With each new education secretary comes a set of fresh initiatives, a reordering of priorities and, usually, a new wooing of the profession. But one thing that doesn’t change is how fragmented the school system in England is. If uncertainty currently characterises economic and political debates then change characterises conversations in schools. This is why the Bryanston Education Summit’s strapline is: what next for our schools?

For many teachers, the answer is to get through this week, this term. Curriculum is in constant flux, as is assessment. Safeguarding legislation seems to grow each academic year, and the range of school models continues to expand - some attracting additional funding, others falling out of favour - but all baffling even those of us who work full-time in education: MATs, SATs, free schools, studio schools, comprehensives, public schools, proprietorial schools, teaching schools, academies, grammar schools, hospital schools. I sometimes wonder what it must be like to be a layman parent staring at this collection of terms, nervously gripping their child’s hand, wondering which future awaits them. The language of education is equally intimidating. Those who work in schools seem to speak largely in acronyms: HMC, ISI, GSA, GDST, ISC, NEU, SEN, Ofsted, Ofqual, ISSPs, GCSE, AOs, DfE, JCQ, PRUs...and so on, ad infinitum. With greater coherence might come better planning.

Find clarity amid the confusion

For a profession that is, essentially, one of communication, teaching does a very good job of using a vocabulary that seems designed to exclude all those who are not educationalists, or to reinforce separateness not similarity. Perhaps that is why teachers are so drawn to meeting with each other to talk in a common language about their work. They need to be reminded of why they want to remain in the classroom. They want to feel part of a wider network than that offered by their schools. More than anything else, they want other people to validate what they are doing, and make sense of what is new.  Conferences, like those orgainsed by researchED, the Education Festival, my own Bryanston Summit, as well as magazines such as Tes, act as mediators, translators, or filters, rendering the endless flow of information more intelligible and, it has to be said, human.

And so although it is important to read policy documents about changing frameworks by Ofsted and the Independent Schools Inspectorate, it is even more illuminating to meet with both organisations’ chief inspectors (Amanda Spielman and Kate Richards) to ask them questions, to hold them to account, and seek a better understanding of why inspections are changing. It is equally important to meet with leading figures to listen to us - the teachers - to understand what we are concerned about now.

Sir David Carter may be stepping down as the national schools commissioner, but his influence remains great, and his legacy will continue to shape debates for years to come. And as two teaching unions merge, it is also an appropriate time to ask one of its leaders, Mary Bousted, what this might mean for the profession. These levels of accountability are important for public figures like Spielman, Richards, Bousted and Carter, but in a profession which is becoming increasingly dependent on technology it’s vital that we debate with those who are clearly committed to spreading new technology (such as Microsoft’s Ian Fordham) and those who are more sceptical of it (including Crispin Weston). All these figures will be at the Bryanston Summit.

Of course, the real beauty of events such as the Summit is that you encounter speakers otherwise unknown to you, and you also make contact with teachers who, unsurprisingly perhaps, value the human interaction that debate can bring. It is the difference between browsing on Amazon and browsing in a bricks-and-mortar bookstore. In this increasingly complex profession, it is too easy to stay in school, or go online, and persuade yourself that you are too busy to listen and meet with others. The truth, of course, is that such days replenish us professionally, reminding us (if we needed reminding) that in a job as public, but as draining, as teaching it is too easy to become removed from others professionals. Now, perhaps more than ever, teachers need to engage with each other, and to realise that, difficult though it often is, it remains one of the few fully transformative professions. We need to remind our policymakers that we need to be listened to, and the best way of ensuring our arguments are made is to meet them, old school-like, face to face.

David James is deputy head of Bryanston School, and director of the Bryanston Education Summit, which is taking place on 6 June. Tickets are available here