Published on Eurydice (https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/national-policies/eurydice)

Curriculum, subjects, number of hours

Compulsory secondary education is divided into two cycles:

first cycle: 1st, 2ndand 3rd (ISCED 2) second cycle: 4th (ISCED 3). It has a preparatory and guiding nature for either general or vocational education.

Curriculum refers to the regulation of the elements that determine the teaching and learning processes for each type of provision. It comprises the following elements:

objectives of each type of provision and educational stage competences or skills to implement the contents of each type of provision and educational stage in an integrated manner, in order to achieve the proper performance of activities and the effective solving of complex problem contents, that is, the set of knowledge, abilities, skills and attitudes which contribute to the achievement of the objectives of each type of provision and educational stage as well as to the acquisition of the competences teaching methodology, which comprises the description of teaching practices as well as the organisation of teachers’ work assessable learning standards and outcomes criteria to assess the degree of acquisition of the competences and the achievement of the objectives of each type of provision and educational stage.

The curriculum for compulsory secondary education establishes the same key competences as in primary education:

linguistic communication mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology digital competences learning to learn social and civic competences sense of initiative and entrepreneurship cultural awareness and expression.

Regarding the competences:

their effective acquisition and integration into the curriculum is achieved through the design of integrated learning activities that enable learners to progress towards the learning outcomes in several competences at the same time, as many of them overlap and interlock there is not a one-to-one relationship between the teaching of certain areas or subjects and the development of some specific competences. Each area or subject contributes to the development of different competences and, in turn, each competence is achieved as a result of the work in various areas or subjects.

Regarding the design of the curriculum:

in order to ensure common training for all students, it is the responsibility of the government, through the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training [1], to design a basic curriculum that guarantees that certificates are official and valid throughout the country the education authorities complete the curriculum for their respective regions. For more information, see Administration and governance at central and/or regional level [2] educational institutions also play an active role, developing and completing the curriculum in order to adapt it to their context and pupils. For more information, see Administration and governance at local and/or institutional level [3] teachers draw up the teaching plan for each class-group.

Organisation of the first cycle of compulsory secondary education (1st, 2nd and 3rd year)

The Act on the Improvement of the Quality of Education organises compulsory secondary education into subjects, which are in turn divided into three sets: core subjects, specific subjects and subjects that are freely structured by the Autonomous Communities.

The organisation of the first cycle of compulsory secondary education (1st, 2nd and 3rd year) is the following:

core subjects: 1st and 2nd year: biology and geology (1st year) physics and chemistry (2nd year) geography and history (1st and 2nd year) Spanish language and literature (1st and 2nd year) mathematics (1st and 2nd year) first foreign language (1st and 2nd year) 3rd year: biology and geology physics and chemistry geography and history Spanish language and literature mathematics (students can choose between mathematics for the academic subjects or mathematics for the applied subjects) first foreign language specific subjects (studied every year): physical education religion or ethical values (to be chosen by the student’s family or legal guardian) students take at least one and a maximum of four (depending on the offer of the educational institutions, in accordance with the regulation and programming of the offer established by each educational administration): classical culture plastic, visual and audio-visual education introduction to entrepreneurship and business activity music second foreign language technology religion or ethical values, whichever that has not been previously chosen subjects that are freely structured by the Autonomous Communities: co-official language and literature, in those Autonomous Communities that have such co- official language. It is handled in the same way as the area of Spanish language and literature. The regional regulations may exempt students from studying or undergoing an evaluation on this subject subject areas from the set of specific subjects that have not been taken by the student or subject areas to be determined by the education authorities of the Autonomous Communities. They may be different in each year.

Only in the first year of ESO, in order to facilitate the transition of students between Primary Education and ESO, the educational authorities and, where appropriate, the schools, may group the subjects in areas of knowledge.

The minimum number of teaching hours corresponding to the set of core subjects, calculated globally for the first cycle of compulsory secondary education, cannot be less than 50% of the total number of teaching hours generally established by each education authority for the first cycle.

Organisation of the second cycle of compulsory secondary education (4th year)

The second cycle of compulsory secondary education also organises subjects into three sets. Due to the preparatory nature of this year, students can choose one of the following options:

1. academic subjects as an introduction to Bachillerato, with the following organisation:

core subjects: all students have to take them: geography and history Spanish language and literature mathematics for the academic subjects first foreign language. students take at least two of the following options: biology and geology economics physics and chemistry Latin specific subjects (studied every year): physical education religion or ethical values (to be chosen by the student’s family or legal guardian) students take at least one and a maximum of four (depending on the offer of the educational institutions, in accordance with the regulation and programming of the offer established by each educational administration): performing arts and dance scientific culture classical culture plastic, visual and audio-visual education philosophy music second foreign language Information and Communication Technologies religion or ethical values, whichever that has not been previously chosen a subject from the core subject group which has not been previously chosen. Subjects that are freely structured by the Autonomous Communities: co-official language and literature, in those Autonomous Communities that have such co- official language. It is handled in the same way as the area of Spanish language and literature. The regional regulations may exempt students from studying or undergoing an evaluation on this subject. subject areas from the set of specific subjects that have not been taken by the student or subject areas to be determined by the education authorities of the Autonomous Communities.

2. applied subjects as an introduction to vocational training, organised as follows:

core subjects: all students have to take them: geography and history Spanish language and literature mathematics for the applied subjects first foreign language students take at least two of the following options: science applied to professional activity introduction to entrepreneurship and business activity technology specific subjects: physical education religion or ethical values (to be chosen by the student’s family or legal guardian) students take at least one: performing arts and dance scientific culture classical culture plastic, visual and audio-visual education philosophy music second foreign language Information and Communication Technologies religion or ethical values, and a maximum of four (depending on the offer of the educational institutions, in accordance with the regulation and programming of the educational offer established by each educational administration) subjects that are freely structured by the Autonomous Communities: co-official language and literature, in those Autonomous Communities that have such co- official language. It is handled in the same way as the area of Spanish language and literature. The regional regulations may exempt students from studying or undergoing an evaluation on this subject. subject areas from the set of specific subjects that have not been taken by the student or subject areas to be determined by the education authorities of the Autonomous Communities.

The education authorities and, where appropriate, educational institutions may establish pathways in order to help students choose among the different options within core subjects. The minimum number of teaching hours corresponding to the set of core subjects is established in the same way as in the first cycle of the stage.

Percentage of teaching hours per subject in ESO (2019)

Language, Writing and Literature 16,6 Mathematics 12,8 Natural Sciencies 11,5 Social Studies 10,2 Second Language 11,5 Physical Education and Health 6,6 Religion/Ethics/Ethical Values 4,1 Other subjects 3,3 Optional subjects chosen by educational institutions 23,4

Source: Drawn up by Eurydice Spain - Spanish Network for Information on Education [4] (National Institute for Educational Evaluation [5], Ministry of Education and Vocational Training [1]) based on Education at a Glance 2020 [6].

Regarding the linguistic models organising the teaching of the official languages in the different regions:

it is the education authorities that establish them. For more information, see Population: demographic situation, languages and religions [7] in any case, 10% of the total amount of hours these Autonomous Communities may use in order to organise provision of the co-official languages may not deduct more than 50 hours from an area in the first three years or more than 20 hours in the 4th year of compulsory secondary education they may also authorise the teaching of some of the subjects of the curriculum in a foreign language, without modifying the basic aspects of their curricula. In this case, they have to guarantee that students learn the basic terminology of the relevant subject in both languages.

Teaching methods and materials

Teaching methods

The teaching methodology is the set of strategies, procedures and actions consciously and thoughtfully organised and planned by teachers with the aim of guaranteeing student learning and the attainment of the stated objectives. It comprises the description of teaching practices as well as the organisation of teachers’ work.

The Ministry of Education and Vocational Training establishes in an Education Act the general principles which must guide the teaching practice in compulsory secondary education:

it is organised according to the principles of common education and attention to diversity measures regarding attention to diversity seek to meet the specific educational needs of pupils and that all students achieve the basic skills and objectives of compulsory secondary education. In no case whatsoever shall they cause discrimination to prevent them from achieving those objectives and the relevant qualification work on reading comprehension, oral and written expression, audiovisual communication, information and communication technologies (ICT) and values education is included in all the subjects since they are considered cross-curricular. These aspects may be treated more specifically in some of the subjects.

The education authorities formulate a series of methodological principles which are valid for all the subjects of the stage. Regarding ICT, they are responsible for providing schools with the necessary infrastructure to ensure their implementation in the educational processes.

According to the pedagogic principles described above and within their pedagogic autonomy, schools may define the teaching methods to be used in the classroom. They also decide on curricular materials and didactic resources.

Each teacher has the freedom to make their own methodological decisions, which must respect both the agreements made at school level and what the relevant education authorities establish.

Curricular materials and teaching resources

Textbooks and teaching materials do not require the previous authorisation of the education authorities for their adoption and publication. In any case, they must:

comply with scientific rigour according to the age of the students and the curriculum approved by each Autonomous Community reflect and promote respect for the constitutional principles, values, freedoms, rights and duties, as well as the principles and values set out in current educational laws and in the Organic Law 1/2004, of 28 December, on Comprehensive Protection Measures Against Gender- Based Violence [8], with which all educational activity must comply.

The supervision of textbooks and other curricular materials is part of the ordinary process of inspection carried out by the education authority on all of the elements composing the teaching and learning process.

The textbooks selection process follows a series of directives in all educational institutions. These are:

Pedagogic Commission for Coordination in each educational institution: it prepares a report on all the textbooks that they consider the most appropriate. This report is supervised by the School Council of the institution and by the Teachers’ Assembly teachers are responsible for the final decision on the choice of these textbooks if the School Council does not agree with the teachers’ decisions, it may provide its own suggestions to the Teachers’ Assembly so that they may also be considered.

Families pay for the textbooks and school materials. However, there are certain municipal and/or regional financial aids for the purchasing of these textbooks and materials aimed at schooled students in publicly-funded education centres. For more information, see Early Childhood and School Education Funding [9].

Finally, although various initiatives [10] have been carried out to regulate the homework that students must do outside school hours, in Spain there is no specific legislation regulating this aspect. Consequently, in this respect the organisation is subject to the judgment of each teacher or the agreements reached at each school. Information and Communication Technologies

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT):

must play a fundamental role in producing the methodological change required in order to improve educational quality the education authorities are in charge of providing public schools with all the necessary IT infrastructure with the goal of assuring its incorporation into the educational processes, emphasising the need to integrate ICT into the classroom through every curricular area.

Within the framework of the Plan for Digital Culture in School, developed by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, the Espacio Procomún Educativo [11] is being implemented, aimed at educational and learning purposes, mainly for the teaching community and students, but also for the general public.

Espacio Procomún Educativo

facilitates access to the repository of open educational resources (OER) of the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training and the Autonomous Communities gathers teaching materials classified through metadata (LOM-ES) in order to ensure standardisation, in line with the curriculum for non-university education materials are ready to be used directly in the classroom or to be modified and adapted to different contexts or needs download formats of the educational materials favour the integration into Learning Management System (LMS) platforms.

These OER are under open license (Creative Commons Spain), which allows free access, as well as their use, modification and redistribution by others without any restriction or with limited restrictions.

The most significant element of ‘Procomún’ is faceted search, which is characterised by the following:

information retrieval systems that enable searches based on natural or iterated reasoning the possibility of searching in context, since, when selecting an educational content, information on related contents coming from other sources to which they are linked is shown.

Regarding digital educational materials, the authoring tool ‘eXelearning’ is available for teachers:

it facilitates interested teachers the creation of their own materials according to their needs it is an easy-to-use and open-source authoring tool that enables to adapt the materials to the teachers’ and students’ needs.

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Links [1] https://www.educacionyfp.gob.es/en/portada.html [2] https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/national-policies/eurydice/content/administration-and-governance-central-andor-regional-le vel-79_en [3] https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/national-policies/eurydice/content/administration-and-governance-local-andor-institutional-l evel-79_en [4] http://www.educacionyfp.gob.es/gl/mc/redie-eurydice/inicio.html [5] https://www.educacionyfp.gob.es/inee/portada.html [6] https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/instruction-time-per-subject-in-compulsory-general-lower-secondary-education -2014-and-2019_6c0b1846-en [7] https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/national-policies/eurydice/content/population-demographic-situation-languages-and-religio ns-79_en [8] https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2004-21760 [9] https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/national-policies/eurydice/content/early-childhood-and-school-education-funding-79_en [10] http://www.boa.aragon.es/cgi-bin/EBOA/BRSCGI?CMD=VEROBJ&MLKOB=1056142882525 [11] http://procomun.educalab.es/en