From the Head of School

Student Agency

Paul Menzies, ISA’s compliance officer, makes sure that the school is safe. He checks that the pool, the science labs and the playgrounds have risk assessments and that these are followed.  He organises outside audits to double check on his checks, and reflects on any incidents to see if we can improve our practice.

Every Friday, Paul and I meet to discuss upcoming trips and events: is the calendar correct, have parent letters gone out, is the finance set up, what are the teacher-student ratios, is the transport organised; do we have first aid in place?  And so on, until we are sure that what is happening is both safe and worthwhile.  Most weeks we are joined by the principals, the head of facilities, our transport coordinator and the nurse.  

Recently we are just as likely to be joined by students.  Student citizenship is at the heart of current strategic plans.  We want students who can use what they learn to better their communities.  Both now and when they graduate.  In the jargon of the IB, this leadership is called ‘agency’.  For the IB ‘agency’ consists of ‘voice’, ‘choice’ and ‘ownership’.  Students should have a say in how to improve the school (voice); and by then identifying the appropriate action to make that improvement (choice), they take responsibility for it (ownership). 

The IB infographic showing what agency means

In our meeting this week, Paul, the principals and I talked to two National Honor Society students about a ceilidh they were organising to raise high school spirits. We also heard a proposal from a group of Grade 11 students to set up a buddy system, pairing high schoolers with elementary students. Both of these ideas came from the students in response to needs they themselves had identified. The job of the adults around them was not to tell them what to do, but how to do it. We asked them how they were addressing first aid and child protection issues, who was to be involved, how they would fund their events and how they would be communicated. On many specifics, they will ask for help and look for advice, but within a process that they ‘own’ and for an outcome they take responsibility for. A school should do lots of things for students, but more importantly it should enable students to do lots of things for themselves.