Turning the tide on education policy

Policy can often swing between extremes, with no real forward momentum. The tide comes in and goes out again; the water mark remains unchanged.

If we want to build a truly excellent education system, where every young person gets to fulfil their potential, then we must build and improve rather than merely change tack.

Where do we go from here?

We are at a turning point. There are new decision makers, new priorities and new stakeholders. For some, this will be a huge relief: plans are already being made and position papers written.

There is a welcome sense of optimism and hope. How can this optimism engage with the reality of a system which is stretched and weary, and a public purse which is nearly empty.

Problems have been mounting up for a while. It might be easy to believe that any action is better than none and there is nothing to lose. But that belief is all too often what fuels a cycle of change without progress.

How do we make sure that the changes ahead are a true advance, rather than a swing of pendulum?

We’ve identified five factors we should all consider to ensure a successful transition - one that builds momentum.

1.    Acknowledge our successes

We shouldn’t let our desire for change blind us to what has been achieved at a significant cost. What should be preserved?

2.    Reign in excesses

Some of those successes will have been taken too far, well beyond the point of diminishing returns. What has been good in principle but taken to the extreme? What needs moderating? At a time of tight budgets, the opportunity to pare back could be very attractive.

3.    Recognise blind spots

Any vision has strengths and weaknesses. What are the big missing pieces in the current vision?

4.    Avoid unhelpful polarisation

We’ve all seen the polarisation that can define education debates is largely unhelpful. Particularly on social media, with people shouting at each other across a huge divide. Relationships are frayed and damaged; there is low trust, low patience, low energy, deep divisions.

Could we debate differently? Could we find the opportunities in our differences of opinion? 
As the poet William Blake famously said: ‘Without contraries, is no progression.’  We can harness good and respectful debates towards better, clearer thinking.

5.    Create conditions for inclusive conversations

There will be a large community of the dispossessed: people and groups whose views have been neglected and perhaps derided, who have been denied positions of power and influence. How do we find respectful and impactful ways of including a wider range of perspectives? 

Building and improving rather than merely changing

Momentum can’t just be about change at the top: political vision needs to meet a professional vision and together these perspectives can build something truly enduring.

In 2019, the late Lord Kerslake, then Chair of the Civic University Commission said: "The deep economic and social changes that are happening in Britain today have, alongside Brexit, made the civic role of universities even more vital to the places they are located in.”

The situation he described then is even more complex now, with greater implications for our public services and our public institutions. The deep economic and social changes following Brexit and the pandemic that are happening in Britain today have made the civic role of public institutions (not just universities) even more vital - not just to the places they are located in, but in leading a response to the renewal of our communities and of civic life.

A different model of leadership

This requires something different of public leaders - it requires us to think in longer term horizons and to build our schools and trusts as public institutions, civic in their outlook, anchored in their communities.  

Perhaps the biggest blind spot of the last decade has been the failure to see education as a connected system. Indeed, the education system must be embedded within the wider systems of public services that are essential for the welfare of young people.

We need to build and improve rather than just swing with the latest trend. And this requires a different model of leadership.

As Peter Senge points out in The Dawn of System Leadership, the deep changes necessary to accelerate progress against society’s most intractable problems require a unique type of leader – the system leader, a person who catalyses collective leadership.

Let us build forms of radical collaboration. Let us build trust across our regional networks, with our communities and with other civic leaders to bring about a greater common good. We can do this if we go together.

The foundation we need to focus on is a better education for all children and with that, we need to work together to continue attracting and retaining great teachers, to help all pupils thrive and drive better outcomes and successes. There's intrinsic value in good policy making, but concrete benefits too.

On behalf of Teach First, CST and all the schools we work with, we hope that with the new government we won’t just see new policies, but new ways of making policy. And that they draw on collective leadership to deliver against this.