School is the Icing on the Cake
I'm a firm believer that 'school' is the icing on top of a very large cake - and that at one end, able, supported children make more progress in whatever educational setting they find themselves, and similarly at the other unsupported children make less progress, with a steady continuum in between.
A great deal of research shows that 'success in education' is linked to underlying parental, cultural and societal experience of, respect for, and prioritisation of, 'success in education'.
Education in Britain and elsewhere has too often - despite the effort of many working within schools and public bodies responsible for it - become a distorted, data-driven, divisive, dysfunctional behemoth which does a disservice to the children who go through it.
As a society, I think we need to vigorously attack the false foundations upon which a mass of bad ideas have been built, and to put children and their intellectual, physical and imaginative growth at the heart of education.
A huge amount of current thinking about education – by parents, schools, education secretaries, journalists – is wholly misguided in its analysis and understanding of school.
Some results of this misguided analysis:
My main interest is publicly funded education in primary and secondary schools in England and Wales, and this blog is mainly about them.
I'm a firm believer that 'school' is the icing on top of a very large cake - and that at one end, able, supported children make more progress in whatever educational setting they find themselves, and similarly at the other unsupported children make less progress, with a steady continuum in between.
A great deal of research shows that 'success in education' is linked to underlying parental, cultural and societal experience of, respect for, and prioritisation of, 'success in education'.
Education in Britain and elsewhere has too often - despite the effort of many working within schools and public bodies responsible for it - become a distorted, data-driven, divisive, dysfunctional behemoth which does a disservice to the children who go through it.
As a society, I think we need to vigorously attack the false foundations upon which a mass of bad ideas have been built, and to put children and their intellectual, physical and imaginative growth at the heart of education.
A huge amount of current thinking about education – by parents, schools, education secretaries, journalists – is wholly misguided in its analysis and understanding of school.
Some results of this misguided analysis:
- Schools can be judged by the scores their pupils are awarded on external tests and examinations.
- Schools with 'good educational outcomes' are frequently held to be solely responsible for those results, and likewise schools with 'bad educational outcomes' are held solely responsible for the outcomes of their pupils.
- The belief that a student's educational success is entirely a function of their schooling, rather than being a function of wider factors including schooling.
- Allowing parents to choose the schools leads to overall improvement of the publicly funded school system.
- Teachers should be held to be solely accountable for the results of their students.
- Children and schools can be analysed statistically using tools designed to test scientific data.
- School frequently becomes something children endure rather than being a beneficial experience with which they engage fully.
My main interest is publicly funded education in primary and secondary schools in England and Wales, and this blog is mainly about them.