Last week was World Book Day and, like many other authors, I’ve been out and about visiting schools and delivering inspiring and fun writing workshops. But I’m seeing something new.
Over the past twenty years, I’ve visited a lot of secondary schools. I was often struck by the sudden drop-off of engagement and ability in Year 9 (ages 13-14). It’s the same point at which reading for pleasure used to nosedive. I remember saying to a friend years ago how sad it was that if you asked a Year 5 kid to make up a story, they could do it instantly, but if you asked a Year 9 student to do it, they mostly looked terrified and said, ‘I don’t know how.’
For a long time now (possibly forever?) our education system has told children what they ‘need’ to know. Teachers following the national curriculum have poured information into their students as though they are empty vessels that need filling with specific topics: Henry VIII, trigonometry, Macbeth. Most teachers have taught the same topics over and over for their entire careers. Millions of children end school having been taught exactly the same thing. By Year 9, expectations of GCSEs are already drilled into them. GCSEs don’t require you to think for yourself, only to answer the questions in the right way.
Kids learn that their own imagination is not valued or important. School is just something you have to get through.
But in the past couple of weeks, I’ve visited three secondary schools and it feels like something is changing. I’m now seeing kids in Year 7 (aged 11-12) struggling to imagine anything. Struggling to come up with any idea, even a boring one.
The world is different from even ten years ago. We’ve lived through a global pandemic. The long arm of covid is still not understood or accepted. The rise of AI and misinformation is polarising our communities, and children are part of that. We hand them smartphones because everything is through apps these days – even their homework – and then the authorities blame kids for becoming addicted. For not being able to communicate properly, for ‘becoming lazy’. Demand for SEND support is rocketing. More and more children are struggling with the school system.
And how does government respond to this? Make schools stricter! Tell the children that every SINGLE day they miss harms their future. My local secondary sent out a letter before Christmas saying that flu was not an acceptable reason for absence. Flu. An illness that literally kills people every year.
Assemblies are now focused on which class has the highest attendance, handing out prizes and applause. Because in the government’s eyes, attendance = achievement. Never mind that the GCSE mark scheme is designed to fail a third of those who sit it. Never mind that a teacher told me that out of her class of 30 Y8 kids, five of them have a reading age of a six-year-old. Get them through the doors, and something magical will happen to make them ‘educated.’
Last week I visited an enormous secondary school. I spoke to over 400 Year 8s. They were impeccably behaved. They watched me with polite attention and didn’t laugh at my jokes. When I asked if anyone had any questions at the end, five hands went up. Five. Out of 400. Were they afraid of speaking in front of their peers? Possibly. Could they simply not think of anything to ask? Very likely. But why?
And then I was shown the classroom in which I would be teaching my creative writing workshops.
Senior leadership had decided that posters and displays were ‘distracting’ and so they took everything down and painted all the walls grey. So there is nothing else to look at in the room except the teacher and the smart board.
Children have more and more pressures and mental health problems than ever before. And this is the response?
I used to come home buzzing from school visits. And honestly, I still meet some amazing kids, who totally get what I’m saying, who create incredible stories and come up with brilliant ideas. I am so grateful when I meet those kids – and the librarians and teachers who are still fighting the tide of grey and trying to reach kids with creativity and determination.
But I am tired. Tired of seeing systems that are designed to squash any creativity out of our young generations. (See also the declining rates of Music, Drama and Art at GCSE because the government doesn’t value them and pressures schools to focus on STEM subjects.) Tired of being parachuted in so that the school can tick a box and say they have done something to support ‘literacy’ or ‘reading for pleasure’.
2026 is supposedly the Year of Reading. I wish I were less cynical. I wish I believed in systemic change. But gosh, I am just SO sorry for everyone who has to work and exist within the mainstream education system in this country. Nobody is happy. Nobody is winning.
Grey rooms with blank walls result in grey children with blank minds. What a choice to have made.
Jo Cotterill 