Education debate moves past buildings

The meaning being that good teachers make good schools, not sparkly new facilities.

It is a refrain that has been used by both sides of the argument and came up again at the last States meeting when the focus was – understandably – on the tens of millions being spent turning a four-building secondary system into a one-school-two-sites system.

With that debate over (if not exactly settled) some of the emphasis can now move away from bricks and mortar to the other key elements of Education’s ambitious reforms.

ESC president Matt Fallaize outlined a few of those yesterday, including a shift away from a ‘largely skills-based curriculum’ introduced just two years ago to one where pupils are encouraged ‘to think critically, solve problems and be creative’ with greater attention on content.

While such a change is not as eye-catching as the closure of the Grammar and La Mare High – it is a key part of ESC’s agenda.

The committee says that in the short time the new curriculum has been in place it may already be leading to a decline in standards of literacy among primary children.

The importance of a change to the curriculum to ESC goes some way to explaining the awful mess the committee got into to secure the services of its preferred first head of curriculum and standards.

Nor does the transformation stop there.

Deputy Fallaize said he did not want to alarm teachers but a new inspection regime is intended to shake up schools and hold them to higher standards.

As with the new curriculum, this ‘deliberately rigorous framework’ is designed to challenge the status quo and raise the expectations of teachers, parents and pupils about what to expect from an island education.

The direction is set. Selection is fading away.

However, those who thought educational transformation was just about the number of buildings have not been paying attention in class.