Quaker school nominated for award
Leighton Park School is a finalist in the Independent Schools Association Awards 2024
The Quaker-founded Leighton Park School is a finalist in the Independent Schools Association (ISA) Awards 2024. The Future Readiness Award aims to celebrate best practice in preparing students for their life beyond school.
The Reading school paid tribute to its Quaker heritage in shaping its approach to education. This values ‘personal development’ and ‘character education’, while ‘working with partners to create a better world’, it said in a statement. ‘This focus draws on the school’s heritage as a Quaker school and the impressive history of Quakers who set up forward-thinking companies like Cadbury and Rowntree; extraordinarily successful businesses that also treated staff and suppliers fairly and created social good. Equally important, Quakers helped found leading charities and campaigning organisations, such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Oxfam and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Quakers won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947.’
As part of its vision to prepare students ‘to be future changemakers’, the school said it offers education that extends ‘beyond the traditional curriculum’. This includes a two-year programme called ‘Approaches to Learning’ for Year 7 and 8 students. This develops skills such as: ‘metacognition, harnessing artificial intelligence (AI), academic referencing, collaboration, presentation skills, coaching, and, most importantly, self-understanding’.
Meanwhile, a ‘STEAM Academic Approach’ aims to equip students to ‘play an active role in tackling the global challenges facing humanity, such as Climate Change, Food Security, the 4th Industrial Revolution and Gender Equality’. Changemaking is also the objective of Creativity, Action, and Service (CAS) lessons, and is part of the Ethical Changemaker Speaker Series, where sixth formers hear from influential people.
Climate change and biodiversity loss are also highlighted in the curriculum, backed up by a Sustainability Week. Over the past two years, students have contributed more than 272 hours of reading support and over 6,000 hours of volunteering.
The school was joint winner of the Green Senior School Award 2023, as well as being a finalist for the Award for Environmental Achievement in the Independent Schools of the Year 2023 Awards.
The winners will be announced at the ISA 2024 Awards Ceremony on 14-15 November.
