International Schools Blog

School uniforms have a history stretching back to the sixteenth century. And for almost as long as the concept of school uniforms has existed, so has debate around them. Even in recent years, schools have been featured in news stories for introducing or abolishing school uniforms. Almost everyone has personal experience of either wearing a uniform or not during their school days. It’s certainly a topic that generates strong opinions.

Teaching is one of the caring professions. Teachers are deeply invested in their students’ happiness and wellbeing – it comes with the territory.

With the pandemic largely preventing on-campus education across the world over the past 18 months, educators have had to significantly rethink how to continue to teach students and work with parents when the normal approaches just aren’t possible.

Before the advent of the internet, we knew where to find information: television, newspapers and libraries. But now, with a limitless world of information at our fingertips, the challenge is how to tell which information is trustworthy – and which isn’t.

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.

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.

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.

In this article, Kai Vacher, Principal of British School Muscat in Oman explains how in early 2020, his school developed an idea that at the time seemed novel, innovative and creative: delivering a whole curriculum through a mix of online and face-to-face teaching. Of course, within a few months, the whole world was doing likewise. But what British School Muscat created was not about overcoming a pandemic, but something more fundamental: about international schools and their staff using their skills to help broaden access to education across their host country using a blended approach to teaching and learning they called FlexEd.

Homework is a polarising topic. It can cause students to feel stressed or anxious. It adds extra pressure on teachers, who are often already struggling with their workloads. And, some parents resent the way homework can cut into family time at home.

Welcome to Part 2! To mark International Women’s Day on 8 March and Women’s History Month during March, Pearson’s Women in Learning and Leadership team has created a list of 50 inspiring women to include in Pearson’s content and to help prompt discussions in the classroom.