World Class!

Our universities are still the envy of the world and attract large numbers of outstanding young people from across the world and for some of our young people our education system is amongst the best in the world! Sadly for many it is not and the gap in attainment and achievement between the highest performing young people and the poorest performing young people is amongst the worst in the world.
The PISA research shows that on average our children and young people are falling further and further behind the best in the world and yet we know that our children are not less intelligent or have less potential that the children living in China or Singapore or Finland or Korea. We are told that we have the best teachers, and headteachers, we have ever had working in our schools and while we know that deep learning is not easy, in the hands of brilliant teachers it can be exhilarating, stimulating and truly wonderful.

However for many young people learning has become a struggle, exhausting and discouraging. They lack self-esteem and have been told constantly and consistently that they lack talent, lack imagination and lack potential. And whether we like it or not when our young people no longer want to learn, don’t believe that they can learn and simply don’t see any point in learning, whatever the school, college or university they attend does, they won’t learn!

We must re-imagine learning and the skills and competencies we want schools to help our children develop. We must re-imagine the whole learning landscape and recognize that every child is born with potential and talent and magic. We must establish a new vision and new values to drive this new agenda and we must establish a set of new beliefs about our children and their potential!
Chris