Absolutely education

Mr Will Williams, Headmaster of Kew House School, champions a holistic approach to learning and why it should be at the forefront of education.

“Holistic Education”, where do we start? The concept has ancient roots in Greek pedagogy, was championed in the early 20th Century by Jan Smuts in Holism and Evolution and carried forward by the writings of Abraham Maslow with the concept of self-actualization in the latter part of the century. The idea of a broader, fuller, interconnected treatment of a young person's educational pathway is a striking counterpoint to the linear, subject-silo, test of recall basis of the clichéd Victorian Education system that we in England are yearning to adapt, change or just throw away. The momentum of the educational discussions during Covid, exemplified by the Education Commission convened by The Times of London, has stalled. We are stuck with GCSEs, but we are not alone in testing young people at this age. Cambridge University research reveals that only 7 countries globally with comparable excellence in national education, do not externally assess 16-year-olds. The focus on examination assessment, within the educational debate, is one strand of the deeper discussion regarding the efficacy of our education system in preparing our children for their world.

The response to the challenge at the UK, national level is stymied in the vested interests of exam boards and mired in the political cycle, with education a mere football, rather than a jewel in the eyes of the political classes. This has left independent schools to go it alone in creating innovative curricula to broaden, deepen and most importantly, interconnect the strands of their pupils’ learning.

Bedales School, from its origins was innovative, but not alone, in creating its own curriculum, with its Bedales Assessed Courses (BAC). More recently many other schools have attempted to create innovative, holistic diets for their pupils. These attempts have not been made, to avoid the glare of GCSE result performance, they have been created to provide the best education for their pupils, despite a lack of evolution or even revolution within the Public Examination framework.

At Kew House School we have our own Gardener Award scheme. By mapping the content of the core curriculum, coalescing around five themes; enterprise, perspectives, wellbeing, community and creativity, our pupils gain a coherent insight into topics as they meet them across subjects either simultaneously or as part of their spiral curriculum. In this way, they are still prepared for their subject GCSE exams, but gain a greater interrelation understanding of the issues. We are not content to rest there, we add curriculum time in the “GA” strand to deliver statutory elements, but also teach skills and values in the context of the areas they are meeting in their core curriculum.

Finally, we bring this all together with the students using an online platform to register their own additional engagements and success; volunteering, music exams, extracurricular activities. At each Key Stage, the GA teacher moderates the full range of the pupils' achievements, including various forms of assessment, that include presentations, interviews, group tasks and competitions. We then award a GA qualification at the appropriate level. It is a strength of independent education that we can innovate and move swiftly when we are not being lead at the national scale, in the direction that we feel is best for our pupils.

This article first appeared in the 2024/25 edition of Which London School? & the South-East, which you can read in full below: