Little People International Nursery, Albir, Valencia, Spain

Babs attended preschool at Little People International in Spain for the month of November. Mr. Go and I were more apprehensive about it than the child was. Would she be able to understand the other kids? Would she fit in and have fun?? Communication between myself and the director of the school hadn't been real great, but, as per the norm, we needn't have worried.

The school was great. Turns out it was a good thing the director didn't let me pre-pay, because the "registration fee" that the application spoke of, simply didn't occur. And--after living two days in Albir, we realized we didn't want to stay put in one town for the full 2 months, and paid only for 1 month. A whole 410 euro (390/month plus 20 euro supply fee= $465 USD).

The school is located on a nice, quiet side street with a locked front gate. There are three classrooms, one for infants, one for 3 years and up, and one for older children (10ish years old). The kids all get to eat together and play outside together, and according to the director, the middle class kids love to babysit the infants. It was all very cozy and familiar inside.

The majority of the kids are international, from Norway and the Netherlands, but there were several Spanish kids whose families lived in the area. The school focuses on bilingual education, helping the kids all learn Spanish. And all of the teachers also spoke English.

We felt welcomed immediately. Snacks and lunch were provided. They have food catered in, and Babs' teacher also eats gluten-free, so there were no problems there.

We chose this school because it had a website and we were able to communicate with them (sort of) before we arrived in Spain and ensure Babs would be able to attend. But once we arrived in Spain and started exploring these small towns all along the coast, we noticed a million pre-schools and nurseries. We didn't pop in to talk to them, but I imagine one of them might have had room for Babs for a month. So we probably didn't really need to limit ourselves to only what we could find online.

The weekend before we left Albir, the school director had organized a trip for the class to what we in the states would call a Children's Museum or like a children's farm. And I use the term 'organized' loosely. We had asked her if anyone might be able to give us a lift up there, since it was 50km north and we have no car, but then wound up figuring out public transportation anyway. So she definitely didn't think we were going to make it, and so Babs' name was not on the list of children at check-in. It turned out fine, they just added her name to the list, but it just illustrates the level of organization and communication.

Attendance to the Granja Escuela de Baladre cost us 32E, which also was never mentioned to us in any of the conversations prior to arriving there. But it ended up only costing 30, because we paid with a 50 and the guy only had a 20 for change. That seemed to happen sometimes with giving change, people just round down with a shrug.

The day was fun, though I wouldn't say it was worth 30E. They had a 'baking demonstration' where all the kids got to add ingredients for cookies into a bowl and take turns stirring, then kneading the dough and adding chocolate chips. Then the garden visit, where a man ate weeds off the ground to illustrate that everything was edible, but seemed to only encourage kids to put random things from the ground in their mouth. The kids made mud/seed balls, which apparently they use to fertilize the ground? He was speaking Spanish so I only caught about 25% of it.

Then there was a paella lunch (which included a beer), followed by a farm visit, where Babs got to pet a 20-year-old pig. The farm, very admirably, rescued wayward animals, such as 3 pigs, some chickens and a raccoon.

We got a chance to meet some of the families whose kids attended school with ours, and one Spanish family gave great reasons for why she chose to pay to put her kid in this school rather than opt for a public school (which would have been closer to her home and free). Class sizes are smaller, and the focus is really heavy on bilingual education.

Overall we were very happy with the school, and it made living in Albir for a month mostly worth it. Though we laughed at ourselves when we started to complain about living in a tourist town for a month. We escaped the frigid midwestern winter for a while to enjoy the sunshine in Spain... It's all good.


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