History

The Educational Project of Colegio Los Nogales was born in 1982 from conversations among parents, educators and friends who were discussing the lack of schools that would offer children an education that promotes the development of all dimensions of the human person, in tune with the needs of our time and with the shared responsibilities faced by citizens towards the needs of our country. The goal was to educate children taking into account the necessities of Colombia, a nation deeply affected by a decade-long internal conflict, the lack of equal opportunities for all, a crisis of leadership at the roots of its political class, and many other social and political hardships. In this context, a group of people decided to come together to contribute to a solution by founding a coeducational and bilingual school that would develop in its students the awareness, the responsibility and the pride of being Colombian within a more universal context, offering its students all of the advantages of learning a second language and the cultures around it. As a result of this reflection we created a private, not for profit, educational institution called Corporación Colegio Los Nogales. It was founded on the 14th of July of 1982.

In order to match the goals of the foundation, the stipulated mission of the school since the beginning has been to offer a high quality education, strong in the native language as well as in a foreign language that is predominant in the world. Since its inception, the School has sought to form its students in a holistic manner by providing them an education that is solid in ethical, religious, intellectual and aesthetic values through a strong academic structure, as well as through physical, artistic and vocational education. Today, more than 20 years later, the School’s mission has to be taken into account keeping in mind the international perspectives of a globalized world.

In this context, the School has developed its own norms for community life inspired by the universal principles of human rights and abiding by the Colombian Constitution and the educational legislation of the country. In this way, these norms not only serve as guides to educational action but are also taught and promoted explicitly to students.

In its first year  the School enrolled 147 students and 26 staff members, figure which includes teachers, directors and administrators. We began teaching Pre-School up to Second Grade, with a maximum enrollment of 20 students per group and three groups per grade. In the year of 1984 the Secretary of Education of the City (Secretaría de Educación Distrital) approved the Pre-School for the first time, in May 1986 the Primary School and, finally, in February 1990 it extended its approval to the Middle School and in 1992 to the  High School. 

In the year 1989 we began the construction of the current School premises in a 17.6 acre lot that was bought two years before. The first stage of the construction consisted of a building block of classrooms, the gym area, the initial units for administrative offices and the Pre-School. This was completed in August 1990, date in which the School moved to its current location. The School was born and has developed through its own resources, generated entirely by the tuition fees, contributions and voluntary gifts of parents. It has not received donations nor subsidies from the State nor from private corporations. The fact that the School finds its own resources within the community has been fundamental in defining its nature, philosophy, and institutional authority. The sole owner of the School is the Corporación Colegio Nogales.

The Institution is located in calle 202 No. 56-50, in Bogotá. It offers its students educational programs that go from Pre-school to Elementary and Secondary School in the modality of academic degree (bachilleratio académico); all in the B calendar schedule (August to June). Colegio Los Nogales is co-educational and bilingual in Spanish and English. Its registration number with the Secretary of Education of the city (SED) is 3201. It is identified with the code number 055988 by the ICFES and has been approved in its three sections by Resolution number 1362 of May 29th of 1992. This approval resolution continues to be valid to this date through the “directiva” of the National Ministry of Education (M.E.N) number 53 of 1999.

Loyal to its initial goals, the School has maintained small size classes during all its years of functioning; it has hired professionals with training and experience who devote their full time to education, including teachers who are native English speakers brought over from prestigious foreign educational institutions. The School has made sure that its teachers are exposed to current and up to date educational practices. Likewise, the institution has always sought to maintain an open attitude to assimilate the diverse scientific, technological and cultural developments that develop in the world and that can be applied to education.