IES La Madraza in GRANADA - Spain
This site is the responsibility of the Spanish team.
IES La Madraza, more than twenty five years old now,
is a medium size secondary school in the outskirts of Granada.
Painting by Diana Prados, 2017. Created to commemorate IES La madraza 25th anniversary.
IES La Madraza, more than twenty five years old
now, was born as an extension of a bigger secondary school in Granada. Very
soon it became an independent public institution and, in 1992, the School
Council chose 'La Madraza' as the
official name; making a reference to that period of our local history when a
"Medersa" (مَدْرَسَة,
'School' in Arabic), founded in 1340, was a kind of University in Nasri
Granada. You can still visit this ancient Madraza, which later became the first
Christian Town Hall and now belongs to the University of Granada.
Nowadays, it's a medium size secondary school, with about 300 students from 12 to 16 in the ESO levels (Compulsory Secondary Education), 180 students from 17 to 18 in the non-compulsory secondary levels ("Bachillerato", in both the Sciences and Humanities modalities) and about 80 in a vocational training scheme for Pharmacy assistants. Last, but not least, our school is hosting since 2012 a special classroom attended by half a dozen students with autism spectrum disorders.
The school is located in the outskirts of
Granada, in a neighbourhood that has grown fast in the last years, but still
many of the pupils come from the village of Maracena, quite close to the
provincial capital. The socioeconomic and cultural background of the students
is quite diverse, but the pattern is middle and working class families and
including some students from immigrant families (mainly Latin Americans, Moroccans,
Chinese and Eastern Europeans).
Our School's Project aims to:
• Improve the educational performance of the students and contribute to their success in School.
• Improve our centre's performance and increase its autonomy.
• Sustain and improve levels of parental satisfaction.
• Promote innovation, training and cooperation between teachers.
To ensure the achievement of these objectives, IES "La Madraza" is involved in numerous educational activities and projects.
DEALING WITH DIVERSITY
IES La Madraza counts a not big but significant number of pupils having special difficulties to reach successfully the ESO degree. On the other hand, we also have groups of very motivated students whose goal is University or other options of higher studies, a goal that most of them achieve successfully. Many of our initiatives in order to achieve a quality schooling are related to fulfill the needs of both the students with difficulties and those with a higher performance.
BILINGUISM
Since 2009, we are a Bilingual School (Spanish-English) and, recently, we have completed the implementation of this project in all ESO groups. Bilingual learning is also implemented in all groups during the first A level year and partially in our training Pharmacy scheme.
INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS
Since 2010 we have participated in three Comenius School Partnerships, in which we have collaborated with a total of twelve Schools pertaining to ten countries of the European Union. After finishing these four school years, roughly seventy students and fifteen teachers will have participated in mobilities within this frame. Our international profile is completed by different exchange and travel programs.
In order to improve teacher's professional competences, we started in 2015 to include in our staff training plans projects within the Erasmus+ KA1 frame aimed to take advantage of European resources related with School organization, CLIL methodology, teaching creativity and other topics.
ECO-SCHOOL
Environmental education is present in many subjects and complementary activities. We are especially proud about our Botanical Garden & Wildlife Pond, where much of Andalusia's native flora comes together. It is, above all, a great way for the students to be exposed to nature and learn through observation and investigation.
According
to this environmental concern, IES "La Madraza" joined in 2014 the
international Eco-School net. This programme expects to continually improve
environmental schooling and the formation of sensitive people who are
responsible for their surroundings. The betterment of the environment is lead
by the environmental committee which represents all of the sectors of the
educative community. Every school year we carry out an assessment of our centre
with respect to physical/human environment, materials/wastes, energy and water.
You can learn more about IES La Madraza reading this brochure with Spanish & English text
If you feel like visiting us, here we are!