Tokyo school a little piece of England
Yuka Matsumoto Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
This is an excerpt from The Yomiuri Shimbun's Educational Renaissance series. This part of the series focuses on the education system of England.
If you walk up to the fourth floor of a certain building on the campus of Showa Women's University in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, you can find a "little England" there. The floor serves as the Showa campus of the British School in Tokyo (BST), the only institution in Japan that offers an education based on the National Curriculum used in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The campus has corridors with elegantly curved ceilings and bright, pastel-colored rooms. Each classroom is equipped with an electric blackboard.
Children from various nationalities are divided into small groups to be taught by British teachers and Japanese assistants. In every subject, the teachers put priority on encouraging students to write things down and exchange opinions, as those in Britain do.
BST was established in 1989 with cooperation from the Shibuya Gakuen private educational corporation, which offered it a campus on the premises of Shibuya Senior and Junior High School in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, one of the schools the organization runs. BST received similar cooperation from the private women's university when it opened a second campus in September last year to accommodate an increasing student body. The new campus will expand into the third floor of the same building this autumn.
The Shibuya campus currently has about 400 students, consisting of preschoolers and first- to fourth-year students, while there are about 150 students from the fifth to ninth years at the Showa campus. The "ninth year" in the British system is equivalent to the second year of middle school in Japan.
"We offer a high quality of England-style education by hiring teachers and managers with teaching experience working with the National Curriculum," said Head Teacher Michael Farley, 43. "We also offer our students various additional enrichment programs such as performing arts and outdoor activities." Those programs also include learning the language and culture of Japan.
Introduced under the Education Reform Act 1988, the National Curriculum requires all students in state education at the primary and secondary school levels to study subjects such as English, mathematics, science, history, geography, design technology, music, art and design, and physical education, and also sets what children should study within those areas and the levels they are expected to reach.
However, unlike its counterpart in Japan, the National Curriculum does not regulate how much time should be allocated to each subject, nor is there a textbook screening system--which means that each school has the flexibility to decide those aspects of its pedagogy.
Under the National Curriculum, English, math and science are treated as the main subjects, for which students take national standardized tests to assess their progress and attainment compared to the target level. Naturally, students at BST take these tests, too.
In addition, BST also undergoes inspections by a private organization from England, whose inspectors visit the school every couple of years. BST enjoyed high assessments when it was last inspected three years ago.
In the near future, BST will add 10th- and 11th-year classes so that it will be able to cover all compulsory education up to age 16. As part of its expansion, the school has invited a Japanese expert on business management to assume its key management position.
BST's student body is dominated by British expatriates, but it has attracted interest interest from people of various other nationalities, including Japanese, despite annual tuition fees of about 2 million yen.
Fuko Suzuki, 11, for example, moved to BST three years ago after attending a different international school in Tokyo. The girl spent her younger days in the United States because her parents were studying there.
"The school is fun and I love it," said the girl, adding that her teachers carefully listen to her ideas and encourage her to try whatever she likes, such as music and sports.
Her mother, Kyoko, 41, said she is satisfied with her daughter's school. "There's no doubt that it'll be useful for her in the future to be able to express her own ideas in her own words," the mother said. "BST gives proper instruction in preparing for tests. As a parent, it's also reassuring that the school has a system to allow an outside organization to check its performance through inspections."
As the head teacher of this little part of England, Farley has some advice for the country where it's located. "Our educational approach, which encourages children to develop independent minds, creativity and flexibility rather than focusing on the volume of knowledge, has been developed over a long period of time," he said. "If Japan wishes to learn something from English education, I hope that it will adapt methods to today's Japanese culture and context, rather than attempt to copy how we British enable our students to learn."
British, Japanese primary schools trying to make intl flowers bloom
Although spring had yet to arrive in the dreary, chilly outdoors of Durham County, England, in early March, spring sunshine seemed to warm the indoors when Yoshiko Nozaki taught a class at a local primary school there in early March.
In front of a large electronic "blackboard" displaying colorful flowers in a classroom at Peases West Primary School, Nozaki, the 59-year-old principal of Momoi No. 4 Primary School in Suginami Ward, Tokyo, read out a Japanese children's story: Hanasakiyama (Blooming Mountain).
"If you do one kind thing for someone else, a flower will bloom," she read. "That's the way all the flowers bloom on Hanasakiyama."
"I was happy that the children were listening to me so attentively," Nozaki recalled. "Although we speak different languages, I thought we were able to share the same feelings."
During her two-day visit to the school, Nozaki was particularly interested when she observed that students and parents together were taking supplementary classes and joining in after-hours activities.
"I'd like to introduce similar programs to my school straightaway" as a measure to encourage parents to get more involved in their children's education, Nozaki said.
Momoi No. 4 Primary School is a public school designated as a so-called "community school" in which residents in the local community can get involved in the management of the school as members of a school council.
During her visit to Peases West Primary School, Nozaki seemed to be inspired to find that Judith Stirk, 54, her counterpart who has 18 years of experience serving as a principal, has built such a good relationship of mutual trust with a board of school governors comprising teachers, staff members, parents, local residents and local education officials. These are the people who make the final decisions over curriculum, finance and personnel issues.
On a national level, the British government has set a goal that by 2010, all state schools will have some form of exchange program with schools from other parts of the world. Schools organizing exchanges with schools in non-English-speaking countries can each receive subsidies of up to 5,000 pounds (about 1.15 million yen).
Each year, more than 60 schools in Britain express an interest in having exchange programs with Japanese schools, according to Japan 21, a British charity organization that helps local schools build links with schools in Japan. However, it often takes a considerable amount of time for it to find a partner school for British schools because many of those in Japan and their respective boards of education are not so interested in this kind of activity.
As Durham County has some factories operated by Japanese firms, the local authority--which makes the decisions that would be made by a board of education in Japan--is also keen to promote cultural exchanges with Japanese schools. As a result, five primary schools and one secondary school in the county have established links with six primary and middle schools in Suginami Ward.
The main approach used in such exchange programs is to collaborate on classes, but in the case of Suginami-Durham exchanges, the British Council, a public body that promotes cultural exchange between Britain and other countries, organized mutual visits by principals and teachers at the six schools as a step toward building student-level exchange.
Prior to the visit by Nozaki to Peases West Primary School, Stirk went to Momoi No. 4 Primary School in early January, during which the principal was particularly interested in the fact that students had compiled a list of 22 guidelines for enjoying school life with a smile in November last year.
The guidelines included the following idea: "If you see a child being left out, ask them to join in with you"; and "Let's remember to say 'thank you.'"
Currently, the two schools have been discussing a plan to collaborate on classes relating to food and health.
"I wouldn't like this exchange to end up being a one-off occurrence that fizzles out like a firework," said Nozaki. She hopes a path of exchanges will continue in the spirit of Hanasakiyama, the book she loves--with plenty of flowers made to bloom.
(May. 3, 2007)