They appear in the Spanish education system with the Ley Orgánica de Educación (LOE, 2006) and in the curricula described in this law.
How are the key competences related to the curriculum?
In article 6 of the LOE (Organic Law of Education) the curriculum is defined as a series of objectives, key competences, contents, methodology and evaluation criteria.

Which key competences are described in Spanish regional education systems? (Spain is organized in autonomous communities or regions, as they were called before, the autonomous communities have wide legislative and executive autonomy, with their own parliaments and regional governments)
General competences :
Competence in linguistic communication
Mathematical competence
Competence in knowledge of and interaction with the physical world
Competence in processing information and use of ICT
Competence in social skills and citizenship
Cultural and artistic competence
Learning to learn
Autonomy and personal initiative .

The LOE (which is the general state law for the whole country) says that all subject areas should contribute to the development of as many competences as possible, and each one includes specific reference to the competences most associated with the area.

As for evaluation and grading criteria, during the 3rd year of Obligatory Secondary Education all schools will carry out a diagnostic evaluation of the key competences attained by its pupils. This evaluation, responsibility of the Education Authority, will be formative and diagnostic for the schools and informative for the families and the whole educational community. This assessment will have as a framework of reference the general diagnostic evaluation established in article 144.1 of this law.
The test will only evaluate the key competences although in some autonomous regions, as part of the evaluation, questionnaires (defined as ‘context’ questionnaires) will be made available to students, teachers, families and the school administrators, with questions on the cultural and socio-economic situation of the students, the academic atmosphere, attitudes towards study and expectations, the implication of the family in education…
The key competences do form part of our curricular designs and syllabi and they are evaluated and students graded accordingly.

Have a look at the link below to learn a little bit of our educational system, it won’t take long.
http://bit.ly/9nbK50
Kind regards.

Rosa

My concern with including things like homework completion, attendance, tardies, and other behaviorally driven measures with the final grade is those tend to dilute the actual achievement of students as we report what they have achieved in meeting our preset standards for mastering our curriculum. Reading Marzano, Wormeli, and others has transformed my grading methods to a strictly curriculum based formula of reporting to students and parents.

When my students move onto the next level, the grades they have gotten in my classes are a true indicator of how successful/completely they have mastered the state directed content. I may include ancedotal accounts of other items but these factors are kept separate from the ‘grade’.

I see students come into my classes who have ‘always gotten A’s’ but have no mastery of the content. It is a rude awakening for them as well as their parents that to achieve an A in my class they must demonstrate they have actually gotten the skills I am expected to teach them.

I guess my choice of archaic was a poor one. Inaccurate would be a more ‘accurate’ choice for grades based on something other than mastery of content.

Rosa,
If your country dicates you assign grades based on something other than content, that is an entirely different issue. In the USA, we strive to have grade consistently reflect student learning, student mastery of preset content expectations.

As far as what ‘works for students’, my students would be thrilled to have something like completing a behavior rubric to boost their grades. However, they know what my expectations are, academically AND behaviorally, and they know what it takes to EARN a grade in my class – achievement of the content, pure and simple. They know there will be no ‘extra credit’ for slackers, there will be “I like you so I will boost your grade’ points at the end of the marking period. They accept personal responsibility for learning the content, or they accept their failure for meeting that expectation. Behavior is addressed separately from academic success. I refuse to report student ‘success’ in math based on anything other than that. It is misleading to parents and students alike. No one benefits from this dilution of grades.

Cossondra

Developing the capacity for self-control, I believe, is a critical ability for students to learn, and is something I teach constantly and that I, and students, evaluate just as often. I also give homework completion points. At the same time, I constantly work with students to help them identify sources for intrinsic motivation. It’s a fine balance to maintain, one of numerous tightropes I find are necessary to walk in order to successfully teach in an inner-city school. You may call it archaic. I call it strategic. And it seems to work for my students and me.

Larry