It is our pleasure to welcome you to the website of the British School of Tirana. We trust that you find the information helpful.
The main purpose of the British School of Tirana is to ensure that the young people we serve are well prepared for the challenges they face in a rapidly changing world. While preparing young people to thrive through academic success, a central part of their education at the British School of Tirana is to nurture the development of character through an engaging curriculum and supportive programme.
The Mastery-learning model will form the basis of our approach to traditional teaching and how we intend to embed learning skills for our children. This means spending greater time going into depth about a subject as opposed to racing through the things that all children should know. At the British School of Tirana we feel it is our duty to ensure that children have an absolutely solid, concrete understanding of subject knowledge and skills as well as being emotionally resilient for secondary school. We aim to create deeper understanding rather than to accelerate pupils into new content.
In order to develop this, we will aim to teach our children four key learning habits through:
- Embracing Challenge
- Developing Resilience (and learning to cope with setbacks and mistake making)
- Demonstrating and celebrating Effort and a positive attitude towards their work (growth and learning require effort).
- Celebrating Success and Achievement whilst accepting feedback and in identifying ways in which to develop further.
- The skills are built through hands-on lessons and helping our children learn beyond the basic remembering of facts.
We intend to use cross-curricular days in order to give the children the opportunity to develop their learning skills of resilience, effort and receiving feedback through different challenges in different contexts, often drawing upon British Culture. Outdoor activities and learning will help to facilitate this.
We invite you to explore our websites so that you can form a better view of the schooling and the other activities which we provide for Albanian as well as international students.
Why we’re different
The British School of Tirana (BST) is an independent British private school operating overseas.
- Small class sizes to support personalised learning
- Teaching in English languge and support on learning Albanian language, history and geography
- A focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths)
- Well equipped classrooms, labs, resource centres, library and sport grounds for a diverse curriculum as per the National Curriculum of England and Wales.
- High standards of care with a focus on fostering students’ self-confidence
- Highly engaging teaching and learning
- Highly qualified teaching staff with English and Albanian as the languages of instruction
- Motivated student community
- Rigorous academic standards
- Extensive extra-curricular activities – regular musical performances, sport competitions etc.
Learning Principles
BST believes that education is about more than academic achievement and looks to provide young people with a range of opportunities and experiences which prepare them well to take their place in local, national and international society. We seek to provide children with a broad, balanced and rich curriculum that is underpinned by imaginative and dedicated teaching. The British style curriculum is designed to be delivered predominantly in the English language and is inclusive. Our aim is to provide suitable challenges for all children of all abilities, by responding to pupils’ diverse needs and overcoming barriers to learning for individuals.
We aim to give our children the skills, knowledge and values they need to prosper both at home and in a wider globalised society. These Core Skills and British Values are based on extensive research and are embedded within our curriculum. They relate, not only to the world our children live in now but also to the future world in which they will live.
Our Learning Principles form our school aims and are based upon the shared understanding that learning is most effective when:
- Students are healthy, caring and have the self-confidence to learn from their mistakes, the perspectives of others and form their own opinions.
- The learning environments and educational resources that students use are accessible, stimulate curiosity and embrace the dynamic possibilities of digital technologies.
- Students explicitly understand learning intentions and success criteria.
- Students are critical thinkers and construct their own knowledge and understanding through an inquiry-based approach.
- Curriculum content is meaningful to the student and leads to interdisciplinary and conceptual understanding.
- Thinking is visible and students collaborate effectively and respectfully with their peers and others.
- Students explore and apply a variety of strategies to organise and approach their learning.
- Students receive effective feedback based upon pre-set criteria and are intrinsically motivated to learn.
- There is a broad and balanced curriculum through which students can experience success and challenges in a variety of different ways.
- Education and the ethos of the school are valued and encouraged in the family home.