This post is merely a way to highlight the posts on my blog that, collectively, might represent a manifesto for change:
1. Reforming our Qualifications and Assessment Framework to provide a unifying, inclusive umbrella for the achievements of all learners: Towards a Proper English Bacc
This is connected to developing more intelligent and sophisticated assessment processes:
See Data Delusion, Data Delusion Solutions
I have also collected posts and added some specific recommendations on reforming examinations: Exam Reform: Another Blog Manifesto
2. Reforming our Accountability system so that schools and teachers are known, not measured by narrow data sets and inadequate drop-in inspections: Accountability We Can Trust
This links to developing intelligent longitudinal methods of evaluating the quality of teaching and learning:
3. Raising standards by directing policy and resources at the aspects of schooling that make the greatest difference rather than obsessing about the curriculum and deriding progressive teaching methods: Improving pedagogical practice and Early Years Literacy. Raising the Bar
This is linked to promoting higher aspirations across our schools. The Anatomy of High Expectations
4. Raising the level of trust and trust-worthiness in the system: Building a Trust Culture, It’s not all hugs tackles this from one angle, and ‘From Plantation Thinking to Rainforest Thinking’ tackles it from another.
5. Moving away from dichotomised discourse as described in A New Currency of Educational Discourse
And looking more closely at effective pedagogy and leadership:
a) Teaching Great Lessons: as highlighted at a recent presentation at the Wellington Education Festival
b) Creating the Conditions for Great Teachers to Thrive.
c) Leading with vision and purpose: Getting the Scale Right; Attitudes before Systems and Can you feel the force? A leadership model
d) Embracing the best of contemporary thinking on teaching and learning: Leading 21st C Learning
and embracing a research-engaged philosophy for CPD: Educational Lab-Rats and Research as CPD: CPD as Research
teacherhead 
The General Election is only 2 years away and I don’t think we have an Education Party in the UK, though someone in the US has suggested one (with a bit of tongue-in-cheek, but humour often hides elements of the truth … ): http://www.principalspage.com/theblog/archives/the-education-party . Tell me if you want any help with campaign planning. 🙂
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[…] My Manifesto – Tom Sherrington […]
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[…] In this blog, I am beginning to build up a manifesto of ideas on what I think is most problematic in education (graded observations, national levels, inconsistent inspections, flashy gimmicks, snake oil, ineffective CPD) and what some of the solutions might be: a rigorous curriculum, mastery assessment, explicit instruction and practical CPD, based on cognitive science. Other education blogs, far ahead of me, have built up coherent manifestos of their own: for instance, Old Andrew and headteacher Tom Sherrington. […]
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