Learning
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Description
Founded in 1972, SEK International School El Castillo offers students aged 0–18 the opportunity to study the IB Primary Years Programme, Middle Years Programme and Diploma Programme, alongside the Spanish National Curriculum. Part of the SEK Education Group, SEK-El Castillo has been using ManageBac since 2014.
Curricula Supported
Grade Levels K-12Implementation History
ManageBac’s Uses
“Having a tool like this in IB schools is critical” explains Daniel Carrera, the school’s ManageBac Administrator. This is not only because it allows students to upload and evidence their work, but also because it helps teachers to grade that work and track students’ progress and achievement throughout the academic year. In this way, the platform helps all teachers “to achieve their goals easily”.
The school also uses ManageBac for curriculum mapping and planning across its IB programmes, making use of all of the rubrics and criteria which are built into the unit plans. This is particularly “key” for the Diploma Programme – where the school also makes use of AssessPrep, to facilitate online assessment.
ManageBac is also used to record and monitor MYP students’ Service as Action and Personal Projects, and DP students’ core activities too, including CAS.
Report Cards
SEK-El Castillo also makes use of the ManageBac Reports Module: “Since every field is complete, all the grades are done correctly, and you have the comments, creating the reports, or a draft for the reports, is kind of easy”, he explains.
What is more, this has enabled SEK-El Castillo to go fully paperless: “We don’t print anything,” says Daniel. Instead, the school manages access to Report Cards through ManageBac – automatically notifying parents to log into the system whenever reports are completed and published. Parents can then download PDFs containing all the grades and comments. “It’s very fast”, he adds.
In the future, Daniel plans to use ManageBac to record and track students’ behaviour too. By enabling this tool, Daniel hopes to move from a time-consuming, paper-based system to a more efficient digital approach, where the school can fully track write-ups, and send notifications to parents and advisors. Daniel is considering an initial “beta test” after speaking to the ManageBac Support Team and getting their advice on “tips and tricks” for the roll-out – “since we have the tools, let’s use them!”, he says.
A “Friendly” System
Daniel has valued ManageBac’s Customer Support Team, particularly during key activities such as the annual transitions process: “They reply promptly and they are very helpful”, he explains. He has particularly appreciated having Spanish speakers among the ManageBac Support Team.
Overall, Daniel would recommend ManageBac, comparing it favourably to systems used elsewhere: “It’s a nice tool, it’s easier, more friendly”, he says.
