What Do Teaching And Policing Have In Common?

I realise that with a question like that you could have numerous answers - perhaps it could be an exam question, as long as it's not deemed as being too difficult or easy. My (short) answer would be this:

Everyone has an opinion on how to do the job.

When I hire a builder to do something at my house, I tell them what I need doing and then bow to their superior knowledge on how to achieve that goal. I won't stand over them whilst they carry out the required work, telling them that they are doing it wrong and that a better way of doing it would be a way I suggest.

If I'm not feeling well I will book an appointment with my doctor, and whatever the doctor tells/prescribes me, I will almost certainly do. I won't let them tell me sat their bit then argue that actually I should do something else.

So why do people feel that they can tell teachers (who've done years of training and in most cases have years of experience) and police (who've also done loads of training and often have years of experience) how to do their jobs?

I must admit that I'm as guilty as the next person in some cases. We had a drunk person trying to get in our house at about 1am the other night and duly called the police. Now you have to bear in mind that we have a yound child in the house and that the drunkard had taken off his trousers, for reasons best known to himself. The police were quick to repond to their credit, and were soon outside our front door coaxing the man to dress himself and go home. After what seemed an eternity he was escorted around the corner and told to get back to his own place of residence. A quick chat with the police and we went back to bed, although not straight to sleep due to the adrenelin still coursing through our veins! Not a pleasant experience.

My partner is a police officer and I was quite angry that the bloke hadn't been hauled off to a cell for this. In my opinion he'd been trespassing on our property, been quite abusive (anti-social behaviour?) and had taken off his trousers (indecent exposure?), so why hadn't he been charged with something? It all seemed logical to me, someone with absolutely no expertise in the field. My partner explained that he hadn't actually done anything worthy of arrest, although if he came back he could be arrested for harrassment. As he hadn't got into our house there was no grounds for trespass, still had his boxer shorts on there was no indecent exposure, and actually had sworn on private land (our property) so there was no anti-social behaviour. It just highlighted my total lack of knowledge regarding policing (and the law) as a profession.

We see a similar thing in teaching on a daily basis. Regularly teachers have phone calls from parents to explain that their children are not being taught properly, or that the teacher is doing something that's unfair with regards their child. On what basis do these parents make these accusations? The answer: on the biased account of their child who is probably knowingly in the wrong and therefore embellishing the story in an attempt to make themselves appear to be the party that has been wronged.

As a teacher you find yourself constantly justifying yourself and your actions to parents, and increasingly, line managers, who have little or no experience of teaching your subject. To a certain extent this is fine, as parents should be kept in the loop, if they are interested, but do they really need to question everything?

I had an example of all of this recently when a parent phoned to complain that I wasn't setting challenging enough homework for their child. Fortunately my head of department fielded the call, which went something along these lines:

Parent: My child's homework is too easy and not relevent to their ability.
HOD: How do you mean?
Parent: It's all too easy and most of it is set from a website that neither I nor my child think is very good.

Now I ought to point out at this stage that the parent claims to be a teacher. The fact of the matter, a fact they later admited, was that they used to teach trainee teachers, which is a totally different thing.

HOD: We all put links to our homework tasks, both set on that website and on paper, on the school's website, so I will just go and have a look to see what homework your child has been set.
Parent: Yes, most of it has been on that website - the exam is taken on paper not online, it's ridiculous. And it's nowhere near challenging enough for a child of my child's ability!
HOD: Ah yes, I've found the right page. There have been 17 homeworks set to date, of which 3 have been on that website. And looking through the list of topics, the difficulty range is roughly from A* to B grade. What's your child's target grade for GCSE?
Parent: Their target is a B grade. Are you sure that only 3 out of 17 homeworks have been set from that website?
HOD: Positive. And it would appear that the work is challenging enough for your child In fact, in theory your child should find this work very difficult, so they are clearly tackling questions that are supposedly above their ability level. Is there anything else I can help you with?
Parent (sheepishly): No.

This is not an uncommon conversation for teachers to have with parents, and actually it's quite insulting for a teacher. On the one hand it's nice that the parent actually takes notice of what their child is learning at school, but the constant justification of what we do in the classroom (and out) is demoralising and shouldn't be required. Teachers in many cases have spent years learning how best to go about teaching their subject informed by experience and training, although many areas will need fine-tuning still and could be improved. A teacher's judgement is almost always going to be better than that of a parent or member of the public who has little or no experience of teaching. A parent can aid their child's learning in class by pointing out things that their child has found tough in the past or learning styles that they respond to, but ultimately it's down to the teacher to deliver the content in any way they deem best. I don't know of any teacher who would purposefully teach something badly.

The notion that "I know better than you" as far as teaching (and policing) is concerned won't change though as it's perpetuated from the very top, i.e. government. Constant interference from ministers and their celebrity "experts" who regularly state that schools are doing things wrong mean that there is no confidence in the profession from the top level, meaning that the general public have no confidence in it either. The spectre of Ofsted and continual changes to the curriculum mean that teachers have to justify their every move instead of doing what they should be doing: teaching children so that they are employable and can function in the world beyond school.

I'm not saying that all teachers are faultless, what I'm saying is that there's got to be an element of trust that they are doing what they think is best for the young people they teach. That's why they entered the profession in the first place.

New Head Of Ofsted Starts Early

He's not even in the job yet and he's already begun in earnest - Sir Michael Wilshaw has made two statements to brighten up every teachers' Christmas holiday:

1. Local troubleshooters should be employed to speed up the dismissal of incompetent headteachers, as the time elapsed between Ofsted inspections can be too great and the damage will already have been done. These troubleshooters would report to central government.
2. Scruffy teachers should be "rebuked" and the attire of the staff should be mentioned in Ofsted inspections.

The first idea seems a good one in theory, but where are these troubleshooters going to come from? Are they going to have teaching and/or management experience or be former headteachers themselves? Aren't they Ofsted inpsectors?

How are they going to judge whether a headteacher is incompetent? Are they going to look at data alone or seek the opinions of staff, students and parents from the suspected incompetent's educational establishment? Ofsted already hand out a questionnaire to those three groups which appear to be largely ignored, certainly as far as the staff one is concerned. The parental one (which is only ever filled in by those who want to gripe about something) appears to be the only one they actually take any notice of.

When they report back to central government, what will actually happen? No-one actually knows, although I reckon that a piece of paper will end up on a civil servant's desk at a cost to the tax-payer of thousands of pounds.

As usual it will boil down to league table positions alongside unrealistic target grades and whether they are met or not. Pointless therefore, and for the job of"troubleshooter" more "jobs for the boys" for those who have no place or desire for a place in education for real, although I know of a few potential candidates for a position as one.

As far as the "rebuking" of scruffy staff, this is a total nonsense, although a practise that has been going on in my current school for a few years, and is verging on bullying. Wilshaw cites the fact that we expect doctors and lawyers to be smart, so why not teachers? The fact that doctors and lawyers get paid far more money than teachers might have something to do with it; it's not just the cost of a suit that's the issue, it's the regular dry cleaning bills that need covering on top.

He even stated that a comment should be made in official Ofsted reports regarding the appearance of the staff. Why would people have any interest? Another waste of money.

Studies have also found that the appearance of a teacher to be irrelevent when it comes to their classes' learning. This is the tyrannical Wilshaw showing his true colours with idiotic statements and policies.

Teaching has just died a little more.

Link to the article: Here!

Turning To The Dark Side

Excellent, that's my sister's Christmas present next year sorted: a red light sabre. All those in the Star Wars films who have turned to the Dark Side own a red light sabre.

My sister, who is also a teacher has turned to The Dark Side by accepting a job that starts in September at a private school on higher wages and what has to be better working conditions than she currently endures. After a few years teaching at an academy she has finally had enough.

She has been called every name under the sun by students, regularly has boys pulling each others trousers down in class, trashing the classroom/equipment, found subjects on her timetable that she has no desire to teach and had requests for assistance to the leadership team ignored, or even worse, told "what you need to do is...". Having got into her car and bursting into tears one Friday, a quick polish of the CV and a first class stamp later she was at interview being offered a job, which she took with no hesitation at all. The academy now has to replace a hard working and good teacher, spending hundreds, if not thousands advertising a wholly undesirable post in an academy that is arguably going to the dogs due to overpaid leadership being reluctant to get their hands dirty in any way, shape or form.

Can you blame her?

The simple answer is "No", and I nearly did the same thing a couple of years ago, but with the increased travel coupled with a similar wage as I was already on, I decided not to take the post I was offered.

What are the benefits of teaching in a private or public school (there is a difference, but both essentially involve parents paying money for their child's education)?

1. The term are shorter, although more intensive for the teaching staff as the days are longer and the running of extra-curricular activities tends to be an expectation. The holidays are longer though, which means that staff can take of advantage of cheaper holiday prices as they can go outside of state school holidays.
2. Discipline is far stricter due to the fact that private schools can just get rid of those students who feel that it's beyond them to be able to behave. If you are too much hassle as a student (behaviourally that is) you can leave - the school can live without your fees, thank you very much. In a state school evidence has to be gathered in the form of statements from all witnesses, staff and students, and even then the governors might just let the child back or the local authority will rule that your school has gone over its quota of exclusions this year, meaning that the student can continue to cause havoc without fear of recrimination. All, that drivel in Channel 4's "Educating Essex" about not excluding permenantly just doesn't teach kids how the world works - if you mess up you face consequences. Not in state education people!
3. Resources don't tend to be as good in private schools as they are in state schools, purely because the school has to buy the stuff itself rather than get it all funded by the local authority. The upside in private school is that because the discipline is good, you can use what you've got effectively, whereas many resources in state schools are just abused by children who don't realise how lucky they are. The state-of-the-art equipment is rarely used to its full potential because the teacher is constanty trying to discipline the class or stop them breaking the stuff.
4. Extra-curricular activities are allowed to flourish at independent schools in general - the facilities are excellent and it is made clear that you are privileged to be allowed to use them. Time is given for students to reach their potential outside of the classroom, which can have a positive effect in the classroom; whereas in state schools, depending on the make-up of the top brass at individual schools, extra-curricula activities often get sidelined due to pressure on achieving results to gain a decent league table position.

Many teachers and people in general may feel a little intimidated by the independent school system, not knowing how they really work. Some have a moral objection to their existance, but you have to remember that not every student in private education is going to be or act like a front bench politician (fortunately), most are just like the children in state schools - decent and hard working if given the opportunity to be so.

I must admit that I did start looking at local independent schools again after a recent incident at school where I was told that I was an "F****** C***" by a child in class. I told the boy to "Stop acting like a prat and sit down" as he was just showing off to his mates. I was told shortly afterwards that I had made the deputy head's job almost impossible with my comment and the child dutifully received a day in internal exclusion and an hour's detention. The child not only swore at me, he then used his mobile phone (which he shouldn't have in school) to phone his father to accuse me of all sorts of things that I hadn't done (my story was backed up by the "statements" of all the other students in the class) and the father abused the deputy head down the phone. The deputy duly folded to parental pressure and relented from excluding the child for a few days. How supported I felt - not!

I will be checking online for any upcoming jobs, as well as finding a red light sabre. I might even get one myself.

Academies - The Way Forward?

News has broken this week of an academy being accused of mismanagement. More precisely it's a group of academies, the second biggest in the country.

Academies, we are told in the teaching profession, are the way forward, and there are rumours that all schools will eventually be forced to become academies, with courses being held for schools' leadership to attend on how to become an academy. The theory behind schools becoming academies is this:

• Schools who become academies can plough their budgets into whatever they deem fit. Financial incentives can be made to prospective staff to encourage them to take the job, and presumably make them work harder. Academies don't have to adhere to the pay structure set out by maintained schools. Academies get money from the government but can use it in whatever way they think is most beneficial for their school. This seems a decent idea on the face of it. You would assume that a school's management would know best how to spend their money rather than be dictated to by a suit in Whitehall.
• Academies take over under-performing schools across the country and by offering better wages to staff, attract the "best" teachers who will turn those under-performing schools into beacons of education, a blue-print to be admired and drooled over by all. This also seems a decent idea in principal, as those students getting a raw deal in "failing" schools will get a better deal.
• Ultimately all schools will be encouraged to become academies because of the huge benefits of doing so. And who could blame them?

What actually happens is the following:

• All the money is spent on leadership and not very much is spent on the people who actually have to go and teach those "under-performing" children. This is what has happened at the MediaCity Oasis Academy in Salford, where 13 teaching staff are being made redundant in order to pay for the leadership team, many of whom I presume don't teach very much, if it's anything like any other school in the country. Many academy leadership teams are made up of old mates who pay themselves increasing amounts to do less and less. The only thing being that if the results don't meet expectations, those members of the leadership are out on their ear. We have a local academy whose headteacher was escorted off the premises and many senior staff are just being given a box to pack up their things. Make a deal with the devil people...
• The clientele, or "stock" as Ofsted like to call them, remain the same. It doesn't matter how many millions of pounds of public money are spent on new buildings, state-of-the-art facilities/resources and "the best teachers" in the land if those who are receiving that education are disaffected and have little or no interest in gaining qualifications because their parents hated school and have imposed their attitude towards education upon their offspring. You can polish a cowpat until it's so shiny you could do your hair in it, but ultimately it's still a cowpat.
• The number of "top quality" staff available to fill the posts falls well short of the number of posts to fill. There are lots of good teachers in the land but not all are up to it to be honest. You can't just magic up a replacement for a poor teacher over-night, and many don't want the extra stress that an increased wage can bring.
• If all schools become academies, the financial benefits of becoming one will be nullified as there's only so much money to go around.
• What isn't reported by the government is the fact that the main reason academies have appeared to make huge strides in raising achievement with their cohort is because loads of them are put on BTEC (or equivalent) courses which require little or no exams, but are mainly coursework which can essentially be dictated by the teachers and are worth 4 GCSE grades. This is changing so that a BTEC is going to be worth just 1 GCSE - I can't wait to see how the academies do then!
• The increased money paid to teaching staff needs to be earned (rightly so - you shouldn't expect to get more money for no extra work), so therefore those "top quality" staff end up burning out very quickly and either have lots of time off with stress (cover teachers will need paying) or will just leave the profession, because of stress (they will then need replacing with teachers who aren't as "high quality"). In some subjects, it's difficult to get mediocre teachers to fill posts.

Most educational policies that recent governments have pushed through are just designed to win votes and gain good press. Very few, if any actually encourage students to reach their potential in education, and just as importantly, although often forgotten, none of the policies make teaching a more manageable or desirable job. In fact, teaching is becoming an untenable job, as increased interference and demotivation become serious issues in the profession.

Article here!

Teach Maths Up To 18

The latest bright idea from Michael Gove, who seems to have a new policy for each period of 24 hours that he remains in the job of Secretary of State for Education is to teach most student maths until they are 18 years old. Gove apparently said that he found it "bizarre" that the vast majority of children in Britain have never even heard of calculus.

This is the brainchild and thinking of someone who is so far removed from the classroom that he may as well be holed up in a cold war bunker somewhere in Hertfordshire. Although I agree that many students forget very quickly the mathematics they were taught in schools, there are fundamental flaws in the idea that most young people should continue studying mathematics for a further two years beyond the age of 16.

The flaws are, in my view, below:

1. There aren't enough decent, or even part-decent maths teachers to teach most children mathematics up to the age of 16, let alone 18. Even now some children aren't capable of sitting GCSE level maths and end up taking what is known as the Entry Level Certificate. This exam requires candidates to turn up with a writing implement and their fingers to aid calculation. It is an excuse for a qualification and part of the reason that the general public believes that standards are falling. The extra two years will require thousands of extra hours and therefore teachers, which in turn will require a lot more money at a time when budgets are being slashed.
2. For well over half of GCSE maths entrants, the finishing of their final GCSE exam can't come quick enough - a further two years would be (even more) purgatory, not only for the students, but also the people who have to attempt to teach them the blessed calculus lessons. If I had a pound for every time I was asked by a student "When am I ever going to use this in real life?" I wouldn't be bothered by the pension debate, I'd have been able to retire within a few years of embarking upon my teaching career. Students don't learn for the sake of it nowadays, they will only learn of there's something in it for them (a decent qualification is not a sufficient carrot). Calculus is not going to whet a lot of 18 year old appetites.
3. Where are all these extra classrooms going to come from? Infrastructure will be required in the form of, presumably, portacabins in which these extra lessons will be taught until more permanent structures are erected. More money.
4. Presumably the 18 year old students will need a qualification at the end of it - more money. And are those who got an E grade in their foundation GCSE going to be taking the exam? What would be the point? They couldn't even properly pass the GCSE, so what chance are they going to have on a new, potentially more difficult exam?

There are probably many more flaws to this policy, but they have escaped my notice for now.

The more Michael Gove opens his mouth, the more idiotic he seems. He has commissioned a review of the curriculum in general, which will almost certainly mean that all the new resources schools bought 2 or 3 years ago to cover the last "new curriculum" put forward by government will be totally useless, and thousands will need to be spent updating them.

Clueless!

The article is here!

ICT Teachers Are Rubbish!

Ofsted have reported this week that "the teaching of information and communications technology is inadequate in a fifth of school", with Schools minister Nick Gibb claiming that ICT teaching was "far too patchy".

Here's the article: Click Here!

The article says that last year, out of 74 schools inspected, 14 showed inadequate teaching of ICT. Now you are welcome to accuse me of splitting hairs at this point, but I kind of presumed that the country had more than 74 schools, and actually 14 out of 74 is just under 19%, rather than the 20% quoted. The trouble is that I just sound like a politician, spewing numbers out for no apparent reason, but it does seem a little sweeping to me.

What the article doesn't mention is that there is a chronic shortage of ICT teachers in the marketplace, or should I say, there is a chronic shortage of "decent" ICT teachers in the marketplace. The school I teach at held interviews for a new head of ICT and didn't appoint any of the four candidates for lack of quality, and all these people were experienced practitioners. The post had to be readvertised, and we did get someone second time around.

There's also the fact that the ICT curriculum, written by the government isn't very good. Having taught ICT I know this from first hand experience. The tasks are woefully thought out and totally uninspiring, which means that young people aren't enthused enough to carry the subject on further.

ICT isn't the only subject, with mathematics being another problem area to staff. I have known of collegaues of mine say to senior management who were on their case "Feel free to get rid of me, but good luck replacing me with anything as good or better". It may sound arrogant, but they almost certainly had a point.

Teaching, along with police, are seen as relatively safe jobs - there will always be children and criminals after all. People blindly stumble into teaching via a PCGE course expecting to turn up and be able to "knock 'em dead" from day one. This isn't the case, no matter how proficient you are in your subject, the skills involved in relaying that information to a bunch of teenagers who can't be bothered have nothing to do with your aptitude for the subject.

And herein lies the problem with ICT - those who are good at it and have knowledge that could be passed on to youngsters aren't always the most out-going of people. Let's face it, people who are great at programming and databases tend to be geeks (not all of them!), and the same applies to maths. Teaching involves a personality that many of those apparent experts don't possess.

There's also the fact that if they are genuinely good at ICT (or maths) there's probably more money to be made outside of teaching, in an environment that doesn't involve actually talking to people very much. Trying to encourage these people to leave university with a first class degree and walk into teaching with a golden handshake and a shortened teacher training period is not the way forward, even though it sounds good to those who don't know, namely the general population who cast their vote, and the press.

Of course there are people who are good at ICT (and maths) and can deliver it, but they are few and far between, and often lured to academies who don't have the strict financial controls that a mainstream school has with regards teachers' wages.

And as we all know, almost all academies have become academies because the clientele aren't necessarily the most diligent, so you have the best teachers teaching those students who are highly unlikely to actually want to progress in the field.

It's the teachers' fault for being rubbish though, clearly.

Mock Exams

It's that time of the year when the students in the exam years take some mock exams. In my department's case that means years 10 and 11. There's the usual mixture of fairly disappointing and extremely disappointing results, with a smattering of decent grades thrown in for good measure. The poor results are mainly due to the fact that very few actually revised for the exams and some didn't even turn up on time or with the correct equipment, namely a calculator.

All those years ago when I first started my career in teaching the poor results used to get me down, and I'd wonder if I was doing something wrong or hadn't covered the syllabus properly. I have since come to realise, and the good results are extremely reassuring, that perhaps it's mainly the children and their inherent idleness that is to blame in the main. There could always be improvements made in the way I deliver certain topics but ultimately if a child makes no effort at all, I'm not entirely sure what else I can do.

Ofsted, and therefore the leaders of a school will immediately blame the teacher but unless that teacher pops round to every child's house and sits with them while they revise, then packs their bag ready for the exam in the morning, sets their alarm clock and knocks on the door in the morning to insure that they arrive on time, I don't really see that the teacher can do much more than deliver the syllabus to the best of their ability. If an entire class gets no marks in a certain topic then by all means blame the person at the board, but more often than not every question is answered correctly by someone in the class, inferring that the whole class had been taught the stuff sufficiently.

It's funny to see the reaction of some to their result. Most are genuinely embarrassed by their poor result (those who did well are genuinely pleased), but it will only make a difference for a lesson or two before they revert to type. I had a class today who had generally done appallingly (no real surprise, I hasten to add) and two nice girls in particular did really badly. They spend much of their time in lessons discussing who the best looking celebrity is, whether that bloke walking down the road is "fit" or daydreaming. Our conversation today went something like this:

Me: Why haven't you done any of this activity? It's the sort of stuff that will be in the exam.
Them: We don't get it.
Me: Have you asked for help? No you haven't, because you've been too busy staring out of the window trying to catch a glimpse of a boy.
Them: But we're teenagers and that's what teenagers do.
Me: You can do that in your own time, but in maths I'd like you to do some maths. Are you surprised that you didn't do very well in the mock?
Them: Yeah, but that was a mock; I'll actually try in the real thing.

I just looked exasperated at this point and went to help someone who was making an effort instead, thus avoiding the temptation to (attempt to) shout some sense into them. The reality is that they will try to cram some revision in to the evening before the exam, none of which will stick, and they'll do just as badly in the real thing. The fact that they have done precious little so far this year will also mean that they are literally starting from square one as they have done little or no class or home work. "Split them up" you may say, but then they just distract others who might want to do some work - a quandary, I'm sure you'd agree.

As time has passed during my teaching career I have come to accept this, but I will still be blamed for leading the horse to water and not forcing it's head under. The students will see no consequences as they will get opportunities to resit the qualification, and even if they mess that up they will get into college because that particular establishment needs their bum on a seat in order to get the necessary funding to remain open.

Once again the educational system in this country has embedded in young people the attitude that they will get what they want by doing as little as possible because the consequence that once was, the lack of an offer of a place from a college or university, is no longer there. They will get in whatever because those places need bodies.

The quick fix culture of modern society is also a major factor with last minute cramming preferred to working solidly throughout a course (X Factor Culture I like to call it, whereas instead of touring the country building up a fanbase and large back catalogue, singers just have to win a TV show). It is now an accepted form of "learning" as I discovered at my last parents evening, when an underachieving child's parents sat down at my table, with the conversation going something like this (we shall call the child "Dave"):

Me: Dave is doing little in class and no homework. The homework is set to practise the skills he will use in his exam, so I suggest he actually does a bit more to reinforce what I have taught him in class.
Parent: Just before the exam I'll make sure he does some homework, and we always cram the night before an exam.
Me: I'm not sure that's the way forward if I'm honest, and Dave's grades in previous units would also suggest this.
Parent: I'll make sure he does some work in the week leading up to the exam then.
Me: Right - great.

Dave's mock exam was one of the "very disappointing" ones, but it was only a mock after all. He'll be fine in the real thing.

He won't - I'll get told off. Can't wait.

Financial Sense Classes

Government big-wigs have decided that school children need lessons in financial management, teaching students all about credit cards interest rates and the meaning of APR amongst other things. What do these people think we do in maths lessons? Do we not cover percentages, interest rates of varying types and other stuff that children may come across in modern life?

The launch of this new policy, in which a senior teacher will be placed in charge of teaching "financial sense", presumably on a supplement to their current wage (fair enough, but expensive in a climate where budgets are dwindling), will be attended by the government's celebrity maths guru, Carol Vorderman.

This current government, and actually all recent governments, continually send out the message that teachers can't be trusted to deliver a relevent education. In this particular case it's maths teachers, but not doubt there have been many other examples where teachers of other subjects have essentially been told that they are not doing what's required of them. The government themselves dictate what goes on the curriculum, so if it's not relevent, they only have themselves to blame

This is yet another example of people who no longer do, or have never done the job of teaching coming up with policies for the sake of coming up with policie, presumably to justify their considerable wage to whichever politician has been appointed to meddle in schools as a stepping stone to "greater" things.

Funnily at the school I teach at we already run this sort of thing - the kids hate it. They realise that it may come in useful later in life, but later life isn't now, and anyway parents can always bail them out. In ICT we teach them how to set up spreadsheets so that they can effectively keep accounts in case they end up being self-employed. In maths we teach them about compound interest (essentially APR) and the perils of gambling, in that the odds are stacked against the punter and how you calculate the odds in the first place. Many are capable of calculating using these skills, but so few are capable of taking a mathematical concept and using it outside the classroom, because there's no-one standing at their side explaining exactly what they need to do.

It's all well and good educating children in what these various financial terms mean, but whether the children pay any attention or actually put what they're taught into practise is a totally different thing. Maybe the only way that many will learn is by making the very mistakes Gove and his cronies want us to avoid and having to get themselves out of a financial hole - call me old-fashioned, but that's how everyone else has managed.

All this policy stuff fronted by Vorderman and Gove is just another (desperate) plea for votes, as many of the policies pushed forward by government seem to be. The things they are introducing as being new and forward thinking have been happening in schools for years, only the young people of today have no concept of accountibility or consequence. They are shielded from failure in exams, because they will end up with a qualification or two no matter how little they do, and even if the certficates they now own are the equivalent of toilet paper, they will get into college because the college need the money. It's all well and good saying that children need educating in matters financial, but they won't be interested because they are immune to failure; or so they believe.

Perhaps the credit card companies need to be educated into not continually extending credit limits, even when an extension isn't requested. It's a novel thought, but maybe the teaching profession isn't at fault this time. Maybe teachers are actually doing their job, perish the thought. Maybe someone else is to blame - children or parents?

Can I have a B please Carol?

Examiners - Cheating?

The Daily Telegraph has been running a story all week regarding examiners of various exam boards telling teachers who attend £200 per day courses what is going to be on the forthcoming exam. There are a few issues I'd like to bring up about this:

1. This is clearly not on - presumably this is how they encourage schools to opt to take the exams provided by the board. Exams are big business, with each major one costing around £30 per head - one average-sized school would spend thousands of pounds per year, per subject on exams. I suppose any carrot they can dangle in front of a school needs to be exploited I suppose, but telling teachers the questions is a step too far.
2. What the press are clearly expecting is that pupils will take everything their teachers tell them is taken on board. As most teachers will tell you, this is just not the case in general, especially if you only say it once. It also assumes that all the children in those classes actually care, which again, most teachers will tell you is not always the case.
3. The press have made out that those attending the course were told what specific topics would appear on the exam. Couldn't the schools just save the £200 and read the curriculum? I assume that the exact questions didn't appear on a powerpoint.
4. One examiner openly admitted that they were surprised that certain papers/questions were passed by board's regulators, but again this isn't huge news. It's no secret that exams are generally getting easier, although in my view it is still difficult to get the top grades. Government targets have made this a necessary evil for the boards who are in the business of making maoney ultimately.
5. What school nowadays can afford to send anyone (other than the headteacher or their deputy, or both) on courses that cost £200 per day?  The first thing to go when a budget is tightened is the staff's access to external training or CPD (Continued Professionaa Development), unless you are the headteacher of course.

The newspaper and media in general are making a big deal of this story, but what the public don't realise is that this has been going on for years, it's just the first time it's been made public. If people really think it will make a huge difference, they are mistaken, but schools will take any opportunity to improve their league table position  - what a pathetic educational world we live in, driven by league table positions rather than offering an education that could actually be useful in the marketplace.

Gambling Lessons

The latest bright idea from the Department of Education: lessons in gambling and the odds/probability of winning, or not as the case may be.

Genius - well done! That stuff is never covered in maths lessons after all, not that anyone has bothered to ask maths teachers around the country. During my teacher training I was first shown a worksheet or two on the topic, and have used or at the very least, discussed it when covering probability in class. In fact I purposely cover gambling and how the odds are stacked in favour of the bookies, casinos or bingo halls. The old phrase "you never see a poor bookmaker" springs to mind.

However the government clearly see this as a vote winner, and no doubt millions will be spent implementing this new "idea", with resources having to be written by expensive consultants, training having to be provided by expensive consultants, and then the printing/distribution of resources to all schools. All this will need paying for when maths departments up and down the country are perfectly capable of delivering what the resources they already have to hand.

The whole drive behind this new policy is that more and more people are apparently accruing mountains of debt with the numerous online gambling sites, from bingo to spread betting to poker, available to anyone who is prepared to hand over their bank details. Advertisements are all over the television for these sites, and one can't fail to think that there surely can't be a market for so many, but presumably there is as new sites seem to be advertised on almost a weekly basis.

In my opinion it's not the lack of understanding that more often than not you will end up losing money - I actually believe that the government underestimate the intelligence of much of the population (how much intelligence do you need to work out that you are unlikely to win?). The problem is two-fold:

1. The "Somebody's got to win, so why can't it be me?" attitude. This is fair enough, and is part of the reason that people have gambled away their earnings for hundreds and thousand of years.
2. "I want something for nothing". This is education's fault, or should I say, education policy-makers' fault. Students have left school with certificates oozing from every orifice for the last 15 or so years, many having not actually lifted so much as a finger to gain these "qualifications". In other words, school has taught them that they will be just fine whether they work or not, so when they can't get meaningful employment, they turn to gambling as a potential quick fix. Obviously not every young person leaves school with this attitude, but the fact that a record number of 18 to 24 year olds is currently unemployed would suggest that many are.

Gambling is a relatively healthy hobby, in moderation and kept within a gambler's means. The problem is that the more desperate one gets, the bigger the risks and the more they tend to lose. That is not a lack of understanding of gambling and the odds associated with it, that's looking for a quick fix. So why are we just about to waste millions of pounds implementing an expensive new policy that has been happening in classrooms up and down the land for years?

I'm not sure I'll ever understand those people up in Whitehall.

Ahh...The Memories

I went shopping with the family today in a town we don't normally go to and whilst on the escalator going up to the children's section of a famous clothes store, passed the very first headmaster of my teaching going down the other escalator. He didn't recognise me, although his wife did as she was a teacher there.

The story is not one that will get me on the after-dinner speaking circuit but it did get me thinking about that school, and one story in particular about a boy, we shall call him Liam, in my tutor group.

Liam was reasonably bright although not one to trouble the dons at Oxford or Cambridge. He was in the sports teams based mainly on his gift for talking up his own game rather than any special talent, and he was popular due to the fact that he was the "class clown" - one of those people you found it difficult to get angry at but a nightmare to have in class.

I had heard on the grapevine that Liam had developed a trick during lessons that seemed to be amusing those who were in the same classes as him. Liam would borrow a pencil from someone, put it down his trousers and then pass it around for other to sniff. Disgusting - yes, but I had no proof of him actually doing anything, so I couldn't actually do very much. I had no idea how to broach the subject at all, so decided to make the following announcement in the next morning's briefing to the whole staff:

"Liam in my form group has his own special pencil case by all accounts. You'll know what I'm talking about if you catch him."

I left it at that much to the bemusement of my colleagues, who kept asking me what I was on about. I refused to tell them, saying that if he utilised this private pencil case, all would be revealed, as it were.

A few days passed when one break time an RE teacher came running up to me and said very excitedly "I know what you mean - he did it in my lesson!"

I asked exactly what had happened and sure enough, Liam had done his pencil trick. Liam got a talking to from the head of year (that's what they are paid for after all) and presumably developed a different, and less  trick, as he was never one to be away from the limelight for long.

The story went down in folklore at the school, and still makes me laugh today.

Parents Evening Season

Parents' evenings have started again with the traditional Year 11 one to kick off in a desperate bid to kick start them into action and maybe achieve somewhere close to their target grade. It will work for a week or two, but ultimately if the child doesn't want to put the time or effort in, they won't.

I actually quite enjoy parents' evenings as it's a chance to tell the parents exactly what their children are like. I'd like to think that I tell the truth, although true descriptions of some have to be toned down understandably. And what can be quite funny is watching the child's face when the truth outs - many children can't accept the fact that their behaviour will get back home.

Most parents, or those who actually turn up, are generally realistic and open to advice about their child's learning, but not all. In fact, I had one tonight who was quite amusing, a parent who, let's say probably didn't do overly well at school themselves. That parent has somehow produced a relatively bright child though, although a child that spends much of their school time acting like a 5 year old and then complaining that the teacher hasn't explained it properly and they "don't get the work" or getting stroppy when detained for lack of industry in class and out.

I suggested that an increased focus in class, actually completing homework and doing some revision may be of some benefit to future exam prospects, at which point the parent defended their offspring with the statement "we always cram the night before an exam and do homework at that time too". End of conversation - waste of my breath, time, energy and anything else you care to add. If you don't like what you are going to be told (I said exactly the same thing last year) then don't book an appointment.

Every parents' evening some of my colleagues bemoan the fact that "the people they really want to see never come in". I used to do that too until I realised that the parents of children who really ought to come find it pretty demoralising to be told repeatedly that their child is a waste of time, space and energy (Every Child Matters, my behind). If my child was like that, I probably wouldn't bother either.

Some are have a very short memory though - I taught a girl whose mother ended up crying every year as she was told that her child would get no qualifications because she literally did nothing. Fortunately a few BTECs saved her and she walked out with plenty of C grade equivalents (none being maths or English, or argaubly any use to her in future life) - having a concrete structure such as the BTEC courses does have its advantages for some.

Parents who do come in expect the truth, not a whole load of waffle. When I attend my own child's parents evenings I don't let on that I'm essentially a colleague to see how much tripe flows. If they ever bring that game out on the Wii, it would be on my Christmas list!

Jeremy Clarkson and Shooting Strikers

The BBC have received around 5000 complaints from viewers about Jeremy Clarkson's appearance on TV promoting his new DVD yesterday. I was watching The One Show as Jeremy Clarkson stated that all those who were one strike should be executed in front of their families. As a teacher, his comments were partly aimed at me I suppose, but fortunately I realise that the TV presenter was attempting a joke, not a very good one, but a joke.

Upon my return home I see on the news that Unison are seeking "urgent" legal action over Clarkson's comments. Honestly, have they got nothing better to do. Ok, he probably shouldn't have said that, whether it was a joke or not, and he managed to make other pretty tasteless "jokes"/comments about people who delay trains by jumping in front of them. Unison are surely not going to waste their members registration fees on this publicity stunt, are they?

We do live in a democracy and in theory people can say what they like - if you don't like it, don't listen, that's what school children do, and hence we've lost a generation.

Clarkson has apologised, not that it makes much difference (or did it sound that sincere). But honestly, who cares what the bloke says or thinks?

High Youth Unemployment

I found this article on how the lack of decent qualifications leads to youth unemployment: BBC Article

People are getting thousands of pounds in grants from the grants from the government for this stuff you know. The report, by Research by Centre for Cities (what a ridiculous name, by the way) suggests that areas where a (relatively) high number of students get a C grade or above in English and Maths have a lower percentage of youngsters aged between 18 and 24 unemployed. Thank you Sherlock.

The report suggests that government policy over previous years has led too many youngsters down the path of meaningless qualifications in order to boost league table positions, as until recently English and Maths didn't need to be included in the 5 A* to C used to calculate league table position. That's big of them, to blame the policy-makers.

The report mainly appears to blame schools, and ultimately teachers for this failure of many youngster to be equiped for the workplace however. I personally think there may be other factors:

1. The fact that there are league tables in the first place mean that schools are almost encouraged to push students down the path that will give them maximum chance of gaining as many C grades or equivalent, no matter what those qualifications mean or are in. Due to government policy allowing parents to choose schools for their offspring, the market is very competitive and a good or bad league table position could possibly be the difference between a school surviving financially or not.
2. Student apathy towards learning. The amount of times a student has told me "I don't need maths to do what I want to do" or asked "When am I going to use this in real life?". Many students now either don't care or will attempt to do just enough to get a C grade, which invariably means that they won't do enough. The standard reply of "You will use this to get a decent qualification, which will hopefully lead to a decent job" doesn't seem to wash any more, which is a shame, because it's true.
3. Schools have little or no power to actually discipline children due to woolly legal issues - no-one really know what teachers are allowed and not allowed to do. I'm not calling for a return to the days of canings in assembly, but being allowed to keep a child behind to actually complete some useful or worthwhile work is no longer available to a teacher. We need to give 24 hours notice, and generally the parents of those who need to stay behind won't allow their little darlings to do so.
4. That leads me onto the next issue - parents/family. In my 10+ years of teaching there has been  a marked change in the attitude of parents/carers whereupon all the mistakes made by their offspring must be the fault of someone else, usually the school in some way, shape or form. They will promise to employ their child when they leave school, and probably do so for a while until they realise that due to that promise of work, little Johnny failed to get any qualifications that will allow him to perform the job given to him at a reasonable standard. Statistics show that 80% of young people employed by their family are sacked within 12 months. Enough said.
5. The national curriculumn doesn't prepare young people for the world of work. I have some sympathy for those who ask when they are going to use simultaneous equations in real life. They clearly aren't (in my 10+ years I've struggled to find a use for the things outside of the classroom), so that topic should be pushed to the higher end, for those who may want to go onto do A Level maths. The government has made a start but there is still a long way to go, and the pressure to get as many C grades as possible (we're back to league tables) mean that most students can't use anything they've learnt in context anyway, and are unwilling to try.

And I haven't even mentioned Ofsted. But as usual teachers are at fault, not the lazy youth, unsupportive parents, unhelpful curriculum or government policy.

And they wonder why teachers are striking - it's not just about the pensions you know, the pension thing is just the glace cherry on a disgruntled cake!

So We're Lacklustre Now

"There are too many lacklustre schools in England which are not pushing children to reach their potential, says the annual report from Ofsted."

This is the opening paragraph from this article: BBC News Article

My immediate reaction is "Well they would say that, wouldn't they".

I can't wait for the press release from Ofsted that says "All schools are doing really well; our job is done." It will never happen of course as they'd effectively be putting themselves out of a job. You don't get too many turkeys writing glowing reports about Christmas after all.

The article says that 40% of schools inspected this year have been found to offer a "satisfactory" education to their students. To the uninitiated that sounds fine, what with the dictionary definition of "satisfactory" being "fulfilling all demands and requirements". But in education "satisfactory" means "not doing enough".

What the report fails to mention is that the goal posts have changed for Ofsted inspections, essentially meaning that everything the inspectors required last time they visited is no longer of any importance (I'm exaggerating a little here, but only a little) and so schools have been downgraded in almost all cases because they don't really know what is required of them.

Is it any wonder the public are at a bit of a loss as to how they judge a school if schools don't know themselves?

The whole article/report is Ofsted's justification for why it should continue to exist, what with a "big name" assuming its headship in the new year - Sir Michael "We're Not Worthy" Wilshaw.

Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister is quoted as saying "There are still far too many under-performing schools making painfully slow improvements." I think I may have the reason, or reasons why:

• Schools are facing budget cuts, meaning that they can't afford to adequately staff or resource schools (unless they are academies of course, where they get more money and can do what they want with it). It's the nature of the current economic climate, but you can't give anyone less and expect significantly more, whatever business you are in.
• A teachers' priority is no longer teaching, it's administration. It's marking books with "formative" comments significantly more (despite the fact that the students don't read them or seem to care that much); it's testing the students to provide data for use in planning; it's reporting home every half term so that the parents know how their child is performing (although many appear not to be bothered); it's writing detailed lesson plans containing every last bit of information on every child in that class, plus deciding what particular questions could push each individula child to progress and actually writing it down rather than allowing teachers to have any sort of spontaneity in class (planning has always been part of teaching, but nowadays the expected process is unhelpful). The list goes on, but who is all this extra work for? It's not the students, it's Ofsted. Everything I've just mentioned just uses up time that teachers could be using to actually come up with good ideas to make their students progress and hopefully enjoy learning.
• Pensions and pay freezes - no matter what job you are employed in, if your wages are frozen for years (and therefore, in real terms, your wages are cut) and you are being asked to work longer for less, you are not going to be overly motivated. Lack of motivation is disastrous for teachers, as it's a profession that relies on enthusiastic delivery to enthuse students.

Maybe I'm being a little melodramatic, but all these factors make a difference, and when you get some jumped up, data reliant, pompous idiot, who hasn't actually done the job for years (if ever) telling that you're doing it all wrong, how do you think the teaching profession will react?

What's even more worrying is that politicians actually believe every word they say.
What chance have we got?

Crisis In Teaching - Just Wait Until 2012

Sir Michael Wilshaw was on The One Show the other night, and alarm bells are now ringing for when his time as Chief Inspector of Schools begins in 2012. He states that he's going to target coasting schools (hang on, that sounds like David Cameron from last week's press), because if he can do what he has managed in Hackney, then anyone can do it.

The worst thing was his response to the statement: "I can't work out if this is a modern technique or it's very old fashion".

Wilshaw said: "If old fashioned means high expectations, sure. If old fashioned means [that] we're asking them to respect each other, respect us and respect staff. If traditional means ensuring [that] there are no excuses for poor behaviour, then I'm happy to be called traditional."

You can see why politician like him.

He goes on to deny that his school is any different from any other school, other than the fact that it's been rebuilt and that he has total control over the budget.

What the report does include, interestingly, is a short interview with one of his staff who says that the pressures on the staff are too great at times - presumably he's now polishing his CV.

What the report failed to mention is the expectations on staff to provide extra lessons both before and after school for no extra pay (although due to the school being an academy, Wilshaw can pay extra initially), plus having to staff detentions and lessons on Saturdays.

It also doesn't mention stories such as when the PE GCSE results came in last summer and had dropped by 5% he phoned the head of departemnt (during the holidays) telling him that he care where his department were but they would all be at a 7.30am meeting the next morning to verbally lay into them.

Is this really the way forward? Is the profession, that is struggling for quality numbers already, really going to encourage more people in the fold?

The answer's "No" - who would choose to do extra work for nothing?

This bloke is a real worry for the teaching profession, and could be the final nail in the coffin, what with pay, pensions and conditions issues. Teacher's aren't afraid of hard work but Wilshaw's demands of teachers are unreasonable. More strikes on the way? Or are people just going to find something else to do?

The Lost Generation

There have been a few headlines this week regarding over a million unemployed 18 to 24 year olds for the first time ever in Britain. This is extremely unhealthy for the country's future, but is it a big surpirse and who is to blame?

Personally I believe that the various governments of the past 20 or so years are to blame, including the current effort, despite their promises to get these young people into work as soon as possible.

Essentially the problem, in my mind, boils down to the apparent importance of league tables and the resultant importance upon getting as many students as possible up to a C grade at GCSE in as many subjects as possible. This has led to the following:

1. In order to make standards appear to rise, the standard for a C grade (and most other grades) has dropped. It is still very difficult to get the top grades at GCSE, but to get a C grade is now far easier than it ever has been, despite what those in Whitehall say. 
2. Children aren't allowed to fail, because the consequences for a school are huge: reduction in budget and reduction in those wishing to attend that school all amount to a dying establishment. As a collegaue of mine said, it's like asking a an army general to go to war and return with no casualties - it will never happen, but due to education policy over the past 20 years, it actually nearly has happened in teaching. Every child, of any intellect, can gain 5 A* to C grades if they want to, and let's be honest, even if they don't, schools will attempt to do it for them (BTECs, come on down!).

As a result of the points above, the age group that is facing increasing unemployment don't actually know how to succeed because tbey've never had to lift a finger in order to do so up until now, so theefore don't know how to when it comes to the crunch, i.e. when they enter the workplace.

Unless children are allowed to fail in school, schools will never prepare children for real life. Unfortunately government pressure upon schools through agencies such as Ofsted mean that generations will continue to be lost until things like league tables and the mis-guided desire to allow everyone in school to succeed, whether they deserve to or not, will mean that young people won't have the desire to do their best (because they won't have learnt it) and achieve what they want to. Can you really blame the students? Why try outside of school when you never had to try in it? And can you blame schools for wanting to maintain their funding so that they can offer a quality education to all its students?

Another colleague of mine, having taught for around 20 years, said that in their time the standard of teaching has got so much better, but that has been counter-balanced by the plummet in the standard of student.

Teaching Methods Don't Ever Change Apparently

There was an interesting letter to Chris Woodhead, former Chief Inspector of Schools in The Sunday Times this week. It was about non-teachers and those who have little recent experience of classroom practise. It basically said that those with little recent experience have no place telling teachers how to do their job. These include Carol Vorderman (the current mathematics in education czar for the government), some Ofsted inspectors and Woodhead himself.

Woodhead agreed that Vorderman's job was a farce and that those who inspect should have relevent experience, but it was his final point that made me laugh out loud. He said that despite not having taught in a classroom since 1974, good teaching methods never change. Why did it make me laugh so much? I would love to see him teach my bottom set year 10 with his 1974 routines. It would be a (hilarious) disaster.

Why do I not think that it would work? Even though he has a point that good teaching methods don't change (and it's the point he'd justify his statement with), the attitude of children has changed enormously. Even in my 10 plus years of teaching I have noticed a sea change in children's attitudes, and perhaps more importantly, the attitudes of parents.

In my second year of teaching I taught an unpleasant child called Peter. He decided that he would draw on my desks one lesson, so I set him a detention after school, giving the (arguably ridiculous, as few secondary school children head straight home) 24 hours notice required by law. Peter decided that he wouldn't do the detention, so after he'd gone home I phoned his parents and they brought him back to school, sitting there as he cleaned all my desks, rubber gloves and all. There are two points I'd like to make about this:

1. Nowadays, very few parents would actually bring their children back to school. In fact, many would argue that Peter didn't actually draw on my tables because he'd told them he hadn't (despite my witnessing the act). The detention would be made out to be harsh and unfair, and Peter wouldn't be doing it.
2. I wouldn't be allowed to make Peter clean the tables - health and safety/human rights - you name it, they'd hide behind it. The parents would probably resort to saying that it was demeaning, and I would get in trouble.

I say this with a recent incident at my current school fresh in mind. The first involved a well-known trouble-maker shouting "f***ing c***" at me across the road, unprovoked. The school were very supportive and immediately phoned the child's house to explain that he was to be excluded for 5 days. The mother, despite having not been there, denied that he'd ever done it, claiming that it was completely out of character and that he never swears at home. The 5 day exclusion stood fortunately, otherwise I would have been livid, but it was the attitude of the parent who essentially accused the school and me of lying. This is the same parent who claims that her child struggles to make friends - he appears to have plenty of friends as he hands cigarettes out in the playground.

In Woodhead's day he even had the cane to hide behind in a discipline sense, let alone the ability to detain wrong-doers at will. Now he would have to give 24 hours notice of a reasonable detention, which the child would probably fail to attend.

That leads me onto another case at our school, of an awkward child, who's parents are equally awkward. The child, who's decent at sports, is allowed to play for school teams, but can't do detentions after school. Why is this? The parent has to collect various children from different schools and detentions don't fit in with that timetable, but sporting fixtures do. Calling their bluff we offered to make detentions (of which many are pending) the same length as sporting fixtures, but still permission wasn't forthcoming. I have to say that at that point I asked myself why this child and their awkward parent weren't asked to find a school that would accept their attitude/pick-up timetable. The child is still in my class.

So good luck Chris, and your 1970s classroom ideals.

Cricket Is The Key - Apparently

I was browsing the BBC News website the other day and found the following articles about cricket/sport and schools:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15675694

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10086915

Ok, so the second one is not directly linked to cricket other than a bloke from the Cricket Foundation (Wasim Khan - a journeyman opening bastman) is quoted at the end, but the first one is interesting and most definitely about the game.

The first article says something along the lines of "cricket teaches people a sense of sportsmanship and calms everyone down". It's something they tried in the USA, encouraging gang members to partake in a spot of leather upon willow as a way to get along and steer them away from gang related activities. And it's worked to some extent, by all accounts. Cricket is a great game for camaraderie, mainly because it lasts what seems like an eternity, so you are forced to get along or you're in for hours of friction, which is a waste of useful energy. The England Cricket Board (ECB) has a programme called Chance To Shine where coaches go into schools and coach cricket. If a child is really interested in playing a little more seriously, a club is suggested by the coaches. The game is riddled with sportsmanship, with the main calming influence when it comes to grievances being the shaking of hands - the traditional version rather than some rehearsed sequence of hand touching - and clapping the opposition. Schools who are involved in the programme have noticed an improvement in behaviour in those who take part. Surely this must be encouraged.

The second article explains how school sport has become unhealthily competitive, whereupon children copy their heroes from the professional game. I used to coach a football team but gave up for the following reasons:

1. I couldn't really give up the time to run it properly, although I will help out if I can. The increased pressures on classroom teachers mean that those members of staff who could offer some expertise in certain areas can't afford to give up the time to share it like they would in the past. This is a real loss to school sport in general.
2. The attitude of the children became unbearable, with them refusing to come to training but still expecting to play in the matches (if they were dropped I'd get an irate phone call from a parent) and when you tried to work on the basics (which they were invariably incapable of doing) they just ignored you and challenged each other to a "keepy-ups" competition. I lost count of the number of times I said "If you were actually capable of that 70 yard pass or footballing trick, you'd be playing for Barcelona or Chelsea, not St Cuthberts' U14s".

Part of the problem, and it is taken into classrooms, is that the children and their parents all think they know all there is to know about football (football is the main protagonist here) because they see it on the TV all the time. They also see their heroes repeated petulance and take a similar attitude into the classroom. Rugby and cricket (as well as many other sports) don't really have this, and if it does occur it is dealt with swiftly and harshly to discourage others from doing the same. Football cannot say the same thing. Fining someone who gets paid £250,000 per week 2 weeks wages (the maximum fine allowed in professional football is 2 weeks wages) is pointless. If these people can be financially successful but seemingly not have to adhere to any rules, then why should our young people?

I can't wait until the money falls out of football - the world will be a better place

League Tables Are Rigged!

Would you Adam and Eve it? The government have just realised that school league tables are rigged by schools "banking" C grades for students and making the less academic students take BTEC courses because they are worth up to 4 C grades each.

Now if you work in a school the fact that students take BTECs to boost a school's C grades will not be news to you, nor will the fact that loads of students take an early GCSE in some subjects to get a C grade and then the main focus of that school is to concentrate on those who get a D grade and push them up to C. But to those in Whitehall it is news, presumably because they are so far removed from day-to-day school life that it's taken them this long to catch up.

So what's the problem? And what are the government going to do about it?

According to the various articles I've read, the league tables aren't a proper representation of how schools are performing. Had the government bothered to ask teachers (this does seem to be a common theme) they would have found this out a while ago. League tables are all about gaining 5 A* to C grades at GCSE, and now must include English and Maths, whereas before it didn't matter what subjects they were. League tables have been sold to the public as the definitive guide to how well students from certain schools do, so the public don't really know any better (unless they know a teacher of course).

The proposal is to make 1 BTEC (that takes a lot of work, and is mainly coursework assessed) equivalent to 1 GCSE (which doesn't take as much work, although is more academic). 1 BTEC = 4 GCSEs was too much, but 1 to 1 is too little. And funnily enough all those state schools that were failing (in Ofsted's eyes), were rebranded academies and are now doing really well according to their 5 A* to C count, will suffer hugely. The only thing that makes academies appear to be improving so hugely is the fact that 1 BTEC = 4 GCSEs. The government can't really win this one to be honest - damned if they do, damned if they don't.

As far as making students sit early entries to "bank" a C and therefore focus attention on those who didn't make it first time around, do you really blame schools? The pressure to gain as many many C+ grades is huge and can make or break a school, so any potential advantage to be had by entering students early must be taken, with both hands.

As far as essentially ignoring those who achieve a C grade is concerned, well that's clearly not right, but schools are in a results business. If you don't get the results, you lose customers because parents can now choose which school to send their child too to a certain extent - another well-thought-out government policy. A school that isn't full has to endure budget cuts, which then leads to staff redundancies and ultimately to the school being unable to offer a holistic curriculum because it can't be staffed.

The prime minister has also stated that some schools coast and don't move their students on enough. He says that the league tables should reflect the "value added" to the students' knowledge. Well hooray! Finally they may be getting the message, but little will change in actual fact. As I've said in recent posts, some parts of the country have a hugely selective (grammar school) system meaning that they cream off the most academic in that area and therefore will end end at the top of those wonderful league tables.

Ultimately, whatever happens the league table system is flawed. Just get rid of them so the public aren't fooled by the propaganda.

The only way to assess whether a school is any good is to go into the school and see if the children are enjoying learning. If they are, they will probably reach their potential.

You don't need a league table to tell you that.

The Top 100 State Secondary Schools

The Sunday Times this week has four lists:

• The Top 100 Independent Secondary Schools.
• The Top 100 Prep Schools (Independent Primary Schools to you and me).
• The Top 100 State Primary Schools.
• The Top 100 State Secondary Schools.

There will be parents across the land scouring the list to see if a school near to where they live is featured, particularly in the state sector. The trouble is that the state lists ought to come with a "health warning".

What do I mean by that?
It means that the table is not really showing what most people will expect it to show, and that is a true comparison of all state schools around the country.

The secondary list is not a level playing field, and just a quick glance at the names of the schools will tell you that. The word "comprehensive" doesn't feature at all, but the word "grammar" features in well over half the list; interestingly the word "academy", the flagship of recent governements only appears once, and not until number 89. This means that most, if not all the schools in that top 100 are heavily selective of the children who join their ranks through the 11+ exams. They are essentially independent schools without the fees, where the 11+ exam replaces the common entrance (the exams children sit to qualify for independent school).

Many state secondary secondary schools don't have the "luxury" of selection, they are known as "comprehensive schools", doing exactly what they say on the tin by offering a comprehensive education for the whole community. Grammar schools don't exist in many parts of the country, so schools in those areas don't feature in the list at all, unsurprisingly. I teach in one of the many areas that doesn't have the grammar system, and to be honest I'm not totally against the system, but that's another post altogether, which now the seed has been planted, will happen fairly shortly.

All that tables like these do is demoralise those who don't work in the schools featured in the lists. They make you feel inadequate even though you have little or no hope of actually competing. The teaching profession is already plumbing a morale trough with the pensions debate and various other policy issues and biased articles like this only deepen the gloom.

Why can't the media and politicains/education agencies actually tell the truth about school?. A more accurate league table would be one that shows what is known as "value added" data, i.e. schools that improve a child's grades the most during their time at the school. This would allow all secondary schools to have a chance to appear on the list rather than just the privileged few.

But that would make sense of course.

Data - How Useful It Can Be

Data is the new black - schools and teachers are swimming in the stuff. You can't move for spreadsheets in your planning, and planning lessons for official observations (don't be fooled into thinking teachers do all that paperwork for every lesson they teach - there are only 24 hours in a day) becomes an absolute minefield of wading through lists and numbers so that you "really know" the students in your class. Just chatting to them and getting to know them as a person is no longer required, you need to know what they got in a test that they sat in Year 6, plus other standardised tests that they may have sat.

A colleague of mine went on a course this week (a feat in itself due to massive budget cuts) and upon their return said that everyone was in the same boat.

At our school we currently assess every child once per half term in every subject. We then record their score and level/grade (depending on what key stage they are) in a spreadsheet so that their progress can be checked throughout their school career. Why are we doing this? Ofsted want to see it is the only real reason, but there's also a culture of accountability for teachers.

Is this a good thing? In short, the answer is "No". Ofsted only want it so that they get a feel of what the children in a class are like before they observe it, although data isn't always that reliable. What statistics don't take into account is that children have a flair for making friends who aren't always a good influence, doing things that perhaps they shouldn't and resisting pleas to do any work at all, but try finding an "attitude" column on a spreadsheet, or a  "what they actually do in the evenings instead of their homework" column for that matter. There's not an "are the parents supportive?" column either. All these things are just as important as the assessment data that all schools are collecting endlessly.

When you look at it, what this huge amount of data is used for is to beat a teacher over the head with when those children that stray off the straight and narrow don't reach what the data suggests they should achieve. Especially when, in our school's case, all the target grades generated by the data we've collected are what's known as "aspirational", or in layman's terms, only possible to achieve if the child works ridiculously hard. How many 15 and 16 years olds do that? Admittedly some, but certainly not all. And since a teacher's results (or those of their class) can make or break their pay progression, you will understand that data is not the most popular educational beast.

Schools even pay a senior manager (somebody who actually has some power in school) to "run" data, costing thousands of pounds per year, per school.

And all because of Ofsted - not only do they suck up £200 million of tax-payers' money directly, they also suck up millions indirectly, millions that could be spent on actually educating children.

Sabbaticals For Teachers

There was a letter in this week's Sunday Times to Chris Woodhead (Educational columnist and former Chief Inspector of Schools) asking whether he thought it was a good idea that teachers got sabbatical (a period of time doing something else, often a year) every few years to "recharge the batteries". It is an idea that has been suggested by the new Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw.

In reply Woodhead says how impressed he has been with Wilshaw so far and goes on to state that teaching in inner city schools "can be a very tough job indeed". He then goes on to say that most teachers don't teach in inner city schools and although they have to deal with immature children, the hard work is equalled by the rewards of the job. Presumably this is why the main reason for teacher sickness at the moment is stress, the stress of all those rewarding times teachers have in the classroom. Foolish statement number one.

Woodhead also states that teachers are paid relatively well (no-one ever enters teaching for the money, but it's not bad) and despite cuts in the pension, the pension is far better than the private equivalent, assuming that those teachers actually make it to pension age due to the stresses of the job. These are contentious issues, but understandable from someone who hasn't taught in a school classroom since 1974.

He also mentions the 13 weeks holiday - the familiar dig that teachers have to deal with. As I've said on numerous occasions, no-one would do the job if it weren't for the holidays. I certainly wouldn't.

He also says, astoundingly, that teachers have "cast-iron job security". This is quite unbelievable at a time of budget cuts and many schools being forced to make teachers (as well as support staff) redundant. Not to mention the qualified teachers in subjects such as PE, Art, Drama, History (the list goes on) who can't even get their first job because there are too many qualified teachers for too feew jobs. And that's without a baseless accusation from a vindictive child that hangs over all teachers every day, where the teacher is guilty until proven innocent. The bloke is clearly an idiot. Foolish statement number two.

I'm not saying that teachers deserve a sabbatical to "recharge their batteries", although I believe that some countries do offer them. The cost would be prohibitive as those on sabbatical would need a wage, and their replacement would also need payment. Also the public may not welcome the news, and the disruption to classes may outweigh the benefits.

Chris Woodhead - totally removed from educational reality.

The Wisdom of Chris Woodhead

I don't know how many of you read The Sunday Times, but in the one of the numerous sections of the newspaper, News Review, Chris Woodhead has a question and answer section where he attempts to help out (mainly parents) with any educational queries. As I don't tend to read too many papers (I don't really have the time), I can only assume that most broadsheets have a similar section amongst their various reams of "news".

My longing question, and one that I may well email him, is whether he is actually qualified to offer solid and up-to-date information that can be of any use to those who write in to him?

In my opinion the answer is a resounding "No", and I will qualify this with some facts.

Woodhead has not been a full time teacher since 1974, at which point he entered a career in teacher education and ultimately became Chief Inspector of Schools, or head of Ofsted in layman's terms. I've been a teacher since 1999 and even in that time the profession has changed immensely, so would Mr Woodhead even recognise a modern classroom if he stumbled into one nowadays? The answer is no,the two are poles apart.

As far as his experience in teacher education goes, that is ultimately irrelevent insofar as what he was dealing with was classroom theory, not classroom practise, which as most would realise, are two very different things. As a mentor of trainee teachers at my current school, I am often astouded, if not flabberghasted by some of the ideals university lecturers feed their trainees, ideals that fail to prepare their enthusiastic charges with the stresses and strains of the classroom.

He was then Chief Executive of the National Curriculum Council, before becoming Chief Inspector of Schools, neither of which are classroom-based, the former just stating what should be taught (again a theoretial role) and the latter as someone who looks at data whilst beating schools over the head with a stick.

He was a target of huge amounts of abuse from the teaching profession (mainly the unions) in his role with Ofsted and continues to make what one can only assume is a very good living pontificating about schools and education in general, when he really has little idea of how a normal teacher's day actually pans out.

The fact that newspapers employ him as an apparent expert in education and government's reliance on whatever Ofsted says only magnifies the huge difference between what is reported about schools and what actually happens in them. In his column Woodhead continually points people in the direction of Ofsted reports, which is surely counter-productive for the future of his column, as people will cut out the middleman and stop writing in, simply going to the Ofsted website.

What baffles me is that people still listen to this man and to his former government quango, whose inspectors tend to have similar CVs to that of their former boss.

I've made up my mind, I'm writing to him, although I'm not necessarily expecting a reply, or at least not a polite one.

Teachers Pensions - A New Deal?

I thought I'd go and see what changes were offered by the government today and copied this from the official government leaflet:

What will stay the same?
You will continue to receive a guaranteed income in your retirement.
You will keep the pension and lump sum you have already earned and this will remain linked to your final salary on retirement.
Regardless of any changes to teachers’ Normal Pension Age or the State Pension Age, you will retain options to retire at any age between 55 and 75.
Those within 10 years of normal pension age on 1 April 2012 will see no change to the age at which they can retire, and no change in the amount of pension they receive when they retire.
What is proposed to change?
A move from a final salary pension to a career average pension scheme.
A phased increase to teachers’ Normal Pension Age in line with changes to the State Pension Age.
A rebalancing of employee and employer contributions to provide a fairer distribution between members and other taxpayers.
When will this happen?
The intention is for a phased increase to employee contributions from 2012.
The other reforms are proposed for 2015.

Call me picky, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of change there.

• We still work until we're well beyond the age that anyone can function effectively as a teacher.
• We still have an average salary assessment rather than final salary meaning we'll lose out.
• We will still pay more and as a result of the previous point, get less.

I don't really understand the difference from the previous one, despite it being described as a deal for a generation by those in power. I therefore reckon that strikes may well be forthcoming, althoughI won't be joining in as I can't afford to lose a day's pay. And before anyone says that I'll be losing out in the long run, I'll have paid my mortgage off by then.

All another strike will do is alienate the popultion once more as they have to take days off or pay for child care.

Less and less desirable...

False Allegations Against Staff

I just saw an atricle on the BBC News pages about false allegations against staff in schools. The report states that around half of all accusations or allegations are "unsubstantialed, malicious or unfounded". Is this really any surprise I ask myself?

Having been the victim of such and incident I feel quite strongly about this. And, to be honest, even if I hadn't been the victim of this, I'd still feel quite strongly. The problem stems from various governments awarding both parents and pupils too much power, and society being fed a diet of paranoia by the press. Teachers, upon accustion, are almost automatically presumed guilty - none of this "innocent until proven guilty" stuff for us. I was fortunate that my headteacher believed that the accusation against me was of the malicious type. In short, one of my pupils set up a social networking account in my name and was posting some inappropriate commets on it.

The government has said that it is to give teachers accused of anything anonymity until the allegations are proven - which is around 5% of the time according to the article. At the moment staff in around 20% of cases are suspended, of which around a fifth are found guilty. The trouble is that investigations take time and by the time the allegation is found to have been malicious the damage is already done and the teacher can't resume their post easily, if at all. And in most cases nothing happens to the child who made the false accusation.

I have seen one episode of "Educating Essex" on Channel 4 and in the programme a child made a false allegation against the deputy head. Due to the programme being filmed there was total coverage by CCTV around the school meaning that it was very easy for the school to show that the child was lying. Most schools don't have access to that technology though, and had the accusation been made elsewhere the deputy head would almost certainly have been suspended on the same day.

This is once again a typical example of our modern society where children are protected from any consequences that they should be subject to, meaning that they will never learn from their mistakes. It is also an example of schools being unable to prepare their students for the workplace. If someone made a false allegations there not only would there be legal consequences, but employees tend to reap what they sow (I'll leave the retribution tactics to your imaginations) rather than essentially get away with an apparently throw-away comment.

As the unions have all said, offering anonymity to teachers facing an allegation is a step in the right direction, but if they return to work they will more than likely still be teaching that lying child because little or nothing will have happened to them - "because they didn't understand what they were doing".

They will soon understand if they have to find themselves in a new school as a result of being excluded, forced to make new friends and a slur on their permanent record.

Link to the BBC article: HERE

What it's all about!

A week off - lovely. Don't believe a word of what any teacher says when they say that the best thing about the job isn't the holidays, it's the positive effect they have on the children they teach. They are lying, probably not intentionally, because they may genuinely believe what they are saying. But if the holidays were reduced to 5 weeks per year, they would be doing something else. Those children they've been waxing lyrical about will still require the "positive effect", but no-one would do the job apart from sadists.

I intend to do little, in fact, no schoolwork this half term, although I may venture near the school at some point as I may need to get somewhere nearby. I need to check what my IT class are moving onto having delivered their (frankly awful) presentations in the final lesson before half term. I must admit that having studied the data on my IT class I wasn't expecting great things, but their total lack of listening skills when the instructions were given at the beginning of every one of their last 15 lessons is astounding. Fortunately I can't see many of the class having to give a presentation during their working life, although I'm happy to be proven wrong.

There's a local private/public school also off on half term, where day pupils are charged around £18k per year. They have two weeks off for half term because this is such a long term - it's called the Advent term in public schools. Poor little darlings, but if my child went to the school, and having done a quick mental calculation on hours spent in school, I would question the justification of this 2 week half term. Having said that, the children who go there are almost certainly guaranteed good qualifications (although one can't polish a turd, hence the entrance exam to weed those who will fail exams out) due to class sizes being much less than 30, and therefore the teacher can actually help you if you are stuck. The teacher's don't have their time taken up with pointless stuff such as performance management and delivering formative feedback that is ignored, so the teachers can concentrate on what they are paid to do, namely teach rather than dig their way out of red tape and educational faeces.

I may be off work at the moment, but work isn't leaving me alone. I normally scour my Sunday paper for education-based stories, but the cupboard was bare, until I opened the local rag only to see a still from CCTV footage released by British Transport Police in conjunction with a bag stolen from a local train. The two young girls in the picture rang a bell immediately (or at least one certainly did, with her distinctive hairdo) and I'm 99.9% sure that the girls are in our Year 10. I have informed the police. It's a tactic that our headteacher/deputy headteacher should maybe think about since there have been a number of incidents this term that should have involved the police (drugs and thefts namely) but the school has opted to carry out internal investigations.

You may well ask why the school doesn't involve the police. The answer is this:

BAD PRESS MUST BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS

Pathetic isn't it? All it means is that the problem will increase as a 5 day exclusion isn't really a deterrant as they will just practise FIFA12, whereas a criminal record might be. We get back to a lack of consequences for the actions of children who will probably go on to be criminals because they don't understand any different due to the fact that their actions as youths go essentially unpunished. Ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but we learn from our mistakes when a fitting punishment is given. We learn nothing is no punishment ensues.

No doubt I'll be chastised when I get back to school for giving the school some bad press, but I reckon I'll sleep easier knowing that.

The (Potential) New Head of Ofsted

His name is Sir Michael Wilshaw and Micahel Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, has described him as his hero. He has a reputation for being one of the best headteachers in the country and is nicknamed "sergeant major". He has turned around a failing school in Hackney until last summer they had around 10% of their sixth form be offered places at Oxford or Cambridge, including one girl who was a mother at the age of 14. Every lesson at Mossbourne Community Academy begins with the chanting of the school motto, and pupils now study latin. You can understand why Gove likes him, but let's be honest, based on his record so far as Education Secretary, what does he know? Wilshaw made an inner city academy a success, which is a good thing, but can his educational template work in all schools in the country?

The main worry for teachers his comments about "10% of teachers in every school need help to leave as quickly as possible". That's fine, it's no secret that some teachers aren't really up to the job, and I've had a few as colleagues that this describes in my time if I'm honest. The trouble is that there are around 450,000 teachers in the UK, and you don't have to be a great mathematician to work out that Wilshaw is saying 45,000 teachers aren't up to it. Not only is that 45,000 livelihoods in the balance in a worsening economic climate (no doubt the unions' stance) but also, who's going to replace those 45,000 "incapable" classroom practitioners?

I know from personal experience that it takes a while to establish an air of authority in the classroom, an authority that is regularly challenged by "nice" students, but experience in the classroom gives me more ways of dealing with those challengesand hopefully sorting them out, although not always I hasten to add. Presumably the people who are going to replace the "incompetent" teachers are going to come from newly qualified members of the profession as 10% of those who are doing the job are clearly not up to it. I can also say from experience that newly qualified teachers take time to "bed in" snd rely on experienced colleagues to back them up. They also rely on schools discipling children effectively, somethings that's become increasingly tougher during my career.

Wilshaw likes newly qualified teachers though, as he makes them believe that working 15 hour days for no extra money is a good idea. Mossbourne Community Amademy is open early and closes late, as well as opening on Saturdays to give the students a safe and stable environment to do their studies, which can only be commended, but it does smack of Wilshaw taking advantage of impressionable young teachers who don't want to get on the wrong side of the boss. Does Wilshaw really think that burning young teachers out by making them work long hours for little money is the way forward?

What Wilshaw doesn't seem to appreciate is that not all schools are populated with children who come from troubled backgrounds. The school I teach at is populated in part by spoilt middle aged brats who can't wait to get excluded so that they can get good at Fifa 12, something they can't do during the evenings as they are out in big groups intimidating people and drinking cheap cider. Ok, so I'm exaggerating a little, but where Mossbourne's children find solace in school until late or at weekends, students in other schools can't wait to get away.

Whereas Wilshaw's students at Mossbourne see education as a ticket out of what we are told is a downward spiral of poverty and deprivation, the students at lots of schools see education as a meaningless waste of time before they can sponge off their parents whilst getting RSI in their thumbs, or perhaps getting a job in the family business until their family realise that they are essentially lazy and unqualified to perform the functions required of them.

The main worry is that Wilshaw appears adament that it's his way or the highway, which hasn't worked in the past - Chris Woodhead anyone? It's been nice to see that Woodhead had been offering "chip off the old block" Wilshaw some wise advice, although Wilshaw could be described as an "extreme Woodhead".

If Ofsted wasn't bad enough, Wilshaw's ascension to head of the organisation can only make it worse. I fully expect to be forced to grow a small moustache and have to goose-step around the school come our next inspection.