What price ‘Intelligence’?

The following short monograph was written by Neil Richards, a Trustee of the 21st Century Learning Initiative in response to the publication of Tony Little’s book, An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Education. As a close associate of John Abbott, he was present at Eton when John and Tony Little first discussed cooperation, in the presence […]

Why is school reform difficult and frequently problematic

Battling for the Soul of Education

A review of Diane Ravitch, ‘The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How testing and choice are undermining education’.

Open letter to the nation’s newspapers

In response to the wide national coverage on Britain’s ever-declining “educational standards” as measured by the OECD, John Abbott has sent this letter to half a dozen national papers: The UK’s position in the rankings for educational performance (8th December 2010) will continue to remain “stagnant at least” as long as successive Ministers fail to […]

What the 21st Century Learning Initiative is all about

Societies worldwide are undergoing massive economic, environmental, technological, social and political changes that challenge traditional values, beliefs and institutional arrangements.  Here in England, these stresses are apparent in our education system where nothing is as clear cut as it might once have seemed.  Profound questions are being asked as to why so many young people […]

Schools in the Future: What has to Change, and Why

An explanation of why, in the light of recent research on the nature of human learning, the present Western, essentially Anglo, system of schooling is both upside down in terms of its distribution of resources, and inside out in terms of its excessive dependence on school-as-place; on formal as opposed to informal learning, and on the teacher as instructor rather than as facilitator.

Who will take Education where?

Like many others in recent weeks I have become something of a ‘party policy watcher’, comparable to those who watch the fascinating antics of dolphins so as to try and understand how their brains work. As the General Election gets ever nearer, the behaviour of these policy wonks seems to have become ever more erratic, eccentric and represents apparently hopeless organisation behind the scenes.

A Briefing Paper for Parliamentarians on the Design Faults at the Heart of English Education

With a General Election in England to be held sometime before June 2010 the Initiative has just produced A Briefing Paper for Parliamentarians on the Design Faults at the Heart of English Education. This will be circulated for all Members, hopefully before the Summer Recess. At the same time the Initiative will do everything it can to stimulate wide popular discussion of the Ten Actions as set out in the Paper by encouraging all Parliamentary candidates to consider the significance of these issues.

Occasional Pieces: All Hands to the Sink

For the dishwasher or the microwave to breakdown just before the family descends for a long Bank Holiday weekend can be a disaster.  An older generation is made painfully aware that their children know little of those time-consuming household chores that were such a feature of their own childhood – washing up dishes, peeling potatoes, […]

Occasional Pieces: Education: A Question of Democracy

To send your child to the local school, or decide to go private, is a question that splits families apart.  Is education primarily for private gain, or for the public good?  And, if it’s for both, how does this work out?  Although we rarely see it in these terms, isn’t this actually a question about […]