FROM THE HEAD - Julie A Gillick

With so much of my work beyond the School focused on illuminating the notion of 21st Century Boarding – Frensham-style, to those for whom a boarding education for their daughter is a new consideration, it is important to note both the changes in society which are making modern boarding increasingly relevant, and the educational research which confirms what we know to be valuable within boarding Frensham-style:

Imagine a teenager as a balloon.  One minute it is soaring, the next it is floating towards the ground, perhaps heading for a crash.  But, suppose there is someone nearby ready to reach out and give it a gentle “bop” – to send it soaring again.  Better yet – what if there is circle of people, holding a thick web made of yarn – the tighter the web, the less likely the balloon can slip through and hit the ground.

This web and yarn exercise [published in the September 2006 Harvard Education letter] was invented by Dr Derek Peterson, an educational consultant, who uses the metaphor to demonstrate the impact of intervention in supporting resilience in teenagers.  There has been huge interest around the world in the social and emotional development of young people.  In both America and the United Kingdom, schools have developed grade-level learning standards for social and emotional development, with some reporting to parents of boarders based on sets of descriptors which try to capture the developmental process of emotional maturity, including the building of resilience.

Yet, whilst it was not so long ago that the ability to rise above adversity and thrive was thought by many to be innate, this view was never that which guided the approach to teaching and learning at Frensham.   Rather, the Frensham approach has been far more in line with what is being presented as new research, such as that published by the Minneapolis-based Search Institute, where researchers have developed a framework of assets which Schools can use to measure the collective strength of students in terms of resilience.  The 40 assets are broadly grouped into eight categories: those which contribute to student support, empowerment, boundaries and expectations, constructive use of time, commitment to learning, positive values, social competencies and positive identity.

Peterson’s work suggests that the more ‘assets’ acquired by each teenager, the less likely he or she is to participate in high-risk behaviours, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, age, socio-economic background, community size or region.  He also confirms what we know to be true, that ‘human development is inextricably linked to academic development’ and that many educational institutions have ‘risked losing sight of this...’.

In a time when the broad societal needs for companionship, connectedness to others and sense of purpose are increasingly not being met, we work hard to take advantage of all available resources to nurture, with parents, the inner strength, self-discipline and passion for life that grow through broad experience and close guidance.

TOP