THINK Global School

How can learning be transformed by taking students into the world?

THINK Global School is the world’s first traveling high school, offering students firsthand experiences of the world through a combination of place- and project-based learning. By emphasizing student agency, TGS empowers learners to take ownership of their education as they live and learn in four countries annually, engaging in project modules relevant to their surroundings.

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HundrED 2020

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Overview

HundrED has selected this innovation to

HundrED 2020

HundrED 2019

HundrED 2018

Updated January 2025

Web presence

2010

Established

30 2024

13

Countries

Students upper

Target group

Incorporating THINK Global School’s innovative pedagogies doesn’t require a plane or passport; rather, students can find a world of learning possibilities in their own backyard.

About the innovation

Why did you create this innovation?

Inspired by founder Joann McPike’s son Alex and his curiosity about the world, TGS was created to redefine education. Students live in 4 countries annually, with a heavy focus placed on agency, autonomy, and purpose.

By engaging directly with diverse cultures and real-world challenges, they develop critical thinking, empathy, and a global perspective -- valuable skills in our evolving world.

What does your innovation look like in practice?

At TGS, innovation is woven into every aspect of the school. Students don’t just sit in classrooms—they live and learn in four countries annually, engaging directly with the people, cultures, and challenges they encounter.

Each term is anchored by student-led projects that tackle pressing issues such as climate change, social justice, and biodiversity loss. Teachers act as mentors, guiding students as they develop critical thinking, creativity, and leadership skills.

Textbooks and lectures are paired with interdisciplinary, hands-on learning. Students collaborate in teams to solve real-world problems, whether it’s designing sustainable housing, creating solutions for clean water access, or supporting local businesses.

By making the world their classroom, students gain more than facts—they gain a deeper understanding of humanity. Each experience strengthens their ability to think critically and act thoughtfully, preparing them to create lasting change wherever life takes them.

How has it been spreading?

THINK Global School’s innovative model has captured attention worldwide, inspiring educators, parents, and students seeking meaningful change in education. Our alumni, equipped with critical thinking, creativity, and a global mindset, actively share their experiences and drive impact in diverse fields.

Through the THINK Learning Studio and partnerships with educational organizations, conferences, and global forums, we share our Changemaker Curriculum and project-based learning approach, encouraging others to adopt experiential models. Media coverage and word-of-mouth from families and communities amplify our reach, highlighting how living and learning in four countries each year prepares students to address real-world challenges with empathy and purpose.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

Families interested in attending THINK Global School can submit an inquiry on our website to begin the application process, with applications being open between August and December of each year.

We also invite anyone interested in THINK Global School to email us directly about visiting onsite, providing mentorship, or employment opportunities at community@thinkglobalschool.org.

Impact & scalability

Impact & Scalability

Innovativeness

There is only so much that can be learned within the four walls of a classroom, where teachers are largely reliant on lectures, textbooks, and internet materials. THINK Global School believes that engaging in place-based learning and allowing students to engage directly with a wide range of cultures, peoples, and
artefacts is the key to a global education.

Impact

Place-based learning allows students to use all five senses in their learning and visits to sombre sites like Srebrenica in Bosnia allows them to converse directly with those affected by tragedy, and as THINK Global Schools has found, these encounters can shape our students lives in a significant way, often motivating them to create meaningful change in the affected places.

Scalability

While the travel aspect may be problematic for many schools and especially the younger grades, the innovation technique can be used at all levels, scale and scope are age dependant. The approach is being used, to various degrees, by a range of schools worldwide.

Academy review results

Impact

Scalability

Exceptional

High

Moderate

Limited

Insufficient

Exceptional

High

Moderate

Limited

Insufficient

Media

Photo

THINK Global School Newsletter Fall 2024 https://mailchi.mp/thinkglobalschool/think-global-school-newsletter-summer-6418917

Link

My Journey with THINK Global School by Class of 2020 Alum Bella Engalla

My Journey with THINK Global School by Class of 2020 Alum Bella Engalla https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-journey-think-global-school-class-2020-alum-bella-iiosc/

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THINK Global School Good Schools Guide Report 2024 https://www.goodschoolsguide.co.uk/schools/501527/think-global-school/4U7QDL1#tab_review

Link

Top Private Schools to Watch | The Schools Index 2023 by Carfax Education

THINK Global School Selected As one of the best 25 schools to watch in 2023 (Something Different Category) https://www.schools-index.com/top-2023-schools/top-25-schools-to-watch

Link

Sector champions honoured at the 2023 PIEoneer Awards

THINK Global School Wins the Progressive Education Delivery Award at the 2023 PIEoneer Awards Read More: https://thepienews.com/sector-champions-honoured-at-the-2023-pieoneer-awards/

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THINK Global School selected as one of the top 10 private schools, rest of the world, by the 2024 Spear's School Index. Learn More: https://www.spears500.com/adviser/15229/think-global-school

Link

What Are Learning Targets at THINK Global School?

If you are new to THINK Global School’s approach to learning, some of the terms we use might seem as foreign as the places our students call home. But that’s ok — we’re here to help clear things up! One term in particular that all prospective students and their parents should become familiar with is learning targets, and in this post we’ll explain what they are, and why they are an integral component of our curriculum.Learning targets serve as the backbone of THINK Global School’s Changemaker Curriculum. At their core, learning targets provide a measuring stick against which our students can assess their acquisition of knowledge during self-directed projects and teacher-led modules. To put it more simply, our learning targets provide a clear statement of what the student and their educators wish to accomplish during a project, while still allowing the student to maintain ownership of their learning.Read More:https://thinkglobalschool.org/what-are-learning-targets-at-tgs/

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Looking Back: Why We Developed Our Own Curriculum

One of the questions we are regularly asked these days is “How did you arrive at the Changemaker Curriculum?” This question is understandable given how ingrained standardized curricula continue to be at schools around the world. With the Changemaker Curriculum, we’ve taken a page out of Sir Ken Robinson’s playbook and done away with educational conformity, replacing it with what we believe to be the most innovative and relevant approach to learning that exists today.With that in mind, here’s a little background on why a shift to a curriculum based on the leading educational philosophies made sense for us.https://thinkglobalschool.org/looking-back-at-curriculum/

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CM2 Students Share Their Learning During the China PBL Showcase

Each term at THINK Global School is an opportunity for our students to explore a new part of the world and learn firsthand about the social, cultural, economic, and environmental factors that define it. Most recently, our students wrapped up terms in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Changemaker Cohort 1) and China (Changemaker Cohort 2), the first of four countries they’ll live in over the course of the 2019-20 school year. Rather than sit in classrooms and engage in teacher-led discussions, students at THINK Global School work on a variety of projects relevant to the places they find themselves in. These come in the form of teacher-led modules, which are term-long projects where students work in teams to answer driving questions, and personal projects, which are student-driven and allow our kids to explore their passions while mastering 21st-century skills. Terms end with a project-based learning showcase, where students demonstrate what they’ve learned during the course of their personal projects and teacher-led modules. Below you can find our most recent Changemaker Cohort 2 Showcase, which was filmed on September 4th, 2019, in Shanghai, China.Read More:https://thinkglobalschool.org/cm2-students-share-their-learning-during-the-china-pbl-showcase/

Link

Understanding The Changemaker Curriculum

New students arriving at THINK Global School are in for a world of new experiences, as our Changemaker Curriculum is drastically different than the traditional curricula used at most high schools. Rather than sitting in classrooms while being instructed by a teacher, students at THINK Global School are expected to demonstrate agency and autonomy, working in teams to craft innovative solutions to our country-specific modules. They are also encouraged to explore their passions through a near-infinite array of personal project subjects, gaining relevant 21st-century skills in the process.So how does the Changemaker Curriculum work? In this post, we’ll explore the various facets that make up the world’s most innovative learning approach.https://thinkglobalschool.org/understanding-the-changemaker-curriculum/

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A look at our 2019 term in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Following their ten day Rite of Passage in Northern England, our new students joined returning CM1 students in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, for the first term of the 2019-20 school year. During their time in BiH, students lived in the heart of Sarajevo’s Old Town, Baščaršija. One of Europe’s best kept secrets (although that secret is getting out), Sarajevo is always popular with our students, and they enjoyed finding chic new cafes nestled among Baščaršija’s well-preserved Ottoman Empire and Austro-Hungarian buildings.This term, all of our CM1 students participated in the same module, a deep dive into the topic of reconciliation — a necessary and ongoing process nearly twenty years after the end of the Balkan Conflict.Students divided into module groups to research and create a product of their choice based on the concept of reconciliation. At the start of the project, they were asked to consider the following driving question: How can we convey the complexities of ethnic and religious reconciliation through our experience of Bosnia and Herzegovina?Read more:https://thinkglobalschool.org/a-look-at-our-2019-term-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina/

Link

A Look at Our CM2 2019 Term in China | THINK Global School

After wrapping up their 2018-19 school year in Greece and spending some well-deserved time at home with their family and friends, our CM2 students headed off to China for the first term of their 2019-20 school year. This marked our CM2 students’ third time living and learning in Asia, following terms the previous year in India and Japan. During those terms, our CM2 students had the opportunity to work on modules connected to sustainability, virtual reality, bringing e-commerce to rural areas, and much more. A Look at How Our Students Learned During Their 2019 Term in China

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THINK Global School selected as a HundrED 2020 Global Innovation

https://thinkglobalschool.org/think-global-school-selected-as-a-hundred-2020-global-innovation/We are pleased to announce that THINK Global School was selected by HundrED, a global education non-profit based out of Helsinki, Finland, for the HundrED 2020. This is the third consecutive year that THINK Global School has been selected to a HundrED Global Innovation Collection, which annually highlight 100 of the brightest innovations in K-12 education from across the world. Each of the innovations were evaluated on the criteria of impact and scalability by members of the HundrED Academy. Selected innovations were reviewed on their merits by teachers, students, leaders, innovators and other HundrED Community members. This year, 2008 innovations were reviewed by the committee of experts, with THINK Global School making the final cut of 100.According to The HundrED Academy, THINK Global School was chosen due to its unique pioneering status and ability to create a scalable impact, reaching 14 countries. The school is making a difference in the realm of global education by having students live and learn in four different countries a year. THINK Global School’s Changemaker Curriculum, which focuses on social-emotional learning alongside place and project-based learning, is in the HundrED’s eyes the factor that really makes THINK Global School stand out.This year Head of School Jamie Steckart and Class of 2019 Alumni Alicia Husselin had the honor of speaking at The HundrED’s Innovation Summit which took place at the Nokia Executive Experience Center in Espoo, Finland. Head of School Jamie Steckart participated in a panel dedicated to innovative learning spaces, while Alicia took part in a panel on student leadership and agency. School founder Joann McPike and Marketing Director Lee Carlton also attended the three-day summit, which featured education innovations from across the world — all utterly unique but entwined by their ability to help every child flourish. Reflecting on the conference, Lee Carlton shared, “I’m always amazed by the quality of innovations I witness at the HundrED and this year was no different. It was really interesting to see how many of the innovations are moving in the same direction as us by placing a focus on experiential learning, student agency, and wellness. It’s further proof in my eyes that TGS has positioned itself well to serve our students’ best interests and allow them to develop as individuals.”

Video

15 Things to Do Before You Graduate THINK Global School

https://youtu.be/SZrlTlOXZ7s

Implementation steps

Rationale

No one expects the classroom teacher/administrator to vault into the intensive school reform design that characterizes THINK Global School. Yet it issurprising how little teachers, administrators, and students know about the communities that surround the four walls of their school.

We know as educators and citizens that the problems facing our communities may be local in effect, but stem from global issues. It is imperative that the institution of education takes an active role in solving these problems through real-time application. Our neighborhoods, communities, states, and countries desperately need the creative energy of the young people entrusted to our care, yet we provide very little opportunity for our kids to take an active role in making change.

“Creative neighborhood leaders across the country have begun to recognize this hard truth, and have shifted their practices accordingly. They are discovering that wherever there are effective community development efforts, those efforts are based upon an understanding, or map, of the community's assets, capacities and abilities.”

Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets," by John P. Kretzmann and John L. McKnight.

Pre-experience research

Understanding your community

Before walking out the door of your school you need to understand the communities your students will be interacting with as they design and complete projects and field experiences.

Begin by mapping the assets of your community. Use the attached resource tool to help you create such a map. I recommend using a mind mapping tool to record your findings. At TGS we use MindMeister.

Size and scope determine the length of the project. Advice: Start small! At THINK Global School, due to the logistics of travel, implementation time can run into the months as we scout locations, make contacts with experts, and attend to other logistical needs. But as mentioned, these projects can be scaled to fit the needs of any community, and implementation times will differ greatly by the size and scope of the project. Some schools might need one month, others one week.

The Task

Now that you have completed the asset mapping of your community, begin with this driving question: How can we implement a field experience to explore a small piece of our community in depth?

Select learning targets (standards) you want the students to master after completion of the experience. The longer the experience the more targets you can incorporate. If you’re feeling collaborative, partner with a colleague whodoesn’t teach in your subject area. You’ll be using our Project-Based Learning Template for planning purposes. The document has all the links and resources with a place for your creativity to run wild.

b. Decide on a Summative Assessment: See theseAssessment Resource documentsfor guidance and ideas. Here is a great external link for Assessment Ideas.

c. IMPORTANT NOTE: The above documents and links are for the use of planning day projects. For the scope of this tool kit, we limited field experiences to those where students go home at the end of the school day. These concepts are scalable for all ages of students.

NOTE: Adding overnight/travel elements brings a whole list of planning areas and concerns/considerations. We recommend partnering with experienced professionals if you want to add that element to your school day. Feel free to contact us at TGS if you need further guidance.

Insights

Helpful hints to transition to THINK Global School's model: