8 minute read
Editorial
Editor
Tom Wheare
Managing Editor
Jonathan Barnes
Production Editor
Scott James
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Gerry Cookson Email: gcookson@johncatt.com Conference & Common Room is published three times a year, in January, May and September. ISSN 0265 4458 Subscriptions: £25 for a two-year subscription, post paid; discounts for bulk orders available. Advertising and Subscription enquiries to the publishers: John Catt Educational Ltd, 12 Deben Mill Business Centre, Old Maltings Approach, Melton, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 1BL. Tel: (01394) 389850. Fax: (01394) 386893. Email: enquiries@johncatt.com
Managing Director
Alex Sharratt
Editorial Director
Jonathan Barnes Editorial address: Tom Wheare, 63 Chapel Lane, Zeals, Warminster, Wilts BA12 6NP Email: tom.wheare@gmail.com Opinions expressed in Conference & Common Room are not necessarily those of the publishers; likewise advertisements and editorial are printed in good faith, and their inclusion does not imply endorsement by the publishers. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recorded or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Editor and/or the publishers. Printed in England by Micropress Printers, Suffolk, IP18 6DH
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Spring 2018
On the 8th October 2017, pupils and staff at Haileybury College commemorated the 50th anniversary of the death of Clement Attlee. The lives of public figures are nowadays subject to close scrutiny as they unfold in ‘real time’, and there is a longer and perhaps less prurient tradition of investigation by biographers, but it is not always possible to point to the critical moment when a life may be said to have changed. In Attlee’s case, despite him being famously reticent, it may be pin-pointed almost to the day. One night in October 1905, at the suggestion of his younger brother Laurence, he went with him to Haileybury House, the Stepney charity set up by Old Haileyburians. He soon became a regular visitor and in March 1907 he became the resident manager and thus began the process of ‘maturing into socialism’, as his biographer Vincent Broome described it. The Public Schools and the universities had a laudable record of establishing missions or settlements in deprived areas, and the Attlee family, like many others of their class, had a genuine and abiding interest in alleviating poverty, ignorance and want. Beveridge was not the first to identify the Five Giants and their threat to society, and Haileybury may be proud of the undeniable part it played in shaping the life and work of the man who oversaw the creation of the Welfare State.
It was one of Attlee’s cabinet and a successor Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, who became associated with the phrase ‘the white heat of technology’. His speech at the Labour Party Annual Conference in October 1963, entitled Labour’s Plan for Science, made it clear that ‘Britain’s future for the rest of the century depends to a unique extent on the speed with which we come to terms with the world of change’. Coming to terms with technology is still both a challenge as well as an opportunity, as it becomes clear that ‘white heat’ can sometimes be too hot to handle. Just as some schools have developed policies to limit pupils’ use of mobile phones in school, so the pressure of constant communication is being identified as damaging to the mental health and well-being of staff as well as the children in their care.
Artificial intelligence is a daunting term. Could robots teach history or is this an example of fake news? Are we up to speed with the world of change? Well, we are more likely to be if we use all our human resources. Schools are investing large amounts of time and money in developing STEM subjects as a natural choice for all their pupils, girls as well as boys. Seizing their opportunities are girls at Brentwood, taking their robot to China, and at Alderley Edge, achieving success in regional and national engineering competitions. The way in which what used to be called science buildings are currently being designed to integrate all aspects of STEM, creates spaces for creative thinking as well as practical realisation.
Schools are complex and complicated places. As every new initiative emerges and every new requirement is imposed, keeping control is a constant challenge. Record keeping, for instance, brings to mind both Sisyphus and Atlas as the regulatory demands roll relentlessly on and the burden of information becomes overwhelming. The next challenge in this area, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), comes into effect on 25th May 2018. The requirements are wide-ranging and their significance can perhaps be measured most simply by the severity of the fines proposed for non-compliance. Schools are already well aware that inspections are more concerned with paperwork than people and there is a real danger that this unhealthy prioritisation may distort the true purposes of education.
One of these is the preparation of children for adult life, but another, equally if not more important, is to make childhood fulfilling and happy. This is not always easy. Information overload is just as damaging and pervasive as atmospheric pollution. No news is good news, as the saying has it. Unfortunately, good news is no news, at least in the minds of those for whom disseminating the news is their business. Fake news has taken the place of rumour and it too can travel half way round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes, and sell some advertising while it does so. At present, one of the problems with news, good, bad, fake or genuine, is the sea of uncertainty that surrounds this country’s future. It is hard to pin information down when it is universally acknowledged that nobody knows quite what is going to happen next. This is always true for individuals, although we learn to live with it, but, just as it helps children to believe that their parents can look after them, so citizens would like to feel that their government has realistic plans for the future.
Given the amount of time that children spend at school, it is not surprising that teachers are, as it were, honorary parents. This does not always make their interaction with mothers and fathers easy, especially when teachers can see things that are overlooked or ignored at
home. The government conscripts their help in such initiatives as Prevent, but keeps pay rises to a minimum and tinkers obsessively with the curriculum. Inspection sometimes seems like surveillance and it is not surprising that by the time Thursdays come some teachers feel exhausted. Building up the morale and skills of teachers is not just a job for each school’s leadership team, it should also be a national priority, as the Chartered College of Teaching recognises. The recent report from Barnardo’s on the shocking number of young carers in the UK reveals an example of the challenges teachers face. With an average age of 12, these children manifestly need all the help they can get. Schools and teachers do their best to provide some support, but the report suggests that 40% of teachers are not confident that they would recognise young carers in their class – and if they cannot identify them, who will?
These are gloomy thoughts, but, as every teacher knows, the resilience and optimism of their pupils will always buoy them up. As Thomas Wolsey, Master of Magdalen College School, wrote over five hundred years ago, ‘pleasure is to mingle with study that the child may think learning an amusement rather than a toil’. If children can remain engaged in a caring and stimulating school community, they can enjoy their preparation for adult life. But a good school and good teachers can give them more than that. In the words of Clement Attlee at another Labour Party Annual Conference, this time in May 1948,
‘It has been said that one of the greatest dangers of civilisation today is that man’s conquests in the realms of science have outstripped his moral progress. It is the greatest task which lies ahead of us all …. to see to it that the citizen’s sense of obligation to the community keeps pace with the changes effected in the structure of society. We need to stress duties as well as rights’.
It may be that teachers are best placed to put this message across, not just to pupils but also to parents. Fortunately, since teaching is a vocation as well as a profession, there will always be men and women in schools willing and able to lay the foundations of a better society and provide a moral as well as an academic education for the citizens of the future.
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