Leadbetter's 21 Ideas for 21st Century Learning

Charles Leadbetter tries hard to be a web guru and while adored by the London media luvvies, he is completely ignored by everyone else. I once attended, as a guest, a Channel 4 board dinner, and was treated like a pariah when I suggested that Charlie was a fake. He may have the thick-rimmed glasses, open shirt, cardigan and fashionably shaved head, but his ideas are second hand and he jumps on bandwagons well after the circus has left town.

WE-THINK - I think not
WE-THINK is his latest offering and it is no better than his previous efforts. He desperately tries to get this phrase into comon parlance through repetition in this rather dull book, but fails.

However, in his defence I did come across a rather interesting paper, amazingly, commissioned by the Innovation Unit. This unit is famous for NEVER answering emails or engaging with anyone in the real world. You could only ever get near them by attending boring government meetings. They were about as uninnovative (is that a real word), and closed to ideas, as you can get.

Then again, this is a very readable document, and although hopelessly optimistic, it is brimming with ideas. I loved this quote, “It is very difficult to get teachers away from the idea that learning can only happen when they are in charge of everything. They have to realise that learning sometimes happens precisely because they are not in charge of everything but the pupils are.” And here are the 21 ideas:

21 Ideas for 21st Century Learning

1. Individual Budgets and Self Directed Support Plans for Families at Risk

2. Emotional Resilience Programme

3. The Learning Concierge Service

4. Break up Large Schools

5. The Peer Learner Programme

6. The Personal Challenge

7.. Personal Learning Plans and Portfolios

8. A Right to Intensive Mentoring

9. Personal Budgets for Young People in Danger of Becoming NEET

10. Investors in Learning

11. Schools as Productive Enterprises

12. Scrap the Six Week Summer Holiday

13. The School of Everything for Schools

14. Community-Based Teacher

15. Third Spaces

16. Whole School Projects for the Community

17. Local Education Compacts

18. Participatory Budgeting

19. Leadership Teams not Headteachers

20. Wider Measures of Progress and Outcomes

21. A National Curriculum for Capabilities