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alt="Tim Elbourne Schools Bulletin Director’s Jottings 11th March 2009 Issue 39 The Schools Bulletin is published fortnightly in term. We are pleased to publish news and notices. Please send details and pictures (.jpeg) and we will try to include them. Send to: debbie.jordan@ely.anglican.org Inside this issue: Director’s Jottings 1 Young Pavement Artists Competition Last chance to see ‘Experience Easter’ From the National Society Making it Happen—The Children’s Plan and You 3 From our Schools School Partnerships enriching learning Pupils get together to help their Indian counterparts Artist in Residence update—Alconbury Primary School 4 The Schools Team Flippin Praise—It’s here at last! Vellore IT Equipment Multi-Sensory Spiritual Garden Singing with the World 2 The Back Page Hellos and Goodbyes In our Prayers this Month Vacancies Dates for the Diary SIAS Reports Newly appointed Foundation Governors Diocese of Ely Church Schools Bulletin 11th March 2009 Issue 39 # A Good Childhood, published last month received a couple of days coverage in the national media and then vanished as new stories took its place. It was ever thus. But it is an important report, written after two years of gathering evidence and it deserves our sustained attention. It’s written in an accessible and engaging style and wears its extensive research base lightly. This was a calculated risk; the authors wanted the book to be read and considered as widely as possible. Its central message is that our children’s lives would be much better if adults could learn to be less individualistic and competitive and re-discover the value of love. Despite greater affluence, life has become more difficult for our children. Surveys show that, since around 2000, one in six of our children have been suffering from serious emotional or behavioural difficulties compared with only one in 10 some 20 years earlier. The report identifies as a root cause, ‘a belief among adults that the prime duty of the individual is to make the most of their own life, rather than contribute to the good of others’. It said this ‘excessive individualism’ was the cause of high rates of family break-up, unhealthy competition in schools, unprincipled advertising and acceptance of income inequality which leaves millions of children living in poverty. The report’s chapter headings set out the ground it covered. They are: Family Friends Lifestyle Values Schooling Mental Health Inequalities. A Good Childhood concludes, ‘We need a more positive attitude to children, where we welcome them into our society and want to help them….our adult society has to change…It is possible to construct a modern society in which there are higher levels of child well-being than in Britain. The key is an ethic in which we care more for each other…It is a world like this, built on the law of love, that we should create with our children.’ There are specific recommendations for those who run our schools. The chapter starts with a well known line of WB Yeats, ‘Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire’ Schools should be transformational, enlarging the mind and enriching the spirit. Obsession with the easily measurable and utilitarian is unhelpful, the Report suggests, ‘What does this do to a child’s curiosity and excitement about what she learns…The narrow focus is on knowledge and skills with too little room for teaching related to feelings or social commitment’ . So it urges government to replace SATS tests with an annual assessment designed mainly to guide a child’s learning and to stop publishing data on individual schools from which league tables are constructed by the media. It also suggests raising the pay and status of people who work with children including teachers and child care workers and offering a salary supplement to teachers taking jobs in deprived areas. Much of what is suggested strikes a chord with Church Schools and resonates with their ethos. Schools should ‘develop happy, likable and pro-social personalities’ and discipline which is based on ‘mutual respect’. A Good Childhood praises the quality of PHSE in primary schools and says that sex and relationship education be presented not as ‘biology’ but as part of ‘social and emotional learning’. A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age’ is published by Penguin. Didn’t they do well? Good schools are about far more than published results and Ofsted outcomes. But it is good to know that our Church Schools continue to do well by these measures too. We recently undertook some research about our schools’ inspection outcomes now an inspection cycle is virtually complete. The results were very encouraging: no schools in a ‘category’ and grades above the local and national averages in most cases. A recent census of diocesan Boards of Education across the country also gave us grounds for satisfaction. We offer an excellent level of services with a relatively small team. For that we are immensely grateful not just to dedicated colleagues but to our many volunteers, including Headteachers and Bishop’s Visitors, who freely give so much. However, we are not complacent and are reviewing our structures at present. If you think any aspect of our organisation or governance could be improved , please do contact us with your ideas and suggestions. "
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