Some initial thoughts on the Learning Curve Country Performance Report

The Learning Curve report ‘Lessons in Country Performance in Education’ has already attracted a huge degree of interest in the 12 hours since it has been published, and the headline figure that the UK is placed 6th in a list of countries for global index of cognitive skills and educational attainment has become the main focus for discussion. Some have seen this as a positive, whilst others, bizarrely have daubed it a failure, apparently the result of Marxist insurgents!!!! Whilst this is no doubt an important piece of data, I think the headline conclusions of the report are even more interesting. The five lessons for policymakers state (p.11):

1. There are no magic bullets - ‘education requires long-term, coherent and focused system-wide attention to achieve improvement.’ 

2. Respect teachers - ‘teachers need to be treated as the valuable
professionals they are, not as technicians in a huge, educational machine.’

3. Culture can be changed - ‘The cultural assumptions and values surrounding an education system do more to support or undermine it than the system can do on its own. Using the positive elements of this culture and, where necessary, seeking to change the negative ones, are important to promoting successful outcomes.’

4. Parents are neither enemies nor saviours of education - ‘Education systems
should strive to keep parents informed and work with them.’ 

5. Educate for the future, not just for the present - ‘Many of today’s job titles, and the skills needed to fill them, simply did not exist 20 years ago. Education systems need to consider what skills today’s students will need in future and teach
accordingly.’

These ideas seem to me to be every bit as important as the position the UK inhabits at present, as they are in some ways a fantastic critique of the present move in education policy, not only in England, but in other systems around the world, to see quick, ill-considered, and often non-existent gains as the cornerstone of school improvement.

The idea that any single policy mantra, such as academies, can of themselves bring positive change, or that any school not reaching ‘the mark’ can turn itself around in 6 months, are false. What is required is a steady, considered and consensual approach to change, a view the report sets out clearly. And this idea isn’t new, Stigler and Hiebert (1999) in The Teaching Gap, consider the failings of the American school system. One of the sections in their book makes the point that,

‘Improvement will not happen by itself. It will require designing and building a research-and-development system that explicitly targets steady, gradual improvement of teaching and learning….What kind of system will allow us to do so in the future?’  (p.131)

They then go on to outline six principles for gradual, measurable improvement:

1. Expect Improvement to Be Continual, Gradual and Incremental

2. Maintain a Constant Focus on Student Learning Goals

3. Focus on Teaching, Not Teachers

4. Make Improvements in Context

5. Make Improvement the Work of Teachers

6. Build a System That Can Learn for its Own Experience

The underlying foundations of a system which will create world-class outcomes are based on teaching, rather than structures, and local contexts, rather than national targets, whilst retaining coherence across the system. But importantly, the changes need to be coordinated, considered and must emerge over a period of time!

Singapore and Finland, both systems which excel in this report (and all other international comparisons), show these traits. Finland has developed to its current position over 30 years, has developed genuine, planned interactions and shared responsibilities between schools and universities, and has put learning and teaching, not structures, at its centre. Likewise, Singapore has followed a similar long term change if somewhat more rapid. In 1965 the majority of the population was illiterate, but planned change and development has brought it to its present position.

In both Singapore and Finland, teachers are highly respected, and are part of long-term career development programmes which start with university input, including a grounding in theory, to allow the emergence of praxis-based decision-making, followed by engagement with ideas, professional dialogue and a focus on teaching and learning whilst working in schools. It is these characteristics which allow for the five key points of the Learning Curve report to be met, and which also fulfil the ideas put forward by Stigler and Hiebert.

What of England? The present experiment of the Coalition government has been attacked today by many arguing that if we are 6^th in the world, why fix what is not broken? I would broadly agree with this, but we need a clearer, more detailed debate. To argue merely about positions is to fall into the trap of seeing the number, rather than the process, as important.

Taking teacher education as an element of the debate, there appears to be a strong argument for close partnership within a planned, nationally coherent system which enhances the professional standing and academic education of those entering the sector. Instead, Schools Direct offers a market solution with no stability and no coherence. The number of places offered will vary from year to year from area to area, resulting in HE partners never being able to plan strategically, leading to possible withdrawal from the system. In addition, it is increasingly based on a ‘craft’ model. Many may think this unimportant, but it begins to debase the work of teachers. If you disagree with this ask why academies now don’t need to employ qualified teachers. The argument is effectively that the job of a teacher can be fulfilled by a graduate without a sustained exposure to the processes and knowledge of the role of the teacher other than what is picked up as they go along. Where is the respect for teachers in this process, a central element of the Learning Curve report?

What is interesting to me is that we are being thrown headlong into an experiment in marketisation and rapid privatisation of the English system. This is an experiment which may eventually reach a point of no return. What is most interesting is that all the evidence points to a very different model, one of social partnership, led but not dictated from the centre, and which enhances the standing of teachers, not which undermines them at every turn.  

It’s good to talk - a dialogic approach to accountability in education

I’ve been involved in a number of conversations with teachers recently who increasingly feel that the various levers of the educational establishment, particularly Ofsted, are either not effective or are just plain broken. I have started to consider alternative approaches which could be developed if this is the case.

Ofsted lies at the heart of the accountability framework in England, and, I would argue, has led to a number of serious problems which increasingly stifle educational innovation, and often prevents the very transformation it is argued we need. Firstly, at the heart of this model of accountability are the ‘easily measureables’ such as exam results and other numerical data. There is a strong argument for having such quantitative outcome measures, as they serve as a simple marker as to the successes of schools. However, as with so much in education, such simple ideas also have a number of potential negative consequences when they are centre stage in the educative process. What follows are a few thoughts about the often unintended consequences of quantitative driven systems:

- because the system becomes focused on quantitative data, this begins to permeate to the core of the running of schools. At its most extreme, in the USA, this has led to the development of data rooms. This is an example of ‘dataveillance’ where children are increasingly seen as units of production, and education seen as simply about quality control and efficiency. In addition, staff become synonymous with their last set of results. As such, a system which should be focused on human growth, relationships, and discovery, can collapse into a series of numbers. To what advantage?

- this leads to a second consequence of simplistic, quantitative approaches to running education. We feel safe with numbers. They give us a false sense of solidity and accuracy. If we can attach a number to something then there is an assumption of ‘truth’. Numbers also lead us to believe that the truths they contain ‘travel’. They are not contextual, so allow us to compare and analyse across a system - or so we believe. Also, where is the maths that is used to set targets? The current Coalition government has set floor-targets, something which is potentially very positive as it challenges schools. However, where are the limits calculated, and using what data and equations? In 2015 schools are expected to meet a floor target of 50%, 5 GCSEs including Maths and English. Why is this the figure? What is the evidence that this is a challenging but realisable target, particularly if examinations become norm referenced? The problem is that once that target is made public, schools which do not met it are then tagged as failing even though that target might be unreasonable.    

- a system driven by quantitative data, such as England, becomes increasingly competitive, and can lead to whole organisations chasing after ‘good’ data. An example is the anecdotal evidence of some schools withdrawing students from some GCSEs mid-course to reallocate them to EBac subjects so that they could boost their positions in league tables. Some schools have resisted this, which shows confident leadership. However, not everyone has that confidence – do we really want to create a sector which runs under a form of ‘survival of the fittest’?

In all these cases a simplistic belief in cause and effect leads to distorted educational foci, the worst being that outcomes are favoured over processes. As a result, I have regular discussions with teachers in schools where students have few independent learning skills; in the pursuit for ever better results, important, if not crucial, aspects of learning are dismissed as they do not relate directly to exam techniques. This is not for one minute a criticism of teachers, they are only reacting to what the system holds as important. Unfortunately, the current policy favoured by the Coalition government is to shut down coursework completely which could well result in even fewer opportunities to expand learning for students. Why? Because there is a concern over accurate data manipulation - forget the learning potential or the educational reasons for wider assessment regimes - the accuracy of data must come first as the exam system, and by extension the education system, is a filtering process with culturally assumed targets, e.g. university, etc. These opportunities are rationed, and therefore education becomes one long selection process. Is this too extreme a view?  Just ask a Year 9 student who I taught a few years ago. I had developed a scheme of work without a formal assessment – we were going to study volcanoes and earthquakes because it’s interesting, fun, and we would discuss, play and explore. The response from this student, ‘What’s the point of doing it if we don’t get a level?’ This is a travesty if we are attempting to develop a lifelong passion for learning.

Perhaps most importantly with Ofsted is the question as to their utility in terms of serious discussion about development within schools. They will no doubt argue that this is not their job, and indeed it isn’t, but therein lies the problem. Schools don’t need a regulator, they need support, other professionals who can give them a clear and critical view of their current practice, with extended dialogue focusing on where development might make a difference, might improve learning and the work of teachers. 

A central plank of student development has become the use of formative assessment. At its best, this is an on-going, dialogic process. But if it is so useful for student progression, why not for school development? If we develop student learning most when we are involved in extended dialogue, based on acute levels of professional knowledge of each child, and where they need to develop in the immediate future whilst also understanding longer-term needs, why can’t we see the benefits of such a system for schools?  The system wants to maximise the potential of students, formative assessment being identified as central to this, but apparently, it is not to be used with teachers!

I would therefore propose a very different system, one based on a dialogic approach which also understands that education is a complex adaptive system. This gives an explicit place for the importance of context. Straight away there will be those who see this as the start of a discussion of accepting failure, of making excuses for poor performance - far from it. To emphasise the contextual nature of an organisation is to emphasise the need for teachers, students, parents and communities to work together to bring transformative change. By this I mean real change that alters the beliefs of children about what they can achieve, change that motivates and engages ALL students.

To begin with, this alternative system would see the closing down of Ofsted. At £200 million a year, it is expensive, gives little value for money in terms of working with schools to develop education, and has steadily lost the confidence of the profession. In its place would be the creation of ‘municipal’ educational development teams. Each team would include approximately 25-30 individuals who come from the teaching profession but who have shown experience in wider contexts such as advisory roles in teaching confederations, higher degrees and middle and senior level positions in schools. Their composition in any municipal area would cover both primary and secondary schools, and would only have a small administration team, perhaps just one or two individuals – this would not be a return to local authority control with bloated teams drawing large quantities of money from school budgets. They would be small units, paid for by diverting the money presently spent on Ofsted. The teams would have two main functions:

1.    Assessment. Depending on the number of schools, each team member would be able to spend between one and two weeks with individual faculty or subject areas in secondary schools/year groups in primary schools each year. This time would include observations of lessons, and would lead to discussion of improvement plans, and where the subject area/year group believed they needed to focus to improve their work. This would not be a cosy chat, but at the same time would be professional, critical and focus on the context of the area and how genuine development might be moved forward. Importantly, the time spent in a subject area/year group could be spread over the year, focusing on periods when it would have most impact. Assessment would take place, but it would be followed up. Where failing teachers are identified, they would be supported, but after this, if no positive change was shown, they would be asked to leave – a dialogic approach doesn’t mean that anything goes. Each year the team would agree improvement targets for schools at both whole school, and subject /year group level with individual schools. Targets would be a mixture of quantitative and qualitative – the process would be emphasised as much as the output. In turn, the team would generate a genuine ‘report card’ for the municipal area, with detail and formative issues being central, as well as understanding of contexts. This would give a fuller and more critical, whilst also more supportive view of education, in various aspects of provision. These report cards would also allow for more nuanced and realistic comparisons across areas at a national level.  

2.    Support and development . The advantage of the system as it is proposed here is that it gives far more time for in-depth discussion and debate about how to progress student learning and how to support professional development. Team members would have a deeper and more critical understanding of the successes and weaknesses of individual teachers and the subject areas/year groups they work within. As a consequence, they would be able to support in the ways most needed. This might include buddy systems with teachers from other schools where there are known experts, drawn from the knowledge the team members have of their area. They could also be responsible for training courses, utilising the expertise from the municipal area. Finally, they could act as links between schools and local universities, again to draw on expertise and ensure that development and dialogue is at the centre of the process. This would also allow joint research projects to flourish, leading to structured innovation, drawing on a wide spectrum of evidence. This work could also act as a developing body of classroom level knowledge which could be pooled at national level for use by the profession.  

At present, this is not a fully formed idea, it is an outline of something different, a system which is based on the well recognised idea within complexity thinking (the work of Davis and Sumara is fantastic in developing these ideas) that development is emergent, messy, and based on context and dialogue. Schools are complex adaptive systems and as such any system which tries to reduce them to a simple set of data either won’t work, or will deform the system to suit an atrophied view of education. I would argue that over the past twenty years we have achieved the latter in many cases. Perhaps in the future a system which is based on critical dialogue and notions of growth might bring positive change and an end to constant sniping at education and teachers.

Some references I’ve read which have impacted on my ideas

‘The Fourth Way: The Inspiring Future for Educational Change ’ Andy Hargreaves Dennis Shirley (Editors)

‘Complexity and Education: Inquiries into Learning, Teaching and Research’ Brent Davis and Dennis Sumara

‘Finnish Lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland?’ Pasi Sahlberg 

How we learn - 3

Knud Illeris, a Danish learning theorist published a book in 1999 called How We Learn. I am rereading this book at the moment and am sharing some of the main ideas and insights from the book. This is my take on what I think is one of the most useful texts on the subject of learning - I would advise anyone who is interested to get a copy of their own - it is well worth a read

Chapter 3 - The Processes and Dimensions of Learning

Illeris argues that at the most basic level, the are two processes which lead to learning:

1.      Interaction between a person and their environment

2.      Acquisition by the individual psychological processing of impulses and influences form the environment. These impulses are also linked to earlier learning, to which the new impulses are linked.

It is argued that both processes and the interactions between them are crucial to gain a full understanding of the process of learning.

Acquisition is influenced by mainly biological factors whilst the interactional are interpersonal and societal in nature.

Illeris then goes on to begin to develop how these different elements fit together. He argues that acquisition has two elements to it, being content, I.e. what is learned, and incentive, the mental energy required for learning to take place, an element he links to emotion and motivation. The incentive element of learning is focused on the argument that unless someone has the motivation and desire to learn, they will not focus on that learning and will therefore be less likely to learn anything from the experience and exposure to the learning event/process.

Illeris then goes on to emphasise the link between the individual and the environment by stressing that the interactive process occurs between the two personal elements (content and incentive) and the third element of learning, the social. In this way, he argues for a model of learning which he identifies as the three dimensions of learning. He then states very clearly that,

‘The fundamental thesis of this book is that all learning involves these three dimensions, which must always be considered if an understanding or analysis of a learning situation is to be adequate.’ (p.25)

Illeris summarises his ideas in a diagram which shows his general model of learning.

The content (knowledge, understanding, skills) and incentive (emotion, motivation, volition) dimensions are an integrated system that is triggered by impulses from the environment through interaction (action, communication, cooperation). The incentive dimension influences the content dimension as it determines the degree to which mental energy will be given over to learning. The individual is, however, embedded in constant interaction which makes communication and cooperation important elements of the interaction dimension, leading to the idea of the social/societal dimension of learning also being central.

Some initial thoughts

This is a very short chapter, but is central to the work of JKnud Illeris as it ereminds us that leanring is multi-dimensional, and as such to focus on any one dimension in exclusion to the others is to only see part of what it means to learn. 

School has traditionally tended to focus disproportionately on the content dimension of learning, the degree to which knowledge has been transferred to children, what Paulo Friere called the ‘banking’ approach to educationwhere the quality of learning is measured in the amount of information which can be retained and regurgitated by a student. More recently, affective approaches to learning have become more popular, seeing the child as a whole, which must be seen as positive. However, it is only by considering how all three dimensions can be usefully and successfully brought together to enable learning, that we can begin to create environments in which students can make the most of their time in school.

Assessment is also impacted by this view of learning. If any assessment is deemed fit for purpose only if it measures our ‘learning’, it must measure that learning in all three dimensions. This is especially important in England at present, as the Coalition government is drafting new legislation to return to examination only assessment at the ages of 16 and 18. Illeris’ work demonstrates that this is an idea which is not fit for purpose, as it can only assess learning in the content dimension. The incentive and social are lost. But without these, any ‘test’ of student learning is woefully incomplete. 

If the only argument against assessing these two dimensions is that they are not easy to quantify then the debate should centre around the restricted nature of the reporting of learning through grades and percentages. I think Illeris’ model is a central argument for moving to a more contextualised and formative assessment system as students move from phase to phase, rather than one based on crude sorting mechanisms which don’t measure human learning in an adequate way!

Illeris offers us what appears to be a simple, almost obviously intuitive, model of learning. However, as we head into the next few chapters, this seeming simplicity is expanded to show the true complexity and interactive basis for human learning.        

How we learn 2

Knud Illeris, a Danish learning theorist published a book in 1999 called How We Learn. I am rereading this this book at the moment and am sharing some of the main ideas and insights from the book. This is my take on what I think is one of the most useful texts on the subject of learning - I would advise anyone who is interested to get a copy of their own - it is well worth a read.

Chapter 2 - The Basis of the Understanding of Learning

 Illeris suggests that learning has traditionally been seen as part of psychology, but as the exploration of the subject has developed so has interest across a number of fields including biology and the social sciences. Within these different subjects there are also a number of different perspectives, such as ‘behaviourism’ and ‘constructivism’ 

Illeris argues that the many different perspectives and disciplines all have something to offer in understanding learning as a process. The remainder of the chapter then goes on to sketch out some of the main approaches to understanding learning.

Psychology

Behaviourism has been a long standing school within psychology and has been linked closely to the study of learning. Based on observable behaviours, some have seen this perspective as somewhat limiting, but a more general and wide-ranging approach has developed within psychology, a move Illeris sees as a positive, ‘in general psychology can, perhaps, best be characterised as a science of experience.’ (p.8). Experience is seen as central to the psychological endeavour. Also, whilst there is much variation between individuals, there is also much commonality which psychology can study and understand. Finally, all individuals have to interact with others, so psychology can also help us understand the links between individuals and their surroundings. As Illeris states ‘understanding learning must, naturally, also relate to these existential conditions.’  (p.8)

Biology

Illeris points out that whilst learning is often considered as a mental process, it nevertheless occurs within the body, and has therefore developed as part of a wider evolutionary process. He highlights the work of Descartes as being responsible for disconnecting the intellectual from the body and emotions, a view which has in many ways become dominant in the West. However, Darwin offers a more linked view through the concept of evolution, which both Freud and William James took up in their psychological work. Beyond this, the cultural-historical school in the Soviet Union (particularly under Aleksei Leontjev) began to emphasise the role of tools in human development. ‘Tools’ has a wide definition, not only being physical entities, but also developments such as language, which is seen as a tool in its own right. Therefore, learning becomes more aligned with bodily function and development. 

Illeris goes on to argue that the West can be argued to have over-emphasised the role of cognition in learning above other allied processes when understanding and explaining learning. But the body is central to successful learning, both as part of child development, and processes of early learning, ‘..small children especially will feel the urge to ‘physicalise’ learning more directly in an arithmetic situation, typically by counting their fingers or by making the leaning content visible in another way…’ (p.11)

Brain functions

The central nervous system is core to learning as it is where the learning processes of the individual take place. Illeris argues that this is a form of research still in its infancy, and brain research still cannot explain learning in its entirety. The activity in the brain can be tracked, but with billions of neurons there are endless permutations for neural networks. Therefore, whilst brain research gives more insights and new perspectives into the process of learning - it does not explain it. However, Illeris, does identify some interesting research findings including the idea that reason cannot occur without emotion, and that emotion actually regulates reason. 

Brain science allows us to understand that learning, at its most base level is related to particular electrochemical circuits within the brain, but this is far from a complete explanation for the learning behaviours we see in humans. Illeris then goes on to consider the role of the brain in sensory perception, conversion of sensory data through working memory and eventually to long-term memory. It is emphasised that impulse data is linked to emotion and prior experiences to determine the lessons we learn from a situation.

Finally, the architecture of the brain is considered. The brain has three parts, the oldest part, the ‘reptilian’ brain is found at the base of the brain and is mainly responsible for maintaining body functions. The second part, the ‘limbic’ system, processes emotions which are important in regulating actions and ensuring our security in situations. Finally, the neo-cortex is responsible for reasoning  and working memory. All three areas are closely interrelated, and allow us to learn at different levels.

Unconscious learning and tacit knowledge

We can learn without being conscious of it, leading to the idea of ‘tacit’ knowledge, knowledge which either hasn’t, or cannot have, linguistic form. As Illeris says, basing his comments on the work of Damasio, ‘Everything is unconscious to the animals, and one of humankind’s most transcending jumps in the history of evolution was the formation of what we call the consciousness.’   (p.18)

Learning and society

Learning is always embedded in the social, and is contextualised. In the past 20-30 years this aspect of learning has become increasingly recognised as central. Therefore, a reoccurring and central message of the book which Illeris highlights on a number of occasions is that learning is both an individual and social process - the two cannot be considered in isolation. Also, the social milieu into which learning occurs is important. In traditional societies, learning was/is an integrated element of everyday life. But as capitalism leads to the need for labour, and then qualifications, the rise of schooling and the ‘sorting’ of individuals becomes established. However, the recent development of the idea of the ‘knowledge society’ is perhaps beginning to see a swing back towards a more integrated view of learning within wider life.

Some initial thoughts                   

I feel that this chapter does two very important things. Firstly, it sets out some of the ideas and areas to be developed in the book as a whole. Secondly is demonstrates the sheer complexity of learning as a process, that to even begin to understand learning we need to consider and study it from a number of different perspectives.

Perhaps more interesting still is that if learning is so complex, occurring in a number of different ways, can we easily say as teachers just how much a child has learned in an hour long lesson? To truly begin to engage with learning, we can only begin by making simple approximations of the processes which have occurred within the mind of a single student, nevermind 30. We can gain some basic idea of how successful a lesson has been, how well some of the students have started to grasp ideas we have discussed, but to gain a clear view is inherently problematic. It certainly calls into question the degree to which any individual who does not know the students well can even begin to make informed comments about ‘learning’ and ‘progress’ through exposure to part of a lesson. At best we might argue that they are making bold statements based only on the outward behaviours they descern - even these they may misunderstand. 

So learning is extremely complex, is multifaceted. Illeris goes on in subsequent chapters to pull apart this complexity and develop frameworks to help understand the different facets which make up learning.    

Revisiting Learning

Over the past year, I’ve been working alongside a group of colleagues to develop some work on the use of Lesson Study (developing website on our work). This has been extremely interesting and is an area that we intend to work on in the future. However,  it also threw up an unexpected perspective in our work. How can you identify learning? We know learning is taking place, students show that they know things at one point that they did not know at a previous time, they get good grades on assessments, and they use new terms we have introduced them to. However, whilst we see the outcomes, can we genuinely say that we understood how they got there? What does learning look like?

The research we are developing tries to understand learning at a deep level. Therefore, I have gone back to some of the literature I worked with a couple of years ago to dig deeper. The first researcher I’ve gone back to is Knud Illeris, a Danish psychologist who has created a theoretical model which synthesises a large part of the learning literature - a fantastic set of ideas.

In some posts over the next few weeks, I’m going to summarise some of the central ideas and arguments contained in his book How We Learn - Learning and non-learning in school and beyond. What follows is obviously my take on his book, and I would strongly advise you to buy a copy and read it yourelf, it is a fantastic consideration of the process of learning.

Chapter 1 - Introduction

This is a very short chapter in the book, and focuses on asking what we mean by learning. Learning is often linked to the idea of school, and in such a formal setting immediately shows that individuals learn in different ways, and as such is a variable process. In addition there is no assumed link between teaching and learning, and the emotional element of learning can be important for children.  

Learning is not only confined to school, and children learn a huge amount in many other contexts, learning which is vital to personal growth but which is not always regarded as ‘officially’ important.

This chapter then goes on to argue that theories of learning fall into one of four types:

1. those that refer to the outcomes of learning processes, i.e. identifying what has been learned.
2. those that refer to the mental processes involved, which in turn lead to the changes identified in the first group.
3. those that refer to interaction processes, between the individual and their material and environmental surroundings.
4. those that refer to more professional contexts, and use the term leanring synonymously with teaching.

Starts by defining learning as:

‘any process that in living organisms leads to permanent capacity change and which is not solely due to biological maturation or ageing.’(p.3)

However, what is stressed is the extremely complex and multi-faceted nature of learning.  

Education and 633 Squadron

Last Friday I attended a conference at Manchester Metropolitan University focusing on Space, Place and Social Justice in Education. It is the best conference I have been to in a while, for a few reasons. Firstly, there was a really positive atmosphere, with some great discussions and a very supportive environment - not the passively aggressive atmosphere I’ve experienced at some conferences where individuals attempt to get one over on each other. Secondly, the conference was cross-disciplinary so there were loads of new perspectives and ideas that I hadn’t come across before. Therefore, thirdly, there was a real blend of presentations from an ethnographic study considering the politics involved around the development of community learning in a semi-rural parish in England, to ghettoisation of schools in parts of urban Denmark (and both of these papers were in just one of the sessions!).

I felt that I had learned a great deal over the course of the day, and was still reflecting on the ideas and perspectives when I turned on the radio in my car. It was on a journey home after some meetings, and I didn’t really want to listen to the Gorillaz which happened to be in the CD player, so flicking through the radio stations, stumbled on Classic FM, not my normal listening. I was about to continue to scan through when the march from 633 Squadron started. This was a staple of the school band I played in at the local bog standard comprehensive I attended in the mid 1980s. This memory made me think some more about social justice and education.

When I started secondary school in 1982, the school band boasted about 70 kids, the majority of whom had learned to play through lessons offered by the local authority music service. We met every lunchtime each week to practice, and gave two concerts a year. A mate who lived down the street from me went on at the end of A-level to join the Royal Marines concert/marching band having learned his trade in the school band. I was slightly less called to greatness - three years playing in a local Gilbert and Sullivan Society pit band (and I don’t even like operetta). Why did this make me think? Back then, we had loads of opportunities to try out playing an instrument, joining running clubs, football teams, etc. There was a real breadth to the things on offer, and these were seen as just as important as exam classes by both parents and teachers. However, my daughter recently went to three weeks of trying to start a school band - sum total of five kids turned up. The privatisation of music provision has led to individuals getting lessons by themselves behind closed doors, it is no longer a communal activity. 

And this seems to be a trend. Schools still offer some sport, a few perhaps still have bands, but it seems that as league tables and exam results have become central to school success, the other activities are seen as nice add-ons! Trips are often relegated to half-term holidays as they ‘disrupt’ learning (!!) and are often open only to those who can pay.

There used to be a wide number of experiences open to kids to try things out, see if they liked them, or were good at them, and these were seen as just as important as opportunities as the core process of passing exams. I didn’t want to be a musician, but I knew this partly due to giving it a go. My mate would never have joined the Marines band without his school experience, would never have travelled around the world, and would never have had the chance to do something he loves. An element in social justice in education surely means giving ALL children a wealth of experiences beyond the narrow confines of the core curriculum to allow them to try out things they might want to pursue in the future - what is the point of exam grades if you don’t have an idea of how you might use them in doing something you enjoy?

Our system of education in England has slowly eaten away at the notion of education for human flourishing, as a process of showing children the wide range of possibility. Exam grades are undoubtedly important, but without glimpses of the wide range of other skills, ideas and experiences which make us all rounded human beings, they are not enough. If they were, why do private schools spend so much time and money expanding the experiences of their students? State education should return to making these alternative activities core elements of a great school experience - indeed any idea that they are ‘alternative’ at all should be chased away from our perceptions of education.

Thinking about action research

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve started to have some great conversations with school colleagues about developing programmes of various sizes centring on the use of action research to help with both professional development and learning and teaching. I don’t know for sure why this is beginning to take off in this way as I’ve not enquirer, but my suspicion is that the slashing of government and agency help in England has played a major role.

With little outside support, schools are having to become more self-sufficient, calling on their own expertise to a greater extent, working with interested parties where they want support, or just another perspective. Whilst this can be seen in someways as negative, the Coalition government demanding ever higher results, more work etc, whilst kicking away the support structures to do it, it nevertheless has a huge plus. If university Schools of Education are willing to work alongside school colleagues, each bringing to the table different types of expertise, then it should be (easily) possible to develop learning and teaching in a more positive, responsive way than we have seen under centrally directed programmes.

Action research has always been at its strongest when people collaborate in a democratic process to transform the area of interest. Perhaps the Age of Austerity is also the beginnings of a more widespread national Age of Action Research.