Horizon 2020 saw that schooling hadn’t really changed over the past hundred years and still worked on the basis of one teacher, one class, one hour per lesson. Students were being prepared for jobs that no longer existed and were missing out on learning key skills. To meet the current and future needs, schooling needed a total transformation.
Horizon 2020 – Reimagine Education is not about implementing small innovations in the classroom. It is about changing the System to have a new Education focused around the person and where Students are the center.
Horizon 2020 is proud to be a disruptive innovation. A network of 8 Jesuit schoolshave disrupted traditional notions of schooling and changed the way teachers teach and learners learn. Through doing so, they are preparing their students for life in the 21st century.
By drawing on progressive innovative pedagogies and theories of learning, Horizon 2020 schools moved towards project-based learning. Students identify project areas and teachers work collaboratively to design projects which integrate a range of skills and subject disciplines. Timetables are built around projects rather than subjects and the continual evaluation is embedded into the process.
Where traditionally one class would work with one teacher, here groups of up to 65 students work with teams of 2 or 3 teachers. Working on projects such as designing a new theme park draws not only develops knowledge in a range of subject areas but also develops 21st century skills such as teamwork, problem solving and creativity.
From the beginning of the innovation, Horizon 2020 has involved parents and the local community in a participative process. Their views on the future of education were considered through the process. Dialogue between students and their families seems to have improved as the students are keen to share their learning at home. Parents themselves are eager to send their children to these new schools.
Teachers feel more connected to their vocation and have moved beyond being a subject teacher to being part of team which collaborates to provide learning contexts which cross traditional subject boundaries. Students see their teachers working in this way and it helps them develop their own team building abilities.
