Professional Documents
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education
Key competences
These competences are the adaptation of the key competences set out in the
European Union Council Recommendation of 22 May 2018.
The key competences and their operational descriptors appear in the student
output profile at the end of the Basic Education stage. The output profile identifies
and defines, in connection with the challenges of the 21st century, the key
competences that students will need to acquire at the end of Basic Education, and
introduces guidelines on the level of performance expected at the end of Primary
Education.
Objectives
The Primary Education curriculum also includes some stage objectives which are
the achievements that students are expected to reach by the end of the stage.
The achievement of these objectives is linked to the acquisition of the key
competences. The objectives in primary education will contribute to the
development of children's capacities as included in article 7 of Royal Decree
157/2022:
a) know and appreciate the values and rules for coexistence, to learn and act
accordingly in an empathetic way, to prepare to actively exercise citizenship and
to respect human rights and the pluralism of a democratic society.
b) develop individual and team work habits, respect and responsibility with
regards to their studies, as well as attitudes of self-confidence, critical sense,
personal initiative, interest and creativity in learning, and entrepreneurial spirit.
c) acquire skills for the peaceful resolution of conflict and the prevention of
violence, which enables them to autonomously get by within the school and
domestic context and within the social groups they interact with.
e) know and appropriately use the Castilian language, and if any, the co-official
language of the corresponding Autonomous Community and to develop reading
habits.
i) develop basic technological competences and initiate in their use for learning,
developing a critical spirit towards their functioning and the messages they
receive and elaborate.
j) use different artistic representations and expressions and start devising visual
and audiovisual proposals.
k) value hygiene and health, accept one's body and others', respect differences
and use physical education, sports and nutrition as means for favouring personal
and social development.
l) know and value the animals that live in close contact to human beings and
adopt behaviours that favour empathy and their care.
m) develop pupils' affective skills in every field of their personality and relations
with others, as well as an attitude against violence, any kind of prejudice and
sexist stereotypes.
Areas
Education in Civic and Ethical Values is added in some of the courses of the third
cycle. In turn, education authorities may add a second foreign language, a co-
official language or a cross-curricular area. As for schools, they can establish
groups of areas within knowledge domains.
Mathematics 18
Natural Sciences 7
Social Studies 7
Second Language 12
Religion/Ethics/Ethical Values 6
They also establish the linguistic models organising the teaching of the official
languages in their regions. They may establish that part of the subjects of the
curriculum might be taught in a foreign language, without altering the basic
aspects of the curriculum. By the end of the stage, students must master the
terminology of the subjects in both languages. However, schools that offer part of
the subjects of the curriculum in a foreign language cannot include language
requirements as admission criteria for students.
The annual average of teaching hours in Primary Education in 2021 was 792
hours (Education at a Glance. OECD Indicators 2021. Spanish report. Image 3.1
[from chart D1.1], p. 103.
Teaching Methods
Within their pedagogic autonomy, schools are in charge of defining the teaching
methods in the classroom, according to the said methodological principles. They
also decide on curricular materials and didactic resources.
Each teacher can make their own methodological decisions, which must respect
both the agreements made at school level and what the relevant educational
authorities establish.
Textbooks and teaching materials do not require the prior authorisation of the
educational authorities for their adoption and publication. In any case, they
must:
1. be adapted to the scientific rigour adequate for the pupils’ age group and to
the approved curriculum set by each Education Authority;
2. reflect and promote respect for the principles, values, freedom, rights and
constitutional duties, as well as the principles and values set out in current
educational laws and in Organic Law 1/2004 on Comprehensive Protection
Measures against Gender Violence, with which all educational activity must
comply.
In the exercise of pedagogical autonomy, it is up to the educational coordination
bodies of each public educational institution to decide on the textbooks and other
materials to be used in the development of the different areas.
Families pay for textbooks and school materials. However, the MEFP
promotes, within the Sectoral Committee for Education, programmes that
facilitate the availability of textbooks at no cost and other curricular materials
through a system of loans or grants. This Sectoral Committee, through the
General Education Commission (support body), agrees on the objective criteria for
distribution, as well as the amounts to be transferred in favour of each
autonomous community in each budget year.
At the same time, there are a number of state, regional and local aids for the
purchase of textbooks and school materials for students attending publicly-
funded schools.
Finally, although various initiatives have been carried out to regulate the
homework that students must do outside school hours, in Spain there is no
specific legislation at a national level regulating this aspect. Consequently, in this
respect the organisation is subject to the judgment of each teacher or the
agreements reached at each school.
These OER are under open license (Creative Commons España), which allows free
access, as well as their use, modification and redistribution by others without any
restriction or with limited restrictions.
Meanwhile, the EDIA Project (Educational, Digital, Innovative and Open) of the
National Centre for Curriculum Development in Non-Proprietary Systems (CEDEC)
promotes and supports the creation of digital and methodological transformation
dynamics in schools to improve student learning and promote new models for
educational institutions.
The OER are created with the eXeLearning, authoring tool, so that any teacher
can access them to use them directly, but also download them and modify them
according to their classroom context. The OER of the EDIA project have generated
networks of teachers who discuss the use of resources and technology in the
classroom. This virtual faculty constitutes a framework for experimentation to
propose new educational content models that develop aspects such as
accessibility and topics such as gender equality or digital citizenship.
In 2022, the MEFP creates the School Code 4.0 Plan to help develop the digital
skills of early childhood, primary and secondary school pupils. It is particularly
focused on computational thinking, programming and robotics and an investment
of 356 million euros is expected over the next two years.
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