About Our Schools

Improving on previous best

Mick Waters, Tim Brighouse

• Publisher: Crown House Publishing
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781785835865
• eBook ISBN: 9781785836039
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Foreword by Danny Dorling.

Through revealing and forthright interviews with 14 secretaries of state from Kenneth Baker to Michael Gove and Gavin Williamson, together with many other leading figures in education Tim Brighouse and Mick Waters provide fascinating insights into the various evolutions and revolutions that have taken place in English state education since 1976.

In so doing they highlight key areas for improvement and assess where we should go from here to enable teachers and schools to improve the learning and broaden the horizons of each and every one of their pupils whatever their talents, challenges, advantages or problems.

Tim and Mick have both spent a lifetime in state-provided education first as pupils, then as teachers, and finally in various leadership and policy-making positions, both in and out of schools. About Our Schools is born out of their shared love for education and their appreciation of how schooling can be a transformative element in the lives of children and young people.

All royalties from sales of this book will be donated to Barnardo's and the Compassionate Education Foundation.

1

Part One

Political influence – storms, showers and sunny periods … and the realities of a changing climate in schooling

2

3

Chapter 1

School climate changes over the years

The state’s involvement in schooling and how 1976 was a turning point from one educational age to another – a brief synopsis

What sort of climate should we want?

The teacher is the most important influence in the schooling system.

We have each spent a lifetime in state-provided education, first as pupils, then as teachers and finally in various leadership positions both in and out of schools. We have never stopped learning or making mistakes from which we like to think we have sometimes learned. We know that the best teachers use pupil mistakes as a positive opportunity to learn, and we believe that the same is true of ourselves and the other professionals with whom we have worked and to whom we owe so much. Our endeavour has always been to improve on previous best.

This book has been born out of a shared passion for education as it occurs in schools, where it can so often be transformative of children and young people’s lives. Teachers at their best – and we have witnessed myriad examples of this – change for the better the attitudes and future trajectory of young lives. We agree with the wisdom and judgement of Haim Ginott when he famously said: ‘I have come to a frightening conclusion. I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous.’1

4Nor do we disagree with Robert Fried’s judgement:

Of some of our teachers, we remember their foibles and mannerisms, of others, their kindness and encouragement, or their fierce devotion to standards of work that we probably did not share at the time. And of those who inspired us most, we remember what they cared about, and that they cared about us, and the person we might become. It is the quality of caring about ideas and values, this fascination with the potential for growth within people, this depth and fervour about doing things well and striving for excellence, that comes closest to what I mean in describing a ‘passionate teacher’.2

In our experience as pupils, we were each fortunate when we met such teachers and the ones who, as Fried says, ‘inspired us most’, and know of their effect on us. In our adult lives, in and around schools, we have witnessed the sometimes profound impact of a teacher on pupils and sought to spread it and improve the chances of it occurring more often and more widely. Dylan Wiliam is surely right when he reminds teachers in workshops that their individual effectiveness is the most significant influence on pupil success and that this can explain why variations in quality and outcome within a school are greater than that between schools.

But we also think that the school is powerfully influential too. It creates the ‘climate’ within which the teacher has a better or worse chance of making the best ‘weather’. That is why consideration of school improvement, which only surfaced as a concept with research by Michael Rutter at the very start of the period we have chosen to examine, is so important in the improvement of pupil experiences and outcomes that has occurred in our lifetimes.

To extend the search for improved schooling and pupil outcomes, we must also look beyond the school itself. The climate and the weather are affected deliberately (and indirectly by many other factors, such as the community and the socio-economic background of the individual families that the school serves) by two further agents: first, by the MAT and/or the local authority within which the school operates and, second, and most insistently, by central government through the secretary of state for education, the DfE and other central agencies such as the Office for 5Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) and the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual).

That is why we sought to interview some of the key civil servants and special advisers (SpAds), as well as the former secretaries of state who were available, since the Ruskin College speech by Prime Minister Jim Callaghan in October 1976, which launched what was described as the ‘Great Debate’ about education and the schooling system.3 We chose 1976 as the starting point for our story because it punctuates the period from 1945 to the present day. Before 1976 was an age which might be dubbed one of optimism and trust (probably misplaced), and afterwards one of markets, centralisation and managerialism, while the speech itself was given during a period of doubt and disillusion when the developments in schooling set up at the end of the Second World War were called into question.

We have focused on what we might learn from this second period – as well as acknowledging what the early phase taught us – because we feel that the time is ripe. We also want to take the best of ‘what is’ and speculate about ‘what might be’ to improve on our ‘previous best’ – always the quest of successful teachers, whether in respect of their own practice or that of their pupils. In short, it is time to move towards a new age, just as happened in the 1970s as we transitioned from optimism and trust to markets, centralisation and managerialism.

Despite its undoubted successes, there are similar doubts gathering now about the effectiveness of this present age in meeting present and future needs in what is a world of accelerating change. That change comes in many forms – social, technological and natural – and it will be confronted and solved or harnessed by the present and future generations of educated citizens. Our schools and schooling system need to be sure they are preparing all our present and future pupils to live confidently as fulfilled citizens in a world affected by climate change, the global shift of populations, the application of artificial intelligence and robotics refined by nanotechnology, as well as the changes ushered in by the creation and expansion of the World Wide Web, meaning that use of the internet and its associated technologies will have profound implications for curriculum, pedagogy and assessment and how to handle the revolution in human communications. All our practitioner witnesses were profoundly 6worried about the impact of social media on children, adolescents and parents.

We will therefore explore the elements external to the school which influence how successful teachers and schools can be in raising the competence, learning and horizons of all their students, whatever their talents, challenges, advantages or problems. In doing so, we try to be led by the evidence, although we are aware of the pitfalls of ‘evidence-based policy’, even though it is now a phrase widely used by decision-makers at all levels of the schooling system.

What should we expect schools to be achieving, and what are the values that underpin those purposes?

Hovering in the background, however, is another powerful influence on policy-makers and those in leadership positions – namely, the values and beliefs we all hold, together with what we think the aims of schools and the schooling system should be. Let us therefore be explicit: if we had to create agreed aims for our schooling system, which surprisingly are not set out for England or the United Kingdom as a whole, we might start with the list below.

We want our children to understand through their schooling that:

It will be their duty as adults to guard and participate in a representative democracy that values national and local government. To that end, schools will progressively involve students in many aspects of school life and the community in which the school and the families are located.

Their religious faith and beliefs will be respected and they will be encouraged through their schooling to respect all faiths and the humanist position.

The many differently rewarded jobs and careers, which are vital to the well-being and practical operation of our society and 7others elsewhere in the world, are open to them. These include producing our food, construction and manufacturing, providing energy, medicine and care, logistics, information and entertainment, defending us, making and upholding our laws, cleaning up our mess and doing the tasks that only few can face, caring for our world and working to support less fortunate people and causes, offering solace and helping others to learn, perhaps in classrooms, libraries, galleries or museums. This kaleidoscope of employed and self-employed opportunities, available in the private, public and voluntary sectors, is ever changing and expanding under the influence of accelerating political, economic, social and technological developments.

These careers require differing talents and schooling experiences will be based on valuing them as individuals and equipping them with the values, attitudes, knowledge and skills to make a successful and rewarding contribution to society as adults, in and out of work.

They will be encouraged and expected to think for themselves and act for others through their life at school and in the community. They will be aware of how decisions are reached and how actions can work to solve or create problems. In doing so, they will explore and understand the range of obligations, contributions, rights and choices open to them in our own and other societies.

They will build a desire to learn and a love of learning by being offered a range of learning opportunities that will reap more benefit if they commit to learning and seek further learning experiences in other positive contexts.

They will encounter through their schooling experiences expert help in acquiring a foundation of skills and knowledge which will allow them to survive and flourish in our own and other societies.

They will be thirsty to learn about the way civilisation has sought to solve its problems and made incredible discoveries and achievements, while also, at times, making mistakes. 8

They will have the ability to navigate media, including social media, and become critical and discerning users of developments in this field.

They will be equipped to make good arguments for a just cause by understanding the views of others and thereby influencing their social and political environment.

They will understand and appreciate that our world is comprised of people from different cultures, races and orientations and be aware of the ways that power can be exercised with care or can be abused and that people can be respected and valued or exploited and persecuted. Their actions in the present and the future will reflect an understanding of our civilisation’s past accomplishments as well as acknowledging that some of those achievements have come at the cost of prejudiced and flawed thinking.

They will recognise their responsibility to protect the planet and contribute by living sustainably with the aim of preserving biodiversity and limiting global warming.

Our experience tells us that there would be a broad consensus of agreement about these purposes. Some might wish to question specific wording or terminology, to add or amend, but what we want from our school system will be largely acceptable albeit with different emphases. It is when we come to values that the tensions seem to arise. Some of our values are implicit in this list but not all. Some will be contested but it is important to be explicit, so here they are.

We believe that:

Pupils need different approaches and experiences at different times, and teachers are in the best position to judge the approach and, with support from the school, secure those experiences.

Teachers are at their best when pupils are persuaded to be striving always to see their previous best work as a marker 9against which to improve, develop or extend, while giving due consideration to making sure their recent learning is secure.

We therefore need to make it a top priority to secure and then continuously support high-quality teachers and support staff.

What works for one teacher may not work for another, be they equally good, but some practices are better than others and research should provide the evidence.

The context in which teachers work will vary their approach to teaching.

The best teachers treat children as they might become rather than as they (sometimes infuriat...

Table of contents

• Praise
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Foreword by Danny Dorling
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• List of abbreviations
• List of contributors
• Part One: Political influence – storms, showers and sunny periods … and the realities of a changing climate in schooling
• Part Two: The confused and disputed arenas – the occluded fronts
• Part Three: Overcoming barriers to success: institutional barriers and obstacles to pupil fulfilment – the doldrums
• Part Four: An age of hope, ambition and collaborative partnerships – brighter spells ahead
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the authors
• Copyright