The Value of a British Education

This sponsored blog post has been brought to you by Harrow International School Beijing

Britain has established a world-class reputation for many things. Regardless of which survey you turn to, one common feature is the quality of education and its impact on the community.

Because of this, I would recommend that each time your child comes home saying I got an ‘A’ or I got 100 % say “That is wonderful news! What did you do to get that great score?” It is so much more useful to focus on the processes and capabilities than the grades and marks. What we should be focusing on is how to help the student go on to be able to do even more.

I’ll return to our topic by taking a few minutes to describe the overall structure of our school, before looking in some more depth at the final outcomes for our students.

It all begins in the Early Years (ages 3 to 5) and the importance of this time cannot be underestimated. Having the correct opportunities at this crucial stage can be quite literally transformational. During this time, students play and explore and learn about themselves and the world around them
This is followed by Pre-prep / Primary (ages 5 to 10) – during this time, students build on those foundations from their early years and begin to develop a more complete understanding of the world and how to interact with it and their peers. Play and exploration remain important here. Books can only teach you some much.
Prep & Upper School/ Secondary (ages 11 to 18) – the growth during this stage is hallmarked by increasing independence and development of their own minds. For us this is divided into two discrete stages.

In Prep they are laying the foundations for the transition on to Upper school and its increased demand for independence. By being in a discrete group, we are able to pay close attention to the individual and ensure that they are getting the opportunities they need.
In Upper School we build on all of those previous stages and the important work done there. We expect the students to wrestle with ideas and concepts themselves and to begin to make their own way forward. One of the central expectations is that students are able to form their own minds and justify why.

Underpinning British education is the National Curriculum. This is a regularly reviewed structure which support schools by providing them progressive system with clearly identified skills and expectations. One of the real strengths of ‘British Education’ it that is not simply a collection of assessments and schemes of work. It is rather a (worldwide) community that encompasses teachers and administrators, academics and strategists.

We are now going to turn to perhaps the most high profile aspect of the British System – namely GCSE and A level.

These are both formal qualifications that are examined centrally. The examinations sat in our examination hall are exactly the same as those facing students in London.

GCSES – General Certificate of Secondary Education. This stage is focused on inclusion and providing a strong platform of skills and knowledge for progression. This stage is built around breadth and choice. These courses run across Years 10 & 11.
Following GCSEs come GCE – General Certificate of Education, more commonly known as A levels (Advanced Level) . These really are the gold standard and their focus is on excellence. As a result they are not for everyone. The strengths of the A level programme are firstly the academic depth and rigour they bring, and this is coupled with enormous flexibility. These courses run across Years 12 & 13 and are lead to entry to universities around the world.

With both of these qualifications there are two crucial things to be aware of.

Firstly, although the British curriculum is long established, it is not a fixed entity, rooted in the past. Quite the contrary, it undergoes regular review – by that community that we mentioned earlier – to ensure it remains at the forefront of educational practice and remains relevant- in its content, the topics it covers, as well as the skills and assessments demanded by it.
Secondly, although it is the ‘British’ education system it is not limited to Britain, it is in fact open to the world. Both GCSEs and A levels have long been recognized across the globe, and students have been successfully using them to progress for many years. I can tell you that universities in the US have been taking students with A levels for as long as students have been taking A levels. This is not peculiar to our students, this is a simple reality. Universities are looking for the best students they can get and A levels are an excellent path for student to develop the skills and academic rigour required.

University of Pennsylvania Ivy League university which is 7in the US  “We do not give preference to one type of curriculum over another. A-levels continue to be one of the most prevalent outside the US and provide the rigor we are seeking.”

The process of education is long term, life long in fact, and as such it is a complex one. Many families come to a point where they have to choose a school and they end up asking questions such as

Which is better – A levels or the IB (International Baccalaureate)?

There is not a simple answer to this question, although I personally believe that A level have an advantage. To be honest with you, a good school running IB will do good things for students. But that’s not simply because they run IB, it’s because they are a good school. With A levels, students have a flexibility to pursue an academic programme individualized to their requirements, not something that students following IB can do to the same degree. Some of the perceived benefits of IB – CAS, ToK for example – are also available to students following A levels. As you know, we have a very active leadership programme, where student are empowered to contribute to the community, the Arts are very prevelant in our school and more formally all students in Years 12 and 13 study Critical Thinking and / or pursue an Extended Project Qualification – which is an entirely independent research project that goes way beyond the confines of a curriculum.

We have tried to pack in quite a lot to this brief session, but the fundamentals are simple and I am sure that you will agree that a British education, like that at Harrow brings great value.