ESTUDIO was created on the 29th of January 1940 by Jimena Menéndez-Pidal, promoter of the idea as well as Ángeles Gasset and Carmen García del Diestro, with the collaboration of Esperanza Salas in the beginning.
They all came from the School Institute which, founded in 1918 as an official centre, in recognition of the educational values of The Free Institution, for Education was ordered to close in 1938. Due to the spanish civil war.
Over a period of half a century ESTUDIO began to develop, with our enthusiastic devotion, a project based on educational ideals that have always held the student as the protagonist in this crucial school stage.
ESTUDIO has always been -and we want it to continue to be- a private, independent centre, which promotes an educational model of coexistence, tolerance and solidarity, with great open-mindedness in terms of the comprehensive education of the person in responsible freedom; a school in which learning leaves behind the limits of the classroom and programmes; a school in which the task of educating is impregnated with a sense of ethics that must preside over life and which starts to appear at a very young age; a school where sensitivity, the search for aesthetic values, the correction of ways of acting and respect for others and the environment bring style to everyday life.
We believe that the following specific aspects of our teaching should play -and indeed have been playing- a decisive role: coeducation, constant contribution to the enriching of the quality of the teaching staff, providing them with the opportunity to broaden both their personal and professional perspectives; the inclusion of very varied activities that stimulate creativity, develop attitudes and open horizons; the maintaining of Religious Education that ESTUDIO has offered since the start as an optional element and with particular attention and the importance given to Physical Education which has effectively contributed to the complete education of the student.
Over the years, ESTUDIO has always had the trust of the parents of the students who have studied here, numbering approximately three thousand; with the invaluable devotion of a particularly competent teaching staff; with unwavering support from people connected to our educational project; with the exemplary generosity of certain people, now grouped together to form the Estudio School Friends Foundation, who helped financially to complete the works at Valdemarín, our current centre; and with support from the International Institute of Boston in the United States, which made possible the temporary accommodation of the School in the building at no. 8 Miguel Ángel owned by said Institute.
For us, the founders, far beyond any personal interest or profit, ESTUDIO has represented enthusiastic devotion, highly gratifying work and, finally, the satisfaction of bringing an idea to life that we can now pass on to future generations.
In recent years, we have delegated the administration and management of the school, with the double purpose of consolidating the ESTUDIO brand without our presence and designing its future; which must always focus on the broadening of horizons in the World of Education.
Unfortunately, Jimena’s death in 1990 meant that we were not able to carry out the transition project we had been carefully preparing, but it can fortunately now become a reality, together.
Today we have an established institution; with growing demand for places; with an integrated teaching staff, most of whom are committed to the continuity of the common project; and finally, a strong financial base.
The wish to facilitate the future maintaining and improvement of this project and the conviction that, in order to maintain such independently, we need to join forces and seek both personal and financial help, has led us, Carmen García del Diestro and Ángeles Gasset, to donate all our shares -100% of Actividades Culturales, S.A., owner of the ESTUDIO School- to the ESTUDIO FOUNDATION, which we hereby create in this act.
We urge the ESTUDIO FOUNDATION to favour access to Education through the creation of NEW STUDY AND EDUCATION GRANTS, awarding these in memory of those people who contributed in the past to the reality of Estudio today through their support and generosity.
This Foundation will begin operations under the guardianship of Elvira Ontañón and Jerónimo Junquera, people in whom we have deposited our trust in these recent years of transition.
Our wish is for the ESTUDIO FOUNDATION to become a forum into which different voices are incorporated to enrich and support it, to make this educational project which started over half a century ago possible, not only lasting but remaining alive, anticipating society’s educational needs. Fortunately, these needs are very different from those of 1940, and we consider that one of the duties of the ESTUDIO FOUNDATION should be to connect and collaborate with Education in any area and at any level, to support it in the fields considered most useful.
To conclude, we think the FOUNDATION we are creating here today must contribute to the driving of education as an increasingly more ambitious social service and ensure that the ESTUDIO institution continues to occupy the prestigious position it has held, as a special educational option, within the vast field of Education.
Madrid, april of 1994
Carmen García del Diestro Nardiz…………..Ángeles Gasset de las Morenas
