Wednesday 31 August 2011

Ofsted went to see, see, see...

I went in to school the other day to do various things, but partly to look at our GCSE results. I was amazed at some of our results, for various reasons.

Last Saturday a popular broadsheet had an article quoting the headmaster of the school with the best A Level results in England. You won't be surprised to hear that he is head of a private school, but may be surprised to hear that around half of his school's A Level candidates achieved an A*. This is obviously the mark of some excellent teaching and some excellent learners, but when you compare the percentages of those in private and state education of how many candidates gain A* grades, the difference is pretty stark:

Private: 19% achieve an A* grade
State: 8% achieve an A* grade

Now don't be fooled by the myth that all private school students are more intelligent than state school students because that is simply not true, and at A Level class sizes are about the same. The teachers in state education are equally as qualified and talented, in some cases more so than their private counterparts, and the myth that private schools pay more than state schools should also be dispelled, because it's simply not true.

So why do private school candidates get consistently higher grades?

I think that there are a few reasons:
  1. The fact that parents are forking out thousands of pounds to send their child to school, when a free option is available to them means that they are supportive of their child's education. Although you could argue that the fact that a state school pupil has stayed on to study A Levels rather than contribute to the household earnings would also show parental support for their child's education.
  2. The work ethic at private schools is higher and those who don't toe the line get removed with a"we don't need your fees, go and find someone who does" attitude. This is true, private schools  can just get rid of a disruptive pupil almost on a whim, whereas any state school teacher will tell you the chain of paperwork to do the same thing in state education is growing ever longer. But at A Level the children have chosen their subject and presumably want to take them, so disruption should be at a minimum you'd suppose.
  3. This is the reason the headteacher in the article states, and I think the most important and significant one: State schools are fixated on the C grade, regarding that as a pass and anything higher being a bonus. Teachers are being told by the government (Ofsted) via their senior management to ensure that as many as possible gain a C grade. All this does is leave those who are capable of gaining A*, A or B grades to fend for themselves. There is a large amount of truth in this at both A Level, and actually more so at GCSE.
Since I saw our school's results the other day and recalled the newspaper article I can't seem to shake this song out of my head:

Ofsted went to see, see, see...
A school's GCSE, E, Es...
But all that it could see, see, see...
Was the pupils with a C. C, C.

We gained a massive amount of C grades for our school this summer, with almost all students achieving 5 A*- C grades (not including English and Maths). It was a rise over over 20% on the previous year. How did we manage? I'll tell you:
  1. The teaching stayed roughly the same.
  2. Staff were "forced" (you could refuse but felt it was probably more trouble than it was worth to do so) to teach extra lessons after school, although they weren't compulsory for the students so only a handfull turned up in many cases, and they tended to be the ones who didn;t really need to.
  3. We entered lots of our "less academic" students for BTECs and Diplomas - this is the key. Those who would previously have got one or no GCSEs above C grade now found themselves with the "equivalent" of 8 by taking 2 BTECs. It's known in the trade as "playing the game", and are essentially what makes our new academies (previously struggling schools on the whole) appear to be making progress.
Now, I'm not knocking the BTEC qualification or the schools who offer it, because not everyone is academically minded and they need to have something to show for their time at school, but are they really worth 4 GCSEs? The BTEC qualifications generally no exams but are coursework based and are assessed in schools, although the marks are verified by external examiners. Students write this coursework under the supervision of their teacher, but exams can't be taken under the same supervision. This means that in coursework based qualifications, students have to opportunity to improve their grade after a quick chat with their teacher, something that also can't be done in an exam. We have a number of students who have done just this and therefore pushed the overall percentage up significantly.

When people ask me nowadays whether exams have got easier, my reply is always this:

"At the top end no because it's still just as tough to get the top grades, but a C grade has certainly become easier to achieve."

This is purely a result of these "new" qualifications, but it is deceptive and ultimately devalues the C grade someone got in a GCSE exam since it appears relatively easy to achieve an "Ofsted pass" or a C grade equivalent in a BTEC.

Ultimately it's all a political game and a system designed to please Ofsted/the government, which is a bit sad really.

Tuesday 30 August 2011

The End Is Nigh...

It's at the end of August that you see many teachers start to look miserable. Why? The summer holiday is nearly over.

It's always a bit of a reality check for a teacher that you do actually have to earn your money at some point - the worst thing about getting 6-ish weeks off is the going back afterwards. You're out of routine and can barely remember when you were last in a routine. There's also the fact that most teachers (not all) go in at the end of August to do some marking, planning or just to tidy their classroom. Even though you get so much holiday, the fact that you are in during annual leave leaves a nasty taste.

Having said that it is nice to catch up with a few colleague that you haven't seen and maybe check out how badly your classes did in their GCSEs or A levels, although, for a pleasant change, mine did Ok, despite doing the minimum amount of work. When I say say "well", mean that most got a C grade or above, the mark of a pass in statistician's' eyes anyway. This could lead me off on a tangent, but I will leave that for another day.

I went in for the first time today with the intention of marking some work that I never got around to doing in July and planning a few lessons for the start of term. I managed 50% of my targets, but the horrible 50% (the marking), so I felt as if I'd achieved something, like many 16 year olds currently.

I would say that one doesn't have to be in school to actually do some work. I like to claim that I'm "never off duty" or that the "classroom never sleeps" - with tongue firmly wedged in cheek I hasten to add, but I have had a few ideas over the holidays, one of which I texted my line manager about, which I gave myself a stern talking to about. I think it may have been late at night too, which is even worse. Most teachers do have moments of inspiration during the holidays though, for the follwing reasons: they are more relaxed and they have time to think.

If anyone ever has a go at me for the amount of holiday time I get I offer to do a job swap, which normally makes them recoil at speed, but actually it wouldn't be a bad idea for both teacher and non-teacher. Teaching is a very tiring job during term time, but you get long holidays to counteract the tiredness. This is the main thing that non-teachers struggle to understand, and how would they know after all? It would give parents some idea of what their child and their child's teachers go through on a daily basis though, and might reduce the amount of whiny phone calls from clueless parents about how their child is not getting a fair deal from their geography lessons, even though their child is probably the one who disrupts it. Another story once again.

A good number of teachers have no idea what a job outside of teaching is really like, and whether they would be able to cope in an office environment; what skills they could successfully transfer. This could be genuinely useful for a teacher who wants to get out of the profession, as they would know what they could do. I can hear those non-teachers saying:

"You get plenty of holidays, so do it then". Fair point. I'm never going to convince them.

Wednesday 24 August 2011

Results Day

The worst day of the year, the day that you realise that your breath has been totally wasted for two/four years. GCSE results come out tomorrow, and I'm on holiday. In fact I rarely go in on results das, but I do tend to drive past in order to see who is crying on the pavement outside school. This sounds really harsh, I know that, but I am a firm believer in the "reap what you sow" philosophy. In other words, if you spent much of your school life being kicked out of classes for being disruptive then do you really think that your GCSE results will be any good?

Apparently some do, and funnily enough, some come up trumps without doing much work at all, forgetting the fact that their messing around in class is jeopardising the chances of various others' ability to achieve the grade that they are capable of. There will be a lot of disappointed 16 year olds tomorrow, many of whom deserve to be disappointed, but some have been unfortunate enough to be in a class with someone who couldn't care less about anyone else and mess around, but work their socks off outside of class.

There will also be plenty of students who get the grades they deserve - many failures (below a C grade is generally a failure) and almost exclusively these results are totally deserved, not that it will effect their place in college, as the college gets paid for the number of posteriors on seats rather than the calibre of those bottoms. These are the ones who I see crying on the pavement outside school. Their career in medicine or law has been blown out of the water with their grades, and they only have themselves to blame. No homework, little concentration in class and a terrific ability to gossip for 6 hours per day, every day.

The trouble is that their teachers will be told that they are total failures by their headteacher and deputy headteacher(s) because their results don't meet targets. These targets are got to using previous results, failing to take into account the influence of girls/boys, alcohol, cigarettes and possibly drugs. A watertight system you will realise is flawed (or possibly not if you are a member of government or senior leadership).

These results could possibly effect future pay of that teacher, which you may think is a good idea, but how many people on the planet are capable of positively influencing a teenager?

The results from my classes will not be great - I know that already, through various reasons: The kid rarely arrived in my class; the kid talked/disrupted many of the classes they turned up to; the kid apparently didn't need my subject in the job that they want (the fact that jobs are quite hard to come by at the moment seems to have escaped our school leavers attentions); The kid didn't even bother to copy down anything I wrote on the board in the way of notes so therefore had zero to revise from. I could go on.

It's all my fault though, and no doubt I will be named and shamed by our head on day one of season 2011/12 - which is a real incentive to up my game.

Not.

Thursday 18 August 2011

Unemployment Rises

This could go one of two ways; I could go on about all those poor teachers who are losing their jobs through no fault of their own (in many cases)  due to cuts in funding for education, or the thousands of PE and History teachers (as well as other subjects that are over-subscribed) who can't get jobs because there are simply too many of them about and not enough jobs. I am however, on the day when A Level results are published in England (regardless of the EdExcel computer blip last week), going to comment on the increase to 2.49 million unemployed in Britain, and the steep rise in youth unemployment.

What with the riots I'm getting slightly sick of seeing self-righteous politicians pontificating on my television about stuff they appear to know little about. Not only education, which is going to see reform in the way children are punished for breaking the rules, not before time I hasten to add, but policies are being drawn up to tell the police how to do their job too amongst various other new policies that make the politicians feel important about their role in society.

If only politicians would bother to talk to people who deal with those to whom the policies directly refer, namely teachers, youth workers and police. Has anyone in "power" bothered to actually listen to those who deal with young people day in, day out? I seriously doubt it, as they might hear things that they don't want to, or a brilliant idea that involves the government finding some cash.

There was footage of Prince Charles and Camilla touring parts of London affected by the rioting on the news. Now I have no real opinion of the Royal Family other than it generates millions of tourist pounds each year, which must be a good thing in a faltering economic climate. At least Charles speaks his mind and says what he thinks. Whether you agree with it or not is irrelevant, but the point is that politicians could take a leaf out of his book and give proper opinions based upon proper knowledge rather than toeing the party line, saying things they believe they want the public to hear and slating the opposition.

Anyway, I digress. If you'd have asked a teacher from a state secondary school or college whether it was a surprise that unemployment amongst then young would rise,  I would put my last shirt on the answer being "yes" in almost every case. Why? I will, in my opinion, say why:

Reason 1 - Courses taken and "Qualifications" Gained
It is not possible to fail in the current educational climate. If you are not the most academic at school you will usually be sent to college to do a practical subject for a day or two per week. Now this is a good idea, but there is a stigma attached to it, one that is embellished by schools. Generally naughty kids get sent to college purely to get them out of the school's hair for a bit. This isn't always the case, and the teachers of the classes those naughty kids are usually in are very grateful, but it is a shame that others miss out. Not everyone can be academically minded, but this could give all children a chance to succeed at something in education. Funding is low though, so places are limited, which inevitably means that some who could benefit, miss out; usually the nice, quiet ones who would benefit the most.

English and Maths GCSE grades should continue to be compulsory, but even if you aren't up to G grade standard, you can take what is called "Entry Level Certificate". Bear in mind that a typical G grade maths question would be "Write the number three thousand and twenty eight in figures", you might get an idea of what is involved in the ELC - the irony of this acronym is not lost on me! If they are not up to basic maths and English, are these children really meaningfully employable? They will need to read instructions at some point, surely when diluting detergent or something, within the home at least. They must have a certificate though, essentially one advertising the fact they they can't perform the most basic calculations.

Fortunately the majority still manage to sit their GCSE exams, but anything below a C grade is regarded as a fail in many sections of the job world, however fresh faced youths will claim until they are blue in the face that their F grade is actually a pass in interview. I know someone who won't look at any grade for maths or English below a B; her logic being that the A* is the old A grade, therefore meaning that the current C grade is equivalent to the old D grade - a government minister may argue that she's wrong, particularly if his/her upcoming promotion depend upon improving exam results, but few others will argue. I remember her telling me about a conversation that she had with a young girl who had applied to be a secretary, and it went something like this:

Employer: Your application says that you passed 8 GCSEs.
Interviewee: Yes, that's right.
Employer: But the only one you achieved higher than D grade was Art, so you actually only passed one.
Interviewee: No, I passed 8, look - D in maths, E in English...
Employer: I suggest you change you CV to reflect the fact that you only passed one GCSE in Art, and perhaps think about retaking your English and maths exams. Thank you for your application, but we won't be requiring your services.

The interviewee was upset, but had schools been allowed to fail her in the first place, perhaps she would have gone that extra mile to get a C grade in maths and English instead of convincing her that anything other than U, N or X was a pass. Part of the problem being that colleges will take kids with these grades because more students means more money. You can understand then that there seems little incentive to do well at school in some people's eyes.

Reason 2 - I'm don't need this to do what I want to do
I don't know about you, but I didn't know what I wanted to do at the age of 15. The number of children who announce at the age of 14/15 that they are going to be lawyers, plumbers, carpenters etc is astounding. What do they need maths and English for? Actually, more than you think sunshine, but there's no convincing them. If in doubt they will announce that they are going to work for a family member. An interesting statistic that I often quote is that 60% of school leavers who go to work in the family firm are sacked within 6 months and 80% with a year, presumably due to the misguided belief that they are unsackable by a family member. Some are even more deluded, and I'll never forget a conversation I had with a former pupil that went along the following lines:

Student: I'm going to be an air stewardess when I leave school.
Me: You do realise that you get tested in maths and English as well as other general knowledge, and in some companies, every year or so, don't you?
Student: You're lying, a second language is a bonus but not a requirement.
Me: I'll just do a quick internet search and.....there you go - numeracy and literacy tests.
Student: Ok, forget that then. I'm going to be a midwife.
Me: That involves lots of qualifications.
Student: What does a midwife do?
Me: Delivers babies mainly.
Student: That's disgusting, I'm not doing that. I'll be a farmer then.
Me: They have to deliver baby animals.
Student: A model then.

At this point  I had to bite my tongue before saying something along the lines of "there's a limited market for balaclava models".

This was a real conversation, and not an uncommon one. And they wonder why no-one will employ them with their "pick a job title out of the air" mentality.

3. The World Owes Me A Job
This has been said a few times in the past few weeks on the news channels, but it is a genuine problem. Just because children make it to the end of school with some reasonable qualifications they believe that that entitles them to a job. It doesn't unfortunately - you still have to compete for the job, no matter what your qualifications are. Another conversation I had with a seemingly intelligent pupil went something along these lines:

Student: Within 5 years I'll be earning more than you as a solicitor.
Me: Are you not bothering to qualify then?
Student: You do a sh*t job with sh*t wages so even as I'm training I'll earn more than you.
Me: With an attitude like that you may struggle to get a placement.
Student: How much do you want to bet?
Me: Apparently I can't afford it.

Again, a real conversation with a "well-to-do" child, but not an uncommon attitude.

So is it any real surprise that youth unemployment has risen recently? Of course it's not. Had anyone of the policy makers bothered to ask the people on the front line their opinion, they'd have known this 10 years ago and may have been able to do something about it. As is usually the case, those who actually know aren't asked and things come to a head in a disastrous way. These attitudes were partly the cause of the recent riots and the lack of aptitude for work costs the country millions in job seekers allowance payments.

You live and learn I suppose, unless you are in government.

Tuesday 9 August 2011

The Riots Around The Country - Any Surprise?

The riots in London and the other cities around England are shocking for want of a better word, and what's more shocking is the large number of younger people joining in. I'm talking about school aged children here, aged between 12 and 16. But should we be surprised?

I watched a BBC news report where some young girls, involved in the riots were interviewed. Here's the link:

Click here!

If you couldn't be bothered to listen, here's the basic scenario:

It's 9.30am after the violence in Croydon and these 15 year old girls are swigging a bottle of looted rose wine explaining that the rioting was fun. They claim that it's all because of the government but struggle to recall who is in government and what the issue actually is. They do however let slip that the action is to show the police that they can do whatever they want. This audio interview is played over footage of the House of Reeves furniture business in Croydon being destroyed by fire, started by the rioters.

Now if you're a teacher you may recognise a phrase common in schools today: they can do whatever they want. It's unfortunately quite an accurate statement nowadays, but was relatively rare when I first started teaching over a decade ago. Those in authority have little or no power nowadays, whether they be in general public through the police, or in schools through teaching staff. There are very few, if any consequences for a child's actions in our society as failure has been essentially prohibited by the various governments of recent times. Continual poor behaviour in schools is rarely effectively punished with expulsion as the paperwork in order to achieve this is long and riddled with loopholes. Exams can be failed but students still manage to get into the college or university of their choice because policy dictates that bums on seats means extra funds and that all students must gain some sort of qualification. We have bred a generation who feel that they are owed something by society, whether they have earned it or not.

A large proportion of the rioters have no idea what consequences their actions will have because they've never had to face consequences in school or out. Police policy appears to be to try and convince young people who are doing something they shouldn't that they are in the wrong and should stop, therefore avoiding a mountain of paperwork that would go hand-in-hand with an arrest and caution. Children aren't stupid, they will continue to do something if they know that they can get away with it, and that includes smashing up a high street and stealing desirable goods.

A large part of this situation has been brought about by policy makers in Whitehall, regardless of the colour of their rosette, who have implemented laws that may seem a good idea on paper, but teach young people that failure and consequences no longer exist. In practise these policies don't really work, as any teacher will tell you.

If any good is to come out of this then let's hope that law and policy changes to give those in authority the powers to actually be an authority, not necessarily to be feared but to be respected. And what better place to start than in schools where if you persistently mess up you are out and children can't refuse to accept punishment as happens regularly at the moment.

Monday 8 August 2011

Governors - what do they do?

Every school has governors - they have to. Some governors are teachers, some are parents and others are just members of the local community. They don't get paid but ultimately they have a say over the who gets employed by the school, what the money gets spent on and whether to sack any member of staff from the headteacher down. It's a job with a huge amount of responsibility that takes up a lot of time for no financial reward, so why do people do it?

There are various different types of governor:
  • The Teacher Governor. These are a legal requirement but few members of staff actually want to do it as it takes up a lot of time that could be spent planning "outstanding" lessons for Ofsted. You are there to offer the views of the staff but the danger is, certainly at my school and others I've been at, that if you say anything even remotely derogatory about the school, your life will be made a misery by the head, and so as a result most teacher governors sit there saying nothing because it's not worth their while.
  • The Parent Governor. These are obviously parents of children at the school. By default they care about their children's education otherwise they wouldn't have got involved in the whole process. Their entire perception of the school is based upon their own child's experience of it, and since they care in the first place, their child is likely to be in the top set of every subject they take. Hence their children will rarely be subjected to the amoebic behaviour of some members of the school that soils plenty of other lessons. Therefore they have a tainted view of the school in general. Tainted in a good way I suppose, but invariably inaccurate as a whole.
  • The "Random" Governor. These are people who have few ties to the school in general, although some maybe be former parents or pupils wanting to "give something back". They tend to be members of the local community who are either self- or unemployed, and so can take time off as and when required to do so. Most are self-employed and run their own business, normally relatively successfully. Some members of this group use the title of "school governor" as a stepping stone to greater things, for example, Mayor. We have a couple of those at our school. They have no idea what goes on in the school apart from what the headteacher tells them, despite the fact that they may wander the campus on occasion, but they are directed very efficiently in the the "right" parts of the school by the headteacher. Their view is ultimately meaningless.
  • The Headteacher and Deputy Headteacher. These two are on the governing body whatever. They are there to tell the governors how the school is performing, or more precisely, to tell the governors what they want to hear in order that the governors won't sack them, as ultimately, they are the only people who can do so. The headteacher could inform the governors that the science department is planning a trip to Mars and the governors have little choice but to believe it, unless of course they have a conscience and actually find out what's really going on. Few do, but it does happen. Not at my school though.
When things go wrong at a school, for example a disastrous Ofsted or something actually important, firstly the headteacher gets it in the neck, but the governors also take the brunt of the criticism, so you'd think that they'd be a little more pro-active than most are. I have taught at schools where the governors are quite pro-active and actually do the job they are supposed to do. It is, sadly, rare that this actually happens though, but if a headteacher is found to have been using school funds for their own personal use (not that uncommon people), the governors will be asked a lot of searching questions. So maybe it's worth thinking quite carefully about becoming a governor, as serious repercussions could be coming your way.

Dear Jim'll,

Could you fix it for me to become headteacher because I want a iPad and Sky TV in my office,

Yours sincerely...

Tuesday 2 August 2011

It May Be The Holidays...

It may be the holidays but not all teachers are sunning themselves on a beach in the Caribbean you know. What with the recent announcement that I'm going to have to find an extra £400 per year for my "fantastic" pension (the reason it's "fantastic" Mr Gove/Osbourne is because we don't get paid as much as the private sector workers and don't receive any bonuses, you muppet(s)).

In fact I'm actually working for a couple of days each week on quite an exciting project to do with learning via the internet and children in remote parts of the world. It has legs and I'm being paid very well for it, although I would like to point out, not the hourly rate of £30ish per hour that the unions suggest we get paid, but I'm grateful, not only for the cash but also for the opportunity to be part of something that I believe could be truly revolutionary in the world of education across the planet. I can't say too much at this point (dear oh dear, I sound like a poor man's James Bond), but if it gets off the ground, and the signs are good, I will no doubt bore the pants off you all about it.

I would like to say that it's really nice to be working with people who actually value my opinion (and I have a few gems amid the piles of rubbish I throw out on a daily basis) as opposed to being told by certain members of my leadership team and Ofsted that I'm essentially worthless on a regular basis. Please, put those small violins away, I don't want sympathy, I'm just making the point that perhaps your staff, Mr/Ms Headteacher, would be more productive and open to your ludicrous ideas about pushing the school "forward", if you actually praised them on occasions when you didn't actually want something from them in order to give you more leverage when you go for your next, better paid job. Just a thought.

Anyway, I digress.

It's funny but the first thing you hear from people when  they talk about teaching is "great holidays". What people don't often realise that a teacher's day doesn't begin at 9am and end at 3.30pm, and the 13 weeks (yes, I know it's a lot) holiday isn't always spent on a sunbed with the latest Jilly Cooper novel, or whatever may float your particular boat.

When I first startedteaching all those moons ago, I spent most of my holidays labouring on a building site of a friend of mine. The money I was paid was essentially what I got for being a teacher - so it was "double bubble" for those weeks. The great thing with the labouring was that I didn't have to do anything outside of my working hours, I'd just turn up, break stuff up/wheelbarrow/shovel stuff, and go home. Plenty of tiredness but no stress. I'm not saying that all teachers should give up teaching and become labourers, but I'm just trying to convey the fact that teaching is not just about your contracted hours - 13 weeks holiday is often not 13 weeks holiday.

Unless you're the headteacher, when you can actually afford to pay for holidays offered by travel agents during school holiday time, and you can just tell your 100 or whatever staff to essentially do your job for you.

Who's the mug?