We are delighted to be the main supporting organisation for the upcoming Wellington College run Academies Conference that takes place on Friday 13 May 2011. The Secretary of State, the Rt. Hon Michael Gove MP, will give the keynote speech and will be  joined by other leading figures, including Lord Andrew Adonis, Elizabeth Sidwell (the new Schools Commissioner), Anthony Salz (Chairman of the Board at the Department of Education), Anthony Seldon and Andy Schofield (from Wellington College and Wellington Academy respectively) and Martin Church from KPMG. Others will share their experiences of founding academies.

With more than 600 academies already established in England and many more to follow we know all too well  that state independent schools have already become an established part of the new educational landscape.  Academies: Making Partnerships Work is a conference that will ask important questions at a critical time: why should schools, universities and businesses invest in academies? And how should new partnerships be established in the future? This conference will give the vision – and the advice – about where next for the Academies programme? The event will also be followed by a tour of the new Academy.

We think it will be an excellent opportunity to debate the key issues in this rapidly developing field. To book a place at the event visit the Wellington College events website.

Related posts:

1. Academies and Free Schools Advisory Service
2. Building Better Schools conference – have your say
3. Still waiting for Sebastian James…

The long heralded James Review on the future of schools capital seems to have had more pencilled-in launch dates than a NASA Shuttle. But we are pretty confident it will be launched shortly… For an industry that thrives on certainty, local authorities that need to plan and schools that need investment, this delay has implications. Rumours often fill information voids; some are plainly ridiculous, some really do represent debate within the Review team and Government. What we do know for sure are the three key watchwords for the James Review: building condition, standardisation and more for less.

That still leaves some big questions – what’s to be said about Labour’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. Were there any redeeming features about BSF? How can we ensure proper design for teaching and quality with an off-site modular approach? Is it sustainable and enduring to issue summary cost cuts to present and future projects? How do you incubate real innovation in an era of more for less? Shouldn’t Academy sponsors just be trusted with the capital spend – without intermediaries? How can Free Schools be created, work and really look and feel different to the parents involved?

Yesterday, I defended some aspects of BSF at a round table event chaired by Sir Mike Tomlinson. What I couldn’t defend was the silence of too many professionals and organisations, at the time, about what was really wrong with the BSF delivery process. The multiple professions involved should have done their own house-keeping. We wasted too many opportunities to get BSF right. We should have put our own house in order – not incrementally but properly.

School buildings are also becoming an even more deeply political subject and if you have any doubt, Michael Gove speaking at the Spectator conference last week said:

“People blame us. But if you are upset, the guilty men are Gordon Brown and Ed Balls; and the Treasury were responsible. The last Labour Government deliberately chose the most expensive route to build schools. I’m as angry as anyone else about the state of some of our school buildings”

There was also an equally lively exchange this week in the House of Commons:

Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab): The Secretary of State’s comments about the state of the school estate in comparison to what it was like after the Conservative Government in 1997 are nothing short of a disgrace. The reality is that this year the average secondary school has had its budget for maintenance and repairs cut from more than £105,000 to less than £20,000 this year. The Secretary of State has spectacularly failed to stand up for our schools and our schoolchildren. Does that not fatally expose how vacuous his claims are to have found more resources for schools this year?

Michael Gove: That question was beautifully written, almost as though it had been carved in marble by a master mason. The truth is that no one on that side of the House can afford to clamber on to their high horse when it comes to school buildings. It was that side of the House that inherited a golden economic legacy and squandered it. It was that side of the House that betrayed a generation of young people by giving us a record deficit and a record debt. It was that side of the House that presided over a schools building programme that was reckless, profligate and inefficient. It was that side of the House that put political convenience and partisanship ahead of our young people. Frankly, even though the hon. Gentleman was not in the last Parliament, every time he comes to that Dispatch Box to talk about the state of our education system or school buildings, there is only one word we need to hear from him, and that word is sorry (Source: Hansard)

The state of school buildings clearly matters to the coalition and the opposition as well as to our schools and communities. Indeed it is this passion for the fabric of schools that started our own organisation. But not everything lasts forever – BSF had its day. We at the BCSE have also had to rethink how we shape and respond to the new landscape ahead. We are an independent charity and not party political. We have tried to be a cool voice in a heated debate.

Lets hope the launch of the James Review heralds the rational debate this important subject needs. Also keep an eye on this Wednesday’s budget for some positive news on ways forward for investment in our schools and colleges.

Related posts:

1. Capital ‘James’ Review – our submission
2. Responding to the James review
3. Waiting for Superman: Free Schools vs Local Schools – the debate starts here

“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.

Related posts:

1. Waiting for Superman: Free Schools vs Local Schools – the debate starts here
2. School capital investment – getting our house in order
3. Gove 1 Balls 0 – A Battle of Ideas

On Monday 22 November, we are lucky enough to be hosting the first UK screening of the Oscar shortlisted film ‘Waiting for Superman‘ that has rocked the US education system and is set to send the debate about Free Schools in the UK into orbit. We know that the film will generate a huge amount of debate between… in the Blue Corner - Free School promoters and advocates such as Michael Gove, Toby Young and Rachel Wolf vs in the Red Corner - Free School detractors and critics including Christine Blower from the NUT and Fiona Millar, Melissa Benn and co at the Local Schools Network. Well let the debate start here…Our screening on Monday is followed by a debate with a panel including myself, US Founder and CEO of TeachFirst Brett Wigdortz, James Turner Head of Policy at the Sutton Trust and Janet Cullen, Headteacher of Lea Valley School. And if you think that debate will spark some fireworks, there will no doubt be a ‘bonfire and new years eve style’ display after the event in the media, the education press and blogosphere.

So lets light the fuse for this debate now, ahead of our screening, so we have some views to start our discussion on Monday.

Let us know what you feel about Charter Schools in the US or Free Schools in the UK and (if you are in the US) what issues were raised for you in the film? There is a wealth of coverage of the film in the US – where it has sparked debate across the country. The official WfS website is here and there is notwaitingforsuperman.org which shares some of the less favourable reaction to the film in the US.

Back to the UK – I’ll also share with you a comment from Toby Young himself – who said to me last week in an email:

‘You must understand what this film is really about… the film portrays charter school pioneers as true American heroes and the US teaching unions as blinkered and self-serving. It’s an eviscerating attack on the American teaching unions and a ringing endorsement of the American charter school movement’.

So to translate this for a UK context…

Free schools pioneers are heroes and teaching unions and the views that the local schools network represents are intransigent and holding back the education system…

Is that enough to start the debate?… comments welcome… and much more to come after the screening. Watch this space…

Related posts:

1. Let’s be proud of our schools – set them free
2. Free Schools Thinking – what is our new report saying?
3. Free Schools Thinking launched

Yesterday’s national launch of Studio Schools represents a major step forward for thinking about future schooling. This has been a patient, studied five year evolution that is set to be one of the much needed revolutions the system needs. Incubated and piloted under New Labour and now validated by the Coalition this could represent a momentous and welcome moment of cross party consensus around curriculum, practical learning and the role of true life skills for our 14-19 yr olds. As the introduction brochure notes:

“In a country in which most lessons are taught in a traditional way, Studio Schools provide a radical alternative that will make a real difference to the lives of young people up and down the country.”As Michael Gove MP,  says, this ‘ innovation in our school system……….. serves as a reminder that bold reform in education must come from the bottom up’.

Its our view that we could at last be about to sort out the great disabling divide at the heart of our system – the false separation of  academic and the vocational. The essential characteristics of Studio Schools are: Employability and enterprise skills; Key qualifications; personalised curriculum; Practical learning; real work; small schools; students of all abilities.

I was at the national launch, introduced by Peter Mitchell from Edge (joint partners in the roll out with the Young Foundation). The inspiring programme – headed up by CEO David Nicoll -  is ‘learning by doing’ that nurtures the character of the learner. Too many young people don’t succeed in our system, as the Young Foundation’s, Geoff Mulgan, pointed out. Studio Schools should be part of the mix in every Local Authority.

The Secretary of State, Michael Gove is a ‘big fan’ and so evidently is Lord Hill who spoke with gusto about his visit to Barnfield College, Luton. These schools have, according to the new Minister, a huge potential and represent a fresh and new culture with academic ‘hard’ qualifications and ‘softer’ skills like teamwork going together. Innovative teaching is also key to the success of Studio Schools with a big and welcome emphasis on coaching and the pastoral – this is the proper advent of learning coach and personal coach. A project based learning revolution with academic and vocational learning side by side. Engaging and exciting lessons that stimulate great learning.

The backing too of the British Chamber of Commerce is not insignificant. This is principled, vibrant and committed employer engagement and sensitive too to the needs of young people. We will see real work , real workplaces in our schools and hopefully real jobs. David Frost, Director of the British Chamber of Commerce gave welcome praise to an education system that works for many but has to do better faced with the ‘relentless’ competition in a globalised world.

For me, an education system that has rigour, nurture and the needs of the learner at its heart are going to be the key to success for UK plc and our villages, towns and cities.

Over a year ago the BCSE supported a design day with the Studio Schools Trust at our member’s HOK London office. It was a work-day of powerful design thinking that helped to craft this system change. These are, at last, schools where they  know your name. This is, at last, some of the tested innovation our schools need. It is also a movement of optimism that will help make all of our schools safer, smaller and better.

Related posts:

1. The Swedish Schools model – will they work in the UK?
2. Free schools – connecting the dots
3. Free Schools Thinking launched

So the early contours of the new government’s approach to ongoing school rebuilding is becoming a good deal clearer. Michael Gove has a short video statement here that includes a continued commitment to renewal and renovation …..

… and you can watch the full parliamentary statement with the debate that followed in full here :

In summary, 715 school revamps already signed up to the scheme will not now go ahead, with a further 123 academy schemes to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

A good deal more detail can be found following the links on this page. He also argued that a good deal of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme was “massively flawed” and “over-bureaucratic”.

We’ve been busy in the media offering a commentary on this – you can fast-forward to 2 hours 12 minutes into the Radio Five Live breakfast show here on the iPlayer to hear my five-minute interview. Broadly, we’ve been saying that the consequences of cutting the school building programme are significant – we know decent school environments have an impact on pupil attainment, behaviour and wellbeing as well as teacher recruitment and retention.

We’re hoping that the announced review will come up with significant and creative ideas to keep the renewal of our school buildings on track – whether through refurbishment, or refreshing current buildings, or re-using other buildings.

We’re totally in agreement with Michael Gove about the way that waste and bureaucracy have been a real drag on the school building programme – we must find new ways of doing things that are smarter, and more efficient.

But, at the same time, most of all we have to keep our eyes on the prize, and remember that investment in school buildings is also an investment in teachers. Good school buildings deliver results for children, teachers, parents and communities, and help get our children ready for the challenges of adulthood.

Related posts:

1. School capital investment – getting our house in order
2. Wales 21st Century Schools programme
3. New government: long signalled, swift action

With so much to look forward to in June (National School Environments Week 18-25 June and the BCSE Industry Awards 24 June), we thought we’d make sure that you haven’t missed any of the important developments we picked up in May.

Becta have been the first high profile casualty in the education sector

It all seems so long ago now, but a month ago, we weren’t entirely sure what the political landscape around education was going to look like.

The only thing we knew for certain was that change was in the offing whatever happened and a new government would move us well beyond the status quo.

All governments inevitably end up having to defend the less attractive consequences of their policies, and new governments have plenty of low-hanging fruit to choose from when they’re looking for high-impact improvements.

As we awaited the electorate’s verdict, our eyes were upon one of the biggest obstacles that ambitious schools face – the system of procurement. We thought that the outgoing government had allowed a rigid conformity to grow up and that the system was driving out sharp new ideas. It will be interesting to see how far the concerns that we raised in this pre-election post will be addressed by the new government.

And what happened within days of the election result being known? Aside from the eye-catching Free Schools policy, a few interesting assessments had been going around about the demise of BECTA – one of the early casualties. On the wider question of funding, this quote leaped out as us:

“Anna Fazackerley – the head of education at the think tank Policy Exchange – who says that, “one part of the schools budget that is ripe for cutting is capital”. We also heard a day later from a Building Magazine article that there was a strong possibility that all BSF programmes that hadn’t reached preferred bidder stage may be frozen, pending a review in the upcoming budget

The Institute for Fiscal Studies took the view that ..

“Either they have to scale back plans for free schools or reduce building schools for the future by a substantial degree,”

We gave a more detailed early response to the first ten days of the new government in our inaugural weekly podcast. We have been asked a lot about Michael Gove’s ‘supply side revolution’ and we’re looking forward to seeing how far the ‘Free Schools’ policy will go. We’re expecting continuing investment in the workforce and in teacher professionalism. The new government are inevitably picking up on questions of waste and decentralisation – two long-signalled themes from the Conservatives.

And while all of this is going on, it is important to carry on promoting good practice in all aspects of school design, and our second weekly podcast featured an interview with world renowned ergonomics guru Dr Dieter Breithecker about his expert views on school furniture and the key messages he has for schools and professionals working in the UK. We met Dieter in preparation for the first of two of our Masterclasses on furniture. As Dieter says when we choose any furniture for children, ‘we should not buy the mistakes of history’ – we should have the same view of the education landscape as we progress through the summer term.

Related posts:

1. New government: long signalled, swift action
2. School furniture and ergonomics – what matters?
3. New government – the first ten days

Michael Gove speaking at launch of Conservative Education manifesto

The change from Ed Balls to Michael Gove into the rebranded Department for Education is not going to be the only speedy change in the coming months in the worlds of education, and design. It is likely to be the most radical period of change that these policy areas has seen for almost a decade. We have known for some time and shared on this blog that big changes were afoot; it maybe the pace that surprises some.

The much vaunted free schools programme and the pupil premium will be high profile items on the ‘to do’ list. Free schools will be well funded and pump primed for success. The pupil premium will take longer to sort out and also all schools will be given much greater freedom in the curriculum than the pre election rhetoric led us to believe. Greater freedoms will also follow with more ‘academy like’ benefits given to all schools – to remove practices imposed by what many perceive was a top down, command and control government. And a new education bill is likely to appear within weeks in time for the Queens Speech with a number of shake ups to the current education landscape.

We know that there are likely to big cuts in public services across the board with guesses of between 20-30% depending on the outcome of the budget and next spending review. We are given a further insight from yesterday’s article in the Independent Education Supplement from Anna Fazackerley – the head of education at the think tank Policy Exchange – who says that, “one part of the schools budget that is ripe for cutting is capital”. We have also heard a day later that all BSF programmes that haven’t reached preferred bidder stage may be frozen, pending a review in the upcoming budget.

So the pace of change is fast and the next 6 weeks are a crucial time for everyone working in the education, design and built environment sector.

Related posts:

1. Gove 1 Balls 0 – A Battle of Ideas
2. Kunskapsskolan – new dynamics in teaching and learning?
3. BECTA X to Nick Gibb – social media in action

Conservative Party poster

The Conservative Party will make education its top campaign message this week. The two main parties have been engaged in ‘political mirroring’ for months; it’s now time for political attack. I met Michael Gove MP, again at the weekend in Brighton at their spring policy forum. This man is in the right place at the right time. Once before he saved David Cameron’s leadership – he’s now determined to save the election with radical plans to properly involve parents in education. The Kunskapsskolan ‘free schools’ model is an attractive proposition for parents who feel they’ve been  ignored by the educational establishment.

Ed Ball’s proposals for Co-operative Trust Schools designed to allow parent and community ‘ownership’, hark back to two centuries of mutualism but suffer from a lack of clarity in communication.

Gove has the journalist’s eye for a headline and is actually promoting change using Labour legislation and  is determined to also tackle bureaucratic waste and muddle. Gove will also sweep away quango’s and dinosaur planning law. Balls seems defensive and distracted, is not receiving top advice and needs to raise his game.

As someone once said the ‘winds of change’ are sweeping through our  schools – and it’s led by teacher’s themselves. This will be one live TV debate to watch. Because it’s personal and is all about the succession. Balls is, at the moment, losing the Battle of Ideas and the battle of presentation.

My verdict on the education battle of ideas so far: Gove 1 … Balls 0

Related posts:

1. Kunskapsskolan – new dynamics in teaching and learning?
2. Great Schools Commission – a shake up for the system
3. David Cameron, report cards and education policy

In 2008 we did our first of many study tours to Scandinavia including visits to a number of Kunskapsskolan schools. At the time people wondered why we were so interested in this chain of schools and what impact it might have on the UK. Fast forward a couple of years and you cannot read one of Michael Gove MP’s speeches or articles without reference to ‘free schools’ – including the Kunskapsskolan model.

Photo credit - Kenneth Gardestad

What struck me from our visits and speaking to architects including the wonderful Kenneth Gardestad – chief architect for the chain – is that it is an audacious imaginative vision of refurbishment and reuse of buildings.

So, an old submarine factory or lightbulb factory or redundant space is completely gutted and re-imagined as a variety of learning spaces, rather than just classrooms. They are ‘classroom-plus schools’.

Talking to teachers and students it is clear that a highly relevant and personalised curriculum allows much more independent learning and out of school study.

I got a sense of a workforce that felt ownership and motivation from the school environment. Successful schools align the space with teaching and learning – in other words, space supports and motivates new dynamics in the way that teachers and pupil work together.

At our BCSE World Learning Environments Conference, Kenneth Gardestad talked  about his journey through designing all of the 30 Kunskapsskolan schools and his work on the 3 new academies in England (here’s his presentation [large pdf]). There is going to be a new departure for the chain, in that the UK Academies will be one of their first experiences of new build and also building a personalised curriculum within the OfSTED accountability framework – so we will be very interested to check in with the new principals of the academies when they are up and running.

In the last few weeks I have been approached to give advice to a number of companies about my views on Kunskapsskolan.

So, spare a thought for the number of contractors and their supply chains – most of whom are BCSE members – who have thrown their hat into the ring last week for delivering these academies in South West London.  There is a real sense of anticipation with what they will eventually deliver – and we are sure they will be on Team Gove’s radar.

No related posts.