IES Complutense

I work at a secondary school called IES Complutense. It is a bilingual school. Right now, only the 1st and 2nd years (1° ESO and 2° ESO). They are the 12 and 13 year-olds. Each grade is divided into several classes, lettered A-F. 1°A, 1°B, 2°A, and 2°B are all in the bilingual section, which means that they take all of their classes, except math and Spanish, in English. Every group takes English, and all classes take some classes in English. For the non-section classes, they take art and/or PE in English (since you can understand what to do in the class even if you don't understand the language).

One major difference between schools here and the US is that the students stay in the same room with the same students all day. The teachers move classrooms. Also, the kids don't have the same schedule every day. For example, the students only have science class three times per week, but it isn't on a MWF schedule. Some kids have it Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Others Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. The director of studies has the job of arranging the teachers schedules so that the students get a full schedule and the teachers also get time to prepare for class. It is a hard job, and it is also very complicated. School has been in for 2.5 weeks and the kinks are still getting worked out.

José-Luis is the bilingual coordinator, and he has the job of arranging the schedules of the three American teachers: me, Joey, and Steve. He has to arrange our schedules so that we are with our subject area teacher as much as we can be and still leave time for us to go help with the other subjects that are taught in English. This year, the scheduling is complicated by the fact that the government fired about 3,000 teachers in the Madrid area just before school started. They also added two more classes to the teacher's schedules and reduced teachers pay by about 5%. The biggest problem with this is that the government did not explain why they were going to do this or even warn teachers that this could be happening. They just made the cuts. So the teachers are on strike sometimes during the middle of the week. This doesn't mean the school is closed, because that is illegal. It just means that several of the teachers don't come to school and the students are combined into larger groups for other teachers to supervise, and the students don't learn any of the required material.

I finally started work last Wednesday. I work mostly with the natural sciences teacher, Irene. I teach once per week in each class (this next week I'm teaching about the individual planets in the solar system in 1°A/B and cellular nutrition in 2°A/B). I am also helping José-Luis with 1°A English twice per week and helping Marina with 1°C/D and 1°A in Art. My role is primarily that of being a native English speaker and pretending that I don't know any Spanish. My schedule still isn't finalized because things could change. José-Luis says that everything should be completely settled by the end of October. It seems funny that it takes a month and a half for things to be arranged with schedules in the school, but I'm not entirely surprised because it is a bit Spanish to be a little late with everything.