Three months of strict lockdown measures have enabled Spain to significantly reduce the number of COVID-19 cases.
Whilst maintaining rigorous controls including social distancing and the use of masks, the Spanish Ministry of Health has eased some measures, allowing a resumption in normal day to day life. One of these measures is to allow to resume classroom based teaching with a reduced capacity and when implementing appropriate security measures which takes effect in Madrid from 8th June.
AIL Madrid will not restart classroom based teaching until the 15th June and then only with a very small number of groups.
From Monday 8th June, there will be one person in the Calle O’Donnell school to attend student enquiries.
We have been working very hard behind the scenes in recent weeks preparing for our reopening, always with your security as our prime objective. We created an Health and Safety Committee comprising of 5 staff including the School Director. Here are some of the measures that Health and Safety Committee have implemented:
- Strict controls before entering the school including obligatory temperature control and use of hydro-alcoholic gel.
- Security screens to separate our Front Desk Staff from students.
- Maintain social distancing of 1.5 metres by table separation in classrooms, desk separation in offices and floor marking in communal areas.
- Reminders of best practice safety guidelines and requirements posted on the walls in all classrooms and communal areas.
- Hydro-alcoholic gel freely available in all classrooms, reception and communal areas.
- Classrooms disinfected after each class.
- Only the very largest classrooms to be used and reduced classroom capacity.
- Class start times and breaks to be staggered to minimise the volume and movement of people in the centre.
- Limited access to communal. Library service and access to shared computers will not be available.
- Paper free classes. In case of needing to handover any documents, this will be done with the use of gloves.
- Staff and teachers trained on all security measures employed by the school and are required to fully comply with the procedures.
- Non-essential meetings of staff are prohibited.
- Update – August 2020: Mandatory use of masks in communal areas and classrooms.
If you come by the school at any time in June, don’t expect to see many of our friendly and smiley staff in the office as most will be working from home. We know we can trust on your understanding and support here.
AIL: a COVID-19 safe ELE school
We communicated our safety and security measures for students, teachers and staff to our professional governing body, FEDELE Español en España, and are delighted to inform you that our centre has obtained the Escuela ELE Segura COVID-19 certificate.
(*) The Escuela ELE Seguro COVID-19 School certification means compliance with a series of established measures that can improve safety for the prevention of contagion, despite the fact that there is no way to guarantee that it is a coronavirus-free establishment.
Safety First
We understand that many of you want to restart your classroom based learning as soon as possible. Most classes will initially stay online, so please be patient.
Our priority it to create a safe framework so that everyone can continue learning Spanish whilst being confident that the highest levels of health and safety are being maintained.
REMEMBER THE SAFETY OF ALL IS OUR PRIORITY