On reflection I should have known this was an auspicious day the moment that I sat in the car and looked at the clock, which stated we were one minute before our scheduled time. This is a first in my nine year history as a parent and even more miraculously it was done without the normal Michael McIntyre-esc screaming of 'WE'RE LATE!' and mad rushing around, slamming of things and practically pushing children out the door. So starts my first, very personal, reason to believe that out of chaos can come hope.
The second occurred shortly after when I actually managed to get a (Southern) train to London! Yes it was delayed and in actual fact half of its carriages were missing but again maybe out of the chaos perhaps there is a glimmer?
The rest of the day however made me realise that this analogy is fitting on a much greater scale and given our current global uncertainty we all definitely need a bit of hope. The stunning Grand Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden was the host to the 'Whole Education' conference which I had the pleasure to attend. What started out with an apparently eclectic agenda of speakers and topics resulted in a very positive, cohesive and collective vision at the end; that there is hope for all those that work in the education industry to continue to make a difference to our future generations.
Jonothan Neelands, Associate Dean of Creativity (what a great title) at Warwick Business School captured everything perfectly in his speech on 'Preparing children to succeed in tomorrow's world'. We sit currently in a world of great volatility, uncertainty, conflict and ambiguity brought about by the destabilising change of the technological revolution. A revolution whose impact we have not seen equivalent of since the industrial revolution of the mid 19th century. Just as it did then, this new revolution is destroying jobs and livelihoods well before the new ones emerge. In reaction to this apparent chaos we see many seeking control and order. Control of borders, control of industry, control of choices even. Jonothan highlighted that between the chaos and the order sits one very powerful weapon to tackle and walk the fine line between the two and that is using creativity.
Intellectual property, Jonothan states, is the new oil! And guess what? The energy and creativity that exists in our capital city is unparalleled and our PISA competitors are chasing us for it. So Britain, this is something to be proud of. And why do I feel so uplifted by this? It's because as educators this is in our power to create! We can develop fearless learners who understand they need to tackle this unknown world with the power of their imagination; who are not afraid to question, to think critically, to learn from their mistakes. Only yesterday, my youngest came out of school with the proudest smile and a shiny headteacher award sticker beaming from her chest! She earnt it during her science lesson when she was challenged to come up with her own new material that would solve a problem. She chose a water-proof plastercast! Ingenious (and I'm staking the IP for it now!)
Out of the chaos comes hope - we are certainly in a chaotic time right now but our children offer the hope. Let's all work together rather than destroying each other and ensure that our workforce going forward is filled with highly educated, highly skilled and most importantly highly creative individuals that can really make a difference.