From the chapter ‘Voice‘
Prashant Raizada, Entrepreneur, CEO and founder of the Lumi network
Gerard Silverlock, Former teacher and headmaster
‘Children should be seen and not heard.’ There were occasions when my mother was sufficiently discontented with what I had to say that she ended her words of chastisement with this saying. I have always associated it with the Victorians’ approach to bringing up youngsters, but it actually dates from the 15th century or earlier. The conviction underlying this old saying was that children need to be quiet and well behaved in the presence of adults so that they could learn from their wisdom and experience. By implication, it means that children lack the capacity to think logically and rationally, and to generate worthwhile ideas of their own.
I was at school in the 1960s, when Western society started ‘swinging’ and pop culture began. Yet my memories of secondary education in West London are dominated by adults who expected us to listen intently, note carefully what they said, and learn it sufficiently well to pass various tests and examinations. I have few recollections of my opinion being sought until I was in the sixth form.
In July 2021, I retired after more than 40 years teaching in schools, 19 of them as a headmaster. Fortunately, society’s attitude to the education and upbringing of children has changed significantly over that time. Today, most classrooms are organised so that pupils can share their ideas and collaborate in developing solutions to problems. Teachers need to be knowledgeable, but it is no longer sufficient for them simply to pass on the facts, theories and insights that they have acquired to the minds of the children in their care. They should also be striving to develop higher order study skills, such as the ability to synthesise and hypothesise, and give children opportunities to build both independence and the attributes required for working successfully in a team. The best lessons present children with problems for them to solve creatively, and feature open questions rather than those that simply require factual knowledge or anticipating what their teachers want to hear.
Alongside this more open, enterprising approach, however, there remains a relentless emphasis on that which can be measured, especially by formal examinations in which children work on their own, in strictly time-limited situations. This applies across different ages and in all types of schools. There are tests at age 11, including those that determine access to selective senior schools, and then again at the ages of 16 and 18. This structure ensures that young people in England and Wales are the most heavily examined in Europe. Further, this assessment structure is quite narrow as it focuses on traditional classroom subjects, especially English and maths.
The COVID-19 pandemic also had an impact on our young people. There are many, including the former Secretary of State for Education Nadhim Zahawi, who now consider that it was a mistake to close schools in response to the virus. Keeping children at home for lengthy periods in 2020 and 2021 caused significant harm to the academic, social and emotional development of many, and exposed the vulnerable to abuse at home. Zahawi recognised that governmental action is necessary to remedy the harms caused by school closures, and he linked this to that government’s so-called ‘levelling-up’ campaign. Zahawi’s agenda for schools was set out clearly in the White Paper published in March 2022, Opportunity for All: Strong Schools with Great Teachers for Your Child.[i]
Within the context of this ‘levelling-up’ campaign, the White Paper maintains, however, a strong focus on assessment. For example, it says that Key Stage 2 assessments of literacy and numeracy will be buttressed by ‘a new test of literacy and numeracy, taken by a sample of children in year 9, to estimate performance at a national level’.[ii] There is a brief reference to the need for ‘a broad and ambitious … curriculum’,[iii] and the fact that ‘all children should be entitled to take part in sport, music and cultural opportunities’, but there is a need to do so much more.[iv]
In particular, there is insufficient importance given to future employment needs or developing other skills and abilities among our young people. Numeracy and literacy are essential, but they are not sufficient. The World Economic Forum’s The Future of Jobs Report 2020[v] took account of technological change and the pandemic. Its authors estimate that, by 2025, automation will result in 85 million jobs being displaced, but 97 million new roles being created that are ‘more adapted to the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms.’[vi] Inevitably, these new roles will require new skills. The key attributes for employees will be ‘critical thinking and analysis as well as problem-solving … active learning, resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility.’[vii]
Our world is changing rapidly, and the vast majority of us understand it is likely that our children will be doing jobs that are currently unknown to us. Further, they will probably change the direction of their career many times as they move through their working lives. Fewer and fewer will train for a job or profession that they pursue until retirement. In order to thrive in rapidly changing economies, they will require skills and attributes that we would be well advised to encourage at an early stage in their education.
We need to see the solution to these problems not simply in catching up but also in enabling young people to leapfrog into the future. Over the last two years I have been supporting the founder of Lumi, Prashant Raizada. Lumi is an innovative open learning platform that supports our children in making this jump. Children can engage in quests related to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, and develop their own solutions to some of the major problems facing the world today. Numerous schools have introduced Lumi to their students, which is enabling their young people to develop their potential in ways that will help them and be of huge benefit to our society.
Still more needs to be done, however, and it would be wonderful if the Lumi model could be embraced and introduced in schools up and down the land. It should be seen as a valuable case study that encourages young people to combine their innate creativity with the skills and knowledge they have acquired in school. The outcomes are potentially powerful innovations and more confident, enterprising and collaborative young people. The students, teachers and Lumi leaders would be more than willing to share what they have learned.
Prashant and his colleagues at Lumi have seen that parents and educators across the world recognise the need for young people to be future-ready. What matters are not so much the grades achieved by students, but what they can do, how they think, the questions they ask and how effectively they work together. Schools here in the UK could do so much to develop their capabilities and release their potential.
James Biddulph, Executive Headteacher at the University of Cambridge Primary School, recently wrote a very interesting article in the Cambridge Alumni Magazine arguing that we need children ‘primed to come up with new visions and be more inventive in their thinking’.[viii] Creativity, collaborative skills and entrepreneurship are essential, and we can build these into our schools if we value what youngsters have to say. As the title of Biddulph’s article asserts, ‘Children are not just “people in waiting” – their voices must be heard now’.[ix] Of course, we must teach numeracy and literacy, but we must go far beyond this. The Lumi team would like our education system to:
- respond to the changing world of employment by building a curriculum that develops creativity, entrepreneurship, flexibility, resilience and teamwork;
- integrate these skills with the insights and understanding derived from the traditional academic subjects;
- give young people the opportunity to develop solutions to the major problems facing the world today;
- initiate a Digital Apprenticeship Programme to provide young people with the skills required for jobs in the new age;
- listen to the young people who hold the key to a rapidly changing future.
Lumi has illuminated a path towards a more relevant curriculum and education system, one along which the Department for Education should now begin to travel.
Notes
[i] DfE (Department for Education) (2022) Opportunity for All: Strong Schools with Great Teachers for Your Child, www.gov.uk/government/publications/opportunity-for-all-strong-schools-with-great-teachers-for-your-child
[ii] DfE (Department for Education) (2022) Opportunity for All: Strong Schools with Great Teachers for Your Child, www.gov.uk/government/publications/opportunity-for-all-strong-schools-with-great-teachers-for-your-child, p 30.
[iii] DfE (Department for Education) (2022) Opportunity for All: Strong Schools with Great Teachers for Your Child, www.gov.uk/government/publications/opportunity-for-all-strong-schools-with-great-teachers-for-your-child, p 25.
[iv] DfE (Department for Education) (2022) Opportunity for All: Strong Schools with Great Teachers for Your Child, www.gov.uk/government/publications/opportunity-for-all-strong-schools-with-great-teachers-for-your-child, p 29.
[v] World Economic Forum (2020) The Future of Jobs Report 2020, www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2020/digest
[vi] World Economic Forum (2020) The Future of Jobs Report 2020, www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2020/digest, p 5.
[vii] World Economic Forum (2020) The Future of Jobs Report 2020, www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2020/digest, p 5.
[viii] Biddulph, J. (2021) ‘Children are not just “people in waiting” – their voices must be heard now’, Cambridge Alumni Magazine, Issue 94, 1 December, Michaelmas Term, https://magazine.alumni.cam.ac.uk/children-arent-just-people-in-waiting-their-voices-must-be-heard-now
[ix] Biddulph, J. (2021) ‘Children are not just “people in waiting” – their voices must be heard now’, Cambridge Alumni Magazine, Issue 94, 1 December, Michaelmas Term, https://magazine.alumni.cam.ac.uk/children-arent-just-people-in-waiting-their-voices-must-be-heard-now