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Breaking
all the rules in school Those who want to be Future winners are wrestling with an almost impossible paradox – how to be well enough organised that we don’t constantly re-invent the wheel, and yet make it clear we want our people to ‘screw around vigorously’ in the interests of doing the best work of their lives!! The architecture of organisations needs to go through a revolution, so it’s heartening to see that some of our schools are getting in on the act. Just take a look at this pioneering school, the Thomas Deacon Academy in Peterborough, UK, where they are abandoning many of the familiar planks of the school structure; playground, break times, school bells and registers, in favour of much more flexibility; mixed aged tutor groups, 90 minute lesson periods, time out when it’s the right time, pupils taking responsibility for themselves. (You can read this recent Observer article by clicking here.) There are echoes here of another pioneering educational project in the USA, The Big Picture (click here for a link). This fabulously successful experiment was co-founded by an old friend of Tom Peters, Dennis Littky. The Met School began its life in a tough neighbourhood of Providence, Rhode Island, and has now spread to over 30 more locations across the USA. It’s certainly an education system, but one that caters for the individual learning needs of every pupil through completely re-imagining the way pupils' learning is organised. If you’d like to take part in a discussion on this topic, you can visit our blog on www.tompeters.com. You may also like to see how Architecture plays its part in our Future Shape of the Winner model.
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