When Macarena Cerpa Portella - a first grade teacher at an international school in Chile - visited Four Forest Bilingual International School in Switzerland, she returned home inspired by the “highly personalised” learning and “the safe and supportive” atmosphere.

“The value placed on individualised learning in Switzerland is remarkable; it fosters a close and caring environment where teachers can truly get to know each pupil,” she says.

Yet Cerpa Portella’s two-week visit to the school’s Zug campus was also “one of pride” - pride in the work that she and her colleagues do, operating in a very different context, at Dunalastair School in Santiago.

“Despite facing very different economic realities and larger class sizes, I realised how dedicated and resilient teachers in Latin America and Chile are,” she says. “The emotional and professional demands are high, yet our commitment to our pupils remains unwavering.”

Learning Beyond Borders

Cerpa Portella - who was born and raised in Chile and has worked at Dunalastair School for the past 15 years - made her trip as part of the Learning Beyond Borders exchange, run by international schools group Cognita, to which both schools belong.

The programme was launched in 2018 by Cognita Latin America to give educators “a unique opportunity to expand their leadership, embrace diverse perspectives and bring fresh insights back to their home schools”.

Since then, over 150 teachers from Latin America have travelled to Cognita schools in Spain, Dubai, Switzerland, India, Singapore and the UK, as well as visiting schools in other countries in their own region.

The insights are varied for those who have taken part, with Cerpa Portella noting, for example, that despite the difference in class sizes - Dunalastair has class sizes of up to 30 pupils while classes at Four Forest are capped at 15 - she learned a lot from her trip, including how the use of space can improve personalisation by giving children choices about what they want to do and where they want to do it.

She adds: “Although the school was not large in terms of pupil numbers, the classrooms were very spacious, with different areas designed for different purposes and activities. For example, there was a corner with a sofa, a rug and bookshelves; a corner with materials and games; another with a large table for group work; and individual desks for each child.

“I believe that the importance of spaces and their implementation are fundamental to achieving better learning experiences, and that is something we should work on.”

Time to share

The fact that most teachers who have taken part are from South America is due, in part, to the exchanges occurring in January, when schools in the southern hemisphere are on their long summer break while schools in the northern hemisphere are up and running.

This was the case for Elizabeth Cabral, who teaches Mandarin to lower secondary students at Brazil’s Instituto GayLussac. She travelled to the UK in January to experience life at Cognita’s Oakfields Preparatory School in London.

Cabral says one of the most valuable insights she gained from the trip was the close attention paid by the school’s teachers to pupil wellbeing.

On the back of the trip, Cabral has introduced weekly “emotional check-ins” at the beginning of her classes, when students are encouraged to reflect on how they are feeling and share any concerns.

Cabral says this has strengthened her relationship with her students, which has also ultimately had a positive impact on their learning.

Leveraging global connections

This is the kind of benefit the Learning Beyond Borders coordinator, Paula Nikotian, Cognita’s HR director for Latin America, is used to seeing.

She emphasises the value in teachers seeing how their day-to-day compares with colleagues who are ostensibly doing the same job, albeit in different countries, with different cultures and, often, different curricula.

The scheme, she says, leverages one of the big benefits of being part of an international schools group like Cognita - which has over 100 schools in 21 countries - because it fosters connections between schools and teachers across the globe and introduces both host and visitor to new insights and perspectives.

All teachers applying for the programme - some of whom put themselves forward and some of whom are put forward by their school - state in their applications what they hope to get out of the experience, and then they are matched with a school.

Nikotian says: “Most of them want to experience a different culture and to see how someone in another part of the world who is a specialist in the same area does their job so they can share best practices and knowledge.

“We have a lot of International Baccalaureate schools, but we also have schools that deliver the national curriculum. They want to see the different approaches.”

Cognita pays for the teachers’ accommodation and travel, and they shadow colleagues in the host school, but also often deliver lessons themselves and share their own experiences from working in their country and context.

Learning in both directions

James Stenning is the executive principal of Four Forest Schools, as well as International School Zurich North. He describes Cerpa Portella’s visit as “enriching”, saying “her presence added a fresh perspective to classroom practice and team discussions”.

In Chile, there is a “strong emphasis on creativity, collaboration and teacher autonomy”, he says, while the Swiss curriculum - Lehrplan 21 - “offers a more structured framework, with clearly defined competencies and a focus on progression”.

This difference “encouraged rich discussion among our teachers about how to balance freedom with structure”, he says.

Stenning adds: “It was a genuine exchange of ideas and culture that left a lasting impression on everyone at Four Forest Zug.”

Meanwhile, Matthew Booth, headteacher of Oakfields Preparatory School, says the benefits of Cabral’s visit were “felt widely”, adding that “staff gained professional inspiration, children engaged with global ideas and the whole school community embraced the spirit of shared learning”.

“It was a reminder that education is a global endeavour, and that we grow stronger through collaboration,” he adds.

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