Позитивные изменения. Образование. Школа будущего. Тематический выпуск, 2022 / Positive changes. Education. The school of the future. Special issue, 2022

As noted earlier, a guide was developed for the expert survey based on a desk study. The main concepts in the expert survey were:

• expected educational outcomes of the School of the Future students (knowledge, abilities and skills, or others);

• criteria for classifying the cases of existing general secondary education institutions, as suggested by the experts;

• educational models based on the criteria identified.

EXPECTED EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES (KEY KNOWLEDGE, ABILITIES AND SKILLS)

The questions were worded so as to suggest focusing on discussing specific extracurricular skills, not the academic knowledge (which is quite difficult to list). As one expert said, "the future remains unexplored," so it is quite expected that cognitive flexibility was the most frequently cited skill of the future. The ethical basis for this flexibility is respect for the others and a culture of tolerance for others’ values. Tolerance is important, not only for the other, but also for yourself, for your own mistakes, which become part of learning.

However, in addition to the learning abilities, the experts named some specific skills that are not commonly taught in school now, but which would be extremely useful to a person in life today and in the future. One of these is the content skill, which is both an educational element, designed to move away from the lecture format, and an element of project activity, the logic of which the member of the society of the future has to learn. In this chaotic world, where one has to be flexible and adaptive, it is important to learn the practices of self-care – for which it is important to have knowledge of good nutrition, cooking and one’s own resources.

Below is a list of key competencies named by the experts that a School of the Future student should possess. Each competency was named by at least two experts.

Extracurricular competencies

• Cognitive flexibility: the ability to acquire new knowledge and to solve new, non-typical problems using existing learnings

• Intuition: the ability to rely on a "gut feeling”

• Respect and understanding of the value of oneself and the others

• Maintaining and developing motivation for learning

• A culture of tolerance for mistakes (own and the others’) and uncertainty

Specific knowledge, skills and abilities

• Understanding the basic functioning mechanisms of the world around us, historical processes

• Linguistic skills for learning foreign languages

• Self-management skills and self-care practices

• Basics of Cooking and Nutritional Science

• Creative skills, content skills

CRITERIA FOR CLASSIFYING SCHOOL EDUCATION MODELS

Based on the expert survey, three groups of criteria were identified: pedagogical, inclusive, and economic.

The pedagogical criteria reflect the curriculum features: personalization, focus on academic knowledge or soft skills, distance between student and teacher, communication style with students and parents. In a broad sense, this group of criteria refers to the personalization parameters of the education process.

Inclusivity, in the broad sense, is put in a separate category of criteria as a description of accessibility/comfort of education for children with special needs[11 - The concept of "children with special educational needs" encompasses all students whose educational needs go beyond some, rather conventionally understood, average norm. This includes children with special needs, gifted children, children from socially vulnerable groups (for example, children from orphanages, etc.). See for example: https://rosopeka.ru/articles/2895/86042/], financial affordability for the target audience, and accessibility in terms of admission (level of "selectivity”).

Economic criteria were proposed mainly by specialists in education management, who viewed the school model not only from the educational viewpoint, but also as a market product. Therefore, this aspect includes features of the market offer: how busy the child is at school and whether he/she can attend additional classes (sections, circles, etc.), and whether the model is financially sustainable and scalable.

Below is a list of the key criteria named by experts in evaluating school models:

Pedagogical criteria

• The possibility of curriculum personalization: not possible, profiling is available (profiling classes can be attended, to choose further direction of study), a fully flexible curriculum is developed that takes into account the interests and needs of the student (individual disciplines can be chosen, not overall directions)

• Discipline content dependent on the choice of educational outcome: focus on academic knowledge vs soft skills

• Style of communication with students: teacher as a coach vs lecturer

• Communication style with parents: dashboards vs simple grades

• Opportunity to enter a university (in Russia and abroad)[12 - This primarily refers to certification based on the educational performance results – in the format of the USE, which allows entering universities in Russia, and/or IB or other examinations that allow entrance to universities around the world] after education: yes or no

Inclusivity

• Accessibility for inclusive children: accessible or not

• Affordability: affordability for the target audience

• Selection process: yes or no

Economic criteria

• The child's occupation in school: first half of the day, optional classes, all-day studies

• The need for additional services to enable financial sustainability: yes or no

• Scalability: yes or no

OVERVIEW OF SCHOOL EDUCATION MODELS AND THEIR QUALITIES

PUTTING THE SCHOOL EDUCATION MODEL CRITERIA INTO OPERATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

In accordance with the model assessment criteria highlighted previously, based on the review of comparative educational studies and the results of the expert survey, it was decided to summarize them as per the list below. The alignment of school models with each criteria was evaluated on a 1 to 3 scale:

LIST OF EDUCATIONAL MODELS

During the expert surveys, interviewees named a set of school models. Based on this set, reference models were selected, taking into account the frequency of expert mentions, the breadth of their practical application, and the clarity of the framework:

1. The standard Russian public secondary general school (SGS) – as a reference point and for comparison purposes.

2. A public school with profiling classes is currently the most common modification of the mass school model in Russia.

3. The British model.

4. The International Baccalaureate is a modified international version of the British model.

5. Alternative Schools.