LAUNCH OF SOPHIA HIGH SCHOOL AIMS TO BRING THE BEST OF BRITISH EDUCATION TO THE ONLINE EDUCATION SECTOR

7th August 2020, London: The UK Online Education market will be getting a boost with the launch of Sophia High School, an online educator provider that will offer students from the ages of 5-14 with a full-time virtual school curriculum providing live, interactive and online teaching in the UK.

Sophia High School, part of Sophia Technologies, launches in September 2020 and will provide students in primary (KS1 and KS2) and secondary (KS3) with a full British Curriculum and access to the globally recognised International Primary Curriculum (IPC) and International Middle Years Curriculum (IMYC), through an exciting partnership between Sophia and Fieldwork Education. Sophia High School is the second online school partnership in the Fieldwork global community of schools and the first IPC and IMYC online school for Fieldwork Education in the UK.

Sophia High School offers everything you’d expect from a traditional school with the flexibility of learning from home via the bonus of a specialised online learning platform, bringing schooling to students in a way that suits them.

Lessons are streamed and delivered in live, interactive classrooms by highly qualified fully vetted UK based teachers and students have access to digital lesson recordings, interactive activities and the full course resources.  Sophia High has also partnered with Rising Stars part of Hodder Education to ensure a robust standardised assessment system is in place in order to measure the progress of students over time as part the School's commitment to ensuring high quality online education.

Safeguarding is a priority at Sophia High and not only have all teachers been meticulously security and experienced checked according to the UK standards for Safer Recruitment in Education, but all staff undertake full safeguarding and child protection training according to Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE). What’s more, in a UK first; the online education provision provided by Sophia High will be covered by Professional Indemnity and Public Liability insurance.

The Online Education market has been growing over the last few years, with the impact of COVID 19 school closures around the globe accelerating the rise of virtual schools. In March 2020, UNESCO reported that over 1.37 billion students worldwide were impacted by school closure and learning at home.

The UK Government has been closely monitoring the growing online learning sector with a consultation in November 2019 and subsequent announcement of their decision to launch their Online Education Accreditation Scheme which will open for applications in September 2020. Sophia High School will take part in this scheme decision to ensure the highest quality of education and safeguarding for all students through the accreditation inspection process based on the Independent School Inspection Framework.

The team behind Sophia has 48+ years’ educational leadership and teaching experience between them and developed the model of Sophia High with the knowledge that there is a huge gap in the market for high quality full time online British education.

Director of Education at Sophia, David McCarthy has worked for many years in the education system as a head teacher, education director and advisor. He comments:

‘At Sophia High, we aspire to create a community of learning within a safe, secure and happy online learning environment, where our children are inspired, challenged and supported in all they do.’

David adds:

‘As we reimagine the future of education, students will be aware of their responsibilities as the learners of today and the leaders of tomorrow, as they develop critical 21st Century life skills such as communication, collaboration, digital intellect, empathy and sustainable literacy.  Sophia High also offers parents a new and revolutionary way of doing things. It is the type of education that parents have been crying out for, even more so since Covid 19 stuck the world."

This type of blended and online learning is the future and, indeed, has many advantages over our current educational system - which in many ways is still stuck in the Victorian past. Research has shown that blended learning is more flexible, more effective, more efficient, more cost-effective (Sophia High is much cheaper than private Independent schools), more personalised and more global in its approach to education and global goals.

Students can enrol in Sophia High School on as little as a half termly basis as the school recognises parents may require flexibility during these unprecedented times due to concerns regarding wider school closures for the 2020 – 2021 academic year. More importantly Sophia wishes to reassure parents that their decision to move to online learning is indeed the right decision for their children.

Sophia High School will launch in September 2020 and is available to students in the UK and globally who wish to enrol for full time online education provision.

For more information about Sophia and its tutoring service http://sophiahigh.school/

ENDS

About Sophia Technologies Ltd

Sophia is an EdTech company, which provides a number of supplementary education services including Online Education, SophiaX Camps and Courses and Private tuition via the Sophia on demand Mobile App.

The company was founded by a group of senior education professionals who together have over 48 years of experience teaching in the Independent Sector. They developed Sophia to meet the needs of progressive clients and students living in a highly competitive, changing world. Even before the pandemic, Research and Markets forecasts the online education market as $350 Billion by 2025.

Sophia offers best practice in the safer recruitment of our online education teachers and private tutors, within a largely unregulated industry. As part of its commitment to safeguarding, Sophia follows the guidelines outlined Safer Recruitment in Education for our Teachers and by The Tutors’ Association and ensures all of its teachers / tutors are DBS checked and qualifications verified. It also provides Professional Indemnity and Public Liability insurance cover for all sessions to protect both students and teachers/ tutors.

For more information about the Sophia and the variety of services it offers, please visit www.sophia.app

Facts & Figures:

UNESCO COVID 19 reports:

• 1,184,126,508 affected learners
• 67.6% of total enrolled learners
• 143 country-wide closures

Additional statistics show that:

• There is a growing home education sector, with 78,466 pupils in England home educated at some point between 2017 and 2018 - The Association of Directors of Children’s Services.