Advertising an
Independent Sector School
We are so persuaded by the ‘normal’ and what is perceived to
be the right approach that those of us who do it differently always expect to
have to swim upstream, to move against the odds to climb the mountain or
whatever other metaphor you can think of to demonstrate an alternative.
Then to persuade people to join you is difficult; I always
find the story of Moses and the release of the Israelite's from slavery
interesting. The Old Testament gives us
a clue to some of their thinking. They
were all slaves; their next door neighbors were slaves, their friends where
slaves, their wives and children were slaves, slavery was the norm. When you have been brought up like that it’s
very hard to be convinced of ‘freedom’ or for my purpose in what I am saying
about education any other way of doing or thinking. The Old Testament Scriptures tell us that
they were mad with Moses for trying to set them free, what did you have in your
slavery?” was Moses’ question, “well” they responded, “we had Leeks Onions and
Cucumbers”. The problem was they were not
looking for freedom they were looking for bigger onions!
So when people consider putting their children into our
school many of the cultural, the expected, and the ‘norm’ is not there! How many classes do you have they say? We don’t have class rooms, or classes, it’s
an individualised method of education!
What GCSE’s do they take, is often the next question. Well, we don’t do
that either, our students enter the ICCE certification. More problems, all people really want is a
bigger onion!
Does the system work, what does the school deliver, should
be the next question, or from my point of view maybe the first question. We are interested as an education
establishment in not only good education for our students but also good
character development. We want them to
know God, we want them to become leaders in whatever area of life they end up
in, and we want them to become the best that they can. So the big question should be do we succeed
in those aims. Not always, but let me
tell you about our recent school leavers.
At the moment the school is around 40 students and growing, so I thought
what I would do is look at the last two year’s leavers and tell you our results
hoping that will help you to assess us and decided if we are successful or not?
So in 2010 9 students left our school, when I say left what
I mean is that they had reached full school leaving age, I of course am not
counting leavers who left mid education because they move area or changed to
another school or things like that these are the student that one would count
because they are completers. Incidentally,
in 2010 only one student left without gaining some paper qualification. But let me show you what the full age
students left with.
First those 2010 9
students:
A = foundation ICCE certification, went on to work as an
Estate agent after college
B = Foundation ICCE certification, onto college to take Btec
in IT
C= Intermediate ICCE certification, Canterbury university,
degree in Business and accounts
D= left with nothing went on to an access course on to
university
E= intermediate ICCE went to Kingston university to study
Accounts degree
F= General ICCE certificate, went on to take level 3 NVQ
CCLD and work with children
G = General ICCE certificate, went on to be a home maker
H= OCR basic certificate went on to a college course
I= General ICCE certificate then did access course studying
English Now at London university doing a degree in English
Then in 201l we had 6
student complete:
J= General ICCE certificate, went on to Music college now
taking a degree course there
K = Foundation ICCE certificate, went on to do Btec in IT
L= General ICCE certificate, went on to do a degree in Photography
M= Advanced ICCE certificate, went on to Brunel university
to study medicine
N= Foundation ICCE certificate, went on to do Btec in IT
O= General ICCE certificate, went on to complete a Diploma
in Music
So there are our leavers for the last two years what do you
think? Does it work?
Here are some comments from some of the students who have
left us:
I asked one student how his first year at Canterbury
University had gone.
He responded, “I missed my London friends 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 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 had 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
the word count was?”
“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 Year’s 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. 1490
Adrian Hawkes for
adrianhawkes.blogspot.com
Edited by Gena Muoria
