One national prescription is not the medicine to cure schools

Lastly, the vertically tutored school is spawning a renewed confidence in learning and teaching and a few large secondary schools are looking at Vertical Teaching. This is not just upper age groups combining courses but involves new approaches to learning across ages 11-16 in a planned combination of mixed age groups. The purpose is to increase positive outcomes and improve examination results. The results from these early pioneering schools are quite exciting and seem to abound with fresh possibilities about how we organise and engage with learning. 

So, what does a country need to do to become smart?

Education policy should: Promote the civic duty on parents to be responsible for the pre-school education of their children in the 3Rs and even behaviour. Intervention and accountability here is always good value and life long; require all schools and all parents to engage in an in-depth review of learning (academic tutorial or learning conversation) with the child present (45 minutes) at least once a year at a critical learning time. This brings together all home and school information and allows for any strategies for improvements to be set out and agreed (classic ingroup loyalty). There should still be subject evenings; Ensure that school management training programmes are brought up to date to recognise how learning organisations such as schools can be organised in more creative ways that enhance learning rather than make it difficult; Take advantage of the capable army of retired people and gap year students and many others who could be helping out in schools. The Big Society idea is sound and should be encouraged. Responsibility for learning outcomes cannot be shouldered by teachers alone; Ensure that all who work in schools regardless of their status or job should be tutors in the 20 minute a day tutor time slot. These critical relationships redefine care and provide stability and leadership in an otherwise toxic and fast moving world and; Encourage schools to be divergent and innovative and do the crazy, mind blowing things kids come up with (before we killed this off with ‘student voice’)

In the end, schools and teachers can either go down the road of endless regulation and stomach the blame for the poor outcomes of government prescription or be set free to build the partnerships that our parents and their children want but which are denied by year systems and old school rules. The first road is littered with the immense waste of failed initiatives. The second has no signposts. It has endless routes that require collaboration, creativity, ingenuity, innovation and a sense of fun. The latter is more likely to guarantee improved outcomes and a better, smarter society.