Dr Rupert Higham
Dr Rupert Higham is Associate Professor in Educational Leadership at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society. He leads the Applied Educational Leadership MA programme, including the Values, Vision and Moral Purpose module, which has challenged, developed and inspired middle and senior leaders in education since 2003.
Rupert’s educational practice and research has 4 themes: values-led school improvement; high quality educational dialogue; developing responsible leadership and democratic practice; responding intelligently and humanely to the climate emergency. Together these address his core question: How do we challenge and support young people to act in accordance with their values?
Rupert is a co-investigator on a major project promoting whole-child education in rural South African primary schools. Previously, he helped design the influential SEDA coding scheme for classroom dialogue, co-founded the Cambridge Educational Dialogue Research group (CEDiR), and co-convened an international centenary conference for Dewey’s Democracy and Education. He is currently exploring the origins, meanings and uses of ‘excellence’ in the school system, and exploring headteachers’ responsibilities and challenges in addressing climate change.
Educating for communication, confidence and moral purpose on a fragile planet
The aims, policies and practices of schools worldwide tend to share three assumptions: the future will be much like the past; adults already know what children should learn; students must study the world first to act well in it later. The urgent global crises we face – environmental, economic and political – challenge these assumptions. The pathway from good grades to a valued university degree, a productive job and a stable, fulfilling life is eroding.
Enabling children to respond knowledgeably, intelligently and humanely to the threats and opportunities we face must now be at the centre of schools’ missions. The challenge is to weave knowledge and skills from across the curriculum into those responses. Like in academic research, this happens through dialogue at the interface between what we already know and what we don’t yet know.
Fortunately, we can draw on inspiring examples of schools worldwide who are forging new pathways that can realise a future in which their grandchildren can flourish.