Day one of a fantastic opportunity to see US models of small schools in action, courtesy of the very generous invitation from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and excellent organisation / support of Simon Richey and Jane Thomas.
First up, Boston Arts Academy.
entrance on Ipswich Street
Many thanks to Linda Nathan, Co-Headmaster, staff and students for their great expertise, generosity, warmth and openness. For website click here
Impressions? Well, an excellent school with very responsive and mature young people interacting closely and respectfully with each other and dedicated staff. Housed in a renovated factory, which offers space inside but not out, the accommodation is functional and not as physically impressive in terms of learning spaces as emerging BSF designs. What clearly works is organisational systems design. How?
- a fundamental belief in small scale to maximise human interactions pervades the academy
- an embedded focus on developing the essential ‘habits of the graduate’ derived from extensive staff discussion, defined as RICO – Refine / Invent / Connect / Own
- a 1;8-10 teacher adviser: student mentoring system to support all aspects of student growth towards the above end
- an expectation that each student will produce a portfolio of evidence to support and illustrate how they use RICO to progress all aspects of their learning
- twice yearly reviews with students which can include adviser, parent, external expert/s
- open days for parents to sit in classes to see what happens and how
- extensive student voice with twice weekly feedback to principal and senior staff
- teachers available to advisees and classes via e-mail, messaging, mobile phone
- each teacher holding reading / writing seminars with their group, ie all support language learning
Possible implications, transfer or adaptation to improve practice at WTC?
- define our own RICO as an overarching ‘design brief’ for personal learning to drive ownership?
- 1:10 student adviser support from entry through to leaving?
- ensure the adviser is always available – use systems and technologies to best effect?
- develop skills set of teacher adviser to include support for teaching key skills?
- develop teachers/student support teams (similar to Nissan kaizen teams) to maximise learning on a personalised basis?
- train, train, train staff and review?
- add an external (employee/er) mentor in 14-19 and hold student review / portfolio presentation as part of yearly parent consultation event?
- use open house sessions to inform, enthuse and engage more support of parents / carers?
- focus on the positive – simple psychology really?
- engage student voice more comprehensively – feedback to improve system design and operation – it may be hard to listen at times but it will help to embed student ownership as well as improve service?
