At BSB we ensure that students are offered choice at every possible opportunity along their academic pathway.
However, we are also fully aware that those choices need to be fully informed, and that students and parents need support in order to make certain this is the case.
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We focus on giving students more say in their curriculum determining what they learn. This begins in Primary where we take a transdisciplinary project approach. Curriculum areas are interwoven to create specific links and to allow students to dive deeper into their learning, with a real sense of purpose and rigour.
Building on this excellent inquiry-based learning, in Years 7 and 8 we combine several subject areas within our BSB Integrated Learning Project lessons. Here students are encouraged to think creatively, to adopt an open mindset and look to make connections across disciplines.
Students are encouraged to choose alternative approaches, to choose the role they wish to play within their groups and to make choices on possible project outcomes.
Teacher guidance across school is constant but independent thinking is encouraged at all times and the benefits of this approach are evident across all our students’ subjects.
As early as the end of Year 8, we allow and encourage our students to start to make choices about the curriculum they wish to pursue.
Alongside our core curriculum, in Year 9, students have the opportunity to choose 6 other subjects and to get a taste of what they may wish to continue studying at GCSE level. By being flexible and offering this choice, students are naturally more committed to all their subjects in Year 9.
The three choices of option subject our students then go on to make at the end of the year for GCSE are also properly informed, ultimately leading to greater success in the GCSE exams for those subjects.
Before entering Nexus for the final two years of school, students have a choice to make between the IB and the A level systems and then a further choice as to which subjects they wish to study within those systems. IB students will need to make a choice of 6 subjects and nearly all our A level students choose 4 subjects.
We are fully aware that choice is a great thing but that it needs to be accompanied by first-class guidance. Tutors, teachers and school leaders are on hand to provide both this and, wherever possible, the necessary flexibility, to ensure students feel secure and happy on their chosen pathways.
Our BSB Learning Habits are designed to ensure learning goes a long way beyond course content.
From Organisation to Socialising and Leadership to Determination, Lessons, Assemblies, Societies and After-School Activities are all planned to promote these and other dispositions and life skills, which are applicable within school and beyond.
The value we place on metacognition, our fostering of creativity and our encouragement of resilience help students see school as a place where they can choose to take control of their learning and develop a genuine passion for their subjects and activities.
One of the key outcomes of the choice and support we give students are our excellent examination results at all ages within the school.
These are well above the national averages and demonstrate high levels of achievement and progress.
Every year a certain number of students are awarded certificates from the exam boards for having achieved the highest marks in Spain or in Europe for certain subjects.
