Marmalade Festival Session - Networks as ‘System Weavers’ for Education Systems Change

School of System Change warmly invites you to an engaging and interactive session on the role of networks, movements and communities of practice in driving education system change. In this gathering, we want to connect those working in education to discuss, share the contribution and future of network discussions, share insights, and co-create ideas that have the power to transform education. The session is from 10am to 1pm on Thursday 11th April at the Wesley Memorial in the Main Hall, Oxford.

• Open Dialogue: Your contribution and experiences will drive our conversations. We value hearing from those already working in networks to share their experience and learning along the way.
• Hands-On Exploration: Dive into interactive activities and use a framework to help us explore a vision for collaborative networks moving forward.
• Networking Opportunities: Connect with fellow attendees, exchange ideas, and forge new connections.

The session is already sold out on the Marmalade Festival website. We have a few tickets we are holding ourselves and would like to extend an invitation to let us know you plan to join us. 

Networks as ‘system weavers’ for education systems change

The aim of this session is to highlight the critical role that networks, communities of practice and movements play in shifting the flow of a system, forging relationships and connections, and nudging members to get to the edge of their (knowledge/practice) comfort zone towards innovation and collaboration. The focus in this session is on networks of funders, researchers, practitioners and parliamentarians working towards education outcomes. 

The recent zeitgeist discourse on ‘systems change’ for social outcomes has led to a search for ‘solutions’, and a conviction that we need to work ‘at the system level’. This session argues that this is not true ‘systems practice’, and challenges widely-held assumptions of linear change models, easy scale, and replicability. Rather, we propose that true systems practice is rooted in understanding relationships. In this session, we will ask: what is the role of networks, movements and communities of practice in driving education system change, and how can we best support these? Coming out of the session we would like to build a community of allies who recognise the value of these actors. 

This session is hosted by School of System Change, involving networks including the International Education Funders Group, The Bridgespan Group, Teach for All, Global Schools Forum, Fito Network, NORRAG and more.