Ahead of the Curve: How Glendower’s GlenX Curriculum Reflects the Future of Education
This week, I listened with great interest to the interview with Bridget Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education, on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. The conversation marked the government’s response to the year-long curriculum and assessment review led by Professor Becky Francis, a comprehensive piece of work exploring how education in England can evolve to prepare young people more effectively for the modern world.
Described as one of the most wide-ranging reviews in a generation, the report offers a candid and constructive reflection on the current state of schooling. It recognises that while our education system has long been successful in promoting academic achievement, it has not always kept pace with the broader competencies needed to thrive in a world shaped by rapid technological, social, and environmental change.
The review’s central message is clear: education must move beyond a narrow focus on examination performance to develop young people who can think critically, communicate effectively, solve complex problems, and navigate the ethical and digital challenges of the 21st century. It advocates a recalibration of priorities, one that values intellectual curiosity, creativity, and resilience alongside knowledge and academic attainment.
While the recommendations are directed primarily at the maintained sector and at secondary education, their implications reach far wider. The direction of travel they outline, towards more adaptable, future-ready learning, is one that all schools, independent and maintained alike, must engage with.
Alignment with Glendower’s Vision
It was both heartening and affirming to hear this national conversation echo so strongly the principles that underpin our own strategic vision at Glendower. Over the past year, we have been deliberately and thoughtfully evolving our curriculum to ensure that our girls develop not only strong academic foundations, but also the intellectual agility, digital discernment, and global awareness they will need for the future.
This work culminated in the launch of our new GlenX: Future Skills programme in September 2025, an innovation designed for all Prep pupils in Years 3 to 6. GlenX represents the next step in our mission to shape the future, one girl at a time.
Where the Francis Review calls for education to reimagine its relationship with knowledge, technology, and creativity, GlenX offers a living example of that vision in action. Our GlenX curriculum is built around four key strands, each chosen to equip our pupils with the skills, understanding, and mindset to thrive in a rapidly changing world:
- Algorithmic & Digital Literacy – helping girls understand how algorithms, AI, and digital systems shape their world, and developing critical awareness of online behaviour, data, and influence.
- Entrepreneurship & Financial Education – encouraging curiosity about how ideas grow into action, introducing practical financial literacy, and inspiring creative problem-solving and ethical enterprise.
- Sustainability & Climate Awareness – deepening understanding of the environment and global interdependence, while nurturing a sense of responsibility and agency in responding to the climate challenge.
- Oracy, Communication & Active Listening – embedding confident, articulate communication and emotional intelligence across the curriculum, enabling our girls to express themselves with clarity and empathy.
Through GlenX, pupils explore these concepts in an integrated, age-appropriate way, making connections across subjects and real-world contexts. They learn to debate, question, build, and create, developing both the intellectual habits and the character strengths that underpin lifelong learning.
Ahead of the National Curve
What is particularly encouraging is how closely GlenX aligns with the review’s key themes, from digital fluency to critical thinking, sustainability, and communication. The report calls for schools to embed these dimensions not as “add-ons” but as central to what it means to be educated. That philosophy sits at the heart of GlenX.
It also reaffirms something we have long believed at Glendower: that primary education has a uniquely powerful role to play in laying the foundations for these future-ready competencies. The habits of curiosity, empathy, and resilience developed in these early years form the scaffolding for everything that follows.
We are proud, therefore, that Glendower is not waiting for national reform to dictate direction, but leading the way, designing a curriculum that reflects both the challenges and the possibilities of the century ahead.
Continuous Reflection and Renewal
As with all meaningful innovation, GlenX will continue to evolve. We are committed to ongoing reflection, listening to our pupils’ experiences, drawing on the expertise of our staff, and keeping pace with the changing educational landscape. In doing so, we remain true to our school’s founding purpose: to provide an education that not only informs the mind but also inspires the heart.
As the government embarks on this new phase of curriculum reform, I take great pride in knowing that Glendower is already demonstrating what such a vision can look like in practice. Through GlenX, we are empowering our girls to be thinkers, creators, collaborators, and changemakers, ready not only to meet the future, but to shape it.
Article by Ms Claire Boyd, Head
