Category

Rethinking Education

Student-led Conferences at XP School Doncaster

17th July 2025Website Admin

Student-led Conferences at XP School Doncaster

Andy Sprakes

This article is about what happens when learners are given space and support to share their learning journey with their family and their teachers. Student-Led Conferences privilege learner voice and agency and are an inspiring alternative to traditional parents’ evenings.

‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever.’ John Keats

It is ten years since we opened XP School in Doncaster and currently, I’m writing a book that collates some of the highlights of our first decade.

The book is already filled with student work such as field guides, published books, student-scripted films, videos, beautiful artwork and music. At the heart of this work lies student growth and character: every time a student creates work that matters, when it is drafted and redrafted to ensure high quality, when the work connects with the world and has agency, there is something enduring about the impact.

Young people and the world around them are never quite the same after they are published authors, artists who have displayed their work in a public gallery, or poets who have ‘slammed’ in the local Arts Centre.

Young people are never quite the same after hearing and representing the stories of asylum seekers, organising climate conferences, and writing scientific reports that directly tackle the issue of flooding in their district.

This is work that makes a difference to the student who becomes an agent for positive social change and the wider community that benefits from this service.

When you empower young people to do good for the world, they rarely disappoint.

One of the areas that I haven’t written about yet, and I suppose this is a good place to start to gather my thoughts, is how by having high expectations for our young people we empower them still further.

For example, at XP, we do not run conventional parent consultation evenings, where parents arrive, meet a teacher, and are given information about their son or daughter that is determined by the adult. We wanted our kids to lead their own learning, so we introduced Student-Led Conferences, taking the simple but highly effective idea from Expeditionary Learning Schools.

What do Student-Led Conferences look like?

At least once a year across our schools, primary and secondary, students lead a conference expressly for their families and teachers. In these conferences, each student shares their portfolio of work and discusses their progress in terms of their academic learning targets, their developing Habits of Work and Learning (HoWLs) and the products they have created.

Students facilitate their conferences from start to finish.

Student-Led Conferences put students in charge of sharing information about their progress with their families. Students learn to advocate for themselves; they reflect upon and provide evidence for their progress; they are able to be explicit about the support they request going forward from teachers and parents. The structure builds students’ sense of responsibility and accountability for their own learning, as well as intentionally developing their leadership skills and confidence.

Student-Led Conferences also greatly enhance family engagement with learning that takes place at school. The conference structure builds family members’ interest and understanding in what has been happening in school and strengthens relationships between students, family members and staff.

The impact of Student-Led Conferences is profound. To watch and listen to students articulate their learning, their mastery of specific learning targets and places they have struggled, and their sense of who they are through the work they are producing is both humbling and uplifting.

It is a ritual and rite that is transformative, full of joy and beautiful–and as Keats said, the memory lasts forever.

Andy Sprakes is the Principal and Co-Founder of XP School in Doncaster.

Professional Prompts

1. As a parent of a school age child (or imagine that you are) how might you respond to attending a Student-Led Conference at consultation evening? What might you like and not like?

2. In discussion with one or more colleagues, list the points you can think of in favour of Student-Led Conferences and those against. Which side wins?

3. In the Resources for Teachers section of this edition there is a protocol or guide designed to support teachers with Student-Led Conferences. It has been contributed by Randy Scherer from High Tech High in San Diego. Discuss this with other teachers and see if you can find a place to try it out in your school.

A Fireside Chat with Pani Matsangos: Headteacher, Westside AP School, London

17th July 2025Website Admin

A Fireside Chat with Pani Matsangos: Headteacher, Westside AP School, London

This conversation with Pani was held with Zahra Axinn and David Jackson of The Bridge Editorial Team. Only Pani’s responses are attributed.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Thanks for joining us, Pani. Ali Durban from Gesher visited Westside recently and was impressed, which led to this follow-up for The Bridge.

Pani: I know The Bridge; it’s a lovely publication.

Let’s start by hearing about Westside School.

Pani: Westside is an Alternative Provision (AP) school for secondary-aged children who have been excluded or are struggling in mainstream settings due to social, emotional and mental health challenges. We offer a tailored education for up to 70 students, currently at 55, delivering Key Stage 3 curriculum and GCSEs for Years 10 and 11.

Number one on our list really is engagement: first wanting to be in school, and slowly scaffolding the support that they need in order to get to remain in lessons, to engage in lessons, and to partake in a full school life, which also involves a lot of sport, art and culture at the same time, and broadening the notion of success beyond the academic. That’s really important to the children we work with. There has to be opportunity to win as often as possible, in as broad as possible a sense.

And the last thing I’ll say is about identity. The children who join us haven’t identified as students that can succeed at school, and we really need to flip that and to transform their sense of self. In this way we have tangible impact on the way in which they work and the way in which they engage with staff and achieve some sort of success.

Sounds like a unique approach. Gesher focuses on learner engagement too. How do you achieve that while teaching a GCSE curriculum?

Pani: The hook is about adaptive teaching techniques to keep students engaged. For example, we integrate game design into lessons, like weekly revision sessions for Year 11. They work in teams, moving through stations that test their knowledge. Collaborative learning is a core focus, especially with students’ social and emotional development. Additionally, we have Progress Leaders (PLs) who support students by understanding their individual needs and tailoring learning strategies accordingly.

Tell us more about the role of Progress Leaders.

Pani: They focus on enabling each child to become as self-sufficient in their learning as possible. It’s a coaching model. PLs act as coaches, guiding students toward autonomy in their learning. They are assigned to specific classes and work with each student throughout the day, building up data on their progress. This model moves away from the traditional teaching assistant role, instead fostering independence through continuous support and observation.

How do Progress Leaders assess where each student is on the journey to autonomy?

Pani: They gather and record data from daily observations, looking for patterns in behaviour and learning which can inform next steps. This helps them identify when a child is dysregulated and making impulsive decisions or choosing unwisely. We use this information to tailor support and determine the next steps for each student.

Is the teaching just subject-specific, or do you incorporate integrated learning? Do teachers collaborate in planning?

Pani: We do both. For Year 11, we’ve integrated collaborative planning across subjects, like English, Maths, and Science, to engage students in cross-curricular activities. For younger students, particularly Years 8 and 9, we focus on personal development lessons that address their social and emotional needs. We also have a strong culture of collaboration among teachers and PLs to meet each child’s needs.

You’ve mentioned building trust-based relationships with students. How does that shape your school culture?

Pani: Trust is fundamental. We understand that disruptive behaviour often stems from unmet emotional needs, so staff work to build empathy with students. This strengthens relationships and creates a supportive environment. We believe in a long-term approach–lessons are just one part of helping students grow and develop.

Could you elaborate on your definition of inclusion?

Our definition of inclusion underpins everything. We look at inclusion in a three-tiered way.

I. The first is inclusion within the school – making sure that each child is able to feel included in the school, via adaptive teaching, strong relationships, and having a broad notion of success outside the academic and strong parental relationships, so that they realise that school is for them.

II. The second is functional inclusion outside school – how they communicate with people, how they have the confidence to try things out, how they regulate themselves in tricky situations. It might be going to a museum. It might be going to a sporting activity outside school. We explore what inclusion means outside Westside School.

III. Finally, we’re working hard on the third, longer-term inclusion beyond Westside. This is inclusion in an impact sense. Are they able to use their voice to articulate their needs, and to effect some sort of positive change, beyond 16 and beyond Westside.

Your personal story seems to connect with the work you do. What led you to alternative provision?

Pani: Professionally, I saw mainstream education failing to address the needs of marginalised students. I wanted to better understand those children. We know that the numbers are huge, almost 10,000 exclusions last year.

On a personal level, I have a sibling who was a child who struggled tremendously at school, and eventually, a few years ago, that became a really difficult circumstance. He became a rough sleeper, and he had significant mental health issues. When he passed away, I started to think. Regarding his autism, from a young age he didn’t have the support that he needed, and you can see how things compound negatively. Needs are not met over the years. With the right interventions early on, I think there’s a great deal that can be done to support young people who think differently or have had adverse child experiences. I think you can unlock a lot of positivity and a lot of potential just by thinking differently about the way in which we work. And so that was important for me to join AP and to work in a way in which we’re working now at Westside.

Thanks for sharing, Pani. Do we need more quality AP provision or for mainstream schools to better meet the needs of all children?

Pani: We need both. Some students thrive in smaller settings, which allow for more tailored support. While mainstream schools can’t always offer that level of attention, they could benefit from adopting the inclusive strategies we use in APs, especially around data-driven decision-making to better understanding the underlying factors inhibiting a young person’s social and emotional growth and development. This is of course a lifelong journey and applies to us as adults.

Our journal, The Bridge, was established as a way of seeking to share the practices evolving at Gesher and other interesting schools – like yours. Is Westside an island of excellence or is there also a mission to influence others?

Pani: I think there’s definitely a mission – hence this interview. There’s a national need to rethink how we approach education for students who don’t fit the traditional model. It’s just a really tragic story ultimately that we have this sort of pipeline to prison scenario. The accountability measures of mainstream schools often fail to meet the needs of these children, leading to exclusion.

And there’s also the issue of low expectations. We talk a lot about expectations in schools and there is this idea that children should be sitting behind a desk compliant and quiet and working really hard. And, for me, that’s also low expectations in some ways, because high expectations should be about developing independence, developing, understanding of self and working with others and, and wanting to be curious about things and not having that sort of drummed out of you.

What is your success rate, and how do you measure success?

Pani: Of course, we’re not universally successful. It’s a dynamic process. Success isn’t guaranteed, and the challenges evolve. But we remain adaptive, constantly evaluating each student’s journey. We focus on success in school as the first step—if a student can engage in learning and feel included, that’s a meaningful measure of success.

Are there any final thoughts you’d like to share?

Pani: Absolutely, yes. The core purpose of education should be about fostering curiosity, independence, and emotional intelligence. We need to shift the conversation about what education is for, and stop focusing as much on compliance and linear models for learning, accepting that learning is a complex and messy endeavour! Each person in school, or connected to the school, whether it’s someone in our HR team or the canteen, or a visiting speaker or external mentor is someone that could make a difference to that young person’s life. That’s something that we’re trying to create here, because why not? We ALL have a part to play in raising our children.

Thank you very much indeed, Pani.

Pani Matsangos is the Headteacher at Westside School, an Ofsted Outstanding Alternative Provision (AP) school serving pupils across London. With almost 20 years of experience in mainstream education, he is deeply committed to supporting children with special educational needs, mental health challenges, and difficult home circumstances. Drawing from both formal training and personal experience–having managed his own SEN and a complex upbringing–Pani champions inclusive education. He ensures pupils access a high-quality traditional curriculum enriched by arts, sports, and culture, broadening the definition of success so every student can thrive, both academically and through diverse, life-enriching opportunities.

David Price OBE: A Legacy for Young Lives

16th July 2025Website Admin

David Price OBE: A Legacy for Young Lives

Valerie Hannon

Paying tribute to an inspirational leader.

There are some features of learning that are a part of Gesher School’s DNA.

One is the way in which learning happens and is assessed–in and out of the classroom, within and beyond the school and connected to real-world activities, projects and themes. A second is an emphasis on wellbeing, therapeutic support, independent skills development, and self-advocacy.

Learning at Gesher builds from the strengths and passions of young people, enhances self-esteem and efficacy, equips them to relate well to others and provides the purpose and ambition for fulfilment and success in life.

There are many strands of thinking and practice that have led to this end, but an important one is the work of David Price OBE, who died in May. David was a highly unusual individual, in terms of the breadth of his interest and influence; and the unconventional route he took to achieving them.

David left school early and made a living playing the pubs and clubs of the Northeast where he was born. A natural and gifted musician, he was largely (though not wholly) self-taught. When a contract with a music company got cancelled (by Sharon Osborne!!) he decided to give formal education a go; so he took a degree and began teaching in community arts settings.

David understood deeply the barriers that many people encounter to becoming successful learners, and he set out to overcome them. This began with a seminal innovation programme for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Musical Futures, which leveraged the power of making music in groups and of young people’s love of popular music. The pedagogy he developed (driven by interest and passion, pulling on learners’ strengths) led to many young people moving towards formal music training and qualification. But above and beyond this outcome, it resulted in joyful learning and empowerment. Musical Futures lives on, in this country and many parts of the world.

At the Innovation Unit of that period, we were seeking a platform and framework for working with schools on a new model of engaging pedagogy. David helped us morph Musical Futures into Learning Futures which took some of the insights and ideas it had developed (together with those of several other thinkers and practitioners) and applied them to the way we design learning in all classrooms. A major focus was on how to make learning deeply engaging. Hundreds of schools were involved across England, and their work lives on in strands and tributaries that will never be traced.

From these beginnings, substantial work was done on codifying what good project-based learning looked like – David was the author of a series of publications and resources on this entitled REAL projects. He also authored books on related themes: OPEN – How we’ll work, live and learn in the future, and The Power of Us developed his ideas and illustrated how they were working in practice in many different settings. In systems around the world where the conditions were more conducive to a project-based learning approach, David was much in demand. His great sorrow was that it was so tough for teachers to embrace the approach in the English context.

Nevertheless, enterprising teachers, leaders and entrepreneurs saw possibilities – the “gaps in the hedge” as Tim Brighouse used to call them. Thus the School Design Lab was born as a way of translating high-level principles into workable strategies that could be realised in English education. Out of this came the principles set out at the top of this article: the Gesher DNA.

As I reflect on David’s life, I think of the many children and young people, and indeed teachers, who will unknowingly have benefitted from the work that David Price did. It is a joy that schools like Gesher demonstrate that an approach that puts children at the centre – whatever their assumed capabilities and backgrounds – can flourish, and be a bridge to a different future.

Valerie Hannon is a global thought leader, inspiring systems to re-think what ‘success’ will mean in the C 21st, and the implications for education. The co-founder of both Innovation Unit and of the Global Education Leaders Partnership, Valerie is a radical voice for change, whilst grounded in a deep understanding of how education systems currently work.

Formerly a secondary teacher, researcher and Director of Education for Derbyshire County Council; then an adviser in the UK Department for Education (DfE), she now works independently to support change programmes across the world.

What If…A National ‘Open School’ Became a Reality for Every Young Learner?

16th July 2025Website Admin

What If…A National ‘Open School’ Became a Reality for Every Young Learner?

Dr Fiona Aubrey-Smith

This article is a little different. Its focus is not on changes to existing school practices. It is about establishing a very different model of learning which, international evidence shows, can be much more accessible for some groups of learners who find the learning conventions of school difficult.

This might include many of those currently long-term absent; or some SEND students with needs not well met in mainstream; or those with physical difficulties, or anxiety challenges. Put simply, the Open University transformed learning for literally thousands of learners whose personal and/or learning needs were better met by its approaches and flexibilities.

Highly successful Open Schools exist around the world, working in harmony with and adding value to the mainstream system. On the theme of Reimagining School, here is food for thought.

The article sets out a vision for The Open School highlighting how, as with The Open University, its establishment could address many of the challenges and opportunities that exist in education by adding possibilities and value for all learners, without disrupting or competing with existing schools.

What if…

We can do so much better for our young people, can’t we? As Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said recently, education needs to be reformed so that “children have more control of their future”. Although actually, shouldn’t we go one step further and give children more control of what they do today, not just a future that sits on an unspecified horizon?

What if…

What if… every young person – whatever their background or location – had access to vocational, recreational, creative, competitive and aspirational learning?

What if… we removed that arbitrary separation between curriculum and extra-curricular?

What if… we intelligently used contemporary technologies to make learning more personalised, more accessible, more connected, and more relevant to the world that young people actually live in?

If as adults, we embrace the benefits of on-demand, personalised, anywhere/anytime tools that help us with our tasks and priorities, why would we prevent young people from safely utilising those same tools?

What if… young people’s aspirations (not just our targets for them), were mapped to opportunities, coached, and nurtured through properly joined-up provision?

What if… the curriculum and qualification pathways available to young people could break free from the shackles of location, of teacher capacity, of time and local socioeconomics?

If a child attends a small school or a school that is not yet thriving, why would we accept that their subject and qualification options will be much narrower than a child in a neighbouring school?

What if… the career pathways for our teaching workforce were not constrained by the structures of time, place and imagination?

If we have an inspirational physics teacher in one school and a vacancy in another, why would we accept the inequality that creates for the children involved rather than use technology to connect the two together?

You know the saying that “it takes a village to educate a child”? Well, what if… we removed some of the unnecessary barriers and empowered young people to access the wide range of support networks that already exist – within, and beyond their physical or ‘home’ school.

A Clear Vision to Meet This Ambition

In their 2020 article in The Guardian, Tim Brighouse and Bob Moon spoke about the life-changing impact The Open University has had for adults – democratising access to learning through structured anytime/anywhere provision, and meaningful student/tutor relationships.

However, when the idea of The Open University was originally proposed, it wasn’t welcomed by people whose identities were tied to traditional models. It took time, but The Open University has since helped to revolutionise the very idea of what ‘going to university’ can mean.

So imagine what impact an Open School could have for children and young people who struggle with traditional school, or cannot attend for a range of reasons, or for those who are eager to study something not offered by their home school.

What might an Open School be like?

An Open School would have learners of all ages at its core but would be especially targeted towards school-age children. It could function both online and in person through a regionally coordinated structure. Materials would be available 24/7.

Learners would belong to a cohort with a teacher/mentor, but also join wider large-scale learning sessions exploring big ideas and interest-led discussion groups with pupils from elsewhere.

The Open School would not replace but would complement existing schools. It would have a parallel, interlinked school programme meaning school-based learners could draw on components, but The Open School offer would also be more extensive and varied, providing learning opportunities not widely available in mainstream schools.

It would draw in businesses, community and cultural organisations, providing a blend of learning experiences and building programmes around learners’ personal interests, aptitudes, passions and ambitions, supported by teachers who will point youngsters that they know well in the right directions for their individual learning programme.

Adapted from Tim Brighouse and Mick Waters (2022) About Our Schools: Improving on Previous Best Crown House Publishing.

From Vision to Reality

Over the last few years, a growing group of influential education leaders have been working hard in the background to make The Open School aspiration into a reality. Voices across the sector have fed into discussions and design thinking which has touched upon funding and operational models, governance and accountability, partnerships and communications. We are incredibly excited that seven regional pathfinder projects are about to be launched, which will build further momentum for this work.

Together, we can make this happen.

Together, we can give back control to the young people whose lives we are all ultimately here to serve.

Named in 2024 as one of the Top 5 Visionary Women in Education, Dr Fiona Aubrey-Smith is an award-winning teacher, leader and academic with a passion for supporting those who work with children and young people. As Founder of PedTech and Director of One Life Learning, Fiona works closely with schools and trusts, professional learning providers and EdTech companies. She is also an Associate Lecturer, PhD supervisor and Consultant Researcher at a number of universities, and sits on the board of a number of multi-academy and charitable trusts.

Professional Prompts

This article is future-focused, so the prompts below are designed for conversation with colleagues:

1. Does the idea of an Open School make sense to you? Why or why not?

2. If a ‘regional hub’ of an Open School existed in your area, which of your students do you think might benefit? How? Why?

3. How might an Open School result in wider changes in the education system?

Four Shifts to Drive Real Change

16th July 2025Website Admin

Four Shifts to Drive Real Change

David Jackson

This article explores insights from the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), which, in its 2023 report ‘Out of Kilter’, proposes four shifts, which together encapsulate the fundamental changes needed to rethink education.

Introduction

Conversations about rethinking education often centre on a long list of issues that need to be addressed, for instance funding, or school buildings, or teacher recruitment and retention, or admissions and so on….

But if you believe that all young people have the right to an education that builds their self- esteem and efficacy; that recognises and values their unique talents; that helps them to form meaningful relationships and sets them up for fulfilling progression pathways from school, then addressing these ‘nuts and bolts’ issues, while necessary, is woefully insufficient.

Education is in need of a transformational vision. Schools do a great job in the circumstances, but the system is broken and the model of schooling out of date.

There is no worse example of this than SEND provision. However, the fault lines in SEND are just one component of the system’s challenges. SEND is not the problem, it is the symptom of a more all-embracing set of issues.

Four Shifts That Could Transform Education

I listened recently to a presentation discussing the findings from a 2023 report called ‘Out of Kilter’ by the Institute of Public Policy Research. Not heard about it? There’s a surprise! The report was the result of a massive consultation exercise and proposed some very significant changes with huge potential, but it was released to a largely indifferent policy audience.

At the heart of ‘Out of Kilter’ sit four proposed shifts, which IPPR identify as necessary to create an education system that unlocks the potential of all young people, enabling them to thrive. If these four shifts resonate with you, that is unsurprising, since ‘Out of Kilter’ draws on the findings of a major consultation with young people, parents and employers.

Rethinking Education First Requires Rethinking Assessment

The order in which the four shifts feature is also important. The first shift, from a system narrowly focused on attainment to one that values a wider set of goals, is the ‘crucial cog’; the magic key that will unlock all others.

To question the current system is to be accused of undermining standards – ‘standards’ as a synonym for approaches developed many decades ago to sift and sort society, with assessment approaches that condemn 40%+ of young people to leave school feeling that they have failed, rather than that all can succeed.

Until the UK has an assessment system that is able to reward and recognise the diverse aptitudes, talents and passions of all young learners; one that values learning and achievement other than academic subject knowledge; one that recognises the wider interests and passions pursued by all young people, both within school and out of school, we will have a system that maintains the status quo and fails too many.

‘Out of Kilter’ was authored by Harry Quilter-Pinner, Efua Poku-Amanfo, Loic Menzies and Jamie O’Halloran, September 2023, published by the Institute for Public Policy Research and supported by Big Change and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. The full report can be accessed here: Out of kilter: How to rebalance our school system to work for people, economy and society | IPPR.

David Jackson has been a teacher, a headteacher, a founding director at the National College for School Leadership and, for the last 15 years, has supported educational innovation projects in the UK and internationally. He is a member of the editorial team for The Bridge.

Professional Prompts

1. To what extent does your school’s assessment system “reward and recognise the diverse aptitudes, talents and passions of all young learners”?

2. Do pupils feel that the school recognises their culture, beliefs, wider interests and passions pursued within school and externally”?

3. What might need to change for this to happen and for every learner to feel that their beliefs, culture, ideology, talents and interests are affirmed?

The Role of Local Systems in Rethinking School

12th June 2023Website Admin

The Role of Local Systems in Rethinking School

With thanks Veronica Ruzek, Director of Curriculum and faculty members across the Farmington schools.

As has been said in Holly’s introduction, there are three sections to each issue of this journal.

As has been said in Holly’s introduction, there are three sections to each issue of this journal.

The first is “Rethinking School”, and most of the articles do just that – imagine how school could function differently. However, schools don’t exist in a vacuum and this short piece focuses on the enabling role that the wider system within which the school is nested, can play.

In the final section, “Resources for Schools” you will find some inspiring project cards from schools in Farmington, Connecticut, USA – with many thanks to Veronica Ruzek, Director of Curriculum and faculty members across the Farmington schools for sharing them. Farmington Public Schools has a mission and vision statement to “enable all students to achieve academic and personal excellence, exhibit persistent effort and live as resourceful, enquiring and contributing global citizens aligned to our Vision of the Global Citizen”.

This Vision of the Global Citizen is worth sharing, partly because of the system leadership it displays – a bold, inspiring and invitational vision for all Farmington’s schools – but also because of the direct connection one can make with the moral underpinnings and student agency displayed in the Project Cards.

Read it, then read the cards, and the connection will be obvious.

Leaving Learners in the Dust

12th June 2023Website Admin

Leaving Learners in the Dust

Authored from the outcomes of a Critical Friendship Group discussion on Assessment, November 2022

Assessment, neurodiversity and some ideas for how schools can do better

For the team at Gesher School, who are committed to personalised, project-based and real-world learning for students with neurodiversity, finding appropriate, reliable and motivational ways to assess learning and to provide the feedback and recognition of learning that learners need to progress is an ongoing and very practical challenge.

Joshua, a recent graduate from sixth form college, explained his experience with assessment – on this occasion his A-Levels – like this:

“The big problem with existing assessments is that they are the be-all and end-all. You either fit the mould or you don’t and, if you don’t, you really are kind of left in the dust. Most people don’t fit the mould – and especially neurodiverse people don’t – so that does lead to problems.”

Unfortunately, Joshua’s experience is far from unique. Too many learners find themselves left in the dust by assessments that test the wrong things, at the wrong time, using the wrong measures.

And the cost of getting assessment wrong can be very high indeed, as Joshua points out:

“So often the pressures of the school system can break a student easily and quickly. And it becomes really difficult to come out the other side and still be a strong candidate when the only important thing is what grade you got.”

So what is so wrong with assessment? And why are these failings especially problematic and potentially harmful for neurodiverse learners?

Five Things Wrong with Assessment in Schools

1. Schools assess all learners at the same time

Partly because of the way the school year is constructed and partly driven by the drop-deadlines of national standardised testing at 16 and 18, assessments in schools follow a rhythm that is largely dictated by how much of the curriculum it is possible to cram into any given period. Learners study skills and knowledge through the curriculum and then teachers (or exam boards) use assessments, usually tests, to measure how skilled or knowledgeable learners have become after an allotted time has expired.

This model is so familiar that it feels like the only sensible way to approach the timing of assessment. It isn’t. In most other aspects of their lives where learning features, learners choose, with the help of their teacher or mentor, when is the right moment to complete an assessment. From gymnastics badges to music grades; the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award to driving tests, learners and teachers work together to agree the best moment to assess progress. By assessing all learners at the same time, schools ignore everything we know about how learning happens, specifically that different learners learn different things at a different pace and that the right moment for assessment – the moment that is optimal for learning – will therefore be different too.

What if… individual learners and their teachers could decide together when to begin a formal assessment, at a time when each learner feels ready and confident to “take the test”?

2. Schools only assess what’s taught in school and/or by teachers

“I can make a video game using languages that the curriculum doesn’t even know exist, but none of them get recognition. I can do all this stuff and it doesn’t matter because it wasn’t what I was told I had to do. I didn’t fit that specific guideline and therefore it’s not good enough.” Joshua

Curriculum so dominates in schools that not only does it dictate the pace of learning, it can also constrain the scope of learning too. This may be an unintended (but not unnoticed) consequence, amplified by assessment, which concentrates on learning that is delivered in school and by teachers and ignores learning that happens at home, in sports clubs, dance or music schools, or anywhere where it is unseen by teachers.

What if… schools could recognise learning that takes place in these other settings and celebrate the full range of knowledge and skills that learners have acquired?

3. Schools assess everything that is taught in schools and/or by teachers

In the interests of leaving as many doors open as possible for learners’ futures, schools crowd their timetables with curriculum and assessments, some of which are, for the vast majority, irrelevant to where learners want to go next. This squeezes out other learning opportunities that might actually engage and inspire learners to choose and follow a path they can feel passionate about. Schools waste so much time deciding what learners should care about and what help they might need to get there when, with a little more trust, curiosity and empathy, they could simply ask them. And many learners are exhausted by cramming for tests across a much wider range of subjects than they could ever possibly need.

What if… individual learners could choose to be assessed in specific areas of their learning only where a standardised recognition or qualification is helpful?

4. Schools (mostly) assess learning when learning is ‘finished’

There is no question that many teachers skillfully incorporate formative assessment into their practice, for example, in how they ask questions in class and the assignments that they set. However, it is also the case that most formal assessment of the kind that makes it onto report cards and transcripts happens at the end of modules or units of learning when they are summative and final, often pass or fail, and always too late to act upon.

What if… learners could practise assessments numerous times and get the feedback they need to achieve mastery, before deciding to “take the test”?

5. School prioritises assessments that schools and teachers are judged on, not assessments of most value for learners

In our highly regulated education system, it is unsurprising that the people who lead schools are anxious to demonstrate that their school and their staff can deliver the results that the system demands. Reputations and livelihoods depend on it. Unfortunately, the system, comprising around 24,000 schools serving just under nine million learners in England, also requires those results to be demonstrated with a high degree of standardisation to facilitate judgments about quality, consistency, value for public money and so on. Standardisation also helps keep costs down and makes moderation possible (although not inevitable, as is demonstrated by the removal of several education ministers shortly after results day).

This is all very understandable and has really very little to do with learners and their individual or personal needs, now and for their futures. Worse, it produces assessments and a related culture which, as we have seen, are arguably not in any learner’s best interests and, for some learners, can be horribly damaging.

“Assessments led me into a very unhealthy revision cycle. Assessment as it is now is not actually really a test of knowledge, but more a test of memory, so you end up sitting in a Costa drinking more coffee in one hour than I would in a week normally, just to stay awake, then sleeping three hours a night, cramming knowledge just to end up being tired on the day and messing up the exam.” Joshua

What if… schools were empowered to assess and celebrate learning that was of the highest value to the learners and communities they serve?

Professional Prompt Questions

Which two of these five “What if…” statements most resonate with you? What would you need to do to introduce practices that were consistent with them?

How might you assess and recognise young people’s achievements outside the classroom and at home?

How might the agency of young people feature more strongly in the assessment approaches at your school?

What is Crew? We are Crew? Kvutzah at Gesher

12th June 2023Website Admin

What is Crew? We are Crew? Kvutzah at Gesher

Sarah Sultman and Bradley Conway

Valerie Hannon and Julie Temperley (both of whom have been good friends of Gesher School) recently published the book “FutureSchool”, which involved the identification and study of around 50 schools across the world that are doing exceptional things in the education of their young people.

There were a few features of note in common, and three are highly relevant for this piece. They are:

Building a “team” culture of mutual support and ambition amongst and between learners.
Creating a relational climate that promotes motivation and wellbeing.
Knowing learners profoundly well, such that engaging learning can be personalised to their interests and passions.

These are foundational features of Crew, which is what this article is about.

What is Crew?

As parents, we know and value the relational qualities of primary education. Our children are taught largely by a class teacher who knows them really well – and they know that they are known. Parents know it, too.

Rod Allen, who co-hosts the podcast Free Range Humans: how can we make schools fit for human consumption? recently cited an experience from his daughter’s primary-class years. Her teacher loved photography and committed to taking a photograph of each child in her class illustrating who she felt each child really was. At parents’ consultation he and his wife were shown a photograph of their daughter in the playground with other children, which caused him to say: “I didn’t need to hear any more. It was obvious that this teacher understood our child and valued in her what we valued – Maths and English and love of learning – she was in good hands.”

Contrast this with the dominant model of secondary schools where a student is likely to be taught by between eight and 10 teachers a week (or more) for, at most, three one-hour lessons. Few youngsters will feel well known; many won’t even have their names known by all their teachers. Crew is an antidote to this.

Crew is a secondary (and primary) school approach that enables youngsters to feel profoundly secure and well-known by their Crew Leader. It occupies perhaps one hour or more each day, and there are three key features:

It prioritises relationships and wellbeing.
Knowing learners really well enables learning support to be personalised to student interests and passions.
It generates within the “crew” a community of mutually supportive learners. It is not a teacher and 25 students, but 26 learners and teachers working together with their different knowledge, experience and capabilities.

Put another way, Crew is two things. “It is a school-wide culture that supports social and emotional wellness, character development, and academic and life success for students and staff. It is also a unique and transformational meeting structure for secondary school advisories, elementary school morning and closing circles, and for staff collaboration.” Ron Berger, CEO of Expeditionary Learning Schools is considered to be the architect of Crew, and EL schools have been practising it for 25 years. The quote above is taken from the introduction to his book “We Are Crew”.

Ron Berger’s insight into the alchemy of Crew goes something like this: “If you are a member of a climbing team trying to get to the top of the mountain, that is only possible if the whole team makes it to the top. So, your job is to support every other member of the team to make it – and they in turn will be supporting you.” This is it in essence – a mutually supportive community that cares enough to support all members to success.

That is Crew. We are all crew, not passengers. This is Crew.

Crew in the UK

Crew is not part of secondary school culture in the UK. Traditionally, UK schools have short “form tutor” periods involving registration, administration and occasionally some personal and social education. This is nothing like the Crew model, which is at the heart of EL schools and a range of other US school designs. There, it is both a structural component and the foundation of school culture. It “serves as an ethos of inclusion: students strive to reach ambitious goals together as a community. They are responsible for their own wellbeing and their classmates’ wellbeing.”

One UK school that has made Crew foundational is XP School in Doncaster, for which the school maxim is “Above all, compassion”. XP is an Ofsted outstanding school, where inspectors remarked on features that relate to Crew: “Leaders are driven by the conviction that everyone can and should do well. Pupils are kind, generous-spirited and aware of the needs of others, both at school and beyond…..personal development and wellbeing are very well supported and pupils are taught to be considerate, kind and confident.”

Crew at XP is foundational. Students are aware of its impact: “At XP we are not just a school, we are a family,” and “It’s basically a metaphor for us all achieving our goals and we all do it together, so if someone falls behind we don’t just leave them,” and “We don’t just remember facts. We create memories.”

If you are not yet inspired, watch this video. As Andy Sprake (XP’s Executive Principal) says in it: “If you are going to make any difference to young people’s lives, you’ve got to know who they are.”

Crew or Kvutzah at Gesher – Its Origins

Gesher uses the term “kvutzah” instead of the word “crew”. As a faith school, this embodies the ethos, as Judaism is an insistently communal faith. Our sages tell us “do not separate yourself from community” and this notion of living our lives supported, enmeshed and emboldened by others defines our existence. The original meaning of the word kvutzah is “a Jewish communal and co-operative farm or settlement” but over the decades this has evolved into meaning the group you are a part of, or belong to. Urban Dictionary quite wonderfully describes its meaning as “a tight-knit group of crazy kids who spend summers together but will stay close no matter the distance”. And that is the purpose of kvutzah or crew at Gesher – to create a trusted community of people, a social collective where all voices are valued, bonds are created and everyone feels supported and understood.

There is a wealth of literature spreading across several disciplines that shows how important it is to wellbeing, to be surrounded by friends. Having people to talk to makes a difference. We speak of “unburdening” ourselves to others, and the metaphor is exact. There is something about human nature that makes troubles or concerns shared easier to bear. We are, as Aristotle and Maimonides said, social animals. What distinguishes homo sapiens from other life-forms is the extent and complexity of our sociality. Kvutzah encourages and champions this notion of respectfully sharing thought and feelings which in turn creates bonds between teachers and students; student to student, which in turn creates a culture of community at the school. (Adapted from Rabbi Sacks’ Community of Faith.)

The two statements below are taken from the “day in the life” created as a practicalisation of the school and community’s Blueprint vision for the school.

“At the beginning of every day we spend time together. Kvutzah is our secure base. The name provides the clue to how it works – we care about one another and pull together to help each other to succeed. We check in; have learning circles; plan our day, etc. Above all we focus on mindfulness, wellbeing and motivation. We focus our mind and collectively start our day, using tefillah/prayer to help us.

“School day also ends with Kvutzah when we are not out doing community projects. There is check-in and sharing and planning for extended and home learning. There is fun, too.”

It is no stretch of the imagination to understand that the diversity of need and talent amongst SEND learners makes something like Crew or Kvutzah essential. Autistic and neurodiverse young people need to be known; need to have their profile of behaviours understood and accommodated; need to feel valued and respected within a supportive community of peers; need to feel that they belong. This is even more important in a context where many young learners have had damaging prior experiences in mainstream schools.

Crew at Gesher in Practice

In practice, Crew time is an opportunity for the students to focus on, and enhance, any, and all, of the three key relationships in their life – their relationship with G-d; their relationship with other people; and their relationship with themselves. Through prayer, a daily review or quiet contemplation/meditation, the students work individually, and together, to enhance their own mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. They learn to care, share and be aware of their own needs as well as each other’s, which enables them to develop their compassion, collaborative skills and resilience – key attributes of life.

However, crew time at Gesher is not restricted to the students. Staff have their own form of crew time. Every week, a staff member chooses a key theme which permeates through three morning briefings and enables all staff to be aware, involved and connected with key aspects and events within Judaism, other faiths or none; within SEND or therapy; within education or their environment; and within the UK or beyond. Regularly enhancing our staff’s personal and professional development has had a profoundly positive effect on the camaraderie, cohesion and teaching within the school and ensures that everyone’s inspiration and passion is valued and shared.

Who is wise?

One who learns from everyone!

(Ethics of the Fathers 4:1)

Professional Prompt Questions

Where Crew (or Advisory, or Kvutzah) is practised, there is a school-wide body of practice that supports it. Is that true of tutor time in your school?

Watch the XP video as a staff or as a year team. What can we take from that to influence our own practice? What might be easy to do tomorrow?

Do your staff “have their own crew time”? Should they? Could they?

Why Gesher is Now an All-Through School

12th June 2023Website Admin

Why Gesher is Now an All-Through School

Sarah Sultman and Sam Dexter

In early 2018, when Gesher was a newly opened primary school, we were focused on primary education and growing the pupil population at the school. Having recently opened in 2017 with just seven pupils, whose parents bravely took a leap of faith in sending their children to a brand new, untried and untested school with no track record, we had not thought about what might happen to our students when they reached 11 and would need to leave to find appropriate secondary schools.

In a meeting with a donor, he suggested that we consider becoming “an all-through school”, a term we weren’t familiar with. It felt like too big a leap, too big a dream to entertain; we were too busy navigating Ofsted and determining our primary curriculum to even imagine that this might be a consideration. But the seed was planted nonetheless.

In the early stages of the creation of Gesher, we had been inspired by the advice and counsel of James Wetz, author of Urban Village Schools (see The Bridge 1). His research was strongly influenced by the small-school movement in the US which provides a fertile environment for authentic peer-to-peer and student-teacher relationships, safety, learner-centred empowerment, and community involvement.

It was not, though, until early 2020, during Covid, that the plans for Gesher to become an all-through school really developed with speed. By then we were fast approaching 40 pupils and were growing out of our space on the temporary site that we were renting. We became increasingly mindful that our oldest learners were approaching year six and that we would have to signpost them to their next school. Yet, the choices were few and the demand for good secondary provision for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) far exceeded the supply in our area and in our community. Our learners were thriving with us, too. And so, the next stage of the Gesher story began in earnest.

All-through schools are not a new idea. There are many of them, particularly in the private and SEND sectors. Private schools often have primary, middle, and upper schools that share a campus, or a private secondary will have affiliated and well-known feeder schools. What this provides, for pupils and their families, crucially is continuity; providing stability and creating a community with long-lasting relationships. The independent SEND sector mirrors this. Over the years we have visited over 50 schools around the country to learn from others, to seek out best practice, to establish which models work and why, and to harness what we have gleaned so that we can implement and incorporate those things that work uniquely well at Gesher.

There is little research on the comparisons between all-through schools versus the standard model of a separate primary, secondary, and sixth form. It is interesting, though, that the private and independent SEND education sector has developed this model as a way to recognise the value of growing and developing their students all the way through. The state sector, conversely, has been driven instead to create huge economies of scale in large secondary schools. The overriding impression we gained from all our visits was that, for children with SEND, all-through schools provide a long-term stable environment where the pupils are well known to all the staff – and where they understand and respect each other, too. Peer relationships are celebrated at Gesher and benefit all of the pupils. Our older students mentor the younger ones; they become role models, giving them a sense of responsibility. As one parent said:

“It’s great for my child to be around older kids who are also neurodiverse. It creates a real community.”

When we sought to expand the school, the views and perspectives of the parents were important to us. We know that transitions are a particularly challenging time for autistic young people and for their parents. In addition, we were aware that for our young people, new environments and their spiky profiles mean that it takes time for staff to know and understand their needs. As two parents at Gesher articulated so well:

“Especially for neurodivergent children who prefer familiarity and routine, having primary and secondary school in the same place makes it a safe space and one they can rely on. Additionally, they won’t ‘lose’ time getting to know a new environment and people and likewise a new set of teachers and peers getting to know them.”

“(We value) knowing all the good work that has been put in during the primary years can be built on and not having to worry about the transition to secondary”.

Thus far, all the families that have attended Gesher primary have chosen to remain at the school, where they feel supported and understood, into the secondary phase. Another parent, whose child is now in the secondary phase at Gesher, felt the continuation of the same curriculum ideas was really important for their son:

“Now Gesher’s an all-through school it is wonderful, especially with the new Life Skills provision that the school now offers. It means that our son will be able to continue to thrive and be happy in an environment that can support his needs.”

Gesher is a learning community, one which puts relationships at the heart of its organisation and design. Attachments and relationships are key to our pupils being stable and happy learners, comfortable in their environment, with their self-esteem enhanced, and confident in their sense of place and space. For our parents, too, it provides security and stability:

“One of the big reasons we chose Gesher is that it is currently a through school. We need a school that will teach kids the skills they need as they become adults, and there’s not really any school like that, especially a Jewish faith one, apart from Gesher.”

__________________________________________________________________________

In designing their secondary provision, the Gesher team has cast their net wide for examples of schools that make being small in size part of their success story.

Since 1991, the New American Schools Initiative has opened 2,600 new small high schools in 45 states across the USA. Two of the most globally influential school models have arisen as a result:

Big Picture schools, founded by Dennis Littky and Elliot Washor (now 65+ Big Picture high schools in 18 states and more around the world). These small, personalised schools, started for drop-out learners and graduate 92% of their students on time, compared to a national average of 84%.
High Tech High (HTH) is a community of 16 elementary and high schools in the San Diego area creating an all-through local school system. Some 98% of HTH’s graduates have been admitted to college or university. About 35% of HTH graduates are first-generation college students and 85% of their free-school-meals students complete degrees.

With their focus on the centrality of relationships and the personalisation of learning that arises from knowing students well, young people in these schools thrive and consistently outperform teenagers in conventionally sized, conventionally structured high schools with comparable demographics.

Professional Prompt Questions

All-through schooling is not an easily available option for most schools.

However, some of the features that professionals and parents value in all-through schools – relationships, deep knowledge of learners, security, and personalisation of approaches – can be adapted for more familiar models of schooling.

The professional prompts that follow respond to the question: “How could we help different phases of schooling to incorporate some of the virtues of all-through provision?”

Is knowledge transfer about students primarily documented or also face-to-face? How is the more subtle knowledge of children and families communicated?

When there are concerns about a student in their first year after transfer, is the relevant feeder school teacher consulted and involved?

Does your school have any teacher exchanges with your feeder school to build empathy and to forge relationships?

Are feeder school staff invited to events and productions and activities involving their former learners?

When achievements are celebrated, is the contribution of the feeder school recognised?

On graduation from your school are feeder schools notified of results and destinations – can they share in the successes?

Reimagining Schools By Design: Assessment, Pedagogy and Curriculum

12th June 2023Website Admin

Reimagining Schools By Design: Assessment, Pedagogy and Curriculum

David Jackson

Teaching: the design and facilitation of great learning through relationships

This short article is about the second phase of the process Gesher School undertook to design the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment they knew they would need to do a brilliant job for children who learn differently, as they moved from primary into their secondary education; from childhood into adolescence, from primary to all-through.

The ‘school design lab’ process – eight workshops involving about 100 stakeholders, completed in March 2021 – resulted in a blueprint for this new school ambition. You can see the final version of the Gesher School Blueprint here: https://gesherschool.com/about-us/blueprint/.

It is worth looking at – for its comprehensiveness, its ambition, its philosophical coherence and the obvious seriousness of intent. Beyond that, there is much to recommend in the evident way it unites a school community (internal and external) around a shared mission and sets out the practical requirements needed to achieve this.

The process to develop the blueprint began by asking “What outcomes do we want all our learners to achieve?” We started with a pie chart (six slices), one of which already had “good exam results” filled in, as a given. The task then is to populate the other five slices. (It could be six slices saying “good exam results” if that’s the only outcome that matters – but in a decade of doing this activity, exams have never featured more than once.) The result? Agreement about the purpose of the school and the outcomes for all learners that matter to the school community.

Standing on the shoulders of giants

Having agreed purpose and outcomes, the next stage in the process was the development of a set of design principles to achieve these, which form the values and practice architecture – the “laws with leeway” – for the school. In that process the Gesher team engaged with the designs of highly successful schools around the world, in a process known as horizon scanning, to find inspiration and ideas that would help them to learn from the very best that exists and has evidence of success.

You will find more on the Gesher school design process in The Bridge Issue 2.

Having the purpose, outcomes and design principles agreed upon, the next couple of workshops focused on assessment, pedagogy and curriculum.

Assessment

The Gesher Blueprint, then, sets out the school’s desired outcomes. They include: skilled for the future workplace; confident in their sense of self; builders of meaningful relationships; and ethical and responsible citizens. Finding meaningful ways to assess, recognise, accredit and value these – to validate them – is the next stage in the design challenge.

Another desired outcome is qualified for the next stage, and while existing accreditation pathways can obviously fit that bill to an extent, they don’t get close to assessing “meaningful relationships” or “confidence in sense of self”.

Fortunately, there is a different audience for some of these outcomes – the students themselves, their parents, peers, community members, etc – and there are known ways of doing it. There are exhibitions, digital badges, portfolios (real or digital), records of achievement, transcripts or even a unique, composite and personalised School Diploma owned and endorsed by all stakeholders, incorporating a range of such validation methods.

Professionals generally agree that schools should be free to assess what they value, rather than driven to value what is assessed. Gesher’s Blueprint states that it will generate unique profiles… affirm talents… recognise unconventionally expressed achievements… and work of relevance to the community and the world. This ambition is shared by many schools and there are, as we have seen, a range of possible ways of assessing what is valued. However, few schools do. Gesher, in this respect – as in many others – aspires to be a “beautiful exception”.

Pedagogy

Ask secondary teachers about their professional knowledge-base and most will probably talk about subject expertise. This is not their professional knowledge-base: it is what they bring in service of their professional knowledge-base. Lots of geographers or scientists or linguists don’t teach.

Teachers’ professional knowledge-base is the design and facilitation of great learning through relationships. It is the creation of apt pedagogy combined with personalised knowledge and understanding of learners. In other words, teachers are designers. They create great pedagogical designs together.

Only, in most schools, they don’t.

To do this requires scope for interdisciplinary planning; it involves real-world relevant tasks (to make learning matter); it will deploy a repertoire of assessment methods (appropriate to the task, relevant for each person); and it requires time deployment that allows on-site and community learning. This is different from 25 one-hour lessons. It also requires that teachers have time together (to design together).

For Gesher, and for most of the astonishing schools around the world that were studied in the horizon scanning, Project-Based Learning (PBL) provided at least part of the pedagogical solution. Real links have been made with the professional PBL knowledge-base from High Tech High and Expeditionary Learning Schools as international examples and with XP and School 21 as domestic ones. Additionally, Gesher commissioned the support of Imagine If to help facilitate its journey.

Gesher, together with a number of other schools of course, deploys time and space flexibly (the subject of a future article); combines a core of subject teaching with flexible interdisciplinary learning opportunities (PBL); deploys a range of assessment approaches relevant to the task; and, because it is a SEND school (although all schools are SEND schools), integrates into learning designs therapeutic approaches and support.

And these rich approaches, whilst great for students, are also fulfilling for the professional lives of teachers.

Curriculum

If pedagogy is how we teach stuff and how learners learn it, and assessment, broadly speaking, is the range of ways we let students and other stakeholders know how well they are doing, then curriculum is simply the range of material – the content – we want students to learn.

For most secondary schools the curriculum is pretty straightforward: divide what we teach into “subjects” and have specialist subject teachers deliver it in lessons lasting about an hour. The learning week, for learners, is therefore a jigsaw puzzle of disconnected hour-long subject lessons (French, then PE, then English, then Science, then Maths….) and fragmented relationships.

There is another way.

Gesher’s curriculum statement emphasises “the application of knowledge through real-world assignments and projects… rooted in Jewish values… highly personalised and responsive to individual interests, aptitudes and needs”. Much is packed into those 24 words:

Application
Real-world uses
Projects and assignments
Overt values components
Highly personalised

What all this means practically at Gesher is that the curriculum contains all the subject knowledge required, some of it taught as it has always been taught, but much of it designed into projects, with real-world relevance (perhaps real-world need) within which students express agency, personalise their contributions and also integrate or enact the values from relevant parts of their culture. They might be assessed in a range of ways, singly or in combination – tests, exhibitions, vivas, presentations, peer evaluation, portfolios, or whatever.

Endnote

The Blueprint design shows graphically that desired outcomes (purposes) frame everything and lead to school design principles facilitative of those outcomes. In other words, “Here are the things we want all learners to achieve and to do and so we need our school to be designed with features like this.”

The heart, the driver, the energy source to achieve this is the integrated and interrelated core of assessment, pedagogy and curriculum. Beyond that, there is a range of further features related to technology, time and space; culture, leadership and professional development; parental partnerships and community relationships.

More of that next time, perhaps.

Professional Prompt Questions

If your school was to do the pie chart activity – the six outcome areas that really matter to you – what would be included? (You could try it as a staff workshop activity.)

What scope is there in your school for teachers from different subject disciplines to plan learning together? What could there be?

Do you agree with the definition of teaching at the start of this piece? If so, what implications might that have for your teaching or your school?