The CEIP "Sierra Nevada" of Güéjar Sierra (Granada) is a public school dependent on the Junta de Andalucía formed by 16 professionals of education, and with 160 students distributed throughout two educational stages: the second cycle of Early Childhood Education and Primary Education. Located in a privileged environment within the term of the Natural Park of Sierra Nevada, the town of Güéjar Sierra, at more than 1000 meters altitude and 16 km from its capital, has around 3,000 inhabitants of which a very high percentage do not have studies or only have the school graduate. With a rate of 4.17% of illiteracy, the main economic activity of the inhabitants of the locality focuses on the services sector followed by construction.
For our center, a student from families with scarce cultural capital and with a rate of failure in performance that was increasing as they passed educational level. We also have students from families at risk of social exclusion and a large number of students with special needs. On the other hand, the participation of families and the community in general in the organization and activities of the center, was practically null, showing a center that worked with its back to its context and its people.
Faced with this reality, in September 2012, a new management team accessed the center's management with the clear objective of initiating a process of transformation in the center according to the real needs of the students and the community it serves. From that moment begins a process of research and study by the teaching staff and led by the director of the center, in search of proven successful educational practices that improve the work implemented in the classrooms, professionally develop teachers, and build a new culture organization for the creation of a true community that aims to improve and educational success and the real inclusion of all its members.
Counseled by the Granada Teachers' Center and by our Inspector, we begin with a training process that results in our center being recognized by the Junta de Andalucía as a "Community of Learning" center in June 2016. The implementation of successful educational practices linked to this model is a reality, weekly interactive groups, literary, artistic, musical and sports gatherings in all classrooms. After a long work of diffusion to the community, at present we have a group of 80 volunteers who participate in these named practices and in the different commissions that are celebrated.
At the same time, a methodological transformation has been carried out that has led to working under a project-based learning model, developing competencies under the focus of research and curiosity, always based on student interest.
One of our most important projects is the School Library. Opened in April 2013, our library has become the dynamic axis of the center, developing a plan of systematic actions that is materialized in different activities.
In addition for six courses we have been developing a Performing Arts Project, based on the theater and its integration in the center project, which has led us to develop not only theater with our students but also circus, musical, historical and puppet recreations, always counting on the advice and help of professionals of the sector as it has been the case of the company of puppets “Etcétera” with headquarters in our locality. Since June 2016, we have participated in European Erasmus Plus projects, developing three KA 101 projects to date and our much appreciated "Butterfly: transforming arts into education", in the KA 201 modality.
At the same time, a Recycling Program is developed, making a selective collection of waste generated by the center, including organic waste, which we use to pay for the organic garden that the center has had since the last year.
Another of the important projects developed, and which supports the work carried out in search of inclusion, is the "Coeducation and Emotions Management Program", developed in the hours of tutoring by the specialist teacher in special education, implementing an inclusive model of coexistence that is achieving in an effective way to improve the climate and the coexistence among our students. We are also an ICT center that has digital slate and computers in all its classrooms, integrating the use of technologies and the development of digital competence from this global perspective of education.
What has been described has led us to become a true professional learning community determined to continue with this process of transformation and improvement, with the urgent need to continue searching under a model of high expectations for best practices and teaching patterns to adapt them to our context and our students.
