Western Academy of Beijing's community gathered for two screenings of Most Likely to Succeed, a documentary exploring innovation in education.

"This film is a provocation, a spark for a conversation that's happening around the globe," WAB Director Courtney Lowe told the WAB community. "If the world around us is changing, how should schools adapt to educate students and prepare them for a different kind of economy than what we're seeing today?"

As a school and community, WAB is working to evolve an education that will meet the future needs and demands of a rapidly developing society. The conversation at WAB has centered around an initiative called The Future of Learning at WAB, or FLoW21.

FLoW21 is a community-wide, five-year initiative at WAB with a mission to maximize the learning experience for each individual student. Recognizing that the world is rapidly changing and students must learn in ways that prepare them for an uncertain future, the methods and strategies being implemented are based on professional teacher expertise, scientific research into how humans learn, and evidence from other schools.

While these educational changes lean away from standardized testing and the separation of individual subjects in favor of project-based, student-directed and inquiry-based learning, WAB is also a leading International Baccalaureate World School, which has an established curriculum. As WAB develops FLoW21, the IB standards and practices are changing to better meet the needs of individual learners' holistic development. The two sets of values align directly.

"The IB is being more flexible, and we are designing all of the pieces of FLoW21 in direct consultation with the IB," WAB Deputy Director John D'Arcy said. "As we progress as a school, we are putting all of those pieces in place to develop confident students who are ready to go out, problem solve, and make a difference in the world."

The trailer for Most Likely to Succeed.