Resources

Tim Rudd, Senior Researcher, Futurelab
Nick Page, Development Manager, EdisonLearning UK
Professor Rosemary Luckin, Professor of Learner Centred Design, London Knowledge
Lab, Institute of Education
Bob Harrison, Education Adviser, Toshiba Information Systems (UK) Ltd

The full set of provocation papers is available to download in pdf format - see box below. On this page you'll find the foreword by Lord David Puttnam.

Foreword

Lord David Puttnam

The Building Schools for the Future and Primary Capital Programmes represent an ambitious, unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to provide services for children, young people and the wider community that will guarantee them an engaging and dynamic set of new educational experiences. It is vitally important we do not miss the real opportunity to transform education in doing so, and that we seize the opportunity to innovate and drive forward learning experiences in keeping with the needs of the future, refl ecting the skills, competencies and needs of the wider society, our local communities and the changing nature of society in response to the global opportunities and challenges we face.

It is essential we do not repeat past mistakes, yet also vital we learn from successes, the wealth of knowledge we have about learning and what works, drawing on literature and evidence from a range of contexts. In this sense, we have the opportunity to design not only new buildings but also new systems, relationships and networks for learning.

It is vital therefore that BSF and PCP are not viewed or delivered as merely building programmes. It is no use building old schools and systems, only made from new materials. It will be a missed opportunity if we only use these programmes to address current needs and immediate solutions for our institutions and the educational stock.

The language of transformation pervades all the main policy documents that introduced the programmes. Whether transforming services to support the delivery of the Every Child Matters agenda and the Children’s Plan, or to embed a new approach to learning and its organisation through personalisation, the underpinning policies call for significant systemic change.

Yet, to really mobilise the transformational opportunities requires a concerted and continuous effort by all those involved, from heads and governors, pupils and parents, local authorities and politicians, through designers and architects. Every single stakeholder involved in the delivery of these programmes needs to understand the opportunity they are being offered.

However, we also need to exhibit other qualities. Firstly, we need to break free of our traditional and institutionalised ways of thinking, to think more creatively and to innovate in order to bring about alternative and more fi tting solutions to the educational needs for the future. Secondly, we need bravery - the courage to explore new opportunities, to follow these through with conviction and to develop models of learning and designs that are different and more appropriate than what have gone before, and this can mean challenging our own assumptions. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, we need belief - the belief that every one of us can bring about transformation as an active change agent through exercising our democratic right to be involved with the development of services that affect us and, most importantly, the young people we serve.

We need to ensure we do not embody old and outmoded practices in bricks and mortar and glass and steel, but that rather we build in the pedagogies and practices appropriate for 21st century learning. We have to rethink what a learning space is, who learns there, who are the teachers, mentors and support staff. We need to challenge what is learnt, by whom, when, where and how, and we need to consider how new developments and technologies present new opportunities for new learning networks and arrangements that offer greater diversity in learning approaches, and how foci and groupings might best be utilised.

When we hear stories of children or schools who are thought to be underachieving, often it is our instinct to lay the blame on the pupils themselves, their families, or the teachers, yet we seldom ask if the educational offering we’re presenting to those children is out of keeping with their needs and the realities of their day-to-day lives. Behind the sensationalist headlines, we know the vast majority of educators enter the profession because they want the best for our children. We also know from research that children and young people have a wealth of remarkable talent and potential that we need to be able to tap into and support, and we know we can do so under the right conditions. The BSF and PCP programmes represent an opportunity to develop systems and spaces for the future that will enable us to do exactly that. We simply cannot afford to miss this opportunity to transform education.

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