Many thanks for this submission, and I am sure that it will be of great interest to colleagues in the UK, including some in the Grubb Institute, including our associate, Martin Henwood, who is already been made aware of the posting. Martin and colleagues are considering using the approach in schools in England. 

Dear Joy,

Very inspirational and I have shared your video with colleagues at the Grubb Institute and Middleground who have also connected deeply with what you are saying. I think John Bazalgette and Elana Friedman were due to meet with you when they were last over in South Africa but something occurred that meant you had to change your itinerary at the last moment, but before I write much more essentially I am asking “Can we meet up over skype or in person?”

Have a look at our website: http://ubuntu4life.org/ which will give you an idea of who we are and how we are “walking the talk”. At the moment we are working on using the animating spirit of ubuntu within education through whole school interventions and training and consultancy.

Whole school interventions work with all of the stakeholders in the school over a period of 3 years enabling stakeholders to take up their leadership, in the spirit of Ubuntu, fostering the wellbeing of both the school and the wider community to which the school belongs. 

Training and consultancy works at the broader systemic level where we work others, to provide professional development of teachers and heads. We are in talks with Academies and clusters of Academies in the UK and also South Africa, Switzerland, Papua New Guinea Peru and Australia.

In North Kent we are running a Schools programme for 5 schools in a cluster using 13 interventions to enrol the different stakeholders as partners and co-creators in the programme. The  Programme equips students in school, particularly those who are most at risk of exclusion, with powerful skills to thrive in the adult world that they will co-create and co-inhabit, by helping them pay attention to their sense of belonging and interconnectedness to others, so that they are able to work systemically and hold themselves accountable for their actions as they impact on the wider community.  This is both about valuing each student in school, preparing them for the rigorous demands of working life, and about releasing the resources of everyone engaged in the school and the wider community to which the school belongs.

In relation to policy and practice we are looking to fundamentally shift the focus of the education system by paying attention to the impact of the ‘hidden curriculum’, in order to enhance it's positive potential - equipping students with the skills that make for a life as well as a living.  We also intends to impact on policy through its participation in conferences, and to date we have delivered the key note address at the Southwark Headteachers’ conference (2011), workshops at the Teaching Leaders National conference in April 2013, and presented at the International Barrett Values Conference in South Africa (2012). 

Research from both within the education field and beyond highlight the need to refocus on the “hidden curriculum” and the skills that are enabled through the Ubuntu4Life programme.

• CBI: - ‘First Steps:  A new approach to our schools’ calls for ‘character’, resilience, nimbleness and determination;
• Institute for the Future - identified the key skills needed for the future, and these included the ability to be adaptive, to work across disciplines, to have social and emotional intelligence, and to possess the ability to make sense of, rather than regurgitate, evidence
• PISA: the PISA research comparing 72 different school systems, found that successful school systems have moved away from standaization and systems that call for compliance; and where heads and staff can be outward looking to their communities beyond the school boundaries with a focus on the success of all schools rather than just some.
• The Grubb Institute has also researched the impact of the “hidden curriculum” on learning and attainment.  This culminated in the book Leading schools from Failure to success which noted the powerful impact of belonging on school successes.   It was the way the head led and the ethos that was created that enabled failing schools to become outstanding.

I hope this provides enough of a taster for yu to get in touch!

Best wishes,

Martin