International Schools Blog

Every teacher knows that teaching isn’t just about imparting information. It’s also about nurturing your students and supporting them as they develop and grow as individuals. The best teachers care deeply about their students’ happiness and emotional wellbeing, as well as their educational attainment.

The impact of COVID-19 on exams in the UK and around the globe has sharpened the debate about the role of qualifications and assessment in our education systems.

There has been a lively discussion in the UK about the teaching of history, particularly the absence of Black history in school curricula, following Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. Historians, teachers and students have called for change, and at Pearson, we have been listening to feedback and working with stakeholders to respond to this need.

In this article, Casey Barnes, Assistant Head of Secondary at CIS International School in Saint Petersburg looks at how we can all make a difference with acts of kindness.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020, online learning has become a pivotal feature in daily life for teachers, students and families around the world. Yet, while countless households across the globe have now experienced the many benefits of remote education, some critics still voice doubts about its efficacy.

In autumn 2017, #Metoo began trending on social media networks. Across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, women were posting, tweeting and sharing about their experiences of sexual violence.

They flashed like beacons against the long dark sweep of the pandemic: reports of teenagers helping their teachers, parents and siblings adapt to emergency remote learning. News stories about students lobbying their city government to allocate millions for broadband and devices to help close the digital divide. Images of young adults with masks and megaphones marching for social justice every night in cities around the world.

Artists and creatives are unlikely to be successful if they create artistic pieces that require too much of our intellect to decipher when viewed. However, with the emergence of Industry 4.0, the virtual world has much to offer artists in terms of creating opportunities for them to be the ‘first’. The first to show; the first to create awareness; the first to sell… and then the first to upsell.

Just 18 months ago, online teaching wasn’t part of the traditional primary or secondary educational landscape. But 2020 gave teachers a crash course in delivering education via a host of different mediums. Classes everywhere were being run on Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype and Google Hangouts.

Have you heard the story about the guy who spent 10,000 Bitcoins on two pizzas? It’s true. In 2010, when almost no one had heard of ‘cryptocurrencies’, a developer named Laszlo Hanyecz convinced his local pizza shop in Florida to accept the blockchain-based digital currency in exchange for two pizza pies. If Laszlo still had those 10,000 Bitcoins today, they’d be worth $587 million, more than half a billion US dollars. Some expensive pizzas, wouldn’t you say?