Inspired by a New York elementary school

I’m writing this from New York where I’m spending a few days visiting elementary schools. It feels odd to be back, particularly in my new role as an ‘educationalist’. The last time I was here I was enjoying 15 minutes of fame as a judge in an American food reality show called Top Chef. I flew over in business class, courtesy of NBC, and was whisked to Manhattan in a Lincoln Town Car. This time I’m the guest of Civitas, an education think tank, and the experience is very different.

They offered to reimburse my taxi fare from JFK but I thought I’d save them a few dollars by using public transport. This involved getting the AirTrain to Jamaica Station, followed by the Long Island Rail Road to Penn Station and a subway ride to my hotel. I estimated it would take me 90 minutes, and it might have done if I hadn’t got lost. As it was, it took me three and a half hours.

At one point in the small hours of Tuesday morning I was standing on a deserted subway platform in Queens with a pile of luggage beside me. I might as well have had a sign around my neck saying ‘Mug Me’.

The reason Civitas has flown me over is to visit some Core Knowledge schools — that is, schools following the knowledge-based curriculum devised by the American educationalist E.D. Hirsch. Civitas has adapted part of this curriculum for use in English primary schools, and the new primary I’ve helped set up in Hammersmith will be piloting it along with a handful of others. The head of Civitas thought it would be useful for the headmistress and me to see some schools that have been teaching Hirsch’s curriculum for over a decade.