Good Schools?

Most western governments get elected on manifestos that include pledges to improve the education sytem. Quite rightly, they assert that it is education that is the most important of all governmental concerns as well as being the most expensive.
We have all had an education. We have probably experienced the primary classroom as well as the pot pourri of secondary school lessons, and have been moulded and changed by those experiences.
I spent most of my life in schools, though I never went to a primary school, and am far from convinced that the changes that have taken place over the years, have improved the education of our children.
In this country, we have an expensive organisation called OFSTED, that is charged with the inspection of schools and the enforcement of government regulations. It is their role to peer and probe into the way that schools are run and to produce the league tables that give parents an illusion of choice as to which school they should send their children to.
OFSTED has been around for long enough and by now we should see a difference. All schools should be good schools and all children should be receiving an education that is suitable for their needs. I do not believe this to be true. The powers that be instituted a National Curriculum, than forced all state schools into a strait jacket and all students into a fact based learning system that fundamentally was not suitable for the very bright nor those with learning difficulties. The national curriculum is aimed at the middle ground, probably on the idea that the able will learn despite the system and the less able…… well they won’t learn anyway.
There are schools that pass inspections with flying colours, there are those that fail, and there are those which fluctuate around a mediocre standard, ducking and diving among the men in grey suits, drowning in oceans of paperwork, firing at targets that are constantly moving and getting further away from the real needs of children.
So what makes a good school? I guess that is not easy to define but in my opinion a good school is led by a management that has not lost touch with the classroom. A head teacher should be a figurehead within the school as well as the community. That person should have an awareness of the needs of the community that their school serves and I believe that they should live within that community. A head teacher should have the respect and confidence of the staff and that staff should feel that they have a say in what goes on, both in the classroom and the school in general. Teachers should have the freedom to deliver their subject with freedom to express themselves and their personalities, and should expect to be able to do so with minimal disruption. Students should be able to feel safe and secure whilst in school and not be intimidated by disruptive or violent students. They should feel that they are equally important and that they are cared for. They should be exposed to ideas and experiences beyond what the community may offer. They should also expect that when they leave school, that they are prepared to operate within their local community and to live as responsible human beings, to be able to make use of leisure time as effectively as work. A good school communicates effectively and all should feel that they have a voice that can be heard and taken notice of.
I still maintain that in the seventies, although there were some strange educational experiments going on, that many schools had got it right and there was no ridiculous attempt to drive square pegs into round holes and far fewer disaffected kids attending school simply because they were being paid to do so.
Going to school should be seen as a privilege, but before that is possible the schools need to make that so for all of their students, treating them all the same is not appropriate.