International Networking for Educational Transformation

TOM CLARKAssociate Director Specialist Schools and Academies Trust

innovation, collaboration, transformation

My Focus

• To consider the shape of education for the 21st century

• To consider networking and collaboration as positive levers for change and school improvement

• To consider iNet and its possible contribution to your work

The future is not what it used to be -

Major trends that are shaping the 21st Century – a new paradigm

• Instant communications• A one-world economy• Internet commerce• The changing shape of work – global/flat• Opportunity for all

• ‘The current model of schooling in too many parts of the world is out of date –it’s not fit for purpose – it’s ruining students’ lives’ (Gates)

• ‘Big state’ or ‘enabling state’?• “Despite 50 years of ‘reform’ in the UK there has been

little impact on student outcomes” (PISA)• In the USA 1980/2005 – spending up73% in real terms,

more teachers, smaller classes – outcomes? (PISA)• In Finland and in Singapore …• We need another look

New concept

• Confirming our values and moral purpose• Re-considering what schools are for …• Beyond the ‘medieval imaginary’ (Beare)• Beyond the ‘factory’ model (Beare)• Status quo?• ‘Meltdown’ (OECD)• ‘Re-schooling’• ‘De-schooling’

In future …

• “Organisations will have to work together with emergent networks and virtual communities and companies to gradually hammer out some new norms, new boundaries for operating in a flat world”. (Friedman 2006)

• Networks – ‘centralised’, ’de-centralised’, ’distributed’

• ‘Autonomy’ spectrum

iNet

• is an independent, not for profit membership organisation that enables school networks focussed on innovation for student achievement, for students in all settings

Guiding Principles

An enabling organisation encouraging• the horizontal transmission of knowledge• leadership exercised by peers• focus on practice and student outcomes• helping to develop the next generation of leaders

Enabling collaboration within and between:• national systems• regional networks• groups of schools• individual schools• “It is a guiding coalition of schools, professional

associations and policy makers linking system change, school improvement, and classroom practice” Hopkins

Interconnectivity through Networking• Connects people to share and to learn through

networks• such as the National Network for Educational

Renewal and iNet• Georgia Southern University – ILC• G100 School Principals• iNet affiliates now covers twenty-one different

countries with over 5000 affiliates

A GROWING GLOBAL NETWORK

And

• more can learned about iNet online through the iNet Web-site

• Affiliation for schools is $285 per year• www.ssat-inet.net• tomc@ssatrust.org.uk

The future is not a punishment

The problem

• “Anything that exists in the world before you are born is part of the normal way in which the world operates

• Anything invented while you are between the ages of 15 and 35 is revolutionary

• Anything invented after the age of 35 is against the natural order of things”. (Adams)

• nostalgia

Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.

Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.

When the sun comes up, you better start running.

“The future is already here; it’s just not

distributed very well” (William Gibson)