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Hello and welcome to this recent webinar in our International Education and schools fair and we’re delighted to be here today um speaking to James Wellings head of school of muang British International School so I’d like to invite James to join me hi F thanks so much for having great
It’s lovely to see you so you’re in a wonderful part of the world um in France tell us tell us a bit about where the schools located and um how you got to be there that’s right so we’re we’re muang British International School and we’re
Based down in the south of France on the French Riviera um for those of you who know this area the nearest sort of town that you may have heard of would be onti um and we’re not too far away from nce so nce International airport for those
Of you who would like to visit us is about half an hour away just down the just down the road and the south of France here comes with all the things you would expect the south of France to be uh lots of sunshine lovely Countryside and we’ve got a beautiful
School down here and we feel very lucky lucky to be here so what draws um families to the school and what’s the sort of mix of French British and other nationalities well that’s a great question so we’re a we’re a truly International School we’ve got 55 nationalities um and some of those are
Within families of mixed nationality so mother’s French and Father’s Dutch or or any any number of mixes about 25% of our students are British about 25% are French and the rest are made up of um pretty much if you can name a country we’ve we’ve likely got somebody here um
From from that country um and there’s a real mix of backgrounds cultures professionalism so we have a lot of entrepreneur those who live down here on the Riviera who are self-employed and have chosen to come and live here because of the geography and it’s such a
Nice place to be uh but we’ve also got many people who work for big companies uh this area is actually called Sophia and tiis which is the technological Park it’s called the Silicon Valley of France all right that’s how they try and sell it so a lot of the um technology
Industry is based down here so we have lots of families whose parents work for for those companies and then we have bankers and account accountants and people who work in the yachting industry so you name it really we have a real range of international um families yes
And have you found the the mix possibly has changed um since the the pandemic where people drawn to the area because we’re certainly on the relocation side um companies moving people have for example said right well you can choose the location or the country you’re going
To be but we would like you to cover the whole of Europe or whatever you know noticing that sort of yeah that’s been a really interesting shift I think and that’s probably happened in two two fold so I think more French families have moved away from big cities after the
Pandemic there was a real drive to to have sort of areas with open space and and down here is is a lovely place for that um internationally outside of the UK I think that’s true I think we’ve had Scandinavian uh more Scandinavian families moved down here and I think
Open air and the weather and so on um the British movement has perhaps been check a little by brexit uh because some of the challenges around brexit and visas and so on which we could talk a little bit more about if um if we wanted to um whereas although it is possible
It’s very possible to come and live down here as an exper it’s slightly more difficult than it used to be so I wonder if those two things counter counter each other perhaps yeah quite um and so you’re also part of a schools group so does that make it a sort of pathway for
Families as are quite mobile to get around other countries but also you have a lot of schools in France as well for sure yeah we’ve got a group the group is called Globe educate um and we’re about 70 schools now worldwide primarily based in Europe there there’s a couple of
Schools in India and in Malaysia um and we do mainly British system French system and the International baloran System um so students who come to one of our schools like here in muan British International School can easily move to other schools within the network uh we
Talk to each other a lot and just in within our British school we call it a cluster there’s a British school cluster of 10 schools so we work very closely together as 10 schools I work with the other head teachers we’ve done exchanges so for example we did an exchange last
Year to stona school in in bath in the UK which is a school in equestrian center and we had students go there for three weeks and we had some of their students come to us for three weeks so that gives us and our students and families a range of opportunities that
May not exist um if we didn’t have that so it’s a real yeah it’s a real benefit brilliant and that’s very um useful for our sort of audience of the parents and the global Mobility professionals and the relocation Consultants supporting their moves it’s reassuring isn’t it
That if you if you know that you can move in and work in different places that your children can have a consistent educational approach yeah sure brilliant yes so what about um you’re obviously British and English speaking school um but how important is is French and the
French language and the culture in the school and is that one of the polls that um draws pupil to you this is understandably a question that we get asked a lot and I think it’s a really really important question um and I think the fact that we’ve got 25% of our
Students are French actually goes some way to answering that questions just within itself um but we are definitely a British School uh we we follow the we follow roughly the British national curriculum although we we don’t have to um but we we use that as our basis to create an international curriculum off
That um and French is given a large part of that curriculum far more for example than it would be in Kent where where you’re talking to me from um and that’s understandable because we recognize that we’re a British school in France um so in terms of the French language it’s
Widely spoken on campus although definitely English would be our first language on campus you’ll hear French widely spoken many if not most of our stuff are very competent in French if not by bilingual um and by the time the students leave us if they’re with us for
A considerable amount of time um they they they have they have fluency almost almost always um so yeah we very much recognize our host country if you like is is France uh we we’re very proud to be here I think we’re all Fran of files um so we place place an importance on
That for sure yeah yeah and what other languages do you also cover and how do you support native languages for children and possibly the parent yes you can imagine we have a huge range of languages and actually if you go around campus you’ll hear plenty of languages
Spoken so in terms of the curriculum um we have a lot of students who come to us who maybe English is their second or third language so we actually have a big English as an additional language program to help students make sure that they are up to the speed necessary to
Succeed within the British system uh obviously we have French and we also have Spanish as part of our curriculum and then outside of that there are opportunity within school um for Russian and we have in the past offered Arabic and Mandarin although we don’t currently
Do that um but where there’s a demand we can always put new languages on um and then there are various clubs and societies around the area and families in Italian or Russian for example oh we do some Russian classes yeah we have we have Russian classes too really so
You’ll see a range of primarily European languages but a range of languages in the school and around the community so can you tell me a bit more about the curriculum at the different ages and stages and uh is it uh very atypical uh of of a British school or have you
Adapted yeah sure um so that’s I mean that’s that’s a good question in itself the atypical British school what does that look like so I suppose we’re we’re not a um what would be described in England as a private a public school you know your eens or your Harrow and your
Bo to hats and this kind of approach so in that sense I don’t think with British I think we’re much more International than that um but in terms of the curriculum processes if you come from the UK or you’re familiar with British education you’d be very familiar what
You with what you see here um so what to to run you briefly through the stages we start off with our three-year olds and we follow the EFS curriculum the early years Foundation stage curriculum from the UK which focuses on developing uh language F motor skills and basic
Numeracy and literacy through play so it’s a wonder and I invite anybody if you’re in the area you’re always welcome to come and see us and we’ll take you over to our early years area and you’ll see how they set it up for the kids um to really Target their individual sort
Of progress in a sort of real world playbase scenario um they’re not sitting down they’re not in desks it’s all set up in that way and this is widely recognized as best practice for early years children as we move up to school you’re probably more likely to see how
You would imagine a classroom to to look um although we augment that in many ways so our Primary School do all the things that you would expect numeracy literacy history geography uh a lots of French we also have it provision um computer science we do Lego robotics so we’re
We’re a Lego school which is great my daughter’s actually currently building a a robot that she makes go around the the science lab at the moment which he gets very excited about um and we also do something called School in the woods so we try and get this students outside and
If you could see out my window just there we back onto a beautiful Woodland and we’ve got our own gate that goes out to the back so the students are out there quite a lot um and then we have PE and um the subjects that you you you
Would expect uh I think it’s probably also important for you to mention positive education which is actually something that comes out of Australia um and this is the beauty of being an international school is you can base yourselves on the British model but if there something that you see really
Working somewhere you can sort of beg steal and borrow a little bit so positive education is all all based on positive psychology and it’s around our mental well-being and physical health and we put a big emphasis on that for all of our students we have dedicated lessons but also considerable amounts of
Processes that help our students to feel safe um safe and happy within the environment because once they’re safe and happy they’re much more likely to to learn and make friends and enjoy and we really pride ourselves on that I think that’s a real feature of the school and
Very quickly year seven eight and nine so that would be the start of our secondary school again you’ve got the range of subjects that you might you might expect uh and then we move into the GCSE program which is probably the most widely recognized uh World qualification for 16y olds and following
That we move into the a-level program which again is a highly recognized if not the most recognized program for 18 year olds and the GC are igcs or is it a mix yes so that’s that that’s a good one it’s a little bit confusing in as much
As igcs and gcses are both worth exactly the same um but some of the programs for the international GCS suit International students better so for example history might be less British Centric if that makes sense so we actually have a combination we have some of our subjects
Of gcss some of our subjects are igc’s depending on which program fits our cohort the best um but the the outcome is the same the qualification that they get has exactly the same value and currency with other schools and universities brilliant thank you and it’s usual um to hear about your
Attitude towards um well-being and the this positive education which sounds sounds fascinating but certainly I think um parents children and everyone welcomes um that outdo the Outdoor Experience as well as the positive um well-being features that scho schools adopt nowadays we’ve actually we’ve actually brought on board part of our
Senior leadership team now is a role as a head of well-being head of well being and safeguarding uh a lady calls Mrs Sarah Michael and her job is to to help track monitor support staff um in helping students to feel safe and happy in school um and she’s supported by
Wonderful team five um and we do all sorts of maybe there’s not time here but we do all sorts of interesting things and processes to actually investigate and look at how happy kids are and then put interventions in place if needed um to help students really feel comfortable
Here so new pupils are going to slot in and have the individual attention sure without doubt I mean that’s that’s something that we put a a lot of time and effort and energy into new families new students and that’s from the moment they first come welcoming up the gate
Knowing what to expect knowing their way around school making sure they’ve got at least two students to talk to on that first morning um and been shown shown around we actually sometimes give families the opportunity for a taste a day so if they want to the kids can come
In and um and experience the school for a day and a nice statistic for you um we have never had a taste a day that hasn’t resulted in the student coming to our school so I really like that one it’s a really it’s a really good one excellent
Yes so that that’s going to be a very welcoming an easy process for new families um so transition care and all those good things um people are familiar with will be um found and that transition care I think it’s also you know it’s also important to say that sometimes those transitions are
Difficult for students um and you can put transition care in place and it can still be difficult for students because they’ve left their friends at home it’s a new environment it’s a new language outside of school um so I suppose all the proactive steps we put in place to
Help welcome students but just as important as that is the monitoring watching and stepping in or slight light touches or working with the families if we see that a student struggling a little bit which of course can happen you know these are these are young people in a new environment but we we
Take real pride in that in being able to support those students whether it goes really smoothly from day one which it often does or sometimes it’s a little bit bumpier which it sometimes is um we’ve got the provision in place to help to help sort of every everything
Everybody along that spectrum and of course globally mobile families May unfortunately have to leave earlier than the full School term so and the years they were expected to be there so again these goodbyes and doing a doing that well is something that school it’s hard that and I’ve worked in
Five international schools around the world and my daughters actually come to this school and have and have been in international schools and that’s something that you do have to get used to the transition and people leaving now interestingly for us we don’t have a huge student turnover each year um so PE
Families that come here do tend to come and stay here on average for six to seven years which is which is quite high for an international school um so those sort of longer lasting friendships do tend to do tend to occur here um and I think we’re I think our attention rate
Year to year is about 90% just below 90% excellent so let’s have a bit of a chat about Steam and stem and if you’re in the Silicon Valley of of France um that must be really quite an inspiration and I suppose spurred you on and you’ve got
Access to some of the the best and brightest things that are that are going on in in the Technology and Engineering world so can you tell us a bit more I think you call it a steam approach to learning don’t you within the yes Este Steam stands for science technology
Engineering maths and art and the Arts the one that always sort of confuses people a little bit um but the idea being that there is an artistic element to design which is attached to those other disciplines um so this is a ever increasing I mean it always has been
Important but there’s an ever increasing emphasis on the stem or steam subjects within education um and we want to push that ju just as much so that will look as normal as your science or your ma lessons as you might expect um but then we’ve got clubs and opportunities and
Something called our Thrive program which maybe I’ll explain a little bit in a moment where kids have the opportunity to do lots of Robotics um and that’s from the very youngest kids so I think I spoke about my daughter earlier on doing the Lego robots and actually the Lego
Can be quite complex it can go quite High um but we just got donated from one of the local companies here a state-of-the-art robotic arm which can be programmed do high Precision level high Precision level work um I guess now I’m not an expert in
This so I be careful what I say but in in the way that you might imagine robot arms putting together very fine pieces of jewelry or Machinery these kinds of things so our a-level students um in physics or within the clubs are able to really get involved in programming high
Level robotics kind of stuff which is which is fantastic so really there’s opportunities for that all the way through we have coding and computers um available to all of our Primary students and our students from year six that’s our 10 year olds all the way through to
Our 18y olds or have a laptop each at school and is there anything more you want to uh highlight about the Thrive program because it sounds interesting exciting I was at an one of the big Ed Tech shows in the UK um just after Christmas and I I was just blown away as
You say by the demonstration of robotics and all the other AI things that are that are available and young people learning environmental um aspects um building model houses with solar panels and little wind to Vines it it’s quite incredible and really must um inuse Everybody yeah well I think it does but
I also think it causes some fear for for some people too um we’ve just had a I’ve just released a podcast actually which may be something we can put on the the link to the um which is with our head of AI in the group lady called claraa Hawking um
Talking about the impact that artificial intelligence is likely to have on education but also on young people and the world The Wider World um which is a very interesting inspiring and also worrying conversation and I think it’s okay to say all these things at the same
Time because I think as a school we have a duty um to be as far as we can ahead of the curve um to be trying to work with these technologies that that are that are coming down the line very very fast get our heads around those and help
Prepare our students to use them effectively um and for me this is more than just sort of chat GPT to write your essay for you I think that’s a very sort of lowlevel discussion there’s there much richer and bigger discussions that we can have about that um so we’ve got a
Head of AI within the group I think that says something um and uh and we’re really we’re really sort of investigating exploring uh like many schools around the world how do we how do we effectively utilize this change in technology which is which is a big shift
Um I think you asked me about the Thrive program but we but it’s okay we’ve got on to we’ve got onto that that sort of interesting subt topic but I don’t is there anything else you’d like to know about I say about careers of the future
I mean um you know this well ver phrase about preparing uh pupils for the future but you don’t know what the jobs and careers are of the future and you are sitting in in this Hub of innovation in the location you are in France I mean
How how is much of a challenge is that for you as ahead and um how I mean how do you go about predicting the future and planning ahead so so I don’t I don’t think you go about predicting the future I don’t think that’s the game game that
We’re in I think that tendy tend to come up a bit unstuck if you try and predict the future um and that phrasing around we’re preparing kids for jobs that we didn’t know exist yet has been around for for a long time and has been true
For a long time so for example um podcasting is one is now a huge industry which only seven or eight years ago really no kids would have thought about that or um the head of AI for the globe educate this is this is a job that just simply wouldn’t have existed maybe two
Years ago um so instead of predicting the future what we want is to to give our kids a range of Knowledge and Skills within traditional educational subjects which still have a great deal of value because you need to have Knowledge and Skills and cultural competence to be
Able to act within the world uh but also a set of qualities and competencies that allow you to engage with new issues or new learning so um making sure that kids can work well together with each other that they can communicate effectively across many different forums that they can utilize technology effectively that
They can be resilient um that they can take care in the first in of their own well-being these are really really important things that will allow kids to be adaptable I think that’s probably the key word we want students to leave here to be able to adapt to new situations rather than
Try and prepare them for predicted things which are almost impossible to predict so I think that would be my my summary of that well that’s a good point to perhaps bring in this rather impressive slide you’ve got about where your young people are of to University and uh
The the sorts of places maybe you want to just talk around some of those which might trigger very happy to for sure so um we are very proud of our students and where they go to university um the majority of our students still choose to go to the UK which perhaps isn’t
Surprising given given that we’re a British School uh but we have students going to all of the different countries that you can see on there and have noticed a pattern whereby European schools in France Holland and Italy and Spain in particular are becoming more and more popular this is a good choice
For European kids who want to still study um high quality courses in English because many of the universities there are offering now extremely high quality courses in English and often at a much more reasonable price point than um UK or us universities uh we have students now I
Could list or as if you can think of a famous University Oxford Cambridge Yale Harvard um Purdue Etc we we’ve got kids going to all of those places um we’ve had excellent take up at some of the top universities in the world in the UK we often call those the red brick
Universities um and of course in the US um you’ve got your ivy league universities so no doubt our kids can be and have been and will be prepared to get into some of the best universities in the world um but I personally and I think we here as a staff at mijan school
Are just as proud of the children who are are able to go to the university that’s right for them the university that’s going to help them on their pathway um and we’ve actually just got this year we’ve got some students going to um local a local University in E to
Do computer gaming for example computer game design a very well-known and established course within the local area that’s the perfect course for them we’ve also got two students who will be going to the sbon in Paris uh which is one of the most prestigious universities and one of the most academic universities in
The world so make sure that we have a program to support each and every student on their individual pathway our goal is not to get everybody into Oxford but if somebody wants to go to Oxford we want to get them there if they want to
Go to a university in Spain we will help them to get there um and we’ve got something called the life matters program which supports our six form so our year 12 and our year 13 a level students uh throughout that process from the moment they start a levels to to
When they leave us in in June and I I think we chatting before you’ve had someone go to one of the prestigious Arts um universities ories isn’t that right that’s right now I’m gonna butcher the pronunciation name so I’m not going to say it it’s go Goan I think it’s called one
Of the top one of the top Arts universities in in which I suppose is also maybe me worth saying there that you know we’re a British International School but that gives all of our students Pathways to go literally anywhere in the world so if they want to go back to the UK or
To the UK for University the pathway is there us pathway Canada pathway if they want to stay in France if they love France if they want to go to university in France uh the pathway is there is there for them too so we’re in international British school that allows International students to go
Internationally to University and then of course sport um a lot of um British uh schools are are very um ke key on Sports and young people certainly want to thrive in that area and no doubt you participate in all sorts of leagues uh all around the world and in different
Countries um yeah yeah we have some really exciting programs so I’ll go back to thrive which we mentioned earlier on so our Thrive program is an enrichment program for all of our students four four times a week and that allows them to elect a a course of their choice um
And it’s mixed so it might be with children who little bit older a little bit younger than them so they get to mix with different children and there’s everything from Sports we’ve got American football rugby netball tennis badminton table tennis all sorts mountain biking um and then there’s Arts
There’s drama there’s chess there’s textiles you know it’s a lovely program where students can try and get involved and and pursue a passion and of course as you say a passion for many of our students is support um now interestingly for those of you who are not familiar
With France the whole French setup around sport is very very different for those of you who might be familiar with the UK so in the UK sport is very much driven by schools in France in the French national system the French national schools don’t do much Sports
It’s all driven by the towns or The Villages so you play for your local Village or you play for your local town and they’re incredibly well subsidized um to go and play football for the year or to being part of the ski club or whatever it might be and the
Opportunities for students within the French system are amazing and all of our kids can benefit from that and they also get the benefit of them being able to speak French in those associations uh but of course being a British school we want to do it the British way too so in
In in addition to those things that available outside school we have the the sports teams that you would expect so we have football basketball volleyball our primary sports teams and we play in a in a local league with other international schools in all of those and we take part
And international tournaments so we each year we one of our big ones is called the Mediterranean cup where we go to Verona in Italy and we take five teams to Verona in Italy and we play teams from all over Europe and North Africa for three days it’s amazing and they all
Stay in the hotel together and there’s this big tournament and at the end of three days um well we came out we came out on top last year we didn’t quite do so well this year but last year we won the under the under 11s girls tournament
And I’m sure you have lots of volunteers you that’s a popular one that that is yeah we have other excursions as well so uh in May um our year five and six students so that’s nine and 10 year olds they are going off to Barcelona for an urban Adventure where they’ll be
Doing climbing parkour skateboarding um and also some cultural activities around gy and the museums and all the things that you might expect in Barcelona uh our nines and tens are going surfing in birit they’ve got a five-day surf camp in buits um and our sevens and eights
Are going to Bristol to do some history history uh and some surf on the artificial wave I don’t know if you know in Bristol they’ve got an artificial wave there which will prepare them for the surf trip in un not brilliant so it sounds a wonderful experience so a
Rounded um education and lots of opportunity so to sum up what what would you like um our parents relocation professionals and the corporate cents sending people um moving people around the world to sort of take away um a flavor of of the school sure so I can
Say with confidence that if you came to visit us you’d walk into our school and you’d find a very warm and welcoming school um and you would see a lot of happy children and we know that we’ve got lot of happy children because as I said earlier we we’ve got measures and
And sort of tests for that as well as the just the field that you get in the school so first and foremost I think the children and the families that come here are happy uh they like coming to school they make good friends and that creates
An envir Enon where learning can be can be really effective and can really happen um and then so at the end of that what comes out sort of the other end is we get students who make huge amount of individual progress so whether their starting point is sort of here or or
Here it doesn’t matter we’re looking to progress for those individual students and to cater for those individual students and our outcomes are fantastic our outcomes are well above International and National averages in the UK well well well above um and uh for what’s called non- selective school
So we don’t have an entrance Examination for example we would be competing with Selective schools in terms of our academic results in the UK so the future of Education are you are positive I’m very positive because education is education is is you know one of the most important things that we
Have in this world isn’t it um and I think that’s a a huge responsibility for all of us who are in education and I think this perhaps links back to what we’re talking talking about with technology and Ai and I do think that that is going to change the landscape of
Education and I think we have to be very aware of that and very quick to work out what the dangers and what the positives are uh we don’t want to be sitting here in 10 years thinking oh I wish um so I think it’s incumbent upon us to be you
Know to be on that um but I also believe strongly that there is still going to be a place and space for um human interaction schools like ours where kids can play and hang out and be in the sunshine and be outside and sit in classrooms and discuss with teachers and
And have those sort of real world experiences and I think you know my my most half glass half full view of it all would be that some of the technologies that we have coming down the line will augment and help um education to sort of
Push on and be a massive benefit for our students um and for young people as they come through that’s that’s my hope and we’ll try and make sure that happens here brilliant well thank you thank you very much James Wellings head of school at muang British International School
It’s been a pleasure speaking to you thank you f real pleasure thank you so as you’ve heard we’d be talking to James Wellings head of school and you can read his bio details here and I’m Fiona merie managing editor of relocate Global think Global people the multimedia that supports um
Families relocation professionals and Global mobility and international um project teams so if you are wanting to get in touch with mugan um please see make if you want to get in touch with the school here are the admissions details and they’ll be pleased to hear from you this webinar has been produced by
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Informed about what’s going on in the world of Education International Management and Global vulnerability