Each Friday Headmaster, Mr Matthew Way, writes to parents and prospective parents:
The Stonar Way, 25 March 2022
At a recent Head’s conference, I was listening to a lecture on curriculum development. The presenter challenged us to think about the core thread that we would want to run throughout our curriculum. In essence, in every scheme of work, in every subject, at every age, what would be recognised as a consistent theme.
This caused some debate around our table, with discussion around the need for literacy and numeracy skills, public speaking, group work, IT skills and so on. There are, of course, important merits in a consistent focus on all of these areas, which can be taught across all subjects. For example, our Year 7 Maths pupils recently presented a business idea using their Maths skills to work out the viability of the business. However, I felt that the debate became more interesting when we started to think about character education and also ensuring pupils are world-ready.
In short, what we are asking ourselves, is how might our curriculum make a difference to our pupils in 20 years’ time and how might it prepare them to embrace future changes and not fear them. Given the accelerated pace of change that we have witnessed in the last two years, it is impossible to know what employment will be like several decades from now.
Yet while we cannot predict the future for our young people, we do need to be preparing them and equipping each one to thrive amidst the challenges and opportunities of a rapidly changing world. The education that we provide needs to ensure that they can address the headwinds of environmental degradation, geopolitical upheaval and technological transformation. This is not to say that the prospects for children are bleak; every generation will experience unimagined possibilities and a world of constant innovation provides no shortage of hope and optimism.
It is neither necessary nor helpful for us to try and predict the trends of the future; we could scarcely have expected our own schooling to have trained us on the etiquette of online meetings or the epidemiological benefits of mask-wearing.
Instead, the best preparation and the best education is one which prepares for any eventuality – which enables each learner to have the aptitudes, characteristics, qualities and dispositions that are required to combat the difficulties and seize the opportunities. This is ultimately what it means to be real-world ready, and this is what we need to ensure is at the very heart and fabric of what we seek to provide at Stonar.
So, how do we approach this challenge? To be successful we have to consider both our culture and our curriculum. Culture can best be defined as ‘the way we do things round here’. I do believe that we have clear principles about which we speak consistently and regularly with the pupils. Work Hard, Be Kind, Get Involved, Shape the World – this is language the pupils and staff recognise and understand and we reference in many assemblies. However, is it embedded and recognisable in our curriculum? What more can we do to ensure that these values are at the core of all we do?
By curriculum, I mean the academic and co-curriculum. Again I think we have made good progress with some elements of our co-curriculum that can help build character, such as our expanded outdoor education opportunities, the busy sports fixture list and some of the STEM activities that are starting to come online, such as our new Robotics Club. However, can we see character education in our classroom curriculum as clearly?
In an essay entitled ‘The Purpose of Education’, written by Martin Luther King Jr, remarkably when he was 18 years old, he asked the question, “What are we hoping when we send children to school?”
A young King offered a warning to educators who seek only to impart knowledge but fail to cultivate character, determination, compassion and integrity. Instead, he argues: “Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”
So much of my tenure to date has been about day to day challenges. Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr, I want to pull together the threads of these ideas and questions to establish a clearly recognisable ‘Stonar Way’ with the development of character at its heart.
I hope that you have a lovely weekend in the sunshine.
Matthew Way
Headmaster