The future of education

[00:00:00] Vim: hi, I'm Vimla Appadoo.
Tim: I'm Tim Panton
Vim: and welcome to the distributed features podcast. Today we're going to be talking around about education and the impact of technology on how we learn and develop more importantly what it means for the education system.
So this week's interview with Charlotte. We really spoke about education at a young age and what it means to what education means now and the ways the education system has or hasn't changed to meet new needs that exist.
Tim: Yeah, I think there's a there's an assumption that like education Tech is all about like.
You know Mass online learning systems and stuff like that. And I think that sort of Misses like half the point of Education. I think a lot of it, you know what they're finding out in those spaces that I as I understand it is that a lot of the socialization stuff is missing from those environments like, you know, you can learn the facts but you don't learn how to work as a [00:01:00] team or get on with your fellow get on with your fellow pupils and that kind of stuff which is essentially certainly at the young age
a lot of what schools really about. So
Vim: yeah, I think the education system forgets that as well, but the emphasis isn't isn't on that conflict resolution or listening you kind of you get rewarded for getting 10 out of 10 on a test or Improvement in Academia, and we forget how important those social skills are as part of Education.
Tim: Yeah, I think that's one of the joys though still of the primary school system is that it's retained. I mean I'm and I looked at it for a few years, but last time I looked it still retained that that element of like getting people to work together and getting people to kind of, you know survive as a group of whatever it is 30 kids in the room unless unless they're actually kind of cooperating you.
Like it nothing works and that's why I think it is a joy that that's still there. [00:02:00] I think that the tech World particularly doesn't really understand that or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm being unkind.
Vim: No, I think it's overlooked a lot. So there's still the pressure of get it done get it alive build it.
Without the problem-solving collaborative bit of it and being in the same room and the cultural side.
Tim: Yeah. I mean, I think I did talk to somebody and I would love to get her on this and on an interview who worked on I think it's the Khan Academy and they were looking at how do you put together a virtual cohort for I mean, this is kind of.
You know Advanced education adult learning. But but how do you put together a cohort? Because you like things like a university there's a natural kind of you got Lab Partners and you've got groups to study groups or whatever and then they form relatively naturally because everyone arrives at the beginning of the year and you know, there's a flow to it.
Whereas the the online learning systems people [00:03:00] turn up. Kind of when they want to and they study when they want to and so there isn't a natural a natural cohort forming of itself and they never meet physically so that doesn't help cohort forming either. And so these people don't don't get. To work with each other and she was looking at how could you like using technology like, you know sort of Skype like things but not Skype how you could kind of encourage people to help each other in a form of natural cohort and what could the system due to to help that but also to help it develop in a healthy way because we've all seen online systems like, you know, you throw them up and let people communicate and then you wish you hadn't
Vim: yeah.
Yes, definitely. I think as well. So what Charlotte particular he talks about is nursery school education. So she set up her own right franchise for nurseries. And what's really interesting is they don't [00:04:00] they're all about getting outside and learning things as a team out in the woods and in nature rather than in the classroom with the less focus on whether you can leave the end of Nursery being able to write your name, but be able to form
relationships and listen and have empathy and the kind of the skills. It's assumed you pick up but they become the focal point,
Tim: right and a those things measured or is it like mean that because we're so metric driven these days that if you can't find a metric for it and it's very hard to get funded for it.
Vim: Well, that was my that actually that was my challenge would be my challenge back is why does it need to be measured
Tim: because that's the way that funding works? Not because it needs to be measured over itself. But because these days in order to prove that you get next year's funding you have to produce a bunch of metrics about this year.
Vim: Yeah. I'm not sure. I'm not sure about the measurement side of it, but I. I'd personally be Keen to see [00:05:00] that shift so that you can measure it in a different way maybe so I don't know because it'd be really difficult like in my head. The only solution to that is testing the some sort of empathy empathy and I don't I just don't know what that reality would look like.
Tim: You know, . Did you ever see Blade Runner?
Vim: I haven't know.
Tim: So so one of the things in that is there's a test to see whether you're dealing with a. Forgotten the name of the test, but to see whether you're dealing with an artificial clone be we're not claiming artificial being or a real human because they're visually not possible but and but the test is around whether you can detect empathy.
So they put them in situations of like, you know animal cruelty or whatever. I can't remember the exact detail, but it's like a bunch of weird questions, but actually they're about whether you can detect empathy or not. And the the the replicants don't supposedly don't have that. So they don't [00:06:00] react in the same way, which if you like, you know, it's not relevant to education was kind of interesting that but, you know detecting empathy is has been a science fiction Trope for a while at least.
Vim: Yeah, and I mean. We are living in the future.
Tim: So well, yeah, I mean, you know, certainly as far as the science fiction authors are concerned like a lot of this stuff has been played with inaccurately and you know not predicted or anything but there were some of the thoughts that we're kind of having to deal with in real life now have been dealt with a science fiction topics or for you know, well, I don't know how its Blade Runner Blade Runner was I guess late 60s when it was written.
Vim: Yeah, hmm,
Tim: you know where where it was a good few years ago. So yeah, but so will your sense of being like Outdoors meaning?
Vim: Yeah,
Tim: does that mandates? My mean I obviously I'll listen to the interview. But but does that mandate [00:07:00] smaller groups or how do you kind of manage that a group of children out in the woods?
That sounds like a pretty scary Prospect.
Vim: It is smaller groups. And it's still structured like it's not just a free-for-all. It's you go about when you do a task not dissimilar from how you would have like field trips or days out
Tim: so I mean, I think that's right, but. Again, I worry about how those things are funded. I suppose with the nursery school to some extent you you've got the option of getting the money from the parents.
Vim: Yeah. Well, I think what's interesting with what Charlotte's doing and she's trying to Lobby government to change the way education is measured what what funding looks like for it because her
kind of perspective and we speak a lot about this in the podcast of what How education hasn't changed and there is some fundamental things apart of the whole education system as a whole that just haven't changed since the Victorian times and that's holding [00:08:00] back a lot of the like the ways that we learn and what we value from education as well.
So that's still not scope in British education for non like in traditional academic Academia. Anyway for the non non academic people or just different ways of learning or it's very tailored to here is an exam pass it as a move on.
Tim: Yeah, and I think it's I think the one of the risks were running in you know with that form of education is to do with the fact that we were almost raising a in that raising educating people.
Into jobs that are the most amenable to being replaced by a AIs.
Vim: Exactly,
Tim: you know that that that that skill of being able to answer the question as its put down on the form and like and you know, do do the exam is exactly what you can teach an AI to do and and you know what you're starting to see I think is that the jobs that [00:09:00] will remain in the long term and are you it's impossible to know how long it's going to take are actually the jobs that can deal with things like empathy that can deal with
um, like capturing the imagination coming up with different solutions all of those sorts of skills
Vim: learning to challenge and have constructive conversations around problem solving and massively missed. It was like I undervalue the skills. I picked up growing up just from family conversations around debating things like challenging what was happening around us, and we were really encouraged to do that at home.
But not at school, right? You don't you don't question what your teacher tells you what school you just accept it as fact you learn it you then repeat it in the exam. There's no analysis. There's no challenge to it. And even when you are given the opinion the choice. The opportunity to form opinions through subjects like history or politics or anything like [00:10:00] that.
You're still you still have to fit a certain criteria. It's still not open to that exploration.
Tim: Well, yeah, but I mean and a lot of that is skin and not strictly metrics driven but to do with the fact that it makes it much easier to Mark the exam if there are like, you know, these seven points that you have to have got into your essay and and I think.
That comes back to trying to measure trying to produce things that we can measure so that we can like measure success it and you know, there's nothing wrong with being able to measure success. But I question whether what we what we think of as success is going to be long-term useful for for people who growing up now.
I mean, I can't imagine what the job scape is going to look like for somebody who's ten-year-old now
Vim: no exactly and so that that's what. Should be thinking about is as Society like so education is still formulaic because [00:11:00] still made the factory workers. So that kind of proving that you can do the job do doing the job.
That's 9 to 5 same same everyday kind of thing. And that's how we education was built. It was built around a factory and Industrial working. So why haven't we started to build education to suit what is happening now.
Tim: I'm yeah, I'm well, I think I think two things one, which is a not sure that's right. I think a lot of Education was built around being a clerk like factory work was one chunk of it.
But the other axis of it was to do with producing reliable office workers who would go through mechanical tasks in a reliable way. Not, I mean not necessarily physical task, but actually, you know mechanically work through mental tasks.
Vim: Yeah,
Tim: and we're still you know, a lot of what we're doing is still to do with that but there are pieces of it that I think are
hugely useful and I think I'm kind of coming back to what you were saying. I think [00:12:00] that will somewhat undervalued in the education but the ability to express yourself clearly.
Vim: Yeah,
Tim: get down on paper your thoughts such that if you pick them up in two years to pick up that piece of paper in two years time, you'll know what it was that you were thinking about.
What. Maybe what the reasoning for a project I'm going the way it was is or just convincing the management that this project is worth doing, you know, those skills. I think are hugely useful and. They were part of essay writing but not really not valued and I think those are the sorts of things that we better at an older age group.
We should be looking at and but I think also just like the ability to function as a group. We've I'm not even sure we have almost losing that and you start looking at the way that you know that group Behavior online works. It's not a very collaborative.
Vim: It's not it's very individual. And it's [00:13:00] all well it's collaborative in the sense of you your it's easy to find like-minded people online.
But then you kind of you fall into that Echo chamber problem.
Tim: Yeah, even those in those Echo Chambers can be quite vicious. Like if you depart from the like the agreed thesis even slightly over particular Echo chamber. You're out on your ear. And so they're not they're not very interested in.
They're also not very interested in discussion.
Vim: Yeah. Is it more about acceptance?
Tim: Right? Right. Right. And I think a lot of that is like, you know that those are the skills that you teach toddlers you teach four-year-olds, you know how to get along with your big brother or whatever and that. I don't know.
Maybe we just don't value. It will haven't valued it enough
Vim: lots to ponder. I think this is important to hand over to Charlotte to talk more about [00:14:00] what she does and how she is doing it cool.
Tim: Excellent. I'll look forward to listening to it.
Vim: I'm really excited to introduce Charlotte Lucas into the conversation.
She's a nursery owner of the forestry schools and an ex teacher Charlotte. Would you like to introduce yourself?
Charlotte: Yes. Hi Vim. Thanks for having me. My name is Charlotte Lucas. I've been a teacher for 15 years now. I came out of the classroom having discovered the forest School principal and the became trained in doing that and then about ten years ago.
I started on my journey of opening up a naught to five year old Nursery School on a duchy of Cornwall estate. So we've been doing that for eight years. We've been fully open. So it's been about a 10-year journey and yet that comes down the current day. Whereby we have just over a hundred children per day on site on a 21 Acres.
So everything around 300 families in our [00:15:00] local area just outside of Bath
Vim: amazing. That's really cool and 15 years as a teacher within education is a long time. So what do you think has changed the most? In your experience
Charlotte: when I first started teaching, so I think I qualified back in 2002. I started teaching and I felt , you know retrospectively that the focus was very much on the children's learning but also the pastoral care of the children say the relationship once the relationships we built with children were just as important as the outcome as they're sort of academic.
And I think during the time. I had my own children and was on maternity leave when I returned to the classroom. It seemed like the balance had shifted with much more focus on the formalized outcome of children's learning so [00:16:00] assessment marks measuring their sort of Learning and Development more in a formalized way.
So looking at the data behind learning as opposed to focusing on the individual child's Journey. I would say
Vim: and what do you what kind of made you take the leap from being a teacher to a nursery owner
Charlotte: when I was teaching in the classroom my head mind then that the school I was working at suggested he put me on this Forest School course, which
It was a course run by Bridgewater College that focused on the Scandinavian approach to learning which was very much Outdoors Outdoors based and taking subjects outdoors and learning in a more informal way. So learning through play as well. And so I got that qualification. I was allowed to use my year 3 which sort of 7 to 8 year olds my year 3 [00:17:00] class that year and I.
We were allowed to trial that just with my class and my class were very varied. There were some formerly traditionally very sort of academic children that excels in formal environment, but there are also children diagnosed with dyslexia that will very very intelligent but were not necessarily being able to show that in the you know, the classroom setting and so it was really interesting because all of those children benefited whereas perhaps I maybe thought that the children that were slightly more Hands-On with their learning would simply flourish for all the children really benefited from the different things get that can be all that forest school can offer or their learning outside can offer because it just breaks down so many boundaries and challenges that many different aspects.
That learning so I think once I had trialed that for a year. I realized and it what it I mean it is only common sense. I but I [00:18:00] realize that children had so much more learning opportunity available to them by delivering an outside and delivering things in a constantly challenging environment. And so although I stayed on at the school I was at to set up the forest school there and which I'm really proud of because it delivers from reception all the way up to year five every week.
If that whilst I was doing two or three days a week there. I was also working on setting up my own forest school on my own site because. For me an hour a week wasn't enough. I wanted to or an hour and a half a week wasn't enough. I wanted to be doing it more because it seemed like the children would obviously then stand to benefit even more.
So that was what sparked it. I think
Vim: yeah, that's an incredible like being able to do both at the same time like mind-blowing to me.
Charlotte: It was a real juggle, but I think the great thing with working with children that you're in the moment. So [00:19:00] unlike juggling two other jobs, you know, when you're with a class of children, you're actually with a class of children outdoors in a woodland.
You can't be doing anything else. So although it was full-on. It was it was manageable and it meant I could obviously get an income from the school. I was working at whilst trying to set up the other project. So sort of financially it worked for me as well.
Vim: Yeah, I know. That's so I think it's really interesting with education in particular because I see it as one of the most Antiquated systems that were still using I said formal education hasn't changed drastically since the Victorian area and so much as Society has changed since then and our understanding of people and how we learn and just structures in general have changed.
Is that something that you could come across now? In the different ways of learning ?
Charlotte: Vim I think if you spoke to any educationalist, they would say exactly the same as you that they're in a system that fundamentally hasn't changed since the Industrial Revolution [00:20:00] and I find it incredible and that's partly why I came out of primary education to go into early years education purely because of the stability in the delivery of because it doesn't it doesn't meet the demand we so
very much need and that our children need now and it's very incongruous. And and what's the word all the latest research scientific qualitative and quantitative research now shows us what we should be doing yet policy is pushing Us in the other direction. So it's counterintuitive. Totally.
Vim: Oh, absolutely.
I couldn't agree more and in early years. What happens to Children next is the code like do they have to then go back into a really structured system that's then counterintuitive to what they've learned a nursery.
Charlotte: Well, what we like to do, there's a there's a [00:21:00] terminology called School ready. And what does school-ready mean so part of our role in early years education from children,
we offer childcare and education for children from from six months up to school age, which is for five years old and for us what school ready means is a child's being independent with things like toileting. Confident in asking questions emotionally resilient socially aware physically developed as well and you know eager to learn. For us school.
Weddi. It's a. Necessarily being able to use fine motor skills to hold a pencil and write your name. So great if the child is at that stage, you know as our nursery and we would fully Embrace their willingness or their self motivation if they wanted to explore that but for us it's about. [00:22:00] You know instilling A love of learning and that basically is through play so as as practitioners, we know all the boxes we have to tick in the learning we have to do but we really focus on the individual child and where they're currently at not where they might perceive to be needing to be and so when they get to school, I think the flexibility goes somewhat there are still elements in the reception class, which is.
Entry class there are still elements of free play but much more structure with regards to learning phonics and getting into programs of learning that to me see the government and the curriculum thinking that children learn like a row of dominoes set up. So you're not go on dominant Domino over and it goes to the next and it goes to the next foot children and our brains that we well they don't learn like that.
They don't. [00:23:00] In a straightforward linear fashion, they're more like a ping-pong ball ding ding ding hitting everything and eventually in the little minds of children. We will gradually formulate links between those thoughts and that's how we make sense of the world. But unfortunately, it doesn't work in a linear way.
I sometimes think when we start formalized education, we start thinking that our brains for some reason work in that way, but for me, it doesn't instill self motivation. And you know, I've got three boys so and the experience of the children. I thought it more or less and less if you're a unless catering for a child that really loves formalized structure then you know education.
It doesn't promote creativity. It doesn't promote motivation to learn actually switches off a lot of a lot of the character traits that come with young children. So it feels like quashing their learning as opposed to feeding it.
Vim: Yeah, and I think there's a. Kind [00:24:00] of philosophical question that I by what it means to learn as well.
So, you know, it's not the like you say it's not being able to hold a pen and write your name. It's being able to question and challenge the things that were being told or to be curious about different things. Like that's that's what real learning is. Not your ability to recite the ABC command or.
The way we assess at the moment
Charlotte: I think as well if you like you said that we need to decide what we want our schools to do and what learning means to what we want it to mean to the Next Generation. So if we're producing a Workforce then arguably the the industries that these children will find themselves and have vastly changed.
So whereas perhaps there was a place once for simple straightforward. You know a level of knowledge and that working well within economy. It's not now and I think the top five character traits [00:25:00] that employers want, you know, involve characteristics like emotional intelligence. Now, you can't really explicitly teach that it has to be delivered.
Throughout the session or a lesson and you know, it comes through a pastoral level of care and experience-based learning, you know, you can't sit down and say this is how we're all going to be emotionally intelligent and basically here it comes don't focus on it, and there is no time in the school curriculum to do it.
Vim: Yeah, and there's no time to explore either so live speaking from when I was younger that if you got upset at school you. On allowed to you won't give him the time or space to understand that or to challenge it or to talk to someone about it was very much. Just get back to work and then I know both speaking to friends who are teachers.
I think that's only becoming more and more normal as schools become [00:26:00] overcrowded and there's more pressure on teachers to teach and not pay then loads of different components come into that as well.
Charlotte: I think like you said it's a massively varied problem. I think on there on those on the shop floor.
So to speak I think funding is an issue and therefore roles like middle management in large Academy chains that are traditionally for pastoral care. So they're sorting out the. Social issues within a year group. Yeah that know when they hit certain maybe you know preteens eight-year-olds all these him up hormonal changes.
It's just a fact of life. They're going to go through all these social interactions and challenges now if they don't have. Secure adult interactions, like you said allowing them to explore the outcome and guiding them. Well, we can't be surprised if that has an impact on their learning because they're going to focus on that.
And before we get that right in a secure environment, [00:27:00] then they're happy and you know child whose well-being is looked after they're not going to achieve the outcomes. They possibly could because they don't have they're not happy. Basically, I think you know or need. Happy to have all to get our best outcomes.
It's good.
Vim: Yeah, definitely. I know again.
Charlotte: It's very sad about the funding.
Vim: Yeah. I know we're painting a really Bleak picture. Over the last 15 years Technologies played a huge part in how we in changing how we learn and how we interact how what would you say? So Technologies and perhaps been the most all like how technology is impacting young children in particular.
Charlotte: So obviously I can talk more about 0-5 some happy to give my opinion on on later years. I think technology is sort of twofold. It's obviously got bad press from things like [00:28:00] families incorporating iPads into some sort of like basic babysitting methods and being in restaurants and. Too quiet five minutes.
So I think we're all guilty as you know, I could include myself as I've using Technologies a sort of help in the home and do to help us get on with our busy day and that has definitely had an impact on the role. It plays within a family and therefore sort of a younger child's learning and we've noticed, you know communication, you know verbal communication.
Vim: Yeah,
Charlotte: is impacted it purely because you know apps and iPads are just you know technology is so clever at capturing attention. So young children will very happily sit still and watch that and look at it. It's great for children with with SENs so special educational needs. I can really iPads can really help and Technology can really help [00:29:00] bring on their levels of communication if they suffer in that area what I will say.
Technology is really great for is sort of closing the sort of learning feedback loop for children. So children with like young children obviously have much shorter attention spans. And so if we're doing something great at the Forest school one of our practitioners videos it we can we can Replay that and show them, you know, let's look at how you solved that
problem with your friends and you're arguing are the words, you know, you just have compromised or you know, whatever happened, but we can we know that it definitely has a place. And then behind the scenes the way that technology can make the world smaller. And therefore you need to expand children's understanding of the World by joining up with different schools across the globe, you know, Google Maps, you [00:30:00] know something as straightforward as that is you can imagine mind-blowing for a small child's, you know, Brain to actually understand the other side of the world from visibly see it straight away.
It's really really great. So I think it's twofold. I think we need to be really careful of how we use it and particularly here although within our curriculum, you know, we. We are expected cover technology and include that in our literally we certainly feel children are exposed to a lot of Technology at home.
So we feel we don't necessarily have to focus on it at this age. And again, it doesn't really promote the skills that 0 to 5. Probably should really be focusing on like emotional intelligence like interacting like problem-solving. So we tend to stay heavily away from it, but that's not to say we don't see it's important.
Vim: Yeah. Yeah totally and I think what you'd like you say, it's that balance of being [00:31:00] able to use it for the positive without it having that the without it taking away from all of the other aspects that come together to form us as human beings as well. It should be as an enabler not a replacer
Charlotte: exactly.
I mean, I definitely with older children. I feel you know, it's just part of their life and it's going to be so great in very many ways. But with three boys, I particularly focusing on gaming in the positives and the negatives of that and it's just getting them to be aware that it you know elements of it is a, you know, they are Virtual Worlds and they need have to have the skills themselves to
police it themselves. So I think. Just a just a blanket. Now. You can't use technology. It's just it's just it's ridiculous. But I think it's getting them to understand that they need to understand the positives and the negatives themselves. And actually it's so many studies that have shown that
It stimulates a certain part of the brain of a [00:32:00] young child's brain. Well in all of us that just really keeps us wanting more and I think as adults we can control that will be aware of it more easily than as younger children. I think we have to be careful at their level of development and their level of ability to stop themselves becoming you know, too obsessed with it.
Vim: Yeah. I think that I think is well we often forget that. Like technology isn't new. So even just like the TV becoming a household goods in the 60s was a huge technology imprint on society, but through to what we have now is just become more personalized and more handheld and more accessible and I think sometimes we forget that it's.
We've always been dependent on technology for a long time to entertain.
Charlotte: Yes. Yeah, exactly. I mean what I will say is that I often have this discussion with my parents and my mom said that they had half an hour of [00:33:00] children's programs a day. Yeah, when I was younger that was such 40 years ago and that was her window to sort of sit down with a cup of tea and relax and I get that but I think the problem now is that children could be at the you know danger because of the busy lifestyles of parents and because
you know because of it being at our fingertips even more so that they can be sedentary for you know four or five hours a day. Yeah quite easily and that's at like when you think about it, five hours a day for a young child that needs to be running and jumping around building their Grace muscle groups and things like that.
It's it's bad news, and I think we're seeing in you know obesity in you know lack of interaction. And poorly developed muscles all of that and I'm not trying to be Doom and Gloom because there are so many people that offer a balance to that and I think that's more and more positively coming across [00:34:00] in in early years and in PE, in games provision across the primaries, you know, like with the walking mile before lunch and you know that sort of thing so it is recognized but I still think you know, you know, there are various disorders called nature deficit disorder and I think technology has a part to play in that or letting technology sort of dictate. We need to be dictating how we use technology and what I notice as well is that this is we're only talking about this in the office that when children kick up a stink which they do when you take them off an iPad.
Vim: Yeah.
Charlotte: You know because it's really hooking them in parents sort of don't like that conflict anymore or they lack the confidence to realize that they're the adults.
Yeah, because we bombarded by so much information about how to parent and various other things. I think they sort of. Lack trust in their own judgment so often when we talk to families about issues surrounding [00:35:00] technology use and you know, making it a positive part of the family life rather than always an argument that we say, but you need to remind your children and you need to remember that you are the adults.
So, you know, basically until that child is 16 or 18, they need to tie in with your rules and it might be in Conflict but there are various ways to go about that. So. I think that's another thing, you know, just being just being in control of. How it impacts on learning and death that's not what is by buying which has make it it's not that visible in our setting that's not say another settings. .
Vim: As technology becomes a bit of a replacer for conversations between young teens or children to children. So instant messaging using social media and so on. I think that conflict resolution becomes harder and harder to do in the real world. So when you're forced to have it with your parents or at an early age [00:36:00] having that discussion with the parents understand why it's happening or.
What's going on becomes even more important
Charlotte: definitely there that I mean, yeah, I mean the these sort of interactions are how children sort of formulate a path forward aren't they and their every past experience will help them feed into another one. So I'm not saying we do have take you know, take the iPad away and go right that's it, you aren't having it, because that doesn't actually explain to the child and the danger is they go to the next, you know, the playground where they have a conflict.
Just say right. It's my way or the highway . It's not helpful. I think you know technology is the part of our family life. And so it was a case of going right. This is you know, what I feel is useful and fair to you the child. What do you feel and by giving them a voice? Actually you're making them aware that they have a choice and that they can exercise some form of that [00:37:00] choice and power and then you negotiate basically and you know, the thing the difficulty then isn't in the negotiation, but it's in actually upholding what it is keeping the grounds you both them you both layout, but I think I think that stands the child in a better stead like you said to then go forth and resolve conflict and to navigate those social interactions that actually you know, they need to have negative social interactions as well as positive in order to understand the difference between the two. And to build empathy. Ultimately.
Vim: That's really interesting. And what do you think the future of Education that's like them?
Charlotte: Again, I don't want to be doom and gloom. But what I do think is this the maintained the maintained sector is severely suffering from a sort of cultural. I think it's changing and I think people in these institutions desperate need to change it.
[00:38:00] However, I think until policy changes that always going to be working under an umbrella that basically is pulling away from the direction. They feel they need to go in which is sad and I don't think academies, you know, these big multi chain academies are doing anything for the outcome of learning. I really don't it actually makes educating more of a business and whilst I'm not naive to pick them.
They play a huge part that when you deal with people and families, it's that straightforward sadly. So I don't think necessarily making economies of scale has worked very well for any of the learning outcomes. I think what's really interesting is that ofsted of just released a report that says they are focusing Less on the internal rating systems in schools, which actually takes up so much teacher time.
So, that's great. So hopefully that will filter down and hopefully Heads. And department heads will feel that their teams don't [00:39:00] have to focus so much on comparing and analyzing data set ultimately. That's all you're doing. You're not impacting learning just you know comparing the stats. So that's really positive.
And I think that's the huge thing that they have just released. They have service. And perhaps we do need to focus more on the well-being of the individual child and the learning of the individual child. So things are moving in that direction, but for me personally being impatient, that's as far too slow and having worked with local government and lobbied quite a lot.
I am beginning to understand that education is, you know, such a massive undertaking that nothing changes, you know, within decades really. Why I'm trying to source and I know lots of other people that they're in the same space as me and education that are trying to come up with different funding and financial sort of set ups to start their [00:40:00] own education projects.
Yeah. So I think in a way that's the positive is that that there is a creativity within the education system that is trying to solve the solution not solely relying on government changing its ways immediately. So yeah that that's quite exciting so as much as it's a bleak place it is also, you know a place that is definitely I feel up to this sort of cusp of change or or something will come crashing down and we'll be forced to change.
Quietly, you know let alone like the the recruitment crisis is huge. You know, no one coming to early years. It's poorly paid as well because you know the funding sort of dictates that and then teaching as well, you know teaching is such a satisfying and fulfilling job. But everyone's coming out of it.
So you ask yourself why and it's basically down to the stress stress and the pressure in most in most instances.
[00:41:00] Vim: Yeah, like I really can only imagine what that's like and and it's a thing with a lot of public service jobs in like social workers or the jobs that are the most fulfilling and I think the narrative that often comes out of it is this isn't why we became a teacher with this isn't why we got into this like, you know, if you're not giving the creativity or.
The room to really problem solve and help people. What's your motivation to keep going in?
Charlotte: I think that's and I think education is not really allowed to be that anymore. They're sort of just you know on the spot managers of behavior. Yeah, they're not really too allowed to deliver a subject with passion anymore.
Because when you have passion it's slightly unpredictable and you might go off on a tangent and unfortunately, there is no room for that type of learning in the classroom because the program's of learning a just so strict, you know, there is you can't, you know, stop the class [00:42:00] for 10 minutes to explore a valid point that someone has raised.
It just doesn't work that way.
Vim: Yeah. To get through what you need to get through and that hour.
Charlotte: Yeah. you do, I think that that therefore in theory passionate about what you do and you just need to sit and say tells you need to do is take about more and more these sort of cooked limbs will be introduced.
Solely by sort of virtual communication. So that's where technology comes back in again. And then they'll be on the balance of that children will only interact face-to-face with girls and learning sort of setting but certainly we've lost the experiential learning today with something like peeing games, you know.
Hey Mecca home at a Vance will deliver that so. It's that sort of thing. It's either gonna go polarized or [00:43:00] something will change and it's hard to know which way to be honest.
Vim: Yeah hundred percent. That's an amazing chat. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we kind of finish up?
Charlotte: No. No.
I mean I speed lovelyz chat about it really and some sort of discuss education as it is today where it's basically the past present and future of it. But yeah, that's food for thought.
Vim: I could spend hours discussing I should find it. So interesting.
Charlotte: So do I.
Vim: I it's really it's really interesting the focus.
We put on the school environment versus the home environment. There's any kind of what's in our control? What's not in our control type of mentality and I think what's really interesting with what you're doing is bridging that Gap. It's understanding both aspects.
Charlotte: I think we'll never get the best outcome for the child's and that's both work together and I think so easy for either home life or [00:44:00] thought life to blame other party.
Yeah, because that is the get out but actually if you actually put the child at the center of everything all the learner at the center of everything then the best outcome for them would be if we both work together, but that involves trust and I think. You know, it takes time to build that trust and for both parties to understand and empathize with what the other is trying to do.
Vim: Yeah. Yeah, exactly trust its yeah. I've you forget about trust in the education system.
Charlotte: And that doesn't really exist anymore because I think people parents understand that maybe it's not quite what it should be and I think their instinct is this isn't quite right for my child sometimes.
Vim: Yeah,
Charlotte: not that the school can solve it because they're working under such tight constraints, but I think that's where the problem lies sometimes.
Vim: Yeah, that's really great. Well, thank you for your time today.