Cartama school awarded ten thousand euros prize for its teaching method

IN just two years, the Cartima secondary school in Estacion de Cartama has managed to turn its teaching method into one of the most innovative in Spain. 

This is what the Telefonica Foundation decided as its board of adjudicators awarded the new school with the €10,000 prize for Schools for Digital Society 2015. 

Teachers, parents and students were happily surprised to hear the news that Cartima had won, as they have all been involved in the project which was an educational revolution, a change of mind-set, and a new way of working. 

In classrooms, on desks, there is no sign of books. Students work with tablets and teachers use specific educational applications to evaluate their work.

The board of judges evaluated 154 different projects and concluded that Cartama had made the effort to turn the school into the epicentre of social and educational improvement on a local level. It considered the creativity used to avoid obstacles, and the combination of strong management with a democratic spirit to make decisions to be a winning formula.

Cartima headmaster Jose Maria Ruiz Palomo said he was surprised: “We really weren’t expecting it, especially after seeing the quality of the projects that reached the final round. I think the judges took the potential of our project for the future into account rather than just the results achieved so far,” he explained.

The school’s prize-winnings of €10,000 will be invested in equipment.