Utopia in education

Today I was once again made aware of a huge issue in our current system: relationships. My stepdaughter was excited about her visit to 'big school' and all the possible opportunities she would have. But as we drove home her excitement gave way to concerns, "they just won't know me" she said. I offered words of advice largely based around explaining that her friends would all feel the same. Yet I struggled to imagine her as one of nearly 2000 pupils wandering around the campus. In the years I had known her I had learnt to read her moods and expressions; I knew when her voice became bright that she was probably fibbing and I knew that she adored peanut butter but only the smooth variety. On a deeper level I had a good idea about her views on spirituality and her sensitivity around her self concept. I know the issues she has had and am mindful of the issues they may cause in the future. Who would truly know her when she becomes one out of a crowd of equally needy people?

The conversation moved on to her asking me what my first and last schools were like. I thought back to my first school with pleasure. It was a small school with two classes: infant and junior. I can recall only two teachers and the head, Mr Wood, who appeared to be the tallest man my tiny self had ever met.

There was an outdoor pool which I learnt to swim in amongst the slimy yellow leaves; it was not heated and was possibly a health and safety minefield. The school had a small copse of trees which I can remember containing a ring of toadstools; it was here we left biscuit crumbs for the fairies. I acted in 'Peter and the Wolf' and recall the girl playing the bird sitting on top of a PE table as a nest and the boy playing the duck swimming in a large blue hoop on the floor. I was know by all and the children I was with were the children I saw around the village. 

My last school was no different. Despite being a secondary school it was tiny in comparison with other local schools. In the 90s, when I went, we numbered less than 700. 

People knew each other. The whole school could fit in the hall for Friday assembly. Despite the fact I hated Year 9 I generally enjoyed myself. I was part of a fantastic group of original and quirky folk whom I loved (and miss) dearly. Yes there were the normal issues that one expects from teenagers in a school: some people were nasty, some people were down right rude and others needed a reality check. The staff knew us which, at times, worked against me as being 'Woodley's sister' was not a coverted prize and the decade since he had left had clearly not dampened his reputation. Yet on the whole it was not a large or scary place to be instead veering towards being slightly archaic and quaint. By and large I felt safe and I had fun. I think of it fondly and keep promising to return to Founder's Day. Who knows, one day I will.

My innocent preteen will not have the same experience and this greatly saddens me. Small schools offer a greater chance of developing positive relationships with staff and peers alike. I accept it is not always the case but I hold to the notion that it is more possible than in a larger school (I equally accept that it is possible in a large setting although). Relationships are central to my thesis. My research showed how developing positive relationships over a sustained period of time led to greater understanding of pupil needs and voice. I see it in action every time I go to work. On a daily basis I witness the power of such positive relationships in a small school setting. I see staff who know and understand their pupils. They 'get' them. They are aware of the complexity of the pupils they see. They know where they have journed from. They have found ways to communicate with and support. They know that Jonny works best between 9 and 10:30 and that Billy prefers closed questions at the start of the lesson but will answer open ended ones from ten minutes in. It works. 

Yet the drive seems to be for bigger and better. In some cases schools amalgamate for financial reasons: it is cheaper to pay one leadership team and run one building. Yet in other cases there seems to be a desire to create technological palaces of learning with jargonistic room names and a clinical overtone. 

So I am left with several questions to think about:

Do small schools exclude less?

How can pupils be supported best within a larger school?

What is more important: a large amazingly well equipped school or a smaller school that has less?

Will the current thinking be proved wrong?

Is pupil voice more authentic in a small setting?

Do relationships in school matter as much as curriculum and achievements?

In a utopian education system, what type of schools would we have and is there enough political and social drive to radically rethink how we educate future generations? Churning out an end product like a business seems so distant from my experiences. 

Farewell Student Loan Company

As I write I am sat at a party with screaming children and poor music. Shoes have been flung at my feet in an eager fit to bounce and run. Today I also received confirmation that my student loan and I have parted company. We have divorced and gone our separate ways. Over a decade after I left, I have finally finished paying for St Mary's college breakfasts and crabstick stir frys. It made me a tad thoughtful about the 'me' that had travelled through that academic world and the version of me that is travelling through this one. We are very different yet are undoubtedly the same person. I picked Durham University when I was 12. I found a brochure in my Latin teacher's office and I instantly fell in love with the picture of the cathedral on the front. That was where I wanted to go and I never though about going anywhere else. I had no idea where Durham was or what I would study yet I would go to university and I would go to Durham.

Those brief three years had a huge impact on my life. I discovered direct action and social justice, I tested my beliefs and challenged established thought, I moved hundreds of miles away from home to a place where it was truly cold in the winter. Yet, academically, it was really playing. It was not until I became a post graduate that I appreciated how insignificant my under graduate thoughts were. I thought I could change the world view on something but no peer reviewed journal came seeking out my assignment on 'The identity of the Teacher in the Qumran Community'. Fundamentally, I was saying little that was new. Instead I was learning how to craft an argument, how to navigate a library, how to write without plagiarising someone else's work. I learnt then that I loved writing. I discovered how I preferred to do it, the various states of mind I would pass through and how I could judge the standard of my own work. 

Then, in a matter of moments, I graduated and left. 

Yet I chose to live close to the cobbled streets I loved and would often see the 90's styled Scouse man wandering near to King's Gate. I love the fact that I have developed a new relationship with Durham and that it was the city I wanted to get married in. Yet the end of my SLC relationship is the final tie to a way of life that was. I am never going to climb onto the theatre roof and throw water bombs at Hatfield students again. Never again will I sit in 25 Church Street. Never will I find ingenious ways to keep contraband items, such as a kettle, from Susan my cleaner. I won't watch friends in plays or drink in subterranean college bars. That world exists only in my mind. We all grew up.

I grew up to be sitting in a sports hall hearing children scream. I grew up to be frantically wrapping presents after debating the ethics of how many cards to buy twin boys (I plumped on two cards and two presents somehow managing to over rule my miserly normal self), I grew up to have a mortgage and a job. This growing up has been mirrored in my academic writing too. I re-read assignments I was proud of from the Durham years and cringed at their simplicity and length. I saw them as lacking in personality; lacking in experience. At 18 I hadn't lived. I had grown up comfortably off, attended a good school and lived a safe and sheltered life. University was the start of an education that continues to this very day. I write differently now because I have lived differently. I have witnessed pain and suffering. I have experienced intense joy. I have been scarred and I have inflicted wounds on others. I have realised that academia changes the world less than it should; that people with life changing ideas are only read by a Holy Huddle of those who subscribe to that specific journal. The chances of those ideas breaking loose into the wider world are slim although it is possible. I am different. Yet I am the same.  Back in Durham I had a multitude of possible roads to travel and a multitude of possible versions of myself. Maybe, somewhere, I did stay on to do the MA in early Judaism I was offered. 

So, thank you Durham. I am glad we are more than friends on social media. Fancy a coffee soon?