Connect and collaborate…
Round Square schools collaborate, creating meaningful, real-world opportunities for students to develop global competence, character and understanding. Here are some examples of our work:
Nayantara Atal, Alumnus, The Indian School Al Gubra
International Community School, Ghana
Peter Willet, Teacher, Aiglon
Eric Niles, Head of School, The Athenian School
Trevor Day School
Ann Hansen, Director of Global Education, Herlufsholm Skole
Josceline Cluff, Alumnus, Cobham Hall
Round Square is an international network of 200 like-minded schools in 50 countries that connect and collaborate to offer world-class programmes and experiences that develop global competence, character and confidence in our students.
The Round Square approach is built around six core themes - our IDEALS - and 12 underpinning “Discoveries” that together provide a Framework to support schools in embedding Character Education within and beyond the curriculum.
Our world needs courageous and compassionate leaders, prepared to discover and embrace different cultures and nationalities in ways that promote meaningful and lasting understanding and respect. Today’s students are the leaders of the future: It is our responsibility to prepare them well.
Round Square schools collaborate, creating meaningful, real-world opportunities for students to develop global competence, character and understanding. Here are some examples of our work:
During lockdown RS schools have been connecting their classrooms through zoom and other online platforms. In this example students from SAI International School in India and the Junior and Senior High School of Kogakuin University in Japan have been meeting regularly online to explore cultural similarities and differences and to deepen global understanding. The students from each school take turns to pick a theme for the discussion topic and then spend some time over the few days prior to the call preparing for the meeting, which they chair and present themselves.
To keep students connected across the Round Square community, each week, a RS school somewhere in the world takes its turn to send out a postcard invitation to the network for students to join a 60 or 90 minute Zoom call on a topic of their choice the following week. Usually bringing together between 50 and 150 students (depending on the topic) from up to 30 schools at a time, the postcards combine informal chat with formal presentation, Q&A, debate and discussion in baraza breakout groups as well as games and quizzes. St. Clement’s excitedly signed up and volunteered to host a zoom ‘Postcard’ around acts of kindness. It made for a great culminating task for the group and a great way for the committee to end out the year with purpose.
Round Square schools innovate, designing new approaches to teaching and learning that broaden horizons, and challenge students to go beyond their comfort zone. Here are some of our ideas and initiatives:
Being part of a vibrant network is a great catalyst to creative approaches, a good source of likeminded partners for collaboration, and a great way to share and celebrate all that is being achieved. This has never been more apparent than during the COVID-19 lockdown when Round Square schools have quite literally been in this together. With travel out of the question, and the majority of students distance-learning, schools across our community have collaborated to create and share imaginative new approaches to develop students’ global-mindedness and explore the RS IDEALS.
During lockdown we set a series of six IDEALS Challenges for students, each posing a BIG question linked to one of the RS IDEALS. The challenge for students is to take on each of these questions and share their responses through completing the task set at the end. Each Challenge is designed to be stand-alone for independent learning outside the curriculum and includes some fun creative activities along six station stops that lead to the final task. Students in Round Square Schools that complete and submit all six challenges receive completion certificate.
Round Square schools motivate, compelling students into practical experiences, addressing real-world issues and inspiring them to become agents of positive change. Here are some of our recent challenges:
For Round Square schools, community service is an integral part of a students’ education. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, schools have been sharing some amazing stories of the voluntary work that their students and staff have been undertaking to support and serve their communities. In this example, Saint Andrew’s School in Florida has been promoting a sprit of service through documenting and sharing Community Service Stories that highlight the many ways that through positive action students and staff can make a meaningful difference to the lives of others during the pandemic.
Round Square schools seek to involve students with real-world-challenges in which they can learn whilst making a meaningful contribution in their community. In this example Bishop Druitt College has partnered with Prosper Coffs Environmental Trust on a project to install a seabin in Coffs Harbour to help reduce its plastic pollution impact on the protected habitats of the estuary and the wider ocean environment. The project offers students STEM based learning opportunities whilst playing a direct and significant role in reducing the waste entering our waterways and oceans.
Round Square schools swap and share, exchanging ideas and resources to help one another to thrive, to save each other time and to expand everyone’s knowledge with new ways of doing and being:
In our Resource Library teachers in Round Square Schools can find a wide range of practical resources to use with early years, primary, and secondary students, and publish their own. Hundreds of lesson plans cover different topics and themes relating to the RS IDEALS. The library also includes templates and guides for organising student exchanges, conferences and service projects, as well as case studies of a wide range of innovative approaches taken by schools around the world. In the spirit of teamwork and collaboration, everyone in the RS Community is encouraged to contribute to the Resource Library and as a result it is a growing and developing resource for all to share.
RSIS Projects bring together students from Member Schools all over the world to work in truly international teams in support of communities in need. They develop skills for leadership and global citizenship, self-confidence and a deeper understanding of the world’s challenges. Their horizons are broadened through working in a multinational team and immersing themselves in a country and culture that is often very different from their own.
Students in all RS schools have the chance at various ages to attend conferences. Round Square Conference programmes offer a combination of guest speakers, group discussions, workshops, cultural visits, community service and adventure activities. They provide outstanding personal development opportunities, enhancing social and leadership skills, broadening intercultural understanding and forging lifelong friendships.
Round Square schools connect to create opportunities for their students and teachers to develop international understanding, self-confidence and a range of interpersonal skills through studying or working on exchange at another school in our network. Exchanges are arranged flexibly between member schools, often taking advantage of variations in academic timetables so that visits can take place whilst their own school is not in session.
Would you like to work at a Round Square School? Do you know someone that would be a great fit for our approach and ethos? Do you want to do more than teach-to-test? Click the link below to search positions currently available in Round Square schools.
