A Principled view

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!

As regular readers know, I publish a weekly blog on things digital.  This week, the headliners include a Blue-Man book, a Spaceman, a Shoot-em-up and some pretty nifty driving software making use of Google’s Street view images.

I am indebted to ISANet readers for some of the links below, attributed as appropriate.  The ‘Mr Gove’ Mr Men story book comes via Eric L from Paul Bernal. “Mr Gove was extraordinarily arrogant.Painfully arrogant.He believed that he knew how everything should be done. He believed that everyone else in the world was stupid and ignorant.The problem was, Mr Gove himself was the one who was ignorant.He got most of his information from his own, misty, mem..”. Not unnaturally, this post has gone viral!

Preamble

It’s that time of year at Secondary level when Exams’ officers lose a life, and Teachers of exam subjects might regain one. At CC as with so many other institutions in the UK, our  Sports Halls are lost to usual business so the candidates from age 14 to nearly 19 could strut their stuff for the exam boards.  We stop examining circa 6 week’s time; it must be said, in the main, a monstrous regiment that actually bears no resemblance to the reality we need. Almost all our other year groups in the school get examined this week or next; a simpler exercise finished before the week is out, and in time to ensure we can fit in a full half-term of work before the fun and games of the end of term come in to bat – that’s providing the Summer weather has arrived in July!

Do you know how to drive from one place to the next?  http://hyperlapse.tllabs.io/ Via IanN

Here’s a great little trial feature from Hyperlapse, who can stitch together the google street view images from point A to point B and drive you there and back (for ever).  Here’s my regular rat-run journey between the senior boys school and girls school, 2 miles – http://goo.gl/KUnG2. Have a play before the company take it behind a pay wall.

Can you shoot the spaceship down? http://dumalka.gontmakher.com/laser/index.html

This is a math game for children ages 4-8. It teaches the concepts of angles, relations between numbers and searching. Playing is easy: just type a number and press Enter to see if you hit the UFO. Try to hit it in as few shots as possible! Via IanN

From which side of the Equator did this Spiral cloud form?

This picture is one of many taken by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, Commander of the International Space Station.  You may have heard Commander Hatfield’s version of Space Oddity by David Bowie on the Radio 4 breakfast Today programme this morning – here’s the YouTube link, freshly published and awesome. http://goo.gl/ed9MI

A Gravity question – Which way does the water fall when you squeeze a towel in Space?

Courtesy of Cmdr Hadfield, we have an awesome demo & know the answer – check here for proof

Creativity Test

The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) seeks to test your creative IQ.

One of the most iconic elements of the TTCT is the Incomplete Figure test, a drawing challenge that’s like a game of exquisite corpse. Taking this image, what can you turn it into?  Check your answer here – http://goo.gl/QMxz9

Some novel Maths sums    

• Can you find four pairs of numbers that total 2?

• Can you find another four that total 4?

• What are the largest and smallest totals you can find by adding 2 numbers?

• What is the nearest total to 3 that you can make using 2 numbers?

Claire Lotriet is a graphic designer turned teacher, who currently teaches Year 5/6 in a south London primary school – you can read her blog about this problem-based approach here.

Time for you to acquire a video walkie talkie…

Glide is a cloud based App you can download to Android or iPhone that allows you to broadcast to the cloud, and messages can be watched there and then, or looked up later. http://www.glide.me/’  I reckon this could really take off in schools, because being cloud shared, short clips can instantly be grouped into conversations and the like.

And finally…

The comedian Rob Barratt has written a short biblical parody on the subject of data-driven education, entitled “A lesson from the Book of Dataronomy”. Live at Upton Folk Festival, Worcestershire. 6th May 2013 http://goo.gl/N51Ud . Not only does Sir Michael Wilshaw get parodied but so does Gohova.

Have a great week, and please pass the ISANet newsletter on.

The return of Sherlock Holmes in the modern idiom, as characterised by Benedict Cumberbatch, has brought this Victorian sleuth back into the limelight.

I am certainly not the only viewer of ‘Sherlock’, the BBC series, to be moving my status to ‘can’t wait’.  How on earth he survived the Reichenbach fall quite escapes me, but we know he did, so I want to find out.

‘It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important’ is a Holmesean expression we should learn to cherish, as is ‘It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.’

I teach in a remarkable school, with amazing teachers and extraordinary children. That view of where I work is normal for me and for my approach to education more generally.  What’s the point of saying anything else? Now Sir Arthur Conan Doyle occasionally made his sleuth deeply pessimistic, but most of the time, it’s Sherlock’s energy to win through that makes the man exceptional.  Remember – it’s about the little things, all adding up that make the big picture!  It was our school’s Open Day today, and the sites were filled with visitors, gathering evidence, to make informed choices based on such first-hand research.

Research is key to validating decisions about policy and for future planing. Academic centres of excellence across the country have gone into overdrive, as educationalists responsible for such work seek out the basis for the current ‘urban myths’ on failing education, propagated by the Daily Mail, the DfE and Mr Gove. You have all of course heard that A levels and GCSEs are way too easy – today’s nonsense propagated from MrG that respectable school history is regularly dumbed down by using a Mr Men approach just another example.  Such views are not evident, it must be said, in the impressions of either parents or pupils currently sitting public exams at Claires Court.

The Oxford University centre for Educational Assessment has published a report entitled “Research evidence relating to proposals for reform of the GCSE”, and it makes interesting reading.

You can find that here:  –   http://goo.gl/YPWvY

In summary (from the TES+), the Oxford team casts doubt on ministers’ assertions that GCSEs have been “dumbed down”, that England is underperforming on international measures and that the reformed GCSEs will improve standards. Standards in Maths have not declined over the last 20 years, and actually, Britain gets what it deserves, spending what it does on education.

The Oxford academics write that “most young people in England have high aspirations”. They add that the proposed changes to GCSEs are “unlikely” to improve aspiration because they will raise demand, reduce resits and lead to “fewer routes to success”.

The academics also dismissed claims that breaking down GCSEs into modules had made exams easier. Research showed that end-of-course exams led to a “narrowing of the curriculum” and rote learning, they added.

Another great Victorian writer, Charles Dickens was appalled at the working conditions he saw developing in England for children at school.  He saw the prevalence of utilitarian values in educational institutions promote contempt between mill owners and workers, creating young adults whose imaginations had been neglected, due to an over-emphasis on facts at the expense of more imaginative pursuits. Drawing upon his own childhood experiences, Dickens resolved to “strike the heaviest blow in my power” for those who laboured in horrific conditions*.

Dickens wrote his shortest novel, Hard Times,  to highlight the emerging misery of those who held by such Utilitarian ideas.  His lead character was Mr Thomas Gradgrind, a notorious headmaster and father of 5. His academic approach was to treat children as pitchers to be filled with knowledge, and that artistic cognitive development for example, were mere fancies and conceits. He didn’t do much better with his children, for example persuading his daughter Louisa to marry his boss for money. There’s more to the story, but take it from me, it all ends in misery, for his daughter and pretty much everyone else – except for Mr G, who rather too late in the day, accepts the errors of his way. Oh, and some hope surfaces too for the children who managed to escape his school, and found better ways to learn!

Dickens and Conan Doyle in their writings shared a common mission to elevate humankind from the corrupting, nay criminal influences of their times.  They wrote in serials, attracting a mass readership drawn from the ‘penny’ press and more worthy magazines. They used the evidence of their eyes to populate their stories and they told the truth as they saw it, and in Dicken’s case he really saw a moral purpose in so doing. That’s why the Authors are so well known still, despite the passing of years, and why their stories are compelling and stand the test of translation into the 21st century vernacular.

The evidence is that we tend to forget Education secretaries quite quickly, as their works are almost always overturned by the next incumbent, responding more to political whim, it must be said, than evidence-based research.  And shame on those who run education if they don’t use evidence, for the ill-informed choices they otherwise enforce upon a nation’s children can easily and dramatically affect the life-chances of those involved, even if it is for but a few years of implementation, before wisdom prevails.  I wonder whether the similarities between our MrG and Mr Dickens’s creation will continue to grow.

+Times Educational Supplement

*Thanks Wikipedia

jameswilding.wordpress.com

In this month’s Scientific American, there is one of those lovely research articles that summarises what we know about reading things for the purposes of learning, understanding and retention. The article specifically contrasts the effectiveness on reading text on a slate/screen against reading text on paper.

You can read the whole article here, and it’s a good read, but to summarise:

For many years we have known that reading text off screens is a different cognitive experience than reading of paper, described as ‘hot’ v ‘cold’ reading.  By and large, there is a body of evidence that points to ‘cold’ reading being a more effective way of proof reading, checking and highlighting knowledge to be acquired. But as the screens have proliferated, so the newer evidence shows more of a mix. Anecdote tells us that people prefer screens for reading saucier titles (50 shades of grey for example).

To summarise even more – most studies that look at simple effectiveness show there is little to chose, such as reading instructions for example. Different people have differing preferences too.  Over the long term, it does seem that papers wins over screen text.

Because the brain wasn’t designed to read text, it treats those lines/ characters that make up words as physical objects in time or space, the same way we get to see apples as different to oranges, colour stem, look, feel, smell. Moreover, the best way it makes sense of the jumble of a sentence is to locate the text in three dimensions against the edges of the page, left or right of the spine and so forth.  Taking away those reference points as a screen does mean it’s more difficult to recall the image.

It is also the case that people who read text that is difficult, that needs rereading, looking up of references and such like are more likely to undertake these metacognitive activities if they are reading on paper rather than on screen. This has two possible consequences: 1: people who are as effective reading on screen as on paper find using screens to be more tiring to use, because they are having to work harder at it and/or 2: people don’t bother to undertake the extra actions needed to clarify and understand the text because it is harder work, don’t learn it/understand it as well.

Schools are required to ensure that a body of knowledge is conveyed to children.  Some of that knowledge needs working at to comprehend it. Researching around the subject through the reading of different sources is a key component of success in academic subjects.  This means that, within Claires Court’s walls, we won’t be giving up hard copy books and paper extracts any time soon. But let’s not be luddite about this… there are lots of times that using screens, typing etc. allows us to be much more productive.  It’s just that when it comes to reading difficult stuff and making sense of it, papers wins over screen for the majority. So don’t go paper-free for learning just yet. Evolution cannot rework neural pathways within a lifespan!

 http://goo.gl/ObzP0 takes you to the text plus pictures!

If you are old enough, you’ll remember the great Frankie Howerd. “Infamy, Infamy, they’ve all got it in for me”.  Here’s Frankie speaking  at the Oxford Union in 1990 – it all kicks off from 50 seconds in.

The man is seriously random in his act, moving all over the place  in no specific direction, but clearly hilarious enough for the students of the day. His most famous television act was as a slave named Lurcio in Up Pompeii, and he was for ever reprising it seems funny things that happened to him on the way to the Forum (circus).

So that’s how I feel just presently; on a journey (mainly digital for the benefits of the ISANet of course), and much of the very careful preparations for our digital life at school do seem to be coming home to roost at long last.

Example 1 – Digital assets

CC GCSE Historians travel to the Ypres Salient to explore the battlefields and graveyards, visit the amazing In Flanders Fields (IFF) museum and engage in some study activities.

On entry to the museum each visitor receive a “Poppy Bracelet”. The bracelet contains a microchip which activates the chosen language for the visitor. It also activates the personal story of four individuals as the visitor makes his or her way around the exhibitions. As you leave the exhibition, you can use the wristband to sign out, and email to you those stories as pdfs to your chosen email address.

Well it will not surprise you dear reader to know that 2 years ago we simply could not have handled this, nor dealt with the additional learning experiences such opportunities bring. Now, all googled-up and ‘Hub’ilicious to boot, we can manage such ideas and then some.  Take a look at the Ypres Salient website emerging from this trip, used to join up these and other writings under way. http://goo.gl/wey3b

More and more of our trips are including parents in the travel and outcomes without them actually coming with us.  The Easter ski trip collected over 100 hits in the week away and some very funny banter too between home and the Alps. Here’s that website – http://goo.gl/hucmZ

The use of the message board is how we captured the banter!

Example 2 – Data Archives

Many years ago, I tried to interest Ben Goldacre (he of Bad Science) in the scandal that was the cancellation of nationwide BCG jabs.  The trouble at the time was that it was deemed that only the visitor populations from South East Asia and the traveller community were at risk from Tuberculosis, and the hard one rights for CC private school pupils to get their BCG jab at 14 was taken away from us.  We made a real song and dance about it at the time (to no avail). OK, it’s not an outbreak of Consumption that we are currently facing, but measles, and why? The herd immunity has been impaired by low levels of vaccination uptake and a Measles epidemic is with us.  And guess what – apparently, private schools are to blame – read that here: http://goo.gl/cpwlD

What annoys me and everyone else is that this accusation is simply ill judged and in my school’s case wrong.  And thank the lord, I have all the emails stored away to prove it.  Now we have Google-land, the school has some 15 terrabytes of storage – but not that long ago, the paper files would have just disappeared into an archive space too difficult to search.  Google found the stuff almost straight away!

Example 3 – Encouraging bilingualism is a good thing – http://goo.gl/eXCRE

Far from Texting being a bad thing, it is causing the development of greater linguistic skills in the young than we have seen before.  In a short talk of 13 minutes at TED this February, Columbia University Linguistics expert, Professor John McWhorter exploded the myth that texting is dumbing us down. In short, if we are true teachers of the young, we should work with it. Fingered speech is different to speech and writing, and as such is developing our general literacies not harming them.  By the way, Prof JM takes us back to Roman times round about 11m12’ when the teachers of the day then bemoaned that their students were becoming illiterate.  As it turns out, they were developing French!

Example 4 – Learning is not about the Technology

In the 5 years the ISANet has been pounding the streets, and colonising your inbox, I have tried to evangelise the joys of easy-to-use technology.  As I have previously written, the Chief Inspector of the Independent Schools Inspectorate, Christine Ryan, saw our stuff at the start of the year and declared “What’s not to like?”  That’s remained very much the picture emerging from our Monday afternoon short visits I host.  2 years down the line of using Google Apps for Education, we can show our visitors that the technology has all but disappeared,  Children as young as 8 are blogging across the globe, and collaborative works of a Heinz variety are happening every day. Here’s an inspiring digital journal article on just this matter – http://goo.gl/fMDeu

As the picture in Example 4 highlights, the small slates are coming, be they iPads or Androids. I start our official trial of Ainol Novo7s in June, partnered we hope by some Nexus 7s to contrast and compare. Now John Lewis stores are stocking Android devcies, giving them a 2 year warranty as well, prices are coming down to perhaps ⅓ of iPad levels.  The question I ask is – do such devices actually have a place in schools that use netbooks, PCs and Chromebooks. At an entry price of £75 I think they do, but schools need to know how to manage them and as yet there is little documentary evidence to go on.

If you’d like to be involved in any way in our Android trial, then please do get in touch with me, usual place – http://isanet.ning.com or email jtw@clairescourt.net

Frankie Howerd may have died 21 years ago, but he still occupies part of our national pysche it seems:  here’s the Telegraph remembering “Up Pompeii: oh for the days when bankers were slaves”.

Titter ye not!

Regular readers of my blog know that I find myself as often as not wondering  from where does Mr Gove gets his policies and his evidence?  I am indebted to the same readers for keeping me up-to-date, though it must be said that the Guardian newspaper is doing a pretty good job anyway. jtw@clairescourt.net finds me everytime.

Anyway, a new website has been set up by the opposition to specifically check MG’s claims and statements, in order to assist in the process of keeping schools and educators sane.

Here’s the website (http://www.goveversusreality.com), and the front cover says: “Gove Versus Reality looks at the policies pursued by Michael Gove for his radical and draconian transformation of the English education system challenging his assumptions and the evidence he advances to support his approach. Please tell friends and colleagues about this site.”

Whatever you think of the man, it is quite amazing the way now his speeches are being checked word for word.  Here’s the Guardian earlier this week: “http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/apr/19/michael-gove-education-policy-bad-buffet?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

And here’s the Guardian yesterday: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/apr/22/michael-gove-school-holidays-error

Whenever Mr Gove’s views are challenged, it is his department that then picks up the tab to make reply and support their boss.  The mood of course in the DfE is not wholly supportive, as MG has made it quite clear he is downsizing the department by 50% in terms of offices and spend, and 25% in terms of people.  Today, staff at the Department for Education (DfE) in England announced that they are to stage fresh strike action in a dispute over jobs and office closures – here’s the BBC on that: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22283311

And why I hear you thinking does an Independent School proprietor bother himself about these state school matters? The answer lies in the passion you will see about education throughout our school, be that for Nursery, main school, Sixth Form, academic or pastoral, technical or extra-curricular.  We care for the whole child, and understand that every learner is different.  We care massively that children are treated as individuals, and that all are included in the planning and execution of their provision. Never before in my career of almost 40 years in education have I witnessed a Secretary of State be so unwilling to use rigorous data and scientific method prior to making choices for our country’s children.

Yesterday evening, Richard Bolton (who leads British Youth Rowing) visited our school to talk the parents and rowers about their planning and preparation for the coming season. Talking about commercial food supplements (which are both expensive and very well marketed) Richard had this to say: “The claims they make (that they are better than food) are either ‘lies’ or ‘cheats’.  If they are lies, why would anyone buy the product?  If they are ‘cheats’, then the athletes will fail doping tests and they’ll never row for Britain.  There really is nothing better than real food for growing great rowers!”

And I’d echo that for education too.  There is nothing better than real, hands-on education for developing the whole child. Not every child can be as talented as the best, but with great planning and preparation, coaching and family support, every element of who they can be will be developed.  Education should reach every part of a child, academic, spiritual, emotional, athletic, aesthetic, artistic as well as include practice for their craft skills too; not only should we afford that, how dare we not? What the press links above highlight is that the public and profession cannot trust this MP’s rhetoric. And that makes me very angry, because this country is built upon the democratic belief that our politicians will serve the electorate that placed them in Parliament. And we are ill served when politicians lie, as if we have not had enough of their deceit already.

With the news from the states being so rotten at present, I fear clicking on the BBC news button in case of jinxing something worse to happen.  Sadly, beyond the news button on the BBC webpage is the Education button, and I have feared that now for months.  Today’s breaking news from UK education’s nemesis, Michael Gove, is that he fears that the current school day is too short, and in justifying his reasoning, he points at the far east and observes their school day is way longer.  Here’s the Guardian’s expose on MG’s claim. As ever, he is being really selective about his data; he’s very keen on PISA scores (which is why we might have an inkling as to which countries lead the way academically), and has often pointed out how well Finland does, for children of all abilities. Sadly he conveniently forgets that our arctic friends choose to have a school working week in the main is made up of 25 x 45 minutes lessons, with the school day finishing nice and early (circa 2 pm) to allow children time for other stuff.  Both Hong Kong and Singapore are rowing back massively from their formulaic rote learning approach,  looking to implement a more creative and collaborative western (nay, UK style) curriculum.  Culturally school days vary wildly across the world; Germany does pretty well on a shorter school day. France has lengthened its school day, but is banning homework. I bet you that if you took all the variations that happen in the world and then did some maths on them, you’d find that overall the average stays pretty constant over the past 30 years.

What Mr Gove ought to seek is the implementation  of a broad creative and craft-skills curriculum, in which the academic sit alongside those other skills and talents a child should develop and explore in their youth. Extension time after school almost always covers these diverse needs best, but in not enforcing it for everyone, those with other places to explore and interests to develop should be allowed to.

A large number of the children at Claires Court do have a long day, arriving circa 8 am and leaving well after 5 pm. Some have even longer hours, but it is interesting to note that diversity of time in school is what works best for us. My own children lived around the corner from school, so opted to come home to develop other interests if they did not need to stay at school for sports or clubs or events. That’s not to say they did not have to settle down to homework after supper, but hey – that’s what worked for us.

There is so much about MG’s pronouncements that have a sound-bite that seems plausible, but actually are simply both impractical and unnecessary. We do not need to develop a different way of educating people in a different type of school year. Whilst we don’t have a farming calendar any more, we do need to allow children to develop in a system that is not modelled on a 9-to-5 factory gate type processing plant. Sir Ken Robinson has written and spoken about this barren set of ideas more than sufficiently; in seeking to create children who can excel, we must shape their learning so they can find their element.  For some that will be dancing, for others academe, for yet more, tinkering with programming and engineering ideas. 

One of the great modern scientific thinkers of our generation is Ben Goldacre, and you can read his paper here on how such educational developments should be run. As well as gathering a full set of data from the current population of UK schools on both educational performance and day length, we should actually make use of some serious trials to explore actually whether changes proposed actually work in practice before insisting on wholesale change across the country. Having run my school since 1981, and fine tuned the school day based on the evidence of results obtained, our developments are very much focused on keeping children sufficiently challenged and yet fresh enough for new challenges.

When Charlie Brown’s friend Lucy, the psychologist has her booth open for a quick consultation, Charlie pops in for a chat.  By and large the medical profession tend to give evidence based solutions for the cure of patients, and equally make use of data outcomes to decide whether hospitals are safe for patients. Why on earth we don’t see some proper long term work done in this area, only heaven knows.  Politicians and government apparatchiks in education still have the power to use personal anecdote and bad science far too often!  Hence the ‘good grief’

…is it always gets worse – Bruce Cockburn (1981)

I won’t be the only one who is unfamiliar with the musical ouevres of the Canadian singer song-writer, Bruce Cockburn, but I like this quote lots*. 

Today (at the time of writing) is Monday 15 April, and for a whole variety of reasons at the start of our new school Summer term, I sense a feeling that ‘Business as usual’ is a most uncomfortable statement to make. 

The appalling bombing in Boston has reminded us that the ferocity of people’s actions knows no bounds; to target recreational spectators at such a large fund raising event is as despicable as any incident I can recall. It brings so starkly back to mind the London bombings almost 8 years ago, and the horror of these events reminds us just how vulnerable we all are.

Tomorrow I travel to London, to speak at a national computing event for junior schools at the BMA in Tavistock Square, the location of the double decker bus explosion in that series of bombings. I am aware of the big funeral event on at the same time, that being the funeral of Baroness Thatcher, the first female UK prime minister, and perhaps best known across the world since Churchill.  My fingers are of course crossed for us all, as such events so obviously provide an opportunity for target.

There has been considerable debate as to whether Thatcher’s legacy is a ‘good thing’ or not; it is interesting to note that that wider audience in the world seem to hold her memory in greater respect than those closer to hand, domicile under her governments.  Our A level History course now teaches this period of British political life, interesting now just how quickly current affairs becomes academic study of original sources! 

So my challenge to my students and of course you dear reader is to consider just how much of Thatcherite economics gave rise to the lyrics that open this blog. Cockburn’s Canadian roots have him looking more at the governments of Ronald Reagan and Pierre Trudeau; the economic woes of little Britain of 30 years ago were pretty similar across the pond too. I wonder though whether the lyrics of the song don’t actually still apply to this day, 31 years on.  That’s the thing about truths – they last the test of time! Normality as they say returned for us all to enjoy.

*Here’s the whole song from where it comes:

“Strikes across the frontier and strikes for higher wage
Planet lurches to the right as ideologies engage
Suddenly it’s repression, moratorium on rights
What did they think the politics of panic would invite?
Person in the street shrugs — “Security comes first”
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse

Callous men in business costume speak computerese
Play pinball with the Third World trying to keep it on its knees
Their single crop starvation plans put sugar in your tea
And the local Third World’s kept on reservations you don’t see
“It’ll all go back to normal if we put our nation first”
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse

Fashionable fascism dominates the scene
When ends don’t meet it’s easier to justify the means
Tenants get the dregs and landlords get the cream
As the grinding devolution of the democratic dream
Brings us men in gas masks dancing while the shells burst
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.”