 |
The UK's Leading Education 'Do-Tank' |
Search |
|
The National Education Trust is an independent charitable foundation dedicated to the promotion and sharing of excellent practice and innovation in education. |
|
A new playing field or a different game? Mick Waters Click here for a print version of this article. I find myself in all sorts of settings discussing the world of learning. From trying to teach a class of teenagers, to sitting with head teachers grappling with the next set of demands and accountability targets in their autonomous worlds, to leading a workshop or speaking at a conference for teachers, parents, governors or employers, to being at a 'think tank' with politicians wondering where next. Incidentally, wouldn't it be terrific if all children saw their classrooms as 'think tanks'? In all these settings, over the past few months there has been considerable talk about the changing landscape of learning. The new government's decentralised-control approach is markedly different from Labour's centralised autonomy. Labour pushed decision making towards interdependent schools but still controlled the policy agenda; Excellence in Cities demanded that specialist school status was sought to meet the needs of the community of schools; Education Action Zones were driven by the community rallying round a set of schools and children's service agencies. The coalition has decentralised the whole thing: free schools, academies and chains are all free to pursue their own agenda released from the shackles of a national curriculum that is being reviewed. The freedom of action, though, is controlled centrally through a set of implicit or explicit targets. The EBacc is affecting the learning offer in secondary schools and will influence primaries in due course. Teach what you think important locally…to save you thinking, we will tell you it is phonics. It is fascinating to hear those who have been in the education service for a long while as they grapple with the challenge of their working world shifting on its axis. How do we accommodate change? How do we hold to what we believe in the face of this upheaval, how do we make it work for the good of children's learning? These are not Luddite questions, just people trying to work out how to hang on as a tornado of ideology sweeps through the environment they have worked so hard to create. What I have realised recently is that there is another group of people who are also talking in this new world, and they have a very different outlook. These are the people new to the playing field: the sponsors of academies and the promoters of free schools; the executives, the boards, the trustees. While five-day test match cricketers come to terms with the modern form of the game, new age cricketers just get on with 20:20. While the school governors of the previous world wonder how to accommodate and moderate the new world, these people only know the new world and are unencumbered by making the past fit. There is no past. Fascinating. The difference in outlook between the new and old players on the pitch will lead us to some challenging considerations in the coming months and years. The major difference is in the perception of what is on offer. The new arrivals grasp their challenge of running schools as units to deliverer required outcomes. Much as a retailer or cinema would measure sales or footfall, so they set their targets for their schools. The experienced players seem to think they are running education and schools as part of a bigger set of outcomes. This leads them to consider and question the very heart of their working world: the notion of being a public servant that many have lived with throughout their careers. This brings to a head the unspoken debate of the last few years when Blair's 'education, education, education' really meant 'schooling, schooling, schooling' as the target driven approach beat the Every Child Matters agenda to a pulp. Whilst we larded it up with the use of 'learning' as a cosy word, the league tables, the floor targets and the inspection judgements saw the emphasis on how well children were schooled rather than educated. Pupils became a currency as test results grew in importance…and nobody is saying that reading, writing and number are not vital. The new players simplify the task - no bad thing. They respond to the centralised control and deliver the required outcomes through their pupils, and they do it in the most attractive ways they can muster. Collectively, they might miss a bigger picture of an element of English education which is at the heart of the system, though rarely realised; that education, rather than schooling, is part of the democratic fabric of society. Of course, there are people caught in the middle of the pitch as the game changes: the true public servants who find themselves in the market driven team. Some adapt and accept the new game. Others wonder whether going along with it is fine, but there might be something more sincere and honest about the old game. It's never over until the final whistle but the game is changing for ever. Should the pitch be left to the recent arrivals in the new game? Or are there some fundamentals that need to be further examined? Mick Waters is a National Education Trust Leading Thinker. |
| Phone (44) (0)207 702 0707 |
Follow us on  |
Support NET
|
Join our mailing list |
Buy NET products online |
| Copyright © National Education Trust 2012 The National Education Trust asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this web site. Unless otherwise specified, all material on this website may be used for non-commercial purposes, on condition that the source is acknowledged. The National Education Trust is not responsible for the content of external websites. |
|||