The 10 Best Promising Institutions in Canada-2020

his is a great question and one that we need to ask
Tourselves on a frequent basis. In fact, it is the
question, par excellence, that all educators must ask
themselves. Happily, what a delight it is to sit down with
our Pre-Primary and Primary teachers and discuss great
ways to engage all our students in their learning.
First, we believe that our very environment sets the tone.
Although, in our case, we are a relatively new
British-international school in Mexico City, banish the
thought of our vibrant community working within the
confines of a concrete campus. Rather, think of a semi-rural
site on the city’s western edge, basking in sunlight most
days, and all surrounded by low smooth hills carpeted with
trees. And fortunate enough to have a purpose-built first
construction using spacious, light-filled classrooms in
which teachers experiment. With children hailing from
some thirty countries, and Buenos Aires sitting down with
Berlin, wonderful cross-cultural friendships burgeon.
To be truly modern and creative, innovative educators
continually need to mix the old with the right amount of the
new, furnishing pupils’ learning styles with sufficient
variety. To make our motto “Strive, Learn and Serve” a
reality, we also operate with the International Primary
Curriculum (both its Early Years, and its mainstream
Milestone programmes). The projects we select from it
always allow us that flexibility in both content and skills so
useful to any enthusiastic teacher’s heart. Teachers are not
trammeled, then, in what they can attempt to do with the
curriculum. In our planning, main classroom teachers work
hand-in-hand with specialist classes. We especially promote
music – every post-Kindergarten child plays a stringed
instrument – also linking it wherever possible to many
discrete subject areas within bespoke IPC projects. Wasn’t
it E. M. Forster who once said, “Only connect”?
“Serve” is extremely important to our school community,
providing us with plenty of opportunities to be innovative.
Classroom teachers very deliberately fuse the IPC with our
School of Character, exploiting teachable moments to
promote positive values. Moreover, innovative learning
stems from pupils – in an age-appropriate
way – researching and selecting practical initiatives to help
others. For example, it was the pupils, not the teachers, who
opted for writing letters for lonely old folks (and visiting
them subsequently), creating a whole World Cup football
competition with a local Primary, composed of fifteen full
teams, plus an extensive toy collection and distribution
campaign for the less fortunate in society. When children
sense the justice of something, they grow in confidence and
display tremendous drive.
Holding fast to the ‘traditional’ in education, the things time
and cultures have told us work, we have ensured we have
placed the library at the heart of our campus. Three of its
36 September | 2020