As we enter Adhyayan’s 9th year of collaborations with schools across the country to develop a common language of quality education, we take time to hear from co-founders Kavita Anand and Spokey Wheeler, as they share the vision behind the mission of ‘a good school for every child’.
In October 2011, Kavita and Spokey set up Adhyayan as an educational movement of Indian and International educators, dedicated to improving the quality of leadership and learning in schools. Since then, Adhyayan has worked with private and government school and system leaders to transform the quality of schools and the learning opportunities of their students.
Our end goal of making learning relevant and exciting across 1.5 million schools could only work if all teachers adopted an agreed framework of child-centred, contemporary best practices. To do so, teachers required on-site professional development followed by monitoring and handholding by their trusted leaders. Only then would their delivery become effective, and positively impact on student learning.
Good schools have school leaders who embrace instructional or academic leadership as a first priority and work unceasingly on improving the practice of their teachers. They also ensure that student learning is not limited to the textbook. To deliver a holistic curriculum, good school leaders access resources and partnerships from within the community and also support their teachers and resource persons with teaching learning material and infrastructure. Over and above all of this, they ensure that their students are safe, healthy and happy.
Clearly school leadership is the key to a good school. What the last 8 years have shown is that adopting the Adhyayan quality standard is often a catalyst for transformational changes in the school’s leadership and management of teaching and learning. The AQS process is helping school leaders engage with evidence, and adopt a more systemic, rigorous and informed approach to assessing practice. School leaders focused on improvement welcome external insights, are open and receptive to student, staff and parent voice. They are keen to identify and address their own and their staff’s professional development needs.
You can hear leaders of schools on our YouTube, sharing their experience.
Do share this information with schools you think would be interested. They can reach us at info@adhyayan.asia