IES Modesto Navarro is a public secondary school located in La Mancha region, in the centre of Spain, 200 km to the south of Madrid. Our town is 17000 and apart from La Solana, we receive students from San Carlos del Valle and Alhambra, two nearby villages.
We offer secondary compulsory education (12-16), post-compulsory (16-18) and Basic and Intermediate Vocational Training on Computing and Assistance to People in need of Care (+16). Students can choose Bilingual Compulsory Education in English. Technology, History, Music, Arts and Crafts, Physics and Chemistry are taught in English. Second foreign language is French.
We currently have 586 students, 58 teachers, 3 janitors, a social educator and two clerks in our three buildings. In our town there is another public secondary school. The main economic activity in our area is agriculture related to wine and olive oil. The European dimension is one of the key priorities for our school
community. There is a strong link with other European schools through exchanges and the participation in Comenius and Erasmus+ programmes. We believe this programme is an enormous opportunity for our students and staff. La Mancha has strong connections with other European areas through the trade of wine and olive oil.
Our school has strong cooperative connections with our local, regional and national authorities, companies and schools so many projects and activities are carried out together. For example we are active in the national project “Ciudad Ciencia”. “Ciudad Ciencia” is a scientific dissemination project of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) whose aim is to provide the inhabitants of towns far from large urban centres with first-hand knowledge of current scientific and technological developments. We think the topic and the issues related to this project are top priorities for the didactic departments in our school. We believe all areas have activities to join in and their motivation and involvement is going to be high.
Our school participated in the Comenius environmental project “Our global future – we care” Through this project we laid the foundation for environmental activities we carry out every school year. For example we have a school allotment in which different aspects of the curriculum are tackled by an important number of groups through different subjects. This year we have joined a regional project to improve our recycling of small home appliances and digital devices. We believe this project will refresh our school community involvement with environment and daily activities and routines that can be acquired by families, teachers and students at school. We also consider that our partners can benefit from the environmental experiences we have been developing from our Comenius participation. At the moment we have a permanent Erasmus+ Team.