Over the past two school weeks I have had the privilege and pleasure to engage in some purposeful partnership work on two different continents. In the first week of the October break I visited San Diego as part of Jeff Tech High with seven staff from across our Trust to work with our great friend and inspiration, Jeff Robin. Jeff was one of the founding staff at High Tech High, a great influence on the design and realisation of XP, and one of the world’s leading experts in Project Based Learning.
As well as staff working alongside Jeff to create model products and plan deliverables for expeditions, we also visited High Tech High which still retains curation of much of the stunning student projects generated through the projects designed by Jeff.
The experience finished with teachers presenting their work to each other, Jeff, Gwyn and Kate for critique and celebration. The next step is to make the ideas a reality in future expeditions – a pledge from all who attended. The key takeaway was that staff have to do the project first if we are to show integrity to high quality Learning Expeditions. It was a fantastic learning experience and has provoked some deep thinking around how we can improve expeditions even further across our Trust.
More details regarding Jeff Tech High will appear in the upcoming first edition of XP Unpacked coming in January as well as how you can apply for this experience in October 2026. It is a transformational opportunity not to be missed.
The week after San Diego, in the first week back in November, Jamie Portman and I headed out to Barcelona to work with CESIRE, the innovation team for education in the Catalonian government. Their team works with schools across Catalonia to improve pedagogy and practice with teachers in the region. We spent two days going deep on why and how we deliver Learning Expeditions and the protocols we use to impact positively on our learners so that they form habits and activate character traits. This was important work and our partnership with CESIRE will lead to opportunities for our teachers to work with Catalonian schools in the future.
The following day, we visited the Collegi Monserrat – an amazing school recommended by Ron Berger. The first thing we bumped into was a sculpture representing Crew. It felt like home!
Sister Monika and her colleagues gave us a tour of their beautiful school from early years to senior students and what struck us was the positive culture of the school. Young people at Collegi Monserrat are loved, supported and challenged to become independent learners and great citizens. Some of the work on display in the school was beautiful and inspirational – I could see, hear and feel the similarities between XP schools.
What was remarkable about the organisation was their commitment to opening schools in some of the poorest parts of the world and bringing education to the most disadvantaged in society. The visit has made me determined to share these stories and ask our schools to support this honourable work.
The next three days were filled with our participation in and contribution to the international STEAM Conference at the CosmoCaixa Science Museum in Barcelona. The venue was inspiring and we were able to share our approach to designing and delivering Learning Expeditions that connect disciplines together to deepen learning and result in creative products that inspire agency and have a positive impact in the world.
It was a privilege to share the work we all do, every day, to educators from across the world and receive such positive feedback.
In conclusion, these two experiences have reaffirmed my belief that our work has incredible reach, is highly influential and has great importance.
