Running an Independent sector school
I have been
running independent sector schools for over 30 years. We are still small; if I had more money I
would have bigger buildings and more students.
Why do I do it? I believe in it,
it works, it’s value for money, and most important of all it gives young people
a head start in their lifelong educational journey.
Over the
many years that I have been managing Christian schools I have received plenty
of flack, partly because of the system that we use; Accelerated Christian
Education (ACE). I am well aware that
this system is not perfect. Has the
perfect education system yet been devised?
To quote the inventors of the system, “ACE is a system of education,
it’s a tool, and you have to make it work.”
Which we do, we adapt and tailor the system to meet the requirements of
our students; a system of education which in my opinion is better than most.
I have
keenly watched the success of our students as they go into their chosen life pathways,
I know, and they know that some of the success they enjoy is down to the hard
work of our school staff as they have guided the students through their early
educational journey.
Over the
2011 Christmas period I had the pleasure of meeting some of the older students
who have since progressed to college and university. It was good to chat with them and to ask some
pertinent questions. I think it would be
useful to share this anecdotal information with a wider audience.
I asked one
student how his first year at Canterbury University had gone.
He
responded, “I missed my London friend but the studies were fine.”
I asked him
for his opinion of our school system; here are some of his comments.
“One of my
uni modules is accounting, I had already done that subject that for my Intermediate
exam with International Certificate of Christian Education (ICCE), so of course
I had that down as one of my options from the advanced level course. However when I saw the stuff at University I
had to laugh and I said I wish my school studies had been this easy!”
I asked him
if there was anything else he had noticed about his uni studies.
He said, “The
Algebra, as with accounts, I wish that the school stuff had been as easy as the
university material.”
His final comment
was, “When you have been
to a school using the ACE system a fundamental element that you learn is how to
manage your study time and how to complete work within a given period. I am
finding that my stuff gets done whereas
lots of other students seem to have problems completing work and bringing it in
on time. We all have the same amount of time,
and I think some of them are possibly brighter than me, but what they lack is
the discipline that has been put into me over the years to complete the work on
time.”
I also got
the chance to talk with one of the lads who had completed his General
Certificate at ICCE level, and asked him how his college studies were
progressing.
“Great!” he
said, “but what is funny is how the other students don’t seem to be able to
complete work on time, I have just handed in one of my first essays, the lecturer said 1,000 words, I was about 400
over so I went to him and asked how critical is the word count?”
“Oh” he
replied, “I only ask for 1,000 as most of the students cannot get anywhere near
that number, I am happy with anything up to 2000 words, but I would be
surprised if many can even achieve 800.”
I asked him if
he had made any other observations since he had left school.
He said, “A
friend asked me if I could help her with her GCSE material as she had to take
an exam in Maths, so I said I would come around and try. I was very surprised
at the level, and helped her to complete the work and showed her how to work
out the material. I then asked if I
could take a copy of the paper with me. She
agreed and explained that it was an old exam paper used for practice. I took it home to my younger sister, she is
just 13 years old, and said can you do this maths? She said, ‘ Oh crumbs, yes
of course, I am doing that stuff now.’”
For those who know anything about the system
this girl is on PACE 1083 which according to ICCE is two units below where we
would say a student is who has begun General certificate work.
There was
another young lady at the New Years Eve party who had been to a school using
the ACE system, but not at one of the schools that I run; she is currently
reading English at Liverpool Hope University. I asked how she had found it, and if anything
she had learnt from the system was useful in ongoing university studies.
Her reply
was amusing, “Well,” she said, “I am the only student in my group who knows how
to break down an English language
sentence into its component parts, the whole class were saying, ‘we don’t even
understand what we are being asked to do.’
So I ran my own tutorial group for my friends. They asked how I knew how to do this, and I
told them that I did it all when I was quite young in my Christian school, that
it was standard practice. I am just
surprised that such basic things are part of this English course at university.”
Flack or no
flack, the results speak for themselves.
You might say to me, are you trying to sell your system to us? The answer to that is; you bet I am!
W. 1011
Adrian Hawkes for adrianhawkes.blogspot.com
Edited by Technicolour Text
