So What is a ‘Good ‘ school?

I was re-connecting with my passion about reforming the education system whilst on my Easter break and wondering about Mr Blair's plans to reform schools.  He talks about ‘good' schools a lot and  says "controversial school reforms are needed in England because the system is "not working well enough" for many children".  I found myself wondering what he meant by that and continued to read the report.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4687964.stm.ry

I was not surprised to read that nowhere in the report does it mention researching and connecting with the people who use the schools..... the pupils.  It seems to me that when trying to reform our eighteenth century school system we focus on what the government feel is right, what school governers think is right and what the teachers and head teachers views are but we rarely see reports or headlines stating "pupils suggested that.... Or year 10 was consulted and we found that....

It seems to me that it is time, not to have yet another ‘reform' as all the previous ones don't seem to have worked but to have a complete overhaul.  Let's clear the clutter, jazz up the environment and give our children something to want to go to school for. Having been in a few schools recently, apart form the brand new modern ones, they can often still look like places that resemble state prisons with dark, gloomy corridors, poor lighting, totally aesthetically displeasing, no art or great posters on the walls, wonky slatted blinds, wound ounce too often and I have wondered ....who would want to start and end their day here? Not me!  What about inspirational posters and quotes smothering the walls or wonderful vibrant colours on the floors.

In most businesses these days they have 360-degree appraisal but do pupils ever get a chance to appraise their teachers.  Radical, I know and some say think would lead to anarchy.  However, being a life coach and having experienced running a project in school, I believe that most pupils on a one to one would give an honest, focussed feedback about their teacher and the teachers style and approach to the pupil and their learning.

During the time that I was school, the coaching approach worked so well for students that they had no trouble turning up voluntarily for their appointments and happily progressed through to self set goals and targets.  At times, they needed the space to clear family problems etc. and once aired went on to succeed in the hour-long session.

What I don't understand is why so many teachers are afraid of radical reforms and see the school as their domain rather than the pupil's domain. I would think that teachers would back ‘radical', which would lead to lighter work loads not heavier.

When we are working with young people who are either excluded or have opted themselves out of school we are keen to find out from them what it is that they feel that they need and we are constantly amended, re-planning and changing the plan that we have in order to accommodate their needs.  We never feel that we have it right and know that we can learn as much form them as they can from us.  Could this approach not work in schools?  I dream of the day when I can see the message getting through to government that the plan they need is one to DRASTICALLY change teacher training.

In the meantime, I am still musing over what Tony means by a ‘good school'!