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Creating Better Schools by Design

15th December 2022Website Admin

Creating Better Schools by Design

David Jackson

Ask most people to draw a house and nine times out of ten the house they imagine will be a square box, with four square windows, a pitched roof with a chimney, and often some smoke curling into the sky.

We share a mental model — a blueprint — for what a house is and should look like. We don’t stop to wonder:

Does our house have to be square or could it be a different shape?
Should it be one storey high, or two, or three?
How many windows of what size should there be, really?
What purpose does the chimney serve?

Our shared ideas about schools are fixed in much the same way.

There are variations, but our mental model for school tends to include classrooms, corridors, rows of desks, students grouped according to age, one-hour lessons, subject teaching, tests, and so on. This model is based on schools designed in the past. We don’t stop to question whether the school, which we are after all drawing in the C21, should be — needs to be — very different from the blueprint created decades ago. We might ask:

What ideas about learning are informing the layout of our school? What might classrooms look like if we thought of them as places where great learning can happen?
Does all learning need to be packaged into ‘subjects’?
Are one-hour lessons the best unit of learning?
Is one teacher with 25 students better than two teachers with 50 students?
Why are all students assessed at the same time when they mature differently?
Do we have to assess by written exams emphasising memory?

… and so on.

Designing a new school for real is a chance to ask questions like these, and to ensure that the new school is more than just an improvement on the existing model.

“Gesher undertook a serious school (re)design process that placed the needs of their students at the heart of decisions about their new school design.”

At Gesher School, staff, students and parents know how badly a change to the model is needed because most of Gesher’s learners have struggled in schools like the one most of us would draw. So, Gesher undertook a serious school (re)design process that placed the needs of their students at the heart of decisions about their new school design.

Gesher was transitioning from a highly successful primary school to becoming an all-through learning community and needed to find a new school building and facilities, recruit staff, create a secondary school curriculum and reframe its mission and identity.

The leaders of Gesher School knew they needed to go way beyond improvements on the existing model, to design a whole new way of thinking about and doing school, in ways that learned from and built on their experience with primary-age children. They asked:

How might we design an all-through school that will offer success, enhanced self-esteem, personal efficacy, and progression opportunities for all our young people?

Secondly, in doing so, how can we involve multiple stakeholders in our design process?

Thirdly, how might we stand on the shoulders of existing practices around the world?

The design process that Gesher School entered into comprised eight workshops, each involving different stakeholders, which resulted in a school blueprint for:

A bold vision and purpose; and
A set of values-based design principles; which were
Brought to life in plans for a range of innovative features that add up to a very different kind of school.

Upwards of 100 school staff, parents, students, community members, and other local stakeholders contributed to this seriously intentional and inclusive school design process.

Each issue of The Bridge will address an aspect of Gesher’s school redesign process. This issue focuses on the first two of the eight school design workshops that Gesher School undertook, which concerned (i) purpose and (ii) design principles.

(i) Purpose

Gesher’s discussions about purpose started with identifying their ‘non-negotiables’. Non-negotiables tell everyone what is and is not on the table; what is and is not within the scope of the school design team to change. Examples might be ‘no selection by ability’ or ‘the school will be co-education’ or, in Gesher’s case:

We are a school for a specific cohort of children with SEND, including language, communication and social pragmatic issues.
We are a Jewish faith school.
We utilise real-world learning and projects to foster curiosity and connect our young people to authentic issues and problems.

These clear non-negotiables influenced design features relating to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) provision, to faith observance and understanding, and to the design of curriculum and pedagogy.

A further key defining issue for Gesher to articulate was purpose – the vision and outcomes to which the school community would aspire. Being clear about what the school had to achieve with and for students; about the purpose of learning; about what matters for the community of the school — staff, students and parents – was an essential bedrock of the design process.

Within the current system, aiming for good examination outcomes is a given, and if that was all that mattered, then job done. However, during the workshop, through extensive discussion – and many post-its – it became clear that exam success on its own was not nearly enough. In brief, the outcomes Gesher agreed are that young people should become:

Skilled for the future workplace
Qualified for the next stage (exam results plus)
Independent learners
Confident in their sense of self
Builders of meaningful relationships
Ethical and responsible citizens.

These, one might hope, could be purposes shared by most if not all schools, but two things qualify them as exceptional in Gesher’s context. The first is the inclusiveness of the intent. They are purposes for all students, regardless of their prior educational history or unique needs. The second is to remember that Gesher is a school for children with identified SEND needs, most of whom have been unable to thrive in mainstream schools.

“Staff engaged with mini-case studies of interesting and successful schools around the world to draw from them the particular design features that inspired them.”

(ii) Design Principles

Workshop two was exclusively concerned with design principles and involved staff at the school considering the question: What would be the design principles or features of a school that can confidently achieve these outcomes for all its learners?

Staff engaged with mini-case studies of interesting and successful schools around the world to draw from them the particular design features that inspired them. They used this as a basis to shape their own, then tested the resulting principles they created together using personas of children at Gesher, asking: Would this work and how would it work for Amy or Peter?

Next Time — Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment

Agreement on these three components — the non-negotiables, purposes and design principles — precedes work on designing the more practical features of a school. Clear purposes provide a constant reminder of exactly what we aspire to achieve with and for learners and their families. Design principles provide the guiding architecture that relates to these purposes. They are ‘laws with leeway’ that frame what we do and how we do it. They are also the features that unify and inspire those who work in a school, and they guide and discipline decision-making.

With these three in place, the design process moves to consideration of the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices that will be informed by and consistent with the design principles and which will enable every student to achieve the outcome ambitions. That is for next time.

Designing New Schools in the USA

In America, there is a long tradition of creating new school designs. Some of the most successful schools in the world have been created in this way – Expeditionary Learning schools; High Tech High (some of whose resources we share later); Big Picture Learning schools; New Tech Network are all examples. The Gates Foundation alone funded more than 2,500 ‘small school models’ across the United States, and New York alone has 200.

Not all of these new school models have been equally successful, of course. However, their students consistently outperform their peers in conventionally sized and structured high schools with comparable demographics. There are some common design features across the majority of these models — and they are very different from the conventional UK school — they all:

Focus on the centrality of relationships and personalising learning — have ‘advisory’, where advisory is the soul of the school, symbolising relational support for students
Include project-based learning, an engaging and empowering pedagogical model, which also requires teachers to collaborate as designers of learning
Have a pervasive cultural identity and school-level ownership of what matters, including what is assessed and how and by whom it is assessed
Facilitate powerful and sustained adult learning.

The Cost of Not Having New Models in the UK…

Not to foster innovation in school design means that we constantly focus on striving to improve the existing school model – a model more than 100 years old and out of date.

It is a model with multiple features crying out for redesign. For example, it has failed to achieve equitable outcomes, or to address socio-economic challenges, or to engage disengaged learners — or to fully engage most learners, for that matter. Nor has it provided teachers with an intellectually challenging profession, or excited and involved parents around the experience of their children.

Professional Prompt Questions

The design process described above is effective applied to existing schools as well as new ones — revisiting purposes and design features together as a prelude to reviewing wider practices. Might this have value for your school?

The review detailed above distilled six clear outcomes that Gesher is committed to evidencing for all learners. Does your school have similar clarity about its purposes?

Redesigning Education: What Can and Should Philanthropic Organisations Do?

15th December 2022Website Admin

Redesigning Education: What Can and Should Philanthropic Organisations Do?

Ali Durban & Paul Ramsbottom OBE, The Wolfson Foundation

Paul Ramsbottom OBE is Chief Executive of The Wolfson Foundation, an independent grant-making charity, funding programmes and activities throughout the UK. The Foundation’s fundamental aim is to improve the civic health of society, mainly through education and research. He is also the Chief Executive of a linked charity, the Wolfson Family Charitable Trust.

Gesher School was delighted to receive a grant from the Wolfson Family Charitable Trust in 2021 to adapt and equip a Maker Space in our building. We value enormously our relationship with Paul and with the Wolfson charities because our values and mission are closely aligned and we recognise the important role that philanthropic organisations like The Wolfson Foundation can play in helping schools who want to do things differently to realise their ambitions.

We asked Paul to share with us his thinking about the role of philanthropy in education in the 21st century. Here’s what he told us…

Discussions about the role of philanthropy in the English education system have tended to polarise around two extreme positions.

At one extreme is the view that education in modern society is the preserve of Government alone, and that there is therefore little or no role for philanthropy. This is a view frequently expressed on social media, often by people who are knowledgeable about or involved in education.

At the other extreme is an articulation of a role for philanthropy that in some ways lets the Government off the hook, by plugging gaps that probably shouldn’t be there in the first place.

In between these two extremes, and in reality, there are at least three important roles that philanthropy plays:

The first is to support innovation in education; to fund schools, colleges and universities to trial new ideas. By being the provider and underwriter of risk capital in the education system, philanthropists enable educators to do things that the Government can’t or won’t do or support.

The second is to fund capital infrastructure projects necessary for ambitious organisations to fulfil elements of their strategic vision, which would otherwise be unachievable. Buildings and equipment are difficult to fund from statutory sources and can rarely be afforded from core funding. Philanthropy can provide the additional funding that organisations need to really allow them to fly.

The third role for philanthropy, beyond funding for innovation or infrastructure, is as part of a wider ecosystem of organisations, including Government, professional educators and civil society, who are stakeholders in education and who work, together and separately, to bring about system change that will benefit children and young people.

Some philanthropists take a campaigning and lobbying approach, which can be extremely effective. The Sutton Trust, for instance, with its focus on education for social mobility, consistently campaigns for better support in our education system for our most disadvantaged children and young people.

The Wolfson Foundation is not a campaigning organisation; on occasion, however, the Foundation funds research that grows system capacity and capability and contributes significantly to the body of knowledge necessary to support system change.

Recently the Foundation has invested heavily in children and young people’s mental health, with significant funding going to school and community-based initiatives which aim to help children struggling with anxiety and depression.

Already a growing problem, the pandemic exacerbated challenges facing children and young people, who are presenting in higher numbers than ever before with poor mental health. It’s a huge problem facing many Western societies, including our own. However, it is also a problem that is poorly understood. Whilst we might all share some intuition about why this generation of young people seems to be more troubled than previous generations — the prevalence and role of social media, for instance — the reality is that we don’t actually know. Even if our hunch is right, we need evidence to be able to take on social media companies and persuade them to make the necessary changes.

The Wolfson Foundation is funding research into a range of practice approaches that aim to build young people’s resilience to deal with the challenges that life unfortunately throws at us all, as well as improving access to high-quality therapy and clinical support.

An example of this is the new Wolfson Centre for Young People’s Mental Health in Cardiff. Waiting times in the current system are lamentable and the answer can’t simply be to try and provide more counsellors than ever. In the meantime, children and young people continue to struggle without the help they need.

Philanthropic funding should be a resource for everyone.

We need complete systemic change and there is a role for philanthropy in achieving that, both in terms of the research we can fund and providing support for innovators who are trying different ways of working.

Making Philanthropy Accessible to Everyone

If we truly believe that philanthropy can and should have a role in a modern education system, then it becomes really important that access to philanthropic funding shouldn’t simply be the preserve of schools that happen to have an affluent parent community or have professional or fundraising skills in their governing body. Philanthropic funding should be a resource for everyone.

Over the last couple of years, The Wolfson Foundation has been working with a number of partners to create a completely free framework and toolkit for every school in the country. It’s a kind of A to Z or ‘How To…’ of fundraising for schools hoping to look, perhaps for the first time, beyond their parents and local communities for financial support for their plans.

Professional Prompt Questions

Is there a project in your community that needs transformation, perhaps a physical learning space or a bold idea?

Can you capture why it is so critical to your students, and how it will change their outcomes? Will you be able to evidence this?

Have you researched the costs to fund the project and produced a budget to support it?

Are you aware of opportunities for philanthropic support in your area? Is your organisation and proposal eligible for funding? Are there other funding opportunities beyond your local community?

Could the framework and toolkit mentioned above be of value to your school?

Schools Can Be Different

15th December 2022Website Admin

Schools Can Be Different

Where Do Projects Come From?

15th December 2022Website Admin

Where Do Projects Come From?

HTH Unboxed

We would like to thank High Tech High for their generosity in allowing us to share in The Bridge project cards and the occasional article from their Unboxed journal.

High Tech High in San Diego, now some 16 small schools serving over 6,000 young people K-12 across four campuses, is one of the most feted and influential school designs in the world. It is known for its commitment to a project-based curriculum, to relationships, to deep learning and to the development of students through the development of staff. More relevantly for The Bridge, HTH is also committed to sharing practices and learning in multiple ways. They have a graduate school supporting Masters degrees for their own staff and others; they host literally thousands of visitors to their campus each year; they facilitate a MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) available internationally and, for the last 14 years they have published their own adult learning journal, making it available both in hard copy form and via the Unboxed website, which is a rich treasure trove of resources.

Where Do Projects Come From?

by Angela Guerrero

On a cold October morning, my colleague Breawna and I carpooled to school together as we often do. I piled my bags into the back seat, hopped in the passenger side, handed over a cup of coffee, and settled in for a drive full of teacher talk. The topic of discussion, as it so often is, was how to make projects meaningful and still hit the content needed in the history standards. This is an odd question for us to ponder, since we teach at a school that alleviates some of that “standards” stress by asking teachers to teach what they are passionate about through projects. But there we were, without the pressure of a frustrated principal or a zealous department chair, agonising over our fear of not giving the kids enough content. This may be because we both started our teaching careers at traditional high schools, attended traditional universities, and attended traditional high schools where school looked very much the same; teachers lectured, students feverishly took notes, a test was given, an essay written and a grade awarded that measured proficiency on some standard. Breawna and I are both struggling to define what education is all about, and building the curriculum around projects requires a break from the past that is often difficult. But on that morning when Bre asked me, “Where do good projects come from?” I felt I finally had something to say.

Eleanor Antin, “The Tourists” from Helen’s Odyssey. Copyright Eleanor Antin. Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, www.feldmangallery.com

This question, and the struggle to meet standards, plagued my first year teaching at High Tech High Chula Vista. So much of my work in the first year was simply writing and reading a pretty standard English class by most accounts. As I entered my final grades and completed my first year of teaching, I made a promise to myself to create engaging projects that would also comfort me by hitting standards. But what were the projects going to look like? Where would I get the ideas? Where did projects like that come from? Thirty journal entries, ten morning walks, hours of reviewing the state standards and countless conversations with friends left me no better off with my query as the summer days slipped by. I decided to simply enjoy summer for a while and return to the burning question in August. But then something happened that answered my questions. And it happened while I was enjoying myself, no less.

My sister invited me to a local museum to see an exhibition called “Historical Takes”, by Eleanor Antin. I sauntered into the swanky evening exhibition expecting to be impressed by the art. Indeed I was, but it turned out to be a lesson planning adventure like no other. Antin had created a collection of photographic portraits depicting historical tales from ancient Greece and Rome with feminist spins on the events. Helen of Troy was a devious vixen slinging a rifle on her hip. Ancient Grecians strolled casually by the dying veterans of the Trojan War with shopping totes and sunglasses. Wealthy Romans dined in elaborate clothing while servants died in the wings unbeknownst to their masters. And next to each scene was an explanation of the artist’s “take” on it. I was fascinated and found myself wondering how the artist came up with her interpretations. Then I wondered how I would create scenes from different time periods from different perspectives, say, a nihilist’s perspective, or a child’s perspective on the French Revolution. As I gazed at more images, and wondered more about how to create my own, I felt my legs tremble with delight. I had reached a new understanding. “This is perfect!” I exclaimed, to the surprise of the museum docent. History, photography, costume design, set and scene design, research, literature — all these things were present in the work. And they could all be studied in a project modelled after this exhibition. It almost felt like cheating since the idea came to me, not when I was agonising over the state standards or feverishly writing up drafts at my desk, but rather while I was out looking at art and doing something I enjoyed. From this outing, my 35mm Revolution project was conceived. In this project, students choose a revolution to research and write about and then choose one scene to re-enact in a photographic portrait. We plan to unveil the students’ artwork at High Tech High Chula Vista’s 2009 Festival Del Sol.

After the “art aha moment” as I now refer to it, I started thinking about projects while doing all sorts of things I love to do. Checking out music at local venues, I thought about starting a local artist Rolling Stone magazine to teach writing, photojournalism, editing and advertising. Running through the city, I thought about “walking a mile” in the shoes of someone who was homeless. Hiking up in the Sierras, I thought about nature reflections, the history of natural parks and the preservation efforts in California. It seemed that every time I was doing something I truly enjoyed, a new idea for a potential project sprang into my head. Some of the project ideas had been done before, but somehow, this new revelation made them feel fresh, pristine.

Do what you love and let the project drive the curriculum. These are the mantras of my wise teaching partner, Rod Buenviaje. Rod would listen patiently as I voiced my concerns about my inability to come up with what felt like meaningful projects. At the end of each conversation, he would repeat these mantras. I would nod in agreement and stare blankly out the window. I could never fully comprehend what he meant. After viewing Antin’s exhibition, however, the mantras made sense. I was doing something I loved. I was passionate about it. I wanted the kids to see it. I wanted to teach it. It turned into a project that would guide the curriculum.

So, where do projects come from? My answer is this: they are born in the places we love to visit, the things we love to see, the tasks we love to lose ourselves in. They are the things we find exciting. They are the things we deem worthy of writing essays and graphing charts about. They come from teachers who fall in love with something and decide to share that something with their students.

To read this article online, and to see High Tech High’s full collection of project cards, visit:

https://hthunboxed.org/blog/unboxed_posts/where-do-projects-come-from/

Ditch the Green Paper ….

2nd November 2022Ali Durban

by Ali Durban, Co-Founder Gesher School.

With the constant merry-go-round of Education Ministers and no appointment of a SEND minister since Kelly Tolhurst, we have been looking at what has progressed with the Green Paper since its submission in July. The answer is not much – other than an exchange in the form of a letter to current Minister of Education MP Robert Halfon, (and former Chair of the Education Select committee) from former Minister of Education, Kit Malthouse who writes:

‘We are proposing to establish local SEND and AP partnerships. These partnerships would be responsible for delivering a local inclusion plan which sets out the provision that will be made available in line with the national standards.’

To be clear, the Children and Families Act 2014 is the national standard (as opposed to a local inclusion plan), it already sets out a legal duty on LAs to secure and maintain Special Educational Provision through an EHCP. If provision is specified and quantified properly in an EHCP and the general principles of section 19 upheld (the need for the LA to have regard for what will help the child or young person to achieve the best possible educational and other outcomes), then an inclusion plan is not necessary.

What does need to be established is a clear accountability framework. Local Authorities need to be held to account when they do not uphold the legal standard (namely the Children and Families Act). At present the only setting for this is tribunal. It can take parents years to reach tribunal level, and the journey to get there is arduous, exhausting and often quite traumatic. Shockingly, around 95% of tribunals are upheld. This stark figure reflects that one of the biggest weaknesses of the system is in fact Local Authorities not doing what they should do legally. Establishing ‘new partnerships’ to deliver what is already written in statute will without doubt add another layer of delay to families trying to achieve the appropriate provision and outcomes for their child.

Tragically the human cost in all of this is the child or young person, who is at this point often in crisis.

Kit Malthouse goes on to write ‘The local inclusion plan will inform the tailored list of settings from which parents and carers are able to choose provision where their child requires an education, health and care plan (EHCP). The expectation is that all schools on the list will be settings that can meet the child’s special educational needs as identified in their EHC needs assessments. This aims to give parents and carers clarity on what is available locally which may still include mainstream, special, independent, or out of borough provision. Our intention is that this will lead to greater transparency about what is available for children and young people in their local school and greater clarity about how it can be provided. We also aim for this to improve the choice offered to parents and carers by suggesting options they may not have otherwise considered’.

This ambiguous statement shows a deep lack of knowledge of the SEND system. It infers freedom of choice.

However, choice is something that many families of children with SEND have never had.

The tailored list that Mr Malthouse refers to already exists in the form of a local offer. This list is drawn up by the Local Authority and typically based on cost. It does not and could not list a school to meet each and every need because:

● There is a lack of provision across the UK and the quality can differ hugely between LAs. Figures obtained by the newspaper ‘Schools Week’ show that over half of special schools had more pupils on roll than the number commissioned by their council. This was a 15% rise from 2017-18. There simply isn’t enough provision in-borough or nationally to meet need.

● Much of the provision comes out of the independent sector. In order to make the local offer list, a school must agree to section 41 – reciprocal duty to co-operate with the local authority on arrangements (admissions); this means that LA’s loosely control admissions and could see a school end up with a very mixed and challenging cohort of children. For this reason, many independent schools choose not to be part of the local offer.

There is no indication of what will happen if there isn’t an appropriate school on the list. Will parent’s once again need to battle to reach a tribunal to access the provision they need, whilst, once again, (same story here…) the child is left in crisis?

There is no mention in Kit Malthouse’s letter of placing the child and their needs at the centre of decision-making. A true local inclusion plan would see a timely and thorough multi-disciplinary assessment, followed by the family and LA working together to find the right placement with the child’s needs at the centre of all decision-making.

The reality is a 2-3 year wait for a full assessment, which is often not accurate because there is a vested interest to keep ‘need’ to a minimum (if at all) in order that there is less of a requirement to procure an EHCP and LA spend. When it comes to placement, the LA’s decision-making is based on budget and very often they will write “mainstream school” or the next cheapest placement in Section I.

Kit Malthouse’s letter highlights the disparity between what the central Government thinks inclusion is, versus the reality of what children, young people and their families face.

We know the system is broken. Report after report after report has evidenced that children with SEND and their families are being consistently damaged and failed by the system. Much of it might be legally questionable. The proposed changes in the Green Paper continue to raise significant concerns as to the future of SEND provision.

What we need is a long-term plan for education, designed with those who bring their lived experience to a collaborative and inclusive process. We need to take the 7000+ responses from the Green paper review, analyse and publish the responses, as Tania Tiororro of Special Needs Jungle recommends. She also writes:

‘DELAY further plans for improvement, DITCH the Green Paper in its current form and PUBLISH a straight analysis of the consultation as soon as possible

And perhaps most importantly, we need someone bold and brave who is willing to make real change and for once, put this group of children and young people and their needs first.

Siddur Lakol – an inclusive prayer book

13th July 2022Ali Durban

By Sarah Sultman, Co-Founder Gesher School.

Chagigat Siddur is very much a right of passage in our Jewish community schools, a junior coming of age experience where children receive their first siddur or prayer book.

I can remember my own in 1984, aged eight, decorating my blue Singer’s siddur with watermelon stickers and pieces of felt. I can remember my daughters’ and the colourful shiny wrapping paper we selected together to cover their new siddur.

This ceremony has always been a part of the school year to mark the point in a child’s life when having learnt tefilot – how to pray – in the classroom, they are given their own siddur. It is a statement from the older generation of teachers and parents to the pupils that says: ‘Your prayers are yours and relevant to you, G-d is there for you for you to have a relationship with, and so now you have reached an age when it is yours to own’.

I still, to this day, have my Singer’s siddur with the watermelon.

A siddur for everyone

For many of our children at Gesher, accessing the text of the siddur is not possible. In school, we use a ‘picture exchange communication system’ with ‘widgets’ – or pictorial symbols – instead of text to help pupils understand what’s being asked of them and for them to express what they’d like to do or say.

And so last month, Gesher staff and pupils were delighted to welcome the Chief Rabbi for a very special Chagigat Siddur where we shared a new Siddur Lakol, meaning ‘Siddur for Everyone’.

The first prayer book of its kind for any faith, the Siddur Lakol is thoughtful, inclusive and designed with careful colours, easy-to-read font sizes and Hebrew transliterated into English so that anyone can follow spoken Hebrew prayer.

Importantly, and uniquely, the whole siddur has been fully translated into widgets so children can fully understand their dialogue with G-d through prayer.

Making prayers accessible to all

The Siddur Lakol comes from an unprecedented collaboration of community organisations including Gesher that want to make tefillah – prayers – accessible to all.

What is beautiful about Siddur Lakol is that it is not just aimed at those with learning difficulties but all mainstream children can use it. In conversations with the United Synagogue who commissioned this new version for their shuls – synagogues – and schools, we talked about how wonderful it would be if all young children started with this siddur. That way, as the majority grow up and no longer need it, they will have received their first education in an inclusive way that supports them to be more thoughtful children and adults.

For those with learning needs, it is the first time they will have a dedicated prayer book that they can access and engage with. And, as a friend said to me, “What about all the people who come to shul sporadically, cannot read Hebrew and have no clue what is being said?” – perhaps they too could dip into Siddur Lakol and find that a service begins to hold more meaning for them too.

Prayer provides routine and structure. It is personal, it can be meditative and reflective, it can be joyful and uplifting and it can be comforting. It would be wonderful if Siddur Lakol might inspire other faith-based communities to think about their own prayer books and resources to be more inclusive to all.

My hope is that the pupils at Gesher treasure their siddur the same way I did mine and that all of their prayers be listened to and answered.

The SEND system needs urgent investment, now more than ever

By Ali Durban13th July 2022

By Ali Durban, Co-Founder Gesher School.

The system is failing on every measure. We desperately need an education reset now more than ever.

These were the findings of the Times Education Commission from 15 June, which brought together business leaders and educators to discuss the reforms needed to create a system fit for the 21st century. The report’s conclusions reached across the education sector and, for me, resonated with my experience of the current SEND system.

One of my children is differently-able and as a family, me, my husband and all my children have experienced huge amounts of pain navigating the SEND system, which isn’t designed to support you, even though it pretends it is. It was a very difficult and all-consuming time. You are constantly fighting, and the emotion of navigating the education system is horrific. I call them my dark years.

Our journey is multiplied across thousands of schools and families.

Poorly resourced and inefficient there is a huge scarcity of high-quality provision in the UK. This means that children with SEND typically exist in – and fall through – the cracks of an education system which should be nurturing, fostering and developing them. Instead it is doing deep and sometimes irreparable damage to them.

These experiences were the catalyst for the creation of Gesher – my contribution to fixing a system which is complicated and complex and, simply put, is in crisis.

Over the last couple of years I have received countless calls from desperate parents of children with SEND, who have somehow managed to get my phone number. Each call is a different story full of immense pain. A child aged six on antidepressants and self-harming, a mother counting the days since the last day her child tried to take their life – 111 days today. A child who can’t leave their bedroom because of crippling anxiety and OCD. Another child being home-schooled because of a deep rooted school trauma. The calls never stop coming.

‘Deeply concerning’ proposals

When the Government finally released a long-awaited Green Paper on SEND with the promise of ‘access to an equal and excellent education, for each and every child and young person with SEND’, there was a sense of hope for system transformation and the possibility of something better for thousands of invisible children and young people.
However the wording in the Green Paper is ambiguous and highly misleading. Language such as national standards, mediation and accountability conjure up images of a robust system with a framework designed to place the child and their needs at the centre of the system.

There are a number of deeply concerning proposals in the paper which, if legislated, would overhaul the 2014 Children and Families Act. It will affect the rights and entitlements of children and young people to access special educational provision and make it even more difficult for parents and carers to have their children’s needs identified and access to specialist provision being specified and quantified. This is to reduce cost and spend rather than meeting the needs and removing barriers to learning for some of the most vulnerable children in our society. The outcomes in life of children with SEND are significantly poorer than those of their peers. And when picked up later in life the loss of earnings and cost of care to the system is £32billion annually. More than cancer, strokes and heart disease combined. And this is just for Autism alone.

The SEND system needs urgent investment now more than ever.

The £70million promise from the government that sits alongside the green paper is highly misleading. It is to implement the proposed system changes and not for frontline services. To put it into perspective it is one-eighth of the funding provided to implement the 2014 SEND reforms. Enquiry after enquiry has found that these reforms failed because they were poorly implemented due to a lack of funding.

Shaping the SEND provision we want and need

We have long-awaited the chance to shape the SEND provision we want and need, and rather than rewriting legislation, we need to focus on the unmet needs of thousands of children and young people:

Some of my key recommendations would be:

No additional mediation process as part of the EHCP process.
An independent panel that holds Local Authorities to account.
A formal review of EHCP time-scales.
No national list of schools, but instead a continued and expanded local offer that is not based on cost or an agreement to Section 41. But quality and successful outcomes for Children and Young People.
An amendment of legislation to the Children and Families Act so that SEND support is mandatory.
An accountability framework that sits alongside, and supports, the 2014 Children and Families Act.
A national standard for statutory assessments.
Greater allocation of funding for frontline services.

We should not be mediating on the rights of children and young people.

According to Children and Families Minister MP Will Quince there have only been several hundred responses to the Green Paper to date.

The consultation is open until 22 July.

If you need to check your thinking to respond Special Needs Jungle have prepared some resources and answers.

Please be bold and amplify your voice on behalf of the unmet needs of those who often remain invisible and marginalised by the system.

SEND Green Paper Round Table

9th July 2022Ali Durban

The SEND Green Paper was commissioned in November 2019 and stemmed from the SEND review, which examined why the legislation in the Children and Families Act in the 2014 hasn’t worked as it was intended it to.

There was not enough funding in the system to deliver what was set out and as a result too many children and young people are not receiving the support they should.

Problems with the SEND Green paper

Rather than prioritising the unmet needs of thousands of children and young people, the Green Paper is trying to reduce cost and the number of tribunals by making it even harder to for families and carers to access support.

The priorities in the Green Paper are completely wrong and there seems to be a real disconnect between the proposal in the paper versus the realities of a hugely challenging and complex system that families and carers face trying to access support and provision for their child.

Why we recorded a round table

We need as many people as possible to be aware of the proposed changes and respond. We held a round table to discuss the issues, and we hope you will find it useful when formulating your own responses.

We’ve divided the recording up by topic: introduction to the green paper, national standards, the ‘list of schools’, mandatory mediation, accountability and how to respond.

Taking part were

Adam Friel – Partner and Head of Education Geldards Law
Salise Dourmash – Senior Asscociate, Geldards Law
Dr Carrie Grant, MBE, Broadcaster, Vocal and Leadership Coach and Campaigner
Ali Durban, Co-Founder Gesher School
Charlotte Hadfield, Barrister, Head of Education, 3PB

Introduction

Who we are and why the green paper has come out.

National Standards

The proposal to create a standard that everyone needs to fit into to access support and provision.

List of Schools

The government wants to try have list of select schools that parents will be forced to choose from for their child.

Mandatory Mediation

The proposal for a legal requirement to go through mediation when trying to secure an EHCP.

Accountability

Local authorities often behave unlawfully – who will hold them to account in these new proposals?

How to respond

The language in the questionnaire is intimidating and inaccessible – our thoughts on how best to respond.

The Value of Getting it Right for Each Child: A View From Parents

7th April 2022Duncan Robertson

The Value of Getting it Right for Each Child: A View From Parents

ʻThe Bridgeʼ is an adult learning journal for and by educators – which includes community members with an interest in young peopleʼs learning. This first issue would not be appropriately balanced if it didnʼt include the voice and reflections of parents. In fact, we intend that every issue of ʻThe Bridgeʼ will include articles by parents and community members who have experiences to share.

What it feels like when a school doesn’t understand your child

Our daughter was previously in a local mainstream school with 1:1 support. She would regularly be separated from the other children in her class in order to receive various therapies and in order to carry out her learning.

We knew she wasnʼt happy because we had frequent reports of her pulling her learning assistantʼs and other teaching staffʼs hair. She started stimming (self-stimulating behaviour) at this time by waving her arms around; this was evidently her way of coping within the experience of boredom and isolation and yet it marked her out as different, leading to yet more of a sense of alienation both on her part (and mine).

Our daughterʼs difficulties in all areas such as speaking, attention, large motor movements, were making it difficult for her to join in classroom activities. It was clear that she was suffering from anxiety. She was being and would be increasingly failed by the mainstream education system and I could see things would only get worse if we didnʼt find another school for her.

The staff within her school were clearly overwhelmed and they didnʼt really know how to support us or how to deal with us.

This was obvious from our meetings with them. They didnʼt know how to help our daughterʼs learning, nor did they know how to help manage her behaviour and it was evident that we represented a burden or a problem for them.

I didnʼt have much of a connection or common point of contact with other parents owing to our experience being so different.

Our daughter lacked confidence when she was in peer group situations and she would often shrink back and stick to the adults in the room. I recall birthday parties and park playgrounds being particularly tense times for both of us.

How did you know when you had found the right school?

You can tell when a school knows what it is doing. When we found Gesher, the corridors were calm and distraction free and there was an atmosphere of peace and contentment and also a positive can-do attitude amongst the staff.

It was clear to us that this was going to be the best place for our daughter, not least because her severe speech dyspraxia was making any kind of integration into mainstream schooling increasingly complicated.

We knew that people would take the time to listen to her and to try to understand what she was saying, that she would be encouraged to communicate. She would be able to join in group activities without being separated. Immediately, we felt that Gesher would see us, not as a problem or hindrance, but rather as an opportunity.

What it means to belong

When children are encouraged to feel a sense of belonging to their school, not just to their class, that is really important. A whole school focus on inclusion, support and nurturing of children means that children are encouraged to learn good values and the importance of taking responsibility for themselves and for others. This is crucial.

I really appreciate here that therapy is integrated, meaning no child is singled out or isolated, while at the same time each student has their own learning plan. Each child is included and also cared for.

When your child (and you) are truly seen and valued

Our daughter has flourished, blossomed even, into a confident young girl who has a strong sense of who she is. She is no longer scared to try new things. Her ability to focus and to give her attention to a task has grown too. Her speaking is improving day by day. She is so happy to be part of a wider community. She wakes up each day with a sense of purpose and curiosity which is exactly how we should all be in life.

As parents we no longer feel alone in the experience of having a special needs child. When we go through a difficult time, or we have a specific issue, or we need some practical help, we know that we have other parents and teachers to whom we can reach out. That has made a phenomenal difference to our lives. We have started to feel a sense of optimism about our future as a family.

Assessing What Really Matters – Ron Berger

5th April 2022Duncan Robertson

Assessing What Really Matters

A conversation with Ron Berger

In March 2022 some staff and friends of Gesher School met with Ron Berger, Chief Academic Officer at Expeditionary Learning. Ron is the author of 11 of the most valued books about educational leadership, learning and relationships in schools. We talked about what really matters when assessing young people, especially those who are ʻdifferently ableʼ, and what good assessment can mean for supporting happy, fulfilled and kind future generations.

Why aren’t traditional forms of assessment right for children?

Ron Berger

The first thing I would say is that the most important assessment that’s happening in a school is never high stakes tests, or even interim tests, or even weekly tests. The most important assessment that’s happening in a school is what’s going on all day long, every day inside the heads of kids, because every kid in every school is assessing, all day long, how much she understands, how well she’s behaving, how much she wants to try, how good she feels about her identity – her academic identity and her personal identity. When she’s about to hand something in, she thinks, ʻIs it good enough?ʼ She’s in class and she thinks, ʻShould I raise my hand? Do I understand this stuff fully?ʼ When she looks at her personal relationships, she’s always assessing ʻAm I a good enough person?ʼ That kind of assessment is constant. It’s constant in all of us.

And that’s the kind of assessment that matters the most. Of  course, we need to check in on kids’ skill levels sometimes,  just like every year we should go in for a physical and make  sure our body is working and that our vital signs are okay.  And, if there’s something wrong in our annual physical,  that’s something we need to attend to. But an annual  physical tells us nothing about how to live a good daily life,  right? It doesn’t give us feedback. We need to be our best  selves academically and personally and physically. And it’s  the lifestyle choices we’re making all day long about what we eat and how we eat and how much we sleep and how  much we exercise and what our relationships are like with  others that define whether we have a healthy lifestyle or  not. And we are assessing that all day long.

We need to remember our kids are also doing that all day  long in school. And so we need to build systems of  assessment that encourage them to be their best academic  selves and to be their best personal selves all day long,  where they’re getting clear feedback from each other and  from themselves about ʻHow am I doing? Do I understand  this well enough? Can I show more academic courage? Can  I take more academic risks? Can I put more effort into this?  Can I take the risk of showing what I don’t understand? Can  I step up for other people? Can I be a better person?ʼ

So, of course, we still need to have those interim  assessments and quarterly assessments and annual  assessments, just like we need to go to the doctors’  sometimes, but assessments that give us ways to monitor our  own academic and personal health all day long are the  assessments that will really make us better students and  better people.

Gesher and Standardised Forms of Testing

Rowan Eggar, Assistant Head Teacher, in charge of assessment

One of the things that we are really struggling to navigate is the way our UK education system is built around the notion of standardized testing – which can be quite fixating.

We find that parents, especially those whose children have additional needs, use milestones like GCSE grades as a marker to show their child has made relevant progress, which is entirely understandable. But one of the things that we are trying to do at the moment at Gesher is to also support our parents and children to focus on life skills and the journey it takes to become fully fledged humans in society. You canʼt determine this from standard grades and scores.

We are looking at things like personal and emotional health, self-care, wellbeing, things that maybe our children struggle with more, and starting to build in assessment approaches that encourage them to check in with themselves, very similar to some of the questions that you mentioned, Ron. Lots of our students don’t yet have the toolkit to ask themselves those questions. So this type of assessment needs to be taught in a more obvious way than you might in a mainstream setting.

Loni and I are currently working with a few colleagues on an assessment tool that breaks down the national curriculum into small steps for whole-person assessment. One of the elements of this is around life-skills. Our SENDCO and Assistant have developed a ʻlife-skillsʼ programme, where our children get different badges, bronze up to platinum, depending on the life-skills they are building.

Whatʼs a bit more of a struggle is thinking about assessment for personal traits and character traits. Often our childrenʼs academic progress doesn’t really reflect who they are as people and how much they’ve grown. So, let’s say they’ve grown in confidence to be able to communicate, academic progress might not show that. Weʼre developing a tool that is about personality and character, but thatʼs a work in progress!

What advice would you give to a school embedded in the current assessment culture that wants to move to a new paradigm of thinking about assessment, one that focuses on the wholeness of the strengths and skills of children?

Ron Berger

That’s a great question, because we are all under the same pressures.
I find it really interesting to hear what Rowan is saying about being a school
that’s working with differently abled kids, but there is still the same kind of
intense pressure around labelling and ranking that every other school
experiences.

It’s pernicious and harmful for all kids, but it’s particularly harmful for kids
who always get ranked in a way that doesn’t make them feel positive, and
that doesnʼt focus on their personal identity as a student and as a person.
Imagine if, as adults, we got ranked every day in our life, and we were
always at the bottom of the rankings. What would that do to our spirit in our
work, in our lives as, as people?

I think anything that our schools, and particularly a school like Gesher that’s
working with differently abled kids, can do to keep ranking out of that
conversation is important, because being ranked low on any scale hurts
your spirit. It makes you lose your heart for investing and taking risks.

Kids are also aware of the way the world sees them and the kind of rankings
of the world. So being a school that lets kids know that those types of
rankings arenʼt their priority is really important. Schools should prioritise
and share work that focuses on what kids are learning, through portfolios,
projects, presentations – assessment approaches that celebrate different
types and styles of learning, building on the strengths and positives about
each childʼs learning.

But itʼs important that that type of assessment also shows kids where they
need to work on their challenges and the steps that they need to take next.
I think it’s fine for kids to be able to be honest about the things they struggle
with, whether those are personal things, executive functions, physical or
emotional wellbeing, as well as academic levels.

Ron shares a story here, which can be watched via the QR code at the end of the article, or link.

Ali Durban, Co-founder of Gesher School

I love that. I think as Rowan said, one of our biggest challenges is working in a system that both feels familiar and safe and also gives parents some kind of validation that their child is going to be okay in the world emotionally. Itʼs hard because our children havenʼt become adults yet, so we canʼt yet show that this way of learning and assessment is going to let them shine. Going on a journey like this is ultimately about trust.

Loni Berqvist, Project Based Learning Coach at Gesher School

We have a tendency to try to assess everything that we put value on. Is there a risk that we start to try to assess childrenʼs passions and the impact theyʼre having as humans, say, by creating portfolios that demonstrate the impact they are having on the world, which could kill the passion? How do we move to a place where weʼre comfortable with not having to assess things and demonstrate outcomes in the ʻnormalʼ way?

Ron Berger

I love, Loni, where you went at the end of your question, “assess it in that traditional way”, because I actually think it’s fine to assess everything. If it’s a reflective and formative assessment, if it’s an assessment to help us learn and understand, and it’s not a ranking, judging, summative assessment, then I don’t think it’s bad.

I feel like kids and adults assess everything we do, right? If we watch a TV show, we assess it afterwards, we discuss, what did you like? If you put on a new outfit, you’re going to assess, do I look good in this?

You’re always assessing and making that assessment explicit and reflective and thoughtful and safe is fine. I don’t really worry about us assessing many things. It’s the way we assess them that matters.

But assessment in the traditional sense – where we need a summative number next to this, we need a letter next to it, we need a ranking next to it – is where we kill the spirit of assessment.

So, going to a silly metaphor, if you see a movie, it doesn’t diminish the movie to say, “Wow, that was amazing, where did it work for you? Where did it move you?” But what kills that passion and fun is asking, “Okay, of all the movies you’ve seen in the last three years, where does this one rank? And do you give it an 82 or do you give it a 65.”

That kind of assessment, where it has to be summatively labelled and viewed in a reductionist way, so that it could be ranked along with a set of other movies, stops it being fun to even talk about it. But assessing it qualitatively through reflecting in a safe way is something that we can do with all kidsʼ work and all kidsʼ stuff. They are always doing it anyway. It’s just making it more explicit: ”Let’s have a conversation. How are you doing with this?” Whether it’s a life skill, whether it’s emotional growth, whether it’s physical capabilities, or whether it’s academic doesn’t matter, kids can assess “I’m doing better at this, or I’m not doing better. Why?” That’s very different from saying, “We’re going to rank you. We’re going to give you this label”. That’s scary and threatening but assessing how you’re doing doesnʼt have to be.

Gesher is underpinned by Jewish principles. What does having that foundation bring when assessing children as whole people?

Ron Berger

Well, in particular order for Gesher, there are three reasons why assessment that lifts the whole child and helps the whole child to feel like she’s growing into the kind of person and scholar that she wants to be are important.

The first of those is that it is a school particularly for differently abled students, which means they go through all of their life getting negative messages, telling them that they are not ranking as other people would. There are so many ways in which life is giving them the message that they are not good enough, whether it’s about their social skills, emotional skills, physical skills, academic skills. There’s a tremendous reason for Gesher to use an approach that gives kids power and pride in getting better at what they are rather than feeling diminished about who they are.

So having an asset-based vision of assessment at Gesher for that reason is extraordinarily important. Itʼs important in every school, but particularly important in a school that needs to lift kids who people have seen with a deficit lens, for so much of their life.

And the second reason it’s an important thing for Gesher, is that as a faith-based school, everyone who chooses to send their child to Gesher knows that there is more to life than academics. There is the human character of who you are as a human being. You choose to send your child to a faith-based school because your faith, your culture is something that matters to you, because you want your kids to embrace values that you care about. And those values mean being a good person. And so if the assessment systems diminish the kind of human beings we’re trying to create, they’re not good for us.

We need assessment systems that help our kids become more of the kind of people we want them to be. And so kids should be self-assessing and should be getting assessed for beyond their academics. It should be a holistic assessment system because kids should be proud to say, “This is the strength I have in this, and this is where I need to grow in my character.”

They should be able to say, “I’m focused on improving my courage, my passion, my respect, my responsibility, my kindness, my initiative, my integrity.” Kids should be assessing themselves and thinking about, “How do we become better human beings?”.

Itʼs scary for schools that are not faith based to say that because how do they choose which values theyʼre supporting? Will parents get upset, as they may not feel the values of the school are their values. For me, that’s a ridiculous cop-out and it’s just not real. I think almost all of us as human beings share values. What parent does not want their child to be respectful and responsible and courageous and kind and have integrity and honesty? No faith, no difference, no political party, no background makes you disinclined to want your kids to be a good person in those ways.

A third reason is that schools have no choice but to teach character. Schools are already teaching character all day long because the way kids experience school makes them more respectful or more responsible or more compassionate or less. So the experience of schooling shapes who kids are, and we’re doing it intentionally and well or haphazardly and poorly. In summary, a faith-based school has the opportunity to lean into these things and say, we’re going to do it intentionally and do it well because we want good human beings coming out of this school. And we’re not worried about talking about values because that’s partly why people choose to attend our school. So, for all those reasons, I think having an assessment system that elevates the whole person for every child is a perfect fit for Gesher.

Ron is responsible for leading EL Educationʼs vision for teaching and learning, bringing with him over 45 years of experience in education, 28 of those as a public school teacher.

Ron has authored 8 books on education: A Culture of Quality, An Ethic of Excellence, Leaders of Their Own Learning, Leaders of Their Own Learning Companion, Learning that Lasts, Transformational Literacy, Management in the Active Classroom, and We Are Crew: A Teamwork Approach to School Culture. He is a sought-after keynote speaker nationally and internationally, focusing on quality, craftsmanship, service, and character.

Ron works closely with the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he did his graduate work and taught the course Models of Excellence, focused on using student work to improve teaching and learning. He founded the Models of Excellence EL website, which houses the worldʼs largest curated collection of high quality student work.

Professional Prompt Questions

What purpose do your current forms of assessment serve for children as future citizens?

How would you assess the life-skills that children are learning under your care?

What values would you assess children for?

Who would you need to convince to move away front he current assessment paradigm? Yourself? Parents? Colleagues?

How could the above align with standard forms of assessment, such as GCSE results or OFSTED grades?

Ron Berger – Additional Content from Gesher School on Vimeo.