Stella Maris partially quits Kunskapsskolan
The Stella Maris in Meerssen will partly stop with the Kunskapsskolan educational concept in the coming school year. Three years after the introduction of the system, pupils have a considerable learning gap. The school has been assessed as 'very weak' by the Education Inspectorate.
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In 2016, the HAVO / VWO school in Meerssen switched to Kunskapsskolan. This Swedish educational concept is based on personalized learning (gpl) and works with an online portal. The intention is that students learn at their own pace and in their own way and have a lot of personal contact with teachers, who play the role of coach.
Learning delay
Three years after its introduction, it appears that the learning gap among the seventh graders is enormous. The absenteeism rate among teachers was also 15 percent last year. Not all teachers and pupils are familiar with the Swedish educational concept. That is why the school has decided to return to regular education for approximately three hundred lower secondary students. About 270 students continue to work partly with personalized learning. They are offered some courses in the Swedish way, others - for example Latin and physics - in the regular way. Kunskapsskolan has not yet been used in the upper classes.
Inadequate
And that will not happen for the time being. The day before the summer holidays, pupils and parents were presented with the choice of whether or not to work with personalized learning. Shortly afterwards, the Education Inspectorate ruled that the HAVO department of Stella Maris is 'very weak', the VWO branch is 'insufficient'.
The school management has so far been unable to make a decision and gather the staff behind it
'There is division in the school about how to proceed with the concept of personalized learning. The school management has so far proved incapable of taking a decision and gathering the staff behind it ', the inspectorate concluded in its mid-June. investigation report about Stella Maris. 'In the grades in which personalized learning was introduced - classes 1 and 2 and part of class 3 - often too few teachers are present due to illness to be able to teach and coach the pupils properly. In a number of cases, the teachers present cannot do much else than act as order guards in the learning plazas. They also regularly have to resort to sending groups of students to the auditorium. In those cases, there is no question of teaching. '
Hitches
The Inspectorate also finds significant hiccups in working with the Kunskapsskolan online portal, which is replacing traditional methods. 'Pupils, teachers and parents indicate that the quality and accessibility of this portal varies greatly. For many students it is not clear what they should do at what time for a subject. Because some of the coaches are (long-term) sick, students regularly lack proper guidance when dealing with the teaching material. ' Other Kunskapsskolan schools are also struggling with the portal, it noted Education magazine last November already on in the article 'Made-to-measure or misfire'. Since then, several of them, including the Kennemer College Professionally oriented in Heemskerk and the schools for special secondary education of Heliomar, the cooperation with Kunskapsskolan Nederland has ended.
The introduction of personalized learning has demanded a great deal of attention, as a result of which basic quality in the school has been given less priority
Stella Maris does not want to go that far in Meerssen yet. 'We have received feedback from parents, students and staff that they like having the choice between regular and GPL. These two will continue to exist side by side for the next few years. The main thing is that we will improve the quality of both regular and gpl in the near future', says Imi Lau, the communication advisor of Limburgs Secondary Education (which includes Stella Maris) by email. Moreover, the inspectorate not only identified personalized learning as the cause of the poor assessment. Lau: 'The assessment applies to both the quality of gpl (not just the introduction) and regular education in havo and vwo. However, the introduction of gpl has demanded a lot of attention, so basic quality in the school has been given less priority.' In the coming period, the school will investigate how large the share of GPL is in the poor inspection assessments. "We want to emphasize that as a school we regret that these judgments have been made."
Interim
The location director who introduced the teaching method at the time has since left and has been replaced by interim Peter Overgaauw. Stella Maris still has a branch in Valkenburg, the years that work there with Kunskapsskolan will continue to do so for the time being.
