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As has become traditional at the Festival of Education, the two-day event hosted by Wellington College coincided with a major event in politics. This year it was the General Election and a landslide win for The Labour Party. Previous festivals have taken place during the Brexit vote, Boris Johnson’s resignation and, in 2022, three education secretaries in 36 hours. This propensity to overlap with historic events only adds to the atmosphere of lively debate and thought-leading discussions at the UK’s biggest professional learning event in early years, secondary and further education.
The election clash meant that a couple of high-profile speakers were forced to pull out, including Alastair Campbell and David Blunkett, but the agenda was still packed and exciting, featuring sessions from comedian Jo Brand, historian David Olusoga, education consultant Tom Sherrington and senior education advisor Sam Freedman. As ever there was an upbeat, carnival atmosphere with bunting fluttering in the breeze, live music from local schools, street food, ice cream and colourful bean bags.This year’s headline sponsor was AQA: Questions Matter.
Over two days, Wellington College hosted 300 sessions from over 450 speakers, 85 exhibitors and the largest number of visitors ever seen at the Festival of Education. Over 5,000 educators attended from across the UK and from abroad. Some had travelled from as far as China, Thailand, India, Australia, New Zealand and Nigeria. Two thousand tickets were offered for free to the state school sector and 83% of attendees were state school teachers.
The festival kicked off with a topical session from policy advisor Sam Freedman and Lucy Heller, CEO of Ark Schools, entitled ‘Responding to a New Government’. Reflecting on the last 20 years of education policy they listed pupil premium and improvements in teaching as ‘the good’, while pastoral care, teacher recruitment and ministerial attempts to micromanage classrooms were ‘the bad’. Sam expressed hope that education doesn’t get lost among the many urgent crises – including prison overcrowding and the NHS – that need to be addressed and that the new government doesn’t get too bogged down in Ofsted reform.
Oracy was a key theme at this year’s festival and speakers in the new ‘Buzzing About Oracy’ strand included representatives from the Oracy Commission. In a session run by the commission’s Independent Chair, Geoff Barton, the importance of speaking and listening across all areas of the curriculum was emphasised, especially in our era of AI. The commission is championing the idea that oracy should be part of every teacher’s toolkit and not just limited to English lessons or debating societies. Sonia Thompson, Head Teacher from St Matthew’s C of E Primary School in Birmingham said “pupils need to use their voices to find a place in this challenging, disruptive world” while Sally Apps from Cabot Learning Federation agreed that “oracy is about knowledge” and shared that it has been transformative in her schools with pupils “believing they should be heard, believing they have something to say and being able to think out loud with others”
Other highlights from Thursday’s sessions included Jason Arthur, CEO of Mission 44 (founded by Sir Lewis Hamilton) discussing how to drive towards greater inclusion in schools through a holistic education that goes beyond academics to inspire a love of learning. It was a theme picked up in a debate in the Chapel on the attendance crisis and increasing levels of pupil absence. Roy Blatchford, Chair of Essex Education Taskforce argued for removing the word ‘extra’ from extra-curricular in order to re-engage pupils by putting a bigger emphasis on creative subjects, sports and the arts. Susannah Hardyman, CEO of Action Tutoring said that “schools need to play a more central role as a community hub”, linking up with wider societal issues and having more support services on site. While the speakers debated certain aspects of the topic, all agreed that some curriculum reform was needed.
Later in the day, David Olusoga spoke to a rapt audience about a curriculum to end the culture wars, what happens when history doesn’t tell everyone’s story and why we still insist on airbrushing certain events like Britain’s involvement in the slave trade. David said that “we need a national history that is truly national” and to build a curriculum that connects us all. He added that “history’s job is not to make us feel warm and fluffy” and that we need to recognise the extent to which politicians and the media weaponise the culture wars.
As well as busy sessions, the exhibition stands at this year’s festival thronged with attendees gathering information about the latest teaching resources, pastoral tools, AI developments, CPD and training. The Sustainability Zone included Forestry England, Let’s Go Zero, the University of Reading and National Education Nature Park with other exhibitors including YHA, Canva for Education, Eton X, BBC Bitesize and Pearson. The mic was handed poignantly to younger voices in some sessions, including ‘Teach the Teacher: Youth Perspectives on Climate Education’ where Jodie Bailey-Ho, a 20 year old climate undergraduate, introduced her work supporting young people to hold workshops for educators about the climate crisis. She shared some sobering facts about unnatural climate changes, climate privilege and climate justice.
The morning of the second day of the festival was marked with lively chatter about Labour’s overnight election victory over coffees and pastries (with a few yawns among those who had stayed up all night to watch the results come in). Then it was back to business with a diverse range of sessions ranging from Jassa Ahluwalia talking about fostering belonging in a divided world, to Andrew Cowley’s staff wellbeing slot, memorably entitled “Just get off your f**king phone” and Wellington College’s Iain Henderson discussing how to clarify the role of coaching in a complex education landscape. Iain who is Director of The Bridge and co-Director of the FoE along with Shane Mann, also explored how teachers can use coaching to enhance student learning and wellbeing.
This year’s event was brought to a close by the inimitable Jo Brand, comedy legend and former mental health nurse who shared her thoughts on teacher and pupil wellbeing, the role of humour in nurturing learning, and the importance of comic timing in the classroom.
With a new government in power and tickets already available for next year’s Festival of Education, it’s set to be a year of excitement and promise for the education sector.
