The whole is the greater than the sum of its parts.

Since developing the idea for the school and researching alternative approaches, one aspect of the school that has become increasingly important to us is building strong ongoing relationships with the community. To develop this we have started to build our 'community cloud'.

This will be a searchable database of local people and businesses that are willing to share some of their time and expertise with the children, helping the children's projects have an audience outside of the school and a valued outcome.

The amount and level of support would be completely up to the community member for example;

A local florist may be willing to have a group of our youngest children come to visit to see how the shop works.

Or maybe someone who has lived or was born in a different country may be willing to answer an email interview of their experiences.

A local grandmother may volunteer to read with the children once a week. 

Or a local business may be willing to assist in the planning and ongoing development of a project. Even this could vary dramatically, as someone may find it possible to Skype once a week to discuss a project, or if we are lucky they may even be willing to have a student spend time in their work place. Either way we would hope that by working together the students would be able to develop truly useful outcomes for their projects, things that could be implemented  in a real world setting.

We are really lucky to have already had people offer their support. We would love to continue to broaden the skills and experiences we can offer to the children. If you feel you would be able to donate some of your time to our community, or know someone who you think would be brilliant please email us at curiouserandco@icloud.com

I believe that children are the FutureWimbledon

This Tuesday I attended the Future Wimbledon conference, hosted by Love Wimbledon and the borough of Merton. It was a conference mainly aimed at local businesses and other stake-holders, to share what hopes they have for the development of the area.

I went along, as we feel that it is very important that our school's vision and approach supports and enhances this development, and I am really excited about both the ideas for SW19 as well as the role our school could play in it.

One possible direction is the idea of further developing Wimbledon's cultural offerings, to create a creative arts hub. This would include our fantastic theatres, the possible building of a new concert venue (to host the Wimbledon International Music Festival among other things), Wimbledon Film Studios and the work the prestigious Wimbledon Art College.

Another theme that emerged with MP Stephen Hammond, and then continued through the day, was that of Wimbledon as "Tech Suburb". There are already a number of tech companies located in the area and they hope to attract more such businesses to the area.

We believe that our school could both benefit and support these ambitions. Our approach to education is built on the children having hands on practical experiences, and we feel that the children working with experts in a range of fields, including the creative arts, will lead to their discovering and developing their talents. As well as offering a space for new graduates to explore and try their on ideas, in a safe and supportive environment. By being surrounded by world class examples from across this area can only further motivate the children to succeed.

Another aspiration of our school is to future-proof our students. This means the children being resilient and adaptive learners, but also reflects our desire for them to be comfortable and fluent with the all new technologies. In this way we would hope that local tech companies would share their expertise with us by joining our "community cloud", and we would help ensure that they have a talented pool of young talent to join their business.

A secondary project based learning school that has got the go ahead.

A couple of weeks ago now, the Government published the list of free schools that have been accepted to pre-opening. It is really heartening to see some schools who have a similar ethos and vision to us on this list.

One school that we are really pleased to see get the go ahead is Xp School in Doncaster. It is great news that a school aiming to provided a personalised, project based learning environment for the secondary phase has been supported in this way. It gives us confidence in our own aims, both in finding like minded educators and in that the Government is open to supporting such innovation.

Their school's vision in their words,  from their website.

We believe that every school’s goal should be to prepare our children to be successful in the adult world.

To do this best, we believe that schools should be tightly integrated into the community, and be focused on creating academically rigorous, authentic experiences that bring our children closer to this goal.

In the USA, there are three particular organisations that have been practicing this for over a decade to astounding success. Their children are articulate and confident, and possess not only deep subject knowledge, but the wider skills and competencies needed to be successful in the 21st century.

XP.’s mission is to expedite this model of learning in the UK, and will do this by;

• bringing like minded individuals and organisations together through a communication hub
• organising events that allow us to learn the model and implement it in schools in the UK
• opening XP. schools and effectively walking the walk as well as talking the talk.

I contacted the lead applicant, Gwyn ap Harri, and yet again, as with everyone I have met through the Free School process, found him to be generous with his time and advice. Below are some of his insights into the process and his personal motivations.

What inspired you to apply to open a free school?

My whole career has brought me to this point, whether it’s fate or serendipity, I don’t know. There’s been something driving me towards opening a world class school for many years now. When I saw High Tech High and the work Expeditionary Learning was doing in the states, I was overwhelmed with a moral imperative to take the chance now and do something about it.

Were you the main instigator? How did you build your team?

Yes. I’ve built teams all my life. I wasn’t the best footballer in school, but I was the captain. I’ve been in a number of bands, collecting like minded people and taking them along a journey. I guess I just declared I was going to do it, and pushed myself down the hill. People joined me, and we created a very strong team. It was obvious to anyone that we could do what we said, because as a team we were doing it day in day out. I just asked the right people, with a lot of passion and belief.

What are the most important aspects of your school to you?

That we will not falter or veer from the most important aspect of what education is all about. We will prepare our children to be successful in the adult world in the best way possible, by showing them how to be human beings. Everything else is important, the way we deliver the curriculum, the way we develop our teachers etc but it’s not as important as our children growing into beautiful human beings.

What did you find the hardest part of the process?

Getting our ideas on paper in the structure of the application in a way that anyone could understand it. I found it really hard that the first application is just on paper. I was sure that if we got to the interview, we would get it. Luckily, we got the interview!

What surprised you most about the process?

The help that the New Schools Network gave us with our application made our application a million times better. They guided us expertly towards making sure all our bases were covered. I was surprised at the quality and rigour of that help. They were excellent.

If you were to give one piece of advice to someone hoping to set up a free school what would it be?

Just be honest with yourself and make sure this is 100% what you want to do in your life. It’s not easy, and it shouldn’t just be a dream. You should want the reality of it. If you’re sure, you’ll get it because you’ll do everything you need to do.

The child/student, our first notes on Visual Learning

Hattie's main argument in this section of his book is that students enter school not only with prior achievements, but also personal dispositions, and that these dispositions can then have an impact on the outcomes of schooling.

He identifies the key dispositional ingredients as:

1. the way the child is open to new experiences;
2. the child's emerging beliefs about the value and worth of investing in learning;
3. the manner in which they learn that they can build a sense of self from their engagement in the learning enterprise:

He explains that although children enter the school with these, they can be changed by the school, and that they need to be nurtured in order to raise achievement. He states that many feel that such dispositions to learning should be used as performance indicators of the school. This is something that we will look to incorporate into our school assessment. 

The personality attribute that is identified as critical is that of openness to new experiences.

"Openness to experiences involves the willingness (and it is an active process) to experience new ideas, to think outside the box, and of not being tied to one way of thinking. It involves a motivation to explore ideas, and to invest in the process of learning."

We hope that the approach of our school will actively support and develop this disposition, by encouraging children to pose their own questions and offering the time, space and access to expertise to find their own solutions. They will have the time to fully explore the ideas that interest them, and as they will have chosen their path we believe they will be more invested in the process. As a staff we will be there to support the students in linking their time and effort to the learning they are achieving, making this connection explicit.

Background

In the book they also identify that by the time a child enters school there have been a range of factors that have played a "major role in generating subsequent differences in school-based achievement" including prior achievement and lack of academic success. As a school, we should be looking into what we can offer to support these very young families in creating strong home learning environments. We feel very committed to the idea of the school reaching the community beyond school age, both before and after. This community aspect could be built into the students experience, embedded in our curriculum, so when planning a project they would look at how they could involve or support the community. For example creating and producing plays for pre-schoolers, writing stories and running a story time at the library, devising games and spending time as play workers in the local parks.

Creativity is also identified as another prior influence on achievement. It has been found that "Programs with more hands-on activities had stronger effects than those relying on more passive methods" "Those activities that directly adressed students' initial understandings were much more powerful than those which focused more on presentation of accurate scientific information with less attention to students' current understanding" As a school, our vision is for children to build their learning on practical experiences. To investigate their ideas, test, explore and update their thinking through this process. As the children will be leading their learning, being supported in posing their own questions as well as discovering the answers, it will always start from what they already know/understand and build upon this.

Each of the chapters had a great deal of detail, and would make enormous blog posts, so I have made notes on this sub-section of Background, in my next post from this book I will continue onto Attitudes and dispositions.

Another like minded group aiming to set up a free school.

Since starting this project, I have been blown away by the kindness and generosity of people also involved in the process. I have also been heartened to find others putting children at the centre of their plans. Once such group is the Canterbury Free School, who are aiming to apply in the same round as us.  They have kindly written an introduction to their vision and experience, we have our fingers crossed for them.

We are a group of parents and teachers based in Canterbury who are working towards setting up a primary Free School with the aim of opening in September 2015, based on the principles of the Reggio Emilia approach.  Our vision is that our school will be a welcoming and inclusive place where all children, families and teachers are valued as capable individuals who learn best together.  We will champion independent thinking, cultivate healthy social-emotional development, and will be rooted in our community and the natural environment.  We aim to raise educational standards with our unique curriculum, which will driven by our children’s interests and innate love of learning, setting them on the path to future success.

What inspired you to apply to open a free school?

We want to provide an education that encourages children to have a lifelong passion and enthusiasm for learning, with a flexible, skills-based curriculum that allows children to explore their own interests.

Who was the main instigator? How did you build your team?

Amy and Zoe are both teachers with young children.  We were concerned about the things we dislike about primary education at the moment, such as too much teaching to the test, a very rigid and prescriptive curriculum, lots of government interference, a heavy focus on data and test results and so on.  We feel very strongly that this is not the best way for children to learn.  We talked about homeschooling, and then we found that a lot of other parents had the same concerns as us so we thought, why not set up a homeschooling school, and the idea has evolved from there!  We have so far built our team through word of mouth and social media, although we are now approaching local businesses for support.

What are the most important aspects of your school to you?

It's really important to us to have an extended Foundation Stage to age 6, as research shows this gives children the best possible start.  We also won't compromise on having a curriculum that can be adapted according to children's interests.  Assessment for learning will also be a key feature in our school, based on portfolios of children's work rather than formal written tests.  Another key aspect of our school is the Forest School, where we hope to have children in the forest one full day each week, all year round.  Basically we want to focus on learning and what is best for the children, rather than on data.

What are you finding the hardest part of the process?

At the moment everyone in our steering group is a parent with young children at home, this makes for a considerable juggling act and lots of late nights!  

What has surprised you most about the process?

We have been surprised that everyone involved with the process has taken us so seriously and really respects our vision and ethos.  We were concerned that because our approach is a bit different to the norm that people would see us as a bit 'alternative' and 'out there' but so far everyone has been very supportive, perhaps because we have worked hard to back up all our ideas with evidence.

Visible Learning, thoughts based on John Hattie

I came across John Hattie's book only last year, slightly late, but being hailed as the Holy Grail of teaching I thought it was definitely worth my time to read and attempt to digest.

On reading one of the introductory chapters, this section resonated with what I am hoping to achieve with the school.

"The remarkable feature of the evidence is that the biggest effects on student learning occur when teachers become learners of their own teaching, and when students become their own teachers. When students become their own teachers they exhibit the self-regulatory attributes that seem most desirable for learners (self-monitoring, self-evaluation, self-assessment, self-teaching).

With the approach of the school being so fluid and responsive to the children I believe that the teachers who work there will definitely need to be "learners of their own teaching".Working with the students to  create the best possible experiences to support their development. With this being an ever changing task the teacher will not have the opportunity to become complacent and know that they can just churn out the same lessons year on year, they will be kept on their toes. From my own experience of working this way in the Early Years, it is initially scary, but is also so much more interesting and exciting for both teacher and student, and ultimately led to much more enriching opportunities for both.

Also the students will be trusted to be "their own teachers", by this of course I don't mean they will be left on their own to get on with it, but they will encouraged to build on the independence skills, supported in the EYFS, throughout their schooling. They will be afforded the time to fully explore their ideas, to look critically at their discoveries and decide how to move forward.

I have decided that it would be a useful exercise for me to work through the findings of this book and think about how these ideas are incorporated into our proposed school, and if they are not think carefully about why not,

The book is structured around six factors:

1. the child;
2. the home;
3. the school;
4. the curricula
5. the teacher
6. the approaches to teaching

So I will follow this structure in my posts. I would love any thoughts and feedback on these musings as hopefully this will be an important learning experience for me and strengthen the school proposal.

West Newcastle Academy

Some local papers have been very kind and written articles about my efforts to try and start the school. I was really pleased when someone contacted me via an article on the YourTownWimbledon. The man who contacted me was Phil Garner, who is part of the group that has set up a free school called the West Newcastle Academy (WNA). On reading their website I was even more excited.

The school shares lots of the same values and approaches that I would like to incorporate. Phil is lovely and has kindly offered to give us the benefit of his knowledge and experience of not only setting up a free school but also of running a school.

Phil has many years' experience in teaching and leading schools, he was formerly the Head of Newcastle School for Boys. He kindly took some time out to answer a few questions on the motivation and ethos behind setting up WNA, as well as the actual process. I am sure we will find more questions to ask as we progress along this journey.

What inspired you to apply to open a free school?

I am passionate about learning and how many state schools are not providing either an appropriate

curriculum or appropriate learning and teaching styles.  I wanted to focus on Performing Arts as well as 

Personalised Learning.

Were you the main instigator? How did you build your team?

Initially I wanted to start my own Free School in Sunderland but decided to work with Kids n Us in

Newcastle to ensure a successful application.  We are now considering opening 3 or 4 more in the North East.

What are the most important aspects of your school to you?

That it serves the community, that it works with parents who want a better learning experience for their children, that it focuses on learning and ensuring children are well prepared for life.  

What did you find the hardest part of the process?

Firstly getting enough expertise and volunteers to do all the essential preparation work. Completing the

application forms and having the stamina to keep going through the various meetings, briefings, debriefings, interviews, rewrites etc.

What surprised you most about the process?

How helpful, knowledgeable and supportive the New Schools Network are. They are the biggest source of help and information for you. 

If you were to give one piece of advice to someone hoping to set up a free school what would it be?

Have a clear vision and do not be diverted from your essential beliefs about what you are 

trying to achieve.  

Introductory Meeting

So yesterday was the day of my initial meeting for parents and interested parties. I was very nervous as I didn't know if anyone was coming, I had had some people email to show interest but I had also had some saying that although they had hoped to attend they were now unable to. My unsettled feelings must have passed on to my baby who decided that me getting any sleep was a silly idea.

So we headed off early, which was a good thing as when we got to the Polka theatre, we discovered that the projector cable did not fit to my mac, small panic. Luckily my husband had was in Wimbledon with my oldest, so a quick visit to Stormfront saved the day.

Then people began to arrive, a trainee journalist and local councillor were the first, adding to my panic, then some parents arrived. Neil (my husband) was keeping the my oldest entertained outside with a light-sabre or 2, and my mum was there to help with the baby, although he did initially help me with the presentation.

Once I started talking I felt a lot less nervous, and actually really enjoyed the opportunity to share the idea. At the end of my presentation there was also a really good question and answer session, and the parents seemed really interested and engaged. I was over the moon that after the meeting all the parents expressed interest in being involved.

I am going to start a FAQ post that I will update as I get more questions and as I find out more answers. If you were unable to attend the meeting and have any questions about the schools vision please have a look at My school idea in a nutshell post, and if this doesn't help please email me at curiouserandco@icloud.com

My first meeting with the New School Network

As part of making the decision to see if I can take this school idea forward, I have contacted some people who have experience with this process. So far the education community have all been really helpful and supportive. All of the people I spoke to gave me the same advice, get in touch with the New Schools Network, which was good as I had already booked myself on to an introductory morning at their London offices.

They are the charity that support groups through the free school application process. I was really excited about the meeting.

I found my way to their offices a few minutes before the meeting was about to start. Being there on my own I must have looked slightly awkward while pouring my glass of water, so one of the NSN staff took pity on me and came to chat. All the staff are young and attractive, definitely the face of free schools.

The day started with all the visitors together and an introduction what the NSN do. It was interesting seeing the other prospective applicants, it was mainly mainstream, but there was also Alternative provision and Special school applicants there too. Also interesting that of the 5 mainstream schools, 3 were specific community oriented, Greek, Turkish and Russian.

For the rest of the session we were divided up by the type of school we were hoping to open, and then talked through the first steps of defining the schools vision, building the team and gathering evidence of demand.

It was very helpful and reassuring to know that there are people that you can go to to answer any questions that arise. I have the feeling that once you are involved in the process there will be many many questions arising!

My first meeting this Saturday

A month ago I decided to be more proactive in seeing if I can move this idea along. I feel so passionately about it that I think I would always regret not trying.

My first step is to have a meeting to share my idea with local parents and interested people. To achieve this I have had to learn a few things. I have discovered Mailchimp and created an email invite. I have started a Facebook page, this was a big step as it meant that I had to put my idea infront of all my friends and family. It's weird really that the people who care about me most felt like the scariest audience too. I have also had flyers printed and put them in public places, as well as sprung them on unsuspecting parents walking down the street. I am excited about the meeting, obviously nervous, nervous of no-one coming, nervous of lots of people coming and generally hoping I can do the idea justice.

So if I have not managed to invite you to the meeting in any of these ways please let me invite you now.

I would love you to join me at 10.30 this Saturday the 6th of April in the learning annexe at the Polka theatre. 

"You have to grind to be awesome."

I love this video, another discovery I made through David Price, although I think this time via the Innovation Units blog.


Oasis Skateboard Factory – Curriculum by Design from CEA / ACE on Vimeo.

Craig Morrison started the skateboard school after running a skateboard art class for 3 years. Motivated by its success, he pitched the idea of starting a satelite program. Although he says it was a leap of faith, it seems to be proving itself with fantastic results.

There is detailed description of how and what they cover at the school here and here
But here are a few examples of what and how they cover some curriculum areas

• English grouping, english, media and leadership, a focus on business writing- writing technical specs of there products, produce their own zine distributed and sold at art shows, write for a professional skateboard magazine.

• For leadership, students become teachers through workshops in local schools and youth arts programs.

• Business credits including entrepreneurship and marketing- run in partnership a local business. The students experience building there own company, branding, production and merchandise.

• Visual and street art.

• and of course skateboard design

These are just a few highlights gathered from a Canada Education article, which has lots more detail, but I think the kids put it best in the video.

They'd just play Xbox wouldn't they?

On a previous post, I wrote about the apparent lack of student engagement. 

From my own experience in the Early Years, I have always felt that by allowing the children to choose their context, you enable everyone's (adult's and child's) time and energy to be spent actually learning - rather than fighting each other. 

As such, to me, a child-led project based approach has always seemed the best way to achieve higher levels of student engagement throughout school. However, one of the things that I believe holds this approach back is that we have a real trust issue with our children. 

This was demonstrated during an interview that Joe Harrison of Slow Education, and Andy Raymer from the fantastic Matthew Moss High school (MMHS) did on BBC Breakfast. 

At MMHS, they have developed 'My World', a project based learning section to their curriculum. They believe in the children being in the centre of the process, choosing what and how they learn. 

It's a belief that's seen great results with definite improvements in the children's dispositions towards learning. But like the journalist in the video below, for the most part society doesn't trust our children to want to learn. 

The answer to the "Won't they just play on Xbox?" question being a montage of the students' ideas of what they would choose to learn, is perfect and should reassure any doubters.

Slow School Vox Pop NOVEMBER 16th from Nikki O'Rourke on Vimeo.

And on a whole other level of what children can achieve on their own, there's the brilliant and charming, Sugata Mitra. His TED talk is amazing and underlines, in red many times, how much we underestimate children. I'm beginning to think that school actually just holds children back...

Lack of pupil interest

We often hear that children are disengaged at school. They're bored and don't see the point of what they are learning. Or the only point they see is to pass the test. I remember asking my teachers whether what we were learning would be in the exam, as if it wasn't why would I need/want to know it?

There has been lots written about student engagement and I'm sure I have only scraped the surface. One blog I found, Wright's room, Shelley references research that says that between 50-70% of children are not engaged at school, which surely translates as at least that many not reaching their full potential?

I find It interesting talking to people about this. Some feel it is the children's problem, the 'it wasn't like that in my day" crowd. But I have a feeling it was. On David Price's blog, he discusses how engagement is confused with compliance, and my hunch is that in years gone by we maybe just had more compliance. But quiet "well behaved" disengaged children are surely still under achieving. My first headteacher used to say it was funny how teachers were judged by how long they could get children to sit quietly on the carpet for, as this had little to do with their learning. The 'well-behaved' class may just be a class of children who have perfected the 'art of sleeping with their eyes open.' 

In the Early Years, we work hard to follow the children's interests, creating interesting and challenging new experiences within this context, valuing their own ideas and supporting their explorations and investigations. It has always seemed crazy to me that as the children get older and more able to understand what they need to learn we reduce their freedom in how they do it. 

Again on Shelley Wright's blog she defines engagement as "a genuine disposition for self-directed, deep learning, fostered from an early age and continues life long." During my time as an Early Years teacher I was involved in the Effective Early Learning study, which looked at child involvement and adult engagement as ways of assessing the quality of a setting. Through having the time to actually watch the children I was privileged enough to see these very young children independently exhibiting those dispositions. Surely it is our job to continue to nurture these rather than squash them.

 A further study mentioned by Shelley seems to indicate some level of squashing, as Covington & Dray (2001) found that the longer a child is in school the less academically competent they feel. This reminds me of John Holt, he felt that children are amazing self motivated learners from infancy and that when they get to school, the very place where that should enhance this, they discover 'learning' is something they are not good at, don't enjoy or want to do anymore. Here is a link to School is bad for children an article he wrote in 1969

I have worked with some amazing and creative teachers who worked very hard to make the learning more engaging for their class. So much energy went on making the learning entertaining because fundamentally the children weren't interested in what they were being taught. I really believe we can tackle this problem by allowing the children to lead their learning, choose their context, and I think this is a matter of trust. Sadly we just don't trust children to make good choices but I think we are wrong...

Gever Tulley

Another inspirational person I discoverd through TED.
I had heard the fuss in the media about the book '50 dangerous things (you should let your kids do) but had/have never read it, but it had obviously sunk in enough for to me to remember Gever Tulley's name. So when I saw he had a couple of TED talks I watched them. This was the first one.



I love this approach. Although I was never brave enough to have power tools in my early years class rooms (I doubt my school would have been too keen either), the kids did use real tools. I remember being very anxious the first time I had hammers and saws out, but the children were brilliant. It was one of those activities that guaranteed focus and enthusiasm.  And since becoming a mum and making friends with people much more able than me my little boy has had lots of fun..

.

I think children getting to experience these activities and watch skilled people use these tools for real purposes is so valuable. I wish I had more opportunities like that when I was young. 

I became a bit of a Gever fan, he seemed to be on a similar journey to me in regards to questioning todays schooling. Another of his TED talks was Reimagining Education. This talk goes through the modern school system as well as looking into other options including "unschooling." I had always been quite prejudiced about the idea of home schooling but after reading some of John Holt's books and talking to friends had I become interested in, and sympathetic to the approaches. There were a couple of quotes from this speech than have stuck with me and inspire me to keep thinking.

"Nothing is better than public school"

"It's time to do less, and by doing less allow children to do more."

Gever Tulley has then gone on to open a school, Brightworks in San Fransisco.
This is the description of the school from their website;

Brightworks is a school that reimagines K-12 education. By taking the best practices from both early childhood education and hands-on, project-based experiential learning, we strive to meet students’ needs in a flexible, mixed-age environment that breaks the traditional walls between school and the community outside the classroom. We offer a broad-spectrum learning environment designed to encourage creative capacity, tenacity, and citizenship.

Sounds fantastic, doesn't it? 

My under informed knee-jerk reaction to changing ratios

Ok so this is slightly off topic for what I meant this blog to do. But the governments announcement about how they intend to improve early years has got all my friends (the actual people I know on facebook as well as the clever people I stalk on twitter) very upset and I completely agree!
So my very basic take is this, yes it's great that early years staff should need to hold better qualifications and that we should respect the people we put in charge of raising our babies when we are not there, and yes to enable those parents who want/need to go back to work this needs to be affordable. This has always struck me as a bit of a catch 22, and I'm pretty sure changing the ratios is not the way to go about this.
We entrust the staff at nurseries with the lives of our tiniest members of society, asking them to nurture them, care for them and educate them in our absence. To me this feels like it should be expensive. I can't think of much else more valuable than that!
The new ratios would see the ratios being changed to 1:4 for the under 1s and 1:6 for 2 year olds. This seems crazy! OK again the staff will be expected to be better qualified but I'm not sure that actually helps too much. I am a teacher qualified to masters level but this has not helped me sprout more arms, more eyes or be able to slow time.
Zoe Williams wrote an entertaining article in the guardian today, where she looked after 6 toddlers. Chaos ruled, and she makes light hearted comments about how you would need to keep them in smaller areas and how taking them out would be even more of a challenge.
It worries me that in a time when there is already concern that we protect our children too much and are too risk averse that these changes will encourage this even more. Will nurseries not have to really think carefully about every activity they make available (even more than now) to make sure that they are all really completely safe for unsupervised play? Will we not wrap our kids in even more cotton wool and further limit their experiences?
Now I am completely naive about this so forgive me if I am utterly wrong but how will changing ratios lower costs? Yes I get that it theoretically should, more children per adult (although these adults will be being paid more), but nurseries are businesses are they really going to lower costs or just take on more children and increase profit? I also worry that it will lead to larger variation in quality, something the EYFS is meant to have addressed. As if some nurseries take on the new ratios and lower costs, while others keep existing ratios but charge a premium for it are we not creating a 2 tier nursery system depending on what you can afford? I know these variations already exist but we are further widening the divide.
I haven't read in depth the proposals so may well being swept up in media hype. I believe we should look to models of early years provision that are successful, such as Denmark, but I'm pretty sure there is more to their success than their ratios....
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Amazing, obvious and important influence number one

With motherhood came my initiation into the TED talks. I LOVE them. They are such a good pick-me-up for inspiration and motivation. The first TED talk that began my journey into thinking the education available to my children is just not good enough was the famous and most watched.

It was a talk by the brilliant and entertaining Sir Ken Robinson, which gave me the permission to start questioning the whole system. I'm sure you have watched them, but here they are just in case.

  And then

My favourite quote from them is that "a three year old is not half a six year old."

I then went on to read his re-published Out of our minds and after watching the talks, when reading the book you can hear his voice in your head. The book makes it clear how outdated the current system is and why it was initially designed the way it was. It also highlights how fast the world is changing and showcases some of the schools which are trying new innovative things.

I loved the story of the early years classroom set up in the foyer of a retirement home, with residents from the home spending time reading one-to-one with the children. This approach not only led to an improvement in the children's reading and the building of strong relationships across the generations, but amazingly a dramatic fall in medication levels in the home.

The main things that stayed with me were;

• Move from an essentially maufacturing model to one that is based more on the principles of agriculture.
• "It's about customisng to your circumstances and personalising education to the people you're actually teaching."
• The real importance for all subjects and disciplines being valued.

He is also a proponent of finding your passion, capitalising on each of our differing but natural talents and doing what you love. This was another kick up the butt for me. Children and their learning are what I love, so it made me want to try and put my money where my mouth is so to speak.

Teach them don't test them.

The starting point and motivation for all my thinking is simple, what do I want for my children? How I started - and I know it's not the best way - was by thinking about what I didn't like about the current system. I hoped that by identifying where I felt it has gone wrong, I could think of how to improve the system.

The first area I highlighted was testing. When I started this whole process, children were sitting their first national tests at seven. Now a reading/ decoding test has been introduced for six year olds and two year olds are also going to being assessed (a developmental check). This just seems utterly ridiculous to me and from my experience, only harms a child's education and puts pressure on families too.

Many Year Six children in English schools spend the entire year revising the information they need to get at least a Level 4 in the SATs. I completely understand the need for The Government to monitor schools, but believe that this is all these tests have become about.

Schools push the children to achieve, not for each child's benefit but for the sake of the league tables. 

This also means that the teaching the children receive is focused on training them to get the correct answer, not inspiring them or encouraging them to think. A recent study by the Welcome Trust found that since the science SAT was removed at the end of Year Six, the time spent teaching science has dropped dramatically. Although this was only a small study of people with a vested interest in science, I think it is a damning insight into our current "broad and balanced" curriculum, and the implications of our approach to testing.

Lower down the school, children's achievement has been translated into numbers/ levels and it has been decided that the children should progress along a linear path. If a child perhaps plateaus over a year, or doesn't make the expected progress, both the child and teacher are made to feel like they have done something wrong! 

There is also a focus on transparency within the current system. In principle, there's nothing wrong with this. The idea of making it clear to each child what they are trying to achieve in an activity and therefore, whether or not they have been successful can be seen as empowering. 

John Hattie has shown, in his book Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement, that visible teaching and learning occurs when the learning intentions and success criteria are clear. Where it falls down is when the transparency extends wider than the individual child, essentially publicising those who can and those who can't to all the class. 

In the Finnish education system, which consistently ranks in the top three in the world in the PISA tests as well as other international comparisons, there is only one mandated exam at the end of the senior year in high school. Alongside, this they only start school at 7. 

Pasi Sahlberg, author of the award-winning book, Finnish Lessons:What can the world learn from educational change in Finnland, says that a 'Systematic pursuit of children's wellbeing and happiness in secure environments takes precedence over measured academic achievements in Finnish schools'. What's more, even with this approach, that in itself appeals to me as a parent, they also obtain very strong academic results. 

For me the key to the Finnish education system, is that in addition to testing less and putting more trust in schools, they give their teachers - who are all qualified to Masters level - the freedom to teach the children in whichever way works best for their cohort.

I think it’s interesting that a few years ago there was a lot of press about how it was terrible how competition had been removed from schools. This was illustrated by lack of competitive sports and even sports days. 

However it seems to me that the competition wasn't removed, it was just redistrubuted back into the classroom. A place where its presence is a lot less fun and much more likely to damage children's self confidence and motivation. I would rather lose a race or a match, than feel like I was losing the learning game.

I have just read a blog by my newest hero David Price, which highlights my feelings in a much clearer way. He shows how through our obsession with targets and testing we are often killing the love of learning which I believe is surely our main job to create/instil. 

From someone who worked in schools and genuinely loved my time teaching, I have now lost any understanding of why children must all learn the same thing at the same time in the same order. The only reason I can see for this is due to the mass market nature of the education system. Today with technology becoming increasingly available, there is no excuse for this approach. The world has evolved, but we still have the same approach to education which is potentially leaving our children's futures facing extinction.

"If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow." 

John Dewey

So my school idea in a nutshell

As the title suggests this is very much an in a nutshell version. One that may generate as many questions as it offers answers. I'm more than happy to answer those questions though.


Since starting this process I have become aware of other schools which have similar approaches and beliefs, I hope to share these with you on this blog. I would really love your thoughts and feedback and would be so excited to find anyone who might like to help me turn this idea into a reality...



My Objective

• To create a learning environment which embraces and builds on a child’s natural curiosity, diverse interests and desire to learn.
• To develop a personalised curriculum for each child, through which they can acquire the knowledge, skills and understanding necessary for them to thrive in the 21st century.
• To nurture the dispositions and attitudes that will enable young learners to become happy, fulfilled and successful members of their communities, equipped for life long learning.

The current education landscape is changing dramatically. The Khan Academy, for example, has become an inspiration for many educators and there are an increasing number of online courses available. I believe that these courses create amazing opportunities for the individual, but we must not lose the social and practical side of learning.

My aim is to create an environment that embraces these new approaches while still giving children the time, space, equipment and friends to fully explore their own ideas. School should be an exciting and engaging space for children. A place which opens up their learning opportunities and horizons. A place which ultimately belongs to them.

The Curriculum/ Learning Approach

The approach has its basis in my experience in the early years, my first school was heavily influenced by Reggio Emilia, and learning through play. The children will lead the learning with the adults there to carefully scaffold and enhance each child's journey. 

When a child expresses an interest in a topic, they will then work alongside an adult to create a plan. This would include what they know and what they would like to find out and achieve. This plan would be displayed and anyone in the school community would be able to offer thoughts and ideas. 

Similarly if any other child is interested, they could join the project. Children developing the skills to work independently and collaboratively would be actively supported and the projects would last as long as the children’s interest and motivation.

The adults would work to map these experiences against the specific learning goals to ensure the children's progress and that they have the necessary skills and knowledge to gain qualifications. The exact style and content of these plans would obviously develop with the children, but fundamentally all children would use a similar approach regardless of age. 

As the children progress, they will also be given the opportunity to work on briefs set by real organisations. They would work through the process from research to pitch, during this process the teachers would help identify and scaffold the skills the children need to complete the task. In this way children would have contact with industry from a young age, facilitating better understanding as well building relationships.

The Staff

The staff will be a mix of educationalists and skilled workers (experts) in a range of fields. The educationalists will take responsibility for groups of children’s learning, monitoring their individual progress and ensuring they are developing the skills they need. They will also work closely with the experts to help them create valuable learning opportunities and experiences that enhance each child’s interests. 

I envisage the experts to initially be a craftsperson, chef, musician and gardener. Then as the school grows, so would the range of experts. These individuals would all be provided with workshop, or similar, space and encouraged to work on their own projects within the school environment. To do this, they would of course need to have a proportion of their working day/week allotted to this. The aim of this would be to ensure good role models for the children and enthusiastic and engaged staff.

The Physical Space

The physical space would be more of a campus style environment than traditional school, ideally with outside space - preferably with some woodland/wild space as well as open space for games and sport. 

The rooms/ buildings I would like to begin with are an early years area, a library-quiet space, a studio/ office-containing computers and work stations, a workshop (this would be for all forms of making and initially art activities) and finally, a kitchen with an eating area. 

As the school grows, new areas would be added. While somewhat opposite, a theatre and science lab feel important additions as at the heart of the school's ethos will be offering a breadth of experience. The children would have access to the whole environment and would be able to move freely between the areas as they choose.

The how, what and why

I'm starting this blog to help me keep track of and organise my thoughts, and hopefully chart my progress.
I am/was a primary school teacher. I loved teaching and was a bit of a geek, I guess. I specialised in early years and became increasingly passionate and soap boxy about it. The problem was I ended up quite blinkered, solely focused on the little ones rather than looking at education as a whole.

My muses.

Then I had two children of my own and have been lucky enough to be able to stay at home with them. They have given me a new perspective on education, forcing me to realise that there is life beyond the early years. As cute as they are now, they will grow up and move on from early years education settings. And it's this that inspired my slightly bonkers adventure into school/education reform.
Education and schooling is my hobby, obsession and passion. I hope that I can take this interest forward to something more concrete one day. My ultimate aim (read as dream) is to open a school. To this end, over the last three years I have read a lot, watched a fair few TED talks and talked to lots of people with differing thoughts and ideas. But as with everything, the more I read, watched and learnt, the more I realised I don't know.
On this blog I hope to chart the inspirational people who have and are continuing to mould and challenge my thinking. And when I'm brave enough, share my vision for the school I would like my children to go to, and where I would like to work. I will mainly get the chance to write and update it at strange times of night, so my posts may sometimes lack punctuation and any sense, especially as often I will be trying to recall events from the last 3 years.
But if you can bear with me, I would greatly appreciate thoughts, feedback and links to further reading by anyone who finds the time to read this, the well intentioned ramblings of a slightly overtired mum.