Fountainhead Student Mission statement: To nurture leaders with character and competence
Character is defined as an individual’s mental and moral qualities. It is a combination of values such as integrity, generosity, sincerity, compassion, service orientation, self-regulation, ethics. An individual’s character drives one to think and act in the right direction in day to day life as well as in unexpected and difficult situations.
Competence is the ability of an individual to undertake tasks efficiently and successfully. Competence means acquiring domain knowledge in areas of interest as well a range of skills which are transferable across domains. Transferable skills such as communication, leadership and people management, research, critical thinking and problem solving, social adeptness, decision-making are valuable in all spheres of life today.
Not everyone may want to or can become business or political leaders or leaders in sports or arts. The kind of leaders that the school hopes to nurture are those who can take charge of their lives, work effectively with others, do the right things even when no one is watching them, are internationally minded. Such leaders need both character and competence to survive and succeed, especially in the 21st century. The school’s holistic educational program and the positive empowering environment are built to foster both character and competence in the students.
Explanation of the Fountainhead Student Mission Statement
Alignment between Fountainhead Student Mission Statement and IBO Mission Statement
The Fountainhead Vision: (Our Commitment)
Fountainhead School believes that learning is a life long process and therefore we seek to inculcate in students, parents, teachers & the society at large, the sheer sense of the joy of learning. We provide a happy, purposeful, safe and nurturing environment to help our learners develop skills, attitudes & character to achieve sustainable success in life. We aim to scale newer heights in terms of curriculum innovation and teaching methodologies and build an institute of excellence.
Fountainhead Vision Alignment with IBO Mission Statement
Old student mission statement: To nurture leaders through primary greatness
Primary greatness is the greatness that each individual can attain by achieving both competence and character. Greatness, as a rule, is based on name, fame, money, acts etc. This greatness is secondary greatness and not everyone may achieve it, and primary greatness may not be necessary to achieve this. Primary greatness, on the other hand, is something that each child and adult can achieve through their actions.
To become leaders, students are expected to take responsibility of their own lives, learn to work more effectively with others and to do the right thing even when no one’s watching. This is how we define leaders. Not everyone may want to or can become business or political leaders or leaders in sports or arts, but becoming a leader as defined above is the kind of leader that everyone can strive for.
Why have we modified our mission statement (from “leaders through primary greatness” to “leaders with character and competence”)?
As a part of the school review process, we found that the term, “primary greatness” wasn’t well understood by all stakeholders. The focus of primary greatness is a broader umbrella and its core focus is on developing Character and Competence. The school’s vision largely focuses on developing these two. In all the three programs, IB focuses on developing the skills, attitudes, and character by means of Approaches to Learning and learner profile attributes. The new mission statement is an amalgamation of the school’s vision and the IB vision. It clearly defines what we want our students to develop throughout their journey at Fountainhead School.
The change in the mission statement is not one of intent, but of wording, primarily to make it more accessible to all the stakeholders. The change was brought-in through a synergistic effort made by school staff and students were given the opportunity to give their views on the change through Google form responses. The final decision of the change was taken based on the number of responses and perspectives shared by the school community (a summary of the responses is given in Appendix 1).
Appendix 1: Summary of staff and student responses to the proposed mission statement:
Students
Staff
Total respondents
355
244
Agree with the new one
230
214
Do not agree
125
30
Chart 1: Staff responses summaryChart 2: Student responses summary
As is evident, the majority agreed with the change. The disagreements were mostly centered around the fact that primary greatness conveys the need for character and competence but also does more than that. While we agree with this point, we also know that many stakeholders, especially younger students and parents, don’t really understand primary greatness or it’s context. Therefore we chose to reword the new mission statement. One can go through all the staff and student comments here (names have been hidden): staff responses & student responses.
Principles
Ideology:
Fountainhead School facilitates and creates an environment that empowers students to value their learning and become active, compassionate and lifelong inquirers. Students are taught to make connections between life in school, life at home and life in the world. They then:
Develop an undying curiosity and thirst for knowledge.
Attain skills and attitudes which equip for life in a rapidly changing world.
Become independent individuals who have the capacity to think for self and make own decisions.
Develop habits of reflection, mental flexibility & self-discipline enabling charting of career paths resonating passion, skills and knowledge.
Become good-natured, responsible and tolerant citizens of a global society who maintain openness and respect in the face of racial, cultural, religious and linguistic diversity.
Methodology:
What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand. Kung Fu Tzu (Confucius) Fountainhead School intends to affiliate with International Boards of education in order to provide high quality of education and is committed to the following:
Burden-free & joyful learning.
Structured inquiry as the leading vehicle for learning.
Development of a Global Learner Profile‚ in each child.
Rigorous & holistic assessment.
Multiple Intelligence approach.
Teacher-Student Ratio of 1:10, with only 20 children in a class.
Usage of audio-visual tools and internet in the class.
Extra-curricular activities within school hours to ensure overall development:
One compulsory sport such as Skating, Football, Volleyball or Basketball.
One Compulsory cultural activity such as Dance (Indian Folk / Western), Music (Vocal / Instrumental), Arts & Craft (Fine Arts, Pottery).
One Compulsory club such as Chess, Science, Reading, Social Work.
Fountainhead School intends to nurture every child towards holistic growth which encompasses the following educational aims and objectives:
1. To help the child understand the surroundings in a relevant manner:
The socio-emotional world consisting of the human world and the society.
The physical world of materials and understanding how things and the world around works.
2. To help the child gain skills essential to survive and succeed in the new millennium:
Questioning / Thinking Skills: The ability to ask ‘why’.
3. To unleash the child’s potential in one or more disciplines such as Academics, Art, Sports through exposure & practice.
School Values
What do our values mean to us? What do they stand for?
Values arise out of what we believe to be important about people, society and about learning and knowledge. A school’s vision and mission statement indicate its core values which can inform and support the way the school develops. Every decision and every interaction that takes place in our school reflects the values of the individuals involved and the collective values of our school community. It provides us a framework for learning and personal development which, in practice, the school community share and agree on. In order to be professional and ethical, it is important that each school member practices these values so well that if no policy or procedure manual is available, we would still make the best decisions based on our understanding of these values.
The below-mentioned details will help us to identify and illustrate the dimensions of each value.
Fountainhead Organizational Values The values represented here are the values that the organization and all its members are committed to in their decision-making and their interaction with people. The values here have been chosen after brainstorming with the entire staff and after which, sufficient time was given for any suggested changes. These values while interconnected with each other represent different dimensions of the way each member of the Fountainhead team must always abide by in letter and in spirit. Every Fountainhead team member is expected to display these values.
FRREWILS
1. Fairness: I am fair and just to all & I expect to be treated the same. 2. Responsible: I fulfill the roles entrusted to me with complete responsibility. 3. Respect: I accord respect and dignity to all including myself. 4. Excellence: I endeavor to excel constantly in all spheres of my work. 5. Win-win: I synergize with others to achieve results and to forge relationships. 6. Integrity: I do what I say. 7. Learner: I always explore new opportunities to learn. 8. Sustainability: I always think about long term before making a decision.