Small Schools by Design: Why Size, Relationships and Culture Beat Scale

Christian Convence, guest · [02:02]Yeah, how it starts our, started our journey. In 1995, my father more or less resigned from his position as a headmaster from state schools. He was, paid by government for twenty, yeah, twenty five years, and he was always busy to close down schools. So, and he was tired of it because he always took the future for the kids. That is why he said, no, I'm fed up with it, so I want to do my own thing. So in the beginning, we were not a, private school. We have been a coaching institution. And, at the peak time, we had about 180 different schools in our region, and we supported around about 300 students, from these schools, from primary school up to high school, all type of, schools and, ages. And from this, of course, our, private school. We started in 2002. In total, it was four kids. So that was our, beginning. So we extended quite fast. after two more years, we had already 65 students, so we had to, find a new, accommodation for our school. So we bought in 2004 an old monastery that was built in 1927, and it was important, in history for, during the Second World War, because our village is right situated next to the border to Belgium, and it was the very first, spot of Germany. That was freed by the Allies. And in our region, that was the most intense battlefield for the Allies, Hürtgenwald. Everybody have heard about it, I think. Twenty thousand, more than twenty thousand, Allies died, in the battle against the German Nazis. But our monastery was at this time a hospital for German and Allied soldiers at the same time, and so it's a big history later on. It was a kindergarten, then it was, a kind of hospital, and then a station to give birth and all that stuff. so it's, lots of history in this, old building. When we bought it in 2004, and we kept it more or less like it was from the outside. Inside, of course, we had to swap it a little bit that the classes were perfect for our, ideas, because we have maximum 15 kids in one class, and it was tiny, rooms we had to extend a little bit, and then, we started, in 2005 already in this new building with, 65 kids. And then, later on in 2009, we already had about 100 students. It was too small, so we, extended our school that we, built up a new building right next to it. It's a modern one, and we use it now since 2010. So from then on, We have capacity of about three hundred fifty students, but, this is a goal we don't want to achieve. We want to have space. We want to be aware of that we, can support the kids how they need, and yeah, actual, actual, amount of students we have is one hundred fifty kids.

Christian Convence, guest · [13:21]So that is a big advantage we have as a, private Ergänzungsschule, how it's called in our province, because we, our duty is to fulfill the curriculum and prepare the kids for the final exams in grade ten and grade thirteen. But the metric test will be run by government. So they are invited, they have to apply for this, final test. Then they are invited, they come to know of the teachers who will, do the tests or will mark the test, be are not involved in the final results and so on. So the advantage is everything that happens in our school is not part of the metric So they can mess up, they can fail as much as they like, I just have to see a movement, and this is the flexibility we have, and this is also an advantage for some of the students who fail at the gymnasium, in Germany, and they can't go on, but they still have a chance to go on with us and still do the, the Abitur, so the Matric, and, this is the advantage we have, their flexibility, because we just prepare, they get the feedback, what is good, what is bad, where we have to work on, and where we need more time, or hopefully everything is running fine, and you go for it, and that's fine, because application for the Abitur will be one year in advance, so we have to apply for it, in the end of the school term, before that, just before the summer holidays, and then they are tested in eight subjects, it will be mathematics, German, English, history, compulsory, they have to do a second foreign language, we, support French and Spanish, and the Chinese have the chance to do, Chinese as a second foreign language, so that's the joker. And, then we also have, biology, physics, geo- geography, and social, economics. These are the subjects we, we are teaching it. So as a small school, I mean, we have a variety of, subjects, yeah, but, we have to concentrate, focus on some of them so that we, can support it, because two and a half years for metric, I tell you guys, is not a long time. You have to wake up.

Gershom Aitchison, host · [29:39]It's interesting that that all of us are talking about not just being a small school for the sake of being a small school there's in in the research for this this article out of South Africa specifically a Stellenbosch University research saying that reducing class sizes on its own doesn't improve results. It's reducing the class sizes, having a specific pedagogical goal and, mindset in how you are going to facilitate the curriculum, and then creating an intentional culture within your school, that being relationship-based, that being family-based, that being creating a space for kids to come to, in your case, the non, you know, the nonverbal, sorry, how did you articulate, nonviolent, communication, that creates the magic. If it just, and it was also, emphasized the, you know, the Gates Foundation put one point five billion into funding small schools in the US, and some of them had phenomenal results, you know, Bloom's Two Sigma results, you know, but there are other schools that didn't. They just stayed exactly the same, and the research, the research showed that it was because of the intention, intentionality behind the pedagogy and the culture of the school that made the difference. So starting a small school and people saying small numbers in classes are the res, what results in improvement is not the default. There has to be a culture and a pedagogical backbone to make that actually work. Yes, Marc.

Marc Loon, guest · [31:15]Gershom, I think there's, there's the thing about small schools that because we are not the norm, and in, because we're not just simply a, a replication of a big school that suddenly pops up, we are pushed to innovate. Yes. There, there is an intrinsic pressure in order to, to survive, in order to be distinctive and, and push ourselves to, to, to push the envelope.

Gershom Aitchison, host · [31:40]I'll take that one step further and say that We have to justify our relevance or our existence through our relevance, and that innovation is driven not just for the sake of innovation, it's driven to be remain relevant in society, and we are able to respond to society's needs better than what big schools are. Because we are more nimble, and our existence is about staying relevant for our families and communities, that's why the innovation takes place, not because we just want to innovate for the sake of innovation.

Jesse, audience member · [37:15]So, I joined the school in, say, grade five. And beforehand I had no confidence in myself the larger schools like completely destroyed me I didn't think I could do math my english was falling behind and I just didn't think that I was gonna make it through the school system and then I came to Edu Inc and Miss Day sat me down and was like you can go back a grade and you're gonna do well or you're gonna struggle through but either way you're gonna make it and after that I was like well I'll go back a grade went back a grade and well now I I do very well you could say top of the class but and then as for the like socializing I think small schools are So much better because you hang out with a bunch of people that you might not necessarily hang out with if you were anywhere else. And you're put into these situations, like I'm put into a class of some pretty crazy people, but we all get along and we all work things out amongst each other and we're incredibly tightly knit and it causes a very tight bond and any problems that we have, we can always sit down with a teacher and just air it out where in a public school you might just be told like, I don't know, go outside, if you keep doing this, we're going to have to send you to detention or you're going to have to leave the school, but like here we can just air out our concerns and have a civil discussion.

Ishan Singh, guest · [50:10]Teaching in a small school is not, it's not about the teacher's enjoyment of the curriculum. It's about finding ways every day or you know every time you teach a topic, finding different ways of presenting that so that it's meaningful to the learner. And you you could teach the same topic several times, but each time you're doing it, it's in an entirely different way. And so it's, it doesn't become like stale. You know, you're finding different ways because the group of kids that you're teaching are completely different and have different needs. So it's not, it's not about the teacher just putting on the show. It's really directed to the learners, which is then beneficial to you as a teacher in terms of your pedagogy, and parallel to that, you as a teacher in terms of your ability to assess, you know, which I think are two different things. Teaching almost like the ability to convey it, but then assessing, getting that feedback back to you. So academically, it's, you know, it's an enjoyable experience. And then the second thing is, you know, a phrase or a concept that I use almost daily in conversations is what I refer to as our holy trinity here at Edu Inc. It's the, you know, the IQ, EQ, AQ. And we refer to it so often. It's part of our, one of our values and part of our daily conversations. everyone has their IQ. And you might be able to change that by a few points in the course of your lifetime, but your Q and A Q you can change or increase significantly. And a child may get nine distinctions and then go on to university like you said and struggle because of the underdeveloped E Q and A Q. In a small school like Edu Inc, we can put in enough time and effort into developing the E Q and A Q so that kids leave regardless of what the I Q is, they will be successful in whatever they choose to do. And I think that's, that's reassuring. You know, if you have some massive I Q, good for you. But without that strong, like tractor wheels, of I Q, E Q and A Q supporting you, that's not going to just translate into success. And in a space like this, we can put in, put in the, the time and effort into that.

Philip, audience member · [58:25]So when our son came from remedial education in grade four to Edu Inc, we we were just looking at a school with small classes, simple. And Gershom said, send him on a trial week. So anyway, he came for a trial week. Jesse was his mentor, mentor I think. And this child cried the whole day. He wouldn't let me go. Eventually Gershom said, just get out of here. Come fetch him at two fifteen. Came to fetch him at two fifteen. He was the happiest kid I've ever met. And I could, and I don't know what it was, but it, and I'll come back to figuring out what it was later. Then he's been here for four years and he's been very content. He's, he's had his issues, but he's fitted in and he's happy to come to school. Then our daughter went through a bad patch at college, a bit of bullying that was going on at the college she was at, I'm not going to mention names, and, anyway, I contacted Gershom, he said, let her come and do a trial week. But before the trial week was offered to her, Megan and I had spoken to her in detail about, coming to Edu Inc with her brother, and she said, I would rather die than come to my brother's school. I will not go to Edu Inc. Anyway, she came for the trial week, and I can't remember who her mentor was, but, come the end of the day, she absolutely loved it, and she went back, and now she's been there for over two months. And the only thing I can, like, when I say I can't put my finger on it, Is that the school offers a mentorship approach. So like you mentored our son, someone mentored Jamie, they just got made to feel comfortable and accepted, which I don't think they got anywhere else really.