Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at the Sunday Times Festival of Education at Wellington College. Tinie Tempah was there. So was Al Murray, Piers Morgan and a host of other A-list speakers. When I say they were ‘there’, I wouldn’t want you to get the impression that they were actually there in person sitting at the back of my session. That would be daft.
School improvement is complex. We all know that. Turning a school round is not easy and it takes time. An awful lot of time. We are only as good as our previous twelve months – a slight dip in attainment, perhaps a difficult cohort or a stubborn long-term staffing issue and, bam – on a bad day we could end up in a category. It can feel like it could happen overnight.
Last Thursday morning I had the pleasure of being a part of Digital Shoreditch in London. The title of my #ds15 talk was ‘Why changing the world is child’s play’. I was telling the story of the creation of our community-based social enterprise Ballot Street. In particular, I was bemoaning the national testing system and th
I probably shouldn’t be writing about this as I’m sworn to secrecy. It’s been a strange few days, all rather furtive and under the radar. On Monday evening I attended a pleasant SSAT Reform Dinner in London held under the Chatham House Rules. I must admit, I had to Google what it meant but now that I know I’m not meant to write about it, I won’t.
Not far from where I live lies the Shropshire town of Ludlow. It’s known for many things – food, medieval architecture, a castle to name but three. But what many people don’t know is that it is the UK’s first Cittaslow town. Cittaslow is a movement that originated in Italy as a rally cry against all things fast-produced. It has since evolved into a cultural trend known as the ‘slow movement’.
It shouldn’t take you too long to read this post. A little over four minutes should do it. That’s precisely how long I had to make my pitch at a recent RSA Engage speed-networking event. Hosted at the impressive Impact Hub in Birmingham, the eight fellows invited to pitch had four minutes each to get their product across to the audience before rounding it off with three ‘asks’.
Finding the time to read governmental reports is something I’m not good at. So I made a big effort over the break to get to grips with one that I’ve been carrying around with me since its publication last Autumn. It’s called Cracking the code: how schools can improve social mobility.
One of the first tasks that needs to be done when taking on a special measures school is to recalibrate the compass. They are heading in the wrong direction. It’s not that teachers aren’t working incredibly hard or lack the pedagogical know-how. It’s simply a question of them doing the wrong things.