Bodley Head signs deputy headteacher Wright’s ‘state of the nation’ book in exclusive submission

The Bodley Head has signed Kids in, Adults Out, and the Messy Bit In Between: How Schools Make Us and How to Make Them Better by Sammy Wright in an exclusive submission to the publisher. 

Connor Brown, editorial director, acquired world rights to the “state of the nation book” by Wright, who is deputy headteacher of a large secondary school in Sunderland, from Charlotte Seymour at Johnson & Alcock. It will be published in hardback in spring 2024.

The publisher’s synopsis reads: “We have league tables, Ofsted reports and grades coming out of our ears. And yet, despite this – and even though we’ve all been there ourselves – school itself remains a place of mysterious alchemy.

“Kids go in – adults come out. Somewhere in the middle, character, friendships, ambition (or apathy) are forged. This book will show what secondary school is really like in Britain today, how it really works, what – and who – it’s really for, and how we can make it better for everyone.”

Wright has taught for 20 years in Oxfordshire, London, and the North East, and sat on the government’s Social Mobility Commission from 2018 to 2021, becoming a key voice in the debates over exam grades during the pandemic. He is non-partisan, having served on a commission appointed by a Conservative government, and also advising both the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party on educational reform. He has a parallel career as a writer of fiction, including awards for short stories, appearing in Test Signal (Dead Ink), and winning the Northern Book Prize for his debut novel Fit (And Other Stories).

As well as drawing on his own experience and international examples, he will be talking to other experts such as teachers, researchers and politicians, as well as parents and the children themselves. 

"His research will take him on a journey through schools in the UK today, from home schooling and comprehensive to elite private schools; from those at the top of the table to those that are ‘failing’; and from the very strict to the more laissez-faire," the publisher’s synopsis continues.

"There are plenty of counterintuitive findings, from the real answer to the stress of inspection to the ways in which being good might be bad – and even the possibility that teaching could be the least important thing schools do.” 

Wright said: “This book is the product of 21 years of thought about education, and hundreds of hours of interviews with children – and I can’t wait to see it published. Kids deserve a system designed for them, not cobbled together from the leftovers of two centuries of change, and I hope this book can be part of a conversation that makes that happen.”

Brown commented: “Sammy’s state-of-the-nation book interrogates one of our most beloved and misunderstood institutions. We’ve had important books on slices of the school system – the egregious privilege at the top, for example – but what I love about Sammy’s book is that it will look at school in all its forms, and show how we can lift all, from the bottom up. Sammy is an excellent writer and The Bodley Head will see that his urgent investigation is an agenda-setting publication.”