July 2014

Features

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  • More than bins and bells
    Invited to participate in the Great Education Debate (GED), Peter Kent's students had some frank views on the flaws in the education system - and, in particular, why young people need more than good academic grades to equip them for adult life. More
  • Inspiring their future
    Close links with employers can pay dividends for schools and colleges in terms of introducing young people to the working world and to the skills and qualities that will make them employable in the future, as Karleeen Dowden explains. More
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 Invited to participate in the Great Education Debate (GED), Peter Kent’s students had some frank views on the flaws in the education system – and, in particular, why young people need more than good academic grades to equip them for adult life.

More than bins and bells

What does student democracy actually mean? I remember being told as a joke when I became a deputy headteacher that the job was all about “bogs, bins and bells”. (I thought it was a joke but, looking back, I don’t actually recall the chair of governors laughing when he said it.)

However accurately it may be applied to some aspects of senior leadership, the phrase definitely sums up the traditional limits of student voice. It can easily be assumed that student concerns should properly centre on the state of the toilets and how often chips are served. Too often we miss the point that students have a huge amount to contribute on a much broader range of issues. 

When ASCL started the Great Education Debate we made a conscious decision that we would try to give students an opportunity to contribute to the wide-ranging discussion that GED had initiated. If politicians, academics and policy makers had a legitimate voice in seeking to shape the future direction of our education system, so did the students who are ultimately its end users. As we expected, when asked to contribute, pupils articulated a set of ideas that were fresh, perceptive and challenging. 

If student democracy was to mean anything, I thought that I should not be overly prescriptive in imposing my own ideas. Hence I asked the Student Council at my school to organise their own version of the Great Education Debate but then left them to shape that rather open-ended invitation. With the help of the sympathetic assistant headteachers who work with the council (both of them only too used to bringing shape and order to “another one of Peter’s bright ideas”) the council started to plan.

Pupils decided that the debate should focus on whether or not our current system was fi t for purpose. Speakers from a range of different backgrounds were invited – some had carried out academic studies into the effectiveness of our current system, while others had a distinct perspective on how students could best be helped to achieve their potential. Our own General Secretary, Brian Lightman, joined the debate to share ideas and to explain some of the issues that had arisen during the GED events that had taken place across the country. About half a dozen local schools also sent staff and student delegates.

The theme was: “This house believes today’s education is unsuited to tomorrow’s world.” Below are some of the wide range of topics, themes and ideas raised on the day and in contributions to the school newsletter and the GED website (www.greateducationdebate.org.uk).

Exam boards know best?

Reviewing the debate in the school magazine, LSS Griffin, Sean Fernando said there had been an in-depth exploration of the issue of choice and whether students should have a greater say in what they learn. There were views from both sides, he said.

“Many good points were raised by students, such as, since children are learning, they should know what [it is that] they enjoy learning.”

It was countered by students who felt that exam boards knew what would best enable students to develop key skills and that “what children enjoy doing may not necessarily be what is best for their academic future,” Sean said. “The curriculum set by exam boards has been successful so far and as a result there’s no reason to fix it.”

Another counter-argument was that the idea of greater student choice may seem good but there will always be those who abuse the system and therefore too many faults may arise as a result – for example, students would prefer to study easy topics as opposed to ones that challenged them.

“In conclusion,” he said, “we thought that we should keep the curriculum as it is, with occasional input from students rather than total control for either party.”

What makes a ‘good’ school?

In his piece for the newsletter, student Matt Mackreth considered what the hallmarks are of a good school.

“The broad context of this makes a definite answer difficult,” Matt said. “Saying that, I feel a good school is not just a place where you are judged on your subject grade but also a training ground to prepare you for life.”

Government ‘controls’ intended to make school a safe place in which to learn were too overbearing, he argued, and risked infantilising pupils, making them over-reliant on teacher support.

“By offering the safety and spoon-feeding of modern schools you give kids a false sense of security, [making them think] that life on the outside is the same. It is such that many students cannot work without direct instruction from their teacher – thus independent work is a problem for many people.”

The emphasis on grades as the best measure of development was also wrong, he felt, and encouraged students to view school work as something they had to do, rather than something that they may want to do.

“To judge anything against something else you need to think of some way of quantifying it and giving it a definite value by which to judge it,” he added. “We have tried to do this by school grades, but for the life skills and characteristics developed in school … [t]here’s just no way to quantify your development. Too much focus is placed on school grades and not enough time is spent developing the person and their mindset … If you fix the mindset first, the person will be much more successful at school and in life anyway.”

Knowledge is not enough

In an article for the GED website, Jordan Buck, General Secretary of Lawrence Sheriff School Student Council a and a student at the school, argued that knowledge was not enough by itself to equip young people for the world of tomorrow.

“Where would we be if we all knew everything but had no personality, no charisma, no social ability to share it?

“It’s all well and good to have the knowledge and the understanding of what things are and how they work, but if we haven’t been taught the skills necessary to communicate them and inform others, how do we expect to progress?” he said.

When it comes to preparing people for an outside world which is becoming increasingly competitive, a purely academic education is simply not sufficient. Education should be something which is broad and wholly prepares people for work.”

His view was echoed by Cameron Butt, another student at the school, who wrote on the GED website that focusing on academic topics missed the point of what a modern education should be.

“Nowadays, most of our education focuses on academic topics, which have little application for students at present. Further, the introduction of strict specifications for many courses does little to encourage natural ability to flourish. Practical and active learning is always more effective than passive learning, for then you have a use for what you learn.”

It was frustrating, Cameron added, when a teacher could not answer a question because “it’s not on the spec”. Yet in humanities students were encouraged to read around the subject to broaden their minds and pursue areas that interested them.

Students wanted education on a topic they enjoyed, he said, “not the lists of facts and trivialities peddled to us by exam boards”.

He added: “Education needs to be stimulating and interesting for a student in order for them to enjoy."

"It’s all well and good to have the knowledge and the understanding of what things are and how they work, but if we haven’t been taught the skills necessary to communicate them and inform others, how do we expect to progress?"

Have your say about the future of education. Here’s how you can get involved with the Great Education Debate:


Student contributors to this article included Matt Mackreth and Jordan Buck.

Peter Kent is ASCL Vice President and Head of Lawrence Sheri School, Rugby.

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