VIEWS FROM THE PEN OF… TIM BRIGHOUSE & MICK WATERS A new system for our schools


In our regular series highlighting authors in education, we hear this month from TIM BRIGHOUSE, co-author with MICK WATERS of “About our Schools: Improving on previous best”.


Education policies and priorities have changed hugely over the years, and they are about to again. Mick Waters and I wanted to find out what we can learn from the many changes in schools and the school system over time and what are the likely prospects for the future. We have written our findings in a book ‘About our Schools: Improving on previous best’ just published by Crown House. How did we go about it? Well, we looked at what had and hadn’t worked well in the years since 1976 when Jim Callaghan made his famous Ruskin College speech signalling a sea-change in direction for schools. Kenneth Baker gave this a statutory basis through the 1988 Education Act. Ever since, we have had an age of schooling heavily influenced by neo-liberal economic theory and eventually managerialism by an increasingly authoritarian DfE which has had to step in to try both to correct the perceived failures among schools which league tables and Ofsted have inevitably exposed, and to regulate in the increasingly complex educational world it has created. Failure is an inevitable consequence and requirement for market driven systems.


Of course, we read widely and looked at the data, we also interviewed over 100 witnesses including 14 Secretaries of State, top DFE civil servants, Heads of Ofsted, CEOs of MAT, Heads of Academies, Directors of Children’s and Family Services, people from the educational private sector, teachers and others. We wanted their views on how policies are formed, which of these had worked in the intervening years and what we should do now after another period of doubt and disillusion illustrated by the many Education Commissions of which one is about to be in the news with its interim findings prior to a full report in the summer. Such commissions are not occasioned simply by the enormous disruption of the pandemic. People are also worried that our schools, operating in a time of great change, are in a straitjacket imposed by DfE, and are preparing our children for a world which no longer exists. Automation, robotics, nanotechnology and AI completely change job markets. Where there used to be millions of unskilled and semi- skilled jobs, now there are few hundred thousand and diminishing. Nor is it simply working life that has changed. Leisure too will be different. To live a fulfilled life contributing to the fulfilment of others it will be essential for school leavers to be able to think for themselves and act for others. Developing the ‘hearts’ and ‘hands’ of our pupils is as essential as their ‘heads’. There’s no escaping the fact that ‘digital skill’ is now a basic as much as English and Maths. Apart from revealing the strange (and sometimes murky) world of national politicians and decision making, our book argues for six ‘foundation stones’ on which to build a better schooling system. One of those is an Open School, analogous to and perhaps run by the Open University, consisting of a curation of the best resources and experiences for pupils whatever their age as well as their staff. Each school would have an Open School tutor and all pupils and teachers would have access to the best resource whether publicly or privately produced. This and the other five foundation stones provide the bedrock for our new system, but we also outline The Thirty-Nine steps to reform the factors outside the school which get in the way of schools ensuring success not for the few, nor even the many, but for every one of our future citizens.


About Our Schools (Crown House Publishing, December 2021) is out now and available here: https://www.crownhouse.co.uk/about-our-schools


February 2022 BRITISH EDUCATIONAL SUPPLIERS ASSOCIATION (BESA) Crystal ball


gazing In her regular column for Education Today this month, JULIA GARVEY, Deputy Director General at school suppliers’ association BESA, acknowledges the help the organisation receives from the teaching profession.


Sometimes we could all use a crystal ball. And not just for the big things (when will Covid end?) but for the day to day. When will I need to buy a new laptop? How many vacancies do I need to fill next September? How much is my gas bill going up by? I read an interesting article this week that aimed to predict the


next big trend in EdTech. The ideas put forward resonated with our own research and feedback at BESA, that schools have already made a step change in the way they use technology in the classroom, so now they are looking to focus more on embedding what they have learned, and securing best practice, rather than looking for another revolution. How do we know this at BESA? Through detailed and regular


market research. Two of our key roles as a trade association are to provide market


insights for our members that assist them in their commercial activities; and to work alongside government departments such as the DfE and DIT to represent the needs of the educational suppliers’ industry. At the heart of both of these activities is the need for up-to-date


research that provides detailed data on the needs and behaviours of schools. Our members take this information and use it to develop new products that meet teachers’ needs, and to plan their marketing strategies to fit in with school buying plans. For our lobbying work we track trends and identify new developments, and use this information to demonstrate the impact of government initiatives, or to support the case for additional funding (for instance). Our most important piece of research is the Resources in English


Maintained Schools report (https://www.besa.org.uk/insights/resources-in-english-maintained- schools-2022/), published every January since 1995. This paints a comprehensive picture of the funding that is reaching schools, how that budget is being allocated, and how head teachers expect to spend their budgets in the next school year. Increasingly MAT groups are asking us for access to this data as well, to benchmark their own plans against the national picture, and ensure that they are not under resourcing in ICT, for instance, or to compare their learning resources investment against schools of a similar size. We compile this research based on a survey of over 1200 schools


around the county, selected to be fully demographically representative. We rely on these teachers to help us with this essential task – this research is vital for our work and benefits the whole educational suppliers’ sector. It also impacts the products you are able to buy, and we hope informs and influences government decision making. For this reason, I wanted to use this column to say thank you to all


of you who take part in the research, we are grateful for your time and support and your responses genuinely make a difference. Thank you.


Julia Garvey, Deputy Director General, BESA Besa.org.uk


We are always looking for new schools to join our research panel. If you would like to take part in future research projects, please get in touch with me julia@besa.org.uk for more information.


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