If the teacher’s not on fire, neither are the students

The staff at Open Future consists of qualified teachers with passion. It is obvious that even the best educational programme, which in our opinion is the Middle Years Programme, must be implemented by teachers who believe in it, who know it well and who will apply it consistently in their work with young people. The programme is a tool to be used by teachers in their work. We realize that competent, positive, motivated and committed teachers are the foundation for the success of Open Future students.

Our teachers’ qualities:

• very good knowledge of English – at Open Future this language is equal to Polish. From the training that teachers undergo, through the preparation of documentation to the communication with some parents and team members who do not speak Polish – we use English every day. Some of the lessons can be conducted in English (except Polish language and history and geography of Poland)
• high competences – both academic, i.e. the knowledge of the subject being taught, didactic, i.e. the ability to convey knowledge in a friendly and modern way, managerial, because the teacher manages not only a class of 18 students, but also cooperation with parents, and the ability to build relationships to make this work and cooperation as effective as possible
• wysokie zaangażowanie w pracę – entuzjazm i oddanie są niezbędne w naszej pracy, abyśmy wspólnie z uczniami udowodnili, że nauka według zaleceń International Baccalaureate Organization jest przyjemna i bardzo skuteczna i pozwoliła uczniom nabyć mnóstwo nowych umiejętności, z których są dumni. Zaangażowanie nauczycieli przekłada się na dodatkową motywację uczniów.
• partnership approach to students – we strongly believe that apart from school skills and knowledge acquisition, a very important task of the school is to raise students to be people with high social competences, who are open to others and are able to solve problems in the spirit of mutual respect and understanding of their rights. The teacher should be the person who, by his or her own example, teaches children such an approach to cooperation not only in the classroom, but throughout their lives.

A very important element of the MYP program is collaboration between teachers. Knowledge cannot be divided into subjects, students need to know that the subjects deal with different aspects of the same issue, but they combine into a whole. For example, at the same time in history the period of Napoleonic wars should be discussed, in geography the regions where these wars were fought, in Polish language classes our anthem where “Bonaparte gave us an example of how to win”, and in science children can learn to calculate the trajectory of a bullet fired from a cannon during one of the battles of the French emperor. As knowledge from different subjects intermingles and blends, students remember much more and see more meaning in learning. Of course, teachers take the time to plan together the distribution of material throughout the school year and throughout the middle school years so that the effect of holistic learning is achieved.