ABSTRACT
A good school is one where all its staff feel they are part of a team, with shared goals and a chance for everyone to help influence their school's future development. But the nature of that team has already started to change to reflect a different type of school organisation that is emerging in the first years of the twenty-first century. It was a model foreseen by Professor Michael Barber, who in 1996 was among the first to spell out what a typical secondary school might start to look like.
There would, of course, be traditionally taught classes … not least because the evidence shows that direct teaching can be remarkably effective. However, one might imagine a range of adults in the school, assisting with the learning process: a business person contributing to a small group undertaking a cost-benefit analysis; a chemistry PhD student, under a teacher's supervision, contributing to a science lesson on the structure of atoms … or business and community mentors spending time counselling individual students. Students might be in formal lessons, in small groups or in the large extended library or learning resources centre, drawing on a range of resources through both traditional and technological means …. Elsewhere, a group of over a hundred students might be in a traditional lecture relevant to many of them. 1
