Thursday 27 October 2011

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

Monday 24 October 2011

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.

Wednesday 12 October 2011

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.

Friday 7 October 2011

Drugs and the Inclusion Policy

Now I don't know about any of you, but when I was at school, and I went to a relatively posh establishment, if you got caught with drugs you got expelled. In fact, when I first started teaching, a similar policy existed. It's not the case anymore, as I have discovered this term.

The inclusion policy is a government backed thing whereupon as many children who can cope enter mainstream education. This is whether they have physical or mental disabilities, emotional issues or whatever else their parents have had them diagnosed with to excuse their awful behaviour (ADHD has been a particular favourite in recent times - I know it exists, but it's not as common as diagnoses would make you believe). This is a great policy, IN THEORY. Young people shouldn't be sent to a "special" school automatically; judgements need to be based upon whether they can cope physically and/or mentally with a mainstream school. For some young people it can be the making of them, for others it can be a terrible experience and for the remainder, they are not capable of behaving to an acceptable standard. As far as the various governments who have supported this policy are concerned, it saves them millions of pounds each year because with the inclusion policy, expensive to run "special" schools have closed due to dwindling numbers.

Schools must avoid permanent exclusion (the new word for expulsion) at all costs, but when forced to permanently exclude a child, the school basically has to foot the bill for their future education. With budgets so tight, schools can barely afford to do so. The trouble is that those mainstream schools that can't afford to exclude students are also taking in more students with behavioural difficulties, students who would previously have gone to a "special" school that has now probably closed.

If a child really does have behavioural issues (and many do), for whatever reason (in a lot of cases, no reason other than that they are spoilt brats) they will eventually find themselves facing permanent exclusion. If the school can show that the child is a danger to those around them then the job's made a lot easier, and they are correctly excluded. The trouble is that the children who are taking and perhaps dealing drugs in school (and there is almost certainly one in every secondary school, if not more) are seen as less of a problem; the fact that they are stoned half the time makes them a danger only to their exercise books as they may dribble on their latest attempt at an essay.

Around 10 years ago I taught at a school where a child I taught was caught dealing drugs in the playground. He was excluded permanently from the moment he was caught. This term so far we have had two children caught with illegal drugs in school, and their punishment: 5 days off, sorry, exclusion. One of those two children actually went to complain that her "weed" had been stolen from her bag during science by some others in her class and she wanted it back!

Not only is this not shocking enough but the school (and we won't be the only school to do this) did not inform the police, as they should have done for illegal substance possession, because of the bad press that might ensue. How society has progressed - not. Strangely enough the problem is still there and will only get worse for the following reason: these kids like doing drugs and know that if they get caught they will be given 5 days off to smoke as much of the stuff as they want, at whatever time they want without fear of proper retribution. Hardly a deterrent. In fact, when one of the two said that they'd failed to do their homework as a result of their five day exclusion, I responded with "that's even more reason for doing your homework (the homework is available online), you can't use the excuse that you were caught with something you shouldn't have in your bag", they had a go at me about getting my facts correct (it was in his pocket - massive difference) and that I shouldn't make a big deal (nice choice of words) of it. Unbelievable.

Can you blame the school though? The answer's "Yes and No".

Yes
The school should at the very least report the drug possession to the police. Part of the reason the riots occured in England in August 2011 was because young people don't understand that there are consequences to some actions.

No
Schools have to accept some children with extreme behavioural difficulties in their schools, and these children disrupt the learning of the majority, who are decent kids. If a child consistently disrupts other childrens' chances of a good education, they need to go. Even more so if they are putting other children in danger. On top of this, schools aren't really allowed to exclude people permanently anyway, or at least not do so very much. Those caught with drugs are therefore less of a priority as they are only harming themselves, unless they are dealing of course, which is difficult to prove.

This policy of inclusion is a disaster for education, and along with various other things (pension issues, pay freezes, making it easier to sack what some regard at an incompetent teacher to name but a few) means that teaching will die out as a profession. We are seeing worse newly qualified teachers coming into the business each year because some of the potentially good ones are avoiding the profession like the plague for all the reasons I've just mentioned.

And who can blame them?

Performance Management

It's that time of the year again when performance management rears its ugly head for teachers. This didn't exist when I first entered the profession, but in a bid to bring teaching (along with other public sector jobs) closer to the private sector, performance management was introduced.

It goes something along these lines:
  • Each teacher has to think up between three and five targets to be completed within the next 12 months. As there is a choice, pretty much everyone chooses three targets, apart from those who want to move up the management ladder quickly, who choose more than three.
  • The targets are chosen during a discussion with your line manager and involve what are known as "SMART" targets - basically meaning that they are not too woolly and their success can be judged using data. I never remember what SMART stands for, but it's something like "Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Targets"; in fact having put "SMART" into a popular search engine, that's exactly what it stands for. I'm quietly pleased with myself.
  • One target is about exam data, one is about your teaching development and one is about how you can help others in your department/working as a team.
  • You can also request CPD courses, which are unlikely to happen since schools have no budget to pay for them.
  • These targets are then reviewed in a year's time, and it is decided during a meeting with your line manager whether you have passed them. If one or more of the targets appears a bit touch-and-go as far as you passing it is concerned, then you have to provide statistical evidence to back up your claim.
 And that's basically it, although what senior management usually add is that the passing/failing of these targets could have an effect on your future pay. This is meant to encourage staff to take them seriously, but rarely do many staff do so for the following reasons:
  • Teachers have a pay freeze that is going to last for a few years because the world is skint, so our pay's already effected in a fairly major way.
  • It can effect a teacher's progression up the "Upper Pay Spine", but in some schools (mine being one of those) progression is barred by the fact that no-one will ever get the results that their classes are targeted, due to us being measured against a student's "aspirational target", or in other words, a target that they have very little chance of achieving but is meant to motivate those students to try as hard as they can to perform to the best of their ability. As we all know, teenagers don't always think or get motivated quite like adults, so what's the point in the first place?
  • The sensible of us out there will only put down targets that they were intending to hit anyway, like "provide resources for use by the whole department", which is something that any self-respecting teacher would do as part of their day-to-day job.
The whole process is a total waste of time, and as the colleague who is in charge of it at our school said to me when I said with my tongue firmly wedged into my cheek that I couldn't wait for my performance management meeting, "at least you're not the idiot who has to stand up in front of everyone and try to convince them that it's a worthwhile use of their time".

Performance management is yet another of those "great" ideas imposed by someone in a suit in Whitehall who has had little or no experience of the job.

Can't wait to fail mine again this year! What a great motivator for what is already a depressed profession.

Sunday 2 October 2011

Woodhead's At It Again

Chris Woodhead, the deeply unpopular former Head of Ofsted has been sticking his oar in again. He has been giving advice on how parents should use Ofsted reports to decide which secondary school to send their children to.

He makes some very valid points such as:
  • Go in and see the school at work - if the lessons appear boring in the short time you are there, imagine how your child will feel?
  • "Satisfactory" really means "not quite good enough" in Ofsted speak - surely they should come up with another word/classification.
  • Talk to as many current parents and students as possible because they know best. He doesn't mention this, but it should have been said, that talking to teachers at the school helps as most will be brutally honest about the place, but Woodhead's clear hatred of teachers is well documented, so one shouldn't have expected him to say that.
All the above are good points and should be explored by parents, but he also makes the following statements:
  • Talk to the headteacher and find out about the management of the place from the Ofsted report. This is a silly comment, and he should know better. The headteacher essentially "puts on a show" for Open Evening/mornings and in such a short time a parent will only have the ability to make a first impression, and that is likely to be favourable. Therefore the parent only has the Ofsted report to go on. I have gone on about how totally false Ofsted reports are in previous posts and a two day visit, plus a couple of questionnaires, are the inspectors really going to have any idea about how affective management are? Of course not.
  • Looking at results and/or league tables is also suggested, although he doesn't say not to take them at face value. These are of no use whatsoever. Results are so easily manipulated now with the introduction of vocational courses, diplomas and BTECs where a child with limited ability can walk out of school with 4 C grade equivalent grades if they just pass one. The qualifications are barely worth the paper they are printed on unless a top grade/distinction is achieved, but it's these sorts of qualifications that are making it appear as though the new academies are making giant strides to improve. The schools at the top of the league tables play the system and only enter students they know will pass. They are not supposed to do it, but it happens.
Ofsted reports should have no influence on parental decisions on where to send their children to school. The things that should be used for informing parents are these:

Visiting the school on both an Open Evening, but just as importantly, during a normal school day. Whilst doing this talk to staff, who will have more time when they don't have a class in front of them. Talk also to current pupils and parents as you and your child will potentially have the same experiences.

You can ignore everything else, as most children will do well in whatever institution if they want to do well and put the work in.