Escaping The Factory School
There are a number of well-established, even taken-for granted, features of school structure and organisation that seriously hold back education, particularly at secondary level. In each case, they are quite clearly inadequate, even damaging of learning, and yet in each case they linger on in the mainstream.… Read more
Individual Differences and the Learning Environment
Perhaps the most effective way of exploring how ICHK aligns with the fourth of OECD’s transversal conclusions is to step outside of the South East Asian educational environment for a moment and to invoke the principles that have catapulted a European nation, Finland, to the forefront of the global education agenda.… Read more
The Role of Emotions in Learning
The third transversal conclusion drawn by the OECD speaks directly to the wealth of research that confirms that learning results from the dynamic interplay of emotions and cognition.
Indeed, to one extent or another, emotions are always either supporting or inhibiting learning, and the job of school is to create the mood-environment in which learning is made more not less likely.… Read more
Human Technologies at ICHK
The second of the OECD’s “transversal conclusions” resonates so strongly with our approaches to education at ICHK that I would like to continue to explore it here in this second part of this piece.
In the first part, I examined to ways in which our 5+1 model directly impacts on our capacity to foster meaningful collaboration and cooperation between students.… Read more
Creating a Culture of Cooperation
In their review of current best practice in education, as informed by recent research in the learning sciences, the OECD draws this second “transversal conclusion”:
Once again, this speaks directly to our 5+1 model, in not just one but several of its dimensions.… Read more
Active Engagement and the Curriculum
In their review of the lessons that should be drawn from latest research in the learning sciences, the OECD list seven “transversal” conclusions that, they insist, should be the hallmark of the 21st century learning environment, but which, they lament, generally are not.
Student Achievement, Adaptive Expertise and the 5+1 Model
Since 2013, we have adopted what we call the 5+1 Model at ICHK. Based on the insights of five thinkers working in education and beyond, but taking its inspiration more widely, the 5+1 Model gives guidance to our teachers about how best to engage with pre-teen and teenage learners so as to boost their chances of success and to place student wellbeing at the centre of school life.
The Complexity of Learning
As part of my role as Head of School, I intend to get into the habit of writing occasional but regular blogs that provide the community with a chance to connect with the thinking behind the ways in which we approach schooling at ICHK.