Last week the annual Cognita Europe Leadership Summit in London brought together around 140 leaders from the 52 schools that the international education group has in Spain, Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. During this two-day Conference our BSB Senior Leadership Team had the opportunity to connect with leaders from other European schools, discuss our strategic direction as a group, and reflect about what makes an outstanding holistic education and how to continue shaping a culture of wellbeing, support and challenge for our students.

 

This was also an opportunity to recognise and celebrate the schools who have gone above and beyond. We are very proud to announce that The British School of Barcelona was presented with two of the Cognita Awards: one for ‘Operational Excellence’ and one for the ‘School Most Loved by Parents’.

 

The ‘Operational Excellence’ Award recognises our mindset of continuous improvement, underpinned by learning and feedback, in a working environment with optimal and efficient people structures that are fit for future purpose and an understood framework of policies, processes, and procedures that support improved operational performance.

 

Dominik Anke, Senior Business Manager at BSB, dedicated the ‘Operational Excellence’ award to the Admin departments at school: Admissions, HR, Finance, Communications, IT, Front Desk & Back Office, Facilities & Operations: ‘To achieve these results, you need people who are accountable in every area; people who are decisive, visionary and dedicated; people who take responsibility, plan, organise, implement, lead, roll up their sleeves and deal with problems; people who are an example for their teams to follow, just like the members of our team are. We know there is still a long way to go, but this award is a recognition of all those who voted for BSB for making things work. Congratulations!’

 

The ‘School Most Loved by Parents’ award acknowledges our excellent outcomes in last year’s Voice of Parent, with a record number of nearly 60% parents grading us as 9 or 10. Our parents’ satisfaction level rose to our highest ever level, with a NPS (Net Promoter Score) of 49.9, which was 9.5 points higher than the previous year. The top 5 areas where comments were positive were: Teaching and Learning; Happy environment or child happy at school; Quality and attitude of staff; Academic standards or quality of education; and General good/pleased with School.

Jon Locke, Executive Principal at BSB, said that ‘Over the past few years, we have been on a journey of continual development at BSB. Standards across the board have risen enormously and the quality of what happens in our classrooms is genuinely outstanding. I am delighted that parents have recognised our efforts and the progress we have made, but we know we will always have areas to further improve. In this regard we will continue to listen to parents’ opinions and views in order to identify our priorities.’

 

These awards are a real inspiration for everyone at BSB and motivate us to keep on improving day by day. We would like to congratulate all the Cognita schools also achieving awards and thank the Cognita team for providing this opportunity to engage collectively into achieving our common purpose to create an inspiring world of education that empowers individuals to thrive in a rapidly evolving world.