Where are the examples of successful culture change amongst adults in Kent schools?
Background...
The Kent Secondary Strategy (KSS) has made clear that schools need to develop strategies which nurture "Autonomous and Creative Learners". It aims to ensure that "no child or school will fail". Since we have clear evidence that a significant percentage of learners are continuing to fail in our current education system, it stands to reason that we therefore have to find new ways of reaching those learners. The KSS lays out for us the vision and the strategic direction for schools to move in, and there are some fundamental changes to make.
One of them centres on the relationship between the adults who work in the schools and the learners for whom they are responsible. If we are serious about learners taking responsibility for their own learning - something which every school prospectus has stated as a central aim for the past two decades - then we have to recognise that the relationship between adults and learner has to change.
This change of relationship seems to me to be at the very heart of almost all the significant moves we need to make to ensure that learners become "autonomous and creative". Schools have been developing their vision for C21st learning in the first waves of BSF within the newly forming Local Education Partnership (LEP 1). It remains crucial that they continue to focus on what learning looks like, how the relationships in the school can change and adapt to ensure that learners are given the language and the permission to take increased responsibility for their learning. In some cases they have less than three years to make this significant change in culture before they move into their new facilities.
The change management skills of the school leaders will be critical if this process is going to be successful. It is hardly surprising that school leaders are becoming increasingly taxed by the task!
Unsurprisingly, however, the magnitude of the task is not one facing Kent alone. At a meeting of the 17 schools taking a national lead in the Innovation Unit's " Next Practice in Resourcing Personalisation" field study trials at Bridgemary School in Gosport on 14th November 2007, it become clear that the issue of changing adult behaviour in schools is the central issue facing schools - and these schools are amongst the leaders in their field!
So...
Please join this blog and provide us with
- comments about the above - do you agree or disagree and why?
- what successes you have had with this agenda
- what mistakes you have made or lessons you have learned along the way
Jerry Owens