What does the U-turn on A-levels and GCSEs tell us about how change happens? THREAD ….

Does the U-turn show the power of protest? Yes. The pictures of students camped outside DfE mattered.

What about online as well as offline organising? Yes. The outrage spreading across social media mattered.

Does it show the power of “lived experience”? Yes. The stories of the students affected mattered.

Does it show the power of traditional media? Yes.

The importance of having political champions? Yes.

Especially from the opposition? Yes.

And on the Govt backbenches? Yes.

Do allies matter – like, say former Education Secretaries? Yes.

And old Student Union presidents? Yes.

What about taking legal action, does that help? Yes.

Does it show that you need a whole ecosystem of advocates to make change happen? Yes.

Change isn’t linear. And it doesn’t happen due to one thing.

You can rarely pull one lever to make change happen.

Your strategy or theory of change needs to be much bigger than that.

This doesn’t mean that you should do everything, when trying to achieve change.

Your campaign is unlikely to have the resources and capacity to do that.

But it does show that people who push you to pursue narrow, single routes to achieve change are WRONG!.

If you need resources to work this through on your campaign, check out @SMKcampaigners social change grid.

Take the social change grid to your next team meeting and use it to map out how change has happened on the A level and GCSE u-turn.

And then use that learning on your own campaign. You won't be able to directly replicate what's been achieved here - but trust me, it will unlock some new thinking and creativity to help you to make change happen on your own campaign. END