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Qualifying for the future In association with Round table with: Jim Knight Judith Bennett Ben Williamson Interview: Kathleen Tattersall The role of Ofqual Matthew Taylor Parents for change Plus Harry Fletcher How prisons fail to teach

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Focussing on the future of work and the future of education. I was invited to write the lead article

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Page 1: The New Statesman

Qualifying for thefuture

In association with

Round table with: Jim Knight

Judith BennettBen Williamson

Interview:Kathleen Tattersall

The role of Ofqual

Matthew TaylorParents for change

Plus

Harry FletcherHow prisons fail to teach

Cover.qxp 07/01/2009 1:18 PM Page 1

Page 2: The New Statesman

Garry Hawkes is Chairman of Edge, an education foundation dedicated to raising the status of practical and vocational learning.

The educational needs of the UK’s young people are forever evolving, yet the curriculum weuse to teach them has remained static for the last 20 years. We believe that the NationalCurriculum needs to be brought into the 21st Century, and that the best way of achievingthis is to take a serious look at the pedagogy in our schools and ask if it is getting the bestout of each of our students.

At Edge, we believe that there are many paths to success; paths that young people shouldbe free to explore without prejudice from people who still hold outdated ideas about the best way to learn. Every child is different, with different strengths and weaknesses, different interests and individual goals. If the government is to succeed in raising the participation age to 18, it is vital that the education system engages students early on intheir school career to ensure that they are motivated and eager learners. We want to see a nation of young people who are excited about the wealth of options available to them,rather than encountering young people in turmoil because they do not fall into the desired academic mould.

In 2009, Edge will continue to lobby for a curriculum that engages and inspires young people, and that values academic and vocational learning equally. We will once again host VQ Day – a day to celebrate the millions who gain vocational qualifications every year. We will also continue to promote and expand our latest project, Business in Schools.Currently being piloted in Yorkshire and Hertfordshire, Business in Schools is a unique web portal designed to help businesses engage with local schools, providing work-relatedlearning experiences for young people.

Work-related learning is something that we feel will be a vital component in a curriculumwhich is fit-for-purpose. As such, it forms an important part of our Six Steps to Change manifesto; actions that we feel need to addressed by the government to ensure that young people are getting the most out of their education. Edge is committed to lobbying for these changes to create an engaging curriculum which inspires learners and leaves behind a legacy of work-ready, skilled workers who boost the UK economy.

Garry Hawkes CBEChairman, Edge

Open letter Garry Hawkes.qxp 06/01/2009 12:19 Page 1

Page 3: The New Statesman

12 JANUARY 2009 | NEW STATESMAN | 3

12 January 2009

New Statesman52 GrosvenorGardens, London SW1W 0AUTel 020 7730 3444 Fax 020 7259 0181E-mail [email protected]

EditorPaul RodgersRoundtable editorCaroline StaggProduction and design Leon ParksSub-editorSue Laird

If only someone would invent aneducational satnav device to make thejourney from school gate to workplace alittle easier. Just punch in the desired careerdestination and follow the on-screeninstructions. Until then, the plethora ofcourses and colleges, schemes andprogrammes, on offer will disorientatemany learners trying to pick the right routefor them. That the landscape is constantlyshifting, with new job requirementsforming an obstacle here and specialised qualifications rising there,makes it even harder to get one’s bearings.

It’s not about to become any simpler.Change and complexity are fundamentalcharacteristics of the 21st century. Theeducational system must adapt as best itcan, sometimes getting it right, sometimes,disastrously, not.

Dan Sutch, a learning researcher atFuturelab, the Bristol-based think tankfounded by Lord Putnam, argues in ourleading article (page 4) that emerging socio-technological trends such as virtualenvironments and 3D printers will changeour understanding of what schools are.

Whatever the destination, Scott Knox(page 7) wants to make sure the starting lineis well marked. The head of the MarketingCommunications Consultants Associationthinks that, in a world full of advertising,schools should do more to promote

themselves and their students, and says hisorganisation’s members stand ready tovolunteer their help.

Want to learn how to organise a meal forhundreds in a desert tent? Reporter AlyssaMcDonald (page 8) looks at what could beBritain’s biggest on-the-job trainer – theMoD – and finds an impressive servicerecord; two-thirds of those leaving its ranksfind work on civvy street within a month.

But another huge state institution isfailing miserably. Harry Fletcher of Napo,the probation officers’ union, warns (page10) that even though education is the bestway to stop reoffending, Her Majesty’sprisons don’t put nearly enough effort in.

From military fatigues and prison garb wemove on to the school blazer: freelancejournalist Karen Falconer (page 13)examines whether school uniforms canimprove pupils’ behaviour.

The case for including parents at thecentre of planning the shift away from arigid national curriculum (page 14) is put byMatthew Taylor, chief executive of the RSAand himself the father of two boys.

And in our interview (page 16), KathleenTattersall, the chair of qualificationswatchdog Ofqual, tells our political editor,Martin Bright, what inspired her to take thejob and how diplomas will bridge the gapbetween vocational and academic learning.

Paul Rodgers

4 Technology reaches for the top of the class Dan Sutch

7 The hunt for the X factor Scott Knox

8 Forces for learning Alyssa McDonald

10 Captive classes Harry Fletcher

13 Dress code Karen Falconer

14 Parental guidance Matthew Taylor

16 Interview Heading Martin Bright

18 Round table discussion

Chosing a path to workCO

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Thissupplementcanbedownloaded fromtheNS website at www.newstatesman.com/supplements

p3 leader and contents.qxp 07/01/2009 1:16 PM Page 1

Page 4: The New Statesman

The pupils who first venturedthrough the gates of a primaryschool in 1994 could not have

imagined the world they would emergeinto when they left school last spring. Inthose days, the Tories were privatisingBritish Rail, the IRA was declaring aceasefire and letters were being deliveredby Royal Mail postmen – twice a day.

The information ocean those studentsswim in today was a hazy science fictiondream 14 years ago. At that time, knowl-edge came from adults, books or televi-sion. The internet was talked about, butonly nerds had seen it. Pagers were morecommon than mobiles. Amazon, eBay,Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebookand Second Life had not been conceived.

The pupils who first ventured intoschool last autumn are certain to facemore dramatic changes when they enterthe workforce in 2022. Technologicalchange is accelerating and dragging soci-ety along behind it. New jobs and newways of working will emerge, just as webdesign and portfolio careers have in thepast 14 years. The challenge, for societyand particularly for those in education, isto design a system that will prepare thechildren of today for that future world,while ensuring they can make sense ofthe one they live in now.

In building learners’ capacity to liveand work in the future, we need to con-

ments in communication technologiesand virtual worlds are challenging what itmeans to be “at work”. Other trends pointtowards new ways of organising learningand teaching. Many are already being in-vestigated as models for education.

New computer games are engaginglearners in activities that serve both playand educational functions, where theytake on a range of roles and solve complextasks. Digital worlds allow learners to

FUTURE EDUCATION

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The challenge forsociety is to design a

system that willprepare the children

of today for the worldof tomorrow, whileensuring they canmake sense of the

one they live in now,writes Dan Sutch

4 | NEW STATESMAN | 12 JANUARY 2009

sider the coming social and technologicalchanges and their implications for jobs,communities and relationships. But howcan we prepare the next generation for afuture that is shrouded in uncertainty?

At Futurelab, we forecast that sev-eral emerging socio-technologicaltrends will influence formal edu-

cation, and, in particular, its aim of equip-ping people for employment. Develop-

Technology the top of

p4-6 Sutch.qxp 06/01/2009 19:35 Page 28

Page 5: The New Statesman

technologies present new ways for learn-ers to experience the workplace and learnabout working practices.

Consider mobile phones. Until re-cently, teachers saw them mainly as a dis-traction, to be turned off or confiscateduntil the end of class. But some are start-ing to use smart phones as tools like lap-top and desktop computers, sending stu-dents course material, for example. AtBoston College in Lincolnshire, appren-tices taking subjects ranging from cater-ing to social care and trowel occupationsin remote rural areas are using smartphones to get help from, and submit workto, assessors. The project, supported byMolenet, the Mobile Learning Network,gauges itself by how well it reduces thenumber of students who drop out.

Technology is making it easier to applymodern pedagogic theories such as “situ-ated learning”, the idea that studentslearn best when they join a group in-volved in a shared activity. Several com-panies are experimenting with linkingtheir own bespoke training courses todigital portfolios that can be downloadedby learners on the move. These innova-tive projects may be signposts to widerfuture developments.

Other technological developments cansupport learning in activities that are cur-rently prohibitively expensive. Severalveterinary schools have started using the

12 JANUARY 2009 | NEW STATESMAN | 5

Until recently, teacherssaw mobile phones

mainly as a distraction, tobe turned off or

confiscated. Some arenow starting to use them

as tools for sendingstudents course material

immerse themselves, not just throughgraphics and sounds, but by investingtheir emotions in completing personallyrelevant challenges. Simulations offerlearners the chance to experience inac-cessible, even dangerous environments,such as bio-hazard laboratories or a blacksmoker (volcanic seabed vents that pumpout sulphur-bearing minerals) deep in anocean trench. Harnessed to appropriatepedagogical approaches, these emerging

reaches for the class

p4-6 Sutch.qxp 06/01/2009 19:36 Page 29

Page 6: The New Statesman

“Haptic Cow”, a fibreglass model of therear of a cow linked to a computer, whichlets students “feel” (haptic is Greek fortouch) the animal’s organs. They palpatethe virtual cow’s ovaries, uterus andpelvis, learn to do fertility checks and de-tect pregnancy. Unlike working with realcows, this method of teaching allows fortrial and error without consequences. Asimilar illusion of touch can be suppliedto designers sculpting 3D prototypes oncomputers. These technologies provideways for vocational learning to be movedvirtually, if not physically, closer to thereal world.

It is easy to imagine future education asthe current system with more techno-logical bells and whistles. But societal

changes are equally important. The age-ing of the population does not just meanthat we will need more people trained innursing and caring. Radical longevitymeans a longer working life, a greater dis-tance between school qualification andretirement, and more need for re-skilling. Students on vocational coursesin the future may have decades of experi-ence in other areas. Demand for voca-tional courses may become more job spe-cific if students are familiar with relatedsubjects. This, combined with a below-replacement birth rate and high migra-

tion, both inwards and outwards, willforce institutions and policy makers todeliver courses for multi-generational,pluralistic, mobile student groups. Onequestion this raises is whether the stateshould shift investment to re-skilling forolder learners, or continue to concentrateon formative education and leave re-training to the private sector.

For the school-age population, voca-tional training will have to focus on theskills, competencies and attitudes thatwill make them ready for work. Theywill have to cope with change, co-op-erate in teams and apply their skills andknowledge far outside the contexts inwhich they were taught. Effort, perse-verance and target setting, all benefitsassociated with computer games, willalso be needed in this broad range ofskills, suggesting that formal and infor-mal learning may become linked. As

jobs become more specialised, theteacher will become less a provider ofknowledge and more an expert on howthe student can acquire the knowledgethey need, with industry providingjob-specific expertise.

Bringing work and vocational learningcloser has obvious educational benefits.But could it have other consequences?The Nuffield Foundation’s Young Fore-sight project takes secondary studentsthrough the process of imagining and de-veloping applications for a new technol-ogy, quantum tunnelling composite(QTC), a pressure sensitive conductor.The results have been dramatic, rangingfrom a touch-sensitive cricket bat thatcould tell umpires if the LBW rule hadbeen broken, to a heart monitor thatcould identify irregular beats and activatea pacemaker.

For the past 50 years, Moore’s law,which says that the number of tran-sistors on a chip doubles every two

years, has proved correct. If the trend con-tinues, a 3D printer that costs £500,000today will cost about £500 in 20 years, af-fordable for every school and college, ifnot most classrooms. With studentsbuilding production-quality prototypesas school projects, the distinction be-tween vocational learning and workwould blur, and the benefits of closer re-lationships between industry andschools could shift dramatically.

The growing recognition that voca-tional learning is important in itself, notas a runner-up to academic courses, butas a complementary route to success, hasemerged as the pedagogical establish-ment has learnt to focus on the needs ofthe students.

Could schools now begin to developandragogical approaches, listening to thelearner, providing greater choice andflexibility, and emphasising reactiveteaching? Or will adult vocational learn-ing move towards more traditional peda-gogical models, where the teacher and in-dustry partner have far greater controland the focus shifts to the short-term re-sponse to market need?

Many different vocational-learning fu-tures are possible. The important tasknow is to understand them, to decidewhich we prefer, and to begin putting inplace the practices and systems to worktowards them.

Dan Sutch is a learning researcher atFuturelab

6 | NEW STATESMAN | 12 JANUARY 2009

In 20 years, a 3D printerfor £500 would let

students buildproduction-quality

prototypes, blurring theline between vocational

learning and work

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p4-6 Sutch.qxp 06/01/2009 19:36 Page 30

Page 7: The New Statesman

“Has your child got the X factor?Greenleaf School is here to help allchildren realise their potential. It’s notjust singing, it could be sport, science, orthe arts, whatever your child’s skill,Greenleaf will develop their excellence.”

How’s that for a school market-ing campaign? For many par-ents, relating their child’s fu-

ture to auditioning for X Factor mightbe frightening, but that’s the society welive in. Whether through appearing onThe Apprentice, getting a contract withDancing Turtle Records or launching arival to Reggae Reggae Sauce, young-sters have a strong desire to be ap-plauded for success. And schools are un-der pressure to cater for that.

The marketing of schools is not a newconcept. Even before league tables,schools ran fetes and open houses andtrumpeted their sports teams’ successes.Such activities promoted individual tal-ent and allowed parents, teachers andpupils to say “look at us, aren’t wegood.” One school’s rugby team beatinganother or the year six choir being askedto perform for the mayor were seen asachievements, until the “competition isbad” bandwagon gathered momentum.As commercial promotion grew duringthe past half century, school promotionretreated. From being the centre of thecommunity, schools have slipped intothe background. The active school thattakes part in its community is a declin-ing institution.

Schools should be encouraged toshowcase their best and most talentedpupils both as individuals and as teams.It is in the interests of schools to marketthemselves in this way for two reasons:to encourage higher achievement intheir pupils and to generate greater in-

volvement from the community. Thisform of marketing of schools needn’tmean one school is better than another.That shouldn’t be the case. Instead,communities should be able to celebrateall their schools, one way or another.

Marketing can be a positive force in so-ciety, not only economically but socially.Many organisations have come to rely ontheir communication strategies to deliverthe change, ideas or money that theyneed. This doesn’t just mean adverts.Marketing is now a rich soup of commu-nication routes: websites, text messages,events, loyalty schemes and other “inter-active touch-points”. Marketing ismerely a word to describe how we com-municate corporately or individually.

Each of us receives an estimated3,000 marketing messages a day.Companies spend millions of

pounds to attract our attention to theirbrands. The government and any num-ber of charitable and not-for-profitgroups also invest considerable time andmoney on everything from direct mailto viral ads on the internet. How greatwould it be if some of those 3,000 mes-sages were from schools telling us abouttheir achievements?

Schools can market themselves to

SELLING SCHOOLS

Schools are using aspirations raised by TV shows to attract childrento their rolls, but is this good for education? “Yes”, says Scott Knox,as young people need to learn how to thrive in a competitive world

12 JANUARY 2009 | NEW STATESMAN | 7

The hunt for the X factor

It is in the interests ofschools to market

themselves, to encouragehigher achievement in

their pupils and togenerate greater

involvement from thecommunity

their communities in many ways. Thetrick is to take a leaf out of the corporateapproach and deliver a single messagethrough every channel. This “integra-tion” ensures that what is being said andhow it is being said is the same throughevery medium, whether it be newslet-ters, websites, or banners on the play-ground railings.

With a relatively small effort,schools can persuade the localpress to report on activities

such as poetry contests and science fairs.The result will be much closer bonds be-tween schools and their communities,bonds that are also broader than those be-tween a school and its parents.

There is help at hand to achieve this.The communications industry is so bigtoday that living in most schools’ catch-ment areas will be people who haveworked in a marketing department oragency. At the Marketing Communica-tion Consultants Association (MCCA) –a trade association for the UKs best mar-keting agencies – we have been urgingthe staff at our member agencies to getinvolved with community organisa-tions to help them with communica-tions. Many of them already helpschools or hospitals in their areas withcommunications, websites, newslettersand events.

We live in a competitive world, andthe sooner our nation’s children get intothe swing of this the better. If givingthem a taste of Fame Academy is what ittakes to make children more enthusias-tic about school, we should do every-thing we can to encourage them.

Scott Knox is the managing director ofthe Marketing CommunicationConsultants Association

p7 Knox.qxp 07/01/2009 1:21 PM Page 28

Page 8: The New Statesman

‘‘No career path. Few qualifica-tions. Little confidence.What’s your escape route?”

asked one Ministry of Defence recruit-ment advert last year. Others cut be-tween soldiers solving problems in warzones, and using the same leadershipskills back on civvy street. “Want toshow the bank manager you mean busi-ness?” asked another ad, apparentlyaimed at future entrepreneurs. Yet de-spite this steady refrain, if you askedcivilians what the military teaches its re-cruits, typical answers would include“marching, blowing things up” and anynumber of “ways to kill people”.

Lt Col Nick Maher, the head of defenceeducation policy at the MoD, is wellaware that education and qualificationsare not the first things that come to mindwhen people think about the forces.“We’re divorced from society,” he ad-mits resignedly when we meet in theMoD’s imposing Whitehall offices.“Most people’s knowledge of the ser-vices comes from pictures in the news.”

But the combat situations shown onTV are only one aspect of military life.Training for those situations plays ahuge, and varied part too: as a result, themilitary is one of the biggest vocationaltraining organisations in the UK – per-haps the biggest. It provides more than40 apprenticeships and 2,500 trainingcourses, helping servicemen andwomen to gain officially recognisedqualifications at every level up to a Bach-elor’s degree. And this year, along withprivate companies such as McDonald’sand National Rail, the MoD became an

the second phase, recruits start to trainfor a particular job, which could be any-thing from bridge-building to communi-cations; then in the third phase they canspecialise even further.

Service personnel exist in an almostpermanent state of training. As a self-con-tained model of employment, it’s impres-sive; but inevitably, some skills are moreeasily transferable to civilian life than oth-ers. “We will always train for the opera-tional need, 100 per cent,” Lt Col Mahersays. We won’t add 50 per cent to thetraining because we think that will givethe individual something more outside.”So a soldier may take a language course ofGCSE standard at the education centre inIraq, but a military linguist isn’t the sameas a civilian linguist – they’ll be learning“patrol Arabic” or “survival French”,with a focus on military language needs.

Similarly, a would-be chef will learnthe specifics of catering in the field. “A lotof it is dealing with how on earth you pre-pare a meal – or structure a whole day’smenu – in conditions where you’re deliv-ering to a fast-moving population, allcoming through at the same time, in coldconditions or very hot ones, all from atent.” It’s easy to see how a militarychef’s expertise could translate to the de-mands of civilian life – catering for alarge-scale outdoor event, for example –so trainee chefs can gain a City and Guildsqualification to prove their skills.

However, in many cases, training is toomilitary-specific to be adaptable. Com-bat training is the obvious example, butthere are plenty of others. “Some logis-tics trades,” Lt Col Maher offers. “For in-

ARMED SERVICES

Most recruits to the military are looking for a challenge, not a career for life. They want accreditation for the skills they learn

to help them secure a good job when they return to civilian life. Alyssa McDonald reports

8 | NEW STATESMAN | 12 JANUARY 2009

Forces for learning

awarding body in its own right, issuingqualifications which recognise some ofthe more military-specific skills.

Meanwhile, civilian Britain is badly inneed of training. Studies indicate that al-though the UK currently employs 6 mil-lion unskilled workers, we will soonneed only 500,000. This doesn’t have tobe a disaster: plenty of other jobs willemerge once the current recession ends.But there will be a shortage of peoplequalified to fill them. Voicing his con-cerns about “the global skills race” earlierthis year, Gordon Brown pointed to“work-based qualifications” as an impor-tant part of the solution.

Lt Col Maher agrees that for the mili-tary as much as any other employer, theways in which careers have changedmean that accreditation has becomemore important. “The perception is thatyoung people join the forces for life, butthat’s not the case. Most new recruits areyoung people who want to have a chal-lenge, who want to do something differ-ent for a short period of time, but whojoin with the intention of not staying. Soaccrediting what they do and what theylearn is key for the retention issue – keep-ing them in, keeping them motivated –but also for when they enter civilian life.”

The services have three phases ofvocational training. As you wouldexpect, much of the first, general

phase involves physical training. But, LtCol Maher points out, the skills learnt atthis stage, such as timekeeping and work-ing as part of a team, are intrinsic to armylife and valued by civilian employers. In

p8-9 Alyssa.qxp 06/01/2009 20:17 Page 28

Page 9: The New Statesman

ple think, ‘I’m good. They are going topay me more money!’”

Compared to almost any other form ofemployment, the forces provide “a to-tally different environment,” says Lt ColMaher. “It’s wearing a uniform, being apart of something. It’s not for every-body”. But he agrees that there arelessons for other employers in the ser-vices’ approach to skills. On-the-jobtraining isn’t perfect, and it always runsthe risk of being so specific to the task athand that it becomes non-transferable.But it’s a risk worth running. Becausethe benefits of learning, financial or oth-erwise, are so much more tangible in theworkplace than in a school or college, vo-cational training can successfully moti-vate many people for whom more ab-stract forms of education hold littleappeal. And engaging those people is theonly way the UK can compete in theglobal skills race.

stance, a petroleum operator fills aircraft.You would think, ‘why can’t you just dothe same thing outside?’ But that guy orgirl has been trained to do their trade in aspecific way. Refuelling aircraft at speed,helicopters at speed – is not necessarily aneasy match with the outside world.”

Earning qualifications designed to re-flect civilian life can also be problematic.“Carpenters and joiners within the RoyalEngineers – we tried to get them that out-side qualification, but because they don’tdo scaffolding we’ve struggled. They’reengineers who rebuild, but they’re doing

12 JANUARY 2009 | NEW STATESMAN | 9

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it in a military environment. They arenot building houses for people to live in.”

Still, while adapting military skillsto the civilian world clearly has itsfrustrations, two thirds of ex-Ser-

vice personnel find work within a monthof leaving the armed forces. Even thoughit’s highly unlikely that all of these areworking within their area of expertise,that track record suggests that the armedforces are doing something right.

Lt Col Maher notes that the forcescan’t take all the credit: they tend to at-tract motivated people. But he con-cedes that keeping that level of motiva-tion is important, and that providingongoing opportunities for traininghelps: “Of those who were not moti-vated by school, many will become mo-tivated by the work ethos,” he says.“And suddenly they realise – ‘Oh! I did-n’t think I could do that! Suddenly peo-

Skills learned in the army can prove useful later in civilian life

p8-9 Alyssa.qxp 06/01/2009 20:17 Page 29

Page 10: The New Statesman

timated five years ago, when the prisonpopulation was 73,660, that reoffendingby former prisoners cost the taxpayer£11bn a year. By August 2008, the num-ber in jail had soared to a record 83,800.The cost of recidivism has, no doubt, alsorisen by a further 15 per cent. Yet the totalspend on learning and skills in jails in2006-07 was a paltry £115m, less than£1,400 per prisoner.

To gauge the importance of educationin jail, one need only look at the devastat-ing socio-economic backgrounds of theprisoners: l 27 per cent were in care as children,

LESSONS BEHIND BARS

Prisoners who do notparticipate in

education are threetimes more likely tobe reconvicted, sowhy isn’t it beingmade a priority?

asks Harry Fletcher

10 | NEW STATESMAN | 12 JANUARY 2009

The clang of a cell door slammingshut and the heavy tread of a guardslowly walking away are depress-

ing sounds not just for the prisoner, butfor all of us. We use jails to punish crimes,but they don’t do enough to prevent fu-ture offences. Prisons have been charac-terised by critics as universities of crime;to reduce reoffending, they must insteadteach the skills offenders will need if theyare to go straight on the outside.

The case for better education behindbars is not just a moral one, though that isstrong enough. It also makes sense eco-nomically. The Social Exclusion Unit es-

Captive classes

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Page 11: The New Statesman

Prison populations are expected to riseover the next few years until availablespace falls short of demand by about6,000. Overcrowding has led, and willlead, to a curtailment of activities, includ-ing education. For budgetary reasons,most jail education programmes are, ineffect, already shut from first thing Fri-day until Monday morning.

Probation, too, is struggling. Althoughsome 60,000 offenders under probationsupervision were referred to third-partyeducation providers in 2006-07, staff arefinding it difficult to maintain case man-agement systems. Fewer than 3 per centof probationers were required, as a condi-tion of their release, to participate in edu-cation. The National Audit Office foundthat half of all supervision orders had twoor more conditions that were often diffi-cult to fulfil.

The benefits of education – en-hanced skills and employment –are obvious. It would be short-

sighted of the government to cut or un-der-invest in the future. The Ministry ofJustice should recognise contributionsmade by organisations such as Shannonand back them. It should commit to in-creasing the number of hours spent byeach prisoner in education for each yearof the next parliament. And it shouldconsider supervision orders that allowoffenders to progress over time, dealingfirst with addictions and later with basicskills and a pathway to work. This incre-mental approach would mean that the ju-diciary would be far more involved inmonitoring orders than they are now.Such a strategy would benefit every-body; fewer people would become vic-tims, less money would be spent on in-carceration, and more tax revenue wouldbe generated, because more peoplewould be in work.

Harry Fletcher is an assistant generalsecretary of Napo, the trade union andprofessional association for family courtand probation staff

compared with 2 per cent of the generalpopulation.l 49 per cent were excluded fromschool, compared with 2 per cent of thegeneral populationl 30 per cent were regular truants, com-pared with 3 per cent of the general pop-ulationl 65 per cent have numeracy skills at orbelow the level expected of an 11-year-old, compared with 23 per cent of thegeneral populationl Nearly half have a reading ability at orbelow level onelTwo-thirds have drug or alcohol prob-lemsl Three-quarters suffer from two ormore mental illnesses.

Is it surprising that 67 per cent of peo-ple entering jail are unemployed?

Successive studies have shown thatthe best way to turn offenders awayfrom acquisitive crimes such as bur-

glary, car theft and robbery is to raise theirself-esteem. Literacy, numeracy andworkshop skills are the key to reducinginequality and therefore reoffending.Prisoners who do not participate in edu-cation are three times more likely to bereconvicted after release, according to theSocial Exclusion Unit, while even partic-ipation in basic skills programmes re-duces reoffending by 12 per cent.

The Prison Service has made improve-ments. But with the prospect of budgetcuts of 5 per cent in each of the next threefinancial years, it is difficult to see howeducational services can be maintained,let alone expanded.

The Learning and Skills Unit, whichhas been responsible for prisoner educa-tion since 2006, estimates that fewerthan a third of inmates are in classes atany one time. Another 10,000 are em-ployed in workshops providing skills inengineering, textiles and woodwork. Butmost other work is menial. A prisoner ina Young Offender Institution spent anaverage of 12.2 hours a week on educationor work pathways during 2007-08.

12 JANUARY 2009 | NEW STATESMAN | 11

Successive studies have shown that the best way to turn offenders awayfrom acquisitive crimes such as burglary, car theft and robbery is to raise

their self-esteem. Literacy, numeracy and workshop skills are the key to reducing inequality and therefore reoffending

Across the system, prisoners achieved146,000 key work skills awards last year,but the Home Office at the same timeconcluded that factors such as links withformer employers and friends and familywere more likely to affect job chances.

The Shannon Trust, a voluntary organ-isation, has developed a programmecalled Toe-by-Toe which teaches prison-ers who have basic skills to mentor thosewho do not. It is successful and popularwith prisoners. However, the gains canbe lost when prisoners are transferred,released or put on probation. Worse, thePrison Service does not accredit the pro-gramme and its future is in doubt.

It is essential that a prisoner’s involve-ment in the educational process be con-tinuous, but because of overcrowding,they are constantly moved around thesystem. Only a third of education man-agers said they regularly received prison-ers’ education records following transfer.

A technological fix for this problemwas abandoned in January 2008 whenthe government curtailed the scope of itsnew Prisons and Probation IT system, C-Nomis, which would have allowedeveryone involved in a prisoner’s case tosee his records. C-Nomis was central tothe government’s offender managementsystem. Every prisoner was to have anamed offender manager – formerlyknown as a probation officer – to super-vise them through the system. Thiswould have preserved continuity of edu-cation, employment and rehabilitation.Unfortunately, the amount of traffic gen-erated by probation was massively un-derestimated initially, so its costs spi-ralled. The project was parked.

With the pr0spect of cutsof 5 per cent in each of thenext three financial years,

it is difficult to see howeducational services can

be maintained

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Recently at the Engaging Youth Enquiry in Parliament GeoffHayward, Director of the Nuffield 14-19 Review, University ofOxford, said:“Young people are more aspirational than they are given credit for and we must recognise that achievement is asimportant as qualifications.” Richard Williams, Chief Executiveof Rathbones said: “We are calling for a fresh thinking into how schools are defined.”

‘Schools’ offer a microcosm of our society, of community andorganisation and provide a fantastic and as yet under usedresource for learning lessons for life.

But how can young people ‘achieve’ more in schools, in away that is non-threatening to established staff and highlyinclusive to all students?

Learning to Lead is an approach that has been developed inschool, over the past seven years and is now a growing movement of students and teachers who recognise that ifchange is to happen, doors need to be opened for young people’s aspirations to grow, whatever these may be.

Learning to Lead offers tools and structures to support students to take increasing responsibility and become involvedin all aspects of their school, from its infrastructure to the waythey are taught and what they learn. What has emerged is asimple, yet startlingly effective way of including large numbersof students in leading positive change in their school commu-nity and beyond, as well as learning more about who they arethemselves and what they want to do in the future.

“We wanted to get away from providing adult led familiar oldtools and structures and instead explore with students otherways to work effectively together. We saw that in many cases,young people are judged as incapable and disinterested with-out being given a chance to show how much they care andhow they can shine in what they do.” said Neil Mantell - Learning to Lead

Wells Blue School, a secondary school in Somerset witharound 1500 students is becoming increasingly well known asthe case study school for the innovative programme.

Students identify what matters to them and receive the LtoLtraining which helps them to run their projects themselves.Anyone can ‘self-elect’ to join one of the 28 teams. There arearound 300 students directly involved in improving everythingfrom the food, to dyslexia support, to reducing energy con-sumption, to the outside and indoor environment of the school– to name but a few. This is learning through doing.

Gethin Hopkin - Year 10: "We don’t just have our say andthen nothing happens. We turn our plans into action. After allthe school is here for us."

Learning to Lead has been ‘passed on’ to nine other schools

in Somerset , through a teacher training programme to form‘school community link teachers,’ the vital new teaching role that supports students to build community councils intheir schools.

The success of the approach has been noticed by theGovernment Select Committee for Children, Schools andFamilies and help was found to attract funding from the EdgeFoundation to support a national pilot of Learning to Lead in12 secondary schools throughout the country, happening atthe moment. This national pilot and the whole approach isbeing evaluated by the University of Cambridge and the NewEconomics Foundation during the coming year.

Five primary schools have also now piloted the approach tobuild ‘community classrooms’ where the tools are easily integrated directly into the curriculum and teams are set up asa whole class activity.

Maddie - class 6: “Learning to Lead is a very good thing to do. It provides many experiences that children would not otherwise have. It is disciplined and controlled, but not by the teachers or any adult, but by the system and us. But even though it’s disciplined, it isn’t restricting. It just helps you focus on the main idea unpestered by smaller and unimportant ones.”

Staff and students in secondary schools are now usingLearning to Lead as a collaborative approach to form ‘curriculum communities’ around any given subject to enhance and support its effective teaching and learning.

Recently, after a long consultation process, Wells Blue School students came up with a strap –line for their community council. It reads:

‘Because Change doesn’t happen on its own’Learning to Lead ensures that for positive change to happen,

young people are at the heart of their schools and learning. Only then will the many as yet unrecognized and under developed talents of our young have the experience and spaceto shape their future.

Learning to Lead is a Community Interest Company (CIC) –not for profit organisation, with six student members on theboard of Directors.

For more information, please visit www.learningtolead.org.uk email: [email protected]

Susan Piers-Mantell. Learning to Lead.

How Learning to Leadensures young peopleare at the heart oftheir education

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From the sexual precociousness of StTrinian’s girls to Adrian Mole’s redsock revolution via the hat-wearing

idiosyncrasies of Miss Jean Brodie’s set,school uniforms in fiction have beenmore a badge of rebellion and non-con-formity than of good behaviour andachievement. Yet, politicians, teachersand many parents are now awardingthem top marks for performance.

To their supporters, uniforms are amodern panacea: they strengthen aschool’s ethos, help discipline, supportteaching and learning, foster a sense ofbelonging, act as a social leveller, preparepupils for the working world, and relieveparents of the pressure to buy expensivebrands and children of the daily worryabout what to wear. Conservative policyendorses them; and David Cameronwants his children to wear them. Moresurprisingly, guidelines from Ed Balls’sDepartment for Children, Schools andFamilies “strongly encourage” them.

Counter-arguments about individual-ity, freedom of expression and the poten-tial for conflict, as teenagers flaunt dresscodes, seem less an issue than cost. Thegovernment says most parents favouruniforms, but two charities, Barnadosand Citizens’ Advice, recently said thatmost find the expense stressful. Thepressure is on for schools to have afford-able uniforms and for suppliers in this£450m market to bring prices down.

School ties, blazers and black shoeswere once seen almost exclusively inpublic or grammar schools. Today, 99 percent of maintained schools in Englandhave uniforms, with 70 per cent sportinga school tie and almost half a blazer. In thenew academies, uniforms are an intrinsicpart of the branding; they feature onmany ailing schools’ improvement plans.Even infants encounter them. “It’s to dowith tradition, and the state system emu-

lating the private,” says ClarissaWilliams, president of the National As-sociation of Head Teachers. “My experi-ence suggests uniforms impact on behav-iour and security in and out of school.They are a corporate identity. What wewear says ‘we are now ready for work’.”

But is a uniform merely the latest edu-cational fad? Evidence is hard to find. TheDCSF admits it’s largely perceptual. Ex-travagant claims 10 years ago of behav-ioural improvements of between 50 and100 per cent in Californian schools weredashed by an academic paper.

The Conservatives published figureslast year showing that seven out of ten of

SCHOOL UNIFORMS

GET

TY IM

AG

ES

Badge of rebellion or symbol of success, the school blazer iswinning top marks from teachers, parents and politicians,

reports Karen Falconer

12 JANUARY 2009 NEW STATESMAN | 13

Dress code

“There are many variablesin successful schools:

the uniform may be one.But people are drawing a

false analogy betweenthem and success”

England’s top state schools require blaz-ers and ties. “There are many variables insuccessful schools: the uniform may beone, but it’s one of many,” says CharlesWard, the general secretary of the Asso-ciation of Educational Psychologists.“People are drawing a false analogy be-tween uniforms and success. It’s like say-ing ‘there are fewer accidents when peo-ple drive on the right, so let’s do it,irrespective of driving behaviour.’ ”

In the struggle to improve standards, itmay be a question of “anything is worth ago”. As anthropologist, author and fash-ion expert Ted Polhemus says: “The hu-man tendency towards individual stylealways prevails, so whatever the uniformthere will always be personalisation.Without it we wouldn’t have had thewonderful postmodern punk creations,which combined strange hair, torn fish-nets and Doc Martens with school uni-forms.” And fiction would be less rich.

Karen Falconer is a freelance journalist

St Trinian’s girls: a subversive take on the fashion rules at their fictional boarding school

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It is time for a new progressivism inschooling. Parents can be powerfulallies and partners in the drive to-

wards more rounded, engaging and en-joyable ways of learning. But achievingchange in schools is complex – with ten-sions between the different objectivesof learning – and so is the role of parents.

The Royal Society for the encourage-ment of Arts, Manufactures and Com-merce (RSA) is working with a widerange of organisations concerned witheducation to promote a charter of beliefsand values to guide future schooling(www.thersa.org/educationcharter).According to the charter’s key assertions,the over-riding objectives of schoolingshould be that children develop a love oflearning; that the curriculum shouldspeak to the different abilities and inter-ests of every child; and that childrenthemselves should be involved in the de-sign of their learning. These beliefs callinto question both the theory and prac-tice of the national curriculum and as-sessment framework.

Our hope is that the charter will gar-ner active support not just from educa-tionalists and teachers but from parentsand pupils. It is important to build from,rather than dismiss, reforms of the pasttwo decades that have given parentsmore information and power. Schoolsand teachers must be accountable fortheir performance and parents have theright to be informed and to have

HOME WORK

RSA

Engaging parents inthe shift from a rigidnational curriculum

towards a richerexperience is not anoptional add-on to

innovation inteaching, it is an

essential ingredient,says Matthew Taylor

14 | NEW STATESMAN | 12 JANUARY 2009

Parental guidance

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novation is to bridge the learning pupilsdo in school with the learning and expe-riences they have in the other 80 per centof their time. This is one reason why newapproaches might rely more than tradi-tional ones on engaging parents. Innova-tion involves risk, so there are ethical andtactical reasons too. Not every parent willhave the desire or confidence to engage,but there is good practice that showsschools can be more inclusive. For exam-ple, Demos’s research in Knowsleyfound that the best people to communi-cate with parents are often other parents.Recognising that many parents lack theconfidence to engage individually withpublic institutions, some schools havecontracted with local voluntary groups tobuild links with minority communities.

However, this kind of commit-ment is the exception. One of mysons goes to a fast improving and

well-run school, but the only attempt atengaging parents has been a postal ques-tionnaire; a tool so blunt it almost feelsdesigned to prove parents aren’t inter-ested. I only found out the year seven cur-riculum was broadly based on OpeningMinds when I realised this was what wasmeant by the blocks in the timetablemarked “humanities”.

School performance is improving. Cre-ating choice has rightly been a part ofLabour’s efforts to improve education.Increasing choice and fostering a greaterand more widespread sense of consumerentitlement will be a priority for bothmain political parties in the future. How-ever, it matters how we do it. The dangeris that the parental role will be restrictedto that of an agent who chooses institu-tions on behalf of their children, and thatwe encourage choice on the basis of a nar-row set of measures, rather than makingit a partner in delivering systemic change.

There is a growing desire to move beyond the narrowness of the nationalcurriculum and to offer pupils a richerand more engaging experience. Parentalengagement is not an alternative or anadd-on to innovation in teaching andlearning, it is an essential ingredient.

Additional reporting by Ian McGimpsey,the RSA’s senior manager, education.

Matthew Taylor is chief executive of the RSA

choices. But there should be a widerframework than league tables and SATsresults through which parents can judgetheir children’s schooling. Parents canbe a force for change, but only if they areengaged fully and positively.

As the father of two teenage boys Isuspect I am not alone in my am-bivalence about their schooling.

On the one hand, I am anxious for themto do well academically. Having decidedto send them to local comprehensiveswith a mixed intake, I worry they don’tget pushed hard enough when manyaround them have greater needs. On theother hand, I wish they had more fun.Teenage boys tend to be monosyllabic –especially with their parents – but itwould be great if, once in a while, theycame home with something interestingto say about their day that didn’t involve afight in the playground.

My ambitions for the boys’ educationinclude not just the hope they do well inexams but that they are good school citi-zens who learn to lead and be part of ateam, who mix with different types ofpeople and get the chance to do thingslike sport, culture or volunteering thatmight, otherwise, pass them by. If I wasasked to choose between them reaching16 with eight GCSEs and a love of learn-ing or passing ten but being bored rigid Iwould go for the former. Yet just as Say’slaw of markets tells us that supply createsits own demand, so the supply of perfor-mance indicators creates a demand forsuccess in those indicators. If SATs andexam results are the only way for parentsto judge schools (and are the passport togood university places) they may give upon other things they care about.

This is a false trade-off; schools with achild-centred and creative approach canbe successful academically, but there is noquestion that the current system leadsto an obsession with test scores. Someargue the response should be to abolishthe assessment framework or the publi-cation of school results. After last year’smarking fiasco, we are likely to see re-

12 JANUARY 2009 | NEW STATESMAN | 15

There is no question thatthe current system leadsto an obsession with testand exam scores

form of SATs, with greater freedom forschools to adapt assessment frame-works. The “Making Good Progress” pi-lot, for example, is evaluating the meritsof testing children when they are readyrather than at fixed points in the year.But it is not sensible or realistic to imag-ine we can do without assessment orthat we can block parents from access-ing or processing information.

It is up to schools to encourage parentsto see the bigger picture. The school opendays I have been to have tended to featurea speech from the head in which parentsare told about exam performance, theschool ethos (usually a lecture about thebehaviour expected from children) andmay include examples of successful ex-tra-curricular activities. Despite the ad-vent of richer child-centred data, parentevenings rarely involve any great effort tohelp parents understand the school’s ap-proach to teaching and learning.

Things are changing, but it is remark-able that secondary schools with multi-million pound budgets and large gradu-ate workforces don’t see innovation as anessential part of what they do. Thestrength of a curriculum framework likethe RSA’s Opening Minds lies in it beinga framework that schools must adapt anddevelop. In the face of social and eco-nomic challenges and technological op-portunities every school needs to be a siteof experiment, innovation and collabora-tion with other schools and partners.

An often cited goal of curriculum in-RSA

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MB The issue of qualification standards,although it may seem rather technical tosome people – certainly to some newspa-per editors – is one of the most importantin education. That means you now holdone of the most important posts in publiclife. What is it in your background thatinspired you to take on this job?KT It might be pretentious to say that it’sthe most important job, but I am veryconscious of the possibilities of theposition and of Ofqual as an organisa-tion. It’s absolutely vital that qualifica-tions be credible.

What brought me to it? First, I taughtfor seven years in a grammar school, aprimary and a comprehensive. And Iknow from personal experience thatqualifications open doors. My Mum andDad both left school at 14 without a singlequalification to their names. I was thefirst in my family to go to university.Qualifications are the way to transformyour personal life; it’s the way to trans-form society. Alright, I’m not going tosay “education, education, education”but I do think it is essential. I am ab-solutely committed to learning and toimproving the lives of young people, tomaking it possible for them to live ful-filled, happy and prosperous lives.

Second, I do know quite a bit aboutstandards. I was in an examination board,what is now called an awarding body, for32 years. First I was in a CSE board, whichwas working with teachers, and they areabsolutely central to the system. I am pas-sionately interested in making it possiblefor them to fulfil their roles. Before I tookon this job, I chaired the Chartered Insti-tute of Educational Assessment – im-proving assessment, raising its profile,

giving it a professional status. I suppose,finally, I am a historian and I have a fairlygood perspective of standards in the 19thand 20th centuries, about how fallibleyoung people are. Just look at what chiefexaminers had to say in the 1920’s whenabout 2 per cent of the population did ex-ams. They were the best, but they could-n’t spell for toffee.MB You are part of that generation whichsaw huge changes in social mobility,largely driven by education. Why hasthat mobility faltered?KT What’s your evidence?MB The simplest evidence would be thesocial class of people getting into top uni-versities which has if anything gonebackwards. KT I don’t know if it has gone backwards.Iam on the board of my old university,Manchester University, which has done alot of positive things in terms of accessand gender. In my experience there is agreater push now to open the doors andbroaden the mix of students than was thecase in the 1990s. The efforts of universi-ties to go out into schools, mentoringyoung people, is greater now than ever itwas. Having said that, we can all observethat society has changed considerablyover 20 years. If you think about the sortsof jobs that are available, we’ve movedfrom an industrial, making-things, soci-ety to a service society. That has hadsome impact on how people see them-selves, where they can live, upwards mo-bility, sideways mobility or whether

INTERVIEW KATHLEEN TATTERSALL

The chair of Ofqual talks with Martin Bright about socialmobility and giving vocational qualifications equal status

“We have to be the midwifeto the birth of diplomas”

We are moving into aglobal society where

people live on their wits

there’s any mobility at all. We’ve had agreater influx of people from other coun-tries and that again creates a different sortof mix. So I don’t think it’s as simple assaying “society was moving upwards,there was social mobility, and then,oomph, change”. MB How do you see your role and theway forward for Ofqual? KT My role is to give strategic leadershipto the organisation. In particular, it is re-sponsible for assuring standards andpublic confidence in the qualificationsand testing systems. Qualifications de-pend on the support that they have fromemployers and higher education.

If we look forward, we are at the begin-ning of a period of change, most notablywith the introduction of diplomas. Theseare being rolled on a pilot basis in a re-stricted number of fields, with morecoming on the stream as time goes by.

Those diplomas build on the recom-mendations of the Tomlinson Commit-tee, of which I was a member until 2004.Tomlinson was more radical – taking abig bang approach – whereas this is agradual introduction. It will give youngpeople a chance to learn right across thespectrum, vocational to academic. I reallyhope we can break down that artificial di-vide which has bedevilled English educa-tion. The good thing is that we have sup-port from employers and universities,though as always there are also some crit-ical voices. We are see our role as creatingthe framework where they can gain cred-ibility and gravitas. MB Why isn’t that credibility already es-tablished? Why is this a recurring theme?KT As it was in 1987 when we were antic-ipating GCSEs, and in 1949 before GCEs

16 | NEW STATESMAN | 12 JANUARY 2009

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matter what time you have, you will fillit, and claim that it was not enough.MB Hypothetically, are you in a positionto criticise ministers?KT We will be independent of ministersand answerable to Parliament. So therecould well be occasions when Ofqualmakes observations which are critical.MB Is reform going in the right directionand is it going fast enough?KT The general answer is yes. Every gen-eration has to examine what sort of edu-cation is appropriate. We are moving intoa global society where people live ontheir wits. They have to be far more flexi-ble, adaptable. The charge is that we havea the 19th century curriculum wrappedup in a slightly different way. Moving toan agenda that is skills-based, whichrecognises the interests of employers, isabsolutely the right thing to do. MB Can we move to a greater acceptabil-ity of vocational qualifications withoutother institutional and cultural changes?KT You need structural changes that em-bed different sorts of learning within theculture. The interesting thing about thediploma is the recognition that no one in-stitution has the resources or the exper-tise to provide the whole of the diplomaso schools are working in partnership andthat forces some changes in boundaries.

MB How do you keep the independentsector on board? KT The independent sector is as inter-ested in these changes as the state sector.Whatever concerns that they might haveexpressed, they are going to participatebecause its the only way in which theirstudents are going to have credibility.MB Can’t they opt for the InternationalBaccalaureate instead?KT The IB is aimed at a particular cadre ofstudents. It is not appropriate for thewhole ability range of students. The IB isthere, the diploma is there, the GCSE, theA-level. All of this is being promoted asdiversity. We’ve got to make sure that allof these are credible.

The IB is accredited, so it comes withinthe regulatory framework. Our responsi-bility to students in those systems is ex-actly the same. But my informed view isthat the independent sector will partici-pate, as they always have done, and theywill choose the qualifications which areappropriate to their students, and gener-ally speaking, they will be the main-stream qualifications which are appropri-ate for their students.

Martin Bright is political editor of NewStatesman and was formerly TheObserver’s education correspondent

and in 1917 before the School Certificate.This attitude of, ‘oh well, it might gowrong’ doesn’t surprise me. Somethingabout change is challenging and perhapsquite frightening for some people. But itinterests me that a qualification [GCSEs]which has been criticised like mad hasbecome incredibly popular in its last cou-ple of years.

Others will welcome the change andwork really hard to introduce it. Ofqualhas to build on their enthusiasm whilebeing aware of that sceptical body ofopinion. And we’ve got to protect the in-terests of the learner by making sure thatthe regulatory framework is right. We’vegot to be the midwife, ensuring that thisbaby is born into a world as healthy as itpossibly can be and that there are lots ofpeople around to love it. MB The curriculum reforms of 2002 mis-fired. how confident are you that thingshave not been rushed this time?KT People will always say that you shouldhave more time to do something. But youmight, by the time something comes in,have missed the boat. There’s got to be atime for teachers to become acquaintedwith the new qualifications and that’s allin hand. We go out about a year in ad-vance. I’m not of the school of thoughtthat you must have a long schedule. NoO

FQU

AL

12 JANUARY 2009 NEW STATESMAN | 17

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Round table: is a two-way conversationwith pupils realistic?

Kim Catcheside (chair) Thanks to all of you forcoming today. The subject of our round tablediscussion, “Engaging with Education”, comes on aparticularly pertinent day for the education world,because Sir Jim Rose’s independent review of theprimary-school curriculum has been published. Thislooks at how that curriculum can be made moreflexible and how all schools can be persuaded to dowhat the best are already doing – produce childrenwho have a body of knowledge and are ready to takethe sort of individual responsibility for their learningthat ought to be expected of them in secondary school.Jim Knight, who is with us, has also this morningpublished a document on the 21st-century school, inwhich he explains how schools inEngland can engage with thepeople in their communities.

We will be asking whethereducation should be a two-waystreet with students, inparticular, but also parents andlocal communities having a partto play in shaping thecurriculum. If we think thateducation should be aconversation – and noteverybody does think it shouldbe a conversation, certainly notall the way through – we need todiscuss how that can beaccomplished and identify thepotential pitfalls.

So, Jim Knight, what role canpupils play in developing theircurriculum and in deciding thefocus of their education?

Jim Knight Among the variousannouncements that we havemade today and will be makingduring the rest of the week, it isrefreshing to have thisopportunity to reflect a little bit.The question really around“engaging with education” and

particularly the involvement of pupils in their owneducation is quite fundamental in how we think aboutschool improvement, and about improvement acrossour education system. It is at the heart ofpersonalisation, as I see it. I know that there are somewho have arguments about how we define“personalisation” and whether it is useful or not.

In Christine Gilbert’s report, 2020 Vision and thework that that review published almost two years agonow, one of the fundamentals that she and her teamidentified was involving pupils in decisions abouttheir own learning, developing more peer-to-peerlearning and giving pupils a sense of empowermentin their learning as part of an engagement.

18 | NEW STATESMAN | 12 JANUARY 2008

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We learn about the roots of a good educationsystem from looking at the comparable jurisdictionsaround the world. Last week, I attended aninternational educational leaders’ dialogue inMelbourne, where we were discussing all of thesethings. We start with great leadership, leading reallystrong teaching and learning, and then engagingstrongly with parents. I would couple that withengaging strongly with pupils. The heart of goodteaching is imparting knowledge and understanding,but in a way that makes young people want to get upin the morning and go to school. Increasingly, I think,that means relating learning to the real world and theworld that those young people are in. I saw a fantasticMelbourne primary school using informationcommunication technology (ICT) to achieve fantasticresults. They had a TV studio and they werebroadcasting every day on FM radio to parents as theycame to pick up their kids from school. There wasreally good practical learning, but young people alsohad some feeling of ownership over what they weredoing. Learning took place in large open-planclassrooms with the whole year being taught invarious groups. It looked slightly chaotic at times, butit appeared incredibly successful to me in terms of allof those young people being encouraged in theirlearning. It was the best use of embedded ICT that Ihave ever seen in a primary school.

We changed the law this year to get more pupilvoice into the way that schools are being run. I thinkthat is equally important as part of personalising the

learning experience, and needs to run from primary,into secondary and beyond. The nature of that willchange as students develop different learning andunderstanding. This is fundamental to delivering ourvision of a 21st-century school system.

Andy Powell I agree that engagement in learning is atthe heart of personalisation. I see us moving fromapproaching education as an assembly line to one ofmass customisation, ensuring many paths to successfor all young people.

We need to create far more young people who areexplorers, who are supported in finding out forthemselves what they are good at, what they enjoyand who they want to be in life. At the moment,rather than explorers, we have too many youngpeople who are, if you like, birds in a cage. They mayhave purpose and a desire to succeed, they may bedoing very well in our largely academic system, butthey are, maybe, conforming to what is expected ofthem by other people in the system. If you open thedoor of that cage, they may not have the enterpriseand initiative to find a route that is for them and todevelop themselves to the full.

On the other hand, some who have their own mindand are free birds actually find it a real struggle to fit inwith the curriculum and the discipline of a school andthen do not know which way to go because they arenot supported. We also have those who have neitherpurpose nor independence. If we are to have moreexplorers, we certainly need much more involvementfrom young people in their own learning, particularlyleading up to 14.

Suddenly, when you are 14 you are asked, “Whatare you going to do? This choice may be important foryour life. Are you going to follow a diploma inhospitality or do a young apprenticeship?”

Let me give two examples I am particularly fond of.The first is from a very white working-class areawhere a school had a language cafe where thestudents served other young students in a foreignlanguage. Also, every Friday morning they had a“university”. Every term, each young person in thatschool picked two out of a list of 20 things that theywould like to do on that Friday morning. That rangedfrom hairdressing, where local hairdressers came in,to dance, where Northern Dance came in, to learninga different foreign language to developing andrunning their own museum.

The other example relates to a charity called Learningto Lead, which was commented on by the selectcommittee. The Blue School in Wells decided it wantedto engage its young people more and, rather than justhave a few people on the student council, it startedyoung people working in teams in the school. It now hasover 400 pupils in 40 different teams. They started offdoing up the toilets and discussing “How do we getmore private play areas?” but moved on to totallychange the transport system and bring some money in.They have worked on dyslexia, the curriculum,environmental and self-sustainable development and soon. So those are just two examples.

We start withgreatleadership,leading reallystrongteaching andlearning, andthen engagingstrongly withparents. Iwould couplethat withengagingstrongly withpupilsJim Knight

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20 | NEW STATESMAN | 12 JANUARY 2008

interest. When people think of apprenticeships, theythink of engineers. We are running apprenticeships inthe creative industries. That is the second largestemployment area in London. People are going intoreal work and potential careers. The important thingis the motivational reality for young people and theirparents about work at the end of the process, whetherit is HE, vocational courses or apprenticeships. Theymust have realistic aspirations and expectations.

David Hughes The basics are absolutely critical. If youcannot read, write, communicate and work in teams,then you cannot get on, cannot work and be a part ofthe community. For so many people, the basics arecompletely abstract and meaningless. The motivationto do literacy and numeracy is incredibly low for manyyoung people, unless they can see the application of it.If you put it into a practical setting that young peopleare interested in, you can really get that motivation.

Too often we expect everyone to conform to thenorm. If they do not conform we think it’s theirproblem, not the problem of the institution.

Last week, I went to the passing out ceremony ofsomething called the Life Project. It is a one-weekcourse for 14–16 year-old kids. The project is run bythe Fire Service and involved kids who have just goneoff the rails. The project puts them under incrediblediscipline. By the end of the week they are usingbreathing apparatus, all of the fire apparatus and doinga show for the parents.

The parents are saying, “I never thought my kidscould do that.” The kids suddenly get motivated. Theydo want to go back and get their GCSEs because theyknow they need them to be able to get into the FireService, the police or the army.

Jane Lees Young people are naturally explorers.Sometimes, by the time they come to secondaryeducation a lot of their enthusiasm for explorationhas, unfortunately, been dampened. Some are naturalleaders and some take their part in a different way. It isabout finding their particular role doing certainprojects or finding a way through learning. However,we cannot all be explorers all the time. You do need abase of knowledge. You must have the basics ofliteracy, numeracy and ICT. I would agree with JimRose’s interim report that it is essential to acquirethem before you even come to secondary education.We need to make certain that literacy, numeracy andICT are absolutely embedded – then pupils can fly.

Frank McLoughlin As a further education (FE) collegeprincipal, I think it is extremely important that youngpeople understand that there is more than one path tosuccess. That is why the diplomas are so important.By Year 9, so many young people can feel that they aregoing to struggle through the GCSE pathway they areon. For them to know that there is a real pathway towork and a career is desperately important.

There are some shocking statistics. In Islington, halfthe children are born into workless households. Theyare a long way from the world of work. Showing thema route to work or higher education (HE) and then areal job is extremely motivational. Diplomas mustwork and they must work for the economy becausepeople are saying, “We cannot have half of youngpeople going to HE”. I would say, if we get half of ouryoung people going into HE, that is fantastic, butwhat about the other 50 per cent? We have to ensureproper pathways for them.

Apprenticeships have gained renewed energy and

We cannot allbe explorers allthe time. Youdo need a baseof knowledgeJane Lees

Kim Catcheside(Chair) Social Policy andEducationCorrespondent,BBC

David Hughes Regional Director,London Learningand Skills Council

Judith Bennett Chair, NationalGovernorsAssociation

Prof MatthewHarrison Director ofEducationProgrammes, RoyalAcademy ofEngineering

Round table participants

Rt Hon Jim KnightMP Minister of State forSchools andLearners

Jean Franczyk Head of Learning,Science Museum

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very clear that he is not proposing a return to the topic-based learning that failed in the past, but he is talkingabout making learning relevant and fun, but withreally strong subject-based knowledge as part of that.

Bernice McCabe He says, “High-quality subjectteaching must not disappear from primary schools.” Ido not hear that reported in the media today.

Matthew Harrison I have a concern, and it comes outof what I have been learning through my involvementin the engineering diploma. This diploma ought to beactive, it ought to involve problem-solving and belinked to the real world; students should get a sense ofa job well done and they should make things thatactually function and solve practical problems.However, the reality is that not all teachers are in aposition to make that happen.

In the past 13 weeks that the diplomas have beenrunning, I have been talking to teachers. There areloads of great examples where the teaching is goingfantastically well, but it happens when the teachersknow where to draw in their subject expertise. Theyare well connected to the local employer who hasfantastic real-world examples, which they can showto their students. It works really well when we haveteachers in the classroom who know the contributionthey can make to fundamental knowledge and whento bring others in to underpin that with theexcitement and gloss of the real world.

The trouble is that not all teachers fit into thatcategory. I am seeing evidence of a culture whereteachers have been isolated in a world of teacher-class-classroom for too long. The only thing thatchanged in that environment was that the children

Bernice McCabe I agree about the whole sense ofstudents being motivated. It is that whole sense ofmaking sure that our young people are in charge oftheir own destinies.

I was directing a seminar for headteachers last weekthrough the Prince’s Teaching Institute that wasattended by headteachers from across the country.We also had a panel of pupils taken from a number ofthe schools of those headteachers who were present.We asked them what they felt was most important intheir learning and in their schools. A year ago, theTraining and Development Agency’s research intothe pupil voice showed that pupils felt the mostimportant thing in learning – nearly half of them putit top of their list – was teachers having an excellentknowledge of the subject that they were teaching. Thestudents on this panel at the seminar talked about thebenefits of subject teaching because it enables you toexpand on any ideas you might have. If you teachpeople through an overarching approach, it does notnecessarily allow for a creative thought pattern todevelop in the way that subject-based teaching does.

It is quite a misleading assumption that childrencannot have fun while they are learning subjects. Iread the summary of Jim Rose’s report this morningand was delighted to see that it says that thecurriculum proposed for primary schools willpromote challenging subject teaching alongsideequally challenging cross-curricular studies. Thedebate in education seems so polarised. Peoplepretend it is either one thing or the other but it’s not.

Jim Knight The desire for everything to be black orwhite, vocational or academic, topic-based or subjectknowledge-based is a real constraint. Jim Rose was

Jane Lees President,Association ofSchools and CollegeLeaders

Sir AlasdairMacdonald Headteacher,Morpeth School

Andy Powell Chief Executive,Edge

Frank McLoughlin Principal, City andIslington College

Ben Williamson Senior LearningResearcher,Futurelab

Bernice McCabe Headmistress,North LondonCollegiate School

Prof Dylan Wiliam Professor ofEducationalAssessment,Institute ofEducation

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In keeping with the old adage of ‘Do as I do and not as I say’,Edge (the education foundation) has created a network ofyoung people throughout the country with the mission ofraising the status of practical and vocational learning. The aimof the movement is to empower young people to act as agentsof change and to define their own ways of bringing about thatchange. The first ‘Edge Learner Forum’ was set up in Londonin 2004 and there are now eight groups around the countryfrom Cumbria to Sussex boasting over 200 members. Edgecreated and supports the Learner Forum because we believethat lasting change will only be achieved when it is demand-ed and articulated by young people themselves.

What are we trying to achieve?• Youth-led change in line with Edge’s core mission. If changeis articulated and advocated by young people themselves it:sticks with young people; has impact on decision-makers; haslongevity; and has reach into communities• A legacy – a sustainable, flexible and innovative model forengaging learners which will evolve over time to capture thezeitgeist and avoid becoming stuck in outmoded ways ofworking• A much wider movement for change – young people

getting other people involved in making change happen

Putting words into action!2008 has been a very busy year for the Edge Learner Forumwith the completion of a number of significant projectsinvolving young people working with Edge’s other main audience groups – namely Employers, Parents, OpinionFormers and Teachers.

At the start of the year the Learner Forum was contracted bythe Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) toconduct an investigation into the new 14-19 Diplomas; identifying the questions young people would need to knowabout the qualifications and then setting about investigatingthe answers. Young people were at the heart of the project from designing the investigation to interviewing therespondents – including Ed Balls, the schools secretary – andultimately assisting with the editing of the film. The projectculminated in the production of a DVD which will be distrib-uted by the Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA) to4500 schools in January.

In February, members of the Learner Forum were invited topresent their impressions of the current provision of careersadvice at the Houses of Parliament. The youth involvement

The involvement of young people inshaping the future of education

Edge Learner Forum members interview schools secretary, Ed Balls

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was a critical part of the Skills Commission inquiry which culminated in the production of ‘Inspiration and Aspiration –Realising our potential in the 21st Century’. The recommen-dations of the report have been taken a stage further by Edgewith the initiation of the ‘Skills Edge’ project. The aim of ‘SkillsEdge’ is to improve access to careers advice for young people.In line with our commitment to keeping young people at thecentre of activities, members of the Learner Forum were alsoinvolved in the subsequent evaluation of on-line careersadvice. Their input will form a major part of the intelligencedriving the project as it moves forward.

From the corridors of power to the corridors of schoolsthroughout the UK there is ongoing conversation and debatearound the subject of ‘pupil voice’ and ‘pupil involvement’ inthe provision of education. In 2007 members of the LondonLearner Forum began work on an innovative concept of takingpupil voice into pupil action and ultimately into school actionwith the development of a ‘student led school inspection’. Thepilot project operating under the working title of ‘EdgeInstead’ was carried out in May 2008 at South CamdenCommunity School.

The inspection is basedaround the four key areasof Respect, Environment,Aspiration and Learning,topics which had previously been used as aframework for consultationabout learning in theschool. The inspection tookplace over a period of fourdays during which time a team of 50 studentreviewers worked with staffand pupils throughout theschool on a number ofactivities. The projectinvolved a combination ofinterviews, questionnaires,workshops and observa-tions and culminated in the collaborative preparation of an actionplan for the 2008/9 academic year. In addition to the entire process involving realworld practical learning for young people, one of the greatestoutcomes was that the ‘student voice’ has been listened toand that the majority of the recommendations have beenwritten into the school development plan. New strategiesresulting from the project covered a wide variety of topicsincluding careers advice, parental involvement and teacherdevelopment. The knowledge gained by the learner forummembers was taken forward later in the year to the OFSTEDexpert seminar on learner involvement in school inspections.The consultation is currently live on the OFSTED website and the Learner Forum team will continue to work with OFSTED in 2009.

In Birmingham, York and Sussex the Edge Learner Forumturned their attention to employers and the critical need foryoung people to better understand the world of work and theirfuture career options. Major employer bodies regularlybemoan the lack of ‘employability skills’ in young people

leaving school; citing a lack of knowledge of future careersand a lack of business awareness; the Edge Learner Forumteams set about making a difference. During an employerengagement event held at the ITV Central studios, young people were able to air their feelings about the recruitmentpractices used by employers in the region. This collaborativetwo way dialogue allowed employers to reflect on their existing approaches to recruitment and to realise that theymight be missing out on real talent. The session resulted in changes to a number of employers’ recruitment methodologies. In Sussex the Learner Forum worked with theLocal Authority to investigate current failings in the provisionof work experience across the county. The project culminatedin the production of a poster to help employers and youngpeople get more out of the work experience opportunity. In York the Learner Forum was commissioned to produce a‘Visionary’ film on careers options which was subsequentlyused as the basis of a structured process to prepare youngpeople for work experience.

Turning their attention to teachers, the Edge Learner Forumteamed up with theInstitute of Education to work on a number ofworkshops with their PGCEstudents. The LearnerForum-led sessionsenabled the trainee teachers to work withyoung people on issuessurrounding classroommotivation and the benefitsof adopting a practicalapproach to learning.

In September the EdgeLearner Forum held aNational Conference andpanel debate in Londonwhich featured over a hundred young people andfifty key influencers fromthe world of education. Theevent coincided with thelaunch of the Edge LearnerForum website at

www.edgelearnerforum.co.uk where we encourage youngpeople across the UK to sign up and support the movement.

While considerable progress has already been made, we aredetermined that the young people remain at the centre ofeverything we do in 2009 and beyond. Our key theme for theNew Year is the growth of our network. In addition to delivering more innovative youth led approaches to practicallearning, we are determined to reach out and involve thousands of young people in Edge’s campaign. 2009 will seethe launch of an Edge funded feature length film which explores the UK education system; we are aiming toempower young people to define the way in which this filmcan help to act as a catalyst in raising the status of practicaland vocational learning so that all young people can achievetheir potential.

Jonathan Bramsdon is Partnership Director at Edgewww.edge.co.uk

Employer engagement has also been a key theme for other areas of Edge’s work in 2008 with the launch of theBusiness in Schools campaign in Yorkshire, Humber andHertfordshire. The centrepiece of the campaign is a free, online platform which identifies local opportunities at schools and colleges for businesses to provide a wide variety of work-related learning to young people, complimentary to the time and resourcesthey have available.

Edge is also committed to ensuring that employer engagement is a central theme at the two Edge sponsored academies which are opening in Nottinghamand Milton Keynes in 2009. In addition to featuring specialist hubs where local employers will work alongside students, the Business and Enterprise Academieshave both appointed members of the Senior ManagementTeams with responsibility for ensuring that employers playa major part in the development of students and vice versa.

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like to think of these things in a triangle of essentials.You have to find a way to engage young people andthat means connecting with them where they are.You have to give them the means of building capacityand skills. That covers the numeracy and literacy. Youalso have to give them continuity and the ability toadvance in acquiring those skills and demonstratingproficiency. If you are missing any one of thosethings, your structure will collapse.

What places like the Science Museum are so goodat is that engagement, that hook. The things we dobuild capacity, build confidence, increasecommunication and those things are then put backinto that formal learning environment. This allowsstudents to do better at whatever it is they choose todo. My primary message is that the world outside ofschool can do so much to aid and assist a youngperson’s advance in either their academic career ortheir vocational career.

Alasdair Macdonald We seem to have drifted into anarea that is really about what makes good learning.However, our question here is, “What role can pupilsplay in developing their curriculum?” I wouldprobably argue in an almost neo-fascist kind of waythat this is not a huge area for pupils to be involved in.I think being involved in their learning is hugelyimportant and I would not question havingopportunities for the independent learners to work ina teamwork situation.

However, I think that we could get carried away onthe importance of pupil voice. I think it is importantthat pupils are particularly involved in the learningand they determine that to some extent, but in termsof developing their curriculum to focus theireducation, I am not sure how much of that you dowith a six-year-old.

David Hughes Perhaps not a six-year-old and perhapsthere is something about being age specific but, if you caricature our education system, 50 per cent orso of our young people go through the system, gettheir A-levels, go to university and do fine.However, there is another group – around 10 per centof young people – who just drop out completely andare alienated by the time they get to 16. Nobody everasks them, “What would you like?” Nobody eversays to them, “Look, this doesn’t work, does it?” Ithink we should just be a bit braver and start to askthem at an earlier age. We should try to break downthe prison that becomes school for a lot of them,because a lot of them do not want to be in school from 9am–3pm.

As soon as you give them the chance to go and dosomething different, often in an FE college at 14, theyjump at the chance and they become completelydifferent kids, completely motivated. Where you canget schools and colleges working together, theteaching can be improved on both sides. You canreally get that cross fertilisation of ideas. We need toask young people at a much earlier age, “What do youwant?” and “How should we deliver it?”

grew up and left, and that, periodically, theassessment changed or the curriculum changed. Thediplomas are proposing one hell of a challengebecause they are asking teachers to not behave in anisolationalist way – which is a natural instinct – and toinvite others into the classroom who are not trainedas teachers and who do not have a sense of pedagogynecessarily. It is that letting go. If we want to see thediploma succeed, we need to find ways of helping ourteachers to overcome this cultural barrier quickly.

Kim Catcheside Teachers should become explorers?

Matthew Harrison Yes. When I hear of teachersexploring through dialogue, for example, scienceteachers talking to their maths colleagues, I relax. Ifthe design and technology people are talking to localindustry, I relax. When I get very worked up is when Idiscover that teachers are talking to themselves. Weneed to find that way to get them to connect withthose around them.

Frank McLoughlin I think that Tim Brighouse saidthat teachers talking to each other is the best thing fora successful school, college, university or whatever itis. However, I think the big problem is the motivationof the children who we know are not going to do well,whose class tells us that they are not going to do sowell and how we get teachers engaged with that. Thediploma forces that. Young people can practise thosereal work skills following the diploma and it isincredibly motivational.

I do not think it should be either universities orapprenticeships. What we must do is to make surethat both of those routes are as strong as each other. Ithink that is a goal for our economy.

Jean Franczyk One of the most important things toconsider within a school environment is the influenceof the out-of-school environment on learning. Weonly spend about 15 per cent of our time in a formallearning environment in the course of our lifetimes. I

One of themostimportantthings toconsiderwithin a schoolenvironment isthe influenceof the out-of-schoolenvironmenton learningJean Franczyk

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and there was not enough time for creative thought,for talking to children and for listening to them. Untilyoung people value themselves, until they feel theyhave a contribution to make (this is not lip service orhaving a school council where somebody goes alongto listen to what is said periodically), I do not thinkthat things will happen in the way we want. It is atremendous and worthwhile opportunity that I thinkteachers ought to embrace. I hope that moves towardsa flexible curriculum and what Jim Rose said aboutthe primary curriculum today can help that to comeback and become embedded, because I think it lost itsway somewhere at the beginning of the 1990s and weneed to find it again.

Dylan Wiliam The first question we need to be askingis what it is that we want kids to learn. How theyshould be learning it should be a secondconsideration. I think the key idea developing here isinformed choice. I agree with Alasdair. I do not thinkthat many kids are in a position to make an informedchoice even at the age of 14 about the choices theyhave. I think kids can make informed choices abouthow they learn much earlier than they can makeinformed choices about what they learn. For me thecrucial question is around what it is that the teacher isdoing. It seems to me that there are two traps. Oneextreme is the teacher who tries to do the learning forthe learner, and at the other extreme is the teacherwho says, “I do not teach. I just facilitate learning,”which is just basically hanging around.

The best teachers engineer effective learningenvironments. They take into account the masscustomisation that is possible but do not try toindividualise. That is the trap with masscustomisation. It is not individualisation. It is aboutusing kit in the classroom as learning resources forone another.

While I am sure that Bernice is right that kids wanttheir teachers to know their subject, the evidence isthat it does not actually make much of a difference tostudent outcomes. If you get an above average teacher– as opposed to an average teacher – in terms of theirsubject knowledge, you will learn 4 per cent more in ayear from that teacher. But if a teacher who is aboveaverage in terms of how they teach teaches you, youwill learn 50 per cent more. So, how teachers teachmakes far more difference because what they do isopen up exploration and make the learning moreexciting. It seems to me that we need to work on thequality of the teaching force.

Teachers do not get better just by being left to theirown devices. What we have to do is to createstructured ways in which teachers systematically getbetter at the things that make most difference tostudent outcomes, taking into account this notion ofinformed choice.

Ben Williamson A lot of that is the sort of thing thatwe have been studying in the Enquiring MindsProgramme. We have been talking to many studentswho say things like, “When I am listened to by

Alasdair Macdonald I will come back with one word,and that is “class”. The 50 per cent that goes throughthe school system successfully is overwhelminglymiddle class and the other 50 per cent is not. If we arenot very careful we will be saying that there issomething that works well for the middle classes, themore affluent and more articulate in our society, butlet us give choice to the other ones. I am reallyunhappy about young people making major lifechoices at the age of 13. They often come from familieswhere there is no history of education, or perhapseven an alienation from education. It is very riskyterritory. That will not be happening in your leafysuburbs, in your middle-class schools, your grammarschools and your independent schools. They will notbe making those choices. What they will be saying is“Let’s continue through to the age of 16 at least, andthen we will start to make some important decisions.”

My experience would suggest overwhelminglythat, for children from disadvantaged backgrounds,we should keep them on the standard curriculumuntil 16 and then let them make some choices – but letthem be real choices. I think that if you do it muchearlier than that, all you are doing is reinforcing ourclass system.

Judith Bennett I was a secondary teacher for 24 years.I think one of the problems is that it is not just abouttalking to children but actually listening to them. Alot of the children are not used to being taken noticeof. At home they are not talked to very often,especially if they are in families in deprived areas orwhere education is not valued. Schools must listen toyoung people. It may be that they are not in a positionto contribute a great deal to developing theircurriculum, but you can start them thinking andvaluing themselves because you listen to them andmake them feel that their contribution counts.

I do not know whether this seemed to disappearbecause of the National Curriculum, because so manypeople were concerned to get through whateverneeded to be done. We all followed the same course

Until youngpeople valuethemselves,until they feelthey have acontributionto make, I donot think thatthings willhappen in theway we wantJudithBennett

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How do wecompensatefor the lack ofengagement athome or how,ideally, do westimulate thatengagement athome withparents?Jim Knight

teacher, I feel that I am getting a fair chance and I amgetting a fair hearing.” What the teachers then say is,“While I am doing this kind of teaching, respondingand reacting to some of the needs of the students, Iam developing a more dynamic sense of my owncraft, of the profession that I joined.” For teachers it isabout supporting children to ask questions about thekind of real-world experiences they are having. Weare not necessarily saying that, by linking to the realworld, we are always creating a more engaging andrelevant curriculum. Sometimes we might bereproducing all sorts of things in the real world thatwe want schools to counter and question.

For me it is teachers listening and acting upon whatstudents say.

Jim Knight I do not disagree with much of what hasbeen said. Consistently getting good teachers, asMatthew was talking about, is fundamental, as isensuring the managed collaboration and managedconversation for teachers to learn from each other.Technology can help us – not through Facebook butthrough a more managed form of networking. Wenow have to make that technology work for us.

Dylan’s notion of informed choice is important. Iwould not want anyone to think that, in setting outthe diploma programme, for example, we wantpeople to make a choice at 13 that they will bestudying for diplomas for the next five years if that isthe wrong choice. They are allowed to make thewrong choice at 13 and 14. The choice that they aremaking when they choose between diplomas andGCSEs is one of different styles of teaching andlearning. It is a difference in how things are beingtaught as opposed to, necessarily, what is beingtaught. The fundamental choice is, “Are you turnedon by the traditional dry academic stuff of teachingand learning?” or “Are you turned on by a moreapplied style of teaching?”

If, at 16, you choose to do A-levels, choose to doapprenticeships or choose to carry on doing

diplomas, then we have designed the qualification toallow that to happen. It absolutely has to be a bridgingqualification to different things, so you can, in someways, make a choice at 13 that becomes the wrongchoice for you at 16.

We are quite clear, also, in terms of what people arelearning, that they have to carry on learning if theychoose diplomas, GCSEs or the functional skills ofEnglish, maths and ICT.

The question of class that Alasdair raises is anextremely interesting one – if a slightly dangerous onefor politicians to comment on too much. I havebecome very interested in parental engagement inlearning because, in terms of class, that is one of thekey differences. If your own experience of educationwas not great, you are less likely as a parent to becomevery engaged in your own child’s learning. That ismore likely to happen if you are from a disadvantagedbackground than an advantaged one.

We need teachers and their leaders to be able toaddress that difference if we want to address theattainment gaps. How do we compensate for the lackof engagement at home or how, ideally, do westimulate that engagement at home with parents? Weneed to work with adult education to sharpen up thatengagement between home and school and giveparents a feeling of confidence about doing educationwith their children.

Jane Lees It really does come down to the teachers andhaving structures in there that allow that thecurriculum diet can be seen by the teachers themselves,because sometimes they do not know what a child goesthrough in school in a day. To shadow a child through aschool day can be an eye opener.

Best teacher practice can be shared through peerobservation and evaluated. Where you have thosestructures in place, you get a real dialogue going onbetween the teachers to make certain that they havesomething they can share, evolve and ensure that itimpacts on their children.

In terms of engaging those pupils, Assessment forLearning is a really powerful tool. It gives pupils thetargets to track themselves, with the support of theirteachers or the classroom assistants and teachingassistants in schools. Then, of course, using thevirtual learning environment (VLE) where it might beappropriate to support that learning.

Bernice McCabe I totally agree that it comes down tothe teachers. Teaching is one of the few professionswhere you do not go back to your original training. Youcan, potentially, work for 40 years and not go back toyour original subject. Taking your phrase, Jim abouttraditional dry academic style of teaching and learning,I think that is a misconception. Rigorous, enthusiasticsubject teaching can be exciting and fun. Time and timeagain I interview people for jobs at my school and Icannot get them to talk about their subjects. They willtalk about methodology and exciting children, but it isvery difficult to get them to go back to the heart of whatreally enthuses them. Most children are enthused by

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After anothersix years oflearning, theywill not have aclue why theydid it, whatthey want todo or who theyare in life. I donot think thatis good enoughfor the 21stcenturyAndy Powell

an extraordinarily small period of time to askquestions and so on.

We are not looking to remove the pedagogy but,through Lewisham, we funded what I understand isthe first ever course for college lecturers that providesa totally different pedagogy in how you teach thispractical stuff. In recent discussions with the NationalCollege of School Leadership and the TeacherDevelopment Agency there seems to be nothing forteachers on the pedagogy of how you teach this moreapplied stuff.

In our work with diplomas in Hertfordshire, wherewe are trying to support them on the ground, that isthe biggest problem. The teachers just do not knowquite how to deal with this thing.

Finally, someone said earlier about the 50 per centwho are doing fine and getting on well. Actually, Iwant to challenge that, because I know lots ofteenagers and young people who, because they comefrom middle-class backgrounds are doing absolutelyfine but they get a lot of support from parents becausethey are conformists. They do not really know why orwhat they are doing. They will go and do their A-levels. They will go to university and they willcome out. I know that after another six years oflearning, they will not have a clue why they did it,what they want to do or who they are in life. I do notthink that is good enough for the 21st century.

Matthew Harrison I would like to bring some facts tobear. We skirted around the subject of class and whatthat means to educational and life outcomes. Sir AlanLangland’s Report [Gateways to the Professions] wasvery clear that one key to social mobility is access tothe professions. The most under-represented groupin the professions is the lower half of the socio-economic scale. For the longest time, the professionshave waited until young people are 18 or older beforethey ask them to make a choice. We have had severalgenerations of this. So, it would seem logical to saythat late choices are not encouraging young peopleinto things like the professions that give them socialmobility. In a sense, although it is highly risky to ask13-year-olds to make important decisions that mayaffect their future, it seems only inevitable that wehave to encourage them to start making decisions at 13if we are going to break the generation-to-generationcycle. The upper half of the socio-economic scale goesinto the professions and does very nicely, thank you,but the other half does not.

The flip side to that coin is that we need a lot moreengineers. We cannot just rely on the same families,who have produced boy child after boy child who goon to become engineers, to keep the infrastructurerunning. We have to find more people.

Coming back to the diplomas where I spend somuch time, it is risky to get 13-year-olds to makedecisions. But, in the case of the diplomas, it is quite asafe decision. Actually, all you are asking them is,“What would you like to do for a day-and-a-half inthe week?” because the rest of the time they will bedoing their regular GCSEs and everything else. If they

getting to grips with something tangible in a subject;the skills can develop from there. Skills cannot developin a knowledge vacuum.

What does “personalised learning” mean? Does itmean that every child needs to think for themselvesand that we need to make sure that every child in theclass learns to the limit of their potential? But is thatnot what good schools have always done? I heardsomebody say the other day at a conference that wewant children to be producers, not consumers ofknowledge. I do not know what that means. Does itmean that we want them to think for themselves or tobe engaged? Of course that is true. It is almost likethere is some brave new world that is being createdsomewhere out there and it does not relate to goodschools and what effective teaching is about. Thesooner we put teachers back in connection with theirsubject and teaching subjects in a way that enthuseschildren, the sooner standards will rise, not just forthe middle classes but for all children.

Andy Powell I really enjoyed the distinction betweenthe how and the what. It reminded me of a couple ofexamples. One is where I met with students whowere at school but doing a placement at a college on aconstruction course. When asking them how theywere getting on, the light shone in their eyes aboutthis construction course, and one of the reasons was“They treat me like an adult.” The danger then is thatsomebody will think, “That is because they have got afascination with construction and they want to gointo construction.” Actually, they have got afascination with being treated with respect and beingtreated like an adult.

The other thing is something I came across recently,which are surveys done by the Campaign forLearning, where they chart the amount of time thatstudents spend on certain activities in school. Notsurprisingly, there are some high percentages of beingread to from books, looking at the blackboard andbeing asked questions. For natural explorers, there is

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a university. They need some support outside theclassroom on raising aspirations, something that willengage them with education and make them want tobe there. If you talk to parents, they want the childrento do well but they do not know what to do.

We have done that Fire Service course for years. It isa great week, but two weeks later it has not mademuch difference because those children do not have anetwork to support them. We need a two-prongedapproach to this. I am talking about inner-city schoolshere. We need top-quality classroom practice and weneed to put significant resources into supportingthose young people – making them want to come toschool working with their families – and not see thatas an add-on extra. That should be the core of what weare doing. We are obsessed with the notion that wecan change our society through better pedagogy butwe will not.

Kim Catcheside I sense a definite feeling from therepresentatives of FE colleges to being much more opento enabling students to materially affect thecurriculum. So there is one strand there.

Another big strand is having teachers, perhaps, asleaders. They are the explorers who are the leaders ofthe expedition. Another thing I would like to look at,which I think goes back to what Alasdair has beensaying, is that if we are talking about enabling childrento be consumers, then we need to offer much betteradvice and show them much earlier what options thereare. We must try to embed that into our curricula muchearlier. It is a bit more about giving information, aboutenabling students to be informed participants. Middle-class people are so much better at being informedconsumers of public services, so how do we even upthe playing field in those circumstances?

Dave Hughes People have not said it is about thequality of teaching only. They talked about thecontext of the teaching and the pedagogy of theteaching. I agree that this discussion is class based. A lot of what has been said really resonates.

To go back to something that Matthew said as well,why are we not asking young people at 11, 12 or 13 ifthey want to make the choice about what they do inthe future, because the danger is that we just spoonfeed them what they are given. Why not start to openup where there is a gap in their understanding aboutthe world. Their aspirations are limited by the culturein which they grew up. If we could start to open thatup and actually give some of those kids theopportunity to see at a much earlier age what isavailable to them, they might make a really positivedecision to do a diploma that would motivate themthrough those difficult teenage years.

Frank McLoughlin I would like to support Alasdair’sidea about the schools or the colleges having a biggercultural role, so that it is not just about the role youhave in taking young people on a journey, but it iswhere you sit within your communities. I think oneof the reasons why my college has been so successful

like that different style of learning, they might chooseto take it on later but, if not, what they will havedemonstrated to themselves is the ability to make adecision and to relate that decision to theconsequences. While it is risky, if you are going toopen up the professions, I think the only choice youhave is to get people to make decisions earlier.

Alasdair Macdonald One of my pet hates is listeningto politicians who say that what we need to do is toget our best teachers into our most challengingschools. I think it is a complete misreading of thesituation. In my school and in hundreds of similarschools, we have some fantastic teachers who wouldknock the spots off teachers in more affluent areas.That the examination results in challenging schoolsare not as good as those in other communities is notto do with the quality of teaching. If we go down thatroad, we are going down a blind alley because all thatwill happen is that, as much as we improve thequality of teaching in our schools in inner-city areas,the same thing will be happening elsewhere and wewill not close gaps. The history of our educationsystem is that standards have gone up but there hasbeen a relatively insignificant closing of gaps.

Increasingly, my experience is – to disagree witheverything we said just now – that teaching is importantbut it is overrated. What we are doing is what has goneon since education became compulsory. We are justreplicating a model across the entire system andthinking, “If it works here, it will work there.” I do notthink that that is the case. I think that, if we keep onimproving the quality of teaching, the children in inner-city schools will be left behind still. The gaps will notclose because, as fast as the inner-city schools improve,the others will move ahead.

We want good teaching, but there are other thingsthat are also very important. These are to recognisethat we need to do something different for the youngpeople who come from backgrounds where there isno history of education, where the parents do notknow what higher education is, who have never seen

We areobsessed withthe notion thatwe can changeour societythrough betterpedagogy butwe will notAlasdairMacdonald

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is because we play a full role in our community. I was in Chicago last month looking at Chicago City

colleges. The authorities have built a new campus indowntown south Chicago. It is a very bravedevelopment and is about connecting thosecommunities. The teachers are critical, as is gettingthe community of the establishment to join up withthat. I do not want to be insulting, but getting brightpeople to teach A-levels is not rocket science. Gettinggood people to understand how you bring a group ofyoung people from very mixed backgrounds througha programme to motivate them all is a challenge.

I think I might have failed as a middle-class parent.My own son went to our local school and he has doneokay-ish but I could see the boys who would drop outfrom the first year they were there. It was absolutelyobvious. You were knocking square pegs into roundholes. So, the job of keeping those young people ineducation, which is why the diplomas are so good, isvital. You have to find an alternative route to successfor those young people.

I do not see enough schools that see theirresponsibilities extending beyond the school gates.They say, “We have got a difficult enough job to dohere,” but reaching beyond the school boundaries andgetting everybody joined up on that journey is vital.

My final point is about giving teachers broaderexperience. I am still surprised by how many teachersin schools, and potentially in colleges, are just peoplewho have gone through the journey from school touniversity and back to school. Often they arereplicating the diet they had in school but it needs tobe done differently. I think that teachers supportingeach other and working in different ways, with youngpeople being involved in observation of lessons andin the selection of teachers, all of those are reallyempowering for young people and give them aninsight into how the world could be for them.

Dylan Wiliam By the age of 36 months, a kid in amiddle-class household will have had addressed tothem by an adult 25 million more words than a kid in a

family on benefits. So, middle-class kids always makemore sense of adequate or below adequate teachingthan working class kids do.

I disagree with Alasdair. We need to get the bestteachers to the kids who actually need it most. Theevidence is that we are actually doing quite a good job ofthat because the quality of teaching in the averageschool in the state sector is far higher than the averagequality in the private sector. We can deduce that fromthe Programme for International Student Assessment(PISA) study results.

For me, the important thing is this notion ofkeeping the working class kids tuned in. If you beginto fall behind in reading development ormathematical development, you get a vicious spiralwhere you give up because you do not understand itand then you decide that it is better to be thought lazythan stupid. We want them to experience the beautyand elegance of mathematics when you are doing it aspure mathematics. Motivation is not an input intolearning. Motivation is what we see when we get thematch between challenge and capability right. That iswhy the personalisation agenda is so right. We seemotivation when kids have that buzz when they areconcentrating for hours on something because it ispushing their thinking forward and it is just at thelevel they can cope with.

The problem with teacher quality is that teachersare very good at teaching to each other but teaching isa physical and embodied, almost balletic, activity andyou cannot get teachers to talk their way into a newway of acting. Surgeons like watching other surgeons,but the only way they improve is by practising. Weneed to find ways of helping teachers practise. It is aculture of you coming into my classroom to hold up amirror to me so that I can help move my plansforward.

Where you have the best teachers, there are noachievement gaps between kids who come in withbehavioural difficulties and those who do not, betweenkids who come in from families with very low levels ofeducation and very high levels of education.

That is why Finland is doing so well. They have 50applications for each teacher-training place. They aretaking their teachers from the top 25 per cent ofcollege graduate population. We are taking ourteachers from the bottom 50 per cent or so. In theshort term, we need to improve our teacher quality.In the long term, we need to improve our teacherquality by raising the bar for teaching. We need toimprove the quality of applicants for teacher postsand work with the teachers we have to improve theirclassroom skills.

The stuff we are doing in England is as good asanything anywhere else in the world. We haveschools with the best data in the world, as far as I amaware. We have an incredibly rich conversation aboutstudent voice. There are amazing things going on,with kids running conferences for teachers. So weshould not beat ourselves up too much. We have ahuge way to go but we are doing some incrediblyexciting stuff.

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Motivation iswhat we seewhen we getthe matchbetweenchallenge andcapability right. That iswhy thepersonalisationagenda is so rightDylan Wiliam

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Matthew Harrison Mention has not been made ofrole models. Perhaps the reason why Frank’s FEcollege is working is that there are local people whocan support those students when they are outsideclass and they can learn about the pathways availablefor local jobs. What we have learned in south-eastLondon is that, when you connect young people fromsocially disadvantaged backgrounds to people whoknow how to get into university, who know how totalk their way into a good job and to a goodprofession, you get this magical connection orcombination of great teaching and the social networksof influence that come from role models.

Alasdair Macdonald I think that the point I am tryingto make about teacher quality is that teacher quality isincredibly important but those middle-class childrenhave parents who are providing all sorts of otherthings in terms of enrichment, aspiration and supportfor learning. If we just carry on doing what we havealways done and do it a bit better, I do not think thatwe will change anything significantly. What are wedoing about the enrichment, about the aspiration,about the support for learning? If we get those bitsright, what the teachers are doing in the classroomwill start to be more effective.

Look at a school’s budget. The average secondaryschool spends something like 75 per cent of its budgeton teachers and 3 per cent or 4 per cent onenrichment, support for learning and aspirations ifyou are lucky. We have to recognise that that is a corepart of what we do.

Ben Williamson It seems to me that often we do notask teachers what their purpose is or haveconversations about the purposes of their job. One ofthose issues around voice might be that we are tryingto enhance children’s skills for a more high-techeconomy. It may be around simply raising aspiration inrelation to social context, socio-economic class and soon. As teachers, we are trying to develop in children agreat appreciation for subjects. There are things that

are not static, stuck in their ways, old-fashioned andout of date, but things that are moving and constantlychanging. It seems to me that, in relation to theproposed Masters programme for teachers, we need tohave conversations about underlying ideology,agendas and purposes of education.

Jim Knight It is important that we should continue tofocus on what is going on in the classroom andcontinue to try to raise the quality of teaching. Thingslike the Teach First scheme have worked well intrying to deploy the best young teachers into the mostchallenging circumstances and then there are thingslike the Graduate Teacher Programme and nowTransition to Teaching, which brings people whohave other experience into the classroom. Quite a fewof those teachers are people who have come intoteaching relatively late.

However, there is a danger that we use our marginalrevenue on the things we already do a lot on andknow a lot about for quite a limited and marginalreturn. What Alasdair is talking about is that the 85per cent of time when pupils are not in school is thetime we need to focus on a little bit more, particularlyaround narrowing the gaps and compensating forwhat may not be otherwise good at home.

Generally, schools need to be more outward facing.Leaders need to take on more system leadership. Weneed more co-location of other services aroundschools. We need better engagement with employersand we need to continue to increase engagement withuniversities. Then, having employers and universitiescoming into the schools and colleges can bring inother role models. These things are fundamental intaking us on to the next stage and delivering whatremains the biggest English problem, the persistenceof the attainment gaps.

Kim Catcheside I am going to ask you, briefly, toanswer the original question, which I am going tointerpret as “Should we make education a genuinetwo-way conversation dynamic in which wegenuinely respond to what pupils say they want? Ifso, what is the most effective way of doing that?”

Dylan Wiliam I used to foster teenagers, and one ofthe things we learned was that the kids’ interests arenot necessarily their wishes. So, what we need to do islisten to the children and to equip them with theskills to develop and inform choices. We now knowthat five- and six-year-olds have incredible insightsinto how they learn best, and teachers who do notcapitalise on that are making their job much harder.We need a more careful conversation about the extentto which we allow children to choose not to read, forexample. As children get older their wishes have to betaken into account more, rather than just theirinterests. The important point is that they get such arich curricular experience that they understand whatit is like to be good at writing and what it is like to begood at drama. The trouble at the moment is that it isnot an informed choice.

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You get thismagicalconnection orcombination ofgreat teachingand the socialnetworks ofinfluence thatcome from rolemodelsMatthewHarrison

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Jane Lees I agree with what Dylan Wiliam has justsaid because sometimes the best interests of the childare definitely not what they would wish to do at agiven age, especially with peer pressure. So adultsneed to be prepared to take some hard decisions with the child.

Judith Bennett I think that what we need is a two-way conversation but I think that we need to belooking at what is behind the children and theirbackground because there is not yet an answer tohard-to-reach families.

Jane Franczyk You have to listen to young people. Ithink that that is the way to find out any number ofthings about their views of the world. A greatlongitudinal study in the US about which people atage 30 were practising scientists, in medicine,engineering and so on found that the most significantthing was whether someone at age 11 expressed acareer interest in any of those sciences. So, make sureyou give really young people a level of understandingand awareness of what is out there but also answertheir questions about, “How would I get to do thatthing?” I am thrilled to hear that you are interested inthe 80 per cent of time spent outside of school.

David Hughes Anyone who is a parent knows that ifyou give kids responsibility, they respond. If you givethem the responsibility and the tools with which tomake informed choices, they will. We need leaders ofschools and learning environments, colleges and soon, to be aware that that is the culture that we shouldbe trying to create for them.

Frank McLoughlin It is about the culture of theestablishment. It is about aspiration, expectation,looking at some of the traditional power relationshipsbetween managers and teachers, teachers and studentsand the whole deal. It is also an acknowledgement ofthe place of that school or college in its community –that it can go beyond the boundaries.

Bernice McCabe Children need to be educated tomake informed choices. They need to be involved.They will often give you a very sensible answer. Itseems to me that education policy does not haveeducation at its heart. It seems to be developed inresponse to problems. Giving schools the freedom todefine their own culture is absolutely key. We cannotassume that children know the answers. We must notask them to run before they can walk. So they have tobe taught things first.

Andy Powell I would stress this much richer, widerrange of experiences and curriculum experiencesfrom as young as possible. The teaching pedagogy isvery interesting. Presumably, teachers are becomingmore facilitators and there is a different pedagogy. Incountries such as Sweden and Holland, life is verydifferent. So I think there are options there.

Ben Williamson I think we need to recognise thatchildren are socially participative, that they areintellectually inquisitive and that we need to supportthat in schools. We also need to recognise andrespond sensitively to all the influences on children’slives, be aware about whether that is about the type ofsocio-economic factors that are affecting their day-to-day lives or whether it is about their experience of theconsumer media culture.

Alasdair Macdonald Referring to what Jim said aboutmarginal revenue funding, if there is such a thing, thenwhat I would be asking is whether that is actuallyclosing gaps or just raising attainment? I think we needto be very clear that the two are not the same thing.Pupil voice is great, and I am all for that sort of stuff.However, I do not think that this will do anything toclose gaps. In fact, it will probably help the morearticulate to widen the gap if we are not careful.

Matthew Harrison To answer the question veryquickly, I think young people should make decisionsabout their education from a very young age. It is justthat those early decisions need to be light ones that donot have tremendous consequences for the future. Asthey grow up, the decisions become more importantand have greater significance.

At every stage, people who have their best interestsat heart should support them. For some, that isparents and carers. For those who do not have thatquality of support, that ought to come, in my view,from the universities, the charities and the employerswho understand the locality, understand the school,understand what they are trying to achieve.

Kim Catcheside Thank you so much for taking part inthis fascinating discussion.

It is impossible to sum it up but I will have a stab.We should listen to children but we should notnecessarily do what they ask or allow them to have aninfluence on what happens too much until we areconfident that they have been supported to make aninformed choice.

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Educationpolicy does not haveeducation atits heart. Itseems to bedeveloped inresponse toproblemsBerniceMcCabe

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