Building a culture of scholarship in small and low, isolated and/or low decile secondary schools

No one is an island in teaching and learning, and this year I have been especially fortunate to have Lauren Evans, assistant HOD English, bring to fruition something I've wanted for our students for several years: a culture of scholarship English.  Here is her story:

When I think of Scholarship English, I generally think of higher decile schools and the privilege and access that these students have to such a wonderful opportunity. What about the lower decile schools with equally wonderful and intelligent students who are willing to work hard? My mission as an educator is to make sure that a student’s circumstances do not act as a barrier to their educational experiences and with that in mind, I endeavoured to set up Scholarship English at Greymouth High School. With the support and encouragement of my awesome HoD, and brilliant English department, off I went. 

I pitched the idea to my Year 13 class and seven students took up the challenge. We met once a week for an hour to study a range of authors and directors: Schlink, Nolan, Le Guin, Shakespeare, Neruda, Jackson, Baxter, Ihimaera, and the students pulled on texts that they had personally engaged with. We also looked at philosophers, news articles, music, documentaries, and had many wonderful discussions and debates about the issues they posed. 

I have LOVED running this programme and the students really valued it. The day before the exam, on a stormy Sunday, we met for four hours and ate food, talked, studied and when they left they told me that they weren’t worried if they didn’t get Scholarship because the learning and the experience had been fun and challenging. That’s how I knew I had succeeded. 

Going into next year, I have opened the programme up to all senior students to come along. I emailed all students and their whānau to set interested scholars the challenge of reading a set of recommended texts over the summer. I explained what Scholarship was and called the reading challenge the ‘Scholarship Summer Challenge’ - students read the texts and then email me the answers to four questions:

What did you enjoy about the text?
Which character did you find the most engaging and why?
What major themes and issues do you think the text dealt with?
What does the text teach us about what it means to be human?

So far, I have had twenty students from all year levels email me to take up the challenge and say that they will join the Scholarship programme next year. Some of the students who have expressed a keen interest have really surprised me, in the best way, and that again reinforces why I believe that the programme should be an option for all students. 


Are you also in a small or relatively isolated school, and wondering how to get scholarship up and running?  Lauren and/or I are happy to talk more about our journey and support you with yours.  It would be wonderful to have more of our provincial and/or lower decile schools involved in the fun our students have had this year.