Matthew's RSA blog

Learning some tough lessons

Today is all about Education for the RSA. We are hosting our annual, standing room only Opening Minds Conference – poignantly there is also a report from the authoritative DCSF Select Committee MPs criticising SATS test (again).

There are two lessons to be learned. The first concerns the dynamics of policy development. Over time all policies end up generating unintended consequences. Today, when the Ofsted and league tables are part of every day life, and have a massive impact on school intake and by extension property prices it’s difficult to remember how relatively recent these measures are.

Before these were introduced there was a lack of information for parents to make informed decisions. Hundreds of schools were under performing year on year with few levers to tackle failure. SATS, league tables and published Ofsted inspections were not only necessary but inevitable in an age when the public demands, and can easily get hold of, more information. The democratising impact is that middle class parents always knew through the grapevine which schools were good and which not, the SATS system opened up that information to every parent.

The second is a lesson in humility. Systemic reform is difficult, not least when you need to admit that you may have been wrong. While the idea that schools should be held accountable for their pupils’ performance was absolutely correct, but the result is that pupils, teachers and parents now feel constrained rather than liberated.

The report from the DCSF Select Committee calls for a number of reforms to the current system; one of the most relevant to our mission here at the RSA is the renewed commitment to personal learning for pupils.

We have broadly welcomed the introduction of the new National Curriculum which is far more competency based (and in that way more similar to the Opening Minds Curriculum) and we are looking forward to broadening our curriculum for all the key stages with the Academy in Tipton.

The main criticism from MPs appears to be that the barrage of tests is being used, not only to assess pupils against national targets, but also to determine school funding, performance targets and teacher assessment. This creates a system where heads and teachers are understandably obsessed with testing ability, which leads to the aforementioned constraints on creativity in the classroom.

What is needed is a bit of thinking around how you motivate teachers to be creative in the classroom, and provide them with the tools for that creativity. Schools that teach solely to the test create linear thinkers who are good at memorizing facts and regurgitating them on demand – but schools whose teachers, parents, and pupils are actively engaged in a more imaginative learning process create lateral thinkers, able to work out solutions for themselves. And surely that’s what society needs.

Memoirs of life, love, death and art

We shot into April at the speed of light with a busy week in the lectures team. First up on Monday evening we continued our education series with Edge on developing the potential of every pupil. Geoff Mulgan of the Young Foundation opened the discussion about diversity of provision in the education system, an area of special interest to the RSA as we look ahead to the opening of the RSA Tipton Academy in September. We were delighted to welcome Anders Hultin to the event to speak to us about the Kunskapsskolan in Sweden, an innovative system of preparatory schools which he co-founded.

On Tuesday evening, the novelist Julian Barnes spoke to a packed and attentive Great Room about his memoir of life, love, death and art - Nothing to be Frightened of. This was the first in a new series of collaborations with bookseller Blackwell and we are very much looking forward to welcoming poet, Simon Armitage as our next speaker.

MT has already blogged on our great event on Wednesday with Michael Landy, Neil Boorman and Daniel Miller so I won't elaborate any further than to say that the audio podcast will be available soon for any that missed out on that fascinating discussion.

And to wrap up the week, we welcomed veteran foreign correspondent Robert Fisk to our RSA Thursday stage. After shoe-horning as many people as possible into the Tavern Room, Robert shared memorable moments from his incredible reporting career and caused a great queue of people after the lecture who were eager to question the great man himself.

We slow from a fast gallop to a steady canter next week, and we kick off our week with Tim Harford revealing the hidden logic of life... prepare to be enlightened!

What do we want for ourselves?

As I said in my ever so brief blog last Friday I was on last week's Any Questions from Kingston University. It was a good night with a conversation that was probably enhanced by none of the panellists being an official Party spokesperson.

It was a nice start to the evening to find out (of course I should have known already) that both Bonnie Greer and Lord Ramsbotham are Fellows (and I am going to try now to recruit the final panellist Tim Montgomery!)

I guess I am on the programme as much because of my past as my present role, so it is a challenge to get the right balance between my personal views and the need to protect the RSA's vital political independence.

I'm sure I'll hear soon enough if Fellows think I got it wrong. 

There were a couple of moments in the programme which connected with the work here at John Adam Street.

One was the chance for me to vent, again, my concerns about the divide between state and independent schools. As I said in the programme, I don't condemn those who provide or send their children to private schools (I wouldn't have many friends if I did). But I do worry about the most privileged pupils being educated in schools where it is hard to fail and the least privileged in schools where it is hard to succeed.

In the past I have suggested that the RSA might try to convene local discussions to explore how well-off parents might be encouraged to keep their children in the state sector. My thoughts haven't got much further but any views would be welcome.

The discussion also reminded me of the gap between what we say about the kind of society in which we want to live in and how we respond to questions about our own lives.

When I argued that the abolition of inheritance tax could not be a priority if we want a fairer society and a more productive economy, I got a good hand of applause. But when Jonathan Dimbleby then asked the audience if they thought the tax should be abolished they voted overwhelmingly in favour.

It shows how important the framing of an issue is.

If we are asked what we want for ourselves without any reference to our wider idea of a better future, and without being asked to think about the trade-offs involved in any choice, our answers will tend to be narrowly self-interested.

But when a policy is placed in a fuller context - including the wider good - we may reach different conclusions.

Which goes to underline two things:

First, that most opinion polls about policy options are a waste of time and tend by their superficial nature simply to reflect our most unthinking responses.

Second, the need to move from government-centric political discourse ("what I want the politicians to do for me") to a citizen centric approach ("what kind of future we want and what we need to do to create it").

Apologies again for the holiday blog break I will make up for it in the weeks to come.

Damon - I really enjoyed your comment. I think individual empowerment is only achieved alongside strategies of collective empowerment - including bringing alive the policy dilemmas and trade offs. Many people who think hard about public service reform have come to the conclusion that this issue of reconciling individual and collective choice and empowerment is one of the big future policy challenges.

Bob, given the importance of our competency based Opening Minds curriculum to the Willingsworth Academy and our recognition that rising expectations is a crucial aim for the new school I hope you can rest assured.

Thanks, Tony, I agree with the sentiment. Getting the practice right is the challenge.

Very many networks

Sorry for the gap since my last post. I won't mention my long hours, as the last time I did someone told it was 'unbelievably self-serving'.

Last week a gang of RSA folk went to Manchester for a series of meetings including a very successful new Fellows' event.

It was another chance to talk about our plans for the Fellowship engagement strategy in the autumn. Once again the reaction from both the regional network and new Fellows was overwhelmingly positive.

An issue I shared with the network members and that I have referred to before is the challenge of social innovation through voluntary action.

The vision of a hundred networks of Fellows grouped by locality, profession, interest, expertise, or concern seems to capture the imagination. People like the idea that to be an activist in the RSA you don't have to be elected or appointed to a committee, simply to take initiative and attract other people who share your experiences, views or priorities.

And with the invaluable advice and support of Fellows with expertise in social networking - like Steve Moore from Policy Unplugged - we are confident that we can choose the right tools to enable Fellows' networks to develop.

But we have been clear from the beginning that this online activity is only a facilitator for real world interventions. This will be the hardest challenge.

In Manchester we held a Coffeehouse Challenge in a hospitable but noisy Starbucks in St Anne's Square. The group of about 30 Fellows and guests agreed early on that we should focus on the gap between the ever more successful Manchester elite who tend to work or live in the town centre and the large numbers of poorer Mancunians who continue to be locked out of the success story.

As we knocked around various thoughts, the mentoring of young people surfaced as a popular idea. That was until someone told us that they had been involved in exploring mentoring as an option for a company's CSR programme. It turned out, he told us, the city was full of mentoring schemes, not all of them demonstrably successful.

A youth worker then chipped in that effective mentoring might mean a 10 year commitment to a young person whose strongest need was for continuity.

With mentoring sidelined we were just starting to get on to other ideas when the allotted CHC time ran out. This underlined how much time and hard thinking it takes to get an intervention right.

Half a lifetime as a political and community activist has taught me two things...

First, a small group of committed people can make a huge difference if they apply their collective intelligence and will to an issue.

Second, a huge amount of time spent on campaigning and volunteering is simply wasted in futile or even counterproductive activities.

Ultimately, when we have very many networks able to learn from each other, when we have refocused the RSA so that supporting Fellows' activities is a central task and when the vibrancy of the Fellowship is attracting others to become our allies and partners, then I am confident we can develop some really powerful 'pro-social' interventions.

But in the early stages this is going to be more difficult. Fellows are busy and have many other calls on their energies.

Between now and the start of our new engagement strategy we need to have a substantial and clear headed dialogue across the RSA about how Fellows working together really can make a difference.

Let me know if you have any ideas on this, or have been involved in similar initiatives.

Some responses to earlier comments -

Justin: It was great to meet up again and I hope you made the church on time!

Gemma: Hybrid:arts sounds great. One idea I had for an RSA network was arts practitioners using creativity to foster social inclusion. There is loads going on but how effective is it? Are you an RSA Fellow?

Chris: Good point, the early years are crucial. But we surely can't give up on children even if they have had a bad start? And we are exploring how we can apply the Opening Minds approach to primary education.

Peter C: This is just the kind of issue we need to address by opening a dialogue between parents and schools. I don't think bullying is limited to the state sector, but I am sure you are right that many parents fear that bright, hard working children can get picked on by their disaffected schoolmates.

The future task of schooling

Lots of things I want to write in my blog but another 65 hour week has frustrated me. So just a quick note on the speech I gave to the Training and Development Agency for Schools yesterday.

I am trying to link some of my ideas about pro-social behaviour and how we create the citizens of the future with questions about the future of teaching.

As always my aim is to make up for a lack of expertise with a willingness to be provocative (given the number of RSA Fellows with educational expertise this is probably a big mistake).

In essence the argument is:

1. The future task of schooling must be about building children's capabilities (as we do with the RSA Opening Minds curriculum).

This means developing children who, as well as the basics, have attributes like self-confidence, the ability to solve problems and show initiative, team working and communication.

Above all the aim of schooling is that every child leaves school with the desire and the ability to continue learning throughout life.

2. For this to happen, personalised learning as we understand it now is only stage one.

The advent of good pupil data enabling teachers, parents and pupils to agree individual learning plans and objectives is a major step forward. But we need a much bigger cultural change if schools are genuinely to be able to meet the specific needs and capacities of every child as a whole child.

Given the demands made by today's schools and today's kids, it is a massive ask for teachers to see and treat every child as an individual with their own strengths, weaknesses and potential, and to ask them to focus not just on controlling and pouring knowledge into children but to develop them as rounded citizens.

Of course, some will say such demands can only reasonably be made if we lift burdens in others areas (the recent debate about the effects of external testing come to mind).

3. Real personalised learning will make new and stretching demands on individual teachers and on heads in managing staff.

The way teachers work now and the way we think about teaching as a career is not generally adequate to the task.

We need a new model of 'sustainable teaching' to enable the transformative change needed in schooling.

4. Key aspects of sustainable teaching should be the 'connected teacher'.

This means teachers must have experience of the world before entering the profession (we should ban anyone from going straight from school, to college, to school) and must refresh themselves throughout their careers with activities outside teaching and breaks from the classroom.

5. It also means the 'supported teacher'.

Psychotherapists, counsellors and coaches all recognise that they too need counselling if they are to do their jobs properly and not burn out.

As well as in service training every teacher needs one-to-one and small group support so they can download the demands, the excitements, the pressures and anxieties of their role, and be encouraged and challenged by their peers - to be nurtured and cared for both as individuals and professionals.

Too many teachers get burnt out and spend the latter days of their careers waiting for their pension (and too often demoralising those around them).

Those who leave teaching after a few years are often those who set out as the most ambitious and committed; they simply can't handle it when their idealism comes face to face with school reality.

If we are going to demand more of teachers we must recognise the psychological wear and tear of their jobs.

6. And it means recognising the importance of teachers as a team.

In unsuccessful schools the staff room often acts as the focus for negativity, with those who have lost enthusiasm being the loudest voices.

Many heads understand this and build strong teams at every level. But despite how crucial it is to success, people management in large schools is not, generally, as systematic, professional or ambitious as in other similar sized organisations.   

7. The TDA has done a good job of raising the status of teachers and addressing what appeared, a few years ago, to be a looming recruitment crisis.

We should see this achievement as simply the solid starting point from which we can enable teachers to be the drivers of school transformation.

Developing the citizens of the future

One of my priorities at the RSA has been to build on the reputation and current strength of our work on education.

Our Opening Minds curriculum is taught in over a hundred schools and has influenced planned reforms across Key Stage 3 (11-14). We now want to work with a range of partners to develop insight and ideas across other key aspects of schooling.

As we seek to widen the scope and reach of our work, our Academy in Tipton will be the practical embodiment of our ambition to develop a new model of schooling to develop the citizens of the future.

The opening of the Academy will coincide with the launch of the first five of the Government’s new 14-19 Diplomas. By 2013 there are supposed to be 14 of these Diplomas in areas ranging from Hair and Beauty to Engineering. The Diplomas are being introduced alongside GCSEs and A levels and represent a watered down version of Sir Mike Tomlinson’s recommendation that all post 14 provisions should be delivered through a single diploma framework.

Although many in the education world find it hard not to see the Diplomas that are being introduced as a missed opportunity to overcome the academic vocational divide, everyone recognises that even delivering the current proposals is a huge challenge.

So it is worrying to read two recent progress reports. The first is a detailed assessment by the Commons Education and Skills Committee. While the Committee recognises that the process of introduction is still officially on track, they raise a number of concerns ranging from the general – the clarity of purpose among those involved in designing the fist five Diplomas - to the specific – the inadequacy of giving teachers just three days training in how to teach and manage the courses, or the logistical challenges of 14-16 year old students receiving their learning in more than one institution.

The second report was from the Edge Foundation and confirmed the worst fears of those who held to Tomlinson’s original vision. Edge’s survey of teachers and FE lecturers found that almost two-thirds of them believe the Diplomas will have a lower status than GCSEs and A levels. The Government’s stated aim that the Diplomas will be seen as relevant to students across the ability range lacks credibility among those who most need to believe it.

It is hardly surprising that there are teething problems with the Diplomas - the timetable set by the Government is very ambitious. Major change processes rarely look entirely convincing at their halfway point.

The real cause for concern is that the Diplomas are trying to do an incredibly hard job in bridging the academic vocational divide. This is a task that has been tried and failed repeatedly, but it is vital if our education system is to provide opportunities and fulfilment to learners and the right skills for the economy.

But success more than anything else relies on the whole secondary and FE system throwing its weight behind reform. The combination of the major practical barriers to delivery and the continuing evidence that many teachers and schools (particularly those catering for more privileged pupils) have failed to engage with Diplomas, suggest that the odds of success are diminishing.

Given his commitment to education and skills and to widening opportunity to all it is difficult to see any more urgent issues in Gordon Brown’s Prime Ministerial in-tray.

State empowerment: Future or fad?

Thanks to those who responded positively to last week's post. With yet another crazy RSA week behind me I can only add a few lines.

Among lectures chaired, speeches made and interviews given, this week I hosted a supper for a range of people involved in the idea of empowerment and participation.

Charlie Leadbeater started us off with aspects of the thesis in his new book - 'We-think: The Power of Mass Creativity'. You can view it as a wiki and add comments or edit it online.

The discussion was wide ranging but recurrent themes included the scope for empowerment as a public sector strategy, the implication of this for equity and accountability and whether empowerment is fundamentally an individualistic or collectivist solution (of course, it can be both).

There were good examples such as individual budgets for social care clients and carers, or provision for disaffected school pupils. But underlying the discussion was the question: is the idea of the empowering state the next big thing or just the spirit behind isolated bits of good practice? Is it the future or is it a fad?

The idea that public services should seek to give people a stronger sense of self confidence, autonomy and responsibility to others lies behind RSA initiatives as diverse as Opening Minds and our approach to long term drug users.

For me it is a key plank in pro-social strategy. Maybe it's because politicians of all parties like the word, but 'empowerment' can too easily mean everything and nothing.

Through more of these suppers and the in-depth work of our programme I hope the RSA can add some rigour to the optimism and idealism of those who think a reformed public sector can help more people take greater control of their lives as individuals and community members.

Let me know what you think

We've had an amazing week of lectures.

On Monday American academic Scott Page explained the thesis of his book 'The Difference'; how the power of diversity creates better groups, firms, schools and societies.

On Tuesday the Great Room was packed and the overflow room put in use as we listened to Nassim Nicholas Taleb talk about his book the 'Black Swan'. His thesis that unpredictable events are much more important than we recognize has been widely discussed in radio programmes and newspaper columns.

On Thursday we discussed 'Who is the Zeitgeist novelist of the Blair era' with novelist Blake Morrison and dignitaries from the world of publishing.

And on Thursday evening we hosted the Mind Gym awards with the authors of the best selling Mind Gym books handing our awards for practical and innovative research into how we might be happier and more effective people.

Over the week upwards of 800 people have been here in person to be entertained and provoked, plus the thousands of others downloading lectures and subscribing to podcasts from our website.

And this is on top of the packed conference on our Opening Minds conference last week.

The RSA can be justly proud of its London lecture programme but we should do more to replicate this around the country.

Last week I met with our Regional Chairs. It was a very useful meeting with a group of committed volunteers working hard to raise the RSA's membership and profile.

It isn't easy if you are covering a huge region but I want to work with the Regional Committees to aim ever higher in the quality and content of our programme outside London.

There is a lazy, and inaccurate, perception of the RSA as being about day time visits to stately homes. But while most regions have a much richer diary of events, we need our social and cultural activities to be just the icing on the cake of an ambitious programme of speakers, debates and activities like the Coffee House Challenge.

This means we need to look to providing extra administrative back up to the regions and nations and this is something we plan to do. There is a real feeling in London circles that the RSA is going places, let's see what we can do to create that feeling across the UK.

When I first started this blog I said that it was a regular chance for me to chat to Fellows and get conversations and ideas flowing across the Fellowship. Let me know what ideas you have, what your thoughts are, or any comments you might have on the regions, the RSA, or the Fellowship.