Teach Middle East Magazine Jan - Mar 2020 Issue 2 Volume 7 | Page 31

Sharing Good Practice
1. Secure Individuals
2. Resourceful Learners
3. Respectful Contributors
Under each of these three “headline”
desired outcomes of education, there
were further attitudes, values and
attributes, or ways of behaving, that we
had found consensus for, amongst our
staff.
And so the BSM Learning Ethos was
born.
BSM Learning Ethos: Growing learners
who are best for the world:
Secure Individuals:
Confident, Risk-takers, Responsible.
5 5 Feel safe, supported, valued and are
proud of who they are.
5 5 Feel enabled to take risks and are
confident to share their ideas and
have these challenged.
5 5 Take responsibility for their actions
and always strive to do better.
Resourceful Learners:
Motivated, Curious, Creative, Resilient,
Reflective.
Since September 2014 the BSM
Learning Ethos has been the
foundation
for
all
our
work,
throughout the school, on teaching,
learning, curriculum and assessment.
We changed our reward system
with the BSM Learning Ethos Oryx
(The Oryx is the national animal of
Oman). We introduced the students
to the language and meaning of the
BSM Learning Ethos. We created a
special version for our very youngest
children. BSM Learning Ethos displays
appeared all over our school, it
became the rationale for our outdoor
education programme and now it is
driving the redesign of our curriculum
and learning; students are exposed to
the ethos as part of daily BSM life.
In our 2013 parent survey, pre-BSM
Learning Ethos, 80% of parents felt we
prepared their children for the world
ahead, now in 2018, this figure is 93%.
Towards the end of the 2014/15 school
year, one parent commented to me,
“This BSM Learning Ethos is amazing;
my child is coming home every evening
and can’t stop talking about it.”
The following year I was hearing stories
about students’ use of the BSM Learning
Ethos in Drama lessons in Year 7:
Student A “We can’t do this, it’s too
difficult.”
Student B: “Of course we can, don't you
remember, we are resilient at BSM.”
Every year we survey our staff. Since
launching the learning Ethos, we have
gone from 83% to 99% of staff saying
that they are proud to work at BSM and
that they look forward to coming to
work every day. I think that this is partly
down to the fact that we are all clear
about our purpose; we are clear about
the desired outcomes for education in
our school, for our students. And we
are proud of our BSM Learning Ethos.
At conferences, I still hear that “We are
preparing students for jobs that don’t
exist” but now I feel confident that we,
at BSM, have a considered response to
this challenge.
Is your school preparing students for
jobs that don’t exist? Are you clear about
the desired outcomes for education
in your school? If not, are you ready to
start the conversation? It could be the
start of a very exciting learning journey
for you and your school community.
It could make a big difference in the
lives of students.
5 5 Are motivated in doing the best that
they can by embracing challenges
and demonstrating curiosity in the
questions they ask and the ideas
they explore.
5 5 Understand that to succeed they
must persevere, and to progress,
they must reflect, and that in doing
so, will grow from these experiences.
Respectful Contributors:
Open-minded, Collaborative,
Community-minded.
5 5 Value and appreciate the opinions of
others, even if they are different from
their own.
5 5 Willingly co-operate and work
collaboratively in order to achieve
more.
5 5 Appreciate the world around
them and seek to make a positive
contribution to their communities.
Kai has devoted his career to teaching, learning and seeking ways to bring out
the very best in students, teachers and the community. As the Principal of British
School Muscat (BSM) since 2011, Kai has accelerated BSM into the position of
a leading international school. In the school year 2018/19, BSM received the
following awards: International School of the Year 2019, British International
School of the Year 2018 and High-Performance Learning World-Class School.