Thanks for taking the time to express your thoughts. I obviously got something wrong if this came across to you as limiting and constraining children’s experiences. My intention is quite the reverse. I see you are involvede in adventure learning - where learning takes place in situations outwith the norm. Learning takes many forms but so often in our country we only recognise the formal as opposed to those experiences which have much greater personal meaning for the child. I don’t follow why you think the child won’t have control over their home learning - e.g. swimming; playing football; making films; hill walking; horse riding; playing music? We want to try to enable children to engage more - not less - in education process.

I appreciate the amount of effort and caring in these suggestions, but I can’t help but feel that if I were a child:

I would have no time to stand and stare. My home and school programme would bring learning pretty much as the objective where ever I turn - and that is learning I have no choice about until I turn 16 (which basically means until its almost over). My experiences and achievements would be tracked from age 3-18…. You wouldn’t get away with invading an adult like that. Whatever happened to my rights?

While I appreciate that children need assistance learning, this programme sounds a little aggressive for my taste. I can almost empathize with what Jim Carey felt in the Truman show - where he is well loved, but living a life designed by someone else with not much respect for how he would like to spend his life. The seeming lack of trust that children can’t make responsible choices for themselves until they turn 16.

Another concern is the scene without the rose tinted glasses. The child who conforms to this learning thingy or a child with a natural inclination to achieve will blaze a trail of achievements through meticulously kept records. What happens to the not so bright child caught in a hi-fi education system (which incidentally doesn’t mean that he will not be successful in life)? Worse, what happens to the bright and responsible child, who would like to take a break from stuff and make space to reassess his direction, and as a result finds himself “lacking” in achievements on the records in comparison with other children of his age? I would like to understand how such a system would relate with people making choices other than the learning one, people not being able to cope with the intense learning, people not wishing to take on constant pressure and other odd balls. If it is to be a system, it will have to be able to deal responsibly with all sorts.

I don’t think there are really massive obstacles in your way - Ewan’s “don’t think try” mantra is pretty apposite.
You are also building on a great track record of change from within in your own authority.
What can we do to make this happen ?

The latter group drove me mad when I was on a school board and I come across it regularly in sports clubs outside school. Sometimes (with the clubs!) you can just say “This is what we’re doing and if you don’t like it you can leave” and it usually works. I grind my teeth regularly at the former group.

With children now approaching the final stages of school education, I’ve come to the conclusion that most changes are just tinkering around the edges and what is needed is a complete and major restructuring. So go for it!

I’ll try & get myself round to writing a post of my own on this, I think.

Change, I’m convinced, is most effective when it is this combination of bottom-up innovation, but on a reassuring lead and backing from the hierarchy (where there is one). Yet, these ideas still get a slating from those who think that the most effective strategies can only be pure “bottom-up”:
http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2008/03/community-bui-1.html

Any thoughts? I remember having similar discussions a year ago with you, where we pushed and pulled over the ratio of these revolutionary and hierarchical powers.