Helping Uganda Schools
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.
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Well Being
New FOBISIA inter-school event takes off during lockdown
Andy Homden looks at a competition for international schools that simply would not have happened without lockdown, and seems destined to grow quickly.
Get them outside!
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.
The importance of sport to a school community in 2020
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.
Art and wellbeing
Becoming totally absorbed in painting increases a sense of wellbeing, but there may be more to it than that writes Peter Hudson.
Supporting military children in school
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.
SLT wellbeing during the pandemic
Following an October 2020 survey of over 700 school leaders, former international school head, Dr. Helen Kelly concluded that colleagues in leadership positions ended 2020 under unprecedented pressure.
The foundation we forget to teach
Whatever you teach, argues Richard Evans, helping students know themselves is equally important. Acquiring emotional literacy transforms lives – yours and theirs.
Learning synthesis
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 environment.
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.
Materials
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.
How experiences unfold.
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.
Links with class work and the curriculum
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)
Celebrating community.
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.
Student perspective
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
How to thrive as a teacher
Daniel Shindler looks at the core values which has enabled him to take an optimistic view of what we all do.
Renewal time
Reviewing a school’s medical insurance can be a technical, painstaking business. Rachel Thorpe looks at how to compare apples with apples and secure the best cover for your staff.
Achieving deep awareness
For Felicity Gunn, enhanced intercultural mindedness, when practiced by the whole community, can take any school or business to new heights.
Picking up the baton
It’s been a long time since Ken Robinson’s famous TED talk in 2007. Andy Homden asks whether the baton of the learning revolution has been picked up by a new champion who is already putting ideas into practice on a large scale.
Singing in a global choir
Young people in schools around the world are fighting back against Covid-19 with music. Laurie Lewin invites your school to join in.
What lies beneath?
Matthew Savage, creator of the #monalisaeffect® approach to personalised learning and wellbeing considers what other masks children will be wearing in 2020.
Don’t judge a book by its cover
Gwen Byrom thinks we need to see school-home communication from a parent’s perspective to avoid problems arising from our own misconceptions.
Community based teacher training in rural Nepal
Fionna Heiton looks at how a new approach to teacher training is beginning to make a difference to the lives of children in a remote district near Pokhara.
Animal power
A new book by Helen Lewis and Russell Grigg explores the way that animals can affect children’s learning and wellbeing.
Whole person virtues
If you are conducting a review of your school values and philosophy, Roger Sutcliffe suggests that you should do so philosophically.
Understanding exponential growth
Understanding exponential growth has never been more important. Professor Marcus Du Sautoy explains the mathematics behind the spreading of a virus.
A global mission with International School roots
Matt Harris Ed.D. reports how a significant gap in safeguarding training for schools is being filled by an innovative group of international educators.
Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) and effective teaching
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.
Who are we now?
Elly Tobin, senior consultant at Consilium Education, has been listening to teachers and students talking about their experiences of online learning.
Becoming me
In the second of two articles Ger Graus argues passionately for changes to the curriculum which will excite the imagination and raise aspirations.
Medical insurance in schools post COVID-19
Covid-19 has challenged so many assumptions about teaching overseas. One pressure point is the provision of adequate medical insurance, as Rachel Thorpe reports.
Unconscious bias in international schools
In the light of questions being asked about racism in 2020, Gwen Byrom thinks we all need to take a hard look at the cultural climate in which international learning is taking place.
Transforming Early Years education in the Himalayas
When they were living in Nepal with their twin toddlers, it was difficult for teacher Fionna Heiton and her partner Durga Aran to ignore the challenges faced by local schools. Fionna takes up the story.
On their own two feet
Whether you are a teacher or a parent, wanting to help or protect the children for whom you are responsible is natural. But there are limits, says Nicola Pearson.
Dipping into online learning as an adult
Having had a long and very happy association with distance learning, Professor Helen Bilton of the University of Reading suggests it opens up new worlds for adults as well as for children.
Developing good habits for the next stage of learning
Statistics show that ‘Dropping out of uni’ is getting worse, not better. David Craggs thinks that schools have a major role to play in addressing the issue.
Recalibrating our schools
Education has become a rushed process, and the skills that young people most need are in danger of being left behind. Time to recalibrate, says Robert Lloyd Williams.
Developing constructive confrontational skills and emotional intelligence
Stephen Walshe argues that engaging young people in philosophical enquiry creates an environment conducive to building constructive confrontational skills and emotional intelligence.
Helping children cope with worries
Since children’s worries often interfere with their learning, it is helpful to understand their concerns. Sometime before lockdown, Leah Davies asked 320 third graders to list one or two things they think about when they cannot sleep. Perhaps these worries are even more important now.
Parents and students in lockdown
Janice Ireland talks with Henk van Hout, Global Head of Shell Education Services, about how students and parents are coping with lockdown and the demands of remote learning.
Safeguarding during the lockdown
Jason Tait, Director of Pastoral Care and Designated Safeguarding Lead at TASIS, The American School in England suggests that maintaining student wellbeing during the lockdown is possibly even more important than a school’s online academic programme.
A contagion well worth catching
It’s official – laughing is good for you, and as far as Dave Keeling is concerned, the more we use humour in class, the better our teaching will be.
The many small acts . . . .
Ian Gilbert reflects on the nature of loss, and the contradictory ways in which it might be confronted with a bereaved child.
The impact of coronavirus as China’s international schools prepare to reopen
Stephanie Quayle of ISC Research looks at how schools may be coming through the lockdown phase in China, and what we can all learn from their experience.
Don’t worry, we’re happy
Does getting out of the classroom help you de-stress? Caroline Ferguson, Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS) Leader at Bangkok Patana School looks into CAS and stress levels.
Coping with stress – tips For educators
While school and teachers provide a cornerstone that offers a daily structure and routine to many children, it is also important to look after your own well being. Leah Davies gives us a few points to consider.
Tricky – but necessary?
Making the most of being at home with a family during the lockdown may depend on getting everyone into a new routine. Easier said than done, but not impossible, thinks Orla Redmond.
Collaborative music recording project for children around the world
Laurie Lewin has been organising the international charity music project Voices Around the World since 2011. Over 7,000 students took part last year. He’s hoping for even more schools to join in when Voices Around the World launch their new song for 2020! Here Laurie tells us what is happening now and what’s in store for the future.
Going digital
Establishing an effective safeguarding regime can be challenging even on one campus. Primary Principal Graeme Chisholm looks at how his school took on the task of coordinating a consistent programme across four sites in the Czech Republic.
Future imaginative
Teacher, writer and social activist, Ger Graus is also a successful businessman and Global Director of Education for KidZania. He thinks that young people can imagine their future with confidence – if they know how. ITM’s Andy Homden caught up with him recently on-line.
The experience of school closures
An enforced school closure can be sudden and present a range of daunting problems. James McDonald looks at what he learned as a Principal during two periods of crisis, one in Japan and another in Thailand, when he had to close his school.
Tattling and tale telling
Leah Davies suggests ways to help children differentiate between ‘tattling’ and responsible ‘reporting’. Here”s her advice for teachers and parents.
Providing effective learning and support for young learners
Stephen Walshe and his colleagues Alexis Bucher and Michelle Sun describe how the Fortune Kindergarten in Shanghai is providing distance learning for very young learners during the Covid-19 epidemic.
That moment of greatness
International teacher Susan Bennett contemplates the moment that darkness becomes light as the sun rises over the Borobudur Temple in Central Java.
The importance of adult role modelling for children’s emotional development
Leah Davies offers educators ten tips for supporting children as they learn how to manage their feelings and grow emotionally.
Should smartphones be banned in school?
Following a decision by the state of Victoria government in Australia to exclude smart phones from primary and secondary schools, Sam Chester looks at arguments for and against banning phones in school.