Rhubarb 2020

ST EDWARD’S r h u b a r b

EDUCATION By Warden Stephen Jones

Many aspects of “teaching” have evolved in recent years. The Warden considers how Teddies, as a successful school, has embraced these changes.

F irst there was school mastering, then teaching, then “teaching and learning”… Here at St Edward’s we are involved in both learning and teaching having passed through an important phase of “learning teaching” and “teaching learning”. Confused? As well you might be but it is not all hot air – or indeed not at all hot air. Over the past 10 years or so, the world of education has changed significantly and for the better. Underneath it all lies our mission as a school – to give our pupils the best possible environment to help them grow into the best possible adults, and to offer them a set of values

F E AT U R E

main instrument for pupil development and also drives many aspects of success in areas well removed from the academic. At the heart of the modern Teddies education lies a belief that all pupils can do

US athletics coach who helped found Nike, was spot on when he said: ‘The idea that the harder you work, the better you’re going to be is just garbage. The greatest improvement is made by the man or woman who works most intelligently.’ This idea of working with intelligence – doing things deliberately – has always been

well and that the best way for them to develop is through their own agency; hence the concept of teaching learning – you may have read about metacognition. We need to be explicit in getting pupils to understand the processes of learning so that they can employ these not only in Maths and History but also in Netball and Cricket, as well as in ceramics and tuba playing. Effort still plays an

‘The idea that the harder you work, the better you’re going to be is just garbage. The greatest improvement is made by the man or woman who works

important in education but we are today perhaps a little more explicit in explaining this to our charges. Moreover the values engendered in working with intelligence apply to all areas of our development as people – they apply to staff and parents as well as to the pupils.

most intelligently.’ BILL BOWERMAN

which are both defined and undefined. At the centre of everything is what goes on in the classroom for this is the

important part in this process, but not blind endeavour. As I mentioned at Gaudy this year, Bill Bowerman, the famous

Built onto this belief in our pupils’ ability to do well – to achieve excellence if you like – is a set of teaching and coaching methodologies which challenge the pupils

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