Colegio Publico Ocejón Primary school Guadalajara, Spain

Website: www.ceip-ocejon.centros.castillalamancha.es

Coordinator: Soledad Moreno

School: Primary school Colegio Publico Ocejón, Spain

Colegio Publico Ocejon is located in the city centre of Guadalajara. It has an extensive experience in bilingualism The bilingual project is unique in the city and surrounding towns as it develops the British curriculum. The British curriculum is developed in the school as a result of the agreement between MEC and the British Council. Thanks to this bilingual project the school has gained a great prestige and nowadays it is one of the most applied schools in our city. 31 teachers educate 470 students between the ages of 3 and 11 years old. The students are in two different buildings.

The students aged 3 and 4 are in the small building, 5 years old students and the whole stage of Primary Education are in the big one. These two buildings are very old and they need to be refurnished but, as a result of the economic crisis, these reforms have not been carried out yet. The social and economic status of our students varies, there are  working-class- family students from the neighborhood, who are struggling right now due to the recession and the lack of jobs. There are also middle-class students that come from other neighborhoods attracted by the bilingual program. These families tend to care a lot about the education of their children and are deeply involved in the performance of the school, actively participating in all organized activities. The school teachers have great experience in the bilingual project, they are very active and they are always willing to take part in the diverse projects and activities that are offered by different institutions. In recent years they have received a good number of immigrants from different nationalities. They are well integrated into the school. There are students with special educative needs in most of the classes, these students are well accepted by their classmates, the teachers are doing their best to satisfy their necessities. They want to improve their teaching practice to follow a more inclusive methodology. The school is worried by the environmental problems, the planet is having. They are motivated to create ecological awareness in the pupils because they will be the future generation who will be the responsible of protecting the world. Thanks to this European project the teachers are sure they can implement and get these important objectives because it will give more prestige to the importance they are giving to this topic.