Twice a chief education officer for ten years each in Oxfordshire and Birmingham and leader of the London Challenge, Sir Tim Brighouse says he has learned from
most of his many mistakes as a teacher, teacher educator and administrator. He believes in the power of teachers and schools to change the world for the better.
A former head teacher, Professor Mick Waters has worked in teacher education and at policy levels in both local and national government. Over time he has been asked
to work in the UK and abroad either with national governments or directly with schools to develop revised policy and practice for leadership, teacher education, governance and classroom teaching.
Through revealing interviews with most of the main protagonists in education since the Ruskin speech of Jim Callaghan in 1976, including nearly all Secretaries of State, Sir Tim Brighouse and Mick Waters explore several revolutions in state education. In doing so they extract what we can learn from the observations gleaned and assess where we should go from here to enable teachers and schools to raise the competence, learning and horizons of each and every one of their students, whatever their talents,challenges, advantages or problems. Tim and Mick have both spent a lifetime in state-provided education - first as pupils, then as teachers, and finally in various leadership and policymaking positions, both in and out of schools. About Our Schools is born out of their shared love for education and their appreciation of how schooling can be a transformative element in the lives of children and young people.