June 7, 2019
How Marcet football academy uses InterHigh
InterHigh works with a football academy in Barcelona to provide high quality education provision for its students. We spoke to Carolina Marcet - Head of Academic and Personal Development Department at Fundación Marcet, to find out more about their InterHigh experience.
How does the football academy work?
Fundación Marcet welcomes 200 young football players every year from all over the world (aged 8-21), who train, live and study with us in Barcelona. These young players have a common dream: to become professional football players. They choose and are chosen by Marcet in order to prepare for their future in 3 ways: Intensive training and football education, academic education and education in values, as responsible, wise and committed people. They train from 07.00 to 09.30am and from 03.00 to 06.00 pm, so all of the young players attend adapted scheduled schools or online/distance-learning schools, all thoroughly supervised and guided by Marcet professionals acting as very committed "parents" regarding academics.
What were the education challenges facing Marcet and its pupils?
Educate in values: coexistence, discipline, dedication and commitment. Educate for a sporting future with academic studies: combine dedication to their favourite sport without leaving aside academic studies. Educate offering the possibility that each student can continue with their own educational system: American, French, Russian, Mexican, British. Educate in the willingness to work and in the responsibility of studies, in an autonomous way, but always controlled by the figure of an academic tutor and supported by a pedagogical team, both in Marcet and through the linked school.
Why couldn’t traditional schools help meet these challenges?
One of the problems which we faced with traditional schools, was the lack of flexibility in timetables. In Barcelona (Spain), where Marcet is located, of course there are traditional American, French and British schools, but most of them do not accept that students cannot attend classes because timetables overlapped with sports sessions. Our students have their sport and academic schedules, both separated, but it is true that sometimes we can find some other training sessions, tournaments, extra sports activities, trips, matches that overlap with academic activities; so our students need a school that allows these academic gaps and, at the same time, that they can catch up with lessons, homework and exams at any time. In addition, with online schooling, we get the facility to offer each student the possibility to continue with their own international educational systems, combining dedication to their favourite sport without leaving aside their academic studies. For them it is a blended learning, that combines the benefits of a traditional school (British courses, specialised teachers, academic tutors, personalised attention, live lessons) with the benefits of modern and individualised learning (multimedia resources, video conferences, online libraries and academies, websites, chats, iclasses - a virtual environment).
Why did you select InterHigh as a partner provider?
Because it offers an online British educational system. There are live lessons for students to attend classes, it is available at all key stages, it has a very complete parent portal, there is good communication with teachers and with the administration. It is, definitely, a fully interactive school.
From your experience, can you talk us through how academy players interact with InterHigh's learning services?
The students can be in permanent contact with the teachers: in class, by chat or email. This is very important in case they need to solve doubts. There is a personal dashboard with all the student's daily information. Teachers always leave comments in the student's homework when scoring. Live lessons are very important for the students. They can catch up the lessons, if they cannot attend live lessons, through the registered files.
How has InterHigh made a difference to your academy players?
They can continue studying the same British educational system that they have always studied. Being an online, non-traditional school, students must become more autonomous students and they should be able to understand their responsibility and commitment to studies. All this obliges them to mature and belongs to the growing up of a teenager.
Any tips for students of how to get the most out of their time at InterHigh?
This year we have noticed an important problem for our players when they were given their timetables of daily classes. As we have said before, our players train every day from 7-9:30am in the morning and from 3-6pm in the afternoon (Spanish time), but this year we have found that all students have live classes during those times. We already know that they can catch up the lessons through the recorded lesson archive and that is what they do with a lot of effort when some extra sports activity overlaps with their academic schedule. But really, one of the things we value the most about InterHigh is that students can attend the live lessons so they do not miss interacting with the teachers. So, we would like that for the next academic years, students can see on their dashboard, the maximum live lessons set between 10am and 2pm (Spanish time).
What have InterHigh been like to work with?
Following the good track of being a fully interactive online school, there has always been very good communication between teachers, administration and us.
InterHigh works with a football academy in Barcelona to provide high quality education provision for its students. We spoke to Carolina Marcet – Head of Academic and Personal Development Department at Fundación Marcet, to find out more about their InterHigh experience.
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