Head of School, Jeremy Lewis, explains what a renewed focus on quality means.
Something that you hear a lot about as a parent, teacher or student is the concept of 'quality education'. But what is meant by 'quality' and what are its indicators? From my perspective, the key to defining quality is analysing what it looks like in practice. I would like to take this opportunity to share with you what I believe to be the most significant indicators of a quality education at this point in time and how we, as a school community, are striving for this quality.
It challenges the norm
A quality education needs to be transformative and it needs to be confrontational – it needs to make people think and shift them out of their comfort zone. To truly deliver quality, you need to pose the difficult questions. This, of course, means challenging students in their thinking and encouraging them to dig deeper to develop their knowledge and overall self. But it also means having the confidence, as school leaders and educators, to question ourselves – to really look at the content we are delivering and question whether it is fit for purpose, current and engaging; whether it is authentic and really matters to the students who are receiving it and the teachers who are delivering it.
It takes knowledge beyond the classroom
True quality requires students to be empowered and engaged in their learning both inside and outside of the classroom. Quality education shines through in students’ understanding of classroom topics and in their exam result and, when young people have taken action as a result of what they have learned. Transferring something they have learned in the classroom to a different environment is a further indicator of quality. Any school can deliver the content, but to deliver a quality education we must facilitate the ownership and engagement of learning.
One of the things that’s been flourishing recently is the work that some of our students are doing with eco-awareness. What's really significant is that it is entirely student-driven, and very much includes all ages. It hasn't been a typical model of the older students leading the project, much of the drive has come from the younger children in the Lower School. I am often blown away by the 3rd and 4th Grade students; they are true thinkers, they tell it how it is and ask it how it is. The fact that they have the confidence to do this is a powerful indicator of quality.
It provides liberation of thought
Something that I am proud to say is a constant in our school is the sense that we are a place where risk is encouraged. We're not championing failure but we are championing risk and that is where quality comes from – it doesn’t come from being restrained, it comes from liberation of thought. This unrestricted thinking often shines through in students' exhibitions in Grade 5, Personal Projects in Grade 10, and Extended Essays in Grade 12.
The creative and impactful projects they come up with are a perfect example of how student engagement and empowerment drives quality. Despite the phenomenal end results we often see, the important part of these projects is not always the end-product – the key is that students have experienced the journey of creating something great which they are passionate about and interested in – and have learnt the value of reflecting on that journey.
It encourages collaboration
Something we are frequently striving to achieve at ACS Egham is collaboration – student-to-student, student-to-teacher, parent-to-school and also interdisciplinary subject-to-subject. Purposefully-designed spaces are incredibly important for facilitating this collaboration – spaces which enable students to work in small or large groups and allow free-flow between spaces.
How you use space is an extension of how you want your students to learn and interact, and quality education is often about understanding how students learn best – this is very different to the way we learnt 30 or 40 years ago and we need to represent this in how we use space and furniture.
Using space in innovative ways can also help break down traditional subject silos and enable greater inter-disciplinary learning. This is essential to quality education as it allows the learner to think more globally and less restrictively, and automatically helps them to learn to see the parallels and connections between subjects. In the world of work, this is exactly what you need individuals to be able to do.
It shines through in student behaviour
The International Baccalaureate's (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) and Middle Year's Programme (MYP) results are a very good indicator of quality education – and we are enormously proud of the results our students achieve – but it is important to remember that exam results do not tell the whole story. A lot of the quality lies above and beyond that. It shines through in students' confidence, resourcefulness and resilience, their respect for their teachers and, in turn, their teachers' respect for them.
Someone said to me a couple of years ago that it is the ACS Egham students that often have the most impactful and positive influence over each other's development. It is not cool here to do badly or disrespect your teachers. It is cool to do well in class, in sports and in co-curricular activities in general, and it is cool to be kind to teachers and your peers.
Jeremy Lewis, Head of School
Every single day throughout our school, we are fortunate to see many of these indicators of quality shining through, but I believe it is the students at ACS Egham that are the biggest demonstrators of what a quality education looks like. They are genuinely proud of their school, and that makes me very proud of them.