A Principled view

Full picture edition here – http://goo.gl/BhQV0z

Introduction

The principles behind Carol Dweck’s Growth mindset were well known before Dweck’s “Discovery”. Harking back to Reuven Feuerstein’s work in the 1950s with backward children in Israel and Professor Michael Shayer’s work in the 1980s, we learned that children’s IQs could be improved substantially through teaching the children how to to think about their own thinking, and to act upon what they conclude in this thinking. Couple this with gathering an understanding of different types of reasoning, as in Bloom’s Taxonomy, and different types of Thinking, such as with De Bono’s thinking hats, and we know that children can perform really much better than their standardised IQ might suggest. What Dweck added to the mix was the initial kick-start that learners needed to ‘believe’ they could do better. Encouraging students to gain a ‘Growth Mindset’ meant they also believed that obstacles to learning were there to be overcome, that failure was part of the learning process and a change in strategy was needed to overcome the barrier to progress.

This all might seem ‘University of the Bleeding Obvious’ stuff, but it’s not. As Shayer’s research found last decade, the arrival of the UK National Curriculum in Maths and English in the 1990s lead to a real fall in academic standards.  Here’s the start of a 2006 Guardian article entitled ‘Children are less able than they used to be’.

“New research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and conducted by Michael Shayer, Professor of applied psychology at King’s College, University of London, concludes that 11- and 12-year-old children in year 7 are “now on average between two and three years behind where they were 15 years ago”, in terms of cognitive and conceptual development”.  

Why did this happen?

Professor Shayler’s conclusion about the decline in UK children’s cognitive abilities was not conclusive; he pointed out that children had become increasingly passive in their work and play. “I suggest that the most likely reasons are the lack of experiential play in primary schools, and the growth of a video-game, TV culture. Both take away the kind of hands-on play that allows kids to experience how the world works in practice and to make informed judgments about abstract concepts.”

If you have 30 minutes to spare, watch Dr Tae’s presentation ‘Building a new culture of Teaching and Learning’ on the Physics of Skateboarding website, a video largely not about street sport and more about how Universities and schools have failed their students in recent years. His secret for success that learners need – “Work your ass of ‘til you figure it out, coupled with honest self-evaluation, and a commitment to practice to achieve Mastery in the challenge to be overcome”.

My take on why children’s cognitive abilities declined through the NC years

Probably because instead of children developing a self-awareness of whether they could read, write, do sums and stuff, their intrinsic knowledge of their own capabilities were replaced by the extrinsic conscious acquisition of levels.  Time and again I have seen children beam that they have gained good grades.  That’s fine at the end of a public exam course such as GCSE or A level, but really of little significance for other kinds of learning.  Once 80% children had passed their Maths at level 4 at end of KS2 age 11, that rather let them and their teachers off the hook, did it not?  I remember at the outset of the National Curriculum, all of my son’s class gained a Level 3.  We celebrated as did their teacher, Mrs Howell, only for her to learn the following year from the local English advisor that ‘all of Y2 can’t get to level 3’. And thence on they never did.  That’s to my mind is a classic imposition of a limiting mindset.  Moreover, one a child had gained a high level 5 or 6, they were deemed to be doing really well, exceeding their targets and actually unable to reach the next level up.  As if learning is this linear anyway!

Further ways of raising our game as pedagogues

In John Hattie’s seminal work, VIsible Learning, and as summarised/updated in the Sutton Trust/Education Endowment Foundation Toolkit, the most effective ways of improving learning outcomes for children are Feedback and Metacognition, both of which give rise to up to 8 months of improvement in a calendar year, and in relative terms are low cost to implement.

Feedback

Let’s be clear, there are plenty of ways to give feedback that discourage and disappoint.  Lots of red lines through the work, loud words in the margin such as ‘See Me’ and negative comments are counter-productive. In fact, EEF recent studies find improvement gains are more modest, and other studies indicate that feedback is most effective when given during active work creation not at stepped intervals between sections. In my own work, it’s quite obvious what effective feedback looks like in some subjects such as Art, Drama and English, where perhaps the student does not need to acquire new knowledge during their period of creative activity. Whereas in History, MFL or Science, a lack of theoretical knowledge can ‘block’ the work, and no amount of ‘giddy-up’ can replace the learner’s lack of mastery of the facts needed to work at the required level.

Nevertheless, here’s EEF’s aide memoire – Research suggests that it should:

• be specific, accurate and clear (e.g. “It was good because you…” rather than just “correct”).
• compare what a learner is doing right now with what they have done wrong before (e.g. “I can see you were focused on improving X as it is much better than last time’s Y…”).
• encourage and support further effort and be given sparingly so that it is meaningful
• provide specific guidance on how to improve and not just tell students when they are wrong.
• be supported with effective professional development for teachers.
• Wider research suggests the feedback should be about complex or challenging tasks or goals as this is likely to emphasise the importance of effort and perseverance as well as be more valued by the pupils. Feedback can come from other peers as well as adults (see Peer tutoring).
• Have you considered the challenge of implementing feedback effectively and consistently?
• What professional development requirements is likely to be necessary for success?

Please bear in mind that positive feedback needs to be rationed, and where possible, not graded until that feedback becomes appropriate. Children know what a good grade is and when it is deserved. Sceptics amongst you will state that children love to hear what mark they’ve got for their work, indeed often it’s the only thing they’ll focus on. Quite, precisely my point.

Metacognition

A couple of years ago I made the mistake of running an Autumn Study conference seminar on the Learning theory that underpinned metacognition, most obviously that drawn from the work of ‘Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development’ – here’s an appropriate treatment of those ideas. In the end, we don’t really need to know why learning about learning works; we just need to think about our learning much more often as we go about our work. However, children make the best teachers mainly because those that can do the work are closer to those that can’t and are able to show them the ropes without imparting a sense of failure onto their peers.

EEF summary – research promotes the following:

• Teaching approaches which encourage learners to plan, monitor and evaluate their learning have very high potential, but require careful implementation.
• Have you planned how you will implement this approach?
• Have you taught pupils explicit strategies on how to plan, monitor and evaluate their learning? Have you given them opportunities to use them with support and then independently?
• Teaching how to plan: Have you asked pupils to identify the different ways that they could plan (general strategies) and then how best to approach a particular task (specific technique)?
• Teaching how to monitor: Have you asked pupils to consider where the task might go wrong? Have you asked the pupils to identify the key steps for keeping the task on track?
• Teaching how to evaluate: Have you asked pupils to consider how they would improve their approach to the task if they completed it again?

One of the more respected lecturers on Effective learning is Geoff Petty, whose website is a mine of all-sorts of great info on improving teaching. What Dweck to Petty and all those other names in between have in common is a firm belief that children do need to be taught at school. But rather than teach them the knowledge (very inefficient way of learning that, by the way), children need to be introduced to a myriad of strategies that once learned assist them in their work.

Petty refers to the importance of teaching the GENERIC skills that children need to acquire for each subject very specially, and include not just mind-maps, flow-charts, essay writing and self-reflection, but also an understanding ‘how to interview’ and ‘behaving maturely’.  You can find his guide for generic skills and lots of other stuff on his download page from his website.

A word of caution – as some of the sheets are a little dated, he still talks about raising children through KS levels.  I know teachers found Levels useful, but for all the reasons I am writing this Blog each week, don’t go falling for that old tripe once again. As Professor Dweck and Shayler have pointed out so clearly, our job as educators is to improve children’s Cognitive capacity, and we do that by specifically working on cognitive development. If we swap that job for scaffolding children’s learning through levels, all we will do is fail our children in the long run.

Mindset impact in Schools

Durringon High School in West Sussex are one of a number of schools explicitly setting out their stall to develop as a Growth Mindset school – read more of that here. Do click on the About page, as that will show you a range of initiatives the school is embracing to highlight what’s hot and happening for teachers, and you’ll find lots of links to other useful blogs as well.

And finally…

It’s not just me that is recommending we re-engineer our schools and the way we teach. As reported in the press this Friday, The Royal Academy of Engineering are really worried about how schools are switching children off practical learning “the education system has come to expect young people to move away from practical learning as they grow up and to become more theoretical and abstract, it says.

Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/uk-schools-failing-to-encourage-natural-engineering-talent/1018607.article#ixzz32qEspnCn

…Infographic of the week using some Engineering..

I love the arrival of Tube maps to highlight connections and when used as posters improve opportunities for casual learning.  Here’s one on Discourse markers.

…and here’s proof engineering works:

Aarambh, a new Bombay-based NGO, has created a briefcase-like backpack that can fold out to become a desk during the day. And the company is distributing them to children who lack resources in rural India (via Huffington Post).

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/backpack-turns-into-a-help-desk-by-aarambh-2014-5#ixzz32qG6WKi2

Have a great half-term week, and see you soon.

James Wilding

jtw@clairescourt.net

@james_wilding

jameswilding.wordpress.com

Introduction I attended the ISA Annual Conference this last week, and met with Mark  Stevenson, one of our lead speakers at the conference.  If you have 28 minutes to spare, then this Birkbeck lecture from last month captures the essence of his talk to us – Looking forwards to 2025 –  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdloYZgpd-Y   If you don’t have the patience, then that’s fine, you are probably over the age of 35, and follow Douglas Adams’ view regarding thinks created since you turned 35 – “Technology invented after you are 35 is completely pointless and makes you angry”.  In Mark’s talk, he quickly goes on to remind us that those leading our institutions and their future strategic development are almost alway over the age of 35, and that ought to scare us a lot. That’s probably why Politicians prefer to go to war (US costs in Iraq circa $3 trillion) rather than invent a new bio-fuel at a fraction of the price, because in part, they’d have to negotiate the dismantling of the Oil futures market and that’s too hard. What marks this speaker and author out is his breathtaking grasp of everything that is changing as I write this piece, and for those of us planning a school’s future, I do advise you to get your head around this man’s lecture as soon as you can.  In a myriad of different ways, it affected the ISA audience at Coombe Abbey and we now know we have to do something more radical to ensure our children our better prepared for a future no one can predict. Examples of Institutional bewilderment

• Kodak refused to recognise that film was doomed, so we no longer now have Kodak as a company
• Courage does not exist as a brewer any more of beer – gone!
• Marconi, an industrial giant for the UK previously known as GEC, went bust in a year
• The Co-op….
• Teachers who don’t understand yet that Twitter provides the best research platform ever to support them in their work as professionals
• Just because we now have cloud-based learning, available using tablets or laptops, which almost every educationalist who uses the technology raves about, those who don’t and have the power to delay the decision, do just that.

Highlights for optimism in Education As a starter for 10, I’d direct teachers to our own Inspection report, which for a school that does not make use of the National Curriculum, or its leveling programme makes excellent reading. If you can’t see the Report there on our website just yet, be patient because it is due to be there by the close today. Not that long ago, almost every time I spoke in public about the corrosive nature of the National Curriculum and its poisonous effect on learning, people were not really very polite, feeling that I was speaking to destroy their successes. As the evidence has stacked up that learning is not linear nor is child development more generally, then more and more schools are now reviewing how best to assess pupils’ learning. I have previously highlighted the NAHT review on Assessment, which came out this March. I have also praised the moves made by Singapore to reduce the curriculum at primary level so substantially that children have time to gain mastery of the skills they have been asked to develop, before moving on. One of the Gurus behind the abandonment of the NC and its leveling structure is Tim Oates, from Cambridge Assessment. You can find a 13 minute on these ideas here on YouTube – debunking the idea that children making progress in lessons is important – and replacing this  with an approach to ensure children acquire the deep content required of them – essential viewing for any primary teacher https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q5vrBXFpm0#t=40 “The highest achieving nations (and schools) who have high equity and high enjoyment amongst their children don’t use levels. When children don’t understand something in these nations, the teachers suggests they have not presented the idea appropriately yet, not because the child is a level 3!” Now only time will tell whether Tom Oates confidence that the new Curriculum for England will deliver what he hopes for. Given the thrust by the DfE, Michael Gove and their pressure to ‘academise’ all secondary schools, and any primary deemed ‘failing’, I don’t think state schools in the main have the incentive to change.  As Alex Quigley (HuntingEnglish) writes in his blog on assessment today, “The Department for Education needs to also be aligned with our inspectorate in ensuring different models of assessment can be applied without fear of recrimination, otherwise schools will fear to tread new, innovative ground”. As subjects are so very different, the ‘comfort’ that speaking about levels shares a common language and helps parents understand what is on offer is badly misplaced. At the various courses I have run across the country this last year, more and more teachers are regaining the confidence to design their own curriculum, in the light of the school’s context and place in locality.  At the upper end of school, success is very much related to achieving well enough in a written exam such that a GCSE or A level might be awarded, but lower down, teachers and schools are not just reaching for a text book to prescribe their course, but putting a very good deal of effort into creating a curriculum and assessment framework together so that learning for children in their schools is more successful.  For a simple summary of a range of ways currently under consideration, here’s a blog post from Daisy Christodoulou, research director at the Ark academy groups,  that’s worth some time reading and reflecting about. http://thewingtoheaven.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/replacing-national-curriculum-levels/ Moving with the Maker culture, going mainstream with new, creative ideas (I have digested a short article from the We are Teachers website

Key features

“Doing” Is What Matters Makers learn to make stuff by making stuff. Learning by doing is for now – technology is a key part of that, both old and new. Openness Maker culture thrives on projects that work being shared readily, working with other people in other schools Give It A Go The best way for students to become deeply invested in their work is for their projects to be personally meaningful, afforded sufficient development time, given access to constructive materials, and the students themselves encouraged to overcome challenges – by puzzling through and gaining experience, we build grit and resilience. Iterative Design Computers make designing new inventions risk-free and inexpensive. You can now tinker with designs and programs and make prototypes easily and quickly, so children can take risks and fail – if you have not added Minecraft to your school IT toolkit, do so soon. Aesthetics Matter Over recent years, Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths have informed the STEM movement – and now we can add Art, giving us STEAM – objects can be beautiful too. Mentoring Defies Ageism “As Sir Ken Robinson says, school is the only place in the world where we sort people by their manufacturing date. The Maker Movement honors learners of all ages and embraces the sharing of expertise. Young people like “Super Awesome Sylvia” and Jody Hudy are valued alongside decades-older master tinkerers and inventors. Schools may create opportunities for mentoring and apprenticeship by connecting with the greater community. Access to expertise must not be limited to the classroom teacher.” Learning Is Intensely Personal Learning is personal—always. No one can do it for you. Giving children the opportunity to master what they love means they will love what they learn. It IS About the Technology Some educators like to say that technology is “just a tool” that should fit seamlessly into classrooms. For example a 3D printer is the raw material for solving problems, such as how to create inexpensive but custom-fit prosthetics for people anywhere in the world, or how to print a pizza for hungry astronauts, preparing our children to solve problems their teachers never anticipated, with technology we can’t yet imagine. Ownership Teachers should consider that prepackaged experiences for students, even in the name of efficiency, are depriving students of owning their own learning. Learning depends on learners with maximum agency over their intellectual processes. Here’s a nice cartoon that captures perhaps some hypocrisy that still exists, even in the most well regulated institutions: So every best wish for a busy week for most in UK schools, as next week is half-term for both staff and children. Have courage now to take those steps to make a real, perhaps even disruptive change to your curriculum – after all, the lessons that Mark Stevenson preaches are those the Dodo failed to evolve in time to learn.

http://goo.gl/ZCs3Aa for the picture edition

Preamble

Those that know me understand my mantra about being ruthlessly and relentlessly optimistic. In my opinion, there is no point being miserable, if for no other reason than starting the day with a smile makes the day seem brighter at the start. There are times when the Groundhog day of education does get to me; it seems daft to my mind that those who run education find it difficult to learn from the mistakes of the past. As this article today in the Scotsman shows, Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence seems to have provided for its learners at upper secondary level the same experience Controlled Assessments and modular A levels have in England – a never ending treadmill of examination upon examination.

Lessons from the past, or is that the future?

Reading came to me all of a rush, around the age of 11, when I discovered James Bigglesworth. Once I had managed the entire series of Biggles’ books, written by Captain W.E. Johns, bought whilst on a family holiday in Scotland, I branched out into more advanced fantasies, of other worlds and universes. Perhaps the single most influential author of my teenage years was Isaac Asimov, and the most influential of the many books of his I read was the Foundation trilogy, inspired in turn by Edward Gibbons ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’. Asimov’s work won the Hugo award for the ‘Best All time series’ – and if you don’t know his work do give him a chance.  Perhaps the short story book I, Robot is the starting point.

The 1964 World’s Fair was held in a park in Queens, New York, just a few minutes away from Manhattan

Anyway, the point about surfacing Isaac Asimov in April 2014 is that we have just celebrated the 50th anniversary of his predictions from the World Fair in 1964, and a right old mix his choices were. Some were pretty close for 2014, such as

1. “Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence.”

2.  “Kitchen units will be devised that will prepare ‘automeals’, heating water and converting it to coffee.”

3.  “Much effort will be put into the designing of vehicles with ‘robot-brains.’

You can read Asmiov’s article in the NY times of 1964 here – http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v-fair.html

and an excellent summary of his predictions in this BBC extract.

The BBC article finishes with this comment

But perhaps his most prescient observation, or warning, was that while technology, both then and now, has the power to transform lives, without efforts towards equal access, it can hurt, rather than help, the goal of “peace through understanding”.

How true is that!

10 images to inspire

Last week, I caught this nice post from Justin Tarte in which he celebrated 10 images, designed to inspire. My favourite is this one, but do go look at the other 9 he highlights!

By the way, he has a weekly post of these, so be careful, you’ll find yourself being sucked back in time to see the previous series of pictures he has posted!

By way of these images, there’s a clear series of social comments being made, largely focussed on being valid and real for the children we teach and hopefully reach in the classroom.

Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori

Last Friday I spent with our History department and our Y10 History Students, on the Ypres Salient. There is no doubt in my mind that such a trip provides for an outstanding experience for young and old alike. An experienced hand at visiting Ypres, I was nevertheless quite surprised to see just how many more visitors there are there now than there were last year. The 100 years anniversary has kicked off already, and the town, museums and places of interest to visit were all much busier than I expected. It was ANZAC day, 25 April, a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand that broadly commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders “who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations” and “the contribution and suffering of all those who have served.”

Y10 Tyne Cot, 25 April 2014

As a result, when the Last Post was played at 8 pm, we were also entertained to a Military parade by ANZAC forces and their band and Maori choir. Alongside them, and English school choir and band also played – the whole performance still not lasting more than the planned 20 minutes, but of incredible quality and enhanced by the amazing acoustics of the Menin Gate, a monument to 54,896 who lost their lives on the Salient, but whose bodies were never found. After the somewhat arbitrary date of 15 August 1917, a further 34,984 UK missing are to be found on the Tyne Cot memorial instead.

It was Wilfred Owen who penned the title of this section “It is sweet and right to die for your country”, words that highlight the gulf between the reality of war and the public’s appreciation of it, far as they were from the trenches. 100 years on, the debate continues; is it right that we have forgotten the nature of ‘Britain’s triumph’ in the war as Michael Gove would have us believe? I’d rather follow the plans as laid out by the author of War Horse, Michael Morpurgo, as he plans his own play for performance later this year in Ypres, based on the 1914 Christmas Truce and football match.

Speaking recently, Morpurgo gives this as his role to play  “To tell the story of soldiers who died, of those who witnessed the war on both sides, who lost loved ones – fathers, brothers, sons – is the only way we have left to remember, and the only way to pass it on. And it is important to pass it on, important for the men who died on all sides, all now unknown soldiers, for those who suffered long afterwards and grieved all their lives. If they gave their todays for our tomorrows, then, I am sure, after all they went through, and died for, they would wish to see us doing all we can to create a world of peace and goodwill, a world that one day will turn its back on war for good.”

Given that all of Europe’s leaders are to be present in Ypres for their June summit and are going to commemorate the anniversary at a ceremony at the Menin Gate, I rather hope there will be no triumphalism from the UK government delegation, despite Mr Gove’s rather unpleasant personal views. The No Glory website covers the various events rather well, and carries their impassioned letter to the coalition government to promote peace and  international understanding.

21 Things That Will Be Obsolete by 2020 by Shelly Blake-Plock

Now Shelly first posted this list at the start of this decade and time moves on – I wonder how many you can already check off as having happened:

1. DESKS

The 21st century does not fit neatly into rows. Neither should your students. Allow the network-based concepts of flow, collaboration, and dynamism help you rearrange your room for authentic 21st century learning.

2. LANGUAGE LABS

Foreign language acquisition is only a smartphone away. Get rid of those clunky desktops and monitors and do something fun with that room.

3. COMPUTERS

Ok, so this is a trick answer. More precisely this one should read: ‘Our concept of what a computer is.’ Because computing is going mobile and over the next decade we’re going to see the full fury of individualized computing via handhelds come to the fore. Can’t wait.

4. HOMEWORK

The 21st century is a 24/7 environment. And the next decade is going to see the traditional temporal boundaries between home and school disappear. And despite whatever Secretary Duncan might say, we don’t need kids to ‘go to school’ more; we need them to ‘learn’ more. And this will be done 24/7 and on the move (see #3).

So you get the drift – you can read the other 17 here, but it’s quite possible for us all that we can guess what will be obsolete by the turn of the decade. Try emailing me with your suggestion and I’ll build a post around that!

Best wishes for what looks like a Rainy week!

James Wilding

jtw@clairescourt.net

jameswilding.wordpress.com

The Summer Term 2014 across the country is girding its loins. For those at primary school, a packed term of all-sorts lies ahead, though those at secondary level have the many faceted joys of public exams to assist in concentrating the mind. And they are starting so quickly after the May bank holiday, it’s no wonder some parents worry about having to pay tuition fees for a Summer term in which their child’s experience could be little more than 5 weeks in a hall. For those of us that work in the private sector, it behoves us to ensure that we do offer much more than a little bit of supervision and TLC for their phones.

As just over 24,000 schools return to work, those in Birmingham are subject to one of the closest 4 way scrutinies ever seen in the UK, in respect to the ‘Trojan Horse’ allegations to oust some Birmingham head teachers and make their schools adhere to more Islamic principles   Not only have 25 schools been subject to instant Ofsted inspections last month, but Birmingham City Council, West Midlands Police and the DfE have also conducted investigations.  It is no wonder that OfSted’s Sir  Michael Wilshaw is travelling up there this week to take over the latest Ofsted report writing, summarising their findings; he and his colleagues are pitted against the DfE whose boss, Michael Gove clearly doesn’t trust Wilshaw anyway, hence the appointment of the former national head of counter terrorism, Peter Clarke, an ex-deputy assistant commissioner of the Met, to lead an inquiry into 25 Birmingham schools over allegations of a hard-line Islamist takeover plot (the same one, how odd). It is no wonder that the appointment of Clarke was described as “desperately unfortunate” by the chief constable of West Midlands Police, Chris Sims, not just because of the public sensitivities attached to schools with significant majorities of muslim pupils, but also because Mr Sims had previously declared that, following his own force’s investigations, there was no police interest in the matter. He’ll look pretty silly if criminal activity is confirmed, won’t he?

Judging from the reaction by Birmingham MP Khalid Mahmood, who states that 20 headteachers in his Perry Barr constituency alone – “virtually all Muslim heads” – had raised concerns about potential plots, there is ‘fire’ to go with the ‘smoke’. And there appear to be links outside ‘Brum’, beyond the leakage of the Trojan Horse plot to a Yorkshire sympathiser back in March.  New allegations are surfacing involving schools outside Birmingham, including the Laisterdyke Business and Enterprise College in Bradford. It emerged on Monday that Laisterdyke’s entire governing body has been sacked by Bradford council amid concerns over poor performance and a “dysfunctional” relationship between governors, including two city councillors, and management. Mrs Jen McIntosh, Laisterdyke’s female, white headteacher is thought to have complained of coming under pressure to quit by a few influential, hardline Muslim governors, who in return firmly deny trying to oust her.

Excerpts from Inspection reports have started to leak out, as reported very helpfully by Andrew Gilligan of the Daily Telegraph yesterday , and things really don’t look good.

Setting things to rights

So what’s James’ beef, I hear you say?  Throughout the accredited independent sector of ISC schools, we have put in place a remarkable breadth of provision to assist Governing bodies, their Headteachers and senior managers in their stewardship of schools. You’ll know it is not easy to meet regulatory standards in our sector, and you can search readily for performance information on our schools, their governing bodies and leadership teams using the Independent Schools Inspectorate’s website – http://www.isi.net/reports/.  New schools seeking to join our movement are required to jump through a serious number of hoops, including meetings with headteachers, inspections and so forth, visits by association heads tasked to check things on the ground match words written on paper. After all, reputational damage is not something any of us wish to suffer through poor oversight.

And therein lies the rub. Because a very good deal of the policies put in place by the current coalition government, during Michael Gove’s tenure as Secretary of State for Education, seems to have been established without appropriate scrutiny and independent oversight, and specifically that of Governance. The Birmingham investigations are highlighting inappropriate appointments, nepotism and cronyism, fraud and worse. These don’t on the face of it appear different to the reasons for closure of Al-Madinah Free school in Derby at the end of this term, where the Ofsted report in October found the Muslim faith school was chaotic, dysfunctional and inadequate and placed it in special measures.

Mr Gove bought his set of ‘Free school’ ideas from Sweden, and it is almost a year since one of the largest operators in Sweden, JB education, announced it was closing down its operations there, affecting some 10,000 students, citing financial losses as the reason for withdrawing from the market. Indeed a rival Swedish company, IES, run (£21 million pound contract over 10 years) a UK school, Breckland School, recently put into special measures by Ofsted, and the other Swedish group, Learning Schools Trust has been barred from running more schools by DfE. This Daily Telegraph article reminds us that LST and other of the large Academy chains are in trouble for poor academic standards as well as financial irregularities, with E-ACT forced to hand back to DfE 10 of its 34 schools. Again, nothing was initially put in place to check Governance. And actually, now that Wilshaw is keen to scrutinise chains etc., guess who’s really not keen – Gove! Read more on that in this Guardian article.  It seems that Gove-rnance is something that doesn’t agree with independent scrutiny.

It gets worse. As Academisation grips the country even more forcefully, there can be no doubt that further appalling tales of fraud and malfeasance will surface, such as these in Durham, Bradford and Crawley announced this April. Hardly a Fool’s day joke, but a growing litany of failure arising from a national strategy implemented by a government that failed to ensure appropriate project oversight. That’s not to say there are not plenty of DfE officials now looking after those schools DfE directly manages –  but it does look as though Mr Gove himself is having to intercede all too often to keep the ‘solids from hitting the fans’. Channel 4 Home affairs correspondent, Darshna Sony highlighted last weekend growing issues with the Madani schools in Leicester, where MG has asked Leicester City Council to pressurise the Boys’ school to withdraw an advert which stated that only male teachers could apply.  Let’s be clear about this – in my work I seek to support a society that treats everyone equally and that openly challenges those that would approve of mysogeny or gender-based discrimination. Please do read a little of the work being led by Muslim women, who ask our Society to ‘Honour my voice’ – http://www.wewillinspire.com/

I quote: “There is no honour in denying women their rights on the basis of gender and then also telling them to keep silent about it”

In summary, it is about time that those in charge at DfE and Ofsted talked openly and at some length with our sector and its Inspectorate about how we steward some 1,257 of the nation’s schools, at no cost to the exchequer, looking after 511,928 pupils in January 2014, and with an extraordinary, positive impact upon GDP – ISC research info. Genuinely, I feel as if our accredited sector could have handled most of the Free school initiatives at a fraction of the cost and extended our provision to give parents that greater freedom to choose a school fit for their child. As an Independent School Proprietor, I know what I value in my independence, and what I require of the society in which I work to ensure that we build a better future together. I am more than alarmed by the growing dismantlement of local education authorities without a parallel, accountable, transparent set of arrangements to ensure School leaders, Governors and Headteachers, could be held to account by their peers. That’s precisely what the ISC Associations do, and with considerable skill.

It is over a year ago (Jan 2013) since the Education Secretary announced his plans to reform A levels. Just because Michael Gove or his Schools minister Elizabeth Truss say stuff doesn’t mean they are right, accurate or even speaking sense. The evidence seems to indicate that much of the discourse comes from personal prejudice and that informed opinion provided by those that ought to know better is largely ignored. As I have previously written, I don’t think it is terribly helpful to compare our democratic post industrial child-centred educational outcomes with those of the tiger economies of South Korea and South East Asia, or specifically cherry-pick Shanghai’s elite educational institutions for comparison. Many commentators will remember how journalists used to compare our own failing athletic endeavours in the seventies against those of countries behind the Iron Curtain. Proper research has enabled us to collect the bits of the East German system that worked and embed them in our own training regimes. And since ‘perestroika’, it is clear now that the nature of the communist regimes were as toxic as we feared they were. Athletic performance has improved, because we have been able to focus money and research together.

By the way, I am not just having a pop at MG and ET,  but with other institutions as esteemed as the Royal Geographical Society who agree with the government (so the headlines show) that current A level is not rigorous enough.  Headlines are never quite what they seem, and actually in the RGS response to the Ofqual consultation on A level reform, they make it quite clear that it is very recent reform that has damaged A level. “Firstly, the Society, teachers and HE geographers strongly support the need to reintroduce course work into GCE geography. This move would promote extended writing, facilitate individual research, analysis and evaluation, and provide additional depth to a student’s geographical learning. The removal of course work has led to less effective assessment of students’ geographical skills and resulted in A2 geography being judged to be less demanding (Ofqual 2012)“. Quite. Reform is always a 2-edged sword, and the recent move with both A levels and GSCEs to remove coursework and other opportunities for sustained practical activity and hands-on learning have taken place to reduce the grade-inflation that such activities bring to the results outcomes. To my mind, the biggest evil that entered the system was the switch from coursework to controlled assessments since 2008, when the GCSE diet ceased to be 10 academic subjects but 110+ externally set and monitored assessments. That took the ‘weighing the pig’ metaphor to new heights of absurdity. As a physics teacher, I found myself with time only to run CAs in Y10 and little more by way of practical activity.

What the RGS make clear in their report is that there will remain equity issues in schools and FE institutions, because institutional  choices do not then guarantee that  “In addition to any fieldwork carried out for an independent study, structured field teaching and learning should be part of all GCE Geography courses given the nature of the subject and the requirements for fieldwork in HE”.

I have read quite a few (sad man that I am) reponses to Ofqual and there is very close agreement a. that there needs to be a strong balance between knowledge and subject skills, b. that both need to be subject based (it’s not just about giving presentations and speaking in public), and c. learners need to be able to handle and become confident with physical equipment and tools, be able to write at length using subject specific vocabulary and to be able to analyse and infer from data to support proposition or make new insights.

And honestly, that’s what in the main our subject delivery has been able guarantee our secondary students for the past 20 years or so. Children have not been cheated out of a better education. I admit that on occasion, the vanity of small differences has meant that a teacher or a child has felt their work not been given the credit deserved, but no wholescale miscarriage of justice has been evident at all.  Much to the contrary, I feel we have been able to support the learner, their community and UK PLC in equal measure. Now (and all data that follows has been generalised to protect the innocent) I move to present my findings from 10 years post A level and GCSE reform since 2000.

So here’s my anecdotal evidence for you to consider, from a broad ability non-selective independent school.  For the past 14 years since A levels were modernised (don’t!) 500 students from Claires Court have worked their academic (in a broad sense) fingers to the bone and 400 gone on to University. The majority of our Sixth Form exit have gained Firsts or Upper Seconds and most whatever their degree quickly entered gainful employment. Some have chosen to emigrate, take their ‘Lingua Franca’ and teach English in Japan, Vietnam, Turkey, Africa and the Americas. Others (perish the thought) have boomeranged back to teach at CC. Most have entered employment with UK PLC, and are progressing up the promotional spine. A few are even working close to 10 Downing Street, despite neither being Eton or Oxford. Perish the thought, despite a series of qualifications that didn’t test them as toughly as Singapore or Taiwan, when meeting with our former pupils, I do see quite clearly leaders and leaderenes of tomorrow’s big business or public service who seem (as they turn 30) very fit and full of purpose.

So where’s the gap? If what I see from the successful outcomes of my own institution bodes well for our future, why might it not bode just as well when the A levels and GCSE change to become more academic, tougher and rigorous?

As a very experienced graduate teacher whose career commenced teaching O Levels and A levels, all those reforms that brought to life the GCSE and A levels of the 2000s took place to ensure that children from whatever background could engage with the subject, to ensure that the process tested what they knew, understood and could do, against a finite and observable set of performance criteria. It was and even now still remains essential that children can talk about their work, present and share outcomes that might not be correct, be challenged for their views and enjoy that collaborative process that marks out the best of classroom practice. It is utter folly that English GCSE for the future is no longer to include speaking and listening. Before long, I can only presume we’ll see that disappear from the Modern Foreign Languages bundle too, returning the study of French at 16 to that of a classical language such as Latin. I jest. Probably. The point is that if the only way to assess a child’s academic performance is to be through a terminal written exam, then the explicit knowledge and skills that individually define the arts, humanities, languages, sciences and technologies will wither.

Now what the GCSEs gave pupils before coursework was struck off (because of its effect on grade inflation) were opportunities to show what they knew and could do at length. Actually as I write, my craft design technology students at school are just completing their coursework projects, each with a visible piece of furniture to take home and keep. I am lucky that our school employs teachers who keep the workshops open over the Easter break, not for the benefits of exam results but for the realisation of their coursework projects. Long after the grade for D&T is forgotten, the family home will have a major memento of a task well done.

My biggest fears are for the narrowing of the curriculum now between age 11 and 14, because of the decision this country has made to promote a more academic English, Maths, Science, Russell Group subject focussed GCSE programme at the expense of the practical and vocational. Over the past 4 years, we have all had to dedicate more time to Double English, Double Maths, Triple Science, an MFL, plus Geography or History. In the vast majority of the schools around my own, I see GCSE choices being made in Y8 for a Y9 start, which of course means a further reduction in the teaching of the creative and practical subjects as part of the curriculum and the inevitable sidelining of those specialist teachers in this area. There is some kind of vain hope that these skills are acquired at primary school and can resurface post A level once children have gained their academic rigour (whatever that is to be) at secondary school.

I am also very afraid that the narrowing effect of a 2 year A level programme, without the AS buffer half way through. The last thing one wants to find is that we return to the pre 1990s A level disaster of students trapped in a 2 year A level programme without  a chance to ship out and move sideways. The opportunity to  study 5 subjects for one year before moving to 2 or 3 as A2 for the second has been a major success throughout the country. In addition to permitting flexibility, it has also ensured a focus for examination at the end of Y12 (rather than see Y12 as a year ‘off’). I don’t think any of us liked the resit January of Y13 culture, except of course the students who were able to upgrade, but the current position of resitting at end of Y13 works well. The new arrangements, disconnecting AS from A level are regarded as unsatisfactory by University admissions tutors up and down the land, most notably  at Cambridge; Universities share with schools an understanding that the best predictor of A level success is AS, not the underlying GCSE results at age 16.

To conclude, from my own school’s evidence, not only have GCSEs and A levels served us well, but movement into employment or undergaduate studies has worked efficiently. The vast majority of our graduates have worked through their University years without taking an extra year of more, and have then moved on into effective employment afterwards. In short, the current pick and mix of subject, style, vocational and academic has not made square pegs for round holes, but generally shaped people for a future for which they have many skills and talents to bring to bear. Parents have had to take on debt to fund the children through my school, and students further debt for their graduate qualifications, Both seem to feel that the sacrifice has been worthwhile, given the very good fit they have for a hopeful and successful future. And therein lies the rub, because the new hair shirt on its way is beginning to hurt people quite badly, Strapped to the wheel of relentless target learn-and-achieve, children will not learn how to know themselves through their school years and become comfortable with those insights. Adolescent mental health problems are already growing apace, and the most conformist of children the most likely to suffer, self-harm and worse. Reports from 2011 onwards highlight this as a serious issue, not just for children but for those who teach.

I believe I run a great school, and I am certainly not prepared to let the baby go with the bathwater. But the relentless change in the country, the removal of core work I hold dear to the educational mission I serve from the nation’s curriculum is going to let us down very badly in the future. At least David Laws, Minister of State for Schools has it right when he calls now for a period of stability in education. I’ll watch closely, but fear that for many, the stability they will be offered does not include the hands-on education that makes the difference.

Our School Inspection (March 25-28, 2014) is over and our cup is indeed full. Confident that we are regarded highly by the independent inspection service that accredits our standing within the Independent Schools Association and Independent Schools Council, we await our written report.  There can of course be surprises, but I am as certain as any that we can now move forward into the future, secure in the knowledge that we have done our best.

I come to work each day, because I run a school that looks after children, and actually has a specific focus for that brief, to educate them, in the round, and in the detail, including as best we can every facet.  That’s my passion, for I have over the years recognised the very real difference we make to children’s lives, and I want to make that a repeatable experience for not just one but for cohorts, hundreds and thousands. And I believe we are doing just that, in remarkable and utterly different ways for individuals, groups, young and old alike.

Part of my work is to pick a time and place for things. Many years ago, I chose to develop for the Secondary and Sixth Form years an Easter Commemoration Service. The point of the event was to announce for one and all, that we would remember our best who had passed away the previous year or so. The purpose of our annual service is to bring to mind those with whom we have lived and worked and to reflect on a society based on the values we hold dear.

One of the items that has stayed a fixture is the Queen’s Message to the Commonwealth, because I feel there is a strong resonance between the aims and ambitions of our school and those of the Commonwealth of Nations. A total of sixteen core beliefs are drawn up in the charter, namely, democracy, human rights, international peace and security, tolerance, respect and understanding, freedom of expression, separation of powers, rule of law, good governance, sustainable development, protecting the environment, access to health, education, food and shelter, gender equality, importance of young people in the Commonwealth, recognition of the needs of the small states, recognition of the needs of the vulnerable states, and lastly, the role of civil society. (Thanks Wikipedia).

You can find a carousel show of this year’s presentation/service here – and some fabulous music from the Service by link below:

I’d like to think the singing of the anthems, Love is All around and Rule the World were as amazing, but I suggest they might be more robust and sheer enthusiastic in their performance than expert. And probably time we added a couple more such anthems to our repertoire.

Rebecca Fuller spoke of her time with and knowledge of Lucy Bywater, whose untimely death aged 29 occurred in the Autumn. ‘Becks’ leaves our school this Easter, to lead Girls PE at Holme Grange Prep School in Wokingham. Her presence at the close of our term, talking with passion and emotion about a wonderful fellow student and friend now passed, brought a lump to all of our throats, and cemented in my own mind the certainty that Schools should indeed commemorate their own.

I closed the Service with a quiet reflection on the wonders of the Irish, their joy and humanity, and made specific reference to an old Irish blessing* to conclude.

So we break for our Easter hols, in which 2 weeks of rest, recuperation, revision and reckoning, before we ratchet up for the Summer term – known as the 5Rs.

*May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.