One way of making a comparison is by looking at the academic outcomes of similar schools. Results from Highgrove Education’s predecessor school, Harrow School Online, give some food for thought.
Harrow School Online was set up in 2021 to offer an online British independent school education based on the provision offered by its namesake, Harrow School, a world-renowned 450-year-old boys boarding school in north-west London. Alongside A level programmes, it offered pupils a wide-ranging elective programme, pupil-led clubs and societies and a supportive community based on membership of different houses. The main difference between the two schools, other than the online mode of delivery, was that Harrow School Online offered A levels through flipped learning, which entailed just two forty-five-minute live lessons per subject per week, and five preparatory interactive self-study lessons. Harrow School has a more traditional A level delivery, with eight 40-minute periods per subject scheduled per week, and no interactive self-study courses.
A recipe for disaster to offer A levels with just two fixed classes a week? The A level outcomes suggest differently. In each year it ran, Harrow School Online significantly outperformed Harrow School.
| Harrow School Online Flipped Learning | Harrow School, London | National Average | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A* | A*-A | A* | A*-A | A* | A*-A | |
| 2024 | 50% | 75% | Just under 33% | Just over 67% | 9% | 28% |
| 2023 | 45% | 78% | Just under 33% | Just over 67% | 10% | 27% |
| 2022 | 47% | 83% | Just over 40% | Just over 75% | 15% | 36% |
Harrow School does not publish exact percentages for their A levels results, so the table above gives approximations. A more exact comparison can be made with Harrow School Hong Kong, which publishes percentages, and traditionally achieves the strongest academic results within the Harrow family of schools. In 2024 Harrow School Hong Kong achieved 36% A* in comparison to 50% at Harrow School Online, and 72% A*-A in comparison to 75%.
It would be easy to ascribe these results to a stronger cohort of pupils at Harrow School Online, but one further data set would suggest that something else is going on.
In the final years of running, Harrow School Online offered small group tutoring in a small number of A levels alongside flipped learning courses, offering 3 live lessons per week rather than two, smaller group sizes (a maximum of 6 rather than a maximum of 10), but no interactive self-study element. Results in subjects taught like this were considerably weaker. No students achieved A*s and only 17% achieved A*-A. This included many students who managed to achieve As or A*s in subjects they studied through flipped learning.
| Flipped learning results | Small group tutoring | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A* | A*-A | A* | A*-A | A* | A*-A | |
| 2024 | 50% | 75% | 90% | 0% | 17% | 58% |
The difference is striking. Nearly half of exams taught using flipped learning were A*, and yet no students taking tutor-led subjects achieved that. So what is it about online flipped learning that is so effective?
When using self-study courses, pupils study at a time that suits them, and work through the interactive lessons as quickly or slowly as they wish. It’s more challenging to learn content independently, but the increased level of cognitive engagement required means the learning is more likely to stick. Pupil performance and time spent studying is tracked throughout the courses, giving teachers plenty of data to review each pupil’s progress. If there’s a problem, teachers intervene early. Some of the time saved on teaching content is set aside for providing additional one-to-one support for pupils who need it. The end result is that pupils spend vastly different amounts of time engaging with the self-study materials, and take different amounts of teacher time, but achieve similarly strong outcomes. One student summed this way of learning up as “100% efficient”.
When most of the learning takes place outside of a traditional classroom, live lessons can be spent consolidating and practising what pupils know, with a particular focus on applying knowledge to problem solving. Teachers are on hand to support pupils as they solve tricky exam questions, which in a traditional classroom is often a part of the learning which is left for homework. Lessons are active and fun. Questionnaire feedback from pupils consistently rated both learning and enjoyment positively:
| Feedback on self-study, live lessons | Average score /10 |
| How much do you enjoy A level self study – average: | 8.0 |
| How much do you learn in A level self study – average: | 8.5 |
| How much do you enjoy A level live lessons – average: | 8.8 |
| How much do you learn in A level live lessons – average: | 8.7 |
But the key takeaway from flipped learning isn’t the exam results. When pupils were asked what they liked most about learning online, it was the skills they were developing.
“I like that you have to be able to have self-control and time management skills… I like that we have to be independent and know how hard we need to work and how we need to make time for everything. It prepares us for the future.”
Or a shorter take on the same theme: “I’m really happy to be in control of my journey and I strongly believe that this will be invaluable when I go to university.”
When Harrow School Online closed in 2024, the academic staff moved across to Highgrove Education to continue offering the same high quality flipped learning provision. The first set of EPQ results, at 80% A*-A and 60* A* suggest the team behind the world’s best online school results will continue where Harrow School Online left off. Under Highgrove Education, there’s an extra twist – the team now works with traditional schools and study hubs to offer hybrid provision in face-to-face settings. While flipped learning is ideally suited to the online world, there’s nothing to stop the same curriculum design being implemented successfully within a more traditional setting. If pupils learn better when given more independence and responsibility for their learning, why not make that part of mainstream education?
