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In our school, respect for people is a system-forming factor.

Peter: In general, we spent a lot of effort to translate the “informal” and “human” into the system. Often these things are opposed, but we are sure that one cannot exist without the other. People are equally annoyed by both a soulless bureaucracy and a very sincere person who forgets about elementary things. Therefore, we formulated this idea: “A good system is a support for a good person.” This principle pervades everything we do, from teacher-child communication to tutor-parent communication. There is a system, there is a set of rules, and there is the right team selected by Yulia. As a result, now it seems that this is what has allowed us to grow about 10 times over the past 10 years in Moscow alone, but this is not the main thing. We managed to build a stable, scalable and consistent quality system on a non-mass product.

— Is the system more important than improvisation?

Julia: Spontaneous decisions are also needed, they give a feeling of air. For example, we give a lot of freedom to teachers, without this it is impossible. But we also need a well-thought-out system, rules that you can rely on. Therefore, we have a knowledge base, systems for assessing the quality of teaching, mentors, experts, senior teachers. And there are tutors – a team of people responsible for deep and high-quality contact with the family. And if the tutor does not know why the child is not in the mood to learn today, this is a bad tutor.

When the whole machine works together, there is freedom to be yourself. And now, after 19 years of the existence of the Russian Gymnasium, I listen to the voice of “inner Petit” and expect from the people who work there to work out business processes, and risk management, and project management.

— Why do kids (and teachers) love London Gates?

Julia: Because London Gates is genuinely interested in them, we are interested in all our children. Therefore, our children grow up to be our teachers. A large percentage of our assistants are former students of the school. Often for them we are the first place of work, where we also continue to teach them, but already working skills. This is also our uniqueness.

Peter: There are a lot of burnt-out, tired people in ordinary general education schools who are unable to breathe life into the subject they teach. And we employ people aged 25-35 – young, erudite, enthusiastic, ready to look for an approach to children and select methods that can take into account the peculiarities of the child’s perception. The more interesting the teacher is in his subject, the more interesting the child is with this teacher.

Julia: It has been proven that the higher the level of trust in the one who presents the material, the better this material is assimilated. As a rule, we do not work with school teachers and kindergarten teachers, our teachers are not teachers in the classical sense of the word. Our teachers are an attractive role model. They inspire confidence. As a result, children go to us once or twice a week, and the results are like in the best British schools. It is due to the trust and efficiency of educational processes.

I am extremely interested in educating the next generations. There is an element of immortality in this – because the future is determined by those whom you raised.

— The idea that you don’t work with professional teachers is ambiguous. Is teaching experience important?

Yulia: First, our expert interviews the candidates, assesses the level of knowledge and the associative series with which the teacher expresses himself. Then we evaluate the level of language proficiency: it is necessary that a person freely expresses his thoughts in English. The third stage is an interview with me: it is important for me to understand that our value systems coincide. If all three stages are completed successfully, preparation begins.

Peter: Empathy is important for us in a potential candidate, social intelligence is important, which allows us to assess the dynamics of the group during the lesson. These qualities are 80% of the basic skills of a teacher, and we definitely check them. And then there is the question of intelligence and learning. For example, the classical education of the past is frontal education: the teacher speaks, everyone else listens and is silent. And interactive learning involves the involvement of the child, and it is much more effective. If you convey this simple idea to a novice teacher and give examples, an intelligent and creative person easily masters the very basic principle that eliminates the knowledge of many facts. And the lack of experience in the classical system speeds up the learning process. Then the on-the-job training begins, in which the newcomer is assisted by an expert. This is an intensive feedback based on the results of the analysis of video recordings of lessons. During the first year of work, the teacher expects five or six feedback cycles, giving directed and individualized recommendations. As a result, we see how teachers in a year grow to a level that is certainly not inferior to the level of teachers with 20 years of experience in the classical system. I will tell you this as a person who has worked for many years in a comprehensive school.

The basic principle is this: it is easier to make a teacher out of a good person than to make a good person out of a teacher.

— Such a system implies a high emotional involvement of the teacher. How do you protect employees from burnout?

Peter: We welcome when teachers work elsewhere. Artists – in their own workshops, drama teachers – directors or on the set. This not only protects against burnout, but also brings synergy. It is no coincidence that in many universities around the world, teachers are “acting” scientists. And we try to implement this principle in school education.

Julia: Plus, we are consciously working with burnout. For example, we make unexpected rotations, for example, we offer a high school teacher to work with preschoolers (believe me, this is a completely different world!) Or try yourself as a manager, leading a project.

– Studying abroad is still in vogue, but London Gates advocates the view that a child should grow up in a family. Why?

Julia: Fortunately, the idea of ​​boarding schools is no longer at the height of fashion. She has ceased to be fashionable in the UK and is losing ground with us. Sending a normal child brought up in a normal family to a boarding school is generally a strange idea. A child, receiving a secondary education, should be formed in a comfortable environment and a comfortable mode, and then – please, the whole world is at his feet. I have never had the task of making sure that our graduates study abroad. It is important to me that children have complete freedom to choose their path in life. We have a new career guidance program at our school, within the framework of which we teach you to think about your ambitions, analyze the trajectory of life and professional development.

But it is not necessary to ask a child from the age of 8 what he wants to become, he can and should answer this question only between bachelor’s and master’s programs.

— What is the first thing you teach children at London Gates?

— At London Gates, no matter how much time a child spends with us, they will have a unique experience of learning, communicating and building universal skills. We live in a world that is changing at such a speed that trying to keep up with the facts is simply meaningless, but we teach the skills of acquiring, searching for information. Plus, we promise that the child will be able to function in two languages ​​and will receive an A-Level certificate, which is no different from the British one. It does not matter whether a person ends up studying abroad, but he will have such an opportunity. This piece of paper is a joker. I remember how one young man in London, at my insistent request, passed the A-Level in the Russian language – and then got to the top position precisely thanks to the presence of this certificate.

— What is multilingualism for children in your understanding?

Peter: It is important to understand that when we talk about language, we are not talking about instrumental skills — about how “cat”, “dog” will be in English, we are not talking about knowledge of grammar. Language is closely connected with thinking, which means that by studying a foreign language, a person learns to think differently. And we cultivate the ability to feel like our own in different cultures.

Julia: What is important for parents to understand? The habit of engaging in “translated language” is a poor and ineffective level of language teaching, it is not about the development of multicultural skills. Therefore, there is no need to worry if the son, after two weeks in our camp, does not know how to say “squirrel” in English.

— What else is important for parents to know?

Julia: I don’t like standard questions: how many people are in the group, how do you study grammar, do you have any native speakers? You have no idea how often I get this question. For some reason, it is believed that Desyatnikova does not like carriers. This is absolutely not the case: in London, and in Moscow, and in Paris, we have wonderful families where one of the parents is a native speaker. In our center in Riga, the teaching staff consists of 30% native speakers. But that’s just because educator communities are structured differently in different places. We select all teachers according to the same principle. And if only one carrier out of a hundred suits us – well, what can we do, take them just because they are carriers? Let other educational institutions do this. Let’s talk about what you want and how we can give it.

— Well, what questions of parents are you interested in?

Peter: I have been doing interviews for many years, and it seems to me that parents are becoming more idealistic (where “idealism” is opposed to “pragmatism”). Now material motivation is gradually becoming less noticeable – and at interviews, parents often ask what our mission is.

Julia: It’s not interesting to talk about Present Perfect. It is interesting to answer all the essential questions. We recently recorded a video about London Gates Primary, having told in detail what kind of people we choose, whom we refuse, whether we expel students…