A new education initiative

in partnership with

Every student, regardless of their background or prior learning history, has the potential to achieve excellence and the right to a school experience that enables it.

Our guiding belief

Belief systems about students make the difference between school improvement and school transformation.

EVERY STUDENT

experiences and benefits from EXTRAORDINARY LEARNING

that prepares them well for a BRIGHT FUTURE.

Our impact

The way we currently organise and design ‘school’ makes extraordinary learning and success for every student in every school incredibly difficult, if not impossible.

Our schools and learning need to be different.

Most schools do not adequately prepare young people for the world they need to thrive in as adults.Too many young people do not experience success at school.Many would argue that whilst the world has changed, schools haven’t.

Why is this needed?

There is a growing international movement behind the development of new school models where learning is explicitly designed to ensure every single student succeeds at school, and is well-equipped to meet future challenges of study, work and life beyond school. There are opportunities in the current policy environment to capitalise on the small number of existing UK exemplars of ‘new model schools’ – to explore what they do and enable it to grow. Entirely new schools (academies, free schools, studio schools or university technology colleges) and established schools both offer environments in which new school models and new learning designs can be developed and tested.We are in a period of instability in terms of school assessment measures –existing measures are necessary but insufficient. We need to find new, rigorous ways of valuing and measuring the wide range of student successes that are achieved through extraordinary learning.

Why now?

What will we do?

Invest inSupport

EXPLORE

DEVELOP

TEST

SCHOOL MODELS

LEARNING DESIGNS

SUCCESS MEASURESNEW

Invest over 5 years for schools to explore,develop and test:new school models new learning designs new success measures

How will we do it?

LEARNING DESIGNS

CHALLENGE schools

X200Across England

LEARNING LAB schools

X40London

West Midlands

DESIGN PARTNER

schoolsx10

SUCCESS MEASURES

LEARNING COMMUNITY

x500

NEWSCHOOL MODELS

Design principlesfor extraordinary learning

Vitalrelationships

New models of

assessment

Authentic curriculum

& pedagogy

Enabling school

conditions

Empowering use of

technology

Parents & community as partners

We’ve drawn on the evidence base to develop design principles for extraordinary learning.

We will work with schools to test and refine these further.

Curriculum and pedagogical innovation that leads to rigorous work for students that really matters. This might include highly personalised and self-directed learning approaches, mastery-based progression, project-based designs and strengthening real-world relevance for all learning experiences –geared towards student agency and active engagement.

Design principlesin more detail

Authentic curriculum

& pedagogy

Vitalrelationships

A re-defined commitment to relationships within the school, involving every young person being known well and supported to achieve short and long term success. Students feel they are known and value highly the relationships that support their success.

Dramatically different approaches to assessment that do justice to the wide range of extraordinary work students produce. A sophisticated understanding of and response to what is assessed, how it is assessed, who undertakes the assessment and the purposes it serves.

New models of

assessment

Enabling school

conditions

New ways of organising the foundational design features of ‘school’ to enable extraordinary learning, e.g. the design and use of time, structural arrangements, adult learning norms, ways that collaboration occurs, the cultural conditions within which all learning takes place.

Design principlesin more detail

Dynamic and personalised application of technology, especially to increase opportunities for collaboration and to connect learners to one another and to the world beyond school.

New and powerful roles for parents, employers and community within and in support of extraordinary learning - founded on respect for their contributions.

Empowering use of

technology

Parents & community as partners

Examples of new, ambitious whole school models designed to enable all students to achieve extraordinary learning.

Sites of advanced practice that are strongly aligned with the design principles and on a highly ambitious development journey.

Schools led by system leaders with a mission to create learning and evidence that has the potential to transform outcomes and agency for students well beyond their own school.

Design Partner schoolsWhat are they and what will they do?

Work with us to design and implement an initiative that helps more schools develop advanced practices that deliver extraordinary learning.

Develop their school model even further as an active partner in the initiative.

Be proactive in enabling others to learn from their work for the benefit of the wider system.

Learning Lab schoolsWhat are they and what will they do?

Bold and ambitious schools in London or the West Midlands who want to significantly develop their school to ensure that all young people experience extraordinary learning.

Engage in a rigorous design process to develop new school models, new learning designs, and new measures of success.

Commit to working on one of the following:

Whole school redesign (likely to be new schools)

Creating a ‘school within a school’ (with dedicated staff)

Year by year redesign (either with a year group or across a key stage)

Creating a new offer to students through Alternative Provision or Sixth Form