System redesign: the road to perdition in education

* Apologies for the Freudian slip in my title.

I am suspicious of transformations (is that realistic or surrealistic?)

With little explanation of the ‘what’, ‘why’ or ‘when’, the term ‘transformation’ has been liberally and consistently used to justify decades of experimentation in social engineering.

I was hoping that the time for experiments has been and gone. I resent unnecessary redesign (is that conscious or is it unconscious?)

The term ‘redesign’ implies failure. I contest this and the illusion that there is nothing to gain from assimilating what has gone before. Will the 21st century be so different that there is truly nothing to learn from the work of the millions of dedicated educators who have built our education systems?

I seriously doubt it.

I fear the hidden agenda. When, in all history, have evangelical agendas and uncompromising devotion to a cause, however worthwhile, been shown to provide better leadership than experience and moderation?

When, in all history, have the monumental waste and the agonies incurred through the agendas of revolution (or re-anything) been justified by the gains?

When, in all history, have systems derived from the agendas of transformation out-performed ones that are established and that have been allowed to evolve to meet needs? Hidden agendas hide the truth behind the damage they do.

Digs at the jargon of taxonomies apart, here we are presented with 20 ‘reconfigurations’ on the road to ‘transformation’, all neatly categorised and tightly cross-reverenced. It will take a better brain than mine to pull this apart, especially as I support so much of the sentiment here. Every child does matter. Learning is personal. Educationalists should always challenge themselves, and each other, to improve and expand the service they provide. We should build schools for the future and our educational systems, and system as a whole, should reflect this.

I have deep-seated concerns, however, about how this theory and these ‘reconfigurations’ will be interpreted and implemented.

The road to perdition is paved with good intensions.

The reality

Institutional reconfiguration. The academies and Building Schools for the Future programmes have translated into PFI initiatives (Private Funding Initiatives) that are selling off our educational heritage on a monumental scale. PFIs have an appalling record in terms of providing value for money generally, and also in terms of effective implementation. They introduce a huge element of uncertainty in finances and job security which, in turn, leads to uncertainty in terms of the curriculum. Tie this in with inflexibility in the new pay structures and private educational service agreements, and the opportunity for creativity, imagination (and sheer nerve) in developing the curriculum and curriculum support services is wasted.

How does constantly redesigning and restructuring help to achieve balance? How does it resolve the conflict between assuring school performance (eliminating risk) and building new and innovative structures (embracing risk)? We have to find a way of keeping ownership of our existing structures and developing them towards a shared vision of the future.

Leadership reconfigurations. The reality of flattened leadership structures has seen leadership roles divided into areas of multitasking non-specialist responsibility, which are allocated to ambiguously labelled leadership posts. This can be very effective in enabling reactive leadership to government initiatives and quality assurance in areas that are relatively discreet - but where do the priorities lie? Teachers reach initiative overload and specialist developments that could make teaching more effective and more enjoyable for students and teachers (often at the borders of these roles) are replaced with quality assurance exercises that increase stress and workload burdens.

Role-based configurations. There are currently 30,000 fewer management-based roles in UK schools (now called ‘responsibility positions’ since management became so unpopular with UK leaders) as a direct result of role-based reconfigurations that have already taken place. Older teachers are leaving (being driven out of) the profession in droves and non-qualified assistant teachers and private educational services take on an ever-increasing role in educating our children.

How much more role-based reconfiguration do we need?

Is there another way?

In my, (shortly to be outsourced) role of developing learning systems in my school, I tend to look at the design of educational systems upside-down, compared to most people. The student experience is paramount, of course, and every child does matter, not so much as an individual, but as the end-user of the systems (I know this sounds very unteacherly but please bear with me).

Once we have a vision of what the end-user experience of the system should be, the design process starts with determining a fundamental infrastructure that will be required to support the system through its life. This is critical as choices made here impinge on every aspect of the future use and development of the system. Design then layers upwards through communications, applications and administration in order to deliver environment, resource and services. The top layer, of course, becomes organising how teachers deliver effective learning opportunities to students.

Where to start?

In order to systematically develop an ‘educational system’, it is necessary to break down learning into fundamental units that can be delivered discretely (or processed within a technology loaded system). A lesson is, of course, a learning opportunity with environment, time allocation, resource (including staff) and monitored outcomes. A systemic approach allows us to be a lot more flexible in terms of targeting a much wider range of learning opportunities within much more flexible educational structures (including traditional structures).

We should start by considering the people who really can make organising both traditional and more flexible learning opportunities actually work.

We need managers.

Learning environment (location)

Forget ‘managed learning environments’. This is a dreadfully limiting concept. Learning environment is not a thing but an aspiration. It is what all educational institutions, in whatever form, would wish to be judged as. Learning environments are made organic (like gardens) by the mere fact that humans grow and develop within them. Also, like gardens, learning environments have a life cycle passing through stages of planning, development, growth, nurture and decline. Great learning environments need visionary leadership and great management and we must not neglect the role of our landscape gardeners and managers in the drive to lead education that is fit for the 21st century.

Time management (time allocation)

We know about school calendars and timetables. We know about teacher planners and student diaries. Some are attempting to break down the borders between these time management tools with radical horizontal curriculum structures.

To the technologist, time management is clear cut. To them, all learning opportunities are events in time (events are precisely defined in all IT systems from the click and drag of the mouse to epochs in the development of the core operating system). Events can be effectively organised as part of global, national, local, individual and trivial learning opportunities, even at current levels of technology. Is it not possible to use this technology to support any and every curriculum structures with equal effectiveness?

Technology or not, time management is crucial to organising effective learning opportunities and we must not neglect our time managers and senior administrators in the drive to lead education that is fit for the 21st century.

Management information (communication)

Although collection, collation and analysis of performance data seems to have been a bit of an obsession in terms of the deployment of management information systems, we should not forget that quality assurance is probably the least significant aspect of what a truly integrated management information system could deliver. Given sufficient forethought and planning, it really is possible to monitor the progression and development of each and every student throughout their education. It really is possible to massively improve the quality and scope of communications between teachers, students and parents. It really is possible to develop the curriculum and enable teachers to provide our students with exactly the support and resource they need at exactly at the time that they need it.

This requires very specialised skills, however, and we must not neglect our teacher managers, data managers and senior administrators in the drive to lead education that is fit for the 21st century.

Resources management (content)

Robust and creative time management needs equally robust and creative resource management to support it. Students not only expect, but demand, access to quality learning resources whenever and wherever they need them.

We must not neglect our content managers in the drive to lead education that is fit for the 21st century.

What is the bigger picture?

The transformation agenda is rolling and has already changed forever what it means to have a career in teaching. The demographic of the entire teaching profession has changed with youth and energy increasingly valued over experience. The arguments for transformation, restructure and reconfiguration are presented to this conference and this new teaching demographic as a fait accompli, with barely an opportunity to question these assumptions.

I challenge that and make the following observations.

• In a truly flexible educational system, any and all educational structures, and any and all flavours of educator, could deliver learning opportunities equally effectively.

• There is no need to redesign - just to design.

• There is no need to reconfigure - just to configure.

• There is no need for systems to transform.

• We need to manage how our educations systems grow.

Every child matters.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Jeff Bates is Head of Technical and Systems Development at St Marylebone School, in London, in the United Kingdom. He studied yeast biochemistry and the chemistry of alcoholic fermentations for four years in the chemistry department at Reading University. Finally, he found gainful employment teaching science at Furze Platt School, in Maidenhead, and has survived the last 12 years at St Marylebone as a science teacher, ICT teacher, head of ICT and head of technical and systems development. He also somehow found time to be a teacher governor and a parent.

 

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