Curriculum Lab
“Curriculum Lab” is our brain in Kansai International Academy. Based on our educational philosophy “to nurture leaders who can contribute to an international world”, we collect programmes from all over the world, and arrange and accustom to structure our original curriculum.
Since KIA was founded in 2001, we have been focusing on a curriculum that best suits to “nurture a leader in society”.
Curriculum Lab strives to provide curriculums to enhance childrens’ language skills, knowledge and to nurture future leaders.
Structure of Curriculum Lab
Unification of Curriculum Lab is the core of our philosophy.
Curriculum Lab is structured in four departments, human development, training, technology and teaching material development.
Each department consists of full-time Curriculum Lab members and executive head teachers (ELC, Kindergarten, Elementary, Secondary).
Our research is based on educational theories and teaching methods for English education and multilingual education from all around the world.
We continue to research and practice to make our curriculum the best at all times.
Developing our original materials
We put effort in developing our original teaching materials that suit our original curriculum.
We design teaching materials and practice notebooks accustomed to age groups.
Feedback on staff and staff trainings
Including children, staff must continue to learn and study throughout their life. With an increase in student numbers, our school is growing along with the number of staff. We have staff from more than 20 different countries, and we are all serious about education. We continue to challenge ourselves to provide the worlds’ first PYP programme bilingually in both Japanese and English, and to provide a new multilingual education.
To enhance the quality of education, we have staff training twice a year including new-staff training, robotics training, First Aid course, the importance of play, oru Math education...etc. Also, we actively take part in training sessions held in other schools, and we have workshops inviting our advisor, Mr. Kenichiro Mogi who is involved in different fields.
3 of our staff participated in a 5 days workshop in Reggio Emilia, Italy learning about student based project learning implemented around the world. We value childrens’ artwork and observe childrens’ daily behavior, to catch any opportunities for childrens’ self-expressions.
In addition, we regularly participate in IB workshops as an IB school and also we hold workshops in school. We deepen our understanding of inquiry based learning, and practice what we studied from training such as the process of evaluating children, reading and writing, ways of involving inquiry based learning to math education.
By having staff training opportunities, regular meetings, staff cooperation system and such, we as KIA staff continue to strive to put effort into maximising our education environment.
Visiting schools (National/ Overseas)
Curriculum Lab members and staff visit schools annually as representatives of KIA. We have visited schools in Switzerland, England, Holland, Finland, Australia, Canada, Hawaii, and the United States, which allowed us to experience the worlds’ most advanced education, to exchange thoughts with educators around the world and for us to be recognised. What we always realise is that every school is unique to its own. In addition, educators from schools we have been impressed with all say “schools, education, must continue to evolve”, and they value children’s uniqueness.
Reports made after visiting schools are shared among staff and parents, and incorporate curriculums used around the world, educational circumstances, teaching methods, facilities, staff training and more to enhance our development as a school. Furthermore, we have explored having affiliated schools around the world for our students to study abroad both in short and long term.
Training Human Resources, Recruitment
It's not only about teaching English. We are looking for staff who can share necessary skills and morals to live in the society as a role mode.
We value on teaching skills and human nature in recruiting staff.
Applicant is offered a job after screening of resume, interview, and a demo lesson is done.
Curriculum Lab Advisor
Ken Mogi
The modern view of academic ability is based on the concept that people have a multitude of interests, and that there are common methods for investigating those interests. Therefore, people do not need to decide the direction of their studies in advance. Instead, they can foster skills such as gathering data, mathematical analysis, and critical thinking.
According to this concept, it would be nonsense to look at all known history and ask what percentage of that history a person knows. Nor does it follow that the purpose of education is to standardize the content of the “textbook” in advance and then master the standardized content.
In other words, the content of academic skills becomes a process and becomes meta-academic, and the target of adaptation of those meta-academic skills is different for each person.
Under this view of academics, all entrance exams must be AO (Admissions Office) exams. Because if there are a million people, there are a million different things each person is working on. Because there is. No single standard test can assess what every person is working on.