Ethnographic Context

My school is located in Benalmádena, a town of Málaga. The access to the school is very good. There is a street with many parkings where parents can park their cars and there is also a bus stop and a train station (Renfe) very close to the school 

(6 minutes).

The train station of Benalmádena

Around the school we can find a supermarket, an oriental bazaar, an ice club, a library and a huge park (its name is Parque de la Paloma). In addition there are many developments around, in fact many of the children who attend this school live in one of the many developments that are so close to school (1 or 2 minutes); so that, in general, children have great facility to go to that school.

The surroundings of the school with a lot of parkings and developments

Benalmádena is a tourist area, so we can find children of all places (Britain, China, Colombia... ) and ethnicity (Asian children, African , South American, etc). 

I have to say that it is a school that cares about the integration of other cultures and ethnic groups, as well as their language; for example ​​the name of certain rooms such as the dining room or the secretariat are translated into a lot of languages. I could say that most of the families who are in school are middle class, but there are also other types of families.

We can see the name of the secretary´s office translated into a lot of languages

The school has two entrances, one entrance leads to the lobby and the other leads to  the playground, which is also connected to the interior of the school. It also has two floors, one for pre-school children and the other one for primary students. On the low floor we can see the concierge´s office, the secretarial office and the headmistress's office. In addition, the school has a dining room for children which their parents can not pick at home. There is also a computer room and a small library where children can read or even take books home for a period of time, using their library card.

Here we see the dining room

Here we have the caretaker´s office and the leadership

The computer lab where the children go to make interactive activities

In general , the halls are traditional, they have a decoration typical of primary (work that students do against  violence, the Peace Day, carnival...), but without being anything new or original.  As we see in the pictures there are stairs which we can access to the 2º floor. On this floor, as I said before, we find all classes of primary, in addition to specific classrooms that are helpful to children with learning difficulties.

Its a tradicional hall, but we can see the decoration that the children do in class to put them on the walls

Decoration that the children did for the peace day

The tradicional stairs of the school

There we see the PT class that help children with learning difficulties

About the class, I can only talk about the 2nd grade classes because I have not seen the others; however, my teacher told me the classes are almost the same. As I explained in the Journal of the first week, the classes are not structured by rows, are structured in groups so the students do not complain that they are away from the board, among other reasons.

The classes have a small area where there are books for children to read if they have completed their activities, there are images of animals that serve to improve what they have learned about them, values ​​and norms that must learn to become better persons, etc. There is also a blackboard, an interactive whiteboard and three computers, so we can say that this center makes use of TIC, offering interactive, more fun and productive activities for students .

What´s more teachers do not usually have a different table than children, so that makes the teacher-student barrier  lower; however the chairs of teachers  are more comfortable and large than the students.

There is the structure of the 2ª grade class of primary

There is a whiteboard. The children uses it to do interactive activities

There we see a lot of norms and values that children have to achieve

About the playground I can say that it is very large and its different for primary and infant. There are soccer goals, a field for playing handball and another to play basketball. All the playground has stairs but also ramps for those children with disabilities. Also there is a gym that serves to make physical education but also to catch balls and equipment to play in the break.

We can see the playground with baskets to play basketball and soccer goals