Find your North Star: Defining Values for Change

By rethinking their purpose and direction with us, this Ottawa school improved the experience of every student, increased engagement with the whole community, was more successful in fundraising and increased student numbers year-on-year.

Rethinking identity to unlock a new future

Too often, schools define themselves with a blur of clichés. OJCS knew it needed more than feel-good slogans—it needed purpose that worked hard. With NoTosh, they found it. Together, we sparked a transformation that resonated through classrooms, the boardroom, and—perhaps most surprisingly—fundraising campaigns.

A co-designed purpose, grounded in tradition

OJCS plays a vital role in Ottawa’s Jewish community, with a long history of enriching lives through values-driven education. But as the world changed, so too did expectations. Rather than top-down decisions in a boardroom, school leaders chose a co-created path. With NoTosh guiding the process, a diverse Design Team of parents, teachers, and board members stepped forward to shape something real: a set of usable, visible core values. Six “North Stars”—concise, plain-English principles—now guide everything at OJCS, from pedagogy to professional conversations.

From sticky notes to strategy

We didn’t start with strategy documents. We started with people. Project Nest, a physical and digital hub, capt Read More

Early Years at Nanjing International School

Challenges:

The conventional classroom layouts at Nanjing International School were pushing early years practitioners towards more traditional teaching methods despite efforts to foster learner autonomy and structured play. The physical structure of boxed-up classrooms was a major barrier to the universal adoption of progressive educational approaches like the Reggio method and hindered effective sharing of innovative teaching practices.

Solutions Implemented:

We developed a strategic educational and architectural brief aimed at creating learning spaces that would foster greater learner autonomy and provide the space required for more play-based and outdoor learning. Architect partners EIW translated our Design Principles into an in

Outcomes:

The redesign has not only revitalized the physical spaces at Nanjing International School but also reinforced a shift towards a more student-centred approach in the early years curriculum. These new learning environments encourage greater autonomy, creativity, and collaboration among students and teachers, positioning the school as a leader in innovative educational practices on an international scale.

Reimagining Values at the American School of Warsaw

The Challenge

After more than six decades of history and growth, the American School of Warsaw (ASW) reached a turning point. Years of rapid change had left the Board and leadership with a clear sense that something vital had drifted: the school’s founding values no longer felt visible or meaningful to the community they served.

Before tackling strategy or planning yet more change, the school knew it needed to rebuild its foundations. They needed shared language. A clear sense of identity. A way to bring the community together around what truly mattered.

The Approach

NoTosh was brought in to support a whole-school process of rediscovery.

We worked alongside a Design Team of students, staff, parents, school lead Read More

Creating a school from scratch

We supported a small team to design Colina Noua Learning Center's purpose, values, vision, learning model and curriculum, from scratch, entirely online during the pandemic. Today, the school is thriving with a curriculum centered on a personalised approach, that inspires learning for life, beyond exams.

With a Masters in Education, a background in business and previous experience of building from the ground up to establish one of the finest schools in Bucharest, Colina’s Founder, Andreia Mitrea, has every credential for success. Inspired (but dismayed) by the statistic that only 6% of what we learn through formal and traditional education remains with us long-term, Andreia’s vision was for a school where learners received an education that would prepare them for

At Colina, children are encouraged not just to dream, but to define those dreams, and then develop the objectives and resilience to make them come true. Enabling and supporting children to learn for themselves, so that no matter where they go after school they thrive rather than survive, means that Colina’s model for learning is based around head, heart and hands – it’s about learning, but also about emotional, spiritual and physical wellbeing too. The result is an accredited system that is robust yet flexible, preparing young people for whatever the world throws at them in the future.

Iona Presentation College's creative hub

Along with the school and our architectural partner, we helped to create a visionary masterplan for space design that reflects and supports the art of the possible for the next 20 years.

Challenges:

Iona Presentation College, a leading girls' school in Perth, embarked on a campus redevelopment project to enhance and accelerate their educational strategies.

This masterplan was aimed at fundamentally transforming the learning and teaching environment, aligning with the school's vision for future-ready education.

The school was already making gradual changes in its educational approach, but the campus masterplan presented an opportunity to significantly advance these initiatives.

Initial comprehensive observations across Read More

What's the purpose of curriculum?

In 2015, the OECD proclaimed: “This is a watershed moment for Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence”.

But any notion that 2015 might have been a watershed moment was thrown into sharp relief in 2020.

It was the events of 2020 that brought "lift off", “a historical change in direction”, a “monumental event”. Within weeks. 2020 brought many in Scottish education that watershed moment, showing what’s possible where there is a will and need for change.

Those events also made us question the purpose of our education system.

Commissioned by Education Scotland, our independent team listened to the voices of around 150 educators, youth learning specialists and over 600 young people over the first five months of 2022. We also included the v Read More

1: Introduction and rationale for exploring purpose

"I can't believe we're still talking about this."

That was the exclamation from one educator in February 2022, at an early interview session to explore the four capacities of the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence. She had a point.

And it’s a point we’ve heard at least implicitly at every step of this journey, as our team listened to the voices of around 150 educators, youth learning specialists and over 600 young people over the first five months of 2022. We also included the voices of another 130 or so educators whose ‘curriculum stories’, told during the height of the pandemic, showed how curriculum purpose and the four capacities perform under pressure. We adopted a trademark empathetic approach, reflecting a Read More

2. A moment to decide a curriculum's purpose

In 2015, the OECD (2015) proclaimed: “This is a watershed moment for Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence” (p. 16).

But any notion that 2015 might have been a watershed moment was thrown into sharp relief in 2020.

It was the events of 2020 that brought ‘lift off’, “a historical change in direction”, a “monumental event”. Within weeks. 2020 brought many in Scottish education that watershed moment, showing what’s possible where there is a will and need for change.

2022 is perhaps the year we need to decide what to do with this watershed moment we’ve experienced. That’s why we want to explore the four capacities.

It’s 20 years since the last ‘National Debate’ on education led to the launch of Curriculum for Excellence in 2004. The curriculum was conceived to ‘ Read More

3. Consensus on purpose is the norm

 We asked over 600 learners from schools a straightforward starter question: “Have you heard of the four capacities?” And they were shown the most recent four capacities icon.

We discovered that the majority hadn’t heard of the four capacities. 60% hadn’t heard of them at all, and over 20% more weren’t sure. 

50% of upper primary school learners had heard of the four capacities, therefore backing up the evidence that they are more commonly referred to in primary schools than elsewhere. However, the results for S1-3 and Senior Phase are stark. 74% of S1-3 learners and 68% of Senior Phase learners have never heard of, or have entirely forgotten, the four capacities.

So, instead, we asked these 600 learners how they understood the purpose of school. W Read More

4. Curriculum about more than just ‘preparing’ for the future

“Let’s shape educational thinking towards being in the moment and present. Seeing young people as citizens now - not seeing education as simply turning out widgets and workers - but focussing on individuals, family, and the globe.” Trade Union representative

School is no longer just about preparing learners for an unpredictable future. Since the four capacities were baptised, a combination of global trends has tested the old idea that schools are merely a preparation ground for life beyond school. The four capacities talk about learners becoming confident, successful, effective, and responsible, now and in the future. In reality, educators see evidence that they are capable today of being and doing all those things, arguably more so now Read More

5. A curriculum In search of a “big idea”

6. The language of the capacities isn’t the language of learners“Students might remember them from primary school. They appear to have been pulled from thin air. Where did this pairing of words come from?” Secondary Educator

It is vital to show where ideas come from. Educational policy is strengthened by having a clear map of the philosophical journey, and the various sources of ideas and tributaries of thought that help steer it towards its final destination. Put another way, proving provenance helps curriculum-makers and policy-makers understand when certain ingredients may be outdated and worth changing or eliminating.

For example, the International Bacca Read More

6. The language of the capacities isn’t the language of learners

“A capacity is an ability or potential to do something - however, it’s also a constraint - better words might be attributes, capabilities, behaviours or dispositions.” University Educator

The language around the four capacities is a significant barrier to using them effectively. There is a wide range of opinions about the language of the four capacities. Suppose the four capacities were used predominantly as a design tool by educators planning learning. In that case, we might consider any language barrier a limited one - a problem we can train ourselves out of. But as educators increasingly seek to co-design learning with students and community partners, the intention and accessibility of the word ‘capacity’, and the pairings of nouns and adjectives, bec Read More

7. The new normal - our choices

The COVID-19 pandemic was the watershed that no one predicted or proclaimed. The pandemic experience ‘shone a harsh light on the vulnerabilities and challenges’ (UNESCO: Education Sector, 2020) school communities faced in Scotland and globally. Rethinking education in the ‘new normal’ (Cahapay, 2020) poses sensitive and complex challenges to any next steps of the entire education system.

On the one hand, there’s a case for change, or at least rethinking how we teach and how learners learn. On the other hand, there’s a fatigued profession wary of significant change:

“This is a tired, stressed profession who are hunkering down. The tension around the reorganisation of the curriculum is coming at the wrong time. And when the chips are down, people resort to the accountab Read More

Defining Curriculum Purpose: Our references

In addition to these secondary references, we undertook primary research with over 600 young people and around 300 adults working in and around formal education settings. You can read more about that in the PDF version of the report.

You can download the full paper (PDF) or return to the overview.

Australian Curriculum. (2022). Learning Areas. https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/learning-areas/

Biesta, G. (2008). What kind of citizen? What kind of d Read More

The NoTosh approach to strategic planning

If you're being asked to make a strategic plan that’s actually just a multi-year budget with some big words around it, you don't need us.

If you need development plans for the year ahead, your own teams are the best in the world at creating those.

If your instincts are telling you: “We need to do something different and explore beyond our comfort zone”, then we can help. That’s what strategy is.

NoTosh developed its flexible, community-driven strategy process when we realised schools and government bodies needed an alternative to the rigid five year planning cycle, and the top-down nature of “strategic plans" that rarely captured the imaginations of the people who had to make the action happen on the ground.

We have now worked with hundreds Read More

Designing Learning Spaces

Why design a learning environment based on what’s worked in the past? Instead, we set out to discover what learning experience people are trying to create, and how space could help them achieve that quicker, better.

When a school or university has a chance to upgrade and renovate learning spaces, or start from scratch with a fresh build, there is an opportunity to do more than just make things look different, shiny and new.

Alongside educators, leaders and students themselves, learning spaces are a key partner in developing incredible learning experiences.

But unless we involve students, educators and leaders in reimagining the kind of learning experience they want, spaces will always underperform at supporting their dreams.

The HUB at Nanjing International School

Challenges

The single-storey library occupied a large volume, meaning it felt echoey, impersonal, unwelcoming, despite the best efforts of library staff. Students and faculty desired a richer choice of cosy and inviting spaces, which could extend the possibilities of their learning beyond a traditional classroom.

Objective

Rethink the use of a large single-storey space so that the existing library is repurposed into a space that more students can use, and which provides richer opportunities for students to learn in different ways.

Approach

To reinvigorate the library, we reinvig

Student choice is the paramount principle behind the design of 30+ different types of learning space. Each caters for different tasks, group sizes and resource accessibility. The HUB also reinforces the school’s continued strong brand identity as part of the exciting developments in Nanjing.

The HUB represents the third space designed through the collaborative NoTosh process. EIW created a simple, coherent design language so that the whole campus reflects that ‘uniquely Nanjing’ context.

For example, EIW articulated:
· the connection to nature,
· the access to daylight,
· the curves that welcome and spark conversation and,
· the cultural context through screening to define space and echoes of the Nanjing wall

While the space is designed as a lear

Key outcomes: 

1. Multifunctional spaces, thoughtfully located. Although the new space across its three floors can accommodate hundreds of students or adult learners on professional learning days, the sound level of 100+ people learning in a purposeful activity is a relatively quiet productive buzz thanks to the division of the space across three floors, and the use of a stairway and softer materials to mitigate noise.

2. Decluttering and deprioritising less-used books to higher shelves will remain a constant priority, but even with a full collection there is still room on the shelves for more, freeing up space for students to remain in the space in comfort.

3. Autonomy in the way students choose sp Read More

Consistent and inspiring inquiry-based learning for STEM

The transition from primary to secondary school can be tough. What happens when the primary school and secondary school are about to drop their separate identities and merge onto one community campus? 

NoTosh worked alongside educators to design a active and sustainable process for thinking about science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) to help students make the transition from primary to secondary school with greater confidence.

Phase 1, ‘Mapping the Pathways’, established faculty's strengths and concerns about STEM teaching. We discovered students' desire to learn more outside and in nature. Through coaching and observation, we identified some key insights. One of these led to a shift from mostly direct instruction to students t

Phase 2, ‘Connecting the Threads’, moved into the design of STEM learning units. We worked with teaching teams to plan STEM-focused units of inquiry that fit within the school timetable. Once these had been designed, we facilitated fortnightly coaching sessions with staff to support them moving from plan to action.

We also helped classes to create a ‘Project Nest’ to explore connections between different STEM projects. This resulted in real-world projects based on problems they identified. For example, students explore how a wheelchair could be adapted to better suit the needs of one young wheelchair user.

The final phase, ‘Designing Depth’, kicked off with a full-day design sprint. The intensity of the experience established a deeper unde Read More

What works in STEM?

The most important indicator of success for a new STEM learning environment is the coherence of the community’s vision for their new space.

NoTosh undertook an independent qualitative review of South Australia's Capital Works project with a cross-section of partners. We wanted to understand how the complexity of the STEM Works project and its partnerships led to the provision of cutting-edge STEM teaching and learning.

The review indicated that the clearer the vision for how a space would be utilised, the more effective the finished space was in achieving the STEM Learning Strategy.

Five schools partnered with us to help understand what changes in practice were necessary to take advantage of the curriculum opportunities offered by their reno Read More

Design Thinking To Inspire Ambition

The Challenge

Four Sydney Primary School Head Teachers were frustrated by the perception that the Australian curriculum limited their teachers.

The Objective

Co-design a fresh and creative approach to learning that at least satisfies state standards while increasing engagement.

The Outcome

A curriculum design methodology and teaching practices that outstripped state requirements and increased social mobility, self-efficacy of students, over the course of 18 months. For example, the proportion of students who had a strong understanding of how to learn something new, and who knew why they were learning the topic, rose from around 22% to 72%.

We co-designed a curriculum

The whole staff could now see their curriculum laid out with clarity. They eliminated duplication and spotted opportunities for interdisciplinary projects.

With an emphasis now on discovering and harnessing creative space in the curriculum, rather than focussing on the limitations, teachers began to explore new opportunities for learning. They prototyped, or tested, new ideas in the classroom, and noted the impact of their changes in practice as they went.

Staff created "project nests", large noticeboards where teachers shared the different skills they had developed with NoTosh, and their own inspirations, discoveries and ideas.

Teachers are now working directly with students in an entirely new way, taking on board their ideas, tailor-making new opportunities for le Read More

What you promise matters: make your manifesto

Imagine this: a group of teachers from different domains gather. They’re not sure if they should be attempting to plan, teach and play together, or whether the cost of collaboration is just too high compared to the return they and their students might get. So we set out to see that morning whether there is a shared vision of the Arts and Learning, or whether each subject area should go and get on with things in its own, distinct way.

I invite each of the 25 or so people there to share an artefact they’ve brought with them. They have to tell a two-minute story that sums up why that artefact is core to the way they teach and their students learn. They’ve had time to prepare, and so the stories end up being three minutes long, the artefacts ever more complex. At one point, there’s a

Manifestos can also appeal to a more general audience. Again at the International School of Brussels, we developed a manifesto with the leadership and admissions teams for the Early Childhood Centre. By sharing stories of why an early childhood centre experience is quite different to a typical 'nursery' or 'childcare' setting, we were able to cut through jargon and create simple language that helps prospective families understand the choice they are making. 

Clyde Cottage Nursery in Dunoon created a manifesto with the involvement of 22 staff and leadership, over the course of one afternoon. Initially, it was designed as a way to bring together the team. However, the end product has served multiple functions:

• Staff self-reflection: The promises are displayed on a reflection board, allowing staff to catch each other doing great work that aligns to their shared promises, writing up their observations throughout the day on post-it notes for reflection later.
• Observation: Managers can use the manifesto as a framework for feedback and positive reinforcement.
• Learning logs and documentation of learners' progress is mapped to the promises, helping staff understand wher

  Why a Manifesto Matters

  We created the Middle Leader Manifesto in 2021 with 160 aspiring and current middle level leaders who took part in our online course: what did they feel were the key promises any middle leader had to keep? Since then, we've added the voices of another 600 participants to revisit and finesse it every year. Tens of thousands have downloaded it for themselves.

  So why does that matter so much to so many people? 

  1. It Creates a Shared Purpose
  A manifesto helps define what unites your team. When teachers, artists, or leaders articulate their shared co

  A Real-World Example: The Colina Noua Manifesto

  In almost every school, ‘belonging’ features as a desired outcome. But while the pandemic created both connection and disconnection in equal measure, there have been few reliable levers to actively generate it—until Colina Noua.

  Colina Noua, a newly developed Romanian village, was built from the ground up with lifelong learning and well-being at its heart. Instead of retrofitting learning into an existing space, the investors and educators designed a place where belonging is embedded in the very fabric of the community. The Colina Learning Centre is not just a school—it is the village itself, and learning is part of everyday life.

  Their manifesto reflects this:

  • We design learning fo Read More

From Complexity to Clarity: Strategy at ASFM

A New Director, A Fresh Start

How do you lead a school community of 2,500 students and hundreds of staff into a new era—especially after years of disruption?

At the American School Foundation of Monterrey, Mexico, a change in leadership became the perfect moment to rethink direction and reconnect people. With a new Director and Deputy at the helm, the school wanted more than a handover—they needed a deep dive. Into their data, yes. But more importantly, into their people, their purpose, and what mattered most going forward.

The Challenge: Rebuilding Cohesion Post-Pandemic

The outgoing Director had steered the school through a global crisis. But now, the new leadership team needed to shape a vision that would help thei Read More