Category: International schools

What makes a great foundation course?

“Courses that recognise the importance of developing learning skills, as well as subject knowledge, may well have the edge”

Foundation courses have been one of the success stories of recent times, with numbers quadrupling over the last five years and more than 55,000 students choosing to study foundation year courses in 2019/20.

“A foundation course should prepare students for university, not just with English language level but also with a mix of academic literacies, study skills, critical thinking and confidence. The aim is to make them feel prepared and ready for the next big step in their academic life,” says Keith Ibsen, deputy academic director, at St Clare’s, Oxford.

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Interdisciplinary collaboration for 21st century learning

“Within the busy, everyday lives of teachers, is it practical to overhaul the system while protecting the sanctity of their subject?”

Regardless of which level of education they work in, every teacher will have some form of specialism; be it early years, secondary mathematics, art or music. However, in an increasingly globalised and interconnected world, educators are waking up to the need for a new style of learning that is more transdisciplinary and focused on the skills and competencies needed for the 21st century workplace.

The traditional approach of narrow subject specialisms is obsolete, according to Reimers (2009), and teams of teachers from across the disciplines need to work together to create a more integrated, globally-minded approach to learning.

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AI can enable educators with new superpowers

“AI can recommend content and the most efficient learning path for each individual learner”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if teachers had superpowers? With all the demands made of them – keeping track of slow learners, paying attention to gifted students, checking homework, grading tests, no wonder they struggle. But we can enable educators with superpowers today using artificial intelligence, the perfect solution for learners.

No, institutions don’t have to start hiring data scientists to build complex algorithms. Edtech companies have done all the work. All it takes is an IT manager to plug the AI brain into whatever learning management system an institution has adopted with something called an Application Programming Interface, or API.

APIs are like pipes that connect one software system to another. Suddenly, the LMS that instructors use to assign homework or grade tests has a brain of its own.

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International mindedness: measuring skills that go beyond the classroom

“There is still a lack of understanding about what students can expect from an international education”

A new report by ISC Research highlights the importance that today’s students place on a global mindset; a  demand which has led to a dramatic increase in the number of applications to schools which offer an international education, says Johanna Sale, vice-principal of Impington International College.

However, this growing popularity is of no surprise to me. At Impington, we have received more than 250 applications to join our Sixth Form this year alone!

While the desire for an international education is clearly growing, the ISC Research suggests that there is still a lack of understanding about what students can expect from an international education and how the phrase “international-mindedness” is measured to ensure that students have the skills that they need to succeed beyond the classroom – and their country’s borders.

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Why giving children exposure to a greater variety of languages in schools is crucial to problem solving

“Embracing language learning does not mean simply widening access to modern  European languages”

In 2021, Ofsted published a report into the state of languages in UK schools. It begins with lofty ambition – the second line declares that learning a language is ‘a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures’ – but soon runs aground on the grim statistics of student disengagement, writes Barry Mansfield of Halcyon London International School, Marylebone.

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International students are the key to the future of British science

“International students in the UK directly contribute to cutting edge research and the development of new technologies”

Britain is one of just five countries in the world to have developed a WHO-approved vaccine against Covid-19, a triumph that would not have been possible without the countless hours contributed to the project by international students, says Study Group’s James Pitman.

The UK has earned its place as a global science hub, but the government plans to go even further, turning the country into a “science and technology superpower”. This ambitious goal is achievable, but only if we continue to welcome international students and empower them to work side by side with the top British minds in academia and research.

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Broadening horizons beyond the classroom

“One of the greatest limitations that has undoubtedly been felt within schools across the board has been the removal of opportunities for young people to broaden their horizons beyond the classroom”

For the past 18 months, lockdown restrictions have had a huge impact on young people, arguably more so than any other generation, with schools for the first time in living memory closing their doors in 57 countries across the world. In March 2020, 682 million students worldwide had to continue their studies from home, writes Keith Birch, Principal of Westminster Campus at Southbank International School.

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Between local, national, and global identities: The question of global citizenship in education

“With such a heated clash between nationalist and global identities, many young people may feel forced to pick a side. As an educator, I feel it is part of my job to help them not to make such a false binary choice”

Debate about the nature of globalisation and its impact is never far from the news these days. Populists have drawn on the frustrations of those who have seen globalisation halt progress in their communities, and antipathy has been directed to those that are seen to have benefited most from it, writes Katerina Vackova, UFP Chief Examiner for Humanities, CATS Global Schools.

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Responsible curiosity: what it means to be a global citizen

“I see global citizenship as involving a sense of open-mindedness and adaptability”

Global citizenship has become quite a political and controversial concept. In 2016, the UK Prime Minister at the time, Theresa May, declared “today, too many people in positions of power behave as though they have more in common with international elites than with the people down the road, the people they employ, the people they pass in the street…. But if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what the very word ‘citizenship’ means”.

And then, in 2019, Donald Trump told the United Nations General Assembly that “the future does not belong to the globalists. The future belongs to the patriots”.

I don’t agree with either of these statements, writes Martin Hall, head of school at ACS International School Hillingdon.

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Translation is the key to success when it comes to international students

“Streamlined digital e-learning programs available in the native language of the user are proven to be significantly more effective in increasing engagement”

Pre-pandemic, there were reports that the global online education market would reach a value of $350bn by 2025, writes The Translation People‘s Alan White.

With 1.38bn students affected by the forced closure of schools, colleges and universities around the world, some online learning providers are reporting a 200% increase in usage in their platforms since March.

Earlier this month, Uganda’s First Lady and education minister Janet Museveni instructed the country’s universities to start online teaching if they hadn’t already done so.

“No continuing learner should be left behind or excluded” because of their Covid-19 response, she said.

For the 16,000 international students who come to Uganda each year, this move provided a level of accessibility to education that risked being compromised the longer lockdown continued.

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