The Mercers' Company, Innovation Unit, Whole Education and Convey are launching a bold and ambitious new education initiative. Over the next 5 years The Mercers' Company will invest £6.4m in 250 schools who will explore, design and test: + new models of school + new learning designs + new measures of success We will support these schools to design extraordinary learning that prepares every single student for a bright future.

1. A new education
initiative
in partnership with

2. Every student, regardless of their background or prior
learning history, has the potential to achieve excellence
and the right to a school experience that enables it.
Our guiding belief
Belief systems about students make the difference
between school improvement and school transformation.

3. EVERY STUDENT
experiences and benefits from
EXTRAORDINARY LEARNING
that prepares them well for a
BRIGHT FUTURE.
Our impact
The way we currentlyorganise and design ‘school’ makes extraordinary
learning and success for every student in every school incrediblydifficult,
if not impossible.

4. Our schools and learning need to be different.
Most schools do not adequately prepare young people
for the world they need to thrive in as adults.
Too many young people do not experience success at
school.
Many would argue that whilst the world has changed,
schools haven’t.
Why is this needed?

5. There is a growing international movement behind the development of new
school models where learning is explicitly designed to ensure every single
student succeeds at school, and is well-equipped tomeet future challenges
of study, work and life beyond school.
There are opportunitiesin the current policy environment to capitalise on
the small number of existing UK exemplars of ‘new model schools’ – to
explore what they do and enable it to grow. Entirely new schools
(academies, free schools, studio schools or university technology colleges)
and established schools both offer environmentsin which new school
models and new learning designs can be developed and tested.
We are in a period of instability in terms of school assessment measures –
existing measures are necessary but insufficient. We need to find new,
rigorous ways of valuing and measuring the wide range of student successes
that are achieved through extraordinary learning.
Why now?

6. What will we do?
Invest in
Support
EXPLORE
DEVELOP
TEST
SCHOOL MODELS
LEARNING DESIGNS
SUCCESS MEASURESNEW
Invest over 5 years for
schools to explore,
develop and test:
new school models
new learning designs
new success measures

7. How will we do it?
LEARNING DESIGNS
CHALLENGE
schools
X200
Across England
LEARNING LAB
schools
X40
London
West Midlands
DESIGN
PARTNER
schools
x10
SUCCESS MEASURES
LEARNING
COMMUNITY
x500
NEW
SCHOOL MODELS

8. Design principles
for extraordinary learning
Vital
relationships
New
models of
assessment
Authentic
curriculum
&
pedagogy
Enabling
school
conditions
Empowering
use of
technology
Parents &
community
as partners
We’ve drawn on the
evidence base to
develop design
principles for
extraordinary
learning.
We will work with
schools to test and
refine these further.

9. Curriculum and pedagogical innovation that leads to rigorous work
for students that really matters.
This might include highly personalised and self-directed learning
approaches, mastery-based progression, project-based designs and
strengthening real-world relevance for all learning experiences –
geared towards student agency and active engagement.
Design principles
in more detail
Authentic
curriculum
&
pedagogy
Vital
relationships
A re-defined commitment to relationships within the
school, involving every young person being known well
and supported to achieve short and long term success.
Students feel they are known and value highly the
relationships that support their success.
Dramatically different approaches to assessment that do
justice to the wide range of extraordinary work students
produce. A sophisticated understanding of and response to
what is assessed, how it is assessed, who undertakes the
assessment and the purposes it serves.
New
models of
assessment

10. Enabling
school
conditions
New ways of organising the foundational design features
of ‘school’ to enable extraordinary learning, e.g. the
design and use of time, structural arrangements, adult
learning norms, ways that collaboration occurs, the
cultural conditions within which all learning takes place.
Design principles
in more detail
Dynamic and personalised application of technology, especially
to increase opportunities for collaboration and to connect
learners to one another and to the world beyond school.
New and powerful roles for parents, employers and
community within and in support of extraordinary
learning - founded on respect for their contributions.
Empowering
use of
technology
Parents &
community
as partners

11. Examples of new, ambitious whole
school models designed to enable all
students to achieve extraordinary
learning.
Sites of advanced practice that are
strongly aligned with the design
principles and on a highly ambitious
development journey.
Schools led by system leaders with a
mission to create learning and evidence
that has the potential to transform
outcomes and agency for students well
beyond their own school.
Design Partner schools
What are they and what will they do?
Work with us to design and
implement an initiative that
helps more schools
develop advanced
practices that deliver
extraordinarylearning.
Develop their school model
even further as an active
partner in the initiative.
Be proactive in enabling
others to learn from their
work for the benefit of the
wider system.

12. Learning Lab schools
What are they and what will they do?
Bold and ambitious schools in
London or the West Midlands
who want to significantly
develop their school to ensure
that all young people
experience extraordinary
learning.
Engage in a rigorous design
process to develop new school
models, new learning designs,and
new measures of success.
Commit to working on one of the
following:
Whole school redesign (likely to be
new schools)
Creating a ‘school within a school’
(with dedicated staff)
Year by year redesign (either with a
year group or across a key stage)
Creating a new offer to students
through Alternative Provision or
Sixth Form