{"id":488,"date":"2017-03-13T09:03:50","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T09:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.schoolsplus.co.uk\/arkjohnkeats\/?p=488"},"modified":"2017-03-13T09:04:30","modified_gmt":"2017-03-13T09:04:30","slug":"ark-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.schoolsplus.co.uk\/arkjohnkeats\/2017\/03\/13\/ark-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"ARK Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

ARK now has many schools across London and continues to grow all the time. I am very lucky to be able to use the school facilities so here is some more information about ARK and who they are:<\/strong><\/p>\n

About ARK<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ark is an international charity, transforming lives through education. We exist to give every young person, regardless of their background, a great education and real choices in life.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the UK, we are a network of 35 schools, educating more than 21,000 pupils. These schools are all non-selective and in areas where they can make the biggest difference.<\/em><\/p>\n

We also set up ventures and partnerships in the UK and around the world. These\u00a0not only help pupils in our own schools, but improve education systems as a whole.<\/em><\/p>\n

We\u00a0started with one school, ten years ago<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Before Burlington Danes<\/a> became the first Ark school in 2006, it was one of the most underperforming schools in London; now, it\u2019s considered one of the best. We\u2019ve always believed that, with the right approach, every school has the potential to succeed – even those in the most challenging circumstances. Nothing should be a barrier to children achieving.<\/em><\/p>\n

From working with just one\u00a0school, Ark has since grown into a network of 35\u00a0schools<\/a> in the UK – and is now recognised as one of the highest achieving academy groups in the country.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

We still\u00a0only work in the communities where we can make the biggest difference to children\u2019s lives, and all our schools are non-selective. We\u2019re extremely proud of what they have achieved – Ark\u2019s King Solomon Academy<\/a>, for example, is the best comprehensive secondary school in the country, despite being located in the neighbourhood with the highest level of child poverty in London.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

As our network has grown, so have our ambitions<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

We want to change the lives of children everywhere, not just in our own schools. So we create\u00a0and incubate\u00a0ventures designed not only to help pupils in Ark schools, but also to improve education systems as a whole. These ventures tackle some of the most intractable problems facing children \u2013 including poor numeracy, inadequate support for dyslexic pupils,\u00a0and the lack of quality social workers.<\/em><\/p>\n

We innovate, learn and adapt\u00a0– and then we\u00a0share it<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Things can only be changed through\u00a0hard work, high expectations and\u00a0evidence-driven approaches. In some cases, it could be about tweaking the way\u00a0a lesson is taught; in others, it’s changing the way we think about training teachers.\u00a0For instance, in the UK, our structured approach to\u00a0teacher training and professional development\u00a0is helping to embed\u00a0outstanding teaching in our schools\u2013 for trainee teachers right through to executive headteachers.<\/em><\/p>\n

And we don’t stop at training our own teachers. Programmes such as Teaching Leaders<\/a>, The Future Leaders Trust<\/a> and Mathematics Mastery<\/a> are now training teachers and school leaders in hundreds of schools across the UK.<\/em><\/p>\n

Working in partnership is key to everything we do, locally and globally<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

We can have a bigger impact when we work with others, such as governments and education organisations, as well as people at a local level too.\u00a0From having key members of the community as governors, to engaging parents and taking part in local events, our schools\u00a0work with others to create happy, safe communities.<\/em><\/p>\n

Working in partnership has also allowed us to extend\u00a0our impact to other countries \u2013 spreading our expertise through initiatives designed to improve entire education systems. Through Ark\u2019s Education Partnerships Group<\/a>, we\u2019re working to bring governments and education organisations closer together to create better schools. In India and Uganda, this involves implementing new\u00a0ways of tracking and improving school quality and student performance. In Kenya and South Africa, we’re developing low-cost school information systems to drive student progress through better use of data.<\/em><\/p>\n

We have also opened our first school outside the UK: a primary school in India<\/a>, opened in cooperation with the South Delhi Municipal Corporation. This is the first of many free high-quality primary schools that we hope will serve as a new model for the country.<\/em><\/p>\n

Working together is key to everything we do: whether that\u2019s teachers sharing resources across countries, or children from different schools helping each other to perform a song on stage.\u00a0Our work has greater impact when we share knowledge and expertise.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

We are driven by the belief that every child can succeed if they have the right opportunities<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Over recent years, we have seen some life-changing results. However it is\u00a0only the beginning. We’re committed to transforming even more lives through education.<\/em><\/p>\n

More information can be found at: http:\/\/arkonline.org\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ARK now has many schools across London and continues to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-lettings","7":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.schoolsplus.co.uk\/arkjohnkeats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.schoolsplus.co.uk\/arkjohnkeats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.schoolsplus.co.uk\/arkjohnkeats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.schoolsplus.co.uk\/arkjohnkeats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.schoolsplus.co.uk\/arkjohnkeats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.schoolsplus.co.uk\/arkjohnkeats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":491,"href":"https:\/\/www.schoolsplus.co.uk\/arkjohnkeats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions\/491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.schoolsplus.co.uk\/arkjohnkeats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.schoolsplus.co.uk\/arkjohnkeats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.schoolsplus.co.uk\/arkjohnkeats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}