BACK TO SCHOOL
Offering students a space to reflect, discuss and think critically without distraction can lead to deeper learning neuroscience will underpin our learning about more effective adaptive teaching and impactful relationship building, as well as how we can make it positive for all of us,” she says. Enriching education Changes to schools’ environments and facilities are similarly thoughtful and considered. At Abbey College Cambridge, all staff are now based on one site rather than split across two campuses; a practical move that, as assistant principal pastoral Alison Bignell explains, will help strengthen the sense of community for everyone. “When staff work more closely together, students benefit from a more connected and consistent experience,” she says. Other innovations at Abbey College Cambridge pivot between the technologically advanced – new digital platforms that improve communications between college and families or improve how students check in around the campus – and the retro, with the reintroduction of paper-based workbooks. “In an increasingly digital world, offering students a space to reflect, discuss and think critically without distraction can lead to richer conversations and deeper learning,” Alison explains. That approach strikes a similar chord at Bishop’s Stortford College, which re- wrote its entire prep school curriculum last year – no mean feat – so that it was more
FRESH START Bishop’s Stortford College has recently rewritten its prep school curriculum, allowing pupils to take more ownership of their learning and creating more chances for independence
experiential for the children. “I wanted them to experience something that as a seven-, eight-, nine- or ten-year-old you’d be excited about, while having a high level of academic rigour,” says prep school head Rachael Cox. “I also wanted the children to have ownership of their learning,” she continues. This has included reading the children’s classic Stig of the Dump , building homes with found objects (tyres and sticks among them) and making showers out of hoses and watering cans, before writing descriptions of the resulting properties that secured pride of place in a local estate agent’s window. This year, children in years 7 and 8 (the top two prep years) get their own hub: a space for, among other activities, podcasting, study and relaxing. They can
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