Dear Parents and Carers

I would love to believe that the new Secretary of State for Education is brave enough to really challenge the system we work in. I hope he has in mind a vision for education which matches the needs of society and the economy, and can inspire all students to be ambitious and successful either in the UK or abroad. For a long time now, it has seemed that our system is designed to impress and appease a very small section of MPs who can make or break a Minister’s career, rather than one designed around the needs of the country or the kids in it.

Subsequently we have an extremely narrow set of success criteria focused almost entirely around the English Baccalaureate group of subjects, matching the childhood experience of those few in power; and a system which relentlessly tests kids from the earliest age they can answer questions. Furthermore, if the kids do well in these endless assessments, the same people who fuelled the system then claim it must be because the exams are easier.

Meanwhile, we have an appalling nationwide deficit of skilled people to build anything, increasing numbers of young people with unsustainable student debt, and all the time, groups of students are left behind, often with SEND or disadvantaged backgrounds, because the narrow success criteria don’t match what they may be brilliant at.

Maybe we should start with the principle that every young person can be brilliant, given the right environment, and stop trying to drag them all through the same system just because it is cheaper. This just wastes the talents of countless young people and stores up problems for the future. Maybe it’s time to look at very early years and take some guidance from other European countries who don’t sit children behind desks until the age of 7, preferring instead to focus efforts on developing character at that early age; sharing, respect for each other, ambition, etc. It is certainly time to stop making young people feel like they’ve failed if they don’t follow an academic pathway to university – the right choice for many but not for all. It is also certainly time to ‘level up’ the credibility of subjects that teach creativity and the application of technical skills, so that they enjoy the same gravitas as the Ebacc group.

I hope the new Secretary of State does have a vision beyond the platitude of ‘world class education system’ which was all we heard from his predecessor, without any detail about what that might look like. I also hope he is brave enough to challenge those dogmatic people and institutions which plague education and try to prevent meaningful change.

Best wishes

Andy Perry – Head Teacher

Click here to return to the current newsletter