Who gets to choose what young people learn at school? Are formal assessments testing the right things? How can neurodiverse students get a fair deal in a busy class? How can a school integrate with its community? What does meaningful work experience look like for pupils with learning disabilities? What is education actually for anyway?
Did you think about these questions when at school? I don’t think I did. I don’t think I even knew that I could ask these questions because the grown ups knew best. Right?
Conversations with a difference
The Big Education Conversation (BEC) looks at things differently. We are seeing falling attendance in schools and problems with behaviour across the world. Schools are doing their best but are struggling to bridge the gap the pandemic created between them and the communities they serve.
This is where the BEC can make a real difference. We were able to bring young people together with their parents and carers, their teachers and school staff, local activists, volunteers – people in the community who really care – and we help them to run a meeting to talk about the stuff that they really want to talk about. Starting the conversation with a big question, “What do you believe is the purpose of education?” creates an equitable space where all voices and opinions are valued. It also provokes incredible insights that are useful to school leaders.
I was involved with this via my friends at HeadsUp4HT’s, a group that brings together school leaders to network for wellbeing across the UK. Big Change, who have been supporting the Big Education Conversation for a while, partnered with HeadsUp4HT to work with school leaders in the HeadsUp4HT network and facilitate fifteen BECs as part of a pilot.
Back to School
I visited schools in inner cities and remote rural areas, on the Isle of Wight, in Lincolnshire, Shropshire, Cumbria, Lancashire, and Kent. The smallest school had just twelve pupils, the largest well over a thousand.
The children loved showing me around their schools, often telling me things that showed a deeper understanding of teaching and learning than you might expect. They told me which teachers they most respected and why, what they thought of the headteacher’s leadership style, why the foundation unit garden was out of use (undermined by pesky badgers). I got to feed school pets, explore school libraries, and get a little understanding of how schools related to families and communities which vary based on geography and other context.
“Children are rarely invited to critical discussions around education because the curriculum is packed and schools feel pressured to deliver the standards needed for statutory assessment, pushing aside other issues. Like me, many pupils felt that education was done to them far more than it was done with them.”
The BEC on the Isle of Wight taught me about the difficulties of representing diversity to pupils in a near monoculture when it costs hundreds of pounds just to take a class off the island for the day. A school in a remote area of Northumberland showed me another side of isolation, but also showed me the fierce pride of that local community. Large schools have their own particularities but great leaders can make them feel like families too.
Children are rarely invited to critical discussions around education because the curriculum is packed and schools feel pressured to deliver the standards needed for statutory assessment, pushing aside other issues. Like me, many pupils felt that education was done to them far more than it was done with them.
Before our meeting with the community, I would spend several hours with the young people discussing, problematising, and building their confidence to ask big questions. It was moving to see the young people leading conversations of their choice in front of significant people from their communities – faith leaders, local councillors, activists. Adults would regularly approach me after these meetings to tell me they had no idea that the pupils could articulate their ideas and represent themselves so well.
Join us on the BEC train
At the end of every meeting we would ask participants to commit to taking an action, however small. Often, adults would be surprised by this. They’d come along to a meeting and now we were asking them to take action. This was the completion of the journey for the young leaders however – they had started off a week earlier unaware that they were entitled to a voice, and now they were using it to demand action from the adults invested in their futures. A moment of real power.
Giving young people a chance to use their voice, and the skills to use it effectively is one of the most powerful things we can do to create engaged, thoughtful, active citizens of the future. Schools are now getting in touch and asking if they can get on board the BEC train and we are only too happy to help out. Get in touch if you want to know more!