World Class Schools Award Conference: Presenting High-Performance Learning
On Monday 16th May and Tuesday 17th May Miss Agnes, Miss Stephanie and Miss Kate had the privilege of attending the World Class School Award Induction Conference (WCSA) in the UK. Professor Deborah Eyre, founder of the WCSA, was true to the ethos of the conference, as we were based in the most majestic of settings; the Windsor Castle grounds.
The purpose of this conference was to understand the High Performance Learning (HPL) philosophy, and to hear first hand about how to become a World Class School by adopting High Performance Learning at Nadeen School.
Professor Eyre is the Founder and Chair of High Performance Learning (HPL). Her career has focused on helping students reach high levels of cognitive performance. She created the High Performance Learning organisation to engineer a system change in educational thinking so that everyone can accept that most people should be high performers and to structure schools accordingly.
Why is High Performance Learning (HPL) for Nadeen School?
The WCSA Conference was particularly exciting for Nadeen School, as we pride ourselves already on all staff and students having a growth mindset, making progress and striving to achieve their very best. We foster children to fulfil their potential and through the addition of HPL, it will systematically ensure that students are provided with the right opportunities and support to be personally motivated to reach their goals.
High Performance Learning is a research-based, pedagogy-led philosophy that responds to our growing understanding of human capability. It sees all students as potentially high performers who are not limited by ability or any other barriers to learning. Some students may take longer to reach high performance, but most are capable of this over time.
The HPL award scheme and associated programmes will help the school to adopt a flexible framework that strengthens teaching and creates students who can thrive in the future. On average, HPL schools see a 9% increase in student performance and report a more positive and optimistic culture within their organisation. Students are generally happier and are able to articulate and recognise their own learning behaviours.
The success of this relies on not just the students but the entire community around them, including staff and families from school and home. There are two Core Strands:
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- How to think: this includes Advanced Cognitive Performance Characteristics (ACPs), and
- How to behave: this is through Values, Attitudes and Attributes (VAAs).
There is an emphasis on ensuring that everyone in the community shares a common language, and the terminology involved to ensure that students are fully immersed in this exciting opportunity. It is already aligned with the ethos of Nadeen School and is merely a research-based compliment to our current practice, that our students will utterly benefit from. We look forward to sharing the finer details of this with the community in the new academic year.
This is another step in Nadeen’s pathway to creating an optimal learning environment for all our students, staff and families which is a unique and special opportunity.
