Better together: how our partnerships drive educational progress
7th November 24
The Independent Schools Council’s (ISC) Partnership Week runs from 4-8 November 2024, celebrating meaningful partnership work between state and independent schools. As a proud and active member of the ISC, we asked our Partnerships and Leadership Support, Liz Robinson, to outline the ways in which our own partnerships help lead the way in education reform.
When The King Alfred School was founded in 1898, one of its charitable aims was “to establish and carry on Schools which take account of the work of educational reformers” – a bold and noble ambition! But while KAS may not have a group of schools sharing its name 125 years later, what it is doing is in many ways even more important and impactful.
Through partnership work with like-minded schools, KAS is part of a growing network of schools from both the state and independent sectors that are showing what can be achieved by working together. We are committed to innovation and are focused on creating more expansive and meaningful approaches to learning – with a focus on curriculum and assessment.
As an independent school, we are hugely privileged in many ways. Of course we have a different level of resource, but the biggest thing for KAS is the independence it allows for innovation and the ability to pursue approaches which are genuinely more effective. Embracing this freedom allows us to shape and plan our curriculum, teaching methods and ethos.
We also feel a sense of responsibility and motivation to share our approaches more widely. In doing so, we not only encourage and support other schools to explore and adopt similar methods, but also contribute to the educational debate and influence future policy. Activities that further these ends are supported through funding from The King Alfred School Society (KASS).
Partnerships in practice
KAS plays an active and often leading role in many partnerships of this nature.
Rethinking Assessment
The school is a long-time contributor to Rethinking Assessment, a collaborative project working to improve assessment so that it more fully celebrates the broad range of skills and capabilities of each young person. Our Deputy Head, Al McConville, is one of the group’s co-founders and KAS Head Teacher Robert Lobatto is a contributing member.
Earlier this year, KAS partnered with the organisation to produce a research report titled ‘A Review of Assessment Methods in Higher Education’. The report found that, whilst universities are making ever more use of multimodal assessment, schools are failing to keep pace because they are forced to build too much of their curriculum and teaching practices around end-of-year, timed exams.
The research (the results of which were shared with other schools and educationalists at an influential conference in Manchester) underscored that schools should be making assessment more relevant and inclusive for all young people to better prepare them for success in higher education and the world of work beyond.
School Directed Courses Consortium
To that end, KAS is a leading school in the School Directed Courses Consortium, an association of schools that run – or want to run – their own courses as alternatives to GCSEs. These courses are specifically designed to deliver deeper learning experiences, with more opportunities for students to collaborate, communicate and think creatively. In turn, this helps develop their character and transferable skills, in addition to their knowledge and understanding.
We already offer KAS-devised courses in Global Challenges and KAS Literature (the latter being a much more popular choice compared to its GCSE English Literature equivalent), and are sharing our knowledge with, and learning from, our partner schools in the SDCC as we develop more. In addition, the SDCC is working on approaches that would enable more state schools to overcome the barriers they face in adopting school directed courses under the current system.
Next Big 10
We are also proud to be part of the Next Big 10 project, Run by Big Education, which brings together schools that want to develop innovative practices together. Staff from across KAS meet regularly with like-minded peers from the other schools to both share innovative practices and also co-certain new ideas together.
Below you can watch films about two of KAS’s ‘signature practices’, which were made through the Next Big 10 project and have been shared with partner schools to help inspire ways in which they could introduce similar approaches in their own settings.
The Village
The Village is seen as a rite of passage at KAS, where students and staff explore the skills, knowledge, aptitudes and mindset needed to function effectively as a community. It sees the whole of Year 8 (students aged 12-13) building a village of approximately 12 huts in a small wooded area within the school grounds. Students live in the village, cook their own food on open fires, organise their own governance, take part in activities and sleep in their huts for a whole week.
Enquiry-based learning
At The King Alfred School we use enquiry as our main pedagogical approach. Enquiry-based learning is more than asking a child what he or she wants to know; it is about triggering curiosity and opening the door to new learning. This approach creates exciting opportunities, interesting provocations and hands-on ‘real life’ experiences for children to experience and explore.
These examples of partnership working are just the start of a journey that we are committed to undertaking. All schools want the best for their students and by working together to share experiences, codify practices, and develop new and better approaches for our young people, we have an opportunity to enact real and meaningful change in our education system.
Liz Robinson, Partnerships and Leadership, The King Alfred School
