'Less Chat, Please, Indian School Teachers!' - KHDA Recommendations

The newly published KHDA report for Private Schools 2012-13 has made specific recommendations for schools across each curriculum.

Below is a summary of the key recommendations:

- A few UK schools still need to align what they teach and how they assess students’ outcomes more closely to UK curriculum and standards
- Schools offering a US curriculum should, as a matter of urgency, reduce the significant proportion of students who are under-achieving in key subjects, especially mathematics and science.
- Teachers in most Indian schools should reduce the amount of time they talk in lessons and increase opportunities for students to discuss, collaborate with each other, find things out for themselves and explore links between their learning and real-life contexts.
- Schools offering IB programmes should strengthen students’ attainment and progress in all key subjects at the MYP phase.
- Schools should radically review the curriculum they provide in Ministry of Education (MOE) schools to ensure that it is less focused on knowledge and that all students are provided with well-planned, meaningful opportunities to develop key skills in English, mathematics and science.
- French schools should develop more flexible approaches to the curriculum, teaching and learning so that the needs of the wide range of learners are met in lessons.
- Most (other curriculum) schools should improve students’ investigative skills in mathematics and science so that they achieve at international standards.

Below are a selection of some of key observations within the report:

- There are still considerable weaknesses in the identification processes of Special Educational Needs (SEN) students in schools in Dubai. Most schools now use the SEN categories, which KHDA shared with all schools in 2012, to identify such students and this is considered a step forward. Although many schools have worked harder this year to recognise and identify students who may have barriers to learning, still only a minority of schools have identification processes rated good or better.
- High-quality leadership is the key strength of outstanding UK curriculum schools. Thanks to increasingly effective school self-evaluation, leaders are very well aware of how they can improve their schools. They recruit staff astutely to ensure excellent teaching and a rich curriculum, and they secure good, often excellent, facilities and resources.
- The overall performance of the 31 US curriculum schools remains largely unchanged since the previous cycle of inspections.
- There has been no significant improvement in the overall performance of Indian curriculum schools over the last year and little change in the last two years
- Younger (PYP) students in most IB schools sustain good or better attainment and progress in English, mathematics and science. However, the attainment and progress of older (MYP and IBDP) students in these subjects are no better than acceptable in most of the schools.
- The French schools offer a good or outstanding quality of curriculum. This year all four schools made the necessary modifications to meet the new French Ministry curriculum guidelines, especially in the upper grades.