[RE]LEARN 2020 - The Learning Innovation Festival

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” (widely attributed to Henry Ford). Think of this in relation to education. Consideration of the nature, purpose and pathway of formal education over the past 150 or so years, reveals a mainly repetitive pattern of “doing things” the same way as they have always been done, mainly, because they have “always been done that way”. Fuelled by technology, we have been able to do the same things, faster, and bask, self-satisfied, in the reflected glory of technological triumph, or alternatively, as recent IB and UK examination systems suggest, stumbled into algorithmic confusion. Nevertheless, not much has truly changed. We have just turned education into a “faster horse”.
The objective of this session is to focus on a new model for education which challenges, confronts and overturns outdated orthodoxy in international and national systems of education. Sustainability Education has developed a new kind of G6-12 school experience where teaching and learning is a “blended” combination of guided and self-regulated online learning and community based project work, framed by the Sustainable Development Goals. Working in partnership with local and regional business, industry, NGO and government agencies, the Sustainable School will be resilient to crises, foster leadership and cultivate innovation. A team of expert tutors, teachers and project facilitators work with parents and local and regional partners to guide students through personalised Individual Education Plans (IEP) which reflect and meet the aspirations of students and parents for their G6-12 education and beyond. And for every fee-paying student enrolled in our school, we are committed to providing a fee-free scholarship place to a young person of a similar age, who otherwise would not be able to access the transformational experience of education that we offer.