If it is implemented competently, then it all comes down to price. Most of my clients, perhaps I do not have such a representative sample, but in general people say the cost of education they find comfortable is up to 100,000 rubles. 100,000 is some kind of watershed. This is now, given the current exchange rate. Once upon a time, two or three years ago, people were saying: "50 at best.”

To what extent are parents ready to understand that the Unified State Exam is not the only benchmark for the quality of a child's education at school?

A very small group. This is what needs to be investigated. It seems to me that everyone wants something more, but in fact everyone only cares about passing the USE. The child has to enter a University (especially a boy).

What do parents of preschoolers say most often, what is their request?

More often than not, they say: "We want to make sure that the child’s motivation to study is not destroyed." Or even better: they want the child to be motivated to study, to be eager, ready and excited to learn new things and develop. But at the same time, he or she needs to be able to enter a good, solid school. It is also about the USE, so the child does not lose his or her academic skills. I keep explaining and telling them: "You see, getting into a good school in the form that exists in our reality is just a sports competition. That is why you have to prepare for it." Everything here is like sports competitions. The child may not have outstanding cognitive abilities, and it is hard for parents to accept that. Perhaps the child simply does not need to go to such a school, instead he or she would learn happily at the right level.

We recently spoke with a mother who returned from Ireland, she wanted to find a primary school here for her children, grades 1–2. She said: "Look, when we came to Ireland, we were told to just go to school. They just sign you up and you start going there. It is okay, they will learn the language, they will study." This is it. And the kids are somehow studying. She said: "Here we came to a school with an English focus, an old private school, and they told us: your Russian is not very good, you should work with tutors at home for now, improve your language skills, then come to us in three months for testing." The point here is that our school believes it does not exist for the person, but the person exists for the school. So as soon as a child has some peculiarities, the school gets nervous.

So we can say that the School of the Future is an inclusive school?

In principle, yes, an inclusive school. If the school has its own resource department – that would be great. The resource department is a staff of neuropsychologists and speech therapists. For example, a child with ASD comes to school, he or she can study individually. They make up a schedule for him/her, for example, his/her first two lessons are individual. Then he/she joins the class for more lessons. That is, the resource department is just a kind of team of specialists, several rooms in a separate block where children can work individually or in a mini group of two or three people.

Comparing different educational models, what criteria can you use to judge them? The content of education, that is, the blocks from which it is built. Knowledge, abilities, skills, subject content. Probably a description of the staff, that is, who works at the school, how they get there. What kind of corporate culture it has? Democratic, or authoritarian? Are the communication styles between students and teachers more of a coaching position or a talking head? The coaching position, of course, is preferable here, when all the teachers somehow still support the children, motivate them.

Probably styles of interaction with parents, feedback, communication. There are schools where none of this is practiced at all.

The grading system – what kind of grading is there? Variability is also one of the aspects. That is, how flexible the school can be, how much it can adapt to the child.

What educational model is the School of the Future closer to – Finnish, Asian, International Baccalaureate?

I think it is closer to some Scandinavian model, particularly Finnish one. That is solely based on what I know about it from down here; I have not been inside a school like that. That is, it is the model of the European school that says: "Here is an environment full of opportunities, but there are multiple ways to grab these opportunities within the same school. If you are gifted, okay, we will build you a track. If you have any difficulties, that’s all right.” To me, this is probably such a humane European school.

В чем отличие подходов к обучению в российских и зарубежных школах? Почему, например, выпускники частных британских школ часто добиваются жизненного успеха, становятся политиками, обладателями Нобелевской премии и «Оскаров»? Редакция журнала «Позитивные изменения» попробовала разобраться в причинах популярности среднего зарубежного образования у наших соотечественников и выяснить, чего не хватает российским школам и есть ли сильные стороны у отечественного образования.

Юлия Вяткина

Редактор журнала «Позитивные изменения»

Школы Великобритании, США и Канады вызывают интерес у родителей во всем мире. Успешность учеников этих школ можно оценить по тому, сколько из них поступили в зарубежные университеты, такие как Оксфорд, Кембридж, Гарвард, Стэнфорд, Массачусетский технологический университет и другие известные высшие учебные заведения Великобритании и Северной Америки. Еще один способ оценить уровень подготовки учащихся зарубежных школ – посмотреть, какие в будущем они занимают посты.

Основатель и директор Chelsea Education Карина Шарин в своей книге «Как дать ребенку британское образование, при этом не разориться и сохранить себе нервы» пишет о том, что «настоящее английское образование – это лучшее, что вы можете дать своему ребенку, за исключением любви». По ее словам, ребенок вырастет уверенным в себе, со своим собственным мнением, которое он научится выражать и отстаивать. У него появятся друзья во всем мире, а говорить он будет на чистом английском, который уже никогда не забудет. Обладая «мягкими навыками», он будет легко строить карьеру.

В чем же причина? Как говорят эксперты в сфере международного образования, учебные программы российских и зарубежных школ имеют ряд отличий в подходе к обучению, к самим детям, организации школьного пространства.

Например, если в России школьники изучают большое количество предметов без возможности их выбирать (альтернатива появляется только в старших профильных классах), то в Великобритании предметная специализация у учеников начинается раньше. Чем старше становится ребенок, тем более узконаправленной будет его программа обучения. По факту, британские школьники к нашему 9 классу уже заканчивают общеобразовательный стандарт и в старшей школе получают образование, которое дает им преимущество при поступлении в университет, т. к. необходимую базу для поступления дает профильное образование в старших классах.