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- About
- Sessions
- People
- Notes
15:30-16:20 BST
Have we lost sight of education’s purpose?
16:30-17:20 BST
How worried should we be about lost school time – and what should the focus be on for the recovery?
17:30-18:20 BST
What do we need to keep from the past year of remote schooling?
18.30-19.20 BST
Is the traditional university experience the future of education?
Schooling after the virus: can we build it back better?
Great crises have often provoked huge social change. The British welfare state was born from the pain and privations of the second world war. Might the pandemic be a spur to a new approach to education? The world has gone through an unprecedented educational shock – one whose scale and depth we are only now beginning to understand.
But as we put things back onto track, has the experience of the past year taught us anything about whether we should change the way we think about it. Should we aim to build a different sort of school system in England? We know the system is unequal – with the rich outscoring the poor. We know it is geographically – with Londoners outscoring the rest. We know it privileges people on a route through to university above all else.
We have an opportunity to start again from scratch: is it time to do something else?
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How it works
Your ticket will give you access to all of the sessions, but just like an in-person conference you can dip in and out. Recordings will be available in our members’ app the next day.
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Illustrations by Natsko Seki.
Keynote
invited experts
Our team
15.00-15.30 BST
Keynote session
In conversation with Tom Fletcher, Principal of Hertford College, Oxford.
15.30-16.20 BST
Have we lost sight of education’s purpose?
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
There are reasons why the English school system is built the way it is: a complicated system of exams, assessment and league tables designed to make sure that tens of thousands of schools and hundreds of thousands of teachers do as they are told for as many children as possible. But is this huge machine actually delivering what anyone really wants? Have we lost sight of education’s purpose? And are there areas of consensus between parents, teachers, pupils and employers? What have they learned about education in the past year? What are the key trade-offs we need to think about?
16.30-17.20 BST
How worried should we be about lost school time – and what should the focus be on for the recovery?
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
The disruption to formal schooling over the past year has left children having covered less of the curriculum – and different groups of children suffering different amounts. There are, in addition, particular problems for different ages – particularly those who have moved school mid-crisis. All that, and a workforce that has itself faced major challenges. As we try to recover from this crisis, what should our priorities be?
17.30-18.20
What do we need to keep from the past year of remote schooling?
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
Schools in 2019 looked much like schools in 1919. Schools in 2020 were radically different. Could it be, now that new models of learning are firmly embedded, that we could fundamentally change learning? If we do, should we emphasise attainment, wellbeing, or both? Where are the greatest opportunities? And what do we need to do if we are to seize them?
18.30-19.20 BST
Is the traditional university experience the future of education?
in partnership with
As higher education has expanded across the developed world, more people have taken up traditional three- or four-year degrees. But there are growing numbers of post-school options emerging across the world – new technical colleges and new styles of work-based learning. Technology makes remote and part-time learning more plausible. Universities themselves are increasingly offering a wider range of courses. Should teachers and parents be thinking more about this new world – or are the traditional routes usually the best?
19.20-20.00 BST
Editorial Debrief
Join Tortoise editors as we reflect on the day’s conversations and discuss what to take forward in our journalism.
Illustrations by Natsko Seki.