It has always seemed impressive to me that the decision to take this magazine (then a newspaper) weekly was made in 1916. In the midst of the First World War (around the time of the Somme Offensive), a group of newspaper executives clearly decided that fortnightly education news wasn’t enough for wartime Britain: the output had to be doubled.
Similarly, and altogether rather more importantly, it has always seemed to me hugely impressive that the 1944 wartime Parliament found the time and the optimism, while the verdict on D-Day was still out (and a long time before the end of the war), to pass the now famous Butler Act.
This is one of the most progressive pieces of education legislation in UK history. It ushered in compulsory state-funded schooling up to the age of 15 (and paved the way for its extension to 16), eradicated fees for state secondaries and pretty much founded FE colleges as we would recognise them today. All while V1 bombs were about to pepper the capital.
These are not isolated incidents: moments of great crisis often result in an extraordinary capacity for renewal. And what better example than the way heads, teachers and wider school communities are finding light in the dark of the greatest national emergency of my lifetime.
They have every reason to give short shrift to those commentators and observers (of which I am one) who like to pontificate about how the Covid-19 pandemic could bring about a change in the way our education system operates. “Go away and ruminate somewhere else,” they respond, “we’re kind of busy right now.”
Has enough been made of the selfless acts of school staff in the past month? They are keeping schools open - often without the right level of support, advice or personal protective equipment - so as to provide childcare for the doctors, nurses, shop workers and, indeed, teachers that our country needs to keep working if our desperate bid to flatten that coronavirus curve is to be successful.
Not just that, but they are achieving miracles at the same time: Tes’ inboxes have been inundated with examples of school staff going way above and beyond what is expected of them and, in so doing, displaying the boundless optimism that we know to be one of their defining characteristics. Those of us who do not teach can only bow our heads in admiration.
But there might come a time - not too far on the horizon - when teachers will also want to think about staking a claim on the future.
The other day, when exchanging emails with Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, I was whingeing about being stuck inside for weeks on end. Geoff’s response, which really struck me, was to sympathise, but he then added a flourish of optimism: “There’s going to be quite a rebirth at some point, too …”
A few days later in the online pages of Tes News, Leora Cruddas, chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, sounded a similar note, telling a story about how some neighbouring children had drawn a chalk image on the pavement portraying the renewal of nature that takes place at this time of year. In the centre of their picture they had written: “Nothing can stop spring.”
When the country emerges blinking from its coronavirus lockdown, there is every likelihood that this generation of teachers and school leaders, who are enjoying new levels of public support and respect, will have the opportunity to influence the future of education in a way that would have been unthinkable only a few weeks ago.
Things are never going to be the same again.
@Ed_Dorrell
This article originally appeared in the 3 April 2020 issue under the headline “Teachers could emerge from this crisis with the future in their hands”
