The British International School Safeguarding Coalition
Colin Bell looks at a new global coalition supporting safeguarding initiatives in British International schools.
Colin Bell looks at a new global coalition supporting safeguarding initiatives in British International schools.
The population of the UAE is growing and there is pressure on class sizes – but will this mean poorer learning? Ger Graus looks at the research.
Ekxel Carlo T. Degollacion looks at how an elementary government school in the Philippines has challenged traditional approaches to teaching and learning.
Too many years ago than I care to remember, I was sitting at the side of our little school hall for the weekly primary assembly. There must have been singing – there always was – and then a presentation or two. Certificates were being given out and then a Year 6 boy was called out to receive a medal he had won in an inter-school-sports meet the week before. He beamed as we applauded. At the end of the row where I was sitting a small boy turned to his friend:
“That’s my brother!”
His smile of pride was, if anything, broader than his brother’s. His friends smiled back and a girl in the row in front of him turned around:
“Isn’t that your brother??” Again, smiling, slightly incredulously.
Schools are full of stories. Here the headline story was on stage, but perhaps the real story was going on all around us. The whole community had created an amazing culture in which young people took enormous pride in themselves and each other without any kind of one-upmanship. We had our medals (there was some debate about that!) but most importantly, we had our friends.
Teachers are great story-tellers and, dare I say, yarn-spinners. And schools need their stories – it makes them what they are. However, schools don’t always do so well in sharing their stories. Writing the weekly newsletter piece becomes a chore and an exercise in beating the clock. And then there’s the website and social media: website content can be impressive but soulless. As Martin Skelton argues in this issue of ITM – can we really be that amazing?
So where are the real stories? The stories that will reach and engage different audiences of parents, teachers, visitors (and inspectors?). Stories that will tell them what the school is really all about? The answer is that a school’s stories are all around us. They are about the lesson that has had an unexpected impact and is then discussed in the staffroom. They are about the planning and achievement of an initiative that has worked and improved learning, perhaps in a small way, and not just on a grand scale. They are about the little acts of kindness, humanity and growth that happen every day in a school. The sort of story an enthusiastic member of staff or a student will tell off-the-cuff when I met them while showing a prospective family around the school.
Schools need these stories to be written and shared, on line, in print, in podcasts and on YouTube. It’s just good practice – a win for the school in defining what makes it a great place to be and an opportunity for a member of staff to reflect on something they care about and even learn to do better through the very process of writing things down. A link to a published piece also looks great on a CV!
Sharing these stories is really a form of ‘inbound marketing’ – the kind of marketing that a variety of audiences interested in education prefer and which educators actually enjoy writing, for a number of different reasons.
Even if someone thinks they can’t write this sort of story, they can. Like everything else we learn to do, they need a little time, a little space, someone to suggest what works and what doesn’t work and someone to listen to them.
Sound like anything you enjoy doing already?
ITM Editor, Andy Homden will be talking about ‘Finding your school’s stories’ in the latest Outstanding Schools Webinar on Thursday March 7th at 1:30 pm UK time.
You can register here.
FEATURE IMAGE: Unsplash+In collaboration with Getty Images
Support Image : https://www.istockphoto.com/en/portfolio/MakhbubakhonIsmatova?mediatype=photography
Ecuador-based Uno a Uno is one of many not-for-profit, low-cost organisations making a difference to children’s education around the world. But what they wanted to know in 2023 was just how much impact they were having. Brian Ambrosio reports.
Clara Garriga suggests that following the successful opening of an innovatively designed extension to a heritage primary school building in Edinburgh, Passivhaus can become ‘the new normal’ for school design.
Erika Elkady laments the narrow ‘academic’ approach of modern education, but sees the potential of an ancient ideal to provide a framwork for change.
A new study by Lisa Wishart Terry explores the possible impact of high teacher turnover in international schools on the cognitive and social development of Third Culture Kids (‘TCKs’). Chris Terry reports.
Was 2023 the year everything changed because of AI? Perhaps some of our old priorities just became more essential.
Holly Sullivan, Head of Creative and Expressive Arts at The Alice Smith School, Malaysia, looks at the link between the Creative Arts and developing a sense of belonging in an international school.
Putting this learning support mantra into practice is the best way to meet an increasing range of post-covid needs, according to Krystle Flack, Head of Learning Support at Cranleigh School.
Through their friendship and shared love of music Dr. Winston Wuttunee and Jordan Laidlaw feel that they have been able to contribute to the process of reconciliation in Canada.
Wherever your school is with the issue of equity, this well-informed, down-to-earth conversation between Nunana Nyomi and Clare Ives, two of the most experienced educators responsible for establishing a culture of equity in a school, is a must-listen.
Holly B.F. Warren reflects on how teachers and parents can collaborate to explore and celebrate the role of imagination in schools.
Matthew Savage considers the importance of symbols and flags for young people as they develop their own sense of belonging and identity in their school.
Katherine Beith Director of Studies at Alleyn’s Junior School considers the reading journey the school has recently experienced. According to Year 4, things are on the right track!
Gavin English, Deputy Head Pastoral at Alleyn’s School in London, considers whether the pursuit of ‘greatness’ is overrated.Could good be better?
Clare Brokenshire reminds us that frequent examples of good pastoral practice within a positive school culture can make a big difference to a student’s day.
Thomas Kelley and Kathy Marshall propose that if we are to address the issue of poor wellbeing and mental stress in our schools, we must grasp a sufficient understanding of the way every person’s psychological life is created from the “inside-out”.
Despite the huge benefits of an international education, we know there can be a downside for ‘third culture kids’. Tanya Crossman looks at awareness and risk mitigation in schools.
Can the social and emotional state of our students be tracked to enable early intervention? Jonathan Taylor and Simon Antwis think so.
Matthew Savage looks at why students in international schools might choose to mask their real self and the consequences for student wellbeing.
Do you suffer from risk assessment anxiety? According to David Gregory, you are not alone but you can master your fears!
Eva Coddington of Sevenoaks School presents the case for the active practice of Yoga in schools as time very well spent.
Lorna Conroy describes how Bangkok Patana school has developed a two-track approach to monitor and support secondary student wellbeing.
It seems we are now constantly dealing with the effects of local and global uncertainty. Milena Prodanić Tišma describes how one school in Zagreb helped children to cope after two earthquakes during lockdown.
For Nicholas Chaddock, just talking about wellbeing in the classroom achieves little. Doing rather than talking is the key.
According to Jim Knight, Rt Hon Lord Knight of Weymouth, dealing with Covid has come at a cost, but significant ways to improve teacher wellbeing are also at hand this side of the pandemic.
The wait has been a long one, but their needs are not the same. Simon Dunford looks at the gaps in social learning that needs to be closed in different ways on returning to learning on-campus.
Safeguarding is a high priority in any good school, but Huma Shah wonders if we are doing enough to protect children’s data when using well-known online learning resources.
Do failure and trauma really toughen you up? Not without a process of healing, argues social psycholgist Dr. Helen Street.
A recent study by the OECD strikingly confirms the importance of holistic education. Andreas Schleicher looks at the outcomes of their 2018-20 global Survey of Social and Emotional Skills.
Do ‘inclusive’ leadership styles in teachers motivate students? A study by Paul Parham and Gloria Moss at Sevenoaks School suggests there is a significant correlation.
Charley Openshaw, IB teacher and Head of Art at Sevenoaks School recommends the virtues of careful observation and drawing as useful techniques for wider learning.
Claire Sewell looks at a new Post Graduate diploma course for 2021 which will help schools – including international schools – become more self-reliant in making a range of positive interventions.
Careers and Universities Counsellor, Paul Yap, looks at how graduating students can ‘win the wait’ imposed on them as they plan for the future during lockdown.
Set up to provide a great education in self-supporting schools, HUGS is a model for the development of low-cost, sustainable learning, as Dr. Richard Bircher reports.
Covid has brought home the value of getting outside. Nicholas Chaddock looks at why reevaluating the importance of outdoor education is so important for all of us in 2021.
Far from being marginalised, sport moved centre stage at this UK day and boarding school during a difficult year, as Ed Buck, Director of Sport reports.
As a result of frequent relocations and long periods of family separation, the children of military personnel need empathetic support in school, writes Louise Fetigan.
Whatever you teach, argues Richard Evans, helping students know themselves is equally important. Acquiring emotional literacy transforms lives – yours and theirs.
Feature Image: Courtesy of Brian D’Cruz Hypno Plus https://www.briandcruzhypnoplus.com/
Holly Warren describes Think Tank, an innovative studio environment in which children learn to synthesise their learning experiences as new design and art pieces.
The Think Tank (Warren, 2015) is an immersive, interactive studio setting (atelier) designed by students and an atelierista (art studio teacher) to celebrate, stimulate, enhance, and develop creative thinking patterns that connect children with a range of other experiences, both inside and outside a school. The concept was initially inspired by the educational approaches of pedagogues Loris Malaguzzi, Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner and Kieran Egan, which allow a child to express ideas, interests, concepts and theories by creating visual narratives without restriction. This approach sets the ground for exploratory adventures that will tell the story of a child’s research and findings and has evolved into what the children have described as “the place where your ideas come true.”
The Think Tank never requests, it proposes, shares, presents, and inspires its community to create art pieces that are expressive of their own experience. A constant inter-action with the students’ environment allows an ongoing dialogue of the parts. Think Tank therefore embraces and celebrates the different environments in which the students work, whether at home or at school.
Designing and making activities in Think Tank draw on materials which are readily available and are sourced locally either at school or at home. Recycled, repurposed and natural materials are valued, while the language, movement, and sounds that are part of the materials are used to enhance, document, and create narratives.
Think Tank is also a research hub for children’s ideas, concepts, and interests. As a child-centred learning setting it documents the ever-changing processes and themes the children spontaneously engage in.
During Think Tank sessions, the mentor meets small groups of 6 to 8 children in a Pow Wow format to share ideas and thoughts. These can be experiences, recollections of past explorations or new proposals. If needed, a quiet moment of recollection/thinking is proposed as a way of linking with the students’ self. Then the group creates a dialogue and decides how to proceed. This is the three-step process of visible thinking that accompanies the experiences.
The environment is set up with a selection of materials that the Think Tank mentor proposes in different areas of the room. These could be glass bead on the light table, a video installation with sounds and an area for exploration with light such as light pebbles and fairy lights.
Having welcomed each other, participants start a conversation about a continuing project or make an initial exploration of something new. Beads can turn into spaghetti in a make-believe restaurant, the video installation might become a walk in the woods or the lights may turn into a fire requiring firefighters to design a new generation hose.
Recently, due to the requirements linked to the pandemic the students have been given working and exploration areas that are not shared with other classes but are still trampolines of inspiration.
The Think Tank is its own setting, created with the children’s input. It is dynamic and changes according to the moment, the situation and the projects involved. This requires a space that can morph and adapt easily, but its salient characteristic is the mental space needed to create it.
However, there are strong links to what children are learning elsewhere, and which they bring to the studio quite naturally. Think Tank enables them to talk about these ideas and skills in a new context, which is invaluable. Surface learning becomes embedded into deep learning as the children make connections that are meaningful to the projects. Think Tank discussions therefore involve personal know-how and knowledge acquired in class from all areas of learning. Literacy, numeracy, knowledge and understanding of the world, social and emotional skills and predispositions, fine and gross motor skills, creative thinking and problem solving meet in the Think Tank, demonstrating the uniqueness of each student that becomes a vital element in the creation of projects that celebrate multi-perspectives:
“Nothing of me is original, I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve known.” (Palahniuk, 1999)
Think Tank therefore celebrates and brings together the school as a learning community. Parents become partners in exhibitions and performance art pieces when everyone adds to the outcome. During the lockdown parents themselves became Think Tank mentors themselves by stepping inside the experiences and working with the children to produce family pieces in a process of incredible educational value.
The richness of the Think Tank experience is best expressed in the words of the children themselves, as in the poem spontaneously presented by a seven year old participant to her parents as a gift:
The Think Tank is full of ideas,
If you listen with your ears, just peer through here,
And maybe you will see a pear,
You will see oysters and monsters.
But don’t worry you don’t need to say sorry.
Now watch this film (Ripples) and you will be surprised
With what your child has learnt.
Holly Warren is an atelierista, or art studio teacher, working in an international school in Italy. She is the creator of Think Tank – a new project environment that links the creative process of art with Montessori, Steiner and Reggio Emilia educational methodologies.
To learn more about her ideas see:
Images kindly provided by Holly
Daniel Shindler looks at the core values which has enabled him to take an optimistic view of what we all do.
For Felicity Gunn, enhanced intercultural mindedness, when practiced by the whole community, can take any school or business to new heights.
Young people in schools around the world are fighting back against Covid-19 with music. Laurie Lewin invites your school to join in.
Matthew Savage, creator of the #monalisaeffect® approach to personalised learning and wellbeing considers what other masks children will be wearing in 2020.
A new book by Helen Lewis and Russell Grigg explores the way that animals can affect children’s learning and wellbeing.
If you are conducting a review of your school values and philosophy, Roger Sutcliffe suggests that you should do so philosophically.
Matt Harris Ed.D. reports how a significant gap in safeguarding training for schools is being filled by an innovative group of international educators.
Discovering CLT was a eureka moment for Steve Garnett – so important he felt compelled to write a new book for teachers. Here he shares 4 key ideas.