Tag: schools

OECD, Hidden Spire, QUT Futures Unlocked

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I recently presented at the launch of the new OECD report on an ecosystems approach to curriculum change, drawing on recent foresight work at the University of Oslo and the University of Queensland exploring the future of education. You can read more on that work here, in a blog post from the OECD’s Josh Polchar: “How seaworthy is your curriculum reform?”

I also ran a workshop with Oxford colleague Halina Suwalowska for the Old Fire Station in Oxford. This is an arts centre in the heart of the city “which takes a risk and entertains”, with the motto, “Art is for everyone. Art has potential.”

The Old Fire Station’s tower is Oxford’s “Hidden Spire”, almost concealed by the collegiate skyline, and this has lent its name to an artmaking collective.

The Hidden Spire project brings together people from different walks of life; many have experience of homelessness, having initially come to the Old Fire Station through the homeless charity Crisis.

The Collective work together to make publicly shared artworks, always deciding collaboratively what they make through a process of co-creation.

Halina and I worked with the artists to look at the future of Oxford, beyond hopes, fears, and expectations – exploring the city of 2041 as a contribution to this year’s forthcoming public artwork.

Soon, I’ll be contributing to the Futures Unlocked series at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), with a presentation to their foresight community on 28th July.

Navigating the sea of uncertainty: Global Youth Climate Summit Recording

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One of my contributions to the 2025 Global Youth Climate Summit, hosted by the University of Oxford, has just gone online at the Oxford Climate Change Challenge site.

In the newly-released talk “Navigating the sea of uncertainty: challenging assumptions about what the future holds“, we consider ways to address times of turbulence, when the context in which we operate seems to be unsteady and unpredictable.

You can also see a previously released talk from the same event, “The black box of action: how to make your climate project count“, at the same site.

UNESCO Ideas LAB: Staying with the trouble

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Over at the UNESCO Ideas LAB blog, I have a piece with colleagues Niamh Ní Bhroin and Steffen Krüger, drawing on our recent article for Prospects about scenario planning and the future of education.

Title card from the Oslo “Schools and/or screens” scenario set

Read “Staying with the trouble: Scenarios and the future of education” here.

UNESCO Prospects Journal: Scenarios and the future of education

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The question for teachers, learners, and the various organizations and communities in which they participate becomes “How will we adapt, evolve, and thrive even if uncertainties play out in ways for which we had not initially prepared?”

In the UNESCO International Bureau of Education’s journal Prospects, the University of Oslo’s Steffen Krüger, the University of Agder’s Niamh Ní Bhroin, and I discuss the “Schools and/or screens” scenario project for the digitalisation of education in Norway.

UNESCO Headquarters sign. (C) Matt Finch, 2023

We show how challenging issues raised in the context of distant imagined futures proved to be immediately pertinent in the developing Covid-19 pandemic, and, as a wide range of actors explore the possibility of a new social contract for education, we reflect on how future scenarios can provide fresh perspectives on issues that are difficult or even impossible to resolve within current frames of reference, including questions of equity and justice that may be construed differently in times to come.

Read “Unlearning, relearning, staying with the trouble: Scenarios and the future of education” at Prospects online.

The Child Who Had To Grow Up: Using Scenario Planning to Prepare for Uncertain Future Contexts in Digital Education

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My paper “The Child Who Had To Grow Up: Using Scenario Planning to Prepare for Uncertain Future Contexts in Digital Education“, which appears in the proceedings of the Architecture Media Politics Society conference Teaching in a Time of Change, can be read here (PDF download).

The paper discusses the University of Oslo “Schools and/or screens” scenario project exploring the digitalisation of education in Norwegian schools.

You can read more about “Schools and/or screens” at the CO:RE Education blog and the University of Oslo’s “Times of COVID-19” blog, as well as watching a discussion of education and the future of work at the 2021 SHAPE conference.

SHAPE Education: Schools, Work, and the Adaptation Advantage

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The archive from this summer’s SHAPE Education event, organised by Cambridge University Press and the Judge Business School, is now online.

I spoke on the future of work and its implications for education with a panel including Bell Education’s Silvana Richardson, Cambridge University Press’ own Ben Knight, and Heather E. McGowan, author of The Adaptation Advantage.

We were also supported by live drawings from the brilliant Rebecca Osborne.

SHAPE Education: Matt Finch's talk

You can find more about the SHAPE conference series online, and explore the University of Oslo “Schools and/or Screens” scenarios, which I discussed during the panel, here.

Learning from futures you didn’t see coming? Scenario planning, education and the (post)pandemic world at CO:RE

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It was my privilege to join the University of Oslo’s Niamh Ní Broin and Steffen Krueger at the website of CO:RE, the Children Online: Research and Evidence project funded by the European Commission, to write about last year’s scenarios for the future of Norwegian schools.

These explored different contexts for the digitalisation of education in Norway, considering how the relationship between learners, digital devices, and educational institutions might shift in times to come.

You can read our piece, “Learning from futures you didn’t see coming? Scenario planning, education and the (post)pandemic world”, here.

SHAPE Education: Schooling, Skills, and the Future of Work

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I’ll be speaking at the SHAPE Education 2021 conference on Wednesday 14th July, joining the panel “What will individuals need to learn for success in work and life in the future?” alongside Heather E. McGowan and Silvana Richardson.

We’ll be asking, what skills, knowledge and characteristics will employers need and be looking for in future? How will education systems help people develop these within and beyond schools? And will relationships between schools and employers change?

You can join our panel, and other sessions from the week-long SHAPE event, for free.

Future health: Oslo and the ‘a-ha’ moment

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Our University of Oslo scenarios for the future of schools, out this week, surfaced health, and perceptions of health, as a battleground between parents and institutions in the education sector of 2050.

This was an “a-ha” moment for university researchers seeking new issues to explore around the digitalisation of education.

In scenario planning, we don’t aim to predict the future, but rather to generate plausible visions which can usefully inform present-day decision-making.

The future stories we create together are intended to highlight issues and drivers which exist in the present; the future scenario can then be set aside in order to focus on the issue at hand.

For the Oslo education researchers, a world in which parents and institutions warred over children’s health in a heavily-surveilled society – bickering with ‘the algorithm’ even over when to wipe your child’s nose – highlighted the extent to which their research should explore questions of health and wellbeing.

Today, in the Norwegian news, we see a parent-led Facebook group urging the city to close schools while the municipal authorities maintain that there is no reason yet to do so.

The campaigners argue that if businesses are sending staff home, then young children – who are less able to follow guidelines on infection control, like coughing into your elbow – should certainly go back to their families too.

Questions of distance learning, and education via screens and digital devices, may be sharpened by the current pandemic – even for the youngest children.

How will coronavirus affect the way we teach and learn, in the short and long term? Could it impact even the youngest children, irrespective of whether they contract the disease?

Good foresight work can help communities, institutions, and individuals navigate such turbulent and uncertain situations. You can read more about the Oslo education scenarios project here.

Team Waitangi: Teaching against the grain in West London

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Team Waitangi, a group of West London teachers, dress up as the cast of Cinderella

Ngā mihi o te Kirihimete, West London

Team Waitangi got its name five years ago, just before Christmas. I was teaching what the Brits call infants – 4 to 7 years old, specifically Year 1 or 1st Grade – in a deprived suburban corner of West London. Our staff were pretty diverse, with teachers from New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia. The school served a diverse community, too: most kids were from families that didn’t speak English at home, new migrants who had come to us from Somalia, Iraq, Sri Lanka. Celebrations like Ramadan and Diwali were more important to our kids than, say, Easter. Even more than usual, this meant I did as much listening as talking, as much learning as teaching.

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