Frequently Asked Questions

When a school joins the Arenales network, it assumes the “I AM” competencies and values model (Innovation, Autonomy, Mentoring). It also incorporates the code of good practice, the internal regime regulation and the equality plan. These three documents seek to guarantee equity, inclusion and equality.

When a school joins our network, it assumes all those issues that we have mentioned before, which is usually compatible with respecting its previous style and its own historical path. Typically, we keep both the name of the school, its roots, and especially its staff due to their extensive experience. Our goal is not to dilute the personality of that school through the network but to further enrich what others contribute with the support of belonging to an international network.

The schools in the network are united by a whole set of signs of identity and common projects, although with a great deal of autonomy in each place. It is not uniformity, nor replication of a single model, but rather a spirit of collaboration and exchange of knowledge and experiences. We see knowledge, experience and training as flowing water, not as stagnant water, and that is why we seek to promote collaborative work between schools.

This sense of collaboration and help is a reflection of Christian identity, and must be present globally: among students, families, teachers, schools… and also outwardly, feeling strongly involved in the construction of society.

Our purpose is to contribute to the improvement of society through education, through good educational institutions focused on the attention to each person, with plural and open teams, united around a common mission and inspired by Christian humanism.

We do not seek a self-referential dynamic of growth, but rather we incorporate schools into our network when we are asked to do so and it is the best possible option. But our purpose is articulated both with our own development and by collaborating with others who promote similar projects or institutions.

Because we are convinced that we are much better together than alone. Shared intelligence does not subtract or divide: every time you share, you add efforts, unite people and multiply results.

These dynamics of collaboration and support have many advantages: it facilitates participation in training programs and projects with other schools; it allows mutual enrichment in pedagogical, technological, financial, legal, human resources, economy of scale, etc. issues; it provides numerous learning opportunities in schools in other cities or countries; it improves performance in communication and marketing tasks; it provides stability in difficult circumstances; etc.

The goal of the network is not to grow but to work better and fulfill our mission and corporate values. We want to meet the needs presented in each school, and we want to do it in a personalized way. We seek each institution to maintain their characteristics, adaptation to their surroundings and history in an autonomous and sustainable way. This approach is the main reason so many schools request to join the network each year. The identity of each organization is respected, their own talent is encouraged and integration is facilitated.

The new schools were born a few years ago, with bank financing according to the usual parameters in the market, and they are only a few. Most of the current schools in the network have their origin in management agreements and have hardly involved economic investment. Sometimes we help to provide a loan for some punctual improvement, but always with the idea that it is repaid and that each school is sustained with its own resources. We operate with criteria of austerity, and any economic margin that comes from the schools is always destined to the improvement of education and to promote new projects, according to our foundational purposes.

We have always been transparent in sharing that our network is comprised of people who are from Opus Dei, Neocatechumenal Way, other Catholic institutions, or none in particular. Institutionally, there is no link to any of them. Each person acts in their own accordance without influence from other institutions.

Our schools are open to everyone, whatever their beliefs. The values we promote (such as hard work, honesty, a sense of justice and equality, sincere concern for others, the search for truth, gratitude, care for nature) are shared and valued by people of diverse cultures, religions and backgrounds. That is why there are many parents who, not being Christians, or not being strong believers, choose Arenales for their children because they find in these schools the values they teach at home.

This is compatible with the well-known fact that at Arenales we consider the Christian identity of our schools to be essential, because we highly value their potential to develop the dignity of the human being, of every woman and every man, of all humanity.

Our Christian inspiration reinforces the desire to seek the truth and serve the person. In turn, seeking the truth includes reflection on the ultimate whys and wherefores of the person and the world, among which is God, and that should be an impetus to dialogue and work with everyone. In our schools, the academic and the Christian reinforce and integrate each other, because they are born of the same question of truth, and therefore non-believers can make their own many of the Christian values and participate very intensely in Arenales’ own mission.