Should schools dedicate 20% of curriculum time to self-directed learning?

A guest post by Derry Hannam

This is a guest post by Derry Hannam, one of my educational heroes. Derry is currently an international consultant in Education for Democracy and Human Rights. Previously, he was the deputy headteacher of a Derbyshire community comprehensive school, and a school inspector. He is based in Seaford, UK.

If you haven’t already heard it, I recommend my podcast interview with Derry about his remarkable book ‘Another Way is Possible’. The podcast is here (Derry Hannam on becoming a democratic teacher in a state school) - here’s a short trailer:

And you can buy a copy of Derry’s book ‘Another Way is Possible’ here:

• Ebook (super affordable)

• Paperback

OK, let’s do this!

Should schools dedicate 20% of curriculum time to self-directed learning?

I spent 20 years in three state secondary schools creating as much self-directed learning space in democratic and rights respecting contexts. My book Another Way Is Possible tells the story of the first of these – two years in a Buckinghamshire secondary modern school where students were labelled failures at age 11.

I thought I would be fired as I binned much of the prescribed subject curriculum and let the students choose what they wanted to learn about in much of the 50% of curriculum time that I was responsible for. I wasn’t fired. I was promoted and put in charge of a team of 7 teachers and all 7 classes of the age group as they moved up a grade. I am still in touch with some ‘students’ as they approach retirement. They remember those two years. Two of them contributed a chapter to my book.

Space, Time and Covid

In order to find and deepen their interests and identity, and to learn how to live with others, young people need time. Time to think, to wonder, to question, to create, to make and learn with friends, to find out who they are – and a space to do it in.

Prior to Covid, most state secondary schools deprived young people of space and time. Lunch hours and playtimes were cut. The encroachment into free time was not just during the school day but also at home, with relentless homework and revision.

During the Covid lockdowns, many schools set conventional school-work online, from the screen instead of from the whiteboard, followed by conventional testing. Some parents were expecting this, but a growing number were not. Young people missed their friends during the lockdowns – but many did not miss lessons where they had no choice, no control or agency and no consent in their learning.

Some parents struggled to present this curriculum to their children at home. Research into Canadian parents’ attitudes to school curriculum since the Covid lockdowns shows that 73% thought that much more attention should be given to the interests of the students when the schools reopened. During COVID, Danish parents found that:

‘Since the exams and mandatory learning goals are abandoned for now, teachers report feeling more playful with students. They are working with co-creation and involving students in making decisions more than before. There is more quality time spent between teachers and students, resulting in better relationships and increased student well-being.’

In Denmark, the emphasis switched from teaching to learning, from prescribed content to inquiry – and, freed from the pressure of examination preparation, a change in the quality of student-teacher relations to include more student participation and creativity.

What an opportunity this provided to do things differently when schools re-opened in England! But it hasn’t happened has it? We are too busy ‘catching up’ with the ‘lost’ curriculum – much of which is boring and meaningless to many young people.

What do children and young people need to thrive?

Self-determination theory suggests that for mental health and well-being to flourish, people need:

• agency and autonomy

• participation in decision making

• belonging to a community of learners

• time and space for self-direction and self-exploration

This requires attention to be given to their concerns, questions, interests, purposes, enthusiasms, passions and talents. Jerome Bruner spoke of the 3 ‘c’s of childhood – that children are naturally curious, collaborative, and need to feel competent – adding with the late Ken Robinson that they are naturally creative.

We need a school system where academic attainment does not create the pressure, anxiety, loss of well-being and threat to mental health evident in England. It is tragic that we plan for the failure of a third of our young people at GCSE after 11 years of telling them that the purpose of life is high grades. All in the name of preserving standards or more tacitly providing a supply chain for the Russell Group universities. Are they or their parents told this is how the English system works?

What does thriving look like in practice?

Many English secondary schools have activities weeks at the end of the summer term when examinations are finished. A wide variety of ‘off-curriculum’ activities occur involving students, parents and community groups often offered to mixed age-groups. The variety and enthusiasm generated can be impressive. School and community ‘turn on’ to each other.

Students previously disengaged from school can change their attitudes both to school and to themselves as learners as new opportunities for choice and engagement emerge. In the rural school where I was vice-principal, a community newspaper co-edited by adults and students emerged which 30 years later has just published its 200^th edition. A community orchestra began with some 80 players aged 8 to 80.

There are rural schools where many students cannot take part in extra-curricular activities because of long bus journeys home where programmes of electives move ‘extra-curricular’ into the regular school timetable for one afternoon per week. In one school that I inspected, close to a famous motor racing circuit, with the assistance of some parents, a mixed age and gender group actually built a working racing car as an elective project. Reduced conventional teaching time enabled the electives programme to have a budget to hire mentors if needed. One parent told me that their children would ‘get off their death beds to get to school on electives day.’ This school had very few exclusions, high levels of attendance especially on electives afternoon and better than expected GCSE results.

The International Baccalaureate Middle Years (11-16) programme personal project; the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) at A level; the personal project component of Rosina Dorelli’s Biophilic Curriculum; the EdExcel project qualifications all offer self-directed opportunities for those students who are fortunate enough to attend the few schools where they are available. No-one questions their power of engagement or that the time allocated to them undermines standards in the rest of the curriculum. As Kate Longworth of Gaia Learning which creates personalised curriculum for neuro-diverse learners, puts it ‘the simple idea is that when learners engage with what they are passionate about motivation and focus increase, leading to more success’ and of course enhanced well-being.

It is lovely to listen to the enthusiasm of the pupils at primary School 360 in London explaining how much they look forward to ‘Choose Our Own Learning’ or ‘COOL’ Time.

In Germany there are now more than 300 state secondary schools in the ‘Schule im Aufbruch’ programme led by Berlin head teacher Margret Rasfeld where Fridays/Fritags are indeed Freitags giving students the opportunity to devise studies of their choice around the UN SDGs (sustainable development goals) for one day per week.

My 20% ‘no-brainer’ proposal

My modest ‘no-brainer’ proposal – rapidly gaining momentum, as we shall soon see – is that all schools should allocate 20% of curriculum time for the questions, concerns, enthusiasms, interests, purposes, passions, talents of the students. Time for individual or collaborative self-directed learning.

In schools where the learning has been very largely adult directed self-directed 20% time would need to be introduced with careful preparation to ensure that vision and implementation are aligned. Students could be organised into small tutorial groups for support and monitoring as practised at the Self-managed Learning College in Brighton, or ‘crew’ as practised at the XP schools in Doncaster.

Teacher numbers could be augmented by parent or community mentors to provide support in case of ‘floundering paralysis’ or panic in those possibly neuro-diverse students who might suffer anxious uncertainty at the new responsibilities and opportunities, so long as student self-directed ownership of their projects is not threatened.

Flourishing, thriving and agency not coercion would be the key drivers. The introduction of 20% time would fit nicely into schools that are developing digital learner profiles along with some cross-curricular teacher led project-based learning perhaps using the Skills Builder Universal Framework 2.0.

Some students might choose to use their 20% time to extend and deepen their learning in a mainstream subject though parental pressure to direct might need to be challenged. Staff could also use this time to pursue their own research questions and interests modelling lifelong learning. Students could become facilitators for other students. A science teacher recently wrote about how much more some students knew about climate change than she did!

The organisational process itself would be educational. The motivation and morale of adults and students will rise. The new engagement which will result will more than compensate for any loss of learning from reduction in formal subject teaching time. In fact, evidence suggests standards will rise. Attendance will improve. As will teacher retention. Exclusions will decline.

Students will learn how to take responsibility for at least part of their learning and learn how to manage at least part of their own time – both crucial if they are to deal with the opportunities and uncertainties that the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), artificial intelligence (AI), and climate change are presenting.

Students will learn to discover their own genius and create their own identities not just defined by test scores. If paid employment declines in the future with AI and 4IR and Universal Basic Income (UBI) young people will learn how to be unique, creative, socially responsible individuals not reliant on full time paid employment for their identity. They will have learned the entrepreneurial skills necessary to launch their own economic or social enterprises. 20% time could be an incubator for student initiated small businesses or charities supported by mentors from the local community –thus helping staff the small 20% time tutor groups.

Schools could create a ‘20% Committee’ of staff, mentors and students to plan how the 20% programme would be organised. Thus students would participate in serious school decision making avoiding the tokenism of too many school councils.

A 20% or ‘passion’ department could be created led by a teacher of deputy head status and staffed by teachers from all subjects enthusiastic to work in this way thereby creating a team of experienced self-directed learning facilitators. The department could have its own part of the school buildings - the 20% wing or school within a school where presentations of student projects and initiatives could be held.

An entirely new approach to assessment would be required based on processes as much as finished projects – failure would be something to be learned from and not to be feared. The Edge Foundation and Rethinking Assessment have much to offer here. The 20% department could introduce digital pupil profiling. 20% of students of mixed ages could be in the 20% wing at any one time.

Mounting support

Already there are teachers quietly introducing 20% time into their own classes, such as the ‘pondering time’ in the Hampshire RE agreed syllabus pioneered by the RE department of a large Isle of Wight school.

Universities could develop 20% laboratory schools in programmes such as the EU Erasmus Plus funded LabSchoolsEurope programme or the NEEDS network in Ireland.

Every school should be free to organise the use of this 20% time in its own way – it could be half a day per week plus 20% of some lessons, or two half-days, or one day per week, or 20% of all lessons. If as students became more motivated the compulsory directed curriculum could be managed in a reducing amount of time then the 20% could expand.

The 20% proposal is already happening in the US in the 20Time movement, described in detail by Kevin Brookhouser in his book The 20Time Project: How Educators Can Launch Google’s Formula for Future Ready Innovation.

Recently the Economist Intelligence Unit produced a report called Staff 2030: The Future of Teacher Training. It recommends 20% of curriculum time for student directed learning. It judged that the competences developed are precisely those needed for the future workplaces of the 4^th Industrial revolution and that our current school systems are not producing. Namely self-directed autonomous learners and creators.

The 20% idea has recently surfaced in the newsletter of the UK Local Government Association (LGA). Significantly the evolved nature of human childhood described by Bruner and Gray of playful, creative, autonomous yet collaborative creatures now aligns with the needs of enlightened employers – yet few schools or school systems are making the connection.

We need ‘innovation’ or ‘moon-shot’ time where students are free to come up with their own ideas of what they want to do and study, and how they want to do it. “Your students will be future ready if you give them the time!” says Esther Wojcicki of Palo Alto High School in the Economist teacher training report. “Time is perhaps the greatest gift we can give young people.” Wojcicki’s students use 20% of their class time for totally self-directed projects where their natural learning instinct take flight individually or in collaboration with others. We must stop filling every moment at school and at home with prescribed curriculum.

Google has introduced a ‘20% Project’ where employees can follow their own ideas beyond their job descriptions for 20% of their work time leading to profitable innovations such as gmail and Adsense, both developed by one of Esther Wojcicki’s daughters, Susan, until her recent death CEO at YouTube.

All around the world we are seeing campaigns for change coming from young people themselves. In the UK ‘Teach the Future’ argues for a more relevant climate change curriculum. There would be students in many schools who would almost certainly use their 20% time for this purpose.

Could it be that at last the natural learning potential of young people will align with the emerging social and economic need for collaborative and creative innovators. Could schools become places that nurture the social and economic entrepreneurs that our future needs? People who are capable of facing up to the challenges confronting us as a species.

Several organisations such as Human Scale Education are backing the 20% idea in their submissions to the current Curriculum and Assessment Review.

The proposal is surfacing in mainstream media around the world. In their recent New York Times article ‘Giving kids some autonomy has surprising results’, Jenny Andersen and Rebecca Winthrop (authors of ‘The Disengaged Teen’) – summarising 35 studies in 18 countries – write:

“…when students have some autonomy and control they become more engaged, better able to master new skills, gain higher grades, and have fewer problems with peers – and they are happier too.”

If, like a growing number of people, you also find the 20% proposal to be a 'no-brainer', you can help advance this idea:

• Send this blog to your local headteacher or trust leader, with a brief note explaining why you think this idea is worth exploring

• Write to your MP, linking to the blog and asking them to advance the 20% idea as part of the Curriculum and Assessment Review

• Share the post on a social media platform of your choosing 

• Drop me a line at derry.hannam245@gmail.com

• Comment below – I’d love to hear your thoughts!