Round Square schools access and leverage the potential benefits to our students of connecting with a community of likeminded schools on an international scale. We recognize that effective character education is not a series of isolated interventions, but a sustained and embedded approach to teaching and learning that is supported, enhanced and brought to life through planned, integrated, projects, trips and adventures.
The Schools that gain the most from their Round Square Membership are those that embed and reveal the Round Square themes – our IDEALS – throughout all aspects of school life. When a school’s curriculum, extra-curricular activities, pastoral care, mission and strategy are visibly infused with the IDEALS, every interaction with other schools in the community is maximized because it has immediate resonance with core programming back-at-school.
Whilst this the utopia, we also recognize that it is not necessarily possible – or desirable – for every school. Because of this, we take a flexible approach that begins with a basic level of expectation in school culture, commitment and ethos, inviting schools to access the opportunities and resources that work for them, and leave out of the mix any that don’t. In this way each school in the Round Square community creates its own particular recipe for Round Square.
Round Square Schools have many opportunities to collaborate with other schools across the network, ranging from academic endeavours, to conference participation, from language learning to cultural trips or exchanges, from art competitions to science experiments, and everything in between. School staff swap resources and experience, share ideas and problem-solve together, celebrate each other's successes and offer support to one another.
Students and teachers in Round Square schools have the chance to take part in age-appropriate local, regional and global conferences that bring them together with peers from different countries to share perspectives, debate topical issues, forge friendships, support local communities, and develop international understanding. Each year there are lots of different conference opportunities on offer, and these are advertised via a weekly e-newsletter sent to every school.
RS schools take it in turns to send out a weekly 'Postcard' invitation to invite students from across the world to join a 60 or 90 minute Zoom call hosted by their students on a topic of their choice. Usually bringing together between 70 and 150 students from up to 30 schools each week, the postcards combine informal chat with formal presentation, Q&A, debate and discussion in Baraza breakout groups, games and quizzes. Students also have the opportunity to host, and participate in, language labs, in which the host students lead conversations in their native language for participating students who are learning that language.
Students and teachers in RS schools can take part in a Round Square International Service (RSIS) Projects. Run to the highest standards of quality and safety, these bring together participants from RS Member Schools all over the world to work together in mixed international teams in support of communities in need. Round Square International Service Projects involve students working on-the-ground in the partner community for two weeks during either July or December, working closely with the community. RSIS Projects engage students in a process of action and reflection that develops their understanding of the needs of a partner community and involves them in a practical project to addresses those needs.
