Mission

Our four-fold mission is to:Articulate, refine and position the concept of ‘the school at the heart of its communities’ within current educational and social priorities, and demonstrate the contribution of such schools to learners’ achievement and well-being as well as the long-term improvement of the country's social and economic fabric;Develop the vision of how such a concept can be translated into practical implementation within any refocusing or readjustment of national policy;Build a voice able to articulate that role, both its contribution and potential, to government, present and future, whilst also building a wider network of support for the concept; andDevelop and offer services and support of value to schools who place themselves ‘at the heart of their communities’ and those who might aspire to do so.

Category

Education and Skills

Additional Information

Schools of Tomorrow was launched at the RSA in October 2013 as a not-for-profit social enterprise, owned and led by school leaders, its members. Our underlying purpose was expressed at the launch by Professor John West-Burnham: "Let us not imagine that we are going to create the outstanding school of tomorrow by continuing to try to incrementally improve the school of today … we need to re-conceptualise completely." As an independent organisation, we believe the most effective schools not only secure high levels of achievement, in every sense, for all their students, but also prepare them well to shape and influence their future in a world we cannot imagine, secure the highest levels of wellbeing for all and engage effectively with their families and communities. We are building a research and development network, including school students themselves as researchers, developing ascribes of evidence-based publications, organising events and providing leadership development programmes for school leaders to help them live in multiple worlds, addressing  the demands of tomorrow whilst coping with the needs of today. We now look to develop this thinking into a new approach to school improvement by developing innovative models of quality and quality assurance and to build around this, over 3 years, a membership of 250 schools committed to putting these ideas into practice. This represents a 10-fold increase in our current membership.