INSTITUT PERE VIVES VICH

Address: Av. Emili Vallès 17, Post code: 08700, Igualada, Spain
Website: www.institutperevives.cat
E-mail: ies-pere-vives-vich@xtec.cat
Telephone: +349380315992
Fax: +34938050370
Type of organisation: School/Institute/Educational centre – General education (secondary level)

Organisation presentation
Pere Vives Vich is a secondary and upper secondary school founded in 1969 and it is located in Igualada, a small town 63 Km from Barcelona. It has 5 different levels for each year of the low secondary level and five more for every year of the upper secondary, called bachillerato. It has a large number of students (856 this course between ESO and Bachillerato). It is a reference center for the whole region of Anoia, whose unemployment rate is over 20%. Around 45% of our pupils come from small rural communities, who haven’t had opportunities to deepen in the practice of foreign languages. Students in our school learn the official and compulsory languages of our country, which are three Catalan, Spanish and English. In addition to French and German that can be learnt as second foreign languages. Given that it’s one of the biggest schools in our area we believe in the inclusive schooling. We have a EESU project – (USEE), which stands for Special Education Support Unit. This unit aims at letting special need Students learning and attending to lessons in the ordinary group. This implies a lot of personalization in the learning process of every special needs students. The Institute has a long tradition of participating in international projects. Our School has had bilateral and multilateral international projects within the framework of the European Union since 1996. We have been participating in different Comenius and private programmes throughout the last 17 years. To continue with the tradition and to follow innovating we have also participated in the last year 2012-2013 with Comenius Student’s Mobility (MAC Project). The participation of the school in International Projects has offered along the years the possibility of experiencing mobilities with students. This fact enables students coming from rural areas and a small town to be in touch with other situations and international realities.

Activities and projects of organisation relevant for project
INS Pere Vives Vich has experience in working in a similar Comenius Project from 2009 to 2011 together with the Dutch Partner also involved in this project. The project name was MIGRATION: A PILGRIMAGE TO WELFARE. The topic, which we faced in 2009 is still a relevant issue nowadays. In Spain there have been many immigration and emigration waves and this gives us a historical perspective of the need to move and find a better place to live in. There might be different reasons, economical, political or because of the war. All of them have to be approached from many different angles in order to understand its complexity. From our experience such an approach or study should be carried out by our students working together in a framework of teams belonging to different social realities. The result will be a better understanding of such a rich topic, which will help students to break stereotypes and prejudices. The constant use of team work supervised by teachers will help students to learn how to improve a large variety of skills and the daily contact with the rest of the participants members will increase their European awareness and motivate them to appreciate, respect and defend the values of the EU. Pere Vives Vich has democracy education a vital part of its programme. Our social sciences and philosophy teachers deal with the issues of migration and the recent wave of migration in their lessons in various subjects, such as democratic citizenship and ethical values, which help them to broaden students’ horizons and prevent racism and intolerance among youth. They aim at developing social, civic and intercultural competences. We have also an optional subject in the 10th grade called “Meeting the EU”, which is meant to develop the European projects in the school. By developing these projects, students can easily raise awareness and have a critical view towards the present day events within the EU. The key person involved in this project is also the one teaching this optional subject, so it will be very easy to do the follow-up of this Erasmus + project. We have built a team of teachers, who coordinate once a week to develop these activities. Currently, our SDP is promoting a project called GEP (Experimental Group Multilingualism) it consists in involving teachers of other subjects (mathematics, history, physics, etc...) in the use of English in their teaching. This teaching staff is part of the Erasmus teamwork. They only have to include some of their teaching hours in the use of English. One of the aims is to expand the use of specific activities in English in core and compulsory subjects. The use of English for reinforcement activities and / or extension in order to provide a meaningful context for learning the English language without prejudice to acquire specific knowledge. Since this is a school project we evaluate the possibility of extending teacher training and the application of new pedagogical actions. In our school we have gone through a gradual turnover of staff and now we have teachers interested and qualified with the level of English B1 and B2. This teaching staff is also involved in the internationalization school project. They are willing to share new teaching methods to develop teaching and learning strategies in order to achieve a new and global sense of learning from others. Our school also has a lot of experience in involving our students in social tasks. We have recently had a conference about peace and refugees, which explains the current situation in Europe. This will actually prepare our students from upper secondary, in order to raise awareness of the relevance of this topic in our nowadays society.

Legal representative
Name: Rafael Carmona
Position: principal
E-mail: rcarmon1@xtec.cat
Phone: +34938031599

Contact person
Name: Anna Vilaseca Martinez
Position: coordinator of international projects(department: foreign languages)
E-mail: avilase3@xtec.cat
Phone: +34938031599