So what one thing would you do if you were Prime Minister for the day? Lord O'Donnell, Gus O'Donnell, former Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, interviewed in today's The Times "Good luck dismissing the experts if your car breaks down, Mr Gove" (£ paywall), makes a somewhat surprising proposal:
"If I could be prime minister for a day, the first thing I would do is to make schools measure the well-being of their pupils."
Admittedly, his reasoning smacks of a utilitarianism (rather than a 'good' in itself), "We know that if their wellbeing goes up exam results go up as well", but we might allow him that for the moment, his aim being 'resilience' and an intent to move away from the dominance of academic league tables.
What's this got to do with conductive education? Just a thought, one that I would like to take a step further than Lord O'Donnell. With it's focus on 'upbringing', conductive education has long worked with parents as well as their children. But motor disorder effects individuals 24 hours a day, 365 days a year - and their families. I wonder if conductive education anywhere at any time has consciously monitored the well-being of families? It would be comparatively easy to do, wouldn't it?
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Footnote: "Parents of children with learning disabilities are being pushed 'to breaking point' by a lack of support during the holidays", Mencap says. That, for instance, cannot be good for a child's well-being, can it, to have stressed parents.
