HOW TO BE INTERESTING ABOUT SCHOOLS

At the beginning of the year, I started reading a book called ‘How To Be Interesting’ by Edward de Bono. The author is best known for creating the term ‘lateral thinking’ and wrote a very influential book on decision making called ‘Six Thinking Hats’. I’m not sure whether the book has made me more interesting but it did get me thinking in lots of different ways. One of the more thought provoking sections of the book was the use of ‘po’ statements to get discussions going.

As can be seen by his creation of the term ‘lateral thinking’, de Bono was not shy in creating new words or phrases when he felt there wasn’t a word or phrase that suited what he wanted to say. In ‘How To Be Interesting’, he introduces the word ‘po’ as a way of signalling a provocative statement. These provocative statements are used to alter thinking in whatever area you want to discuss and I believe ‘po’ statements are really useful when looking at education.

If you reflect on the structure of schooling within this country, it hasn’t really changed for a hundred years. There are many entrenched views as to what schools should look like and ‘po’ statements can shake the tree a little bit and can offer a vision of what innovation might look like in schools. 

Below are some ‘po’ statements that a colleague and I came up with one lunchtime. Your job is to consider what the school might look like. How much would it differ from what we have now? Can you use any of the ideas generated to improve your school? How would roles and responsibilities change? What would happen to the wellbeing of staff and students? I offer my thoughts for the first few but remember, these are ideas to be played with and discussed but through that discussion, genuine insights might be discovered that improve schooling as we know it.

Po Schools have no Senior Leadership Team – knowing that there is no focal point for areas such as behaviour and teaching and learning, it might mean that teachers take more responsibility dealing with issues within their classroom. With the money saved by not having SLT salaries, there could be an opportunity to employ more learning support or classroom teachers, which could also boost learning. What would happen to safeguarding concerns? Could this be outsourced to an external body to deal with? Would there be fewer silos in school as Heads of Department would have to work together to run the school?  

Po Schools have no lunchtime – food would have to be eaten throughout the day and packed lunches would be encouraged so that they could be eaten in lessons. Space would be freed up by having no kitchen and dining hall and these spaces could be used for other activities. There would still be break times for students to relax between lessons but school could either finish earlier or start later. All extra curricular activities would take place after school. There would be no punishment for eating in lessons and because they can eat whenever, blood sugar levels won’t drop during the day making concentration better. 

Po Schools give teachers and students 35 days annual leave and have no school holidays – Would holidays become cheaper throughout the year? How could online learning be used so that students didn’t miss valuable content? Would it lead to much happier students and teachers, as they could have a break when they wanted rather than it being dictated to them? How would schools cope when teachers go on holiday at random times? Could you create a more flexible timetable, where you can swap in teachers, collapse classes or have alternative lessons. Could you have full-time freelance teachers, coming in to cover lessons or would the teacher’s lessons just stop for the length of time they are on holiday?

What do you think? Even if you believe that none of this could ever happen, the generating of ideas that come from it are pretty interesting and sometimes, potentially, very valuable, especially during a time when it is difficult to recruit teachers and students are rejecting school. Maybe education does need a radical shake-up and maybe ‘po’ statements can help. The TES recently ran an article linked to the idea that there should be no Special Schools and that is a classic ‘po’ statement for education. It’s an interesting article, have a read. 

Here are some more ideas but have fun coming up with your own. 

• Po Schools don’t have a timetable.
• Po Schools don’t do PowerPoints.
• Po Schools don’t have homework.
• Po Schools set their own curriculum.
• Po Schools have guest teachers.
• Po Schools have students lead classes.