The Centre for School Design » Estelle Morris

Times Plus / Michael Gove education debate…

Ty Goddard — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:21:10 +0000

“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 Music Hall just off cable Street, London, E1. Here are some golden nuggets from this tuesday’s interesting and stimulating evening.Dylan William – I’d last worked with the Professor on last year’s BBC2 programme , ‘ Classroom Experiment’ where the BCSE and its members had re-furbished a classroom to enable a powerful teaching experiment to take place. Dylan is as lyrical as Peter Gabriel in presenting a fact-based analysis of what real support our teachers need – it’s the ‘Love the one you’re with’ strategy.

According to the Institute of Education’s, William :

90% of school choice is not an advantage – it matters more which classroom you are in rather than which school. It’s teacher quality within a school that is the major issue.
We need a relentless focus on teacher improvement – real time not wished for improvement in the actual ‘craft’ of teaching.
For many teachers there are real and serious mental health challenges – an openness and honesty is needed about this issue.
A new strategy of ‘love the one you’re with’ ; ie: the present teacher rather than a rhetoric of good/bad school will cost more in political will and focus than we’ve ever done before.

Modelled on Teach for America, England’s Teach First is led by the quiet American, Brett Wigdorz. For Brett the key issues are these:

Meet any six year old and it is their parent’s income that will be the key determinant of their educational future
Who goes to University? – Pupils on free school meals -16% ; Independent school pupils – 96%

Baroness Estelle Morris is so likeable, yet she must get fed up hearing how she resigned by way of introduction.

Estelle identified the progress that had been made – teachers are better; quality of teaching and leadership identified as really vital and schools are better at collaborating
Yet some young people are not engaged and we’re not evidence-based
the dividing line between education and politics is drawn wrongly

Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State – tonight an exceptional aggregator of individual and diverse opinions.

Schools must do better – education should be a direct attack on social inequality
Children should be the Captain of their own fate and the author their own life story
Some of the problems are deeply buried within the education system
Future watchwords are, school autonomy; fair accountability and teacher quality

The panels’ major area of consensus is motivating and retaining great teachers – also a key national challenge. This debate was a key dialogue and as Dylan said, ‘ evidence is not the plural of anecdote. ’

This really was an involving and inspiring natter; not top down lecturing …..sounds like a model for a new beginning? An ex Labour Secretary of State, an Emeritus Professor and a Conservative Secretary of State go into a bar….. More old music hall consensus and rational debate please.

School capital investment – getting our house in order

Ty Goddard — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:59:14 +0000

This is an absolutely vital time. This major investment in school buildings has made a difference, and we really can’t afford to go back to not spending money consistently on infrastructure. The sheer scale of this investment is hard to absorb for many people, and it’s been ill-served by some of the ‘research’ flying around.

The Great Schools Commission [a cross-party group set up by the BCSE and chaired by former education secretary Estelle Morris] is looking at an evidence base in the UK and abroad that says this matters. It’s not about crude research expecting attainment to rise instantly. But when you see new and refurbished buildings that are understood by teachers and learners, and designed to support what the school is, then I think the argument is pretty conclusive.

I recently met Mr Castle, an assistant head of Elm Green school in Lambeth. He had taught in six schools across London, and spoke of the difference that this majestic building is making. He said “the building allows the staff to teach, it doesn’t get in the way”. They can use double-sized classrooms when they need to, and small ones for quiet work. They have an amazing space called the market square for recreation. It’s making a difference to how he and his fellow teachers feel about teaching.

Getting our house in order

We’ve got to get our house in order, as we cannot justify the costs that have been associated with the Building Schools for the Future programme. But cutting the costs are different from cutting the investment. We need different approaches to procurement. And I think we need a national advisory council at the heart of government that can talk directly about school investment to the secretary of state. Quangos like Partnerships for Schools and BECTA, by their very nature, are not best placed to explain or defend investment to a wider audience.

I’m clear that whatever school system you have, it needs good environments. We’ve got to make the arguments: it’s about the achievements and outcomes for young people, and about jobs. You look around the world and other countries are investing in infrastructure, so it’s also about UK plc. And we should appreciate the skills that we have taken years to build up in design, construction and the supply chain.

Investment on this scale hasn’t just happened because someone waved a magic wand. We had to make a case, and we have to again, with and around other public spending priorities. I was recently at the Conservatives education policy launch, in a fantastic academy in Walworth. They wouldn¹t have launched it in an allotment shed. I think that we need to communicate to both front benches that this investment matters. And we can’t do it on our own.

This is an edited version from an ‘in conversation piece’ article with Sarah Richardson, Deputy Editor, Building Magazine. Ty is speaking at the BSEC conference next week with a hard hitting presentation – ‘the truth about school buildings’.

The Centre for School Design launch

Ian Fordham — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 09:30:11 +0000

70 people attended Monday’s launch of The Centre for School Design at 1 London Bridge.

The speakers included Baroness Estelle Morris, Stephen Bayley and Steve Moore as well as introductions from myself and my colleague, Ty Goddard. We also got hold of a few key people to share their views on video.

Tweet highlights from the night include:

Your tweets:

SuButcher Ty Goddard speaking: Really been getting to grips with what social media can do for education policy – thus #c4sd /via @c4sd
carbonoutreach Smart design=priceless! RT @EEPaul @SteveMoore4Good talking on tech encouraging interaction on school design http://twitpic.com/zq5sk #c4sd
UKConstruction Stephen Bayley talking at #c4sd says Pevsner overlooked school design http://twitpic.com/zq42q /via @EEPaul
SENSE_Media @ianfordham Afterglow from #c4sd launch <- Agreed, great night! Looking forward to a conversation sometime soon!
kateandrews @ianfordham @c4sd @JeremiahAlex @EEPaul Great to meet you all last night. @stevemoore4good @sense_media Great to see you too!

For completeness, our own tweets at the time included these:

Estelle Morris “really important that when we finish a project that the information that we pick up doesn’t go nowhere’
Stephen Bayley – schools are ‘a memory palace’ – imagine if Harry Potter had been set in a modern school?
Bayley: ‘very little formalised thinking about school design’ – classic school boards built to a cost rather than a principle
Stephen Bayley – talking about Dotheboys Hall http://www.historyhome.co.uk/readings/dotheboy.htm
Bayley: “Most schools architects think current govt approach is wrong”
Bayley quoting ‘Everything that is bad is good for you’ http://tinyurl.com/yhng2u8
Bayley: “great architecture needs great clients” and “God first made idiots as practice before he made school boards”
@stevemoore4good “shift in focus from schools to understanding what a great teachers is.” (quoting ‘great teacher’ article-Atlantic Monthly)
Ty Goddard: “Schools are getting more right than ever before and it’s widely acknowledged that school design matters”
Ty Goddard: “Welsh approach to schools capital investment is exciting – England could learn from them.”
Ty Goddard: “Key thing is to funnel everyone’s ideas into the next govt – whoever it is.”

Thanks to everyone who came along – we look forward to involving as many people as possible in the new project – but in the meantime, please follow us on Twitter and join the LinkedIn group?