As I stood with my grandson at the school gate early this month, ready to pass him over to schooling for the next 13 years, I found myself asking a question. Specifically, I asked myself whether school was going to prepare him for his future life.

Some say (although I’m not sure how they know) that in 20 years’ time some 65 per cent of my grandson’s classmates will be doing jobs that are yet to be invented.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics and nanotechnology are all likely to have reached maturity.

Despite the extraordinary pace of change that the world is experiencing, we continue to subject the nation’s young people to a curriculum that was last fit for purpose in the 1950s.

Their school lives are dominated by a curriculum and pedagogical philosophy that is lacking in creativity and dominated by results: one that appears to show little or no interest in the needs and skills of the individual.

Change in society is accelerating, change in education is going backwards.

Why? The primary reason is that the school system that our politicians have built only makes sense if schools are regularly “judged” in comparison with one another, or ”held to account” as this is known, and the easiest way to do this is to focus on their outcomes.

Teach pupils to think for themselves

Almost no emphasis is given to a school’s individuality, or creativity, or how well it meets the needs of all pupils. All must curtsy before the king that is data.

I would be much happier, and the country would have a rosier future, if my grandson and his classmates were instead immersed in a curriculum which met their needs, not the needs of an education system.

They need a curriculum that will allow them to show their own drive, imagination and ambition while teaching them to be both collaborative and to think for themselves. It would empower them to become critical thinkers, with the ability to tackle interrelated concepts and ideas.

What they don’t need is a culture of rote-learning and a barrage of tests.

We know Ofsted wouldn’t wear it but my curriculum for the future would have the following at its core...

• Global outlook
• Learning with others
• Learning through doing
• Compassion
• Pupils’ happiness
   

It may be a pipe dream, but at least I am showing the kind of imagination my grandson and his new friends are going to need in 2038.

Colin Harris led a school in a deprived area of Portsmouth for more than two decades. His last two Ofsted reports were ‘outstanding’ across all categories

To read more of Colin’s articles, visit his back catalogue