2023 was a grounding year that brought to the forefront the strength and resilience of our community. We are united more than ever by our desire for OSC to flourish as a school and grow into the future. We approached the year through the focus created by our reenvisaged mission, vision, and values that guided every aspect of our actions as we aspired to fully embody our valued precept of unity in diversity. A plan and timeline were formed to take tangible steps to continue transforming, improving, and revolutionising the culture of OSC to further foster mutual respect in the learning community, as we centre the nurturing of a child’s curiosity, encouraging all of our learners to come into their own and consciously develop their personal identity, fully in the knowledge that acceptance and an authentic sense of belonging will always be extended to them.

At The Overseas School of Colombo, we view education as learning that is not bound to the world of academic knowledge but includes social, physical, and community interests that are vital to each individual’s understanding of identity and sense of self. Our teaching is of high quality, made more so by our policy to incite our students to engage not just with the information they are imbibing, but to achieve thorough comprehension by being active in methods of instruction, resulting in opportunities for students to direct their own learning. Space is given for reflection, student voice, choice, and ownership. Learning is individualised to a great extent and fosters teamwork and collaboration. A new Teacher Growth and Improvement Framework was established to ensure that we are always reflecting on our teaching practice and improving ways to centre student learning.

In order to further prioritise our learners, we are in the process of creating pathways for students to exercise their agency and voice in matters that concern them. We are working in the Secondary School to examine power as it exists in structures of the learning journey so as to identify areas in which students can be brought in to have more of a voice and agency in the written, taught, and assessed curriculum. One of our principal goals is to formally adopt a Social/Emotional Learning (SEL) framework to ensure equitable learning environments and place inclusive practices across the School.

Interconnected knowledge, as gained through the concurrent study of several subjects, grounds our pupils in the real world as they gain the skills to comprehend how contexts shape and link different branches of learning. They are challenged to make connections, do research on their own, and transfer relevant knowledge and skills, opening them up to diverse local and global perspectives. The Secondary School engages students with meaningful and contextualised learning practices and assessments that are derived from and augment the OSC Learning Model, bringing the real world into classrooms, helping students better understand the mechanics of global constructs while showing them how they can use their newfound insights to impact the world.

OSC has always emphasised the importance of a global outlook, and as we look ahead, we want to grow in our awareness of global contexts so that our students learn both as members of our local community and as citizens of the world. To this end, a key focus of the School is Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice, and Belonging (DEIJB) as we understand the importance of uniting against racism. Seeking to challenge and to dismantle implicit bias in curricula and assessment, we are identifying areas in the current curriculum that do not address multiple perspectives, cultures, and backgrounds and it is our goal to advocate for fair representation of these absent perspectives. In addition, we are committed to on-going training on DEIJB and anti-racism at OSC. One of the chief objectives of this effort was to create a DEIJB/Anti-racism Statement and propose it to the Board for community adoption. To best provide for our students, we want to explore the connections between SEL, intercultural learning, and DEIJB across our community and write a culturally responsive curriculum so all students can see themselves in the curriculum we teach.

We are immensely proud that this past year OSC has been accredited by the Foundation for Environmental Education and received the Eco-Schools Green Flag Award. Our wish is to fulfil all strategic projects as Sri Lanka’s first Green Flag school and to become leaders and collaborators for other schools in the country. Our community is united in its effort to ensure that the three Eco-School themes and subsequent goals pertaining to biodiversity, pollution, and endangered species will be fulfilled over the next three to five years.

In order to promote and enrich engagement between our students, parents, and teachers during the year, measures were taken to foster relationships through Parent Focus Groups. The co-designed Parent Portal enables parents to be aware of school policies and actions. The new school website was also finalised this year, and it stands as a vital point of reference for parents and others to keep up-to-date with school activities. In order to emphasise the harmony of learning community as we look ahead, we hosted meetings about the future of the School, finances of the School, and the value of the School. In addition, an Open Day was held, whereby many families, parents, students, teachers and staff volunteered to talk about OSC.  

As we mark a monumental 65th year, it is imperative that we look back over the years and recognise the strong-knit community that has worked together to bring us to where we are today. We are focused on continuing our story, building more inclusive spaces for all in our journey to a better world for everybody. Motivated greatly by our mission, vision, and values, we forge ahead with a sincere wish for unity in diversity.

Dr Michelle Kleiss
Head of School