A piece appeared just recently in the London Evening Standard announcing the GCSE results for London schools. The headline read:

'Half of pupils who do well at 11 will leave school without 'basic' GCSEs.'

The article went on to elaborate on this, indicating (among other things) that nationally 120,000 (46%) pupils who passed their SATS at primary school with a level 4 failed to pass five GCSEs, including English and Maths. No reasons for this were offered.

 These are worrying headlines about the progress of disadvantaged young people who achieve well at primary schools but fail to make progress in secondary school. The most recent headline news based on data released by the DfE about the lack of progression of young people at secondary school based on their prior attainment at primary school is not new. But it has been an all but hidden finding that ought to be informing the way we should be designing and shaping our secondary schools on a more human scale.

In 2006 I published a regional report, Holding Children in Mind over Time, based on a study of the 10 per cent of young people leaving Bristol’s schools in 2004 without any GCSE qualifications. It called for a radical rethink about the way we organise and design our schools to allow those most at risk of under achieving to be more successful. It argued that we must provide teachers with a deeper understanding of child development, attachment theory and the emotional factors in teaching and learning, and that we should move away from large factory secondary schools to smaller Urban Village Schools drawing on intelligence from the small school movement in Denmark and the Pilot Schools and Small Schools of choice in the United States.

The Holding Children in Mind Over Time Report report suggested that:

‘A significant number of the disaffected young might well be those who have lacked affection and are acting out a remembered hurt of separation, loss, neglect, abuse, or less than secure attachment, which schools as they are currently designed and organised have neither the expertise or resource to recognise and attend to.’

In ‘Urban Village Schools’ published by Calouste Gulbenkian Iin 2009 I made the point that that some young people may disengage from school out of boredom, refusing to ‘play an educational game’ they find increasingly dull or irrelevant or that makes them feel inadequate. For some, their disruptive behaviour may be a reflection of disrupted lives over which they have little control. For others, a rejection of what secondary schools offer may be based in self confidence– they will find their own route to adulthood outside of the school setting – and demonstrates not a lack of resilience but a strong capacity for self-determination.

However, whether the issues are caused by disaffection, disengagement or determination, the Bristol research highlighted a particular concern: 40 per cent of those who left the city’s maintained secondary schools without a single GCSE qualification (10% of  Year 11 leavers in the city’s schools) had achieved average or above average results in English, mathematics or science at primary school (i.e. Level 4 or above at Key Stage 2). These students might reasonably have expected to achieve five good GCSEs, secure places in Post 16 courses and gain access to further or higher education. In fact they left school with no qualification at all.

After more than 30 years working in state education, 16 of these as a headteacher of two large secondary schools, I have been left reflecting deeply on the reasons why some young people find it too difficult to learn in our schools. What is it about school design and organisation that makes it so hard for these young people, despite all our efforts and imagination, to make the most of their schooling?

At the heart of my concern is the widening gap between the very many young people who are achieving in our schools and the growing disaffection, alienation and anger of a significant and increasing group of our young people who are not, who leave school with few if any qualifications, with hardly any chance of employment or any interest in training, and with little stake in mainstream society.

Where schools have a significant number of these young people, they can create an overwhelming challenge despite all reasonable efforts in current settings to help them. The threat that they pose causes even the most liberal school system to resort to sanctions which further alienates these young people, creating considerable custodial and social costs down the line. The way we respond to the ‘disaffected and difficult to engage young’ is critical for them as individuals, for the success of our school system as a whole and for the health of our society

Holding Children in Mind over Time also revealed that those who left the school system with no GCSE qualifications were young people who had had to manage complex emotional and social changes in their lives. For example, they had experienced a sense of isolation both at home and at school, undergone many changes in family and school settings between the ages of five and 16, experienced significant early loss and separation, particularly from absent fathers, and/or felt that the reliability, care, safety and consistency that they had enjoyed at small nurturing primary schools were not available to them in the large and complex, often impersonal settings of secondary school.

As a result, many had effectively excluded themselves from learning in school before they had reached the age of 14. It would seem that disadvantaged pupils pay ‘the highest price’ in our large secondary schools. They arrive needing the most academic enrichments and most adult advocacy, and routinely they leave, or have been excluded, having received the least.

Holding Children in Mind over Time and the book ‘Urban Village Schools’ argued that, if the stories of those it featured in the research and in the book are representative of the wider group of young people who leave school with few if any qualifications, then there is a compelling case for reconsidering the design and organisation of our secondary schools so that these less resilient young people can stay safe and well, achieve qualifications and enjoy their learning in smaller learning communities where they are known and well known. 

To download a copy of the Holding Children in Mind Over Time Report click here http://bit.ly/wBA3rl

I want to recommend the book that anyone who supports the idea of smaller learning communities should read and read immediately. In fact don’t even read to the end of this blog until you have made a commitment to order a copy.

The ‘must read’ before 2012 arrives is ‘An Ethic of Excellence’ by Ron Berger.  Not since I read Debbie Meier’s ‘Power of their Ideas’ have I read such powerful testimony about how we might change our schools. Where has this book been? Published by Heinneman in 2003! 

Debbie Meier’s endorsement reads:

‘Stop everything you’re doing and take the time to read this.... every legislator and policymaker ought to as well, so that they can see when and where their favourite, best designed, top down mandates may actually hinder this kind of culture of high standards.’

The late Ted Sizer, the founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools, writes:

‘Passionate stories from an inspiring and ever imaginative teacher whose demands on his students are high and those on himself even higher.  He writes of teaching as a raft that defies ‘scaling up’ in mechanistic ways and that requires powerful autonomous work close to the students.’

Howard Garner adds an exhortation about the book:

‘For a reminder of what education can and should be, read this passionate book – and give it to every policymaker whom you know.’

Get your copy for Christmas now.

Welcome to new staff now playing key roles in developing the Human Scale Education Movement:

 to Margaret Bolton of  ‘Policy, Analysis, and Advocacy’ and former Director of Policy and Research at NCVO who will be developing our advocacy programme and helping us to articulate the organisation’s policy position; to Alice Ballantine Dykes, currently Director of the Consortium for Emotional Wellbeing in Schools (CEWBS),  and Tom Doust, founder and trustee of Envision, and Director of Intelligent Space, who are  helping to design and populate the online platform which will provide a resource of national and international Human Scale Education practice.  Also we would like to welcome our first volunteer, Sarah Cummiskey, who will be working on the re-design of our membership offer and providing much need help with media relations. This is part of our plan to build more capacity to support our work. 

We would also like to welcome new partners to HSEM’s work.  The Innovation Unit will be working with us on the design and delivery of the programme for the Regional Development and Research Communities (RDRCs) which will be hosted by schools committed to human scale education practice.  This will strengthen the offer we can make, and provide new thinking and intelligence.   This programme is also being supported by the Northern School of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy which is working with us to develop bespoke training based on seminars  and work discussion groups to provide a professional development in Child Development, Attachment, and the Emotional Factors in Teaching and Learning which will be a core practice in the RDRCs.  The prototype for the RDRC is being established at Hadden Park High School in Nottingham.   We are also in discussion with Nottingham University School of Education about support for the first of the RDRCs we wish to establish.

Finally, as promised, we are featuring on our website, short film clips from our AGM and Conference in October – do check these out.

STOP PRESS

See ‘Young Minds’ Magazine Issue 114 Winter 2011/12 just published.  Human Scale Education Movement featured as a response to the question ‘Were the young rioters failed by their education?’. Good inset and detail also on our work at Hadden Park High School in Nottingham.

James Wetz

It has been a busy start to the autumn for HSEM and in my latest update I thought I would bring people up to speed with developments in September and October.

HSE International Partnership Programme

During the last week of September Mike Davies and Simon Richey lead a further study visit to Denmark – a project which has now seen some 40 teachers from over a dozen UK schools visit Demark to look at pedagogy, human scale environments and human scale approaches to schooling. We are working with Burns Owen Partnership to evaluate the impact of the programme, on the teaching staff and schools we have been working with, in the coming months.

Northern School of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy (NSCAP)

I had good discussions in Leeds with NSCAP about developing bespoke training in Child Development, Attachment, and the Emotional factors in Teaching and Learning which might become an essential element of human scale schools and their practitioner communities. More information about NSCAP can be found here www.nscap.org.uk 

Our AGM in Bristol

Our Patron and founder, Satish Kumar, spoke at our Member’s Conference at the beginning of October.  He was inspirational – challenging us to think about how we might apply the principle of ‘humanity of scale’ to our educational system.   The meeting was held in Bristol to coincide with the centenary of the Schumacher Lectures.   Thank you to all the members who attended and for the helpful discussion about how we might build Human Scale Education into a stronger movement. We will be posting footage of Satish speaking on our website shortly.

A Human Scale Free School

In October news came through that Education Swanage had been successful with the Department in their bid for the opening of a free school in 2013.  We have been supporting Education Swanage for the last 18 months in their plans to develop a school ‘on a human scale’ where relationships will be at the heart of the school’s design and organisation.  Our work will be in partnership with the Co-operative College.  Read more about the project here: http://bit.ly/ne2QoK 

A Development and Research Community

We have been working with Hadden Park High School in Nottingham on developing a prototype of a Development and Research Community that will design, develop, test and disseminate human scale practice.  Our aim is to develop a footprint of such Development and Research Communities across the regions.  Watch out for more information on this programme which we are designing in partnership with the Innovation Unit and other partners. Let us know if your school would be interested in becoming involved in this project, get in touch: info@hse.org.uk

A tool for applying Human Scale Education practice

HSEM Associates Alice Ballantine Dykes and Tom Doust have begun work this month on developing an on line archive of Human Scale Education practice, nationally and internationally.   We hope you will begin to see the outcomes of this exciting project in the new year and we will be approaching our school partners to contribute to the development of an interface which will engage with new schools in the future. 

At the NCB

I was recently at the Members Forum and AGM of the National Children’s Bureau where I heard an exceptional contribution from Caroline Abrahams about the increasingly turbulent economic, social and policy environment in which third sector charities now work.

James 

Let me say at the outset how thrilled I am to have been appointed as the Director of the Human Scale Education Movement.  This is an important time for the Human Scale Education Movement as we see increased concern about the wellbeing of young people, and as the schooling system undergoes significant structural chain.

Recent events in our inner cities have confirmed aspects of this and never, in my opinion, has the case for Human Scale Education been so relevant.  The way we shape the education of our young, and in particular the ‘disaffected and difficult to engage young’ is critical for them as individuals, for the success of our school system as a whole and for the health of our society.  

 Clarifying our Vision, our Mission, our Programme, and our Rationale, who we are, what we stand for and what we wish to do as the Human Scale Education Movement, is critical.

Our vision for the Human Scale Education Movement is an education system in the UK whose organisation and design is based on the ‘humanity of scale’ and the ‘primacy of relationships’.  

We wish to see a schooling system which is based on ‘humanity of scale’ and the ‘primacy of relationships’  which will.

• Make possible smaller learning communities which promote strong nurturing relationships that foster respect for self, others, and the community.
• Provide the bedrock for innovations in pedagogy and curriculum, that enables learners to be active participants in their own learning and recast achievement in ways that are long overdue.
• Enable all our young people, in particular those at most at risk, to engage positively in their learning
• Have an impact on social justice by narrowing the gap between those who are achieving in our schools and those who leave our schools, with few if any qualifications.
• Foster schools that are rooted in families and communities and give young people an experience of community to take into their adult lives.
• Develop a  culture in our schools of democratic engagement that enables young people to have a stake in their schools and a commitment to contribute positively to society.

To achieve this we wish to build the Human Scale Education Movement nationally and internationally.  This will be a theme of the Annual Conference on October 7^th in Bristol where we will think through how to build on the many partnerships and relationships with individuals, with schools, and with organisations that support our mission.

Working in partnership with others is key for the development of the Human Scale Education Movement and we are absolutely delighted to welcome Antidote into the Human Scale Education family which will significantly strengthen our offer of support for schools nationally and internationally.  We have also started significant conversations with the Co-operative Schools Trust, the Innovation Unit, the Northern School of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, the National Association of Small Schools and the Nurture Network about the ways which together we can support the transformation of schools.

All this work, we hope will make a major contribution to the experience of all young people in schools, in families and in communities.

Finally can I thank the Trustees of the Human Scale Education Movement for putting their trust in me, to thank our major funders who have shown exceptional support for the work we are doing and our programme for the next three years, and to the staff who have given me every support .

James