Across the Educational nation as I write, secondary teachers and administrators alike are wrestling with the almost impossible task of migrating GCSE courses measured in letter grades A-G to new programmes of study measured using a 1 to 9 scale.

To the lay person, it looks quite straightforward. But the letter-based qualifications are based on syllabi which are withdrawn at close of 2017, and the new number-measured syllabi are expected to be harder, contain much more to be learned and recalled by rote, and are certainly very different in assessment approach from their predecessors.  The read-across is not really quite straightforward.  Some subjects currently have a blend of tests during the 2 years (controlled assessments) coupled with an end of course exam.  Others have substantial coursework instead, plus the terminal exam.  Either way, during the 2 years of study, pupils and teachers share feedback from the exam board on how well they are doing. Additional efforts can occur to improve controlled assessment outcomes. This is the current normal way things are done and basically have been so for almost 30 years. With effect from 2017 in English and Maths, and from 2018 in most other subjects, all assessment will occur at the end of the 2 years.  This is how things were back prior to the Summer 1987, the last years of the old O Levels and CSEs.

As an additional test for us all, currently a grade C is regarded as a good pass. For the new grades, a good pass is a level 5, though a C mark range falls down to a level 4.  No one will know what a 5 will look like until it happens – because we are guaranteed there will be the same number of level 4s and above as there grade Cs and above. We can estimate about 10% of the pupil population currently gaining a Grade C won’t get a level 5, so inevitably Results in the nation will get worse.  

“Education Secretary Nicky Morgan says raising the bar on GCSE exams will help pupils achieve in life.” BBC News http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-33139954 

And each individual school is having to translate the challenge for its teachers, parents and pupils. Quite understandably, confidence in the Education examination process is not perhaps as solid as it once was.  For most younger English parents, their experience of secondary school included valuable opportunities for coursework marks to be included together with the results from terminal examinations in their final GCSE grades at 16+. Since 1988, our examinations have been built around the premise that children’s learning should be assessed through the measurement of what they know, understand and can do not just in tests but in a variety of ways.  Now we have that new exam, harder and more of them at the end of the 2 years.

The trouble is, none of us know what any of the levels look like. For those seeking a pass, they can’t see what a level 4 or level 5 looks like, given that the ‘mark’ is going to come from an assessment measure yet to be designed and tested.

As it happens, the DfE is quite worried about this, so schools are to be required to subject some of their year 11 pupils to take reference exams in English and Maths in March prior to their Easter break. As Claires Court will be participating in the GCSE process, some of our Year 11s will be randomly picked by DfE to take part in this exercise. The pupils will get no feedback from this reference test, and won’t know what it looks like, but at least the DfE will capture some benchmark data on how some children in their GCSE year are performing more generally in English and Maths.  I can foresee parents writing sick notes as I scribe just now.

Have I mentioned that all the A levels are changing as well?  Since 2002, we have had a well organised system of modular assessments between age 16 and 18, that mimic the way Universities assess and how actually best learning happens.  For the country, it’s been a stunning success, though we did have to reduce the number of resits and lose January modules. In the new programme, the subject is to be studied for 2 years, with the only assessment happening at the end.  It is true that you can take exams after one year of study, but the way of questioning and assessment is different and any marks gained won’t count. We are keeping the letter grades though. There’s a comfort.

What is really worrying about the whole reinvention of the entire secondary examination system in England all at the same time, is that no-one in their right mind would choose to do such a thing. It’s completely insane. Teacher work load has gone through the roof, and the drop out rate from the profession is at an all time high, just when the population of school-age children is exponentially growing and we need 10% more teachers than ever before. For the next few years, almost all our understanding of what makes for sensible external assessment for employers and universities has been set adrift, with only the lightest of life-lines to a previous shore.

Here at Claires Court, we have chosen to switch a number of our subjects to the iGCSE, which is already understood and benchmarked appropriately. Whilst iGCSE grades will migrate to numbers in 2018, we can predict what incremental levels of improvement are needed to gain that tougher level 5. Sadly for the 93% of schools in the state sector, they have been forbidden to use this iGCSE approach, and inevitably 10% of children who currently pass are going to fail.  Remember Mrs Morgan’s words:

“Raising the bar on GCSE exams will help pupils achieve in life.”

Remember Mr Wilding’s words

“Insane.”

I regard the annual DfE publication of results as a remarkable example of misinformation about school performance and travesty of what schools set out to achieve for their pupils.  It gives rise to a genuine feeling amongst educationalists that the DfE is now promoting a new discipline, that of Agnatology, which is defined as the deliberate spread of ignorance to obfuscate and misinform.

Sir Michael Wilshaw, Chief Inspector of Schools (Ofsted) makes this clear this week in his speech on vocational education in response to the Centre Forum think tank proposals to raise education standards.  He argued that it is a “moral imperative as well as an economic one that we do something now to change direction”.  At present, Sir Michael states that  the education system in England does not offer enough opportunities for those who do not succeed at GCSEs. “The statistics show that those who fail to achieve the required grades in maths and English at 16 make little or no progress in further education colleges two years later. Preparation for employment remains poor and careers guidance in both schools and colleges is uniformly weak.” (BBC website)

For schools that cover a broad ability intake such as Claires Court, we work with our pupils and parents to ensure they achieve the very best short and long term outcomes. The focus for many will be the Ebacc mix of English, Maths, the Sciences, a humanity and an MFL.  Political chicanery has caused such uncertainty in English and Maths that we have moved to include international GCSEs in our mix of qualifications, yet these outcomes are not included in national league tables .  Moreover, our purpose is to develop the broad and diverse skill base of our pupils, be they in Arts, Drama, Sports or Technologies, not just a narrow academic range that suits a government narrative, and which may be better assessed via BTEC than A level. And all of this is really well supported by high quality careers advice and personal profiling from age 11.

If we only focus on Ebacc subjects, then we deny our pupils access to those disciplines that they must begin to specialise in at age 14 or below, those regarded as vocational and more practical skills-based, if they are going to develop the ‘crafts’ well enough to succeed.  Our Sixth Form range including Arts, Business, the technologies (Design, Food, Information, Materials and Music/Media/Photography) and a strong take up in Physical Education and Sports. We cannot achieve excellence enabling pupils to enter higher education or the world of work aged 18 unless we shape the curriculum to include the acquisition of required specialist skills  during the GCSE years – post 16 is too late.

Sir Michael’s speech also made clear: “There must not be another “false dawn” in improving vocational options and “the country cannot continue to fail half its future”. He warned that vocational training should not be a “dumping ground for the disaffected and cater just for the lower-ability youngsters”.

And there’s the rub. Industries such as Acting, Broadcasting, Music and Sport are being asked to explain why in recent years so many independently educated children have risen to the top. As the career of Andrew Murray shows, it’s early specialisation and lots of very hard work that makes the difference. Claires Court provides the academic education for all, and as appropriate skewed to support their very real abilities and talents. As our former pupil Amber Hill demonstrates so ably, leaving our school aged 16 to pursue her exceptional talent in skeet shooting wasn’t a career choice made then – it was supported lower down in the school such that she could develop all of her talents, not just those of an Ebacc kind. Our former pupils of her generation are now studying at Oxford , Cambridge, the Russell group and broader university mix, pursuing their academic dreams; others are at work, in training or in apprenticeships just as engaged.  Amber will be in Rio at the Olympics this coming Summer, that’s a great headline of course. Not so newsworthy, but as important, so many others are also well on track to realise their dreams, academic and vocational.  Our mantra is not that ‘everyone must win prizes’, but that everyone can aspire and learn to work hard enough to succeed by their own lights.

I also agree with Sir Michael that in previous decades, education more generally was less accountable and failed many.  But let’s not damn all by the same brush, because vocational, college-based education has provided so well for the recovery of talent, particularly in design and music, outspokenly supported as such by Tracey Emin and  Jarvis Cocker.  Remarkable about this period of time in education (the 2010s), is that we can have pupils in education and training simultaneously, and amazing courses under the BTEC umbrella remit and as a result include vocational and academic development in tandem.  By contrast, the relentless focus of DfE on Ebacc, and a matching failure to provide suitable investment in the 14-18 years for the development of high quality vocational options in the state sector is serving the country very badly indeed. DfE have tried too hard; honestly, the changes to the exam system (losing controlled assessments) already wrought had done enough.

As I write, this failure to invest in national vocational education is ‘closing the mines of the very fuels we want*’. For example Ofqual (another agency of government) has required new BTEC programmes to contain a much more rigorous written component as terminal assessment.  What value such terminal exam over written coursework and published project? Moreover, Sir Michael’s call to government to improve technical education must not be ‘spun’ to cover the over 16+ years range only, because actually all the ground work has to be done in the earlier secondary years.  Writing about tennis and shooting is not what Murray and Hill want to do for their country at this stage in their careers – that’s what happens post competition, perhaps in their forties and beyond! And that’s precisely what we see in the careers of Cocker and Emin now, artists for sure, but publishers and commentators to be admired for and attended to.  As a school leader, I have listened to their stories and take heed of the lessons therein; Education generally and the schools that provide same need a better measure of performance that of the DfE ‘filtered’ results tables, from which almost all that is vocational and international has been simply airbrushed away.

*Jarvis Cocker

This blog post summarises my assembly presentation to Senior Boys, itself supported by a Bb-8 and my wife’s light sabre. The Prezi used here –
https://prezi.com/qttpeghrcc-_/
In 1969, when David Bowie released his original versions of ‘Space Oddity’, the first Apollo landings of man on the moon took place.

courtesy hq.nasa.gov

Aged 15, I was inspired by both the science and the music happenings in ways that mark me to this day. Many of the teachers I work with are too young to have been alive when we had the scientific capacity to place men on another planet, let alone the children in my school, whose experience of space excitement is limited to the European Space Station and a virtual reality. The science of interplanetary travel was beyond our comprehension until it actually happened.

What Bowie did was break my understanding of both artistic and human conventions in like manner. Educated in a boarding catholic community of Benedictine Monks for 4 years aged 13 to 18, I had no real understanding of adult choice and regard for others. Bowie’s development of his Glam rock style, the use of clothing, hair colour, make-up and sexual androgeny intoxicated me initially, and then on entry to University, assisted with my self-identification as Liberal democrat and understanding of adult choice with regard to sexuality. Winning election  to the student council at Leicester University, working as a student journalist, charity activist and editor of the Rag Mag ‘Lucifer’ brought me directly into contact with the Gay, Lesbian and Bi community, into direct opposition with the National Front and their racist views, in support of the large Asian community in the city I had chosen to study. Such awakening brought my first real understanding that without immigrant labour, Leicester’s position as Europe’s richest manufacturing city could not have been achieved and maintained.

And this personal growth happened alongside Bowie’s transition in Ziggy Stardust, his blossoming as a world cult, and of course, his deliberate and brave choice to kill Ziggy at his Zenith. That death mask 
of glam rock face slashed by Union Jack creates a striking image of hope, no semblance of fear in our minds; whatever a brit wishes to be, s/he can be.

All through this time, technology marched on. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) heralded the arrival of serious space effects on the big screen and the 1970s became further enriched with computer based special effects and in 1977, shortly after the start of my professional teaching career, Luke Skywalker, Hans Solo and Princess Leia captured the imagination in more than technicolour. My personal journey with computing started when ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ with the ZX80 and 81, hardly machines to capture the imagination of the 21st century child, but at the time provided the first ‘domestic’ way for someone like myself into ‘virtual’ science that inhabits the discipline of computing.

Let’s snap forward to December and January 2015/16. Banksy captures an almost perfect image of Man’s possibilities and inhumanity, when he paints Steve Jobs as Computer Pioneer and Syrian Refugee on a concrete by-pass wall in ‘the Jungle’ in Calais. His bravery as artist to create social commentary, to inspire locally and shame internationally, is unique. For refugees close to the mural, the painting reminds them that from refugee status can come the greatest riches in a single lifetime. For the world, it makes clear that the richest companies are often created by outsiders who have surmounted our prejudice but have repaid the risk multifold times.

Banksy’s celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, conjoining Ziggy’s slash with EII’s face is a striking celebration and affirmation of the legend the monarch has become to us all in his/our lifetime. And what better to match that image against, than the broadcast given at the break of the year by our very own starman, Tim Peake. The British astronaut’s reply to the Queen’s Christmas message is short and sweet, and missed by most of us – please watch that minute of pure patriotism here:

When art forms simply cannot be conceived until they are seen and heard, those that have created such remarkable artifacts deserve all the praise and rewards due them. That’s as true of Job’s remarkable iPhone in terms of form and function as Bowie and Banks music and stencils.

The synthesis of all that is magic, remarkable and of the known world yet set apart from our planet is the European Space Station on which Astronaut Peake hurtles around our world as I write. Overlooking our planet, he can see the beauty and oneness of the home of human kind, and both its power and its vulnerability.

What better to finish this blog off with than the work of Peake’s fellow astronaut, Commander Chris Hadfield, his personal rewrite of David Bowie’s Space Oddity set in the context of his experience on board that same ESA in 2013. The images of our world flashing by, in daylight and night, remind us powerfully of the incredible results that partnership and collaboration  between old enemies USA and USSR can bring. And why not all the other deadly foes in the long term being able to live in such an inspiring way too?

Video here.

That’s where the bravery of Bowie can take us, and where the fearlessness of Banksy challenges us. If not us, who? If not now, when?

Let’s face it, dear reader; if there is an ultimately endearing character from the various space and star wars epics, it’s not Chewbacca, or Hans Solo or even R2D2, is it? Thanks for agreeing with me, because Buzz Lightyear wins hands-down. You don’t know who I am talking about? Right, read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzz_Lightyear, and donate the voluntary £5 as your gift for Christmas. If Jimmy Wales hadn’t have created wikipedia, our lives would be so much the poorer.

Image courtesy of The Walt Disney company

In case you need to revise your knowledge of the greatest space superhero ever (hem, hem), here’s Buzz at his absolute best on another digital cornucopia of delights – YouTube.

The last few posts from the Academic Principal have, it must be said been somewhat serious, perhaps even sombre, understandably. But as I set to put the finishing touches on 2015, I thought I’d share with you some thoughts on which to ponder over Christmas and the New Year.  With Toy Story 4 not due out until 2018, I’ll have to leave Buzz, Woody, Mr Potato Head and gang alone now, and turn your attention to some real live space stars currently in the news.

Image courtesy of the BBC

UK Astronaut, Tim Peake has just landed on the International Space Station, which will be his home for the next 6 months in space. He’s not the first British Astronaut, indeed we have 6 Brits that precede him, but Tim is our first official UK astronaut – Tada! But all live space Telly is fantastic, isn’t it? And through the exploits of living, breathing extra-planetary travellers, we get to believe a little bit more certainly that man is capable of anything. Indeed, as Helen Sharman so obviously demonstrated in 1991, women are even more capable and get things done without as much fuss.

Fast becoming a national treasure, Professor Brian Cox is also all over the telly and radio, partly because of the ISS rocket launch and partly because the media can’t leave him alone. You can catch this hyperactive, extra-special scientist best on Twitter – @ProfBrianCox. What with his live stage show at the Apollo, BBC star gazing live, his broadcasts on the Infinite Monkey Cage, appearances wherever his BBC contract forces him to turn up and then some, it’s a wonder he has time to be a scientist. But he has, and perhaps more than any other scientist of the current generation, he’s made a science career cool, sexy and a happening place to be. 

Many of our secondary staff and pupils will remember the amazing Head of School Partnerships at Discovery Education, Susanne H Thompson who presented our prizes at Speech Day back in September. Discovery were kind enough to create a partner story about our work around creating digital leaders, video here, and since then our work together has moved on considerably.

Head of Boys ICT, Andre Boulton returned from the DENSI camp in Washington, full of new ideas and experiences to share, and represented us at the DENapalooza on HMS Belfast last month, where he was presented with his founding member plaque for the UK Discovery Education Community.

With so many members of staff  now deeply competent in the use of digital technologies, it’s time perhaps for Claires Court to be recognised as fully within the education space as it is by the technology companies that partner our work. I do keep applying on the school’s behalf, but our story seems to be so compelling, it’s easier to ignore it than celebrate it. Here’s HP’s take on our work, yours truly showing off again (ahem).  What with Samsung and Google also showcasing our work, it is a tad frustrating that a school with a remarkable pedigree for cloud-based learning continues to be ignored. Hey, ho – we could of course have chosen to implement iPads rather than Chromebooks – and that’s probably why we are left (as other schools who have also made that choice) on the margins. It’s soooooo much easier to buy Apple, but actually the outcomes are worryingly less secure – here’s last week’s news on tablet things from the Daily Telegraph.

Once all us sceptics on Ofsted judgements got our hands on this news story, we were quickly able to render it as ‘junk’. Sure, BYOD can be disruptive, and in some classrooms, children feel it their child-given-right to ‘snap-chat’ when they wish. But children would be just as disruptive if we allowed them to eat their lunch in lessons, or make other completely inappropriate choices. But good schools don’t, and moreover when it comes to using technology, can illustrate time and again how it can aid learning in ways previously we could not consider. Here’s Attack of the Bacteria from Mrs Walton’s Biologists, one of many short films that emanate from our science department.

Adding all this ‘frontier stuff up leads me to mention I presented to an Discovery Education audience today via google hangout at their annual company conference in Naples, Florida on our use of digital services in the cloud and more generally on the benefits partnerships bring within the education space. The conference call had been planned for some time, and a good hour was spent listening and communicating with fellow educators on what were the key things that helped companies do that Jim Collins thing of going from ‘Good to Great’.  My take on this is that there is no one ingredient that makes this happen, but perhaps more as Malcolm Gladwell suggests in his seminal book, The Tipping Point, it’s an accumulation of lots of little actions that assist in ensuring successful launch and on-going progress happens.

Image courtesy of the BBC

Which neatly takes me back to my starting point. I am sure those fortunate enough to watch the launch of the Soyuz Rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan would have held their breath just a bit as the engines ignited and gently (but explosively) lifted the rocket up towards the ISS. I imagine not just the audience, but the astronauts/cosmonauts too were a little anxious, not just on take-off, but on docking too, when the automatic system failed, and they had to ‘drive’ it in manually. It’s not just planning for the expected that’s normal, even if that’s to the nth degree but planning for what lies in the infinite beyond that’s also got to be par for the course. And that’s why Toy Story and its sequels are just such fun, because honestly the Toys (and us) have no idea of the monstrous things and outrageous events that are going to turn up to wreck their lives. Happily for all, they have Buzz Lightyear on hand to save the day!

P.S. I have deliberately not referred to the latest Star Wars film out tomorrow. Given the somewhat fickle nature of my affection for the Star Wars genre (good, bad and badder), if the film is as good as the trails make it out to be, my attentions may switch to a certain Daisy Ridley (Rey), graduate of another ISA school, Tring Park,  who makes the main running in Episode 7.  But for the moment, call me Buzz.

I am indebted to my brother Hugh, fellow Principal at Claires Court for the following post on our Dad, who died on Friday 27 November 2015.

David Wilding, who has died aged 89, was, together with his first wife, Josephine, founder of Claires Court School in Maidenhead, Berkshire. Born at the family home in Ealing on 15 March 1926, he was immensely proud throughout his life that his birthday was also the “Ides of March”, the day that Julius Caesar was assassinated. He was the younger son of Hugh Munro Wilding and Hilda Mary (née Cantopher). While his father was a company secretary and his grandfather a surgeon in general practice, the particular branch of the Wildings included former headmasters of the grammar schools at High Ercall, Shropshire and Evesham, Worcestershire, and notably James Wilding, headmaster and proprietor of Cheam School from 1805 to 1826. Of greater interest to the pupils he taught later, a second cousin was Michael Wilding, the film star and second husband of Elizabeth Taylor.

Following the footsteps of his older brother, Patrick, David was educated at Ealing Priory School which he entered in September 1934. Aged only 17, he went up to King’s College, London (KCL) in 1943 to read History. Shortly after his “call­up” in March 1944, he learnt that Patrick had been killed in action near Perugia in Italy while serving with the Rifle Brigade. After officer training at Sandhurst and with the Life Guards, David was commissioned into 3rd Royal Tank Regiment (3 RTR). In early 1946, he joined 3 RTR in Germany (which had reached Flensburg near the border with Denmark at the time of the German surrender) commanding a troop of 4 Sherman DDs. A keen cricketer of some ability, he was soon playing for “The Ironsides”, a composite side drawn from the four Royal Tank Regiments then stationed in Germany. In January 1948, he resumed his studies at KCL where he was taught by another recently returned from war service, Michael (later Sir Michael) Howard (founder of the Department of War studies at KCL and later Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford University). It was during this time at KCL that David met another History student, Josephine Mary Thurley, whom he married in August 1950 after graduating BA with honours.

After a year working in London’s East End as a salesman for Powers­Samas, a British manufacturer of accounting and tabulating machines, David was encouraged to return to his old school (renamed St Benedict’s in 1948) as a teacher in the Middle School, eventually becoming its effective deputy headmaster. During the war years, David had experienced problems with his night vision and in 1954 these were diagnosed as the inherited, degenerative eye disease, Retinitis Pigmentosa. The prognosis of 12 years of sight before blindness was to be one of the spurs that led him to consider starting his own school; another was that the headship positions at St Benedict’s were at the time reserved for monks of the associated Abbey.

On 19 September 1960, he and Josephine opened the doors of Claires Court Preparatory School for Boys to the first 19 pupils (of whom two were their own sons); the 20th pupil joined at the beginning of October. Their venture quickly established itself, offering a day and boarding education based on Roman Catholic values and preparing boys aged from 61⁄2 to 13 years for their senior schools. The roll rose to 54 by the end of the first academic year and to 84 at the beginning of the second. Further expansion took numbers to 160 by 1965 and 185 by 1970. As boarding numbers increased so extra capacity was added but the real growth was in day pupils as the Thames Valley boomed between 1960 and 1980 and Maidenhead’s population burgeoned.

In order to secure further acceptance by becoming a member of one of the associations of independent schools’ heads, it was necessary for the school to be “recognised as efficient” by the Secretary of State for Education. Inspection by HMI to establish this took place in February 1964 when the Reporting Inspector observed that “The school has made a good start and promises to develop well” and described David as “[conducting] the school with energy and insight and is himself a very able teacher.” The all­important formal “recognition” from Whitehall followed, at the first time of asking, in June 1964 and David, as Headmaster, was duly elected to membership of the Incorporated Association of Preparatory Schools (IAPS).

In the 1970s, the Wildings took the decision to discontinue boarding and the main boarding house, Ridgeway, was converted to accommodate the younger age range of boys. This freed space at the Ray Mill Road East site to allow the introduction of a Senior Department in 1976 and a curriculum leading to GCE O­level at age 16. Pupil numbers continued to rise, from 280 in 1980 to 435 ten years later. In 1985, David and Josephine extended their partnership to include their two sons, Hugh and James. Following Josephine’s death in 1988, David stepped back from day­to­day duties in 1989 and retired to Norfolk, withdrawing from partnership with his sons in 1996.

Although registered blind in the 1970s, the removal of cataracts restored some useable vision and in 1984 he answered an appeal by Berkshire Blind Society and the Lions’ Club of Maidenhead for volunteers to help establish a talking edition of the Maidenhead Advertiser based on cassette. As a consequence, he organised editing teams drawn from Claires Court’s teaching staff, the Maidenhead Catenian Circle (of which he was a founding member) and Maidenhead Drama Guild among others and allowed Ridgeway to become the headquarters of the Maidenhead and District Talking Newspaper Association as well as becoming its Chairman for a time.

On retirement in 1989, David moved to Letheringsett, Norfolk with his second wife, June. An inveterate and skilful organiser, in 1996 he and June established Holt Blind Club, a charity under the auspices of the Norwich and Norfolk Blind Association. He also found time to take an interest in the local Probus Club and played frequently in the blind section of Holt Bowls Club. From this distance, David kept a keen interest in the further development of Claires Court, as well as playing host to many friends and wider family whose company was always very welcome to his home in the Glaven valley. In particular, as one who had enjoyed amateur dramatics as a student, he took great delight in organising theatre parties (which had to include his grandchildren) to the Pantomime, wherever it took place! He travelled widely in Europe and Canada and played an active part in the parishes of St Andrew’s, Letheringsett and latterly St Peter’s, Blakeney until his sight failed completely in recent years.

In 1950 he married, first, Josephine Thurley. They had two sons. Josephine died in 1988. He married, secondly, in 1989, June Hoy (née Thompson). June died in 2002. His third wife, Susan Sergeant (née Walmsley formerly Willmott), whom he married in 2004, survives him with his two sons, six grandchildren and a great­ grandson.

David Wilding, born 15 March 1926, died 27 November 2015

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.” Abraham Lincoln

Since my last blog about the refugee crisis, appalling tragedies in the Lebanon, France and Mali have taken place. Because we hear so often about indiscriminate violence in parts of the middle east and africa, the shock value has been diminished. Not so that of the Paris bombings, not just because of the extraordinary and callous nature of the crimes, but also because of the apparent failure of the various European security forces to react to very good and timely warnings of intelligence.

I returned to work last Monday and set about notifying all in our community by email that we were having to reassess the risks around our various trips and residentials planned for the next few weeks. In consulting with my colleagues in leadership, I had to bear in mind not just what was safe to do given the change in circumstances, but what was morally right as well. As our Prime Minister made clear at the time, to give into to terror is an admission of defeat.

The trouble is of course, that as an individual, I can be brave, and stand shoulder to shoulder with others in our country and community. That’s a legitimate choice I can make, and down to me. It has certainly been more awkward to consider how best to act when the government risk factors get lifted to the highest level, because of course I am authorising decisions that affect others, both adults and children. So in postponing a planned trip to Lille, on the very edge of the man-hunt for one of the missing terrorists from the Paris assaults, whilst it seemed highly unlikely anything would happen, it is quite a comfort subsequently to receive advice from government that travel to France at this stage is unwise.

As the days progress, we find that our day trips to London and elsewhere have resumed safely. It is still much more difficult to manage evening visits, simply because our own community at school is expressing considerable concern and disquiet as well. The consequences, should an incident happen are too terrible to think about; like many other schools and colleges, we have to think not just of our students but of our staff as well, who themselves have their safety and those of their families to consider as well.

Lincoln’s aphorism helps perhaps give a suitable perspective to the problems we face; we have been reintroduced to the notion that life actually has rather too many barbs about it for comfort just at the moment. As time passes and the security forces enable us to feel a greater sense of safety, I am sure our sense of adventure will grow once more. But for the time being, I’ll stay cautious for our adults and children, because I do take my responsibilities to care and safeguard others really seriously.

For most people wherever they are in the world, this is a time of greater uncertainty than usual. For those of us based in the UK, so long as we stay at home, then perhaps the unexpected is largely explainable. But any traveler going abroad now faces a world in which a very good deal is not yet know. I copy alongside an infographic from the Daily Mail reminding pilots of the places they cannot fly over once leaving our shores; lots of red and big bold lines makes the image seem really quite threatening.  It’s quite obvious that pilots and air traffic controllers need to be very alert, not just because there are thousands of planes up there in the airspace, but because there is so much more now to concern them.

The growing threats caused by instability around the world  is bringing severe challenges to learning communities, such as those found in schools, colleges and universities. Rolling out here at Claires Court amongst our staff and for use with our pupils is work wrapped around the ‘Prevent’ strategy, through which we hope we can raise our community’s consciousness and ability to respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism and the threat from those who promote it. I quote further from the government’s own Prevent publication: “In doing so, we must be clear: the ideology of extremism and terrorism is the problem; legitimate religious belief emphatically is not. But we will not work with extremist organisations that oppose our values of universal human rights, equality before the law, democracy and full participation in our society. If organisations do not accept these fundamental values, we will not work with them and we will not fund them”. 

The introduction to this document was written by the Home Secretary, Theresa May MP, our own representative for Maidenhead in the House of Commons. She has a challenging job, made less easy I dare say since she has to manage substantial ongoing change in the Police Force, to take costs out whilst maintaining or indeed enhancing the provision of law and order. I see Police Forces are beginning to deploy drones to assist with law enforcement along with other high performance technologies such as heat seeking and movement detection. Such rapid technology change will require new skills to be acquired, not just a reduction into lowly paid security guard work, and there’s the rub. Are our security forces of the calibre to be trained? Where once we had policemen patrolling our streets, we now have council uniforms with full fluorescent flashes to cover this mundane activity. So long as we are a law abiding society, that’ll work I guess.  But I fear the plans to cut back even more sharply on our public services just now are ill-judged, and here’s why.

Seeing now the settling of very substantial groups of Syrian and other nationality refugees in other European countries, training educational communities to look out for needles in a hay-stack (spotting radicalisation) seems very much off the mark. Austria, Germany and Sweden are preparing local towns for a mass influx of hundreds and thousands, displaced children and lone adults, as well as families or friends, This new population is going to be there into the medium/long term. As one headline this week (again from the Mail on-line) makes clear, “First of 750 migrants arrive in tiny German village with a population of just 102 (including a neo-Nazi councillor) bracing itself for 700 PER CENT population hike”.
Read more here.

In the living memory of the oldest German citizens, these mass migrations they are seeing now are on a similar scale to those that arose at the end of World War 2. Some 2 million Germans for example left Czechoslovakia, and on most borders in the Baltic and the Balkans between 10,000 and 20,000 Germans were being unceremoniously ousted from their adopted homes.  Some 500,000 alone had to leave Yugoslavia. At the same time of course, the departing Germans left homes, land, jobs etc. needing to be filled; the Russians now in occupation of Poland forcibly removed 2 million to the west, whilst moving almost as many Ukrainians and Belorussians eastwards to take up the work available in the USSR. Anyone able to move to the ‘free’ world west of Germany did, some 900,000, and the UK took its fair share.  For example, the ex-pat  polish population local to Maidenhead and Slough grew heavily as a result.  I’ll not extend the History lesson further – feel free to read more on this BBC refugee article; suffice it to say my own father’s post war experiences as a tank commander in Germany included witnessing the mass repatriation movements both west and east.

I take seriously my responsibilities to ensure that our school community learns and understands how to manage the risks we face from unprecedented terrorist threats, and to do our best to prevent radicalisation in the first place. However, because the political damage would be so great, currently I see no leadership from our government or parliament in how we are going to assist the northern hemisphere with the largest forced migration seen this century,  bigger even dare I say than that of the Second World War.

The EU predict some 3 million refugees will be with us in Europe by this time next year, and ‘batten down the hatches and don’t let them in’ simply won’t work as an educational message for the children in our school and in the UK more generally. There are vast numbers of displaced children alone who will need care and accommodation. We have precedent set on our country’s willingness to assist refugee children. In the 9 months prior to the outbreak of the second world war, the UK accepted 10,000 Jewish children from the Nazi regime (Kindertransport), and as events turned out, most were the only members of their family to survive the Holocaust that then swept through the Jewish community during Hitler’s rein of terror. What we as a nation did then brought us much international regard later on. Likewise, largely because of the remarkable 1993 film starring Liam Neeson, Schindler’s List, 7 times Oscar winner, we have learned that brave men and women living in Nazi occupied territories that assisted in the successful evacuation of Polish-Jewish refugees. The film depicts the real life story of Oskar Schindler’s life in Krakow, where as a businessmen he managed to save the lives of 1200 jews, by providing them with work in his ceramics factory.  The close of the film shows Schindler travelling to the West away from the advancing Russians,  hoping to surrender to the Americans. Wikipedia’s entry close on the film says this:

“As a Nazi Party member and war profiteer, Schindler must flee the advancing Red Army to avoid capture. The SS guards have been ordered to kill the Jews, but Schindler persuades them not to so they can “return to their families as men, not murderers.” He bids farewell to his workers and prepares to head west, hoping to surrender to the Americans. The workers give Schindler a signed statement attesting to his role saving Jewish lives, together with a ring engraved with a Talmudic quotation: “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.” Schindler is touched but is also deeply ashamed, as he feels he should have done even more”.

I am actually much more challenged by the impending Refugee crisis soon to be with us. No amount of technology, nor the smooth words of politicians will hide from our country the very real challenge it will be asked to face to engage with and support the relocation of its fair share of 3 million refugees. Unless I am very much mistaken, the statistics already show we are relocating some 600,000 a year into the UK, and if in public we don’t accept the refugees, we’ll be having to home those in Europe displaced by that refugee flood nevertheless. It happened before in my parents’ life time, and it’s coming back now. I wonder who will deserve the plaudits this time?

“Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.”

Britain: Hysterical Nation – http://huff.to/1Lv5sFn

Listening to the radio, I heard recently that wisdom is lost to the young because they cannot see. I was somewhat taken aback by this statement, because my regular contact with children at Claires Court provides me with an awful lot of evidence to the contrary. It’s fair to say that children’s experience is driven very much by their family, school, faith and community channels; for example, if they spend their Sunday mornings at Mini Rugby for 7 years, their thinking about the purpose of Sunday is going to be very different from those that go to Morning Service or Shul. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the children here reach out to support and protect others in ways that are typical of the generosity of young minds. However, I do see problems. Firstly, as children enter their adolescent years, their growing desire for independence from the adult ideas that surround them does become noticeable. Separately, there is a paucity of agenda of many adults who lead education who seem to focus solely on the academic outcomes for children, without thinking about the broader skill base learners need to acquire in order to live successful lives as independent adults.

Others speak in similar negative ways – here’s the Dalai Lama’s take on the matter: “Real change is in the heart, but in modern education there is not sufficient talk about compassion,” the Dalai Lama told a conference entitled Educating the Heart held in Vancouver, British Columbia, during his 2015 fall tour of North America. “Through education, through training the mind and using intelligence, we can see the value of compassion and the harmfulness of anger and hatred.” You can find a much fuller article by Melvin McLeod on the Dalai Lama’s thinking on UK tour here.

I guess I am particularly lucky to work in a family of some 370+ independent schools where the education of the whole child is paramount, where year by year our biannual conferences focus on that common language that brings educators into the profession, to teach, to make a difference, to lead learning for all not just for those that find it easy. As Chair of Professional Development for ISA, I have made it my mission to promote the essence that underlies successful education, to place children at the heart of what we do and support their growth of intellectual and spiritual development using tools honed by evidence and ethics. The latter is important by the way, as we do not permit corporal punishment for example as many of the more successful far eastern education systems still do.

It’s interesting to distinguish what I mean by children at the heart, and what perhaps others pejoratively describe as child-centred theories of education. I am not connected for example to the principle that children need to learn at their own speed, for if that were true, we would not have age-related boundaries for driving, alcohol usage and sex, and we know that intellectual development is only part of the growth in wisdom we see as adolescents mature. Emotional intelligence is important too, as is the ‘fledging process’ that human families take their children through as they seek to leave home and set up home for the first time. The genuine success the English Middle class have in using the University destination for 3 years is really notable; as a country we are much more successful in graduating our own children (as measure in the conversion time to degree award and chronological age of graduation) compared with our counterparts in the USA and Europe. In short, there is a dynamic balance between pace of education and achievement; many more able children need time too to catch-up before moving on. This is Singapore’s positive gift to the world, ‘do less, and do it better, and don’t move on until that’s so’.

Years ago, one of the great Professors of Education, Tedd Wragg of Exeter University was contracted by Singapore to identify why their students were so good at passing Accountancy part 1 and so bad at passing part 2s. Part 1 was all about adding up the

spreadsheet on a business (let’s say a leisure centre, his example),and part 2 was a test of the advice the accountant could give the business based on the evidence the numbers showed. To his audience (ISA Annual conference 1990s) this came as no surprise, experienced as many of us were in educating multiple nationalities in our school. There is something innately British about being a shopkeeper, and our children almost from the very start are taught how to set up and run businesses. Nursery schools around the land have make-believe as part of the children’s play, and this is embedded in the Early years Foundation stage and we should be hugely proud as a nation that we have this as our starting point. Singapore noted that from an early age their own curriculum was jam packed with content at the expense of skill acquisition, reacted really positively to Professor Wragg’s advice, and we can all reap that benefit of the changes they made for example to their maths programme now.

Back in April of 2010, the Icelandic volcano of Eyjafjallajokull erupted with such ferocity that Europe’s airlines were grounded for 6 days. Claires Court had just returned to work for the summer term

and our Boys Reception classes had just started using their new outdoor garden, complete with hundreds of wooden blocks. Within minutes of their occupation, and unrelated to any adult intervention, the boys were building roads across the bark laden floor in an East West location. “What are you doing, chaps?” asked the Head, Jeff Watkins. “Building runways, so the airplanes can land safely” came the reply. This is brilliant anecdotal evidence that children can see challenges the rest of us can’t and respond and learn. We don’t have to proscribe the learning opportunities available, though do need to prescribe that we have breadth, diversity and challenge.

The danger is that external pressures on teachers and school leaders to ensure they perform and deliver against targets becomes the reason why they come to work. The measurement of outcomes at the expense of process is one of the great corrupting features visible in education and we are served very badly if schools are monetised by these principles. The growing permanent exclusion of unwell children from more successful schools for fear their presence damages their educational statistics is well known in England, and as one of the more influential state headteacher think tanks, the Headteachers Round Table make clear, schools need better accountability systems than just counting who gets the best pass rates in national exams.

It’s Fireworks night at Claires Court on Saturday, SL6 4QQ, and we expect as

ever a fantastic turnout of our community for our first mass bash of 2015-16. Year 10 and 11 are very much in charge of the extra fundraising stalls, and we have interesting innovations from the STEM club and Young Enterprise to experience. For the first time we have Metcalfe*’s skinny popcorn to run alongside our Children’s film showing and live Rugby World Cup. Yep, I might be OK about children’s empathy for other’s less fortunate, but I am not yet convinced all are completely sound on sweet and sticky.

*www.metcalfesskinny.com