Introduction

In my first blog entry, I would like to explain a little bit about who I am, and about why am I starting this new adventure of sharing openly my experiences and my thoughts about Education. So, let's start!

My name is Ximo Alfonso, I'm 22 and I live in Silla, a town located in the east coast of Spain. In 2014, it has a population of 18.644 inhabitants according to the data provided by the INE (Spanish Statistical Office). The town is about 14 Km from Valencia, the city where I've studied Teaching during four years at the Faculty of Education of the University of Valencia. From today, February 2, until  May 15, 2015, I'll do the last internships of the degree in a school in my town called CEIP San Roque.

This school is placed in an area apart from the historic center built around the 70's, when a group of people from other parts of Spain like Cuenca or Castilla la Mancha, came to Silla and to other neighboring towns after the Ford Plant in Almussafes opened, providing many jobs. So, although Silla is a town where the Valencian has been the main language, currently, as the most of the students of the school descend from these strangers, the Spanish is their mother tongue. Thus, the school follows the Progressive Incorporation Program (PIP) which has the Spanish as the base language.

During the Pre-school education (from 3 to 5 years), Valencian is introduced orally, so that students start to be in contact with the other official language, which is not familiar to them. This favors an increasingly formal mastery of Valencian, reaching the objectives set in the curriculum with the two official languages. From the 1st grade of Primary School, the PIP introduces the subject of Valencian: Language and Literature, and from 3rd grade, at least the subject of Social and Natural Science, taught in Valencian. So, through an appropriate methodology which provides teaching and learning of curriculum contents through a second language, we not only guarantee the accomplishment of the curriculum contents, but also the linguistic competence in the second language.

The academic offering of the center covers the Pre-school Education for kids from 3 to 5 years, and the six courses of Primary Education, from 6 to 12 years. For each course there is only a group of students of 16-18 children approximately, being a total of 168 students at the school. To serve these students there are a total of 16 teachers, between tutors, and the specialists of Physical Education, Music, English, Therapeutic Pedagogy and Support.

Regarding to the facilities, the school has two buildings. The first one has only a floor with the three classrooms for Pre-school courses, an office, and a bathroom. The main building has three floors. In the first one we can find the reception, the Teachers room, the office of the director and the head teacher, the gym, some classrooms for the Therapeutic Pedagogy lessons, bathrooms and the canteen. On the first floor are the classrooms of first, second, third and fourth grade of Primary School, the library, and other bathrooms. Finally, on the last floor are the classrooms of the fifth and sixth grade, the English classroom, the Computers room, and more bathrooms.

The school also has three schoolyards. One for the little children with swings, slides, a sandpit... Another for the first cycle of Primary School with a tennis, a basketball and a football court, and a big one for the second and the third cycle with a football pitch and two basketball courts. It also has its own canteen service for all the students who want to use it, in which diverse activities are organized during the free time.

So, this blog will be my Internship Report, in which I will share my experiences during my stay at this school, and my reflections about certain topics related to Education arising after being in contact with the school reality.

I also hope to continue this project after finishing my Report, because I think that doing this is an excellent exercise for teachers as it let us reflect about what we think about our job, what we want to accomplish through it, what we want to change or to improve, etc.

A blog can also work as a source of resources that we have created and that have been successful, and that can help other teachers. In the end, Education should be something public and everybody should cooperate to improve it, not considering it as something private or an own merit, because we are working for the benefit of children and of society, not for our own.

So, welcome to this blog, and let's talk about Education! ☺