Spain

IES TORRELLANO

The IES Torrellano is a public educational center (Generalitat Valenciana) located in Torrellano (7,400 inhabitants, district of Elche), about 10 km from the two most important cities of the province (Alicante: 330,000 inhabitants, and Elche: 220,000 inhabitants).

The IES Torrellano began operating in 2003-2004 and receives students from Torrellano and other districts of Elche: Torrellano Alto, Torrellano Bajo, El Altet, Valverde, Valverde Alto, Valverde Bajo, Perleta, Maitino, Jubalcoy, Balsares, Salads and Santa Ana. The area is about 95 km2, which requires the use of school transport. The population of the area of influence is 17,287 inhabitants.

There are 781 students this course, 74 teachers and 5 people in services staff.

With regard to the economy, “Elche Industrial Park”, the Airport and IFA (Alicante Trade Fair) are the drivers of the development of the area. The third sector is the most important, followed by industry and agriculture.

The academic levels that are taught are: ESO (compulsory secondary education, 12-15 years old), Baccalaureate (16-17 years old) and FPB (basic vocational training, for students at risk of early school leavers). In ESO there are also groups for students who have learning difficulties (PMAR, PR4), integrated in normal groups for some subjets. In our educational aims are both quality teaching to students who can achieve the highest goals as the motivation to those who are in risk of early school leaving. This objective is not always easy to achieve, but the center is concerned to request each year its participation in all the projects mentioned above to motivate students to continue their studies.

IES Torrellano has an integrative vocation and understands cultural and linguistic diversity as sources of wealth and excellence. In fact, IES Torrellano is taking small steps towards a multilingual education teaching some subjets in English and French in several courses of ESO, apart from Spanish and Valencian. This school also participates in all programs and projects related to the international and European education, with multilingualism as a backdrop. These programs and projects show the vocation to create “European citizenship” of our center.