Schools have tried to “tame, oversimplify, package and sequence all the wild knowledge that is out there” in order to make it accessible to children of different ages, John MacBeath, professor in educational leadership at Cambridge University, told the art of learning conference.
“We have gone so far with that in terms of targets and outcomes that we have marginalised those things that are too wild for us to control,” Professor MacBeath, former head of the Quality in Education Centre at Strathclyde University, said.
Keir Bloomer, chief executive in Clackmannanshire, called for a medium-term strategy to plug the gap between what is happening now and what might be done in the future. “What is largely absent is anything to take us from what we are doing now to what we might reasonably do tomorrow - the vision that we have for the longer term,” Mr Bloomer said.
