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Tony Little is The Headmaster of Eton. One of the most progressive and imaginative
people in British education today he has hitherto kept a low profile. This book
accompanies a three part television series to be screened on BBC 2 but differs from it
significantly.
There is a crisis in the British education system. Year on year GCSE and A Level pupils
post better exam results, with more students achieving top grades. Yet business
leaders and employers complain bitterly that our schools are not producing people fit for
purpose. What we have become is a nation `Over schooled and under educated`.
Far from being locked in an ivory tower, a bastion of privilege, Mr Little has used his time
as a teacher and headmaster to get to grips with fundamental questions concerning
education. He wants to produce people fit to work in the modern world. How do children
absorb information? What kind of people does society need? What is education for? Not
only is the author one of the great reforming headmasters of our time but he has planted
Academies in the East end of London, founded a state boarding school near Windsor and
yet is a passionate advocate of single sex schools.
This book is not a text book for colleges of education- it is a book to enlighten the
teaching profession and just as much for anxious parents. The book is simply arranged
under topics such as authority, expectations, progress, self-confidence, sex, crises and
creativity.
Tony Little thinks it is time to ask some fundamental questions, and to make brave
decisions about how we make our schools and our schoolchildren fit for purpose.
