A Principled view

A new Parliament, a re-arranged set of ministers, and we see both in national press and education journals the re-opening of a variety of debates that have been with us all my teaching lifetime. Some writers, such as Will Hutton here in the Guardian (28 June) suggest that the major divisions as seen in British Society are promulgated by the existence of private schools. The sentiments of his closing paragraph provide a real challenge for those of us who lead in independent education “Looking back, my wife and I felt that parents like us should stand by the universal system; our daughter did well and many of her friends at the time, whose parents believed in their exceptionalism, have had unhappy lives. It would have been so much better if those children had been allowed to stick together in a system that spelled out their togetherness while teaching them with rigour. The English tragedy is that we will never get there”.

Locals and Harrow boys meet outside Lord’s at the 1937 Eton v Harrow cricket match. Photograph: Jimmy Sime/Getty Images

I have followed Will Hutton for years, as journalist, social commentator, and now as Principal of Hertford College Oxford. In many ways our views seem similar, driven as we both are to desire for all the access to high quality education and the opportunities that such success brings in adult life that follows. Where our views divide is usually policies for social cohesion, most often over Europe. That’s not that I am a Eurosceptic, far from it, but I am not so resolutely wedded to the concept of the Euro, the EU more broadly and its superior way of doing things. That’s a position just currently that seems to work in my favour.

Anthony Seldon, the retiring headmaster of Wellington College, speaks of some of his parents as “Clueless narcissists damaging their kids with delusions” and suggests that “Rather than letting the child be what they want to be they (Parents) atrophy their child’s sense of development and autonomy.” More here in the Daily Telegraph.  In drawing the reader’s attention to this statement, I’ve got to say I don’t align at all with Anthony on this. Sure, on occasion we have to realign parental expectations, but they’d expect us do that anyway in the main. We can get in trouble when we won’t predict better grades than evidence suggests; that’s a reputational matter we just have to live with, and carries us through when through accident or emergency a child misses a public exam – the authorities are able to trust our judgement!

The retiring headmaster of Eton College, Tony Little, writing in the same edition of the HMC magazine Insight from which the DT draws its copy under the headline “How to fit our pupils for the 21 century?” suggests that schools and our examination systems are no longer agile enough to cope with the rapid changes and increasing pressures now evident in 2015. He has just established a centre for innovation and research in learning at Eton, and hopes it will make a difference for his sixteen year old boys who otherwise might be saying  “What is going on here? This doesn’t mean anything to me.” I am rather hoping that the average CC 16 year old is not saying this, and the current crop of pupil questionnaires seem to be supporting my optimism. The very fact that we have active School Councils and exit questionnaires still astonishes some in our business, suggesting that such democratic measures make us ‘hostages to fortune’. I suspect not, by the way.

Professor Sandra McNally of the School of Economics at University of Surrey and Director of the independent Centre for Vocational Research at LSE believes there is a growing divide between what industry and government want to see in our secondary schools. Whilst education secretary Nicky Morgan is now narrowing state secondary GCSE choices down to the Ebacc academic core (English x2, Maths, MFL, Sciences plus Geog/Hist), the Director of the Confederation of British Industry , John Cridland would wish for GCSEs to be phased out, to be replaced by a more coherent mix of subject and focus from 14, with examination hurdles at 18+ only. In his wide ranging speech at the Festival Of Education last weekend, Dr Cridland reminds us all that information is now universally available at the touch of a screen, but that’s not enough. Children and adults need a ‘steer’ too, without which they’ll not be able to join up their skills and ambitions with opportunities available. Professor McNally advises that children should not specialise too early, though we should not regard ‘vocational’ courses as inevitably being of lower value, highlighting vocational careers in Engineering, Medicine and the Law as offering fabulous opportunities for the successful. The trouble is with Professor McNally’s thoughts are that she finds no way to bridge the ‘skills’ gap that employers need and yet are not grown in examination classrooms. Put simply, we need young adults to be entering employment ‘savvy’ about what is expected of them, with standards of literacy and numeracy ‘work-place’ ready, and a bunch of other craft skills already honed. Is that really possible? Which computer language should they be able to code with? Which CNC lathe  ought they know how to operate?

Parents and Teachers within Claires Court will be familiar with these arguments and discussions, because they have focussed and nourished our school development for the past 7 years or so now, and their threads run all the way back to the decisions we made back in the late 1970s to move from being a Prep school feeder for secondary Grammar and Public schools. Indeed, we now have an impressive number of past pupils who as parents and/or teachers are actively involved in our Claires Court life, and they share with me this certain belief that it is the ‘whole of the child’ that needs educating, a ’roundedness’ not visible or encouraged by the examination system or national government. We know that children need to explore, create, break and mend, reinvent and repurpose. We know they need to learn to acquire the skills not just to read, write, spell and count, but of sharing, caring, competing and being kind. I have stopped speaking about a ‘rounded’ education, because the phrase rather misses the point and demeans what we do. What we must provide are opportunities for multiple skill acquisition, for examination success sure, but also in everything else we do too.

So here’s my take (a Magnificent 7 of them) on how to ensure that children emerge from school with all the skills they need for their next steps in life, employed or otherwise.

1. Children need to be known, to feel secure and be fairly done by. This cannot to be delivered in social organisations that are too large, and there’s loads of psychological research about this, perhaps the most famous being ‘Dunbar’s number‘. Whilst class size of 28 to 35 makes no difference, indeed there are plenty of examples where perhaps even hundreds in a room regularly learn really effectively, that’s not what the classroom is all about. Whilst there are many successful schools far bigger than Dunbar’s 150, that’s not to say that students within feel they are valued and secure, or will develop further all the skills and talents they’ll need to come. For class size, I’d say 16 to 20 is ideal,small enough for care large enough for competition. As a DofE Assessor and trainer, I can tell you no group bigger than 7 is ever permitted, and frankly 5 is a better number. In groups larger than this, adults and children are often ‘monetised’ by sitting back whilst others get the work done. I am not much in favour of solo working, because collaborating successfully together provides great certainty that things actually will get done.
2. Children need to be happy and achieve. This may seem a paradox, because lots of school ‘stuff’ is hard, not easily acquired and comes with ‘failure’. It’s interesting though to note that it’s through gaining the professional expertise of a teacher that we learn how to create a classroom environment in which this happens. My proudest achievement as a school Principal is to lead an Academic Faculty which has teacher-development at the heart of its work. OK, there will be times of the year when coverage is patchy, when our ‘best selves’ as educators is replaced by necessity and expedience, but I am confident that we are a school that focuses on ‘Learning Essentials’, that models how best to include ‘digital’ opportunities, where ‘Peer’ education and ‘Pupil voice’ aren’t just titles but realities in practice, and where community activities are central to what we do. I’m content that we have our focus on children and their learning about right, though I have learned from our community partners that many schools’ social engagement in recent years has become significantly impoverished, partly as a direct result of leaving the Local Authority and becoming Academies.
3. Children are challenged. Who ever thought their child was going to play sport for England, perform in national finals, sing at the O2, row at Henley, read Chemistry at Oxford, be a playworker with disadvantaged children or compere at a Headteachers’ conference? That kind of activity has been grist to our mill in 2015, just saying. It’s that time of year in my school when there seems to be too much going on, with Music concerts and Drama festivals competing with sports days and regattas on the one hand and with Art on the Street and Summer Fair on the over. My leading staff seemed to be stretched close to breaking point, not only with the doing but with the writing too, reflecting on their pupils’ progress as seen in summer examinations and over the past year. The point is, every week brings fresh challenges and opportunities, not a relentless focus on some exam requirements years down the line. That calendar of activity does not arise by luck; at the time of writing CC Leadership are smashing together another year of dates to ensure that in its granularity, we have enough for everyone on offer. Trips and re-enactment days are woven through the schemes of work; rhetoric such as ‘teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’ won’t work unless the ‘men’ can get ‘hands on’ – learning is not just a theoretical activity, and takes place in many locations and a variety of ways.
4. Children as leaders, teachers as mentors. Pretty much every piece of academic research highlights that peers are better as teachers than teachers themselves. And in every article I read about ‘my favourite teacher’, it’s the way that adult opened for the child the possibilities that lie ahead and persuaded or encouraged their student to believe more of themselves. In designing provision to have blended curricular and co-curricular activities, we need enough of the latter on show to ensure the children have sufficient time and opportunity to gain expertise and leadership skills. There is a huge call by industry for entrants to have vocational skills; just a walk around the street of the  Claires Court Summer Fete last weekend reminds our community of the opportunities our children have. ‘Beat the goalkeeper’ vie with ‘Shoot-em-ups’ , GoKarts & Drones from the STEM club at a higher level face off Young Enterprise and Candle stock sales. Our commitments to and partnership with Rotary International and the Lions Club provide a guarantee of competitive speaking and partnership sponsorship in public and links young pretenders with community thought-leaders and separately with those much less fortunate in society that need a leg-up.
5. Relentless and ruthless enthusiasm blending a can-do and no-excuses culture. As a parent of 2 and surrogate parent for thousands, I avow completely the mantra that children come first. At the same time, I do not support a ‘Little Emperor Effect’ that promotes vain-gloriously the performances of one above the whole, arising from the mass study of the intended consequences of China’s one child policy, whereby ‘only’ children gain seemingly excessive amounts of attention from their parents and grandparents. Here in the UK, and understood for some time, that children regress on entry to secondary school.  This Year7/8 dip arises because parents want to let-go of the primary school requirement that they take very close interest in their child’s education, because the children themselves are becoming independent learners (aka making choices, some of them about not wanting to work solely to please adults) and because the learning possibilities secondary schools present accelerate exponentially. What secondary staff need to do is to get to know each child really quickly, so their possibilities are known before the child writes the same opportunities off because of peer pressure. Singing in public, performing on stage or field, standing up to be counted are all categories of un-coolness in the teenage vernacular. We need children to be proud of their outcomes because of the way they achieved them, attribute the success to the things the children personally made happen, and through that route subtly change peer expectations to making positive contributions to class, to school and to society at large the norm. This does not happen by magic, and the ‘grip’ of school needs to be sure, holding to account those less committed to the cause with a resolve that sure and appropriate.
6. It’s all about provision. Schools need to be full of independent adults who know their stuff, walk the talk and understand both Carol Dweck’s Growth mind-set theories and the need not to make posters about them yet do use them to keep children engaged with the activities that can make the difference. Yes, children can do anything they put their mind to, but it will also require body and soul and 10,000 hours. So we need to teach coding and craftwork, hard sums and lab-rat stuff, how to speak in ‘tongues’ or at least in one of them well, and how children should feel about their history, geography, and where our philosophical ideas come from. And we can’t all be expert in everything, so careers advisers, ict experts, art therapists, sports instructors, links to industry and work experience, visiting speakers and independent counselling services are essential. Professional development is not just a requirement for children but for adults too, and our experience alone is not sufficient to make us better practitioners. Teachers need access to advice, as early as possible to support and expand their thinking and to keep their minds open as they move through their careers. Making such learning opportunities open for parents is almost as essential; there so much bogus stuff out there that can bewitch and entice (just think weight loss programmes as example) and which are completely contradictory and actually illusory. Make sure everyone learns that the ‘silver bullet’ does not exist, and that actually the ‘vampire’ problem it was designed to cure doesn’t exist either.
7. Underpin it all with a set of values that are universally transferable: Responsibility for your own actions, Respect for others, Loyalty to your community and Integrity above all. As one of Maidenhead’s larger employers, Claires Court looks after 300+ and we need the best we can find for all of our roles, be that in housekeeping, admin or on the front line teaching. These days whatever the job, people are required to make application, and we’ll always follow that by interview. Those that show they know stuff, can be relied upon, seek to be their best selves and do the best they can are really easy to employ. Probably the bit that schools need to work on most is the ‘biddable’ bit. It seems to me successful outcomes from secondary and sixth form can permit the development of an arrogant mind-set which is difficult to supplant, because the narrow objective of examination success is the be-all and end-all, reached within an environment that supports the can-do-no-wrong “Little Emperor” syndrome. Recent Universty changes have probably enhanced this effect, with so many of the leading institutions ceasing to offer any pastoral support or finance lecturers to have personal engagement with students. The government are really keen that schools have at the heart of their pastoral curriculum Fundamental British Values, and there is no danger with us that those will be missing. But we need to place more importance than just a nodding acquaintance with this narrative; it is not just values, but skills, character and resolve interwoven as well. Will Hutton invites us to worry about a doomed youth whose only uncertainty is misery as adults. That’s something I cannot accept as an educational mission, but perhaps bear witness to; with the destruction of the extended family and the mobility of modern life, it’s hard for families to keep it all going without a supportive community, and that’s central to our Claires Court offer, to have that support on tap and nearby.

To conclude, and in a nutshell, great employers know their place. Right from the start, they value their employees and provide for them enough to feel safe, secure and known. They ask their employees to think and do great things, to support others outside of their narrower remit and to be kind and supportive, but whistle-blow when needed.  They provide monitoring, expertise, accountability and training in equal measure and intervene just early enough to makes sure big mistakes can’t happen. And of course, have a vision suitably shared to provide an appropriate purpose for all their employees activity, not so much a profit score or destination, but a way of working and living that provides for them and their families  for a long time to come.

I’ll finish with another Will Hutton headline “Let’s end this rotten culture that only rewards rogues“, which led one of many pieces written highlighting the inequity of reward uncovered during the recent banking boom and bust. I’d like to see Education’s P&L systems examined just as forensically by external experts. Frankly, we know that every child deserves to succeed and needs to attend a school in which that can happen. But with almost every secondary school designed around a-built-to-fail numbers model, around disastrous selection philosophies  that separate the haves from the have-nots, with primary schools now monetised to get bigger to get better, and with national government actively promoting the ‘academisation of schools’ thus removing local accountability, there is no way that parents can opt-in to a education built around my ideals easily.  Unless they live near Maidenhead of course. And at a very reasonable price. Ahem.

Those whose reading list includes the Claires Court Sixth Form Bulletin will know their newsletter has been running with a Thomas Edison quote this term – ‘Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The certain way to succeed is always to try one more time’.  It rather neatly fits with the narrative I wrote back in October in https://jameswilding.wordpress.com/2014/10/09/most-people-dont-read-the-writing-on-the-wall-until-their-backs-are-up-against-it/ , in which I quoted from Malcolm Gladwell’s book ‘Outliers’. As one of a number of examples, early gifted and talented violinists in Germany were not those who made the grade as adult violin students. None of the naturally gifted rise to the top. The psychologists found the main direct statistical relationship to be between hours of practice and achievement. No shortcuts. No naturals.

Last term, Mandy Temple Films visit Claires Court Junior Boys to capture the essence of ‘A day in the life of a CCJB’ and in this charming short movie, we get a sense of the extraordinary environment through which our younger boys are nurtured to develop very many skills and talents.  You can see Mandy Temple’s film here, and it’s a delight to see almost no teachers in action, just children speaking about school and the values they hold dear. In one of the most remarkable educational books ever written (published 2007), Graham Nuthall highlighted the difference between how teachers feel learning happens and the child’s own personal experience of growth and success. Its clear evidence and proposed pedagogy/philosophy has supported our work in creating the Claires Court Essentials, by which we have mapped our curriculum with the many and varied activities a child needs to explore for them to learn, acquire a skill, and retain a concept. We have now developed our unique mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to monitor what we do and check on each child’s development, very much our foundation stones for evidence-based quality education.

Education and Child Development more generally is never off the newsstands; Education Secretary Nicky Morgan is back in office and she has decided to focus now on ‘Coasting schools’, as measured by the school’s English and Maths results at primary level and by their English BACC results at Secondary.  Increasingly us Independent schools are being challenged to provide as much support as we can find to partner with our state sector colleagues, whilst being increasingly ‘frozen’ out of the performance tables by which such state schools are measured. As the retiring head from Eton College, Tony Little made clear recently, the arid nature of the secondary and sixth form exam system “makes it difficult for teachers to make links and pupils to see things in different ways. It’s about encouraging them to see things laterally and be more nimble.” (Daily Mail, 18 May) In brief, it’s becoming very difficult to compare apples with our smorgasbord of delights – life at Claires Court is mutli-dimensional, focussed on the learners and where they want/are inspired to learn.

In reality, Claires Court has to ensure the teachers and children go the extra mile, join ideas up and make the bigger picture happen. This Wednesday, we hosted once again the ISA London West Athletics Championships, now a formally recognised British Athletics Event on the national calendar, and with the results not just posted to schools but up for public view (any time soon) on the Power of 10 website, alongside results from regional, national and international fixtures too. Lovely as it is to add value to local events to maximise their ‘importance’, we are of course delighted to report that we won the boys and girls and overall title as Victores et Victrices Ludorum. A whole host of fabulous photos are visible from our official photographer and former Claires Court parent, Isabelle Thomas. It is about taking part of course, but it is also about the preparation and skill acquisition; look after the performance and the results will look after themselves.

This evening at Norden Farm Centre for the Arts, Frances Ackland-Snow, our Artist in Residence and 40 of her talented young proteges launch the publication of ‘Art is the time for Freedom’ book, with  BBC award winning Portrait Artist Paul Bell as the guest of honour. The look and feel of the book itself is really special, but you can get some sense of the look and feel through this pdf here. These young Arts Award practitioners show through drawing skill and reflective commentary what Art means to them.

Just 2 events in 3 days, each adding an extra dimension to the lives of our young people. Perhaps that is why a prospective employer was moved to say earlier today by email to Assistant Head of Enterprise Education, Steph Rogers, “I met with Dxx this week, and I must say, what a lovely young man. Soo confident, articulate, and well spoken, it was  a delight to meet him, he was introduced to the majority of my team, who all felt the same way. If my son (just starting at CC) turns out remotely like Dxx I will be a very proud Mum”. 

I look forward to getting Mandy Temple back to CC to ‘film more of our everyday life’. It really is not possible to convey in words alone just how special our environment is becoming – and incomparable to the kind of Coasting School Mrs Morgan alludes to.  I’ll finish this week’s blog with a bit of serious Nuthall “In my experience, teaching is about sensitivity and adaptation. It is about adjusting to the here-and-now circumstances of particular students. It is about making moment-by moment decisions as a lesson or activity progresses. Things that interest some students do not interest others. Things that work one day may not work the next day. What can be done quickly with one group has to be taken very slowly with another group. What one student finds easy to understand may confuse another student. In order to navigate the complexity of the circumstances in which a teacher works, it is not possible to follow a recipe. As a teacher, you make adaptations. You must. The important question is: what adaptations do you make. You can do it by a kind of blind trial and error, but it would be much better if you knew what kinds of adaptations were needed, and why.”  (P15, Graham Nuthall, ‘The Hidden Lives of learners’)

P.S. I suspect at Claires Court, we actually do know what the adaptations are needed and why!

David Wilding, my father, was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) in his late 20s, was warned that he might be blind within 5 years, but happily kept his sight (albeit ever decreasing) for another 50. In 1960, he left the comfort of employed work to set up Claires Court with his wife, Josephine, here in Maidenhead, where Hugh and I were two of the 19 founding pupils. Of course it took huge courage to start a new business, but more than that, it took imagination, insight, knowledge and, of course, vision to plan a new school. During the ’60s, that ‘vision’ moved on to plan the building of a new school for 250 pupils at Ridgeway, acquired in 1964 to be the boarding house. Sadly the costs of providing the infrastructure for such a school were beyond belief; in due course, an alternative, to build speculatively two houses in what then was the kitchen garden and use the profits from their sale to build a senior wing down on the Ray Mill Road East site proved more achievable. The teaching wing was opened during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee year, my second as a member of the teaching staff in the newly expanded senior school.

Both my brother and I thank our lucky stars that ‘RP’ did not pass down the family gene, and we see well enough for all those things sight is needed for, driving and the like. At the time of writing, our Dad is really not well at all, but surviving in his beloved North Norfolk village of Letheringsett, and he very much hopes to ‘see’ me over half-term. I have been totting up the whole host of ‘news’ he needs to know, because believe you me, he still has a very clear head for minute detail about the school he founded and still very much cares for.

He’ll want to know about cricket developments, team results and so forth, and will be really tickled by the notion that the staff are now fielding a cricket team in the local knock-out Julian Cup, first match this coming Tuesday evening against Taplow Cricket Club. He asks about rowing in the summer too, and the imminent racing at the National Schools regatta in Nottingham is one we all look forward to hearing results from – the boys and girls have worked very hard and have excellent chances to ‘medal’ this coming weekend. He really misses being able to travel to Maidenhead; the recent Rowing Dinner attended by 150 of the Boat Club and their parents was a spectacular success, with Sydney Olympian Miriam Batten-Luke in attendance as guest of honour to assist us in  raising some £7,000 of new funds towards the onward development of our equipment.

He’ll be delighted to hear of the donations being made to the charities the six school councils resolved to support through their 3for3  fundraising.  The details are impressive:  Alexander Devine £3,600; Kids in Sport £2,600; Daisy’s Dream £1,000; MENCAP £1,000; Diabetes UK £1000; Rosie’s Rainbow Fund £1,500; and Thames Valley Adventure Playground £1,577.34, giving rise to a total of £12,277.34. All three of us know that the boys and girls work really hard to raise the funds, to do something different and make a difference!

My father has a lovely turn of phrase, such as “Exams, like the poor, are always with us” and he knows that pupils need to excel in exams so that they can move on to their next steps in life. Yet I never forget him joke with Henry Cooper, the British heavyweight boxer, about success at school. Henry was a Claires Court parent in the ’70s, and was asked to open the Claires Court Sports Hall. Henry simply looked down at his hands, smiled wickedly and said “Both at school and in employment, I found I was better working with my hands!”

And of course Dad, like many others, will ask me about the progress of our current plans to build a new campus, sufficient to accommodate our somewhat expanded vision of his ‘Claires Court’. I’ll reply very positively:

“The election is over, we have a settled government for the next five years, and we can see that our local authority have a body of councillors, largely re-elected, with whom I hope we can do business. We have completed our designs for new Junior Girls, Senior Boys, Senior Girls and Sixth Form schools, new kitchen and dining spaces, a cultural centre for Music and Drama, and a new double size sports hall to accommodate the myriad sports and activities we now run. Our overall investment is on the order of £30 million and I hope that we will have plans lodged this August with fingers crossed for a March 2016 build start and September 2017 opening.”

Of course my father won’t be able to see anything, and has no expectation of being able to travel south to visit to see our ‘vision’ become reality. But I know he will be able to sense our excitement that such proposals bring to fruition a dream we as a family have had for almost 50 years, one I can genuinely say has been mine as Man and Boy. While it was the boarding house, Ridgeway was also our family home long before it became a junior school. If our plans are able to progress, obviously leaving the original Claires Court will be a huge personal wrench. Like our father though, Hugh and I believe that there is a greater good to be achieved, for Claires Court to become a ‘destination’ school for all of our children, one of such scale and substance as to be sufficient for all of our possible dreams combined.

Dad will of course bring me back down to earth. “What do you think of Kevin Pietersen being sidelined? Fancy England losing four wickets before lunch at Lord’s on Thursday. Talking of which, where’s my lunch?”

I thank the Lord for BBC Radio, a saviour not just for the blind, but very definitely a service that conjures up sufficient ‘pictures’ to illuminate the world in which we live through words alone. As I leave my father to his lunch and ball-by-ball commentary on Test Match Special, I’ll know he’ll be in good hands, permitting me and my bro’ to get on with the ‘visioning’.  Unlike RP, that thankfully does seem to run in the family.

Claires Court Ambassador Programme ­ “Parent Voice” Proposals

It is an interesting truism in life that if you want something done, do it yourself. Actually, it is a Factoid – one of those oft repeated phrases that becomes true because of the sheer number of times it is both said and heard. You would not manage your own tooth extraction or hip replacement, of course you would not. As a School Principal, indeed as a previous parent and pupil of my school, I might be better placed than most to know what the ‘parent and pupil from Claires Court on the omnibus’ thinks about our school. But that’s no replacement for the other 3000+ voices we need to listen to who are members of our community. These are current pupils (1072), parents and family (double that number at least) and teachers/administrators/other employees.

Our annual questionnaires with Parents, Pupils and Staff provide excellent food for thought. The outcomes from the 2015 Parental Survey have been presented to the main PTA board, and over the next couple of weeks I am meeting with the various PTA local groups to share those outcomes, and once that’s done, provide a written public report for our community. Now whilst all this is excellent practice and noble etc., it does not provide the insightful, analytical, surgical or personal actions that might make our school much more successful come next Monday.

During our meetings with pupils, parents, friends, PTA trustees and visitors, we are increasingly aware that having good Ambassadors who are willing to go that extra mile to speak up for us and support our activities is a major bonus. During every school year and particularly in reviews and Speech Days, we have discussed and prominently congratulated the brilliant work of our School parent teacher association groups. However, we cannot expect to much of the same people, hence earlier this Academic year, the Principals and Headteachers have chosen to prioritise the recruitment and deployment of Parent Ambassadors.  Here’s my first go at highlighting what that plan might look like.

Parent Ambassadors

We have 3 types possible, and a mix of all three across age and stage are desirable:

• Past parents who know the school really well, have built a positive reputation that we can trust.
• Current parents who want to add something extra into their engagement with the school.
• Current parents who are also teachers/administrators who have the key skills we need already in place.

What is the Parent Ambassador cohort? 

● As a member of the Parent Ambassador Cohort, parents of current Claires Court pupils will have the opportunity to use their leadership skills in support of improving Claires Court policies and practices that benefit pupils, teachers and parents.

● Cohort membership is aimed to enhance the skills, knowledge, and confidence of parents necessary to create meaningful change within Claires Court and the wider community.

● A successful Parent Ambassador will be able to Increase other parents’ knowledge about Claires Court, as well as inform on local and national educational issues

● Engage prospective and existing parents and inspire them to assist with the transition into the school, help them settle in, become more active, loyal and engaged within our community.

● Work with key leadership staff to provide ‘Critical Friend’ advice to improved policies, procedures, practice and provision

How many of the above roles would a Parent Ambassador fill?

My guess is either outward facing Ambassador or inward facing friend. Or both.

Information for Parents

What is the level of commitment to participate in the Parent Ambassador Program?

• Attend a one day orientation, including safeguarding element
• participate in at least six events a year,
• More generally and regularly, Inform and inspire other parents with your knowledge, passion, and belief that Claires Court as an educational environment is ideally suited for most children
• Notification to the Parent Ambassador cohort by email will invite parents to participate. We know our parents are busy, so this system will permit you to be as involved as you wish, but no less than 6 occasions a year.

The benefits of being a Parent Ambassador include:

• Opportunities to be engaged in Open Day and external Marketing events and campaigns
• Increased knowledge about current education policy and issues, plus site­-local developments, inc. healthy eating, welfare matters, digital innovation and mindfulness
• Participation in advocacy related activities, education/inspection meetings, press briefings and research
• Networking opportunities with parent and community leaders
• Recognition once a year at our main Speech and Prize giving events

What next? 

Please have a think about these proposals and give me some feedback!  In the first instance, either by commenting on this post or directly by email. Once I know the issues and concepts you flag up, I can write a little more and run a survey for best fit of expectations and concerns. My best email address to use is jtw@clairescourt.net. I look forward to hearing from you in whatever way you think appropriate.

It’s election day and all over the media are the Good, Bad and Ugly thoughts about today’s General Election.  I particularly liked the SkyNews teams General Affection Ballad:

The most remarkable aspect this time around is that the most lauded politician, Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the SNP, isn’t even standing for Parliament. Cartoons have littered the landscape a plenty – perhaps the one best expressing the ‘memes’ of our time is this one from Matt.

It won’t come as any surprise to readers of my Blog that I am a Liberal by persuasion, supporting that so-called party back in the ’70s and representing its views as best I felt possible on Union Council at University. During that time, I also engaged in Leicester’s Charity Rag, becoming editor of its Rag Mag, known as ‘Lucifer’ for my edition of 1974. I had to run its entire contents past the Lord Mayor of the time, whose support was essential if we were to be gain the City’s permission for disruptive student activities of one kind another for our 7 day long festival. Walking into the Mayor’s parlour, to present our ‘working copy’ was nerve wracking.  He chose to wear most of his regalia, and was the spitting image of that well known fictional figure, the Mayor of Trumpton.  My meeting was short sharp and sweet – he put a red pen through anything that was remotely rude or scurrilous, leaving me with a joke-free Rag Magazine. Given that we planned to sell 20,000 of these to raise funds, I had to revisit the process and find jokes and stories that simply flew over the Mayor’s head. Second time round, the copy got through, we published, only afterward then receiving a furious letter from the Mayor, once one of his staff explained the ‘new’ material to him!

On Social Media in 2015, new characters have appeared, including including @Trumpton_UKIP, a fictional town and candidate purporting to support UKIP. Here’s an excellent account from the Guardian Newspaper explaining where the ‘Kippers have come from, and the efforts of UKIP to have the spoof banned.  At the time of writing, I am well aware that there is a fine divide between satire and ridicule, not just because of the Charlie Hebdo killings on 7 January and subsequent events in Dallas last week, but because more generally, poking fun at people has very limited permissions, and can’t be assumed to be a personal right. Free Speech means something very different.

I’ll conclude not by writing more, but by adding a lovely short paragraph from an article written by Will Self, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31442441, entitled: ‘What’s the point of Satire?’ It rather says it all. Enjoy your freedom to vote today, and let’s see what happens from Friday 8 May onwards – there’s plenty left to enjoy!

“The paradox is this – if satire aims at the moral reform of a given society it can only be effective within that particular society, and, furthermore, only if there’s a commonly accepted ethical hierarchy to begin with. A satire that demands of the entire world that it observe the same secularist values as the French state is a form of imperialism like any other. Satire can be employed as a tactical weapon, aimed at a particular group in society in relation to a given objectionable practice – but like all tactical weapons it must be very well targeted indeed. A satire that aims to afflict the comfortable in other societies requires the same sort of commitment to nation-building as an invasion of another country that’s predicated on replacing one detestable regime with another more acceptable one. The problem for satire is thus that while we live in a globalized world so far as media is concerned, we don’t when it comes to morality. Nor, I venture to suggest, will we ever.“

The Election race is underway and Education is to be one of the key battle grounds. I’ve trawled the Beeb to capture some of the highlights:

“David Cameron has declared that permitting the building of new Free Schools is one of their big ideas, and we can look forward to a further 100 a year being built over the life time of the next Parliament.

Labour has accused the Conservatives of planning “extreme” post-election public spending cuts of £70bn.  Shadow chancellor Ed Balls made a speech unveiling Labour’s analysis of how Conservative plans would affect non-protected Whitehall departments.

BBC assistant political editor Norman Smith said Labour’s “dossier” was designed to give people “the political heebie jeebies” given the scale of cuts required, and an attempt to paint the Conservatives as ideological when it comes to reducing spending.

A pledge to raise education funding in England from £49bn to £55.3bn over the next Parliament is the price of the Lib Dems entering coalition after the election, Nick Clegg has said.  It is the first so-called “red line” that the Lib Dem leader has revealed. The Lib Dems have said they would spend £2.5bn more than Labour and £5bn more than the Conservatives between 2015 and 2020 on education, protecting funding all the way from early years to further education. Mr Clegg said what his party call the “cradle to college” pledge would be a “deal-breaker” in potential negotiations with other parties.”

In reality, for a school situated in the Thames Valley, I feel sure that the SNP, Greens, UKIP etc. have all got something to add into this mix, but the reality of the situation is that the next Parliament will include at least one of either the Conservatives or Labour parties, and that the most likely partnership they will create to form a government will include the Lib-Dems.  Now, it must be said Mr Clegg went back on the Lib-Dem promise not to raise University tuition fees, but as things turn out, the coalition choice to advance those to £9000 and make them more of a graduate tax rather hitherto seems to have been really quite an effective way of expanding UK Universities event in the face of a world recession.

Let’s make no bones about the general principal of needing great higher education – we do. As our own school’s University final year undergraduates are about to be launched into the world of work, they don’t need to report they have spent three years in a Library and seen a professor once in a blue moon. As the Facebook pages of our students show, the dissertations are now reaching publication, and the few weeks of swotting  before finals are upon them, heads are down to secure their degree.

And it is not just for the undergraduates we need great Universities. Many of the non-University jobs now include diploma course and the like validated by the Universities. Mature students often need access to shorter courses that lift standards of knowledge and expertise, and whilst some ‘colleges’ may not be household names yet, Higher Education also extends to the great Institutes and Societies of the Land. I am absolutely delighted that all three of the major political parties have put their support behind the plan to develop a Royal College of Teaching. I started supporting this enterprise at the outset, promoted by the current Conservative MP for Bristol North West, Charlotte Leslie, who was kind enough to attend a conference I ran in the Autumn of 2013, and encouraged me to push further the concept of a Royal College into the Independent Sector. Another strong supporter of the Royal College, who shared the platform with Charlotte and myself, Professor Pete Dudley (Leicester University) visited our school this January, to meet with our Subject Leaders and talk about how to develop our work through Lesson Study, a long-term collaborative approach to build deep subject and teaching expertise.

We need informed, educated voices at the heart of Education planning to ensure that back-of-the-fag packet stuff does not enter our schools on a minister’s whim. Sadly, that’s what we have had to face for a quarter of century, and an approach that escalated last parliament under Michael Gove. In the long term, probably his most dangerous change was to move so very much of the training of teachers from Universities to schools, under Teach First and other similar strands. I am delighted that we run our own teacher training programme in the school, in conjunction with Universities such as Reading, Bucks New, Winchester, Chester and Brighton, as well as in partnership with our GTP provider, eQualitas. As an Independent School, we have chosen to use the surplus from our Holiday Club programme to invest in new undergraduate and graduate talent, to ‘grow our own’ so to speak.

But a country cannot rely solely on ‘micro-breweries’ such as Claires Court to populate our nurseries and schools country-wide. Where are is our future talent to be found? Where are the specialist departments, in which we are growing our subject specialists, importantly for Maths and Sciences we know, but actually for ALL the other subject disciplines we need? Answer – the  Universities of this fair land of course.  I cannot over-emphasise the importance of stability in education, and with Universities able to reap from their own crop of undergrads, the right kind of students can be encouraged to give teaching a go. Either that, or for students to be able to travel home to study and work their ticket at their local Uni, whilst reducing accommodation costs and building a professional life with school work colleagues is certainly a sure fire way to succeed.

Sadly, we now have Job Agencies and bands of headteachers even trawling the Dominions for staff licensed to work in the UK, to fill the incredible shortage of primary and secondary staff we now face, whilst at the same time we have unprecedented numbers of new teachers leaving the profession shortly after qualifying, or choosing to join a growing exodus to other countries. Currently over 400 new English Curriculum schools open each year outside of the UK, and all need their core qualified staff to come from our Island Nation.

 So inevitably, I’d have to ask friends and family who care about English National Education to vote Lib-Dem, because the only way to hold back yet more chaos from arriving in our state schools is to ensure there is a moderating influence at the heart of the new administration. Of course I understand the Conservative plea that without a profitable economy, we can’t have success in social enterprises. and I certainly understand the Labour approach that places key importance upon careers advice. The trouble with both parties is that they have ‘previous’ on their hands, both guilty of undermining the professional judgement of school professionals by implementing educational pedagogies that don’t work.

As Mark Twain’s quote makes clear, if you don’t know what you are doing, but nevertheless insist that the stats show you are successful, then frankly your doomed. Flagship policies such as Teach First (and then ‘do something better next’ goes the quip) may have a small part to play in furnishing our nation with teachers. But as with the Police Force, we need to grow our teachers from the indigenous communities where they were born and educated, where as professionals they feel comfortable and aligned to the wider community in which they will live and work. Both my wife and I fell in love with Leicester where we went to University, and both would have been really happy to work there in the multi-national city community we lived amongst. As things turned out, we married and returned to my home town of Maidenhead back in 1975, where there were jobs for us both, and where we have spent a collective 80 years in Education.

Funny how after all that time, Jen and I tend to agree on most things, despite her being a Historian and I a Scientist. And we do make it be known what we think as well. Sadly, we tend not to agree with almost anything the local political candidates have to say about the educational needs of this area, and they certainly seem to be deaf, dumb and blind to the lead we give. But hey – (Jenny’s favourite phrase) – what do we know anyway?

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Welcome back to the Summer Term at Claires Court, dear Reader. The Easter break for teaching staff is but 9 working days long at best, with professional development a very key aspect of our 3 INSET days spent as a professional body of 150+ educators and support staff working collaboratively and yet in different teams for age, stage and work focus. School leadership and management at this time of year feels very much like working the Peloton, that great ‘snake’ of  energy by which road cycling manages it affairs at race time. It’s fair to say that the academic staff on the 3 Claires Court sites are both my greatest responsibility and the source of my greatest pride.  They are a feisty bunch too, and not just committed to the one site; we have a number of staff who commute across sites, and plenty with cross-site responsibilities as well. As a member of staff, you can find yourself in a variety of teams too, each of which attract their own set of responsibilities and challenges. At any given time during our training days, staff will find themselves wearing different ‘jerseys’; some sessions attract all those working in specific departments to focus on their subject, others are ‘interest’ led, still further are whole site with specific issues to tackle. In short, we have small and large groups, dynamically jostling with each other, some breaking away to forge a new initiative, only to be subsumed into the pack at a later stage as the ‘peloton’ requires.

What might we be occupying ourselves with, given that school was ‘out’ for Easter? Any one with responsibilities for working with the Under 8s was most likely to be updating for 2 days their paediatric First Aid skills, a statutory requirement these days every 2 years (20+ adults). As we are introducing ‘De-fibrillators on all of our places of work, these and a very large number of other staff also took part in practical training in their use. The only effective treatment for a person who has suffered a sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is the combined administration of CPR and the use of a defibrillator. A defibrillator will deliver an electrical shock to stop the irregular rhythm and allow the heart’s natural pacemaker to restart the natural rhythm. The addition of ‘Defibs’ are very much part of the school’s policy to improve the medical welfare and provision for both pupils and staff. Separately the Nursing staff have been updating teaching and support staff on the use of Epipens and medicine management, not new but certainly something more closely highlighted as a regular need for us to check that staff know what to do.

On the Academic side, at both primary and secondary level, we have run workshops so staff learn how our overarching assessment processes and report writing are to knit together for more effective reporting on attainment and skill development for our parent body. I am not shy in stating that the hard ‘yards’ we have worked to create the Claires Court Essentials is not a job done but a work very much in progress.  Whilst we will continue to be innovative and forward thinking in our approach to a curriculum best suited for this decade, we need to ensure that our actions match my rhetoric – put simply, it’s not just the children who need to acquire new skills, but adults who need to adjust their working practice for a better ‘fit’.  Our partners in our latest digital offer, Discovery Education’s new Secondary service provided two major training sessions for teachers and support staff to ‘surf this new cloud’ and work out how best to deploy in lessons and for homework.

And of course we have the inevitable ‘staff meetings’ to pull dates and plans and activities for the new term into a coherent whole, to keep staff clued up with what’s expected of them, and of course to allow new ideas to surface and be shared. We have new courses to be designed for both new A levels and GCSEs, and some 600 pages updated in 20+ handbooks for each year group (and gendered too) for our curriculum statements for the next academic year. Some would like to think we could fit all this activity into the working term, but sadly, there are of course lessons to prepare and give, myriad sports, activities and events to train, execute, review, celebrate and indeed simply just enjoy in the Summer term that lies ahead. And anyway, whether it be Rowing camp or Ski trip, extra coaching or workshop activity, we’ve had plenty of things to offer for the children over the Easter break as well.

At the close of Parliament on 31 March, new safeguarding and welfare measures become law, with Keeping Children Safe in Education and Working Together to Safeguard children both requiring face to face training for staff to ensure we comply with parliament’s wishes. Frankly, with so much legislative and curriculum change throughout the year in Education, the state sectors’ 5 reserved days simply would not work for Claires Court and our needs – we have 12 protected days for CPD and this year we will use them all in very full measure! Without this time, we could neither plan nor build our next steps. And that’s where my leadership perhaps plays out best, to make and break teams sufficiently to ensure all the preparations have taken place – after all, we have a vision to provide outrageous opportunities beyond a child’s expectations or even dreams.

The actual Tour de France sets off this year on the 4th July from Utrecht in Holland, and ending with the ceremonial run into Paris on the 26th July. I like the fact that the race is decided by this final race, that there are indeed champions and stage-victors, with a multitude of different jerseys being worn, such as the king of the mountains (polka dot) and the sprinters (green) being almost as obvious as the overall winner (yellow). In like manner, the nature of our school is to celebrate together our end of year in July, focussing on retirements and departures new of course, but also on those staff who have gained new qualifications through the year. We’ll have spent quite some time interviewing and recruiting new staff to join the faculty, no mean feat at a time when dramatic teacher shortages now reach all disciplines! Pleasingly, the growing reputation of the school with this strong commitment to professional development makes us not just an attractive place to come to work, but a serious institution to build a career, indeed a lifetime around.

So the Summer Term commences, with some 1065 children on roll, ready to tackle learning and skills, face challenges and opportunities, stand up to be counted and collaborate for best effect. Now’s not the time for the Peloton to stay in its tight column and ride its own way, but break up into a hundred different parts and then some so that the business of school can happen. Suddenly it is no longer about the adults, but the children, their welfare and provision. The sun has certainly been shining and we seem well set for the weeks of hard work ahead. Of course, there’s an election in the offing, the results of which will be incredibly important for shaping the school’s next steps for our new campus. But those choices are for a nation to make, and once the verdict is in and we know who are to form the next national and local administrations, then we’ll reform some part of the Peloton so we can carry our plans forward with all appropriate speed and urgency.

I’ll close my allegory on the Peloton with a Sir Bradley Wiggens quote “It’s the stuff of dreams. As a child, being a fan of the sport, I never imagined that one day I’d be in this position. Kids from Kilburn don’t become favourite for the Tour de France. You’re supposed to become a postman or a milkman or work in Ladbrokes.”