Maria Chelnokova, Deputy Director for Academic Affairs, spoke about this innovation and how the school is developing.

- Maria Leonidovna, the name of the laboratory is too tricky ... What do they do in it?

This is a laboratory of interdisciplinary sciences, where we will study physics, chemistry, biology, applied disciplines related to biomedical and physical and mathematical profiles. Professors, candidates of sciences will come from institutes with which we closely cooperate and give lectures, conduct interesting experiments and experiments. Laboratory work, which was previously carried out with children in classes, will now be carried out in separate laboratories, which are equipped with the latest technology - very good physical, biological, chemical equipment. And it is very important that the laboratory has created conditions for teaching children with disabilities. Previously, they studied in separate institutions, but now, after the unification of schools on the basis of our Kurchatov School, these children will be presented with physics, mathematics, chemistry, and biology in an accessible form, in the applied spectrum.

- Teachers of which universities will work with the guys?

The ones we work with. These are the Kurchatov Institute, Sechenov First Moscow Medical University, Moscow City Pedagogical University, Moscow City Psychological and Pedagogical University.

- Will classes in the laboratory be held as part of the school curriculum?

Not only: additional optional classes will be held there - for those who receive specialized education and those who are just interested in it.

The laboratory is an opportunity to expand the horizons of students as much as possible, so that they not only rest on preparing for the Unified State Examination through terrible coaching, but also fully develop. To possess knowledge not only in theory, but also in practice could apply them.

In general, the laboratory is just one of the activities of our educational complex. We have many more areas that allow us to form a broad outlook of students - from primary to specialized classes.

Last year, when the order was issued to merge school No. 2077 and the Kurchatov school, many parents almost organized rallies against the merger. How are things now?

We work in a normal mode, and the children study without any losses: they won the All-Russian School Olympiad this year as well. We continue to work evenly and calmly.

Now there are 6 schools in your complex. The range of specialized education is wide: biology, psychology, and physics and mathematics. Does a bigger school provide more opportunities for student development?

Not only students, but also teachers. All participants in the educational process are constantly evolving. Since now the choice within one school is very large, the child can decide on a profession. It can come to this during training, try yourself everywhere, understand and identify some inclinations. He does not need to change school, environment, teachers for this. It only changes the direction of learning. Can move without loss from one to another profile. And this is good, because it is not traumatic for the psyche.

As for children with disabilities, and I strongly emphasize that we have them, this is also a big plus for them, because they get ample opportunities for specialization, integration, and professional self-realization. They try themselves in different directions. And somewhere they can study in classes, if they succeed, among children studying in general education classes. A large complex gives us the opportunity to integrate all the children together, because we have a common out-of-school life. We are all one school.

A large school gives teachers the opportunity to share experiences. Now psychologists, who were very strong in special educational organizations for children with disabilities, have found great use in public schools, because so many children with problems study there. Now they are specialists of one school. And they are actively exploring these frontiers. Anyone can turn to a good speech therapist, psychologist.

Teachers who know how to work with children who have learning difficulties share their experience with colleagues who have never worked with such children. And those who now work in specialized classes help colleagues who work in a different direction to orient themselves, because they are happy to broadcast the innovations they learn.

- And how do you attract professors and teachers of institutes to the school?

With my life. We have many events to which we invite representatives of various public organizations and universities. And they support our work, from which social partnership is born.

- How many graduates enter partner universities?

Profilers enter them in 90 percent of cases. Two years ago, we created an international pre-university. Children go on vacation to Germany, to German universities with which we have concluded agreements. This is a very interesting and useful experience: the guys improve their language and bring an international certificate from Germany, which gives them some preferences when entering a university. Director of our school Irina Valentinovna Sivtsova personally familiar with the leadership of this program and German universities.

- By the way, how important is the director's personality in the process of school development?

I believe that only a person with very strong personal qualities can be the director of a large educational complex. Being a leader formally is not so important. You must have leadership qualities, have professional and personal charisma, lead people. And the person must be trusted.

The Kurchatov School, its achievements are based on the personality of the leader, and all our products are the results of its activities.

Do Vladimir Putin and Olga Vasilyeva know what is really happening in the legendary Palace of Pioneers and who is turning it into the realm of Baba Yaga?

Additional education does not mean secondary. Today, it receives a lot of attention. In 2016, the minutes of the meeting of the Presidium of the Council under the President of Russia for Strategic Development and Priority Projects approved the passport of the project "Affordable Additional Education for Children". Its goal is to provide 70-75% of children aged 5 to 18 with quality supplementary education programs. It seems that it is impossible to put it more clearly - additional education is in the status of a priority project. And now is the time to develop it. However, not everyone in the governing educational bodies agrees with the President of the Russian Federation. It's no secret that today they try to commercialize additional education wherever possible. But there are places - where this should not be in principle. And one of these places is the legendary Palace of Pioneers on Sparrow Hills.

The reason for this publication was a letter from a caring person who was not afraid to speak openly and "tell about the ambiguously difficult and unhealthy situation in the once successful and prosperous flagship of additional education, in a unique institution in the city of Moscow - known to many as the Palace of Pioneers on Sparrow Hills. Perhaps , with the connivance of officials of the Department of Education of the city of Moscow, perhaps due to the thoughtless implementation of reforms in education - the traditions of a successful oldest institution that have been developed over the years are collapsing.Now the Palace of Pioneers is not becoming a center of attraction for children in all kinds of circles and sections, but a banal "appendage" of general education, who primarily needs technical competencies, or a front cover for city events?".

Alexandrina Klyuykova, a specialist from the Department of Complex Projects of the Vorobyovy Gory State Budgetary Educational Institution, a member of the Parental Committee of the Palace of Pioneers, a member of the Expert Advisory Council of the Vorobyovy Gory State Budgetary Educational Institution, and a caring parent, wrote to our editorial office. (See photo materials for the publication). This is not the first alarm signal related to the fate of the unique complex on Vorobyovy Gory. The value of the Palace of Pioneers for Moscow is difficult to overestimate. It was here that the talents of Natalia Gundareva, Yuri Bogatyrev, Igor Kvasha and other famous directors, actors, writers, singers, as well as athletes, graduates of four schools of the Olympic reserve of the Palace - Viktor Vlasov, Marina Koshevoy, Yuri Kidyaev, Mikhail Kobalia, were formed here. But it's not just the star names that were heard here for the first time - for decades the complex has given thousands of Moscow children the opportunity to get involved in creativity, sports, communicate with peers who share common goals and aspirations with them.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN?

The Palace of Pioneers, that is, then still - the Moscow City House of Pioneers and Octoberists, opened in 1936 as "the first of the laboratories that are being created in the Soviet country to educate a new person, a cultural citizen of the socialist homeland." A year after the opening, 173 circles and sections were operating there, 3,500 children were involved. An office of young inventors, a woodworking and aircraft modeling workshop, unique laboratories for railway and water transport, chemical, energy and photo laboratories have been launched. But young pioneers were not only engaged in technology. They also went to the art section - the Palace housed a music and dance school, a theater studio, sculpture and architecture workshops, fine arts and a literary studio. Members of historical studios went on excursions to the Hermitage and to archaeological excavations in the Crimea. The consolidated pioneer regiment was engaged in a rifle office, a naval laboratory, machine gunners' circles, schools for instructors in chemical and air defense. All this knowledge and skills were useful to them during the Great Patriotic War. But not only military specialties were useful. The history of the Song and Dance Ensemble named after V.S. Loktev is the only children's group in the world where there is an orchestra, choir and choreographic group. The team was founded in 1937. And in December 1941, Vladimir Sergeevich Loktev gathered the choir of the Ensemble and began classes so that the guys could perform in hospitals, supporting the spirit of the wounded soldiers. Other studios of the Palace did not close during the Great Patriotic War either. Carpentry, sewing and electrical circles worked for the front, and students of creative sections performed in hospitals, made souvenirs for sending to the front - pouches, mouthpieces and other little things that reminded the soldiers of how they were loved and expected at home ... After the war, it became clear - the old the building cannot accommodate all the children who want to study in the sections and circles of the Moscow City State Children's College. The first foundation stone of the well-known Palace to all of us - now, the Moscow City Palace of Pioneers and Schoolchildren on Sparrow Hills was laid on Lenin Hills in 1958. And its grand opening took place on June 1, 1962, the International Children's Day. At that time, no one could have imagined that only fifty-odd years would pass, and the children in the Palace would really have to be protected ... Protecting the children's unique art and educational complex, with its powerful methodological schools of teaching astronomy, technical modeling, a number of biological and humanitarian disciplines, foreign languages , its established traditions over the years. In 1992, the Moscow City Palace of Pioneers and Schoolchildren was reorganized and received a new name - the Moscow City Palace of Children and Youth Creativity. Then the names changed again: in 2001, the name began to sound like the Moscow City Palace of Children's (Youth) Creativity, and since 2014 - the State Budgetary Professional Educational Institution "Vorobyovy Gory".

NAMES CHANGED, WHAT'S NEXT?
And then, unfortunately, the meaning of creating a unique institution began to gradually, and apparently deliberately blurred, the very essence of its creation was recognized as obsolete. In 2011, the head of the Department of Education of the city of Moscow, I.I. Kalina, declared the Palace "outdated" and "inappropriate". The head of Moscow education suggested leaving only the 8 most famous directions of the Palace, and transferring the rest to a paid basis and “see what survives” - this is a literal quote. Apparently, the "golden hectare" of the Palace Park, located in the very center of Moscow, was too attractive and, according to the new economic realities, such land was really "not for everyone." The director of the Palace, D. L. Monakhov, who opposed the innovations, and a number of other employees were fired. And there were rumors that instead of the Palace there would be a “school of gymnastics by Irina Viner”. In 2012 and 2013, after rallies and public protests, the Department of Education abandoned the idea of ​​"improving" the Palace. However, the new administration represented by director A.A. Shashkova could not (or did not want to) stop the impending storm over the Palace of Pioneers, someone's thirst for the artificial reformation of additional education ... Its, so to speak, "modernization" in its most perverted sense.

PALACE INTRIGUES: A NEW TIME
On the eve of the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Palace of Pioneers, the Department of Education is changing the administration, a new team of managers has arrived, headed by the director of the Kurchatov School I.V. Sivtsova. According to eyewitnesses, Irina Valentinovna immediately (it is clear that according to the instructions of I.I. Kalina) took a course to fill additional education with a general one. The public evaluates the results of her work in preparation for the start of the academic year 2017 as unsatisfactory: the repair of the art studios in the branch "On Donskoy" did not begin, the situation with the repair and collapse in the newly attached Yasenevo school was not clear, the promised repairs were not made in the attached schools 1260, 22, the necessary material and technical equipment of educational areas has not been improved, the issue of the extension is not clear, when, as one of the representatives of the parent community writes on social networks: “The Pioneer Palace resembles an anthill - kids scurry about everywhere, not knowing where and why they should go. They are accompanied by no less confused teachers.
There were other overlays - a non-working pool, problems with food and canteen, conflicts in the team. Some problems today are somehow corrected, but most remain and become chronic.
Three directors have changed. So what? Maybe not the directors needed to be changed? Or is the unique educational resource of the Palace of Pioneers no longer needed by the capital? After all, its goal is to educate a new person, a cultural citizen ... Today, the "culture" in the Palace is the responsibility of the collection of "Baba Yaga" by director Irina Sivtsova - located where there was once a living corner. And for broadening one's horizons - microscopes and other latest equipment, in the oldest, still "Potemkin" traditions, specially brought "for viewing" before arriving at the Palace of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev? If this is today's Palace day, what's in store for tomorrow?

- Irina Valentinovna, the Moscow Palace of Pioneers is one of the oldest state centers for additional education in our country. What modern practices are implemented in the Palace today?

Yes, indeed, last academic year we celebrated the 80th anniversary of the Palace of Pioneers. Today, the Palace of Pioneers is part of the largest educational complex in Moscow, where more than 32,000 students are engaged in additional education alone.

During a recent visit to the Palace, Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, noted that the quality of modern additional education should change and meet not only the needs of the children themselves and their parents, but also the needs of the state, its development priorities. As such priorities, state documents indicate technical and natural science education, the development of which we attach particular importance, along with support for the development of traditional practices in the field of art and sports, known in Moscow and abroad by ensembles and sports schools.

- What are these practices?

Supporting traditional practices (aviation and ship modeling, railway design, botany and zoology), we develop practices that are modern in content and technology: programming, prototyping, robotics, aerospace.

In particular, classes are being held to study modern high-level programming languages ​​(C plus-plus, C sharp, Java, Python, etc.). In the Prototyping Lab, students learn how to design and model parts and assemblies and then turn them into reality on digital prototyping equipment. In robotics classes, children learn how to design robotic systems, develop electronics for control systems for mobile robots, write control programs, and manufacture robots using digital manufacturing technologies (laser cutting machines, 3D printers).

- What resources are needed to implement modern programs? Is it some kind of expensive special equipment? Professional personnel who have undergone vocational training?

Of course, in order to implement priority areas for the development of education, such as technical and natural sciences, a complex of modern material and technical base and professional personnel, teachers-specialists in technical and natural sciences are needed.

Today, the main platform for the implementation of additional technical programs is the Technopark of the Palace of Pioneers. It is equipped with digital production equipment such as laser cutting machine, CNC machine, 3D printers. Classes with the use of such equipment arouse genuine interest in the children and a desire to continue their education in the chosen direction.

Our teachers are constantly improving their professional skills by taking advanced training courses and participating in competitions.

By the way, we ourselves are now implementing professional retraining programs for teachers of additional education in the field of technical creativity.

More than 30% of the staff are senior students from leading specialized technical universities in Moscow.

- Irina Valentinovna, how does the system of such programs work? Are these programs for high school students only?

Training in technical programs can begin at the age of 6-7. We are implementing a line of introductory programs for beginners: “First Steps in Electronics. Alternative Energy+”, “First Steps in Electronics. Circuit design". Then comes a line of basic-level programs for older children: “My first controlled robot”, “Controlled mobile robots”, “Fundamentals of digital electronics”, “Applied mechatronics and control interfaces”, etc. For the most enthusiastic, advanced level programs are implemented: “Digital technologies production”, “Engineering and technical 3D modeling”.

- Are such circles particularly popular? How do I sign up for these classes? Is there a competition and selection for these programs?

During the visit, Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev noted a large number of students in groups on aircraft, ship, and railway modeling, and circles on programming and robotics are especially popular. Enrollment in study groups in all areas is carried out through the portal of public services in Moscow (pgu.mos.ru). There is no competition for training, everyone is accepted according to the number of places in groups. Preference is given to children (for basic and advanced programs) who have previously completed introductory programs.

- In connection with what, in your opinion, such changes occur?

Changes are taking place in engineering, technology, science, technological order, and attention to the technological development of the country is increasing. The attitude in society towards additional education is changing in general. There is an orientation towards obtaining practical skills, preparation for a further professional track, life and work. That is why the methodical theme of our current academic year has become - "From the school of knowledge to the school of life." Of particular importance is early career guidance, opportunities for pre-professional education, to build your professional plan, to confirm your knowledge, skills and competencies. Now, Moscow schoolchildren are also given the opportunity to get a working profession along with additional education through integration with vocational training programs.

- What achievements of the guys in such programs could you note recently?

Among the most significant achievements are the following:

2 bronze medals at the 13th International Exhibition of Young Inventors in Japan were won by two students of the Technical Education Center;

In the rating Championship "JuniorSkills Moscow-2017" 8 students became finalists, in the nomination "Milling Machines" the team of GBPOU "Vorobyovy Gory" took 1st place, and in the nomination "Internet of Things" another our team took 2nd place.

The total number of prize-winners and winners in the past academic year is about 47% of the total number of participants. In addition, our students who were declared to participate successfully passed a demonstration exam in mobile robotics, prototyping, and multimedia journalism.

- Please tell us more about the demonstration exam.

Last academic year, at the initiative of the professional community, supported by the Department of Education of the city of Moscow, for the first time in additional education, a very visual tool for assessing the quality of mastering additional general developmental programs was implemented - a demonstration exam. The exam was held for students completing their studies in additional advanced level programs, and became a platform for demonstrating all the skills, knowledge and competencies that the guys were able to acquire during their studies. Participation in the exam is voluntary. The demonstration exam was held in the areas of Mobile Robotics, Prototyping and Multimedia Journalism, curated and inspired by our Vorobyovy Gory complex. In addition, Vorobyovy Gory acted as the operator of the demonstration exam and, with the participation of the expert community of universities, colleges, the Moscow Center for the Quality of Education, developed the procedure for conducting and exam tasks. The children, the participants in the exam, had to demonstrate the educational results that they received in additional education. It is important to note that this is not a competition, not a competition and not an exhibition of achievements - this is a personal demonstration of your result. The guys demonstrated not only their professional skills, but also the style of work, team skills and abilities, the ability to make decisions and cope with difficult situations. The examination commission included representatives of city organizations and leading technical universities in Moscow. I would like to note that 62% of those who successfully passed the exam in these areas are students of the Vorobyovy Gory State Budgetary Educational Institution. In total, at the sites of 14 educational organizations in Moscow, a demonstration exam was held in 5 areas (“Museum Affairs” and “Military Affairs”), and the total number of people who successfully passed the examination tests was 280 people.

Interviewed by K. Alibekova