Keele University
Centre for Successful Schools
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Schooling in the 21st Century: The Key to Success
21st Anniversary Conference (September 2010)
The Centre for Successful Schools at Keele celebrated its 21st anniversary on 21st September with a conference entitled 'Schooling in the 21st Century: The Key to Success'. 380 delegates (including education organisers at national and regional level, school leadership teams and Associate Teachers from Keele) were welcomed to the event by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Nick Foskett. Thought-provoking keynote speeches, addressing current and future issues relating to educational change and improvement, were given by Professor Mel Ainscow, Sir William Atkinson, Sir Bruce Liddington, and Charles Leadbeater. A range of seminars were also held on the day, including presentations from two local schools.
As one delegate wrote, “I have been so impressed with the inspiring speakers, and the event does what a conference should do; opens up possibilities.”
Keynote: Professor Mel Ainscow
Making sure every child matters: some lessons from the Greater Manchester Challenge
Developing education systems in which the link between social disadvantage, school outcomes and life chances can be effectively broken, is a major policy challenge. Despite the extensive efforts made to address this agenda, the evidence is that the poorest children are not well served and that, by and large, they attend the lowest-performing schools. This presentation will reflect on evidence from the Greater Manchester Challenge, a three-year programme to transform educational outcomes across the city region, supported by an investment of around £50 million. In particular, it will focus on the ways in which collaboration between differently-performing schools can reduce polarisation, to the particular benefit of learners who are performing relatively poorly.
Keynote: Sir William Atkinson
Success against trend: the case for positive discrimination!!!
My presentation will examine the link between educational success and social class within an urban context. I will make specific recommendations aimed at challenging and breaking this link.
My conclusion will contain references to lessons learnt from my recent extended study visit to Beijing.
Keynote: Sir Bruce Liddington
How Free Should Schools Be?
My contention is that they should be totally free, and that there is precedent in the UK and elsewhere of freedom leading to success.
I shall speak about how successive governments have not allowed freedoms around both capital and revenue spending on schools. I shall then speak about opportunities for profit-making and the cultural world into which profit-making and sharing is introduced.
Next, diversity. As the former national champion for choice and diversity, I shall cite examples of extreme diversity internationally, and compare international and historical attitudes to the academic/vocational divide.
Building Schools for the Future had been an opportunity for freedom - if only those involved had understood this! The Charter and Swedish schools examples offer a way forward in offering freedom of place within a context of strict regulation.
Parents seem to be emerging as the new target-rich environment! But school autonomy within a totally free environment, strongly regulated, offers the greatest possibility for liberation and choice.
Keynote: Charles Leadbeater
Learning from the Extremes: Lessons in radical innovation in education
In the developed world, education systems that were established more than a century ago still under-perform, mainly because they fail to reach and motivate large portions of the population. These ingrained problems of low aspiration and achievement among the most disinvested communities in the developed world are proving resistant to traditional treatment.
The challenges in the developing world are even more daunting. In the next few decades hundreds of millions of young, poor families will migrate to cities in the developing world in search of work and opportunity. Education provides them with a shared sense of hope. Many will be the first generation in their family to go to school. It is vital the hopes they invest are not disappointed.
How can we meet these twin challenges?
