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Students at a London, U.K. school that has gone back to basics get results rivalling those of peers at England's most famous private schools
The example of Michaela Community School in the U.K. demonstrates the importance of traditional approaches to instruction and discipline, values generally supported by most Canadian parents with the national average .
A remarkable feat for a government-funded school with a sizeable portion of its students coming from financially disadvantaged backgrounds. Although the pandemic and social media affected results around the world, Canada's negative trend spans decades. It's no coincidence that it coincides with the K-12 system shifting away from traditional teaching approaches.
For example, instead of"structured literacy" with an emphasis on sounding out words ,to use cues and clues to guess words. Math moved away from times-tables and rote memorization to"discovery math," where kids had to invent their own approaches to problem-solving. A decline in literacy and math skills was inevitable.
To make matters worse, an increasingly lax approach to discipline led to an" Against the backdrop of similar challenges in the U.K., Headmistress Birbalsingh understood that this approach didn't work, and founded the Michaela Community School in 2014 following a raft of reforms that expanded school choice. Established as a free-school academy, Michaela is funded by the government but operates as a non-profit.
It can determine its own curriculum and teaching methods, set different hours for teaching and exercise some control over its budget. Michaela took advantage of these freedoms to focus on traditional instruction , strict discipline and longer school days . The result? A school for ordinary and even disadvantaged kids with grades rivalling those at England's most famous private school, Eton.
Canadian parents may not be familiar with the Michaela model, but polling data indicates they generally support its approach. Afound over half of respondents want schools to return to traditional teaching methods , while over 70 per cent favour a return to traditional responses to student misconduct . In essence, parents want schools to get back to basics.
Several independent schools in Canada do follow this approach, but many of them may be financially out of reach to many families. Which raises the question: Can the Michaela model — government-funded schools not beholden to government diktat — be replicated here?. Funded by the government, charter schools are run by non-profits with independent boards. Unlike Michaela, they do not have full autonomy over the curriculum, but they can focus on specific topics and teach as they see fit.
For example, the STEM Innovation Academy in Calgary focuses on science, technology, engineering and math, while the Calgary Classical Academyby SecondStreet.org comparing provincial test scores on key subjects found kids at charter schools regularly outperform their peers at other government-run schools. Last year, students at these schools scored 10.5 percentage points higher on average than those in regular government-run schools, and 9.5 percentage points higher than students in government-funded Catholic schools. That's essentially a full letter-grade difference on average.
No wonder waitlists for these schools go into theThe example of Michaela Community School in the U.K. demonstrates the importance of traditional approaches to instruction and discipline — values generally supported by most Canadian parents. As regular public schools grapple with the question of whether and how to revisit these tried and tested approaches, the very least provincial governments could do is embrace Alberta's charter school model, which performs demonstrably better than other government-funded options. Our children's futures depend on it.
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