Jul 26

Celebrating the success of British International Schools across the world

BIS

As the dust settles on the Brexit debate, and the UK prepares to shift its relationship with Europe, it is worth taking time to reflect on the very positive stories of British engagement in the wider world, and this is especially true of British education in international schools across the globe. English-medium international schools educated almost 4 million children worldwide in 2015 – a figure that is set to rise to over 8 million by 2025 – and of these schools, over 40% taught a UK-based curriculum. Around 125 of these schools have already undergone the voluntary British Schools Overseas inspection, instituted by the UK Department for Education recently, in 2014, as a quality brandmark, and more are following swiftly in their footsteps. A British education is highly sought after.

And this, of course, is why British international schools are worth celebrating. I am delighted to be part of the prestigious judging panel for the British International Schools Awards 2017, as these awards were set up specifically in order to recognise excellence in British schools overseas, to celebrate the success of the sector and – a natural by-product of celebrating success – to help set benchmarks in best practice. The categories for these awards are:

  • Strategic Initiative of the Year
  • Financial Initiative of the Year
  • Senior Leadership Team of the Year
  • Governing Body of the Year
  • Community Initiative of the Year
  • Pastoral Care Initiative of the Year
  • Teaching Initiative of the Year
  • Marketing Initiative of the Year
  • IT Initiative of the Year
  • International Impact award
  • Lifetime award
  • New British International School of the Year (under three years)

and in addition, there is an overall award for the British International School of the Year 2017, which will be chosen by judges from one of the winners of the first ten categories. The deadline for submissions is 21 September 2016, and the presentations will be made at a gala event on 23 January in London at the Grand Connaught Rooms, Covent Garden.

At the close of one school year, and in preparation for the next, and in amongst the many political turbulences of the moment, the time is absolutely right for British international schools to reflect on their many, many achievements. They are leading the way in global education, and we should celebrate them.

 

If you are a British International School and would like to enter for one of these awards, the application form can be found here. Good luck!

 

Jul 19

The power of diversity in the world: the role of international educational institutions

In her inaugural speech as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford on 12 January 2016, Professor Louise Richardson spoke passionately about the tradition and the history of this great university. The ceremony took place in the Sheldonian, Sir Christopher Wren’s great ceremonial hall, completed in 1669, a stone’s throw from the University Divinity School, which was completed in 1483, and in the heart of a city where evidence shows that university teaching has been underway since at least 1096. It is a special place to sit, and to witness the admission of the 272nd Vice-Chancellor to the university, taking on the mantle of leading one of the world’s greatest educational institutions, especially as the message from both the Chancellor, Lord Patten, and the new Vice-Chancellor, very firmly linked this tradition and history to the university’s leading-edge modernity and its international reach in today’s world.international educational institutions

Primarily, their message focused on the power of thought and critical reflection to push forward the boundaries of human knowledge and understanding. This, it was stressed, is part of a continuum of academic scholarship that has developed over centuries, withstanding vast historical movements, and is as relevant today as it has ever been. Central to this tradition has been the interaction of students from different national backgrounds with one another; indeed, as Professor Richardson reminded us, the first recorded student from overseas came to the university in 1190, and international students have been a vital part of the university since, as they should be in every university. She spoke passionately about the power of diversity of thought, describing her experiences teaching a Masters’ degree course on terrorism at her previous institution, the University of St Andrew’s, where it was rare for more than two students to share a nationality. “The quality of debate that takes place in a classroom in which nobody shares your assumptions, and yet everyone respects your right to an opinion, on a topic as charged as terrorism,”, she said, “is unrivalled.”, and she added: “It is exactly the kind of education we should be providing our students to prepare them to enter a globalised world.”

When different perspectives are brought together, elucidated and debated, then this assists individuals in the articulation and development of their own thinking, and it also leads to a greater appreciation of, and tolerance for, the views and attitudes of others. It creates new understandings and knowledge, and diversity of thought is a tremendously powerful stimulus in this act of creation. Moreover, as Professor Richardson reminded us, greater global mobility is enabling ever greater possibilities for pursuing these global perspectives, and this is to be welcomed with open arms.

International education is important in today’s world – and, in a technologically connected world, arguably more important than ever. When the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford stands up and says so, clearly and boldly, then every other educational institution which promotes international education and global thinking, from nursery through primary school, secondary school and beyond, including lifelong learning institutions, can be reassured that they are on exactly the right path of development.

 

Jun 27

Brexit and the values embedded in British education

BREXITTo an extent, it doesn’t matter what the decision was. What really matters is how we deal with it. And this is where – we hope and trust – two key values embedded in British education come into their own.

British education is renowned worldwide – much more so than practitioners based in the UK often seem to realise, bombarded as they are with PISA statistics and national examination results which emphasise that the practical outcomes of this education are ‘not good enough’. These statistics and results are part of a wider debate, of course, about what education is actually for; arguably, the practical outcomes demanded in an exam-focused culture are not really what we want or need in our society today. However, this debate is peripheral to a fundamental and shared understanding of what makes a British education truly great, namely its core values. These are the values that are part of the very fabric of British schools – in the UK and overseas – and that are explicitly and implicitly taught every day; these are the values that are admired and appreciated worldwide.

The first of these values is tolerance. While this may have a hollow ring about it, given that fears about an imbalance of immigration in the pre-Brexit campaigns tipped over at times into the xenophobic, fundamentally, the UK is actually an immensely tolerant place – and tolerance is taught and valued in schools. This tolerance – and its cousin, respect for individuals – comes from a belief that every human being deserves to be heard, and that we need to teach young people ways in which to listen, consider and disagree if necessary, but without causing harm. The outpouring of shared grief and the consequent solidarity across political, social and almost any other boundaries which followed the recent murder of the MP Jo Cox was a testament to how intolerance is the only thing that cannot legitimately be tolerated in the UK.

The second of these values is critical reflection. While at first glance not a value at all, but rather a process, in fact a belief in critical reflection in its broadest interpretations – from opposition politics at a national level to careful sifting of facts from opinions in everyday conversation – is so deeply embedded in the UK values framework that it is indistinguishable from a value itself. Critical reflection is what keeps hegemonies in check; note how concern over the unelected, unaccountable elements of the governing structures of the European Union has been, at times almost subconsciously, a major factor on the pro-Leave side of the Brexit argument. Critical reflection underpins the success of British education throughout the ages and is the key to this success; as a result it is highly sought after by practitioners in other education systems, who in many cases envy the freedom that UK teachers give their students to question, criticise and think independently, even when this brings the risk of conflict.

These key values are not entirely unique to Britain – they are visible and are lived well in a number of other cultures. But they are such an integral and powerful part of the education system in the UK that they are inextricable from it. These are the values on which the UK is building its future generations, and this is what gives hope that out of the current political turmoil will come a national and international debate that leads us all to greater engagement with one another, and greater harmony. No-one ever said that it was going to be easy, but with the right foundation, as manifested in our educational principles – together with a commitment to seek forward-thinking solutions – we all stand a better chance.

 

 

 

 

Jun 21

Diversity of thought flourishes when …

Yesterday evening saw the Annual General Meeting of Changing the Chemistry, which in its first year of operation as a Scottish-based charity committed to promoting diversity on boards has had extraordinary success. This unique peer-network has already grown to over 200 active members, and has contributed to filling 70 board positions. Yesterday, in the AGM and the Members’ Meeting which followed, was an opportunity to celebrate success, but also to delve deeper into what diversity means, and how we interpret this in practice in all of the organisations with which we are involved in some way.

The evidence is coming in thick and fast, globally – greater diversity makes for better organisations. As one of the Trustees explained in her speech last night, diversity means ‘more difference at the table, which means more challenge, less group think, better decisions’. Diversity does not just mean different backgrounds, ethnicities and genders – it is fundamentally about diversity of thought. How we think, and the differences between us in this respect, are rarely visible, and yet they are one of our greatest assets in any group decision-making role such as a board of an organisation, because they allow us all to bring different perspectives to issues, challenges and potential solutions. Diversity really matters – without diversity of thought, it is far, far less likely that we will be able to appreciate any issue facing us as fully and deeply as we could if we were to consider other views, perspectives and thought processes. The only explanation for people to fail to appreciate diversity is that they simply haven’t encountered it yet and understood its value – we usually don’t know, of course, what we don’t know, and our unconscious biases are precisely that – unconscious, and therefore invisible to us.

Diversity is not just about who people are; it is about how they interact with one another, and this was what emerged very clearly from the group discussions at last night’s meeting. When over 50 engaged, intelligent thinkers are brought together, you would expect some profound thinking to happen, and the conclusions are worth reflecting on. Diversity, it was noted, will thrive and bloom …

… when there is diversity of thought gathered together in the people present on a board. Difference is vital to diversity; diversity is killed stone-dead by a board who all look the same, feel comfortable with one another, and have similar life experiences. Sometimes – arguably, often – boards need to appoint people with whom they feel less comfortable, in the knowledge that these people will think and contribute something different. diversity of thought

… when there is a culture of listening – of real, active listening in order truly to hear what others are saying, not just (as the Buddhist saying we were introduced to last night remarks) pretending to listen while in fact  preparing to speak.

… when challenge and opposing or even conflicting views are welcomed and encouraged, where people are emboldened to speak up, and where the chair is so skilled at facilitation that a safe yet effective space is created for valuable collaborative sharing of insights and carefully considered, well-rounded decision-making.

All organisations – small or large, public or private, new or longstanding – face challenges. The role of the boards of these organisations is to provide both insight and oversight, and in tackling their specific challenges, every single one of these organisations can benefit from greater diversity of thought, as boards across the country are beginning to discover. Greater productivity, more ideas, better processes … What is there not to like about the effects of greater diversity, properly nurtured?

The next step for boards, then, is to challenge themselves to embrace and encourage the conditions in which the seeds of diversity are not only planted but nurtured. When diversity flourishes, we all benefit.

 

 

Dr Helen Wright is a Trustee of Changing the Chemistry and Chair of the CtC Broadening the Membership Committee

Jun 13

Leonardo DiCaprio and the misnaming of ‘The Revenant’

Well, The Revenant is actually very good indeed. You probably already know this; regular readers of this blog will know that in matters cinematic, I am usually a late adopter and an opportunist; essentially, I usually wait to watch new film releases until a time and place where watching a movie is really the only thing that I can do, which is why so many of the films I watch are on small aeroplane screens as I travel. I may not get the full cinema experience, but the films certainly get my full attention – and they almost invariably prompt me to see some aspect of the world and/or life from a different perspective.

Anyway, The Revenant is excellent. It is an example of full-on sensory overload, deeply shocking in places, and compelling viewing that is extremely uncomfortable in places. Leonardo DiCaprio deserved his many awards – his pain was almost palpable. The scenery was breathtaking. You resurface at the end of the film feeling as though you have had an emotional beating in a harsh and unforgiving place at a difficult period of American history (which is part of the history of so many of us, given that the US is a country of migrants).

A great film does not just relate a story: it reaches into our souls and shows us that we are part of something much bigger than ourselves. It links past with present, it crosses national boundaries, and it challenges us to look ahead even as we look back. Films don’t have to be great epics in order to do this, but they do need to be well-crafted (hence the importance of the art of the film-makers and actors), so that the messages they contain can strike straight into our understandings. Great films rarely have a single message; it is often in the complexity (and sometimes contradictions) of their communication that they achieve greatness. Their ability to be able to touch and change our understanding, however, is a fundamental part of their greatness.

When I write about films, it is usually not to review them as works of art, but rather to explore and expand on one or more of the messages or insights that the films have given me, in order to share them – the core purpose of writing a blog, of course. And one of the sudden and powerful insights I had when watching The Revenant was an understanding of why so many people in the US feel it is their right to carry guns, and what this suggests to us about what we can do to seek to eliminate gun violence – or any violence – in the future. It didn’t make me think it was ok to carry guns, but it did make me understand it, very forcefully, at a deeper level than I have ever done before.

In one scene, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is asked if he did in fact kill an officer. His response: ‘I just killed the man who was trying to kill my boy’. By that stage in the film we are so bought into his character that we absorb his point of view entirely – and even though we know it is wrong to kill, we understand – really understand, in a way that might shock us – why he did it, and the primal power of family love, and the need to protect those we love, and, perhaps, love itself. If carrying a gun makes this more possible – as clearly, many millions of Americans believe it does – then why should we stand in their way?

To come to this conclusion, however, would be to miss the opportunity to use this understanding – deeply rooted in the memories of fighting for survival in a time of history which The Revenant does not attempt to sanitise – to move forward in our understandings and our actions, to help make the world a better place than it was in the fur-trapping, frontier-land, pioneer era of American history. For one thing is absolutely without question – we cannot change the past. We can only use our understandings of the past to help change our present and our future, and if we do not at least try to move on from the past, by doing things differently, then we are not – to my mind, at least – doing what we could be doing as human beings to advance and to move us all forward to a higher plane of existence, on which we care as much for others as we do for ourselves, and where we actively seek to contribute to making the world a better place. When we understand more about human history, and the motives and experiences of our forebears, we can build on this understanding to create new and powerful solutions for the future.

The Revenant is not really about a man coming back, as its French-derived title suggests. It is about a man moving forward in life, by clinging on to it – at times literally – with his fingernails. It teaches us about the past and in so doing, points us to the future. When you watch it again, watch it with this in mind.

Jun 03

‘It’s all pants’: gender equality and the school uniform debate

A mother in Melbourne has been causing a bit of stir recently, with her petition to the Education department and her local school to allow her daughter to wear trousers (pants) to school rather than the mandated school uniform dress. A media storm has been whipped up, and she has been accused of undermining the authority of schools, and while many people have spoken up in support (not least the 17,000+ supporters of the petition to date), a lot of mud is being slung around. This has continued even since the school has agreed to the uniform change – ‘what kind of an example is she setting her daughter by letting her get her own way?’ is a fairly typical response.gender equality

Read the petition itself, however, and you will see a very considered, thoughtful piece on why dresses can disadvantage girls in many ways: “Dresses disadvantage girls like my daughter who want to play footy, run, climb and ride a bike to school. The boys get to wear pants and shorts which facilitate these activities far better than a dress. I won’t stand for a policy that only encourages and promotes girls to be active on sports days (at my daughter’s school this is twice per week). What about the rest of the time?”

This mother points to research and documents from the State Government which acknowledge that uniform can hold girls back from physical activity, and she demonstrates too that she has tried to follow procedure by approaching the school directly; there was no school board to whom she could turn, so she raised her voice and spoke out. For her, this is a real question of gender equality: “My daughter, like many other girls, simply wants the choice to wear pants like half of her peers, with the warmth and freedom to be active at school and travelling to/from school. She constantly asks “why can’t I wear pants like the boys?” “Because you’re a girl” is not something I am prepared to say to my 6 year old daughter. A daughter who I have raised to believe she can do and conquer anything, regardless of her gender, and that she can like what she wants to like and not what gender stereotypes dictate she should like.”

At my lecture on ‘Bringing Up Girls’ this week at St Mark’s Darling Point, during my visit to Sydney from the UK, I explored how we can support our daughters (and granddaughters, nieces, goddaughters and all other girls) by listening to them, understanding the pressures of their world, and helping them to navigate these pressures. One of the most important things we can do to help them is to show them how not to accept inequality, and as adults (and parents) we too need to call out inequality when we see it. We may have come a long way in a short space of our history to enable greater equality for girls and women, but there is a long, long way to go until we really can lay a claim to true equality – an equality which benefits everyone.

The aggressive nature of the debate that has grown around the petition started by this mother does not stem from her words or actions. On the contrary – she is seeking a legitimate way to raise her voice: a process that we should value in our democratic and civilised society, having explored other ways to tackle the problem. She deserves – everyone deserves – a respectful hearing, followed by active and supportive engagement in how to create a solution.

Moreover, this is an incredibly important issue, and she deserves further respect for having the courage to focus on it, and to speak out about it. It may be hard for us generally to accept that school uniforms have inequality embedded within them, because for years this was not on our radar, and we are heavily influenced by a history in which school uniforms represent so much more for us than just clothes – they stand for rigour, discipline, tradition. However, now that we have realised that they disadvantage girls, we need genuinely to look at our school uniforms, and – even better – to engage girls and parents in the debate about how to change them.

Gender equality really, really matters – and nothing is served by either trivialising the issues or by aggressively attacking those who raise them. School uniforms need to be back on the agenda – and we need to iron out inequality, one uniform at a time.

 

May 30

Speaking in public: an introvert’s perspective

I am speaking to two different audiences this week in Sydney, on two of my different specialisms; a seminar on Powerful Schools at Macquarie University School of Education on Wednesday, and a public lecture and discussion at the renowned St Mark’s Darling Point on ‘Bringing Up Girls’ on Thursday evening. As an introvert who has learned to develop a number of extrovert traits, I still ask myself occasionally ‘why put myself through the trial of speaking in public?’, but the answer is always definitively clear, and worth exploring here.

What drives me to speak and to lead discussion is, I realised a number of years ago, a passionate belief in the power of human beings to solve problems through collaboration. My role as a speaker is to share thoughts and ideas – and, by doing so, not simply keep observations and insights to myself that people may not otherwise be able to access because they are not deeply embedded in the same field. Having developed expertise and a specialist knowledge in an area of human activity that touches us all – young people, and education in its broadest sense, as a driver of future thinking in our society – gives me a privileged platform, and it is, I believe, my moral responsibility to use that platform to help fellow human beings through the sharing of insights, and through prompting and challenging their thinking.

speaking in publicThe key word, of course, is ‘sharing’. The best speeches, I feel, are those which create a safe space for people to be able to think, to ask questions, to ponder the answers, and to incorporate the thoughts and ideas of others into their own framework of thinking, which has been shaped over the years. Listening to a speech should not be a passive process – the brain will absorb, questions and reframe ideas according to its own experience, and if the person listening feels safe and able to ask questions, then not only does this reframing become even more personally pertinent, but it can enable the rest of the audience – and the speaker – to extend the scope of the ideas being discussed, and to take them into new areas of reflection.

I have always thought that the discussion following a speech is immensely valuable – the speech itself is an introduction to ideas, and a powerful vehicle for the sharing of thoughts and deep experience, but the subsequent discussion enables those thoughts to be owned and turned into something practical and used as the basis for further thinking and reflection. The speech itself acts as a catalyst and inspiration, and the real value happens as these ideas and experiences, carefully set out and communicated as clearly as possible, meet the minds and experience of other people, who can turn these insights into something meaningful for them – something that has the potential to influence their future actions and may help them make changes that will benefit themselves and others.

And of course, my speeches are all about change. Not drastic change (at least, not usually), but nonetheless fundamental change in our thinking, our actions, our relationships with others and with society more generally. As a human race, I believe that we are hard-wired to keep moving, questing, improving, doing things better and better for one another and for the world as a whole. Every day we take decisions and do things that make a difference, and the more deeply we can think about how to connect these decisions and actions, the more likely it is that we will be able to turn them into a greater collaborative striving for improvement.

This is what motivates me – and I hope that it inspires and catalyses in equal measure. And this is why I am looking forward to this week.

Dr Helen Wright’s latest book, Powerful Schools: How schools can be drivers of social and global mobility, is available from the John Catt Educational Bookshop and on Amazon. Her widely-read book on bringing up girls, Decoding Your 21st Century Daughter, is available as a paperback and Kindle edition on Amazon.

May 25

Women: disadvantaged from childhood

If you read only one PhD thesis this year, make it this one. And if you only read one chapter of this thesis, make it Chapter 7 (which you will find on pages 175-249), entitled ‘The CEO habitus’. Submitted to the University of Queensland in 2011, this thesis is the work of Dr Terrance Fitzsimmons, who spoke earlier this week at the Alliance of Girls’ Schools Australasia conference in Brisbane, and in exploring the outcomes of the unique studies he undertook, he manages to uncover some essential facts about women’s pathways to the top of their careers. These facts, when shared widely and discussed, have the potential to shift on to a new level our awareness and understanding of gender inequality in our society. They are significant findings.

In preparation for his thesis, Terrance Fitzsimmons interviewed a sample of 31 female and 30 male CEOs from publically listed and large private sector Australian companies, and interviewed them about their life journeys. He used the framework of Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist and philosopher who died in 2002, to explore what Bourdieu called the ‘habitus’ of each person. As Fitzsimmons describes it,

“Bourdieu (1977) conceived of habitus as being the embodied history of each person. He proposed that habitus is the sum of experiences, accumulated over a lifetime, used by the individual both consciously and sub consciously. Bourdieu (1990) viewed childhood as being pivotal in habitus formation. The imprinting in early childhood of “proper‟ ways of behaving and interpreting the world form the basis of all meaning making by children at school and then, in turn, later in their career. This early learning becomes “the taken for granted‟ or “the social rules of the game of life (Jenkins, 2002; Taylor, 1999).” (Fitzsimmons, 2011:175)

In his interviews and subsequent analyses of the interviews, Fitzsimmons discovered a remarkable difference between the family backgrounds of these male and female CEOs. They shared a mainly middle-class background, and were from families with a strong work ethic, but, broadly speaking, the male CEOs had had what might be described as a stable, traditional family life, with a working father and a stay-at-home mother. On the other hand, the female CEOs (who represented, of course, a much higher percentage of all the female CEOs in the country than the male CEOs interviewed), had a different family background:

“Family life for the majority of the female CEOs could be broadly described as disrupted with major moves, family breakdowns, deaths or other traumatic events occurring either in late childhood or their teenage years being typical.” (Fitzsimmons, 2011: 183)

“Nearly all of the female CEOs came from families where their father was self-employed and their mothers were either actively involved in the business or employed in a range of other positions. In either case, their mothers were still identified as primarily responsible for maintaining the household. Very few of the female CEOs demonstrated what could be described as a “male childhood habitus‟. “(Fitzsimmons, 2011:192)

These differences are striking. They show just how much harder women have had to fight in order to reach positions of power and influence in our society, and they suggest just how critical early childhood experiences are in this process.

No doubt it is possible to cast doubt on these findings – is, for example the Australian context unique and therefore non-transferable? Given the social era in which these current CEOs were growing up as children, can we legitimately draw comparisons with what is happening today? Is a small scale research project like this sufficient to change our understanding?

These are, however, validated and remarkable results, thoroughly investigated and carefully exposed. They bring new insights to our understanding of what women have had to go through to get to where they are. They challenge us to think more deeply about the possibility that women are still being judged – unconsciously – against largely male criteria as they apply for roles; and they challenge us to focus more aggressively on what we are doing in families and schools to develop an acceptance and embracing of diversity as an even greater strength than conformity.

Moreover – because we can’t afford to wait for the next generation of children to filter into the workplace (and because we need in any case to make the workplace more open to the diversity that they can bring) – they challenge us to find a way to talk about this and work out constructive and forward-looking solutions that allow women and men to be valued for who they are and what they can bring.

Apportioning blame is unhelpful; developing an openness to the future is the way forward, and the first step – always – in this is to understand where we have come from. Business is not to blame for where we are – although businesses have a significant responsibility in helping to find solutions. Families and schools are almost certainly the crucibles where change will happen. As Dr Fitzsimmons puts it, “The findings of this thesis suggest that far greater attention needs to be placed upon interventions in the ways in which we socialise and educate our children.” (Fitzsimmons, 2011:254).

None of us are off the hook in this respect, however; the stark reality is that we all have much more to do, and urgently, if we are to come close to achieving gender equality in the workplace.

 

May 24

A ‘must have’ for leaders: global travel in childhood

Speaking earlier today at the AGSA conference in Brisbane, Dr Terrance Fitzsimmons of the University of Queensland Business School gave his audience a compelling insight into the journeys of CEOs. Based on his research into whether male and female CEOs differed in how they reached the top, his presentation highlighted stark gender differences in the pathways of CEOs into their current roles. I am only just beginning to unpack the wealth of information he revealed – I shall write about it later!

One thing he said, however, that absolutely caught my attention was that almost without question, every CEO of the several hundred interviewed said that as a child, they had travelled extensively, and that this travel had continued throughout their careers. Coincidence, mused Dr Fitzsimmons? Most likely not. International travel, he hypothesised, had helped these leaders see the world as a bigger place – a global platform – and had helped them to feel comfortable and at ease in numerous situations.

This chimed loudly and clearly with the principles underpinning Powerful Schools: How schools can be drivers of social and global mobility. Access to the international world is an absolutely vital component of social mobility, and schools – as socially mandated institutions – are the most obvious vehicles to be able to facilitate this mobility for all young people, and not just those whose families are positioned well enough to be able to make it happen.powerful schools

Internationalising schools – as I had the privilege to explain in my talk to AGSA conference delegates yesterday – means placing ‘global’ at the heart of all school activity, so that it is inextricably interwoven with the vision, the ethos, the curriculum and the practices of the school, and so that it leads to deeper and deeper partnerships with other schools in other countries and cultures. Schools can be the drivers of these international partnerships, and of the opportunities for all young people which will emerge, and this could potentially have a fundamental and lifechanging effect on the young people for whose education and life chances they have responsibility.

Not every child can become a CEO; not every child will or should want to become a CEO. But schools exist in part for each child to have the opportunity to choose to become a CEO, and – so Dr Fitzsimmon’s research would seem to indicate – they will be far, far better placed to be able to make this choice if they have travelled and experienced the wider world.

Global awareness matters; international travel is essential. Schools need to lead the way in creating the opportunities for all young people to experience it.

May 16

Social mobility: the power of the Flying Scotsman

The Flying Scotsman came from London to Edinburgh on Saturday, and a friend of a friend posted a video of the train’s progress as it passed through Berwick-upon-Tweed, just short of the Scottish border. 200 people – young and old – turned out to watch it, to film it and to wave. What drew them to this spectacle, as it drew observers all along the route, was more than just a train – it was everything that this train represented, including a powerful vision of mobility and opportunity, questing and journeying.

As any expert in the railways will tell you, the name ‘Flying Scotsman’ has been given to a number of different trains over the years, ever since the first London-Edinburgh train service began in 1862, when the journey took 10 and a half hours (including a stop in York for lunch). The engine that made its powerful trip north on Saturday, however – and the engine that history most associates with the name – is the LNER Class A3 4472 engine, built in 1923, which set two world records during its lifetime: it was the first steam locomotive officially to reach 100 miles per hour (on 30 November 1934) and it set a record for the longest non-stop run by a steam locomotive when it ran 422 miles on 8 August 1989 while ‘on tour’ in Australia.

When this particular Flying Scotsman began its lifetime of service, it represented speed, modernity, power, connection and opportunity for the many thousands of people who travelled on it, and whose vistas, lives and work it enlarged. Now restored after a sojourn in the National Railway Museum in York, the train is off on its travels again, and it carries with it all of these connotations and more – we recognise now, through the lens of history, just how impressive a feat of engineering it was, just how much it opened up the country, and just how its tireless energy (and the energy and vision of its creators and drivers and all those who were part of its existence) affected the lives and prospects of so many. It brought capital cities closer and closer together, it facilitated communication, and it made mobility seem possible and within the grasp of many more. In short, it contributed to the creation of opportunity.

Steam trains – and especially the Flying Scotsman – may now be an object of historical curiosity, but they are much, much more than this. They represent the power of human achievement, and if we are lucky enough to see them, then part of what we experience as they storm and puff past in a cloud of steam, noise and air, is that they touch that part of our souls which is always questing – questing for movement, questing for opportunity, questing for change and growth. And who can fail to be excited by the quest and journey that the Flying Scotsman represents?

The Flying Scotsman earned its status as an iconic engine almost a century ago; it was an age where opportunities for personal and professional growth were much, much more limited than they are today. When we look back, we recognise how far we have come in terms of social mobility; it is heartening, today, to know that we have achieved so much. What the Flying Scotsman reminds us is that we have a journey still ahead of us, and yet it is a journey that is eminently possible and within our grasp.

Helen’s most recent book, Powerful Schools: How schools can be drivers of social and global mobility, was published by John Catt Educational Ltd in May 2016.