‘The best students are not ‘test-passers’ but well-rounded individuals ready to thrive in life’, says Deborah Eyre

High Performance Learning (HPL) Founder and CEO, Deborah Eyre, believes that every learner is a potential high performer. In this exclusive interview with Edarabia, Deborah shares the formula for becoming a world-class school and how this approach creates competent, ambitious teachers and school leaders, and most importantly, raising highly competent students.

1. How does implementing a High Performance Learning philosophy help promote student wellbeing and improve their academic performance?

Many students become stressed when they think that they cannot do as well in school as they would like. High Performance Learning suggests that almost anyone can become a high performer, it is just that some people take longer than others. Hence, it removes the pressure of being seen as failing. HPL also removes the mystery around how to become successful and so both students and their parents know what is needed and how to help. Finally, HPL recognises the importance of values, attitudes, and attributes, so for children who are good at being empathetic, for instance, they get recognition even if they are not yet achieving academically.

2. In your opinion, what are the 10 main characteristics of a world-class school?

We have 10 characteristics of World Class Schools.

1. They start by focusing on the profile of the kind of student they want to develop and build their accountability measures around this.
2. They select a core curriculum that is overall well-suited to their vision and then audit it in order to enhance and supplement when needed, including by means of the enrichment offer.
3. They make explicit to students and parents what they are trying to achieve and how they should participate
4. They see personal and pastoral support and guidance as crucial to academic success.
5. They see personal and pastoral support and guidance as crucial to academic success.
6. They see the school as a well-oiled machine that can deliver the same high standards for students year on year, regardless of background.
7. They are purposeful but also relaxed, with both students and staff feeling at ease in the school.
8. They place a high level of trust in their teachers and their students and structures are geared to timely intervention and benchmarking rather than constant monitoring.
9. Internal accountability preceded external accountability with the school taking ownership for their own performance.
10. Everyone feels an emotional attachment to the school. They don’t see themselves as world class because they are never complacent and are continually seeking to refine and improve.

3. How has High Performance Learning been implemented in a school located in this region? What have been some of the positive outcomes?

High Performance Learning has been successfully implemented in a number of schools in the region.

Doha College was one of our first World Class Schools. This school has witnessed significant academic improvements, where underachievement has pretty much disappeared. Everyone enjoys being in an HPL school.

Dr. Steffen Sommer said recently, “It is now not only me who is a passionate advocate of HPL, it is my entire Leadership Group and all Middle Leaders, as well as a good 95% of my staff, teaching, admin and support. Parents and students are equally enthusiastic about it and, what is more, they actively spread the word amongst their friends and friends of friends. What a buzz, truly unbelievable!”

Another school is Jumeirah College, which is due to become an accredited World Class School this summer. They have seen students become more confident and reaching out for challenges.

4. Having spent years in the education industry, what have you learned and what are your plans for the year ahead?

I have learned that there is no single way or single programme that can deliver a great education. What is important is that you use the latest evidence to tell you what might work and build that into your existing good practices to evolve into something better rather than making a total switch. You take account of your own context and what will work there. You cannot just lift ideas from one place to another without understanding the culture and traditions and adapting the approach to fit.

You need to build a team around you that can help you to realise your ambitions for education in your school and most of all you need to remember that education is about improving the chances of children and young people and everything you do should be focused on that. I love working in different countries and with children from different cultures as it is so enriching and sometimes challenges what you have always assumed to be right.

This year, I plan for more schools to adopt the High Performance Learning approach and become High Performance Learning schools. We believe that if every school was a High Performance Learning school then far more children and young people would succeed at school. I want to use my time to make that happen.

5. Can you tell us more about your sessions at GESS titled “How To Become a World Class School” and “How to Create High Performance Learners”? What can visitors expect to learn from these sessions?

In my upcoming GESS session titled “How To Become a World Class School”, I will be discussing how education is constantly developing. We used to think that only a proportion of students had the ability to be academically successful. But now, we know better.

In the very best schools globally, everyone achieves highly, regardless of their background or starting point. Plus, the students are not ‘test passers’ but well-rounded individuals, ready to thrive in life beyond school, in university, the workplace and our increasingly complex world.

To get this result, you need to understand how to create high performance in the cognitive domains and you need a meticulous approach to making it happen for every child. This talk considers a framework for systematically building cognitive competency in every child. It is flexible enough to fit schools in differing contexts and with differing curricula. Research led, this approach delivers fantastic results, especially when used by competent, ambitious teachers and school leaders.

Moreover, my session titled “How to Create High Performance Learners” will introduce the high performance learning philosophy where every learner is seen as a potential high performer, and the high performance learning framework which enables schools to systematically enhance cognitive functioning and ‘build better brains’. We will look at the competencies children need to develop if they are to be successful and how these can be developed in classrooms.

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