Practices Identified
- Large classrooms for each ‘team’ (60 students, 5 teachers/coaches)
- Students are mixed across levels
- Teachers act as coaches/mentors and provide social and emotional support
- Self-directed learning by students, they do not need to be working constantly but need to evidence their progress
The Edge team visited Wings Aogra in January 2023 and witnessed an invaluable and creative pedagogy. When students start at the school they are asked what they want to make, learn or do? This is their starting point, they then go on to develop their learning through exploring how they want to learn through a self-directed learning approach. Students are not in lessons all day or divided into age groups. Instead, students are in “Teams” consisting of 60 students across different age groups with five overseeing teachers or “coaches”. There is a comfortable, welcoming and open environment through the structure of the school with a range of different technologies and equipment available for students to use. Students track their challenges and create schedules with the help of their teachers through a student developed online platform. At Agora teachers need coaching and counselling skills as well as massive emotional resilience. They need to be comfortable with themselves, what they know and to be okay with what they don’t know. There is an acknowledgement across the school that teachers don’t know everything and therefore teamwork at Agora is key, mixing up coaches with different abilities and skills. Teachers are learning with students through their journey at Agora.