A Principled view

Dear All

If you are new to my broadcasting, you won’t know that I post on matters digital every week.

Here’s this week’s newsletter, courtesy of Chimpmail – http://goo.gl/UKQMrL

In essence, some 500 schools and their staff are part of a project I lead on behalf of the Independent Schools Association, and our school, Claires Court, plays its part in promoting the opportunities that are developing within ISA for children.

All best

James

Well, another Academic year is over and the Winners and Champions signed off for another 12 months.  Our Principal guest was Old Boy, Rupert Houseman, Video editor and BAFTA winner 2013 for the film 7/7 One Day in London.

You can see our video treatment of the BAFTA film shown this afternoon here .  Rupert was a truly outstanding follow-on from Katherine Grainger last year, not because he was in any way demonstrative, but because he was true to the spirit of the occasion as Katherine was last year, This day is a celebration of what marks out those of our our pupils that excel, and an opportunity to build the Peer pressure to encourage others to follow in their footsteps. Rupert attended the school from 1985 to 1992, and his words today resonated with a very large number of our boys and girls today.  He remembers being a nervous Year 7 new boy, somewhat anxious because he had just been diagnosed as being severely dyslexic. He left as a reasonably successful post GCSE student, In those days as we had no 6th Form, Rupert attended Henley College before going to work (as best you can) in the Film business.  His big break came when fellow Old Boy, Toby Hefferman, signposted his Runner post at Disney when Toby got promoted to 3rd assistant director there.  Rupert quickly moved from Film to Video, and from Running to Video editing, and he hasn’t really looked back since then.

In a touching closing ceremony, Jan Price, our Head of Art (and his old teacher) handed over to Rupert a collage of his own GCSE Art work, created in 1992, a testament to her wonderful back catalogue of her pupils’ work.

Rupert closed with these thoughts “It’s funny to consider that I entered Claires Court unable to read and write.  You taught me to be literate, and to discover my artistic talent.  Here I am, 21 years on, making a living creating documentaries, writing scripts and voice-overs for others!  Claires Court has much credit for this!”

Actually, this seems a poor paraphrase of Rupert’s words – watch him in the flesh here.

Thank you Dear Reader, I have had a fabulous summer, or dare I say actually some three weeks in which the sun has shone, the grass has grown, the crops have ‘riz’ and the new greenhouse is elegantly installed at the end of the garden. It might be that I took a rest from tweeting and blogging, but perhaps that’s as it should be, for ‘All work, and no play makes Jack a dull boy’.  I am delighted now that school is back in session and the veritable bounty of fruits from our academic labours here at Claires Court are steadily being prepared for our Speech day and Prize Giving harvest next week, 19 September.

The big Education picture is not nearly so rosy, and the disgraceful grade deflation now being perpetrated by the current coalition is in danger of disenfranchising a host of young adults whose efforts have not reaped similar just desserts. Michael Rosen, former Children’s Laureate wrote this last week in his regular letter of a curious parent to Michael Gove. “Your (government) colleagues are trying to build a low-wage economy as a means of getting out of the mess the casino capitalists created. Your contribution to this effort has been to increase the number of students with lower qualifications. These students are people who will think (you hope) that they have no right to higher earnings“. You can read the whole letter here – http://goo.gl/qoNMGg – and it makes chilling reading. And this man (MG) is in charge of something as important as our children’s education?

The leading academic voices in Education are joining in a growing chorus of disapproval, as one knee jerk reform after another from MG shatters the current assessment framework, covering the sincere work of diligent professionals with scorn, only for those reforms to be either cancelled or deferred because the sketched-out alternatives have no chance of being anything other than worse. This week’s news is that his GCSE and A level reforms are to be delayed to 2016, whilst many of the august bodies that represent Science damn the government’s consultation of A level reforms in this area as a sham (BBC).

Bill Boyle, Professor of Educational Assessment at Manchester University wrote in the Times Educational Supplement last week that it was time to ‘Abandon the “ladder of shame” approach to school effectiveness and student progress and try a novel route that focuses on teaching and learning, learner autonomy and lifelong learning. My senior colleagues and I chose to leave the national curriculum in 2007 and do just this, give our children and teachers even more room to learn and gather a truer appreciation of how an all-round education could engage and empower, Over the past 2 years, our curriculum and pastoral developments have created the Claires Court Essentials, and it is quite remarkable now to see just how close to Professor Boyle’s ideal school we have become.  And what is so exciting is that the climate of engagement we witness each day highlights that you don’t need to bread arrogance in your students to achieve this. Far from it; our community values the personal qualities of selfless endeavour for the good of all, and we are certainly not ‘gaming the system’ for short term gains. Professor Boyle recalls that such an educational nirvana is impossible under the current government and references such through a ‘Pigs might fly’ analogy.

Well, please spread the news that Claires Court’s broad ability approach to education is reaping remarkable rewards, building our reputation locally and globally alike. Since we broke for the Summer holidays, our rowers have won the Victor Ludorum at the National Rowing Championships for being the most successful school, and our actors have returned from a remarkable and successful tour at the Edinburgh Fringe.  Moreover, international vistors come each week, most notably planned for this coming January, when we are to welcome a delegation of 50 heads and educators from Sweden to see our school in action, using technology integrated seamlessly with collaborative and investigative learning. In short, what we are achieving is real, remarkable, evidence-based in best practice and fit for the whole age range.  What you won’t find is any ‘porkies’ – Pork Pies – cockney rhyming slang for Lies – flying or otherwise.

“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.” Stephen R. Covey “The contractual Duty of Candour will be an enforceable duty on providers to ensure they are open and honest with patients or their families and provide them with information on any investigations and lessons learned.” Department of Health consultation following review of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust  public inquiry.

Today is A level results day, and some 110 or so Year 13 and Year 12s came into school to collect their results, celebrate and/or share concerns, depending on how they had done. The current UCAS system and University early response mechanism is reducing the stress considerably on results day. Many of the Year 13s had already heard from their Universities that they had gained their places early this morning, so their visit to school to discover results is somewhat less stressful as a result. I’ll update the figures as we sort out some of our wrinkles, but on the face of it we have replicated many previous years by 40+% gaining A*-B, 75%+ gaining A* to C, with something like 88% gaining their first or back-up degree option. A couple of students are upgrading because they have better results than predicted, and we are having to look really hard at a couple of subject modules involving coursework, where moderation of our marks has seen some candidates results regressed from 100% to 65%, shifting outcome grades for the paper concerned from A* to C.

In subjects such as Art, Drama, Music, Photography and Textiles, clearly the whole point is to create something, not just write an essay, and such is the talent of our young creatives that 100% is really on the cards for some.  Once our teachers have marked the work, the exam board scrutinises our marking and the artifacts/performances through a visiting mdoerator, who either agrees with our marking or disagrees. If the latter, then our candidates marks are reduced accordingly as a raw score.  Now here’s the nasty bit. Whether our marks are found accurate or reduced, that’s not the actual mark that turns up on the exam slip. The exam board  statistically adjust the scores given so that they fit the normal distribution they are looking for, and this year for A grade it seems to be 25%.  Clearly far too many candidates are gaining a 100% mark for their coursework, hence the need to regress the marks so the percentage of As is reduced. This conversion of raw marks to an Exam board mark is called the Uniform mark scale. “UMS is a way of turning the raw marks achieved in a unit in a particular sitting into a mark that can be used to compare with those achieved in other series.  The UMS balances out differences between exams and is a way of making sure people get the correct grade, no matter when they took a particular unit. UMS marks from all the units are then added together to give you an overall mark for your qualification.” AQA website.

Frankly it is smoke and mirrors of the worst kind and for practical subjects causes extraordinary injustice to the hardworking students, who have through their own efforts met the exam board criteria with great precision. The exam boards of course get found out, because their moderators have to write reports on what they have seen at the centre.  In our problem areas today, the moderator has commended our staff for the quality of their marking in one module, as well as the quality of work on show and the accuracy of the teachers’ grading. Then in an allied module, our staff appear to be no more familiar with the marking criteria than rank novices, and marks are overturned.  Now with experienced colleagues that simply can’t happen, and in the visual arts the modules are actually marked in identical ways. Although in many ways we are content with the current A level programme and award assessment, it is in this area of coursework that trust with the boards has been broken for some time, and this year there is no sign of that breach being repaired. You can’t appeal on individual candidate results where moderation has adjusted marks downwards, only on the whole cohort’s results in the subject. In recent years I have never seen marks moderated up, only down, so raw marks moving to the UMS mean the students score lower than their intuition might inform them on leaving the exam room.

If you make such an appeal, it suspends A level grades in the subject concerned, and in doing that prevents students confirming with their Universities their arrangements for joining them later next month. None of our candidates affected this year have been denied the place at their first choice Uni, but that’s not the point. If a candidate gets a B overall rather than an A or A*, that has significant impact on their own feelings of self-worth, and the school ‘appears’ to be less effective than actually we are. Listening to the Universities Minister David Willetts today, it made my blood boil when he suggested that such jiggery pokery enhances the nation’s confidence in the exam system. I’d much rather know that coursework was going to become a capped grade component (lets say at no more than 70%), putting greater emphasis on the written and test components of the A level, than have to listen to the distinctly less than candid gloating of Mr Willets, who for some reason thinks that when grades decline ‘that’s a good thing’.

The papers have not got harder and tested the children more thoroughly. What’s happened is as criminal as ‘clocking a motor’ to reduce the mileage showing on the dashboard indicating how many miles a car has traveled. As a school that welcomes a broad ability range and where students can choose to take A level subjects even if they only have a C grade at GCSE,  I am really proud of our students this summer who have gained places across the country in a wide and diverse range of disciplines. I welcome the fact that we have subjects such as Spanish with both candidates gaining A grades. What I fundamentally oppose is the squeezing of practical disciplines to lower the top grade stats to make them seem ‘harder’. A third of our economy is founded on the creative arts, with many leaving university straight into jobs because their skills are highly sought after. So I’d like to see Exam boards have to live by a similar duty of candour; if it is right that Ofqual need to squeeze the results, then teachers and children need to know, and the exam boards have a duty to tell us the truth.

And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain… (just the end of term, forgive the hyperbole)

Owning and running a school is not quite the same as leading it. As the end of term disappears into the rear view mirror, the academic pressures ease and the organisation adjusts to ensure that (in our case the 140+) teachers and nursery leaders get a proper break after their exertions for our community’s behalf for the last 185 days. And rest they deserve, because to be honest, it’s difficult to maintain the intensity of effort required to achieve the levels of progress expected of a private school.

I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain …

At the British Rowing Championships

Off to Cape Town, for Rugby and Hockey

And then to the Edinburgh Fringe

And the Summer works…

I travelled each and ev’ry highway, And more, much more than this…

No more is that so obvious than in the efforts of our boat club, still flat out in the arena of competitive sport, facing as they did the British Rowing Championships this last weekend.

Rowing under Maidenhead colours, our lead oarsmen of Josh Harris and Rory Kempson won the J18 Coxless quad with their colleagues from Maidenhead, and in so doing won selection for the Home Counties International this coming weekend at Holme Pierrepont, Nottingham. This gold medal follows hard on the heels of their silver medal won at National Schools in May, and on an excellent performance reaching the semi-finals at Henley Rowing Regatta in the Fawley Cup. Whilst it is a shame that Josh and Rory did not row in our colours, all of our boat club know that we produce joint membership with MRC who host us so well at Maidenhead, and composites don’t win the club shield that goes with the victory!

But the news does actually get better, because our J16+ crew won silver, J15+ gold, and J14+ silver as well, and where we lost a race, we did so by milliseconds, a canvas or less.

For Head of Rowing, Tom Jost and his colleagues, Chris Clarke and Tim Wallis Cadell, I offer my full congratulations, because these results highlight as best as any that Claires Court has returned to be one of the premier school boat clubs in England. The coaches work amazingly hard, are outstandingly focussed on why they have a role in the school, and exert a commanding and positive influence on the athletes themselves. Our status in rowing is confirmed by the Championship Victor Ludorum list, in which Claires Court is placed 9th, the leading school with 29 points, not of course including the points they could have gained through the J18 gold performances. You can see that table here – http://www.britchamps.org/sites/default/files/pages/11/BRJC2013-VictorLudorum.pdf

J16+ – Dan Gordon, Will Hobden, Toby Jones, Jo Saunders.

J15+ – Tom Ives, Alex Richardson, Billy Richards, Curtis Heartburn

J14+ – Tom Ballinger, Jack Harris, Hadley Thomas, Toby Yate, Tom Moreland (cox)

One of the major reasons outside of coaching for our success is the intensity, quality and longevity of training the coaches have managed to coax their athletes to engage with over the past 2 or more years, providing a real extra motor when needed in the final 500m of events. other major factor has been the quality of support engendered by the parent support groups – to get a flavour of that read their final announcement of the year, pushed out as the boys received their medals:

I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption …

“Dear All, on behalf of the parents of all the boys, I wanted to say how proud and impressed we are to be part of the CCS rowing community. Every single boy representing the school this weekend was impressive, from their own rowing or coxing delivery through to their fantastic team support and commitment to each other – all celebrating their schools success. Their attitudes were amazing. Also to being part of an amazing bunch of parents, carers, grandparents and friends – from those who got to Nottingham and joined us yesterday or today to those who sent texts and emails sharing support from a distance – you are all a great bunch of parents that have spent huge amounts of time supporting the boys this year. Finally to our brilliant coaches, and our head coach Tom Jost – your strong vision and resilience to keep the boys engaged, ensure they balance their demands of the sport with the needs for study and in keeping their spirits up throughout the highs and lows. Today has been a great finish to rowing for the summer, we hope you have wonderful well earned holidays and look forward to many more successes for CCSBC!  Best wishes.”

One of the club squads that performed even better than Claires Court was Eton Excelsior (by 1 point), for whom our own Emma Moores (J16) rows, and she won 2 bronze medals at the Regatta as well. In many ways, Emma has done it the hardest way of all, without the opportunity to row at school and club, and she has my full admiration.

I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway …

2013 Ist Rugby and Hockey Tour to South Africa – July 2013

Good Luck and Beste Wense to our sporting tourists from the top teams who travel to South Africa yesteday (23 July).  The boys will be playing rugby and the girls hockey, in Cape Town. Fans will be able to keep in touch by following the Tourists’ News from our School website. As well as playing fixtures against Jan van Riebeeck High School, Milnerton High School and De Kuilen High School, the tourists have a full itinerary during their stay including visits to Robben Island, the Aquila Game Reserve and Langa Township.  They will also tour the Cape Peninsula with its spectacular scenery, seals and penguins.   The party will be staying at the Ritz Hotel (tourist standard, not quite Piccadilly!) at the top of which is the only revolving restaurant in Cape Town and one of the most unique eating experiences in town.

You’ll be able to catch up with the Tour news via the main school website, www.clairescourt.com

I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried …

The Kites are flying in Edinburgh – Saturday-Monday,

6 evening performances over 3 days at the Columcille Centre

Director of Drama at Claires Court, Maggie Olivier, and her A Level students are really excited about the opportunity to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe showcasing their production of Michael Morpurgo’s book The Kites are flying at the Columcille Centre from Saturday 17th through to Monday 19th August, with two performances each afternoon/evening. The performers are Brooke Snowe, Elliot Stokes, Hayley Howard, Charlie Tuck, stage design by Lucy Wardman and technicals by Callum Plain.

Working in the style of epic expressionism with an exceptional artistic designer, these Sixth Form Drama and Theatre Studies students adapted this beautiful and poignant children’s novel of Michael Morpurgo for the stage. Their adaptation tells the story of a journalist visiting the war stricken West Bank where he meets children from both sides of the wall: two Jewish siblings on one side and a little Palestinian girl on the other side. His experience reveals how children’s friendships can be stronger than any wall built to divide nations and religions.

The cast tells the story from the perspectives of the journalist, the Jewish children and the little Palestinian girl.  They reveal the impact of war on children and  convey the message that shared hopes and dreams can make even the highest wall disappear.

This production tells this fascinating story of tragedy and hope as truthfully as possible to do justice to Michael Morpurgo’s objectives. The cast hopes to get the powerful message of this novel across to many people and to leave them with joy and hope in spite of the divides in the world we all live in.

‘We talk, we laugh, we dream. You are a dreamer too, like me. I think we even dream the same dreams.’

Morpurgo: The Kites are Flying

I am flying up to assist in selling tickets and to see the 6pm performance on Monday – hopefully by then storming the fringe audiences and not quite in demob last show state of unwind!

When I bit off more than I could chew …

Summer works within Claires Court Schools

The main building works are taking place on the College site, where the Chapel’s conversion into a full scale performing arts area is well under way. The pneumatic drills have lifted out the old altar threshold and pieces to bring the stage area down to main floor height (an H&S requirement these days), before bringing in the AVs that will make this a really exciting space in which our actors, musicians and dancers can work.

Externally, the poppy fields of Ridgeway have 20 acres destoned in the next 2 weeks, then 2 new cricket tables will be laid, and then we wait with baited breath for some late summer rain before seeding with playing field grass seed. All being well, we’ll be using the fields in the spring of 2015.

And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing …

The next Edition of the Court Circular is already on its way, our chronicle of life within Claires Court. I know this year will be a bumper edition, so much achieved the length and breadth of the school. We have lost some great staff who have retired or moved on to promotion or pastures new elsewhere, and saying goodbye to colleagues who have inspired so many is bitter-sweet. And yet, the visible excitement of our new staff, itching to join us and make their own contribution to this fantastic school because they will be allowed to express themselves brings a real smile to my face and heart and soul. Make no mistake dear reader, there is awake in the land a giant within Education at Claires Court, a place which avowedly believes that in the broad abilities of children, and provides for them an all-round education that inspires them beyond their imaginations. Here’s the Junior Boys Year 6 choir, conducted by Mr Justin Spanswick mourning the passing of the ‘Ridgeway’ name, yet in CCJB reminding us that the ‘new’ is coming….

https://sites.google.com/a/clairescourt.net/claires-court—ridgeway/year-6

The record shows I took the blows and did it my way!

Marie Anne Leonard writes “On Thursday evening we visited the A Level Art Private View of our sponsors Claires Court Schools. It’s always a pleasure to join them for any event, as you’d be hard-pushed to meet more welcoming, friendly and hospitable people, but the A Level PV is always a highlight for us. 

The art and photography team at Claires Court truly allow their students to experiment, take risks and thoroughly immerse themselves in their studies. It is of continual amazement to us that the students challenge themselves by tackling very mature subject matter and approaches to them with a committed and hard-working approach beyond their years.

The photography on show was a joy. These students have a real eye for the commercial, poring over magazines for inspiration in fashion, styling and inspiration. A career in advertising photography is definitely on the cards for some of these talented students!

Once again, a triumph of a year – congratulations to all the students and the teaching team”

You can read more from Marie Anne at her blog – http://www.maidenheadartmarket.org

I was unable to attend the exhibition on the Private viewing evening, so Head of Art Jan Price linked me to the entire album set. Separately, here are the clips from the photography section.  All in all, I feel this year’s exhibition is as strong as ever. With so many of our past pupils now out there in the commercial world – Rupert Houseman for example winning this year’s BAFTA for 7/7, a day in London and Toby Hefferman,First assistant director World War Z – it’s nice to report the Claires Court Production line of ‘Creatives’ is running full steam.

Two entirely separate events over the last 10 days have brought to the fore the major emerging trends on the Internet. Don’t expect any major conclusions, though I feel the Higher Education developments in the UK are really quite interesting.

• One is the global Google I/O event, broadcast live across the world to packed houses, at which Google inventors introduce their thoughts for the future 12 months – here’s the Verge’s 3 minute summary – http://goo.gl/wmkL6 –  (many thanks to Doug Belshaw). read more here

• The other is Slicon Valley’s geek guru, Mary Meeker’s annual presentation – read my summary here or  more in the Guardian – http://goo.gl/Q4dKi

Thoughts for the future: 

Employment: The shortage of high skill technology workers will only grow – you’ll need to think about your secondary school curriculum offer – how can you encourage a technological approach?

On-line degrees are coming: With the World economic crisis remaining with us for a number of years to come, it seems to me time we started looking at the arrival of the UK version of home based, on-line degrees.  Now the series world lead we have with the Open University is indicative we will do this well, specifically because the OU is leading the implementation of degree level MOOCs from this autumn.

Stateside, on-line degree courses have already become much more credible. In the UK, the following universities plan to offer on-line degrees through the OU Futurelearn portal. Here’s a Daily Telegraph article from last December on the matter – http://goo.gl/2cvrr

Futurelearn is partnering with the British Council, the British Library, the British Museum and 21 of the UK’s top universities* and will launch their first courses later this year.

*University of Bath, University of Birmingham, Bristol University, Cardiff University, University of East Anglia (UEA), University of Exeter, University of Glasgow, King’s College London, Lancaster University, University of Leeds, University of Leicester, Loughborough University, University of Nottingham, The Open University, Queen’s University, Belfast, University of Reading, The University of Sheffield, University of Southampton, University of St Andrews, University of Strathclyde, University of Warwick.

Forgive me, but I reckon here is a real opportunity for top secondary schools to consider how they might play a part. Could for example we open our resources centres and study areas over the weekend to permit on-line graduates a centre for study?

The relentless rise of social media, driven by both internet access and hardware: 

• General info on social media: Facebook leads (1.1 billion active users), then youtube, twitter and google+, linked in, instagram and tumblr rapidly rising. Tumblr allows for miniposts, so for those marketeers short on words, this may work more effectively linking from the school website. These are huge populations, and education is right there in the mix.

• 15% of all internet traffic is now through mobile, likely to be 25% by Christmas 2014. More Chinese access the internet via mobile than by PC this year.

• UK is no 6 in the world for Smatrtphones signup (43 million accounts) – over 1.4 billion users, compared with over 5 billion mobile phone users.

• Tablets are now competing in equal numbers with laptops and PCs.

• Shopping inexorably moves to the web – Alibaba in China has now more customers that Amazon and eBay combined throughout the world. In my experience, warranties aren’t so easy to chase through!

What does the next hardware look like?If smartphones and tablets were the new computing of the noughties/teens, in this decade we now have moving into Wearables, Driveables, Flyables, Scannables.

Wearable: Don’t laugh about Google Glasses, because as recently as the 1970s, computing experts could not conceive us having a computer in our home. You’ll be wearing something soon, even if it is to keep track of you! Dogs have chips, anyway!

Driveable: Most have a computer on their car, but the new stuff is doing more than just monitor the ignition. What is happening in China now will come to the UK next year… Taxi apps – connecting you and available cabs in real time

Flyable: As for mobile drones, unless the government steps in, expect to  see them down your street this Christmas!   I remember glow-plug planes on the park, here we have a return of the amateur flier, but with gps, webcams and other peripherals to boot. http://goo.gl/tbVXJ

Scannable: Scanning is entering school dinner queues as they go cashless, and mobile phones in other countries are already their access to cash. QR codes are coming to businesses everywhere.

In summary from the global events: 

from Google coming soon: 

• ‘OK Google’ – a speech recognition version for searching, plus for much of the google interface to follow
• Google Play Music giving you on-demand music
• Google Play for Education – a custom app store filled with curated apps specifically for students and educators, going live this summer to assist schools going Android rather than iPad
• Google Hangouts – collaborative video networking – allows up to 4 hours of live broadcast
• Google+ – now to handle pictures effectively, like Flickr
• Google Maps are to be integrated with Google Earth and vector maps – critics aren’t certain that this is a good thing
• GMail to carry money…using Google wallet – http://goo.gl/X77Y7

More generally, other Apps from Mary Meeker: 

• snapchat – instant messaging with pictures that ‘disappear’
• Dropcam – webased camera service, stay in touch whilst you’re on tour
• Soundcloud – musician based distribution service
• wechat –  mobile phone text and voice messaging communication service – allows for multiple users to video chat on mobile
• waze – social traffic navigation
• jawbone up – fitness tracking bracelet and app that tracks and feeds back what you do
• yelp – app based local business directory service and review site with social networking features. Time to ensure your school has the right info about it in its entry!
• Twitter vine only on apple kit – but still huge – 6 second mini-videos moments

For quite some time now (certainly back to my own experience at school 50 years ago), teachers have worried about the sleep children get overnight, between the 8 hours they spend in school.

The strident headlines of the Daily Mail make the problem really clear:

“TWO THIRDS of British children cannot concentrate at school because of sleep deprivation

• Lack of sleep lowers a child’s academic achievement
• Worst affected are those in the U.S. and New Zealand
• Teachers are forced to adapt lessons for sleepy pupils
• Mobile phones, televisions and computers in children’s bedrooms have been blamed for sleep deprivation

Here’s a link to the latest world research on the problem, as simplified by the BBC – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22209818

Now let’s be clear, back in the 1960s I did not have electronic gadgets, the nearest to that being a torch under the blanket and a crystal radio. But I did share my bedroom with 5 or 6 other boys as boarders in term time at school, and my goodness me we were up for mischief if allowed.

What made the difference then, and what guided my own actions as a parent subsequently, is that the adults around knew above all that children needed 9 hours sleep at night. And they were rigorous in enforcing it, perhaps a little too harshly on occasion with a big stick, but the general premise held true – children need lots of sleep. Now that general statistic holds true to the present day, but parents seem to find it increasingly difficult to persuade their offspring of this need. Indeed, the more highly developed the country, the more affluent the household, the more likely it is that children will not get the sleep they need to be high-performers the next day.

As the graph from the Boston College (US) shows – about 3/4 of our children show signs of sleep deprivation. Curing this is not simple of course, because you can’t say to a child who is still wide awake, ‘time for bed’ – the child needs to have been engaged in a raft of activity during the day to have exercised the body and mind, and in addition, you must have engineered a winding-down period of about an hour to ensure the child is ‘prepped’ for sleep.

Core rules:

1. No gadgets for the last hour, no iPad, TV, Xbox or similar. The brain processes ‘hot images’ from screens in a different place to paper, so reading for pleasure needs to come off a cold screen, like a book or magazine. I don’t know that the LCD screen of a kindle counts as hot or cold, but the whizzier the device, the more likely it is  that other distractions are but a click away.

2. Time to get ready for bed then.  This is a process. To be followed every night (Sunday to Thursday) in term-time, and for a week before the new term starts.

3. Check all is ready for school, then perhaps a warm drink of milk and fruit snack (diverts blood from the brain to the liver, via the intestines – improves feeling of well-being and reduces Oxygen to the brain) , and then the ritual of teeth brush, wash-up and jim-jams.

4. Some adult/child quiet time together, sharing a story, reading a book together, in the child(s) bedroom, ‘warming down’ the child.  Always done, never delegated to trust.

5. Quiet reading before lights out allowed, but certainty that lights do go out in good time. And check, don’t trust.

Teenager adjustments – because of course they grow up and ‘it’s not fair’. ‘Life’s not fair, so get used to it!’ was often heard in our house. Texting their friends, Facebook and so forth are all ‘stay awake activities, so phones are off and no TV/PC/Laptop/slates in the bedroom allowed.

• Keep the routine. Give them more control on getting things ready, so that’s them making the packed lunch or ironing their shirts, cleaning their boots and packing their bag.
• Still spend some time with them to calm them down, talk with them, do some philosophy stuff from P4C or your own faith group.  You didn’t have children to ignore them, nor plan to keep them subdued with a digital cosh from XBox or Apple, did you?
• Make sure the adults ‘model’ the same stuff – it’s a working house, so if the children are 14+ then what’s sauce for the goose…
• I know I invariably had work/stuff to do after the ‘men’ were in bed, but it was important that the grown-ups acted right.
• And god help them if they disturbed your sleep…

It must be said that our highest achieving pupils every year are those who are the most committed, the ones who are into arts, music, sport, run a paper-round in their spare time and all. And it does seem that the best of them consent to this tyranny in part because being so busy has worn them out and sleep comes as a blessed release. And so it must be seen as such, because during the adolescent growth spurt, the body and brain need that down time to repair. Yes really – and if you want to read more, here’s a nice Harvard article on the teenage brain – ‘Not just an Adult brain with fewer miles on it –  http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/09/the-teen-brain.html“

Well, I suppose it had to come to pass., that is the separation of the United Kingdom into its 4 component parts. I was born in London, have a grandmother born in Scotland, an Uncle who played for London Irish and all sorts of Welsh brethren I genuinely call my friends. I’ll mourn the day.

“The dissolution of the 4 nations into the constituent parts has been a long time…. “

Not so fast sonny. About what are you speaking, precisely?

OK, it is well known for now that Scotland is separated from England by both  Hadrian’s Wall and its ‘Highers’ , which in fact are ‘Lowers’ when it comes to comparison with England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Yep that’s right, when you leave school wearing tartan, you do so with more, but meaning less.  Read more about that here – http://goo.gl/6bqTL

Actually don’t bother – here’s an example where knowledge is worse than instinct.  Over many years as adults, we learn that you are only as good as your peer group, and in terms of leaders and followers from the current news stories, what can we learn? Take a snap shot now – is the Scottish Premier League better than the English Football Equivalent? If Scotland floated out of Sterling would the currency survive? Will UK Oil last for ever? Was it ours to start with?

So what we know is: the bigger the natural peer group you can place your community in (but don’t imagine that’s the individual), the more your community will thrive in that space. Don’t cross big boundaries. You can think that the stay-at-home works with the itinerant traveler, but don’t mix and match the Fish with the Fowl – or Foul for that matter.

As the Welsh Press were quick to point out, our own government seems hell bent on separation. http://goo.gl/Der1n takes you to the story.  Should we split? This is a rhetorical question of course, because there are no interests in any of the three countries that make them better served than they are by remaining together. It’s about the dynamic mass of a nation united by its education system, which in turn feeds into its economy, its psyche and its feelings of self-worth.

At my age, I know lots of people who are retired, and to be fair to me, many of those before they should have, though that’s about the pension plan rather than their economic usefulness, which would still be of value. (Get to the point, James). Some of them are genuinely using the financial markets to improve the value of their savings. By placing their ‘pound’ in ‘Euro’, ‘Dollar’, ‘Yen’ or whatever, they are able to play the system and enhance their dosh. In a small way.

In reality, though it’s true we are going through a Euro crisis at present, let’s not allow the Fathers to visit on their Sons a mistake of gargantuan proportions. As and when Mr Gove and his contemporaries in Wales and Northern Island decide to go their separate ways, we in education need to be the anchors the hold the ships together, for make no bones about it, the smaller we grind the problem, the less we’ll find to inform us.

OK, OK, lots of metaphors, not enough fact and evidence.  So watch this Educator in the States place this in real perspective (David McCullough of Wellesley High) – because neither England, or Wales or Ireland (N) are special; we are all part of the world one nation, trying to make a living in hard times.

What drives me to write this?  If only one of the politicians was right, then we’d know who to follow. The adult forcing the change is…MG of course, (Mr Gove).  He really knows absolutely nothing about anything evidence based, and the Establishment he finds himself up against isn’t me and mine.  I admire his singular approach. I admire his party’s other ideals too. However, none of them stack up.  How can you be wanting to unite the UK under one civil partnership/marriage social convention whilst at the same time forcing divorce  in the other happy coalition in Education partnership, whilst causing a vote in due course on membership of Europe, and as a leading partner in World peace forcing the issue on Iraq?  Michael’s party is as divided on this as they are the economy, the wider society at large,  Europe more generally and  peace globally. Put simply, they’d rather divorce than live together, perhaps.

We do not need as an English speaking Island to start searching anew for the qualifications that lead to success. As the UK Independent  Education sector espouses quite clearly, it’s all about the whole person, academics and co-curricular, Arts and Sports, Rough with the Smooth. If only we had a political voice that enounced this! Sadly we have none. because the vast majority of our sector have been reduced by the evident truth that they are charities, and as such cannot place stakes in the political high ground. Look at the fuss we currently see about Apple and Google not paying taxes. Our Nation is appalled.  No wonder the Alma Maters of Gove and Cameron, Clegg and Osborne stay ‘schtum’.  What price those leading Educational punters having influence  in the future, who can tour the UK for the qualification that fits the Goldilocks’ principle – just right for now – if by opening their mouths they announced they were not paying  for their ticket? Those independent thinkers, such as yours truly, have chosen to pay the Queen’s shilling as well as take it for education services rendered actually have had no voice – until WordPress made it public!