An Independent Head

Behind Enemy Lines - Book Review

2012-01-24T14:55:00.008Z

I'm not sure that they make them like Sir Thomas Macpherson anymore - this is a remarkable autobiography of a truly extraordinary man.

Catapulted from a privileged upbringing in the highlands of Scotland and at Fettes into military service, the young officer spent most of the war causing trouble 'behind enemy lines'. He was captured and escaped three times, before being parachuted into France in 1944 with a small elite team charged with the task of disrupting the German withdrawal. At times his account reads like a Biggles novel: blowing up railway lines, power cables and bridges before escaping under fire on a motorbike or stolen car. But the reader needs to be reminded that this is no work of fiction, and these were not pranks - these were real operations that had a significant impact on the course of the war. The French phase of his "war" culminated in the kilted Macpherson personally taking the surrender of 23,000 SS soldiers of the Das Reich tank column. He was then transferred to northern Italy, a region which he already knew well from one of his escapes from the Germans earlier in the war, where he almost single-handedly prevented Tito's Yugoslavia annexing the whole of north-east Italy. No one could doubt that he had a "good war" - his tally of decorations speak for themselves: three Military Crosses, a Croix de Guerre, a Papal Knighthood and the honour of being a Chevalier in the Legion d'honneur.

But there is so much more to this autobiography than the reminiscences of a war hero. Sir Thomas story didn't end with the German final surrender - his fascinating life continued. A talented sportsman, he combined playing fly-half for London Scots with a top athletics career, even beating a young Roger Bannister whilst at Oxford. After graduating with a First in PPE, he went on to be tutor to the young Prince Edward (later the Duke of Kent), mixing with the royal family - he diplomatic enought to be bowled out by Prince Phillip (later the Duke of Edinburgh). Leaving royal service, he went on to qualify as a lawyer before embarking on a distinguished career in industry which saw him take seats on the Board of many of the country's top companies, culminating in him becoming President of the London, then British, and finally, European Chambers of Commerce.

Single Sex v. Co-Ed?

2012-01-22T10:00:00.005Z

Berkhamsted is mentioned in a wide-ranging discussion:

Meanwhile, some schools get round the problem with policies of partial segregation.

"We operate what's called a 'diamond structure', whereby boys and girls are taught together from three to 11, then have separate lessons from 11 to 16, and come back together in the sixth form", says Mark Steed, head of Berkhamsted School, in Hertfordshire.

"So while our boys and girls get the academic advantages of single-sex education, they also get the social advantages of being in a mixed-sex environment. They're getting the best of both worlds."

'Co-ed education: A lesson in growing up together' Daily Telegraph Saturday 21/01/2010

The Beauty of the English Language

2012-01-17T21:22:00.007Z

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. After trying these verses, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamor
And enamor rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangor.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succor, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!

English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenit?

Social Media Halleluah Chorus

2011-12-20T11:00:00.001Z

Another Social Networking Christmas

2011-12-20T10:04:00.002Z

A Social Network Christmas

2011-12-16T12:45:00.006Z

A creative contemporary take on the Christmas Story

60 Seconds - Things That Happen On Internet Every Sixty Seconds

2011-12-08T07:18:00.004Z

"All change please - the Internet is coming"

2011-12-07T08:18:00.012Z

Extract from the opening address at the Independent Schools Council ICT Strategy Conference 07/12/11

"At first glance we have taken a rather retro title for today's conference and I am sure that many will consider the title ironic. For all but the one or two colleagues for whom the Internet still poses more of a threat than an opportunity, there’s nothing new about the Internet. We have all enjoyed its increasing benefits over the past twenty years and it has changed how our classrooms look and feel. Digital projectors and Interactive White Boards have been ubiquitous for over a decade and the arrival of reliable classroom connectivity this has meant that teachers have been able to harness the many resources that we find on the Internet, be that seismic sites in Geography or YouTube clips of science experiments and World War footage elsewhere in the curriculum. However, if you go into most of our classrooms today, you will still find teachers at the front of the class, very much still in control, and (in most cases at least) only using the Interactive Whiteboard as an expensive mouse. Good Internet access in schools has not changed fundamentally how we have been teaching. If Teachers have long been the high priests of subject knowledge and are loathe to give it up their status.

The Internet may not have had a significant impact on how we teach, but I do believe that it is going to transform how pupils learn. However, in a very real sense we do need to prepare for change for, indeed, the Internet is coming! We meet today at a significant time of change for the way in which we do learning in our schools. It has only been relatively recently that two factors have come together that will change the way we do education. First, broadband Internet has gone mobile. Increasingly we can take it for granted that we can access the Internet anywhere, not just when we're plugged in, but also on the move. We are now used to being permanently connected and what's more at a relatively cheap cost - well unless you leave Data Roaming on when you go abroad - that's when it really comes home how cheap it is on a daily basis! Secondly, we now all have access to a range of web-based applications that make it possible for users around the world to collaborate on projects, without the constraints of having to run the same software package.

Reliable access to broadband Internet on mobile devices combined with the rise of high quality easily accessible, web-based collaborative tools has the potential to transform learning. These two factors are empowering pupils, allowing them to have a greater say and take greater control over how they learn. Young people are beginning to study differently and we are beginning to see a shift that is taking control away from teachers and giving it to the pupils.

Several years ago I was privileged to hear Dylan Wiliam address the HMC Conference on Teaching and Learning. The essence of his argument was that pupils learn more from each other than from the teacher. What he said struck a chord with me. I was teaching classroom ICT at the time [teaching the ECDL to Year 9] and could see this dynamic in action. Two or three pupils in the class got what I said, and I could literally see this knowledge spread around the classroom virally as pupils taught each other how to navigate the inner workings of the MS Office suite. Indeed, when I look back on my time at school, it was my friend with whom I caught the train to and from school who taught me Maths; and I taught him R.S. As far as we were allowed, we asked others in the class to explain the things that we didn’t get first time. I didn’t realize it then, but fundamentally we were teaching each other.

We now have web-based tools in place that allow pupils to share ideas and to collaborate on projects. Google Docs and a whole range of web-based freeware enable pupils to comment on each other's work, to pool their collective knowledge and understanding. Pupils are able to share their expertise with other pupils, they are able to refine their ideas and to bring on the weaker students.

Collaborative working is one of the most important skills that this generation of pupils is going to need in life - it is already the norm in work place. It is perhaps a digital immigrant’ s perspective to even ask the question, but this way of working raises a whole range of issues about what constitutes cheating. Collaboration is the norm and it certainly is the future.

The whole Wikipedia project is based on the premise of the "Wisdom of the Crowd", i.e. that there are sufficient experts and enthusiasts 'out there' who collectively know more any individual and who will correct, update and amend articles. Using collaborative tools allows teachers to harness the "Wisdom of the Class" - allowing pupils to share ideas and to support each other.

I am a great believer that classrooms should be "places of learning" rather than "places of teaching". Schooling is not about well-crafted lessons, but about whether or not pupils actually learn. Such an approach demands that the role of teachers will change. Yes, there will be a key role for teachers in the new order, but it will be different to their traditional role. Teachers will need to be facilitators, setting up the structures for the collaboration to take place. They will need to set the assignments and they will need to monitor that the discussions are on track, but a light touch approach is what will be required. Pupils operate best when they see this as "their" space. Teachers are able to follow the discussions and even to join in the discussions when necessary.

So I do believe that we, once again, we find that ICT is the engine of educational revolution. New technologies will mean that schools will begin to operate differently. So, in a very real sense, once again we must say, "All change please - the Internet is coming".

Miss Representation: how the Media presents women

2011-11-24T21:53:00.001Z

The following film was recommended by an American delegate at the GSA Conference. It is a thought-provoking and powerful presentation that challenges the way in which the media present women. It is sure to provoke discussion in the home and schools alike.

http://missrepresentation.org

Body Image - it's all about perception

2011-11-22T09:16:00.001Z

Young people have always been concerned about their appearance, but this generation is under greater pressure to look good than ever before. On average British children are spending between six and eight hours a day looking at screens, during much of which they are being bombarded with images of the "beautiful". Men's and women's magazines present distorted images of human perfection. At present the average model weighs 23% less than the average British woman, so it is no surprise that at any one time 1 in 4 women in this country are dieting and that the UK has the highest rate of cosmetic surgery in Europe.

Poor body image is not just an issue for adults. It is now an acute problem, not only for teenagers, but also for children. Age 9 to 10 is a crucial time for developing poor body image. By age of 10, 1 in 3 British girls say they want to be thinner: by 13 half have a dissatisfaction in body image. And it is not just an issue for girls, boys are increasingly feeling pressure to look good. A recent survey found that 22% of boys are concerned about their body image.

So how are parents and schools to respond to this challenge?Parents and schools need to equip young people to develop a strong sense of self-esteem and self-worth that enables them to resist the social and media pressures that they face.

Reflections based in a presentation by Nicky Hutchinson and Chris Calland, authors of Body Image and the Primary School, at the GSA Annual Conference. www.notjustbehaviour.co.uk

Charitable Benefit

2011-11-15T08:14:00.001Z

A really useful summary of the present position on Public Benefit for Schools in light of the Judicial Review earlier this term.

Crowe Clark Whitehill: Public Benefit Briefing for Schools

Broken iPad - The generation gap widens

2011-11-06T14:30:00.000Z

I'm not sure whether or not to be worried about this one . . . . . . .

. . . . . . but it is clear that the next generation already expect everything to be digital and magazines can't have much a future when these kids grow up.

Universities - time to be leaner and fitter?

2011-10-27T13:18:00.002+01:00

The news that University applications fall 9% after tuition fee hike (Daily Telegraph 24/10/11) should neither surprise or concern us.

With tuition fees increasing from just under £3,000 p.a. to an average of £8,678 p.a. (Guardian 18/04/11), one would expect to see the reduction in applications. Furthermore, this is unlikely to be a temporary blip: there is little doubt that we are going to see a reduction in the number of young people who are willing to put themselves into significant debt in order to have a university education.

I have believed for a long time that too many young people are going to university. It has taken the recession, graduate unemployment, student debt and now increased tuition fees to focus minds, but the early indications are that we are about to see an important shift in how we view Higher Education. HE is going to contract and, in many cases, it will be driven by the customers, the students, rather than by the suppliers, the universities. Most importantly, young people now are being forced to see university as a time when they are making an investment in themselves.

The Value of a Degree

The value of a degree can be determined by the following three factors:

The quality and reputation of the Institution
The quality and reputation of the Subject
The class of a degree

I welcome the news that University applicants facing tuition fee hike avoid softer subjects (Daily Telegraph 24/10/11). For too long too many young people have not done the research into what advantage their degree will give them. "Softer university subjects such as communication studies and creative arts have seen a drop in applications of up to 40 per cent." - Hurray! Why should tax-payers subsidise these sort of courses? It is no surprise that we are seeing a shift to the more academic courses at the better institutions.

Universities are going to have to raise their game too. If students are paying £9k p.a., then they are going to expect to be getting something for their money - cancelled lectures and large tutorial groups, poor lecturer feedback become all the more unacceptable when you are paying personally for it. Students will vote with their feet - well taught courses leading to good jobs will be popular, poorly taught courses with poor employment prospects will not be viable.

Higher Education will consolidate around quality and value.

One of the consequences of the reduction in numbers is that students will gravitate towards quality and value. The top universities will continue to expand, to grow and thrive. Universities at the lower end of the food chain are going to find it increasingly difficult to fill their places. (This is a phenomenon that we have experienced in the Independent Schools sector during the past twenty years as fees and costs have risen and customers have become better informed.)
In the long term less successful universities are going to be faced with increased specialism based around niche courses, departments closing, universities merging with other institutions and, in some cases, closure. But before that happens, as with all markets where there is over-supply we are going to see the price fall. This will happen in two ways. First, some institutions will compete on the price of their fees - i.e. by lowering their tuition fee; and secondly, others will reduce their entrance tariff - lowering the entrance requirements for certain courses.

So what does this mean for those young people who will be applying in the next few years?
Getting a place at a top university is going to be as competitive as ever. Applications to Oxbridge are up this year, and we can anticipate that this will be the case with all of the top 20 universities.

However for weaker pupils who are willing to invest in themselves, it is probably good news. At present it is really difficult to get onto any sort of meaningful degree course with grades less than CCC (= 240 points). This will change - an A-level candidate with CDD will be able to get onto a significantly better course from Sept 2012, than has been the case during the past couple of years.

Legal reaction to the Tribunal Ruling on Charitable Benefit

2011-10-18T12:30:00.001+01:00

Leading specialists in charity law, Stone King, give their initial response to the Tribunal ruling on Charitable Benefit:
Independent Education Today

How do high achieving "Super People" stand out from the crowd?

2011-10-18T08:00:00.000+01:00

Travelling back from a day in London, I enjoyed reading an interesting feature article in yesterday's Evening Standard on "Super People".

Super People "have got qualifications coming out of their ears, speak lots of languages and have been 'prepped' for success by the experts, and are set on landing the very top jobs."

The article explores what it takes for the very best to be literally "outstanding". With competition fiercer than ever for places at top universities and for jobs in top firms, how does one "stand out" from the crowd in a world where so many people get top grades? The simple answer is that they have to shine elsewhere, be that in the skills that they have [languages etc] or in what other things that they have achieved. The article outlines how coaches can 'prep' Supers so that they can build a CV that will enable them to get the top university place/ job.

However, there is a sting in the tail here - the danger is that such an approach is artificial, not grounded and even counter-productive. As one executive coach candidly admitted,

"the biggest problem with Supers is that they only care about one person - the hospital that they helped build in Africa actually to build their own résumé. The charity work is for them, not for the people they claim they are serving."

Press coverage of the Tribunal Ruling on Charitable Benefit

2011-10-17T17:10:00.000+01:00

The Print Media have divided along predictable lines in response to the Tribunal's decision to overturn the Charity Commission's guidance on what constitutes "public benefit":

Tribunal overturns Charity Commission guidance on public benefit

2011-10-15T10:51:00.000+01:00

Independent Schools around the country were delighted to receive the news that the Upper Tribunal yesterday overruled the Charity Commission’s approach to public benefit and discredited controversial parts of the Commission’s statutory guidance as “obscure or wrong”. The ruling brings welcome clarification of the law, and ensures responsibility for public benefit decisions is taken away from the Commission and returned to School governors.

Many Independent Schools felt that the Charity Commission applied too narrow a measure of what constitutes "public benefit" by placing too great an emphasis on means-tested bursaries, whilst ignoring the many wider ways in which Independent Schools contribute to educating the Nation's youth and benefit and enrich their local communities. It was felt that the Commission's guidance was prescriptive and interventionist and failed to provide sufficient clarity for trustees on the underlying principles of public benefit relevant to schools.

The Independent Schools Council (ISC) initiated legal proceedings to establish the right principles which apply to the establishment and operation of independent schools as charities.

The Tribunal ruled that the Charity Commission's guidance was wrong in key aspects and establishes three principles of enormous significance for schools:

It puts governors firmly back in the driving seat on decisions relating to public benefit.
It breaks the link between bursaries and public benefit. Bursaries remain important but not to the exclusion of other activities which reach out beyond the school gates.
It lays to rest any notion that the Commission can threaten independent schools with the loss of charitable status based on the Commission’s assessment of whether or not the school is doing enough to meet its public benefit requirement.

The ruling expressly recognises that schools are no different to many thousands of fee-charging charities which provide high value services and have no option but to recover their costs through levying fees.

Chairman's Address at HMC Conference

2011-10-14T20:00:00.001+01:00

Ken Durham's Speech at the HMC Conference is now online
Click here to download

Is there really an apartheid between State and Independent Schools?

2011-10-06T17:39:00.001+01:00

In his speech at the Conservative Party Conference, David Cameron vowed to end the ‘apartheid’ between private and state schools:

"And here's something else we're going to do. In Britain today, we have schools that are intolerant of failure, where ninety percent of pupils get five good GCSEs. Yes: private schools. You've heard me talk about social responsibility so let me say this.

I want to see private schools start Academies, and sponsor Academies in the state system. Wellington College does it, Dulwich does it - others can too.

The apartheid between our private and state schools is one of the biggest wasted opportunities in our country today. So let it be this party that helps tear it down."

There are a number of differences between the Independent and State sectors, most notably around what it means to be "independent" as Ken Durham argued in his HMC Conference Chairman's Address [see previous blogpost] this week. Also, as David Cameron recognised in his speech, there are quantifiable differences in academic outcomes, not to mention co-curricular provision.

But is there really an apartheid between private and state schools? No, of course there is not. Every independent school has close links with schools in the Maintained sector, a few sponsor Academies, most are engaged at a local level working closely with the state schools in their areas in a whole range of ways.

I am a great supporter of the Academies programme and I am not asking for special pleading here - I'm on board. Berkhamsted is one of the few schools that sponsor an academy, the Wren Academy in Barnet. I am a Governor there and am very proud of what the staff, pupils and governors have achieved there in the past four years.

As David Cameron once again repeated today, the Government defines independent sector engagement with the maintained sector in terms of the Academies programme. I believe that this is blinkered and unhelpful. By using such a narrow measure, the Government is ignoring the many other ways in which Independent schools work alongside schools in the Maintained sector.

I think we need to ask how Independent Schools can best work alongside schools in the Maintained sector.

When I look at Berkhamsted's relationship with the Wren Academy, there are two areas which stand out. Strong governance is of course important, but also expertise in examination teaching where we have a proven track record of success by any measure. Of these the latter has the most potential. The liaison between Heads of Department in the two schools is beginning to have a significant impact, and that liaison strictly falls outside the terms of the Academy sponsorship agreement. In particular, we have provided support and advice on how to teach GCSE and are embarking on helping the Wren staff to develop the structure of the A-level curriculum.

But Berkhamsted's engagement with the Maintained sector is much wider than that. For example, we work with a number of local maintained sector schools, particularly when it comes to careers and university guidance. Our annual careers and Universities Fair is not just for our pupils, we invite all the local schools; likewise with our careers day on applying to university for Medicine. Furthermore, most of our sixth form pupils give up some of their free time to go into local state schools to listen to pupils read, as part of their community service programme - the sixth form alone did over 2600 hours community service last year.

I would like David Cameron, Michael Gove and Nick Gibb to remove the blinkers. I think that they have every right to expect every Independent School to work with schools in the maintained sector, but they need to recognise that we are independent and that we will choose to exercise our social responsibility in a number of different ways. Rather than being prescriptive, I would like to hear this Government encourage our schools to foster ever closer links in whatever ways the schools on the ground see fit.

There is no apartheid between the private and state schools. There is no need to build walls just so politicians can knock them down - the bridges are already built - we already working closely together.

How we learn - Lord Winston

2011-10-06T15:05:00.000+01:00

The human brain matures fastest when young.
Experience is the food of brain development.
All senses contribute to learning.
Memory is best when reinforced
Practice is the key mode of learning
Plan, fun and exploring are important.
Socialisation and humour are important.

Lord Winston - speaking at the HMC Conference in St Andrew's on the Importance of Science Literacy:

A Scientist's Manifesto - Lord Winston

2011-10-06T14:21:00.001+01:00

The science that I do is not my property.
I must communicate science more effectively.
Communication means listening, responding to public ideas and anxieties.
We need to recognise 'science' as only a version of the truth.
Ethics need to be embedded into every aspect of science learning.
Universities have key responsibility to connect more with schools.
"Homo sum. Humani nil me alienum puto." - Terence (I am a human being: I regard nothing of human concern as foreign to my interest)

Lord Winston - speaking at the HMC Conference in St Andrew's on the Importance of Science Literacy:

What it means to be Independent.

2011-10-05T10:10:00.000+01:00

In his Chairman's address to the HMC conference in St Andrew's, Ken Durham, Headmaster of UCS London, outlined what makes UK Independent Schools the best in the world - and there's a clue in the name - Independence. Unfortunately "independence" is a term that has been devalued by those in the DfE who band it around and use the term far too loosely, applying it inappropriately to schools in the Maintained sector. As Ken Durham pointed out, there are three key aspects to true independence, which simply do not apply to those schools:

"Let us remember what true Independence means. We in the private sector have total independence over the curriculum in our schools, over the finance of our schools and over admission to our schools. It is those three freedoms that make us special. It is those three freedoms that give us the opportunity to achieve the excellence that we do. They expose us to great risk as well. No Government will bail us out. We stand or fall by the quality of our educational vision and the vigour with which we bring it off."

HMC Conference St Andrew's Excellence Not Privilege

ICT in Independent Schools

2011-09-10T12:02:00.001+01:00

Financial Times article on ICT in Independent Schools, mentioning ICT at Berkhamsted, Radley and Felsted.
ICT: Students learn to reap benefits of high-tech networking skills Financial Times Sat 10/09/11 (may need to register with FT to gain access)

Military Service and Education

2011-09-06T21:49:00.001+01:00

Great article on what being a soldier brings to teaching by former Royal Marines Officer and Falklands Veteran Clive Dytor MC MA Headmaster of The Oratory School, Reading.
Every school pupil has plenty to learn from a soldier Daily Telegraph 05/09/2011

"Wisdom of the Class" - Collaborative Learning in Schools

2011-09-02T10:02:00.002+01:00

Several years ago I was privileged to hear Dylan Wiliam address the HMC Conference on Teaching and Learning. The essence of his argument was that pupils learn more from each other than from the teacher. What he said struck a chord with me. I was teaching classroom ICT at the time [teaching the ECDL to Year 9] and could see this dynamic in action. Two or three pupils in the class got what I said, and I could see this knowledge spread around the classroom virally as pupils taught each other how to navigate the inner workings of the MS Office suite. I adapted my teaching style accordingly, encouraging the more able to support the weaker ones and [as extension tasks] to write crib sheets to help those found a particular topic challenging.

Eight years on and we now have web-based tools in place that allow pupils to collaborate on projects and to share ideas. Here at Berkhamsted, we have moved to using Google Docs and a whole range of web-based freeware to enable pupils to share ideas and to comment on each other's work. Pupils are able to share their expertise with other pupils, they are able to refine their ideas and to bring on the weaker students
This is so much more effective than a teacher standing at the front, or even passing round exemplar material. Clearly critics will say that such an approach is open to abuse, by pupils being humiliated publicly by their peers. Of course this is possible, but what is interesting is that the pupils themselves have put "rules of engagement" in place to make clear that such an approach is unacceptable.

The whole Wikipedia project is based on the premise of the "Wisdom of the Crowd", i.e. that there are sufficient experts and enthusiasts 'out there' who collectively know more any individual and who will correct, update and amend articles. Using collaborative tools allows teachers to harness the "Wisdom of the Class" - allowing pupils to support each other.

Schools should not be about teaching - they are about learning: it is not about well-crafted lessons, but about whether or not pupils actually learn. This will mean that the role of teachers will change. Teachers often (but not always) will need to set up the structures for the collaboration to take place. They will need to set the assignments and they will need to monitor that the discussions are on track, but a light touch approach is recommended. Pupils operate best when they see this as "their" space. Teachers are able to follow the discussions and even to join in the discussions when necessary.

Collaborative working is one of the most important skills that this generation of pupils is going to need in life - it is already the norm in work place . Collaborative working is not cheating - it is the future.

Tracey Emin: Love Is What You Want - Review

2011-08-23T09:01:00.018+01:00

Love Is What You Want at the South Bank's Hayward Gallery provides an excellent insight into the life and work of one of Britain's most famous and controversial artists.

Tracey Emin's art is deeply personal. She unashamedly takes her own life as the inspiration for her work, which makes for some challenging and provocative subject matter.

The exhibition is explicit and not for the faint-hearted. Tracey Emin plays out her life like a drama, in all its gory detail. Artifacts from her childhood, hospital visits and love life are displayed as art - a personal retrospective. Her trademark "Blankets" and her work in Neon lights were the highlights of the show.

This exhibition gives a unique insight into Emin's early life growing up in Margate and some of the formative events that have overshadowed her work, particularly her sex life and (botched) abortions.

In two of the video clips, that are one of the most engaging parts of this exhibition, Tracey Emin talks candidly about being humiliated by a group of boys who shouted her off the stage [shouting "Slag", "Slag" . . . . ] at a local dance competition; and narrates in graphic detail her botched abortion.

The presentation of the neon slogans in close succession along a dark passage, reminiscent of a Soho backstreet by night, was inspired curation.

I must say that it was disappointing that Tracey Emin'sr most famous piece, namely My Bed (1998), which was controversially short-listed for the Turner Prize in 1999, was absent from the exhibition.

Tracey Emin would make a case study that could so easily keep a dozen psychologists and social workers busy for a life-time. Instead she has wowed and wooed art critics and created the anti-establishment persona that has earned her a place amongst "the famous". She is undoubtedly the star of her own soap opera and of this show.

The exhibition runs until 29th August

20 Minute 'Lessons' - the key to unlocking the timetable?

2011-08-15T10:51:00.015+01:00

How a school chooses to use the limited time that available to it says much about its philosophy. 'Time' is perhaps the most important scarce resource. What a school really stands for is seen most clearly in the decisions it makes about what is compulsory and what is optional; in the relative time allocation to each subject at each Key Stage; and in the balance between the academic, co-curricular and community activities.

Given our freedom from the National Curriculum and the level of competition between our schools, these debates and discussions are particularly important for those of us who work in the Independent Sector.

Here at Berkhamsted, this term marks the launch of our new structure to the week which is the result of a two-year review and rethink of the curriculum and timetable. The great driver for this change is that we wanted to put in place an extensive and structured co-curricular programme that would be delivered within the school day - in addition to our before and after-school programmes. The challenge was how to create space for an extended lunchtime without having a detrimental impact on academic teaching contact time.

Our solution is innovative and, to my knowledge, is original: we have divided the whole week into 20 minute units of time. Every activity between 0900 and 1620, starts and finishes on the hour, 20 past the hour, or 20 to the hour.

Structuring the timetable in this way provides enormous flexibility. Not only can lessons be 40, 60, 80 or even 100 minutes long, but it is possible for KS3 to have 60 minute lessons and KS4 and KS5 to have 80 minute lessons. [We don't actually have any 20 minute lessons.]

One of the greatest challenges that faces anyone developing a Secondary curriculum is the 'bottle neck' of Year 9, when it is desirable that pupils have regular lessons in every subject in the curriculum prior to making their GCSE options. Many subjects need double lessons [Art, Music, Drama, DT, Science - for practicals]. For schools with a rigid 35 or 40 minute lesson structure this means devoting 70-80 minutes to each subject - which simply does not fit. However, with the 20 minutes unit structure, because it is possible to deliver a meaningful 60 minute practical lesson at KS3, you can to fit a greater number of lessons into the school week.

One downside, if indeed it is that, is that morning break and lunchtimes don't always fall at exactly the same time. This may make for a more dislocated school community - especially for the teaching staff who will also not have a shared break-time. However, there are the obvious advantages of a more efficient, staggered access to dining and other facilities.

There are a number of unique features of Berkhamsted that make this approach particularly attractive. The "diamond" structure of the School poses us a number of challenges: our boys 11-16 and girls 11-16 are taught separately on two sites some half a mile apart. The sixth form and the teaching staff have to move between the site. The 20 minute timetable allows for a more efficient transfer between campuses without wasting lesson time - we have achieved this by the sixth form having two 20 minute breaks, rather than one 40 minute break. Furthermore, most staff tend to be based on one or other campus means that that it is not possible for staff to meet daily at break anyway, so the timetable changes will have less of an impact at Berkhamsted than it would perhaps have in other schools.

I would like to pay tribute to Mr Will Gunary and his timetabling team, who took an idea and made it reality.

A level pupils warned not to rely on resits

2011-08-14T17:51:00.003+01:00

Sunday Telegraph Sunday 14th August 2011

'Pupils who do not get the A level grades they need to get onto their chosen university course this week have been warned that they may not be able to make up for it by resitting their exams.

'A growing number of universities now refuse to accept the results of resits or give them less weight than those of candidates who take all their exams at once.'

Full Article

Will Michael Gove allow ICT to revolutionise British Education?

2011-08-10T11:20:00.017+01:00

Last week Michael Gove made a very interesting speech to a group of distinguished mathematicians and scientists, unsurprisingly, about the importance of Maths and Science education. One of the most significant parts of the speech was when the Secretary of State came on to discuss the place of ICT in schooling:

"Harnessing technology in the classroom

"In addition to the debate over what is taught, and the issue of who does the teaching, we also need to think about how the teaching takes place. So as well as reviewing our curriculum and strengthening our workforce, we need to look at the way the very technological innovations we are racing to keep up with can help us along the way. We need to change curricula, tests and teaching to keep up with technology, and technology itself is changing curricula, tests, and teaching.
"ItunesU now gives everybody with an Internet connection access to the world's best educational content. Innovations such as the Khan Academy are putting high quality lessons on the web. Extremely cheap digital cameras and the prevalence of the Internet allow teachers to share best practice and learn from errors." [My emphasis]

Gove raises a number of important issues here that have the potential to revolutionise British education:

It is refreshing that the Secretary of State is indicating that wants to see a much more collaborative approach towards the sharing of best practice, resources and content. He acknowledges that ICT has an important part to play in providing the vehicle for this to happen. A more collaborative approach both between schools and between the Maintained and Independent sectors is clearly the way forward. ICT has enormous potential for bringing teachers together and putting teaching and learning at the heart of the educational agenda. Clearly there are small pockets where this is happening, but we have a long way to go.

Does Gove's reference to iTunesU and to the Khan Academy indicate that the Government is happy to give up a degree of central control of educational resourcing? We have had a supply-driven - as opposed to a teacher demand-driven - educational agenda for most of the past twenty years. The DfE and LEAs have allowed educational suppliers to set the agenda for too long - suppliers telling schools what they need (Interactive Whiteboards, VLEs et al.) rather than teachers demanding want they need. Standards will rise by stepping back and allowing teachers to commincate and share how they are promoting learning.

I am sure that his approach is driven by fiscal restraint. However, it is encouraging that Gove's solution is to embrace existing platforms rather than falling into the trap of his predecessors who no doubt would have wasted an enormous amount of money setting up a "national teachers' collaborative network". (I'm sure that Apple are delighted to receive the endorsement of the Secretary of State for iTunesU!)

Most interesting is Gove's reference to testing. e-Assessment has long been the elephant in the room in the classroom ICT revolution debate. I have argued previously that the British examination system has become too dislocated from key working practices in wider society (In the C21 adult world, when does anyone ever sit in silence without access to technology? - See my previous blog post e-Assessment - the case for the defence). Is Gove here indicating that he is willing to embrace e-Assessment as part of the GCSE and A-level assessment regime? Given the imaginative work being done by the team at AQA (see my Can e-assessment maintain the "Gold Standard"?), I certainly hope so.

I am sure that the key to raising educational standards is for the Government to intervene less, to encourage teachers to share best practice and to remove the administrative burden so that they can spend more time being creative about how they promote pupil learning.

Michael Gove's Speech in full: Improving maths and science education Wednesday, June 29 2011

Watercolour at Tate Britain - Review

2011-08-10T10:29:00.005+01:00

If art exhibitions are not to be biopic they need the curator to explore some unifying theme or tradition - preferably in an innovative and insightful way. The choice of a medium, watercolour, presents a myriad of possibilities (there is so much material from which to choose) but, at the same time is fraught with problems (how to retain a sense of coherence beyond the simple connection of the medium). Hereby hangs the paradox of this exhibition.

The curator's notes give due warning to the visitor:

"This exhibition explores what watercolour can achieve in terms of technique and expression that no other medium can, and why it is capable of producing an astonishing variety of effects, from subtle atmospheric washes to brilliant translucent colour."

Watercolour at the Tate is eclectic but it lacks cohesion. Starting as it does with the pre-cursors and early uses of watercolour it seems, at times, to purport to track the history of the medium. However such a view is misleading as the exhibition swiftly abandons a chronological analysis for an uncritical celebration of "the association of watercolour with famous masters such as Blake, Turner and Girtin."

This exhibition is a missed opportunity as it lacks the necessary coherence, but it is an enjoyable romp through time and technique.

Watercolour runs at Tate Britain until 21 August

A free guide to harnessing Social Digital Media

2011-08-03T08:09:00.008+01:00

Further to my article on Using Social and Digital Media in School Marketing, Communication and PR Strategies, I came across this useful FREE guide to The Importance of Building a Social Media Framework for your Business.

It is available to download here.

[I have no connection with this firm - but it is reassuring to see professional companies giving out free advice as a taster of what they can offer.]

50 Rules Kids Won't learn in School - Book Review

2011-07-30T10:10:00.007+01:00

This book was the original inspiration of the 11 things that Young People don’t learn in school, but need to know about life that went viral purporting to be a speech to High School leavers by Bill Gates.

Sykes has a clear agenda: he believes that the American education system and parents are letting children down because they are not preparing them for the realities of adult life. He hopes the book will be "an antidote to our culture of complacency and indulgence" (p.4).

He is highly critical of the "bubble-wrapped" culture disseminated by the "nanny class" that has not prepared young people for the realities that face them beyond home and school. He has no time for an educational philosophy where everyone is a winner and that nothing is permitted that might endanger a pupil's self esteem.

So we get a world of meaningless gold stars, "participation" trophies, inflated grades, and happy faces on work that might otherwise be recognised as schlock. But (the philosophy goes) if we don't ask too much, or set expectations too high, no one will feel bad about himself. Instead of preparing children for the challenges, setbacks, defeats, frustrations, and triumphs for life, we bubble-wrap them. (p.15-16)

He is concerned about falling standards in basic life skills such as literacy and numeracy, furthermore,

Evidence continues to mount that the bubble-wrapped generation is also finding itself badly handicapped in dealing with other major challenges of life, from relationships and personal responsibility to distinguishing right from wrong without a reliable moral compass. p.6-7

His intention is clear:

I want to help to prepare young people to be responsible, competent , confident, self-reliant, independent, realistic individuals who are armed with inner resources and the habits of mind to resist the blather and blandishments of the world they are about to enter.

The book is "very American" - and I am not sure that we experience the extreme examples which he uses in the book [$150,000 Sweet Sixteen parties] - but the book serves as a warning of a possible direction of travel. Sykes is passionate and, at times, his style is far too preachy and is in danger of tarring all young people and all parents with the same brush. He seems to be unaware that there are some pretty amazing young people out there who do get off their backsides and achieve something meaningful.

Overall, once you have translated from the American, there is a lot of good sensible advice both to young people and parents in this book, indeed it has a refreshing reality about it.

The Amazon website helpfully supplies the contents page, free online, so if you want to spare yourself the time, energy and expense of purchasing the book, and get the guts of Sykes' message without the [at times tedious] anecdotes then click here.

See Charles Sykes' website www.the50rules.com

Les Marrakechinas - pourquoi parlent-ils anglais?

2011-07-29T15:47:00.015+01:00

I love Marrakech. I think it is one of the most interesting places in the world. Sitting on a cafe roof terrace overlooking the main Square, Jemaa el-Fnaa, at dusk is simply mesmerising. The sights, sounds and smells have remained the same for decades, if not centuries. It exists for the locals and not for the tourists and long may that be the case.

But Marrakech is changing, perhaps not around the Square, but it is becoming more Western. Sure, there has always been the colonial French influence, but it was at the exotic Foreign Legion end of things and far from Parisienne high chic: French is spoken universally and there are vestiges of French cuisine (BTW we found some excellent Creperies in Essaouria).

As Marrakech has grown in population and size, it has embraced those aspects of a modern city with which we are familiar the world over. Zara and other world brands have moved into Gueliz - and this part of town is becoming increasingly fashionable with some excellent restaurants and nightclubs. New oases in the form of golf resorts are springing up in the desert beyond the suburbs of fashionable villas. But all these developments appear not to have impacted on the heart of the city, in particular the old world charm of the Square and the Souks.

But this year I witnessed the first signs of a challenge to the old world order - and I suspect that Ryanair and EasyJet are to blame - the locals are all beginning to speak English.

Three years ago, it was not all that easy or popular to go to Marrakech. I had to fly Royal Maroc Airways - in fact I flew their low cost version, the now defunct Atlas Blue - and no one but no one spoke English. This was not really surprising given they all speak three other languages anyway: Arabic, French and one of three Berber dialects in the home.

But cheap flights have made Marrakech a great weekend city break or a holiday adventure. Now Brits and Germans are flying in as well as the traditional French. This week (my fourth visit since 2009) I found nearly every trader and taxi driver trying to engage me in English - or at least a caricatured version of it - "lovely jubbly", "cor blimey" "innit?" - where do they learn this stuff? One taxi driver allowed himself to he haggled down on the price of the fare only to turn the ride into an English lesson which continued for minutes after our arrival at our destination.

While in Marrakech I finished reading Niall Ferguson's Civilization: The West and the Rest, in which he argues that consumption and consumerism were key factors in Western domination of The Rest. He documents the long history of the World simply wanting to adopt Western fashions and values to appear civilised and on a par with Westerners. With these ideas ringing in my ears, I fear that the wider use of English is the first step that will open up Morocco to the wider influences of Anglophone society that culminates with everyone wearing jeans and a MacDonalds on every street corner [there's already a KFC right next to the Square]. Morocco has a rich culture and history - I hope that it has the moral courage to remain different.

Book Review: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother - Amy Chua

2011-07-18T14:29:00.011+01:00

If you ever want to feel inadequate as a parent, then read Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

Amy Chua produced two A-grade musical child prodigies who won International competitions and performed around the world in their early teens: Sophia on the Piano and Lulu on the Violin. In this book she outlines the secret to her success as a parent and the price she paid in time, sweat and tears.

Chua is the Über of all Über mothers, who manages to combine full-on parenting with a legal career that leads her to join her husband (Jed Rubenfeld) both as a Yale Law professor and a successful author. Her disdain for Western approaches to parenting permeate the book; indeed it sets out to compare the flawed approach adopted by most Americans to her preferred methods of what she terms "Chinese parenting". The cultural battle is played out in the lives of her two daughters who achieve so much due to the focussed approach of their mother, but who ultimately rebel. Chua throughout is convinced that the Chinese approach is not just different, but superior to any Western methods of parenting.

On the first page of her book she sets the tone when she lists some of the things that her children were never allowed to do. These include:

Attend a sleepover
Have a playdate
Be in a school play
Complain about not being in a school play.
Watch TV or play computer games
Choose their own extracurricular activities
Get any grade less than an A
Not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama
Play any instrument other than the violin or piano
Not play the piano or violin.

To the liberal, Western mind, her methods are Draconian bordering at times on the monstrous. However, amongst the moments of confession, self-justification, therapy and maternal angst, there are some profound insights into the real dilemmas that we all face bringing up children.
Amy Chua's approach throws up a mirror to the post-Enlightenment values of freedom, rights and above all choice - all of which she asserts have no place in parenting. Children should obey and respect their parents, make them proud and look after them in old age.

The sadness of the story is that the girls did rebel [This is not a funny book - despite the protestations on the cover to that effect]. Amy Chua eventually lost the battle. Lulu ultimately gave up playing the violin seriously aged 13. Indeed, having backed off and given her the choice ["horror of horrors" - Western heresy!], Chua did not really learn the lesson and even tried to "backseat drive" when Lulu decided to devote herself to tennis instead.

Her "Chinese parenting" methods clearly worked, but for whom? Is she so driven because she wants the best for her daughters or does she need prodigious children to confirm her status as a good mother? Were the hours of toil and argument in the music practice room for them or for her? She certainly wears the highs and lows on her sleeve. It is difficult to like the author. Indeed I spent most of the time sympathising with the children and, above all - reading between the lines - for her long-suffering husband, Jed.

Chua's concluding insight is that life is too short to waste time. Like many high-achieving people she obviously lives by this mantra. But like many high-achieving people I wonder if she ever steps off the achievement hamster wheel to enjoy life. She even snatches victory from the jaws of the final defeat at the hands of teenage rebellion by writing a best seller - a Radio Four book of the week, no less. I suspect that says a lot about this particular Tiger Mother.

Clearly there has been a lot of controversy, particularly in the States, over whether or not Chinese parenting methods are superior [just Google the book!], but what struck me most was that there is something genuinely prophetic here.

Above all, this book serves to warn us about the way the world might become. If Amy Chua's approach reflects what is going on in the majority of homes in China, then the West needs to take note and prepare for a tidal wave of highly motivated and driven talent sweeping the world. The "Chinese parenting" approach and drive has been there for generations, but we are faced for the first time in recent history with a generation of young Chinese who have had significantly greater educational and travel opportunities and greater access to wealth than their parents. "Chinese parenting" on that scale will undoubtedly shake the domestic foundations and values of Western society.

Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was published by Bloomsbury in 2011
[You don't really need to purchase this book - the first chapter says it all and that is available free online on the Amazon website]

11 things that Young People don’t learn in school, but need to know about life.

2011-07-06T09:40:00.008+01:00

Adapted from the American for an English Audience:

Life is not fair - get used to it!

The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

You will NOT earn £60,000 a year right out of University. You won't be a vice-president with a company car and a mobile phone until you earn both.

If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss

Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: They called it opportunity.

If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest and set about cleaning up the planet from the mess your parent's generation have made, try tidying up your own bedroom first.

Some schools may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. The examination system may allow you retake exam modules as many times as you want to ensure you get the top grade. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Life is not divided into terms. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to work.

Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

[Extract from Speech to Berkhamsted School Upper Sixth Leavers - Vale 05/07/11]

These 11 things have circulated on the Web purporting to be a speech that Bill Gates gave to High School Leavers - this is an urban myth. The rules are an abridged version of an original piece that was penned by author Charles J. Sykes' 50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School

ISI Inspections are set to change again

2011-07-04T09:40:00.004+01:00

The Government has announced that Tick Box Inspections" will be scrapped for Independent Schools.

See Daily Telegraph 4/7/2001

Lord Adonis calls for "A new settlement between state and private education".

2011-07-03T18:23:00.007+01:00

"A new settlement between state and private education". The title of Lord Adonis' Specialist Schools and Academies Trust Annual Lecture (28 June 2011) says it all.

His starting point is a pragmatic one:

England in 2011 is governed by a Prime Minister educated at Eton, a Deputy Prime Minister from Westminster, a Chancellor from St Paul’s. Charterhouse, Rugby, Radley, Wellington and Cheltenham Ladies College are all in the Cabinet too, along with a second from Westminster; almost all of them children of very wealthy parents. We do indeed have a coalition government – a coalition between Eton and Westminster. It is only a slightly broader coalition which funds, manages and entertains the country too.

Seen in this way – the dominance of a privately educated elite over the social, economic and political life of this country – you realise why it is so important, if we are ever to be one nation, to have the people who run the private schools, and who teach in and attend these schools, engaged institutionally and intimately with state education too.

Lord Adonis' solution is one with which we are familiar:

Every successful private school, and private school foundation, should sponsor an academy or academies, in place of existing underperforming comprehensives. They should do this alongside their existing fee-paying school or schools, turning themselves into federations of private and state schools, following the lead of a growing number of private schools and their foundations which have done precisely this and would not think of going back, including Dulwich, Wellington, the Haberdashers, the Mercers, the Girls Day School Trust, the City of London Corporation and the King Edward VI Foundation in Birmingham.

And by sponsoring academies I don’t just mean advice and assistance, the loan of playing fields and the odd teacher, etc. I mean the private school or foundation taking complete responsibility for the governance and leadership of an academy or academies, and staking their reputation on their success as they currently do on the success of their fee-paying schools.

Like Dulwich, Wellington et al, Berkhamsted is ahead of the game. We are sponsors of the Wren Academy in Finchley. The school is now in its third year and is an outstanding success. I am proud to be part of a committed Governing Body at Wren that is able to support an outstanding, forward-thinking Senior team.

I support much of Lord Adonis' vision for a greater collaboration between the Maintained and Independent sectors. To echo his words, the "Berlin Wall" between them has stood too long and it is time to break it down.

Why I believe in Grammar Schools

2011-06-26T20:50:00.001+01:00

As Principal of an independent school that is in direct competition with a number of Buckinghamshire Grammar Schools, I know that I meant to be upset by the Government's intention that "Grammar Schools should be allow to expand" [Daily Telegraph 23rd June 2011], but I am not.

Why? Well my starting point is that I believe that there should be opportunities for the Nation's talent to rise to the top regardless of their social and financial background. I have argued previously that university entrance should be on the basis of merit and that there should be transparency in the admissions process. By the same token, there need to be mechanisms in place to enable talented young people to develop the skills that they need to demonstrate that they are amongst the best. Clearly Education has an enormous part to play here. Sadly, the problem is that large portions of the Maintained sector is preoccupied with gaining level 4 in KS2 SATS and turning D grades into C grades in order to meet the Government's performance criteria, rather than developing the Nation's most talented. Ultimately the Government encourages Maintained schools to operate at the level of the lowest common denominator: it is about the norm, rather than the exceptional.

What Grammar schools do is that they provide opportunities for young people to go beyond the norm, regardless of background. They provide free access to a high quality education that focuses on moving from A to A*, rather than from D to C. So I am all in favour of more places being available to offer to enable this to happen. The only sadness is that so many young people are subjected to tutoring and cramming for the 11+. This is perhaps not surprising given that the alternatives are a D-C focused education in the Maintained sector or a £15k p.a. bill in the independent sector.

I know the difference that a good education can make. Passing the 11+ and attending one of this country's top state Grammar Schools [King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford] transformed my life by opening up the possibility of attending a top university and of having a professional career. Throughout my teaching career I have seen the impact at first hand on young lives that a top independent school education can have. It is no surprise that I believe that Education should be the greatest vehicle for social mobility in this country.

Independent Schools, too, have a part to play here - indeed they are already playing it well. By offering 100%+ bursaries that cover tuition, uniform, trips etc. to talented young people, they are opening doors and giving opportunities that few in the Maintained sector can experience. I am delighted that recent recipients of such awards from Berkhamsted have gone on to read Medicine and to gain places at Oxford, opportunites which I doubt that they would have had in the Maintained sector.

Using Social and Digital Media in School Marketing, Communication and PR Strategies

2011-06-25T10:50:00.005+01:00

My article on Using Social and Digital Media in School Marketing, Communication and PR Strategies has just been published in the Independent Schools' Council Bulletin 28 - June 2011 pp. 36-40.

Click here to download the Bulletin in pdf format.

What constitutes "public benefit"? Independent Schools challenge the Charity Commission's interpretation

2011-05-17T22:12:00.009+01:00

Following its successful bid for a judicial review last year, the Independent Schools Council is seeking clarification of the Charity Commission's interpretation of the Charity Act at at Charities Tribunal hearing, which is taking place this week at the Upper Tribunal at London's High Court.

Media Coverage:

Private schools contest 'vague' charity rules BBC Website 17/05/2011

Protecting a School’s Reputation on Social Networking sites and the Internet

2011-05-14T20:21:00.011+01:00

Schools cannot afford to ignore Social Networking sites when developing their Communication and PR strategy. There are a two key issues that School Strategic Managers might like to consider.

First, just as in the 1990s there was a rush to buy up all the domain names that related to the school [www.yourschool.org.uk; www.yourschool.com etc.] it would be prudent for schools to establish that they have the right to key social networking web addresses for the school, such as www.facebook.com/YourSchool, www.twitter.com/YourSchool etc. Because Facebook and Twitter are privately owned and not governed by the rules that applied to website domain names, it is first-come, first-served in relation to these web addresses.

Secondly, social networking sites do pose an important challenge when it comes to protecting a school’s reputation. These sites need to be monitored daily for defamatory material and for inappropriate pictures. This is no mean task and there is a cost in time. It will not be possible to prevent individual pupils from damaging the school’s reputation all of the time, but there are some steps that a school can take to help.

The easiest way for a school to protect itself is to ensure that it has administrative control of the school Facebook Group, Facebook Page and of the Twitter account. This will allow the school to monitor what is posted on the site, to remove any offensive material and to block undesirable members. If the schools do not set up their own Facebook Page or Group, it is more than likely that someone else will. Ideally schools should set up these pages and then find some mechanism whereby pupils in the school and alumni chose to use that group than any alternative that they might set up themselves. [At Berkhamsted we achieved this by saying that we would announce on Facebook whether or not the school was open on a potential snow-day – we got over 800 members within 24 hours]. It is much better if the school has control of the Facebook Group that the pupils are using.

So long as the school sets up the Twitter account, it can control who is allowed to post “tweets” and to follow the school. The only problem with Twitter is that it is possible for people to write to the Twitter wall, so the accounts needs to be monitored quite closely. It is possible to remove unwanted postings, so long as you have editorial control. Monitoring tweets about the school is a relatively easy task by using the Twitter search site (http://search.twitter.com).

Protecting your School’s Reputation on the wider Internet

One of the unfortunate consequences of the Web 2.0 revolution that made it so easy to publish to the Internet is that a school now has to devote considerable resources to protecting its reputation in Cyberspace. It is so easy for the misguided pupil, former pupil or for a disaffected parent to publish defamatory information on the Internet.
The task of monitoring what is being said about the school is an important one, but need not be too onerous as there are a number of useful websites and free services that will help the person in this role:

Google Alerts is a very simple free service, whereby any user can be alerted as soon as something relevant to their interest is detected by the Google Search engine. What this means is that a school can set up a Google Alert so that every time the school name (or the name of the Headteacher etc) appears on a webpage that someone in the school will receive an email notification and a link to the relevant page. Be aware that Google Alerts do not pick up every posting on the wall of social-networking sites – these will have to be monitored separately - but they are an excellent way to keep an eye on what is being said about the school. www.google.com/alerts.

Here are some other useful sites:

This blogpost is the basis for an article 'Using Social and Digital Media as part of your School Marketing, Communication and PR Strategies' that will be published in the ISC Bulletin later this term.

Using Social Networking Platforms as part of a School's Communication Strategy

2011-05-14T17:38:00.011+01:00

Schools always have been places where people come together, they always have provided a social focus for the community of parents and they always have been a hot topic on the dinner-party circuit.
Social networking platforms enable schools to continue to be a focus for shaping new communities and for bringing people together. They are fundamentally about communication and community. They are as much about listening as speaking. Not only can they provide new ways in which a school can provide up to date information about the school for parents and important ways to keep in touch with former pupils, but also they are a way to listen to these groups too. Social networking platforms a cost-effective way in which schools can extend their communication and marketing reach by “pushing” relevant information to parents and getting feedback from them.

It is not possible to set up a Facebook account for a school, but a school can set up a Facebook Group and a Facebook Page. A school Facebook Group enables anyone who is interested to keep in touch as part of their daily social networking activity. A Facebook Page operates rather like any commercial page. It is possible to have an official link [e.g. www. Facebook.com/YourSchool] and this can provide a more formal platform for the school and members of the group to publish relevant announcements, news stories, pictures and invitations to school events, such as Alumni reunions. www.facebook.com

Twitter provides an excellent information platform for schools. What is attractive about Twitter is that it is a much less invasive way of publishing information than, say, sending an email or a text. It lends itself to “pushing out” non-urgent or less important information; and thus is a very effective means of sending a gentle reminder to parents or publishing daily good news stories about the school. Twitter allows only 140 characters, which is enough to post to give the gist of a story, and it is possible to post a link to a full version of the story on the School Website. Parents can pick up school “tweets” either on their mobile phones or on their computers, at their convenience and then follow any links to the school website if they want further information. Some schools have taken the step of embedding their Twitter feed into their school website.

It is possible to set up a school Twitter account [www. Twitter.com/YourSchool]. It is possible to set up multiple Twitter accounts for a school, so news can be targeted to key groups [such as Twitter.com/YourPrep, or to Twitter.com/YourHouse]. Twitter not only can be run from a PC/Mac, but it is also available as an App so it is possible to “tweet” updates live, say, with results from a major sports tournament. www.twitter.com

The best way to manage multiple Twitter accounts is to use Tweetdeck, which is available both for PC/Mac and mobile devices. This program allows you to be logged in to more than one Twitter account at the same time and to post the same “tweet” to more than one account. It also makes the task of monitoring school Twitter accounts very straight-forward. In short it will save schools an enormous amount of time. www.tweetdeck.com

Joining LinkedIn is the Internet equivalent of exchanging a business card. It is probably the most important social-networking site for business people. LinkedIn has many of the features of Facebook (e.g. it has groups and it is possible to post to a wall and to send messages) but users tend not to post trivia about their private life. Schools will probably find a LinkedIn presence useful in terms of keeping in touch with both parents and Alumni. It is possible to set up a LinkedIn Group for your school and thus to send out news and information. LinkedIn has an excellent App for the iPhone. www.linkedin.com

This blogpost is the basis for an article 'Using Social and Digital Media as part of your School Marketing, Communication and PR Strategies' that will be published in the ISC Bulletin later this term.

School Apps as part of a School Communication and Marketing Strategy

2011-05-07T18:22:00.011+01:00

Schools have long understood the need to have an effective website where current and prospective parents can find key information. However, there have been two related, significant changes in the way in which people use the Internet in the past few years. First, users expect to be able to access information on the move on their mobile phones and other portable devices. Secondly, no longer can it be assumed that users are prepared to visit and return to a site to “pull-down” what they want to know. Increasingly parents and prospective parents expect relevant information to come to them. Significantly different patterns of Internet use are developing on mobile devices from PC/Laptop use. Mobile users are less inclined to use a search engine, such as Google, rather they expect to use an “App” that will provide them to access to the information.

There are a number of important consequences of this for schools. Many school websites are too slow and clunky for mobile use, so Strategic Managers need to consider how they are going to accommodate this demand. One way to do this is develop a School App.

Rather like the development of school websites in the early 1990s, I suspect that most schools will eventually have their own School App. Apps are important and they are here to stay – well at least for the next ten years!

A mobile phone App will essentially allow schools to “push” information to their target audience easily. Because of their popularity with the under 40s, Apps will be increasingly important for communication with a significant proportion not only of our alumni and our prospective parents.

Phone Apps have the advantage over email in that they don’t get lost in the inbox, they are contemporary, and it is possible to get them to do virtually everything that a website can do: school calendar, events programme, news, photo galleries, sports fixtures, activities programme. Some schools have already produced App versions of their school prospectus and school videos.

Producing a School App is a major marketing/ communication project, similar to producing a new school website – and expect to pay a similar amount. A basic School App is about £1,500 and the full works can cost up to £40k. Schools will need professional help to develop a School App. Commissioning a School App just for the sake of having one is a wasted opportunity and may even be counter-productive in the long-run. It will save both time and money if, before embarking on developing a School App, Strategic Managers decide the following:

How will the App contribute to the School’s Marketing or Communication strategy?
Who is the target audience?
What will the App do?
What sort of information will the App provide? How often will this information change?
Who in the school will be managing the information that the App provides?
What will be the measures of success?

A School App that is targeted at providing information and daily news stories to current parents will need significantly different functionality to one that is targeted at providing prospectus-type information to prospective parents.

At present Apps are available for four platforms: iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry. The general consensus is that there will not be a convergence on these technologies in the near future so this means that a school will have to produce different versions of the App.

This blogpost is the basis for an article 'Using Social and Digital Media as part of your School Marketing, Communication and PR Strategies' that will be published in the ISC Bulletin later this term.

Niall Ferguson: Challenging how we teach History

2011-04-16T11:56:00.005+01:00

The highlight of this year's ISC Annual Conference was having the opportunity to listen to Niall Ferguson outlining his concerns about the way in which schools are forced to teach History in this country. I have recently started reading his [so far] excellent book, Civilization: The West and The Rest, in which he comments on the problem,

"In schools, too, the grand narrative of Western ascent has fallen out of fashion. Thanks to an educationalists' fad that elevated 'historical skills' above knowledge in the name of 'New History' - combined with the unintended consequences of the curriculum-reform process - too many British children leave school knowing only unconnected fragments of Western history: Henry VIII and Hitler, with a small dose of Martin Luther King, Jr."
Introduction p.18

He develops these ideas further in the Preface to the UK edition,

"Watching my three children grow up, I had the uneasy feeling that they were learning less history than I had learned at their age, not because they had bad teachers but because they had bad history books and even worse examinations.

"For more than thirty years, young people at Western schools and universities have been given the idea of a liberal education, without the substance of historical knowledge. They have been taught isolated 'modules', not narratives, much less chronologies. They have been trained in the formulaic analysis of document excerpts, not in the key skill of reading widely and fast. They have been encouraged to feel empathy with imagined Roman centurions or Holocaust victims, not to write essays about why and how their predicaments arose.

"In The History Boys, the playwright Alan Bennett posed a 'trilemma': should history be taught as a mode of contrarian argumentation, a communion with past Truth and Beauty, or just 'one fucking thing after another'? He was evidently unaware that today's sixth-formers are offered none of the above - at best, they get a handful of 'fucking things' in no particular order."
Preface xix

I am sure that Niall Ferguson's observations ring true with many history teachers, who feel boxed in by examination specifications and bemoan the loss of the opportunity for real historical study, particularly at A-level.

No one wants to see a return to History solely being about the rote learning of historical dates and of the names of the kings and queens of England, but I have been concerned for many years that young people lack a simple historical framework on which to hook ideas. Without such a framework it is not possible for young people to make connections between events and to develop understanding and insight. It is reassuring that such an eminent and well-known historian as Niall Ferguson is taking up the cause.

Cambridge University: A-level scores are the best indicator of future degree success

2011-04-14T12:23:00.015+01:00

Cambridge University has defended robustly its right to admit students on the basis of merit, without regard to social or educational background. Thus far it has resisted all pressure from Government to alter its admissions procedures to be a vehicle of social mobility. [See 'University is not for promoting social justice, says Cambridge vice-chancellor' Daily Telegraph 10/09/2008] The findings of a recent study conducted by the University Admissions Research Working Party gives support to this approach and to the policy of using AS-level UMS scores as the best predictor of future degree success.

Richard Partington, the report's author commented,

"A Levels - as measured by unit scores or UMS - were overwhelmingly the best indicator available of likely future degree performance. The one exception is for entry in Mathematics, where Cambridge Assessment's STEP exam gave the best indicator of potential."

The study, The Predictive Effectiveness of Metrics in Admission to Cambridge University, analysed the those students who sat Cambridge Tripos examinations in the period 2006-2009. It also found that Cambridge students from state and independent schools are equally likely to enjoy degree success:

"School background and gender did not make a significant difference. Given the same UMS performance at admission, students from different schools and colleges were equally likely to perform well in Cambridge exams in the period 2006-2009."

The study also found that GCSE grades, the preferred measure used by Oxford University, have largely been a less effective predictor than AS UMS. Interestingly, looking to the future, the Working Group are going to analyse the effectiveness of the A* at A-level as a predictor of future Tripos success.

Long may our top universities resist all external pressures to lower their admission standards to meet a social agenda; and long may they continue to admit students on the basis of merit as demonstrated in nationally recognised examinations.

Links:
School background is not a factor in Cambridge degree success Cambridge University News Website 05/04/2011

Teaching our young people that discrimination is OK.

2011-04-05T15:51:00.012+01:00

This week, David Willats, the Universities' Minister, argued that it would be right for Universities to discriminate against pupils with better A-level grades from Independent schools [See "David Willetts: state school students with good A-levels should get preferential treatment" Daily Telegraph 03/04/2011].

I, more than most, have good reason to believe that education is the right vehicle for social mobility; however, I do believe that it needs to be done on the basis of merit. I do not think that the top universities should be forced into lowering their exacting standards to comply with a social engineering agenda of the Government - regardless of its colour.

According to David Willats:

“If you get an A and two Bs at a school where the average A level grades are a C and 2 Ds, then I think that shows you're achieving something exceptional. Someone who is getting perhaps even better grades, but at a school where everyone gets good grades may not have achieved something so exceptional."

What David Willats fails to see is that this is not a debate about contextual success, it is about excellence. The ABB pupil may be doing comparatively well in a school where CDD is the norm, but he is not doing anything exceptional by national standards.

Let me move this debate away from the shades of grey comparing ABB pupils in maintained sector schools with AAB candidates in Independent Schools, to the clear territory of discrimination that apparently exists against truly outstanding Independent School pupils.

Take for example the case of one Berkhamsted pupil last year. She had a perfect academic record: 10 A*s at GCSE and was predicted A*A*A* at A-level. She was rejected by four out of five of the universities to whom she applied for English. Now I can understand how someone with such an academic record could fail to gain a place at Oxford, for the Oxbridge Colleges still believe in additional testing and interviews; however I am at a loss as to how she could fail to gain an offer from the University of Leeds on the basis of her UCAS form alone. How many A*A*A* applicants does the English Faculty at Leeds get each year? What can justify their standard offer of AAB, if they can reject A*A*A* candidates without an interview?

A-levels [or the other equivalent school leaving qualifications, such as the IB] are the recognised national measure of the preparedness of a given pupil for university. An A-level candidate who has a AAB is clearly not as well prepared for university as a candidate who has achieved A*A*A*, regardless of social background and previous educational opportunities. If Universities are to apply other criteria to their admissions process, they need to be transparent about the criteria which they use. But sadly, they are not being so.

Let us be clear where this will lead. If institutionalised discrimination against Independent School candidates becomes the Government-sanctioned norm, there will be legal challenges by individual pupils against this policy. The basis of the challenge is likely to be along the following lines:

It is parents who choose to send their children to Independent Schools. It is not the applicant's fault that he or she had a socially advantageous background or went to an Independent School. It is wholly discriminatory for a University to discriminate against a given applicant on the basis of the socio-economic background of their parents or because of a decision about schooling their parents made a number of years earlier. So long as the university admissions criteria remain based on the candidate's academic record, the applicant who has the better grades should have the right to that place on merit, regardless of their social or educational background.

There are Human Rights issues here and I suspect that it won't be long before the Courts will be asked to rule on this one.

If Universities take up David Willats' exhortation then we are simply teaching our young people that discrimination is acceptable in this country.

The UK Citizenship Test - e-Assessment at its worst

2011-03-22T20:41:00.024Z

A close family friend is presently going through the process of applying for UK citizenship and thus has to pass the UK Citizenship Test. The Test is held up alongside the Driving Theory test as one of the triumphs of e-Assessment. I am not so sure.

The "curriculum" for the UK Citizenship test is broad-ranging and is intended to ensure that a potential citizen has "the knowledge of English and of UK life that you need for citizenship" UKBA website. Assessment is an online test consisting of 24 questions with a passmark of 18/24 [75%].

Topics include:

Migration to Britain
The changing role of women
Children, family and young people
Population
The regions of Britain
Religion and tolerance
Customs and traditions
How the UK is governed
Housing
Services in and for the home
Money and credit
Health
Education
Leisure
Travel and Transport
Identity documents
Looking for work
Equal rights and discrimination
At work
Working for yourself
Childcare and Children at work

[Before reading on you may like to do a sample UK Citizenship Test - you will probably complete it in under 10 minutes, although officially you have up to 45 minutes]

I have a huge sympathy with the idea that all UK citizens should have a knowledge and understanding of how British society works. I am comforatable with any measure that encourages those who want to live and work in this country to have a greater understanding of, and respect for, our traditions and culture. Indeed, I am often surprised at the widespread ignorance of what used to be called "British Constitution". Some of the questions in the UK Citizenship test fulfil this function, for example,

A By-election is held
A halfway through a Parliament,
B every two years,
C when an MP dies or resigns,
D when the Prime Minister chooses to call one

Which TWO of the following can vote in all UK public elections?
A Citizens of the Irish Republic resident in the UK
B Citizens of EU states resident in the UK
C Citizens of Commonwealth resident in the UK
D Anyone resident in the UK

or more obscurely

The official report of the proceedings of Parliament is called
A the Speaker's Notes,
B Hansard,
C the Electoral Register,
D the Constitution

How many parliamentary constituencies are there?
A 464,
B 564,
C 646,
D 664

Some of the questions test knowledge of Britain and some of its important institutions, for example,

Which TWO of these are names for the Church of England?
A Methodist,
B Episcopal,
C Anglican,
D Presbyterian

'Ulster Scots is a dialect which is spoken in Northern Ireland.' True or False?

But other questions stretch the limits of what any citizen might be expected to know:

'In the 1980s, the largest immigrant groups were from the West Indies, Ireland, India and Pakistan.' True or False?

In which year did married women get the right to divorce their husband?
A 1837,
B 1857,
C 1875,
D 1882

The number of children and young people up to the age of 19 in the UK is
A 13 million,
B 14 million,
C 15 million,
D 16 million

[Do the sample test if you want to check your answers]

I like to think that, as a paid up Today Programme listener, I have a reasonable general knowledge, but I must confess that many of the questions were beyond me. Indeed I suspect that most people living in this country would fail the test.

Did you [honestly] know that

Information in the Census is kept secret for 100 years?
Schools must be open 190 days a year?
Children aged 13-16 cannot work more for more than 12 hours in any school week?
The percentage of Muslims in the UK in 2001 who said they were Muslim was 2.7%.

I have no problem with this "curriculum" in general terms, although is does suffer at times from the left-wing political correctness that was endemic in the Blair-Brown Governments. However, I do find it surprising that we are setting a significantly higher bar for all potential citizens than we do for our own school-leavers.

My main gripe is with the nature of the examination. I can see that it makes good financial sense for the test to be online, but this sort of test does not really examine citizenship and gives a bad name to e-Assessment. Remember this is no pub quiz - the stakes here are high. The prize for passing the test is a British Passport and the right to vote in National elections. Sadly, the fantastic developments in e-Assessment over the past few years [See my previous blogpost Can e-Assessment maintain the Gold Standard?], have been ignored. The UKBA have reduced the assessment of citizenship to rote learning of, what must appear to most of those sitting it, random trivia. If the team at AQA were given the remit of producing a test for the same material, I believe that they would have come up with a much more meaningful process that would incorporates components of testing of understanding how our society works, rather than just knowledge of randomised decontextualised facts. The end result of the present vehicle is that the nature of the assessment undermines the good intention of having a Citizenship test and does little to inform those wishing to live in this country of the true way in which British society operates.

If you have got the bug for random trivia about Britain - try some more practice tests here

Gabriel Orozco at Tate Modern - Review

2011-02-27T22:33:00.014Z

The Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco provides us with a mirror on modern society. He forces the viewer to reflect on life by taking everyday objects and scenes and presenting them to us as art.

‘For me what is important is not so much what people see in the show, it’s what you see after … how your perception of reality is changed …’ Orozco

At times the subject matter is playful as in Four Bicycles (There Is Always One Direction) 1994; at others, macabre as in Black Kites 1997, a sculpture consisting of a chequerboard pattern painted on a human skull [see Exhibition poster above].

La DS 1993, epitomises Orozco's approach and method. In this work Orozco has reshaped a Citroen DS to accentuate its aerodynamic design by removing the central longitudinal section of the car. The resulting two-seater is a paradox: an engine-less car that is styled for speed. Here is both wit and poignancy.

The most surprising piece for me was Lintels 2001, an installation of washing lines draped with the lint formed of skin, hair and fabric that accumulates in the filters of commercial tumble drying machines collected from a laundromat in New York. The piece, which is a meditation on the precariousness of life, was first exhibited in New York in the aftermath of 9:11.

Orozco enjoys playing games. Indeed he takes this as one of his themes. In Horses Running Endlessly 1995 he invents a variant of chess with a board four times as large populated only with four teams of knights. With no king to capture the conventional goal of the game has disappeared and the viewer is forced to create his own rules for the game. Likewise, in Carambole with Pendulum 1996 the viewer is presented with a game with no possibility of winning in conventional terms.

Going around the exhibition I recalled the time when, as a student, in the course of a pretentious argument that ran into the small hours, a friend blue-tacked a pencil to the wall and we disputed whether or not this constituted art. Orozco challenges our notions of what constitutes art throughout most of the exhibtion. Nowhere is this seen more overtly than in Shoebox 1993, a very witty piece which does not even appear in the guide. Shoebox 1993 is simply that - it is an empty commercial shoebox placed in the middle of the gallery floor without barrier, "Do not touch" notice or obvious label. A shoebox in any other context is just a shoebox, but a shoebox on display in the Tate becomes art.

If great art is defined as art that you come back to time and time again and see something new, then this is not great art. But Orozco does make you think and he does make you smile.

Gabriel Orozco is at the Tate Modern until 25th April 2011.

Ai Weiwei at the Tate Modern - Review

2011-02-19T17:21:00.009Z

The current exhibition at Turbine Hall at Tate Modern takes you by surprise. It plays tricks on you. From a distance it is a carpet of grey, but as you get closer you begin to realise it is made up of millions of tiny beads. Closer inspection reveals that these are sunflower seeds, handmade in porcelain.

I have always enjoyed modern art that plays visual tricks, Dali and Esher et al, but the current installation in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern is no mere optical illusion. There is certainly more to Sunflower Seeds than meets the eye.

The scale of this installation is staggering, 100 million handmade unique pieces. Its scale is a clue to its symbolism. An undertaking of this scale could only be a product of China, and so it is, for this is the work of the Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei.

Indeed this piece is to some extent a symbol of China, which goes beyond mass-production and the obvious visual pun of china from China. As Juliet Bingham, Curator of the exhibition puts it,

"Each piece is a part of the whole, a commentary on the relationship between the individual and the masses. The work continues to pose challenging questions: What does it mean to be an individual in today's society? Are we insignificant or powerless unless we act together? What do our increasing desires, materialism and number mean for society, the environment and the future?"

But this installation also needs to be seen in the context of Ai Weiwei's other work. The artist explores the relationship past China and the new China and between China and the world [See Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-cola logo 1994 - below]. He has not be afraid of challenging those who govern. For example, his work, Snake Ceiling 2009, is composed of hundreds of black-and-white backpacks for elementary and junior high school students in memory of the children killed in the Sichuan earthquake.

For the artist, as for many Chinese, the sunflower seed is symbolic of the Chinese people - its potent significance echoing from Mao Tse-tung's rhetoric and propaganda, seeing himself as the sun and the nation of sunflowers turning their faces towards him.

I was surprised by this exhibition. Its meaning and purpose are not obvious, but the more I read about Ai Weiwei and the more I read about the exhibition, the more I came to appreciate this as a truly remarkable piece of modern art. Do take the time to visit it.

For further reading on Ai Weiwei
Carol Yinghua Lu "The Artist as Activist" Tate Etc 20, Autumn 2010

School Libraries RIP? Librarians speak out

2011-02-09T21:58:00.005Z

I am grateful to colleagues who have taken the trouble to engage in this important debate. I would encourage all to read the following responses to my recent blogposts on school libraries.

The Librain "No, libraries are not dead yet!" 04/02/ 2011 [Librarian at The Dixie Grammar School, Market Bosworth, Leicestershire]
Nicola McNee "School Libraries RIP? – an open reply to An Independent Head" 03/02/2011 [Librarian at Kingswood School, Bath, UK.]

School Libraries RIP? The debate continues . . . .

2011-02-08T22:09:00.016Z

In my previous blogpost ["School Libraries RIP? The debate begins . . . . "], I dared to raise the question of whether or not school libraries need to have books. Little did I realise that even opening up such a debate would elicit such a rear-guard action from librarians – their comments [and abuse!] are published below for all to read. I was somewhat taken aback that such a literate group as librarians should not pick up on the nuance of the argument.

First, my argument related to whether or not schools need to continue to dedicate resources [money and space] to having books in their library. For the record, I think that we all agree that we want pupils to be able to access quality information and books - these are important tools for learning.
The questions we face are:

Do schools need to provide a lending facility?
Do books and information need to be in a printed format?

The response to my argument was what Nicholas Negroponte would no doubt describe as a confusion between “atoms” and “bytes” [see Being Digital, MIT 1995, pp. 11-13] . Just because a library doesn’t have physical books [atoms] does not mean that the pupils in there don’t have access to the information/ narratives etc [bytes].

As Eli Neiburger argued in his insightful presentation to the LJ/SLJ eBook Summit [See the YouTube clip – "Libraries are Screwed" part two], in a world where pupils have excellent connectivity and can download any book at any time, there is no value having a “local copy”. Most of us can accept that there is little point owning the DVD if we can we stream and watch any movie on demand; I see no difference with being able to download and read any book on demand. I accept that we might not yet be at a point where this is the case, but with Google’s mission statement to digitise the world’s information, it is just round the corner. It would be naïve to ignore this development and not to discuss its impact on schools and their libraries. To answer my own questions, I can see the day when independent secondary schools no longer provide a lending facility and that pupils will access information and books from the Internet. Over time, mostly likely this will be via their own devices in digital format.

Secondly, at no point did I, nor would I, argue that we don’t need librarians. [It’s OK guys – your jobs are safe!] My article was not an attack on librarians. For those of you out there who have jumped to all sorts of erroneous assumptions about my school librarians here at Berkhamsted, they are an excellent team who are very forward-thinking, adaptable and innovative in their approach. They do what all good librarians should do: they support learning, guide and promote reading and teach research skills. The law of the Internet age is that if you are going to be a middle-man, you have to add value. Teachers and librarians both do this by inspiring young people, teaching skills, promoting understanding and helping them to access relevant information.

So let’s take this debate further forward.
My school is just about to give each pupil a photocopying/ printing allowance for each term so that they can use school “multi-functional devices” [scanner/printer/photocopiers] to support their teaching and learning. Rather than purchasing books for the library [which we need to catalogue, monitor and store] why not give each pupil a termly Amazon voucher to spend on books [in atom or byte format] to support their teaching and learning? The only catch would be that they would have to write a review of the book they read for the School Library blog.

School Libraries RIP? The debate begins . . . . .

2011-02-01T11:11:00.024Z

For many, books are to be equated with learning: afterall to be "well-read" is to be educated. Thus I am conscious that, for some, it is heresy for a headteacher to even consider the question. No true educationalist could consider a school without a library. However, at risk of blowing all my educational credentials in one go, I feel that someone has to be brave enough to ask the question.

The more I think about it, the more I find myself questioning why we are still spending money on books and on the School library. Let me explain why:

Amazon announced last week that they sold more e-Books than paperbacks in the US [BBC News story 28/01/11]. The writing is on the wall for the codex - books are going electronic. Printed editions will be survive, but, like LPs [that's vinyl for those under 30] they will be for collectors - there will always be people who want fine editions of books [after all people pay a premium for Folio Society editions and Hardbacks]. However, the direction of travel is clear: mass publication from newspapers to novels will be electronic. It is no surprise that I am asking myself whether or not we need a School Library and, if we do, what will it look like.

Last week, I asked my Lower Sixth Oxbridge group when they last borrowed a book from the School Library. No one had done so since Year 7 when they had been made to do so by their English teacher. Don't get me wrong - they are all readers, most said that they would much rather own the text rather than borrow one. One girl commented that she used the Art books in the library, but only because she was able to get higher quality scans of the art work than she could download from the Internet. They don't use the reference books, because it is quicker, easier and probably as accurate to use Wikipedia. Most saw the Library as a quiet place to work or a place to get online.

I'm not sure that this is really a million miles away from where we were 25 years ago. When a student, I enjoyed working in the Cambridge University Library, or in the faculty libraries rather than working in my room. Why? Not because of access to the books - I often took them with me - but because it was a good working environment, it was a change of scenery, it didn't have the distractions of my College corridor, the UL had a great coffee shop and yet it was very all very sociable. Later in life I spent a summer working in the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford - and what an inspiring place that was to study.

So, I like the idea of libraries as places where young people can work, but I wonder [and I know that there is somewhat an etymological paradox about what I am going to say] if we actually need books in our library? I'm not even sure that we need to have an e-Library? If they want to download a book, young people will do it their way - I'm not sure that it makes any sense to commit resources to trying to get them to do it my way. No, I think that schools need to create inspiring spaces where young people can hang out, get connected and get on with their work - if we call those places "Libraries", so be it.

Herewith some very interesting reflections on the future of Libraries:

'Has the Investment by Independent Schools in ICT been worth it?'

2011-01-28T08:54:00.005Z

My article 'Has the Investment by Independent Schools in ICT been worth it?' has been published Independent Education Today February 2011 pp.22-23

Middle-classes 'being priced out of boarding schools'

2011-01-22T21:27:00.012Z

Research published by the Good Schools Guide indicates that school fees have risen around about a third in the past six years alone in some schools with the consequence that the Middle-classes are 'being priced out of boarding schools' [See Daily Telegraph article 22/01/2011].

At Berkhamsted, we have certainly begun to see effects of the recession hitting those families who are no longer willing or able to afford the fees at the boarding schools. The most obvious indication of this is that we have seen an increase in applications at 13+ from Prep Schools, such as Lockers' Park, Swanbourne House and Edge Grove, schools that traditionally 'feed' the large national boarding schools.

At £16,200 p.a. it is not surprising that increasing numbers of parents are seeing Berkhamsted as a very real alternative to sending their children away to the national boarding schools. Afterall, Berkhamsted has retained many characteristics from its boarding past, such as the House-based pastoral system, Chapel, a CCF and an extensive games programme; it still offers weekly and flexi boarding and has excellent facilities and opportunities for its broad co-curricular programme.

The consequences of this are that this week we had record numbers sitting our entrance exams, the quality of the entry has gone up and we are having to turn away significant numbers of applicants who meet our entry requirements. This all means that there are some very difficult decisions for us to make in the next couple of weeks.

Three tips to ensure a return on your ICT investment

2011-01-19T15:34:00.005Z

First, ensure that educational priorities inform ICT budget decisions. The ICT budgeting process needs to be “bottom up” and demand driven. It needs to start with teachers want to be able to do in the classroom to facilitate learning. If teachers are demanding it, they are far more likely to use it in the classroom and that is most likely to have a positive impact on pupil learning.
School leaders need to draw together teachers’ ideas and then determine budget priorities. For example, if teachers want to stream videos from the Internet or have classes making films in lessons, then the demands on the network will be significant and will establish a very different set of priorities for ICT development than, say, playing film clips from a DVD. It takes Senior Leaders to decide whether or not the educational value of teachers streaming videos or having pupils making films is lessons is worth the investment in the ICT network infrastructure.

Secondly, be a follower rather than a leader. Schools would be wise to resist the temptation to run after the next technological advance, just because it is new. I am writing this article in MS Word 2003 – has my school really suffered from not upgrading to Office 2007 or 2010? [We took the view that we would migrate to Office 2010 in Summer 2011, when the ICT team have time to do the upgrades and the latest version is debugged.] With ICT it is tempting to try to be in vanguard of change – but it is ultimately impossible – and very expensive. It is very easy to be sold the idea that Tablet PCs or iPads or 3-D Projection are going to transform education – they may well make a difference – but only time will tell. It is very unlikely that there is a significant competitive advantage in being ahead of the game. It is often better to be a follower, rather than a leader when it comes to ICT investment.

Thirdly, invest in dead certainties. The ICT world is fast changing, and thus some ICT decisions are difficult to make. However the direction of travel is clear: teachers and pupils are likely always to need a fast, ubiquitous connection to the Internet. A school that invests in a high-speed network infrastructure [cabling, switches and servers], good WIFI and the fastest possible Internet connection that it can afford is not likely to be wasting its money.

Interactive White Boards - why the writing should be on the wall

2011-01-09T14:19:00.011Z

I have never been a fan of Interactive Whiteboards [IWBs] in secondary schools. I think that they are a gimmick. Sure, they are fun to use, but they are an expensive toy. They are rarely used interactively in secondary schools - they are not so much Interactive Whiteboards as Digital Whiteboards. There is a growing body evidence that they do not contribute to pupil learning or motivation and may have been a waste of money. The question is how long will we continue to invest in them - or is the writing on the wall for IWBs?

In the Maintained Sector the introduction of IWBs was driven by BECTA [may they rest in peace] and supported with significant Government funding from 2003-04. The consequence was that by 2007 98% of secondary and 100% of primary schools had IWBs . By 2008 the average numbers of interactive whiteboards rose in both primary schools (18 compared with just over six in 2005, and eight in the 2007 survey) and secondary schools (38, compared with 18 in 2005 and 22 in 2007) [Source - Becta Harnessing Technology schools surveys 2007 and 2008].

Competition and marketing were the main drivers for their introduction within the Independent Sector. IWBs were a key marketing battleground both between schools and within them. Schools bought them because if the local state school had them they they had to follow suit - they were a visible symbol to prospective parents that they gave the impression that this is a twenty-first century school that is forward-looking and technologically-savvy. Within schools, the "keeping up with the Joneses" principle also applied: departments didn't want to appear out of date or be left behind - if History had one, then Geography needed one too, lest more pupils opt for their subject instead.

What was missing from this whole initiative was an educational vision: how would IWBs aid teaching and learning? Rather, the whole phenomenon was supply-driven - and the manufacturers made their mint. Not for the first or last time, suppliers were driving the agenda - not educators

So, marketing benefits aside, what has been the impact of IWBs on the pupils' learning?

Well there is evidence that IWBs have had a positive impact in primary classrooms. Research by Becta evaluating the effectiveness of the The DCSF Primary Schools Whiteboard Expansion project indicated that IWBs had contributed to increased levels of attainment in Maths, Science and English at both KS1 and KS2.

However, the picture in secondary schools is somewhat different:
An evaluation of the introduction of IBWs in Secondary Schools by the School of Educational Foundations and Policy Studies at the Institute of Education, University of London, assessed the impact of interactive whiteboard use on:

Teaching and learning;
Teacher/pupil motivation, and pupil attendance and behaviour;
Standards in core subjects at KS3 and GCSE.

They concluded

"Although the newness of the technology was initially welcomed by
pupils any boost in motivation seems short-lived. Statistical analysis showed no
impact on pupil performance in the first year in which departments were fully equipped. This is as we would expect at this stage in the policy-cycle."

And the jury has been out for the past three years, but there is a growing realisation that there is going to be very little return on IWBs at KS3, KS4 and KS5.

However there is no doubt that an educational agenda would demand data-projectors - indeed the prime advantage of the promotion of IWBs is that it has meant that nearly every classroom now has a data projector. These, combined with connectivity and some good software, have enabled teachers to harness the power of the Internet and to teach in a more exciting and responsive way than every before.

What concerns me is the opportunity cost. The fact is that IWBs are rarely used interactively - i.e. pupils driving the machine - indeed, if it is interactivity that we want then we can achieve the same level with a bluetooth keyboard and a gyro-mouse for a fraction of the cost. It's just not so sexy and it doesn't wow prospective parents in the same way. I can't help but think that had schools invested in voting software and handsets, rather than in IWBs that secondary education would be further on than it presently is.

References and further reading:

The Interactive Whiteboards, Pedagogy and Pupil Performance Evaluation: An Evaluation of the Schools Whiteboard Expansion (SWE) Project: London Challenge DFES/ Institute of Education 2007
Harnessing Technology schools survey 2007 Becta 10/07/2007
Evaluation of the DCSF Primary Schools Whiteboard Expansion Project, DCSF and Becta 08/10/2007)
Harnessing Technology schools survey 2008 Becta 14/10/2008
Some educators question if whiteboards, other high-tech tools raise achievement Washington Post, Friday, June 11, 2010

Common Entrance Exam to go online

2011-01-04T16:47:00.006Z

Plans are being drawn up to put the Common Entrance exam online in an attempt to make it less stressful for pupils, according to IAPS. Introduced in 1904, the Common Entrance is the national 13+ test taken by children applying to Independent Schools, particularly the large, national boarding schools. David Hanson, IAPS Chief Executive, said: “Other examination systems have come and gone, but Common Entrance has remained because it has great qualities. What we need to do now is build on those qualities and make best use of new technology to ease the burden of examinations on young pupils.”

Private school test goes online to ease stress BBC Website 04/01/2011

Related Blogpost:
Common Entrance: past its sell-by date?

The falling cost of computers

2010-12-15T11:59:00.009Z

Researching for a talk on ICT budgets, I came across these figures from the US on the relative cost of computers over the period 1987-2007.

The data takes a $4000 computer in 1987 as a baseline and compares what it would cost to purchase the equivalent computing power today to the equivalent purchasing power taking into to account inflation over that period.

Clearly this is not the whole picture, as greater processing power is required today because of greater expectations about performance and because of software requirements. Nevertheless, despite the reducing costs of computers, the level of capital investment in ICT kit remains constant - see previous blog post ICT Capital Expenditure in ISC Schools - the statistics.

Careers - what it takes to be the best of the best.

2010-12-13T22:09:00.011Z

I recently was given the opportunity to spend a day with the top executives responsible for Talent Management at Novartis at their Campus of Innovation, Knowledge and Encounter in Basel. I was part of a group of educationalists who are concerned about the growing dislocation of education and the world of work. Our aim was to gain a better understanding of the needs of business , industry and the professions so that we can prepare young people better for their future careers.

Novartis is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and has the value and turn-over the size of a small country. Their continued profitability depends on developing new drugs and medicines each year to replace those that are going out of patent. Novartis' success relies on attracting and developing the best talent in the world - how they do that is a lesson to us all . . . . .

A few thoughts on what it takes to be the best of the best:

A degree is not the end of a young person's education.
A BA or BSc is just the starting point, every sixth former should expect to go on to study for a higher degree [MA or MSc], an MBA or for a professional qualification [Law - LLB, Banking - CFA, Accountancy - ACA, Teaching PGCE, etc.]. Novartis recruit the majority of their top 400 executives from the premier MBA programmes around the world.
Young people are competing in a world employment market.
Being the best in the UK is not necessarily going to take you to the top - there are many extremely talented people out there who are hungry for success. Novartis actively set out to attract a diversity of talent from around the world.
Leading firms remunerate extremely well, but don't expect a work-life balance if you want to get to the top
Novartis openly talk about a "work-life integration", rather than a "work-life balance." They provide restaurants, a supermarket and a post-office onsite so that you don't have to leave early.
Top firms are not just concerned with results, but also on how one treats other people.
Top firms are not just concerned that individuals meet their targets, but they are also concerned that they develop their teams and treat people well. This makes business sense because a poor manager is often the cause for talent to leave the firm. Novartis pay their bonuses according to the following matrix:

So what skills are firms like Novartis looking for?

Agility - the ability to apply what you have learned to a new situation - be that in a different division of the firm or in a different culture or part of the world.
Ability to collaborate - an attitude of tolerance and the ability to draw out the best in others. This requires a significant degree of self-awareness.
Ability to manage horizontally - Novartis recognise that the new generation doesn't like hierarchy and key leaders will need to manage on a "more flat matrix"
Soft Skills - particularly good communication skills and languages

Online Bullying - Cracking down on the Internet Bullies

2010-12-11T09:58:00.003Z

Latest figues show that one-in-three teenagers is a victim of harassment, intimidation or bullying through the Internet. Herewith an investigation by Tonight

What Heads need to know about ICT: Understanding ICT Budgeting

2010-12-10T16:00:00.005Z

My article on What Heads need to know about ICT: Understanding ICT Budgeting has just been published in the Independent Schools' Council Bulletin 27 - December 2010 pp. 34-37.

Click here to download the Bulletin in pdf format.

PISA 2009 - The debate begins . . . .

2010-12-07T23:22:00.016Z

Today the OECD Programme for Student Assessment [PISA] published its three-yearly survey of "What Students Know and Can Do: Student Performance in Reading, Mathematics and Science"

This survey ranks countries on the quality of their education.

Here's a taste: the UK ranks 21st in the world in Science Education

What strikes me about these figures is that other school systems not only are producing much higher proportions of the very best students [level 5] in Science education than we are in the UK - but, given the population size of these countries, they are also producing them in significant numbers too. If our brightest and best are going to compete successfully in the global jobs market, then we, in the independent sector, are going to have to take the lead and share how we develop our pupils so that they become the very best of the world's top talent.

We can look forward to weeks of discussion and debate about what the figures mean. Follow the debate live on Twitter #OECDPISA

News Stories:
UK schools fall in global ranking BBC Website 07/12/2010
Save our schools Daily Telegraph Comment 08/12/2010
British schools slump in global league table Independent 08/12/2010

Interfacing with the Future

2010-12-04T21:46:00.004Z

Cordell Ratzlaff [ex Apple, now director of user-centred design at Cisco] affords a glimpse of the future in today's Daily Telegraph.

"Don’t berate your moody teenager for wasting hours on computer games. It’s preparing them for the workplace of the future."

"We’re heading towards a point of ‘always on’ connectivity, where users always have an internet connection."

Ratzlaff points to a third generation of user interface. If the first level was the old command-line interface, and the second the GUI (using graphics), the latest phase moves away from the need for a keyboard and mouse, making manipulation much more direct by using touch, voice recognition and spatial awareness.

“We need to get to a point where initiating a video call is as simple as picking up the phone. It’s happening.”

The article tackles issues such as:

The importance of Computer Games
Video calls
Cars connected to the Internet

Full article:
Computer Games of the Future Daily Telegraph 04/12/10

ICT Capital Expenditure in ISC Schools - the statistics

2010-12-03T10:09:00.013Z

The Independent Sector has invested heavily in ICT over the past twenty years and this seems set to continue. Analysis of ISC Annual Census data indicates that, although the recession has had a minimal impact, there is no sign that the overall level of capital expenditure on ICT is reducing, despite ICT capital costs falling year on year. The data shows that ISC Schools have spent £221M in ICT capital expenditure in the past four years, averaging out at £55.25M per annum.

Unsurprisingly HMC and GSA schools are setting the lead in terms of the amount of capital expenditure per pupil [HMC averaging £131/pupil p.a. and GSA averaging £125/pupil p.a.]. Capital investment in Prep Schools and the smaller ISA schools lags well behind [IAPS and ISA averaging £76/pupil p.a.]. Furthermore this analysis does not include staffing costs, where many of the larger, wealthier schools are investing heavily in ICT technical and classroom support.

Source: ISC Census Data 2007-10

"Growing up digital, wired for distraction"

2010-12-01T10:55:00.005Z

Further to my previous blogpost on the plasticity of the brain and how young people are rewiring themselves, I came across this controversial article by Matt Richtel which was recently published in The New York Times.

"Growing up digital, wired for distraction" The New York Times 21/11/10

Reflections on a visit to The Lowry

2010-11-17T07:26:00.007Z

Lowry's close observation of his world was insightful; but there is something terribly sad about about his work. The northern factory scenes that form the backdrop to his most famous works do not lend themselves to an optimistic outlook. Lowry is at his best when depicting the mass movement of workers bent forward with purpose thus capturing their busy-ness. Mill Scene, 1965, is a case in point. Lowry wrote of his subject matter,

"I dislike them myself . . . Yet as soon as I start, what happens? Pitiful-looking people throng around gloomy factories with smoking chimneys. I stare at the blank canvass and that is what I see - and what I have to paint.".

Lowry paints the familiar but there is a detachment here too. He himself commented that, "they are ghostly figures . . . They are symbols of my mood, they are myself.". That detachment derives from his loneliness.

"Had I not been lonely, none of my work would have happened. I should not have done what I have done, or seen the way I saw things."

The Lowry Gallery, Salford Quays

Black Ops Dilemma - a Call of Duty?

2010-11-14T17:48:00.011Z

I am sure that I am not alone on this one. The release of the latest version of Call of Duty "Black Ops" on 9th November was much trailed in the press and in the advanced advertising campaign, with the consequence that it is likely to be the fastest selling video game of all time [News - Sunday Telegraph 14/11/2010]. A triumph for the manufacturers and distributors, I am sure, but a real dilemma for many parents.

Inevitably my twelve year old, like most of his friends, wants one - and so we parents are faced once again with having to make what is potentially a very unpopular decision. "But all my friends have got it ....", "Dad, you just don't understand ....." and so on.

I have huge reservations about interactive computer games in general, and combat games in particular. The active, participatory nature of these games makes them all the more powerful than watching a video. I would rather my children played real sport than Wii Sport; I am worried that they spend too much time looking at a screen. And I really don't like the distorted reality that adult games promote: from Grand Theft Auto to Black Ops et al. - these games are 18 Certificates for a reason. Furthermore, given that, as a family, we go clay pigeon shooting regularly, I am concerned that my children all use and handle guns safely, and I am not convinced that the way in which young people point and shoot whilst playing Wii games promotes this.

My experience as a Housemaster and as a parent has taught me that boys will push the boundaries all the time, if only to know where they are. Setting clearly understood boundaries shows that we care for them. I realise that many will take a different view to me on this particular issue of combat games - in many ways that is not the important issue here. Wherever you draw the line, consistency is the key. Children need to know that we are consistent in the decisions that we make; and it is really important that one parent isn't played off against the other. Sometimes we have to say "no" to show that we love them; and in their heart of hearts boys want us to do this.

I must say that I was little surprised, but pleased with my son's reaction - perhaps he knows me well enough. He took the news with a resigned shrug, regrouped and asked whether he could have the Harry Potter 5 video game instead! I do love him!

Using QR codes in Marketing

2010-11-11T16:41:00.011Z

Now that anyone carrying an iPhone or a smartphone is potentially walking around with a QR reader, schools can harness this and use it to disseminate important information and key messages.

QR ["Quick Response"] codes are two dimensional barcodes which can encode up to about 250 characters of free text or a Website URL.

This functionality means that it is possible to link, say, a building to a relevant webpage on the School Virtual Tour. Thus QR code might enable a visitor to learn more about the history of the School Chapel or about a piece of Art Work.

A QR code could also be printed on the back of any school publication enabling the reader to link to a relevant page of the School website for further information. Yes, they could type in a link into their browser, but QR codes are quick and easy to use. Above all, they give the impression of a forward-looking school - the medium is the message!

Online QR code generators are available free online, as are QR code apps. Have fun!

Links
Free QR Code Generator
Free QR Code App for iPhone

Bedtime texting and Internet use can damage a teenager's health

2010-11-04T06:49:00.011Z

More than half of children and teenagers who text, or surf the Internet at bedtime are likely not only to have problems falling asleep, but experience mood, behaviour and cognitive problems during the day; concluded a pilot study conducted by a team from the JFK Medical Center, in Edison, New Jersey.

The lead author, Dr Peter G. Polos, commented, "The sooner parents establish appropriate times for children to use this technology, the better," adding that perhaps they should also "move key items, such as computers, from a child's bedroom into a common area".

Full article: 'Bedtime Texting, Internet Use, Disturbs Sleep And Mood In Teens' MedicalNewsToday.com 03/11/2010

Fame - As time goes by . . . . .

2010-11-01T19:58:00.014Z

Sometimes life throws up one of those unforgettable cameo moments - last Saturday was of those occasions . . . . .

As I took my seat on the Saturday morning Lufthansa flight from Heathrow to Frankfurt, I knew the guy sitting next to me looked familiar in a "I know that face" kind of way. It was only when my travelling companion pointed it out that I realised that I was sitting next to Alvin Stardust. My first reaction was that this was his doppleganger (as surely 70's popstars travel first or business?) but then it dawned that life had moved on and this was the real Alvin Stardust and that economy was now his lot in life.

As if this wasn't wierd enough, whilst I was racking my brain to recall an Alvin Stardust hit (all I could remember was that rather dodgy black glove!) a husky American accent struck up inviting Alvin to join her in the next row back. Turning I realised that the voice belonged to none other than Suzi Quatro. At this point I felt as if I was in some twisted version of a Carlsberg advertisment and was half expecting Leo Sayer, David Soul and Dollar to appear - "Carlsberg don't do 70's kitch - but if they did . . . . ".

So there we all were Suzi, Alvin and me. Well, surprisingly Alvin chose my company - but not before he and Suzi exchanged stories about visiting the grandchildren and comparing photos of them on their iPhones - how time moves on! Apparently the Germans are really keen on 70s and 80s retro concerts and so they were off to a gig in some obscure German town. Suzi still has all her fiestiness, clearly has not come to terms with the fact that only people in their forties have any idea of who she is (She still wears the "Don't you know who I am?" shades that only stars wear indoors). I am sure they both put on a great show - the only difference is that, as Suzi confided to me, she just has to take a nap before going on stage these days.

"Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn"? Well not exactly. But these were real people living real lives. They were excellent value, they dished out some great banter, didn't really take themselves too seriously and both were looking great on it all. I hope that I have their energy and joie de vivre when I'm in my sixties.

Independent Schools still delivering at A-level

2010-10-22T09:11:00.006+01:00

Pupils educated in the Independent sector are three times more likely to get at least three A grades at A-level than pupils from maintained sector schools.

Figures published this week by the Department for Education show that only eight per cent of pupils in comprehensive schools gained three As, compared with 27 per cent in selective state grammar schools and 31.4 per cent in the independent sector.

What this means is that last year the numbers of A-level candidates getting 3 A grades were as follows:

11,185 in Independent Schools [41.2%]
10,050 in Comprehensive Schools [37.0%]
5,939 in Selective/Grammar Schools [21.8%]

Sadly the Statistics do not give a breakdown for the three sectors for the percentages of pupils gaining the A*, but the gap is likely to be even greater when these are taken into consideration. [The top Grammar schools were getting about 20% A* as opposed to over 40% in the selective Independent Sector. The national average was 8%]

Given this perhaps it is not surprising that Independent Schools dominate the places awarded at top universities.

Newspaper Coverage:
'Private schools dominate top A-level grades' Daily Telegraph 21/10/10

State v private: The A-level gulf widens with fee-payers now three times more likely to get straight As Daily Mail 21/10/10

To view the DfE Statistics:
DfE: GCE/Applied GCE A/AS and Equivalent Examination Results in England, 2009/10 (Provisional) Table 1a

The Foundation for British Tennis

2010-10-14T15:51:00.013+01:00

Yesterday I was lucky enough to visit the National Tennis Centre at Roehampton, which has been the home of the LTA since February 2007. It may not have the splendour of Queens Club, but Roehampton combines excellent office space for the administrators and state-of-the-art tennis facilities for the players. With 6 acrylic indoor courts, 6 acrylic outdoor courts, 4 grass courts and 6 clay courts - two of which are covered - this is where Britain's elite can eat, sleep and, of course, train. They have access to strength and conditioning training and to top coaching: it was great to watch Greg Rusedski coaching one of GB's best under 16s. [Isn't it encouraging that someone who probably doesn't have to work is giving British tennis 100 days a year coaching!]

But Roehampton is not just about elite sport. There is vision here for developing the future of British tennis, for Roehampton is also the home of the Tennis Foundation. Paul Reagan, Head of Education at the Tennis Foundation, has set out to make tennis much more accessible in schools. In the past year, the TF trained 8,000 Primary School teachers and invested some £3.8M in equipment. His plan is simple and realistic. Recognising that not everyone has the facilities of Roehampton, the TF have designed teaching materials and courses that can be delivered to classes of 30 in a typical Primary School hall. They have produced an outstanding DVD that makes teaching tennis straight forward for the teacher. The TF are providing these DVDs free; but knowing how easy it is for a good teaching resource just to sit on a shelf in a classroom, they are giving them only to those who attend a three hour training course. This ensures that a teacher is familiar with the material and confident in using the DVD before they face the class of 30. There is a challenge here for all Heads and Heads of Department - how often do we purchase resources without putting the necessary training in place to use them effectively?!

Making tennis accessible to teachers, and thus available to young children, are important steps in developing a broad playing base that will ensure the future of the sport and of national success. Well done the Tennis Foundation! Keep up the good work.

Details of the courses and other resources are available from www.schoolstennis.org

Why Schools don't need ICT

2010-10-09T16:48:00.002+01:00

Great article by Ian Yorston, the Head of Digital Strategy at Radley College, published in the ATL Magazine, explaining why investment in School ICT doesn't always pay.

"Why Schools don't need ICT" ATL Magazine October 2010

Schools, the Charity Commission and the "Public Benefit Test"

2010-09-30T07:54:00.017+01:00

The ISC will be in court next week having been given leave to seek judicial review on the way in which the Charity Commission are applying the 2006 Charities Act to Independent Schools. Central to this case is the definition of what consistutes "public benefit". The Charity Commission, under the previous Labour Government, interpreted "public benefit" primarily in terms of the provision of bursaries, particularly, for children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. The ISC believe that Independent Schools provide public benefit both by providing public access to school facilities, supporting Academies and by saving the Government millions of pounds a year by educating 7% of the population at no cost to the tax-payer.

Attorney General orders review of private school charity rules Daily Telegraph 30/09/2010
ISC Deputy Chief Executive, Matthew Burgess, explains why the ISC are seeking a judicial review of the definition of Public Benefit ISC Blog 08/10/2010

Common Entrance - past its sell-by date?

2010-09-26T15:24:00.042+01:00

Last week's proposals for an alternative to Common Entrance ("Common Entrance is past its sell-by date") go some way to address many of the problems with CE. However, the whole CE debate needs to be understood against the changing landscape of Prep School education in this country.

Common Entrance was created by the Headmaster's Conference in 1904 for a 13+ entry to traditional boys boarding schools, and its continued existence is perpetuated by the demands and needs of the large, national boarding schools. However the world of independent education has changed and these schools are increasingly a minority: many schools are local, co-ed, transfer at 11+, and increasing numbers of pupils are entering senior schools from the maintained sector.

The present financial situation means that we are heading for a time of significant change in the Prep School world and the direction of travel is clear. Prep Schools will continue to evolve, generally aligning their provision to that of the Senior Schools that they feed. The majority of Independent Sector provision is local, thus most Preps will be local and will feed day and weekly boarding schools in their area. A small but significant number of boarding prep schools will remain - these will run to 13 and feed the national boarding schools, as they have always done.

In this context Common Entrance no longer serves its original purpose as a school transfer examination. Indeed, most senior schools do not require Common Entrance - it is a little known fact that all but a couple of national boarding schools (e.g. Radley?) have a "non-CE route" for entry. Although the Independent Schools Examination Board over the past fifteen years have tried to bring the syllabuses in line with the demands of the National Curriculum, the exam remains irrelevant for a majority of Independent schools. Many schools have moved to a cocktail of Verbal Reasoning, Non-verbal reasoning, English and Maths.

Prep Schools understandably exaggerate the importance of CE both to pupils and parents in order to keep their Year 8 pupils' noses to the grindstone throughout their last year. But the reality is that very few of the boarding schools can afford to fail a CE candidate for two simple reasons. First, it destroys the mutual trust that must exist between a senior school and a Prep school. There is a symbiotic relationship between Prep and Senior Schools: Senior Schools need Preps to send them their pupils - Preps need Senior Schools to take their pupils. There is often an element of give and take in how this works on the ground. Senior Schools want the best pupils - but the rub is that sometimes Prep Schools will know that, if they send up their best students to a given school, they can rely on the good relationship to slip a weaker pupil "under the radar" and gain a place. Secondly, the financial costs are too high - every CE failure means a £24k reduction in income for the school because the "waiting list" have taken up places at other schools well before the results come out. A CE failure is a disaster for all concerned: the child, the parents, the Prep School and the Senior School. Only the very top schools, such as Eton, can even contemplate it.

What concerns me most about CE is what it does to the educational experience of many Prep pupils. Over the years I have interviewed many boys and girls who were bored rigid throughout Years 7 and 8 because they have been taught to the test by working their way through a rainforest of past CE papers. Given that GCSE examinations have crept down to Year 10, these young people have enough pressures ahead without respite. CE is a false summit. It is an additional, unnecessary pressure at the very age when young people need inspiring.

The CE debate reflects a crisis of confidence in Prep Schools. CE is the raison d'etre for many Prep Schools. Take it away and they will need to design their own curriculum - the comfort blanket will have gone - there will be inevitable resistance from traditionalists in the staff room who fear change. But what an opportunity the end of CE will bring!

But there is an elephant in the room here too: take away CE and it begs the question why stay on at Prep School until 13, why not transfer at 11+? Many prep schools are clinging onto CE because they fear the loss of their Year 7 and 8. Ultimately Prep Schools will retain their senior pupils if they can provide a stimulating and vibrant education and many do. However, Prep Schools do have an uphill struggle where they are in direct competition with well-resourced senior schools. Most 11-18 schools have better facilities, more specialist teachers and are able to offer a broader curriculum. This is particularly seen in Languages, where few Prep Schools offer a second Modern Language and in the creative and cultural areas, particularly in Design/Food Technology and in curriculum Drama.

It is likely that Common Entrance will survive in some form because the national boarding schools need it. However, for the vast majority of the sector the migration to entrance based on a more straight forward series of tests is inevitable. I hope the Prep School world will embrace the opportunities that this change will bring, and, freed from the shackles of CE, put together a curriculum that will inspire and enthuse the next generation of young people.

Inspection's changing again!

2010-09-24T15:15:00.010+01:00

Michael Gove is to be applauded on his announcement that OFSTED inspections will focus on four areas: teaching, leadership, behaviour and achievement. These are the key areas that will lead to higher academic standards. Most welcome is the decision that the monitoring of compliance and the Self-evaluation Form [the SEF] will no longer form part of the inspection framework. Schools will be relieved if the bureaucratic administrative burden that was created by the present system is being lifted so that they can focus more on what goes on in the classroom and less on paperwork. I must confess that I am somewhat bemused by the abandonment of the SEF - it was a useful mechanism for schools to make judgements about how they were doing.

Another change in Inspection criteria will entain committing significant management time to get to grips with another set of inspection criteria, but it must be worth it to get back to a useful inspection framework. The focus on compliance has meant that we no longer get useful, detailed feedback from Inspectors on the teaching and learning that is going on. So let us hope that the Independent Schools Inspectorate will follow suit quickly - roll on ISI4! Alternatively, we could just return to ISI2, which was abandoned primarily because it did not focus sufficiently on compliance.

Michael Gove's Open Letter to Christine Gilbert, the HM Chief Inspector, OFSTED 22/09/2010

'Common Entrance is past its sell-by date'

2010-09-15T21:37:00.003+01:00

Paul Brewster, Headmaster of The Beacon School, Amersham, and Chair of the Prep School Baccalaureate Steering Group, argues for an alternative to Common Entrance:

'Common Entrance is past its sell-by date' Daily Telegraph, 14/09/2010

Are "top-up" fees the way to higher school standards?

2010-09-14T21:28:00.024+01:00

According to the OECD's PISA Survey Britain's independent schools are some of the very best in the world. Sadly the same cannot be said of our Maintained sector. Despite numerous Government initiatives and significant investment over decades, the British education system remains polarised. There is no middle ground.

However, Paul Collier, the Professor of Economics at Oxford University and author of The Bottom Billion, argues that there is a simple, cost-effective way to close the gap between the very high quality, expensive Independent Sector provision and that in many Maintained Sector State Schools. Professor Collier argues that it is the ban on "blended funding" that causes the "Educational Apartheid" that is the British system of schooling.

Professor Collier maintains that, if parents were given education credits [equal to the amount that the Government currently spends per capita on Maintained Sector provision - roughly £5k p.a.] and allowed parents to top up that sum, that middle ground providers would enter the market-place providing education in the £7k to £10k p.a. price band. He will be presenting his ideas to Government think-tanks over the coming months and we can look forward to him publishing a number of articles in this important debate.

Professor Collier's intervention is timely, for it comes when the question of top-up fees is a hot topic for Independent Schools. At present, most schools with Early Years provision in their Pre-Prep are reviewing whether or not they are going to remain in the Government's Early Years Funding Scheme [EYFS]. The terms of the Scheme have recently been changed, increasing the number of hours that schools must provide free per week to fifteen. To date, many Independent Schools have been subsidising the Scheme, because the cost of the provision is not usually covered by the funds that schools receive and the Government will not allow any top-up fees to be charged. For some schools this has made sense as a "loss-leader", but the new requirements have increased the costs still further. It is very difficult for schools to justify these subsidies - particularly in the present economic climate. Without the provision for top-up funding, it is unlikely that many organisations will be willing or able to support the EYFS. Sadly, at Berkhamsted, we have taken the decision to withdraw from the Scheme, which was due to cost the school in the region of £60,000 this academic year. If others come to same conclusion, it is likely to mean that there simply will not be sufficient free Early Years provision in the area. It would be a very different picture if the Government were to embrace Professor Collier's approach.

Professor Collier in his own words:
Private v state: here's how to bridge the educational divide Independent 14/01/2010

Is the Internet making us shallow?

2010-09-02T21:30:00.002+01:00

Further to the Previous Post:
Listen to Nicholas Carr being interviewed on the Today Programme on Radio Four

e-Learning and reading books the way forward in the Internet Age?

2010-08-30T10:13:00.009+01:00

"When we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning."

"The Internet is literally rewiring our brains."

"Hypertext distracts and does not aid understanding."

These are just a few of the findings of psychologists, neurobiologists and educators outlined in Nicholas Carr's excellent new book, The Shallows.

Carr's argument is that we use the Internet and read hypertext-type differently to how we read text in books. This is developing new different skills of assimilating lots of information very quickly, which on one level is very positive. Because of the plasticity of the brain these new abilities become hard-wired through new neural pathways. The down side is that high Internet users are losing to read documents deeply, and to reflect and appraise them fully. Reading books in an undistracted environment is essential to be able to learn what is being read and to exercise the important skills of reflection and making connections. If we don't practise these skills we will lose them as our brains adapt accordingly. Carr's conclusion:

"The Net grants us instant access to a library of information unprecedented in its size and scope and it makes it easy to sort through that library. What the Net diminishes is the ability to know, in depth, a subject for ourselves, to construct with our own minds the rich and idiosyncratic set of connections that give rise to a singular intelligence."

So what are the implications of this for education?
All the research outlined in Carr's book points to a balanced diet is being the way forward for the Digital Generation.
There are clearly implications here for e-learning which will need to focus on providing an undistracted and reflective user experience if there is going to be sustained learning and deep understanding. e-Learning environments may have to look and work differently from the typical webpage, playing down the hyperlinks and channeling the range of media available to reinforce the same learning goal.
Above all, I believe that this research means that it is more important than ever that schools and parents encourage young people continue to read books in the printed format both as part of their studies and for leisure. This will develop important skills and abilities that we need for the deep thinking and reflection that are essential for creativity and problem-solving.

Have we got the right A* at A-level?

2010-08-24T09:52:00.003+01:00

In an interesting article, Martin Stephen, The High Master of St Paul's, argues that the introduction of the A* at A-level is "the right idea, but dreadfully executed."

Daily Telegraph Article: A-level results: How can we rescue our examination system?

I have a great sympathy with Martin Stephen's argument. As I have argued previously, we desperately need a means of identifying our brightest and best to enable our universities and employers to select the most able. However, I question whether or not the mechanism chosen for doing this - rewarding those who get over 90% on their A2 module - is the right one. Ultimately this system favours those who are most careful and make the fewest mistakes. There is no scope here for taking risks or for developing creativity or flair. Not making mistakes is undoubtedly a useful attribute - we value it greatly in our accountants and medics, but we also need to encourage those who are going to think out of the box and come up with creative solutions to the next generation of problems. Given the propensity of teachers to teach to the test, I am not sure that the A* is fostering this important aspect.

Picasso Peace and Freedom - Tate Liverpool

2010-08-15T16:45:00.001+01:00

Picasso: Peace and Freedom is not a balanced presentation of the work of Picasso, but then again it does not set out to be. It is selective, focusing on discussing his political involvement and interests. As such, it is an important exhibition that presents an alternative perspective to the "blue period, rose period, cubist, muse-inspired" Picasso, with which we are presented at most exhibitions and in the major galleries.

Sadly [but understandably], Guernica, Picasso's most famous political painting about the evils of war in general and of the Spanish Civil war in particular, does not form part of the exhibition. However it does cast its shadow over his work, most obviously in Charnal House (1944-45). Here Picasso's use of 'grisaille' is reminiscent of the newsreel reporting of the murder of a Spanish republican family in their kitchen that inspired him to create this piece.

A gallery of still-lifes shows how Picasso embraced political themes in more subtle way: The "Skull and Crossbones" (a symbol of the Spanish Republicans) and the Cockerel (a symbol of free French) are common images. Interestingly, Picasso explored the themes of confrontation and stand off when started painting "still-lifes" of lobsters (very much alive) and cats (feral) a few days after the Cuban Missile Crisis in late 1962, .

In many ways the most interesting part of the exhibition chronicles Picasso's involvement in the post-war pacifist movement. In his drawings of the Dove of Peace, Picasso provided the most popular and lasting symbols that featured on posters and in newspapers alike, but his commitment went well beyond being resident artist. Despite being a member of the communist party - with all the opposition that brought from the establishment - Picasso was able to use his celebrity status to open doors and to bring publicity to the campaign, in a way that his colleagues were unable to do. A snapshot of Picasso's approach can be seen in the incident when the UK Government refused visas to many of the foreign delegates for the 1950 Peace Congress because of concerns over their communist leanings. It was Picasso, granted a visa because an exhibition of his work was opening in London, who went to Sheffield to inform those gathered their of its cancellation. In turn Picasso refused to attend the exhibition of his work in London saying:

"Picasso the artist and Picasso the fighter for peace are one and the same person."

Picasso gave his financial support, name and talent to a range of political causes, producing artwork for the First Congress of Black Writers Paris (Sept 1956), Amnistia ("edite par le comite national d'aide aux victimes du Franquisme"), and Solidarity (sold to support families of imprisoned Spaniards).

The exhibition explores in depth a number of major pieces with underlying political and pacifist themes, most notably Las Meninas (1957). Here Picasso reworks Velázquez's masterpiece to produce a bitter satire and a cruel indictment of Franco's dictatorship. Ceiling bosses become grotesque hooks for the suspension of torture victims, the painter becomes a figure from the Inquisition and the maid in the foreground has Franco's moustache. Likewise, Picasso's reworking of Poussin's and David's Rape of the Sabines, executed at height of Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, portrays the classical scene in a new light: the Roman Empire, symbolic of all empires [USSR, US], is depicted as grotesque and barbaric.

Given that provincial galleries do not have the clout to attract the loans of significant pieces from the great collections in the way that major city retrospectives do, this was quite a remarkable piece of curation. Lynda Morris and Christoph Gruenberg are to be congratulated on putting together such a stimulating exhibition drawing on a Picasso's minor works.

Like all good exhibitions I left enlightened and informed, but also with a number of unanswered questions, - in this case they related to Picasso's relationship with the Nazis in occupied Paris; and the nature of his exile from his native Spain.

More information on the Tate Liverpool Picasso Peace and Freedom website.

The exhibition runs at Tate Liverpool until 28th August 2010. It can also be seen at:
The Albertina Vienna from 22nd September 2010 to 16th January 2011; and
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, from 11th February to 29th May 2011.

ContactPoint RIP

2010-08-06T08:16:00.004+01:00

Children's Minister, Tim Loughton, announced in July that ContactPoint, New Labour's sledgehammer to crack the Victoria Climbié nut, will be shut down at noon today.

The DCSF Database, that aimed to share contact information between those caring for all 11 million children in the country, was a disaster from the outset. The project experienced successive delays and never really allayed fears over data security. It was rolled out to only 15,000 users, out of the initial target of 330,000. Overall, it has proved to be an enormous waste of public money, costing over £235m and it was set to cost a further £41m a year.

Let us hope that they manage to decommission the data successfully!
May it rest in peace.

A* at A-level: Time for "fair" access?

2010-08-03T18:26:00.008+01:00

It was always going to happen. I couldn't believe that the last Government, with its overt social-engineering agenda, introduced it. On the eve of its first award, its likely impact is beginning to dawn. The introduction of the A* at A-level was always going to be divisive. After all, to allow top sixth formers to demonstrate that they are better than most of the 25% of their peers who get A grades, is fundamentally divisive.

To achieve an A* at A-level the candidate has to score over 90% on the A2 [Upper Sixth - Y13] component of the course - almost universally recognised to be the more demanding part of A-level. Thus, the introduction of the A* should make a positive contribution to identifying our Nation's academic elite and thus provide a mechanism by which our most prestigious universities can award places on the basis of merit.

To date, universities have been very cautious about using the A* as part of their offers. This is understandable given that many admissions tutors are primarily concerned with filling their quotas and thus are nervous about the impact of any change to the A-level system lest it flood them with successful candidates, or scare good applicants away. For the 2010 entry only Cambridge, Bristol, Imperial and UCL of the Russell Group universities gave offers that included the A*. The standard offer at Cambridge was A*AA, with the occasional maverick Cambridge admission tutor asking for A*A*A of borderline candidates.

However, going forward, one would expect universities to embrace the A* as a differentiating qualification for their most prestigious, oversubscribed courses. Imperial are reported to be intending to make some A*A*A offers next year, but wider picture is that many top universities are that many are reluctant to use the A*.

Sir Martin Harris, director of the government's Office for Fair Access, said the new grade could strengthen private schools' hold on elite universities.

"Grade inflation in university entry requirements and the fact that A-level A* grades are disproportionately achieved in the independent and selective schools does increase the risk that the brightest disadvantaged young people may be squeezed out of the applicant pool for the most selective universities. Universities need to be aware of this when considering fair access."
[Quoted in Fears for state pupils as top universities insist on A* at A-level Guardian 02/08/2010]

This begs the whole question as to what is, and what is not, "fair access" to university. Whilst it might be "fair" to favour a university applicant from a Maintained sector school over an equally qualified one from an Independent School, I am not sure that it will ever be "fair" to take a less qualified one. At some point we have to recognise that the best are the best regardless of the sector in which they were educated.

If universities are going to persist in social engineering, they need to be open about so doing and their criteria for discriminating between candidates from different educational backgrounds need to be transparent and published. In time, there should be a degree of suspicion over any university that rejects the use of the A* as a discriminator between candidates.

Given that most institutions do not interview candidates and most say that they pay little regard to either the personal statement or the reference, then predicted or actual grades are the most important, if not sole, criterion for selection or rejection. If universities reject good candidates from Independent schools in favour of weaker candidates from the Maintained sector, I can foresee the situation where unsuccessful applicants with top A-level grades make legal challenges against those institutions which reject them. Indeed, I am not sure that we will ever get "fair access" to university until we have "blind" UCAS applications where the educational and social background of the applicant are not known to the institution considering the form.

The introduction of the A* at A-level is an opportunity to move towards an admission system that is based on merit - let us hope that the universities embrace it fully.

In the footsteps of ..... Henry Moore

2010-08-03T09:16:00.013+01:00

When Henry Moore's studio in Hampstead was damaged during the Blitz in 1940 - he and his wife, Irina, rented Hoglands, a farmhouse in Perry Green in rural Hertfordshire, setting up his studio on one of the out-buildings. As is often the way with so many temporary measures, it soon became permanent one and he lived there until his death on 31 August 1986. Over the years, Moore purchased the cottage and the adjacent farmland, so that Perry Green today consists of an estate of some 70 acres comprising his home, workshops and an extensive sculpture garden with some 25 major pieces on display.

Perry Green reveals much about the post-war Moore. The Yellow Brick Studio, where Moore did much of his carving, gives a unique insight into various scuptural techniques, with examples of direct carving, lost wax casting, and of scaling up of the larger more monumental figures. Because Moore stipulated in his will that none of his work should be completed by his team of helpers after his death. The pieces on which he was working left mid-production - the small-scale maquette giving an indication of the final work, the polystyrene model the size and the unfinished plaster cast lacking the texture that he would have brought by hand over the subsequent weeks.

One of the barns houses temporary exhibitions. Henry Moore Deluxe: Books, Prints & Portfolios, which explores the stories behind many of his etchings and lithographs, is on display until the end of August.

The most enjoyable aspect of Perry Green by far is to walk amongst the sculptures knowing that, in most cases, this is where the artist chose to display them. The garden was to some extent Moore's shop window. One can only be impressed by the scale of some of the pieces, the largest of which (Large Figure in a Shelter, 1985-6) weighs over 21,000kg is some 7.62m high.

Before visiting Perry Green, I had not appreciated the extent to which Moore both ran a team of helpers who aided him in his work; and that Moore sent off many of his scuptures to foundaries [from Basingstoke to Berlin] to be cast. This was a considerable operation, with Moore the creative genius and director overseeing the artistic process.

For more information:
The Henry Moore Foundation, which is based at Perry Green, has an excellent interactive Virtual Perry Green.

In footsteps of ..... John Constable

2010-07-27T20:10:00.000+01:00

Taking the riverside walk from from Dedham to Flatford Mill on a bright, sunny-cloudy Summer's day, it is not difficult to see what inspired John Constable to paint those monumental "six-foot" canvases. There is something unique about the quality of the light and space in the Dedham Vale that creates the amazing cloud-scapes that are so much a part of his work.

Most of the key buildings around Flatford Mill that feature so prominently in Constable's work are now owned by the National Trust. They have done much, not only to restore and preserve these buildings, but also to enable the visitor to have the modern-day perspective of the great paintings.

The following map was produced for the Tate Britain Constable Exhibition in 2006:

One of the most interesting aspects of walking in the artist's footsteps is that one can "catch" him altering reality for artistic reasons, such as altering the height of the roof on Willy Lott's House in The Hay-Wain (1820-1) or increasing the size of Dedham Church in A Boat Passing a Lock (1826).

For more information about visiting Flatford Mill:

Anish Kapoor Exhibition, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao

2010-07-22T17:35:00.012+01:00

Anish Kapoor is a British-based Indian (born Bombay 1954) who has spent much of his career exploring the nature of sculpture. This major solo exhibition, presented jointly by The Royal Academy and The Gugenheim Museum Bilbao working in collaboration with the artist, poses important questions about the relationship between the sculptor and the viewer, the place of automation in the artistic process, and explores the boundary between two- and three- dimensional art. Each gallery marks a stage in Kapoor's development as he devoted his career to exploring these questions.

First gallery: Exploring the context (my title)

Here Kapoor presents us with a series of pieces all finished in a pigment?of primary colours The images themselves are unexceptional but Kapoor challenges the norms by presenting some of the images in unconventional places in the gallery such as in the top left hand corner of one of the main walls. The most interesting work in this room is a barely visible instilation - in fact it is its illusionary quality that makes the piece. Titled When I am pregnant (1992), it comprises a white convex bump that protudes out of the white display wall. Viewed straight on it is almost invisible - it has to be viewed laterally to be appreciated. Here Kapoor, by playing a trick on the viewer, challenges our perceptions of what constitutes art: the piece is both 3D and 'No'-D depending on the perspective of the observer.

Second Gallery: Exploring the void.

By creating three dimensional images containing dark spaces within them Kapoor invites the viewer to explore the nature of No-space. In hollowing out a section of sandstone and painting the interior Prussian Blue, Kapoor creates confusion for the viewer: is this a black image painted on the surface of the stone? Or is it a void hollowed out? The viewer's perception changes depending on the angle from which the piece is seen. Kapoor makes the most of the fact that the viewer is deprived of the key sense by which he can resolve his dilemma by the "Do not touch" rules of the gallery.

Third Gallery: Exploring the artistic process I.

Here Kapoor has created a series of objects made of concrete through a Computer-aided Manufacturing technique partly borrowed from the food processing industry. The result is a series of piles of "excretions" of varying shapes. Kapoor's methodology challenges the traditional view of the sculptor as artist and poses questions about the mechanisation of the artistic product - a theme to which Kapoor returns again in his work and in the exhibition.

Fourth Gallery: Exploring perspective.

Kapoor is perhaps best known for his public sculptures using highly polished stainless steel to create mirror structures (e.g. his monumental Cloud Gate in Chicago). By using convex and concave mirrors Kapoor encourages the viewer to participate in the artistic process as their shifting perspective alters the nature of the image. Thus the artist does not define the image, rather he facilitates it.

Fifth and Sixth Galleries: Exploring the artistic process II and III.

A cannon fires shells of red wax into the corner of a gallery creating a bloody splurge of devastation trailing down the walls. A 3m beam moves like the minute hand a clock over a bed of deep red Vaseline sculpting and re-forming the surface with each rotation. Deep red is clearly an important colour for Kapoor and gives these two monumental pieces Isomewhat macabre feel. Like the First Cause, Kapoor has started the process bringing his creation into being but thereafter plays the role only of ambivalent observer.

This was a fascinating exhibition that satisfied the mind not the senses.

What is University for? Part Two: A view from the past

2010-06-28T11:05:00.011+01:00

In my previous blogpost, I opened up the debate about whether University is about receiving an education to a degree level, or an opportunity to have a life experience of moving away from home to living and studying with other young people.

In his Idea of a University, John Henry Newman argues that the very experience of living in a community of scholars is its the greatest educator, regardless of the curriculum or examination structure:

I protest to you, Gentlemen, that if I had to choose between a so-called University, which dispensed with residence and tutorial superintendence, and gave its degrees to any person who passed an examination in a wide range of subjects; and a University which had no professors or examinations at all, but merely brought a number of young men together for three or four years and then sent them away; if I were asked which of these two methods was the better discipline of the intellect … [and] if I must determine which of the two courses was the more successful in training, moulding, enlarging the mind, which sent out men the more fitted for their secular duties, which produced better public men, men of the world, men whose names would descend to posterity, I have no hesitation in giving the preference to that University which did nothing, over that which exacted of its members an acquaintance with every science under the sun.

Idea of a University, 1852 Discourse VII; pp 232-3

What is University for? Part One: Time to rethink?

2010-06-25T15:53:00.002+01:00

Twenty five years ago University was for an elite which only about 7% of the experienced; now it is much more accessible with between 20% and 30% "participating in Higher Education" depending on how you define the term.

The decade 1999 to 2009 saw a 44% rise in the number of applicants to UK Universities that were accepted onto a course [Source: UCAS statistics: 1999 - 334,594; 2009 - 481,854]. This expansion of Higher Education has led to a number of changes in the student demographic: 11% of University applicants accepted onto undergraduate courses are now over the age of 25. More students are living at home. Course are modular, flexible and transportable: with students studying for part of their course in one institution and then moving to another to complete their course.

I know of one young graduate of ICT Networks and Web Design who did the first two years of his degree at evening classes at the local FE college before going away to the University of the West of England to do his final year. This trend of mix'n'match degrees is set to expand as young people weigh up the costs of going away to university.

This model throws an interesting light on the question What is University for?

On the one hand, University is about receiving an education to a degree level. As such it has been the entrance qualifications to the professions. On the other, it is an opportunity to have a life experience of moving away from home to live in a community with other young people. It is a formative experience - a "life-building" experience.

The young ICT graduate took a pragmatic and more affordable step of distilling these two aspects. It may be that, in the present economic climate, the time has come to consider the three-year life-experience away from home a luxury for which students should be expected to pay. Here is a model that will enable a greater participation in Higher Education without the Government and students alike running up ever more debt.

"More flexibility in the exams system": a double-edged sword?

2010-06-19T19:26:00.014+01:00

The Coalition Government has committed itself "to create more flexibility in the exams system" [See The Coalition: our programme for government; 26 Schools]. I believe that any deregulation of the examination system should be used to drive up academic standards, rather than to create a vehicle for competition between examination boards.

Flexibility to stretch the brightest

In an effort to maintain academic standards at KS4, Independent Schools have migrated towards the International GCSEs [iGCSEs] over the past five years. That these schools have done this particularly in the core subjects of Maths, Science and English is evidence that these are the areas where the Labour Government's intervened most to dumb down the curriculum. The announcement that state school pupils will be able to sit is good news for both the Maintained and Independent Sectors.

The top State schools, especially the surviving State Grammars, have campaigned to be allowed to sit these more rigorous examinations, but were prevented from doing so by the previous Secretary of State, lest it highlight the deficiencies of the new GCSE specifications. Michael Gove, who is more open to acknowledging that Maintained sector schools can learn much from our world-class schools in the Independent Sector, has opened up the iGCSE to all.

It is good news, too, for Independent Schools. If we are to have a two-tier examination system of "more academic" iGCSEs and "less academic" GCSEs, it is well that that two-tier system transcends both the Independent and Maintained Sectors as it takes away any potential for discriminating against pupils from our sector, say, in University applications.

Flexibility to create new attractive products for the marketplace

Whilst some aspects of the deregulation of GCSEs are clearly welcome, but I am not sure that there should be a free-for-all. I am deeply concerned by the proposal from AQA that boys and girls could be able to sit different GCSEs.

The statement by Bill Alexander, AQA's director of curriculum and assessment, to the TES outlines the rationale:

“We could offer a route for boys that is very different to a route for girls. Girls tend to perform better with coursework while boys do better with end-of-year exams. So we are pursuing that in science to see if we could have an option in science where we might have a straightforward examination for boys but a possibility of having a coursework option for girls.”
Exams for boys, exams for girls TES 18/06/2010

But how his statement goes on is more revealing:

“We are looking to do something different where there is a need in the market.
“The current GCSE criteria don’t allow coursework, but if we have now got flexibility and freedom to develop alternative products then that is what we will want to use our expertise to produce.”

Here lies one of the key problems with the British examination system, namely that we have three Awarding Bodies who are in competition with each other. Exams have become "products" in the "market". Schools inevitably choose products that will improve their results. The way that our examination system is structured at present only serves to perpetuate the year-on-year grade inflation. I am not sure that we should be giving the Exam Boards greater flexibility to make exams any easier.

What Heads need to know about ICT: Structures and People

2010-06-15T11:55:00.007+01:00

My article on What Heads need to know about ICT: Structures and People has just been published in the Independent Schools' Council Bulletin 26 - May 2010 pp. 29-33.

Click here to download the Bulletin in pdf format.

Spirit of Progress?

2010-05-21T08:50:00.007+01:00

It is perhaps ironic, but nevertheless welcome, that Tesco have spoken out against the evils of alcohol [BBC News report]. Not only are they in favour of the coalition government's proposal to ban below-cost sales of alcohol in England and Wales, but they are also in support of a minimum pricing system. All this is welcome news to those of us working with young people, for whom access to spirits at pocket money prices is a recipe [cocktail?] for disaster.

Given that a bottle of Vodka is retailing on the shelves of Tesco today at £7.79, Tesco would have greater credibility if their actions matched their rhetoric.

Can e-assessment maintain the "Gold Standard"?

2010-04-21T20:23:00.025+01:00

On-screen testing has come a long way from the simple the automation of multiple choice questions. The next generation of GCSE questions that are presently under development by AQA open up new, exciting and innovative ways of examining young people.

The Technology Enabled Assessment for Learning (TEAL) team at AQA, working in partnership with btl, are harnessing the additional functionality of Web 2.0 to enable examiners to set totally different type of task to assess pupils. Questions employing interactive graphics and drag-and-drop technology enable the opportunity for candidates to demonstrate quite advanced mathematical, experimental and interpretative skills.

Take the following science question for example: [click on image to enlarge]

[Image: Copyright AQA - used with permission]

In this question, candidates are required to make a scientific observation of this "virtual experiment" and then to "plot" the 30cm reading to the correct point on the graph.

What these sample questions demonstrate is that onscreen testing has reached a sufficient level of development to allow for a complexity and range of questions that give scope for examiners to challenge the digital generation. The technology is now available for on-line testing to be as equally demanding as the paper examinations with which previous generations grappled and thus there is no reason why e-assessment itself should threaten the Gold Standard in KS4 testing.

AQA have just posted some exemplar "future thinking" questions on their website. If you want a glimpse of the future of GCSE questions, click here to go the AQA site to do the exemplar questions online.

[I am grateful to AQA for giving me permission to use the image of the Photosynthesis experiment in this blogpost - the image remains the copyright of AQA]

The decline of the Degree as an academic qualification?

2010-04-13T10:19:00.010+01:00

The news that more than half the applicants accepted onto places at British universities do not have A-levels [Sunday Times 11/04/2010] is yet another symptom of a most worrying trend in British education - the erosion of academic excellence. There was a time, not so long ago, when a degree meant something - it marked out a certain level of academic achievement, but no more.

Whilst the headline figure is rather more sensational than the underlying statistics allow - few would question the academic rigour of Scottish Highers and the International Baccalaureate - the blurring of the vocational and academic divide is unwelcome. Don't get me wrong, I support fully that there is a vocational structure of BTEC and National Diploma that runs in parallel to the academic structure of A-levels, IB, Pre-U et al. What I what is a transparent qualification system and not one where vocational courses in "universities" are given the cloak of academic respectability by being awarded the status of a degree.

The nature of vocational qualifications at KS5 is that they do not provide the academic foundation to progress onto academic degrees, and thus it is unsurprising that the vast majority of students accepted onto courses at top universities, such as the Russell Group, are still doing A-level [IB is still accounts for a very small proportion of applicants]. It is thus a travesty that many Maintained sector schools are abandoning academic qualifications at KS5 in order to improve their league table positions. However what is clear is that it falls to Independent Schools and the top universities to be the guardians of the Nation's academic standards.

One unintended consequence of this Government's higher education policy increasing the number of those participating in Higher Education has been to make where one is educated more important than ever before.

Henry Moore at Tate Britain

2010-04-11T17:53:00.016+01:00

Apart from seeing pieces in isolation in various galleries around the world, this was my first real experience of Moore's work and I found Henry Moore at Tate Britain an invaluable introduction to the subject. I always find it helpful and reassuring when an exhibition follows a straightforward biopic structure, and thus the exhibition did not disappoint. I recommend it to anyone who wants to get to know the work of Henry Moore.

Moore's early work (1920s) was heavily informed by African and North American ethnographical studies and art [Room 1]. The exhibition focuses in particular on his fascination with the Mother and Child imagery that characterised much of his work during this period [Room 2].

Moore's relationship with Modernism in the 1930s is explored in depth [Room 3 and Room 4]. This was the period in which he developed his characteristic style and earned international reputation. His subject matter was wide-ranging embracing the famous reclining figures and revisiting his earlier themes of mother and child in innovative ways. Moore's work during this period was not totally immune from the wider artistic influence of Surrealism and the inspiration, at different times, both of geometry and of nature.

The most surprising aspect of this exhibition for me was Moore's wartime work as a graphic artist depicting scenes of Londoners sheltering from the Blitz in the Underground. Moore abandoned sculpture during the war year and his powerful images which portray the subjects more as if they were corpses in a mortuary, are really quite disturbing [Room 5].

Post-war Moore returned to three-dimensions but much of his work of this period was characterised but dark and harsh imagery, perhaps reflecting the shadow cast by the war and by the new era of the Cold War the bomb [Room 6].

The exhibition closes on a much more optimistic note with four magnificent elm sculptures of reclining figures of over-sized human proportions [Room 7].

Having had such an interesting taste of Moore's work, I am intend to see the exhibition again over the over months and plan to visit to his former home at Perry Green, Herts, where more monumental sculptures await.

Henry Moore at Tate Britain runs until 8th August 2010.

Alan Turing: the Enigma - Book Review

2010-04-08T21:49:00.008+01:00

Alan Turing (23 June 1912 - 7 June 1954) was one of the most unlikely and yet most remarkable heroes of the second world war. A top Cambridge Mathematician whose expertise lay in mathematical logic and who crossed swords with Wittgenstein is unlikely to be an easy figure for the popular biographer, but Andrew Hodges, himself a lecturer in Maths at Oxford, is a match to the challenge.

Hodges neither shies away from expounding the complexities of the mathematical problems with which Turing was grappling in his pre- and post- war academic research, nor the inner turmoil of that he faced grappling with his [homo-] sexuality, which is a thread that runs throughout his life from School to his untimely suicide. At times when reading this book, one is conscious of touching on the secret world of the mathematician "this being the frightening subject of which even educated people know nothing" [p.239].

Turing's life impacted on three important areas of British society beyond the narrow confines of academe, although in all three areas his contributions were appreciated much more in retrospect than at the time. First, Turing is perhaps best known for his influential war-time role cracking the German U-boat Enigma cipher (1939-40) as part of the Bletchley Park code-breaking team. Secondly, he was the founder of computer science (1936) and was involved in the early development of the first computers, most notably as one of the first computer programmers at Manchester University, subsequently being made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1951. Thirdly, Turing's prosecution for Gross Indecency contrary to Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 (1952) is in stark contrast to the way in which homosexuality is viewed today and highlights how far social attitudes have changed in the past sixty years.

This is by no means an easy read. The world of the professional mathematician is not particularly action packed - and the finer points of mathematical theory take quite a lot of getting your head around - so be prepared to be challenged. However, for those who take the trouble, this is a most rewarding book with unanticipated insights into a range of scientific, philosophical, technological and historical issues.

When will Schools see a return on their investment in ICT?

2010-04-07T16:49:00.008+01:00

In most industries the introduction of ICT has had some impact in reducing operating costs, usually by the reduction of administrative staffing levels through the automation of mundane tasks. However, [Independent] Schools seem to be an exception to this rule. I suspect that most Heads and Governors have asked themselves how the ICT spend keeps going up despite the cost of ICT kit reducing significantly each year and wondered when they are going to see “some return on all this investment”.

The simple answers are that the ICT spend is set to continue and that we are already seeing the return on our ICT investment – it is just that the return is not a direct financial one. I believe that this is for three reasons:

First, the Independent sector has raised the bar in response to increased competition between schools. We are providing - indeed we are now are expected to provide - current and prospective parents with more information, more frequently and faster than ever before. Schools are handling vastly more parental communication than ever before – and this is only set to increase.
Secondly, ICT investment has in effect cushioned the impact of the increased administrative burden that has been imposed on schools during the past fifteen years. Increased external regulation and the perceived threat [real or otherwise] of litigation have meant that school record-keeping and data management is necessarily at unprecedented levels. Schools would have undoubtedly required increased administrative staffing levels if it were not for the automation of these processes through central administrative databases.
Thirdly, teachers are beginning to harness the power of ICT in the classroom finding new and innovative ways to ply their craft to a generation of pupils who are wired very differently to their predecessors.

For an excellent discussion of how Information Technology is reshaping the wider economy see Erik Brynjolfsson and Adam Saunders' Wired for Innovation

Drill Competitions - a way to teach discipline in the 21st Century?

2010-03-27T13:01:00.019Z

A common perception of young people today is that they lack discipline. I must say that I do not subscribe to that view. They are perhaps less formal and have shorter attention spans than their forebears, but that is because they are a product of the world that we have created rather than because they are fundamentally ill-disciplined. In fact, I would go so far as to argue that young people actually like discipline and respond well to it. Any doubters witnessing the Yates Drill competition at Berkhamsted School on Tuesday evening would have their faith in young people's regard for discipline restored.

Squads of boys and girls from the Navy, Army and Air Force sections, competing for the coveted trophy, march to a set pattern that includes turns, saluting, changing step and so on. Squads practise for weeks in advance - this is not something that the cadets have to do, it is something they want to do - they muster before school, at breaks and lunch times to train. There is something wonderfully anachronistic about the Yates Drill competition, which has been part of School Calendar for over a century. With the obvious exception of the participation of the girls, who have won the competition for the past eight or so years, it really does have a pre-Great War feel to it.

The volunteer cadets are expected to look the part, which entails cleaning their brass, pressing their uniforms and shining their shoes. Parents comment in bemusement that their sons and daughters (who are no different from their peers around the country in pushing the boundaries on school uniform, jewelry and hair length) insist on haircuts and that supplies of shoe polish and Brasso are in place. It is so tempting to put the Regimental Sergeant Major in charge of school uniform!

I have worked in five independent schools and in each of them the School Combined Cadet Force (CCF) has served an invaluable role in developing important qualities and skills in young people, not only discipline, but also leadership, problem-solving, initiative and, most importantly, confidence.

I am grateful to Mr Peter Riddick for the use of these pictures

e-Assessment - the case for the defence

2010-03-18T20:58:00.011Z

It is not difficult to imagine the reaction of my colleagues in HMC and GSA, not to mention the national broadsheets, if the exam boards were to announce that all GCSEs would be conducted online.

e-Assessment has a bad name – the popular imagination associates it with low standards, indeed some would go so far as to see it as an active instrument in the dumbing of the exam system.

We have seen increasing automation of the examination system over the past ten years – online entries, online results, the scanning of scripts, onscreen marking, and even some online testing [AQA offer an e-Assessment version of GCSE science]. The move towards e-Assessment has been driven principally by efficiency and cost savings – the developments above make the whole examination process faster, better able to cope with increased capacity and at a cheaper unit cost. Important thought these factors are they should not be the drivers in this debate.

The fact is that e-Assessment is an established part of adult society, not only in Government departments with the Driving Theory and the UK Border Agency Life in the UK tests, but also as key part of professional training and assessment in aviation, financial services, medical education, fire training and in battlefield simulations for HM forces. It is anomalous that, as a society, we are willing for e-Assessment to play an important role in these vital and professional services, but are reticent about its place in mainstream education.

I believe that there is a strong educational case for e-Assessment that is based on innovative approaches both to teaching and learning and examinations. One of the greatest advantages of e-Assessment is that it is able to effect a shift from summative to formative assessment. Tests within interactive learning programmes are able to give immediate feedback to the learner and give opportunity to go back through one’s answers to learn from the mistakes.

In the same way, e-Assessment can do things that paper examinations can’t. For example it is possible to make examinations adaptive so that if a candidate does well in the early part of the test, they progress to higher level questions; and if they do poorly, then the questions get easier. Adaptive testing allows each candidate to find his or her level, which makes the whole examination process a better differentiator at each level, more meaningful and a more positive experience.

One of the greatest blocks on the move to e-Assessment is that the public is blinded by its preconceptions of what exams look like. Generations have sat in silence in rows in silence with pen and paper – and that image is etched on our brains. There is an element here of the grumpy sixth former about us all “we went through it, why shouldn’t they go through it – it didn’t do us any harm.”

Schools have a responsibility to prepare young people for the world that they are going to inhabit and not one of the past – and I am concerned about the dislocation of schools in general, and the examination hall in particular, from the world of work. e-Assessment is an important step to bridging this divide.