Product reviews for Around the world in 80 schools

In among the pressures of delivering syllabi packed full of content, preparing for external inspection and producing test and exam outcomes that lead to a place sufficiently high up league tables, it is easy for the teacher or school leader in the UK to fail to lift their head up to survey objectively the education they are providing. To question what is being taught and how, what their goals and aims are, how they are supporting learners (and others in the school community) to thrive. And, importantly, whether there are other, and perhaps better, ways to ‘do’ education.

In this fascinating tour of a wide range of schools around the world, Adam J. Seldon shows us glimpses of different practices and challenges us to think more expansively, creatively and divergently. We meet the leader in Argentina who kisses 200 pupils each day to welcome them to school, follow the pupils on the Purchase Committee who barter and budget early each morning at Thai markets as they buy the food for the school lunches, and discover the peer correction system in place in Texas which places authority firmly with the students.

This book supports a mindset of exploration and institutional reflection. I recommend it to anyone who lacks the time to visit 80 schools worldwide themselves but is curious to challenge their thinking about why they do what they do in the way they do and whether there might just be a smarter approach out there.