are clearly superior to students. At the same time as democracy we want to try to implement a style of leadership based on "laissez faire" that will consist in giving the students enough confidence to have their own initiative without having to be the teacher directing them in the case of some Group work.

Regarding the decision making, we seek that students are fully involved in their learning and teaching so through the almost daily assemblies they will have and through the possibility of tutoring with teachers we want them to be able to make certain decisions that really influence them in the first instance. We seek that our students feel part of the community to which they will belong and can contribute  with their opinions and proposals for improvement that will cause an evolution in the system and will encourage greater participation.

FAMILY PARTICIPATION:

Our centre is committed to the creation of a community not only made up of teachers and students, parents will play a fundamental role. We believe that active participation  of our students’ parents in the school increases the improvement of the students' performance and we see that it is necessary for the family to be informed and involved in the school as a fundamental part of the life of their children. The tutors will meet with the parents quarterly and individually to inform the students' process, as well as being in contact with the digital platform. Parents as teachers will have access to this platform to communicate with each other and learn about activities, contents, notes etc. In this way we want parents to know at all times the projects we carry out in the centre and are given the opportunity to help in all of them and to participate in other projects specially designed for collaboration with their children inside the school: Workshops of reading, dramatization or handworks. In short, we want to promote the co-responsibility of the education of children shared between the role of teachers and families, to help and advice and above all to bring innovations by both parties to the educational program.

ICT:

We have designed a centre that is prepared to train our students for today's society. Our school will have digital whiteboards in the classrooms for the use of programs and multimedia supports of the contents of the curriculum. Our school will have tablets for students to use when required. In this way we approach to their way of knowing the world of technologies and increases their motivation. The curricular content will be work with different applications that will involve the enrichment in digital literacy as well as learning the content of the subjects. In addition to using technologies with students, the way we will use for communication with parents day by day will be through digital platforms.

PHISICAL SCHOOL:

The building of our school will have a rather unusual shape. The main building has the shape of the letter U of "Union". The letter U refers to our motto "We are union" in relation to the learning community that we want to train among teachers, students and parents. This building will have three floors in the first are located direction and head of studies, bathrooms for teachers, teachers’ meeting room, nursing, library, dining room and respective kitchen, psychomotricity room for pre-school students and students' bathrooms. In the upper floor are the even courses (second, fourth and sixth) in one tower that form the building and in the other the odd courses (first, third and fifth). There will be corridors connecting the two towers. On the top floor are placed the labs and the auditorium.

The pre-school area is made up of buildings. Each one of them is for an age (3 years, 4 years and 5 years) we have used the thematic of the three little pigs’ houses (straw, wood and brick respectively) as a symbol of growth and learning of the child until they start the primary education. Behind the pre-school houses is its playground.

At the front we can find the ecological garden and at the back basketball and soccer courts along with the sports-centre and the playground of the primary students.