Meeting for Sufferings: Quaker values in education
The concern regarding the state of education in Britain today has grown
In late 2013 some Area Meetings brought concerns to Meeting for Sufferings about the state of education in Britain today.
The concern has grown strongly since then through an informal ‘Quaker Values in Education’ group and other initiatives. A threshing gathering, held at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in August 2014, was an important watershed.
Friends at Sufferings, held at Friends House, on Saturday 7 February, were asked to consider a statement agreed at the threshing gathering. David Day, of Cumberland Area Meeting, spoke to Sufferings about the background to the concern and the progress that had been made.
He talked of the ‘deep disquiet at the state of education in Britain today’ and stressed that those involved had a clear focus on rooting the concern in Quaker values. They particularly wished to support those people in the educational system suffering stress.
David emphasised the importance of creating an educational system that promoted equality. He said: ‘We think this should be a Quaker concern’ and that those involved had ‘touched a nerve’.
Anne Watson spoke about some of the many initiatives that had happened since the threshing gathering, such as the publication of a number of articles in the Friend; the introduction of an educational strand at Woodbrooke; the inclusion of education in an election briefing pack produced by Friends House; plans for a series of workshops and sessions to be held at Yearly Meeting 2015; a proposal for an Education Summer School in 2016; and the development of an online ‘Quaker Values in Education’ forum.
She urged Friends to support Quakers locally who were working in the educational sector.
A Friend said it was important to stress the positive. There were things that deserved to be celebrated while, at the same time, it was right to recognise that many working in the sector were suffering.
He stressed the importance of the quality of relationships and cited a local example, where a partnership between parents, pupils, staff and governors had produced a strong ‘shared sense of vision and values’.
Another Friend welcomed the work done by the ‘Quaker Values in Education’ group. He had spent over thirty years in education and shared the concern. He felt that we should listen to children much more and said ‘we need to encourage young people to engage, to be hopeful and to aspire’.
Issues surrounding content and the curriculum, a Friend suggested, were very important. He hoped that these would not be ignored. He commended Friends for the work that had been done.
The need to make the concern the responsibility of all Quakers was stressed. A Friend highlighted the need to find ways of supporting hard-pressed parents. It was also pointed out that the focus of the statement and discussion seemed to be on education in England and did not, at the moment, include Scotland and Wales.
A Friend said that what Sufferings were being asked to support was not a general statement on education but a particular concern. A public statement, she said, must be ‘precise and true’ in both facts and expression. The statement excluded, for example, universities, adult education and nurseries. She welcomed the work being done but queried the actual wording and purpose of the statement offered. A Friend suggested that she would welcome, in the future, a statement on education that would be of ‘lasting value’ – rooted in principles that go ‘further and deeper’.
Anne Watson said that there had been a lot of anger at the threshing weekend at Woodbrooke and that, due to time, the focus had been restricted to schools in the maintained sector. She also explained that if Quakers wanted to make a public statement on education then ‘this would not be it’ but hoped that Sufferings would support the concern and that it could move forward.
David Day said that a lot of listening had also been done at Yearly Meeting Gathering at Bath. The group, he said, had ‘sought to be positive’ and they recognised that many areas of education could not be addressed because there simply was not enough time to address them.
The emphasis on state secondary education was partly due, he explained, to the background of those who were initially involved. A number had retired from careers in the state sector. He said: ‘Our capabilities were restricted. We felt we had in our “circle” people who had knowledge of the state maintained system in England’. He added: ‘We were focusing on what we knew and on where we came from’. He acknowledged that there were many important areas, such as Religious Education, which were raised at meetings in Bath and that he hoped would be addressed in the future.
He said that the statement provided a basis on which to go forward. This aspiration was met with agreement in the room. A Friend, who had a ‘lifelong association with education’ in a number of different roles, said she was delighted to have heard so much lively and informed opinion on such an important subject. It was a question, she felt, which ‘went right across Quaker life’.
The clerk of Meeting for Sufferings, Ethel Livermore, described the discussion as ‘useful and constructive’ and said that the concern was still ‘at a very early stage’.
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