9. Happily Ever After. What do parents think school is for? Ask them, and most will tell you that it is about their children getting the best marks possible so that they can get into a tertiary study institution (so that they can get the job they want and live happily ever after). If you really probe their answer, though, you will find that it is the bit in parentheses in the previous sentence that they truly care most about. It’s just that most parents associate getting good marks with eventual happiness. We need to change this mindset. School is about unlocking potential and helping kids find their passion (in the words of the great Ken Robinson). This is really what will make them happy and successful. Towards this end, we need to educate parents on what a truly relevant, twenty-first century, child-centered education means, at the start of the school year. I would do all I could to get parents to support learning over marks, and self-discovery over the syllabus. Imagine parents’ evenings where the major topic of conversation is not how Sarah can improve her marks, but how we can help her to discover her true talents, and motivate her to be the person she can be. (As a bonus, parents can keep my staff honest in terms of creating lessons and assessments that are sincerely student-centered, relevant and personalised.)
10. No books day. A little idea with a potentially large impact: To encourage more hands-ons, active approaches to learning, I would have a day a week (at least) where students are only required to bring their lunch. They will not write anything down, thus lessons have to be so engaging that students will remember them without having to record them. Linked to this, and if circumstances allow for it, I would also like to have an ‘e-learning day’ twice a term where students stay at home and submit work digitally. Truth be told, this is not my idea – I have seen it work at a school nearby. And it works brilliantly!