Philip Stainton uses his years of experience to suggest ways that international schools can adapt their curriculum to develop skills in their students that will help them with the transition to university life.
Part of the role of a secondary school is to prepare its cohorts for life after compulsory education, and for the majority of students this means moving to a university. For many in the British international school sector, this could mean a multitude of global locations, but predominantly the trend still seems to be towards the UK. Through externally assessed qualifications such as A Levels or the IBDP programme, students should become prepared academically to access the subject content at university level. Some schools will offer a wide range of extra-curricular activities to allow students to showcase talents that they could use to contribute to their university life, or give opportunities for extended project qualifications to showcase independent study skills. But what are the other skills or attributes can schools help prepare their students with? And do these align with what universities are actually looking for in students?
For the most part, outstanding international schools do a fine job in helping their students with narrowing down their selection choices of preference, as well as with the subsequent university applications. For Oxford/Cambridge applications, schools often support students with the interview preparation to help guide their answers. But these instances are an example of logistical support rather than a holistic view to preparation.
But the question remains, how successful are schools in creating that independence of learning?
A common belief within schools is that universities want students who are independent learners with critical thinking skills. Schools then proceed to go about trying to instil these virtues within pupils through their everyday practise, either through teaching and learning pedagogy, pupil leadership opportunities or extra-curricular programmes. But the question remains, how successful are schools in creating that independence of learning?
Through conversations with UK university Senior Lecturers Dr Hayley Stainton and Mark Samuels and their experience with new student interviews and 1st year students, I have learnt that more emphasis should be placed on these holistic skills. They describe students who often have strong subject knowledge, but lack the general self-study skills that universities require and wish schools could focus more on:
- Time management - Often the end of topic/semester essay containing in the region of 2000-5000 words is hastily written by 1st year students, and not enough time and attention is placed into their work over a sustained period of time. Too often students come with a skill set of writing/completing work within a day and struggle when considering essays of university quality which require more time to complete sufficiently.
- Independent working – Whilst students do have an element of independence to their thinking, few are used to the premise of further reading either directly or indirectly about the subject/topic.
- Initiative – Students can sometimes lack the initiative to move beyond the recommended reading list and take the initiative to spend time in the library to research further into academia.
- Application of knowledge to different contexts/real world – Students in the 1st year often struggle to apply the wealth of knowledge they have gained either through A Levels/IBDP or during the semester at university to other contexts, and especially when discussing real world applications. General knowledge of current affairs or recent historical events beyond the surface level can sometimes be lacking.
- Source analysis skills – Universities often find students struggle with analysing source material into an essay without paraphrasing what is already written. To be able to analyse sources of information and place this into a concise summary without plagiarising is key to university academia.
- Referencing skills – Whilst this has started to be addressed within opportunities such as the EPQ, universities would want students to have more of an understanding of what referencing is, Where to use it, And why it is important.
As Dr Stainton states, “If students could demonstrate knowledge and understanding of some of these issues, universities would be more willing to offer an unconditional offer should the grades be of standard.”
In summary, I pose the question, are schools doing enough to help prepare students for the transition to university and the skills they are looking for and how could the skills listed above be included at your school?
