El Sagrado Corazón (ItxasBuru)
The Department of Education's refusal to allow basic secondary education at Villa María Teresa meant we had to look for new school premises with eight classrooms measuring 56 square metres.
Eventually, we decided to move provisionally to the Sagrado Corazón, a disused school with spectacular views of the bay.
The school complex comprised three buildings, one of which had direct access to Paseo Duque of Baena and was most suited to our needs, so this is where we set up.
The best feature and major improvement was that pupils could finally enjoy good outdoor recreation and sports facilities.
The situation repeats itself.
The school was growing and so were the pupils. The first pupils of basic secondary education had completed the cycle as planned, and were ready to move on to the Baccalaureate cycle in the 1978/79 school year.
Getting government approval for St. Patrick´s as a centre for teaching the Baccalaureate cycle school was a complex process. There were certain Department of Education requirements that had to be met regarding facilities (laboratories, library, etc), which, in our case, were still under construction.
The process also involved a transition period during which the pupils were taught the Baccalaureate curriculum at the school but had to be supervised by INBAD, the National Distance Learning Baccalaureate Programme. The pupils were required to attend the INBAD centre from time to time and hand in work for evaluation.
While the situation was far from ideal, there was no choice in the matter. But despite this, the future was starting to look much brighter.