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NEXT MEETING: Radical Education Forum hosted by Pupil Power

We're very excited to say that our next meeting will be hosted by the incredible Pupil Power (pupilpower.org @ThePupilPower). The purpose of this session will be to get feedback on and raise awareness of, the work that Pupil Power are doing, by sharing a recent student guide they have been working on around discrimination and rights. The structure will be loosely as follows: - Check-ins - Conversation between young people and adults around the theme of ‘How do we best look after ourselves and others in education during a pandemic?’ - Share the guides recently produced by Pupil Power - Feedback - End

Eventbrite link (incl zoom): https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/feb-22nd-rad-ed-meeting-hosted-by-pupil-power-tickets-141202659957

December meeting: Our Winter Term Party!

Merry winter everyone! From 7pm on Monday 16 December, come along and celebrate this term with us. We'll be at the Common House (Bethnal Green, E2 9QG) to share tales of success, examples of injecting radicalism into our workplaces and hopes of a better education for all. This event is free and open to all, teachers, TAs, parents, students and people not formally involved in education (we are all educators!). We'll be sharing food, music, and joy whilst: - discussing the future of the Rad Ed Forum - workshopping our shared values - exploring how to organise more efficiently - agreeing on a programme for next term. A social media event page is here and also on Eventbrite too.

See you all there! Seasons greetings from all at Rad Ed.x

#radical education #bethnal green #winter #principles #london

From November’s workshopping on/around unions. Thanks everyone who contributed. Forward!

#education #radical education #unions #collectives #organising

November meeting: Radicalising the unions!

Dear educating comrades!

This month we will be meeting to workshop ways of collectively utilising the radical potential of unions.

WHERE: The Common House, 5e Pundersons Gardens, Bethnal Green, E2 9QG

WHEN: 7pm-9pm, Monday 25th November 2019

Whilst unions can provide really important functions, many have slowly been co-opted and turned into another form of management bureaucracy. Unfortunately this has resulted in certain unions undermining local strikes and industrial action and siding with management. As members or reps, what should or could our campaigns/demands be? For those of us outside union structures how can we offer solidarity and support? We will look at all unions and organising groups which relate to education, from cleaners' unions, groundstaff, caterers, teaching unions, to lecturers' unions, and everything in between. There has been a large disconnect between union executives and grassroots activists which often leaves the most vulnerable members at the mercy of employers. We would like to look at how to challenge these structures and bring about positive change in unions. Share widely and join us!

Social media event page here. And some related reading:

a recent article critiquing Unite.

k-punk (aka Mark Fisher) in 2009 calling for "strategic withdrawal of forms of labour".

NEU's campaigns, Together for education, Value education vote education and End Toxic Testing / More than a Score

Public statement from Goldsmith's Anti-Racist Action on the end of the Deptford Town Hall Occupation, 26th July 2019

the "sham excuse" of outsourcing.

plus goings-on in Chicago where striking teachers have included calls for affordable housing and additional support staff.

If you can make it, see you Monday evening. With love & solidarity, Rad Ed Forum.

#education #unions #trade unions #London #labour

October meeting: Peacebuilding and anti-militarism

When: Monday October 28th 2019 at the usual time of 7-9pm.

Where: The Common House (Unit 5E Pundersons Gardens, Bethnal Green, London E2 9QG).

How are peace and war considered and taught in educational settings?

With Remembrance Day coming soon, those of us in schools are likely to face waves of casual war talk, glorifying of the British armed forces and promotion of red poppies. How does rhetoric of battle and conquest impact on learners? What lies beneath these messages?

What too of Britain's deep bind with the global arms trade? Is this (like Britain's colonial exploits) conveniently absent from mainstream curricula? And, as bell hooks, Sara Ruddick and other feminists have coupled, what of the links between imperialist militarism and gender-based violence?

To consider these questions and more, for our October session, we're welcoming speakers from three organisations active in peacebuilding, nonviolent resistance and challenging everyday militarism in schools: the Peace Pledge Union, the Quakers in Britain's Peace Education Programme, and Forces Watch.

We're curious how the work of these three groups crisscrosses with other projects we've been admiring recently, namely Take Back the Power (at The Winch in Camden) and the Race in Britain summer schools.

The following Rad Ed forum will be on Monday 25th November 2019, possibly exploring the radical potentials of unions. More on that soon!

If having support with childcare would help you to attend, please get in touch so we can try to assist. And as always, if anyone has suggestions for where we as a collective can go, we'd love to hear from you.

Wishing you a happy half term, with love & solidarity. x

#radical education #peace #nonviolence #anti-militarism #feminism #schools #schooling

September meeting: On climate change/strikes + environmental-minded education

Where: The Common House, Unit 5E Pundersons Gardens, Bethnal Green, London E2 9QG

When: Monday 30th September 2019, from 7 - 9pm.

Protest actions took place across the world this month calling for more to be done by governments and corporations in addressing climate change. For this month's RadEd Forum, we've invited members of UK Student Climate Network (UKSCN) and UK Youth Climate Coalition (UKYCC) to give their perspectives on the work needed to be done.

Are schools detrimentally fuelling climate change? Back in September 2007, a government paper called for "all schools to be sustainable schools by 2020." How does such rhetoric match with our experiences? Are "Climate Change Teachers" a solution? Or more Eco-schools? Do campaigns such as Eco-schools and Keep Britain Tidy simply overemphasise individual action over challenging industry and other structural perpetrators?

Currently, what environmental-minded education is taking place in schools and other education settings? To help learn more we've invited members of the London Environmental Educators' Forum (LEEF) to sit with us ahead of their free to attend conference at the Natural History Museum on October 7th. [UPDATE: LEEF member and ex-headteacher David Dixon has confirmed he’ll attend to speak on and around ‘Education for Sustainability’]

These themes bring back to mind the Wooden House Garden and Forest School in Dorking, which we learnt about at a RadEd meeting on alternative schooling in November 2017 [related reading list at treehouse-university.org]. And also a State of Education workshop we co-convened in 2015 titled "Reinventing Environmental and Science Education for Social Change" (archived here). If you attended these sessions, we'd love to hear if and how ideas from there have entered your practice.

We hope you had a joyful summer and for those of us in an academic/school setting the Autumn term has started well. If you can make it, see you on September 30th.

Onward to education that will help save our planet and collective futures!

With love,

Radical Education Forum. x

#climate change #London #radical education #sustainability #schools

June Meeting: Resisting State Racism in Education

Our June meeting “Resisting State Racism in Education” is on Monday 24th June 7-9pm @ The Common House - Unit 5E, Punderson's Gardens, London E2 9QG.

We will have contributors involved in the Against Borders for Children campaign, No More Exclusions, English for Action’s work resisting the hostile environment, campaigns against ‘Prevent’ and more… Draconian behaviour policies and exclusions that disproportionately affect young people of colour and from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, an alienating curriculum that urgently needs to be decolonised, cuts to English as an Additional Language provision and the agendas of ‘Prevent’ and ‘Fundamental British Values’ are just some of the many examples of state racism in education. We hope you can join us and be part of the conversation about how it can be resisted.

We have some other dates for your diary too:

Thursday June 27th film screening and Q&A with directors - School Circles- exploring democratic schools in the Netherlands.

Monday 15th July – Next rad ed meeting: SCHOOL’S (nearly) OUT picnic and social– Bethnal Green. More details to follow.

Hope to see you then!

The Radical Education Forum x

April Meeting: Education Policy and Mental Health

Please join us for a discussion on the impact of current educational policy and practice on children and young people's distress and mental health. Monday 29th April 7-9pm Unit 5E, Punderson's Gardens, London E2 9QG The Radical Education Forum and members of Psychologists for Social Change have been collaborating on this urgent issue. The group has written a briefing paper draft covering five key areas of concern: high stakes testing, zero tolerance behaviour policies, exclusion, the current medicalised model of mental health and the narrowing of the curriculum. We need your views on what has been written and case studies/examples, both positive and negative, for the paper. We would also like to invite a discussion on how we can use this paper for political action and change. The draft is attached. We'd love anyone who can to read in advance or if short of time, read the section that feels most urgent/relevant to you. See you then! The Radical Education Forum x

Our response to the ofsted consultation...

Rad Ed March meeting: Ofsted Examined

We know that recent (and not so recent) history has seen shifts in school cultures that make teaching, and learning, very challenging indeed. Our largely privatised schools now operate within a neo-liberal marketplace economy, driven by competition and results (profit). League tables and the mirage of 'choice' have entrenched inequalities within our comprehensive system as student recruitment numbers can make or break a school within a very short space of time. It is an unpredictable and insecure landscape within which to operate; the effect on teachers and students is extreme.

The role that Ofsted plays in this huge. Set up in 1992, seemingly to drive up standards, these privately contracted inspection teams and their constantly mutating criteria have tended to set the agenda for classroom practice as school management teams often use the fear of inspection to undermine teacher agency and drive through new policies on a too-regular basis. If you're in education or have been at all in the past 25 years, you will almost definitely have opinions on Ofsted. We'd love to discuss these with you. What do you think that Ofsted has done to the school cultures you have been part of? How have you personally coped with inspection? What does the threat of surveillance do to both teachers and students and how can we reclaim education within this landscape? How can we support practitioners to stay confident in the face of inspection? Are there radical alternatives to Ofsted that would enable a kinder form of regulation, if indeed such regulation is necessary? Where do Ofsted sit politically? Are they ever on the side of the teachers? To what extent should/can we engage in Ofsted?... ... and lots more questions....

Please join us on Monday 25th March, 7-9pm, Unit 5E, 5e Punderson's Gardens, London E2 9QG to put OFSTED under the spotlight.

Some reading material to get us thinking. This article briefly interrogates the wording on the latest draft inspection (linked here). There is also an interesting study called 'SURVEILLANCE, GOVERNMENTALITY AND MOVING THE GOALPOSTS: THE INFLUENCE OF OFSTED ON THE WORK OF SCHOOLS IN A POST-PANOPTIC ERA' by Jane Perryman et al. It is too large to attach to the full members list, but if you email individually I can get a pdf version of the article back to you (hopefully!).

Beyond March, we have a rough plan the forum over for the next few months. Keep these dates in the diary as there are a couple of changes to our regular slot:

April 29th: Feedback from working group on Mental Health and Zero Tolerance in Schools.

May 20th: (DATE CHANGE TO AVOID THE HALF TERM) Person-centred approaches to behaviour.

June 24th: Resisting State Racism in Education. (Please get in touch if you would like to help us to build for this meeting. We will be joined by a speaker from the Against Borders for Children campaign and will be inviting speakers from other groups that are dealing with the effects of state racism in education.)

July 15th: (DATE CHANGE AGAIN TO AVOID SUMMER HOLIDAYS) Summer Social. Let's end the academic year with a celebration. We deserve it. Details tbc.

RadEd Feb Meeting: Travellers in Education

Dear Radical Educators,

We have a really important forum coming up on Monday 25th February, 7-9pm, Unit 5E, 5e Punderson's Gardens, London E2 9QG. We will be discussing Travellers in Education with Tyler Hatwell, a Youth Worker with the charity London Gypsies & Travellers, Trustee of ACERT (Advisory Council for the Education of Romany and other Travellers), education liaison officer for the Showmen's Guild London Section and proud Traveller, and Chrissie Browne (Mixed Romany and Irish, working for Widening Participation for Kings). Please see Tyler's blurb below:

Gypsies, Roma & Travellers (GRT) in the UK have some of the worst experiences of education of any group going. For those that are "ethnic" Travellers, this was starkly highlighted in the Race Disparity Audit which showed GRT students having the lowest attainment, highest rates of exclusions and the highest rates of not completing school. The issues with outcomes for GRT students have been highlighted since the Plowden Report (1967) and it is a failing for the education system frequently picked up on by the DfE, Ofsted and by advocates for Travellers. So why hasn't anything improved?

Not all "Travellers" are nomadic; but even those who are not often have problems with the education system which suggests it isn't just a problem of the system lacking the flexibility to accommodate nomadism but highlights a more nuanced difficulty. Until 2006 funding for specific Traveller Education Services was ring-fenced and so each local authority had someone dedicated to helping this, it was later incorporated into the Children's Services grant and, predictably, we are now in a position where very few LAs still have a TES team, and those that do are usually severely reduced in size.

Should the education system support a nomadic lifestyle? How can this be facilitated? What is it that makes school such a hostile atmosphere for GRT students? Why aren't teachers made aware of issues such as these when training? Why, in a culture where inclusion is focussed on more than before, is so little being done?

If you have experiences of working with Travellers, positive or negative, it would be good to have that conversation.

We're really excited about being joined by these two speakers for this forum. Please do spread the word and come along. The Radical Education Forum meet on the last Monday of every month and we're always keen for people to come along and get involved.

See you Monday 25th,

The Radical Education Forum.

January Meeting: Isolation is not OK.

Happy New Year Radical Educators!

We're kicking off 2019 with a discussion on isolation in schools on 28th January, 7-9pm Unit 5E, 5e Punderson's Gardens, London E2 9QG.

Why has the use of isolation booths in schools increased so much in recent years? What impact does this have on the mental health of children, and of teachers and on the wellbeing of society? What can be done about it?

Isolation is not OK is a project launched by a collaborative project to gather testimonies from students and teachers about their experience of the use of isolation booths and internal seclusion units in schools in the UK. We’re meeting at Rad Ed to hear from teachers to gain a deeper understanding of the practice, it’s implications, and mechanisms to tackle it. Sharing personal stories is our first step.

Please join us for the day, and if you can’t, we invite you to send your testimony, in writing or as an audio recording to [email protected] Submissions may be anonymous.

If you know any students who’d like to share their experiences, please ask them to do the same. If you or any students you know are interested in getting more involved in this particular campaign, you can also join a meeting for young people at 12pm on the 5th floor of the Royal Festival Hall on Saturday the 26th of January.

In addition, there is a new blog post on Ofsted from Psychologists for social change and details of their next meeting, Tuesday 29th January, 6.30-8.30pm, 7-9pm Unit 5E, 5e Punderson's Gardens, London E2 9QG. See the latest blogpost on the need for reform of Ofsted: http://www.psychchange.org/blog/visioning-a-new-education-system-ofsted-must-give-control-to-teachers-young-people and come to the meeting to feed into the discussion.

Hope to see you there!

REF Christmas Social 17 December

Another year is almost done and we're still invested in radicalising the education system. That's worth celebrating surely? The Radical Education Forum will host a xmas-time party on Dec 17th from 7-9pm, Unit 5E, 5e Punderson's Gardens, London E2 9QG. Come join us!

To make back a little bit of money for the room, we will be selling mulled wine and cider (so bring your spare change)! We'll also bring a range of festive nibbles and there's a chance Wham! will make it on to the playlist....

Challenging and transforming school hierarchies Monday 26th November 7-9pm Common House

Our next meeting will follow up from October’s discussion on hierarchies in schools with a more practical session on how we can transform and challenge them.

If you weren’t able to make the last meeting this will be another chance to get involved in this vital conversation when we meet on Monday 26th of November, 7-9pm. Unit 5E, 5e Punderson’s Gardens, London E2 9QG

Hierarchies in schools Monday 29th October 7-9pm Common House

Our next meeting will take place next Monday 29th October, 7-9pm at the Common House, Unit 5E Pundersons Gardens, Bethnal Green, London E2 9QG. Malcolm Bride will be discussing his ideas on hierarchies in schools (see his blurb below). We had some requests for Malcolm's references so we're sending his briefing paper out again, but this time the references for his entire dissertation are at the very end. (Thank you Malcolm!) ‘The crisis in state schools continues. Cuts in funding, increasing difficulty recruiting and retaining teachers, growing workloads and pressures on staff and students resulting in greater stress and incidence of physical and mental health problems. The management led by the Head-manager piles on the work and operates the digital panopticon to push teachers ever harder to squeeze higher grades from children and students. But is there another way? In some other countries people yearn to become teachers who are highly respected, well paid and work with considerable autonomy. There are now also pockets of alternative models of schools around the world and other new methods of organisation have been proposed in recent years. It is certainly possible to abolish managerialism and greatly reduce bullying among staff. As Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonell have called for the democratisation of society, why not democracy within schools? With the school working as a democratic and cooperative community, we can have a rich, varied and rigorous education in a humane environment.’ Beyond October, Our November meeting will be on Monday 26th Nov, we will be discussing mental health and schooling and zero tolerance in schools. Our December meeting will be on 17th Dec and will be a xmas/holiday social of some description (ideas welcome!).

The Little Red Schoolbook Monday 24th September 7-9pm

For this month’s Radical Education Forum we will be discussing “The Little Red Schoolbook”, a subversive reference book for young people published in 1969 to challenge the authoritarian education system. It covers topics like sex, drugs and how to assert their rights in school. Last Monday of the month, same time, same place: Monday 24th September, 7-9pm at the Common House, Unit 5E Pundersons Gardens, Bethnal Green, London E2 9QG.

Come along to explore its contents… and consider what it might look like updated for the current day… Plus we’ll hear from the working group that has been doing some shared research and writing on mental health and schooling.“The Little Red Schoolbook” has been republished recently but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be available online anymore (email us if you find a version and we can send it round!).

You can get the idea from this article if you don’t manage to get hold of a copy of the book and would like to do some pre-reading: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jul/08/the-little-red-schoolbook-republished-soren-hansen

October’s meeting will question hierarchies in schools, and explore anti-hierarchical alternatives, so save the date for that too – Monday 29th October.

See you on Monday!

SCHOOL’S (nearly) OUT picnic social - Monday 23rd July 7-9pm

We're moving our July meeting temporarily forward by a week to July 23rd and out of the building, to the park! For our last session before the summer holidays we're having a SCHOOL'S (nearly) OUT picnic social 7-9pm in Bethnal Green Gardens, right by Bethnal Green tube (SE corner of the crossroads). All welcome - whether you've been to loads of meetings/ haven't been in ages/ this is your first time! It's been a great year for the Radical Education Forum, with sessions covering the 'hostile environment', 'school-readiness' vs 'child-readiness', Labour Party education policy, democratic education, moving beyond the exam factory, austerity, mental health and schooling, zero-tolerance behaviour policies and more (see http://radicaleducationforum.tumblr.com/ for blurbs and links if you've missed them). Come along on Monday 23rd to continue these conversations, start new ones, and also throw around ideas for what we want to do with the Radical Education Forum after the summer break. This will also be a good opportunity to hear back from the working group that has started working together on reading and writing around mental health and zero-tolerance schooling. Bring food and drink to share. Hope to see you there!

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