(seated l-r) British guests Sonette Schwartz, Gigi Liscombe, Dr. Chris Gerry and Clare Lloyd (standing l-r) Brewster High School Assistant Principal Michele Gosh, Dr. Mark Brackett, BHS Principal Matt Byrnes, Superintendent Dr. Jane Sandbank and BHS Assistant Principal Kieran Stack.

SOUTHEAST -  Brewster has become an international melting pot when it comes to education.

Earlier this school year staff from the Brewster School District visited China to begin a dialogue with their Asian counterparts and now a team of educators from the United Kingdom spent a day in Brewster meeting with teachers, students and administrators.

The British-Brewster dialogue was set up by Dr. Mark Brackett, a professor at Yale University, who has been working with faculty and staff at Brewster as well as the New Line Learning Academy in Kent—a community 50 miles south of London.

Brackett said the heart of the visit centered on raising educational standards: “We want more pupils to be academically successful in order that they compete for better and higher paid jobs while being prepared for a working life that will be characterized by fast and often destabilizing change.”

Dr. Chris Gerry, executive principal of the British academy, explained that examinations in schools in both Great Britain as well as America were necessary but no longer sufficient. “Research has told us that examination success in itself does not guarantee an individual’s survival and effectiveness in the long term. What matters is the kind of people students become and the kind of lives they lead,” he said.

The educators believe that by developing social and emotional competencies young people’s employment and social skills will be improved. Plans call for the creation of mentoring models where staff can reinforce the skills within particular lessons.

Brackett said school systems must employ “best practices to integrate the work across every level from student to teacher to administrator.”

Clare Lloyd, assistant principal at the New Line Learning Academy, said her team’s goal was to create a model that would be successful worldwide. “The skills learned by our American friends will allow for the teaching of effective communication that will not only make children successful but relationships with the community expanded as well. The skills based model can be applied to much more than the classroom including business, industry and even government,” she said.

Sonette Schwartz, Head of Cornwallis Academy in Great Britain, talked about the risk reduction factor asking: “Why do some students become successful despite the odds while others don’t?”

Brewster Superintendent Dr. Jane Sandbank said such questions have “preoccupied teachers for years. We must use modern analytical techniques to calculate potential risks of students not being successful and then intervene to reduce the risks while increasing resilience.”

Schwartz said once relationships between staff and students take on a happy and successful philosophy triumph will be the outcome.