Pupils imprisoned in schools

“The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn. If we succeed in giving the love of learning, learning itself will surely follow.”

Lubbock 1949

At the moment we have a system which is designed for the benefit of the system, and any child who does not fit must be shaped to the  structures that have been created for them. Once defined as a unit of attainment a child is easy to measure, to give an account of progress made, and allocate a pathway. In contrast, if we treat children as individuals who are all different, they are more likely to bring their own unique and creative contribution to society.

All young people have different capacities, aptitudes and biographies. They have different pasts and different futures. One of the roles of education is to help them find their future and understand their pasts. This begins by helping them to discover their own strengths, passions and sensibilities.

Young people spend their most formative and impressionable years at school. Their needs are not only academic, they are social, spiritual and emotional. All young people need an education that helps them to find meaning and to make sense of themselves and their lives.

For some the need is acute. The Mental Health Foundation argued in the last century that schools need to find ways of enabling young people to explore and express their own emotions and feelings in positive and constructive ways. The conventional academic curriculum is not designed nor intended to do this. Yet the need for action is obvious.

“Life is more than work. If we give children the idea that they need high level skills only for work, we have got it all wrong. They are going to need even higher-level skills to perform in a democratic society. We have got to get this absolutely right: the issue is not technology, but what it means to be human, what kind of future we want for the human race.”

John Abbott, Why Good Schools Alone Will Never Be Enough 1998

Young people need to have high level skills for a complex new world of global markets and competition. They also need to be able to adapt to change and to new opportunities. Raising standards of literacy and numeracy is essential: but it is not enough. Nor is raising standards of academic qualifications.

Academic qualifications alone are no longer enough. Increasingly, employers and others emphasise the need for the qualities and aptitudes which academic qualifications are not designed to produce - powers of creativity, of communication, of empathy and adaptability, and social skills.

We need an education system that gives our children an edge, the ability the Industrial Society has identified to survive and prosper. We need to equip our young people with powers of innovation and creativity they need for the rapidly-changing economies of the future. The education system has to develop a new emphasis on creativity and discovery to give pupils the tools they will need to cope with the fast and continuing changes in the nature of work, employment and growth in the world economy that lies ahead.

Clive Jones, Chief Executive, Carlton Television 2001