I picked up a brilliant little booklet at the 'Innovation in Education' Conference earlier this week...

It's called 'What's Next? 21 Ideas for 21st Century Learning' by Charles Leadbeater and showcases some schools working in challenging contexts and achieving great results. The 21 ideas are:

• There should be individual budgets and self-directed support plans for families at risk;
• We should develop emotional resilience programmes;
• We should develop learning concierge services;
• We should break up large schools;
• We should develop peer learner programme;
• We should develop personal challenge;
• WE should develop personal learning plans and portfolios;
• Every young person should have a right to intensive mentoring;
• We should provide personal budgets for young people in danger of becoming NEET;
• We should develop an investors in learning programme;
• Schools should develop as productive enterprises;
• We should scrap the six week summer holiday;
• We should create the school of everything for our schools;
• We should appoint community based teachers;
• We should create third spaces for learning;
• We should develop whole school projects for the community;
• We should develop participatory budgeting;
• We should work to develop leadership teams not headteachers;
• We should develop wider measures of progress and outcomes;
• We should develop a National Curriculum of capabilities.

Everyone who is interested in the future of learning, in innovation and achieving brilliant results should read this booklet. You can download a copy of the publication from the Innovation Unit's website at www.innovation-unit.co.uk.
Chris