Constancy and endurance are lasting

Paul Spendlove, Principal of Oxford House, Colchester and Chairman of the Independent Schools Association argues that good things come round in full circles, looks at some wise and foolish ideas and sees the future of independent education through optimistic eyes.

Over the centuries, independent schools have proved to be honourable innovators and experimenters. There have been philosophies born out of the frustrations of the age and put into lasting and practical effect. For these sincere adventurers, both sectors of education should be grateful. But not all speculative projects have paid off. I think of the 'i t a', for example – the initial teaching alphabet. This was a very sincere attempt, by Sir James Pitman I seem to recall, from those muddled days of the late 1960s, to help early learners with a new phonetic approach to reading and writing.

I was a student at the College of St Mark and St John, when it was in London, bounded by the Fulham Road and the Kings Road and a stone’s throw from ‘Granny Takes a Trip’ and the Royal Court and at a time when ‘young men’ were assumed to be ‘angry’. I remember thinking that the 'i t a' was a bit like the principle of Esperanto, the proposed international language. If everyone had used Zamenhof’s Esperanto, we’d have all got on fine together; and a common language might have brought about a common currency (perish the thought!) much sooner. So, if all pupils had used the 'i t a' and all books were republished, all would have been well. But we didn’t, and so the poor 1960s guinea pigs had to start all over again and learn to spell properly – at least up until America and the advertising industry began to foist their lazy ways on us.

If experiment has been one strength of the independent sector, then constancy has been another. I mean by constancy a belief in some of the immutables of British education; a belief that if a spade is a spade, then maths is maths, and grammar is grammar. And young people tend to learn by being taught – not by some bootless experientialism. At least, not in the beginnings. You can play in the ‘dressing-up corner’ or stipple the nursery walls with sand and water until the bell goes, but it won’t help you know that a ‘t’ and a ‘h’ (say it phonetically!) makes a ‘th’. Fully conscious of all the developments, and indeed improvements, that have come the educationalist’s way in the last two or three decades, many of us have kept a straight course; and only tacked, to extend the metaphor, when we have felt it to be in the best interests of our pupils. And what has been that straight course? The proverbial three Rs, and subject based teaching, and whole class teaching, and little ‘project’ orientated work.

Visitors to wise independent schools have seen on the blackboard words like ‘noun’, ‘adjective’ and ‘preposition’; have heard snatches of “...three nines are 27, four nines are 36...”; and can still hear “amo, amas, amat”. The wisdom comes in part from a belief in the inherent nature of certain essentials in any given syllabus, solid essentials upon which thought, argument, experimentation and experiences can only truly and thoroughly be built. The wisdom also comes from an inner certainty that the inconstancy of others will weave and oscillate, and every few years, paths will converge in the name of ‘new think’. Which is, of course, usually ‘old think’ surrounded in a coating of new jargon. Thus, as we go into 1998, phonics, tables and three Rs are still IN! Project work is OUT! And the much maligned Chief Inspector of Schools’ view that whole class teaching is no longer inappropriate, is just one more element in the list of so-called ‘traditional’ ideas that have come back again, have come full circle.

Sensible traditionalism is not the province of the independent sector alone. However, it is important to draw a clear distinction between ‘traditional’ and plain ‘old fashioned’. Independent schools which do not keep abreast of, and sift selectively through the more recent developments in educational thinking, are unlikely to be in the directory [of this guide]. Most schools will have adopted and adapted much of the National Curriculum, commensurate both with their ethos and their independence. The assurance which prospective parents can have of an independent school which has been judged objectively as being ‘good of its type’, is that it will be in membership of one of the constituent associations of the Independent Schools Joint Council. The ISJC has instituted a thorough and rigorous inspection system of Accreditation and regular Review. This will be in addition to, or instead of, the Government’s Ofsted inspections.

So, how do I view the present panorama of the education scene? Frankly, with guarded optimism. The loss of the Assisted Places Scheme under the present administration was little short of scandalous; certainly it was highly myopic. However, the Labour government seems otherwise to have a sensible and healthy respect for the independent sector. “Labour will never force the abolition of good schools whether in the private or state sector” was a manifesto pledge. “All parents should be offered real choice through good quality schools, each with its own strengths and individual ethos” was another. This should give you and me the confidence that independent schools are here to stay. But the choice and variety of them will only exist while the level of fees are within the bounds of the feasible. This is partly in the hands of the schools themselves, partly in the hands of government. For a change in the charitable status of many schools, or notions of indirect taxation on school fees, would cause the closure of many schools and a level of fees in the remainder which would shake, if not destroy, the present socio-economic balance of parents.

A word of warning about exam results published in league table form. I have to admit to being thoroughly prejudiced against league tables, as I have yet to discover what they are actually saying to anyone. If a school, whether it is in the maintained or independent sector, has a highly selective intake, then I guess that it is useful to keep an annual eye on the school, and to check that it is getting the best out of its high potential. The published results of non-selective schools – and there are many such independent schools – say nothing to the outside world about the effort of teaching and learning that will have gone into the small number of passes and their grades, nor the joy and celebration associated with all that. They say nothing about the sort of people we are nurturing and cherishing, and the positive changes (and ‘added value’) which we so often and successfully effect.

The danger facing schools by setters of educational practice is that they continue to set parameters of maximum measurable learning which are too narrow to allow for the immeasurable, the real. It is the spirit of education on which we should concentrate, not the measurement. It is the person whom we should hold in our hands, not the performance on exam sheets.
Good schools will do all this; and much more. Especially the constant ones.

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