1. AULA ESCOLA EUROPEA
AV. MARE DE DÉU DE LORDA, 34-36 / 08034 BARCELONA / TEL. 93 203 03 54 / FAX 93 205 62 69
Mrs Mary Jo Rendon Cavanaugh has been working in our school Aula Escola
Europea for many years (2000-2010). Aula is a selective, private multilingual
school with students from age 3 to age 18, established in Barcelona. During
these 10 years Mrs Rendon has been teaching and has been the head of the
English department being one of her first commitments to develop the
department and introduce new challenges as our school is in a continuous
improvement in its pedagogical tasks. During the last five years we have
changed several aspects as the moment for the introduction of English
beginning now at six years old, at this age they study four languages, as well as
increasing the writing and reading for young ages and at the same time
remaining faithful to our strong passion for fluency in spoken English. All these
aspects require curriculum changes and to incorporate new teachers as we had
more English classes, what implied a strong effort of teacher training and
coaching. All these tasks were performed by Mrs Rendon as head of
department, succeeding in obtaining a good team.
Mrs Rendon has been also an important reference when introducing not only
the language, but the culture as well the selected literature. Our students study
the universal literature in the original languages (English, French, Spanish and
Catalan) and we give a great importance to this. They have to use these
languages both as academic tools (they not only study the languages but also
in the languages) and as cultural assets.
We are happy that our student feel confident to travel and study abroad to
English speaking countries with ease and eagerness. To do so they receive
advice and guide and in this task the contribution of Mrs Rendon has also been
of importance working with Mrs Silberstein, another relevant member of our
team, assisting students to prepare a personal statement and an application
essay for their undergraduate studies or summers abroad and to enter colleges
either in the US or the UK.
As a summary during these 10 years that Mrs Rendon has been working in our
school, she has had a very varied, yet, intense experience in education, working
as responsible and reporting directly to the director, but working also in team,
creatively improving material to better engage faculty and students, setting high
expectations in order to get the best results possible, and coaching upper
school students in seeking programs in English speaking countries.
All this is written and signed by Mrs Rosa Flos, Director of the School Aula
Escola Europea, June 2011.