Saturday 18 December 2010

Anthony Seldon's blueprint for education - Wednesday 8th December 2010

Sir John Cass's Foundation, a charity established in 1748, has given millions of pounds for educational purposes ranging from nursery to postgraduate levels. It is one of the oldest educational charities in London, but it got off to a shaky start when the founder died in the process of signing his will. It took 30 years to get the contested will accepted.



Since then it has forged forwards and we are proud that Tony Mullee, a Marketor, is its current CEO. An annual Lecture programme was established four years ago. This year's lecture was given by Dr Anthony Seldon, Master of Wellington College, who addressed the questions, "Why schools? Why universities?"



At the heart of his recommendations were the concepts of breadth (8 aptitudes: logic, linguistic, creative, physical, moral, spiritual, leadership, character - I think), creativity and happiness in education. The crucial skills were to teach children and students to become independent learners and problem-solvers.



After the lecture, Trevor Brignall (Chairman of the Marketors' Trust) and I presented a cheque to the Dean of Cass Business School, Richard Gillingwater CBE, for a bursary of £10,000 to support an MBA student research project. The topic for this year's project is still to be agreed with our Think Tank, but last year's winner, Scott Addison, subsequently presented his work to the Think Tank on 15th December. Scott received a distinction for his studies (see earlier post) so let's hope the Marketors are doing their bit to encourage independent learning and problem-solving.

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