The PSB encourages strong partnerships between parents and schools, that promote an understanding of how a child learns.
With the clear target of developing life long learners, we believe it is important for parents to have clear access to what is being studied and an understanding of why. In PSB schools children continue to have a minimum of two assessment tests per year and the relationship between knowledge and skills is hugely important.
What makes the PSB distinctive is the active and focused development of skills at the heart of curriculum study. Alongside a grading system for academic study there is one for skills, and this is monitored by individual tutors with input from all staff. Schools monitor this in different ways, but all PSB schools have a tutorial system focused on individual personal development. Tutors meet regularly with children in their groups and also hold 1:1 meetings when they go through all aspects of school life and the development of an individual’s academic and extra-curricular profile.
The aim is to ensure that by the time pupils leave their junior schools they will have developed a secure understanding of how they learn, strong independent and collaborative learning skills and also experienced leadership. In schools that have been running a PSB skills based curriculum it is clear that they take far greater ownership of, and interest in, their learning than is the case in a purely knowledge based curriculum.
