This began when the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Education launched an Inquiry into The Loss of Love of Learning. The questions they were asking seemed to me to be fundamental to the work we do here. I submitted a detailed response, which you can read here: Pages from Evidence-Combined

I was privileged to be invited to the House of Commons for the launch of the report. This goes to the heart of what has been happening in education and indicates what needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. There isn’t much in the report that will surprise anyone. Increasing numbers of both pupils and teachers are opting out because of excessive pressures, a lack of consistent caring relationships, less opportunities for creativity, increasing inequality , a rigid, overstuffed curriculum with lessons turning into tick-box activities with little room for the ‘joyful serendipity’ that can spark curiosity and deeper learning.

“Supporting teachers is not a separate agenda from student engagement; rather it is a pre-requisite for re-injecting a love of learning into classrooms”.

You can download the report here, and also see the 188 pages of evidence that were submitted.

The project

Discussing the report with a long-time friend and colleague, Dominic Boddington, he told me about the primary school where he is a governor – Sinclair – and what they were doing to make a difference for everyone around the school. We agreed that people needed to know more about what is possible for a school to achieve within the current constraints of finance and regulation, and learn from the example of real schools and what they are doing right now to promote a love of learning in their school. We started with Sinclair, and asked around our networks for links to other schools that people thought were doing good work that we could visit and write about.  Some of you responded to this – thank you.

We made contact with the nominated schools, discussed the project with school leaders on Zoom calls, and found a community of people with enthusiasm for the project and arranged dates to visit each school and talk to heads, teachers, kids, parents …

We’ve been to six of the schools so far, written up what we found in five of them, and agreed texts with the schools: those will go into a book to be published next year. Meantime, there are brief details of what we found on this site.

The schools we have already visited are:

• Sinclair Primary and Nursery School, Southhampton
• Nightingale Primary School, Hackney, London
• Easington Colliery Primary School, Durham
• St Ebbe’s CofE Primary School, Oxford
• Ripple Primary School, Barking, London
• St Nicholas’ Priory C of E VA Primary School, Great Yarmouth

and planned …

• East-the-water Community Primary School, Bideford, Devon
• Norman Street Primary School, Carlisle
• Sutton Park Primary School, Kidderminster
• Barrowford Primary School, Nelson, Lancs

The book and next steps

We are discussing how to put together everything that we have found and the common threads between the schools, and hoping to get a contract for that publication soon.

We are also discussing with University College London going forward with a similar study of what’s going well in secondary schools in England.

More news as we get it!

Sue Roffey & Dominic Boddington