International School Magazine - Spring Issue '21

MAGAZINE SPRING 2021

THE MAGAZINE FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATORS

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Internationalising schools in the 2020s

Quality learning for all: Access and inclusion

Educational and Cultural Exchanges

Spring 2021

International School THE MAGAZINE FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATORS

Contents

EDITORS Mary Hayden Jeff Thompson editor@is-mag.com www.is-mag.com

24

MANAGING DIRECTOR

6 Ways to Allow for Greater Student Agency in Your Classroom

Steve Spriggs steve@williamclarence.com

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International School is an independent magazine. The views expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent those of the magazine. The magazine cannot accept any responsibility for products and services advertised within it.

Discovering the Fantastic Culture and Customs of China

Features 4 Internationalising schools in the 2020s The role of school leadership, Rob Ford 7

No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form or by any means.

28

Internationalising schools in the 2020s

What if our Best Practice is Monocultural in a World where all Cultures Matter? Richard Mast

10

Bridging the local to the international How might principles and practices of international education assist national systems and local communities? Margarita Mansola

12

Are international teachers in it only for the money? Danny McCamlie

Leading and managing teaching and learning 16 Transitioning curricula in ‘hybrid’ international schools, The case of foreign language teaching and learning, Andreea Constandache

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Induction in International Schools, Supporting the whole community, Megan Maher

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Why international schools should follow sport’s lead, Antony Winch

24

6 Ways to Allow for Greater Student Agency in Your Classroom, Dominic Munden

26

Quality learning for all, Access and inclusion, Jayne Pletser

From the schools 28 Discovering the Fantastic Culture and Customs of China through a CAS Expedition Jwan Aljawabreh 30

Student Educational and Cultural Exchanges A paradigm for post-millennials and netizens, Ish Dutt

32

Away From the Numbers In which Alice takes a tea break and feels there might be more to life than measuring it, Chris Binge

Book Review 34 Rosenshine’s Principles in Action: by Tom Sherrington, Woodbridge, John Catt Educational Ltd (2019), Reviewed by Therese Andrews

MAGAZINE

SPRING 2021

THE MAGAZINE

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EDUCATOR

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Educational and Cultural Exchanges

2020s

Spring 2021 | International School | 3

Features

Features

Internationalising schools in the 2020’s: The role of school leadership Rob Ford

I

f there is a quality not lacking in school leaders in 2021, it is courage – especially, having the courage to lead school communities around the globe through the toughest challenge of finding a workable strategy, in the many twists and turns of the pandemic, that ensures education doesn’t become a victim of Covid19. By coincidence, 2021 is the Year of the Ox in the Chinese zodiac. A perfect symbol of everything educators, school leaders, support staff, students and school communities around the world stand for right now. In the Chinese zodiac, the ox represents hard work, diligence, intelligence, reliability and integrity. The ox never demands praise and is there in the background performing its duty. The pandemic has seen these qualities come to the fore in school leadership and, in international schools, the collaborations, sharing of ideas, and support through informal and formal networks, have resulted in a number of workable and successful strategies that allow education not only to continue, but also to flourish as local contexts allow local solutions to work. It is the courage to ensure our education not only survives but thrives in the 2020s that is the challenge for all international school leaders, especially as the global challenges we faced before the pandemic are still there, looking for

4 | International School | Spring 2021

a new generation of leadership with real solutions being created in our schools that is not only internationally-minded but also capable of meaningful intercultural dialogue.

Michael Fullan, the great Canadian education writer, once famously asked ‘What is worth fighting for in education?’.

The answer is more clear this year than ever before. Young people, the future and the hope for better days: that is what is worth fighting for now, and we need the right kind of leadership to take on this challenge and win. I know my role

ourselves, we might do so by creating leaders who can change it through education’.

We often assume our schools are ‘international’ based on the curriculum they follow, their locations, or the composition of the student and staff bodies. We see the role of our international schools as not only fostering international mindedness and respectful intercultural dialogue, but also as the place where future global citizens are developed. As school leaders we cannot assume our title confers the status

2021 is the Year of the Ox in the Chinese zodiac. A perfect symbol of everything educators, school leaders, support staff, students and school communities around the world stand for right now; hard work, diligence, intelligence, reliability and integrity. as an international school leader is to prepare young people to assume their roles of leadership in our societies and communities, ready for the future. As my hero Kurt Hahn once said of our true purpose as leaders in education: ‘If we cannot change the world

of ‘international school’; we need to continue to revisit what we are doing daily in our school systems and cultures to ensure we respond to an ever-changing world, and that we can find successful strategies to make our organisations relevant in creating the very leaders, in Hahn’s words, that we need for the challenges of the 2020s and beyond. This also requires a lot of courage and it is not for the faint-hearted. Like the proverbial Chinese ox, most of the work we are doing in our schools is unsung. But if the pandemic has done anything positive for education, it is to show the absolute necessity of the work of educators and the very essence of the public good across all global societies: an educated populace. For those of us in international schools, being globally minded is an essential requirement for the public good as well.

The pandemic didn’t see national frontiers any more than global issues such as climate change, income inequality, educational access or refugees had

seen them in the first decades of the 21st century. The pandemic has also made even more irrelevant the tired, befuddled insult of ‘globalist’ still popular with the narrow nationalist populists in various corners of the globe, as we see the move back towards deep critical thinking, contextualising social media and the role of technology, factually-based evidence and respect for people like scientists, who are experts in their fields.

The statement at the start of 2021 by António Guterres, secretary general of the UN, that vaccine nationalism is not only unfair but self-defeating, illustrated clearly the interdependent globalised world of the 2020s. Our courage in our moral leadership in international schools, providing this ethos and learning environment, is also – in the words of Fullan – definitely worth fighting for as school leaders. Our duty as international schools to our wider national education communities has been demonstrated in the pandemic where systems have worked together, across sectors, to find workable local solutions for all.

The work of the Finnish educator, Dr Marjo Kyllönen, on the challenges of defining ‘us’ in a more complex global society underpins the reasons why international schools are the micro building blocks, demonstrating that there is no false binary choice between a local

It is our duty to continue to ensure we are developing our future global citizens in hope and truth, and it is too important to give up for all our sakes. and a global identity. School cultures that build into their organisation strands to bring the school and wider community together through a range of practices, events and curriculum opportunities are more effective organisations in tackling the challenges of preparing our students for the new decade and beyond. As Dr Kyllönen (2019) argued: ‘To be successful in the future, we must redefine the concept of us and thereby build a new identity of us that consists of all the diverse cultural, language and ethnic identities we see in our classrooms today. It is a process where we learn together in a fruitful interaction and discussion in an atmosphere of trust that recognises the value of all people.’

The international schools of which

I am director in Moldova illustrate the crucial importance of leadership in internationalising schools. Heritage International School is the first international school in Moldova to provide an international curriculum from K-12. Moldova has a complex, postSoviet legacy and sits at the crossroads of Europe. The Founders’ mission in setting up Heritage is: ‘To prepare students for the challenges of the future.

A dream of an international school that will give the children of our country the atmosphere of an alternative, progressive and modern educational institution’. This mission has been crucial in the support and collaboration we have undertaken throughout the pandemic within our national education community and also across our European and international partners. We use this mission as our guiding light as school leaders to make sure our operational and strategic priorities always lead to these words, and the ethos and the culture of an international school in our mindsets, classrooms and corridors.

The three constants we have had as school leaders in everything we do and say to develop an international school and culture are: • Positive School Culture is everything; a belief in people – nothing can be achieved without it.  Spring 2021 | International School | 5

• Heritage has to be an outward-facing school: networks, partnerships, social responsibility and collaborations are the key to our improvement and 21st century holistic education.

• We are committed to compelling teaching and learning to create life opportunities for the young people, future global citizens [who are] proud of their identity and communities we serve as their local school.

For a school leader, the constant challenges in the 2020s to internationalise our schools will need a response and a strategy that is not just based in glib, clichéd emotion to be meaningful, impacting and sustained into the next generation as a part of their values going forward as future leaders. It will also take more than a coaching/cheerleading ‘We have this!’ response. Emotion is not a strategy, and certainly not one to find the answers as leaders to the challenges below:

• What are our common challenges now going forward, especially after the pandemic?

• Relevance of global education: taking on the narrative of being a ‘globalist’ • Fragmented networks: schools constantly in competition • The next generation of global education champions?

• The narrative of identity politics and populist history prevailing • False binary choices and false equivalence • Too much information and not nearly enough knowledge or wisdom • Traditional support and organisations changing • The definition of the curriculum: the narrowing of studies • Mega global trends: impact and response • Giving hope to young people that their world can be improved by them through their agency and leadership

References

It is our duty to continue to ensure we are developing our future global citizens in hope and truth, and it is too important to give up for all our sakes. As leaders of international schools in the 2020s we are going to need lots of courage and acceptance of the changes and challenges ahead in a complex world. We want future generations to make better and long-lasting decisions for our common humanity. That is the prize and why we are in international education. Our young people need to be proud of who they are and as global citizens. There is no false binary choice here if we develop and prepare our global learners for life in school and beyond. This takes courage but is worth fighting for in our international education. ◆ Rob Ford is Director of Heritage International School, Chisinau, Moldova. ✉ robert.ford@heritage.md

• Kyllönen M (2019) A New Narrative for the Future: Learning, Social Cohesion and Redefining ‘Us’, in J W Cook (ed) Sustainability, Human Well-Being, and the Future of Education. New York: Springer [pp 311 – 338]

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Features

Features

What if our Best Practice is Monocultural in a World where all Cultures Matter?

T

Richard Mast

his is a unique time, at least in the lives of methods are based upon an educational assumption. current generations. For educators, we hear The past fifty years in western education has seen a that Black Lives Matter, and we see this as a shift to the idea that each child is unique as a learner. message that can and should be endorsed in schools As teachers, we recognize this and we undertake and classrooms: an honourable and important value to to facilitate the learning for each student. This is a support and respond to. It is also a wake-up call which core skill. There is a problem, though, in that although many recognize, as we see in we embrace the premise, the rallies and media exposure we do not always see our Our cultural context to core issues in societies. The responsibility beyond a certain question is: what is the wakeshapes our thinking and point. That point is defined by up call for us as educators? the dynamic of teaching and therefore the way we learn, learning, shaped by curriculum.

Is it stating only that we all are equal, and that we should Our curriculum outlines our perspectives and their all be treated equally in our the learning outcomes. We no values. As teachers, we schools and classrooms? Or longer like to call it ‘content’, is there a deeper and more have to be brave enough but there is an expectation profound question? (ours, and that of the systems and strong enough to If we profess this value, we we belong to) that students must understand what it is will do the learning needed listen, learn and adapt saying. The issue is not only to achieve the outcomes. about making sure that Black This makes sense, because it Lives Matter or that we treat all people equally. As gives purpose and direction to the learning. In order educators we take pride in engaging in the learning to achieve this expectation, the teacher keeps to processes for our students and peers. We teach and deadlines and keeps the learning outcomes at the the students learn. It is a joyous profession. However, forefront of their thinking. there is a blind spot – and the current exposure to In order to best facilitate this dynamic, the teacher particular attitudes provides a time to reflect, and develops and implements the skills and processes that in which to identify that blind spot. Our teaching are recognized (but not clearly defined) as ‘best  Spring 2021 | International School | 7

Features

practice’. A teacher takes pride in being able to apply ‘best practice’, and administrators evaluate teachers on their ability in this skill set. There is a tension here. The child is unique, but the learning outcomes are set for all students and the teacher’s best practice is built into their education, modelling and professional development. There is no surprise that the expectations of achieving outcomes and using best practice dominate the reality of the classroom.

Our blind spot is in the middle of this combination of teaching and curriculum. The concept of an international curriculum is based primarily upon western curriculum. It is difficult to see significant differences between the learning outcomes of western national curricula and those of the various international curricula in play. An assumption is made that the outcomes are universal: that is, built upon the needs and development of humans. How else can we explain that we are applying learning theories developed in western cultures based upon research in western classrooms and undertaken by western educators? How else can we explain the universal use of a curriculum when the demographic of a classroom not only has multiple representations from different cultures but also multiple representations of sub-cultures within each culture? What if our teaching methods are based upon western cultural experience and values? What if our teaching methods promote and rely upon student familiarity with, and proficiency in, the dynamic of teaching and learning built into those methods? What if our assessment practices are based upon western cultural values?

In this moment of serious global reflection, it behoves us to reflect on what we believe in and what we need to do to truly make a contribution. If our curriculum is reflective of one culture, then what needs to be adjusted to allow learners to recognize themselves, their values, their perspectives, their experiences? Should we be celebrating all cultures, not as tokenism as part of a ‘feel good’ checklist, but to celebrate in order to educate? Students from all cultures would be exposed to the many different (and often dramatically different) perspectives, interpretations and values in the classroom, school and society. What if our curricula were shaped with

Features

learning outcomes that had their genesis in multiple cultures? Our ‘best practice’ must adapt to this situation in ways that we have not seen in the past.

Consider that the perpetuation of a western way of teaching is another form of cultural dominance, and people from other cultures know what is happening and it is not helping. Even within a western culture, there are multiple cultures and many sub-cultures that are not being seen, let alone valued in the educational process. How can a person feel valued if their culture is ignored or marginalized? How can a student connect to learning if they do not recognize themselves in the process? How can the students feel valued if the measures of success are based upon a completely different cultural context from their own?

If we return to the original idea that each student is unique, we have to go much further than thinking of students as individual learners with their own learning style. Each student is a microcosm of the cultures of their family and experience. Our cultural context shapes our thinking and therefore the way we learn, our perspectives and their values. As teachers, we have to be brave enough and strong enough to listen, learn and adapt. As administrators, we have to be brave enough and strong enough to listen, learn, support, make the appropriate decisions, and allocate time and resources to make it happen. Our responsibility is to the students. Our students are part of a cultural experience, and this dimension has to come to the fore – or else we will, once again, be riding a wave of enthusiasm for an idea that will dissipate and reappear in the future. Now is the time to act. ◆ Richard Mast trains Chinese and foreign teachers and administrators in China and Australia. ✉ mast617@gmail.com

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Features

Features

Bridging the local to the international How might principles and practices of international education assist national systems and local communities?

Margarita Mansola

A

s we are already moving into what has been termed ‘a new emerging landscape of learning and schooling’, it is widely accepted that education needs to be re-evaluated and designed on a different basis. It seems, however, that while most discussions about educational reform acknowledge its necessity, little is actually taking place in terms of educational policies or the various school realities. This is even more true for national educational systems, which by definition are bounded by a number of power systems and often conflicting forces and structures and/or insufficient infrastructure. Moreover, with reference to national mainstream school policy, there has been little consensus as to the actual changes or steps

We are, as we have always been, interconnected.

Let’s work together as well. No other way is possible for a sustainable future.

10 | International School | Spring 2021

that need be taken. The UN sustainable development goals (SDG) agenda does of course provide a framework for future education approaches and curricula but, in practice, and for national education systems in particular, more time is spent discussing and perhaps suggesting possible changes than in actually taking action towards meeting them. At the same time, unfortunately there are still societies that do not even consider these goals to be a mandate for the future, or that live in conflict and are not in a position to form any educational policies whatsoever. UNESCO’s latest report indicates large gaps in mainstreaming education for sustainable development (UNESCO, 2019).

But time is a luxury that education cannot afford. At the current rate, of the 1.4 billion school-age children in low- and middleincome countries, 420 million will not learn the most basic skills in childhood by 2030 (UNICEF, 2019). If, as is frequently stated, we are already late in making plausible changes to save the environment, we are even more delayed in educating people for a sustainable and peaceful future. This year, children entering school will have completed their schooling by 2030, the year by which nations have made a commitment to meeting the UN SDG4 (Quality Education) goals. Yet today, in low-income countries, only 60% of children complete primary school, while in some regions the percentage of students who achieve minimum

UNESCO’s latest report indicates large gaps in mainstreaming education for sustainable development proficiency in reading is even falling (UNESCO, 2019).

Moreover, according to data reports, for many children and adolescents enrolled in education, schooling does not lead to learning; at the time of writing, one in five schoolaged children are not in school at all. The same reports state that there is a lack of trained teachers, inadequate learning materials, makeshift classes and poor sanitation facilities that make learning difficult for many children, with 617 million children and adolescents around the world unable to reach minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics (UNICEF, 2019). And all this is before the pandemic that has made such an impact on world education, widening the gap and highlighting inequalities.

Of course some of these disappointing reports refer to global challenges, conflicts, inequalities, and inefficient education systems that exceed the power of individual schools or local initiatives to change. But are they not, at least to a certain extent, the very challenges international education aspires to meet by ‘educating for a better world’?

Are there not international private schools operating in some low income countries that aspire to make changes and educate the future leaders of these countries?

Moreover, are not some of those challenges faced also by middle- or even high-income states, indicating gaps that are relevant not so much to funds as to the very essence and quality of learning and schooling? Should not we all, then, make a better effort to ensure that our work meets our aspirations for quality education for all?

Moreover, the International Baccalaureate (IB, 2012) considers international education to be ‘a comprehensive approach to education that intentionally prepares students to be active and engaged participants in an interconnected world’. Following pedagogical practices in order to foster students’ recognition and development of universal human values, stimulate curiosity and inquiry to develop a spirit of discovery and enjoyment of learning, and equip students with the skills to learn and acquire knowledge, individually or collaboratively, the IB programmes aim to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. If we stop a little and think to what extent these aspirations are met, or even explore whether they are shared with the local contexts in which international education programs are implemented, we may realise that there is a gap that we urgently need to address. A gap that can be easily identified if we really want to see it. A gap that indicates that what we claim to be doing may not be what we actually are doing, despite all good intentions. A gap that international educators must take action to address.

While for national systems many of the aforementioned challenges are almost inherent in

the context in which they operate, for a number of political, systemic, structural and other reasons, international education seems to be, by its very nature, closer to meeting SDG4 goals and advancing quality education. In this sense, its role in shaping the future in education globally, especially in view of the 2030 agenda, is strengthened by virtue of its very philosophical framework and pedagogical steering power. This strength must be capitalized and expanded as a policy for national systems. However, what we frequently witness is more and more international schools operating in various contexts attracting the most affluent student populations, while parental expectations always have an eye for the West, leaving little if any impact on local communities.

If this continues then international education may lose its focus and fail to contribute to the urgently needed educational reform and improvement.

Of course this is not to say that individual schools and education practices can, alone, fight with corruption, nepotism, ill-conceived policies, inadequate infrastructure and other factors primarily responsible for social inequalities and low quality of schooling in a number of countries (and, alas, not only low-income countries). Far from it. And it is true that international schools, wherever they operate, do offer an option to families who wish for a different and high quality education for their children, when local systems do not meet their needs. But I argue that it is an imperative to see how international education really and essentially contributes to the improvement of this world as it claims, if only by making a start with sustainable and deep synergies between international schools and national systems worldwide, offering teacher training and student collaborations. Of course someone has to be willing to change in order to take forward such collaborations, but it is important to advocate for it. State and non-state stakeholders and actors, international and local, the most affluent, the middle class and the poorest and marginalized: we are all needed to close the gap and contribute to an education that truly cares enough to bring quality learning to all children hoping for a better world for the future.

International education has a crucial role to play in this and we must jump to the challenge. We are, as we have always been, interconnected. Let’s work together as well.

No other way is possible for a sustainable future. ◆ Margarita Mansola is an Educational Psychologist (CPsychol) and Educational Consultant. ✉ m argarita.mansola@gmail.com

References

• International Baccalaureate (2012) International education – how do you define ‘international education’? The IB Community Blog. Available from https://blogs.ibo.org/blog/2012/06/06/international-education/ • UNESCO (2019) Meeting commitments: are countries on track to achieve SDG 4? Available from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000369009 • UNICEF (2019) Every Child Learns: UNICEF Education Strategy 2019–2030.

Available from https://www.unicef.org/media/59856/file/UNICEF-educationstrategy-2019-2030.pdf

Spring 2021 | International School | 11

Features

Features

Are international teachers in it only for the money?

Danny McCamlie

IMAGES: UPKLYAK / FREEPIK

‘O

12 | International School | Spring 2021

ur best teachers are lured away by more attractive packages’, ‘Some of our better teachers just use us as a stepping stone into the international market’, ‘We can’t compete with the best schools so we have to hire later in the year and get access to a smaller talent pool.’ These were the themes of conversation at a meeting with mid-range international school leaders.

No-one needs telling that recruitment and retainment of teachers is a big issue globally at the moment, and from these conversations it is clear that in some sectors there is fierce competition to attract and hold onto the best talent.

So this raises the big question: are international teachers a rare breed of educators who are in teaching for the money? Or are there other reasons that so many leaders in this sector find it hard to retain staff? Of course there is no simple ‘one size fits all’ answer to this question, but I was keen to find out what international teachers were in it for.

Over a period of 3 months I surveyed 157 teachers from all over the world,

in a range of positions, to find out what mattered most to them when job hunting.

87% of those interviewed had more than 10 years’ experience in the international school sector, with 4 the average number of international schools worked in. This article offers a brief summary of the research outcomes.

1. Pay and Benefits Unsurprisingly the number 1 factor that teachers reported as playing a crucial role in their job-hunting decisions was the pay and benefits package offered. Many of those interviewed noted that they found it hard to predict the costs of living associated with a new country, so being given a good idea of what to expect, and being able to save and provide for their families – as if they were at home – was crucial. Some suggested that school leaders should consider providing sample shopping lists and utilities bills breakdowns to help reassure that the package will sustain an adequate level of living.

2. CPD Next up was the opportunity for growth. Many teachers placed growth opportunities above pay and benefits.

Teachers wanted an environment that didn’t aim only to use them to grow the team in-place, but also allowed them to grow in an exchange of skills and ideas.

Teachers wanted to feel that they were part of a bigger school improvement plan rather than individually working on their own growth goals. Hattie’s research (see, eg, Hattie et al, 2016) tells us that wholeschool teacher efficacy has a huge impact on student learning. It would appear that it also has an impact on how valued teachers feel in the work environment.

3. Working Logistics Ranking third overall came the nuts and bolts of the role: the timetable, class sizes, meeting schedules, extra-curricular responsibilities and support in the role.

Teachers were more likely to accept a new role, or to be happy with their move, if they had the opportunity to speak

to someone on the team outside of administration. Many noted that day-to-day operations in international schools varied greatly from country to country, and weren’t always discussed in enough detail during the hiring process. Several noted that the best thing a school had done during the hiring process was to allow them to be in contact with the departing role-holder.

4. Curriculum Curriculum ranked fourth. The big pullout here was that curriculum materials and objectives that weren’t relatable to the students of the host country made it more difficult to teach, caused lower engagement and led to disruption in class.

Having a curriculum that matters to the students matters to the teachers. As one respondent noted: ‘Do students in a South East Asian middle school really need to analyze Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening to learn about metaphor, or is there a more relevant piece they could use – given that many of them have never experienced snow or winter?’

5. Cultural Engagement Coming in fifth was cultural engagement, with teachers preferring international schools to stop placing an emphasis on cultural experiences during induction.

Teachers commented that they weren’t moving for a holiday, but to work, and a bus tour of the city during induction was time away from the classroom that several teachers really wanted. That being said, guidance in avoiding cultural faux pas made teachers feel much more comfortable in their personal lives.

Summary So – are international teachers in it for the money? That’s not what this study found. Does pay matter? Of course it does, but so do the opportunities for growth and the day-to-day working conditions.

When asked what they would like those hiring to consider, an overwhelming number of respondents expressed that greater transparency was needed as they couldn’t visit the school in person prior to accepting a role. As one respondent stated: “All teachers understand that all international schools are at different points of development, but please share with us honestly so we can help development, know if it is an environment we can grow in, and feel like we matter. It’s pretty obvious on arrival when a school has not been upfront, and that helps no one”.

So let’s stop worrying so much about pay and benefits if these just aren’t flexible, and focus on providing growth and transparency. ◆

Many teachers placed growth opportunities above pay and benefits. Teachers wanted an environment that allowed them to grow in an exchange of skills and ideas.

Danny McCamlie is an international educator and researcher, currently engaged in building opportunities for disadvantaged youth in South East Asia and Latin America. ✉ danny@lalasoa.org

References

• Hattie J, Masters D and Birch K (2016) Visible Learning into Action: International Case Studies of Impact, London: Routledge.

Spring 2021 | International School | 13

Leading teaching and learning Sponsored Content

Leading teaching and learning Sponsored Content

International Education and Globalisation: an emerging research area

by Dr Tristan Bunnell

R

eaders of this article will be aware of the extent to which education now crosses borders.The current wave of globalisation has seen a widening, deepening and speeding up of interconnections between nations and within industries (Held et al, 1997).

At the same time, the trade in services which has epitomised the current wave means areas previously relatively peripheral such as education and schooling are now connected with the wider forces of economic, social and cultural globalisation.

Consequently, a wide area of research interest within ‘international education’ has begun to appear (Dolby and Rahman, 2008) as nation states seek to internationalise the curriculum, and policy-makers seek to develop new models of flexible, versatile ‘global citizens’

who are globally competent and intelligent. Readers’ own teaching now probably involves the development of attributes, dispositions and skills connected to concepts such as ‘international mindedness’ or ‘global competency’. However, our understanding of these concepts is still at quite an early stage of evolution and there is scope for the application of personal experience and thought.

A particularly rich area of research involves the sudden and rather unpredictable growth of globalised schooling, especially in areas of the world where it had previously had little impact. One of the educational institutions and social processes that has grown enormously over the past two decades, is the English medium of instruction K-12 private school termed loosely the ‘international school’.

Reports see continued growth well into the future, towards international schools educating 7 million children by 2023

14 | International School | Spring 2021

Many will be familiar with this type of school, but may not be aware of the growth in recent years. From a base of about 1,000 schools in the 1990s, this type of institution now numbers around 12,000 and involves approximately 560,000 teachers educating around 5.5 million children. China alone has at least 900 international schools and cities such as Shanghai have almost 200 (Speck, 2019).

Reports see continued growth well into the future, towards international schools educating 7 million children by 2023 (Stacey, 2020), and employing one million teachers by 2030.

Understanding this phenomenal growth, and its implications, has become a major area of academic interest.

A number of global trends can be identified (Holmes, 2019) that are driving this growth. In some nation states a newly wealthy middle class is seeking a quality-assured model of schooling, and this entry of different types of clients is making the area of

‘international schooling’ a viable and interesting avenue for research inquiry. Second, a number of nation states are seeking well-developed models of schooling that can be replicated or imported (Bunnell, Courtois and Donnelly, 2020).

This is a potentially problematic mix of forces and offers scope for greater critical discussion.

Globalisation undeniably also involves and affects the students of such schools. Many international school graduates are entering universities worldwide, and indeed may be matriculating at one of the ‘global universities’ in ‘global cities’ where it has been shown that graduates from international schools are clustering in notably large numbers (Bunnell, Donnelly, and Lauder, 2020).

The internationalisation of higher education is another research domain of international education requiring a greater sense of understanding and theorisation. Educational institutions are now firmly positioned within the

internationalisation process, and the impact of these internationalisation policies are increasingly at the centre of research interest (Wihlborg and Robson, 2018).The implications for nations heavily involved in the internationalisation of higher education are ripe topics for study and critical discussion (Huang, 2007).

Overall, the growing connections between international education and globalisation present exciting possibilities for critical inquiry and research, as well as personal and professional growth and reflection. A number of differing agencies require persons who are able to understand and ‘make sense’ of the changing, complex patterns. Curriculum designers require people who understand the needs of future employers and universities.

Schools require people who can understand the changing needs of parents, and the educational needs of those who will eventually enter the globalised labour market.

Universities need internationally mobile people who understand the motives and demands of school graduates. Policy-making agencies need persons who can formulate and analyse policy documents to promote economic development and competitiveness.

Such are the aims of the MA International Education and Globalisation (MA IEG), a full-time one year postgraduate course offered by the Department of Education at the University of Bath. In particular, this course seeks to give practitioners who are involved in the delivery of international education the opportunity to advance their own thoughts and reflect on their previous and current practice.They will then be better positioned to re-enter the field or an interconnected area of research inquiry.

The course builds upon the substantial experience of the University of Bath as a centre for teacher development and research in the field of international schooling. It draws

upon the expertise of a team of tutors with a wealth of experience of working and researching within the field.

In particular, the Department of Education has over many years built up a strong research relationship with the

International Baccalaureate.

Informed by the latest research and practice, the University of Bath’s MA IEG course provides a comprehensive introduction to the growing links between globalisation and international education. ◆

References

• Bunnell T, Courtois A & Donnelly M (2020) British elite private schools and their overseas branches: unexpected actors in the global education industry.

British Journal of Educational Studies, 68(6), 691-712.

• Bunnell T, Donnelly M & Lauder H (2020) The clustering in ‘global universities’ of graduates from ‘Elite Traditional International Schools’: a surprising phenomenon?. Globalisation, Societies and Education, https://doi.org/10.1080/ 14767724.2020.1857223 • Dolby N & Rahman A (2008) Research in international education. Review of Educational Research, 78(3), 676-726.

• Goldblatt D, Held D, McGrew A & Perraton J (1997) Economic globalization and the nation-state: shifting balances of power. Alternatives, 22(3), 269-285.

• Holmes R (2019) Five key trends for international schools. relocatemagazine. com, 22 October.

• Huang F (2007) Internationalisation of higher education in the era of globalisation: What have been its implications in China and Japan?. Higher Education Management and Policy, 19(1), 1-15.

• Speck D (2019) Revealed: ‘Phenomenal’ Growth of International Schools, tes. com, 23 August.

• Stacey V (2020) International schools market sees continued expansion in 2020, thepienews.com, 13 October.

• Wihlborg M & Robson S (2018) Internationalisation of higher education: Drivers, rationales, priorities, values and impacts. European Journal of Higher Education, 8(1), 8-18.

• Dr Tristan Bunnell is a Lecturer in International Education, and Deputy Director of Studies for the MA IEG, at the University of Bath.

MA International Education and Globalisation A 1 year, full-time master’s degree at the University of Bath • Consider educational purposes, methods and approaches relevant to a shifting global landscape.

• Prepare for, or build upon your career in an international education setting.

• You will be taught by researchers who are experts in their field.

Explore the course Spring 2021 | International School | 15

Leading teaching and learning

Leading teaching and learning

Transitioning curricula in ‘hybrid’ international schools: The case of foreign language teaching and learning

By Andreea Constandache

I

n a worldwide context that aims to provide high quality international education, many international schools have the freedom to decide on the curriculum to offer their students throughout their academic life. From the national curriculum in England to the International Baccalaureate (IB) programmes, from the International Early Years Curriculum (IEYC), International Primary Curriculum (IPC) and International Middle Years Curriculum (IMYC) to the US national curriculum, each school chooses and should adap its curricula to respond to and embrace local culture and educational needs of its host country.

As the international school market is diverse in regard to the curricula and qualifications offered, many decide to offer a mix of curricula in order to equip and provide students with the academic tools and skills to be able to study anywhere in the world. Described as ‘hybrid’ by WENR (World Education News + Reviews),

these international schools combine and mix different curricula from early ages to high school. Take the example of an international school in Bucharest, Romania, which offers three internationally recognized curricula throughout different age stages: Fieldwork Education international programmes (IEYC, IPC and IMYC) for early years, primary and middle school, the IGCSE programme for 14 to 16 years old students, and the IB Diploma Programme for 16 to 19 year old students.

With this in mind, how do schools successfully transition from one curriculum to another? How do we prepare teachers and students to transition? How do we perceive (as students and teachers) the transition from one curriculum to another? And to what extent are the students prepared to transition from an inquiry conceptbased curriculum to a content-based curriculum? As a French language teacher, I critically question this highly interesting

‘IMYC has one main topic that we have to focus on, and we have to relate it with every subject we are studying, and in the end, we have to relate it to everything as a whole.’ Student, Year 10

16 | International School | Spring 2021

topic through the lenses of the subject I teach and the transition I have begun to experience with my Year 10 students: from an IMYC inquiry-based programme to an IGCSE qualification programme.

The IMYC is an independent 3-year (11 to 14 years) programme offered by Fieldwork Education, an international educational organization whose mission is to improve learning through the development and design of international curricula and professional learning. Using a concept-based curriculum design, units of learning are built around ‘big ideas’ which aim to link all subjects to a conceptual theme. From Art, Geography, History, ICT and Computing, Language Arts, Music, Physical Education to Science and Technology, students are challenged to make connections and to think conceptually about the theme by extending their knowledge, skills and understanding around a big idea. While a teaching framework for each unit is provided to support teachers across subjects, the modern foreign languages (MFL) are not yet fully integrated in the programme. However, MFL teachers still have the option to connect to the IMYC unit and to the big idea – although this means that the teacher must create new learning tasks, and design from scratch a subject curriculum connected to the unit.

Throughout my experience with

IMYC, I have created and structured units as well as modern foreign language (French) learning tasks around the big ideas provided by the IMYC. I have done this while linking the conceptual learning goals of the unit to the specific language acquisition learning goals. Doing this around a coherent progression is a very challenging job. During their IMYC French lessons, students are engaged in language activities connecting to the unit and the big idea appropriate to their level and age. Since the focus is on the unit and the big idea, the content/language progression and consistency may come second. Consequently, from a broader perspective, this means that a modern language teacher who decides to connect to the IMYC will possibly cover only a limited extent of the knowledge, skills and understanding required for the level of the taught language.

This brings me to the IGCSE qualification programme which comes after the IMYC inquiry concept-based programme. The IGCSE is a globally recognized two-year course designed to ensure that academic content and assessment is provided with the purpose of enabling successful progression for international learners across different subjects. Each IGCSE subject has a specification document and support material for teachers, along with a considerable amount of other resources, schemes of work and training materials. In essence, there is a lot of material provided

‘The IGCSE treats me like I am going to be a ready student with all this information when I graduate, so I do enjoy it.’ Student, Year 10 on the market for modern languages (French in this case) specifically designed for the qualification, including IGCSE textbooks, vocabulary and grammar workbooks, practice copybooks and sample materials.

After discussing the two curricula, IMYC and IGCSE, I will explore the transition I have experienced as a language teacher, and then I will share my students’ experiences with the transition, according to their answers via a Google form they completed on this topic. From a personal and subjective point of view, I believe that the transition is likely to be easier for the teacher than for the student. Having a lot of materials available along with a progressive scheme of work makes your teaching life much easier than having to create and design your own subject

curriculum. On the other hand, the high volume of content to be taught makes it harder to engage students in long-term projects which are concept- and skillbased. In order to cover the academic content required for the final examination, the French IGCSE classes must be well organized in terms of time-management and workload, whereas the IMYC French classes are more likely to be flexible and adapted to the students’ rhythm of learning.

After reflecting on some questions related to IMYC and IGCSE, a few Year 10 students appreciated the learning perspectives of the two curricula and their main advantages, disadvantages or common points. Whereas their view on this might be subjective as it is based on preferences and styles of learning, one thing they have agreed on was that IMYC, although flexible and repetitive in some areas, has been solid enough for them to feel prepared for the IGCSE. While the transition feels difficult in terms of time-management and assessments, the students are happy to embrace it because it represents the beginning of high school.

In conclusion, I invite you to reflect on the following question: how can we as educators better support staff and students with transitions between curricula? ◆

Andreea Constandache is a French language teacher at Verita International School, Bucharest. ✉ andreea.constandache@verita.ro

Spring 2021 | International School | 17

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Leading teaching and learning

Induction in International Schools:

LET PARENTS

Supporting the whole community

EXPERIENCE YOUR SCHOOL

By Megan Maher

I

“

A parent in Hong Kong can’t ‘smell’ the school – but they would like to.

It is the experience behind the website this tool gives

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anticipate. The focus of this induction is to help the nduction in international schools starts well before foreigner make sense of the new place. We want the first teacher meetings or tours of campus. these new arrivals to be successful, and international Expatriate educators receive various types of schools know that part of support from the school, supporting this success is to including help with coordinating support basic needs and assist required documentation, ‘You’ve got a new with transitions. suggestions on what to person coming in who Yet more and more pack, and connections with international schools are other expatriates working has training about the including host country at the school. Upon arrival, person who is already professionals at all levels of expatriates are typically met at the school. How do these new the airport and assisted with here, but the person arrivals from the host country acquiring housing and necessary who is here does not transition to their new location? household supplies. Hours and sometimes days are dedicated get training as to how to How do local educators come to make sense of and to explaining the culture of handle the person who understand the practices of the the host country to these new international school? I recently arrivals. This orientation focus is coming in.’ interviewed seven international slowly blends into the logistics From an international school leader school leaders as part of a of school, but usually maintains with local roots research project. All of these what expatriates view as local leaders had arrived at the same flare, often including excursions international school in the to local restaurants, language or previous four years and could speak in detail about cultural workshops and explanations of how some of their transitions. There was a the local workers at school might interact differently mix of expatriate and local than the expatriate might leaders. None of the local leaders had worked at 

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18 | International School | Spring 2021

Spring 2021 | International School | 19

Leading teaching and learning

an international school previously, while all expatriate leaders had previous experience at other international schools. The purpose of these interviews was to better understand how international school leaders transition and reach different levels of cultural awareness in their new school. The interviews indicated some basic similarities in experience, as well as some stark differences in perspectives, and clearly communicated the need to be more aware of the needs of all new arrivals at the school. Quotes in this article come from these school leaders.

All of the international school leaders agreed that the international school community ‘seems like a country on its own – when you get out of the walls of [the school] you are in a different world’.

The leaders identified how the school sense of place differed from that of the host country as well as from the cultures of the home countries of the other leaders. All of the leaders seemed to clearly understand that the school culture was a unique blend of the various community members: ‘So I think once you walk through the walls of [the school] there is a different culture that we try to uphold’.

Entering the same walls and having to make sense of this same unique sense of place, induction programs rarely exist for new arrivals with local roots: ‘[It] was a local position, and so...I wasn’t given... anything whatsoever about life – or transitioning information at all... you pretty much had to do it on your own’. These local leaders are expected to work with expatriates from all over the world, in a system of education that is often foreign to the local leader. Often the local leaders are asked to take on responsibilities for supporting the transition of expatriates new to the school: ‘You’ve got a new person coming in who has training about the person who is already here, but the person who is here does not get training as to how to handle the person who is coming in.’

It is no wonder that these same local leaders describe a very different sense of place than is described by their expatriate colleagues. While expatriate leaders commented on the international school community as ‘very friendly’, ‘a very positive environment’, and ‘a community that is very tight’, this same community described by local leaders became ‘very demanding’ and a place with ‘a greater level of entitlement’. These two different perspectives of the place came, in part, from their induction into this new culture and the support offered through their transitions.

International school leaders spend time at administrative meetings reflecting on how the new

20 | International School | Spring 2021

Leading teaching and learning

Knowledge is opportunity. ...within the walls of an international school is a cultural transition for everyone entering the school. expatriates are settling in: ‘So we always ask ourselves ‘What can we do once they [expats] arrive to help them?’’ Rarely do administrators spend equal amounts of time identifying the transition needs of local arrivals. While we can speculate about what this gap in induction means about how schools receive local staff, the result is that local leaders and staff do not have the transition support they need in order to understand their new place.

The induction programs offered by international schools for expatriate new arrivals can easily be adapted to meet the needs of local arrivals: • Survey current local staff about successes, challenges, and needs • Identify on-staff mentors for new local staff • Invite local staff onto campus early to observe classes, talk with colleagues and ask questions The important point for international school leaders to remember is that the sense of place within the walls of an international school is a cultural transition for everyone entering the school. Each new arrival, expatriate or local, needs appropriate support in their journey of transition. ◆ Dr Megan Maher, an international educator for more than 20 years, is very interested in developing positive school cultures. ✉ meganpmaher@gmail.com

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Leading teaching and learning

Why international schools should follow sport’s lead

T

eaching is unique. It is the only paid job in the world in which those entering the profession have spent their childhood, adolescence and young adult lives watching others do it. Whether consciously or not, this experience shapes us as we become teachers

By Antony Winch

and Gen Y are ‘extremely focused on developing themselves and thrive on learning new job skills’, and have a ‘need for constant feedback and in particular, praise’. (Klass & Lindenberger, 2017).

We need to support new teachers and experienced teachers alike, but our current, day-to-day professional development has to develop to achieve this.

I believe that sport shows us the way.

Imagine two ourselves. Perhaps this rich kickboxers – Coached and fertile training ground is Carol and Lonesome Larry. the reason that day-to-day They both graduate from professional development school with 82% strongly kickboxing for teachers can be so poor the goal of being a better and barren. agreed their kickboxer. Carol goes to After I acquired my the gym every day, and with practice had a coach chooses a new teaching qualification, my ability as a teacher to work on. Every benefitted, technique was measured against day Carol fights someone my students’ results from whether as new, and afterwards the assessments that I set and coach and Carol discuss the teachers or fight, highlighting strengths, graded myself. To help me improve, I received a few analysing the new technique leaders days of training every year and deciding next steps. which I would either adopt Lonesome Larry goes to the alone, attack with other gym daily, fights someone, teachers or abandon and then goes home. Who (Rohanna, 2017). Additionally, would be the better boxer? Why? Now Admin would observe me teach replace ‘kickboxer’ with ‘teacher’. If you annually, tell me what I did well ignore upper cuts and jabs, who would and set me targets. In my first you rather employ in your school? Who five years of international school would you rather teach your children? teaching, I believe these conversations Which teacher would you rather be? totalled less than five hours of my Professional, and even amateur, professional life. sportsmen and women have coaches After twenty years in international who help them to build on their school education as both a teacher strengths, achieve their goals and and school leader, I don’t think my overcome challenges. They can also watch experience is unique. Unfortunately, this their peers play their chosen sport, and reality is doing a disservice to faculty and can film and watch themselves play. If we students while potentially alienating future are to help our teachers and ourselves graduates who are considering entering continually to develop professionally, we the teaching profession. Millennials need to follow sport’s lead.

22 | International School | Spring 2021

‘Over the last thirty years, coaching [outside sport] has grown from almost a non-existent profession into a booming industry’ (Segers et al, 2011), and instructional/ incremental/ teacher coaching arguably grew after Jim Knight published ‘Instructional Coaching’ in 2007. Before becoming an instructional coach, I observed and evaluated a huge number of lessons as an Administrator and a school inspector, but I don’t believe the grades I gave lessons benefitted anyone. Then in 2005 I read a book called ‘First, Break all the Rules’ (Buckingham and Coffman, 1999) which changed my thinking about working with education professionals.

This book bases its findings on over one million interviews with employees and managers. Buckingham and Coffman identified the most powerful questions which had the strongest links to the most positive business outcomes. The three that resonated with me were: • In the last 7 days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?

• Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?

• Is there someone at work who encourages my development?

Twenty years later, Buckingham (2019) wrote that we should focus on people’s strengths, in another paper called ‘The Feedback Fallacy’. He wrote ‘we learn most when someone else pays attention to what’s working within us and asks us to cultivate it intelligently’. In my role as Instructional Coach at Frankfurt International School (FIS), I recognize good work, care about the people I work with, encourage their development towards a preferred future and build on their strengths.

It is all well and good claiming that instructional coaching fulfils the above needs, but does this equate to actual benefits for teachers and students?

At FIS, myself and my colleague Robin Neal conducted a survey of over 100

Item

August 2018

June 2019

Difference

Coaching will/has benefited my teaching practice

74%

89%

13% increase

Coaching will/has benefited my US students

77%

82%

5% increase

Coaching will/has improved my job satisfaction

66%

79%

13% increase

teachers when instructional coaching was introduced at the start of the school year, and then ran the same survey at the end of the school year with the teachers we had coached. The results were as follows, showing the percentage of teachers who agreed with each statement: The sample size is small, but similar positive results were recorded by Ambition Schools Leadership in the UK. ‘82% strongly agreed their practice had benefitted, whether as teachers or leaders’ and ‘71% of respondents strongly believed that incremental coaching helped pupils’ progress’ (Incremental Coaching, 2017). In the US, a Harvard meta-study combined 60 causal research studies into instructional coaching and concluded that ‘we find pooled effect sizes of 0.49 standard deviations (SD) on instruction and 0.18 SD on achievement’ (Kraft et al, 2018). All these studies have one thing in common – they all indicate that coaching benefits teaching and learning. It is transformative.

Every year world records are broken in sport. This happens through the

References • Ambition School Leadership (2017) Incremental Coaching • Buckingham M and Coffman C (1999) First, Break all the Rules. London: Pocket Books • Buckingham M and Goodall A (2019) The Feedback Fallacy, Harvard Business Review. 97, 2, 92-101.

• Klass T and Lindenberger J (2017) Characteristics of Millenials in the Workplace, Business Know How. Available from www.businessknowhow.com/manage/ millenials.htm • Knight, J (2007) Instructional Coaching, Available from how2.fra1.cdn.

dedicated work of sportswomen and men in partnership with their coaches – trying out new techniques, setting goals, and building on strengths. Sportswomen and men progress at an amazing rate, but, if we omit the use of technology, do teachers? In 2002 my brother, who had never fought in his life, decided to become a kickboxer. Encouraged and supported by his coach, he became English champion five years after entering the ring for the first time. If I had had a coach when I first entered the classroom, I wonder what I would have achieved in teaching in five years. If every new or experienced teacher had an instructional coach, I wonder how much progress would be made in teaching and learning. And if you had a coach... what could you achieve? ◆ Antony Winch is an Instructional Coach at Frankfurt International School, Germany ✉ antony_winch@fis.edu

digitaloceanspaces.com/resources/pinpoint-instructional-coaching.pdf •K raft M A, Blazar D & Hogan D (2018) The Effect of Teacher Coaching on Instruction and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence, Review of Educational Research, doi.org/10.3102/0034654318759268 •R ohanna, K (2017) Breaking the ‘Adopt, Attack, Abandon’ cycle: A case for improvement science in K–12 education. In C A Christie, M Inkelas and S Lemire (Eds) Improvement Science in Evaluation: Methods and Uses. New Directions for Evaluation. 153, 65–77.

• S egers J, Vloeberghs D, Henderickx E and Inceoglu I (2011) Structuring and understanding the coaching industry: The coaching cube, Academy of Management Learning and Education. 10, 2, 204-221.

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Once these are in place, they are able not only to think of creative and interesting learning ideas but also to plan and deliver workshops for their peers.

3

6forWays to Allow Greater Student

Agency in Your Classroom

By Dominic Munden

A

t Verita International School we are encouraged to experiment with new approaches to learning.

One of my interests is how to better utilise student agency during the inquiry process. Student agency can be described as when the students have voice, choice and ownership of their learning. Here is what I found has helped to allow for greater student agency in my classroom.

1

Provide students with ownership of the central idea for their unit of inquiry It all starts with how we approach the sharing of the central idea. Encourage the students to reflect upon the text

24 | International School | Spring 2021

provided and give them the opportunity to rewrite it in language that is understood and meaningful to them.

Once they have done this, ask them to write around the outside what they feel they might learn whilst completing the unit. This is then used to inform where the students begin to really take ownership of their learning – the planner.

2

Use inquiry planners that foster and develop students’ ownership of the learning process In my Year 5 class we make use of a range of planners to support students in developing their own lines of inquiry.

These are focused around thick (openended) questions and thin (closed) questions that have been posed by the students, and are relevant to their rewritten version of the central idea.

Throughout the year the students are exposed to different examples of these planners, with the expectation that as the year progresses they are able to choose a planner which they feel works best for the task, or innovate and create something more personalised for themselves. Once the planner is completed, students are expected to articulate in a paragraph what they want to learn from the unit. They are then supported in creating their own success criteria and in identifying how they will get the necessary feedback from peers or adults to move their learning forward.

Throughout the process the teacher acts as the guide on the side. This process is replicated for each unit of inquiry and not only develops students’ inquiry skills but also supports them in becoming more assessment-literate learners.

Allow students choice in how they structure their learning day Like adults, not all students are morning people. Some may prefer to do numeracybased activities in the morning, and more language-based activities in the afternoon once they have warmed up their language skills. Therefore, we should allow the students to structure their own learning and support them with becoming more aware of what works best for them. One way of doing this is by planning some days around must, should and could activities. Students are given a planner outlining the activities they must complete (the Must activities) with an agreed-upon deadline. The students are also provided with a menu that includes activities they can undertake to move their learning forward (the Should activities), and activities which may enrich their learning experience (the Could activities). While the students complete these activities, the teacher may be acting as a research assistant for the students, conferencing with students about their inquiries, or running a series of mini-workshops for which the students can sign up.

4

Develop in students the skills they need to plan their own learning Once the students become comfortable using the must, should, could approach they can begin to plan their own activities. In order to be successful, the students should first be given a model of what the must, should and could learning opportunities look like, so that they are aware of the parameters for their own ideas. Once these are in place, they are able not only to think of creative and interesting learning ideas but also to plan and deliver workshops for their peers. The same approach can be applied if you run morning meetings. Not only does this allow the students to develop a greater understanding of themselves as learners; it also develops self-management and organisational skills.

5

Put the students in control of the timetabling for the school week Whilst it is important to allow for agency in the classroom, we also need to remember that we, as the experienced and qualified educators, are responsible for ensuring that our students make the best possible progress. Therefore, it is still essential to plan for times when you may need to deliver small group or whole class instruction to develop particular skills. When doing this, you can honour student agency by inviting the students to take turns in planning the structure of the week whilst fulfilling your requirements for the use of time. Doing this really helped my students to understand why some parts of the school day are structured the way they are, and they became more aware of their own varying levels of energy and concentration throughout the school day.

6

Organise regular celebrations of the students’ work and put them in control of what this looks like At Verita, we use the International Primary Curriculum (IPC). One of the great things about the IPC is that at the end of each unit of inquiry there is an Exit Point which is intended as a celebration of the students’ learning.

Events like this provide another excellent opportunity for students to have voice, choice and ownership over their learning.

During the planning phase of our lines of inquiry, the students are asked to identify how they want to share their individual or collective learning. As we get closer to the Exit Point, the students are asked how they would like the Exit Point to be run, and how they want to utilise the space provided for the event. What better way of honouring the students’ agency than giving them the opportunity to decide upon how to share something that is very personal to them – their learning. ◆

Dominic Munden is a class teacher and Primary Literacy Coordinator at Verita International School, Bucharest, Romania.

✉ dominic.munden@verita.ro

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Quality learning for all:

Access and inclusion

By Jayne Pletser

A

ccess and inclusion are firmly embedded in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (UN, 2019) so it is both heartening and encouraging to see international schools looking to the SDGs to inform curriculum content and development. The UNESCO guide written to accompany SDG4 states that ‘Inclusive quality education is both a goal in itself (SDG 4) and a means for attaining all other SDGs’ (UNESCO 2017: 10). Is it reasonable then to expect

that, as school communities self-reflect and take action on the goals, they will naturally find themselves facilitating inclusive education in their own context? I am optimistic.

SDG4, as laid out in this UNESCO publication, paves the way to developing quality, strength-based learning for all.

It signposts a move away from language grounded in medical deficit models, stigmatizing narratives, lowering of expectations and segregation to that of empowerment, and communities coming

together to remove barriers to learning. The SDGs allow us to reflect and consider where our language, narratives or mindset have segregated students - even when we believed we had included them.

Fortunately, the UN is not unique in embedding access and inclusion into its vision and recognising that education for all is a human right. The International Baccalaureate (IB) is just one organisation joining the growing number of educational systems, schools

Schools are expected to demonstrate and evidence the ongoing process of inclusion, pertinent to their context in their developing school journey.

The IB has seen a decided move away from the use of stigmatising terminology and diagnostic labels (IB, 2019b: 7); already in 2012 the IB changed the title of the curriculum manager for special educational needs to curriculum manager for inclusive education. A further move has been the adoption

The UDL teaching strategies provide for multiple means of student engagement and other organisations that is urging its community to remove barriers to learning in order to increase access and inclusion. I am proud to have spent eight years as the IB’s curriculum manager for inclusive education, where I worked across the four IB programmes (Diploma, Career-related, Middle Years and Primary Years) leading on inclusion, developing resources, and supporting schools. The revised foundational IB document for schools, which ensures quality and fidelity in the implementation of the IB programmes - the IB programme standards and practices - now sees access and inclusion at its core.

26 | International School | Spring 2021

of the term ‘learner variability’ (IB 2019a: 3), a term that embraces all students and recognises the changing histories, circumstances, and contexts of all learners (IB 2019a: 3). Learner variability, as used by the IB, acknowledges the shifting combination of strengths and challenges that a learner may experience. In addition, it maintains that categorising students according to diagnostic labels (such as ADHD) ‘does not provide sound indicators of a student’s potential or appropriate teaching strategies’ (IB, 2019b: 7). In line with these developments, there have been corresponding changes to the IB’s approaches to

teaching, where teaching is expected to be designed to be inclusive, to value diversity, and to remove barriers to learning and assessment. The IB upholds (2018) that all candidates should be allowed to demonstrate their ability under assessment conditions that are as fair as possible, and inclusive access arrangements are available to reduce or minimise barriers for candidates.

To address the design aspects of removing barriers to learning, the IB proposes the open-source evidencebased Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework (CAST, 2018, 2021). This framework is a tool that supports the proactive design of the environment and the curriculum through its specific teaching suggestions.

By taking into account the affective, recognition and strategic networks of the brain, teachers are supported in addressing the why, what, and how of learning. The UDL teaching strategies provide for multiple means of student engagement (interest, effort and persistence, selfregulation), representation (perception, language and symbols, comprehension), and action and expression (physical action, expression and communication, executive functions). The goal of UDL is to create expert learners who are purposeful and motivated, resourceful and knowledgeable, and strategic and goal-directed. IB resources have been updated to include the UDL guidelines following on from an IB research project which considered how IB educators implemented UDL in their classrooms (IB, 2016).

The findings and case stories from this exploratory IB study serve as a useful resource to implement UDL.

A group of IB educators for all demands that we developed a self-evaluation reconsider the reasons why and self-reflection resource we exclude students. Do our to support IB schools on their reasons remain valid? Barriers unique inclusion journey (IB, to learning are experienced 2015). Promising inclusive by all, no two people learn in practices and empowered the same way, no two brains learners were are the same, and observed in the the average brain IB world schools does not exist. we must that piloted the Limited access to stop wasting appropriate materials IB’s compassionate systems tools in the talent and funds has 2017 (IB, 2020). become less of an that is The IB resources issue with the advent discussed are a waiting to be of open-source and valuable addition to welcomed evidence-based the field of inclusive resources. There over our education and, as is little grounding such, merit being thresholds. for the need to made available to ‘label’ learners, and a much broader specialised teaching audience than and materials are the IB community alone. If required for very few students. the IB were to make the Inclusive schools have been resources more widely shown to be effective for available they would confirm all students, and there are their commitment to inclusive many experienced inclusive education, the IB mission, international schools ready and the UN’s developmental to share their learning and to goals - and in particular to the collaborate with other schools. contribution of safe, nonThis troubled world needs violent inclusive and effective all sorts of minds (Grandin, learning environments for all 2010) - so we must stop (SDG4, Target 4A). wasting the talent that is Arguably, making a waiting to be welcomed over commitment to quality learning our thresholds. ◆

Dr Jayne Pletser is an experienced international educator, school leader, and ex-IB staff member. She now advises schools around issues pertaining to access and inclusion. ✉ j.m.pletser@gmail.com

References • C AST (2018) Universal Design for Learning Guidelines, Version 2.2. udlguidelines.cast.org • C AST (2021) About Universal Design for Learning. www.cast. org/impact/universal-designfor-learning-udl • Grandin T (2010) The World Needs All Kinds of Minds.

TED Talk. www.ted.com/ talks/temple_grandin_the_ world_needs_all_kinds_of_ minds?language=en • IB (2015) The IB guide to inclusive education: a resource for whole school development.

Cardiff: IBO. • IB (2016) UDL and inclusive practices in IB schools worldwide. www.ibo.org/content assets/ 318968269ae5441d8d f5ae76542817a0/research-udlfull-report-en.pdf • IB (2018) Access and inclusion policy. Cardiff: IBO. • IB (2019a) Learning diversity and inclusion in IB programmes: removing barriers to learning.

Cardiff: IBO. • IB (2019b) Meeting student learning diversity in the classroom: removing barriers to learning. Cardiff: IBO. • IB (2020) Compassionate systems. Cardiff: IBO. • UN (2019) Sustainable Development Goals. www.un.org/ sustainabledevelopment/ • UNESCO (2017) A guide for ensuring inclusion and equity in education unesdoc.unesco. org/ark:/48223/pf0000248254

Spring 2021 | International School | 27

From the schools

Discovering the Fantastic Culture and Customs of China through a CAS Expedition

M

By Jwan Aljawabreh

ashrek International School in Amman, Jordan is a private, bilingual, co-educational International Baccalaureate (IB) World School that offers three IB programmes (Primary Years Programme, Middle Years Programme and Diploma Programme).

The school aims to teach students critical thinking, international understanding and appreciation for diversity, through involving them in extra-curricular activities that are part of the IB Diploma Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS) programme. As the CAS Coordinator, I believe that students need to experience something foreign and different, something new away from their local community, as an opportunity to acquire new skills, develop interpersonal skills and take new challenges, while demonstrating perseverance, collaboration, problem solving, responsibility and decision making. Mashrek School therefore participated in a CAS Expedition to China, where students discovered the fantastic culture and customs of Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong, while engaging in volunteer projects inspired by the notions of Creativity, Activity, Service.

28 | International School | Spring 2021

As the third largest country by size and population and one of the oldest civilizations in the world, China offered us a unique experience to explore the language, people, culture and food.

One of the most interesting activities students enjoyed was the Tai Chi class in Guangzhou: a Chinese martial art that involves slow movements and deep breaths, this dynamic sport offers a mixture of defence training and meditation. villages during a chaotic time. When This experience was most beneficial to they returned home, they held a very students when they learnt how to defend high degree of social prestige and their themselves in situations where someone architecture shows the socialization to is trying to punch, choke, another culture. In 2007, or strangle them. As one Kaiping was added to the student observed: of UNESCO World This experience list “My mind was shifted Heritage Sites because of also emphasized its fascinating historical and from thinking that this sport aims to teach you architectural significance. new ways of how to fight but instead We took a challenging thinking and it teaches you how to long bike ride to learn protect yourself, how about the social and feeling that to yield and how to be economic importance of aware of yourself and your pushed students the lineages which are surroundings.” backed by ownership of to think...

Moving to southern property, particularly the Guangzhou, we found lands held in the name ourselves back in the 17th of the ancestral temples. century, in a deserted town called Kaiping, It is amazing how very few people surrounded by unique multi-storey still live there, trying to preserve their watchtowers and architecture ancestors’ legacy. By visiting this town styles that resemble styles we contributed to the local community influenced by Europe, India, and also volunteered in cleaning the USA and the Middle East fields with local residents; this simple that go back long before community service strengthened global the opium war. These citizenship in students’ learning and watchtowers were helped to build connections between built as fortifications performing community service locally by émigré Kaiping and globally. inhabitants (who And finally we arrived at the island that emigrated to is well known as an international financial North America, hub, or business center shopping paradise: Southeast Asia Hong Kong. It is also known more and Australia) in recently for its political differences with order to protect Mainland China. We met ‘Hongkongers’, their home who lived for years under the influence of

the British as their former ruler and since 1997 under the doctrine of ‘one country, two systems’, after the end of the 99-year lease between China and the UK. One student in our group remarked that: “This experience allowed me to have deeper understanding and authenticity as I was able to link what I learnt in my History class about the root of Hong Kong’s separation from the mainland and the events of the Opium war through our tour... as well as improve my communication skills and become an inquirer.”

Travel in Hong Kong was easy and full of fun; we took the cable car and admired the beauty of Hong Kong from a high view including the green forests that spread for miles and the shore that spreads into the ocean. One of the highlights was our trip to Lantau, hiking to see the massive 112-foot-tall Tian Tan Buddha, also known as the Big Buddha.

This statue symbolizes the harmonious relationship between man and nature, people and faith. It was very inspiring to learn about different beliefs and lifestyle.

Students demonstrated their openmindedness, and showed their willingness to grow from the experience through understanding and appreciating that different people have different beliefs, culture and personal histories that require respect and appreciation.

Our journey of discovery and reconnaissance, although hugely enjoyable, was accompanied by culture shock.

It is not only distance that sets China apart from our country, it is also the culture. Some students struggled to find food that suited their dietary restrictions as many of the dishes were unrecognizable to us and very few menus were in English. Being unable to use sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Google services because of local restrictions was also a new experience for our students. This CAS Expedition broadened the students’ educational experience and challenged them to apply their knowledge and understanding in a country and society other than their own. It also allowed them to practise the three main strands of CAS, starting with stimulating their creativity to see and discover new things, actively carrying out physical exertion

through hiking and bike riding, and performing community service globally.

This experience also emphasized new ways of thinking and feeling that pushed students to think and reflect outside their comfort zone as part of being overwhelmed in visiting this astonishing ancient country. ◆ Jwan Aljawabreh is CAS Coordinator at Mashrek International School in Amman, Jordan ✉ joan123.jawabreh@yahoo.com

Relevant Reading Batto P B (2019) The Diaolou of Kaiping (1842-1937) Open Edition: Open edition newsletter. Available from: www.journals.openedition. org/chinaperspectives/1033 Bajpai P C (2020) Hong Kong vs Mainland China: Understanding the Differences. Investopedia.

Available from: www.investopedia. com/articles/investing/121814/ hong-kong-vs-china-understanddifferences.asp#hong-kong

International Baccalaureate (2017) Creativity, Activity, Service Guide for Students Graduating in 2017 and after.

Cardiff: International Baccalaureate Leung C L (2020) Hong Kong.

Encyclopædia Britannica. Available from: www.britannica.com/place/ Hong-Kong UNESCO (2007) Kaiping Diaolou and Villages. (CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0): Paris: UNESCO.

Spring 2021 | International School | 29

From the schools

Student Educational and Cultural Exchanges:

A paradigm for postmillennials and netizens

By Ish Dutt ‘Simple exchanges can break down walls between us, for when people come together and speak to one another and share a common experience, then their common humanity is revealed.’

(President Barack Obama, 7 April 2009, Istanbul)

I

n 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail for India. He didn’t ever land there, but on his return he reported to his king and queen: ‘The world is round.’

Thomas Freidman in 2005 titled his book The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. The globalization of the world remains largely irreversible as a theme for economic growth, though in recent years we have seen the rise of ultra-nationalism and right-wing politics defining the geo-political and economic realities of the Flat World.

While nations work for multilateralism, young people must embrace cultural exchange as a shaping force for the core values of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity, and strive for peace and love in

the world. I first got to experience this wonderful phenomenon during my cultural exchange, as the school I attended offered a plethora of opportunities for international exposure, from international exchanges to international conferences. The most prestigious and consequently the most competitive opportunity, however, came via international exchange.

International exchange consisted of the individual remaining in another country and school for ten weeks, experiencing the local culture and acting as a representative of their homeschool and country.

To serve as a walking representation of one’s school in a foreign country places massive emphasis on the program’s selection process, for whoever was chosen would ultimately influence the opinions of others regarding the school across the world. Thus, even to be considered for such a role, one was required to maintain an immaculate all-round record. I was privileged enough to spend ten weeks in Alice Springs, Australia. And while the responsibility of acting as a representative

of the country and college was vast, the opportunity to act as a mediator between different cultures was an inspiring proposition.

Boundaries have to be understood before they can be broken; we are layered and have accumulated burdens of geographical, social-cultural, linguistic and ethnic legacy as well as other baggage we have acquired in our lives. My views transformed as I travelled to Alice Springs. As it was a multinational exchange program, this provided a perfect environment for me to interact with people from various parts of the world, understanding their culture as well as coming to respect and celebrate the diversity we enjoy today. I got to showcase the Indian culture in a variety of ways, from celebrating Indian festivals wearing ethnic Indian outfits to teaching my peers Hindi, while in turn I imbibed from the Australian culture of adventure, outdoors, respect for gainful work while being a student, approach to teaching, community services and so forth. I was interested in how they used internet and tablets for a networked education experience which was both efficient and practical compared to the Indian way of education at high school level, which only allowed marginal access to this resource. The exchange thereby allowed me to see both perspectives and adapt to them at a functional and psychological level. I gained valuable insights into their way of life, approach to work and studies which made me a better person.

My exchange experiences gave me a bag filled with memories, friends and new experiences to take back home. When you experience a different culture through educational and cultural exchange you gain a deeper understanding of yourself and those around you—deepening your knowledge of foreign cultures, strengthening international relationships and, very

importantly, learning to value and respect diversity.

We are different but in many ways the same. This makes the world beautiful and rich as we can explore different cultures, arts, architecture and cuisines and be enriched by these unique experiences. We all can be explorers in our own ways, sharing the thread of universal values, being responsible global citizens and being productive by exploring and cherishing the diversity of our world while at the same time preserving it.

‘We are reminded that we’re joined together by our pursuit of a life that’s productive and purposeful, and when that happens mistrust begins to fade and our smaller differences no longer overshadow the things that we share. And that’s where progress begins.’

(President Barack Obama, 7 April 2009, Istanbul) ◆ Ish Dutt is a second-year law student pursuing a Bachelors of Business Administration along with Law at Jindal Global Law School, India. ✉ 19jgls-ish.d@jgu.edu.in

‘Simple exchanges can break down walls between us, for when people come together and speak to one another and share a common experience, then their common humanity is revealed.’

President Barack Obama, 7 April 2009, Istanbul

30 | International School | Spring 2021

Spring 2021 | International School | 31

From the schools

From the schools

Away From the Numbers In which Alice takes a tea break and feels there might be more to life than measuring it.

This article is the fifth of a series to be included as occasional contributions to International School magazine, created by Chris Binge in response to some of his experiences in international education. Intended to be provocative and amusing, they are also used to provoke discussion when he leads workshops.

IMAGES: TENNIEL

A

lice decided that, after her frustrating conversation with the rabbit, she needed some fresh air to work out why his description of setting targets depressed her so much. She found a door that led out into the woods behind the school. It was a warm afternoon, with the sun streaming through the trees and playing interesting and changing patterns on the leaves on the ground.

Being English, and a teacher, she immediately thought of tea and set off to find some. She recognised the clearing before she entered it, and the familiar voices brought a smile to her face. The Mad Hatter and the March Hare were sitting round the same table she had seen all those years ago. It was just as piled with cups and saucers and teapots as before.

“Oh, Hatter and Hare, how happy to see you holding on to habits!”

“Don’t get all alliterative on us”, called the Hatter. “There are no extra marks for that you know”.

“I am just pleased to see you” said Alice. “It will be so nice to be with some comfortingly reassuring madness after all the tedious sanity that has just been explained to me.” She slumped into a chair and poured herself a cup of tea.

“4” shouted the Mad Hatter.

“6” retorted the March Hare.

“5” came a small dreamy voice from inside a teapot, which must have been the Dormouse.

“Your problem”, shouted the Hatter, pointing a bony finger in the direction of his long-eared friend, “is that you are too generous with your grading. If you grade too high then everyone will think they are good at everything!”

“I do not have ‘a problem’”, said the Hare. “At least not one that I want to talk to you about. Research shows …”. This was met with a deep groan from inside the teapot. “Ahem! Research shows that low grading is demotivating for children and puts them off the subject.”

“It shows that I am a more rigorous teacher”, said the Hatter with pride, “and my subject is a more rigorous subject. I am interested in excellence and so I need to show them where they can improve.”

“Stop, stop, stop” cried Alice. “What on earth are you talking about? What have I done that you are grading with these numbers?”

“Pouring tea, of course” they chorused.

“But why on earth should you grade that? I got the tea in the cup didn’t I? The quality of the tea is in its taste, not in a numerical grading of the pouring of it.”

“Ha”, harrumphed the Hatter. “You might as well say the value of a painting is what it looks like!”

“Or the value of a piece of music is what it sounds like”, continued the Hare.

“Or the value of a teapot is how comfortable it is for sleeping in”, came the small voice from inside the pot.

“It probably is for you”, said the Hare to the pot.

The Hatter explained.

“The point is that the value

of anything can only be understood if it is properly assessed”.

“With criteria and rubrics and moderation” said Hare.

“Without that we have no way of knowing how good it is, you see. But once we have done this we have numbers”.

The Hatter sounded almost reverential when he said the word numbers. “They are called numbers, you know, because without them we would be numb. We would have no feelings or understanding of the world around us. With numbers we can do anything.”

“We can do averages, trends, standard deviations, regression and correlation”.

“We can measure value added”.

“And value subtracted”.

“We can compare with standardised data, against background populations, students with students, teachers with teachers, schools with schools and countries with countries”.

“That last one is called PISA. It is named after a tall building that is falling over because it is built on poor foundations.”

Alice looked from the teapot in her left hand to the teacup in her right hand with a completely mystified look on her face.

“You see”, said the Hare – which Alice most certainly did not, “that you would have no idea how well you had poured the tea unless we had given it a proper assessment. That is called summative assessment because it sums up what you have done.”

“Now you know that you can do better next time. That is called assessment that is formative, which is like summative assessment except that we say it in a nicer way and smile when we give it. We pretend we haven’t given you a number, when we really have, and try to tease you into working it out for yourself.”

“But where do the numbers come from? asked Alice.

“Why rubrics, of course”, Hare and Hatter chorused.

“Your problem”, shouted the Hatter, pointing a bony finger in the direction of his long-eared friend, “is that you are too generous with your grading. If you grade too high then everyone will think they are good at everything!”

“The rubrics list the criteria by which things are assessed. We start with a clear description of a perfect piece of work and then gradually make the description worse until we have a dreadful piece of work” explained the Hatter.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, let’s say that a perfect cup of tea might be described as ‘Warm, but not too hot, with a balanced flavour of tea and milk. Filling the cup but not too much so that you would spill it down your front, carefully placed at the centre of the saucer’. Then we would take that and say what might describe a cup that was nearly as good: ‘The tea shows some understanding of temperature without being exactly right.

There are flavours of tea and milk but one dominates the other excessively. The tea shows good filling and positioning qualities.’

Now we might then degrade the criteria even further to give: ‘The tea has either some understanding of temperature or some understanding of flavour. Positioning and filling are rather approximate’, and finally we would say: ‘A cup of tea with no real flavour of tea that is overflowing or largely empty’. And there we have our rubric.”

“But that last one isn’t really tea at all”, said Alice “Exactly, so it would get the lowest grade.” said the Hare, smugly.

“I think I get it. So it really is about the tea and not about the numbers” Hare and Hatter looked shocked. “You don’t get it at all”, said the Hatter. “Think, dear girl, what exactly is a rubric?”

“A list of criteria describing different levels of quality of a cup of tea.”

“Go on.”

“Er …” Alice continued uncertainly. “And each level is given a number?”

“Exactly so. Now what do you think comes first? The criteria or the numbers?”

“Well, I suppose, if we want to grade out of 10, we start with the numbers 1 to 10.”

“Indeed”.

“And then we draw up the criteria to match the number of numbers we have.

Finally we assign the criteria to the work and read off the number.”

“And there you have it”, concluded the Mad Hatter with his smug smile firmly in place. “The numbers come first and the numbers come last. The criteria are just a set of sentences created to fill the slots next to the numbers. Everything is Number, as I suspect Pythagoras and his bunch of mad cultists once must have said.”

“Oh dear. That is depressing” sighed Alice.

“On the contrary!”, retorted the March Hare. “It is the numbers that give the statements meaning. We can have any set of statements and, if we allocate numbers to them, they take on importance. Without the numbers they are just a set of random sentences.”

“But surely the sentences have to mean something. In any assessment or measurement or survey the value of the data depends on the criteria you use or questions you ask.”

“Wrong again!” said Hare. “Once you have the numbers then it doesn’t matter where they came from. That is the magic of number.”

“There is a namesake of mine, well almost a namesake, certainly a distant relation I am almost sure, who attributes numbers to all sorts of things with great precision.” said Hatter. “He gives everything two complete places of decimals! How about that for numerical authority? For example ‘Feedback’ gets 0.73 which is very high, whereas ‘Homework’ gets 0.29 which is very low. So it is clear that Feedback has much more effect on learning than Homework does.”

Alice was very impressed. “But how does he get the numbers?”, she asked.

“Well, that is the beauty of it”, continued the Hatter. “Nobody has the time to find out!

It is called a meta-analysis because it takes a bunch of other numbers that other people have come up with in their own studies and creates new numbers from them. So if they are wrong it’s not even his fault!”

“And nobody bothers to question if all the different numbers he has used to justify the 0.79 for feedback are from equivalent studies. They just accept that feedback must be good because it has a number associated with it”, said Hare.

“And you can’t argue with numbers!” concluded Hatter.

“But is it really all numbers in this school?”, Alice asked.

“Well no”, said Hare. “The point is that there are two types of things going on in any school: the important things and the unimportant things. The important things are so important that we attach numbers to them. The unimportant ones are those that do not have numbers. Important things include exam and test scores.”

“And coursework and continuous assessment”, added Hatter.

“And effort, and attendance”.

“Things that do not have numbers and are therefore unimportant are usually called Extra Curricular Activities”.

“Or sometimes Character Education or CAS”.

“Although”, continued Hatter, “I have heard that there are some schools that attach numbers to character education and even behaviour as well. If they do that they become important too.”

Alice decided she had had enough tea, and she left them as they carefully stuffed the dormouse back into the teapot from which she had emerged. ◆ Chris Binge is Headmaster of Markham College, Lima, Peru. ✉ chris.binge@markham.edu.pe

All the Alice in Education Land stories can be found on Educhanges.com, where there is also a link to an Alice Art Gallery of illustrations by such artists as Tenniel, Dali and Steadman, as well as an Alice playlist.

Spring 2021 | International School | 33

Book Review

Rosenshine’s Principles in Action

Introducing

by Tom Sherrington, Woodbridge, John Catt Educational Ltd (2019) Reviewed by Therese Andrews.

W

ith more than 100,000 followers on Twitter, Tom Sherrington is arguably one of the most influential educators in the UK. Rosenshine’s Principles in Action is his sixth publication, in which he takes the ten research-based principles that were outlined by Barak Rosenshine in 2010, condenses them into four strands and discusses their use in the classroom. The presentation of the strands and subsequent principles, as well as the range of examples, result in a narrative difficult to argue with.

Whilst there are many titles available that cover different strategies for teaching and learning, instruction and pedagogy, I would recommend this for the following reasons: 1. Clarity: The layout of the principles and strands, and structure of the chapters, ensures that this book is an easy read and makes for straightforward referencing of ideas. Sub-headings, diagrams and bullet points have been used regularly and effectively to convey the learning process and what teachers can do to improve it.

The use of the four strands developed by the author to structure the chapters of the book facilitates the connections between the principles, and makes the ideas easier to digest than if each principle formed its own chapter. Furthermore, the language used is accessible and not overly academic in tone.

2. Practical examples: For me, the inclusion of practical examples is what make this book

34 | International School | Spring 2021

especially useful. There are many books available to teachers that contain a lot of theory and ideas, but lack practicality or connection to what application might look like in the classroom. This book contains examples from a range of subjects and pedagogical constructs that are applicable across multiple subjects. Whilst these examples may come across as more applicable to a secondary school audience, the principles undoubtedly apply to primary teaching too.

3. Length: At only 80 pages in length, this book is accessible to even the busiest of teachers and leaders. The first 50 pages are written by the author, while the others are dedicated to Rosenshine’s original Principles of Instruction, providing readers with the opportunity to access the initial publication as well as the author’s new perspective.

4. Further reading: The field of education research, while already vast, is rapidly growing. We know that teachers and leaders in schools often do not have time to access research journals detailing peer-reviewed articles, and even those who are engaged with part-time further degrees would be unable to keep up with the abundance of literature in the area of teaching and learning. Therefore the use of footnotes and bullet points in this text to identify relevant sources and further reading is especially helpful for readers seeking guidance towards a specific area for further development, yet there is no requirement to have done any other reading to make sense of this text.

I have seen pictures on Twitter of schools providing teachers with a copy of this text, and I can imagine that a ‘book-club’-type discussion held during a staff meeting would be an excellent way to deconstruct the variety of pedagogical approaches used across a school, or perhaps even to redevelop a Teaching and Learning Policy, ensuring a common understanding of principles and consistency of approach. Equally, it is an easily digestible book for individuals to either develop or to use to be reminded of good teaching practice.

If there are any criticisms of this book, one would be the lack of connection

to some of the buzz words currently circulating in popular and academic educational literature which might have provided further guidance to inexperienced colleagues. For example, metacognition is only briefly touched upon when discussing the importance of narrating the thought process, yet could have been well aligned and further developed in most chapters. Likewise, reflection, collaborative learning and differentiation are also omitted, which feels like a missed opportunity to contribute to how these important concepts might be interpreted in practice.

The second criticism is more of a personal view and I know that many UK-based educators will disagree, but the UK focus on a knowledge-specified or knowledge-rich curriculum is misleading.

The small section in the book that discusses the relevance of the principles to a knowledge-specific curriculum is there, in my opinion, to tick a box and meet the demand of educators who are missing education’s big picture. No one is denying that knowledge is important; I think that all educators believe that learning does involve the acquisition of knowledge, and therefore reference to a knowledge-specified curriculum is no different to referring to curriculum. The need to refer to knowledge in the UK seems to have developed from the disproportionate emphasis on exam results of which readers from outside of the UK may not be aware.

Despite these criticisms, this is an otherwise excellent 80-page publication, which I would highly recommend. It makes essential reading and indeed a guide to refer to regularly, not only for those in the early stages of their career, but also for more experienced teachers and leaders, to serve as a reminder of what classroom practice should look like. I wish this book had been available in my NQT year; I may have avoided some of my own misconceptions if it had! ◆ Therese Andrews Director of Curriculum Innovation, Thomas’s Battersea Square, London ✉ tandrews@thomas-s.co.uk

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Book Review

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