Interview with experts: How can schools strike the right chord?

Exploring harmony in our educational settings with Richard Dunne & Hilary Wyatt.

In this episode, we look at the idea of harmony in education, discussing art, music, geometry and nature and how these aspects of a curriculum can bring harmony both to children and adults, parents, teachers, the staff body and the wider community.

Richard Dunne is a former state school headteacher with a 30-year career in education. He is founder and director of The Harmony Project, which puts nature and sustainability at the heart of learning. The organisation works with schools both in the UK and around the world to develop harmony in education.

Hilary Wyatt is the Headmistress of St James Nursery & Preparatory School in London. She has taught for 30 years and held senior leadership roles for 17 of those years—15 of which were in London prep schools, including eight as Head of a Pre-Prep and seven as Headteacher. In addition, she is an ISI schools inspector and the mother of two daughters, both of whom attended St James' Senior Girls' School.

Links & Notes:

• More information on The Harmony Project can be found here: https://www.theharmonyproject.org.uk/
• St James Prep School is a a co-educational independent day school for children aged 2–11 in West Kensington, London. It is part of the St James network of schools, including the Senior Girls School on the same site in Olympia and the Senior Boys School in Ashford. More information can be found here: https://www.stjamesschools.co.uk/prepschool/
• Viviane Robinson, mentioned in the episode, is an emeritus professor at the University of Auckland specialising in organisational and educational psychology. Joe Kirby's blog has a neat summary of some of her research: https://joe-kirby.com/2023/04/15/problem-solving-viviane-robinson-and-the-shoulders-of-giants-1/
• Miles Richardson is a Professor of Human Factors and Nature Connectedness at the University of Derby. You can read more about his research on his blog: https://findingnature.org.uk/
• David recommended Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths by Maisie Chan. It is brilliant, both for middle grade readers as well as adults with a great sense humour. Read for the Romanesco, stay for the excellent character of Nai Nai.
• This blog post by Susan Davis explains more about the principle of Cynefin, defined by Richard as 'rootedness' and 'a sense of place': https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/editorial-doing-cynefin-exploring-ideas-on-belonging-connectedness-and-community-in-the-curriculum-for-wales
• More about the new Curriculum for Wales can be found here: https://hwb.gov.wales/curriculum-for-wales/