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Educational Pages
For a successful life and career, all children need to develop stable characters and intelligent minds. QEC will engage with parents in providing a positive model for pedagogy and care in the ten areas listed below:
- Love
- Affection
- Security
- Discipline
- Cultural and ethical guidance
- Respect for self and others
- Education and qualifications
- Language and communication skills
- Positive friendships
- Recreation and sports
Education Exists to Meet Needs
- Education exists to meet the needs of individuals, our students.
- Individual educational needs include specific information and skills, learning needs in general for the world of work and the world of living. Individuals also need to learn the importance of social, aesthetic and moral values.
- Education also exists to meet the needs of society, and these needs are much more complex.
- Democratic society needs literate citizens.
- Industrial society needs scientists and administrators.
- Society also needs humane considerations, for we must train and employ doctors, nurses and carers.
- Society requires cultural considerations. We have to teach the significance of values, ethics, ideology and aims.
- It is meaningless to talk of individual needs as being different or separate to those of society. Is either more important? Neither can exist separately, for needs are social.
- What can society offer you?
- What can you offer society?
- QEC exists to help its own young people to make up their minds, to graduate successfully and enter in to universities and the adult world of work in a confident, qualified and intelligent manner.
How Children Learn to Become Students
Active Learning:
The processes of teaching and learning are just as important as the content. Children learn when their existing knowledge is valued and respected, when their interest is actively engaged, when they work collaboratively rather than in isolation, when appropriately challenging tasks are required of them, and when their progress and achievements are clearly recorded and affirmed. In QEC, we will engage in active learning.
Assessment:
Teachers at QEC will ensure that assessment is part of the learning process and not a separate component from it. It is a useful tool for teachers to help us plan further learning experiences. It is a resource for students as it helps them become more responsible for their own learning. It also creates vital information for parents. We will continually monitor progress and evaluate achievement. We will value observations and the perspectives of students themselves.
The processes of learning are themselves an aspect of the curriculum, for they reflect and communicate ideas about the nature and purpose of knowledge and learning, and about human relationships. A curriculum which is committed to valuing each individual will demonstrate this not only through subject matter and schemes of work, but also through the practical teaching and learning methods used, and by the way in which classrooms are organized. Learners here at QEC are entitled to the following 20 experiences. They will receive the best education that our teaching methodology and learning processes enable.
- Connections:
Children will learn to make connections between the knowledge they already possess and the new knowledge presented to them through our diverse curriculum.
- Enquiry:
Children will be encouraged always to enquire, puzzle, wonder, speculate, hypothesize and imagine.
- Talk:
Children will be encouraged to think aloud, to sort ideas through discussion and debate with others. They will be encouraged in the skills of structured conversation, and in more than one language.
- Discovery:
Children will be consistently and continuously encouraged to discover, invent and realize solutions.
- Expectations and Challenges:
Children will be encouraged and expected to achieve increasingly higher standards and to be continuously challenged to enquire, study and learn further.
- Writing:
Children will be taught how to write and produce work for a variety of purposes and audiences through using the genres, styles and forms which are appropriate, and by learning to draft them accordingly.
- Intuition and the Arts:
Children will be encouraged to explore and communicate ideas and feelings not only through spoken and written language but also through a wide range of other media such as dance, music, drama and visual arts.
- Responsibility:
Children will be encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning and to become actively engaged in making decisions on short-term goals and objectives, in selecting, designing and organizing their own learning experiences.
- Self-Assessment:
Children will be encouraged to reflect on and appraise their own work and performance, and to help with the compilation of records of their own learning progress and achievements.
- Group Work:
Children will be encouraged to work collaboratively in groups of different composition and so learn from their peers in addition to their teachers.
- Wider World:
Children will be encouraged and expected to play an active role in the wider College community and beyond, learning through interaction with parents, teachers, peers and children from other schools and charities.
- First Hand Experience:
Children will be encouraged and expected to have first hand experience of whatever subject is being studied. This should preferably be real but may alternatively be gained through simulation exercises of various kinds.
- Enjoyment:
Children will be encouraged to work with enjoyment, humour and pleasure.
- The Senses:
Children will be encouraged to engage in work which involves all the senses – visual, pictorial, sound, touch, movement and feeling.
- Judgments:
Children will be encouraged and taught to intellectually discriminate, judge, evaluate and appreciate.
- Recognition:
Children will receive recognition and respect for their language and their own previous knowledge and experience of life.
- Family and Community:
Children will receive recognition and respect for the value and validity of their family and community life, including the lived experience of injustice and discrimination.
- Praise and Affirmation:
Children will receive praise and affirmation for their successes, achievements, progress and perseverance.
- The Setting:
Children will learn in a physical environment which is tidy, stimulating and aesthetically attractive, always with sufficient room and appropriate furniture, equipment and resources.
- The “Totality of Education”
Children at QEC will learn to become students, learning through skills teaching how to study, work and earn inside the totality of education we shall provide. They shall receive a coherent and meaningful educational experience in our College.
Learning Objectives for Students
QEC wishes to place clear and achievable learning objectives at the core of its philosophy. Our ethos, the essential character of our progressive community, will be predicated on the following learning objectives. We set ten teaching missions.
- Identity: Our students will be encouraged to develop the knowledge of their own identities, histories and strengths, and to grow in self-confidence and self-esteem.
- Analysis: Our students will be encouraged to think, analyse and solve problems and issues scientifically, rationally and objectively.
- Creativity: Our students will be encouraged to appreciate, express and communicate ideas in a variety of aesthetic, creative and imaginative forms.
- Participation: Our students will be encouraged to take informed, critical and productive roles in the groups, divisions and houses to which they belong, and to participate actively in the wider College community and beyond.
- Ethical Awareness: Our students will be encouraged to show care and respect for the interests, concerns and rights of others, both in their personal lives and through their involvement in wider society.
- Political Awareness: Our students will be encouraged to develop their personal commitments to justice, fairness, equality, democracy and freedom.
- Spiritual Awareness: Our students will be encouraged to form and develop their own religious and philosophical beliefs, ideas, commitments, friendships and allegiances.
- Learning Processes: Our students will be encouraged to continually develop and improve their own learning strategies and styles. They will be taught how to employ methods of enquiry and research, how to understand and appreciate a variety of information, and to take increasing responsibility for their own learning and development.
- Recreation: Our students will be encouraged to find enjoyment and fulfillment through recreational, sports and leisure activities as well as through work and study. Our students will learn how to play constructively.
- Qualifications: Our students will be encouraged to gain experiences and qualifications which will help them become actively involved in society and provide them with strong employment and career prospects.
- Our students will be provided with an open gate on to the pathway for learning. They will receive an education which provides them with the necessary skills for living and working in this complicated world.
Universal Children’s Rights
- The education of children requires transformations. It must focus on the nurturing of the child`s personality and the cultivation of the potential to do good.
- There must be emphasis on the respect and dignity children warrant from adults.
- Adults must be prepared to relinquish total control and power.
- There must be a deep commitment to child-centred learning.
- The needs and interests of children will be explored and nurtured over time.
- The child has the right to develop.
- The child has the right to be protected at all times.
- The child must be given the requisite means for normal development both materially and spiritually.
- The child`s appetite for learning must be fed.
- The child must be the first to receive?
- The child must be empowered to earn a livelihood and must be protected from all forms of prejudice.
- The child must be educated to be conscious and respectful to all others and appreciate the concept of service to his or her fellows.
- The child has the right of provision.
- The child has the right of full participation in the school community.
- The child has the right of deliberation about personal welfare.
IF
- If a child lives with criticism he learns how to condemn.
- If a child lives with hostility she learns how to fight.
- If a child lives with ridicule he learns to become shy.
- If a child lives with shame she learns to feel guilty.
- If a child lives with tolerance he learns how to become patient.
- If a child lives with encouragement she learns how to be confident.
- If a child lives with praise he learns how to appreciate.
- If a child lives with fairness she learns the value of justice.
- If a child lives with security he learns to have faith in others.
- If a child lives with approval she learns to like herself.
- If I am a good teacher, I will always put my children first.
