New! monthly feature from Moreton Hall Preparatory School
by Simon Head
There are more than three important things to learn at school, but in aiming to master as many lessons as possible you can lose sight of which ones are more essential than the rest. If you were making a sandwich, you’d resist putting everything of nutritional value in the fridge in it; if you were creating an ideal education, you’d be similarly selective. So what are the crusty bread, brown sauce and sausage of the perfect school sandwich? Elementarily, what provides the meat is Challenge.
Challenge is tricky. Too much is stressful, too little is boring: but the right amount develops you. If I tried to lift a car above my head I wouldn’t. If I tried to lift an apple I’d succeed, but I wouldn’t get any stronger. Heaving a bicycle heavenwards would be a move in the right direction, but I’d have to do it again and again before I could graduate to something more impressive. Children need to learn to love Challenge. They should seek it, and schools supply it.
A good teacher knows how to set the right challenges for their pupils, and adjust them continuously. A good pupil enjoys challenging themselves, as well as being challenged by others. A school can only get its pupils to this stage by providing different levels, and types, of challenge throughout every day. To get the balance right, a teacher has to understand the potential of each child. Keeping classes to sensible sizes and giving teachers time to study and discuss progress enables this. With the right diet of challenge, individual potential is developed, fulfilled and extended. With the right sandwich, you can lift cars above your head.
Simon Head is Headmaster of Moreton Hall Preparatory School.
Next Month: The Second Most Important Thing to Learn at School
