Great fun listening to Gervase Phinn at the Roscoe Lecture the other evening. His lecture title was Children at the Centre and although he was addressing a St George's Hall full of our city's grey and good, his talk had been preceded by a presentation of a Citizenship Award to Lucy Whittaker, a pupil of Bedford Primary, Bootle. From what her teacher told us about her she seemed to be getting the award just for being a lovely girl who smiles a lot - and that was good enough for me. She climbed the high steps to the rostrum to receive her award from Mr Phinn. This tiny little thing in a cavern full of thousands turned to face the applause, and won over everyone in the room - with her smile.
Phinn's lecture was full of the stories which have made him the most famous ever Yorkshire schools inspector, stories told of the wide-eyed honesty of the young, the way they mimic the older ones around them, their speculative uses of language. It was heartwarming stuff. When he remembered he was on a political platform (invited by David Alton, in the name of William Roscoe) and tried to make some adult points about the-present-state-of-education-in-our-land, he floundered a bit. His thesis is simple, really, so as a child could understand - education boils down to the relationship between the child and their teacher: we should value them, each, and make space to let those relationships flourish. Well, I'm no politician or educator but that seemed good enough to me too.
john davies
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