“EVIDENCE IS NOT THE PLURAL OF ANECDOTE…..” Give me the decayed glamour of a music hall in the East End; a panel discussion on education and I’m a happy man. This week I was a guest of Teach First at a Times Plus Newspaper debate:- ‘ Are our Schools Fit for purpose? ’ at Wilton’s [...]
Posts under ‘Speeches’
New Year: time for fresh thinking on school capital
It’s been a long break from Centre for School Design activity – but with a lot of British Council for School Environments work in December including a study tour to New York and New Jersey, a new board of trustees and chairperson (Rachel Jones), a new office move to Islington, a second screening of the [...]
Lord Knight: the future of school design
The BCSE Building Better Schools conference was in full swing one week ago. We are still getting some great feedback from participants and speakers alike – including this comment from leading journalist Fiona Millar:
Let’s be proud of our schools – set them free
We all have a memory of that place we call school. A moment of insight or fun; a teacher that inspired; the classroom; the sports field; an art room; a playground; a science experiment; the awful toilets. Our childhood in our schools has for many a particular and enduring place in our memories. And schools [...]
Free Schools Thinking launched
At a packed event of 150 teachers, educationalists, MPs, designers, contractors and policy makers at the Houses of Parliament yesterday – hosted by Graham Stuart, Chair of the Education Select Committee – we launched our latest publication Free Schools Thinking. It comes on a historic day – when the British government announced its Comprehensive Spending [...]
New government – the first ten days
In the first of our podcasts Ty reflects on the first 10 days of the new government, the newly launched coalition programme for government that shares some more detail about schools policy and the rumoured cuts to the Building Schools for the Future budget. Note: please excuse the wobbly camerawork – its our first one!
Wales 21st Century Schools programme
I was invited to be part of a panel discussion at yesterday’s launch of the Welsh Assembly’s school capital programme. The 21st Century schools programme is a major collaboration between government, the WLGA and local authorities and although the budget has not been set it could be as much as £2bn. The introduction to the [...]
Why wait for BSF?
Yesterday I spoke at an event entitled, ‘Why wait for BSF?’ , hosted by the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust. It’s early days for their work on this issue but some of the invited schools had done fantastic work. Like the BCSE’s Big School Makeover schools – these schools had not waited for permission to [...]
Great Schools Commission – a shake up for the system
The BCSE’s Great Schools Inquiry and Commission interim report launch is just over a month away. So now is a good time to reflect on the landscape in which we are now working. It is clear to me that there is a time when every government policy or spending priority needs a good shake up [...]
