40 Comments on Schools without boundaries

daniel snell on Fri, 10th Jul 2009 11:22 am


interesting as usual Matthew.

I may be wrong, but i think that the next administration is some what split between a desire to take state/comprehensive education forward in a progressive fashion and an old fashioned lurch back to a more traditional approach to education in general.

We saw what happend when DC made noises about the final Grammer schools being closed. He backed away from that one pretty quickly.

Will tomorrow really need the old education model (workers, managers and owners) to take on the global challenges that we will all face?

i sense a lack of vision/clarity – your thoughts?

I know they took an interest in the Swedish school model, as well as the early year agenda

i follow, as usual, with interest

Mike Amos-Simpson on Fri, 10th Jul 2009 12:48 pm


Interesting this – there’s a long ongoing debate about the reluctance of youth workers to make provision at weekends, who you would think are ideal to support the idea of promoting ongoing personal development beyond school.

I like the idea of schools becoming central to communities. In some places there are good opportunities to visit museums with interactive science exhibits, some playgrounds and nature reserves are cleverly designed to support learning and development through play and there are the huge amounts of voluntary led sports clubs, dance groups and arts organisations that provide clubs and opportunities for young people – very often including parents of at least some of the young people attending.

It would be good to see school facilities being more widely used and available for out of school projects and even better to see some sort of coordinated effort to link up the opportunities and facilities available locally for families to enjoy time out together and promoted through schools. Not as some sort of educational slog, but as creative enjoyable activities families can enjoy together and that promote schools as positive places central to the overall development of children and young people. Right now though there’s nowhere near enough coordination and vision for it to be a realistic prospect.

Cheryl Cooper on Fri, 10th Jul 2009 1:08 pm


There are some good examples of “schools without boundaries”, engaged with the local community (especially in NE England), within The Innovation Unit’s Next Practice “Communities for Learning” project. See http://tinyurl.com/krutw7

Charlie Leadbetter has written about them too…

Sam Holmes on Fri, 10th Jul 2009 2:10 pm


I agree that opening up a school community to a wider sphere of businesses and society can have emotional benefits.

My hunch is that school leadership teams need to hear more about these benefits (they may have already accepted the fundraising benefits). In the state sector, this could shift traditional views that education should be funded by the government (state).

At the same time, educating the wider local community about the emotional benefits to them in becoming involved with schools is required.

Another benefit of involving the wider world in school communities could ultimately be that people who send their kids to private schools feel more familiar with their local state school and send their kids there instead. Now that would be socially-progressive in my book.

Fascinating discussion; will keep following and pass on to my kids’ school.

Martin Robinson on Fri, 10th Jul 2009 2:35 pm


As a teacher, do I really spend 80% of my time outside of School?

A commitment to Young People’s development in the whole community, including school, is important. With the proviso that It is also important that schooling does not become all too pervasive in a child’s life.

However a school without boundaries can exist through its current staff, students, and alumni, in other words its ambassadors. Great schools do this. Also Schools can develop their ability to work as a community hub, and now they can create an online community presence. Rather than just advertising and justifying their institution their web presence could be focused on learning in the widest sense. The RSA web site itself could act as a rather fine model for this online school without boundaries.

I also believe that Assessment in its current form is far too narrow. Assessment for a school without boundaries would ensure that a fuller picture of a child is taken into account and would track real meaningful progress in that child’s life. The question in the school without boundaries would be, ‘Who does the assessment, who does it belong to and who is it for?

Liam Murray on Fri, 10th Jul 2009 2:45 pm


Isn’t the flaw that that un-tapped 80% isn’t dominated by youth clubs, sports centres or any other civic bodies that governments can reasonably hope to shape?

It’s surely dominated by the family and peer group interactions – aspects of a child life which are notoriously difficult for a government to control. And you could in fact argue that this actually steers the formation of public policy towards the support & advocacy of marriage or civil unions, a rather tougher line on teenage crime and disorder etc. – not the traditional policy prescriptions of the progressive left.

Mike Amos-Simpson on Fri, 10th Jul 2009 2:53 pm


@Liam I agree – youth services cater for a small minority of the youth population – they also work with young people in isolation and that along with other point is why I’d argue for more efforts to support family activities and services.

Liam Murray on Fri, 10th Jul 2009 3:15 pm


The difficulty Mike is the tension between what needs to (or can) be done and people’s pre-existing political prejudices. For example a few thousand pounds thrown towards churches (or Mosques or whatever) in an area would ‘reach’ far, far more children than many times that sum spent on some local or central government project but you just know the sort of hand-wringing over religion & state money etc. that would generate.

Likewise with anything endorsing the family – it’s assumed to be a right of centre idea but that’s such a loss to the debate. The single biggest contributor to the creation of happy well-rounded adults from children is a happy home life – not something you can just proscribe but something far, far more of our efforts (and funds) should be directed towards.

Ian McGimpsey on Fri, 10th Jul 2009 3:27 pm


@ Mike and Liam

This is an interesting debate. One of the thing we have been doing as a part of our thinking about schools without boundaries is to support UK Youth on their consultation on understanding the value of what they call non-formal education.

So far, this work for me has suggested three things:
The first is that we need better language for education that isn’t traditionally associated with the school day.

The second is that schools could be natural sites for leading a broader local vision of education but, while Government could support this, it must be a form of citizen-centric change – overlapping or consistent with public policy but locally owned and co-created.

The third is that we felt there might be value in brokering dialogues across different professional groups within education. School staff and youth workers of various kinds seemed particularly important. This would be to try to see how shared vision and coordination could be fostered, and also, as schools think more about these wider outcomes to ensure they learn from the different traditions of education practice that exist, rather than spending time reinventing them. This may already be happening, of course, but if so we couldn’t find it…

Lewesbusker on Fri, 10th Jul 2009 3:52 pm


I agree with Martin that, to create the space for schools-without-boundaries, we need to grasp the nettle of monitoring/assessment of pupils and schools.

The current straight jacket of national targets and national curriculum mean that schools are disincentivized to experiment with innovative practices. Too many are scared to break focus from traditional practices that will earn a good position in the dreaded League Tables.

Break the chains of monolithic assessment and free the child.

Mike Amos-Simpson on Fri, 10th Jul 2009 3:57 pm


thanks Ian & interesting to hear. Non formal or informal education is a very messy area, not to say there’s not lots of good that can be learned from it – but only where its being done well and too often you have to search far & wide to find that. I believe very strongly in using practical activities that young people enjoy and that can be structured towards their personal development – I like too the potential with this approach to develop ‘distance travelled’ measures of assessment and to allow the direction of travel to be determined by young people themselves.

So definitely I think there’s a valuable role for informal learning projects with young people – but I’d say the family involvement issue is much more critical overall. Currently schools are for kids, youth groups are for young people – what is there to encourage parents and their children (of all ages) to do things together and that can help parents become more confident in their role as ‘educators’? how do parents that had bad experiences of school themselves become comfortable with this?

@Liam yes agree very much.

Liam Murray on Fri, 10th Jul 2009 4:13 pm


It may be the case that we actually need schools to do less of these ’secondary’ things, to rediscover their core purpose in which straightforward learning is considered a good in its own right.

@Ian McGimpsey mentioned the need for a new language to broaden the understanding of ‘education’ beyond the school day. I understand the desire here but perhaps returning ‘the school day’ part of education to something purer and more traditional is an indirect way to achieve that. Michael Gove was very eloquent on that last week.

Lewesbusker on Fri, 10th Jul 2009 4:21 pm


‘Eloquent’ as an express train comin’ atcha, I thought.

Martin Robinson on Fri, 10th Jul 2009 7:40 pm


A bit of a debate on the bbc politics show between Michael Gove and Fiona Millar can be seen here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/8142399.stm

Where will the money come from for the Conservative’s plans?

Joe Nutt on Sat, 11th Jul 2009 8:20 pm


The basic premise, that children would be better educated were their parents and local community more actively involved in the entire process, I don’t doubt. However, for the past five years I have sat across the table from one local education authority after another, as they negotiated their slice of the massive Building Schools of the Future cake and have worked with some very creative architects and others, sincerely trying to respond to formal requirements to make the school the heart of its community, or to get parents more involved. I’ve seen architects design some really imaginative ways of trying to make this happen and have sat almost in despair while heads and senior staff have dismissed their ideas out of hand, and asked instead for six foot high walls and more technology for security. Of course there are exceptions, and some design teams have managed to do some impressive work, but it only just begins to counter the stultifying and repressive politics that is really what suffocates so many poorly performing schools.

The divisive nature of the political debate about schooling is to be found just as much at local school level, as it is in Westminster. I could cite many examples but the only poverty I have seen in many of the communities in which these new schools are being built, is a poverty of aspiration. It’s there in the children, it’s there in the parents but most unforgivably of all, it’s there in the teachers. Teachers who have completely lost touch with what education is really about, one of Michael Gove’s key themes, and who have replaced it with their own personal politics. Instead of educating their pupils, they use every possible excuse to mollify, distract or dissuade them from learning anything meaningful about their culture, preferring instead to pretend that they are giving them “skills,” a euphemism for telling them what to do, and what to be. I’ve also visited the Swedish schools Michael Gove talks about and even done a little consultancy work for them in the UK, and there are a lot of UK teachers who could learn a great deal from their professional objectivity and pursuit of high standards.

For a really insightful discussion of this issue of politics in the classroom, interestingly from a young US teacher, read this blog posting.
http://teachersaid.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/on-staying-relevant-politics

Martin Robinson on Sun, 12th Jul 2009 7:20 am


I think that Joe Nutt is being slightly too disingenuous when he says that teachers’, “Instead of educating their pupils… use every possible excuse to mollify, distract or dissuade them from learning anything meaningful about their culture, preferring instead to pretend that they are giving them “skills,” a euphemism for telling them what to do.” This is surely one of our famous false dichotomies. I agree that students must learn about their culture, high and low, but especially about culture that stretches them and to which they can aspire. However I’m a bit concerned that the implication is that this can be done without skills education. Skills may indeed be a euphemism for telling students what to do but surely we should be teaching or encouraging the best ways of doing things?

In the past year instead of telling students what to do, I have enabled them to try out and develop a wide range of ’skills’ in order to access and learn about ‘their’ wide cultural heritage. In order to access work of difficulty, I have had to encourage students to concentrate, research, distill, analyse, take risks, take turns, listen, debate, look, essay writing, arguing, persuading, learn to go through the classical process of ‘grammar, logic and then rhetoric, and a myriad of other skills. I hope that a good education is one where skills will always be taught explicitly in order to ensure high expectations and standards. These skills can’t be taught instead of knowledge and understanding but without them a student will never reach the level of depth required to learn anything meaningful about ‘their’ culture at all.

Martin Robinson on Sun, 12th Jul 2009 7:25 am


And…

check their work before they hand it in!

instead of “essay writing, arguing, persuading’ -

I meant, “to write essays, to argue, to persuade…!”



Joe Nutt on Sun, 12th Jul 2009 6:00 pm


Martin’s rebalancing of my “false dichotomy” is partly deserved, and the list of skills he says he teaches I’m sure any good teacher will applaud and indeed recognise. But my experience of what the fairly recent emphasis on skills is really about simply doesn’t match this. Have a look for example at what the many busy advocates of “digital literacy” have to say, or look at what “skills” means in the agendas pursued by Becta or Futurelab? Two of the most influential bodies local authorities listen to.

matthewtaylor on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 9:30 am


This has been a great discussion to follow.

Thank you Joe, Martin, Liam, Mike, Daniel, Ian, Cheryl, Charlie, Sam (and anyone I’ve missed) for your contributions and for the friendly tone even when we are disagreeing. I hope the debate will continue. Just three points from me:

The quality of teaching (which is about skill, attitude and school leadership) is a confounding variable in any discussion. Good ‘traditional/knowledge’ teaching is better than poor ‘progressive/skills based’ teaching and vice versa. Overall, it is probably easier (individually and institutionally) to teach knowledge than competencies/skills (as long as discipline is maintained), so my rule of thumb is that if schools don’t find introducing an approach like Opening Minds challenging they are almost certainly not doing it right.

The reason we need to get the whole community involved in supporting learning is that the task of schools in deprived areas is almost impossible if what they are doing is not somewhat reinforced at home, in the youth clubs and on the streets

The assessment point is very important and it’s one I know we intend to work on further.

PS On families, I recognise the benefits for children of stable families and am all for supporting them. The question is how you do it without making a bad situation worse for single parents families who may be blameless for being in that position.

Mike Amos-Simpson on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 9:55 am


single parent families are still families – it’s not about promoting the “perfect family”, it’s about supporting activities and experiences that parents can enjoy with their children – encouraging them to do things together and learn from each other.

Agree very much about the difficulties for schools in deprived areas, I also think far too much is expected of teachers beyond their role as educators.

daniel snell on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 10:11 am


i think we may be approaching this wrongly.

Teachers may not want to get involved in pastoral care, or personal development, but that’s like saying ‘i only want to to eat italian’ when what we have is chinese.

Teachers, educators and schools have to respond to what is happening in reality, not as they’d like to or want to.

Our society is OUR collective problem, wishing and wanting or denying where we are at will just slow down the process of resovling the issues that currently face us.

If schools need to develop young people THEN that is what we need to do. stop crying and get on with what’s in front of us. If you new role is to resolve parental/family issues then that is what school is for. It may be time to change.

We no longer have the same leverages we once did – community, family, shame, desire to improve. We have new ones. Let’s understand those and use them.

And we have to do it for less, as there is clearly going to be less resources not more.

daniel snell on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 10:18 am


on a seperate note:

I recognised a boy I worked with in an estate as i came back from boxing last night. We had a friendly chat, he introduced me to his friend.

I asked his friend if he had changed since working with me (www.arrivaleducation.com), and he said he had changed hugely. Once these young men have a focus, context and structure to engage with, in my experience behavioural change will follow.

It’s the holistic, experience of inner city schooling that we need to go to work on – as well as traditonal knowledge transference (which is essential too) then you’ll see marked improvements.

We get 90% positive feedback from our programmes from the participants- why is that? it’s because they enjoy the process – it’s a little like a rite of passage that they feel meets their internal need at the age they’re at, it helps them make sense of their external and internal worlds.

Mike Amos-Simpson on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 10:25 am


HI Daniel – wouldn’t disagree with the essence of that, but I can empathise that some teachers may feel there is more of a mindset that it’s ‘their’ collective problem not ‘ours’. If the needs now are radically different then the framework and curriculum need to be radically different too, not just a tweaked very old model.

I have similar examples of stories with young people – the problem of course is that they’re not widely (or consistently) available and maybe looking at education as something more broadly than just school can help towards addressing that. I would also say though that while activities, programmes and so on are important and while as mentioned in an earlier comment design and environment can be important too, none of them are as crucial as the relationships between people. The challenge I think is to find ways of building more successful relationships.

daniel snell on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 10:30 am


Mike,

I think we are saying the same thing differently. All the work i do is about relationships.

I’m designing a programme for next term that is about Attendance – however, my model is actually about having students, teachers and parents working together toward a community/collective good. the programme is about unearthing, what is really going on, as apposed to what people want (imagine they want), and then create fabric around relationships and desires – individul and collective.

Daniel

Mike Amos-Simpson on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 10:34 am


lol sorry I did mean to say the same thing similarly

Graham Walker on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 4:11 pm


I am sure it’s a good thing that no one is banging on about technology here. Can get very tedious when geeks take over. But I do think the future use of technology in education is a game changer for learners, parents, wider family members, communities, and of course schools. I also think it’s important to contextualise this debate within the context of the market place and the role of businesses in communities. Home Access Pilots in Oldham and Suffolk have just closed – 90% of eligible families (12,000) applied for the single use debit card and independantly purchased a computer, connectivity and support package. Access to the internet in the 80% of time not spent in the classroom is clearly seen as important as only about 75% of eligble families claim Free School Meals! Home Internet more important than lunch – Shock! Maybe they know their kids are likely to get up to a half a grade per GCSE bounce from home internet access?,

So demand from learners and parents is there….but will schools supply high quality edcuation resources and information to their kids, parents, and communities? Evidence from Becta suggests about 20% will do so leaving a large imbalance between learners communities 21st century demands and the largely 20th century supply by schools. We don’t lack technology in our schools but we do have a huge human skills gap in how to use it to meet modern day demands. Michael Gove seems to suggest if we head backwards in time then our current problems wil go away.

Martin Robinson on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 7:59 pm


Good ‘traditional/knowledge’ teaching is indeed better than poor ‘progressive/skills based teaching and vice versa. With respect, the question maybe more interesting if it were between good ‘traditional’ teaching vs good ‘progressive’ but I think that even this would not be helpful. I am not even sure that it is easier to teach knowledge than skills, if it was, then schools would be churning out students who knew loads but couldn’t do anything! (It is easier to assess knowledge, perhaps…) The truth is if you teach skills in a vacuum or knowledge without the idea of how to find it, formulate it, change it, add to it and use it then our education would not be worthy of our young people.

I think the argument needs to be re framed; the argument should not be between knowledge and skills because they belong together and are useless apart. No, the argument should be between what skills? What knowledge? And to what ends? In a school without boundaries these questions would be extremely important.

As for assessment, I think at YesAssess we are getting it right, as are others. We find that assessment is an excellent way of embedding and valuing skills, no matter whether the school and their curriculum, is ‘traditional’ or ‘progressive’.

Tessy Britton *FRSA* on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 9:26 pm


Some interesting approaches and perspectives on community schools in the latest issue of American Education – the cover entitled ‘Surrounded by Support’:

http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/summer2009/index.htm

Louise Thomas on Tue, 14th Jul 2009 10:06 am


For me the beauty of the Schools without Boundaries concept is that it forces us to question whether the traditional institution of school serves its purpose. Does it any longer make sense to set young peoples’ main experience of formal learning in a rarefied, hierarchical setting which is temporally, physically, psychologically and technologically hived off from the rest of their experience?

If we expect young people to hit the ground running in a world of work and citizenship when they leave school then the relationships they have been encouraged to form with adults and the world outside school for 11 years should be directly and actively reflective of the positive ones we expect them to forge for themselves when they leave. Deference to authority and unquestioning belief in the views of experts are no longer the attributes we want to instill in young people.

Contrary to Michael Gove’s view that teaching skills in school further disadvantages the disadvantaged because they miss out on the intellectual capital that middle class children will receive from home – does reserving self esteem, efficacy, enjoyment of learning and an ability to apply knowledge for those who pick those things up at home not disadvantage the disadvantaged even further? Leon Feinstein has demonstrated that behavioural and self esteem issues at age 7 are better predictors of multiple deprivation at 30 than literacy or numeracy levels – Matthew has already talked about the evidence around attitudes to education affecting outcomes.

What the mechanics and politics of implementation are will depend enormously on the local context of the school, and I’m not at all sure that central policy directives are the way to go.

The powerful unifying potential of Schools without Boundaries lies in the vision, the questions it throws up about the aims of schools of institutions, and the leadership (rather than management or direction) it could allow the school sector to show in helping to rethink what schools we need to meet those aims.

Joe Nutt on Tue, 14th Jul 2009 12:03 pm


In response to Graham’s point about the technology. Schools have been inundated in techno-voodoo peddled by techno-zealots with not the least interest in anything children might produce, for the past decade.

There is always only one question worth asking of any technology used by a child, whether it was a pencil or a mobile phone, “Show me what you produced with it.” Techno-zealots never, ever ask that question.

Mike Amos-Simpson on Tue, 14th Jul 2009 12:17 pm


I’d have thought show me how you understand it was a more relevant question given the importance of understanding technology is and will continue to be.

I understand the weariness though given how profitable very bad software seems to have been in the education market.

Lewesbusker on Tue, 14th Jul 2009 2:02 pm


And which ‘boundaries’ should a school be without? How about the boundaries placed on children’s (and teachers’) curiosity and imagination by the imposition of a national, one-idea-fits-all curriculum?

How about an approach where the curriculum is co-created in each classroom by teachers and pupils? Where all learning is purposeful and enjoyable. Too crazy? Or just too difficult to produce fixed ’standards’ and league tables from?

Mike Amos-Simpson on Tue, 14th Jul 2009 2:10 pm


@Lewesbusker like that I like the thing students at an international school we worked with were doing (following international baccalaureate) where they started the term off by students themselves deciding how they would be assessed/demonstrate their learning at the end of their module/subject

Martin Robinson on Tue, 14th Jul 2009 2:19 pm


@ Lewesbusker

We have also developed and co-created assessment grids between teachers and pupils which have, interestingly, been very challenging and purposeful for all involved, resulting in excellent learning beyond the traditional boundaries imposed by many school tests, assessments or exams.

So, no, not difficult to produce fixed ’standards’ and they can help ensure a valuable learning experience and a useful way for students to see their learning in a wider context with their negotiated constraints helping to really focus their work, enabling a very high degree of creativity in their work.

Geoffrey Boys on Wed, 15th Jul 2009 10:27 pm


A long term problem in schools has been that schools and teachers did not believe that pupils could achieve higher standards. Sometimes they did not even seen this as a major objective. Now, the evidence for the possibility of higher standards is available to everyone.

Martin Robinson on Thu, 16th Jul 2009 8:43 am


An example of positive, educative, relationships formed with adults?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8149422.stm

Ian McGimpsey on Thu, 16th Jul 2009 10:06 am


@ Martin – I really enjoyed reading that article. It certainly seems that way from the report.

daniel snell on Thu, 16th Jul 2009 1:39 pm


I’ve been reflecting on a number of points around this debate over the last week. Many are excellently made. A bit stream of conciousness…

I’m just about to design a programme, which intends to deal with non attendance.

The inner city school i’m working with, has serious attendance issues, and as we are all aware there are a number of reasons for non attendance. (sorry for slightly hyjacking the discussion Matthew) I therefore approach the matter with some awareness to the challenges that await me.

I think at the heart of this discussion, lies the answer to the solution.

What i assert we need to do is understand why a student ‘wouldn’t chose to come to school’ – isn’t that a good starting question? Perhaps, if we approached it with a little less stigma, there’d be less drama around it. Maybe, kids aren’t engaged in school because to them at least it doesn’t meet them in some way (they find it boring in their parlance)

Even if they don’t believe in skills/knowledge/study, if they felt respected, related to, encouraged, emotionally validated, i think they’d term up at least and hang out in a conversation of traditional learning – i can’t be that hard to compete with daytime TV can it?

BTW – can anyone point me to good info/research on non attendance? That would be most helpful.

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