Deep Experience for Social Justice

Our experiences as young people are, to a large degree, what shape the adults we become. In considering the role of schools in achieving a more socially just society, we must therefore consider what experiences are being planned over the course of a child’s formal education.

‘Deep experience’, taken at its broadest, is, therefore, the formal school timetable and curriculum – plus the delivery and implementation of that curriculum, the activities that sit alongside the formal curriculum, and the unplanned day-to-day interactions between students and staff. In this way, experience touches upon aspects of pedagogy, pastoral care, and the leadership of the school.
In this pamphlet, Tom Middlehurst discusses which experiences education can give to young people who are most likely to achieve social justice.

Compared with their peers, young people from disadvantaged backgrounds experience many gaps that limit their life experience and potential, including vocabulary, aspiration, cultural literacy and opportunities, in education and after. Schools cannot be expected to close all of these gaps, but they do have a significant role in ensuring that the experiences they plan for their students go some way to address this.

Throughout this pamphlet, Tom provides useful questions and activities to help teachers and school leaders to more deeply understand the issues and how they can be addressed in their contexts to help ensure deep social justice through school-related experience.
The pamphlet ends with an impassioned plea: our students’ experience with us at school is finite, but the potential outcomes of that experience are infinite. We, therefore, need continually to think deeply about it.

“Deep Experience for Social Justice” is a publication by SSAT (Schools, Students, and Teachers Network), an organisation dedicated to improving outcomes for young people. With a focus on school improvement and innovation, SSAT collaborates with schools and academies in the UK and internationally.