About Our Schools

Foreword by Danny Dorling.
Through revealing and forthright interviews with 14 secretaries of state from Kenneth Baker to Michael Gove and Gavin Williamson, together with many other leading figures in education Tim Brighouse and Mick Waters provide fascinating insights into the various evolutions and revolutions that have taken place in English state education since 1976.
In so doing they highlight key areas for improvement and assess where we should go from here to enable teachers and schools to improve the learning and broaden the horizons of each and every one of their pupils whatever their talents, challenges, advantages or problems.
Tim and Mick have both spent a lifetime in state-provided education first as pupils, then as teachers, and finally in various leadership and policy-making positions, both in and out of schools. About Our Schools is born out of their shared love for education and their appreciation of how schooling can be a transformative element in the lives of children and young people.
All royalties from sales of this book will be donated to Barnardo's and the Compassionate Education Foundation.
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Examines in detail the turbulent years of education policy and practice from the late 1970s to the present day and sets out what policy-makers and education leaders can do to enable our schools to improve on their previous best.
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What has happened to English schools over the past 40 years? Are they stronger after decades of rapid and often bewildering change? Tim Brighouse and Mick Waters, with their extensive knowledge and experience of all levels of schooling, are uniquely qualified to give us the answers. Drawing on lengthy interviews with dozens of leading educational figures - ministers and former ministers, civil servants, directors of academy trusts, school inspectors, local authority officers and more - as well as their own personal recollections, Tim and Mick share new and sometimes shocking discoveries about how decisions that affected millions of children were reached.Through sometimes hilarious anecdotes as well as unfailingly perceptive analysis, this book reveals the truth about what was happening behind the scenes as almost everything in the world of education changed - from the school curriculum to marking schemes, from teaching methods to pupil exclusions, and from the rise of academy trusts to the role of head teachers.
Peter Wilby
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More than two men's memoirs, less than a treatise in political science, this fascinating book opens up its readers to 45 years inside the corridors of power in UK education, like no book has ever done before. This work, from two living legends of British education, brings forward extraordinary levels of candour and insight from political figures as ideologically disparate and strategically different as Estelle Morris and Michael Gove. How did academies evolve? What was the purpose of chains and trusts? How has England's education system become so chaotically marketised and incredibly centralised all at the same time? And how should we judge what's happened to the training of teachers and leaders? It's all here, unexpurgated and unplugged, from the mouths of government ministers, civil servants and education professionals. Dip in, breathe deep, keep an open mind, and enjoy!
Andy Hargreaves
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Publications like this are few and far between. I cannot remember the last time I read a book that so skilfully sets out its historical context in an analysis of our current educational landscape and its optimistic vision for the future. Tim Brighouse and Mick Waters have brought their trademark humanity, pragmatism and insight to a fascinating book that has the importance of teachers and teaching at its heart. Drawing on their unrivalled perspectives of our education system over the last 40 years, the authors have created a book that is full of fascinating anecdotes, illustrations and personal accounts that enr