Rsa Future Schools Network - Horizon Scanning Event
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RSA Future Schools Network Horizon Scanning Event 4th February 2008 Next Practice and the RSA Future Schools Network The radical ambition which inspired the RSA’s Opening Minds Curriculum and its new academy makes it an ideal organisation to work with The Innovation Unit’s concept of Next Practice. The Innovation Unit distinguishes between Best and Next Practice in the following way. Best Practice looks at and promotes leading educational activity for the benefit of the education system as it currently exists. Next Practice works with outstanding practitioners and other interested groups to try to take us beyond the current system into new territory, both in terms of school-based educational activity and in terms of the systems needed to nurture and develop such activity. In a piece of work under development for The Innovation Unit, Charles Leadbeater writes: Schools are central to education yet they seem also out of kilter with the way children live and will work in the future. Operating with rigid years, grades, terms and timetables they still hark back to preparation for life in the factory rather than in today’s 24/7 service economy. Traditional schools do too little to encourage individual initiative and collaborative problem solving; they cut off learning from real world experiences; they focus on cognitive skills and too little on the soft skills of sociability and mutual respect. So where are the next practices that have locally anticipated this new world and are redesigning their approach? How can a national system encourage and support transition to a new world? Are the Opening Minds Curriculum schools able to show a new collective approach to meeting the challenges set by Leadbeater? Which areas are ripe for development or have an urgent need for action? Some suggestions for consideration are: The Role of the Teacher How do teachers who are aware of these trends satisfy current demands but help lead the way to the future? What does it mean for the teacher and his/her skills and mindset if a personalised approach operates beyond the traditional organising frames of year groups and timetables? How should individual initiative and collaborative problem solving be understood and orchestrated? What skills should learners acquire that will equip them for life in a world that expects not just cognitive ability, but also certain non-cognitive skills and characteristics?
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What is the role of new technologies as the teacher’s role develops? How do you systematically work with the wider community beyond the school both as an influence on teaching and an essential resource? What are the training needs of current and future workforce? Most radically of all, do these questions lead to a permanent sea change in the distribution of notions of teaching, learning, power and authority amongst teachers, students and the wider community? If that were the case, education would inevitably move to a world where the user voice and user expectation has not only a louder say but begins to shape its discourse. Again, as Charles Leadbeater says, ‘the audience [would] have taken to the stage’. Schools, families and the wider community Without undermining the importance of the school, there is also a growing acknowledgement of the influence of family and wider community on the life chances of young people. 15% of childhood is spent in school, 85% elsewhere. The recent change of name from DfES to DCSF highlights this, as does the publication of the recent Children’s Plan. Schools do not exist in isolation. Children are subject to multiple influences, and have needs wider than can be met by narrow educational approaches. There is a need to develop a double strategy here. Both arms of this strategy will challenge many current models of schooling in profound ways. There is an obvious need to integrate all areas to do with the care and development of young people and link those to schooling; hence extended schools, multi-use sites, wrap-around care, the Sure Start agenda, early years provision, breakfast and after school clubs. In many local sites this is leading to a resolution at last of the ‘standards versus welfare’ tension and a new understanding of the type of interdisciplinary action needed to make a real difference. But where will this go next? If user voice is being developed in a new type of interaction between pupils, parents and teachers regarding classroom experience are we prepared, and do we have a strategy, for the impact of users’ voices extending to the whole gamut of children’s provision for students and families? Will young people and their parents want a say in the whole design of their extended provision? In a recent New Statesman article Matthew Taylor argues that the old approaches to collective provision for people are no longer fit for purpose. He says: The old collectivism is dead or dying. Its characteristics - hierarchical, bureaucratic, paternalistic - are no longer suited to the challenges or mood of the times. The institutions of the new collectivism must be devolved, pluralistic, egalitarian and most of all self actualising. So the challenge here is exciting. If our new approaches to teaching and curriculum are going to encourage independent, confident students and if our extended school-integrated thinking is intended to do the same for parents and communities, at what stage do we make the leap to a new concept of collectivism in our education provision? 2
New forms of organisation within and between schools The buildings of The Industrial Age of schooling had high and large windows that let in light but allowed no one to see out. Schools cannot afford to exist now cut off in this way. The challenges of a networked age need networked solutions. How should a school organise itself internally to encourage the type of collectivism needed to meet the social and digital demands on it? Without strong and confident and systematic connections beyond its own boundaries, how can it construct a successful 14-19 agenda, an Every Child Matters agenda, and a community-wide approach to communication? What does this mean for leadership and governance? A 21st century approach to curriculum and assessment The new curriculum and timetabling flexibilities proposed by QCA are broadly welcomed in many parts of the education community. In light of Leadbeater’s comments are they radical enough? Is it a case of fine tuning the current system rather than real radicalism – or good first steps towards radical solutions? What should the balance of content to process be? How do we best utilise our collective subject knowledge? How does the Opening Minds approach meet the challenge of developing and assessing collaborative working between students? There remains a balance to be struck between content and process in terms of skills of teamwork; a sense of independence as a learner and citizen; an ability to take initiative confidently and to never be passive as a learner. The Challenge Are the schools that are currently interested in the Opening Minds Curriculum able to individually and collectively develop answers to the issues above that make a next practice contribution to the debate?
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What is the role of new technologies as the teacher’s role develops? How do you systematically work with the wider community beyond the school both as an influence on teaching and an essential resource? What are the training needs of current and future workforce? Most radically of all, do these questions lead to a permanent sea change in the distribution of notions of teaching, learning, power and authority amongst teachers, students and the wider community? If that were the case, education would inevitably move to a world where the user voice and user expectation has not only a louder say but begins to shape its discourse. Again, as Charles Leadbeater says, ‘the audience [would] have taken to the stage’. Schools, families and the wider community Without undermining the importance of the school, there is also a growing acknowledgement of the influence of family and wider community on the life chances of young people. 15% of childhood is spent in school, 85% elsewhere. The recent change of name from DfES to DCSF highlights this, as does the publication of the recent Children’s Plan. Schools do not exist in isolation. Children are subject to multiple influences, and have needs wider than can be met by narrow educational approaches. There is a need to develop a double strategy here. Both arms of this strategy will challenge many current models of schooling in profound ways. There is an obvious need to integrate all areas to do with the care and development of young people and link those to schooling; hence extended schools, multi-use sites, wrap-around care, the Sure Start agenda, early years provision, breakfast and after school clubs. In many local sites this is leading to a resolution at last of the ‘standards versus welfare’ tension and a new understanding of the type of interdisciplinary action needed to make a real difference. But where will this go next? If user voice is being developed in a new type of interaction between pupils, parents and teachers regarding classroom experience are we prepared, and do we have a strategy, for the impact of users’ voices extending to the whole gamut of children’s provision for students and families? Will young people and their parents want a say in the whole design of their extended provision? In a recent New Statesman article Matthew Taylor argues that the old approaches to collective provision for people are no longer fit for purpose. He says: The old collectivism is dead or dying. Its characteristics - hierarchical, bureaucratic, paternalistic - are no longer suited to the challenges or mood of the times. The institutions of the new collectivism must be devolved, pluralistic, egalitarian and most of all self actualising. So the challenge here is exciting. If our new approaches to teaching and curriculum are going to encourage independent, confident students and if our extended school-integrated thinking is intended to do the same for parents and communities, at what stage do we make the leap to a new concept of collectivism in our education provision? 2
New forms of organisation within and between schools The buildings of The Industrial Age of schooling had high and large windows that let in light but allowed no one to see out. Schools cannot afford to exist now cut off in this way. The challenges of a networked age need networked solutions. How should a school organise itself internally to encourage the type of collectivism needed to meet the social and digital demands on it? Without strong and confident and systematic connections beyond its own boundaries, how can it construct a successful 14-19 agenda, an Every Child Matters agenda, and a community-wide approach to communication? What does this mean for leadership and governance? A 21st century approach to curriculum and assessment The new curriculum and timetabling flexibilities proposed by QCA are broadly welcomed in many parts of the education community. In light of Leadbeater’s comments are they radical enough? Is it a case of fine tuning the current system rather than real radicalism – or good first steps towards radical solutions? What should the balance of content to process be? How do we best utilise our collective subject knowledge? How does the Opening Minds approach meet the challenge of developing and assessing collaborative working between students? There remains a balance to be struck between content and process in terms of skills of teamwork; a sense of independence as a learner and citizen; an ability to take initiative confidently and to never be passive as a learner. The Challenge Are the schools that are currently interested in the Opening Minds Curriculum able to individually and collectively develop answers to the issues above that make a next practice contribution to the debate?
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