Education

As a father of two daughters, I have spent a long time thinking about how schools can limit or empower students, particularly young girls. We have all heard of the stereotypes and it is so sad that the following phrases are still heard in many schools:

“Dance is just for girls.”

“Physics is a boys’ subject.”

“Girls/boys are no good at…”

It is even more disheartening to see that this language often does not only come from children but also from adults who commonly do not question what they are saying or the effect it may have. This can be seen in the use of phrases like “You throw like a girl!” which is internalised by both girls and boys from a young age and sets children on the path of believing that ‘girls are not as good as boys at sport’. What a terrible lesson!

Of course, we would never purposefully limit our children, but we often unknowingly limit them by using language that tells them that boys have certain skills and girls have others. By not challenging lazy use of language or by allowing passive acceptance of stereotypes, schools run the risk of stopping children from pursuing what they are interested in. For example, a boy who believes that dance is overly feminine may feel too self-conscious to try that ballet class, and a girl who feels that Physics is not open to girls will not try her best in it, as she will feel that she cannot succeed without gargantuan efforts.

This is why King’s Bangkok places pastoral care, the care for the wellbeing of individuals, at the heart of everything we do. By providing an environment in which students feel able to access every activity or subject open to them, we truly feel that they will be able to follow their passions and reach their full potential. This takes a huge amount of work. During our recent staff induction process, we ran sessions designed to openly examine and question the inbuilt biases that we all hold. Challenging our own thoughts and getting students to think about the language that they use are two big steps in breaking down barriers.

Our next step is working with parents to help them see that the language used at home is just as important. We are lucky to have thoughtful, reflective and kind parents who want to work with us in supporting their children to be happy and successful. We are confident that we will work together to ensure that dance is for everyone, that Physics is a subject for all and that we recognise that we all have strengths and weaknesses but understand that these are individual and not dictated by our sex.

The pandemic of 2020 meant that an alternative to GCSE and IGCSEs had to be found. Young people survived and were none the worse. Maybe this is the best time to stop, think and find an alternative to these outmoded assessments. 

Sitting examinations at 16 is tough. Whilst most other parts of the life of the 16 year old are in state of flux or confusion, British society determines that this is the best time to decide how clever you are.

Impulsive, moody, lacking good judgment, anxious and at times downright dangerous, teenagers can often be hard to handle. Research abounds about the issues associated with the risk-taking, teenage brain and even if we don’t read the research anyone the other side of 17 will know at least some of the problems by cast back their minds to their behaviour and that of their friends. Normally these will settle down as we get older but at 16 we tend to be in the thick of all sorts of changes. 

Some of this is biological. Cognitive processes including planning and reasoning become the responsibility of the prefrontal cortex as we leave our teens but they can still be the business of our more primitive subcortical and limbic structures. In essence as teenagers were are just not able to see ourselves objectively and in the way others see us. We cannot always think abstractly outside of ourselves and we are not always aware of the consequence of our actions. So why choose this time to do do potentially life changing exams?

Every May and June, all the 16 year old pupils across the UK and in thousands of international schools sit the same or similar exams on the same days and then they wait until the end of August for the results. Over the years the grading have changed many times and will probably change again. There will be comments on standards, on how many top grades there should be, on whether they are easier or harder; experts will give opinions about what it all means for industry, for Britain, for schools but every year one question will remain unanswered. What is the purpose of GCSEs? 

16 isn’t a time in life where society decided to make big decisions about any other aspect of a relatively young life but we make it the first big sort out of academic ability. Not everyone is ready to do them and many do very badly even if they would have shone a few years later. Times have changed but this old fashioned weigh station has not. Now all 16 year olds stay in school or some other form of education for another two years after these tests. We no longer need this the great academic Sorting Hat that replaced O Levels in the 1980s. 

When we learn to drive we do an exam. One exam when were are ready to be classed as able (or not able) to drive. If we fail it we can do it again. We do not do one driving test when we have done some of the lessons, then another one later on. If we are to drop a subject at 16 then an exam is a must. However if a pupil is to study subjects at A Level or Scottish Higher they still have to do exams at 16, then exams again in the same subjects about 20 months later. It seems wrong. We should do exams like we do other important tests - when we have finished studying the subject and are moving on. 

With change forced upon us in the pandemic maybe the education system should move on too with more learning and less testing. 

ENGLISH-LANGUAGE LEARNERS

An excellent article kindly reprinted from edutopia - the George Lucas educational programme that is just so relevant to Thailand

6 essential strategies for teaching English language learners

We interviewed educators with decades of experience in teaching ELLs and tapped a network of experts and observers to find the strategies that work.

by Emily Kaplan

Over 10% of students in the United States - more than 4.8 million kids - are English language learners (ELLs), and the number is on the rise. Though these students do not learn differently than their native English speaking peers, they do have particular educational needs.

To learn about these needs - and best practices for addressing them - I interviewed a range of educators and observers, including Larry Ferlazzo, an educator and author of The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide; longtime teachers of English as a second language (ESL) Emily Francis and Tan Huynh; and the journalist Helen Thorpe, who spent a year observing a teacher who works with ELLs.

The group emphasised that the strategies listed here, which include both big picture mindsets and nitty-gritty teaching tactics, can be incorporated into all classrooms, benefiting both native English speakers and ELLs.

1. Cultivate relationships and be culturally responsive

No surprise here. A successful classroom, our educators agreed, is one in which students feel known, appreciated, and comfortable taking emotional and intellectual risks. That requires intentional planning and consistent messaging by the teacher.

Emily Francis, an ESL teacher in Concord, North Carolina, makes clear that she wants her students to “embrace their culture and their language as a foundation of who they are” and to consider their acquisition of a new culture and language “not as subtractive, but as additive.” To help support students who may never have attended school before or may be coping with migration based trauma, Francis emphasises that little things make a big difference. “The first thing that I need to think about is, how is my student feeling in my classroom?” she says. “Are they sitting next to a buddy they can ask a question in their home language? Do they feel comfortable tapping me on the shoulder if they have to go to the bathroom?”

But creating a supportive environment is also about cultivating an appreciation of diversity - it’s critical that both the curriculum and the classroom environment honour and reflect the lives of the students. For instance, Francis makes certain that her classroom library is reflective of her students’ diverse backgrounds and identities.

ESL teacher Katie Toppel, who teaches near Portland, Oregon, champions the value of home visits to get to know students’ families and takes care to incorporate the particulars of students’ lives, such as pets’ names and favourite sports, into lessons. Students are most engaged when they feel a personal connection to a lesson or unit, a connection that’s created in part by a teacher’s investment in culturally competent relationships.

2. Teach language skills across the curriculum

English language learners should not be learning the fundamentals of English in isolation; they should be applying their developing language skills to rich academic content in all subjects.

“It is key that in mainstream classrooms, teachers understand their role as language teachers,” says Valentina Gonzalez, a district leader in Katy, Texas, suggesting that all teachers should be aware of the specialised idiom they work within. “If we teach math, then we teach the language of mathematics. If we teach science, then we teach the language of science.” Math teachers, in other words, should take the time to teach the unfamiliar vocabulary of mathematics - add, subtract, calculator, solve - concurrently with the teaching of math skills.

3. Emphasis productive language

The educators I interviewed agreed that productive language skills - hard-to-master dimensions of language fluency like speaking and writing - should be front and centre from day one, even if students feel hesitant about them.

Beginning ELLs often develop receptive language skills like listening and reading first. Educators who are unaware of the typical path to fluency may believe that students who can follow verbal or written directions will be able to produce oral or written language, but that’s usually not the case.

To support reluctant speakers, Tan Huynh, an educator who blogs at Empowering ELLs, suggests using sentence frames. “For example, when a science teacher wants ELLs to produce a hypothesis, they might offer the sentence, ‘If _____ was added, then _____ because _____.’ This sentence frame provides clues that empower ELLs to sound and think like scientists,” Huynh says.

Andrea Honigsfeld, a professor of education at Molloy College in Rockville, New York, suggests that all lessons touch on every letter of the acronym SWIRL, which stands for Speak, Write, Interact, Read, Listen. The approach intentionally privileges productive language skills “from the beginning,” she says.

4. Speak slowly - and increase your wait time

Easier said than done. Still, many of the teachers I spoke to said this simple change is vital. You can record yourself speaking in class to measure your cadence, and adjust.

“Adding in an extra three to five seconds after we pose a question offers all students time to think,” explains Gonzalez. “However, for English learners, it also gives time to translate, process their thinking, translate back into English, and develop the courage to answer. If we call on students too quickly, many of our students will stop thinking about the answers - or trying to answer at all.”

That means undoing some of our own habits, according to Larry Ferlazzo, a high school ESL teacher in Sacramento, California. “Researchers have found that typically most teachers give one to two seconds between asking a question and expecting a student response,” he says. “The same researchers have shown that if you wait three to five seconds, the quality of responses is astronomically greater.”

5. Differentiate - and use multiple modalities

All kids learn better when they engage with material in multiple ways: Lessons that involve writing, speaking, drawing, and listening, for example, give students four opportunities to deepen their understanding of the work. For ELLs, those additional engagements also provide a little breathing room so they can work through the language barrier.

Helen Thorpe, a journalist who spent a year observing Eddie Williams’s classroom in Denver in order to write a book about immigrants called The Newcomers, marvelled at Williams’s method of differentiation. “Eddie would enunciate very clearly in English multiple times, he would write it on the board, and he would go to the projector to give a visual. And, finally, he’d be asking the kids to verbalise aspects of the lesson themselves,” she says, tracing Williams’s efforts to move his students from receptive to productive language fluency.

Toppel uses a strategy called QSSSA to scaffold classroom discussions with ELLs. The letters stand for Question (the teacher poses a question, then gives ample think time); Signal (a designated motion like a thumbs up, a finger on the nose - something that lets students indicate that they’re ready to answer); Stem (the teacher provides a sentence starter for the question - for example, for “What is your favourite place to read a book?” the stem might be, “My favourite place to read a book is _____”); Share; and Assess.

6. Incorporate students’ native languages - and do not be afraid of technology

Bilingualism is the goal, of course, not replacement.

Ferlazzo uses a strategy called “preview, view, review,” which leverages a student’s native language skills as a foundation for learning the new language. He introduces a topic and encourages students to preview it in materials in their home language (often using multilingual videos and other online resources); he then teaches the topic in English, and then has students review the information in their home language.

Ferlazzo also encourages teachers to embrace technologies that students find helpful, like Google Translate. He stresses that the app can be a useful way for students to translate words quickly—but warns that it can quickly “become a dependency” if it is used as more than a handy dictionary.

Thorpe agrees that Translate can take pressure off teachers, who sometimes find that they “just stand at the front of the room and say things over and over. And if the kids did not know what those words are, they are out of luck.” Translation technology means you can say it once (or twice) and let the students use the technology to translate key words and phrases.

Expat Life went to visit King’s Bangkok last week and spoke to their Headmaster, Thomas Banyard, and Helen Searle who will lead the Pre-prep when they open in August for students aged 2-11 years old. They have already started work on admissions for Years 7-9 who will join the school from August 2021. In fact, they were incredibly happy to confirm that Matthew Gibson, one of the most popular teachers among students at King’s Wimbledon, will be joining and leading the senior school. Matthew is currently a leader at King’s Wimbledon responsible for preparing the students to get into the world’s best universities, as he has been doing at King’s Wimbledon since 2011.

I arrived just after midday on Friday, July 3rd and the school was a hive of activity. There were dozens of contractors on site who were putting the finishing touches to the grounds sitting on 23 rai of land in the prestigious Rama III area of Bangkok: completing the FIFA standard playing fields in the centre of the school and finishing the driveway with granite to allow parents to drop off directly outside the school turnstiles.

I parked and walked to the impressive centre concourse that opens up the King’s complex and walked into the reception with the receptionists already in place getting everything in order. The headmaster arrived at the reception behind a face mask with a Thai couple with their little boy, a new student at King’s. Thomas smiled a confident and relaxed smile, entered the reception with his guests, and said hello to me. I will be with you soon, he said.

We sat down in a meeting room off the reception. He looked every bit the Headmaster of a top British public school. White shirt, red tie, and blue suit trousers. He welcomed me just as he had the 150 parent tours that he had completed over the past week. He told me that the parents have all been very enthusiastic to see the school. He also said that they were all lovely people, “We are very lucky. You do not get that at every school”.

I asked the Headmaster what was going to make King’s Bangkok different to the other 200 international schools in Thailand and if I was a parent why would I choose King’s Bangkok.

He and Mrs. Searle both answered the question separately in exactly the same way. They said that King’s Bangkok would concentrate on a broad education which builds a ‘great heart’ just as much as a ‘great mind’. Kindness, good manners, and wisdom with the underlying hard work, aspiration and courtesy were the solid foundations that the school would be based on. They want to produce well-rounded, balanced students, who will have inquisitive minds, live their ways happily, and give back to their societies when they grow older.

They want parents to come and visit the school because they feel confident that they will like what they see. “There will be no hard sell,” Thomas said, “our team will all impart the same message. From the teachers to the receptionists, the cleaners, everyone has been recruited to be of the same mind. To go out of their way to be well- mannered and be as helpful as they can, both to each other, our students and our guests”. I found it a charming ethos. “If you go to the reception and ask for the Early Years Centre, we expect the receptionist to get up and take you there. Not just direct you”.

They want parents to know that the school is going to support their child to be a good person. “Whether they have the best music teacher in the country or a world level badminton coach is not important. If they are not kind and considerate people, and they come home and expect someone else to carry their bags or to clear up after them, that is not what we want. What we do here is try to encourage our children to be well-mannered and thoughtful in all respects.

Kindness is vital for students to be successful here: we are kind to the cleaners by not leaving rubbish everywhere; we are kind to our teachers because we respect what they say; we are kind to our friends because we look out for them and offer support if they need help. We are going to speak English because there are people in our group that will not understand us if we speak Thai, so we will involve them in our conversation. Kindness underpins everything that we do”.

Through developing kind students who have a range of interests and hobbies, Thomas and Helen told me that King’s Bangkok will naturally prepare the students for the best universities around the world. At King’s Wimbledon they are proud that 90% of the students get their first-choice university wherever that is in the world. Emulating this is something that they are excited to do through careers guidance beginning in Year 9 of the senior school.

“The issue that we face is that we do not have alumni yet. We do have alumni from King’s Wimbledon and we understand that our parents want to see their children come through us and then go to university. However, we are not rushing. We could have opened more year groups, but we feel that the longer we have our students the better. Instead of opening all the year groups and going straight to GCSEs and A levels, we have gone for Year 7, 8 and 9 which is basically the lowest number of years you can get to make the senior school work with friendship groups and leadership opportunities. This does mean that we will take longer to get our first sets of GCSE and A level results, and the first set of students getting into top universities, but we are lucky to have so many parents that trust the expertise of King’s Wimbledon. With both the Headmaster and the leader of the senior school coming from the sister campus in London, many parents feel assured that their sons and daughters will be in good hands with King’s Bangkok.”

When I left King’s Bangkok the staff all smiled at me and wished me well. I do believe that Thomas and Helen have already laid strong foundations for establishing a kind and happy community fully supported by King’s College School, Wimbledon. It will be an exciting few years for the team here as they welcome families to join them and I look forward to seeing the school flourish for years to come.