Diversity

Definition of the target group

            According to the Spanish Education System's attention to diversity model, measures for meeting students’ needs in mainstream education schools range from the more ordinary to the completely extraordinary nature ones. Therefore, when these measures' target groups are defined, students attending schools as a whole and those with specific need of educational support are both taken into account

            According to the 2006 Education Act, students with specific need of educational support are those:

            - With special education needs related to physical, psychic or sensory disability, or severe behavioral disorder. 

            - With specific language difficulties.

            - Highly gifted.

            - With needs resulting from a late entry into the Spanish Education System. 

Attention to diversity measures

            The autonomous education Authorities draw up attention to diversity plans in order to implement education measures and actions allowing the maximum adaptation of the teaching-learning processes to the whole students’ characteristics. These plans include both ordinary and extraordinary measures.

Attention to diversity ordinary measures

            Ordinary measures are those having an impact on the school general organisation, such as the organisation of the students groups; the strategies favoring universal accessibility and allowing complete and active students’ participation when; tutor and guidance activity; spaces use; as well as guidance, training and family mediation actions favoring families rapprochement to schools, making possible families’ implication in their children’s education process and, if necessary, integrating families into the social context.

Attention to diversity extraordinary measures

            Extraordinary measures are aimed at meeting the most specific education needs of the students and they complement the ordinary ones in many cases. Target groups are students who, find more difficulties for learning than the rest, and that is why they require an educational attention different to the ordinary one. The implementation of these measures requires a previous diagnosis of the students' education needs through the psychopedagogical evaluation made by the guidance specialised services. it is necessary a continuous monitoring in order to adapt the decisions taken and allow these students an access as wide as possible to the curriculum and to the mainstream schooling.

            These extraordinary measures are only applied in compulsory education (students from 6 to 16 years old). The main measures are the following ones:

            - Significant curricular adaptations. It implies the modification of the ordinary curriculum essentials aspects: goals, contents and evaluation criteria, in order to adapt it to the most specific needs of the students.

            - Curricular diversification programmes. They are aimed at students in 3^rd and 4^th year of the ESO. Students are expected to reach the general goals of the level and to get the degree of Graduado en Educación Secundaria Obligatoria. These programmes' teaching is organised in two specific fields, one with a scientific-technological nature, and another with a socio-linguistic nature. The didactic methodology has a global approach allowing the adjustment to the students needs.

            - Initial Vocational Qualification Programmes (IQVP). These are programmes created with the purpose of enhancing the social, educational and work insertion of those students over 16 years who have not got the degree of Graduado en Educación Secundaria Obligatoria. IQVP include three kinds of modules: specific modules, providing students with training in a professional profile; mainstream training modules, aimed at developing their basic competences and promoting transition from school to work; and modules leading to the obtaining of the degree of Graduado en Educación Secundaria Obligatoria

            - Making the stay in the education level more flexible. This measure has to be concreted for each profile of student with specific needs of educational support.

Attention to diversity measures depending on the target group

            The ordinary and extraordinary measures previously described adapt to each target group as explained below:

Students with special education needs associated to disability or severe behavioral disorder

            The answer given to these students consists of providing them with the necessary support for keeping on learning. In many cases these students require to adapt the curriculum elements to their needs and/or to have an easier access to the contents through technical helps.

            These measures are concreted in:

            - Significant curricular adaptations. They mean the adaptation of the essential elements of the curriculum (goals, contents and evaluation criteria) to adjust them to the students needs

            - Adaptations for accessing the curriculum. It allows changes or resources forecasts, both personal and material, in order to ensure that students with some access difficulties attend mainstream curriculum

            - Special Education Classrooms in mainstream education. They are adapted cluster programmes aimed at the students with severe physical, psychological or sensory disabilities, or severe personality or behavioral disorders.

            - Reduction in the number of students per classroom. The number of students in the classroom is reduced when there are students with special education needs. 

            - Educational support by specialised teachers This support is possible inside or outside the classroom, individually or in small group, depending on the student needs and on the basis of the curricular adaptation made.

            - More flexible stay in the education level. Students with special education needs can stay one year more than expected for the rest of students not only in Primary Education, but also in Compulsory Secondary Education.

Students with learning difficulties

            The most frequent learning difficulties are those related to oral language, reading (reading retardation and/or dyslexia), writing and calculus. Generally, the most used measures for attending this kind of students are those related to materials and diversified resources, supporting groups and methodological strategies

Highly gifted students

            The Education System offers the possibility to make the stay in the education level more flexible as an answer for these students, anticipating schooling or reducing its length.

Students with late entry into the Education System

            The measures provided by the Education System for these students are aimed at the development of specific programmes so as to meet lacks in language, basic competences or essential knowledge, with the purpose of making their integration into the corresponding year easier. The development of these programmes is simultaneous to the students’ schooling in mainstream education

            These measures are the following ones:

            - Programmes teaching the language of host society, as a necessary tool for accessing to every curricular subject. It includes two kinds of measures: Linguistic classrooms, aimed at providing the students with the necessary linguistic competence for entering mainstream education and Linguistic and curricular reinforcement activities.

            - Host Programmes: addressed not only to foreign students, but also to all those students who incorporate late into the Education System. These programmes include some previous measures for preparing the school for the arrival of new students, such as the inclusion of intercultural education values into the proyecto educativo, teachers training in those values, adaptation of the school resources or preparation of informative documents in several languages

            - Programmes for teaching native language and culture: they are aimed at students from other countries for them to keep on studying their native language while learning host language. Generally, courses are developed out of school hours.

            - Information to immigrant families on the Spanish Education System and promotion of their participation in their children’s education process and in the activities developed by the education community. On this manner, they receive the necessary advice about their rights, duties and opportunities, not only concerning the education field, but also other useful resources of the education environment.

            - Creation of support services for intercultural mediation, and translating and interpreting services. They are services external to the schools, and their running and scope depend on the autonomous and local resources, and on the school needs.  

            - Measures supporting teaching function: either by incorporating other professional profiles as support (in and outside the classroom), or by specific training and resources related to interculturality and working with foreign students.

            - Making stay at the education level more flexible. Students who enter late into the Education System with a gap in their curricular competence of more than 2 years or an education stage can be enrolled in the previous year to that age-appropiate. 
            - Reduction of group's size in the classroom