Transcript 2nd Annual Microsoft Building Schools of the Future Conference 2007 Damian Allen Executive Director of Children’s Services Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council.

2nd Annual Microsoft Building
Schools of the Future
Conference 2007
Damian Allen
Executive Director of Children’s Services
Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council
1997 to 2000
Remedial Intervention
Raising Expectations
School Improvement
Literacy and numeracy
2000 to 2004
Structural Change
14-19, Specialisms,
Academies,
Leadership, National
Strategies
2004 to present
System Reform
Every Child Matters
BSF, Personalisation,
Trusts
Key Facts. Knowsley BSF
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11 Secondary schools replaced by 7
Learning Centres £150m PFI
Only local authority to replace all
existing schools in a single investment
wave
Closed all existing schools
Opportunity to review Governance,
Leadership, Curriculum, Teaching and
Learning
AN OUTDATED SYSTEM
‘Today’s high schools were conceived
at the beginning of the 20th century to
prepare students to work in an
industrial economy that looked very
different from the economy we have today’
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. ‘High Schools for the new Millennium’
“..institutions out of sync with each other are caught in a
clash of speeds between the old system and the new.
Standardised education is among the slowest institutions
to adapt. If you were monitoring the speed of cars going
by you would clock the car of business, which changes
rapidly under competitive pressure, at 100mph. But the
car of education which is supposedly preparing the young
for the future, is only going at 10 mph. You cannot have a
successful economy with that degree of
desynchronisation’
Alvin Toffler. World famous author and advisor to successive US and other
administrations . Speaking to the FT August 2006
Emerging Ideas Reshaping Education:
‘Want It All’
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Employability
Engagement
Personalisation
Connectivity
Authenticity
Technological
Enhancement
Lifelong Learning
Facilitation
Accountability
Equity
Accessibility
Investment
Added Ideas
• Choice/market
• Safety and security
• Flexibility
• Lower pupil/teacher ratio
• Well-rounded education
• Co-leadership
• Partnerships
• Co-location
• Ecological sustainability
• Efficiency
‘Temporarily Away’
Old
New
Teacher commands content and
style of learning
Learning professionals seek the
most appropriate combination of
learning opportunities
Learners choose how, where,
what and when they learn
Richer pictures of achievements
Choice limited
Achievements measured in
standard numerical ways
Learning happens at the
beginning of life
Everyone learns all the time
Learning happens in institutions
Learning happens anytime,
anywhere
Responsive, alert and flexible
buildings able to accommodate
change
Learning benefits all
School buildings as ‘institutions’
delivering traditional learning
Education benefits some
Child adapts to the school
system
System supports the learner
The current approach assumes that
the school model is fine but needs
‘improving’.
International social and economic
evidence suggests the current
model has fundamental flaws.
Challenge to the Local Authority
Ensure that the investment you make
today is fit for purpose in 25 years
Risk
Learning changes rapidly, buildings
cannot respond and further investment
is required.
Education Transformation defined
‘A system of education that can
readily adapt to wider societal and
economic change’
Pedagogy and Space
‘If the answer is rows of square
rooms with rows of desks remind
me again what the question is’
• Traditional Classroom
• The classroom is the
most visible symbol of an
educational philosophy.
• It is a philosophy that starts
with the assumption that a
predetermined number of
students will all learn the same
thing at the same time from the
same person in the same way
in the same place for several
hours each day.
All Defensible Space programs have a common purpose:
They restructure the physical layout of communities to
allow residents to control the areas around their homes.
This includes the streets and grounds outside their
buildings and the lobbies and corridors within them.
It depends on resident involvement to reduce crime and remove the
presence of criminals. It has the ability to bring people of different incomes
and race together in a mutually beneficial union. For low-income people,
Defensible Space can provide an introduction to the benefits of mainstream life and an opportunity to see how their own actions can better the
world around them and lead to upward mobility.
Views of Young People
Respect for all, treat us like VIPs ; Exciting, inclusive, welcoming,
open, light, safe, well maintained and secure places to work, learn,
socialise and play in. Multifunctional open spaces; Comfortable
furniture; Mobile ICT; world class’ sports and arts facilities ;
community and pupil art to be placed within buildings ;Comfortable,
tranquil, uplifting, colourful and warm; Different external spaces ,
social to learning sport and arts; sustainable technologies such as
solar power, recycling points, water conservation and land drainage
solutions; Natural ventilation. Outdoor teaching spaces, individual
lockable bike sheds, water features to create calm, Supervised, light,
open, clean, modern shopping centre type toilets; Vandalism is a
product of boredom ; Art galleries, balconies, cyber cafes and
information points. A school ‘wardrobe’ not a uniform; facilities to be
used for both curriculum and community use, open access for all,
including different cultural and religious groups.
Challenges
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Managing local change while
complying with national prescription
Moving from the old to the new –
hearts and minds
National model/local context – clear
tensions
No funding for transformation
Challenges
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Change as a constant feature
Maintaining performance during
change
New forms of accountability
Integration of private sector as
strategic partners
Integration with wider neighbourhood
regeneration
Criticality of innovation
Transformation
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5 Year ‘transition’ period of Change
Management based on agile, enlightened
partnership between public and private
sectors
Test modelling on new teaching and
learning approaches in new environments
Huge programme of CPD for teachers and
school staff
New forms of Governance
Transformation
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Significant rise in international links
Develop new frameworks for
assessment
Trial new diplomas
Embed role of education in wider
regeneration
Significant increase in enterprise
based activity
“Make no little plans,
they have no magic to stir men's blood and
probably themselves will not be realized.
Make big plans, aim high in hope and work…
Let your watchword be order and your beacon
beauty”
(Daniel Burnham, explaining the Chicago Urban Plan, 1909)
The best way to predict the
future is to invent it