Last Sunday, Andrew Sutton posted on Facebook a small mystery concerning a Google alert: a mere fragment, which read:
More Myths for Teachers « Scenes From The Battleground - 17:17
18 Jun 2011 ... Scenes From The Battleground. Teaching in British schools ..... "the Hungarian approach of conductive education" 1 week ago ... teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/.../more-myths-for-teachers/ -
Andrew added “I cannot however find this posting, anywhere. Can anyone oblige?” A short exchange of comments took place but with no result.
However, privately, Andrew later emailed to say that he had located the source as a couple of tweets on twitter. I checked them out. Here they are, from 4th June 2011:
oldandrewuk Andrew Old
@[deleted] Have a look at "Controversial Issues in Special Education" by Hornby, Atkinson & Howard (1997). Conductive Education is proper mad.
4 Jun
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oldandrewuk Andrew Old
This sort of crankery is why I am sceptical about free schools: http://bit.ly/mpsD4k "the Hungarian approach of conductive education"
4 Jun
“Scenes from the battleground” is Andrew Old’s blog. There, he writes of himself,
“I am a teacher who has worked in several tough secondary schools. I love teaching, and I am particularly keen to teach students in deprived areas where education can really make a difference. However, I am utterly dissatisfied with how British schools, and indeed the entire education system is run. I see schools as systematically failing those who need them most. This blog is a record of how I see education in the UK.”
I am intrigued by all of this, which is why I have taken a moment to write this post.
Why so?
1. I am curious to know what contact Andrew Old has had with Conductive education, that he regards it as “crankery” and “proper mad”.
2. His referencing the Hornby, Atkinson and Howard book – not a text that would be familiar to the general reader – suggests he has more than a passing familiarity. If so, whence the animosity? Of course, if his only contact is a single book, then this seems somewhat slender grounds to denigrate people’s work so publicly.
3. Which brings me to his link to the article by Spencer Pitfield, our Vice-Chair of Trustees. I wonder if Andrew Old’s response is more political than educational, that he should bother to expend time and energy tweeting about something for which he has so little regard.
4. But most intriguing of all, I find I agree with his paragraph about himself. So much so that I could have written it myself. yet we appear to have ended up in diametrically opposed places.
Like Andrew Old, I, too, worked as a teacher, choosing to do so in “some tough schools” in Kenya, Newham and Sheffield. I. too, loved teaching. I agree absolutely with Andrew Old about British schools and the “way the system is run”, and “see schools as systematically failing those who need them most” – especially, in my case, children with motor disorders. This very blog is my record of how I am trying to do something about it, and beyond that, Paces Campus and School and, of course, nurturing conductive education in the UK, is what I have actually been doing since I took early retirement from teaching, aged 50, in 1996, to do so.
I shall tweet Andrew Old and invite him to visit Paces. Meanwhile, should anyone wish to, you can email him at
