ABOUT SALESIANOS SAN JOSÉ SCHOOL

The school Salesianos San José, located in the neighbourhood of Pizarrales in Salamanca, is a State-subsidized school in Salamanca (65 teacher and 874 students), Primary and Secondary studies are taught as well Vocational Studies.

  Being Pizarrales a socioeconomic disadvantaged area; we would like to educate our students so that they achieve a better future and once they leave our school, they are well valued thanks to the appropriate education they have received.

 
CONTEXT
We are a school struggling to motivate, encourage and walk with our students, who sometimes have a lot of difficulties. For this reason, we have looked for alternatives for a more personalized education, focused on innovation using new methodologies, taking advantage of the possibilities offered by new technologies.  
Training in English language is also important for us and we are aware of the necessity among our students of having a good competence in this language, we have been a bilingual center for seven years at Primary level and we have just started the bilingual system in Secondary as well. Therefore, we are looking for new appropriate tools which help us to get the best of each student. 
Our teachers have been training for four years regarding innovative education to advance with the current moment and necessities of our students – cooperative work, projects, etc. – Moreover, we have introduced the use of IT and digital devices which are helping to change not only the teaching methods but also the learning ones. 
Our students are changing, and we have more and more students with completely different necessities living together in our classrooms – children with special needs, social exclusion, immigrants… - Consequently, our School Managerial Team aims to qualify the teachers in different aspects to face the whole range of necessities coming to our school. 
We are willing to innovate and learn more about new methodologies in order to motivate our students to get better academic results, to reduce absenteeism, create a more comfortable atmosphere in the classroom and boost the continuity of our students in post-obligatory studies.

OBJECTIVES: 
1. Provide the teachers with new methodological tools to be able to teach in a simple and entertaining way, engaging the students and making them participants of their own learning, adapting our methodological proposal to our students’ social and cultural characteristics. 
2. Foster the English language area as the best way to develop communication and interaction skills as well as to achieve a better understanding, value and respect for other cultures. 
3. Value and learn new teaching methods to work with special needs students. 
4. Get the most of the Tablet as an educational tool in the classroom
5. Meet and keep in touch with teachers from other countries for future associations, cooperative projects, internship periods…

TEACHERS PROFILE
The school counselor in pre-school and primary levels together with a special needs teacher will complete methodological courses in UK, they will also visit schools where they are able to learn innovative methodologies to work with special needs students. 
We aim to qualify the teachers in new methodologies, new working styles which motivate and help our students to get better results. For that reason, the Director of Studies and 5 teachers from different levels – pre-school, primary and secondary- will get training in different innovative methodologies according to their teaching profile: PBL, ramification, CLIL, flipped classroom, social networks, IT, digital device in the classroom, multimedia resources, etc in  Ireland, Austria, UK and Greece. 
The headmaster – English teacher at secondary level- and two primary teachers will complete methodological courses on “teaching English language”, in UK and Malta. 
 At the same time, we consider very appropriate to do some organized visits to schools in other countries such as Sweden and Iceland where the teaching method is very different to ours.
With this project, the management team has tried to motivate teachers to complete this training so that they learn and improve with everything Europe can teach us as well as to share it with the students and other colleagues working in our school. 

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