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Spain • Girona • Institut Carles Rahola i Llorens
23 – 27 March 2026

In March I had a unique opportunity to take part in the Erasmus+ programme, specifically a job shadowing placement in Girona, Spain. Girona is a charming historic town with Gothic cathedrals, narrow streets and distinctive architecture. The nearby Banyoles area, with its rocks, gorges and lakes, is also well worth exploring. The school operates similarly to an eight-year grammar school, with four years of younger pupils and two years of upper secondary students. Compared to Gybon, the school is roughly half the size; the building itself isn't historic but a modern concrete structure with generous grounds for sport and relaxation. Pupils spend all their breaks outside, since the building itself offers no real space to relax indoors - they talk, run around, play sports and visit the school snack bar, among other things. The school opens its doors (for everyone, including teachers!) at 8:00. This came as quite a surprise to me, since lessons officially start at 8:00 as well - in practice closer to 8:10. Pupils have lockers, but usually head straight to class. Lessons run in two morning blocks and two afternoon blocks, with a 25-minute break between them. Because pupils need time to move between classrooms, each lesson lasts around 50 minutes. What caught my eye in the classrooms were the "smart" boards - essentially giant TV screens the teacher writes on with a special pen, with the advantage of being able to scroll back to any previous screen. These are complemented by regular whiteboards. For homework, pupils rely on tablets and the school's Moodle platform more than my own students do, using them to view assignments, graphs, videos and so on. Calculations, however, are mostly still done on paper - in the final year, maths was taught without tablets at all, using a textbook.

School climate and relationships

The school has a friendly atmosphere - pupils address teachers by their first names, which feels less formal and, I think, more pleasant for both sides. Pupils aren't afraid to discuss things or ask questions. Since mobile phones are banned across the board, the breaks between blocks are filled with walks around the playground and in front of the school building, ball games, sports and so on. There's plenty of time to chat with friends or grab something from the school snack bar (the school did have a canteen, but it had been converted into a regular classroom due to the number of pupils).

Differences and similarities in teaching

In terms of teaching style, I was surprised that pupils never go up to the board to work through problems in maths or physics (I don't mean being tested, just everyday practice) - only the teacher writes, asking the class for the next step. The pupils who are willing to engage answer; anyone who doesn't want to or doesn't know simply stays passive. It's built quite heavily on trust, along the lines of "we don't force anyone, it's your own problem, we trust you'll manage". On the plus side, this teaches pupils independence and removes a lot of the stress - nothing bad happens to them in class whether they're prepared or not. On the other hand, not everyone pushes themselves to work, and more importantly, I think, over the course of a teaching unit the teacher can't really get a clear picture of what pupils actually know, since they never see them solve problems on their own. Pupils don't see each other do it either, so the social side of learning doesn't really come into play. What I noticed afterwards, in a test, was a considerable spread between individual pupils' results. I didn't come across any teaching methods other than frontal teaching in either maths or physics, nor any extra activities. That was a real surprise to me. In the physics/chemistry lab (shared between both subjects), group work wasn't evenly distributed - the more active pupils managed everything while the others just watched. The output wasn't a formal report either, just notes in a notebook.

Inspiration

I saw several excellent lessons and picked up some interesting approaches to solving problems that we don't normally use (such as Ruffini's rule), which got me thinking about whether to try a different approach myself from time to time. I would certainly love to have the same smart boards in my own classroom! Breaks in the fresh air without phones would no doubt be a benefit too, though the school garden isn't really big enough for the current number of pupils and isn't specifically equipped for that purpose yet. Despite the language barrier (lessons are taught in Catalan), I came away with plenty of impressions, experiences and food for thought. It confirmed that colleagues elsewhere deal with more or less the same issues we do - inclusion of disadvantaged pupils, teacher pay.

Shadowing tips & tricks

Institut Carles Rahola i Llorens is a friendly school, open to new ideas. All communication took place by email and WhatsApp, and the coordinators handled everything professionally. I'd definitely recommend it! That said, knowing Spanish will help you understand far more of its day-to-day workings than I was able to.