Round Square is an international network of 230 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. It is our role to facilitate students’ voice, agency and development opportunities to become those leaders
Knowing that greater intercultural understanding can only be a good thing, Round Square schools collaborate on teaching and learning programmes, courses and initiatives, to connect students with their peers in other countries and bring the world to their classroom through the RS network. Read about two examples of how we promote international compassion and connectedness here:
Ahead of World Refugee Day on 20th June, the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, released its Global Trends Report, highlighting that with millions fleeing Ukraine or being displaced within its borders, the total number of people forcibly displaced across the world now exceeds 100 million. Within this total, more than 22.5 million are refugees, and over half of these are children under the age of 18. This final statistic brings the refugee crisis into sharp focus for students in Round Square schools around the world. Click below to find out how they are converting empathy into action, to make a tangible contribution in support of refugees.
Student Exchange is a well-established, and proven vehicle for developing intercultural understanding through experiential learning. But when it’s impossible to travel, and therefore impossible to offer this immersive experience to students, what’s the alternative? This was the question, asked at the start of the Pandemic lockdown in 2020, that provided the foundations for a new Virtual Exchange programme, now an established part of Round Square’s portfolio of programmes. Taking place over a minimum of six weeks, a RS Virtual Exchange sees students interact and get to know one another through online video calls with a structured menu of activities to share.
Understanding that some of life’s most powerful lessons come from practical experience, Round Square schools encourage students to take on challenges, go beyond their comfort zone and discover that there is more in each of us than know. These are just two examples of the many ways in which students are challenged:
This year’s theme for the Round Square International Conference is Take Less : Be More. 800+ students and their teachers from across the world come together in the UK, in September, for the RSIC2022. Our student hosts will be asking the conference to join them in reflecting on, and addressing, the conference theme, by carefully considering what we take from our environment and from the people around us, and making a pledge that in future we will always put back more than we take.
This year Round Square’s International Service (RSIS) Project is all about discovering that we can make a big difference collectively through many individual smaller small actions, when we work together on a global scale. With this in mind we have challenged students in RS schools around the world to support the ‘One Million Beehives’ Campaign, founded in South Africa by Lesego Serelong Hozapfel former pupil of RS School Tiger Kloof, through her social enterprise Bokamoso Impact Investments.
Recognising that positive, meaningful, change starts with courageous conversations, Round Square schools connect students with their peers from across the world for open, honest and brave dialogue around some of the most difficult, and sensitive, issues facing our world today. Click the links below to find out more about two of the many platforms we use for this:
Through Round Square programmes and activities we encourage students to tackle head-on many challenging and taboo topics through discussion and debate. In doing so, we aim to build greater international understanding, and develop students’ ability to respectfully air, share and listen to differing views, without judgement. The most open and honest brave conversations are invariably those initiated and facilitated by students. Round Square Zoom Postcards offer weekly opportunities for students to lead conversations on topics of their choice.
In September 2021 we welcomed 1,500 delegates from schools around the globe to join us for a extraordinary experience as we gamified the Round Square International Conference and took it online. With a theme of ‘Blue Skies and Brave Conversations’, the RSIC2021 took place over four days, with delegates online for three hours each day interacting in real-time as avatars and through video link on a purpose-built Round Square Campus using Gather with built-in Zoom.
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.
