SintLucas, a Network School

2013 – SintLucas in Boxtel, the Netherlands is a school for secondary vocational education with training courses for  2 – and 3 -dimensional design and creative craftsmanship.
SintLucas is one of the five vocational institutions in the Netherlands that is selected to experiment with the model of the Network School (2011-2014). SintLucas experiments within the course for media designer.

Network school
For a Network School there are no boundaries between school, work and social life. It is closely affiliated with the expectations and needs of the ‘outside’:  businesses and society. Eventually year classes will disappear, the school is virtually open 365 days a year and regular exchanges between the staff of the school and business will take place. The reason for SintLucas  to join the experiment  is that the school wants to improve the quality and efficiency of the operations. 

Approach
On the basis of brainstorming sessions with staff, students and network partners SintLucas started creating a ‘culture card’ jointly. It contains the core values of SintLucas and the work attitude that should accompany them. Subsequently, teams of teachers determined what they want and can change in fields such as e-learning, professionalism and demand-oriented training. This project has yielded seven project teams. The coming period, SintLucas will orient at the outside to involve SMEs in the Network School. Internally will be investigated how teachers (successfully) can lay more responsibility among students and get even more interaction with students.

Results
Internally, the concept Network School is already well established. Teachers and students are enthusiastic. Noticeable result of the Network School is that the greater flexibility creates more motivation in students. Working on assignments they have achieved themselves,  is a good example. In the outside and with local businesses there should be made some more steps.

Preconditions
Essential is a continuous communication with all relevant internal and external participants. It is also important to make all the steps transparent and to start change processes together with the people rather than for the people.

More information
See the websites: www.sintlucas.nl and www.socialeinnovatiebrabant.nl 

Themes: Dynamic management & Leadership, Talent development