Last week, I visited Singapore where my friends at the Global Schools Foundation (GSF) have built a new ‘smart’ school.
I have known GSF for 7 or 8 years now and they are a special group of people. They oversee a fast-moving and energetic school chain that has schools throughout Asia, including Japan which is normally very difficult to penetrate as an outside provider, as well as in the Middle East. More than 20 schools overall. Unlike some school chains, they have a large and strong set of players in their top teams – good at strategy, finance and numbers, new technology and innovation, HR, marketing and communications, academics, etc. It is more common to find school chains with a few stars, but GSF talent runs deep.
The chain has established four school models that, every time I see them, become clearer and more refined. Almost their ‘standard’ is the international school model dotted around the world, for non-resident Indians (NRIs). Then, there is also a school model inside India, with an international twist. Third is their ‘One World International School’ (OWIS) approach which has made a real mark in Singapore as the first, ‘affordable’ IB school. This has quickly grown to more than 1000 students and I expect government regulators to get onside with GSF to spread this rapidly, both in the south Asia region and beyond. Finally, there is the new ‘Smart School’ with its inception in Punggol, in eastern Singapore.
The new Smart campus is a breathtaking build. It has capacity in excess of 4000 across a fabulous, modern six-storey facility that is filled with space and light. Terracotta colouring, verdant planting outside, play areas enjoying the clever shade of the building design, and space, space, space. Classy. Add to that starting point, hundreds of classrooms that are well-arranged in clusters that hide the scale and that open into activity spaces. Many ‘studio’ facilities ranging from maker labs to science, cookery and TV/radio broadcasting – all with a specification that is in keeping with the much more expensive World IB schools you can visit. Face recognition, thumb recognition, and lesson recording facilities all around.
In fact, if I put pictures from this school up alongside some pictures of the top schools in other chains, costing almost twice as much, you would perhaps think Punggol Smart Campus was the premium player.
The one thing I love most, however, is that GSF has again pitched their school at a sensible price. All these facilities – and all the modernity of a digital school concept – at significantly less that 10,000 GB pound per annum. If you know Singapore prices, that is particularly stunning. In the first year of opening, they have over 3200 students, helped by moving many students from the sites they had outgrown.
The journey that GSF will now make, to upgrade this school and this school model, continuously, into a global centre to share insight into modern ‘smart’ learning, is going to be a compelling one. Lots of people are talking about establishing a digital school but GSF have built their first dedicated one. There will be other schools globally that are re-engineering the provision for a digital age but GSF has made a bold statement with Punggol offering standard features, enhanced features, new features and a great price. Go, see it if you can. It is brimming with potential and ideas.
And there is no sense here of a school operator using their students as guinea pigs. The leaders and teachers at GSF have a sharp eye on student outcomes and results – traditionally a strength for the group. And now they can offer all the extras on top.
Thanks, Punggol and GSF, for a wonderful trip and you have once again stimulated me to think afresh about what can be done, with quality, in truly exciting and modern schools.
