Outputs from the past year are on the website: context and information on the programme, the research generated over the course of the programme to date, and the scenarios developed from the work of the past year. Our next task is to begin using these possible futures to work with educators, local authorities and other people who have a practical concern with the future and the place of education within it.

All of this was only possible with the insight, expertise and support of a vast number of people: our Expert Advisory Group, the authors of the reviews, the many interviewees and workshop attendees who contributed to the programme, and of course the BCH team at Futurelab. In particular, though, we’d like to acknowledge the huge role played by the following people. Professor Keri Facer was at the heart of the project, shaping the aims and principles of the programme, fostering a genuinely interdisciplinary approach and inspiring the rest of us to think beyond the obvious or easy. The leaders of our research challenges — Professor Sarah Harper, Professor Helen Haste, Dr Carey Jewitt and Professor Rob Wilson — all brought together a staggering range of major thinkers with international reputations in their fields, and worked beyond their original brief to synthesise and communicate a huge amount of work. Helen Beetham’s experience and creativity were vital to the completion of the final scenarios. It was an immense privilege to work with the members of our Expert Advisory Group: Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Professor David Buckingham, Professor Dave Cliff, Professor Danny Dorling, Dr Patrick Hazlewood, Professor Gunther Kress, Professor Nick Lee, Professor Claire O’Malley, Professor Dr Audrey Osler, Vanessa Pittard, Professor Alan Prout, Suzanne Stein, Professor Josie Taylor, Professor Rupert Wegerif, Robin Widdowson, Professor Colin Williams and Robert Wood. Between them they represent experience and insight from education policy, philosophy, neuroscience, computer science, cognitive psychology, economics, education and demographics, and without their contribution the program would be unimaginably poorer. And absolutely none of this would have happened at all without the imagination, commitment and support of Dominic Flitcroft from the DCSF, supported by Oona Hickie.

This is the last post on this blog, which will be archived. We’re not done with the future yet, though. Keep an eye on @futurelabedu for information on our upcoming futures projects and events.

Thanks all. See you in 2030.

Today for lunch we had Cream of Itself Soup. It tasted like…

Okay, imagine all of the flavors that could be described by a person who specializes in describing flavors, using a thousand words or less. Take the most difficult flavor of all of them to describe.

Then add cream and salt. That´s what it tasted like.

“We have a special recipe for it,” the waitress said, “We travel into the future where the soup is already made and bring the soup back, then distill it down to its essence, then add cream and spices.”

“But wouldn´t that cause a paradox?” I asked nervously.

“That´s where it gets that delicious flavor,” the waitress replied proudly.

“But what about the risks? I mean, couldn´t you accidentally destroy the universe or something, making a soup like that?”

“Well, yes,” she said, visibly unworried, “but it´s the kind of thing that risky and terrifying the first time you do it, but after a while you´ve done it so many times that you don´t even think about it. So we just travelled to the distant future and did it the first time then.”

All credit and thanks due to the author merovingian.

One of the topics that arose from time to time was the question of what these scenarios would be used for: what, in effect, was the value of trying to provide multiple alternative visions of the future, rather than just aiming for a single most likely future? I think one of the best answers to this is that having alternatives allow you to counter dominant visions and orthodox futures. And this morning I read one of the best examples of why you might want to do that, in Mervyn King’s explanation of the regulators’ failure to censure the practices of the financial sector: “They would have been seen to be arguing against success”.

When there’s a single, dominant vision of how things are and how they will be, it has a distorting effect, exerting a strange kind of gravity that – while things are going well – seems to attract only support. Of course, once this dominant vision falters there’s greater appetite for different approaches, but by then things have already turned sour. This is why futures work is important: articulating alternative futures in a systematic way gives us the chance to step outside the influence of recieved opinon, even while it’s at its most influential. And if we can do that, we might not have to wait for disaster before we can change things for the better.

We’ll be hidden in deepest, darkest Oxfordshire building these scenarios, but in the meantime, a link to the first TeachMeet video (from BETT 09)  – an unconference that brings teachers together to share practices and ideas and relates to work around informal communities of practice and ‘bottom-up’ innovations.

This research has been, and I am not being sarcastic, really interesting. Some publish incredibly practical advice, for example, the Designing for Sport on School Sites guidance by Sport England, or the English Heritage report on repurposing historic schools.Others provoke thought, like the video by primary school children arguing for 21^st century technology (on Future online). And others provide support networks for those that want to try something new – like revamping curriculums

Anyway, I have two questions for all those that read this. Firstly, are there are any sites that you find or have found useful when it came to future thinking around education? It could be practical guidance on extended schools, curriculum or school redesign, or it could be something that really inspired you – a case study that broadened your view or set off a new train of thought. If you could let me know I’ll include it in the resources section where hopefully it can help others. Secondly, when it comes to doing any planning do you look at the internet at all? If so for what? For downloading the relevant forms? For inspiration? For practical advice? I’m interested so I can tailor my lists accordingly. And when you’ve finished this self evaluation task on relevant websites and their use in your innovative projects you can complete the self evaluation forms…

It’s been quiet on the BCH blog as we’re preparing for a three day event to develop the scenarios that build from the evidence collated as part of the programme so far.  Whilst that is going on, below is an overview of the responses from the Citizens Panel.

As part of the Public and Stakeholder Engagement of beyond Current Horizons a Citizens Panel was established to ask members of the public questions about the future of education. The Citizen’s Panel was sent a ten question survey that included both ordering questions and free text entry. Questions included asking about the immediate goals of education, as well as hopes, fears and expectations for future education. An additional seven questions were included to gather demographic characteristics of the respondents.  Over 500 responses were made to these questions.

The response from the Citizen’s Panel is that having the most appropriate skills for work is the most important job of the education system. This emerges from the qualitative and quantitative questions and is felt strongly across the demographic groups. People have a real worry that an education system out of step with economic reality will leave young people disillusioned and out of work and Britain lagging behind the rest of the world. It is likely that the strength of feeling about this has been influenced by the current economic climate

A number of questions ask the panel to try to look into the future. Perhaps unsurprisingly, age is the most important factor influencing the results. Younger people are more likely to look at current trends and project them into the future, whereas older people are more likely to draw inspiration from the past. The generation gap is very apparent with lots of negative views about children and young people expressed throughout the responses.

The Citizen’s Panel believe that the education system is likely to be very different in 2025, especially in terms of technological developments, but they are keen to stress that certain academic standards are timeless. There is a perception that too many people leave education without basic numeracy, literacy and communication skills and this needs to be addressed (though not, they hasten to add, with too great a reliance on bureaucratic testing.)

The Panel want the current gap in educational achievement between advantaged and disadvantaged children to be closed. There is a significant ‘Bristol effect’ here as state schools in the region are known to be struggling. The Panel do not want to see a two-tier system based on the ability to pay developing further in Bristol or elsewhere.

Finally, the panel want to see better quality teaching in the classroom. They want teachers and future teachers to have more control in the classroom, a more engaging teaching style and to rely less on boring self-directed study for pupils. They think that this could be achieved in a number of ways such as attracting a higher calibre of staff through higher pay, reducing workloads and better training and support.

Jessica Charlesworth and Michael Burton showed some work around futures and obesity during the workshop and here are some of their reflections.  They make for interesting reading, both for the comments Jessica and Michael make, but also for the articles and links they show.

Their reflections can be found here.

The results of those conversations are a couple of programmes being broadcast on Teachers TV. A half hour documentary – ‘School Matters: Tomorrow’s Teacher, Tomorrow’s School’ – will be broadcast for the first time at 7am on February 2.  A programme about a secondary school lesson – ‘Secondary Cross Curricular – Tomorrow’s Teacher’ – will first be aired at 7.30am on February 3.  The lesson uses both Million Futures and Power League to help the students think about the future.

Teachers TV are also running a competition about Future Teachers – more info can be found here.

And finally, a link to a BETT ‘09 presentation on the DCSF stand under the theme ‘Policy in Practice’.

Alex Hall/Atmos‘ developed presentation shows a variety of installations, presentations and projects – all of which can be used to reflect upon the use of space, and how both form and function of spaces/lighting can be different in relation to social and technological changes.  It’s also just beautiful to enjoy.

The Vision 2020 asks 9 influential speakers to talk about both short and long term changes for education and learning.

Both useful, especially if you’re looking for something for journeys to BETT …