Learning happens when we listen: what’s the point of the Bryanston Education Summit?

”We need to create environments in which teachers embrace the idea of continuous improvement… an acceptance that the impact of education on the lives of young people creates a moral imperative for even the best teachers to continue to improve.” (September 2014) – Dylan Wiliam

As education establishments, it is our responsibility to help facilitate continual professional improvement. Events like the Bryanston Education Summit are excellent for bringing together a number of different professional development strands under one roof. Attendees can curate their own, bespoke programme for the day and hear from a wide array of expert speakers on a number of topics. The event is intended for many teachers from many schools and we cannot know what those particular schools or teachers are specifically interested in improving. Therefore, we lay on a variety of topics in the hope that there really is something for everyone.

That is not to say that an event like the Education Summit is not good for Bryanston. It creates tremendously good-value professional development for our own staff. They attend sessions where their teaching commitments allow and so digest many talks during the day. The knock-on effect is that it provides a frame of reference for our staff: they can discuss what they have heard and learned with others from the same context, which in itself adds a layer of benefit. To some extent, any school that is able to send more than one teacher to the event could benefit in a similar way.

Sustained CPD, as research has concluded, is one of the only truly effective ways to make professional improvement lasting and genuinely impactful in the classroom. At each Summit, we align at least a few talks and speakers with our own pedagogical focus for the year. That way, we can lay on a number of preludial pedagogical events in the months leading up to the Summit, send teachers to hear relevant talks at the Summit itself and then host follow-up meetings to truly embed some of the concepts discussed. This year, for instance, our pedagogical focus as a school is literacy. It is no surprise, therefore, that there are a good number of talks and speakers at the 2019 Summit specialising in that very topic. Among them, Alex Quigley will be giving a talk entitled ‘Where does literacy fit in the secondary school curriculum?’; Debra Myhill will be speaking about ‘Writing in subject disciplines’; and Marcello Giovanelli will be discussing the importance of ‘Knowing about language: what, why and how?’ By directing our own staff to these particular talks, I can guarantee that literacy will continue to gather momentum within our specific learning community.

Under the umbrella of our overall summit focus, ‘Revolution: the future of learning in a changing world’, we strive to provide an array of subjects. It is also important to us not to shy away from some of the more challenging issues facing us as educationalists. This year we have Robert Plomin summarising his 45 years of research on how ‘DNA makes us who we are’. This will not be entirely comfortable listening for some teachers. Anthony Seldon will be speaking about Artificial Intelligence and how it will change your world – whether you like it or not, again, possibly not making for the easiest of listening. We intend to begin debate, but not necessarily settle it. First and foremost, we aim to get teachers thinking and reflecting.

In Dylan Wiliam’s talk at our inaugural Education Summit in 2017, his final presentation slide was the following:

His first bullet points for both teachers and leaders concern the need for high expectations of continual professional improvement. Our Education Summit provides a focal point for such a requirement, both for ourselves and others. Learning happens when we listen, and our Summit has, at its heart, a desire to connect teachers, to spark debate, and to promote the idea that the best teachers – irrespective of age or experience – are always ready to listen, learn, and share their experiences. 

Sharing ideas

This week our Deputy Head (Academic), Dr David James, reflects on our recent Education Summit and the future of schools post election.

On Wednesday 7 June Bryanston held its first Education Summit. Our strapline was: ‘delivering a world class education in turbulent times’. Just how turbulent these times are was driven home the following day when the first results from the general election started to come in. With so much uncertainty affecting so many aspects of this country’s future it seemed particularly important to bring people together to discuss what were the biggest issues facing schools today, and how could they be resolved.

And so we invited some of the most influential speakers working in education to give us their insights, and over 400 delegates arrived to listen, take notes, debate and disagree. Those attending came from all sectors: primary, prep, maintained and fee-paying secondary, and there were representatives from higher education as well. Themes developed over the course of a fascinating day: the role that technology could play was explored by Ian Fordham, Head of Education at Microsoft UK. Award-winning teacher Paul Turner looked at how technology could be used meaningfully in the classroom, and there were other sessions by, among others, Crispin Weston, James Penny and Jane Basnett, which looked at how far technology could shape learning. The answer? Quite a lot, but only if the teachers are fully trained. And that requires investment, of resources, trust ... and time.

And time was a theme running through the day. Professor AC Grayling discussed ‘educating the future in the present’, and Martin Robinson explored similar themes arguing for a return to the ‘trivium’ style of teaching which places emphasis on grammar, rhetoric and logic. Russell Speirs discussed the ten biggest educational trends in 2017, and a panel of prep school heads looked at the future of prep schools in a turbulent world with ever-changing priorities (and demographics).

In such uncertain times people often reach out to others, for guidance, and support. And colleagues from maintained schools discussed the nature of partnerships, both within the sector and across independent and state. Sharing, it was felt by many, results in strength, not dilution. But the pressures schools are under was also debated, with one panel of head teachers arguing about whether leading a school at such times is the ‘impossible job’. It was heartening to hear so many school leaders say it remained such a valuable and rewarding job, but the responsibilities are growing, and resources are shrinking.

There was also a strong evidence-based strand running through and across sessions. Experienced teachers and researchers such as Nick Rose (on using memory research in the classroom), Lucy Crehan (on the role that culture plays in creating education superpowers), David Didau (on the research that helps us make kids more academically successful), and, in the final keynote, leading educationalist Professor Dylan Wiliam talked about how we can create the schools our children need (which are different from the ones they actually have). It was stimulating, provocative stuff.

I end where I began: on uncertainty. Now that we know the result of the general election, it seems less likely that we will see a return to grammar schools, but what fills that policy hole? How important will schools be to a government that is struggling to retain a working majority while it is negotiating Brexit? My guess is that schools will slide down the political agenda quite quickly, and that is potentially very serious for the future of our country. On a more positive note, the summit showed what is possible when teachers come together, and share ideas, good practice, and find local solutions to perennial problems. Of course, such things cannot be scaled up to a national level, but perhaps this is the most we can achieve in the immediate future, and indeed this might be enough to ensure our schools still help produce gifted students ready for the 21st century. That is the hope, and until these turbulent times settle down, that might be just enough.