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Section A

Building a whole-school programme for learning transformation

This book is organised into two sections. Section A explores what amounts to a mandate for progressive change in the way education works. It is based on recognising the redundancy of much that we take for granted in the priorities, structures and practices in current schools.

From term times to lessons, content to delivery, from teacher exposition to the examination system, much of the daily work of schools is extremely wasteful of the talents of the young people for whom access to learning represents their preparation for a changing future.

We have seen in the crises of teacher recruitment and retention that it is equally corrosive to the mental and physical health and well-being of those charged with delivering the existing model of learning.

We are, in effect, trying to impose an increasingly dysfunctional, historical model of learning onto a rapidly changing future. We seem to be in thrall to those, many of whom are politicians, who believe that the best way to address the future is to double down on existing practices and structures.

This book is a call to arms for teachers – to you! For you to have confidence in your professional expertise and determination to learn from others and so improve the lot of all pupils; to equip pupils to survive and thrive in the challenges and opportunities the future will hold for them.

Section A provides insights for educational leaders to explore more comprehensively the range and scope of changes needed to revitalise and repurpose educational provision in their own schools. The section proceeds from a survey of the wider educational drivers and processes at the national level down to the analysis of teaching and learning priorities and strategies. International comparisons are introduced to show the direction of learning in countries that have a more rational and intimate view of the patterns and requirements needed to shape future provision.

For the sceptics, or the complacent, a case study is provided at the end of the section in Chapter 8, showing how the most fundamental realignment of education and learning was conceived and delivered in an English school.