A Week In The Life Of A Bog Standard Teacher

Now is the time of year that those who are thinking of doing a PGCE next September are spending a fortnight in a school observing things as part of the preparation for the course. We have a few in our school, and I pity them. I've therefore decided to write a week-long diary so that if they search for "Typical Week For A Teacher" in a well-known, or even not very well-known search engine, this might appear to warn them off. Please remember that I don't teach in an inner city school, I teach is a pretty well-to-do town in a leafy county. I am also not making any of this up!

Sunday:
I've got some planning to do today which should take a couple of hours, plus I want to spend some time with the family (wife, children etc.). They will probably have to wait because I don't want to get caught on the hop with a "drop-in" from senior management, which is bound to happen if I put this planning off.

I did the planning and spent the rest of the day barking at my daughter and wife because I know I have to go back to school tomorrow and try to get "above average" progress out of a load of pupils who genuinely care for little other than gossip, where their next cigarette is coming from, and social networking sites. All my planning since I got my current timetable has been to try and create interest in my subject with kids who have no interest themselves and are supported fully in this attitude by their parents.

Monday:
I have 4 lessons today, two with Year 11 who have mocks starting soon and are currently fairly keen, although having said that during one of the lessons the guy sat in front of me talked all lesson about computer games various other irrelevant stuff despite my attempting to persuade him that perhaps those conversations weren't the most productive. He's a nice lad too, intelligent, nice parents who should do fairly well in the summer but won't get what he should do because he will leave everything to the last minute, which rarely works.

My other two lessons are with bottom sets, one in key stage 3 and one in key stage 4. These will be constant battles to stop them talking, essentially playing musical chairs until we find a seating arrangement that is quietest. In fact the musical chairs in key stage 3 lasted longer than normal and my classroom isn't a hexagon, so all the people I wanted to sit in corners (ie. as far away from the people they wanted to talk to), I couldn't. The key stage 4 lesson was actually worse where they all think that qualifications are irrelevant because they have "work experience", to the tune of pot washing in a cafe, selling weed in the local park etc. You ask them to get on with some work and they look at you as though you've just torn them away from a close relative's funeral. The teaching assistant was equally baffled as to what to attempt, so I said she could go and help some people who actually wanted it.

Meeting after school to discuss all the students in my house who has "cause for concern", The list was lengthy, although I know that we actually get off quite lightly. Nine of the names that cropped up were from my tutor group, and that doesn't include my Year 11s, many of whom are being mentored separately. It all boils down to the same thing: "the kids mess about in lessons (not just mine), and when their teachers ask them to do some work they turn on them". The meeting was not a happy one and consensus seems to be that behaviour is on a very slippery and steep slope at present.

I arrived at about 7.45am this morning and am now leaving at 5.15pm. I still have a bit to do when I get home.

Tuesday:
I woke up at 2.30am and eventually got up at 4.15am having attempted to get back to sleep but my mind distracted by various work issues, mainly centred around a boy in my tutor group who I also teach. He can be unpleasant, but hasn't really been recently. I did get a snotty email from the school's head of special needs the other week regarding him though, and I need to feedback to her on his recent performance in my lessons, which include attempting to talk to seagulls in the playground, annoying/distracting as many people as he possibly can, and shouting at a bloke walking past the school. A far as I can see the only thing that's wrong with him his that he's a sociopath, but I've not doubt that he's been diagnosed with some form of special need as his parents try to excuse their inadequate parenting with medical certificates.

Not many lessons today due to Year 11 mock exams, which is great. I do have reports to write though, and various other things to get my teeth into, so it won't be a tea and chat day, I will be sat at my desk for almost all of it. I may even have a look through some exercise books and write a formative comment along the lines of "Well done Johnny, your method for doing this is excellent, but next time, to push you on to the next level, why not attempt a question like this...". The kids won't read my comments, but Ofsted will think it's wonderful, and that's the main thing I'm told, as we are expecting them soon.

Quite a nice day actually due to the mock exams and even the student who ruin every one of one particular class' lessons wasn't in today, so superb. Spent about 3 hours marking, but it's out of the way now so I don't have to worry about it any more. Tomorrow will be worse, so I made the most of today! I still arrived at 7.45am and left at 4.45pm plus did a couple of hours in th

Wednesday:
I teach every lesson on a Wednesday and it's hard work! II woke up but as most teachers will tell you, being away is more hassle than going in when you rubbish. What many don't realise is that a sick teacher still has to get up and plan all their lessons, which isn't easy when you know that the person covering is unlikely to be a specialist in your subject.

I made it anyway, and got a bonus free due to mock exams. Only got sworn at once and had a massive struggle trying to get a couple of classes to do something was like extracting blood from a stone, mainly due to a couple of snowflakes coning down early on.

I got in as usual at 7.45am and left at 4.45pm but have marking to do when I get home which will take a good hour and a half. I will probably cook dinner for the family and then settle down to it after that.

Thursday:
Four lessons today, but two tests thanks to the fact that we have to track every student and therefore they do an exam paper every half term. This is so that we knbow how each child is progressing, but puts pressure on teachers to fit the entire curriculum in, but on the other hand at least the kids get used to exams and the types of questions that are asked. It does add marking pressure on to teachers, but we can get the class to mark their own for some of it - in a different coloured pen of course, to avoid cheating!

What is the main thrust of this though? You guessed it, Ofsted. As time has gone on it does appear that everything that schools and teachers do is geared to what Ofsted would think rather than what's best for the children. In general Ofsted are trying to do the right thing, with little success, and seem not to have grasped the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day and a teacher has to have a bit of time for sleeping and eating. Take, for example, out new marking policy, all based on what Ofsted expect to see. We have to mark every book fortnightly, which doesn't sound too bad, but not when each book has to be checked and the3n around half a page covered with some praise, a tip on how to move onto the next level, plus a challenge question for the kids to have a go at. Marking a set of books takes between an hour and 90 minutes, and at my school each teacher has around 6 classes. That's 9 hours per fortnight, which is all your free time at school. Add to that the lesson planning as well as other paperwork a teacher has to do, meaning that in order to get by you have to work at least a 9 or 10 hour day during the week, plus a bit at weekends.

Started at 7.45pm and left at 5.15pm, plus did a couple of hours in the evening. I forgot to mention that I had duty (unpaid) before school, during break and after school.

Friday:
Five lessons and lunch duty on the playground. Ok, so I get paid for the duty but I didn't choose to have it on a day when I have no free periods - I was stitiched up a bit by the guy who organises it and isn't a teacher. There you go.

The day went as usual with a mixture of apathy and abuse, and that was just from the staff! In all seriousness it was a pretty miserable day where one student, who has already been told that they should think about applying for another school before he forcibly has to find another school told me to "F Off" and was generally vile. As well as that I got a volley of abuse from one of my tutor group who had a detention, not set by me, but another subject area. I was just the messenger, but had to take it as that's just how it seems to work with students from a certain background who are essentially untouchable discipline-wise.

This time of year as we near the end of the longest term of the school year, the children are tired as are the staff. It's dark and cold and thoroughly miserable. One comes to accept the fact that the students will get a bit tetchy and so will the staff.

Started at 7.45am and left at 5.15pm. I've decided to leave the work I need to do for the weekend. A couple of hours should do it.

Performance Related Pay - A Heads' Bully Charter

The "Heads' Bully Charter" is a comment I read by author Michael Rosen (follow him on Twitter, he's a genius on @MichaelRosenYes" and he's absolutely correct.

All those who work in the private sector will be sitting there wondering what the problem is - they've been doing it for years after all. The difference is that they work on sales, teachers work on attitudes and aptitude/willingness for pubescent teenagers to learn. Gove, in his wisdom, says that this will encourage hardworking young, good teachers to join the profession and encourage poor teachers, whose pay will stagnate, to leave the profession. Once again it's the talk of porr teachers that is amusing, because you will never find anyone argue that poor practioners should not leave the profession (if it 's still considered that) but those "poor" teachers are the best of those who applied. Get rid of all the "poor" teachers and there won't be enough people to teach. Plus, "poor" teaching is generally an opinion of a headteacher.

What you have to remember is that headteachers often don't teach at all nowadays and haven't done so regularly for years. Those wishing to become a headteacher are weird in the sense that they have entered teaching and then opted to do as little as possible, if any at all. I have been the victim of a headteacher who has prejudged my lessons based on the fact that they don't like me or don't understand the banter that occurs in a healthy classroom. The very same headteacher also told a new head of department that they would see an inadequate lesson when they observed me despite having no idea what I was doing. This same headteacher will control my pay soon. How is that fair?

Now I would never describe myself as a brilliant teacher, but I have had enough decent feedback from parents, students and colleagues to know that I'm not rubbish, but Gove's plans will allow a headteacher who isn't keen on me as a person to freeze my pay indefinitely unless I move, which I may be forced to do.

Once again the unions are objecting, but due to the various policies Gove have introduced since he came to office, the unions just seem like moaners. It's been a very clever campaign from Gove as he essentially outlaws unions and isolates teachers more and more.

The bloke has been and will be a disaster for education in this country, mark my words.

Why Teaching Isn't For You

Or at the very least, shouldn't be!

I regularly check the BBC News website for education stories, which currently there are plenty. Every now and then they allow people to comment on the news stories and hundreds of people do so. They mainly fall into two, admittedly broad, categories:

1. Teachers, former teachers or people who are related/in a relationship with a teacher who claim that they are working every hour God sends in a desperate bid to keep on top of things.
2. General members of the public who despise schools and all those who work in them, considering the "profession", if you can call it that, work shy, overpaid, having too many holidays and all union activists.

Now everyone is entitled to their opinion and that's fine, don't get me wrong, but why the BBC continues with these opinions is beyond me as the ground is well trodden to say the least, and invariably ends in each side abusing the other. I would like to comment on both groups however.

Group 1:
I have been a teacher for over a decade and apart from my first year or so where I was attempting to find a routine that worked for me, I have rarely taken work home. I get in early (around 7.30am) and leave late (around 5pm) and aim to get all my work done in that time. It's not always possible, but in general I manage. The teachers who post on the BBC who say that they arrive at 7am, leave at 6pm (or when kicked out by the caretaker who understandably also has a home to go to) and then continue to work until 10pm or later every evening, plus at least one day over the weekend I have always considered to be doing too much or lacking in organisational skills. It has been known for me to use the phrase "It's all about time management". In the last year however, I have been doing much the same thing. It has meant that I rarely talk to my partner in the evenings (I'm sure they won't grumble too much about that!) and I struggle to sleep because I'm thinking about all the stuff I am yet to complete. Now I consider myself pretty organised, but I genuinely can't avoid this and still certain things have to be put on the back burner until I can find the time to complete them. Why is this? Three things: government initiatives, Ofsted and apathy of the young people of the UK. It's not a healthy state to be in, whatever way you look at it and will surely lead to burnout and leaving the profession.

Which brings me onto my next point and that is that if teachers are genuinely working this hard, and I genuinely believe that they are now, then people will leave for jobs that pay similar or less wages, but offer a better quality of life and that begs the question "Who will replace those people?". Government of all colours, but recently blue/yellow, have been saying how we really need to get rid of poor teachers, and they are correct, but who is going to replace them? Attempts to encourage top graduates are the current trend, but as a mentor of trainee teachers, I can categorically say that "there ain't a lot coming through", both in numbers or quality of teacher, which is different from "highly qualified teacher". This is not a healthy situation.

Children nowadays expect everything to be plated up for them nowadays, and I suspect that this is the reason why many teachers are working such long hours. I call it the X Factor generation where success can literally land in your lap with minimal effort being spent. The problem is, and many children don't realise this, that for every success on this route, there are thousands, if not millions of failures, I remember teaching a PSHE lesson where we were discussing possible careers and I had one conversation along these lines (the names have been changed to protect the idiot):
Me: So Tracey, what do you want to do for a job?
Tracey: I want to be famous.
Me: Ok, for doing what?
Tracey: Just being famous.
Me: But you have to do something in the first place in order to be famous.
Tracey: I'll go on Big Brother or something.

I know I sound really old when I say that "there's no substitute for hard work", but the number of ex-pupils who say to me "I wish I'd tried harder at school" is astounding. Pupil apathy is often backed up my parental stubbornness where their attitude is instilled into their offspring: can't do it, won't do it. Maths is a prime example of this. Many parents will say at some point in a parents evening appointment, usually at the start: "I am useless at maths" or "Don't expect me to be able to help" and then wonder why their child has a similar attitude.

It's what's known as a losing battle.

Group 2:
These people clearly had a bad experience at school. Presumably they were bullied by other children or even the odd teacher and are understandably scarred by their experience. They assume that teachers arrive at 8.30am and leave at 3.30pm, do nothing at home and jet off around the world in their 50-odd weeks holiday that they get every year.

The trouble is that these opinions aren't entirely their fault. Politicians over the last 15 years or so, and possibly longer, have taken every opportunity to bash teachers with large sticks. The people of Group 2 are only believing what politicians are telling them, and why wouldn't you? Politicians have been very clever in setting up a situation where they can now cut teachers' wages and pensions with the majority of public support. The only option left to the teaching profession being strike action or work-to-rule which just compounds the view that teachers are lazy, work shy and left wings union people.

It's what's known as a losing battle. Deja-vu!

So all in all, don't bother teaching, it really isn't worth the grief. Those moments when a child's eyes light up and they say "I get it" are now far outweighed by all the negatives, an you can't even go on a decent holidays in the umpteen weeks we get off because travel agents hike up the prices so much that they are unaffordable on the wages that teachers now receive. Brilliant!

A Study That I Used To Know

From the ridiculous to the paradoxical

Now whatever you think of the Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove and/or his politics, you have to admit that he's probably pretty clever, what with being an Oxbridge graduate etc. He is being somewhat careless and forgetful at the moment I would suggest.

Why is this?

I shall explain.

Last week he announced that teacher training requirements are going to be made tougher (Click here to read the BBC article) so that the requirements for those wishing to embark on teacher training must pass tests in maths, English and "reasoning" (whatever that may be). They will get two chances to pass, and if they fail to do so they will not be allowed on the course. Where's the problem with that then? Well on it's own there is no problem, and no teacher will ever argue that there is. The only quibble one could have is that many of the skills that these tests will examine haven't been used for a long time, especially the maths ones, and the equivalent GCSE grade would be B, so not overly simple. Currently teacher trainees take the test during their qualification period and can seek help on it.

The problem is that in July, just 3 months ago, Michael relaxed the rules on teaching qualifications for those wishing to work in a free school or academy (Click here to see the BBC article), meaning that people without any qualifications can teach in those types of school.

Confused? Me too. In one breath he want more rigorous testing of teachers, and in the next breath he wants to allow unqualified teachers to practice.

Conspiracy theorists have suggested that Michael is using this as a smokescreen to get more people from industry into teaching and the increased difficulty of the training programme will mean less competition for those with no qualifications. Schools have to fill teaching posts, and if the only people who apply are not qualified, what choice does a school have?

I don't buy into the conspiracy theory particularly, although I see where it's come from. I just think that all the reforms that Michael's trying to cram in before his party gets voted out of government or he gets sacked have confused him, meaning that the backside has no idea what the elbow is doing. In other words, he's making it up as he goes along.

Gove's seemingly perpetual digs at the teaching profession just show how much he dislikes the people he leads. His policies have undermined education in the England (other parts of the UK are sensibly now opting out of Michael's reforms), as although there may have been the occasional decent idea, much of the educational policy emanating from Whitehall has been hogwash and designed to undermine teachers' rights.

The good thing is that it does appear that he has finally lost his marbles and therefore he can't be far from losing his job. The problem is that he has possibly inflicted irreparable damage on the teaching profession. 

Teaching's s**t: If management don't get you, Gove/Wilshaw will

Thinking about becoming a teacher? Don't, no really, don't.

Someone once said to me that teaching, policing and nursing will always be in demand, and they were right as there will always be children in need of education, criminals and sick people. The trouble is that in the UK it really isn't worth the grief now.

Government interference is at an all-time high in education. New initiatives from the Secretary of State for Education arrive ona weekly basis via the press in the same breath as "teachers are rubbish". It's the same in the police and health service. The public can only go by what they are told, via the press, and if a teacher dares to speak up they face reprimand and possible loss of employment.

League tables place increasing pressures on management in schools who pass that pressure onto teachers who are faced with an increasingly apathetic bunch of "learners". Parents, having read in the press that teachers are rubish, then blame teachers and schools for all their own failings and the cycle spirals out of control.

Teachers are expected to teach children not only their subject specialism but manners and also provide nutrition for their class. Ok, so they are not expected to feed their charges, but 16% admitted to buying some of them breakfast every month. With little or no parental support becoming increasingly the norm, how can standards be raised? I don't care what you say, but teaching does not pay well enough to burden its practitioners with the responsibility that society increasingly seems to expect. Politicians do anything but help in this matter by making repeated soundbites to achieve headlines that bear no resemblance to the reality.

And then we get to Ofsted, the "independent" regulator of teaching. Everyone knows that it is far from independent, considering that its leader is one of the Secretary of State's pals. Inspection teams take a snapshot of practise within a school and more often than not tell them that they are not doing well enough, placing the teachers in that school under increasing pressure to make silk purses from sow's ears.

Teaching is being held together as a profession by those decent practitioners who would love to get out but can't because they have hit a financial point where they couldn't afford the drop in wages to change career. The private industry grass is not always greener, we all know that, but there is the potential to earn a better living for the same pressure/stress.

I vowed after the first couple of years of my teaching career to do all my school work at school and take nothing home. I arrived at 7.30am and left at around 5.30pm and managed to keep this promise to myself and my family. Over the past 6 months I am regularly work in the evening despite keeping similar hours at school, and I know that I'm no the only one. For the privilege of having no life outside of teaching I am paid just the princely sum of around £35,000 and can just about afford the mortgage on a reasonably sized three bedroom house. I'm not moaning about my wage as I knew exactly what I was going to be paid when I started, but I didn't sign up for 15 hour days, a constantly reducing pension and a pay packet that shrinks every month due to it having been frozen for a significant amount of time.

Pressure is not an issue if I'm being paid enough to wear it, however, I'm no longer paid enough to wear the consistent barrage of abuse I get from management, Gove and Wilshaw as well as parents who want to know why I'm not doing their job for them too.

I repeat, don't even think about it. Empty bins, flip burgers, do anything other than teach because the cons so outweigh the pros now, it's really not worth it.

Gove Under Pressure

Well if he's not, he should be. The current list of gripes and headaches facing the Secretary of State for Education is a long one:

1. That pesky GCSE English fiasco has been joined by a GCSE Science fiasco (and will eventually be joined by other subjects I suspect). A legal challenge has been mounted by schools and students and is gathering pace. Ofqual is predictably saying that they are not budging and the pressure on Gove to step in is growing. He's keeping a stiff upper lip and currently sitting on his hands, despressingly predictably.
2. Various experts are stating that Gove's changes to the exam system are being bundled through too quickly, including his own colleagues on the Education Select Committee and Glenys Stacey, the Head of Ofqual, who frankly should be getting her own house in order before commenting on other people's. If your allies are telling you that you may need to slow down, maybe you should listen, but no, not our Mikey.
3. Sir Michael Wilshaw, Gove's pal and Head of Ofsted, has been shooting his mouth off again, saying that teachers shouldn't get pay rises if they don't put the hours in. I don't think anyone would argue with the sentiment, but the tone and phraseology of the man leave a lot to be desired. This seems to be a common theme in Wilshaw's life, where he only appears to open his mouth to change feet.
4. The two biggest teaching unions have started their "action short of strike action" this week, with rumours in our local area that a couple of academy heads have threatened staff with punishment if they choose to adopt the policy. Not a great advert for staff, or indeed a great morale booster for already low-esteemed teachers. Academy freedoms may work well for the headteachers of those schools, but stories of staff being essentially bullied and threatened in them, and the fact that these academies have an extremely high staff turnover, would suggest that the benefits for ordinary teachers are limited at best.
5. An academy has been accused of doctoring students' exams to increase grades, and even worse, it's an academy that was highlighted by the Conservatives due to their improved results - no wonder, the teachers were apparently doing the exams for them! The anti-academy issue won't go away and these sorts of headlines are not helping. The money has dried up and the benefits are rapidly disappearing. Claims that academies are performing better in exams are baseless, not helped with this news of possible cheating.

Knowing our Michael, he will be blissfully unaware of any issues in education or with the teaching profession as he revs up his policy steamroller. What Gove has done to education in two and a bit years has been remarkable, but mainly in a bad way. Teachers were pretty demoralised before he stepped into the role, but now, having overseen an exodus of 10,000 teachers in the last 12 months, teaching is at an all time low in my experience of over ten years in the game - recruiting new staff is not always the answer due to them needing time to find their feet in the classroom. I was talking to a former colleague of mine who is leaving his school, along with another teacher, purely because they can't stand it any more. Neither member of staff has a job to go to - surely this has to set off alarm bells, doesn't it? Couple that with a Head of Ofsted who seems hellbent on winding the profession up and making their lives a misery, the recipe is not a tasty one!

I think it would be fair to say that education in this country needed some change, but the underhand way in which Gove has gone about his business, alongside Ofsted and Ofqual leaves a nasty taste in the mouth if you are a teacher. It's all well and good to have ideas of the way to move something, in this case education, forward, but wouldn't it be sense to seek advice and support from "experts", or at the very least, those who will have to face the consequences of the changes proposed. Seemingly not.

Gove may have achieved his goal by the time he leaves Education in that he will go down in history, but will it be for the right reasons? I doubt it.

Longer Hours and Summer School

Money is being pumped into providing summer schools for "disadvantaged" children. What a great idea! Whose going to staff it though? Those with a full-time teaching job might want to do a week or two, but not the whole summer surely, and who will plug the gaps? Those who aren't full-time teachers? And there's probably a reason why they haven't got a job...

The argument above could be irrelevant though as if teachers want to improve their pay packet then they will have to work longer hours, and maybe working in a summer school could be an expectation rather than a choice.

Wilshaw is a vile and "outstandingly" arrogant individual in my opinion, and has an uncanny knack of winding up the people he oversees. But actually his latest comments are fair enough I think. All he's saying is that if you want a pay rise, you have to earn it - no problem there. The trouble is that he's has wound up the teaching profession so that they now automatically jump up and down every time he opens his mouth. To be honest the only thing he has really done wrong is give the anti-teacher group a bone to gnaw on about teachers leaving at 3pm, which rarely happens nowadays, and he really ought to be chastised for it and forced to apologise. He won't.

He made his statements in an interview with The Times on Saturday where the interviewer asked if he was a "control freak". He left the interview asking himself "Am I a control freak?" and I can answer that for you Mike: Yes you are. His arrogance oozes out of every pore as the interviewer suggests that his views on teacher development were "unbending", upon which he stated that everyone should share his views. Having a vision is great, but being so convinced that you have got it right is not healthy, and suggests that you believe that you are superior to everyone else, a trait that could be placed at the door of many a tyrant throughout history.

All in all, teaching has become an undesirable profession, and I fear that in 10 years time there'll be a huge shortage of people willing to enter the profession purely due to the behaviour of today's politicians. Well done folks.

One question I would ask is whether the Head of Ofsted is really worth £180,000 of public money per year? Especially when the person receiving that paycheck thinks of himself as a teaching Clint Eastwood. What an arse!

Gove Levels

Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, is going to announce changes to the exam system, in what have been described as "Gove Levels". Gove and his pals in the DfE don't like the relatively recent trend in modular GCSE courses and want to go back to the "old" system of just one exam at the end of a course. This is the latest in a long run of changes that Gove is attempting to impose on the schools of England.

There are a few issues with this in my view, that will mean that these moves won't be overly popular in the teaching profession.

1. This is going to cost a huge amount of money, buying specialist resources for the new courses, as currently there are a number of exam boards from which all schools choose, and the plan is that there will only be one. Where is this money going to come from. School budgets are being pushed to the limit in the current climate and have little to spare. Centrally the government are trying to save money wherever they can in order to reduce the national deficit, including attacking public sector pensions and wages through suggesting that a regional system is the way forward. I actually think that having just one exam board is a decent idea, because as Gove himself says, choice just means that there's a race to the bottom. Modular exams are also not ideal for a number of reason, but the main one being that they give an artificial impression of a student's ability in a subject due to the ability to retake exams that have been failed, occasionally numerous times. It is going to be very costly for schools, and there has been no explanation of where the money is coming from.
2. It's all well and good to change the qualification, but at the same time the government has said that schools achieving less than 50% of students gaining 5 A*-C including English and maths will be forced to become academies. The new exams are going to be graded by percentages of people at each grade, although no-one really knows how. It could be that 10% achieve the top grade, 15% the next and so on. This presents a major problem for teachers who are given targets. Currently each grade is topic or skill based, meaning that a teacher could say with some confidence that if a student had mastered a certain skill then they should achieve a certain grade. With the new system the teacher cannot predict with any certainty as they have no idea what students in other schools are capable of. Schools will therefore fall under the 50% line without realising it and be forced, probably against their will, into sponsored academy status. And let's face it, people are no more intelligent now than they have ever been, all that's changed is the availability of education for all, if not the attitude towards academia. The move smacks of forcing more schools to become academies in a back-door fashion.
3. New qualifications take a while to bed in, and with the recent (and ongoing) GCSE fiasco, public, or more importantly employer confidence in the exam system is at an all time low. Is this really a good time to make such huge changes? People do understand the GCSE, and what they indicate. Whether they like what they indicate is irrelevant, they know what they are dealing with. A new qualification is an unknown quantity, and often start off being too easy easy. Now is not really the time, although I suppose if it's got to be done, no time will be a good time.
4. Politicians like to tinker, and do so on such a regular basis that teachers often don't know whether they are coming or going regarding the latest policy directive from Whitehall. If you talk to most teachers they will tell you that all they desire is to be left alone to teach, rather than mug up on the latest theory coming out of Westminster.

Gove has done his best in the few years he's been in post to really make a mark by changing education at an alarming rate. Anyone who makes changes to anything ends up annoying someone, but the skill is to persuade those it effects  that it is the right thing to do. The problem is that Gove comes across as supremely arrogant and is almost universally disliked by those in education.

Gove, as ever, is bullish and hell-bent on forcing this through, but one good thing about the coalition is that it won't come in until 2015, meaning that if the Conservatives lose the next election, this can be reversed.

How To Get Your Own Way

You cannot fail to have noticed that many schools in the country are a bit annoyed at the moment due to "raising of standards" according to Ofqual/Department of Education, or "moving the goalposts without telling anyone" according to everyone else involving GCSE English results.

Michael Gove and anyone else from the DfE have been uncharacteristically quiet during the entire incident, partly due to the fact that they are on holiday and partly because whatever they say, they can't really win because what has happened is so totally appalling that there is no defense. There won't be a single educator in the land that doesn't agree that standards need to be raised as far as exams are concerned because the general public, or employers more specifically, have lost faith in them. Gove actually has a point that we can't expect pass rates to continue going up forever. If that were the case then why not just put all the targets to 100% pass, which would be equally pointless.

I read a great piece written by a teacher saying that exams are designed to discriminate (not a popular word in society nowadays), to show who is good academically and who is not. If everyone passes the exams, then exams are pointless - failure can be a positive thing at times, a fact that has been neglected in recent times. The trouble is that Ofqual or the exam boards (whoever you choose to believe) decided to raise the pass mark without telling anyone, which is even worse when the teacher marks the "work" and therefore knows what grade each child should have got with whatever mark scheme you are using. The plain fact of the matter is that students got different grades for the same quality work depending upon when they were entered for the exam, and that is patently unfair.

Gove maintains that he has never direct contact with Ofqual, but frankly he doesn't need to. His "contact" with Ofqual is via the press. Gove is not shy of the press (apart from at the moment) and has repeatedly stated his desire to raise standards, with the baseline for schools now being 40% of pupils achieving 5 A*-C grades including English and Maths. If a school drops below that magical 40% (which will go up again soon) then they face being taken over by the DfE and forced in to being an academy - another of Gove's educational wishes.

What I find sinister about the whole episode is that everything that has happened has been purely for political reasons, at the expense of the futures of thousands of youngsters. It has also been designed to force schools into academisation, against their wishes, but in line with current government policy of what conspiracy theorists would call the privatisation of state education. The constant denials from both Gove, the DfE and Ofqual only highlight what people in power think of their subjects; they think were are too stupid to understand.

What Gove needs to do is re-grade (no need for expensive and time-consuming remarking) all the English papers (and I'd be surprised if this was limited to English alone, it's just more obvious in the English exam as the teacher know the marks and boundaries) and then make up a totally new qualification that is more difficult to pass. Don't call it the iGCSE or the O Level, call it something totally new and make every school (state or private) take the same one. Gove is right that currently standards aren't high enough but the way he's forcing this policy through, either directly or indirectly, is underhand at best.

You do get the impression that he's going to get his own way on education policy by hook or by crook, whether it's for the best or not. The trouble is that the teaching profession (even those who were on his side before the exam grade fiasco) are now unconvinced by the man, and that can only be a bad thing for his future political career - I've got my fingers crossed anyway.

Olympic Legacy? Good Luck!

With the continued success of Team GB (the only way to get some people interested in the Olympics is to give Great Britain a brand - says it all really) politicians have leapt onto the bandwagon with gusto. In order to make the Olympics of 2012 a legacy in the UK, schools and teachers must "play their part" according to the prime minister.

Frankly this is an insult to the thousands of teachers and volunteers in clubs who give up their time for free only to be told that they ought to try harder in the face of dwindling facilities, finances and resources. The current government (and the previous one wasn't much better, despite what they say) have done little other than cut services and facilities for sport. Funding is the key to the delivery of this "Olympic legacy", but seemingly the government are oblivious to this.

As far as I can see these are some major problems with this "Olympic legacy":

1. School playing fields being sold off is a bit of a red herring, but funding to schools through the SSCO and School Sports Partnership schemes is the real issue. The government has cut the SSP and therefore the SSCO scheme, meaning that the only PE provision now provided by primary and middle schools who can't afford a full-time PE teacher is delivered by non-specialists or by teachers giving up their own free time out of hours. Teachers have always been prepared to give up their time in the past, but with increased pressures to deliver "outstanding" lessons, league tables, Ofsted, a drop in real wages, being screwed over regarding pensions and various other things, including having a life outside of school, the goodwill of teachers has dwindled to a massive extent and there's no sign of that trend being reversed. Teachers have already "played their part".
2. Funding for equipment/facilities is the key - for most sports the correct equipment and/or facilities are needed for the sport to be played properly.and this doesn't come cheap to either schools or clubs. If the child wants to continue the sport then their parents will have to fork out for the equipment themselves and pay to join a club, which often isn't cheap. At every turn the issue of money rears it head, and this is the one issue the government want to avoid.
3. Government policy to "reduce the deficit" means that councils have to cut costs at every given opportunity. Sports facilities are always going to be the first to feel the pinch.
4. The introduction of competitive sports days will be purgatory for teachers, trying to control the kids who didn't qualify for the competitive events. I used to enjoy sports days when I was at school but that's because I was good at sport. There are those who just want to join in but are not that good, and by bringing competitive days back will discourage them from taking part. In the school where I'm a teacher we have a sports day contining a load of team games where everybody takes part as a tutor group. It sounds awful, and to be honest I thought it would be, but it's brilliant. Everyone joins in, staff and students alike, and the competitive element is still there as points are awarded to each group in categories such as "participation" as well as for the result. Competitive sport should be provided by clubs and state schools should introduce sports to their charges. Once again though the government have a "one size fits all" policy where they try, in vain, to compare private education (where facilities are excellent and time available to play them as well as money to pay for specific coaches) with state schools (no time available, relatively poor facilities and no money for expert coaching). It doesn't work! How many times do they have to be told?

The basis of the government's "Olympic legacy" policy is in volunteers from clubs and the teaching profession, and that's never going to work. It's all well and good making the right noises in speeches but actually putting your money where your mouth is (literally in this case) is the key, and I doubt whether our current set of politicians are capable of doing that, whatever colour their rosette.

Unqualified Teachers Are Welcome

A mate of mine watches Top Gear every week, but I wouldn't ask him to fix my car.
My sister is a big fan of Holby City and Casualty, but I wouldn't expect her to take my appendix out if the need ever occurs.
In which case, why do the government think that it's acceptable to have unqualified people teaching the young people of the UK?

Supporters of Michael Gove will tell you that people have been teaching in the top private schools of the land for centuries and produced the best results, so why not have the same policy for state funded academies? The reason is not that those without Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) don't know their stuff - according to the DfE there are engineers, scientists, musicians and university professors with a burning desire to relinquish their large salaries and swap them for the average salary afforded to a teacher. Of course, academies have the freedom to pay more to the "right" candidates for teaching posts, but with the news that the Natinal Audit Office are refusing to sign off a £63 million overspend by the DfE last year, this "benefit" may not last too much longer, unless savings are made elsewhere.

There is a marked difference between private/public schools like Eton and Harrow and many academies/state funded schools that will almost certainly ensure that those who haven't done a teaching qualification will struggle in the classroom and that is behaviour. A university or school based teaching qualification trains its attendees in two main areas:

1. How to plan a lesson effectively.
2. How to control a class of 30ish kids.

The key for both points is behaviour. If the class is "nice" and has a will to succeed (like almost all classes in private schools) then a teacher will get away with a poor lesson and some learning will take place. In a classroom with less diligent children shall we say, a poorly planned lesson from an inexperienced and unqualified teacher will be mayhem at best, and once that has happened that teacher will struggle to win the class over in future lessons.

Trainee teachers always say that the hardest part of their teaching practise is controlling a class and discipline within the learning environment. To think that anyone who knows a lot about a particular subject can just walk in off the street and be a success in the classroom is frankly naive, insulting to teachers and only goes to show how out-of-touch politicians really are. It is also another stealth dig in the ribs of the profession itself, something that appears to be an active policy from Michael Gove and his chums.

This government has been a disaster for the morale of the teaching profession in the UK. I have to be honest that all I can forsee for the near future are more strikes and disruption as teachers, having been backed into a corner, have little option other than to vote with their feet. Recruitment of teachers will slow and experienced staff will look to get out, leaving a pretty bleak future for the young people of Britain.

Teachers and Students: Inversely Proportional

Teachers, teaching and perhaps more specifically, Michael Gove, have been in the news a lot in recent months and years. It is now the summer holidays (hooray!), although few teachers can afford to go away due to the considerate travel companies increasing prices dramatically during this period (boo!). But this is also the lead up to the publication of exam results and therefore those all important league table positions for each educational establishment.

The pressure on schools, and therefore teachers to get results has become enormous, with pay linked to performance through the UPS (Upper Pay Spine) scheme in schools, where if the head's particularly under the pump regarding the finances, all they have to do is set targets too high and then refuse to allow pay progression for staff based upon failure to reach targets. It happens people, and is doing so more and more in the current economic climate. Some teachers have given up even applying for progression (it doesn't happen automatically, you have to ask nicely) because they know that it will be turned down on results/financial grounds.

The result of increased pressure to get results from their classes has meant that most teaching staff have upped their game considerably in the last 20 years or so through better planning and more hours being put in to aid and individualise the learning of every pupil in their class. Websites such as the TES (www.tes.co.uk) exist where people share resources that worked for them, meaning that teachers have a wealth of information out there and most use it to the best of their ability in a desperate bid to squeeze the best results out of their charges.

The only problem with this, and don't get me wrong, the upping of teaching standards is a great thing, is that students have now realised that they don't have to make much effort at all to get a "pass" or C grade in whatever subject they are doing because the teacher will put the effort in for them. It's sometimes known as "spoon-feeding" and is the main reason why the business sector are moaning constantly about the quality of student being passed through the education system.

Now I'm not saying that we should return to the days of teachers arriving in class, handing out the text books and writing a page number on the board, but there almost needs to be an element of this to force the young people in schools to become more independent. The problem is that in order for independence to be instilled in pupils, the every school will be forced to take a hit on their results for a year. In order to keep the playing field level, every school and every teacher will have to embrace this new policy (and all teachers should welcome it with open arms!), but this will never happen. The thing is that when given some independence the students will generally try to learn. I know of a teacher who so hacked off will a particularly lazy and chatty class just upped sticks and went to the staffroom to make themselves a cup of tea. Upon their return one of the kids who's actually been listening was at the board explaining to those who hadn't in absolute silence. It's sad that a teacher has to resort to that before the students can be bothered to put in some effort at times.

Due to government meddling therefore, the school system is partly redundant because the children haven't been allowed to fend for themselves, meaning that exams have to be dumbed down in order for the students to be able to have a go at them and government targets on the number of people gaining "quality" qualifications can be met to be shouted about during the next election campaign. Due to the exam system not really testing the children, they are not prepared for the outside world or the workplace and employers moan about teachers not preparing students for the workplace.

No-one can win here purely because of interferring politicians and their made up targets, which is why I would encourage people to avoid the teaching profession unless you are into S&M, for teachers are the current whipping boys/girls for MPs. Where's Guy Fawkes when you need him?

Is it worth paying for education?

I've been a bit busy recently, but a conversation with a parent the other day got me thinking.

Their child is very good at sport and has been offered a place at a decent public school, which would normally cost in the region £9k per term. The family is very close knit and asked my advice on what the benefits would be, bearing in mind that you couldn't describe the child as particularly academic, by the family's own admission. The child currently attends the local state comprehensive.

My advice was that they should seriously think about it for the following reasons:

1. The facilities and coaching for sport will be much better. This is due to money and time being invested in sport at public schools, money and time that simply isn't available in state education.
2. The child will almost certainly get better exam results. The parents worry that all the others would be more intelligent and that would add increased pressure on their child, but I pointed out that they were offered the place for sport and that because the teachers could just concentrate on teaching rather than disciplining other members of the class, as they do in state schools, the child would learn far more. The teachers in public schools are no better or worse than their counterparts in state schools, there's just not the behavioural issues to deal with so that they can actually do their job.
3. Even though the child would have to board, a major worry for the parents, that child would almost certainly enjoy it hugely. It's not ideal for everyone, but this child, I have no doubt, would thrive in the environment. It builds a sense of community and that can't be a bad thing.
4. It opens doors in the future. Like it or not, a private education and the old school tie still hold weight and open more doors than would otherwise present themselves. In an ideal world this shouldn't happen, but the fact is that it does, so if you are offered that for nothing, take it with both hands so that you have the choice in the future.

The parents said that I really shouldn't be suggesting that public schools are better than state schools, but in general they are due purely to the ill-discipline of too many children in comprehensives. Private schools just get rid of these troublemakers who disrupt others' learning, but state schools, because of government policy on "inclusion" means that state schools have to try to cope, often to the detriment of those who are well behaved.

State education is broken for many reasons, but the fact that there are no consequences for poor behaviour because these poorly disciplined children at home ruin the futures of those who toe the line.

Not that the politicians would notice - as long as money is being saved.

Gove Has Been Busy

Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, is really earning his corn at the moment. There is barely a day that goes by when he doesn't come up with a new idea to "improve" education in the UK. But, stop press, because he's actually come up with a reasonable idea:

Unify all the exam boards at GCSE level to avoid "dumbing down" as the different exam boards attempt to get schools' business by setting easier papers and therefore better grades for your school.

This is a superb idea, and one that many teachers have been shouting about for a while. The fact is that in this results driven business, schools understandably shop around for the "easiest" board. They can't change every year because that would be too expensive, but every 10 years they can probably afford it, and this can't give employers a huge amount of confidence in the calibre of the potential recruits wandering through their doors with C grades oozing out of every orifice.

The problem is that Gove wants to take education back to the 1970s by reintroducing the O-Level and CSE system at the same time, which is a two-tier system, although apparently not in the opinion of the government who must have chosen an exceptionally easy Maths GCSE exam board as they clearly can't count to two. I'm not sure of the point of this policy - the GCSE would be fine once there was only one board. Also, those sitting the CSE will automatically know that they have been labelled as "thick", which is hardly a motivating factor for them.

Govestill  maintains that academy status is the way forward for schools, but continually fails to give any concrete reasons for this. The actual reason is that it is in order to save government money, and potentially allow schools, or the companies who run them, to make money out of education. Not even public schools like Eton and Harrow do this as they have charitable status and therefore are not allowed to make a profit - everything they get in has to be spent eventually. One year's surplus goes on improving facilities, as it should be. Academies do have feedom from the national curriculum though, which suggests that the government penned national curriculum is rubbish. But there's the other point here, all the kids have to take the same exams at the end of day, so there's no incentive to do that either. He neglects to mention that schools originally went for academy status because they got a golden handshake, but now there is no extra money.

What it boils down to is the following:

Michael Gove is a pompous arse with an unfathomable desire to turn back the educational clock 40 years, but every now and then one of his extensive, and probably expensive team of advisors has a reasonable idea.

Ofsted "Copy and Paste" Scandal

This article turned up on the BBC News website today: Click Here!

Now anybody in education, apart from perhaps many headteachers, will tell you that this is not a massive surprise. Ofsted often make their judgements before actually visiting a school. They are a political animal and will make judgements based upon government policy, despite Chief Inspector Wilshaw's apparent best intentions and statements that teaching is "Christ's work on Earth".

The "scandal" centres around two primary school reports from the same company to which Ofsted outsources inspections, Tribal. Both inspections were headed by the same person and due to the fact that some of the statements in the reports read exactly the same, there seems little doubt that laziness has crept in and a higher agenda has influenced the reports. In my local area an academy, which I know quite a lot about for one reason or another, has just received "outstanding" gradings in every category when it apparently deserves none. One has to bear in mind that government (and therefore Ofsted) are keen to make every school an academy, and with education being such a vote winner, political decisions are bound to be made by inspectors.

Ofsted inspectors are usually former headteachers who want an easy life and something to boost their pension pot, or they are failed educators who have "befriended" the right people. An Ofsted inspector is paid around £60,000 per year, a pay cut for most headteachers, but a wage that is far higher than those they inspect. This should mean that inspections are done properly and written from scratch every time.

What the report seems to imply is that the inspectors write the reports and make a judgement, but Ofsted central office re-words things to ensure that the wording fits the grading. This would also suggest that grading can be made whimsically by inspection teams and the words written to fit that grading. Hardly a robust system, I'm sure you'd agree.

Ofsted, and their Fuhrer, sorry, leader, are not fit for purpose, and nor are their bosses - the Department for Education. No educator has a problem with standards being checked so that they remain high, but the current system is essentially corrupt and worthless. Not to mention demoralising.

More Good News

There was an interesting article on the TES website regarding teacher suicides: click here to read

It says that in 2008 and 2009 the rate of teacher suicides went up by 80% according to the Office for National Statistics, with the number of teachers rising from 35 to 63 in 12 months. It doesn't sound that many (although you could argue that 1 is too many) and I'm sure that politicians would spin the information in that way, but the fact is that numbers are on the increase. Another article in the TES magazine concerning teacher suicide apparently amounted to a huge response from readers.

The Teacher Support Network has been increasingly busy in the last couple of years, with call numbers doubling between 2010 and 2011. Stories along the lines of the teacher who set themselves on fire due to exam result anxiety, the teacher who walked out of school one break and threw themselves under a bus, and various others.

So why is this? There are various thoughts in the article and in the comments below, but I thought I'd add my own.

Teachers have various sources of stress:

1. Workload - this can include merely planning lessons, although this becomes more problematic and time-consuming when being observed either internally by a line manager/colleague or by Ofsted. Whichever way it's being done, the lesson is judged based upon Ofsted's current ideals as to what makes a decent lesson and what doesn't. Your guess is as good as mine as to what the current fad is, and actually it's unlikely that Ofsted know themselves. Often, and this adds to teacher stress, the lesson is judged based upon the observer's own prejudices/pre-conceptions, so unless you are a carbon copy of the observer and in their good books, you will struggle to gain a decent grade whatever you do. It's happened to me on a couple of occasions in a couple of different schools, with the only justification for giving me satisfactory being "I didn't like the way you did it/I wouldn't have done it like that" rather than "you did it badly because...". This boils down to confusion in education as to what is good and what is not, and that is Ofsted/government's fault, bearing in mind that teachers' jobs depend on these lesson gradings. I am constantly hearing about teachers spending from 7.30am to 6pm at school and then doing more at home. If this is the case, and I have no reason to doubt the stories, then this is beyond the call of duty. The constant pressure to reinvent the wheel in order to make the curriculum more accessible and interesting for a more and more spoon fed generation.
2. Control/Behaviour - this is made all the worse when a school's leadership is weak or unsupportive. It also depends on the teacher, their personality, and often how long they have been at the school or what sort of reputation they have with the students. Public perception of teachers is at rock-bottom due to media representation of teachers as deviants (I can think of relatively recent Coronation Street and Hollyoaks storylines immediately, but I'm sure that there are more) alongside the seemingly constant belittling of the profession by members of the Department for Education.
3. Pay - teachers' pay should never have been moaned about by teachers as it's advertised so obviously. The problem is that with pay freezes and increased pension contributions, teachers may be finding it difficult to make ends meet - teachers now have something to moan about in the monetary sense. With the increased workload, there is less time to fit in any extra work, so no way to make up the shortfall.
4. Ofsted - an inspection was cited as the reason a headteacher killed themselves i  the article, and those in the profession would understand the stress placed upon all staff when the phone call comes.

Ultimately, teacher depression boils down to lack of support in teachers from various places: government Ofsted, parents (and therefore their children) and due to being told that teachers are lazy and incompetent by the others, the public in general.

Be a teacher - it's so rewarding.

The Word Slippery Springs To Mind

The Messiah

Come up with your own caption:

Maths Teachers Are Rubbish

In his latest assault on the teaching profession, the Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw claims that maths teachers are letting all children down. The school system is so focused on the C grade that the best mathematicians are not being stretched, those who fall behind early in their educational career are just left to flounder, and exams are getting easier.

As a maths teacher I would like to try to justify, maybe defend, the maths teacher's predicament.

1. C grade being a Holy Grail - whose fault is this? Ofsted's, the very body Sir Michael heads. Schools are judged on their A* to C grade percentage, and for some reason the government and public seem to think that Ofsted know what they are talking about. Smell the coffee people, Ofsted don't have a clue what they are on about. The quango is made up of failed and ex-teachers who have little idea how modern classrooms work. Wilshaw himself has had success at a local level, but that's because he got rid of people who didn't toe his line. That's the path the Children's Minister told me our school should go down, and is easy to do on a local level, but what they all forget is that the children have to go somewhere. They can't be left to roam the streets surely.
2. Those children who fall behind are always going to flounder, because if they struggle with the basics, they are going to struggle with the tougher stuff - obvious, no? Not everyone can get a C grade (a pass in real terms), or the pass mark would have to be raised. This government, and in that breath I include Ofsted, who although apparently independent, are just a government vehicle, are fixated on getting everyone a C grade or higher. It's not going to happen I'm afraid - some people just aren't very good at maths. Fact! Not the teachers' fault.
3. Exams are easier - not the teachers' fault either.Government have allowed exam boards to be privatised, which has led to exam boards trying to attract customers. The more A* to C grades candidates achieve, the more customers you have, the more money you make. Simples.

The "celebrity" mathematician Alex Bellos was on BBC Breakfast this morning and hit the nail firmly on the head when he said something along the lines of:

The problem with maths in this country is cultural. People are happy to say that they are rubbish at maths, but they would never admit to not being able to read.

Spot on Alex - not teachers' fault! Wilshaw - shut up you idiot!

Performance Related Pay

Michael Gove announced that the DfE would be pushing for teachers to be paid in line with their students' results, as suggested by the Education Select Committee.

Head of Department: "Who wants to teach the bottom set?"
Try to avoid the crush as the entire department rush for that one!

This is the latest in a line of policies that will drive teachers out of the profession. There will be numerous people who work in the private sector who will say "I can't see the problem - that's what we have". I can understand that things could be seen like this, but there's one vital factor that is being ignored: "children".

Now the drive behind this is to improve standards of teaching and encourage the better teachers by paying them more, at the same time getting rid of poor teachers. Again I have no problem with this theory, the trouble is that a good, even outstanding teacher could appear to be inadequate depending on the class sat in front of them. Some children are simply unteachable, whatever you do, and somebody has to teach them because they have to be somewhere. This could affect that teacher's pay through no fault of the teacher, which I think you'd agree is unfair.

The government want all children to aspire to great things, but what they fail to grasp is that not all have or will ever have any aspirations beyond their state provided home, sofa, satellite TV and any other vices they may take a shine to. It's like trying to force a car to go at 100mph when it has no petrol in it; it ain't gonna happen.

Politicians seem fixated on getting everyone "above average" (I know that's impossible by the way, if only the politicians did), and squeezing teachers in order to do this. The lack of aspiration in the country, due to being able to live relatively well on benefits is the issue, as children learn these attitudes from their parents. But millions of voters being slated by politicians isn't the way to win elections; destroying a profession annoys far less people; a no-brainer.

Unions are up-in-arms of course, but cleverly the government are getting all these unpopular policies out at the same time to make it appear that the unions are whinging constantly which goes on to erode any public support they may have.

No wonder election turnouts are so low: they are all pathetic excuses for human beings with no idea what goes on outside of their publicly funded mansions, and therefore not worth the effort of voting for.

My dream: we have an election that no-one actually votes in. It might actually send a message, although no doubt there will be someone paid a lot of money to put a positive spin on it.

Stress - count yourself lucky

Sir Michael Wilshaw has been at it again saying that today's teachers are not stressed but have never had it so good, to coin a phrase. He goes on to say that when he was a teacher, stress really did exist, but not now, in what sounds like the Monty Python sketch along the lines of "I had to get up before I went to bed, lick the road clean etc".

You have to read the article, and like trying not to chew a Fruit Pastille, try not to allow your jaw to smash onto the floor as you get further into it.

Click Here!

The bloke will always astound me as he alienates every member of the teaching profession. This speech to a load of independent school heads attacked the one group who may have some sympathy for him and his policies, namely current headteachers. He stated that teachers use stress, Ofsted, the local authority, the government and a whole host of other people to blame for their inadequacies.

This despite the fact that teaching is regarded as the third most stressful job by the Health and Safety Executve. You'd expect them to know what they are on about, although they are a government agency. My inability to sleep for more than 4 hours per night during term time despite the fact that I sleep like a log during the holidays is purely coincidental I suppose. 

I'm not going to actually type what I think of him, but be reassured that the one word I'm thinking of begins with the third letter of the alphabet.

No Notice Inspections - Who Cares?

Everyone thinks that teachers/schools/headteachers are scared of no notice Ofsted inspections, and the cowardly Michael Gove back-tracked on those in front of an audience of headteaches in Harrogate.

Let's get one thing straight, most teachers have absolutely no problem with no notice Ofsted inspections at all, as long as ridiculously detailed lesson plans aren't required, as they currently are. The lesson plans apparently required by Ofsted inspectors are of no use to teachers, and if the inspectors themselves can't tell what the teacher is teaching then either that teacher deserves an inadequate grade or the inspector shouldn't be observing or judging lessons - my guess is that the latter is almost always the case.

The only people who don't want no notice inspections are poor teachers and headteachers - I have said for years that inspections should be like "drop-ins" so that the inspectors see what usually happens rather than to souped up, one-off lesson as a show.

The problem is, and this is the real problem that teachers have with Ofsted, many inspectors have little or no recent classroom experience, if any at all, and often have no knowledge of the subject they are observing. Their judgements can make or break schools as well as teachers and are ill-informed and generally pre-judged.

Add to that the negative rhetoric of new Chief Inspector of Schools Sir Michael Wilshaw and Ofsted are now totally unfit for purpose, doing the exact opposite of their apparent mission to "aid the improvement of schools". Their new mission seems to be the demoralisation and destruction of the teaching profession, with Wilshaw himself saying that teacher morale is "unimportant".

Ofsted reports are good for nothing other than toilet paper, and they are not even very good for that.

I Can Hear The Beeping Of A Reversing Politician

It must be in the genetic make-up of a politician to make a bold, inflammatory statement and then retract at a far faster rate when they suddenly realise that these policies are both unworkable and unpopular. And so it comes to the turn of the Secretary of State for Education to putting his blunder bus into reverse on Ofsted inpsections whilst speaking to the National Association of Head Teachers. This isn't the first time when actually faced with talking to real people in education that Michael Gove has said stuff that will get him out of the room in one piece.

The "no-notice inspections" have been scrapped apparently, although Gove didn't manage to say what would replace them, which may suggest that he has no idea and was in fear of a lynching had he not made the comment. This also comes at a time when headteachers are being encouraged to report on the inspectors via a website the newly set up School View website, with cries of a lack of consistency and of inspectors having made up their mind before even arriving in school. It's something that I've experienced, so I know it goes on but what will that actually achieve? Headteachers will not want to rock the boat for fear that if they complain, the repercussions during the next inspection could be disasterous.

Gove also questionned whether Ofsted inspectors are paid enough at a mere £60,000 per year - more than most teachers, or should I say more than every regular classroom practioner in the country in a bid to encourage "the best" people to become inspectors. Outrageous suggestion - these people are parasites on the education profession and should be paid nothing. Any encouragement to force the collapse of the quango should be shouted from every rooftop in the country.

I notice that Gove made no reference to his deeply unpopular policy of forcing schools in to academy status, especially the day after the DfE asked dozens of academies to pay back their share of £15 million, due to a mis-calculation in Whitehall over the usage of predicted roles instead of actual roles. This will mean, according to the news, that the academies will each have to pay back around £200,000 and could lead to disaster for those institutions, unless their financial managers spotted the error, which one would assume is a little unlikely. Not  great advert for educational independence.

Until the British public vote by spoiling their ballot papers or not turning up at all, these idiots in Westminster will think that they are important and wrap themselves up in their own self-importance, surrounded by "Yes" men and women destroying the public sector. It makes no difference what their political affiliations are as all parties seem to have similar, if not identical policies designed to destroy the public sector.

Rant over.

Make Maths Workplace Relevant

This article appeared on the BBC website: Here!

I totally agree, the problem being that when we already do this sort of stuff (it's not a new idea) most of the kids will say "I'm never going to do that kind of job". I had over half of my Year 9s claim that they would never work in a office the other week.

Essentially it boils down to child apathy and/or laziness. It doesn't matter what you do, many of the kids can't be bothered, simple as that. Make the curriculum more relevent, they say, but as so few children have any idea or inclination about what to do once they leave school, a lot of money, time and effort will be wasted rewriting the curriculum only for it to be slated by public and politicians alike.

A lose/lose situation.

Come and have a go if you think you're clever enough

Making sixth formers trying teaching to encourage the high achieving students of the UK to join the teaching profession is the latest plan from those in Westminster. I can see the logic, sort of, the only problem being that those sixth formers will only see a rose-tinted version of what teaching is, not the day in, day out abuse that teachers put up with.

It seems a remarkable change of tack from the Department for Education to start saying things along the lines of "Schools Minister Nick Gibb said the government valued teachers highly, but many top graduates chose other careers." The government has been slating the profession ever since it got into power, but just after figures stating that there are 10,000 less teachers than a few years ago come out, panic buttons are being pulverised in Whitehall.

What is reassuring is that many people who commented on the story on the BBC website (see the article here) seem to agree that teaching really isn't the way forward for anyone who wishes to have any form of job satisfaction. I am a mentor for trainee teachers at my school and always ask new student teachers whether they are absolutely sure that they have made the correct career choice. Many teaching posts are inundated with applications, certainly in certain subjects, but the quality of the applicants is questionable. The culture of allowing almost anyone to undertake a teacher training course has been disasterous for the profession, but can you blame the universities as bums on seats equals more money?

Top graduates can demand a far higher wages in other professions, and even if they did feel that they could sacrifice the financial benefits of working in industry, top graduates often make very poor teachers due to the fact that they find their subject easy and therefore have trouble explaining concepts that are simple for them, to others who aren't as gifted in that area.

The policy is also insulting because politicians are implying that anyone can do it. If anyone could do it surely they would take the opportunity to claim their 13 weeks holiday per year by signing up; or perhaps not.

Every time a politician speaks I just want to shout "idiot" - they are totally clueless about how any of the public services actually work, whether it be teaching, nursing, policing or whatever. They are only interested in winning votes at whatever cost they deem necessary.

No-one wants to become a teacher these days because it is a terrible job, with increasingly poor pay and awful conditions of service, alongside continual public derision, a lack of social discipline and zero public or parental support due to political interference as well as derisory portrayals of the profession through the media.

The profession is dead, and no amount of sucking up by an inconsequential politician will change that.

I Don't Get It...

Without wanting to sound like one of the children in my class when you put any work, no matter how difficult, in front of them, "I don't get it". I just don't get the obsession of successive governments to promote the policy of academies for schools. I genuinely have no idea what is in it for them other than perhaps eventually education will be part-funded privately, allowing government to spend the billions they save on other stuff, like a duck house for their moat or an "arthouse" film in the local Travelodge.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist by any means, but the policy has recently become more aggressive recently, with schools seemingly jumping before being forced to walk the plank to academy status. And what reason do leadership in schools give for going for academy status?

1. It's inevitable. It's only inevitable if schools fold to government pressure, and unfortunately teachers are generally keen to moan about something but less keen to actually do something to fight it. Due to diminished job security in academies and fewer benefits for regular teachers, maybe this will spur the teaching profession into action.
2. Increased funding. What little extra there is will go into paying for services lost, although some maybe left over to pay for "better" teachers (in whose opinion?) or for new technology for usage in school (that will be out-of-date within 12 months). Conspiracy theorists (and many of the children in school) will tell you that headteachers will all grant themselves a pay-rise - it's possible but almost certainly won't happen unless deserved. A recent news story of this essentially happening probably won't help, with a Lincolnshire headteacher paying his own children to "work" as consultants for a school, where their job was to travel to Bali to look at a hotel for example.
3. Increased independence over the delivery of the curriculum. This is a total red herring as everyone, whether at a private school, LEA funded school or academy has to take the same exams, meaning that there actually is zero freedom over what subjects to teach. There has always been a choice over how the information is delivered in the classroom.
4. Raising standards. Another complete red herring, as the same kids will be wandering through the doors (academies can't get rid of kids very easily, just like LEA schools). When BTECs were worth 4 GCSEs academies made it appear that standards were lifted, but this year a truer picture will appear and many academies will be back at the bottom of the league tables (I will wash my mouth out with soap) where they were previously.

When I say that it costs up to about £50,000 to actually convert to academy status, the sums really don't add up. What's the point? Really. All the policy seems to be doing is unionising a generally placid workforce, and with the recent news that the numbers of teachers has fallen by 10,000 in the last year, this really is a worrying time for the nation, not just teachers.

There is also the factor that the headteacher and governors hold ultimate power in the school, so there is a major question of trust. These people claim to be accountable to the DfE, but they will only do something if schools go disasterously wrong. The door is open to overt and unopposed bullying in the worse cases, with the bullied unable to do much about it, and the bully (usually the headteacher) able to do what they want, when they want. So it boils down to trust in the governors and headteacher to do the right thing for the school. I'm sure that many are trustworthy, but not all.

Not only are attitudes towards education worsening, but government policy is ensuring that terms and conditions are also worsening. Can't wait to teach classes of 60 kids all telling me that they don't need to learn what I'm teaching them to sit in front of the TV watching Jeremy Kyle. Extreme, but not unrealistic.