After all the sitting and thinking and complaining and dreaming and wishing, we made a long list on a large sheet of paper of all the things that were holding us back. We then simply flipped every one of them and rather liked what we saw. Half joking, we agreed it as a framework for a new Carolean education imaginary. I mean, someone has to say the words.

We looked at what we’d come up with. A moment of quiet descended. We looked at each other. One person said they’d be really proud to work in such an imaginary. Everyone nodded and smiled.

Someone suggested that the list was too long and didn’t even include cooking or gardening or a school dog. In the interests of time I annotated the list with a reminder and pledged to revisit it next week: we were satisfied, for the moment, that a new education imaginary was in there somewhere.

The Carolean education imaginary

1. schools are well funded

2. small class sizes

3. curriculum flexibility

4. purposeful work that actually matters

5. testing replaced by reliable, valuable, authentic assessment

6. equality, diversity and proper inclusion

7. mental and physical wellbeing for everyone

8. well supported teachers

9. skills for learning and life

10. world class tech

11. hybrid working for all and new environments for learning

12. thinking global, acting local, even personal

13. creativity and innovation is sought and it thrives

14. community-led learning

15. expert partnerships

16. happy, healthy and safe