We can talk about ‘curriculum’ and ‘pedagogy’ but in the end a child’s education is probably more about overall attitude and the values that they have adopted. We have thought long about these issues right from the start of our inception of MIS. In many ways we started at the ‘picture’ of what our school leaving child would or should look, sounds and ‘feel’ like and then worked backwards to see how we could instil these values.
Educational Aims for MIS
We think that we have two major educational aims for our pupils. This is based on the assumption that there is only one thing that we can predict for our children’s future and that is that they will experience ‘change’ at a pace that we’ve never seen before. To use a trite phrase, “… the only thing we can predict is ‘unpredictability’!"
Bearing that in mind, we aim to make our children become lifelong learners. We do that in two ways:
In primary years we think children should ‘love’ the learning process. So between Pods 1-8, we want our children to love ‘learning’, because if you don’t enjoy the learning process – having a lifetime of learning ahead of you is a daunting (and probably depressing) propect.
In secondary years, we think the children should be learning how to teach themselves. That means making them independent learners. What that means is that we tend to leave the children from Pod 9 onwards, very much to their own devices. We are guideposts or ‘facilitators’ rather than ‘instructors’ of facts and figures.
Educational Values for MIS
MIS is a secular school BUT that does not mean that we do not have strong values that we pursue. We broadly think of the values that we aim to help instil in your child are:
- Values that help children fulfil their potential as a human being. Your child should feel 'content' as an adult and feel that they are contributing to their own chosen social circle or community (from 'family' to 'the world')in some way that is meaningful. Perhaps another way of expressing this would be: that we do not want your child to suffer a 'mid-life crisis'.
- To be a responsible citizen. We think of responsibility as being in two parts: responsibility to society; and responsibility to the environment.