schools without walls | rsa events

A lecture at the RSA building in London with guest speakers David Bradley, Suany Ramos and Damian Allen. Bradley works for Save the Children UK, Ramos is the principal of the Island School in Manhattan New York and Allen works for the Doncaster council looking at how the city can become a 'City for Learning'.

Ramos's talk was particularly interesting as it related quite directly back to my work. Despite being in a different local in New York (Lower Manhattan instead of Harlem) her work covers a lot of the topics that my thesis has discussed including issues with segregation, poverty and education inequity. She explained how her approach to pedagogy relies on community and family involvement and she talked extensively with the 'partnerships' that the school relies on. The school offers families from diasvantaged backgrounds with free laundry, meals, English classes and medical and dental services. Principal Ramos and her team aim to support the families of their children and to strengthen the school's connections with the wider community -- understanding that political funding is limited and can only take the school so far.

Ever since Ramos joined the school, there has been increased enrolment. The school has also improved drastically in terms of achievement and student performance, with many positive testimonies from ex-students of the school. At the moment the school has around 500 students, all of whom Ramos claims to know by name.