No exams, no uniform and no football team: Inside the best school in the world
8 NOVEMBER 2019 • 10:00AM
In a quiet corner of southern California, in a small sun-dappled school, a group of casually dressed teenagers are chattering about their upcoming lessons. The walls around them are hung with artwork, including a display of handmade skateboards painted in vibrant colours.
Subject boundaries are fluid. Maths and physics are taught as one. English and history share time. One recent environmental project combined Spanish with biology to create a children’s book. An art and physics scheme resulted in a school full of life-size wooden staircases which – like an Escher lithograph – led nowhere.
Welcome to High Tech High, one of the least-known, best-known educational establishments in the world. It has achieved fame in part thanks to a 2018 documentary called Most Likely To Succeed, which showed a day in the life of the school and has been screened around the world.
At this school, exams have been jettisoned – on the whole – for projects that are displayed at the end of the autumn term to an audience of parents, alumni and locals with an interest. These undertakings have real purpose: a chemistry project involving testing local waterways was fed into wider academic work at the University of Southern California. The teens don’t carry satchels of books and the corridors are locker-free. But everywhere there’s an air of purpose and intent and good fortune.
As the film shows, High Tech High is at the cutting edge of learning; so much so that every year 5,000 educators and influencers from around the world, including Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey, come to San Diego to visit – and to pick up a little of its magic to take home.
They are here not for some sort of Californian fantasy. This is a school that gets results for its pupils. A state-funded charter school (similar to a UK free school), it takes pupils on an academically blind, zip code-based lottery system but sends 95 per cent to university.
Pupils are not elite: 15 per cent have special educational needs and get additional support, 50 per cent are low-income (qualifying for free or reduced-cost lunch), and 44 per cent of the school’s graduates are the first in their family to go on to higher education.
Established in 2000, High Tech High was envisioned by educational leader Larry Rosenstock, tech billionaire Irwin Jacobs and a group of San Diego civic heads and teachers who rethought schooling for the 21st century. Not in a Silicon Valley ‘let’s make everything digital’ (but then carry on teaching as before) way.
Instead, it looked at all the elements of a child’s education – from uniform to hierarchies to the exam system – and compared it to the modern world of work. And it posed the question: how can a system of education that was set up to produce workers for the factories and plants of the 19th and 20th century be relevant to young people who face a completely different workplace today?
In previous generations, workers sat in rows in offices or stood in line by conveyor belts doing repetitive work at the same companies until they retired. They needed to learn discipline, patience, an understanding of hierarchy and how to take orders. As we progress into the 21st century, employment already looks quite different. With less job security and a fast-changing job market, workers need to learn flexibility, resilience and teamwork. In addition to academic skills, there will also be more focus on technology, politics and language.
Sophia Morrison, 17, who joined the school (at North County, one of High Tech High’s six campuses) at 13 from a more traditional middle school, is one of those Gen Z-ers who will face a world her grandparents could not have imagined. Confident and poised, she takes us on a tour of an institution she is clearly bonded to. ‘My little brother has just joined in ninth grade [year 10 in the UK],’ Sophia says, ‘and my father wishes he could have come here.’
The original school teaches children aged 14-18 (UK years 10-13). The youngest and most senior years share the ground floor, with the elders acting as positive role models for the newbies. They have separate classes for compulsory subjects like maths but in optional classes – coding, leadership, sports – different ages often learn together.
One of the most important rooms is the Maker Space – a large area full of power tools and hunks of sawn-off wood. ‘You learn the foundation skills of carpentry in classes when you arrive at the school,’ says Sophia. ‘Everyone is taught to use a drill and a saw so they are confident and safe.’
These practical skills are crucial to the whole education concept of High Tech High. Rosenstock became interested in education when he was a law student in Boston and started teaching carpentry to children. He became convinced that vocational and academic training could be combined to improve education.
After years working in education policy and management, Rosenstock began to research what made the best high school, but no one seemed to have any real idea. Then he met Jacobs, founder of San Diego wireless technology firm Qualcomm, who was struggling to hire engineers who also had communication skills, and who wanted to set up a school. Together they conceived High Tech High.
Early on, Rosenstock discovered that if children made things as they learnt, their comprehension and recollection of the topic was improved. One of his early slogans for the school was: ‘You can play video games at HTH, but only if you make them here.’
Rosenstock’s concepts have roots in ‘deeper learning’, an educational notion first described in 2010 by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a US charity committed to the advancement of education for all. Deeper learning is based on encouraging critical thinking and problem solving, learning to collaborate, and effective presentation skills. A study from the American Institutes for Research reported in 2016 that students who attend schools that practise this experience more positive academic outcomes than those who don’t. Most of all, it instils a love and respect for learning.
At High Tech High, this can present itself in different ways. Sophia explains, ‘In our maths class, the teacher explains a concept. Then we all must go away and use this concept to create our own problem and solution – and then come back and teach the rest of the class. It’s a really powerful way to learn. And sometimes it’s easier to understand from your peers than a teacher.’
Teamwork doesn’t end there. Sophia explains that as the students stay in the same small form (25 per class with three or four classes per year group) from the start of school, with whom they must work on everything, they bond fiercely.
Individuals take it in turns to lead on projects and sometimes that means that if a leader fails, they all do. Challenging behaviour – these are teens, after all – becomes the responsibility of all. ‘We’re very good at conflict resolution,’ says Sophia with a smile. ‘Problems get picked up fast and some kids have had to leave. We can discuss our concerns at community meetings of the entire year group. We all talk and find a solution.’
We walk past the senior art class, where students are studying dreams and creating masks, as they explore their sense of identity. It’s a central theme at High Tech High, working out who you are and how you make the most of your place in the world.
Another facet of High Tech High life is the two month-long internships that all students undertake. Workplaces have included tech companies, sports coaching and art galleries. Sophia spent her first month at a birth and fertility clinic, and she intends to work there again this December. ‘It was such a powerful experience,’ she says. ‘It’s made me realise I want to work in midwifery.’
But can any school dismiss the idea of exams so completely? Sophia confirms that as the students get closer to graduation, they are set some exams as preparation. They also get the opportunity to go to the local community college (the equivalent of a further- education college in the UK) to take additional courses such as business studies. ‘We may not be as exam-prepped as other students,’ says Sophia, ‘but we have good people skills and we know how to get help and to ask for what we need. And we have real work experience.’
No school system is perfect and at High Tech High, staff admit that its size both works for and against it. With only 400 children in the senior school and about 330 in the middle school (equivalent to UK years 7-9), it’s easier to be flexible and respond to individual needs. But music and sport are not covered as well – with so few pupils, teams are less competitive and orchestras are almost impossible to fill.
There is no traditional Homecoming at High Tech High – the annual football game that American teenagers love – because there is no football team. Despite this, High Tech High is slowly expanding across the San Diego region, with 16 schools, spanning kindergarten to high school, responsible for 6,000 students.
At High Tech Middle’s North County campus, where a huge whale made of recycled rubbish hangs above the lobby, Kelly Jacob, director for the past two years, greets me with a wide smile. She arrived here when she was looking at schools for her own child – ‘I found this and I was all in,’ she says.
‘We have been very intentional at High Tech High about keeping our class sizes, team sizes and school sizes small,’ she points out. ‘This allows us to build that sense of community and collaboration.’
She is quick to dispatch the idea that the school doesn’t equip children with the academic skills they need. ‘Kids still need to learn to read and write,’ she says.
We walk past a classroom where the children are listening to music by Queen while writing poetry that will be turned into rap songs. The 11-year-olds announce in turn what they intend to focus on. ‘Racism,’ says one. ‘Climate change,’ says another. And then they go back to giggling and dancing in their seats like every child around the world.
Encouraging individuality is vital, says Jacob. ‘It is the first school I have worked in where students do not feel afraid to share their ideas, collaborate with others, and push back in meaningful ways.’
While the influence of High Tech High has been felt around the world, it’s fair to say that some UK schools – both independent and state-funded – are just as innovative in their own ways. At Bedales in Hampshire – an independent school that was founded in 1893 by John Haden Badley, in reaction to the limitations of conventional Victorian schools – disruption is in its DNA. Indeed, head Magnus Bashaarat recently stated that if Labour Party policy to turn independent schools into state schools were enacted, he would rather see Bedales close as its entire purpose would be lost.
‘Were I to be given the ultimatum,’ Bashaarat said, ‘that Bedales be made a state school, and that it should follow the national curriculum and policymakers’ preoccupations with the transfer of knowledge and disregard for humanities and the arts, I would have to decline. I would rather we shut our doors.’ He added: ‘School should be a preparation for life, not just for a job.’
When we meet, Bashaarat explains that deeper learning is very much part of the core at Bedales: ‘In the sixth form, many of our students choose to manufacture a product or make an artefact in their extended project,’ he explains.
Collaboration is also encouraged; three sixth-form students shared a project investigating Islamic architecture, which saw them travel to Istanbul to interview Turkish curators, resulting in not a series of essays but a short film. ‘Teachers can be convenors and facilitators,’ he explains. ‘We can support and steer areas for investigation.’
The school has also taken a scythe to traditional exams at 16. While students must study five GCSEs (the number required for college entrance), they also pick four Bedales Assessed Courses (BACs), home-grown qualifications that have been accepted by universities as GCSE-equivalent. These involve group work and presentations as well as timed assessments. Subjects include English literature – where the curriculum is wider than for the traditional GCSE – computer- game design, and outdoor work, which involves animal husbandry as well as ecology.
There is talk of creating a sixth-form course in sustainable living, which would see students living off-grid as part of their studies. The team are also looking into the idea of a 6:3 year, after A levels have been taken, to involve volunteering and internships.
Barely eight miles away is state school Bohunt, centre of the Bohunt Education Trust, which operates seven academies from Wokingham to Worthing. Despite being part of the state-education system, headteacher Neil Strowger and director of education Phil Avery believe they can be as innovative as they need to be. Although there has been a fair amount of criticism that the current national curriculum in the UK is too rigid, focusing on teaching a narrow range of subjects, schools such as Bohunt are refusing to be boxed in. Avery has visited High Tech High and says: ‘There are aspects to it that are really sound. They have incredibly high standards in their project work.’
But he says that what they are achieving is down to something called ‘retrieval practice’, which Avery explains is ‘about teaching something repeatedly in different ways; that’s why the learning is enhanced’. He says that this is something Bohunt schools do too – albeit in different ways.
Both Strowger and Avery are unsure whether the High Tech High method suits all children. ‘It’s not a magic pedagogical bullet,’ says Strowger. ‘It’s all very well to raise the roof but you need a supportive floor in the first place or children fall through the cracks. We won’t do that here.’ Not that either of them is particularly enamoured of those schools that are emerging with a diametrically opposed system –such as the Michaela Community School in north London, where discipline is absolute and results have been impressive.
‘The jury is out,’ says Avery. ‘Will the children be performing as well in four years’ time when they have left school? Without intense pressure, will they unravel?’
Strowger says, ‘I want children to enjoy school. Growing up is hard and mental health is fragile at the best of times.’
Bohunt School has become famous for its immersive Mandarin teaching, with children who opt in at year 7 achieving GCSEs in the language after three years. But the school has also experimented with what it calls the Bohunt Baccalaureate in years 7-9, when pupils were encouraged to do extended projects in anything from kitemaking to fashion.
Now, like Bedales, they are exploring how to build outdoor studies into the curriculum. They are also passionate about including work experience into the students’ termly routine. Strowger adds, ‘We don’t have a project-based curriculum, but we are working at ways to help build connections between subjects. Schools need to be confident about what they are doing, not to just think about getting kids through the exams.’
And he points out the advantage of size. ‘We are larger than average here but can offer a greater degree of personal learning. Whatever your interest, you will find an outlet for it.’ Avery asks the key question: ‘How do you innovate without ruining a child’s chances? They only go through school once.’
One area that none of the schools seem to concur over is uniform – or lack of it. Bohunt is for, Bedales and High Tech High against. At the latter, the decision to allow children to wear what they want was – appropriately – student led. When the school opened, Kelly Jacob explains, there was a professional dress code that required collared shirts. ‘They looked so smart. It was explained to the children that presenting like a professional was important and respectful. But then a 14-year-old wrote to the teachers and said, “My dad goes to work in overalls – does that mean he isn’t professional in his work?”’
Jacob beams with pride. ‘So, we got rid of the code. He was quite right.’
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