Challenging the Traditional Curriculum: A Vision for the Future of Education with Meena Wood

What if we told you that the future of education lies in a radical departure from the traditional curriculum? This episode takes you on a journey through the innovative ideas of Meena Wood, an experienced school leader, author, and inspector, who challenges the status quo and envisions a future where curriculum puts students and their individual needs at the centre. We dissect crucial issues such as the disconnect between what students learn and what the job market requires, the transformative potential of career portfolios, and the influence of artificial intelligence on the workforce.

We delve deeper into the realm of curriculum development by examining the creation of a 'pathways curriculum' for secondary education. Meena sheds light on the advantages of a curriculum that allows students to choose subjects and skills in line with their career aspirations. Our conversation takes an interesting turn as we navigate the unique educational landscape of the Middle East, especially Dubai, with its cultural diversity and distinctive challenges.

Finally, we attempt to gaze into the future of education where AI and critical thinking coexist, enabling students to thrive in a rapidly evolving job market. We also reflect on the role of gratitude in teaching, particularly in the Middle East. As we wrap up, we express our concerns about the prevalent practice of comparing students and schools based on exam results, which results in many students feeling left behind. Join us for a thought-provoking episode that pushes boundaries and sparks hope for an education system that truly caters to the needs of its students.

Meena Wood is an international speaker, educational trainer, author and leadership
coach.

Meena is the author of the popular ‘Secondary Curriculum Transformed; Enabling All
to Achieve’ (Wood and Haddon, Routledge 2021). Since its publication, this book
has led to a series of training webinars in the UK, Northern Ireland, Dubai, India and
features on the core reading list for the MEd in Educational Leadership (University of
Birmingham). Alongside publishing articles for Schools Week, Teach Secondary (UK)
Edge Foundation, Chartered College, Royal Society of Arts, she is a keynote
speaker at Educational Conferences in the UK, Dubai and India, including the British
Schools Middle East (BSME), Eduexcellence (India) and the Foundation of
Education Development.

Connect with Meena here.

Teach Middle East Magazine is the premier platform for educators and the entire education sector in the Middle East and beyond. Our vision is to equip educators with the materials and tools they need, to function optimally in and out of the classroom. We provide a space for educators to connect and find inspiration, resources, and forums to enhance their teaching techniques, methodologies, and personal development. We connect education suppliers and service providers to the people who make the buying decisions in schools.

Visit our website https://linktr.ee/teachmiddleeast.

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Hosted by Leisa Grace Wilson

Connect with Leisa Grace:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/leisagrace

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leisagrace/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:26

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Teach Middle East podcast. My name is Lisa Grace and today I am chatting with Mina Wood, and Mina she is multifaceted, so she's done school leadership, she's written books, she is inspected schools. She has run the full gamut when it comes to education. But what we're talking about today is something that I'm particularly passionate about, and that is reimagining the curriculum.

Speaker 2: 1:00

You are listening to the Teach Middle East podcast Connecting, developing and Empowering Educators.

Speaker 1: 1:11

Given where we are right now, at this very pivotal crossroads, we need to seriously be thinking about what we're offering our students in schools, and Mina is right at that space where she can tell us what her thoughts are and how we can reimagine the curriculum. So I'm indeed honored to have Mina on the podcast. Welcome, mina.

Speaker 3: 1:36

Thank you. Thank you very much, lisa, and it's my honor to be here with you. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you about my favorite passionate subject passion, I should say which is curriculum and assessment, because the two go hand in hand. So just a quick, brief overview of why I'm so passionate about it and what's inspired me is, first of all, my career has straddled the entire sector school sector so started off in schools and then moved into further education. So through that I have seen learners at the center of every curriculum that I have ever known, and I've done it through the lens of working in schools and colleges as a head teacher, principal, even a principal of an adult college, and I've seen it from the perspective of an HMI with Ofsted, her Majesty's Inspector. So, given that sort of dual lens, if you like, through which I've used the curriculum, I think what has become apparent to me is that curricula come and go, often driven by political dogma in most countries in the world, but the children are always at the center of that.

Speaker 3: 2:53

And the issue we have is when politicians, governments, anybody, really even educators, forget that children are at the center of curriculum and the impact is on those children and their life chances. That's when we have the issues that we have. So that's where you can end up adopting a curriculum that's passed or failed, and that is completely, for me, the wrong way to go, because a curriculum is actually, if you look at the origin of that word, it means career, it means to run or arrive at. Your destination is from the Latin. So therefore we should be looking at destinations for children and where they're going and young people, rather than the here and now of what we're trying to do with them.

Speaker 3: 3:41

So for me, when I look at curriculum, it is about putting those children at the center of it and thinking what are their needs, looking at different types of children, pupil groups, as I would call them, children with special education needs, eal, english as an additional language, very gifted children, talented children, children who've got dyslexia, and so on and so forth, and I think only by doing that we're actually going to develop a curriculum that's fit for purpose in any country in the world, that's not just the UK or the Middle East or whatever. So that's really where I've arrived at from my experience and, as I say, I'm looking at from birth to, you know, cradle to grave, because I've worked with children as young as three up to adults that have returned to learning. So it is really that entire spectrum that I'm interested in.

Speaker 1: 4:37

Yeah, you said something there that just piqued my interest. You said curriculum means the destination that we're trying to get our students, and somehow I don't know where I got it that curriculum was more the vehicle than the destination, and so the fact that you've said it's the destination makes it that more important that we get our students to the right destination. Can you imagine giving students a curriculum that's going to lead them to somewhere that is completely off track? What are your thoughts? Is that what's happening currently?

Speaker 3: 5:15

It is happening. And if you look at what's happening in the world of employment, there literally is a disconnect between employment needs and further the training needs and what children are learning in schools. By and large, now we have to differentiate between different type of curricula, because I've done a lot of research on international curriculum and I've worked, as you know, with schools in Dubai, so I'm very familiar with the British curriculum, the IB, the international baccalaureate, but I've also worked with schools in India and so I'm very familiar with their curriculum, the CVSC, which I know. There are schools in Dubai that deliver that as well. And when we talk about and I just want to be clear, when we talk about the UK curriculum, there is no UK curriculum or British curriculum. There is the national curriculum which is used in England, but Wales, scotland and Ireland have their own educational autonomy, so they have their own curriculum.

Speaker 3: 6:10

Again, coming back to your question about the destination, if the destination is going to be employment, then the curriculum we currently have in many countries, particularly England, I have to say, is out of kilter with that, because what you have is employment looking at particular skill sets that children have to develop. And the other point I have to put in there is we are not looking any more at employment that is there for entire lifetimes. We're looking at what young people now do and not even young people older people career portfolios, so that is the term that's used now, so they're moving from one job to another or one role to another. I mean, that's come about. I write about it in the book, particularly around the startups that happened and that is now burgeoning. It's also come about as a result of working remotely and so on and so forth. So that is a real advantage. That is a fantastic way to be in our society, given AI as well, and I've got thoughts on that.

Speaker 3: 7:15

But the problem we have is the education system is still working on a fairly outdated notion of what curriculum is and what destinations of these children are. So therefore, careers counseling, ceiag, career guidance and advice is usually hinged towards what do you want to be when you grow up? Type of model I want to be a doctor, I want to be an engineer, and that is not working anymore because a lot of the jobs I mean. The fact is, the World Economic Forum put forward a stat that the jobs that children who are now starting primary school at the age of five will not even be in existence by the time they leave school at 16, for example, by the time they get to 16. And so it's a constantly shifting landscape of employment.

Speaker 3: 8:05

Jobs are moving away very quickly and being replaced by others or by automation, and again, we're not keeping pace with that. I mean, I even read the other day that Brickies the ones who put up the houses they're being replaced now by robots. They've actually perfected a system of robots doing that. I think it was in Japan or Denmark, I'm not sure which country was doing it and they are now saying, yes, we've got the prototype, we can do it and it's reliable. So you know and I give other examples in my book of jobs that actually you don't need human beings to do. So we need to really reconsider and reimagine a curriculum that is going to take account of destinations and future capabilities, and what are the skills that are really going to be ultimately important for children and the knowledge.

Speaker 1: 8:57

It's interesting because, as you were talking, I'm thinking how, how, how, how. How do we reimagine this curriculum? How do we redesign it from the ground up? A lot of our listeners are school leaders. There are people like yourselves who are working alongside the school system as complementary services consulting, training, development and so we really ought to start thinking how can we help each other in this redesign process? Where do we start? What are your thoughts on how do we start this redesign process?

Speaker 3: 9:34

Well, I can honestly say that if you look at what the secondary curriculum transform book that I wrote, I suggested the way forward was a pathways curriculum and I think that is the way to do it If you are looking at destinations or looking at kind of children coming in, because one has to consider the prime knowledge and skills of children coming in and their abilities and capabilities, as I said earlier. So you have to fit a curriculum around the children, not make the children fit the curriculum, and that's the problem we have Children have to fit the curriculum rather than the curriculum being adaptive and fitting the children. So a pathways curriculum would actually look at the suite of subjects and skills that particular children could go along from. You know, in we're talking secondary now which would give them the skills and knowledge they need for particular occupations. So if you look at occupations by sector as they stand and look at projected occupations, which you know, the data is there, the information is there. The World Economic Forum is forever producing excellent data and information around projected jobs and the job market and so on, and you know trends that are going to be happening. So if you look at those and think right, what are the areas of learning within my curriculum that I can then, you know, visibly set up for these children to move along. I can see that working very well Already. There are some schools I know in the UK where, from the age of perhaps 13, children will move along a pathway which is better for them, you know. So they may be children who've chosen to do particular creative routes, you know, and so they might follow a package of subjects that would give them those skillsets and that set of knowledge that they need and experience that they're going to need before they move into the real world or higher education or further training.

Speaker 3: 11:36

But, as I said, it is about starting something. As you quite rightly said, you can't just, you can't plaster it over. You know you sticky plaster and say, right, I'm going to just add this on, and then I'm going to add that on and I'm going to take away that it has to be planned and the pathways curriculum has to take account of the needs of your children. So, if I can give an example, if you look at the Middle East, so if you look at Dubai in particular, which is a country I know, I think you know you've got 17 different curriculum. It's absolutely unique. You've got the fastest growing international schools in the world in that area, even including China. They're faster growing than China.

Speaker 3: 12:21

And I think the Middle East in general is set to be at the leading edge of creating a unique, multifaceted curriculum, because what you have is you've got a diaspora generation of young people going there. You know different languages, different cultures, different traditions, but all sharing common genesis. So I know that, in terms of Dubai, it is important for them to study Islamic studies and Arabic, because, as a KDA inspector, I know this was the one area that you just was mandatory and you had to do it. So they all have that in common. So they're being taught, if you like, to adjust to society with the Middle East, which is brilliant, and develop those values that are going to be part of that culture. And I think also the KDA framework, the inspection framework, if I may say, lies, you know, is in synergy with what the government wants, because the government has set its emphasis. It's a values led inspection framework and its emphasis is on self evaluation, inclusion and innovation and the learner. So if you've got that and you've got this incredible range of children out there in the schools, you've got their languages, their culture, their traditions, and you've got schools which are specific to different countries, their heritage, as if you like. You know, you've got French schools, russian, iranian and so on.

Speaker 3: 13:49

But there will come a time when you are going to have to think about how that multifaceted array of schools actually morphs into something which is more credible for that society. Because at the moment it works well, because each school, you know, keeps up with its traditions, its language, and that's brilliant. I think that's absolutely fantastic because it's a microcosm of the real world, isn't it, in the sense? But I think if you're looking at how you're going to deal with a curriculum that really works for those young people who are coming in, you're going to have to think of a pathways curriculum there. So, for example, if you've got a lot of children now coming in who've got EAL needs and we know a lot have come in after the Russia-Ukraine war you do need to think about how am I going to develop a pathway for these children into the mainstream curriculum? And there are ways of doing that, you know.

Speaker 3: 14:46

But if you basically think, well, I'm just going to put them into the classrooms, which I've seen happening, you know.

Speaker 3: 14:51

They're going to sit there alongside others and, wow, miraculously, by a process of osmosis, they're going to learn English and actually do really well. That is not going to happen. So what does need to take place is a very clear analysis of who the children are in every school and I'm just giving the example of Dubai because it's such an extreme place in terms of the mix of children that you have there. But you do need to do a clear analysis of who your pupil group are, and you will change from year to year. But also, alongside that, you do a destination analysis of where they're going to, what the potential is and then what subjects you might be offering. That actually fits that bill, not just subjects, but the skills, and I think that's where a lot of schools following the UK curriculum fall down, because at the moment that's not built in the curriculum. The IB curriculum is very different, as we know, because there is a lot of emphasis on skills and knowledge as well.

Speaker 1: 15:51

Yeah, no, you said a lot there. That is actually quite good food for thought. I'm wondering, though, given my knowledge of the National Curriculum of England, how we will be able to navigate a pathways style curriculum with the current examination system that we have, which is siloed GCSEs and A levels. What do we need to do to allow this pathways curriculum that you're proposing to flow very nicely into some certification that allows students to matriculate to either work or higher education more smoothly? That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 3: 16:34

Yeah, and I think you know, to be fair, change is going to come too, because already they're talking about having a. I think the current government is talking about having a. I think they're called a national baccalaureate curriculum, which they're looking at, which will follow. Some aspects of it will be a bit like the IB and other aspects will stay as they are now, but there is a recognition coming through and I think there will be change over the next year whereby there will be a recognition that we've got to move towards different certification for children because we can't have these silo subjects. You know which. We have GCSEs and then A levels, and the current government is looking at post 16 and making it a broader kind of baccalaureate style A levels, the A levels being replaced by baccalaureate, and I think once that happens, you would need to look at what's happened prior to that, because you can't go from GCSEs then into a baccalaureate type systems.

Speaker 1: 17:28

I thought that. I thought that, like I don't want to get political and we could know it's not about me, but unfortunately political dogma does drive the curriculum, so yeah, but I wondered, when I saw that and what the government proposed, I was why did you skip GCSEs and go to A levels? Absolutely, that was. That boggled my mind for a minute. What would you have done differently?

Speaker 3: 17:54

Well, it hasn't been thought through very well and what I would have done differently would have been to have thought about the pathways from 14. So we did used to have Lisa I don't know if you know the 14 to 19 diploma.

Speaker 3: 18:08

When was that that well, I know that because I was an age of. I had inspected it and it was brilliant. It was really good. It was 2010, because that's when we wrote the report, and we actually wrote a report that was saying this is working very well. But obviously, when the current conservative government came in, they did away with it.

Speaker 3: 18:29

But the 14 to 19 diploma did precisely. What I'm saying is that it created sectors. So it said you know, if you're interested in going to hospitality and catering, and it was limited because in those we're talking 13 years ago, 14 years ago, it was of its time, wasn't it? So if you want to go into hospital and catering, these are the sweet subjects you would do. So what children would do is they'd follow some subjects in school, the academic subjects, if you like, but then they would also be linked up with an FE college where they could do the subjects that they needed to do, like catering or plumbing or whatever it might be. And it worked well because it is a collaborative partnership between FE and schools and actually, where it worked, it worked really well. We had some good examples which we put forward as case studies in our report. The issue was that it was at basically emerging stages and it needed consolidation and it needed more resourcing. And the idea was it would be a partnership between employers, fe and schools, which is absolutely fantastic and it's not too dissimilar to what happens in Germany with the apprenticeship system that they have there. So it works, but it needs to start from 14.

Speaker 3: 19:43

And it's not just and this is the issue I was going to say, lisa that sadly, with the national curriculum it's a hierarchical curriculum. So you have academic is yeah, we all want to get A-levels and go to university. The destination is university. Ok, that is it. If you go down the BTEC route or the T-levels route now as we have and I think they'll have to rebump that if they're going to look at a national background I think they are. That's the whole point about the National Baccalaureate they will incorporate A-levels and T-levels and somehow or other. So at the moment it is hierarchical. And if you go down the BTEC or T-levels and you are seen almost as a, not a second class, but you are or not seen as somebody who was particularly well endowed, etc. And I always remember Professor Colin Diamond, who is someone I know very well University of Birmingham because I'm an honorary fellow of the leadership academy there and he said to me that when he went to his I think it was the presentation evening for, you know, results, a-level results or whatever what was telling was the A-level results students went first and the BTECs went second, and he said that summed it up for him.

Speaker 3: 20:59

Really, the vocational education came after academic and I think that, in a sense, is where it's all going wrong. There is no parity of qualification or indeed study, you know. So somebody who's going to go down the plumbing route is seen somehow. Well, goodness, you know, someone who's doing an English degree has got to be better, you know, because they've got to be cleverer, because they go to university, you know. So I think that that whole area it's a massive area, lisa is that collaboration between employers that need to be funded well, to build and incentivise.

Speaker 3: 21:35

To take the sum board, effie, colleges are trying their best and because I worked in Effie myself and I was the principal, I know we receive children every year the one third who failed their GCSE maths and English, and then we had to start all over again with them. And schools are quite happy to sort of, you know, make sure their lead tables reflect what they want them to reflect academically. So they will hive off kids into APs, turn to provision or, you know, they'll go to Effie then at 16. And I know this is a cynical way of looking at our curriculum at MoB but sadly it's a reality because it's backed up by the evidence, you know. So something has to change. And the pathways curriculum that we're saying, if it began at 14 and with the correct CIAG, you know, the Careers Advice, guidance, Counselling and so on, I think it could be set up really well. But it has to be done collaboratively across the sector, not just schools doing it, but schools working alongside Effie, alongside employers. It could really work.

Speaker 3: 22:40

I'll give you an example. We have UTCs, the University Technical Colleges, and I visited one I quoted in the book because I've got some fabulous case studies in secondary curriculum, transform. That was the best bit of writing the book, researching all the case studies. And this UTC is in Canary Wharf. It's absolutely brilliant.

Speaker 3: 23:02

It focuses on technology and, you know, looks at children. The children who go there are often children who have been excluded at 14 and or had chosen to go there because they wanted to follow a particular route, you know, a particular career's route, and when you see how they turn around, because they're motivated by what they're studying and they will do their maths because the maths and English is cross-curricular, it's delivered across those subjects. So you're not pushing algebraic equations down a child's throat and saying you must learn this. You're actually doing it because and the child knows you're doing it becomes meaningful and relevant because you're doing it, because you're applying it to whatever process they need to apply to in, I don't know, robotic processing, if that's what they're studying. And let me just give you one example of this absolute need to make learning relevant and meaningful.

Speaker 3: 23:59

I went to school in East London I've been working with, when I went into a class a year, eight, so 13 year old children doing algebraic equations and I mean doing, because they had a worksheet like that. They were going down the worksheet doing their equation, heads down. Fantastic, walked in the classroom. You thought yes, this is a real seed of learning.

Speaker 3: 24:21

Going on, I asked two boys just randomly what are you going to use these for when you leave school? What do you think they're used for in real life? You know, and literally they didn't answer me and I thought, ok, all right, I'm obviously upset by asking the question. Or they're not interested or they're busy working. Then one of them looked up and gave me a very irritated look and said well, you know, I don't really know what they're used for, but I've been told the school forcing me to do them and I've got to get on with it, so let me carry on. And they just started to say, as if I thought to myself well, I'm considering yourself told off on that one, you know, ok, thank you.

Speaker 3: 25:03

And I walked off. You know, then I actually went to a school in Dubai. I was with a school in Dubai, international School, where they do the IB, and a similar setup. 13 year olds in the classroom did a similar thing. I thought, well, here we go, let me try my luck again. That might get short shrift, but let me try, because I think it's important to ask children why they think they're learning something.

Speaker 3: 25:30

So I went up to a couple of children and I said can you tell me where you think you'd use algebraic weights? Oh, yes, quick, as a spark. Well, we use that in chemistry, use it in engineering, if you're looking at how you build the rafts of a building and so on and how you measure those up. And oh, yeah, my dad uses it for stocks and shares. And I thought, yeah, that would be right If you're coming to Dubai in the centre of finance. He was like my dad says he does this and, yeah, algebraic is really good. He was telling me all about it and I thought, okay, great. So therein lies the difference, because the teacher apart from the boy's dad, obviously, he was always kid with algebraic equations the teacher had actually talked to them about the usage and why we were learning this, the why, and that, sadly, is missed out in a lot of schools, not just in England but all around the world, you know, and it's really important to make children understand why they're learning. I'm just gonna finish that because I know I'm rambling on a little bit. Forgive me Rambling on, I'm loving it.

Speaker 3: 26:37

Einstein said very famously what remains of education when you leave school is the learning. So education when you leave school is what you've learned, is the learning that you've got out of it. So you may have an education. In other words, lisa, coming back to your comment about the qualifications, but actually it's that learning that stayed in your head. Now, those children that I spoke to in Dubai had that there. So they'll remember that and they'll think about it when they move into the next year group, although, you know and they get older, my little dears in the school in Eastland, bless their heart they're doing it to pass their GCSE exams. So to my mind, that's not gonna stick, is it necessarily? Once they leave school, they're not gonna really think about? Oh, I did maths at school, but that was like I had to do it, you know.

Speaker 3: 27:33

Coming back to your original question about how the transition would happen from, you know, 14 to A levels. I think that is the, just to reiterate, the pathway route. One of the interesting things about IB is that when I spoke to the children they said they found it difficult at 16 to make that transition to the back because there is no exam, there is nothing, there's no summative assessment, so to speak, that captures where they're at. Subjects will do assessments, but there is nothing that really says you are at this point. So that transition bit becomes quite difficult for them.

Speaker 3: 28:12

You know, in terms of the skillset they're going to need when they move into the back, and that's something I feel does need to be done. You know there needs to be a threshold level where, if you're moving into a different stage of learning, you need to capture that. However you do it, there needs to be something there. So even the 14 to 19 diploma need is to have something at some point which actually said this is the measure, this is the benchmark. You've arrived here against your starting point, not against each other, but against the starting point of the student. And if you're going to get there, we need to do this to help you to get there, and I think that's why I said that the beginning assessment is symbiotically linked with curriculum. You can't desegregate the two, so yeah, so that was a long-winded way of giving you an answer.

Speaker 1: 29:03

No, it's a good way, because it had me thinking about, you know, creating those pathways but also creating checkpoints within the pathway to assess how far along the pathway a student has come and how much further that student has to go. And I think those can be built in. I think they can be built in in a very formative way which will then give the student themselves the data they need and the school, because we will need some data like we can't get ourselves. But the purpose of the data? If the purpose of the data is to see progression and to also map a way forward, then that is really useful. But if it is to compare school against school and country against country, that is, I don't think, very useful.

Speaker 3: 29:56

It's not. If you can have that at a later stage or if you want it, you can have it as a side product, but the main focus absolutely, lisa has to be against my starting point. So that's Ipsative Assessment, where you're looking at how much a child is growing, which of the areas they need to move on, you see, and if schools did that more you wouldn't have the problem with it. For example, in the UK and, to be fair, also in the device schools I was going into, send children doing considerably worse than their peers, you know, and EAL children doing worse than their peers in some cases because of the language barriers. But with send children, you know, you had other barriers which maybe weren't being looked at. So I think if you were able to do that and have those checkpoints which really looked at where you were at from your starting points rather than uncompairing you with each other, you know, then I think that would absolutely be the way to go.

Speaker 3: 30:53

But sadly, what you've got with GCSEs and A-levels is a system whereby the value added is compared against each other rather than against. You know, there's a benchmark and if you don't reach it you've failed. So that's why we have one third failing each year in GCSE. The same applies to SATs. You know we have the SATs exams in primary the literacy, numeracy yeah, same thing. So you have one third actually not achieving the reading benchmark or the writing or the maths benchmark. And if you know what we're building in failure through a curriculum, why, and the assessment process, why, you know why are we doing that? That means all that potential that we have in these children different kinds of potential we're losing it. So you know, you can have a little child who's got so much creative potential and actually you'll never see it because we're testing you whether you can read or write. Okay, fine, we want you to read and write, but we also want you to be creative and we want that creative potential to come out at us. And we've got to remember I don't keep banging on about Einstein but he was dyslexic. I didn't stop him being creative, you know. So you know we need to really think outside the box and not be hemmed in by this notion of a almost a dated 19th century curriculum that we're still working with in some cases.

Speaker 3: 32:17

You know, and one of the things I wanted to say was one of the things I really loved about the framework. I come back to the KHDA framework that I feel the reason I'm saying this is because at the moment, as you know, there's a lot of talk of officer changing framework and I'm giving evidence at the select committee in two weeks time actually on how change can take. As a former HMI's, how change can take place and one of the things I have said repeatedly in other forum where I've been speaking in conferences and so on, is that, focused again on learners, and the KHD framework actually does that. So if you look at their five areas that we are, you know that you actually go in and inspect the fact.

Speaker 3: 33:02

Students achievement basically is number one, but the teaching and assessment, the curriculum, including adaptive curriculum, the protection, care, guidance and support of students are all around learners. If you look at the breakdown, you know what is expected. It's the exemplars within the book, the guidance book, which everybody has. It's always about what you want your learners to be looking like in this situation and I think that is so important. You know it's actually detailing whole sections to learners. So progress, learning, skills, attainment, personal development, social responsibility, innovative enterprise skills are absolutely key and I think every curriculum in the world should have, I mean, singapore's curriculum has it? Finland's curriculum has it? Estonia's curriculum has it? You know we should be having. You know every curriculum should be featuring on those key skills, otherwise you can forget the pathways, they won't work and you can develop these skills of children, you know.

Speaker 1: 34:06

So yeah, let's just be pragmatic and think outside the box yeah, no, so I actually was thinking while you were talking about what. I wonder what your thoughts are on the fact that Latimer and Bedales have decided to do away with GCSEs. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 3: 34:26

I think you know they're very brave to do that, but they can do that because they're private schools. So, yes, good luck to them. You know they are independent schools and, to be honest, within the British frame, you know the which we say the national curriculum. In fact, if you are a independent school, free school or even an academy, but you do have the liberty, you know you do have the freedom to produce a curriculum that is better for your children, so long as it's broad and balanced. Now we know the reality doesn't necessarily follow, because when inspection takes place with it which is why Ofsted needs to change the way it inspects is that you'll be penalised if you don't have certain bits in your curriculum and I know schools are, for example, but it's so inconsistent.

Speaker 3: 35:12

I know schools where they don't offer. You know DT, for example, and they still come out outstanding. And then I know another school I won't name that one, by the way the one that didn't offer DT and came out outstanding. It's a well known school for being the strictest school in the UK. So I'll say no more. Yep, not really, but the other school. I know another school, where a friend of mine, who's a former HMI friend, who's now consultant for the school. She had a tough time with it, with the HMI who inspected it, because he said you haven't got DT. And she said but hold on, you know they haven't got DT because they are a small school, they haven't got the resources yet, but they're trying to offer it via other you know art in various ways and it just wasn't accepted needed to be a subject on it. So I had a similar problem with a school I was supporting where they didn't have DT because they didn't have the resources and they couldn't get a DT teacher, and they're being penalised for that.

Speaker 3: 36:14

So that's absolutely a bonkers way of looking at how you design a curriculum and how you inspected. It has to be a way around, you know, broad and balanced and if it's in the interests of your children, fantastic. And I think what Bidel and Latimer are doing, yeah, fantastic. Good luck to them. I think they should be doing that because their children are coming in with aspirations or ambitions. The parents are too, and I think that's a fantastic way to go.

Speaker 3: 36:44

You know, I was just going to say, interestingly, my thoughts on the challenges being faced by schools in Dubai, which I think is really interesting, and the Middle East generally, is that these because they are largely, aren't they, private schools what we're talking about? So again, they've got this really tricky, conflicted situation where they're balancing commercial interests you know, bringing up their numbers with parental aspirations and desires and what parents are looking for. And I know you know there's always this clash going on because parents want quality and they want their children to have particular experiences, and the schools looking to forever increase the numbers that it's enrolling. And that's a difficult call, you know that's a quite difficult call to make, which, to be fair, schools and state schools in the UK don't have. But the focus on quality has to be first and the learners. It just has to come first, whether you reduce your numbers or whatever you do. I know it's easy to say that if you're ahead I know how hard it is when you're managing a budget but it has to be that the children's learning and their future life chances has to come before anything else, doesn't it really? So, yeah, I would suggest that if a school has decided to produce a curriculum that fits the needs of its kids, I think that's fantastic.

Speaker 3: 38:06

I've quoted a fantastic private school, independent school, wimbledon High, which is not far from where I live in the book and they're doing some absolutely fabulous work with the kids. It's a girls school on technology, you know, and digital technology, and it really is a joy. They have a STEM lab. You know, where children go in and they work on particular projects, you know. So project based learning and inquiry led learning is really where it's at now. Private schools can do that and they'll still come out with their GCSEs if they need to, and that's how state schools should be working. You know they should be looking at that as role models. You know, if that works for private schools, it should work for state schools. It's just a different way of using your funding and it's a different way of teachers being trained up and that, to be fair, is a big ask, because if teacher training is not focusing on project based learning and inquiry led learning, then teachers, generally speaking, won't know really how to set it up properly. But if you can do it, I think that would be the way to start that learner centered approach to a curriculum. Definitely, I've seen it done really, really well.

Speaker 3: 39:18

I can give you one example, but it does come from a school in Dubai where they had a project.

Speaker 3: 39:24

They had to do a project, which was redesign your cafeteria, right.

Speaker 3: 39:29

So this was actually a proper assignment and it was mass DT and business subjects and collaborating on this project. But the brilliant thing about this project was that they had to actually cost it up. They had, they were the project manager, they had to work in their salary into this. They had to look at the materials and how much those materials would cost. They had to measure it all up. They had to produce everything a proper business plan and then at the end of it they had to present it orally. So they had to do a presentation and convince, you know, according to the criteria, that their project was actually meeting the criteria and exceeding it and doing really well and their project should be chosen and they were assessed on that. Now, that's a brilliant way to go because it brings the world of work, the real world, the authentic world, into the classroom and makes children feel what they're doing is absolutely worthwhile. But meanwhile they're using their mathematical skills, their DT skills and their business skills, entrepreneurial skills, innovation, etc yeah, no, I've seen.

Speaker 1: 40:35

I mean, we've just done the judging for the STEM MENA awards and some of these schools are doing some fantastic things with the students. At the STEM conference we're having I think it's James Winchester School, dubai bringing in their electric car that they made with the students so instead of their sitting learning science in abstract, they have made an actual electric vehicle which runs and all the students had different roles and some people were in charge of materials, some people are in charge of the costing, and some people are in charge of the manufacturing and some people are in charge of the marketing, and my mind, like I'm just remembering my school days, we did nothing like that MENA, nothing was the best.

Speaker 3: 41:24

The most you might get was a school I went to, I remember, many years ago, where they did extracurricular activities on a Wednesday afternoon and they would do sort of little things like design a t-shirt, produce it, market it and sell it, and that was done sort of as an aside. So you're using your skills to some extent, but actually something like that is just an integral part of a curriculum, isn't it? And that's really where it starts becoming incredibly powerful children. That's what learning should be, not? You know, I'm going to learn my. What should we say?

Speaker 3: 42:01

I don't know how to do, how to do fractions, because that's what. That's where we are. That's how to bring equations. We've got to do them, you know, and if you don't stop interrupting me, I'm not going to get them done and I'll get pulled off by the teacher and I have to stay in a break time and that's the logic that the child is falling. I'm not. I really love doing this because it's going to be useful. You know it is useful. The teacher show me how and we're going to be using it later on to do something like, I don't know, measuring up and looking at how we might be looking at changing a house.

Speaker 3: 42:35

That's the difference, isn't it? It's inspiring, igniting that curiosity for learning and actually making children feel they can do this. Not I have to do this, but I can and I want to do this. You know, and that's the thing, how many children going to school saying I want to do this, I want to learn this, I'm curious about this? You know, I really want to know where this is going and how many children are allowed to follow that through them. Whereas, you know, most will say, well, we've got geography today. On, can we got the right book? Yes, I have here these conversations at the corridors, you know. You know, I'm talking about.

Speaker 1: 43:15

I know I've spent my whole life in schools. Listen, you can't finish the podcast without talking about technology, because I want to know how do you envision technology transforming, further transforming the curriculum, especially the secondary curriculum, and I also wanted to talk about what pitfalls we should be careful of with this new technological technology yeah, yeah, I mean absolutely.

Speaker 3: 43:40

so there is some really good work going on and I just wanted to mention Alex Gray I think you might know him, founder of the deep professional and Michael Norton of Dubai International School as well. Yeah, you know them well and I think they're doing some fabulous work, which I really like and I've been showcasing at a conference recently on rethinking education. I think chat, gpt has to be brought in, to be honest, because if you don't, children are going to use it anyway. It's a bit like when Google first came in, when the internet first came in, everybody was like no, no, no, no, no, no, we can't have you using that. And in schools, they would you know, disable computers, so children couldn't access it. Where did that go? Now you go to classrooms and it's like can you Google that? And that's what the users are mainstay, and the children will copy and paste what they get off there anyway. And they used to. You know.

Speaker 3: 44:38

I remember one classroom I went to. I saw this child this is the age of 12, they were doing Norman moats. You know castles and moats, right? So he produced this wonderful little narrative about it with a picture and the works you know and and I thought, oh, this is very good, you know, for a 12 year old, he's really got all the he's understood. So I said to him I said, so, can you tell me what is a moat? It's in there somewhere, I'm not sure, but it's. I said, well, did you write that? Yeah, I said well, if you wrote it, you know what a vote is. Yeah, it's in there. I said, well, tell me what it is. And we literally had this. It was like pulling teeth because he just literally copied and pasted it.

Speaker 3: 45:23

Now we check GPT. That's what's going to happen. If we don't train up children to become critical thinkers, if we don't train them up to use other primary sources of evidence, to look at what they've written, to look at that narrative, to myth buffs, to decide what's fact, what's fiction, to look at how their skill, their own skills of writing, grammar or whatever, can actually influence that piece and I'm looking at writing, for example then I think we're doing them a disservice because they're living in the world of AI now and we see it. I mean, I know you probably do. I do. I switch on my computer, bing comes on. You know, can I help you? Chat GPT, you know, and if I'm googling something, I get this coming in saying this is the answer. Now I'm keeping saying no, this is not the answer. I'm just going to go away because I've got my answer. But it's very, very interesting the way it's all pervasive. Now with that I'm, as an adult, able to sort of decide what and choose what I want to do.

Speaker 3: 46:24

Children don't, as we know, and there's a huge issue around social media and being subjected to social media and also, you know, effectively being barraged by a lot of you know, sort of whatever narratives that are coming in on screens. So if we don't teach them how to use these tools proactively, then I think we're doing them a disservice. So, for example, one of the ways that could be done and I think it'd be fantastic, because, as a languages teacher, I know I used to do an error analysis with my children's work. So you know, often children make the same errors when they're learning languages. So I would just collect up the commonest errors you know and put them up on the board or whatever, or whatever PowerPoint, and then go through them. Now you know chat, gpt you've actually got facility which does that for you, so you can get that done as a teacher. You don't then have to sit there going, yeah, this one, this one. Chat GPT can do that and basically it can also give feedback to students, which then can be supplemented by your feedback, or you give the feedback and they can get supplementary feedback. So it's almost like having a teaching assistant in the classroom, which the teacher can manage and which children have to learn to manage.

Speaker 3: 47:42

So that's one way around it, and I think one of the examples it was a fantastic example that Alex gave me was actually looking at how you develop lab safety for children and you can use Adobe Firefly, but it uses the text to generate the images. So, whereas now and so then you could look at those images as a child and think, is that the correct image? You know to go with that text and often you have that in science books you will have the text on one side of the images and so marry it up. Well, okay, so this does it for you and you can then see it a glance. No, this is wrong, this is right. I can sequence it in this way and I think this kind of you know, use of technology and AI, and also, I find this area absolutely fascinating where, if you've got chat GPT.

Speaker 3: 48:31

You can use it to create a particular persona. So you can use it to create a historical figure or a scientist or somebody. So you know, famously, in the National Creek you're looking at the First World War, for example. In the second one, the first one what are you looking at? Trench warfare? You could have a soldier, you know who is in the trenches and you could be having a dialogue with him. It would be him suddenly, not her, but him. You could have dialogue with him about what life is like in the trenches. Now they read about it. But what would be then good is to be able to look at other primary sources of evidence to back that up and think what he said was right or not right, or, you know, actually that wasn't the case, because this other primary source, which is a letter from a soldier home yeah, during the war, an actual letter says something different. So what do I believe? Do you know?

Speaker 3: 49:24

That thinking process, lisa, that's unleashed by being able to use this, is just invaluable in my view, because it's not what children do now. They just accept a face value. What's in the books that they're reading, the textbooks, they accept a face value. What's in the news. They accept everything as being like, whichever news they listen to, whatever as being a fact, and I think that really can revolutionize teaching and learning. You know even building quizzes, tests, lesson plans, you from curriculum materials. You know these can be done.

Speaker 3: 50:02

And I'm not saying you know AI should now take over.

Speaker 3: 50:05

I'm saying it's an assistant which should be used with caution and should be used critically.

Speaker 3: 50:12

Just to say we need to develop the critical thinking, the problem solving and the creativity skills in children, and I think it's a way forward.

Speaker 3: 50:21

I don't know.

Speaker 3: 50:23

I mean, the downside is that if we don't do it and currently the government is just consulting on it in the UK children will do it anyway and actually teachers won't be any otherwise, though when they submit pieces of work, so that, so it's a lose, lose situation, yeah, but we can make it a win win situation of children start using it proactively.

Speaker 3: 50:45

We know they're using it and, as you know, in the IB that's now accepted. It's an accepted form of teaching, as is the assessment, and I think that's something as well that we should be looking at and just making sure that our children are able to have that with the balances and checks that we put in place and they put in place as well, and to me that is a no brainer. I really do think so. So, finishing off on that one, I think leadership curriculum really does need to be flexible, you know, in schools, and adapt to, and the key words are flexible, adaptive and thinking through the future and how the future might impact on the present. You know, I think that's the important key factor for me anyway.

Speaker 1: 51:33

Now and for me, and I think also when it comes on to looking at what students will need in the future, really we need, as schools, to drive those human skills and really help students to develop especially empathy and especially that creativity piece that you spoke about, because with those skills they will be able to navigate this sort of new landscape, if you like, that we're all venturing into.

Speaker 3: 52:05

Yeah, just one thing. But you're talking about leadership at the moment. I mean, we know, I think you know to be fair, given what's going on in the Middle East, we can't end the podcast without mentioning how tragic the events are on forward folding in the Middle East. But if you notice the, it's that almost bipolar. Well, it's not bipolar, but it's that dialectic state of argument between what's wrong and what's right, who's wrong and who's right. You know who bombed the hospital. As we know, it happened just recently.

Speaker 3: 52:37

You know the myth, the reality, you know whose side is right and, if nothing else, this now shows a serious lack of leadership in world leaders, because there isn't a team approach to this, there is no collaboration, there's not a willingness to. It is about people taking sides, it's about people saying you know, I'm on this side, I'm on that side. That is not the way we want our future generations of children to live and to think. So I think you know if you really are looking at developing education so it's fitting our children for the future, empathy the word you mentioned, that sparked it off for me, alongside team leadership, you know, actually not wanting to see I'm right, you're wrong and I'm going to. You know I'm kind of better than you in this. I'm actually wanting to work alongside you to get the best out of that situation. So I mean those examples of projects we both mentioned. You know, teamwork, collaboration, leadership of projects then was resulted in what you were blown away by and what I was blown away by. That is really where we need to be going with this.

Speaker 3: 53:47

I was interested in an article I was reading this morning about how leadership now in the Forbes magazine is not really, you know, not up to it at the moment, because what's happening is people are taking sides and that's not going to help the situation, whereas we need to be working together as a team, you know, and actually looking at the best for the current global situation, isn't it?

Speaker 3: 54:08

If it's not climate change, it's wars and so on, and I think our children, to be fair, are the ones who are going to be dealing with this. So if we're not equipping them with those human skills, as you rightly say, at this stage, when are they going to get out? So where are they going to get those skills from? Are they going to be able to look at an article about the war in the Gaza Strip and say or the war, the conflict, and say, well, actually they were right, they were wrong. No, they can't, because they haven't got the critical thinking skills to actually debunk and think what's myth, what's reality, have they so? And we're not encouraging them to get them? So, yeah, I just wanted to add on to the empathy factor that you kind of brought out there.

Speaker 1: 54:54

Yeah, no, thank you. No, I agree with you completely. You know, bringing up the war, the conflict, it's such a sore point for me. There is so much there that it is very difficult. The only thing I can say is I really hope that there is a resolution, and there is one fast, because the loss on both sides is just increasing and it needs to end. It cannot just continue this way, or where will it end? That's a tragedy. Yeah, absolutely it is. It is Anyway, thank you, mina. Thank you so much for sharing so much with us on the pod. I really enjoyed this episode. I learned a lot. I know I say that on many episodes, but the truth is, when I'm learning, I'm learning, and I won't deny the fact that I'm learning. So thank you for being a guest on the Teach Middle East podcast. It has certainly been my pleasure, thank you.

Speaker 3: 55:51

Thank you very much, lisa, and I really appreciate having the time to talk to you. It's been brilliant, thank you.

Speaker 2: 55:59

Thank you for listening to the Teach Middle East podcast. Visit our website teachmedaleastcom and follow us on social media. The links are in the show notes.