THE CHALLENGE OF STAGE CHANGES

My name is Cristina Béjar, Primary Coordinator at Fontenebro International School and today I wanted to reflect on the changes in the stage of the student body.
From the School, one of our concerns is that the students do not have the feeling of being in different centers when they go from Infant to Primary and when they later make the change to ESO.
Working vertically and establishing clear work guidelines that are adapted to the evolutionary process of each person and to social needs is one of the most exciting and important activities that we have in the work team.
These processes of change involve families. Those families that we receive from the Early Years stage, who begin to see their children with increasingly greater doses of autonomy, who feel that going up a floor may be too abrupt for children who are still perceived as too young to take that “jump”.

The concern for the different learning rhythms of each student, achieving positive group dynamics, continuing with the emotional and critical thinking work at such an early age, will lay the foundations for the six years of stage that they will have ahead .

The permanent coordination between the team of teachers and Guidance, the early detection of any circumstance that may surround the students, means that we can anticipate the response and that it is appropriate.
Building a solid learning process, in an environment in which students are happy and know what they are learning, because they are learning it, and are aware of everything they are capable of doing, is the team’s challenge. We do not want “amazing learning” to be written on the walls, but rather it really is the feeling that the entire environment of the School has, from the staff to the families, passing through the center of it: the students.

And when our stage is coming to an end, a new challenge appears on the horizon. Our students change corridors again to get to Secondary. For the families, it may seem that this is the moment in which we begin to inform the stage companions of the particularities of the groups, of their journey, but behind it there has been a process of prior accompaniment.
Teachers who begin to share stages, students who have already shared a classroom with the teachers who will spend more hours with them from that moment on. Methods and procedures that have been shared to make the transition as pleasant as possible, lead us to take that step with the greatest security.

Changes scare us all, it is human and natural, and as parents, even more so, because they generate uncertainty in the most precious thing we have: our sons and daughters. For this reason, at Fontenebro we work so that this change occurs in optimal conditions: that we all understand that changes require an adaptation process, but that the family and students perceive it as one more part of the journey and not as something that supposes a jump into the void

Cristina Béjar

Primary Coordinator