So there it was. 2007. A decision to stop! To make a life change. After 20 years in charge of schools and many more as part of school senior teams, enough was enough.

Everyone said “You won’t be able to stop…” I thought I knew differently. I was wrong. It took another seven years to start to stop!

So I thought I might write up the story. A book might be a bit presumptuous so perhaps a personal record and reflection might be better.  Something that captured my learning, my mistakes so that others might also enjoy the fun and the challenges, the achievement and disappointments. I wanted it to be more than just a personal summary but more a reflection of how we run education and  the inherent values and principles we should live.

Ironically, I have been so busy since the decision to stop, this monologue has only moved to be jottings in a moleskin book. So this is a way of making it happen. 

I trust it won’t be too self-indulgent, but it has been and still is a rich and varied working life. I have been privileged to work with and meet some amazing people, be supported by an incredible family and be surprised every day by brilliant young people. So firstly thanks to all of you.

We always underestimate the learning that young people do out of a formal setting; at home, from friends with parents etcetera. So in many ways my upbringing will have substantially impacted greatly on my own personality, skills and values. In 2003 I took part in a Hay Group pilot programme, which helped us find those core driving forces that apparently are formed in the first seven years of our lives. I’ll spare you the revealing outcome but it helped me understand how and why I do things the way I do and the stress that certain situations create for me.

I was born into a grocer/farmer family The family shopkeeper business was run by my grandparents and father. Everyone in the family worked in the shops. My mother’s family were all farmers – Lincolnshire smallholders. My childhood was dominated by these family trades – after all the whole family of aunts and uncles, cousins etcetera all lived within 15 miles of one another. It was on reflection an idyllic childhood with lots of  relatives taking a supreme interest in all we did. We were given lots of freedom and trust without realising it. We disappeared for hours on our bikes  up and about the Fens and Wolds.

I went to the same primary school as my father and my grandfather – Tower Road and then on to the grammar school where all my father’s teachers were waiting for me.  I grew up in a very closed educational environment.

However, these years have had a significant impact on my own views and ambitions for teaching. In many ways primary school was formal, uneventful and unremarkable apart of course for the 11+. This seemed to dominate the last two years of work. Here we knew only too well that Miss Blakey’s class was the top stream whilst Mr. O’Shaunessey’s were destined for secondary modern. I was entered early and although I passed having a June birthdate I was barely 10 when the results came out. Fortunately, I was able to wait another year. I might have had the intellectual capacity, but certainly not the emotional maturity to cope with the unhealthily male environment of Boston Grammar School.

The first day at the grammar school proved particularly challenging,. All the new first formers (100+ of us)  sat in the hall with ‘Sid’  Ricketts sitting on the stage peering over his glasses , gown tightly fixed to his shoulders. First her read out the names of the A streamers. No Baumber! Off they went. I watched as my primary friends disappeared with ‘Chick’ Tomlinson.  Then the B streamers. No Baumber! Off they went. “Surely I can’t be in the bottom stream?” C stream names! No Baumber! I felt my stomach tighten as everyone left except the head and I.

“Name?”  “Baumber ,Sir” ” Missed your name. A stream”

The fact that I remember this so vividly goes to show the subliminal impact that streaming and setting can have. The old adage that young people will perform to the expectation they are  set was so clearly demonstrated. By the time the C Stream reached the 5th form, all of them would have left. Given that they had already been selected as part of the top 25% of primary boys, it was a sad reflection on the school and a sad waste of talent.

Not only were we streamed we were rigorously graded every six weeks. We were positioned 1 to 36. Falling in the lower grades meant a caution and these culminated in a Saturday morning detention. Mine was not an isolated experience in the sixties. Out of this iniquity came the comprehensive push by the new Labour Government.

We need to be careful not to mix principle with practice. What is wrong with encouraging competition and high achievement? What is wrong with providing a differentiated experience for those who are  gifted and talented and successfully learn in an academic environment? Well! Everything if it leads to an impoverished education for some or worse still thwarted ambition.

Just look at any group of 11-year olds? The range of maturity let alone intellect is vast. In the UK, as in other western countries, we also worry about the underachievement of boys ignoring the fact that in general boys develop differently and in many ways more slowly than girls. This was thought to be about the development of the use of the right brain and left brain. Left brain develops more slowly controlling logic and use of literal resources. It is said boys favour the left brain and as such the very way we assess our very young children in the UK penalises  boys. The truth is of course that all children are different, not least because of the self believe they have developed and the nature of the family support they may have been given.

Whatever the theory you endorse, does it not  suggest that selective education and over rigorous formal assessment at too early an age creates cohorts of students that merely reflect this moment in time in their development. The danger is that once you label, we all know that students will perform and adults will often respond to that image. Student’s self perception is one of the most important factors affecting progress.

In Sweden the thought that you would start rigorous assessment in primary schools is an anathema. In many high performing systems starting school at 4 almost seems cruel. At Kunskapsskolan we try not to even label students as visual or kinaesthetic. They are all different and need to be helped to find the strategies that work for them in all situations. I can think of many personal anecdotes to illustrate this.

My middle son was always small  – the smallest in every class. He was on the 99% percentile for weight and height and we had regular consultations at the growth clinic. He is 6 foot three now by the way. He was an ‘awe and wonder’ child. He was so easily excited by what he saw or what you did. But he was a bit behind in many areas –  not science- but in language and literacy. We hung on in there believing. Fighting to keep him in groups where he would be stretched and not ‘put down’ a group. We even moved schools at 16 so he would be in a climate of hope and high expectations. And that is what he did – emerging from Durham with an Upper Second in Biology.

He now has three daughters. At the end of his youngest’ s first year in reception (she is the youngest in the class) her scores were disappointing. What we are doing grading five-year olds in PE and Technology I am not sure. But more than that her national phonics test scores looked really poor. She can do it but she just sometimes does not want to. So the question arose – “Do you think she should have a tutor? She does go to extra learning classes on Saturday mornings.”

“Nooooooo!  Just excite her with learning experiences. Encourage her and make a lot of when she does well! Keep the hope alive. It’s too early. Her oracy is great, her enthusiasm for life is second to none.”

“All children are different, not just now, but in their rate of maturation and development.”

So that early Lincolnshire childhood was punctuated by a classic grammar school education which so many people still think is the pinnacle of British educational development. I did not do badly, but I do not look back at it with fondness or a belief that it paved the way for my future. As I saw my own children go through the comprehensive system, I was proud not just of their achievement but the balance they achieved in terms of social maturity and respect for others’ differences.

And after all. Nothing in the research tells us that setting by ability, or worse, separating cohorts of young people to different schools has a real impact on progress.

We do need to know what children can do, we do need to be able to say where they are  and what the child and parent may do, but let’s not think this is fixed at four, five and six. Or even 10! A recent article in the guardian ( http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/mar/09/special-education-needs-michael-gove) said:

There are many reasons why it’s not necessarily a good idea to get children learning in an academic way at too early an age. People tend to think that this puts more pressure on the less bright kids. Actually, it’s not terribly good for the majority of children – academically or psychologically. But, interestingly, it can be the brightest children who fare least well, when their natural curiosity about the world, and instinctive eagerness to learn about it, is institutionally curtailed in favour of prescriptive learning. People think that clever kids will always be spotted and always thrive. It’s a wrong assumption. The charity Potential Plus UK advocates for “gifted” children. It argues that such children often underachieve for a variety of reasons, including: an inability to manage time; disorganisation and frequently losing things; lack of intrinsic motivation to succeed; problems with friendships; bullying; being disruptive, confrontational or disrespectful in class; difficulty concentrating; poor handwriting and overall poor presentation of work, and perfectionist personality type – resulting in resisting work that is deemed more challenging because the fear of failure.

My Lincolnshire childhood was all about keeping hope and opportunity alive; was all about encouraging me to take on responsibility because I was trusted and could do it. I hope I did that with my family. Success in this world is not just about schools, but they can help. But conversely the system can create failure when it need not!