Introduction

IES Puerta Bonita is a public school member of the Council of Education centres network in Madrid's Community. of Centers of the Council of Education of the Community of Madrid, within the group of Specific Centers of Professional Formation that directly manages the General Subdivision of Professional Formation.

The Centre's main objective is to qualify its students as technicians (there are two levels of qualification: a higher degree -grado superior- and an intermediate degree -grado medio-) in the fields of Graphic Arts and Audio-visuals, Image and Audio techonologies, with the high-priority objective of facilitating the integration into the labour market or self-employment of these professionals.

Brief History

IES Puerta Bonita is located inside the premises of a state known as "Vista Alegre" which was a peasant property during the XVIII century. Then, in the XIX century, it first became real possession of Cristina of Hapsburg and Isabel II queens and later on a recreation property of the Salamanca Marquess. In the XX century the property was acquired by the State, that builds here several establishments related with welfare and education. Today, the complex is fragmented in diverse buildings that house activities such as welfare protection, educative projects, professional training, people's home and protection of minors.

It is in this frame where the Institute was established on October 1990, settled in an old building dating from year 1925, which previously was a minors home. From its origins it has been a specific and specialized professional training school in technical professions related to the Media.

During the first five years it imparts courses under the experimental reform, what was then called professional modules: Electronics, Image and Audio and Graphic Arts. Since 1996 nearly all of the courses of higher (grado superior) and intermediate (grado medio) degree in the professional families of Audio-visuals, Image and Audio and Graphic Arts are imparted in its facilities.

Since 1990 the centre has qualified more than 3000 professionals for the Media industries, of which more than an 85% works in the audio-visual and graphical sectors, with a contract, as a freelance and sometimes funding their own companies.

More information: Centre History (Historia del Centro)

Educative Project

At this moment there is a greater knowledge of the reality in the Formación Profesional (from now on we will refer to it as professional training), although to a lesser extent than University. The prestige of these educational alternative is growing step by step; and yet there are some differences between the social prestige of the courses: Audio-visuals, Image and Audio and even Graphic Design and Publishing Production cycles are by far the most demanded, in contrast to those that have a more industrial approach, such as Production in Graphic Industries, with smaller demand and a reduced social prestige. Professional training is still a great stranger and the orientation and guidance labour in secondary schools is quite poor or inadequate. The idea of directing the less "shiny" students or candidates to scholar failure to professional training courses is still strong, leaving these studies as a second class alternative to University.

On the other side, there is a huge demand of professional training from active-duty professionals or university titleholders, without a professional qualification that would allow them to obtain a quality professional insertion.

At the same time, there also exists a strong demand of qualified professionals who can assume the challenges of new technologies and know in a specialized manner specific productive processes on the part of society and audio-visual and graphical companies.

With respect to the industrial reality in the audio-visual and graphical sectors, we can state that a very important technologic change has taken place, and that implies new tools, new products and markets, new professional profiles and a tendency to demand very ambitious requirements and apparently contradictory at the same time:

• Multipurpose profiles;
• High specialization in specific tools;
• Self apprenticeship capacity;
• Complete readiness in schedules or travelling;
• Labour Precariety.

From the beginning it has been an experimental centre, and its work is developed with a centre model of its own. The objective years ago was to prepare, to a certain extent, the then called future transferences, promoting to the maximum the new professional training: for this reason these courses were implemented with an investment and resources level quite superior to the average FP schools of the MEC (Ministry of Education).

To organization effects, it works exactly as a regular IES, and its staff (educational and non educational) have the labour status of worker of the Community of Madrid, although there are four characteristic elements that distinguish it and mark some differences with the rest of similar centres:

Teaching institution and production centre: learn working and producing.
Structure and organization of the centre for education and also for real production:

The centre structured architectonically the spaces and then the setting of the facilities in such a way that it would resemble as much as possible the productive centres of the companies, so the disposition does not respond to the traditional conception of workshops and classrooms for 30 students. The workshops respond to the philosophy of simulating real production conditions: there are spaces and facilities where there is only room for five students, or ten or thirty which makes impossible to arrange schedules in the traditional way that workshops and classrooms with thirty students and a professor are structured.

Expert teacher to support practical activities: become a professional learning from professionals.

To promote the practical side of the professional curricula, by means of practices or workshops for the students with the presence of two teachers: one of them for the theoretical part and another one as an expert in his/her sector for practical activities.

The expert teacher is an active-duty professional contracted for practical exercises contributing:

• Connection with the real production world;
• Implicit connection between education centre-company;
• Guidance in equipment and facilities configuration matters;
• Permanent formation of the theory professor.

Connection education centre-company: watch reality.
Promote relationships with companies and social agents of compatible sectors.

The school maintains a tight relationship with companies of the Media sector, not in vain this centre was a pioneer in the implementation of the FCT (Formación en los Centros de Trabajo - Training in the company facilities) module (at the moment we sum up more than one hundred collaboration agreements with companies of the Media sector), but there are also some other actions:

• Collaboration in forums and conferences organized by the corresponding federations of the trade unions.
• Organization of the Workshops of Art and Communication COMUNICARTE (ten days per year after the academic period and before holidays, where companies of the sector and other agents, by means of seminaries, forums, conferences and demonstrations, mix up with teachers, students -new and old- and everyone interested in these matters in general) with the sponsorship of SGAE, Torras Papel, Arjo Wiggins, EPC, Apple Computer España, etc.
• The companies and institutions of the Media sector donate equipments and expendable materials, and the school prepares one or several open days for the companies to demonstrate their products to the students and active-duty professionals.

Integrated centre for professional training. learn throughout life.
Merge of the three subsystems of professional training.

The centre has developed professional training actions with different companies and institutions by means of general or particular agreements that have provided us, among other things, resources and equipment for the centre that clearly had a positive effect in the quality of the training courses. We could emphasize the following educational actions.

Complementary formation of the students: an integral formation.
Completion of the basic professional competences with others that are highly valued in a changing world.

There is an intense program of complementary activities with the objective of reinforcing the professional competences through less formal activities, and other activities that provide competences that are usually required in the labour market but are not considered in the courses programmes. Among these we could emphasize study case visits to companies, technical workshops, conferences, language courses, activities for the promotion of the enterprise spirit ...

More information: Educative Project (Proyecto Educativo)

Organization

The centre, as the rest of Secondary Education Institutes in the Community of Madrid is governed by the Centres Organization Regulation (Real Decreto 83/1996, 26 of Juanuary).

Centre management: autonomy degree of the centre.

The centre depends organically and functionally from the Council of Education by two administrative units:

• Dirección de Área Territorial de Madrid Capital
• Subdirección General de Formación Profesional

It is the Council who, based on the educative and labour legislation establishes:

• Minimum contents in the courses.
• Approval of the courses offered in the centre.
• Organizational structure of the school.
• Regulation of the admission process of the students.
• Inspection of the educational, learning and evaluation of results processes
• Functions of the workers
• Hiring and payment of all the staff (educational and non educational)
• Annual budget to pay the basic expendable materials, maintenance of the building and operation of the centre
• General calendar
• Majority participation in the commission for the election of the Director every four years

It is the centre who, by means of the organizational structure described next, develops the following activities:

• Elaboration of the educative project [es] of the centre
• Preparation of the curricular projects [es] for each cycle
• Annual programming of the centre: planning of activities [es]
• Schedules organization
• Registration of the students and expedition of titles and certificates
• Elaboration of the annual budget on the basis of the assigned budget
• Obtaining and managing additional resources by means of different actions:
  • Rental of spare facilities
  • Canon for the exploit rights of the coffee shop
  • Sale of services: courses to companies or people
  • Contributions of collaborating companies
  • Prizes
• Programming of complementary activities
• Relationships with companies and institutions
• Minority participation in the commission for the election of the Director

This is the organizational structure of the school:

See: Organizational Structure of the School

Activities Organization

Annual organization

There are 175 academic days; the general calendar is established by the Council of Education. The classes usually start around half September and finish by the end of June, with three quarterly evaluations in December, March and June. All the students must attend two academic years, except students of the Printing Intermediate Degree, who attend 1 year and 1 trimester.

The first course students start at the beginning of October, develop their theoretical and practical activities until half June, and at the end of June participate in the activity Comunicarte. In July they register for the second course and in September those who failed the ordinary June exams take an extraordinary exam.

Second course students start in September, develop their theoretical and practical activities until half March, and then, in groups integrated by students of different cycles they simulate a project of real production, during what we call the "Week of Production". Finally, they are evaluated.

From the first of April on, they start the training in the companies facilities module (FCT module) in the company that the school has assigned to each of them. They will be there for 380 hours - about 3 months-, with a control session once every fifteen days in the centre facilities reporting to a teacher that will act as FCT tutor. At the end of June this module comes to an end and the company evaluates the student. At this moment, they are allowed and encouraged to participate in some of the activities of the Comunicarte event.

If the student's evaluation is positive, the centre gives him/her the title that qualifies he/she as Técnico de Grado Superior (Higher Degree Technician) or Técnico de Grado Medio (Intermediate Degree Technician).

Schedule

The centre is open from 8:00 to 10:00 uninterruptedly.

The students have a total of 31 weekly class hours, 6 hours a day except one where they have seven. All these hours in the same turn (morning turn from 8:30 to 14:30 -break of 30 minutes at 11:15- and evening turn from 15:30 to 21:30 -break of 30 minutes at 18:15-)

Description of academic activities:

The students make their activities in classrooms and the different workshops. As a general norm, theoretical classes -a 25% of total hours- are distributed in blocks of one or two hours, and practical exercises -75% of total hours- are developed in blocks based on the technological process dealt with and can range from two to six hours.

The general organization of practical activities is governed by the following scheme:

• Explanation of the practical exercise.
• Explanation of the specific equipment and material to be used.
• Preparation of the exercise by students and teachers.
• Beginning of the process.
• Questions and doubts solved during the application of the process.
• Analysis and evaluation of the results or products.

Some of the practical activities can be performed in groups of students from different cycles that are complementary, developing each one their professional profiles and providing a richer practice experience more coherent with the productive reality: for example, television practices or those of scenic representations.

Tutorship

Each group of students has a tutor, who coordinates all the teachers of that group and acts as a link between the group of students and the administration of the centre. In addition, he/she presides the evaluation meetings and counts with one specific hour of tutorship to deal with the students in group or individually.

In the case of the students of second course, the tutor will be the one in charge of the management of the practices, their allocation, the contact with the companies and the pursuit of the fulfillment of the formativo program in the company .

In the case of the second course students, the tutor will be in charge of the management of the practices inside the companies, their allocation, keeping contact with the companies and monitoring the fulfilment of the formative program in the company.

Teaching Staff:

• Profesores Tecnicos de Formación Profesional y Profesores de Secundaria Interinos (Substitute/Supply professional training technical and Secondary teachers): Posted in the centre in periods of one academic year, they come from the different lists from the Regional Educative Administration. These lists are elaborated from official selective processes, and the criteria for their elaboration is based on a required minimum degree, number of years of educational experience and punctuation in the selection tests.
• Profesores Tecnicos de Formación Profesional y Profesores de Secundaria Fijos (Permanent professional training technical and Secondary teachers): Teachers definitively assigned to the centre after passing an opposition to work as a teacher.
• Profesores Especialistas (Specialist teacher): Teachers with annual contract. They are active-duty professionals that teach, in coordination with a teacher from the staff of the centre, a specific module related to his qualification. They are put through a specific process of selection.

Teachers have a maximum of 18 academic hours weekly and complete up to 25 hours of presence in the centre with other complementary activities: meetings and/or preparation of classes and exercises.

Official Courses

All courses imparted in the centre are official and free, and belong to the professional families Graphic Arts and Audio-visuals, Image and Audio: their purpose is the labour insertion or self employment in the referred productive sectors.

C. Imagen y Sonido (Audio-visuals, Image and Audio professional family)
Ciclo Formativo - Code (Formative Cycle [translation non official]) - ISCDE Level	Course-Turn (Nº Students)
Gº superior de Imagen - CIS301 (Higher degree Image) - ISCED 5 See: Course | Plan de Estudios | Requisitos Acceso	- 1º-Morning (30) - 2º-Morning (28)
Gº superior de Realización de Audiovisuales y Espectáculos - CIS303 (Higher degree Audio-visuals and Media Events Realization) - ISCED 5 See: Course | Plan de Estudios | Requisitos Acceso	- 1º-Morning (30) - 2º-Morning (30)
Gº superior de Sonido - CIS304 (Higher degree Audio)- ISCED 5 See: Course | Plan de Estudios | Requisitos Acceso	- 1º-Morning (30) - 2º-Morning (30) - 1º-Evening (30) - 2º-Evening (24)
Gº superior de Producción de audiovisuales, Radio y Espectáculos - CIS302 (Higher degree Audio-visuals, Radio and Media Events Production) - ISCED 5 See: Course | Plan de Estudios | Requisitos Acceso	- 1º-Morning (30) - 2º-Morning (30) - 1º-Evening (30) - 2º-Evening (24)
TOTAL STUDENTS AUDIO-VISUALS	346
TOTAL REGISTERED STUDENTS	548

Complementary Activities

Workshops and language courses:

See: Workshops and Language Courses

Other remarkable activities:

Cineforum

• Objectives: Discussion and audio-visual analysis.
• Activities: Projection of films (in thematic cycles). Original version subtitled in Spanish. One evening weekly during whole academic year.

More information: Cineforum (Cineforo)

Art, Communication and New Technologies days: "Comunicarte"

• Objectives: Professional meeting in the scope of training and formation, companies and new technologies in the audio-visual and of graphic arts sectors.
• Activities: Training workshops, demonstrations, technological forums, professional conferences, exhibitions, prizes, etc.

More information: Comunicarte (Comunicarte)

Technical days and conferences

• Objectives: To introduce students and teachers into new technologies.
• Activities: Presentation of new technological procedures and workflows, by means of round tables, discussion and/or demonstrations from professionals and companies.

Study case Visits

• Objectives: To know in situ companies and institutions of each productive sector, or technology and/or raw materials producer companies.
• Activities: Trips organized to production centres, technological development companies, visits to sector specific institutions or museums and professional fairs and events.

More information: Program of Complementary Activities (Prog. AEC)

Students:

• Access to Ciclos de Grado Medio (Intermediate Degree Cycles): Students with or over 16 years that have completed the ESO or that have passed the access test (whose requirements and announcement are established by the Educative Administration). Also through an admission process organized by the Council of Education, by means of a Scholarship Commission at autonomic level. The selection criteria prioritizes socioeconomic aspects.
• Access to Ciclos de Grado Superior (Higher Degree Cycles): students with or over 18 years that have completeed Bachillerato or that have passed the access test (whose requirements and announcement are established by the Educative Administration). Also through an admission process organized by the Council of Education, by means of a Scholarship Commission at autonomic level. The selection criteria prioritizes academic aspects: in the first place the suitable Bachillerato option and secondly the grades in the academic file.

Student's participation:

In the classroom via the tutor: To propose or suggest diverse questions related to the academic course and to organization, as well as for conflicts resolution.

In the group of students via the delegate or sub-delegate, both chosen democratically at the beginning of the academic year and whose main functions are to represent the group before the teachers, the tutor or the Directive Board, as well as participating in the evaluation meetings.

Four representatives of the students in the School Board of the school who are reelected every two years, by means of general elections.

Student's Union association: founded in 2004, it counts with a space of its own and organizes mobilization and representation activities concerning educative subjects.

Geographic Origin:

Students of the institute come from all parts of Madrid Community, because these cycles are located only in five public centres in the case of Graphic Arts, and eight public centres in the case of Audio-visuals. In addition, we have a percentage of around 20% of students whose origin is outside the Community of Madrid, specially in the cycles of Audio-visuals, Image and Audio. In this case the reason for attending these studies outside their community of origin can be found in the industry being mainly in Madrid, and therefore labour opportunities are more important here; another reason is that the students seek to have their practice in a company of our region, where most of the leader companies of this sector are stablished and also by the prestige of the centre at local and national level.

Socioeconomic and academic origin:

We cannot establish a majority socioeconomic and cultural level, because we find students of upper, middle-high and middle-low class families of high level. The different academic profiles offered are demanded by students of all the social levels. The academic file of the students is high or very high in the case of the students of Audio-visuals, Image and Audio -by the criteria of selection and the high demand of students-, being more heterogenous in the Graphic Arts students.

Age:

• 88% students: 18-25 years
• 2% students: 16-18 years
• 10% students: > 25 years

Sex:

• 58 %: men
• 42 %: women

Job opportunities and integration in the labour market

Graphic Arts cycles:

• They attend other superior studies: Higher Degree FP 2%
• Attend other superior studies: University 4%
• Labour Insertion in the first 6 months 90%
• Other 4%

Audio-visuals, Image and Audio cycles:

• They attend other superior studies: Higher Degree FP 7%
• Attend other superior studies: University 15%
• Labour Insertion in the first 6 months 68%
• Other 10%

More information: Integration in the labour market (Estadisticas de Inserción Laboral)

Other Services:

• Website: www.iespuertabonita.com
• Job opportunities
• Specialized library with Internet access, reading room, videotheque and hemerotheque
• Parking
• Cafeteria and restaurant
• Technologies of the Communication Museum and temporary art exhibitions

More information: Permanent and Temporary Exhibitions (Exposiciones)

European dimension of the centre's education

The professions related to our courses have a clear projection in the European labour market. They are professional profiles closely tied to new technologies. Trans-national mobility is nowadays perfectly possible: this is the reason why the school has a concern to develop European contents and projects, of which we would emphasize:

• The different programmes of the diverse modules contemplate knowledge and analysis of the European productive and technological market, because the companies they are going to work in are active part of the European single market.
• Annual participation in the Eurobecas Program of Caja Madrid's Obra Social, that allows up to six students in each centre to experience a work placement in companies of specific sectors in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
• Project "European Technical Classrooms" for the extension of the knowledge of other languages in the European Union: English, French and German. 80 hours per year complementary and voluntary. At the moment 150 students are taking part in this project.
• The centre has developed a Leonardo pilot project called "Digitalization in Graphic Arts", in association with three European institutes of France, Germany and Italy:
  Brochure [PDF 480 KB] [fr] | Encart [PDF 83 KB] [fr].
• At the moment we area taking part in the Leonardo movility project "Xarxa FP of European cities" under the auspices of the City Council of Madrid.

More information: International Programs (Prog. Internacionales)