Instituto Thomas Jefferson is an all-through international school in Mexico that is part of the International Schools Partnership, and is currently ranked as the third best school in Mexico City. We recently caught up with School Director Simon Nixon to find out why they chose CENTURY, how they implemented the platform and what impact this has had on staff and students so far.
Why did you choose CENTURY for your school?
Having previously used CENTURY in both Panama and China in high-profile group and franchise schools, I was eager to introduce the same high-quality learning tools into ITJ ZE.
Our 5 year vision is to be the ‘school of choice’ in the region and internationally, so using CENTURY as a tool to drive learning forwards, increase student self-efficacy and support teachers with the roll out of a whole school international curriculum (CIE/IB) was an easy decision.
More than anything else, our students deserve the best, pioneering platforms to access stretch and challenge. Our vision is ambitious, but that's what our students deserve. CENTURY remains equally ambitious, so we are delighted to be collaborating.
How did you implement CENTURY?
Our roll-out of CENTURY was planned and led by our Deputy Director, Stefan Kieran Doyle. We ran a pilot with a select group of 9 classes from across both Primary and Secondary, which were led by our CENTURY champions. This way, the champions were able to explore and experiment with the platform at their leisure, which provided them with a knowledge base with which to support colleagues once the full implementation starts. This also allowed us to gather key contextual information about our own strategy, which needs to be flexible.
Our Account Managers Troy and Henrietta have been extremely helpful from the very beginning in implementing the platform. The initial training was effective and specific to our school needs, and we are confident that should we request support with a specific area of focus, e.g. primary mathematics, they would be happy to support us.
Their responses are always quick, which we appreciate with the time difference, and we feel we are in a partnership, rather than just being another client.
Which models of use have you implemented?
We initially planned for CENTURY to be used for homework tasks and independent work, in addition to using the data collected on the platform to inform classroom starter activities. This is still the preferred model but we believe there needs to be some level of flexibility in use of CENTURY depending differering department’s needs. We trust teachers’ professional judgment.
What do teachers and students think of the platform so far?
While we haven’t rolled the platform out to the whole school yet, our current CENTURY champions and early adopters have reported that they particularly appreciate the fact that the content is fully aligned to our curriculum.
This has not only supported them in introducing the content, but also provides an invaluable tool for assessing student mastery, as well as promoting self-regulation and independence.
In terms of our students, we have been very impressed with how many of them have explored the platform and gone ‘above and beyond’ what was requested. We believe this is because the content lends itself really well to independent exploration and discovery, especially for students who seek extra challenge.
What we have been most surprised by is the way some students have explored units independently that are in no way connected to what they are doing in class, rather just inspired by their own curiosity and interest.
What are your plans for going forward with CENTURY?
We intend to have a complete roll out across all subjects throughout the school (until IB) in September. When this happens, our aim is for all students to fully engage with the platform, to take charge of their own learning and become more self-directed and accountable for their own rapid and sustained progress.
Data is crucial in schools, especially when it comes to diagnosing and devising strategies - both for the students and the school. Part of the way for us to measure the success of implementation will be to look at trends in its use, the time of use and when/how it is being used by students and staff. Obviously the progress data will also provide a fair analysis of its success as well as increased levels of attainment.
Using GL PASS Data and student/parent surveys will also allow us to ‘double click’ on how well our students feel that they can respond positively to the change in curriculum, higher expectations of them and the level of efficacy they feel as learners.
As we are part of the school’s group, International Schools Partnership, we would be delighted if other schools in the region and internationally were able to use our example as a way to raise standards of learning and progress of students. Our goal is to become the CENTURY champions for the group and to guide, support and encourage other schools in a successful implementation of data-driven edtech.
Book a webinar to find out how CENTURY can enhance the teaching and learning at your school.
