Curriculum, subjects, number of hours

Curriculum refers to the set of objectives, competences (key and specific), contents (stated in the form of basic knowledge), pedagogical methods (through learning situations) and assessment criteria.

The European Union's guidelines stress the need for citizens to acquire key competences as an essential condition for ensuring that each individual achieves full personal, social and professional development in line with the demands of a globalised, technological and changing world and makes knowledge-linked economic and social development possible.

Following these recommendations, in Spain these key competences were incorporated into the non-university education system under the name of basic competences. The Organic Law 2/2006 on Education (LOE) already referred, in its explanatory memorandum, among other things, to the need for social cohesion, lifelong learning and the knowledge society, and introduced the term basic competences for the first time into educational regulations.

Similarly, Recommendation 2006/962/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council called on Member States to develop the provision of key competences. Subsequently, Recommendation 2018/C 189/01of the Council established a European reference framework with eight key competences:

• literacy competence;
• multilingual competence;
• mathematical competence and competence in science, technology and engineering;
• digital competence;
• personal, social and learning to learn competence;
• citizenship competence;
• entrepreneurship competence;
• cultural awareness and expression competence.

Its incorporation into the school curriculum entails a number of consequences:

• Their effective acquisition and integration into the curriculum is achieved through the design of integrated learning activities that enable learners to progress towards the learning outcomes in several competences at the same time, as many of them overlap and are interlinked.
• There is no univocal relationship between the teaching of certain areas or subjects and the development of certain competences; each teaching area contributes to the development of different competences and, in turn, each of them is achieved as a result of working in various areas or subjects.

Primary education is organised in areas, which have a global and integrating focus and are oriented towards the development of pupils' competences. These areas can be organised into fields.

The Government, through the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MEFP), after consulting the autonomous communities, sets out the basic aspects of the curriculum (compulsory minimum teaching throughout the country in terms of objectives, competences, contents and assessment criteria) in order to ensure common education for all pupils. These minimum teachings make up 50 percent of the school timetables in the autonomous communities with a co-official language and 60 percent for those without it.

The annual average of teaching hours in primary education in 2021 was 792 hours (Education at a Glance. OECD Indicators 2021. Spanish report. Image 3.1 [extract from table D1.1], p. 103).

The education authorities of the autonomous communities complete the basic teaching and, respecting the pedagogical principles regulated for the whole state, establish the curriculum for the educational provision of primary education in their respective management territories. They are also responsible for:

• determining the percentage of school timetables available to schools to guarantee the integrated development of all the competences of the stage and the incorporation of cross-curricular content in all areas;
• making recommendations on teaching methodology to the educational establishments under their jurisdiction on the basis of the aims and general and pedagogical principles of the entire stage regulated for the whole of the country;
• periodically revising the curricula to adapt them to the advances in knowledge, as well as to the changes and new demands of their local environment, of Spanish society and of the European and international contexts.

The curriculum of primary education is organised into successive levels of concretion, which progressively adapt to the specificities of the school environment and the attending pupils.

For this reason, schools also play an active role in developing, completing and adapting the curriculum to the pupils' needs and to their environment. This is reflected in a series of documents that articulate their pedagogical and curricular organisation:

• the school development plan, which includes the application of the established curricula by the education authority;
• the yearly general programme;
• the didactic programmes; 
• the written report at the end of the school year, which reflects and evaluates the school activities and the running of the school.

The educational community takes part in the elaboration of these documents through the respective government and coordination teaching bodies of the school. The curricula established by the education administration are set and approved by the school staff, as well as the educational aspects of the yearly general programme.

Educational provision in primary education

In primary education, the following subjects are offered during the 6 years into which it is organised:

• knowledge of the natural, social and cultural environment, which may be divided into natural sciences and social sciences;
• arts education, which may be divided into plastic and visual education, on the one hand, and music and dance, on the other;
• physical education;
• Spanish language and literature and, if applicable, regional language and literature;
• foreign language;
• mathematics.

In addition, education in civic and ethical values is studied in some of the courses of the third cycle. This subject includes content referring to the Spanish Constitution, knowledge of and respect for human and children's rights, education for sustainable development and global citizenship, gender equality, the value of respect for diversity and the social value of taxes, fostering a critical spirit and a culture of peace and non-violence.

In turn, education authorities may add a second foreign language, another co-official language or a cross-curricular subject.

Percentage of teaching hours per subject in Primary Education

Source: Drawn up by Eurydice Spain-Spanish Network for Information on Education (INEE, MEFP) on the basis of Education at a glance 2021.

The education authorities establish the linguistic models regarding the teaching of the official languages in their management territories.

In addition, they may establish that part of the subjects of the curriculum might be taught in a foreign language, without altering the basic aspects of the curriculum. By the end of the stage, students must master the terminology of the subjects in both languages. However, schools that offer part of the subjects of the curriculum in a foreign language may not include language requirements as admission criteria for students.

Teaching methods and materials

Teaching methods

The teaching methodology is the set of strategies, procedures and actions consciously and thoughtfully organised and planned by teachers with the aim of guaranteeing student learning and the attainment of the stated objectives.

The MEFP establishes the methodological principles that must guide the teaching practice in primary education. They feature the following characteristics:

• a special emphasis on guaranteeing educational inclusion; personalised attention to students and their learning, participation and coexistence needs; the prevention of learning difficulties and the implementation of reinforcement and flexibility mechanisms, methodological alternatives or other appropriate measures as soon as any of these situations are identified;
• work on reading comprehension, oral and written expression, audio-visual communication, digital competence, the promotion of creativity and the scientific and entrepreneurial spirit, gender equality, education for peace, education for responsible consumption and sustainable development, and education for health, including affective and sexual health, in all subjects;
• special attention to emotional and values education and the strengthening of meaningful learning for the development of cross-curricular competences that foster autonomy and reflective thinking;
• devotion of daily time to reading in class, as a means of promoting the habit and mastery of reading amongst pupils;
• the use of teaching time for meaningful projects and collaborative problem solving, reinforcing self-esteem, autonomy, reflective thinking and responsibility, in order to promote the integration of the competences;
• use of  the Spanish or the relevant co-official language only as support in the foreign language learning;
• in the teaching and assessment of a foreign language for pupils with specific educational support needs, especially for those with difficulties in comprehension and expression, flexibility measures and methodological alternatives are to be established.

Within their pedagogic autonomy, schools are in charge of defining the teaching methods in the classroom, according to those methodological principles. They also decide on curricular materials and didactic resources.

Each teacher can make their own methodological decisions, which must respect both the agreements made at school level and what the relevant education authorities establish.

Curricular materials and teaching resources

Textbooks and teaching materials do not require the prior authorisation of the education authorities for their adoption and publication. In any case, they must:

1. be adapted to the scientific rigour adequate for the pupils’ age group and to the approved curriculum set by each education authority;
2. reflect and promote respect for the principles, values, freedom, rights and constitutional duties, as well as the principles and values set out in current educational laws and in Organic Law 1/2004 on Comprehensive Protection Measures against Gender Violence, with which all educational activity must comply.

In the exercise of pedagogical autonomy, it is up to the educational coordination bodies of each public educational institution to decide on the textbooks and other materials to be used in the development of the different areas.

The supervision of textbooks and other curricular materials is the responsibility of the education administrations and constitutes part of the ordinary process of inspection carried out by each education authority on all the elements composing the teaching and learning process. In any case, it is necessary to ensure respect for the principles and values contained in the Constitution and the provisions of all regulations in force.

Families pay for textbooks and school materials. However, the MEFP promotes, within the Sectoral Committee for Education, programmes that facilitate the availability of textbooks at no cost and other curricular materials through a system of loans or grants. This Sectoral Committee, through the General Education Commission (support body), agrees on the objective criteria for distribution, as well as the amounts to be transferred in favour of each autonomous community in each budget year.

At the same time, there are a number of state, regional and local aids for the purchase of textbooks and school materials for students attending publicly-funded schools.

Finally, although various initiatives have been carried out to regulate the homework that students must do outside school hours, in Spain there is no specific legislation regulating this aspect. Consequently, in this respect, the organisation is subject to the judgment of each teacher or the agreements reached at each school.

Information and Communication Technologies

Education authorities and management teams at public schools should promote the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the classroom as an appropriate and valuable educational medium for carrying out teaching and learning tasks. The educational authorities must establish the conditions that make it possible to eliminate risk situations arising from the inappropriate use of ICT in the school environment, with special attention to situations of on-line violence. In accordance with the law, confidence and safety in the use of technologies must be fostered, paying special attention to the elimination of gender stereotypes that hinder the acquisition of digital competences under equal conditions.

Within the framework of the Digital Culture Plan at Schools, developed by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MEFP), the initiative Espacio Procomún Educativo has been being developed, aimed at educational and learning purposes, mainly for the teaching community and students, but also for the general public.

Currently, Procomún is a network of open educational resources (OER), where you can search, display and download learning objects in standard formats and with open licenses for use in pre-university education. It integrates a social network as a meeting point for the educational community, which facilitates interaction with other users, creating communities, sharing, valuing and disseminating all kinds of educational resources. At the same time, it incorporates semantic technology linking it to other similar digital networks (Europeana, Redined, National Library, Prado Museum, Hispana and Dbpedia).

These OER are under open license (Creative Commons Spain), which allows free access, as well as their use, modification and redistribution by others without any restriction or with limited restrictions.

Meanwhile, the EDIA Project (Educational, Digital, Innovative and Open) of the National Centre for Curriculum Development in Non-Proprietary Systems (CEDEC) promotes and supports the creation of digital and methodological transformation dynamics in schools to improve student learning and promote new models for educational institutions.

EDIA offers a collection of educational content for primary education, among other educational levels. These open educational resources (OER) are curriculum-referenced and offer proposals for active methodologies and the promotion of digital competence in the classroom. The resources include all the templates, guides, rubrics and documents necessary to implement the didactic proposal in the classroom.

The OER are created with eXeLearning, an authoring tool, so that any teacher can access them to use them directly, but also download them and modify them according to their classroom context. The OER of the EDIA project have generated networks of teachers who discuss the use of resources and technology in the classroom. This virtual assembly constitutes a framework for experimentation to propose new educational content models that develop aspects such as accessibility and topics such as gender equality or digital citizenship.