Education - you don't know what you've got till it's gone

Way back, when I was a teacher and subsequently a head teacher, I felt that I was providing a service to the community.

I suppose I was daft enough to think that education is about personal development, finding one's interests and skills together with the abilities to pursue them. I was inspired by the idea of growth and development, and loved watching kids grow intellectually, emotionally, socially, physically.

I liked lighting the fire in people rather than under them, be they children, parents, teachers or governors.

Crazy.

Nowadays, the British obsession with testing has warped the curriculum beyond recognition. Endless revision has eroded the time for teaching and added unhelpful pressures.

Homework, even for the youngest children prepares them for a life where the work-life balance is badly out of kilter, and the pressures of work gradually undermine family life.

A shoddy and doctrinaire inspection system is no longer independent and actively promotes government policy.

The arts have become endangered species and a 'broad and balanced curriculum' is one where maths and English take approximately half the time. Some breadth. Some balance.

And now parents are fined for taking children out of school to take a break. The accepted wisdom seems to be that education can only ever happen in schools, and experience out of school lacks any educational value whatsoever.

If there is any sense of joyful service here, I do not know where it is. We no longer have education: its place has been taken by years on internment with training.

I cannot - and will not- accept that preparation for life means preparation for work and nothing else. At every stage, education should be more than preparation for the next, and have a rich and inspirational value all its own.

Our children have only one childhood. We have no right to waste it.