The city’s public network consists of 242 active schools, 159 state-subsidised private schools and 33 special education centres. The overall distribution of students is unchanged from last year, with 46% at publicly operated schools and 53% at state-subsidised schools.

The new school year starts with eight schooling areas where the percentage of students in vulnerable situations is balanced between public and subsidised schools, four more than last year.

Some 41 schools have new directors and the overall number of teachers is 10,787, an increase of 251 compared to last year. Administration and service staff levels have also increased, with 71 new professionals, mainly children’s education specialists and social integration staff.

This year also brings more resources for inclusive education, with 43 new professionals, as well as intensive inclusive education support staff, rising from 108 to 115.

Accelerated reception classrooms for newly arrived students

Eight secondary schools are operating accelerated reception classrooms this year (Institut Martí Pous, Institut Angeleta Ferrer, Institut Joan d’Àustria, Institut Barna Congrés, Institut Menéndez Pelayo, Institut Teresa Pàmies and Institut Lluís Viveses). This programme is designed to help newly arrived pupils in their second or third year of secondary education who have significant linguistic differences, helping them to more swiftly acquire a basic command of the Catalan language and their new cultural environment.

Teaching transformation

“Xarxes per al canvi” is a programme aimed at making progress towards an equative and good quality education system, with 186 schools taking part. Eighteen of these will do so through the programme, “Eines per al canvi”, which aims to help towards educational transformation through a mentoring process.

The year also sees the continuation of education support programmes such as ‘Èxit’, ‘Tangram’ and ‘En Directe’, as well as ‘Caixa d’Eines’ and ‘EducArts’, part of the Neighbourhood Plan and with the goal of reducing inequalities in the sphere of education.

In addition, ten schools are starting the pilot plan to improve school libraries to foster the habit of reading and reading in Catalan, while 59 will be receiving training in workshops on linguistic use in the sphere of education.