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Education style helps determine choice of school
By Andrew Hodgkinson |
January 14, 2009, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
ONE of the big challenges facing foreign parents in Shanghai is the choice of school. Many offer different styles of education but the American and British curricula are dominant. Teachers and school leaders are often asked which is the best but the answer is usually found in understanding the differences between the options.
Dr Terry Creissen, principal of the British International School in Pudong, clearly believes that "British is best."
He pushes it at every opportunity, plus the high academic standards and care that is shown to pupils at the Pudong school. Dr Creissen was determined to bring the best of British to this campus when he moved to Shanghai.
The American model allows a great deal of flexibility in course choices and lets schools develop individual programs aligned with the expertise of teachers.
England has one curriculum, which means that all resources produced in the UK meet the needs of students.
Possibly the most important consideration, though, is standardization. Questions arise about who monitors the progress of teachers and who decides whether students are at a particular level.
The degrees of consistency and rigor in many US school systems have led to the implementation of SAT (scholastic aptitude test) examinations and the "No Child Left Behind Act." Many US schools have also adopted the International Baccalaureate program to guarantee a degree of rigor.
In England, there is one national curriculum, modeled on educational research into how children learn. The investment by the British government into improving the effectiveness of its schools has led to a high degree of skill and understanding of the best way to allow children to grow and excel in their learning.
A key feature of this is regular assessment of a child's progress against a set of benchmarks, individually tailored to needs and abilities.
At the British International School, Pudong, these are regularly communicated to parents as baseline and golden targets.
"We give children the opportunity to become self-learners, to research beyond the textbooks available in the classroom and to seek for themselves further understanding of areas covered in school. This makes them self-motivated learners for life," said Dr Creissen.
The results at the school over the past two years demonstrate the effectiveness, substantiated by a 100 percent pass rate with the International Baccalaureate last summer.
The BISS Pudong school accepts children of all levels and provides a learning experience fit to their individual needs.
(The author is a BISS teacher. The views are his own.)
Dr Terry Creissen, principal of the British International School in Pudong, clearly believes that "British is best."
He pushes it at every opportunity, plus the high academic standards and care that is shown to pupils at the Pudong school. Dr Creissen was determined to bring the best of British to this campus when he moved to Shanghai.
The American model allows a great deal of flexibility in course choices and lets schools develop individual programs aligned with the expertise of teachers.
England has one curriculum, which means that all resources produced in the UK meet the needs of students.
Possibly the most important consideration, though, is standardization. Questions arise about who monitors the progress of teachers and who decides whether students are at a particular level.
The degrees of consistency and rigor in many US school systems have led to the implementation of SAT (scholastic aptitude test) examinations and the "No Child Left Behind Act." Many US schools have also adopted the International Baccalaureate program to guarantee a degree of rigor.
In England, there is one national curriculum, modeled on educational research into how children learn. The investment by the British government into improving the effectiveness of its schools has led to a high degree of skill and understanding of the best way to allow children to grow and excel in their learning.
A key feature of this is regular assessment of a child's progress against a set of benchmarks, individually tailored to needs and abilities.
At the British International School, Pudong, these are regularly communicated to parents as baseline and golden targets.
"We give children the opportunity to become self-learners, to research beyond the textbooks available in the classroom and to seek for themselves further understanding of areas covered in school. This makes them self-motivated learners for life," said Dr Creissen.
The results at the school over the past two years demonstrate the effectiveness, substantiated by a 100 percent pass rate with the International Baccalaureate last summer.
The BISS Pudong school accepts children of all levels and provides a learning experience fit to their individual needs.
(The author is a BISS teacher. The views are his own.)
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