By Mr Gardner, Senior Deputy Head – Teaching and Learning

‘Most important of all will be the ability to deal with change, to learn new things and to preserve your mental balance in unfamiliar situations. In order to keep up with the world of 2050, you will need not merely to invent new ideas and products – you will above all need to reinvent yourself again and again’. Yuval Noah Harari (21 Lessons for the 21st century).

This week I attended the Future Fwd conference hosted by the Warwick School Trust. The conference was designed to bring together educators, entrepreneurs and tech specialists from across a range of settings to collectively explore the future of education against the backdrop of the constantly evolving employment landscape of the 21st century.   

In the sessions I attended, much of the discussion was centred around the development of key skills which will enable students to be successful beyond their formal education. In support of this, reference was made to the World Economic Forum’s list of the top ten skills of 2025, which includes critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, resilience and initiative. The call to develop these skills in young people was also discussed at the first Times Education Summit which took place in May. This event brought together business leaders, educators and psychologists to explore ideas and make proposals for an education system fit for the 21st century, which ensures that young people are able to meet the needs of the employment market of the future. The collective focus was centred around the pressure to develop more enhanced skills and attributes in young people in formal education which will enable them to be flexible and innovative in the face of shifting employment markets, more independent working patterns and the fast development of technology across all sectors. 

Attending the Future Fwd conference naturally encouraged me to reflect on our own education model at BGS and the extent to which we are offering our students the opportunity to develop these skills and attributes alongside curriculum knowledge. From the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme in the Junior School to the A Level and IB Diploma programme in the Sixth Form, students at BGS are provided with a skills and knowledge rich diet of learning which aligns with the IB Learner Profile; students are actively taught to be critical thinkers, collaborators and reflective learners who are able to adapt and apply their curriculum understanding to new situations. We have always prided ourselves on being future focused, not only with the development of our student’s skills but with our approach to pastoral care and our use of technology in education. As I sat listening to esteemed colleagues and sector experts I felt extremely reassured that we are offering an educational experience which will support our students in meeting the demands of the volatile and ambiguous world that they will be moving into; they will be the graduates and young employees who are ready to grasp opportunities of the working world. They will be able to agile, or to quote Yuval Noah Harris “to reinvent” themselves, to face the challenges ahead; to be the creative thinkers, the change-makers and problem-solvers of the future.

This week I attended the Girls’ School Association (GSA) Deputy Heads conference in Leicester. After a long hiatus due to the pandemic, it was fantastic to come together with colleagues from across the network to reflect on our practices and share ideas about improving outcomes and experiences for our students and wider school communities.

One of the sessions which I found to be particularly engaging was called The Power of You presented by Claire Harvey and Helen Semple. Claire is a psychologist, inclusion expert and Paralympian who is recognised as a world leader in diversity, inclusion and culture; Helen is an experienced school leader and primary author of the Inclusion strategy for GSA. They talked about the importance of inclusion and how it should be embedded into every aspect of a school’s culture. To achieve this, they suggested that schools should continually reflect and seek feedback on their policies and practices to ensure that inclusion is built from a position of empathy and understanding, enabling all members of the community to feel represented, engaged and empowered.

Hearing from Claire and Helen about their practical solutions for developing a more inclusive educational experience gave me confidence that the work being carried out at BGS in this area linked to the Learning for Life and Climate of Care strands of the school development plan is reflected their vision for a more inclusive culture within schools. More specifically, the Diversity and Inclusion staff focus group regularly reflects across all aspects of school life to develop and monitor initiatives designed to have a lasting impact on the school culture. Their recent work on mapping and extending inclusive provision within the curriculum is already having a significant impact on the way students are learning about different topics in their subjects.          

As we move forward as a school community, we will continue to ensure that inclusion plays a fundamental role in the facilitation of both the student and staff experience at Bedford Girls’ School, by reflecting on our practices and drawing on expertise which aligns with our vision and diversity pledge:

“We commit to being a warm and welcoming environment for all. We value each and every member of our community as an individual. We celebrate our differences and acknowledge that these make us a more powerful group as a whole”.

Returning to school has been challenging for many of our students and staff. There are more regulations and guidance to follow, less opportunities to move freely around school or to express ourselves through co-curricular activities. However, in all of this, there are opportunities for us to learn new skills, to focus on ways in which we can support each other as we continue to build a community centred on kindness and respect. This message was at the centre my assembly, when I introduced the students to a coaching exercise, which focuses on active listening as a tool to help develop emotional intelligence.    

In our busy worlds of multi-media messages and constant news, it is all too easy to engage in half listening. Our minds and thoughts wander as we engage in a conversation; we do not do this consciously, but it is often a reflection of the pace at which we find ourselves managing our lives. It can be hard to focus on just one task. Taking time to take notice, listen and ask questions is a powerful tool in building a connection; demonstrating to someone you really care and allowing another that person the space to reflect and express themselves honestly. Active listening is an important part of building emotional intelligence, helping us develop capacity to recognise our own feeling and those of others. This is key skill, and at a time when we face so much uncertainty, it is important that we all take the time to listen to each other, with purpose and intent.

I asked the students to work in pairs, one taking on the role of the listener and one the speaker. I asked them to follow a simple process. Firstly, they asked their partner to think of a situation they would like to change; the listener then summarised back what they thought they have heard, the speaker then gave the listener feedback, thus helping them understand how much they really engaged and helping the speaker clarify their thoughts by reflecting on whether they communicated them effectively. The listener then asked three simple questions, Tell me two things about the issue/situation? Tell me two consequences? Tell me two things you could do about it? I reminded them not to add any additional comments to the question. Just to listen. I hoped through the process they started to understand that you don’t always have to the right answer. You don’t always need to provide a solution or counter balance a response, just through by fully engaging in listening you can provide the support and understanding that friends and classmates need to help clarify thought, express emotion and start to take self-reflective responsibility. 

I will encourage our community to continue to use this technique, both in and outside of the classroom.  In the current world, we are full of unanswered questions, and sometimes just being given the opportunity to voice those concerns in a non-judgemental space, is all that is needed to remind us that we are part of supportive community who will work through this time together.   

During the Spring Term I had the pleasure of accompanying Year 7 student, Ellie Robson-Green on the guitar during a year group assembly. Her bold and carefully constructed vocal performance really captured her audience and it was evident to me then just how passionate she is about music.

Since the closure of the school, Ellie like many musicians during this time have used this as an opportunity to practise and refine their performance skills and develop creative ideas which can be reflected in new compositions. The collaborations that we have seen between musicians from across the world, and within our own BGS community have really served to highlight the power of music in bringing people together amidst challenging times.

Ellie’s commitment to her craft is clearly evident in the piece Rise Up by Andra Day, which she started working on during the Easter holiday. With the support of her family she has managed to make a fantastic recording to share with the BGS community and I have the pleasure of introducing this to you. Over to Ellie…..

 

We all recognise that giving and receiving feedback is an important part of continual improvement, allowing us to understand and celebrate what we are doing well, whilst reflecting on areas where we need we need to adopt different strategies and approaches to improve outcomes. Feedback should always be two-way communication and provide direction, affirmation and advice.

At the start of this term, Senior School teachers joined together to explore the nature of effective feedback, and identify ways to enable the students to achieve better outcomes in their learning. Through working in collaborative teams and engaging with the latest academic research, they developed a range of solutions, which would serve to support the learning development of their students across the academic year ahead.

A key piece of research supporting these discussions came from educational researcher John Hattie, which clearly identifies feedback as one of the most influential factors supporting student progress in school. He highlights that for feedback to be effective, it should give the student an idea of how they are currently performing; identify misconceptions and provide the student with guidance on how to improve and make further progress.

With these thoughts in mind, teachers have implemented a range of strategies, which reflect the context of their own subject areas and the needs of individual students. In addition to the more traditional methods of providing feedback verbally and within exercise books, teachers have also adopted technological solutions which enable them to offer real-time feedback within the classroom environment and remotely, helping to facilitate independent study. This enables the students to respond to feedback in a timely manner, ensuring that the initial learning experiences remains closely linked with any adaptations which are required. Through triangulating these methodologies, teachers have been able to provide comprehensive support and guidance, developing greater intellectual confidence and increasing levels of motivation towards extending their learning.

Feedback at Bedford Girls’ School is not only limited to interactions between teachers and students. As a learning community it is equally as important that we receive, listen and act upon feedback from staff and parents, through both formal and informal channels. Our recent parent survey which gathered perceptions about their daughter’s learning experiences has been used to shape our approach staff development, and our recent staff survey about the development of learner skills and attributes has served to inform the development of parent engagement.

In order for us to keep moving forward as a school, it is essential remain responsive to feedback so that we continually review and refine our practices to best support the development of our students.

I often return to the subject of collaboration, the advantages of learning from each other, encouraging creativity and sharing good practice cannot be under estimated. There is plenty of evidence to show that, when used effectively, it is an important tool for developing successful learners and raising achievement. As teachers, it is important that we use this model within our classrooms and that we also foster collaborative opportunities amongst our teaching community.

Effective collaborative strategies have been at the centre of our professional development programme this term at BGS. We have encouraged teachers to work in teams to plan, deliver and evaluate the impact of collaborative classroom practices. This week, we widened access and have thrown open our classrooms and encouraged our colleagues to visit and learn from each other.

Open Door Week has seen 46 lessons available across the Senior and Junior Schools for staff to observe, and it has been fantastic to see so many staff taking part, popping in and out of classes and providing feedback on the strategies they have seen.

The opportunity, in a busy working week, to spend time in another classroom has many benefits. Not only does it stimulate ideas that can be transposed from a different subject area into your own planning, but it also allows teachers to observe how their students respond to different teaching practices and stimuli, helping to provide strategies which can then be employed to get the absolute best out each and every student.

Our educational ethos is pinned to the individual, as we seek for each girl to achieve her utmost, so the more insights we can have into how each girl responds and engages to different methods, the better we can fine tune our interactions to help develop individual learning skills and attributes.

At the end of the session, colleagues feedback on what they have observed. This peer evaluation is important, it helps us reflect on what we have seen and how it could be adapted to a different subject area, but it also provides feedback to the teachers about how they can further refine and adapt their practice to suit the specific needs of individual students.

The benefits of the week have not been restricted to the teachers. It has been fascinating to see how the girls have been responding to a stream of visitors; how, a point in the year which can be often be seen as a post-exams lull, is suddenly revitalised and the girls reinvigorated. They too are benefiting from the sense that we are all learning as a community as they are keen to demonstrate the skills they are developing to different teachers.

Open Door Week is just the start of collaboration. It is the beginning of conversations between colleagues, which will continue in the staff room or more formal settings, all focused on how we can ensure that we are always raising the aspirations of our students, inspiring them to demonstrate their intellect, to enquire just that bit deeper and to grow as open-minded, life-long learners.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” Helen Keller

The ability to collaborate with others in the pursuit of a shared outcome is a desirable skill, if not an essential quality, which schools have a responsibility to foster in their pupils. Not only do collaborative approaches to learning encourage the development of open-mindedness, critical thinking and communication skills, but evidence also shows that collaborative learning has the potential to improve academic learning outcomes.  

Like all classroom strategies, design and delivery is as important as the concept itself. If groups are just placed together with little attention to the nature of the process, then the positive effects will be limited. Often in groups, we experience what is known as the Ringlemann Effect; the phenomena in which each group member believes that every other member is doing the hard work, and therefore nothing is achieved. To help mitigate against this, educational researcher Robert Slavin recommends teachers ensure the presence of two key factors in all collaborative learning experiences: shared goals and individual accountability. Teachers should communicate a common goal at the start of the activity and structure the group to ensure each member has a defined role to play. For example, a teacher may inform the class that one member of each group will feed back at the end of the lesson, but decide which group member that is to be, closer to the time. This way, everyone in the group is fully accountable and, therefore, more likely to be proactive in their engagement with the activity.

This Summer Term at Bedford Girls’ School, teachers are developing strategies which support the effective delivery of collaborative learning within lessons. To help facilitate this, they are working in teams to plan specific activities, observe outcomes and collectively evaluate the impact of these. Deborah Eyre relates this to the idea of ‘structured tinkering’ in which teachers develop their practice in “a systematic way” and therefore “have a greater appreciation of whether the interventions were effective….creating a classroom that is responsive and self-regulating”. This type of reflective practice is essential to ensuring that, while strategies based on research are faithfully adopted, they are also intelligently adapted to meet the specific needs of pupils and the context of the broader learning environment.

With the careful integration of collaborative learning experiences for both pupils and teachers at Bedford Girls’ School, we hope to realise the full potential of this powerful approach to learning as we continue to develop.

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society”. Martin Luther King (The Marion Tiger – Morehouse College newspaper, 1947)

The newly reformed GCSE and A-Level examinations require students, now more than ever, to navigate their way through knowledge rich curricula, which seek to embed content that can be recalled under examination conditions. Teachers have responded by drawing upon evidence-informed strategies that enable students to retain and apply subject-based knowledge. Although the evidence supporting these approaches is strong, it should be recognised that the resultant risk is that we lose the opportunity to develop students’ understanding about the nature of knowledge and its application beyond the school environment.

Educationalist and author Alex Quigley suggests that “we need to develop our pupils’ knowledge of themselves as learners, and of tasks”, highlighting that teachers should ensure that students’ engage in a holistic experience which encourages them to reflect on what they are learning and how this impacts what they already understand about the world. An argument exists that this steers away from the rigour of content-based learning, and that affording time for deeper reflection limits the time available to meet the demands of knowledge-rich curricula. However, Quigley assumes a more nuanced stance, which recognises that knowledge acquisition and skill development need to work side by side. He recommends that students should be supported by learning experiences which scaffold from a state of dependency through to self-regulation. To achieve this, teachers should explicitly share strategies which enable students to plan and monitor their own work, therefore building the skills and attitudes which enable them to act as independent agents of their own learning.

During my first half term as Deputy Head at Bedford Girls’ School, I have had the pleasure of visiting a variety of lessons in which students have engaged in activities, which promote a blend of both knowledge and skills. This has enabled the girls’ to develop a deep understanding of their subject, together with a sense of responsibility and pride over their learning experience. With the increasing pressures of examinations, striking the right balance seems more relevant than at any other time.