At Virendra Public School, our pupils’ learning process occupies a central position. Virendra Public School offers children an excellent education, a rich learning environment and a unique and personal learning experience.

As an organization, Virendra Public School aims to develop on a continuous basis. The content and organization of our education, the resources we use, the professionalism of our team, the way in which our building is arranged, are constantly reviewed to help us find improvements that will enable our pupils to develop even better.

Our unique form of education rests upon three major pillars:

• International education
• 21st century skills
• Cooperative learning
   

International education

International Curriculum, which was developed around 20 years ago by Fieldwork Education in London, among others. In practical terms this means that we work with interesting and inspiring themes. We spend between four and six hours on nternational Curriculum each week. This curriculum covers every discipline, ranging from geography, biology and social studies to arithmetic and language. Themes include various topics like young and old, the mission to Mars and globalization, for example.

International curriculum

More than 2000 schools worldwide are currently working in same manner. It places great emphasis on working together in a purposeful manner. Virendra Public School also aims to incorporate internationalization in all its themes. This is based on the following educational goals:

• Knowledge goals (knowing),
• Competency goals (being able to),
• Insight goals (understanding) and
• Personal goals (investigation, respect, cooperation, adaptability, caring, resilience, ethics, communication).

21st century skills

Children are growing up in a complex and dynamic world which is becoming increasingly digitalized and globalized. Interactive information and opinions are always present no matter where you are.

At Virendra Public School, children receive Media Literacy lessons that teach them how to navigate the Internet in a safe, sensible and critical manner. They learn how to make choices, validate information and make connections so that they can participate in developing knowledge.

Skills

‘21st century skills’ is an umbrella term for a number of general competences that are important in our knowledge and network-based society. Examples include:

• Critical thinking
• Creative thinking
• Problem-solving thinking
• Information skills
• Basic IT skills
• Media wisdom
• Communication
• Cooperation
• Social and cultural skills (citizenship)
• Self-regulation

In the next few years we will be linking learning objectives and instructional formats to these 21st century competencies.
 

Structural Cooperative Learning (SCL)

‘Learning together by working together’ is the motto of cooperative learning. When children work within a group, they participate in a joint task on an equal footing and share responsibility for what they learn together.

Learning together

Cooperative learning is not only about what children learn, but also about how they learn. They are assigned a learning task which incorporates a shared goal together with one or more children. Each child must make an equal contribution in order to complete the assignment.

Class management

Classroom activities are structured according to cooperative learning. Children work in a fixed team which functions as their ‘home base’ for six to eight weeks. Within their team, children either work together in pairs, with the whole team or on an individual task. To encourage cooperation, the teacher assigns ‘team builders’ and ‘class builders’, activities involving the team or entire class to foster and maintain relationships between the children.

The benefits of Structural Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning encourages pupils to get involved and participate actively. There is a great deal of variety in instructional formats and the children learn not only with each other but from each other. Cooperative learning promotes the development of social skills and helps to create a positive atmosphere within the group.