Organic Law 2/2006 on Education (LOE), as amended by Organic Law 3/2020 (LOMLOE), establishes that the education authorities must have the necessary means for all pupils to achieve the maximum personal, intellectual, social and emotional development, as well as the objectives generally defined for primary education.

At the same time, the education system guarantees the right to education of those who cannot attend school on a regular basis by developing an adequate distance education provision or, where appropriate, specific educational support.

Among the main organisational variations and alternative structures in in primary education, the following would seem to be particularly noteworthy:

1. primary education in rural schools;
2. itinerancy and non-regular schooling;
3. bilingual education;
4. distance education;
5. elementary music and dance education.

Primary education in rural schools

Types of provision:

• Gathered rural school (colegio rural agrupado [CRA]):
  • Purpose: to provide educational services in geographical areas with low population densities.
  • Target groups: second-cycle ECEC and primary education students living in geographical areas with low population densities.
  • Organisation:
    • Each CRA brings together several schools in nearby towns, forming a single school (comprising both the second cycle of ECEC and primary education).
    • They have a single management team and a teachers' assembly, a body that includes itinerant teachers who attend several schools.
    • The educational plan and the annual general curriculum are the same for all the grouped schools.
    • Each setting in the CRA can be structured with a small number of classrooms, so that within the same group there can be students of different ages and grades.

Itinerancy and non-regular schooling

Types of provision:

• Itinerant classroom programme in circuses:
  • Purpose: to provide educational care for the children of those who work in a circus and who, due to their permanent travelling with the circus, cannot attend an ordinary educational institution.
  • Target groups: students of compulsory school age who cannot regularly attend a school because they travel with circus companies that permanently travel around Spain during the school period.
  • Organisation:
    • The Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MEFP) has signed agreements with circus companies that travel permanently during the school year.
    • It takes place in itinerant classrooms that travel with the circuses, in mobile units provided by the circuses.
    • It is provided by teachers with a teaching qualification appointed by the MEFP through a merit-based selection process.

• Hospital classrooms:
  • Purpose: to ensure the continuity of the educational process of hospitalised students and avoid or reduce as far as possible the negative consequences that their stay in hospital may cause both educationally and personally.
  • Target groups: pupils at compulsory schooling age hospitalised for a long period of time.
  • Organisation:
    • Based on a national agreement from 1998, each autonomous community has developed this programme according to its own particularities.
    • Each participating hospital provides the necessary spaces for the activity of the school units.
    • The education administration provides the necessary teachers and resources.
    • During the period of hospitalisation, the students keep their school place in the ordinary institution where they are enrolled.
    • The teaching staff in the hospital classroom is coordinated both with the teaching staff of the student's reference institution (to meet their curricular needs) and with the healthcare team in order to adapt the educational activity to the medical and emotional circumstances of each student.
• Home-based educational care programmes:
  • Purpose: to ensure the continuity of the educational process of students who are required to stay at home upon medical prescription and avoid or reduce as far as possible the negative consequences that their stay at home may cause both educationally and personally.
  • Target groups: pupils at compulsory schooling age who cannot attend school due to a prolonged stay at home by medical prescription.
  • Organisation:
    • Each education administration has developed this programme according to its needs and possibilities, the main options being the following:
      • providing civil servant teachers who exclusively provide this service;
      • providing civil servant teachers who work part-time with these students, either from an ordinary institution or from a hospital classroom;
      • awarding grants to private non-profit organisations to implement the programme.

Bilingual education

Types of provision:

• Bilingual Education Programme - by agreement with the Spanish delegation of the British Council:
  • Purpose: to provide second-cycle ECEC pupils with the basis for future fluency in other languages and to help them to become familiar with different cultures in the context of a multicultural and multilingual Europe, providing them with a set of strategic, linguistic and sociolinguistic skills.
  • Target groups: primary school pupils in education-type settings.
  • Organisation:
    • Bilingual schools participating in this agreement use an integrated Spanish-British curriculum.
    • Teaching is delivered by teachers specifically hired to participate on the programme, and specialist English-language teachers from those bilingual schools.

• Portuguese language and culture programme:
  • Purpose:
    • To ensure that the children of Portuguese workers and immigrants preserve their linguistic and cultural heritage.
    • To encourage interest and respect for the Portuguese culture among Spanish children.
  • Target groups: primary school pupils, either of Portuguese origin and Portuguese speakers, or of Spanish origin, who attend publicly funded schools.
  • Organisation:
    • Portuguese teachers assigned to Spanish schools carry out activities included in the school timetable, through 'integrated classes' (in which the Portuguese and Spanish teachers carry out joint activities with all the students in the classroom) or 'simultaneous classes' (in which the Portuguese teachers teach the group of students who have chosen to participate in the programme).
    • Cultural promotion activities, exchanges, study visits and Portuguese clubs, among others, are also organised.
• Spanish-Moroccan programme for the teaching of Arabic language and Moroccan culture:
  • Purpose:
    • To teach the Arabic language and Moroccan culture to Moroccan and non-Moroccan students in Spanish public schools.
    • To provide Moroccan pupils with training that allows them to safeguard their identity and live their own culture while respecting that of the host country.
    • The academic and socio-cultural inclusion of these students in the Spanish educational system and in Spanish society, developing values of tolerance and solidarity.
    • To promote intercultural education, developing values of respect between the different cultures that coexist inside and outside the school environment.
    • To cooperate with families and facilitate communication with teachers in order to establish mechanisms that favour their participation in the educational process of their children.
  • Target groups: students of Moroccan origin and Spanish students enrolled in publicly funded primary education schools.
  • Organisation:
    • It is available in two different types of provision: A, after school hours, and B, with classes during school hours.
    • Teachers are Moroccan and they are selected and appointed by the Moroccan authorities.

Distance education

Types of provision:

• Distance education:
  • Purpose: to offer education services to those who cannot take teaching through the ordinary in-class education, due to personal, social, geographic or other exceptional circumstances through the Integrated Centre for Formal Distance Education (CIERD), belonging to the Centre for Innovation and Development in Distance Education (CIDEAD).
  • Target groups: primary education students living abroad and of Spanish nationality or who have completed Spanish formal education programmes. Also residents in Spain in exceptional circumstances that prevent them from studying in an institution (on-site or distance learning) in their autonomous community. These cases must be explicitly authorised by the corresponding education administration and by CIDEAD's board.
  • Organisation:
    • It is a formal, non-attendance, open and flexible training model, supported by Information and Communication Technologies, with multimedia materials and permanent tutorial support offered by highly qualified teachers.
    • The tutorial role is mainly developed through the Internet, by means of an education platform or a Virtual classroom, with the communication tools available for individual and group attention.
    • The teaching materials, offered through the educational platform, may be developed by the school itself or they can also be textbooks from Spanish publishing houses.
    • Students carry out self-evaluation activities as well as activities they must send to the teacher.
    • It is regulated in accordance with Royal Decree 789/2015.

• Flexible Studies in primary education:
  • Purpose: to reduce the workload of those students doubly enrolled.
  • Target groups: primary education pupils living abroad and enrolled in the education system of the country of residence through the Integrated Centre for Formal Distance Education (CIERD), belonging to the Centre for Innovation and Development in Distance Education (CIDEAD).
  • Organisation:
    • Students study only some of the subjects of the official curriculum of the Spanish education system, without being officially enrolled. They are not officially valid.
    • The tutorial role is mainly developed through the Internet, by means of an education platform or a Virtual classroom, with the communication tools available for individual and group attention.

Basic music and dance education

• Purpose: to provide students with quality artistic training and to ensure the qualification of future music and dance professionals.
• Organisation:
  • The characteristics and organisation of basic music and dance education are determined by the education administrations of the autonomous communities.
  • This training is combined with primary and secondary education.
  • They provide access to professional music and dance education.