Welcome to The Bridge
The Bridge helps to launch inaugural Festivals of Education in USA and Thailand
Thanks to the support and vision of Wellington College International, the first ever Festivals of Education in both the USA and Thailand were launched to great acclaim at the end of 2023.
In the USA, The Bridge and Lsect joined forces with the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL) at St Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland, to bring the inaugural Festival to US educators. Professor Daniel Willingham opened the Festival and captivated a packed hall with a superbly structured session on “Helping students regulate their own learning”. Renowned experts on the US education scene such as David Steiner, Meg Lee and Patrice Bain, complemented Evidence Based Education’s 5 sessions on Great Teaching, Inner Drive’s Cognitive Science strand, and some Wellington sessions including one from Wellington College China’s inspirational founder, Joy Qiao.
Roberto Rodriguez (US Assistant Secretary of State) in conversation rounded off the day in appropriate style and with great optimism for the future: how refreshing it was for the audience to hear such passion, positive intent and such a high level of knowledge about education.
In Thailand, Wellington College International School, Bangkok, was the host venue. Jassa Ahluwalia, the actor, writer and public figure, delivered an extraordinarily moving, inspiring and impactful keynote to open the Festival, on the subject of identity. His #bothnothalf approach to describing his mixed heritage had particular resonance with the international school community, setting the tone for an extraordinary day. Inner Drive and Evidence Based Education provided highlights here too, with a different mix of sessions to the USA. Among many others, Cindy Adair, Stuart Kime, Lynsey Briek, Shane Leaning, Gift Nisanart Dharmageisirattana and Wellington’s Head of Sustainability, Ana Romero, all provided insightful, grounded and deeply thoughtprovoking sessions, that were especially wellreceived by Festival attendees.
In both locations, the feedback from festivalgoers was overwhelmingly positive. The quality of the speakers, panels and content; the festival vibe and the way in which educators from a whole range of schools were made to feel that they truly belonged at the Festival, were all highlighted by those who attended. There is great potential and appetite for these events to grow into something similar to the Festival at Wellington UK.
Podcast with Shane Leaning, International School Organisational Coach
Shane Leaning said this about the Festival and the subsequent podcast: “Huge thanks for coming on and supporting the Global Ed Leaders podcast this week. Your perspectives, the information shared, and the brilliant work you do in advancing education made the episode super enriching, both for me and I know for my audience.”
The episode is now live and can be listened to on any digital podcast platform or via this link: https://www.shaneleaning.com/podcast/31
Foundational Coaching
The Foundational Coaching course was delivered by James Ellis – OW and ex Wellington College teacher. He runs his own company now and we are proud to deliver Wellington College Coaching training in partnership with James Ellis Coaching. This is a two-day course combining essential elements of coaching theory with coaching practice, and it makes an ideal first step for school leaders and teachers to develop coaching skills to improve their practice. They leave with improved listening and questioning skills and a strong grasp of the Begin Within coaching model enabling high quality coaching conversations.
“The foundational coaching course was invaluable to my work as a teacher. The two training days were packed with knowledge and opportunities to practise.” – Secondary head of PSHE
Wellington College International - Family of Schools
Primary
Curriculum Project
Following the Festival of Education in Bangkok, leaders from across our Primary, Junior and Prep schools came together to consider how we articulate a Wellington College Primary education, resulting in 7 key principles to take away to their own teams for review. Connected to this, we explored what our respective curricula need to be like to ensure our pupils are offered the essential skills, knowledge, and experiences to ensure they thrive in an ever-changing world. The project will continue until the summer and is being facilitated by Jayne Bennion of Karen Ardley Associates. She is well qualified to help us with vast experience in curriculum design and review of impact and will be supporting each individual school alongside on the ground guidance from Fiona Carter (WCI) and Dean Clayden from Wellington Colleges China.
With the aim of making sure that schools maintain a high level of engagement in the project as a whole and in the implementation strategies within each school, the F2F session focused on a clarity of agreed outcomes and gave time to discussing reasonable and manageable expectations for processes of sharing and feeding back to the whole group.
Next steps include presentations created by each school to explain process, approach and any initial impact to their colleagues in EYFS / Senior / KS3 and to their Master or Headteacher. Success journals will capture evidence of process, approach and impact on learning and provision and each school has been asked to capture (short films (2-3 mins), photographs, short case study evaluation of impact which is posted onto our personalised Hub so that it can be reviewed by the wider project group. As well this, schools will be interviewing their students, teachers and Master to reflect on the impact of the curriculum work.
Remote check in sessions, in the form of a coaching conversation with Jayne will support and challenge schools to reflect and plan next steps as the academic year progresses. Our overarching theme is the 4 Is… Inspire, Intent, Implementation, and Impact with the ambitious aim of developing existing curricula so that we feel we are responding to the needs of our individual communities whilst making sure pupils have a depth of understanding of what they need to learn by the end of the primary age phase.
Leading for Impact
Wellington Leadership and Coaching Institute has delivered the Leading for Impact course twice over the past few weeks, to engaged and diverse groups drawn from our partner schools in Wellington College Teaching Alliance, and within Wellington College.
The next Leading for Impact course will be online to Wellington College International School Bangkok in February.
NPQs launched to WCI schools in collaboration with Forest Learning Alliance
We have continued to develop a wonderful relationship with Forest Learning Alliance (FLA). Based at Uplands Primary in Sandhurst, FLA has provided exceptional support and CPD to its 26 local schools, and is now part-funded by Wellington College. This has made possible exciting new opportunities for Eagle House to collaborate on developing expertise in Primary and Early Years Education, and in turn for connection and mutual benefit for WCI schools.
The National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) for Headship, Senior Leaders and Leading Teachers are among the most impactful and highly sought after qualifications for the sector. FLA has enabled Chris Woolf (WCI International Director) and Fiona Carter (WCI Director of Education for Primary and Early years) to make available and deliver the NPQLTD, NPQSL and NPQH. It has been wonderful to see 34 staff in WCI Family schools already in the midst of their NPQs, with expert contributions from, among others, Julian Jeffrey (Chief Executive Master, Wellington College China). Colleagues’ comments have epitomised the mindset of the joy of lifelong learning: “Glad….” “Delighted…” “Never stop learning….”
"Challenging the status quo: evidence and innovations in teacher development"
16th January 2024
Surprisingly, there are few rigorous causal evaluations that can help inform teacher educators and policymakers as they design effective teacher preparation and ongoing professional development. In this session, Prof Dr Stuart Kime (EBE) and Dr Zid Mancenido (Harvard Graduate School of
Education and EBE Advisory Board) discussed findings from a recent experiment aimed at providing some initial answers. They also discussed perspectives on how we can get more rigorous evaluations conducted within teacher preparation contexts, to help advance more effective teacher learning at scale.
Link to webinar recording
Upcoming Events
The CTTL at St Andrew’s Episcopal School brings a Winter Webinar series: "Diverse Identities in the Classroom: Expand Your Toolkit by Connecting the Science of Learning and Belonging" It takes place from 00:00-01:20 GMT on 26th January, 1st and 8th of February which is not an ideal time for us in the UK or Asia, but each of the sessions is recorded and can be experienced asynchronously due to time-zone differences. This series features three Mind-Brain-Education and Diversity-Equity-Belonging connected frameworks. It is presented by a great group of speakers looking at belonging research and strategies.
The Teaching & Learning Summit, 9th and 10th February 2024
An educational CPD conference by Inner Drive held at the Tony Little Centre for Teaching, Learning and Research at Eton College. For the first time, the Teaching & Learning Summit will take place over two days, starting with an exclusive evening with Doug Lemov on 9th February, followed by a full day of talks and networking on 10th February. If you join on the 10th, you will hear from some of the top experts in education on topics such as Interleaving, international Teaching & Learning strategies, the teenage brain, habit-making, questioning, and more.
Some current research findings
The 2020 Great Teaching Toolkit Evidence Review remains a superb summary of what we know about teaching and learning, and why. As a first stop, and for revisiting, it is equally excellent.
As mentioned elsewhere, Professor Daniel Willingham delivered a remarkable opening keynote at the Festival of Education USA. He has consistently been one of the very best and most respected researchers, writers, thinkers and presenters in the sector. His recent article here on “How praise can motivate – or stifle” and the research behind this, is worth a read.
Some recent findings from the UCL IOE and the Nuffield Foundation:
Examples of research UCL IOE - Faculty of Education & Society
• Better decision-making skills may help young people resist problematic eating behaviours
• Teaching and classroom assistants key to keeping schools open in lockdown
• Social robots for autism education
• Are SEN teaching assistants effective?
• ‘Stuck’ schools: the detrimental consequences of failing Ofsted inspections
• Should we rethink the way we teach children to read?
• Tackling image-based sexual harassment and abuse
• Covid crisis reveals how schools are ‘propping up a failing welfare state’
• A wide social gap in political engagement emerges during adolescence
• Extreme views are widespread in classrooms in Englandmajor new study finds
• Marking is the key driver of work stress among teachers
• Predicting A-level grades accurately ‘near-impossible task’
• A distinct transition phase for year 7 pupils is needed
• Teachers point towards school accountability as main driver of stress
• Why Reading Recovery works
Examples of research NUFFIELD FOUNDATION
• Can maths apps add value to learning?
• Ethical principles underpinning co-production with young people
• Comparisons of cognitive skills and educational attainment across the UK
• Measuring the disadvantage attainment gap in 16-19 education
• The influence of headteachers on their schools
• ‘Intractable’ schools: can an Ofsted judgment prevent sustainable improvement?
• Educational choices at 16-19 and adverse outcomes at university
• Composite classes, class size and human capital accumulation
• A new mathematics GCSE curriculum for post-16 resit students
• Characterising effective teaching
• Does Progress 8 encourage schools to work more equitably?
• The academic trajectory of disadvantaged pupils during Key Stage 3
• Developing a sustainable intervention for disadvantaged children
• Educational attainment of children in need & children in care
• Secondary school choice and academic attainment
• The effect of retention and turnover on the teaching workforce
