At Habs, we are unapologetic about our ambition for our students. We are surrounded by interested, engaged, enthusiastic young people, who want to get the very most out of their time here. They are a joy to work with.
As an ambitious academically driven school, we are absolutely in favour of a curriculum that is stretching, challenging and demanding in the right way.
But what do we mean by stretch? And why does it sometimes get equated with stress?
I was pleased to be invited to speak recently to a group of Academic Deputy Heads at the Girls’ Day School Trust, and I used the opportunity to get into what makes for good stretch. So, I decided to talk about a dog. You’re going to have to trust me that I’m going somewhere with this!
My family had a border collie called Webster when I was a small child. As a four/five year old, I knew that Webster had come to us having lived in a flat, with people who were out at work all day.
My parents told me that this was especially bad for a border collie, as they are very bright. They have huge curiosity and capacity to learn new things. Poor Webster had been stuck without enough stimulation, without enough chance to exercise, bored and alone at home.
This story gave me a way to understand very early on that stretch can be a good thing: more than that, it is essential to flourishing.
But it does not follow that any stretch is good. Feeling stretched to breaking point, like a rubber band, is not what we’re trying to achieve. This is the kind of stretch we are talking about when we’re talking about stress.
Imagine a collie running on a giant hamster wheel. In a sense this situation is a lot better than the first. The collie is getting exercise; there is demand; there is something to do; there is an imperative to keep going or fall off.
This is stretch of a certain sort. But here, the collie is trapped in a cycle of closed activity. It has no choices; it does not stretch its mind. Here, there is stretch in the sense of there being some kind of demand, but there is no real challenge, or at most the challenge is of a very limited kind.
This is not what we want for our students, but it can be too close to reality in schools. Heavy burdens of curriculum content, leading to terminal assessments can mean that it feels like a race to complete a course.
And for students, that can lead to it feeling less purposeful, having to learn a huge amount of content, only to regurgitate it in the right way in an exam, and thereafter forget it forever. If this is what is prioritised, then where is the time to digest that information, reflect on it and critically engage with it?
Lord Aberdare summed up the current situation very well in the Debate on the Lord’s Select Committee on 11-16 education: “…GCSEs are too content-heavy…with up to 30 exams in a concentrated period… Teachers told us of having to “teach to the test” and being unable to explore issues that had sparked pupils’ interest and desire to learn more about them because of the need to get through the GCSE curriculum.”
So let me introduce my third idea of stretch. This is the stretch we want.
It is one where there is freedom, autonomy, possibility, and where there is challenge of a meaningful kind. It is the kind of stretch that might lead us to say ‘this collie is flourishing’ or ‘this is what a collie is meant to do’.
The work the collie is doing is purposeful, and achieves a goal not just for herself but for others.
Core to our purpose as a school is for our students to make a profound impact. What this means is that education is not there just to benefit the student, but empowers them to make a difference in the world.
In stretching herself, our collie contributes in her small way to society. Her work is real, and makes a difference in the here and now, rather than being an exercise for a promised purposeful future.
This is where the need for innovation comes in. We need to create an educational journey for students that allows them to be stretched to thriving point.
In the Habs Diploma, which received accreditation in the summer, students benefit from enhancement, a programme of study beyond the normal curriculum, supporting love of their chosen subject, and a deepening understanding.
We’re now looking closely at other opportunities to develop exciting, challenging programmes that empower students to make a profound impact in the world. This is the kind of stretch that is worth having.