It’s a funny old thing learning! The number of times revolutions are made, we seldom realise that its just that revolving to bring us back where we started – or is it? Thinking about education systems moves apace but there are some approaches that are needed –

• Firstly – its all about learning and teaching – you can do many things but the system must have teaching and learning and its core – how it improves, how you know its is improving; keep a focus on how well the children are doing;
• Secondly its about professionals improving each other – schools, teachers, support staff working together and engaging children in the learning journey;
• Thirdly its about schools in the system being accountable to each other, next its about forming a partnership across the whole area (businesses public and private, politicians, community groups and others) being focussed on their learning to be successful; that is testing their impact on their people in terms of access, completion, achievement and progression. Sir Michael Barber writes very cogently on this.

Systems are complicated things so lastly  keep it simple and values driven – doing what you believe in for children