I have returned from a very fruitful few days at the HMC Heads’ Annual Conference in Newport, meeting with colleagues and discussing the most pressing and interesting issues in our sector currently. Obviously, we were running our conference concurrently with the Labour Party, who were perhaps less optimistic in their plans for independent education than we Heads were.
All the more reason to be pursuing the agenda we have laid out around our bursary and partnership programmes, widening access to our school in every way we can.
One key topic at the conference was looking to the future of assessment and starting better to measure and understand the independent sector’s development of the crucial skills of flexibility of thought, problem solving and resilience which workplace leaders tell us they require in their employees, but which GCSEs in particular – sadly – tend not to develop. I was delighted that our own Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) programme was referenced by the panel – unprompted! – as an example of development which takes place outside of the strictures of the curriculum; there is more to be done, though, and we are not complacent about the challenge of walking the line between fulfilling curriculum demands and developing curious, independent learners.