The Seventy Thousand Hours that Rutter Left Out

A visitor to a number of Inner London secondary schools will come away with strong impressions. Even in this relatively small geographical area there will be wide differences between schools, not only in the standards of behaviour and level of attainment of the pupils but also in the general appearance of the pupils and the attitudes and work habits of the staff. After some reflection the visitor might argue as follows: good behaviour and high levels of attainment are found mainly in schools which appear to be neat and orderly, so a neat and orderly appearance must be a good thing; if all schools could be given this appearance, our visitor might conclude, there would be a general raising of educational standards.