ESCUELA NUEVA LABORATORIO EMMA GAMBOA (CRC-51)

Type: Education: Primary school, Education: Secondary School, Education: Teaching languages - Country: Costa Rica

Brief description and main aims

Organization) The school is a public school founded in 1960. It cooperates with the UCR (University of Costa Rica) and it is financially supported by the MEP (Public Education Ministry of Costa Rica).

Its main aims concerning the students are:

1. Learning for life (technology, individual learning based on each student’s interests, intellectual formation by awakening the students’ interest in reading books).

2. Responsibly realising personal liberty (developing critical, analytical, creative and innovative thinking, working in teams, independence, open communication, conflict management, providing spaces for self-reflection).

3. The students’ relation with the environment (developing conscience for the ecology, physical and emotional development in nature).

Three different programmes form the school:

1. Basic Programme (5-7 years-old)

2. Intermediate Programme (8-10 years-old)

3. Final Programme (11 and 12 years-old).

In addition to the regular classes, they offer activities such as theatre classes, excursions, workshops for parents and families, multicultural festivals and games.

The team consists of the director, administrators, security staff, teachers, specifically trained teachers (music, arts, sports and technology), and the librarian.

They communicate intensely with the families based on mutual respect in order to include them in their sons’ and daughters’ wellbeing and educational process, to let them understand the institutional backgrounds and, on the other hand, to receive the parents’ support for the maintenance of the school. This goal is reached by means of a focus on hybrid and virtual communication, to keep the families updated about the educational improvement.

Important to mention the strong connection with the UCR (University of Costa Rica), with which the school collaborates in pedagogical subjects, innovation and investigation processes, psychology, nursery and orientation processes. Therefore, there are usually university students completing their internships. 

Main Activities

Education

Culture and Arts 

Children and Youth 

Health 

Environmental Protection

Sport

Volunteer tasks

Supporting the teachers in class in general.

Playing games with the children.

As soon as the volunteers have gotten to know the school well, they can develop workshops for the children.

Maintenance and cleaning of the place.

Helping with the preparation of educational materials.

In addition to English classes, the volunteers can give some classes of their mother language.

Volunteer requirements / Skills

Interest in working and interacting with children.

Recommended: Basic Spanish level in order to interact with the students, but not mandatory.

Proactivity, flexibility to use various methods of teaching.

Responsibility, punctuality.

Respectful towards the rules of the school.

Participation in the school’s cultural activities.

Location

Vargas Araya is a community located in the east of San José, 20 - 30 minutes away from the centre, and provides all kinds of urban facilities. San José is the capital city of Costa Rica and also its biggest city, which means volunteers will have access to all kinds of services and facilities. It is important to mention that volunteers have to pay attention and be careful when walking around the neighbourhood, careful about the traffic and not paying attention to anybody in the street.

Hosting Situation (Board and Lodging)

Hosting situation provided by Local Family

Families will usually be located in San José, in order to keep a reasonable distance between the hosting situation and the project, so volunteers will normally need to take one or two local buses in order to get to the placement and go back to the hosting situation. Families can be very different from each other. 

More Information

They can receive 3 international volunteers (maximum) simultaneously, they would work in the three different programmes (preschool 4-7 years, intermediate programme 8-10 years, final programme 11-12 years). 

Working hours: From Monday to Friday while the students are in the school: from 7:30 am to 2 pm.