The Nuevo Velázquez School, a private centre for ESO and Baccalaureate in Madrid specialising in learning difficulties such as ADHD and dyslexia, won the award in the Socio-emotional Education for Coexistence category at the Emotional Education Awards on Thursday, October 22, for its project “The Best Class”. In June, it had already been a finalist at The Positive Awards 2026.
The school is located at Rosa Jardón Street, 9, and is a private, non-concerted, mixed, and secular institution. It has been operating as Nuevo Velázquez for thirteen years, inheriting from the former Velázquez school. Many of its students come after attending larger schools. "These are kids who have been sidelined or not given the support they needed in other schools," explains its director, Carlos González, to this newspaper.
Classes of fifteen and daily emails home
No group exceeds 15 students. The guidance department has three full-time counsellors, something González takes pride in: according to the director, it is the highest counselling ratio per student in the Community of Madrid. The school offers workshops on study techniques, executive functions, and social skills.
Contact with families is constant. Tutors send an email every afternoon detailing what was covered in class and the homework, share the contents of each exam ten days in advance, provide monthly report cards, and call home periodically. The curriculum is the same as in any institute, but the pace and working methods are adapted to each student.
The Best Class
For the director, the difference lies outside the classroom. "Surely the key to the school is how well integrated the students feel," González points out. Marisa Suárez, one of the two heads of studies at the centre, sees it every day: "We constantly work on self-esteem and motivation, and we see how kids who arrived sad from other schools come back to smile here."
Families share similar stories. On the Busco Colegio portal, some parents wrote this summer that their daughter arrived at the centre four years ago without self-esteem and has finished ESO eager to continue studying. Another family recounted that their son, with ADHD and a bad experience at another school, passed the EvAU and is now studying at university.
Part of this work is done through The Best Class, a project the school has been developing since the 2020-2021 academic year. ESO groups compete throughout the year and are scored on listening, participation, respect for teachers, punctuality, and teamwork. The class that has improved its coexistence the most wins. Two years ago, 4th ESO C won, celebrating with a day at the pool alongside their tutor, Borja Cuesta, and the counsellor Natalia Rivier, while last year the 1st ESO class won, hosting a party at the school.
In June, the school was one of the finalists for The Positive Awards 2026, promoted by The Objective. It was chosen from 83 applications and competed in Education and Culture against U4IMPACT and KAMPE. The awards ceremony took place on June 11 at the Giner de los Ríos Foundation.
Four months later, the award arrived. The Best Class won in the coexistence category of the Emotional Education Awards, organised by Grupo Anaya, Fundación Mapfre, and Fundación Zola together with the International Network for Emotional Education and Wellbeing (RIEEB). It competed against Colegio Escuelas Pías de Zaragoza and Colegio La Grande Obra de Atocha in A Coruña. This was the first edition of an award that the organisers support with a statistic from the Ministry of Health: 38.5% of adolescents in Spain experience emotional distress.
For more information, you can visit the school's website: https://www.colegiovelazquez.es/
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