Solid textbooks packed into desks with lids, in rows, facing the front – such was the political vision for education set out by Elizabeth Truss and Nick Gibb at the BESA/EPC educational business conference in London last Monday. The muddled banalities of the opening and closing remarks contrasted with the thought-provoking presentations of practitioners in 21st-century schools and publishing houses.
Two sessions struck me particularly and they both demonstrated innovative practice in action. The first was a piece by William Edwards School in Grays Essex. Stephen Munday, Headteacher, and two of his colleagues described a two-year transformation which required a fundamental change of approach and teaching culture. We saw what was admittedly a promotional video, with smiling pupils busily writing on the wipe-clean walls, sitting in groups on carpeted floors with agile teachers, all under the benevolent eyes of multi-directional projectors and and online imagery beamed to the walls. The vigour in the school, and in the team who presented to the conference, was evident, as was the improvement in results generated by the transformation in approach. One school, one set of circumstances, not a prescription – but admirable.
The second was the description of a mini-MOOC, developed and published by Cambridge University Press in conjunction with OCR, an exam board. The concept – 100 online lessons to teach the new computing curriculum, with formative assessment elements incorporated into the material – is straightforward. Surprising to publishers is that CUP plans to make it available globally at no charge. ‘How is it financed? What is the business model?’ Helen Cunningham, CUP’s International Education Publishing Director, clarified that OCR had provided funding for the project, and that CUP was hoping for greater visibility in the UK school market, for customer and usage data from the global custom base for the product and for the opportunity to upsell paid-for material to the new customer base. The difficulty of persuading markets to pay for some material, whilst receiving other material free, was not lost on anyone in the room.
The sense of business prospects in the room was more optimistic than not, although the complexities of the school market in England and Wales and the challenges of creating, publicising, assessing and purchasing material to support teaching and learning were very evident in the questions and discussions. Listening to the political remarks was like reading speech bubbles from a cartoon version of the matter of the day.