Böcker av Mary Myatt

For one reason or another, mainstream education does not suit every young person. Many young people are educated in alternative provision, which is defined by the Department for Education as educational provision 'for pupils who, because of exclusion, illness or other reasons, would not otherwise receive suitable education'. As of 2023, over 25,000 young people are enrolled in alternative provision, and those numbers continue to rise. It is essential, then, that the curriculum on offer in alternative provision is exemplary, as these young people - already facing extraordinary challenges - need the very best if they are going to progress successfully into adulthood. Huh is the Egyptian god of endlessness, creativity, fertility and regeneration. He is the deity Mary Myatt and John Tomsett have adopted as their god of the curriculum. Their Huh series of books focuses on how practitioners design the curriculum for the young people in their schools. The Huh project is founded on conversations with colleagues doing great work across the education sector. In AP Huh, Mary Myatt and John Tomsett discuss curriculum provision for pupils attending alternative provision with some of the leading experts in the field. Mary and John interviewed pupils, parents, teachers, headteachers, CEOs, educational consultants and lecturers. They then edited the transcriptions of those interviews to provide an ambitious, thoughtful, nuanced and challenging vision of what the best possible provision looks like for children who find that mainstream schooling is not for them. The challenging conversations that comprise AP Huh paint a positive picture that is hugely hopeful for the future of the curriculum in our alternative provision settings.

There are a lot of redundant processes in schools. We need to take a hard look at these and consider whether they are adding value to the core purpose of schools.

Increasingly, across the system, people are talking about knowledge and curriculum. In this timely new book, Mary Myatt is at her brilliant best as she passionately argues that the solutions to overcoming achievement barriers lie in understanding the curriculum and in what children and meant to know.

Mary Myatt's standout book shines an uncompromising light on the things that wise school leaders do. Informed through thousands of conversations over a 20-year career in schools, it argues that the best leaders do not shy away from the tough stuff and shows how to create conditions for productive work which transcend day-to-day difficulties.