My school day starts at 8.40am after a 15-minute drive from my house to the foothills of La Concha mountain. There are no traffic lights on my way to work and there is rarely any congestion at that time in the morning. The sun comes up with the intermittent sound of cicadas, reminding me that it’s going to be another beautiful day on the Costa del Sol.
The school is dwarfed by the looming peak of Andalucía’s most famous mountain. It’s still quiet when I arrive, as most of the students have not yet been dropped off. I’m a science teacher, so I make my way to one of the labs that I will be teaching in during the day.
I am also a tutor to Year 11 but, as they have just completed their exams, I rarely see them in the morning or during the day now.
Students from Russia and former Soviet states make up nearly half of the school’s cohort. The rest are European - mainly Spanish - and hardly any of them are English.
The most difficult aspect of my job has got to be the language barrier that stands between my teaching and the students’ understanding of, and progress in, science. It is not uncommon for pupils to arrive at the school in Years 9 and 10 with very minimal English. It is a daunting time for them, as they are expected to sit their examinations in English. They have to pick up the language rapidly and then integrate it with up to 10 GCSE subjects.
I have a Year 8 Swiss student who started in my Set 4 science classes in September, and was constantly translating any material given to her. She has recently sat her end-of-year exams and has surpassed students in Set 1. Her determination and attitude to learn the sciences in English is phenomenal for a 13-year-old. But not everyone is like her. Sometimes, students here make much less progress than they should because their ability in a subject is severely handicapped by an inability to comprehend and write in English.
My school adheres to the English national curriculum at key stage 3, although we don’t have to. At KS4, students embark on GCSE or IGCSE courses and then study the International Baccalaureate diploma at KS5.
All Spanish nationals and Spanish passport holders must also study and complete the Educación Secundaria Obligatoria programme (ESO), as well as their GCSE choices, which are reduced owing to the constraints of the ESO programme.
A Year 11 Spanish national has a rough time in May and June with countless exams, and prescribed hours of social sciences and language.
Working in an international school means that I don’t get the benefits of the main pay scale, union representation or pension opportunities that I would get in the UK. But here in Marbella, we do experience more than 300 days of sunshine a year and the summer holidays stretch over the whole of July and August. So, it’s not all bad.
Tom Franks is a science teacher at Swans International School in Marbella
