Ten years ago, Education Guardian held a competition, The School I'd Like, offering children a chance to start setting the agenda for their own education. Did they get what they wanted? And are we listening to them any more today?
A new national curriculum, academy status, the English baccalaureate. These controversial developments are all arriving shortly at a school near you. And who's proposing such radical shifts in educational provision and assessment? Government, educationalists and the occasional celebrity expert. But there's one group whose opinion we haven't heard on these initiatives, even though they will experience the greatest impact. School children.
Ten years ago this month, Education Guardian ran a competition called The School I'd Like. (The Observer had run a 1967 competition under the same title.) Primary and secondary students were asked to design the school of their dreams. More than 15,000 school children responded; the competition is still one of the largest informal surveys of children's attitudes towards schooling ever conducted in this country. Entries came as photographic collages, papier-mache models, architectural plans, Braille essays, recorded rap songs and illustrated books. Secondary student Tom Copping rewrote the lyrics to Lennon's Imagine: "Imagine there's no Ofsted / Schools all on 'alert'/ No compulsory subjects / You can even garden in the dirt …" Twelve-year-old traveller Rocky sent in a poem, asking for the school to follow him rather than the other way around.
These School I'd Like entrants didn't politely put up their hands and wait to be asked – they pleaded, cried and insisted their voices be heard. Secondary school pupil Aleksi Hastings had his "super skool" entry set as a task by his teacher. '"Hi, this is a homework that will probably just be written, read and returned, with a mark and someone's red pen all over it …Please don't just push this aside as another homework, treat this piece presented before you as an academic breakthrough. Make the dream come true."
Ten years later, have any of the young people's dreams come true? Educational initiatives have multiplied and reports been written about reports, from Building Schools for the Future to the (also now abandoned) Rose Review. But is it still education, education, education without consultation, consultation, consultation? Are adults continuing to develop strategies and schools continuing to implement them without asking the pupils?
Student involvement in real decision-making seems to still be largely at the mercy of committed heads and understanding teaching staff. "Pupil voice depends upon the school," says Tim Brighouse, former Schools Commissioner for London and a judge in the 2001 competition. "Some schools have the appearance of a school council, but it's only symbolic. Then there are a few schools that have really pushed student voice."
David Miliband was schools minister when Building Schools for the Future (BSF) was introduced in 2004. He admits that student input to BSF design plans was inconsistent. "It was more ad hoc engagement in what students, teachers and the community wanted from a school building. But where it has happened, it's been inspiring," he says.
One reason educationalists and government can give for not listening very hard is that young people's demands are often heady and idealistic. In 2001, we asked children to let their imaginations run wild – the very kind of blue-sky thinking governments themselves so often favour. So a swimming pool was high on pupils' list of near-essential items a school should offer. Primary school pupil Hannah Watson even wanted the lessons in her "timbuctoo primary" to take place in the water, "to aid relaxation", with "blow-up chairs and laminated maths books".
Miriam Grossfeld's entry won the upper secondary. Now 25 and a graduate in psychology from Cambridge University, she looks back on her submission with some regret. "I was quite brutal," she says. "I was wrong not to see the other side of it. But that was how I felt at the time, and there's nothing wrong with that. I asked for everything to be individual, so that everyone could create their own little curriculum. I realise now that it has to be standardised. You have to tick boxes. And now people rightly tell me – well, you got your GCSEs and have a job so I shouldn't complain. But I still feel like I'm looking to find what really inspires me. If schools let children find that, could produce a generation that felt inspired in what they did, then education would really work."
Maisie Munroe, the 2001 lower secondary winner, is now 23 and has just completed her master's at Barcelona Institute of International Relations. "I came home from school and was moaning about something and my mum said – 'Have you seen this School I'd Like in the paper?' So I just sat down and wrote it that afternoon," she remembers. "It was idealistic stuff." Her entry was: "In my perfect school there would still be rules, but they would guide us, not confine us. There would be no grading, praise only for working hard and not your mental capability … Exams would be abolished. We would discuss our opinions in every lesson. Teachers and pupils would be equal. In my school, the only thing they would ban would be unhappiness and pain."
Students also put forward small, cheap or cost-free, easily achievable suggestions. Quieter school bells, water jugs in every classroom, desks that leave room for knees, no flickering strip lighting, no holes in the playground tarmac, sharp pencils. I wonder how many schools could tick all these small measures off today? Children also longed for teachers to change. Primary school pupil Will Honey wanted them, "to use less of their cross voice". Others hoped teachers would simply remember their name and let them go to the toilet when they needed to.
In 2001, Jane Allnutt was teaching year 6 at Hilltop junior school in Essex when the class worked on the School I'd Like competition as a project. She believes pupil voice is increasingly taken into account. "Things pupils suggest now get implemented much more," she says. "Ten years ago, the class tried to get a recycling bin and they said no. Now most classrooms in most primary schools have a litterbin and a recycling box. That's the sort of thing that children actually asked for and it actually happened. If the kids come up with good ideas then we'll try and put them into practice – if we can, and if the health and safety rules allow, and if the budget allows." That's a few 'ifs'.
Some argue that, even if these small things have improved due to pupil pressure, the larger issues remain to be tackled, in particular concerning pupil power. "We know from research that young people want to be more involved in the running of their schools," says Maggie Atkinson, the Children's Commissioner. "They particularly want to help select their teachers and give feedback on lessons. Where schools involve pupils well, it leads to better relationships, improved behaviour and higher attainment. For example, at one school we visited, the school council runs training sessions for teachers – giving feedback on their lessons. Teachers say this helps them improve, and they really value the feedback – even if they did find it a bit daunting at first."
Brighouse argues beyond "independent learning" for pupils to "interdependent learning", where staff and pupils learn from each other. "How do you include everyone in the learning process? It's no longer 'I'm going to tell you all that you need to know about Macbeth'," he says. Brighouse gives the example of one school where year 9 pupils lead regular ICT sessions, acknowledging they're often the experts. "Dare we take this step?" he challenges.
The School I'd Like competition, like its 1967 predecessor, has also influenced pupil involvement. Dr Catherine Burke, senior lecturer in history of education at Cambridge University and an instigator of the 2001 competition, compiled a book from the entries with colleague Ian Grosvenor that is regularly used in teacher training. But Burke is not optimistic. "The school I'd like has now become the school I'd like my child to get into. Pupils have fallen out of the picture and parents are now in it. It's all about parental choice, not pupil choice. Pupil voice is being reduced and now seen as something problematic and in the way," she says.
There are pitfalls to pupil participation. Sometimes young people just don't ask for what we adults want them to. In the Children's Manifesto drawn up from all the School I'd Like entries, one point was, "Fast-food school dinners and no dinner ladies". (This was five years before Jamie [Oliver]'s School Dinners.) School fountains spouting Fanta were a popular request. Maisie Munroe now believes her winning entry was unrealistic, putting the needs of individual pupils before the whole pupil body. "We need to be able to give everyone the same opportunities. So I'm torn between the idea of letting children explore several kinds of education and the necessity to give each and every child opportunities. That realism kicks in as you get as you get older," she says.
Brighouse hopes that, despite the drawbacks, we'll hang on to the ideal of listening to young people. "I'm very optimistic about student involvement. It's in a few schools and not as deeply embedded as it should be – but it will be. Student voice is going to have a very powerful impact."