Westside’s CEO and President, Graham Baldwin, writes about how singing can expand many aspects of a child’s life, from their vocabulary to their self-confidence.

A brief history of the original Westside School written with admiration to Marva Collins, an American educator.

What can be done to prepare a student for the nerve-wracking independent leap into University life after being led through their school years by those around them? Westside's own Graham Baldwin discusses his view in this informative blog post

While outsiders and wallflowers are commonly disregarded in the educational system, Angela Duckworth saw potential in them and believed those students who possessed ‘grit’ had a successful academic future ahead of them.

The Westside School Middle Years Program (MYP) is rich in engagement, collaborative learning and thinking; it prepares students admirably for pre-university studies, where the value of learning how to learn will stand them in fine stead. Socrates would approve!

For all the elements of Kindergarten that researchers have examined, from class-sizes to socio-economic mix and everything between, one element always proves to be the defining difference in outcomes. The teacher.

It is extraordinary, but true, that in recent years, most Universities have dramatically increased the counselling and psychological services available to students. Despite this, many students drop-out, unable to cope with the pressures they feel.  A scarcely believable number suffer severe mental illness. And far too many are so ill that they end their lives.

We have a carefully planned program of professional growth, designed to enable our teachers to become true, current experts in all aspects of their profession. In this time of COVID-19, rapid change is demanded of schools and how they deliver learning, so professional development for teachers is more important than ever.