A sofa in the classroom and other peculiarities of education in the center Alfa & Omega

Can you imagine that your children have a sofa in the classroom, that they can go barefoot to school, or that they share projects with students of other ages?

Connoisseurs say that education has evolved in recent 20 years than in the last twenty centuries. With the arrival of S.XXI education of children it has entered a new phase that not all centers have adopted a methodology based on research of neuroscience, psychology and sociology at full information society and knowledge.

This new way of learning, which understands that each child is different, is the one that is applied at the Alfa & Omega school in Dénia, a model of life education that is based on understanding, knowing how to manage knowledge and knowing how to apply it.

Classrooms, living spaces

Despite the fact that the center already had an important infrastructure (gym, swimming pool, forest ...), the classrooms needed to be modified and five years ago work began to turn the lifelong classes into museum classrooms, in spaces where The child feels at home and have a greater motivation to work and learn.

Now, the Alfa & Omega classrooms have become spaces of 100 square meters for 25 students, equipped with the latest technologies and giving priority to the student. The teacher's table disappears to integrate with them, and they have a sofa for rest, reading or conversation. In addition the projects in which the students work periodically are part of the decoration of the classroom, turning it into a museum classroom.

No common library, but each class has its own, and new technologies are essential to the functioning of the course, as they learn to use these tools to extract the most out. Blackboard chalk conventional gone to make way for electronic boards or on special paint on the wall.

A model of education for life

The center's philosophy shuns the title search and focuses on education for life, in which each student knows himself, his abilities and their reactions to the different emotions that surround us. Therefore, teachers of the center has been soaked with the latest advances in neuroscience and knowledge of brain functioning for students to learn from diversity and from multiple intelligences, which allow us to evaluate and teach each student according to their own qualities.

Every two months, each course comes together to work on a different project they choose among themselves and develop together, creating a visual result set out in the gym and doing an oral presentation in front of all his classmates.

The center management team committed to the spread of knowledge rather than imposition, through projects of understanding for students and meaningful emotional connect with what is being learned way.

Finally, Alpha & Omega students learn to choose and organize the information they receive through the Culture of Thought methodology, which allows children to be taught to think through routines and thinking skills and graphic organizers, in order to Students think about their thinking and apply this learning to other areas of life.

And homework and notes?

Although the center complies with the curriculum they mark the Department of Education, college students do not have homework, although reinforcement, and always depending on each. In this regard, the center is committed to carrying out activities in more playful tone that require students to prepare, as a contest English spelling. In addition, on many occasions parents is linked in this aspect, they can decide whether they want students to do that extra work or not.

College students have each quarter your report card, but this means for teachers an obligation from the Government with which they must comply betting at all times for their part by reports that assess whether the student has met the objectives.

High school in the middle, a very close reality

Currently, the Alfa & Omega school offers kindergarten, primary and secondary education, and the truth is that they have detected a difficult change for students who finish their 4th year of ESO studies and must switch to an institute to study high school.

That has been one of the main reasons that the management team has studied the possibility of introducing high school in the center, understanding that it is a pressing need for students to complete their studies on the methodology known since childhood.

The deadline set by the Center for the implementation of school is "as short as possible", According to the director, Jorge Pastor, considering that the facilities are already underway and it is paramount that the Department appreciates the time to allow the expansion of the studios in the center.

The Alfa & Omega center, located in the Camí de Santa Llúcia, currently has just over 400 students from maternal to secondary. The management team, formed by Jorge Pastor, Eunice Pastor, Hugo Whalton and MªEugenia Utor, is committed to continue differentiating the center with a learning methodology in which barriers are demolished and students follow a model of education for life.