21st Century Schools

The Innovation Challenge

Our school system achieves fantastic results but unfortunately not for every child. Parts of our schools system can match the best anywhere in the world but overall our school system is not world class. It systematically fails certain groups of children: children from poor backgrounds, looked after children, children excluded from school, children from certain ethnic groups. How can government build a 21st century schools system that better serves every child?

Our Approach

The Innovation Unit designed and ran a consultation with the children's workforce on behalf of the the Department for Children, Schools and Families (now called the Department for Education). This was designed to inform the government's White Paper: Your child, your schools, our future (published in June 2009). With our partner, WCL, we ran 9 regional conferences and one national conference for over 1,000 teachers, local authority staff, governors, parents, and other members of the children's workforce.

The workforce on the whole welcomed the government's vision but urged it to go further and dare to be more radical.

They argued that:

• Children should be empowered to lead their own learning, develop the curriculum and have their voices heard.
• Schools should gather more evidence of what their community wants and needs, and not just assume that they know.
• Partnerships between services are very important but there is little consensus about what form they should take.
• Schools should be more accountable for a wider range of children's outcomes, rather than the narrow focus on attainment; and
• their funding should be linked to improvements in these wider outcomes.

Outcomes

The consultation report was published alongside the White Paper which picked up much of what the workforce had been arguing for, especially: stronger partnership between schools and other agencies; greater accountability for wider children's outcomes; and a focus on putting the child at the heart of the system.

Tools & processes

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Project contacts

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