Erasmus+ course on the Spanish education system

What makes the Spanish system distinctive

• Real devolution. The state sets minimum requirements; each autonomous region develops the curriculum, manages its own teaching workforce and sets its calendar. Seeing seventeen versions of one law coexist is a lesson in comparative education policy.
• A competence-based curriculum. The current reform organises teaching around key competences, learning situations and assessment criteria, and has forced schools to rethink planning from the ground up. We look at what has worked and what has jarred.
• Bilingual education at scale. Spain’s bilingual programmes, and the Andalusian one in particular, are among the largest in Europe by number of schools. We analyse the CLIL model, the role of the language assistant and the practical coordination problems.
• Dual vocational training. One of the fastest transformations in the system over the past decade, with clear lessons about the relationship between schools and employers.
• Inclusion. A model based largely on the mainstream classroom with support, different from the approach taken in several central and northern European countries.

What you take away

Not an institutional presentation, but comparative material: how a competence-based learning situation is documented, how a subject teacher and a language teacher coordinate in a bilingual school, which assessment instruments are in use and which were abandoned as unworkable.

The course is designed so that each participant leaves with two or three concrete practices they can try in their own school the following term — not with a notebook.

Who it is for

Teachers at any stage, school leadership teams, Erasmus+ coordinators and staff working in inspection or teacher training. It is particularly useful for schools reviewing their own assessment model or preparing to launch a bilingual programme.

You do not need to speak Spanish: there are editions delivered entirely in English.

Funding and location

Funded from your school KA1 grant — up to €80 per participant per day, capped at €800 per activity, plus travel and subsistence — through KA121 if your school is accredited or KA122 if it is not. Full detail in Erasmus+ courses in Spain.

Editions run in Jerez de la Frontera, province of Cádiz, in Andalusia — the region with the largest network of state schools in the country, which gives immediate context to much of what is discussed.