International School Parent Magazine - Autumn 2023

We are pushing the sustainability
agenda - really bringing it to the top of
our list of priorities. We are designing a
global citizenship education course with
UNESCO and recently we have been
joined by the United Nations Office of
Human Rights on this project. This is a
two-year mission that will see us develop a
curriculum that will be available to other
schools around the world if they want
to use it, so that students are learning
intentionally about social psychology,
education for peace, and about sustainable
development.
What competencies are must-haves for
today’s students to succeed in our rapidly
changing world?
Firstly we need to look at the word
competence or competency. It is
important to note our understanding of
it as - and this comes from UNESCO - a
unity of knowledge, skill and attitude.
If you think about it, when you hire
someone you have got their knowledge
which is their experience and their
qualifications. You have got their skills; what
they can do. But then there is attitude. For
example, are they trustworthy? Are they
pleasant to work with? Do they have an
entrepreneurial mindset? And those three
things need to work together. The current
assessment system does not really assess all
three. It is more heavily weighted towards
knowledge, and to a lesser extent skills.
What are these competences for us?
Lifelong learning: learning how to
learn, curiosity, creativity, critical thinking,
communication skills, problem solving,
reflection, and innovation.
Self-agency: initiative, drive/motivation,
endurance/grit/resilience, responsibility,
entrepreneurship, accountability, selfmanagement,
exercising rights and
responsibilities, self-value.
Interactively using diverse tools and
resources: impactful and efficient use
of resources, responsible consumption,
interfacing with tools.
Interacting with others: teamwork,
collaboration, negotiation, leadership,
followership, conflict management, respect
for others.
Interacting with the world: balancing
rights with responsibilities, balancing
freedom with respect, balancing power
with restraint, being local and global,
environmental custodianship, global
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awareness.
Multi-literateness: reading and writing,
numeracy, digital literacy, data literacy,
technological literacy, coding, media
literacy, financial literacy, cultural literacy,
health literacy.
Transdisciplinarity: mastery within
and across STEM (sciences, technology,
engineering, and mathematics), the arts,
the humanities, social sciences, religions,
languages, and vocations.
To be literate in the perfective tense
means that you come out of school being
really good at something. After 15,000
hours at school, if a child is not really good
at something, I think that the school systems
failed them. We must identify these gifts
and make sure that we do what we can
to nurture them. Everybody can become
excellent at something.
The seven global competences are stable.
They’re not going to go away and we need
to educate students towards them.
Are there any plans to collaborate with
other international schools in terms of
knowledge sharing?
We have a close relationship with the
schools in our coalition. We are looking at