September is a time of reflection and, for many, turning over a new leaf; the start of a new academic year. We need this more than ever in our school system. At a time when the government could have radically reconsidered education and employment in the light of rapid cultural changes, all we have seen is a desperate doubling down on an outmoded message: back to school. Things could be very different if the Department off Education stopped fear-mongering and focused on improving the quality of what’s on offer. Here’s how to improve schools:
Reduce the Infection Risk
Public safety is of utmost importance when schools go back, and this includes students, teachers, support staff, and all connected family groups. Government lines referring to “risk to children” only dumbs down the issue and destroys trust between schools and families.
Improving PPE and sick pay for school cleaners would encourage more to take on this essential work, whilst the atmosphere of the classroom could be improved for schoolchildren by adopting a staggered approach this winter, with year groups alternating between school weeks and home learning weeks. As a starting point, these simple measures would improve sanitation and reduce overcrowding.
Improve Schools Varying What’s on Offer
With home learning and online courses proving a popular choice for many during Lockdown, it’s time for the government to reconsider how schools can hold the market in this new setting.
To improve schools, heads should consider providing online lessons as standard for students who prefer remote learning, as well as offering “crash courses” for those looking to condense their academic progress into shorter, more intense bouts. Many sixth formers, for example, would actually prefer to follow the Californian model – collapsing a 2-year syllabus into 3 months of fast-track learning – than waste time crawling through content, lesson-by-lesson, as is current practise.
Reduce Hours and Scrap Homework
Over the past 50 years, the school day has become longer and homework has become an increasingly intrusive feature of family life. We must challenge this toxic culture. Home learning during Lockdown has demonstrated the time-wasting tedium of school learning, with many families discovering that their children can achieve a full day of “schooling” in just 2 hours online.
The bad habits that begin at school feed into an adult work culture that is equally wasteful and unproductive. We all feel that we should be working “all the time” but often have little to show for it. Schools should reduce hours and trust young people to manage their time effectively beyond the classroom.
Make it Voluntary
The school system shoots itself in the foot by brushing over the implicit clause in the Education Act that makes school optional. By forcing families to believe that school – as opposed to education – is a legal obligation, they destroy learning by creating a coercive, rather than cooperative, environment.
Making it clear to parents that school represents an educational option (not an obligation) will not result in a haemorrhaging of students. The economy relies on schools. Instead, it would change the atmosphere of learning for schoolchildren and their teachers, unharnessing the potential of a school system founded on common interest and choice.
Increase Parental Engagement
Studies show that real parental engagement in learning increases academic achievement by up to 25%. This outstrips anything that can be achieved in the classroom, and schools know it. Forcing parents to monitor reading books and sign homework diaries is merely administrative busy-work packaged as “engagement”; it should be rejected.
Backed by the DfE, freeflowinfo is a parental engagement tool used by an increasing number of schools nationwide to improve the quality of educational dialogue happening at home. Described as “transformational” by school leadership teams, this strategy can improve positive conversations in the home by 71%. Is your school using it?
Stop Ruling by Moral Panic
News stories feed off the excitement created by moral panic, and this is especially so when it comes to children. We might find examples of “homeschooled” children subjected to abuse, but we also find these cases within schools.
Spreading panic about home education serves no purpose other than to keep bums on seats; it doesn’t solve the tragic reality for victims of abuse, nor does it attempt to resolve inherent abuses within the school itself. Forcing children to endure a highly restrictive environment and “normalising” a culture in which children combat stress levels with hours of screen time, is an assault on childhood itself.
Reduce Assessment
Exams serve only to help institutions, not the individual. Assessment data is a quick way for schools and universities to measure their own corporate success, but it is a narrow window at best into human potential and, for many, it kills the enjoyment of learning, reduces memory capacity, and strangles creativity.
We all know this to be true, and yet the exam factory model continues because a) data is easy to quantify and b) schools have become low-skilled workplaces. Alternatives to exam-based education do exist around the world, for example in Finland, but they require a higher level of training and engagement than our outdated industrial model can offer.
Don’t be passive this September. Schools are a public service providing one pathway for education, and you have tremendous power to shape school policy. The government has a golden opportunity to rethink educational choices, improve schools and working habits in order to create healthier lifestyles and a more productive society. Let’s all encourage them to take it.
Anna Dusseau is a former teacher turned homeschooling mum of three. She tweets as @NotTheSchoolRun and her first book The Case for Homeschooling is out now with Hawthorn Press.
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