Adam Seldon, author of Around the World in Eighty Schools, on why great schools treat education as an experience, not a transaction
“A great school sees education as an experience rather than a transaction. Too often we ask how we can get kids the next rung up the ladder, rather than thinking this is a precious, one-off chance to set them up for life.”
Adam Seldon is a teacher and author who has spent almost a decade in the classroom, as a head of history, head of year and assistant principal, having joined the profession through Teach First. The son of two teachers, he has, by his own admission, never really been able to get away from schools. His new book, Around the World in Eighty Schools, is the result of a remarkable journey: more than 80 schools across six continents and 31 countries, all in pursuit of the question that is hard to find time for in the day-to-day of teaching, what actually makes a great school? In this conversation, Adam reflects on the classrooms that stayed with him, from townships in South Africa to post-conflict Ethiopia, and makes a warm, considered case for a kind of education that so often gets lost in the race for results.
🎙️ Episode highlights
Adam explains why he wanted to write the book: schools are one of the few institutions shared across the whole world, and the first civic institution every young person encounters, yet each culture does them slightly differently.
He describes the chain of township schools in South Africa that harness peer relationships so powerfully, with pupils holding each other to account and a head teacher who loved watching them passionately debate the prefects' duties.
He shares two schools with a purpose you could feel day to day: an American charter school built around getting pupils not just to university but through it, and an Ethiopian school nurturing the next generation of leaders after civil war.
He makes the case against GCSEs as currently framed, arguing that giving pupils more agency and the chance to feel successful is what really drives motivation, pointing to a state school in New Zealand where children choose their own modules.
He offers his definition of a great school: one that treats education as an experience rather than a transaction, and builds the meaningful relationships that research shows matter most to a happy life.
His controversial opinion: most assemblies are terrible, a powerful moment with everyone in the room that too often goes to waste.