From Highlands headteacher to Lego’s global director of play

The head who transformed a small Scottish school has a new job description: to counter rote learning with play

When Ollie Bray arrived as headteacher of a 450-pupil secondary school in the Scottish Highlands five years ago, it was in need of improvement with below-average pupil attainment. He threw out the curriculum in favour of “joyful”, project-based learning, and today the pupils’ mastery of technology and problem solving attracts visitors from around the world, including tech powerhouses such as Google and Intel.

Now Bray, 40, is moving on from Kingussie High School to a bigger stage: his success has brought him to the attention of Lego, the Danish toy company, which has appointed him to explore ways of establishing play-based learning in schools worldwide. As the director of global initiatives to connect play and education, he will join the Lego Foundation, the company’s education arm, with a brief to counter “an outdated emphasis on standardised testing and rote learning”, which Lego says equips children for the world of yesterday, not today.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2xs2rSS