The British School in Colombo becomes first BSO-accredited school in Sri Lanka

The accreditation demonstrates that BSC has reached a standard the UK government expects of independent schools.

The British School in Colombo (BSC) recently became the first international school in Sri Lanka to receive British School Overseas accreditation. To be a BSO accredited school, a set of standards written by the Department for Education in England must be met. The accreditation demonstrates that BSC has reached a standard the UK government expects of independent schools. BSC now joins a list of around 204 elite British international schools in the world that have achieved this BSO status.

“It has been a long and important period of development for the school,” said Hannah Wells, Principal of BSC. “The work to get this accreditation started even before I joined the school and I think that demonstrates the hard work and commitment of our staff over a number of years. We know that results alone don’t make us a world class school. This accreditation gives staff, parents and teachers further confidence that we are benchmarked against standards in the UK.”
Even though the inspection team was due in October 2019 and subsequently in May 2020, the Easter attacks and COVID-19 delayed the inspection further. 

Ms.Wells further said that there’s a common set of standards set out by the UK government that has to be followed by an inspection team. “The standards look at the quality of the curriculum, quality of education provided, spiritual, moral and cultural development of pupils,their welfare, health and safety, the suitability of the proprietor and staff, the school’s premises and accommodation (including boarding); and the school’s complaints procedures. This way we can compare ourselves with independent schools in the UK against a common set of standards. There’s no inspection body in Sri Lanka so it can be difficult for us to benchmark ourselves with other schools. For our staff, it has been an interesting and challenging journey because they had no previous experience of what an inspection would be like. I think I can speak for the whole school community when I say that we are delighted to finally have this accreditation and are excited about our next steps as a school.”

The inspection was carried out by Penta International, one of only three inspection providers approved by the Department of Education in England. The three-day inspection visit included

over a 100 lesson observations as well as a series of learning walks. In addition, school documentation and policies were analysed, students’ workbooks were scrutinized and discussions were held with senior staff, the management team and a range of teachers, parents and groups of pupils. The BSO status now enables BSC to become a full member of the Federation of British International Schools in Asia (FOBISIA). This full membership means that students and staff can make full use of the enormous range of opportunities provided by FOBISIA, it gives the school voting rights whilst also providing an opportunity to host events here in Sri Lanka. The BSO accreditation provides confidence to other schools that the school’s safeguarding and child protection measures are robust. As such the school can now participate in more events, competitions and staff training courses. “One of the huge benefits of this accreditation and full membership of FOBISIA is that it allows our staff and students to connect and interact with others across the region. Our children in year 5 and 6 have just returned from Thailand where they participated for the first time at the Under 11 Friendly Games Competition. They did brilliantly, coming first in swimming and second in Tee-ball which is a combination of baseball and cricket. It is wonderful that they can connect with and compete against other schools from across the region.Our older students also participated in a leadership conference in Thailand earlier this year,” ms.Wells added.

When asked about the importance of inclusive education, she further said that there’s a huge lack of understanding and awareness and we are still learning about learning. “It can be easy to shy away from planning education for a particular child. The key is to understand that all children can make progress. One of the core aims of our school is everyone achieving the highest academic standards. This is for any child in our school. What we really try to determine during the admissions process is whether a child coming to our school is going to thrive. If we don’t think we can meet their needs, we will communicate that to the family. That’s what we need to get right.”

“We need to move away from rote learning. Children need to engage in their learning, be motivated, collaborate with their peers, they need to be able to solve problems in the future  jobs that they are going to do, they need to be able talk to people, they need to be internationally minded. You won’t have that passion for learning if all that you have to do is learn by memory. It won’t give you the energy and drive to learn,” she explained.

She further said that it’s extremely important to engage parents in the education process. “Again that comes with making sure that parents understand what we are trying to do and what we are trying to achieve. There also needs to be clear communication. Our parents are amazing and we call them BBSPs (Brilliant British School Parents) because they are genuinely interested and they want to be involved and we embrace that as a school. I don’t know why any school would keep parents at arms length. They play a vital role in the success of their children. This year, we invited parents so they can see children learning in classrooms. They enjoyed the opportunity to learn something about the curriculum and spend some time with their child looking at their work. We think that it is really important to involve parents in this way. That’s what’s really exciting for me about this accreditation. I don’t want us to be complacent as a school. Education is moving forward all the time and we have to move forward with it. We must not stand still and we have to be lifelong learners,” she added.

The highlights of the BSO inspection report included that the BSC provides a high quality UK-style education that meets the need of its pupils well; as a result they enjoy school, learn fast and thrive socially, the progress pupils make is excellent, teachers are passionate about improving skills of students, relationships are excellent and pupils’ behavior is outstanding and the performance in external examinations at both IGCSE and A level is a significant strength of the school.  
Ms. Wells further said while the school is happy about the brilliant things mentioned in the report they will also be looking at the recommendations with the involvement of parents, staff and children and that they would collectively work towards achieving their vision of becoming a 
world class school.