It's been quite a day for education. To begin with, a heart-warming and brain-stimulating article by Sir Ken Robinson in the Guardian, on the Comment and Debate pages:
Gove extols creativity, but he has no idea what it is
On the Guardian website this appeared as
To encourage creativity, Mr Gove, you must first understand what it is
The education secretary's new national curriculum is a dead hand on the creative pulse of teachers and students alike…
By working together we can create an enlightened environment, where everyone can be who they want to be, without fear of discrimination” Elly Barnes
Students from Turves Green Girls School in Northfield, Birmingham collaborated with local musician and songwriter ViX (aka Victoria Perks, former lead singer/songwriter of internationally successful all-girl band “We’ve got a FUZZBOX and we’re gonna use it!!”), to write and record original songs that challenge homophobia as part of the Educate and Celebrate initiative.
Educate and Celebrate is a teacher-training program devised by Elly Barnes to make all schools LGBT friendly and is the official teacher-training program for the charity Schools Out UK. Educate and Celebrate gives teachers the confidence and resources to challenge homophobia, biphobia and transphobia and engages students in an inclusive LGBT curriculum. Ofsted has recognized the program as demonstrating ‘Best practice’ in successfully tackling homophobic bullying. Elly Barnes delivered an Educate and Celebrate workshop at the BCASE Birmingham Education Conference earlier this year.
“Educate and Celebrate – Live In The Studio” is being released internationally by student record label Forerunner Records, to raise awareness of, and to challenge homophobic bullying in schools. It includes original material written by pupils at Turves Green Girls School and also features the Educate & Celebrate anthem “Say It Loud” penned by ViX herself, and fellow Birmingham musician Geoff Hornsby. All proceeds from the sales of the EP will go to Schools Out UK to fund further projects in education.
The songwriting project at TGGS was a direct result of the Birmingham local authority initiative to challenge homophobic bullying and broaden diversity in the curriculum in Birmingham schools. Songs from the Educate & Celebrate EP were debuted at the ‘Birmingham Schools Showcase’, a new annual event established to encourage all schools to celebrate LGBT History Month every February.
“Educate and Celebrate – Live In The Studio” will be released worldwide on Saturday 25th May, when there will be another chance to hear the “Say It Loud” anthem being performed live at Birmingham Pride on the Community Stage on the same day at 2.40pm.
With less than two years before the next General Election, there is an urgent need to develop a new schools framework for a new government. If this is to happen in the way we would like it to, then everyone who believes that this government is undermining the basic principles of state education must make their voices heard in a national campaign for education.
A number of organisations have come together to set out the principles that will need to underpin “a better future for our schools”. The document identifies ten areas where the government is failing dismally. It then sets out the key directions that will need to be followed after 2015.
You can find the full document at http://www.pickingupthepieces.org.uk/betterfuture.html.
Birmingham CASE hopes that the debate around this document will help to clarify what a new government should be aiming to achieve, and ultimately will become the basis of a national campaign for education.
There will be a launch meeting at the House of Commons on Wednesday 12th June from 6.30 to 8.30pm. It is open to anyone with an interest in debating and developing such a programme. Amongst the speakers will be Fiona Millar and Kevin Brennan MP (Shadow Schools Minister).
Co-operative Schools - the Alternative to Gove's Private Academisation
Education has been a political football for decades. Perhaps some are surprised to hear it was Margaret Thatcher who got rid of grammar schools. Grammar schools selected on academic performance rather than income, so many Tory voters found disappointment.
"The reason for the change from a selective to a comprehensive system was controversial, but not deeply divisive, at the time: middle-class parents in the Sixties and Seventies began to resent a test that could consign their children, at the tender age of 11, to schools which they regarded as second-class."
ESRI and the Co-operative College are co-hosting Co-operative Education Against the Crises to explore the potential of the Co-operative school movement and identify how academics can support its development. The event will take place in Manchester at MMU, Didsbury campus, on 4 July. Registration is now open on the event website
There has been endless critique of the neoliberal project to little noticeable effect, with recent examples having been labeled ‘bad academia’ by the Secretary of State for Education, teachers and academics write letters, and unions pass votes of no confidence yet the reforms roll on.
We propose an alternative course, to develop a Co-operative approach to education and following on from this to the rest of the public sector and society also.
The project takes as its starting point Michael Apple’s (2006) chapter ‘Interrupting the Right: On Doing Critical Educational Work in Conservative Times’ in which he argues that the right wasn’t always so powerful, that they strategically and effectively articulated the current orthodoxy and learning from this process it would be possible to articulate and develop a credible and powerful alternative. We want to explore the Co-operative movement as the vehicle for this change.
The first step to develop a Co-operative alternative is an event to be held in Manchester at MMU (Didsbury Campus) on the 4th July.
Birmingham CASE supporters might be interested in attending this talk by Maria Nikolakaki, Greek academic and activist on Thursday 25th April at 7pm at the Rope Walk, 15-20 St Paul’s Square, B3 1QU
Download the flyer
BRE(A)D–Birmingham Radical EDucation—We will rise!
BRE(A)D are organising a talk by the Greek activist academic, Maria Nikolakaki, on
Austerity measures in education in Greece: The social genocide of youth
The talk will be held on 25 April, 7 to 9 pm, at:
Rope Walk, 15-20 St Paul’s Square, Hockley, Birmingham B3 1QU
Telephone: 0121 233 2129
Maria Nikolakaki is a Greek critical theorist, pedagogue, and expert on teaching and education studies, an Associate Professor of Pedagogy and Education, has published extensively in the areas of neoliberalism and critical pedagogy, mathematics education, citizenship education, and lifelong learning. She is also an activist and trade unionist. She is a member of the trade union board at the University of the Peloponnese where she works and of “Sispirosis”, the biggest left coalition union of academics in Greece.
Maria will be happy to discuss the current situation in Greece more generally during the Q & A afterwards.
If you can’t make this talk, Maria will also be talking the following day at Coventry University, 3 to 5 pm.
The Coalition Government is reforming education at break neck speed. The Secretary of State Michael Gove is ignoring research evidence – such as the highly respected Cambridge Primary Review – and he is refusing to engage with professional and parental opinion about what makes a good primary education. It is time our voices are heard.
Following on from the successful Lambeth Primary Schools Conference in December 2012, we are launching this Primary School Charter.
