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The 9th Felipe Segovia Symposium brought together more than a thousand teachers from the SEK International Schools and Camilo José Cela University to share some of the most innovative educational experiences implemented in their classrooms over the last year.
This year’s edition showcased initiatives related to the SEK Competency Profile, which, “in times of artificial intelligence, is even more relevant,” remarked the president of SEK Education Group, Nieves Segovia during the inauguration of the Symposium.
Impactful transformations
David Martin, director of Skills and Social Innovation at SEK Education Group, presented the SEK Competency Profile, which is organised around five main dimensions: personal transformation, relational transformation, transformation for sustainability, knowledge transformation and learning for transformation, which in turn contain fifteen individual skills.
This model helps us achieve our “ambition, which is to ensure that our educational work has an impact,” stated Martín.
The role of the SEK Competency Profile in the day-to-day of schools
The transformations and competencies of the profile are applied at SEK International Schools through various activities, all of them with the aim of achieving a comprehensive evolution of students and promoting the development of skills and attitudes that will allow them to face the challenges of the world.
In the case of personal transformation, a Wellbeing Framework has been designed for SEK schools, in collaboration with the BeWell Center of Camilo José Cela University, which encompasses numerous initiatives aimed at promoting the physical, social and emotional balance of the students. Their mission is to ensure student’s emotional development and to help forge their personality, promoting physical and sports activity, working on nutrition and health management programmes and promoting the digital well-being of the school community.
In terms of relational transformation, SEK Education Group encourages its students to participate in exchanges with other international schools through various programmes such as Erasmus+ or the MUN Models. Moreover, they also enjoy stays at SEK-Les Alpes and SEK-Dublin, carry out volunteer work and CAS activities -Creativity, Action and Service- in collaboration with NGOs such as UNICEF or Por la Sonrisa de un Niño, and participate in expeditions through the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme.
The axis of knowledge transformation is carried out through a digital portfolio in which students document the evidence of their learning process. It is a personal space that shows the evolution of each student, from their own point of view, promoting reflection, inquiry and action. Moreover, it is a tool that allows them to start creating their curriculum vitae.
Two tools have been made available for teachers that promote their professional learning, facilitate collaborative work and contribute to sharing the best teaching practices: a digital Playbook of teaching experiences, where all SEK professionals can share their projects, request collaboration and feedback from their peers or devise new proposals; and a Playlist of resources, which is a complete ecosystem of useful tools, such as assessment strategies, active methodologies or resources for classroom observation.
The certification of SEK Education Group as a B-Corp facilitates the implementation of transformation for sustainability in SEK schools and UCJC. The Global Citizenship platform promotes the ability to inquire and address local and global issues, and students learn to respect the perspectives and ideas of others and participate in collaborative projects with students from different cultures. Moreover, this transformation integrates the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into the curriculum of the schools with initiatives such as the recovery of Posidonia seagrass in the Mediterranean on the school ship Cervantes Saavedra, within the framework of the ECOSEK Programme.
Finally, learning for transformation is combined with the SEK educational model which, focused on the student and their learning, demands the development of work and thinking skills aimed at lifelong learning. The learning opportunities for families are materialised in an increasingly extensive range of courses and talks through the Family and Parent Workshops, the Coursera training offering and the training proposals of Camilo José Cela University.
SEK teachers also have numerous possibilities for professional development thanks to the UCJC School of Education, courses from international organisations such as the International Baccalaureate, NEASC or ECIS, and the participation of world experts in internal SEK Education Group courses.
