The British School of Bern is a small international day school serving 100 three- to twelve-year-olds from a variety of nationalities and cultures. After sending a single faculty member to attend a Schools Attuned to All Kinds of Minds course, Head Teacher Enid Potts realized they’d found an approach that closely fit her own views on learning variation.
In 2005 Ms. Potts participated in the course herself. Ms. Potts then recruited more of The British School’s teachers to attend a Schools Attuned course in Geneva. The school currently has more than half of its faculty trained in All Kinds of Minds’ philosophies and processes. The team routinely integrates the approach into lesson planning, teaching and assessment. While they draw on their neurodevelopmental knowledge to target particular interventions for students who are struggling, faculty members agree that the practice of considering how individual students learn benefits all their students.
The school has also used the approach as a way to directly engage students and parents in supporting learning. Older students participate in activities and lessons that introduce them to neurodevelopmental terms and that encourage them to explore their own learning strengths and weaknesses. In an effort to facilitate and build collaboration between teachers and parents, The British School also offers workshops for parents to introduce them to the All Kinds of Minds philosophy and vocabulary, and to equip them with ideas on how they can better support student learning outside of the classroom.
Ms. Potts and her staff credit their work with All Kinds of Minds for fostering their development as professional educators. “The initial course gave us input, inspiration and insight into re-evaluating our own methodologies of teaching,” Ms. Potts notes. “Moreover, it gave us practical support in developing and maintaining relationships with students and parents.”
