The Head Speaks: Challenges and Visions in Education Book

What do leading Head Masters and Head Mistresses really think about the state of education? Seventy years ago, Kegan Paul published two influential volumes: The Headmaster Speaks and The Headmistress Speaks. The editor of each volume invited twelve of the most influential head teachers of the day to contribute an essay which outlined their vision of education. The results were often surprising. Who knew that girls' schools of the '30s were hotbeds of progressive educational thought? And that, like today, the most common complaint about the curriculum was its focus on exams, which arguably comprised the joy of real learning? Each of these thought-provoking contributions displayed a real grasp of the practicalities of running a school - the visions explored were visions of the possible - in contrast to the nonsense so often masqueraded as educational theory. And now, seventy years on, the University of Buckingham Press is repeating the exercise, inviting the current head teachers of those same schools to contribute to this new volume and offer their take on the challenges faced by those in education today. What's the way forward for our schools and education system?