Head’s blog
Over the last two weeks I have had the pleasure of meeting more than 80 children and families for 4 plus interviews. In addition to seeing many delightful children with varying skills and blossoming personalities, I have had the opportunity to talk to prospective parents about their children, the challenges of bringing them up in the 21st Century and the fascinating range of careers and fields they are involved in themselves.
Particularly interesting, was the number of parents involved in developing Artificial Intelligence in their workplace. I spoke to someone who is currently replacing their trading floor with robots and that they are using Artificial Intelligence over human beings at a fast rate. Another parent described the cutting edge medical research they are conducting at the moment in Kings Cross, where Artificial Intelligence is being developed to diagnose the cause of blindness. It was also shared with me that some really exciting and new AI development will emerge in a couple of months. This intrigued me immensely so watch this space – you heard it here first!
Although this is in some ways scary stuff, these are real and exciting examples – and a true reflection of what is happening out there in the big wide world. We feel confident and reassured that our curriculum will future proof our children to be able to handle this rate of change and find their own exciting place within the future. People at the cutting edge of these technologies are emphatic about the importance of human skills over knowledge, with emotional intelligence and empathy being at the top of the list.
The other skill highlighted to me by another parent attending the 4 plus interviews with their child, was adaptability. They explained to me that they had just changed their line of work entirely and had to learn a completely new set of skills at high speed. They were delighted that Grimsdell genuinely develops skills through task time within our creative curriculum and said that the ability to learn has given him far more opportunity in life than ‘what’ he learned. This reminded me of a wonderful quotation from Einstein that our Assistant Head of Teaching and Learning, Yuka Matsushita, shared with me recently: ‘Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school’.
The future is certainly looks different – and it’s now becoming the present.
