Yeah found a new alternative school...

From an article in the TES magazine this month I discovered the Acorn school in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire: a Steiner inspired independent school whose pupils are admitted to university (according to the head anyway) with no exams under their belts at all. This is one of the things I personally believe could be a tipping point if their ever was to be a move towards a freer more democratic education: if universities were to begin to accept pupils without exam qualifications from a number of schools then people would be forced to sit up and take notice. Especially pupils who are most closely exposed to the unfairness of formal examinations. Acorn School.

King Alfred's School

Tah-dah! My first success in my mission to seek out each and every 'slightly different' school in the UK. I had never heard of this place before but it sounds AMAZING! Its not necessarily that outrageously different from anywhere else- it just sounds sensible. Here is how they describe themselves:

"KAS continues to stand out from the prevailing educational environment as a school that achieves academic success without excessive pressure and social success through the development of relationships and responsibility rather than external discipline. Co-education, mixed ability, all ages and non-denomination are some essential and enduring characteristics. Informality is typified by the use of first names, the absence of uniform and as few rules as can be managed within a community. Above all, it is a school that is genuinely loved by students, parents and staff alike."

I find it interesting that they describe themselves repeatedly as both secular and non-denominational.

Democratic Education International Seminar

Thanks to Kim for this
01 Jul 09 - 08 Jul 09
Transnational Perspectives on Democratic Education: an intensive international seminar and taught course

Institute of Education, University of London

In association with University of Wisconsin Madison; University of Melbourne; International Centre for Education for Democratic Citizenship

This intensive programme aimed at educators combines keynote lectures by world renowned academics; active workshops involving the keynotes and a programme of visits. It is offered as an accredited master’s module and will also be of interest to doctoral students and those seeking a one-off refreshing short course.

Confirmed speakers include: Michael Apple, Diana Hess, Gloria Ladson-Billings from Madison; Johanna Wyn and Julie McLeod from Melbourne; Michael Fielding, David Gillborn, Ann Phoenix, Hugh Starkey from London.

Activities and workshops include: seminar hosted by Parliamentary Education Service; visit to schools implementing human rights and citizenship education; whole school human rights education with UNICEF UK and Amnesty International; using multicultural resources of Museum of London; new media and democratic participation.

Participants will join an online pre-sessional forum hosted on a specially developed website and moderated by course faculty.

The aims of this programme are:

? To explore transnational perspectives on democratic education by drawing on experience and scholarship from three national contexts.

? To provide opportunities for in depth engagement both with leading scholars acting as faculty and with students from other universities.

? To engage with institutions and cultural artefacts in the host city that have relevance to struggles for democracy and education.

The themes addressed are:

What is democracy? Why study democratic education, and why now? Tensions and challenges in democratic agendas in different national and transnational agenda; lack of conceptual clarity?

What is citizenship? Changing forms and challenges (national, cosmopolitan, citizenship across difference)

What is democratic education? Deliberation and talk as forms of democratic ed. Deliberative traditions. What skills do educators need? Curriculum and professional resources

Diversity and inclusion: policies and responses in different national settings

Civil Rights, Human Rights and the law: campaigning for justice

Student voice and youth participation in a digital age. New forms and sites of democratic participation. In what ways are young people engaging?

Places are limited, so to register interest and obtain further details please contact: Ruth Shewan

06 Jul 09 - 10 Jul 09
Teacher Training at Parliament

Houses of Parliament > event website

Accommodation from the 5th July.

Focus: This week-long residential is funded to include travel and accommodation (if needed) for delegates to stay in London and attend a series of talk, workshops, seminars and observations on the work and role of Parliament. Designed to give a thorough working knowledge to develop the delegates own professional knowledge in this area, there are also opportunities for you to work with other colleagues to develop educational resources for use within the classroom.

For more information visit the website or contact

Claire O'Neill

Children Last

One morning, whilst listening to the head of a rather large school where I was training to be a teacher, I realised something. Children have become something of an inconvenience to a school like this. Once up and running this school, and all state schools I have ever seen, is a self-perpetuating entity whose primary function is its own survival. This is a natural process which affects all institutions, companies, government bodies. It is sadly true even of most charities- pretty soon their own survival is paramount over their original mission.
The head's little morning speech was about Ofsted or behaviour or something, the content was not significant, and it was all about jobs and financial security for the school. Financial security is for the school what survival is for the organism. It is its primary and overriding drive. Second to survival of the school is its 'health'. This is measured in the number of jobs it can sustain and is demonstrated by the head's repeated requests for teachers to conform in order to keep their own jobs. Teachers are therefore second to the school itself. In order for the teachers to keep their jobs, and the school to remain healthy, it must constantly strive to attract children. As children rarely choose their own school themselves essentially this translates to attracting parents. The head of this school was well aware of this. Thirdly then the school's function is to attract parents. As the government, along with large numbers of pressure groups including the vastly rich exam boards, has almost succeeded in persuading parents that success in examinations is the only thing their child needs out of 12 years of schooling they are willing to select a school based on examination results and league tables (actually I am not so sure this is entirely the case but it is how the school sees it and that is what matters). To return ot our analogy the great beast of the institution known as 'school' therefore sees exam results as the bait to lure in its prey. Examination results are therefore the third prority of school after the school's own pertuity and the teacher's jobs, and parents are fourth as they are lured in using exam results.
Fifthly, and finally, we come to the children. Once at the school it is essential that as many children as possible get 5 A*-C grades in order to rebait the trap. Therefore one must coach them through their examinations. This takes up all of your 11, half of year 10 and nearly 1/4 of all lessons during the previous 3 years as they are required to sit an end of unit test which takes 1-2 lessons every 6-8 lessons. (I shall return to the moster of testing later). If there is any time left we might be able to squeeze in some education but don't hold your breath.

'...since men who feel hate and fear also admire these emotions and wish to perpetuate them, although this admiration and wish will probably be unconscious...An education designed to eliminate fear is by no means difficult to create. It is only necessary to treat a child with kindness, put him into an environment where initiate is possible without disastrous results and to save him from contact with adults who have irrational terrors...A child must not be subject to severe punishments, or threats, or to grave and excessive reproof.'
-Bertrand Russell.

This may provide part of the answer to the question: 'Why, when everyone leaves school knowing exactly whats crap about it and exactly how to make it better, do they immediately forget as soon as they become 'adults' and become its biggest advocates?'

The answer is that an education filled with fear and hate will make you respect fear and hate and wish to inflict it on others, ideally ones who can't do anything about it because they are legally obliged to sit their and let you.

Uniform

Today was a non-uniform day at my second placement, the school where I am training to be a secondary science teacher. It is the second non-uniform day I have been to as a trainee teacher and both times I nearly skipped with joy as I went my way about the school. I can't help but feel elated by seeing children looking the way they are supposed to, the way they choose to. I love seeing them in all their finery. They are not wearing 'gang colours' or picking on each other for not being able to afford the latest fashions. The statements you will find on the websites of 99% of the schools in this country peddle some awful drivel about 'community cohesion', 'sense of belonging' and 'equality' none of which interest kids of that age half as much as exploring their individuality and expressing their own forms of identity through dress. There are a thousand subtle messages written into the self-selected dress codes of 14 year olds which the governors of the schools they are forced to attend will never even recognise let alone allow to thrive and survive.
Anyway, this is the first in a series of posts which will attempt to build up a picture of the school I would start right now if I could. The first rule, chronologically speaking not hierarchically, is no uniform.

Infinite Tolerance vs Zero Tolerance

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/11/right-way-to-raise-children

Interesting article about whether 'tough love' or 'infinite love' is the best way to get through to inner city school drop outs. Some interesting comparisons to non-coercive education can be made.

The one statement that stands out to me and seems to sum up why the problems in education are constantly perpetuated is this:

'...I began to wonder why, having survived a disciplinarian childhood that had made them so angry, they thought the solution lay in recreating it.' (talking about Ray Lewis' militaristic method of educating violent young black kids).