Archives for Matthew Moss High School

And on the sixth day……

…students came back into school to make it not like school. This week-end I was privileged to witness one of the most exciting exemplifications of self-determined learning I’ve yet to see. In OPEN, I write about the inevitable shift, from  Pedagogy (tutor-directed learning), to Andragogy (self-directed learning), to Heutagogy (self-determined learning). I argue that our formal institutions will increasingly have to follow learner needs and interests, simply because, when we’re learning socially, it’s all self-determined. So, we can expect that we will demand more of what works for us socially, when we’re in a more formal space. However, self-directed or …

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Innovating When Winning

We’ve been working this week with teachers and senior leaders from a range of schools, across England, that have been  externally judged across the whole spectrum: from failing to outstanding. There’s no discernible difference in attitudes between them, and I don’t believe that senior leaders in failing schools care any less about their kids than those who lead highly successful schools. Nor, strangely, is there any difference in the reluctance to innovate at either ends of the spectrum. The struggling schools are worried about risk-taking, because they’re under significant imposed pressure, and the schools that are already at the top …

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The 5 Deadly Diseases of Education

I’m obliged to Jim Benson (@ourfounder) for tweeting the clip below which features the management genius of Dr W.E. Deming. I am also grateful to Andy Raymer, who is the Head Teacher at one of my favourite schools (Matthew Moss High School, in Rochdale, UK), for his application of Deming’s principles to education, and specifically schooling. It was Andy who insisted that I look to Deming’s philosophy and see its applicability to systems of schooling. Ignore the fact that the video was recorded in 1984 – it’s as relevant now, in the world of business management, as it was then. …

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