Secondary Schools Project

Human Scale Values and Practices

The Human Scale Approach

Human Scale Education promotes the use of small Learning Communities in large secondary schools to enable students and teachers to work in a more human scale environment where individual student needs can be more clearly recognised and focused upon. All students can benefit from being in a community where they are both known and know others around them. Smaller scale settings facilitate the in-depth relationships between teachers and pupils that are essential to providing children with a personalised and meaningful experience of education.

We believe that young people in large secondary schools in deprived areas can benefit particularly from the human scale approach.

The booklet Human Scale Education in Secondary Schools by Jane Thomas can be ordered from Publications.

The human scale approach has been highly successful in the USA, where hundreds of schools have converted into smaller learning communities, either small schools per se or larger schools which have restructured into smaller Learning Communities. Extensive research into the benefits of smaller structures in education has been carried out in the USA (see http://www.smallschoolsworkshop.org) and it found that in smaller schools:

• student behaviour is more positive
• student academic achievement is higher
• student attitudes towards school are more positive
• levels of extracurricular participation are higher
• school attendance is better
• students have a greater sense of belonging
• teacher satisfaction is greater
• inter-personal relationships between staff and students are more positive
• parents are more likely to be involved and play a constructive role in their children's education

The research finds that the benefits are most marked with respect to the academic achievement and the social development of ethnic minority students and students of low socio-economic status.

The booklet 'Smaller Structures in Education: A Research Digest' by Mary Tasker can be ordered from Publications.

Mentor Schools