The High Mistress Sarah Fletcher

THE HIGH MISTRESS OF ST PAUL’S GIRLS’ SCHOOL ARGUES AGAINST TODAY’S EXAMINATION-DRIVEN SYSTEM

the top of politics in 10 years’ time. I remember writing in that article that David Cameron hadn’t really made a mark on parliament.

The week after the article was published I sat next to him at a dinner. When I raised it, he said, “Yes, I did see it. I asked my staff to leave the room and I put my feet up on the table, and I just sat there for five minutes thinking: “He’s right. What have I achieved in two years in Parliament?” That was a brilliant way f defusing a potentially awkward social situation.

anything like that! And it came on time. But it was interesting to see the reaction. Some people on social media said, “I wanted to buy this book but I’m not buying it because you’ve got Boris Johnson in it.” I thought: “If Jeremy Corbyn had won the election I would have asked him!”

It’s quite difficult to come to a judgement on a prime minister who’s still in office. Boris’ reputation in history will depend on how quickly the country gets back on its feet and how many people are actually out of a job. But most prime ministers are known for one thing in history. He wanted to be known as the Prime Minister who “got Brexit done”. He has got it done. But I suspect he’ll be known as the Covid Prime Minister.

Later, when I was running for parliament he drove up in his Skoda to campaign with me and we had a brilliant day together. And when he was prime minister, I did three interviews with him. I was poacher turned gamekeeper, and understood where he was coming from. This is one of the advantages of having been involved in politics, and then moving into journalism and broadcasting. As an interviewer, I have an advantage over people who haven’t been involved in politics: I know how they think, and what they don’t want to be asked.

Boris Johnson wrote the foreword to my latest book. He said yes immediately and then of course COVID happened. I got in touch in July 2020, and told him I’d understand if he couldn’t do it, and that there was no need to write 20 pages or

I used to find it very difficult to interview people that I know well. Now I just go in for the kill. Brandon Lewis and David Davis, who are my two closest friends in Parliament, say that they find me the most difficult interviewer. They think it’s because I’m overcompensating for the fact that everybody knows that. I don’t think it is. I just get more out of people by having a conversation with them.

Iwould like to conjure two images for you. The first is of an imaginary workplace of the future: there is space for quiet working and areas for meetings and collaboration. Powerful computers drive new technologies and leverage augmented reality. Technology to break down geographical divisions is on display, with digital, connected whiteboards to share ideas simply and effectively.

Teams of people, diverse in background and skills, are working together both in person and virtually. Refreshment is available to break up routines, inspire impromptu conversation, seed fresh thoughts, and allow tired brains a rest. There are deadlines to work to, but it is accepted that new ideas can be messy and that there will be risk. It is better to try something and fail early than not to try it at all, is the mantra.

There are other rooms too - places of equal importance. They are for those with the technical, computational, or practical expertise to translate ideas into practice - to prototype, and make, iterate and refine. Entrepreneurship is encouraged and valued. Respect is the overriding concern, respect for those you work with and for the wider audience you wish to reach: respect for the environment and for society too. These are the spaces in which problems will be dissected, analysed, and solved and in which the future will be created - where head, hand and heart meet.

Now we see an exam room: desks separated, rigidly aligned, front-facing. Collaboration is forbidden, breaks are supervised; notes and research are left at the door. Access to the outside world has been disabled with mobile devices confiscated and turned off, watches removed. Only pens, transparent pencil cases and paper can be seen. Those with dispensation to use computers are confined to another room. The task is strictly timed to suit a fixed approach. An “off day” is not to be countenanced and there is only one chance to get it right.

The questions are the same for everyone and the answers are predetermined too, with the highest reward reserved for those who most nearly hit the mark. The contrast is stark. There is, of course, a place for exams. The ability to work under pressure is important. They can act as a powerful motivator and memory is a muscle we need to learn how to flex. But over the past few years, and in the name of rigour, we have added and added again to the things we must learn and assess. Rote learning has taken root, and stress levels have risen inexorably. The need for mass-produced tests and the chimeric search for “reliable” grades has driven out the open-ended questions that might invite deep thinking, support a growth mindset, and encourage fresh ideas.

We now reward conformity and fixed thinking instead - and at a time when adaptability and initiative are so necessary in the workplace. An algorithm fixes the bell curve of achievement and condemns a third of all students to fail the most basic of requirements in English and maths, a failure that impacts significantly on their life chances. The favour given to academic subjects over technical, vocational, creative, and practical skills has disempowered segments of the community and diminished opportunity in precisely those occupations that are so badly needed. The EBacc is much at fault. Its myopic focus on English, maths, science, a language and a humanity has all-but driven out the creative and performing arts, and technology has been another casualty too.

It is time we looked again at those things we value most - the skills we wish to develop, and the knowledge we want to impart. A slimmer curriculum with more open-ended questions and variety in assessed tasks would broaden opportunity for creative, collaborative enquiry, adventure, exploration, and experimentation, and would encourage students with different skillsets to shine. Technology needs harnessing to break down societal, economic and geographic divisions. Investment needs to prioritise those at risk of falling through the cracks. Partnerships between schools, both independent and maintained, with business and industry should be developed and supported.

Meanwhile, teacher training should be advanced to meet the new demands and career development. Adaptive testing and AI could personalise learning to support and address classroom differentiation; digital resourcefulness needs embedding as the fourth “R” in the toolbox of essential skills.

The classroom of the future could be an exciting place, rigorous and demanding, collaborative, creative, curious, and individually affirming and rewarding too. If employers increasingly disregard GCSEs and even A-levels as measures of future employability, and feel the need to train new employees in the basics of collaborative and complex problemsolving skills, it is in honest recognition that our current assessment is not fit for purpose in a new and changing world.

When Boris Johnson closed the Department for International Development in June 2020, his reasoning was based on safeguarding British needs over others. He said that UK overseas aid “has been treated like a giant cashpoint in the sky”. Meanwhile Rishi Sunak’s heavy cuts to Yemen aid announced in early March - a near 60 per cent slash - prompted heavy criticism from ex-PMs such as David Cameron.

Layla Moran, the Lib Dem Spokesman for Foreign Affairs and International Development, is another critic. “Fundamental to Lib Dem values is that global problems need global solutions,” she says. “Just because someone is somewhere else in the world doesn’t mean we don’t have a duty of care to them, especially if they are at risk of starvation.”

Moran sees the cut to Yemen aid as “an embarrassment” and hopes that the “sharp contrast between what we are doing and what the Americans are doing will serve to remind people of what Boris Johnson’s agenda actually is about.” She recalls that during the Clegg-Cameron coalition “there was a real sense that all the parties were pulling together in the same direction.” In its place, says Moran, has arisen an “enlightened self-interest”, which stops the progression of economic migration and encourages others to bear the brunt of climate issues.

“The Tories have reneged on their manifesto pledge. More importantly they’ve reneged on their promise to the world’s poorest, and I’m deeply concerned about the consequences of this,” Moran adds.

These narrowing interests have had a huge effect on the charity sector: according to NCVO’s UK Civil Society Almanac report in 2020, the proportion of charity income that comes from government was at its lowest point in a decade ahead of the coronavirus pandemic.