Every child matters
Education will always be a priority issue for me. It changed who I am, helped me question, discover, see the world in a different way. Education is being destroyed. Teachers and senior leaders are leaving. Funding is being decimated. A lot of teachers I know are demoralised, disillusioned and depressed. My wife, Julie walked away from mainstream teaching last year. She’d had enough of the target culture, the micromanagement, the ticking of boxes. She had seen the profession she loved become prescriptive, a targets game, all about Ofsted, grades, and pass rates. The systemic failings and target culture have stifled talent, driven out creativity, and the joy of discovery and learning. Something has to change, before we lose a generation.
Our education system is a sieve that filters the few and fails so many. All young people have a gift. It is the role of education to find it, nurture it, and provide those young people with the wings to fly. A failure to find that gift is a failure of the system not the young person. Every child has talent, but not all are academic. All parents want the best for their kids, but sometimes the best is different. It would be a dull world if we were all mathematicians. Good schools, excellent teachers, a rich and varied curriculum. At the very least this would provide the professionals with a chance to find that individual talent. Everything about education is moving away from this. The politicians increasingly serve UK plc, packing our kids into ill shaped boxes.
Nowhere is this betrayal of our children more apparent than in the squeezing of the arts and creativity from the curriculum. Everything is about maths and English now, the fear of SATS and league tables. This is the driver shaping the world our children learn in. Despite its value, I can honestly say that maths has brought me no joy in life, and apart from basic stuff used for housekeeping, stats, and some economics I've never had to use it since I left school. That’s not to say maths doesn’t matter. It is important, but it isn’t the everything it seems to have become.
Has my love of the arts held me back? Well I'm not rich in western terms, but I've travelled the world, had a lifetime of fantastic experiences and have always been able to follow my dreams. Most of my happiness and success has come through my love of music, words, and my relationship and family. Money, a career, qualifications, algorithms and UK Plc didn't give me any of that. We aren't cogs in a machine. We are creatures with special talents and dreams, each unique to us. We have to find our own passions and dreams, and education should help us find what we love and give us the courage to do it.
Every child matters. Take away a child's chance of a good education and you remove their opportunity to find their potential. They suffer, and we all lose. This isn't about magic money trees. It's about a fair taxation system, an economic model that stimulates growth, and a shift in our priorities. There is no continuity in education policy. The future of our children is tied to the foibles of a political business cycle, and the changing whims of successive Ministers. Out with the old and in with something we had twenty years ago, but with a different name.
Maybe it’s time education was given to a specialist parliamentary select committee. Cross party representation would depoliticise it, ensure there is more longevity to developments, and we can look to put learners at the core. There are so many initiatives I've seen money wasted on only to have them scrapped or strangled as soon as another government comes in. Education can still be dynamic in the context of long term planning and stability, but let’s stop Ministers playing political games with the lives of our children. Let’s have the courage to remove targets and put teaching and learning first.
At the heart of great education and learning there must be great teachers. People are the secret of success for everything. They make the difference. Highly motivated, passionate, skilled people who are supported and empowered to make the best use of the skills they have. Nobody becomes a teacher unless they really want to. Believe me, I have stood in a classroom all day. It is mentally and physically draining, the hardest job I’ve ever had. Writing a novel was a doddle in comparison. We need strong leadership that is prepared to support teachers, and that will only come if we change the system and move away from targets. They are killing so much in our public services. Numbers and spreadsheets are not the answer, so let’s not allow them to govern all that we do to the detriment of creativity, passion and the quality of the human experience.
I’d like to say thank you to all my teachers. I wasn't the easiest kid to have in a class. I was a bit messed up, struggled to focus, got bored very quickly. However, they stuck with me, and gave me something precious. They made me feel as though I mattered, I had something worth offering. To a miner's son from Northumberland that meant the world. A love of words and music were gifts they gave me. Those were my keys to happiness and my better life, the only things I ever cared about. They were my passion, my great love. I was blessed with some inspirational teachers who had the freedom to nurture those creative skills. They unlocked the doors and changed my life, and I can never thank them enough. Let’s ditch the targets and league tables and empower teachers again, so my children and their generation can look back and say the same.
