IES Azorín is a secondary school located in Petrer, an inland town in the province of Alicante (Valencian Community, Spain) with approximately 35,000 inhabitants and easy access from Alicante-Elche Airport.
The school offers Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO), Baccalaureate studies, and Basic Vocational Training in Electricity and Electronics during the daytime schedule, as well as evening Baccalaureate and Intermediate Vocational Training in Care for Dependent Persons.
Our school provides a wide range of complementary activities that enrich students’ education. For more than twenty years, we have celebrated Book Day, as well as events such as Classical Week, Women in Science Week, Francophonie activities, English Week abroad, sports events, solidarity initiatives, workshops related to the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda, exhibitions, and many other educational projects. In addition, the Parents’ Association sponsors several long-standing annual competitions, including a literary contest and a literary poster competition.
Our students mainly come from families with a middle socio-cultural background in a predominantly industrial area connected to the footwear and leather goods industries. The school receives students from two primary schools in Petrer and one in the neighbouring town of Elda. Both towns form a shared urban area, and students from both communities coexist naturally in our school. Students are generally between 12 and 18 years old in daytime education, while evening Baccalaureate and vocational students are over 18 or 16 years old respectively. The percentage of students at risk of social exclusion is relatively low. Students with special educational needs are supported through co-teaching, specific workshops, reinforcement activities, and coordinated guidance from the counselling department. Since 2025 we have a UECO Classroom, a Specialised Support Unit within a mainstream school designed for students with significant special educational needs who require intensive support.
These classrooms are integrated into ordinary schools and aim to promote inclusion, allowing students to participate as much as possible in mainstream school life while receiving personalised attention adapted to their needs.
Our school community (aprox. 700 students) is culturally diverse. In addition to Spanish families, some of our students have family origins in countries such as Morocco, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina, and Ukraine, among others.
The management team is composed of the Principal, Vice-Principal, Heads of Studies for daytime and evening education, Secretary, and Deputy Secretary. The teaching staff consists of around 80 teachers organised into departments coordinated through the Pedagogical Coordination Committee. Each class group has a tutor, and the school strongly promotes coordination among teaching teams. The School Council, which includes representatives of teachers, families, students, administrative staff, and management, plays an active role in the school’s governance and decision-making.
IES Azorín has more than ten years of experience in Erasmus KA1 and KA2 projects and has been an accredited Erasmus+ school since 2023. We have carried out short-term student mobilities, job-shadowing activities, and teacher training courses in countries such as Germany, Italy, Finland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, France, and Hungary. In 2023, the school received the Erasmus+ Quality Project Recognition awarded by the Spanish National Agency.
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Our Erasmus+ project is currently focused on several key priorities:
1 Plurilingual education
Our school is located in a bilingual area where Spanish-speaking and Valencian-speaking communities coexist. This context increases the importance of promoting high-quality multilingual education in both co-official languages, in foreign languages, and in the appreciation of students’ home languages. We are especially interested in methodologies that integrate language learning across the curriculum and improve coordination between linguistic and non-linguistic departments.
2 Sustainable school development
The Sustainable Development Goals play a central role in our educational approach. We actively participate in local initiatives related to sustainability, such as the Educant-ODS project promoted by the Town Council of Petrer. We are interested in learning about innovative practices that improve sustainability and the use of educational spaces.
3 Inclusion and positive coexistence
For many years, IES Azorín has worked on conflict prevention and mediation. Our school was one of the pioneers in our area in introducing mediation programmes and training both teachers and students in conflict resolution. We maintain an active coexistence committee and continue to develop initiatives related to inclusion, diversity, coeducation, and student well-being.
4 Digital transformation and innovation
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of digital competence and innovative teaching methodologies. As a result, teacher training in digital education and the effective use of ICT tools has become one of our main priorities. We are particularly interested in exchanging good practices related to digital learning and educational innovation.
5 Active European citizenship
Our local social and economic context has reinforced our commitment to promoting participation, solidarity, and civic engagement among students. Several of our Erasmus+ projects have focused on social responsibility, intergenerational dialogue, and care for vulnerable groups within the community. We strongly believe that European projects help students develop a sense of belonging, openness, and active citizenship within Europe.
Through future Erasmus+ mobilities, we are especially interested in establishing long-term cooperation with European schools, sharing experiences and good practices, learning from different educational systems, and promoting enriching international opportunities for both students and staff.
IES Azorín
https://portal.edu.gva.es/iesazorinpetrer/es/
Av. Reina Sofía, 10. 03610 (Petrer)
Tel. 966957295
03005719@edu.gva.es
