Primary Education

One of our goals as an educational centre is to give coherence to our educational practice from an environmental point of view. Throughout all the stages, but especially in the Primary Ed. stage, our goal is the correct implementation of environmental education in the curriculum, as well as the carrying out of different activities that promote the awareness of the whole community.

To carry out this project, our centre participates in the SUSTAINABLE SCHOOLS PROGRAM by the CAM (Autonomous Community of Madrid), specifically the project ‘ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION ON WASTE AND RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION.’

Our environmental project focuses on three aspects: RECYCLING, WASTE, AND CONSUMPTION, through the following activities.

• Reuse of paper before throwing it away.
• Waste sorting: paper, plastics and cardboards and the rest of waste, each one being thrown into its own container or waste bin.
• Team of environmental agents to monitor and remind colleagues that no waste is thrown out of bins and containers (Early, Primary and Secondary Education).
• Teams of students who check the playground after recess and collect waste that remain in the area.
• Team of students that supervise the actions of the environmental project and are involved in creating new objectives.
• Environmental education team in charge of designing posters and campaigns to motivate and remind students, teachers and school staff about the actions of the environmental project.
• With the intention of making students aware of the benefit that their work brings to the environment, we keep a waste register (number of bags approximately (or weight) collected per day, per week, per month…). The positive impact that the initiative has on the environment is analysed with this data through the creation of graphs, diagrams, etc., which are developed in the different subjects (iPad, mathematics, natural science, etc.).

More information EverGreen Humanitas

The purpose of Mathematics in Primary Education is to provide students with the tools that let them build their logical-mathematical reasoning, and not only the teaching of symbolic-mathematical language.

Mathematical learning is achieved when students elaborate mathematical abstractions from obtaining information, observing properties, establishing relationships, and solving specific problems. To this end, it is necessary to bring everyday situations into the classroom that pose attractive mathematical challenges as well as the routine use of a variety of resources and teaching materials to be handled by the students. Only after students have understood the concept is it appropriate to introduce them to the symbol that represents it and to begin to practice in order to achieve mastery of the mechanisms that govern its symbolic representation. In no case will a concept, property, or mathematical relation be considered to be known and mastered by the fact that the student has managed to present the mechanical mastery of its symbolism.

Its logical rigour and its methods applied to the different phenomena and aspects of reality must go hand in hand with observation and experimentation to enhance learning. The development of observation, intuition, creativity, and logical reasoning, together with the student’s action, are basic principles on which mathematical practice is built. The teaching of Mathematics has to bet on meta-cognitive actions for learning. To this end, it is important:

• To base education on experience, discovery, and the construction of concepts, procedures, and strategies, rather than on instruction. To base education on counterexample strategies, avoiding «passed» or «failed» as a substitute for evidence.
• To address the handling of materials with activities that optimise understanding, encourage, challenge, and motivate the student to renew their needs. Simplicity, clarity and precision in the language used in the presentation of the activities or enunciation of the concepts.
• To respect the student as they experience the act of thinking. To enhance self-esteem, confidence, security, etc.
• To make it a habit for the student to explain; base their conclusions on logical arguments, avoiding the «just because» concept. To familiarise them with the rules of logic to enable the development and improvement of the thinking process. This familiarization should not be lousy and difficult for the student, but quite the opposite: a way of playing to create relationships, contrasting the answers before choosing one of them.

Throughout the Primary Ed. we develop a project that significantly encompasses Linguistic Communication as the focus of learning processes’ improvement (oral and written communication).

Communicating becomes an ability ‘to establish constructive links and relationships with others and with the environment, and to approach new cultures’. Likewise, the development of communicative ability ‘allows them to express thoughts, emotions, experiences and opinions, as well as to dialogue, to form critical and ethical opinions, to generate ideas, to structure knowledge, to give coherence and cohesion of discourse and one’s actions and tasks, to adopt decisions, and enjoy listening, reading or expressing oneself in an oral and written way, all of which also contribute to the development of self-esteem and self-confidence’.

Writing is certainly a cognitive process but it is also a social one. In spite of the important existing aspect of the communicative function, it is a fact that our students speak less and less outside the classroom. Games are no longer group games, adults have little time for dialogue, and new technologies have burst into everyone’s life. This is one of the reasons why it is increasingly difficult for our students to become competent communicators, meaning that they are able to express themselves correctly in a written and oral way.

There is no doubt, therefore, that working with language in general and with expression in particular, beyond the mere elements of language, is fundamental to achieving an adequate integration of the contents and promoting an adequate socio-cultural integration of students.

Based on the above, we intend to approach written expression in the classroom through an Expression Workshop that encourages students to produce texts as a communication tool, that contributes to socialization and regulation and that, as a cognitive tool, promotes the integration of knowledge.

The first goal of our Expression Workshop is that students feel free to write and comfortable to share their productions. Because we understand there is an important personal growth in the group by sharing personal productions and there is a learning process by listening and reading to the others.

We will start from the functional approach at all times because, as we have said, this must be meaningful for the students. Students will have a reason to write, they will have the need to write about our proposals which we will try to make innovative and motivating for them, and to consider the communicative function of language teaching.

The main goal of our Project is that students learn to communicate in English and develop their linguistic competence in both English and Spanish, as well as acquire knowledge through different areas of the curriculum, assimilating the target language while learning content related to other areas.

When students perceive that what they are learning is useful and functional, they begin to participate actively in activities, establishing connections with previous learning processes and promoting the development of self-directed learning.

The activities proposed for the Primary Ed. stage are aimed at the acquisition of linguistic competence and the development of reading comprehension, oral and written expression and oral comprehension skills. Activities that are developed in a relaxed environment, in which each student can take his or her own learning pace and on the other hand, he/she can develop the learning to learn skills and the autonomy and personal initiative so important in our society.

DRAMA: It is the perfect setting to create a relaxed atmosphere for learning the English language. Playing characters and role-playing help us to put aside our shyness and face the English language from a playful perspective. We will help students with these sessions not only to develop confidence, but also to improve their pronunciation and intonation, and to acquire new vocabulary and structures in contexts, so students will improve their fluency and correctness. We also work on reading comprehension and written expression.

STORYTELLING/READING: Within our Plan for the Promotion of Reading and the Development of Reading Comprehension, we understand that reading is a key activity because it is a learning tool for new knowledge. Our goal is that teachers promote reading from all areas, with the purpose of developing skills that allow students to be able to understand its benefits: reading to get information, to learn, to communicate, to have fun, to live other realities…

For this reason, our centre promotes this task, going into detail about reading techniques such as: skimming (quick reading to get a global idea of the text), scanning (quick reading in search of specific information), and intensive and extensive reading.

HELPING OUT: Each student has different learning paces. Not everyone learns in the same way, some of them have developed more spatial intelligence, others linguistics, others musical intelligence, others kinaesthetic learning, mathematics….. It is important that each student know how to learn in order to get the most out of the classes. It is equally important that all students respect each other’s work pace and become involved in each other’s learning. The child who does best will help the child who is having difficulties, but he or she will be developing his or her own language skills, as explaining something to others depends on highlighting the relevant aspects of what is about to be learned and doing so in a clear and simple way. We will work in heterogeneous groups on the most complex aspects of the English course. Teachers will be able to help students in a more individual way. They will help those students with difficulties and also they will propose new challenges to those advanced students.

SCIENCE WORKSHOP: This workshop is about working with students in experiments and group work where they can put the scientific method into practice while reviewing the subjects’ contents. These sessions are highly valued by the teaching staff and students because they work on the contents of the subjects in a friendlier atmosphere, allowing special attention to those students who have doubts.

The organic school garden project is a living space that allows the creation of learning situations that connect with the interests of students of different ages. The values of healthy eating and sustainable cultivation practices acquire all their meaning from the action itself. The activities are based on the manipulation, observation and research of Early Education students.

• Improvement of coexistence and the social climate in schools ACBNEXT Programme: Programme for education in values based on basketball and framed in the Agreement signed by the Professional Association of Basketball Clubs (ACB – Asociación Clubes Baloncesto) and the Ministry of Education and Sports of the Community of Madrid.
• Improvement of Social Skills Programme: Torrejón City Council organizes this programme for fifth and sixth grade primary school students.
• Master Plan for the Coexistence and Improvement of Safety in Education Centres. Through this Master Plan, the Spanish National Police organizes talks for Primary Education students on: Bullying and Cyberbullying.
• Ciberexpert@ Project: The Spanish National Police, with the support of Telefónica and the collaboration of the Fundación Cibervoluntarios, is organizing this Project that aims to train children in the safe internet use. Aimed at students in sixth grade of primary education.
• Awareness-raising project on equality and prevention of gender violence. Organized by the Community of Madrid.

Project aimed at primary education students, diagnosed by Educational Guidance and Psyco-Pedagogical Teams as gifted students.

This project aims to provide sixth grade students with knowledge about first aid and tactics to survive in the natural environment. The sessions are part of the Physical Education classes. In these classes, students experience situations in which they are given several steps to be followed.