What is the itinerary to be a teacher in Iparralde?

In France there was a reform three years ago and since then they have been asked to have the Master’s Diploma. Therefore, they first have to do a three-year bachelor's degree and then a two-year master's degree, a postgraduate. As a result, Special Master's Degrees for the French Public School related to teaching have been created and in those two years the competition will have to be passed to be teachers of the French system: Professeur des écoles competition.

Is training appropriate?

The previous and current system lacks to know the reality of the classroom. These are very theoretical studies, which will be carried out for two years in observation classrooms, and which will have a class for one or two weeks, but are very light in practice. In the first system, once the competition was over, they started working in a class, but they did not have the full responsibility of the class, worked with another professor and was a practical support training, but with the system today they left the university, held observation sessions in the master's and then gave them all the responsibility of the class directly.

What bases are the teachers asked to pass the course and what are the ones that are not taken into account?

In fact, from the theoretical point of view, Master's degrees are very developed, it must be acknowledged that they have subjects rich in didactics, pedagogy, teacher development, competencies and contents... They lack, as always, and the hardest thing is to take it from theory to practice, to assimilate it in practice itself. When you take the leap, when you enter the classroom, it's about the teachers acting more or less on their own.

How have you raised teacher training at SEASKA?

If graduates rather than going to the Master come to us, in Seaska we take them as substitutes and prepare them. In the first year, we incorporate as substitutes our full-time or mid-term positions, and we give them our pedagogical training, in relation to the development of the child, the competences, the educational project of Seaska, the teaching in Basque… They perform several theoretical sessions and receive a tutoring: In the different cycles of SEASKA they work on deadlines, in collaboration with experienced teachers. In this sense, there are special references, let’s say, to reading, to mathematics… and it is the experienced teachers who give them their knowledge and their skills; they also give them an account of the progressions. The alternates have five times a year the visit of our trainers in their class, they are observed in a session constructed by themselves, and then they meet to value what is going well, what is better, to advise and help them. Finally, we ask you to submit a report at the end of the year to a court, which is rather brief. This is a first section on a theme or concept, on a session they have built themselves and, above all, on the evaluation of that program they have given in class. In this way, we want the teacher to perform a self-evaluation of his work and that is useful for the process of self-improvement. In the second section, they are asked to define the role that the professor should play in the Seaska project.

Once this is over, we offer two options to teachers: To those of Iparralde (who know French) we give them two years of preparation to overcome the Professeur des écoles competition, and to those of Hegoalde we give them another two years of training, equivalent to the Professeur des écoles competition, concretizing the didactics of the subjects, the construction of the sequence... At the same time, they continue to work in our team and, as requested by the Ministry, they have to overcome a Master’s degree. Once we have overcome all that, we also help to work on the observation made by the French national school. In fact, after the competition, the administration sends an inspector to the teacher's classroom and in order to hold the teacher has to overcome the observation.

Does Seaska have a continuing education plan?

Yes, it's a section open to all the faculty, not just the new ones, and we manage it from here. It may be that a teacher asks you for training for your personal purpose, which you have found in some faculty or external training center. In Seaska we have a budget for that and we would pay for that training. Then there are groups of professors of the ikastola who ask for the preparation to do it as a group in the ikastola itself, and that is in the hands of the ikastolas, think about the training they want to receive each year, build the program corresponding to their needs, capture the trainer… and SEASKA finances. There are also training from Seaska: in recent years, for example, we have worked in the field of psychomotor skills, mainly aimed at the first cycle teachers, since our project raises the need to work the motor and physical development of boys and girls. The preparations are in the form of seminars: to build and deliver the sessions together, giving practical examples and with the advisers we have here. The effort to provide new reflections and visions predominates. We also have offers in the field of psychology and we are currently talking about coexistence with third-year teachers.

Finally, in the context of continuing training, in Seaska the Pedagogical Conferences are organized every year to deal with a subject. In recent years we have had the Basque Curriculum and the subject of competences, and this year we will again insist on it.