Monday 29 October 2012

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. 

Wednesday 17 October 2012

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.

Saturday 6 October 2012

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.