Thursday 23 June was polling day in the EU referendum. As I write this post at 5am on Friday morning, 24 June, the votes are not all in but the United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union, by an expected margin of 52% Leave against 48% remain.

Secondary pupils were able to post their poll via the school ‘Hub’.  The turn out was small, circa 25%, but their vote was overwhelmingly in favour of ‘Remain’.  Here’s the pie chart of the outcome:

The young boys and girls of course were not able to vote in the ‘real’ referendum, unless they were 18 years of age. As it happens, in terms of the geographical areas of the country in which our pupils live,  their vote followed in the main how our local constituencies voted. The majority vote went to remain in RBWM, Wycombe, South Oxfordshire, Chiltern and Wokingham. South Bucks, Slough and Bracknell Forest voted to leave, giving us a pictorial spread of our school’s catchment area looking as opposite.

The detail spread of voting went as follows:

It’s a short post this; early in the morning and a sense of ‘awe’ has struck me.  In this Royal Borough, we have clearly voted as Clinton’s aide and campaign campaign strategist James Carville coined “It’s all about the Economy stupid”.

Well clearly it is not, as far as the country is concerned. 48% consider that, but the turn vote of an extra 4% think it differently. JM Barrie had his Peter Pan say “To die would be an awfully big adventure”. I do sincerely hope that those that lead our country from this day forth have amazing navigation skills, as they pilot our country into such uncharted waters, because to say that we are to face uncertain times is very much an understatement. We are a Sovereign nation, and as things turn out, that’s the route we have chosen, to be distinct from our neighbours and separate in our future. So be it.

Anyway – as life goes on:

Claires Court Old Boys Cricket match is taking place tonight Friday 24 June from 5.45pm at our Taplow playing fields.

Saturday 25 June – Claires Court PTA Summer Fete at Claires Court Junior Boys from 12 noon to 4pm.

Hopefully see you there, and of course happy to talk to anyone about our own exciting journey, announced in this week’s Maidenhead Advertiser. That is a big story too!

#Spoiler alert – Most of this post will be history after Midnight 23 June 2016

I can’t be the only one that feels something significant is expected of the great British Public today, Thursday 23 June. There are banners in the Town, and posters in home windows – and wall to wall coverage in the Press on the TV and Radio. The debate around the Referendum on Britain’s choice to #remain as part of the EU or to #brexit hit full crescendo last week; only to be silenced in mid step by the appalling murder of a member of our Parliament, Jo Cox. The method by which her death came about is too gruesome for me to write without better evidence – let’s permit wikipedia to suffice:

“On 16 June 2016, Cox was shot and stabbed multiple times in Birstall, where she had been due to hold a constituency surgery. She died from her injuries about an hour later. A 52-year-old man who self-identified as a white nationalist^[6]was arrested in connection with the attack”

Much has been written around the circumstances leading up to her murder, of appalling abuse she received via any media outlet you care to mention, threatening her life for months. Her bravery in the face of such hostility it seems is shared by many of our MPs; their standing ovation for Mrs Cox in Parliament on Monday this week testament to their understanding that they had shared their work space with one ‘incredible’ fellow member, whose humanity for all in the world so obviously shone through in everything that she said, did and wrote about. #Respect.

Article by Simon Schama in the Financial Times

My personal decision for Thursday has always been to #Remain. It’s not that I can’t see the angle that the #Leave campaign take on the matter.  I simply don’t see that any of our current problems we face can be sorted by leaving the very good company of our fellow citizens of the European  Union. The mass migration across the world we currently witness won’t cease globally just because Britain exits from the EU. Currently, the British border is the other side of the channel, and if we were to leave Europe, then the border comes to our side of the Channel.  Hurrah – at a stroke we close the Refugee camp in Calais.  And reopen it in Dover, Folkestone and environs. Inevitably I know we will take a huge financial hit, and there’s no need for us to reduce our GDP by 20/30/40 billion, just to stop paying Europe £8 billion or so.  Simon Schama CBE is an English historian specializing in art history, Dutch history, and French history. He is a University Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University, New York, a Brit, and his article I have linked to with the picture above is worth reading for the clarity of argument he gives for us remaining in Europe – as a beacon of tolerance.

Alongside the  honest Brexiteers, there are some really very nasty bed-fellows to boot, some of them inside political parties of a persuasion I can’t trust, plus some fascist nationalists and criminal thugs  whose other ‘policies/beliefs’ disturb me greatly.  The #Remain campaign juxtaposed Farage and his party’s nasty advert showing a queue of 2015 migrants alongside similar memes from the Nazi regime of

Photographer Jeff Mitchell feels the refugees in this photograph were betrayed by UKIP

the ’30s. They too had no time for immigrants, foreigners, those of faith, those of none, those whose sexuality differed from the norm, for the sick, the disabled, the old and the weak. And for the last 80 years Britain has been brave enough to think differently. Education, Health, Care, Tolerance and Inclusion have been the bywords for what stands for the British values we are asked to hold dear – indeed we have to teach them really fully in our schools, so that radicalisation of a different kind is not aided and abetted.

Whether you be ‘for’ or ‘against’, we will be the wiser for this campaign. Our individual vote, for once, will be counted as such. And we have surfaced all the grossest lies and untruths that our society holds as ‘truths’.  I don’t like what we have seen, and neither do so many others, and I for one believe that a more tolerant society will emerge. After all, (and I believe them to be men of their word), neither Boris nor Nigel actually believe we are diminished by the diversity of the many nationalities that live in Britain in 2016.

Talking of Banners Advertising Good Things – here’s ours: \|/

And we need a breath of fresh air come Friday, once all the electioneering and all that stuff is done. From 11am on Friday, Chair of CCJB PTA, Emma Robertson and her team are assembling our PTA Summer Fete – ‘The Great Outdoors’ for Saturday 25 June from 12 noon. Everybody whose anybody in our school will be there, we hope, as will some amazing Gundogs and their keeper, so please if you are free and local to Maidenhead, feel free to come along and enjoy an amazing afternoon of British Country fete. Licensed bar, Pimms tent, BBQ and all things British are on show, stalls run by the boys and girls and all.

By all means ask us for a Souvenir wrist band, if you wish – just £2 on the door to gain entry.

And finally … Old Boys Cricket  … Friday 24 June from 5.30pm

On Friday evening, 5030 pm onwards the older ‘old boys’ are playing the younger ‘ old boys’ at our Taplow playing fields, SL6 0NR, Phoenix & Claires Court Sports Club, Institute Road Taplow. Messrs Wilding Jnr and Hammerton are leading out the old and young alike, in a smash and grab limited overs game.

Oldest boys:

Tom Wilding
Will Ballantyne
Simon Ball
Donald Pike
Gareth Miller
Michael Walters
Piers Morgan
Patrick Randell
Patrick Bose
Martyn Goddard
Brad Pennington

Umpires:
Alan Sibley
Trevor Sharkey

I am delighted to announce that Claires Court has received The Education 2
Employment Award, a nationally recognised accreditation for our work in providing

• High Quality, impartial careers guidance to all pupils;
• Encouragement to our pupils to develop professional values whilst in education with us;

• Ensuring our pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their employment, self-employment or training.

This excellence in Careers provision at Claires Court is not new; we have offered all Year 10 independent careers reports for at least 25 years now, which assist in summarising on an individual level where pupils talent, interest and aspirations might take them in terms of further and higher education and/or the world of work. The report itself is provided by Cambridge Occupational Analysts, COA for short, and you can read more about their work here.

3 Year’s ago, the cross party House of Commons Education Select committee made it clear that the government’s removal of Careers Education from local authorities had backfired completely, leading to a  “worrying deterioration” in the overall standard of careers advice.  The Connexions Careers service was reduced from providing human visits to schools and advice clinics, to an on-line website – the National Careers Service.

Such reductionism is almost always the outcome of spending reviews, in short authorising a substantial reduction in the quality of service because ‘new ways’ of working can provide. As the then  chair of the Education committee Graham Stuart said: “”We want a face-to-face guidance to be available to all young people as an integral part of a good quality careers service. They deserve and should receive far better support than current arrangements generally allow.”

Our Careers Adviser, Helen Cole, is a senior sector professional working within Careers Education, and is linked to all of our heads of year and attends many of the parents evenings involving Years 9 and above.  Helen and I both feel that independent careers education is essential in supporting children enter adulthood with a great chance of enjoying happy and fulfilled lives, and like many who work with us, Helen has been part of the expert independent visitors team for many years now.  Helen directly works with our children during Year 9 when they are making subject choices for  GCSE and every year thereafter.  The Careers Report debriefing at the start of Year 11 is a really important piece in the jigsaw, often perhaps the first time that parents and children have worked together to review what the child’s ‘data metrics’ say.

Back to the E2E award; it lasts for 3 years, and permits us to advertise that our provision is of the highest quality. We are already looking to see how to move greater ownership from adults to children in developing their career pathway, and enterprise education is one of the key responsibilities Assistant headteacher Steph Rogers carries within Claires Court. Of course many of our Sixth Form leavers seek to go on to enjoy elite University education, but there is a significant minority that know they need to go to work for their next step. This is not because they won’t get the grades; far from it. What the students are seeking to do is start earning, learn more whilst they work and perhaps look at further vocational qualifications en route. After all, with that University experience likely to give rise to a £40k debt, there’s plenty of incentive for talented youngsters to avoid that cost if the world of work wants them badly. And increasingly, work is stating just that; “some to us with your A levels and we’ll help you qualify whilst working!”

For those interested in reading more on what makes careers education so vital in schools, here’s Dr Adam Marshall, Executive Director of Policy and External Affairs at the British  Chambers of Commerce writing in a recent Education Magazine:  “No one wins if we have a generation of young people lost to unemployment, or an inadequate talent pool for UK companies”.  Page 18 if you are interested.

So much of what we do in Education is ‘Lost in translation’, such that nice ideas get completely ruined when well meaning ‘experts’ turn them from an inspiring notion to a received wisdom that everyone has to follow and then be examined to test how well they learned the work.  The National Curriculum was such an idea, one whereby children in England could be guaranteed a minimum entitlement of subject coverage and breadth of opportunity. Prior to the late ’80s, what children studied in school varied quite widely until they chose their subjects for O levels or CSEs, and even then there was a pretty

Ken Clarke in the foreground, May 1991 © Neil Turner

wide range of educational experiences on offer. The arrival of GCSEs in 1986 meant that we could group all children under 1 banner at this higher level, and the rest of the National curriculum arriving pretty soon afterwards united the whole country. And then  the then Education Secretary Kenneth Clarke messed it all up by enforcing national testing from age 7. 25 years on, and the papers and news media run full pages talking about parents striking and children’s education and mental health suffering  because of the ‘straight-jacket’ of teaching to the test at primary school, implemented by teachers who fear for their jobs if their classes don’t perform to the required standards.

There’s a nice urban myth around which I like, very much along the ‘Lost in translation lines’, which goes as follows: Not even Quentin Tarantino has given a plausible explanation for the naming of his seminal gangster movie ‘Reservoir Dogs’, first screened back in 1992.

During Tarantino’s days working in Video Archives, a video store in Manhattan Beach, California, he developed encyclopedic knowledge of video films, and recommended films to his clients, including a film by Louis Malle, “Au revoir Les Enfants” , a fateful story set in a boarding school in occupied France  during the Second World War.  On trying to recall the film title later on, the name had morphed from ‘Au revoir les enfants’ to ‘Reservoir Dogs’.  There might be similar sound patterns, but the feeling the listener hears is dramatically different.  Reservoir Dogs is a 1992 American neo-noir crime thriller film that depicts the events before and after a botched dia

Oh, and everyone dies in it too!

mond heist. The film was the feature-length debut of director and writer Quentin Tarantino, and stars Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi, Chris Penn, Lawrence Tierney and Tim Roth. Tarantino and criminal-turned-author Edward Bunker have minor roles. It incorporates many themes that have become Tarantino’s hallmarks—violent crime, pop culture references, profanity, and nonlinear storytelling*.  

Closing this blog, just before our May half-term in 2016, I’ll stay with the Louis Malle film title of the myth above. The last thing I want  to see as children work through their primary years is a loss of the bright eyes and love for learning that I see each day in school.  It’s true children don’t mind being tested, so long as no-one uses the results of such testing to compare them with others and then ‘do them down’.  It’s certainly the case that in the wrong hands, children rapidly lose a love of learning, indeed leave their childhood and enter that early adolescent stage of choosing to be uncooperative because actually the classroom has nothing in it for their learning. Beware setting our young learners on the exit strategy ‘Goodbye, children’, because they’ll never recover that innocence of learning that permits children to try anything and attempt everything!

If you’d like to watch children being amazed by their own learning, please watch this video, ‘Austin’s butterfly‘.

If you want to watch an amazing deconstruction of why almost  everything education has tried over the last 20 years has failed, spectacularly, then please watch Professor Dylan Wiliam’s lecture at the Schools Network in 2011.  His talk opens with “If we are serious about improving education, we have to stop people doing good things” – definitely worth a watch.

*Wikipedia

In the main, this week’s post are not my words. I have encountered a remarkable cartoon film (see bottom of the blog), which captures the essence of the world’s ills in 26 letters of the Alphabet. What’s even more remarkable, is that this short film also breaks through all those taboos which otherwise I might find difficult to talk to parents and children about, or indeed write down in a blog such as this.

It seems that 757 million people cannot read my blog, not because they do not have access to the internet, because they do (Over 4 billion people have access to mobile phones, rather more than double the number who have access to running water, would you believe?). Sadly, they can’t read my words, because they can’t read. I’ve borrowed the following paragraphs from the http://www.projectliteracy.com/ website.

“Project Literacy is a global movement convened by Pearson* to make significant and sustainable advances in the fight against illiteracy so that all people – regardless of geography, language, race, class, or gender – have the opportunity to fulfill their potential through the power of words.  

Illiteracy is a global problem, stretching from the USA to Uganda, from Europe to Cambodia and everywhere in-between. It matters because these small tasks quickly become big problems. Illiterate people are more likely to be poor, they can’t get educated, can’t participate in political activities or help with economic development; and sadly their choices in life are far too limited.

Project Literacy brings together a diverse and global cross-section of people and organisations to help unlock the potential of individuals, families and communities everywhere with the power of words. Together, we will make significant and sustainable advances in literacy over the next five years so that by 2030, no child will be born at risk of poor literacy.

But we need your help, too, even if it’s just reading an article, sharing it with your friends and maybe making a pledge to get involved. It’s up to you; it’s up to all of us, to help make illiteracy a thing of the past.”

Anyway, settle yourself down, put the volume up and enjoy a compelling 2 minutes watch. If you are not moved to react, to make a difference quickly, I’d be very surprised. If only by sharing the information onwards, as I am doing by ‘posting’ today, you can add to world peace.  Now click on the picture and take relearn your alphabet.

Let’s make no bones about it though – if we can increase the literacy levels of the world by 100 million people, that’s 20% only of those who can’t read, we’d would do more for world peace than all the armies of the world could ever do.

“The Pen is Mightier than the Sword”

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Pearson* – I am deeply indebted to Rod Bristow, President, Pearson Uk and his colleagues for introducing this initiative to ISA schools and other national organisations within Education this week.  Multinationals in a global world can easily acquire a tarnished reputation, but in creating an urgency around the need to raise base-line international literacy levels, I have no doubt Pearson’s intentions are entirely honourable. 

The following article is written to sit alongside a variety of secondary and sixth form assemblies I am giving currently about the rights of man and the needs for a civil society, and that they are not perhaps the same.

“Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.” These words, written by John Locke, philosopher, in 1689, begin a proposition around which all of us are reminded that we are under “the sovereignty of the law”.

It is by the customs and practices of the law that we all live and thrive, and just societies need the rule of law for justice and order to prevail.  This usually arises by the state ensuring that the judiciary are independent of its work, such that government can also be held accountable for its actions.

A just society also needs a dependable civil service, in order to provide and maintain a degree of services for society that provide order and safety. Taxes need to be paid reliably and honestly, traders held to account should they debase the flour or market dishonourably, and the rights of the individual balanced against the needs of the wider society. How houses and roads get built, new industries and technologies deployed are all part of a process that society needs to regulate. Within this civil service come things such as health services, education, community care and such like.

Of course we also require secure police  and armed forces, to ensure that internal and external threats to our ordered lives are managed and defended as aps appropriate. In many ways this is as important as the other two; uniformed forces may arise before the rule of law and the civil service, but they should not be diminished in the hope that we live in a perfect world, because we don’t.  As internal and external violence to our society are as evident now as they have ever been, we need authorised muscle to be available for our protection, and accountable of course should it exceed its authority.

2016 has continued the trend that ‘British Society’ is not as good as we would wish it to be.  The latest findings of the new inquest into the Hillsborough disaster published this week show that one of our police forces and the ambulance services of the day failed in their duty of care to protect those in attendance at the football match.  The report revealed “multiple failures” by other emergency services and public bodies that contributed to the death toll.  Many news organisations most notably the Sun and the Times acted disgracefully at the time, blaming drunken hooliganism as the cause and singling out Liverpool supporters specifically, and for a time we, the public, believed the headlines. I could say much more, or indeed point out other scandals still running, such as neglect of child abuse in many of our cities by the authorities, or the way national government has failed this nation of tax payers through permitting the offshoring of wealth by the richest and most powerful of individuals and corporations.  The latest High Street demise of BHS leaves us all with the very uncomfortable feeling that one man’s ocean-going liner is another 11,000 employees pension fund.

Back in 1987, Margaret Thatcher famously declared that there was no such thing as society, and that the rights of the individual were paramount. From that day onwards, our society has moved this way, to promote the rights of the individual, to the extent that we have seen really very rapid acceptance of new rights and accommodations that previously were unheard of.  Gay marriage and same-sex parenting are 2 obvious examples, and honestly I see these developments as being signs of a healthy society, not evidence of progress towards barbarism. All my adult life I have actively promoted the liberal rights agenda, been in membership of a political party that supported same (the Liberal Democrats) and funded my membership of Amnesty International and Greenpeace as a way of assisting the support of a more just world order and society.  Just now, I fear I have not influenced one agenda specifically strongly enough, that of the need above all to have a civil society.

In education, health, policing and the defence forces we are seeing the wholesale dismantling of the civic organisations that manage this provision for our local areas and nation as a whole, and the neutering of local and national parliament to have a say in such on-going provision. Much is being made of the national financial deficit we find ourselves in past the Banking crisis of 2007, but the solutions now being imposed are not fundamentally about cost savings.  The proposed academisation of all 28000 state schools is clearly much more expensive than leaving the schools where they are, for example.  The replacement of local and national control over police and education through the election of police and crime commissioners and the appointment of regional school commissioners encourages us to believe that individuals are better at managing our needs than organised groups of local citizenry, be they councillors or school governors. The transfer of our armed defence from paid professionals to a larger group of territorial volunteers is about cost saving of course, in the same way as may happen with the police or those in community care.  The removal of the rights of those poorest in our society to receive legal aid, or disability allowances from the disabled are in similar vein. What’s so confusing is that all is happening simultaneously, under the pretext that the elected government have the authority of a general election win. In reality, the victory was by the slimmest of margins, and those now in power are not choosing to recognise their responsibilities to represent all in the country not just the minority that voted for them.

At a time when so much of our civil and ordered society is under threat from those whose vision is blighted by their own rhetoric and prejudices, I for one feel it important to make public and constant my serious objections to the appalling speed at which change without evidence is being wrought on our communities.  There are indeed good and noble members of parliament in government today, and their voices of dissent are audible.  The Select committees and House of Lords are doing their best to hold the executive to account, bringing back for inspection and scrutiny matters that need just that, but the Parliamentary year is not actually long enough to cover the 52 weeks of ‘collar’ feeling’ we need.

It is interesting to note just how many state and independent fellow professionals are highlighting that the current tyranny of ‘Do as you’re told’ by our executive government is causing great damage.  3 decades ago when the police were not the transparent organisations they are becoming now, both the newspapers and the public at large took hookline and sinker the story those in power wanted us to believe. Likewise now, a new tyranny hell-bent on change at all costs is trying to remove the scrutiny of the ‘law’ on its works. Parents to be removed from school governance, services to be distanced from the local authorities, employees to be redunded from the civil service to disempower it – I could go on and on.

Another of John Locke’s quotes is “We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.” I know we need a powerful citizenship working within a civic society that does it duties for those therein.  It was the case 327 years ago and is still this day.  Locke was writing at the outset of the Age of Enlightenment during the 18th Century – Wikipedia reminds us that the Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy, and came to advance ideals such as liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government and ending the perceived abuses of the church and state. Here’s hoping a sense of reason resurges across the country over forthcoming weeks and months; choosing the dismantle the UK’s agreed structures with its partners in Europe would be another disaster in the making, and at least in that regards we have some political leadership on show!

And finally…

The graph above identifying the arrival of the term ‘screenager’ in literature shows just how modern a term it is. The peak in the early noughties might be attributable to the popularity of the band ‘Muse’ and their song of the same title published in 2001. As the Oxford English dictionary explains, the phrase is used to describe that  human aged between 13 and 25, and identifies that in recent decades they have become connected 24/7 to the emotional world around them through the screens they carry in the palms of their hand.

Across the pond in the United States, a major and remarkable new film is doing the rounds, limited to responsible screenings in school halls, community centres and such like, so that families can attend and take on board the powers and dangers now confronting all with the ubiquitous technology of ‘screens’.  The film ‘Screenagers’  (trailer)   was made by Dr Delaney Ruston, who decided to make it to affirm the importance of helping children find balance in our tech filled world. The film provides a vehicle to bring parents, educators and children together for post screening discussions so change can happen not just in our homes but in our schools and communities.

“Screenagers is a very balanced, sympathetic and sane look at the way millions of teens are struggling with phones and games and technology in general. In part by letting the teens themselves speak about their own concerns and solutions, Screenagers is deeply affecting, too.”  Dave Eggers, Best-Selling Author, Publisher and Education Activist

I have read  a lot around this subject, though not yet watched the film, and have requested of Dr Ruston permission to show ‘Screenagers’ here in the UK at Claires Court. American schools and communities face difficulties some years ahead of us, often because their technology moves ahead of ours in terms of pace and opportunity (high-speed broadband and 3G for example). The film’s impressive testimonials highlight that it would add well to the mix of advice and support we already offer parents, by providing for the whole family an opportunity to discuss the  problems our young people face, and seek solutions actually which otherwise won’t be found.

During the teenage and early twenties’ years, we are most alive emotionally, when heart rules head and impulsive behaviour is rapidly rewarded by social ‘high-fives’ and  peer encouragement.  It is at this time that we are most susceptible to our first real burst of clinical  depression, and 50% of us will suffer such mental illness by age 25. The picture is worse for girls, with the female gender suffering by a 2:1 ratio.   Those who ‘catch’ depression early, say by age 13, are more likely to have repeat bouts, each more serious than the previous.  On each occasion those who suffer feel they are the cause of their problem and don’t want to bother their parents with their issues.  In short, not receiving treatment the first time lends itself to repeat bouts in the near future.

In my own school community, we do everything we can to promote positive  mindsets in our young people. Physical activity is an impressive antidote to feelings of low esteem. Our pro-social behaviour approach, school values, emphasis on education not examination, drop-in counselling and engagement with talking, mindfulness and willingness to challenge irrational beliefs are all ways we seek to identify early those who might be struggling with mental illness.  Food is available throughout the day, and one should never undervalue the importance of cake in our lives (and we don’t). Honestly, we try to be the school with a smile on its face every minute of every day.

The trouble is, this is not enough. Teenagers feel emotions really strongly, far more personally than we as adults. As our school’s values guru, Margaret Goldthorpe reminds us every time she visits, it’s almost inevitable we adults disempower and demotivate the young people around us.  Parents and teachers seem so very successful, cool and in control, and whilst children admire that, often they don’t feel able to come up to our expectations. We may offer them affirming homes and relationships with adults, but  as they crave independence to learn this for themselves, they are confronted in the flesh and on screen by endless examples that they are  not up to ‘scratch’.  This negative propaganda about teenage failure is absolutely everywhere, perhaps even promulgated by my writing this blog. The politicians who talk about education and our schools continue to highlight just how ‘weak’ our children are in comparison with their peers in other countries, and guess what, our children take that on board and stress about it lots.  Just look at today’s stories of headteachers ‘quitting’ because of ‘factory farming’ pupils, whilst our Prime Minister defends controversial plans to force all state schools in England to become academies, saying it is time to “finish the job”.  Honestly what job – the destruction of our children’s mental health perhaps?

The initial cause of teenage mental turmoil comes from the stress the child’s emotional systems come under. These stressing agents include all forms of bullying and abuse, drugs such as alcohol and nicotine, as well as physical violence. Most of our children don’t face these, but other subtler forms cause almost as much stress. Simple nutrition has a massive impact upon the developing brain, and the memory box of the exercising 11 year old is bigger than that of their sedentary peer*.  Those who choose to diet increase the likelihood of cognitive impairments for similar reasons in their adolescent years. The aggressively hostile school, in which children have education done to them rather than be informed partners in their own learning provides a consistent non-validating environment, particularly to those who see themselves as vocational rather than academic learners. Sport is barely available, and the new state curriculum of academic ‘Progress 8’ subjects only exacerbates the loss of creative release in doing something for themselves. Other pressures such as exams, sexual identity, relationship difficulties, significant illness or loss of a friend or family members all start impacting upon mental well-being, and all these stressors cause the arrival of emotional turmoil, leading to depression.

Our brain has two main areas of cognitive function, the cortex which provides for the logical conscious brain, and the amygdala (part of the mid brain) which handles our emotional system. The neural systems connect far more  securely from amygdala to cortex than visa versa, so your logical brain can’t turn off your emotions. It’s even worse for the screenagers, because their neural systems start rearranging during this period so substantially that young people cannot even express in words how they feel!

We have ignored youth mental illness for years, because we have not fully understood its roots, and because actually in a loving family home and away from the social pressures of their peers, youngsters have been able to regress to childhood and be honest with their parents and family.  Those of us who have seen our children go through University and beyond still see the therapeutic effects that exists for our young adults as they come ‘home’.

This new ‘screenager’ period has seen the pressures grow much more rapidly, because of course the  ‘screen’ is always with them, constantly chirruping its siren call that on the other side better things are going on. And it’s not just passive viewing, but active social engagement and activity happening, often taking the user into risk-taking behaviours that cannot be ‘erased’.  It’s one thing to take a drink or ‘grope’ another behind the bike shed, quite another to ‘snap-chat’ a potential love interest with a permanent unsuitable picture.  As the latest survey of young lives highlights, the majority have engaged in such activities, leaving themselves vulnerable in so many ways.

I am full of admiration for this generation of young people. In the main, they are so much more conscious of the need to be healthy, to stay away from alcohol, tobacco and drugs.  They want to do well by school and family. When they are very young, so many have been presented with the screen, large and small, as a way to better themselves, find out more and become independent learners, as well as have fun and play games. None of us want to blame our young people for the predicament we are finding them in.  But hear you this; the epidemic of mental illnesses in the United States that triggered Dr Ruston to make her film last year is an object lesson to us all, a digital version of ‘Silent Spring’ which back in 1962 informed the world that the life saving, mosquito killing pesticides were quietly and lethally destroying our living world.  And if we are not careful, we are permitting the digital equivalent to happen in 2016; and it’s not the screen itself that’s the problem, but the relentless and needless escalation of unnecessary pressure of all kinds on children whose limbic systems simply are not up to the job, and can’t help but shut down.

*For a detailed exposition by an expert in this field, watch Dr Harry Barry’s Youtube lecture  – Depression and the Screenager

The human genome is a remarkable set of instructions that assists in enabling us humans to live in many climates, on many foodstuffs and to survive the predations of disease organisms large and small.  We know a vast amount about the human genome now, thanks to the amazing work of scientists across the globe, and Nobel prizes abound in the science of genetics.

We also know a very great deal about gene expression, and that work precedes our work on
the genome by a century. The Monk Gregor Mendel introduced the science of genetics through his work on pea plants in the 1850/60s, and over the subsequent 100 years we have learned a vast amount about how genes code for our many and various inherited characteristics. What Mendel and others never found out was t
hat we have way more instructions in our genome than we have cause to use. The genes are switched on (expressed) and off (silenced) by a whole host of environmental factors, and this has become increasingly importance in recent years this century as nutrition experts link the vital importance of diet to human health. An obvious example to give is that of alcohol tolerance; the gene that enables us to tolerate and digest alcohol is switched on and off dependent upon the presence of alcohol in our diet. Peanut and other worrying allergies do not seem to develop if very young children are exposed regularly to such foods during weaning.  When dieticians are asked “What’s the best food to eat?”, the best answer in reply is “Eat the rainbow!” – in other words, browse on the whole set of food stuffs and you can’t go wrong.

The ability of humans to process information, be that visual , auditory, tactile, through movement or taste is developed in the same ways. Wine or tea tasting are sets of skills developed around specific food stuffs. Great photographers and artists are fundamentally at home with the tools of their trade. Our latest sporting hero, Danny Willett, winner of the Masters 2016 and wearer of the Green jacket learned his golfing trade the hard way through endless practice, an appetite for hard work and a resolute competitive edge. And we know that as adults age and cease to use all of their mental faculties, their ability to process new information rapidly declines. Reintroduce physical and mental activities to a willing student and those signs of old age rapidly disappear.

Inevitably in education, the same is true. A balanced educational diet is essential to ensure children develop the best they can be.  And the diet really does need to be of the rainbow quality throughout the early, primary and secondary years, because we simply don’t know where our future lies in this uncertain world (which has been uncertain for decades by the way).  Here’s a 1940’s video from the states, extolling the virtues of the new progressive, hands-on education arising to provide America with the enquiring minds it needed for the new technological world arriving at the time.

Since this film was made, some 70 years have passed, and governments in the developed world have tinkered again and again with their educational provision, trying to industrialise it sufficiently well to ensure it gets the key workers in every discipline it needs to provide their country with an economic advantage over their competitors. The most successful countries, such as Singapore and Finland have worked out that ‘streaming’ and ‘testing’ are not going the bring the outcomes they are looking for. Breadth, diversity and depth, with the learners in control as much of the time as the teacher can make available are the ways forward.

As important as the content is, it’s the approach that matters more. Children are their best teachers and aids for their friends, from the age of 4 or 5. Here’s one of the more famous examples of the power of peer advice, Austin’s butterfly, from 2012 which exemplifies all that is best in how peer support works.  A school of 500 may have 50 teachers on the staff list, and all will feel stretched beyond bearing if they have to teach everything.  The reality is that such a school has 50+500 teachers, and the power that can be brought to bear when 550 support learning in a supportive way is evidenced by the great schools of our land.

So, this coming Summer term in Claires Court, we’ll continue to teach the rainbow of course;  we’ll look out for new colours we have yet to appreciate and we’ll aim to deploy everyone of us, from age 3 to 86 years of age to teach – and hopefully we’ll keep our learning genes switched on, and find a few more that have not yet been deployed!

At the end of my Sixth Form days, L.P.Hartley’s book, ‘The Go-between’, was made into a stunning film with its stars being the adorable Julie Christie and Alan Bates, adults in secret love linked by Leo Colston, their child messenger (the go-between) played by Dominic Guard.  I have seen the film quite a few times, but it’s the book’s opening lines that stay with me:

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”

The story is set in pre-first world war England, when the upper class seldom sullied their hands, and is told by the now aged adult go-between as he recalls the events of his childhood.  The book really ought to be on everyone’s top 100 books for their desert island; we are all affected and repressed in some way by our childhood experiences and in the solitude of an Island life, we would be able to reflect upon the ‘what might have beens!’

As I write, Brussels is in lock down, and terrorist mayhem has been wrought upon innocent civilians at airport and train station.  If for no other reason than security, the borders of Europe are being closed, and plans to return hundreds of thousands of refugees back to the middle east are in an advanced stage of preparation. Our own political masters are at each others throats; this week’s multi shambles of a budget bringing the chancellor into disrepute, and has a secretary of state for work and pensions departing into the back-benches of parliament to fight his other cause ‘Brexit’.  We are now 100 days to the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, in which those who have a vote can shape our future very differently if they so wish.

In the same budget, George Osborne announced that all state schools were to become academies* by 2020, breaking completely the control that local authorities have had over our schools since the Education act of 1944 when secondary education became free in state schools. Whilst the majority of secondary schools are already academies, most primary schools are not, and the country simply does not have the expertise to fragment this junior provision whilst protecting the rights of those most vulnerable who cannot protect themselves. The chancellor said that the government’s goal was “to complete this schools revolution and help every secondary school become an academy” with power being in the hands of heads and teachers, “not bureaucrats”.

Given that we are in the middle of the largest simultaneous shake-up of public examinations, to be completed by 2018, this means that the entire English primary and secondary system is being turned on its head, fragmented and ‘rebranded’.  This is being done to ‘improve’ our education system.  The first results that will permit us to measure whether this change has worked won’t come out until 2025, and full evidence not until the 2020-25 cohorts are all the way through, meaning 2030.  Since the current government has a mandate until 7 May 2020, if they last this parliament that is, then I can honestly predict the educational landscape for the next 15 years is set to become the Wild West, in which anything can happen and probably will. I am not the only one that thinks this will be sad.

Back in November, all Roy Perry, the Conservative leader of Hampshire county council and chairman of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board, could say was ‘If government were to say there is no role for local government in education that would be a sad day. I hope this does not become a political issue. Within Conservative-controlled councils we see ourselves as having a very positive and important role in education’.  This week  Fasna,  the body which represents self-governing schools and academies, questioned whether there was capacity to “execute that policy effectively”. I am sure they are right to challenge their masters, because the data shows that only 1 in 3 of academy schools are as good as they need to be, roughly in line with the LA average.

Though I suspect Christ’s resurrection story and the promise of redemption is the way to go for most of us, it’s time for my uplifting Easter message. I have become mindful of the acceleration of time in recent years, when everything is done for a purpose, a next step on our travels, which are often more ambitious and extensive than yesteryear. We are not workshy privileged adults from the past, playing games in a world where the harsh realities of life are far away. But we can at least recognise the need to find time to take a rest, to play around, enjoy our families and friends and have some fun, so please do.  You might even get a film out. The BBC remade the Go-between last year – I can’t source the movie but Youtube has a great trailer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzVQhJ9Eyy4 , and as the film also has Jim Broadbent (the old Leo), it’s worth the watch just for the opening sequence in which he speaks ““The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”

Do enjoy the Easter break, I will!

*P.S. Since writing this blog, ‘mumsnet’ has gone bonkers about the prospect of academisation;  in conservative party terms, this is spelled ‘a-cayman-isation’ – it appears that  Mr Cameron’s close friends are ‘trousering’ the real estate and off-shoring the nation’s educational assets into a tax haven.

When the Varkey Gems Foundation first announced the ‘Global Teacher Prize‘ in 2014, I for one was a little underwhelmed by the prospect. Given the nature of the world in crisis I thought, why focus on ‘teachers’ rather than perhaps peace makers or refugee workers. But the concept has grown on me, because it has undoubtedly surfaced huge differences in what makes a great teacher across the world, and has caused my profession to look more carefully at the devil in the detail.

There have been 2 winners so far, Nancie Atwell (English teacher, Maine, USA) in 2015 and Hanan Al Hroub (Primary specialist in supporting children traumatised by violence, West Bank, Palestine).  Their stories, and those of the other finalists can be read here, and the work more generally of the Global Education & Skills Forum here.

Sunny Varkey and his family have a huge business in schools, based in the middle East, known as GEMS Education, with some satellites around the world, including 5 schools and a nursery here in the UK. The philanthropic foundation chose to set up the annual Global Education & Skills Forum, and have funded it really well, UNESCO and the UAE support it and their lead speakers over the last 4 years have been out of the very top drawer. Pope Francis announced this year’s winner by video link, and Hanan Al Hroub’s supporters were able to watch live on the big screen in Ramallah.

There are some really key features that the finalists have in common; passion for learning, focus on the children and their outcomes, willingness to innovate and challenge, and really willing to share their work widely. And if you don’t believe me, read on – headlines include ‘space elevators’, ‘distance learning across the globe’, ‘refugee schools’, ‘maker culture for literature and films’, ‘free maths teaching videos for all’ , ‘social justice programmes for sex trafficked children’ and so forth.  Clearly none of the finalists set out to win this prize, and many of their personal life stories are quite extraordinary. For example, Robin Chaurasiya helped organise a successful campaign to change US armed forces policy after being forced to leave her position as an Air Force officer because of her sexuality. She changed profession, moved to Mumbai in India, and works within an NGO called ‘Kranti’ (Revolution) empowering marginalised girls in Mumbai’s red light district to become agents of social change.

Winning the prize does not mean the teachers can leave what they re doing – far from it, it secures their employment in their setting for the next 5 years!  Interesting to note that last year’s winner, the most amazing English teacher in the backwoods of Maine,  Nancie Atwell donated her prize to her school and their work to disseminate her innovative teaching methods.  And what’s fantastic is that the methods used by both winners are spreading across the world more rapidly because of the fame this prize has brought. Atwell’s pupils read an average of 40 books a year and probably write as many, such education providing a real antidote to the anti-academic nature of rural life in Maine.

More generally, the Varkey Foundation’s work is doing amazing things in creating thousands of new teachers in countries where they are in really short supply. Cutting to the chase, when teaching can make such a difference to children’s lives, sometimes 4 years training is a tad too long; they have developed an impressive 5 day intensive training programme for school leaders in Uganda.  Through working together, potential school leaders are empowered to break the ‘learn these facts rote learning’ mould and enable teachers and pupils to take responsibility for their learning and personalise it to fit needs and circumstance.

So the cynic in me has gone, to be replaced by a real sense of wonder that along side Messi, Adele, Brad Pitt and Jamie Oliver to name but 4 random celebrities renowned for their craft, we now have have some superstars of our own at whose work we can marvel and admire. Here at Claires Court we have some superstars of our own of course, but I suspect not yet any who have had the stretch and reach of the GTP finalists to date.  The thing is though, prizes are not what brought any of us into Education, but what such competitions have done, as indeed the Oscars before for so much longer, is find some unsung heroes and place them centre stage, for their work, for their craft and for the passionate endeavour which they bring to their work every day. And that’s a lesson for all in schools, be they adults or children – worth perhaps the spending of a million dollars!