In a desperate bid to make British children better at maths the DfE, via Liz Truss, have decided to jet in 60 Chinese mathematics teachers to run maths classes in 30 "maths hubs", whatever they are. The story from the BBC website is here: click me!
I can see numerous business leaders and politicians breathing a huge sigh of relief that we will finally have a numerate generation ready for employment and a set of Pisa results that can be boasted about around the world. On second thoughts, business leaders aren't that stupid and surely can't believe that these 60 visitors from the East will make any difference whatsoever; politicians, however, are stupid enough to believe that this will work despite being told otherwise by various people (read the comments on the BBC article).
So why won't it work? Why the negativity?
I shall answer the second question first, as it's quick and simple:
This is just the latest in a long running campaign to denigrate the current teaching profession in the UK. For a while now ministers from the DfE have stated in various speeches to anyone who will listen that we need top graduates in teaching, and mathematics is one of those subjects where there are relatively few top graduates working as teachers. This because mathematics top graduates are like rocking horse poo (rare, if you're unsure) and get snapped up on big wages, that schools can't really afford to compete with, by industry. And anyway, would a top graduate really be the best person to get algebra across to a stroppy bunch of teenagers? Probably not, as the aforesaid top graduate won't be able to understand why these teenagers struggle to see the point of "letters in maffs". All the government are currently doing is ensuring that no-one will really want to become a maths teacher and the crisis will build in schools from what is already a critical state.
So now we move onto why flying in 60 maths teachers from Shanghai is frivolous at best:
What ministers fail to realise is that the results from certain provinces in China aren't truly representative; statistics are doctored to show them in their best light, something that politicians, particularly those from the DfE are well practiced in. What ministers, and clearly Ms Truss also fail to acknowledge, is that the learning culture of Chinese students is completely different to that of UK students. I'm not saying that UK students shouldn't be like their Chinese contemporaries, but the fact is that they aren't and are highly unlikely to change due to a guest speaker from Shanghai. The consequences of not doing well in maths in China is poverty and starvation; the consequences in Britain is the entitlement to endless benefits which allow you to have much of what you desire without any personal outlay. The incentive to succeed in maths is just not there in the UK. So no matter what these Chinese teachers, very good they may well be, if the horse doesn't want to drink, forcing its head under water will be pointless and will likely end up in a four-lettered tirade towards the guest. Until attitudes towards mathematics change in the UK, the DfE may as well save on the air fares.
This is yet another example of pigheadedness from a DfE minister designed to fool the public into believing that they actually care about anyone but themselves in the run up to a general election. Fortunately, I think that the general public have been under-estimated by ministers and they can see through their smoke and mirrors; at least I hope they can.
Teaching's Pod: thoughts on education from an educator
Showing posts with label Department for Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Department for Education. Show all posts
Saturday, 15 March 2014
Sunday, 23 February 2014
The Problem With Top Graduates...
The government has been on about attracting more top graduates into teaching for a while now. They've offered bursaries (see here), expanded the remit of the teaching recruitment charity Teach First to allow it to recruit greater numbers (see here), and made various announcements that have been lapped up by the media of varying quality (Telegraph, Independent, Mirror, Daily Mail to link just a few). A simple search online will unearth hundreds more articles I have no doubt, if you can be bothered that is.
The requirement to actually have a qualification to teach in the state schools of England has been relaxed in the most favoured types of school for the Department for Education, namely academies and free schools. The qualification requirement has never been compulsory in private/public schools, the type of school that a high proportion of MPs attended, or in the case of my local MP, wish they'd attended. Now you may say that if it's worked in private and public schools, what's the problem? They get great results that state schools could get after all. It's a question of intake, student motivation and support from home that is a major difference my friends. Anyway, that's a separate point; what I wanted to cover is the myth regarding top graduates.
There are a few subjects that have been highlighted by DfE ministers and other MPs on programmes like Question Time that really ought to have top graduates teaching the youth of today; namely mathematics and science. You could throw "new subject" computer science into that mix too, as you are either very good at it and therefore probably did it at university; there is no middle ground with computer science: either you're brilliant or you're crap. I'm the latter.
At A Level and Degree I couldn't agree more that maths and science could do with being taught by top graduates, although they need not be the be all and end all. Teaching of those courses is to children who have chosen to take those subjects and already have an deep-seated interest in the subject. They not only want to know how to do something, they want to know why it works that way; something that a top graduate can explain with ease, whilst others would possibly have to do a little research. So, dear DfE and those in expensive suits in Westminster, feel free to attract top graduates for those posts, but don't disregard others. You will have to dangle numerous carrots in front of these high flyers to divert their attention from the lucrative careers that top mathematicians and scientists have traditionally entered. It might help if DfE press releases and various Ofsted employees didn't consistently criticise teachers in the media too. I digress again...
My main query is whether a top graduate really is the best type of person to teach maths and science to disinterested children who have no choice but to be there and just want to get the minimum grade in order to never have to sit through a lesson again? Unfortunately with a total lack of interest in the subject, the likelihood of achieving that grade is minimal. These students need to be taught in a different way. Empathy with the inability to understand a concept first time around is hugely helpful. A top graduate in their subject will invariably have found most, if not all of their subject pretty straightforward. The trouble is this means that our much lauded top graduates will get increasingly frustrated as their charges fail to grasp covalent bonds or simultaneous equations. A teacher who was not a top graduate probably won't have found everything easy, and can therefore understand the frustrations.
If you couple this lack of empathy for a student's woes with a lack of any teacher training or qualification then the recipe is potentially disastrous. If there's one thing that my PGCE did teach me it was different strategies for dealing with classes, mainly through teaching placements admittedly, but without it I would have floundered even more than I actually did in my NQT year.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that top graduates couldn't empathise, they are just less likely to understand. So Mr Gove, DfE, Sir Michael and the various other political types who drone on and on about top graduates, they may not actually be the answer to all your problems!
The requirement to actually have a qualification to teach in the state schools of England has been relaxed in the most favoured types of school for the Department for Education, namely academies and free schools. The qualification requirement has never been compulsory in private/public schools, the type of school that a high proportion of MPs attended, or in the case of my local MP, wish they'd attended. Now you may say that if it's worked in private and public schools, what's the problem? They get great results that state schools could get after all. It's a question of intake, student motivation and support from home that is a major difference my friends. Anyway, that's a separate point; what I wanted to cover is the myth regarding top graduates.
There are a few subjects that have been highlighted by DfE ministers and other MPs on programmes like Question Time that really ought to have top graduates teaching the youth of today; namely mathematics and science. You could throw "new subject" computer science into that mix too, as you are either very good at it and therefore probably did it at university; there is no middle ground with computer science: either you're brilliant or you're crap. I'm the latter.
At A Level and Degree I couldn't agree more that maths and science could do with being taught by top graduates, although they need not be the be all and end all. Teaching of those courses is to children who have chosen to take those subjects and already have an deep-seated interest in the subject. They not only want to know how to do something, they want to know why it works that way; something that a top graduate can explain with ease, whilst others would possibly have to do a little research. So, dear DfE and those in expensive suits in Westminster, feel free to attract top graduates for those posts, but don't disregard others. You will have to dangle numerous carrots in front of these high flyers to divert their attention from the lucrative careers that top mathematicians and scientists have traditionally entered. It might help if DfE press releases and various Ofsted employees didn't consistently criticise teachers in the media too. I digress again...
My main query is whether a top graduate really is the best type of person to teach maths and science to disinterested children who have no choice but to be there and just want to get the minimum grade in order to never have to sit through a lesson again? Unfortunately with a total lack of interest in the subject, the likelihood of achieving that grade is minimal. These students need to be taught in a different way. Empathy with the inability to understand a concept first time around is hugely helpful. A top graduate in their subject will invariably have found most, if not all of their subject pretty straightforward. The trouble is this means that our much lauded top graduates will get increasingly frustrated as their charges fail to grasp covalent bonds or simultaneous equations. A teacher who was not a top graduate probably won't have found everything easy, and can therefore understand the frustrations.
If you couple this lack of empathy for a student's woes with a lack of any teacher training or qualification then the recipe is potentially disastrous. If there's one thing that my PGCE did teach me it was different strategies for dealing with classes, mainly through teaching placements admittedly, but without it I would have floundered even more than I actually did in my NQT year.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that top graduates couldn't empathise, they are just less likely to understand. So Mr Gove, DfE, Sir Michael and the various other political types who drone on and on about top graduates, they may not actually be the answer to all your problems!
Monday, 25 February 2013
The Problem With State Education
You may (probably not) have noticed that I haven't posted a new blog for about a month and a half. There is one reason for this: I've been ridiculously busy. And there are two reasons for this, listed below.
Problem 1 - Politicians/DfE
Education is seen as a major vote winner at the moment and this is a disaster for teachers and students as it means that people with little and more often, no experience like to tinker and make education "more rigorous". This has led to major exam reforms, that have been scrapped after significant opposition from those who might actually have some idea of what they are talking about. Pay reforms have also been tabled by the government so that a teacher's pay can be linked to performance, or should I say, a teacher's pay will be determined by the results that their students achieve, so therefore most will end up losing out for reasons that will become clear later on. The government claim that this new pay policy will enable "good and outstanding" teachers will be rewarded very quickly - presumably these "good and outstanding" teachers will only teach top sets or work in schools whose admissions policy is more of a grey area than perhaps it should be.
Ministers keep ploughing the academy furrow as though it's a bag of magic dust, although some "flagship" academies have had their collars felt over results/progress, admissions policies are becoming increasingly suspect in top performing academies and alleged reports of staff altering exams to increase grades. The bad press seems to get brushed under an increasingly lumpy carpet and the DfE have a stock answer to any criticisms that goes along the lines of "we can't stand aside whilst students are being failed by poor schools and teaching, and academy status can improve standards". When they talk about academies they do tend to mean "sponsored" academies, or public money ending up in the pockets of private firms. In fact the privatisation of schools is another hot topic with leaked memos from DfE emerging, along with accusations of inappropriate behaviour from some of Michael Gove's aides at the DfE.
The future is neither bright or orange!
Problem 2 - Ofsted:
Now you could argue, quite forcefully, that Ofsted should be part of the previous problem as it's quite clear that the £200 million per year quango is driving government policy. The Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw keeps saying that Ofsted don't have a particular type of lesson that they want to see, which is great, it would just be nice if he would tell his inspectors, who quite clearly do have a formulaic view of what a good or outstanding lesson should look like. Wilshaw seems to increasingly be forcing his head into a place that the sun doesn't shine, be that the clouds or anywhere else.
Ofsted added "rigour" to its new assessment framework, which basically means that what used to be fine is no longer so. Schools are therefore panicking and are passing that panic onto their staff. Neither really know what they are supposed to do meaning that leadership at some institutions are essentially bullying staff who they either want rid of or who in their opinion of Ofsted's view, aren't cutting the mustard. Stress is becoming a major issue in schools and supply budgets are being decimated around the country as a result.
The problem for education is that all this hammering from both politicians and Ofsted is giving carte blanche to parents who can now fully justify blaming schools and teachers for their poor parenting, with the cartoon below neatly summing it up:
Now I'm not saying that 1969 was better than today, in fact I think that teaching has got better since that time, the problem is that we now live in a blame society where it's never your own fault for poor performance, it has to be someone else's.
I suppose that this post could be accused of blaming other people (DfE and Ofsted) for the woes of the teaching world, but unless something is done soon, there will be no teachers left to teach your children. The DfE being put on a "war footing" by Gove and his pal David Laws does anything other than help, although imminent strikes over changes in pay and conditions were clearly envisaged.
Problem 1 - Politicians/DfE
Education is seen as a major vote winner at the moment and this is a disaster for teachers and students as it means that people with little and more often, no experience like to tinker and make education "more rigorous". This has led to major exam reforms, that have been scrapped after significant opposition from those who might actually have some idea of what they are talking about. Pay reforms have also been tabled by the government so that a teacher's pay can be linked to performance, or should I say, a teacher's pay will be determined by the results that their students achieve, so therefore most will end up losing out for reasons that will become clear later on. The government claim that this new pay policy will enable "good and outstanding" teachers will be rewarded very quickly - presumably these "good and outstanding" teachers will only teach top sets or work in schools whose admissions policy is more of a grey area than perhaps it should be.
Ministers keep ploughing the academy furrow as though it's a bag of magic dust, although some "flagship" academies have had their collars felt over results/progress, admissions policies are becoming increasingly suspect in top performing academies and alleged reports of staff altering exams to increase grades. The bad press seems to get brushed under an increasingly lumpy carpet and the DfE have a stock answer to any criticisms that goes along the lines of "we can't stand aside whilst students are being failed by poor schools and teaching, and academy status can improve standards". When they talk about academies they do tend to mean "sponsored" academies, or public money ending up in the pockets of private firms. In fact the privatisation of schools is another hot topic with leaked memos from DfE emerging, along with accusations of inappropriate behaviour from some of Michael Gove's aides at the DfE.
The future is neither bright or orange!
Problem 2 - Ofsted:
Now you could argue, quite forcefully, that Ofsted should be part of the previous problem as it's quite clear that the £200 million per year quango is driving government policy. The Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw keeps saying that Ofsted don't have a particular type of lesson that they want to see, which is great, it would just be nice if he would tell his inspectors, who quite clearly do have a formulaic view of what a good or outstanding lesson should look like. Wilshaw seems to increasingly be forcing his head into a place that the sun doesn't shine, be that the clouds or anywhere else.
Ofsted added "rigour" to its new assessment framework, which basically means that what used to be fine is no longer so. Schools are therefore panicking and are passing that panic onto their staff. Neither really know what they are supposed to do meaning that leadership at some institutions are essentially bullying staff who they either want rid of or who in their opinion of Ofsted's view, aren't cutting the mustard. Stress is becoming a major issue in schools and supply budgets are being decimated around the country as a result.
The problem for education is that all this hammering from both politicians and Ofsted is giving carte blanche to parents who can now fully justify blaming schools and teachers for their poor parenting, with the cartoon below neatly summing it up:
Now I'm not saying that 1969 was better than today, in fact I think that teaching has got better since that time, the problem is that we now live in a blame society where it's never your own fault for poor performance, it has to be someone else's.
I suppose that this post could be accused of blaming other people (DfE and Ofsted) for the woes of the teaching world, but unless something is done soon, there will be no teachers left to teach your children. The DfE being put on a "war footing" by Gove and his pal David Laws does anything other than help, although imminent strikes over changes in pay and conditions were clearly envisaged.
Tuesday, 1 January 2013
New Year, New Career?
As 2012 disappears and 2013 arrives it's a time for resolutions. And what will mine be this year?
This is my list of possibles:
Why are numbers 1, 2 and 4 linked so closely? I actually gave up smoking in the middle of the summer and lasted until around October but found myself getting so annoyed with the apathy of students and demoralising edicts from government (Gove/Wilshaw, that means you two) that I started again. I realise that I was weak willed, but unfortunately I reverted back to smoking when I was at the end of my tether. A similar thing happened with the drinking, although I never gave up completely. I cut right down to less than half of what I been consuming on an average term time evening, but that has also slipped back into the old regime.
I have therefore come to the conclusion that teaching is bad for me and that I need a change. A colleague of mine said to me, knowing that I wasn't the happiest, that there was a job being advertised in the local sixth form college, to which I replied: "Why would I want to apply for that? Teaching's shit". And that is genuinely how I feel, but I didn't wlays feel like this, so why now?
There are a number of reasons, and they are below in no particular order, but in some cases are linked:
The pros of teaching (the holidays and ?) are now hugely outweighed by the cons (everything other than the holidays).
I must go and tidy up my CV...
This is my list of possibles:
- Give up smoking.
- Cut down on drinking.
- Go on a diet.
- Find a new job outside of teaching.
Why are numbers 1, 2 and 4 linked so closely? I actually gave up smoking in the middle of the summer and lasted until around October but found myself getting so annoyed with the apathy of students and demoralising edicts from government (Gove/Wilshaw, that means you two) that I started again. I realise that I was weak willed, but unfortunately I reverted back to smoking when I was at the end of my tether. A similar thing happened with the drinking, although I never gave up completely. I cut right down to less than half of what I been consuming on an average term time evening, but that has also slipped back into the old regime.
I have therefore come to the conclusion that teaching is bad for me and that I need a change. A colleague of mine said to me, knowing that I wasn't the happiest, that there was a job being advertised in the local sixth form college, to which I replied: "Why would I want to apply for that? Teaching's shit". And that is genuinely how I feel, but I didn't wlays feel like this, so why now?
There are a number of reasons, and they are below in no particular order, but in some cases are linked:
- Teaching has become an exam factory, where league tables and results mean more than actually giving young people a proper education, the problem being that when young people leave school and go into the workplace they are not prepared and that means that business leaders say to the press that education in this country is rubbish and that's teachers' fault. It's not teachers' fault, it's the fact that exams results have become more important than imparting knowledge. With education the most popular political football, teachers get caught up in a slanging match between the political parties, where unqualified politicians with no experience of the things they are talking about and making policy on, come up with bright ideas about the system in an attempt to make their mark and move up the political ladder. Health has suffered similarly, it's just education's turn.
- In order to justify the constant changes of policy to make his mark and ultimately become leader of the Conservative Party (he thinks, hopefully mistakenly, that he will be Prime Minister one day), Michael Gove has turned teaching upside down. Now don't get me wrong, not everything was rosy in the education garden before, with exam passes having become easier and easier under successive governments of different colours, but the way Gove has justified change (by rigging exam results for example) is beyond comprehension. The way he has forced schools into becoming academies by cutting their funding until they agree to convert is also scandalous and had it been done in a playground would be described as bullying. New policy is consistently controversial and never comes directly from the Department of Education but is leaked the the press on days when there are major news stories that will bury it.
- As a result of the constant abuse from politicians and the negative news stories emanating from the DfE regarding teachers, the general public now feel empowered to criticise teachers. A colleague of mine told me that every weekend people phone him to literally abuse him about the school, teachers and anything else they want to get off their chest. This is simply not on and purely due to the constant statements from suits in Whitehall saying that teachers are rubbish.
- And so we come on to Ofsted. Goalposts have been moved for right or wrong reasons, I sugest the latter. Wilshaw (I can't bring myself to give him his full title) was handpicked by Gove, and therefore one could suggest his puppet. All Ofsted's goalpost moving has played, unsurprisingly, into the hands of Gove who uses the findings of the inspectorate to impose his policies - the irony is not lost on me!
- Ofsted bases their entire judgement of a school before they arrive at it, looking at exam results (notice we've gone back to these) which you may think is fair enough, but the judgement comes purely from targets that are generated by a computer program based upon where you live and what each child got in an exam 5 years previously. This target takes into account whether they are entitled to free school meals, but not their general attitude which changes hugely in that time. We were (un)lucky enough to have a visit from Ofsted recently and since we weren't told the grading, one has to assume that it wasn't very good! But they had made their mind up beforehand, and nothing they saw was going to change this, so why bother with the visit in the first place? What this will mean is increased pressure on staff and some being hounded out of the school, to be replaced by who? Not a good time for anyone.
The pros of teaching (the holidays and ?) are now hugely outweighed by the cons (everything other than the holidays).
I must go and tidy up my CV...
Sunday, 16 September 2012
Gove Levels
Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, is going to announce changes to the exam system, in what have been described as "Gove Levels". Gove and his pals in the DfE don't like the relatively recent trend in modular GCSE courses and want to go back to the "old" system of just one exam at the end of a course. This is the latest in a long run of changes that Gove is attempting to impose on the schools of England.
There are a few issues with this in my view, that will mean that these moves won't be overly popular in the teaching profession.
Gove, as ever, is bullish and hell-bent on forcing this through, but one good thing about the coalition is that it won't come in until 2015, meaning that if the Conservatives lose the next election, this can be reversed.
There are a few issues with this in my view, that will mean that these moves won't be overly popular in the teaching profession.
- This is going to cost a huge amount of money, buying specialist resources for the new courses, as currently there are a number of exam boards from which all schools choose, and the plan is that there will only be one. Where is this money going to come from. School budgets are being pushed to the limit in the current climate and have little to spare. Centrally the government are trying to save money wherever they can in order to reduce the national deficit, including attacking public sector pensions and wages through suggesting that a regional system is the way forward. I actually think that having just one exam board is a decent idea, because as Gove himself says, choice just means that there's a race to the bottom. Modular exams are also not ideal for a number of reason, but the main one being that they give an artificial impression of a student's ability in a subject due to the ability to retake exams that have been failed, occasionally numerous times. It is going to be very costly for schools, and there has been no explanation of where the money is coming from.
- It's all well and good to change the qualification, but at the same time the government has said that schools achieving less than 50% of students gaining 5 A*-C including English and maths will be forced to become academies. The new exams are going to be graded by percentages of people at each grade, although no-one really knows how. It could be that 10% achieve the top grade, 15% the next and so on. This presents a major problem for teachers who are given targets. Currently each grade is topic or skill based, meaning that a teacher could say with some confidence that if a student had mastered a certain skill then they should achieve a certain grade. With the new system the teacher cannot predict with any certainty as they have no idea what students in other schools are capable of. Schools will therefore fall under the 50% line without realising it and be forced, probably against their will, into sponsored academy status. And let's face it, people are no more intelligent now than they have ever been, all that's changed is the availability of education for all, if not the attitude towards academia. The move smacks of forcing more schools to become academies in a back-door fashion.
- New qualifications take a while to bed in, and with the recent (and ongoing) GCSE fiasco, public, or more importantly employer confidence in the exam system is at an all time low. Is this really a good time to make such huge changes? People do understand the GCSE, and what they indicate. Whether they like what they indicate is irrelevant, they know what they are dealing with. A new qualification is an unknown quantity, and often start off being too easy easy. Now is not really the time, although I suppose if it's got to be done, no time will be a good time.
- Politicians like to tinker, and do so on such a regular basis that teachers often don't know whether they are coming or going regarding the latest policy directive from Whitehall. If you talk to most teachers they will tell you that all they desire is to be left alone to teach, rather than mug up on the latest theory coming out of Westminster.
Gove, as ever, is bullish and hell-bent on forcing this through, but one good thing about the coalition is that it won't come in until 2015, meaning that if the Conservatives lose the next election, this can be reversed.
Monday, 27 August 2012
How To Get Your Own Way
You cannot fail to have noticed that many schools in the country are a bit annoyed at the moment due to "raising of standards" according to Ofqual/Department of Education, or "moving the goalposts without telling anyone" according to everyone else involving GCSE English results.
Michael Gove and anyone else from the DfE have been uncharacteristically quiet during the entire incident, partly due to the fact that they are on holiday and partly because whatever they say, they can't really win because what has happened is so totally appalling that there is no defense. There won't be a single educator in the land that doesn't agree that standards need to be raised as far as exams are concerned because the general public, or employers more specifically, have lost faith in them. Gove actually has a point that we can't expect pass rates to continue going up forever. If that were the case then why not just put all the targets to 100% pass, which would be equally pointless.
I read a great piece written by a teacher saying that exams are designed to discriminate (not a popular word in society nowadays), to show who is good academically and who is not. If everyone passes the exams, then exams are pointless - failure can be a positive thing at times, a fact that has been neglected in recent times. The trouble is that Ofqual or the exam boards (whoever you choose to believe) decided to raise the pass mark without telling anyone, which is even worse when the teacher marks the "work" and therefore knows what grade each child should have got with whatever mark scheme you are using. The plain fact of the matter is that students got different grades for the same quality work depending upon when they were entered for the exam, and that is patently unfair.
Gove maintains that he has never direct contact with Ofqual, but frankly he doesn't need to. His "contact" with Ofqual is via the press. Gove is not shy of the press (apart from at the moment) and has repeatedly stated his desire to raise standards, with the baseline for schools now being 40% of pupils achieving 5 A*-C grades including English and Maths. If a school drops below that magical 40% (which will go up again soon) then they face being taken over by the DfE and forced in to being an academy - another of Gove's educational wishes.
What I find sinister about the whole episode is that everything that has happened has been purely for political reasons, at the expense of the futures of thousands of youngsters. It has also been designed to force schools into academisation, against their wishes, but in line with current government policy of what conspiracy theorists would call the privatisation of state education. The constant denials from both Gove, the DfE and Ofqual only highlight what people in power think of their subjects; they think were are too stupid to understand.
What Gove needs to do is re-grade (no need for expensive and time-consuming remarking) all the English papers (and I'd be surprised if this was limited to English alone, it's just more obvious in the English exam as the teacher know the marks and boundaries) and then make up a totally new qualification that is more difficult to pass. Don't call it the iGCSE or the O Level, call it something totally new and make every school (state or private) take the same one. Gove is right that currently standards aren't high enough but the way he's forcing this policy through, either directly or indirectly, is underhand at best.
You do get the impression that he's going to get his own way on education policy by hook or by crook, whether it's for the best or not. The trouble is that the teaching profession (even those who were on his side before the exam grade fiasco) are now unconvinced by the man, and that can only be a bad thing for his future political career - I've got my fingers crossed anyway.
Michael Gove and anyone else from the DfE have been uncharacteristically quiet during the entire incident, partly due to the fact that they are on holiday and partly because whatever they say, they can't really win because what has happened is so totally appalling that there is no defense. There won't be a single educator in the land that doesn't agree that standards need to be raised as far as exams are concerned because the general public, or employers more specifically, have lost faith in them. Gove actually has a point that we can't expect pass rates to continue going up forever. If that were the case then why not just put all the targets to 100% pass, which would be equally pointless.
I read a great piece written by a teacher saying that exams are designed to discriminate (not a popular word in society nowadays), to show who is good academically and who is not. If everyone passes the exams, then exams are pointless - failure can be a positive thing at times, a fact that has been neglected in recent times. The trouble is that Ofqual or the exam boards (whoever you choose to believe) decided to raise the pass mark without telling anyone, which is even worse when the teacher marks the "work" and therefore knows what grade each child should have got with whatever mark scheme you are using. The plain fact of the matter is that students got different grades for the same quality work depending upon when they were entered for the exam, and that is patently unfair.
Gove maintains that he has never direct contact with Ofqual, but frankly he doesn't need to. His "contact" with Ofqual is via the press. Gove is not shy of the press (apart from at the moment) and has repeatedly stated his desire to raise standards, with the baseline for schools now being 40% of pupils achieving 5 A*-C grades including English and Maths. If a school drops below that magical 40% (which will go up again soon) then they face being taken over by the DfE and forced in to being an academy - another of Gove's educational wishes.
What I find sinister about the whole episode is that everything that has happened has been purely for political reasons, at the expense of the futures of thousands of youngsters. It has also been designed to force schools into academisation, against their wishes, but in line with current government policy of what conspiracy theorists would call the privatisation of state education. The constant denials from both Gove, the DfE and Ofqual only highlight what people in power think of their subjects; they think were are too stupid to understand.
What Gove needs to do is re-grade (no need for expensive and time-consuming remarking) all the English papers (and I'd be surprised if this was limited to English alone, it's just more obvious in the English exam as the teacher know the marks and boundaries) and then make up a totally new qualification that is more difficult to pass. Don't call it the iGCSE or the O Level, call it something totally new and make every school (state or private) take the same one. Gove is right that currently standards aren't high enough but the way he's forcing this policy through, either directly or indirectly, is underhand at best.
You do get the impression that he's going to get his own way on education policy by hook or by crook, whether it's for the best or not. The trouble is that the teaching profession (even those who were on his side before the exam grade fiasco) are now unconvinced by the man, and that can only be a bad thing for his future political career - I've got my fingers crossed anyway.
Friday, 22 June 2012
Gove Has Been Busy
Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, is really earning his corn at the moment. There is barely a day that goes by when he doesn't come up with a new idea to "improve" education in the UK. But, stop press, because he's actually come up with a reasonable idea:
Unify all the exam boards at GCSE level to avoid "dumbing down" as the different exam boards attempt to get schools' business by setting easier papers and therefore better grades for your school.
This is a superb idea, and one that many teachers have been shouting about for a while. The fact is that in this results driven business, schools understandably shop around for the "easiest" board. They can't change every year because that would be too expensive, but every 10 years they can probably afford it, and this can't give employers a huge amount of confidence in the calibre of the potential recruits wandering through their doors with C grades oozing out of every orifice.
The problem is that Gove wants to take education back to the 1970s by reintroducing the O-Level and CSE system at the same time, which is a two-tier system, although apparently not in the opinion of the government who must have chosen an exceptionally easy Maths GCSE exam board as they clearly can't count to two. I'm not sure of the point of this policy - the GCSE would be fine once there was only one board. Also, those sitting the CSE will automatically know that they have been labelled as "thick", which is hardly a motivating factor for them.
Govestill maintains that academy status is the way forward for schools, but continually fails to give any concrete reasons for this. The actual reason is that it is in order to save government money, and potentially allow schools, or the companies who run them, to make money out of education. Not even public schools like Eton and Harrow do this as they have charitable status and therefore are not allowed to make a profit - everything they get in has to be spent eventually. One year's surplus goes on improving facilities, as it should be. Academies do have feedom from the national curriculum though, which suggests that the government penned national curriculum is rubbish. But there's the other point here, all the kids have to take the same exams at the end of day, so there's no incentive to do that either. He neglects to mention that schools originally went for academy status because they got a golden handshake, but now there is no extra money.
What it boils down to is the following:
Michael Gove is a pompous arse with an unfathomable desire to turn back the educational clock 40 years, but every now and then one of his extensive, and probably expensive team of advisors has a reasonable idea.
Unify all the exam boards at GCSE level to avoid "dumbing down" as the different exam boards attempt to get schools' business by setting easier papers and therefore better grades for your school.
This is a superb idea, and one that many teachers have been shouting about for a while. The fact is that in this results driven business, schools understandably shop around for the "easiest" board. They can't change every year because that would be too expensive, but every 10 years they can probably afford it, and this can't give employers a huge amount of confidence in the calibre of the potential recruits wandering through their doors with C grades oozing out of every orifice.
The problem is that Gove wants to take education back to the 1970s by reintroducing the O-Level and CSE system at the same time, which is a two-tier system, although apparently not in the opinion of the government who must have chosen an exceptionally easy Maths GCSE exam board as they clearly can't count to two. I'm not sure of the point of this policy - the GCSE would be fine once there was only one board. Also, those sitting the CSE will automatically know that they have been labelled as "thick", which is hardly a motivating factor for them.
Govestill maintains that academy status is the way forward for schools, but continually fails to give any concrete reasons for this. The actual reason is that it is in order to save government money, and potentially allow schools, or the companies who run them, to make money out of education. Not even public schools like Eton and Harrow do this as they have charitable status and therefore are not allowed to make a profit - everything they get in has to be spent eventually. One year's surplus goes on improving facilities, as it should be. Academies do have feedom from the national curriculum though, which suggests that the government penned national curriculum is rubbish. But there's the other point here, all the kids have to take the same exams at the end of day, so there's no incentive to do that either. He neglects to mention that schools originally went for academy status because they got a golden handshake, but now there is no extra money.
What it boils down to is the following:
Michael Gove is a pompous arse with an unfathomable desire to turn back the educational clock 40 years, but every now and then one of his extensive, and probably expensive team of advisors has a reasonable idea.
Friday, 8 June 2012
Ofsted "Copy and Paste" Scandal
This article turned up on the BBC News website today: Click Here!
Now anybody in education, apart from perhaps many headteachers, will tell you that this is not a massive surprise. Ofsted often make their judgements before actually visiting a school. They are a political animal and will make judgements based upon government policy, despite Chief Inspector Wilshaw's apparent best intentions and statements that teaching is "Christ's work on Earth".
The "scandal" centres around two primary school reports from the same company to which Ofsted outsources inspections, Tribal. Both inspections were headed by the same person and due to the fact that some of the statements in the reports read exactly the same, there seems little doubt that laziness has crept in and a higher agenda has influenced the reports. In my local area an academy, which I know quite a lot about for one reason or another, has just received "outstanding" gradings in every category when it apparently deserves none. One has to bear in mind that government (and therefore Ofsted) are keen to make every school an academy, and with education being such a vote winner, political decisions are bound to be made by inspectors.
Ofsted inspectors are usually former headteachers who want an easy life and something to boost their pension pot, or they are failed educators who have "befriended" the right people. An Ofsted inspector is paid around £60,000 per year, a pay cut for most headteachers, but a wage that is far higher than those they inspect. This should mean that inspections are done properly and written from scratch every time.
What the report seems to imply is that the inspectors write the reports and make a judgement, but Ofsted central office re-words things to ensure that the wording fits the grading. This would also suggest that grading can be made whimsically by inspection teams and the words written to fit that grading. Hardly a robust system, I'm sure you'd agree.
Ofsted, and their Fuhrer, sorry, leader, are not fit for purpose, and nor are their bosses - the Department for Education. No educator has a problem with standards being checked so that they remain high, but the current system is essentially corrupt and worthless. Not to mention demoralising.
Now anybody in education, apart from perhaps many headteachers, will tell you that this is not a massive surprise. Ofsted often make their judgements before actually visiting a school. They are a political animal and will make judgements based upon government policy, despite Chief Inspector Wilshaw's apparent best intentions and statements that teaching is "Christ's work on Earth".
The "scandal" centres around two primary school reports from the same company to which Ofsted outsources inspections, Tribal. Both inspections were headed by the same person and due to the fact that some of the statements in the reports read exactly the same, there seems little doubt that laziness has crept in and a higher agenda has influenced the reports. In my local area an academy, which I know quite a lot about for one reason or another, has just received "outstanding" gradings in every category when it apparently deserves none. One has to bear in mind that government (and therefore Ofsted) are keen to make every school an academy, and with education being such a vote winner, political decisions are bound to be made by inspectors.
Ofsted inspectors are usually former headteachers who want an easy life and something to boost their pension pot, or they are failed educators who have "befriended" the right people. An Ofsted inspector is paid around £60,000 per year, a pay cut for most headteachers, but a wage that is far higher than those they inspect. This should mean that inspections are done properly and written from scratch every time.
What the report seems to imply is that the inspectors write the reports and make a judgement, but Ofsted central office re-words things to ensure that the wording fits the grading. This would also suggest that grading can be made whimsically by inspection teams and the words written to fit that grading. Hardly a robust system, I'm sure you'd agree.
Ofsted, and their Fuhrer, sorry, leader, are not fit for purpose, and nor are their bosses - the Department for Education. No educator has a problem with standards being checked so that they remain high, but the current system is essentially corrupt and worthless. Not to mention demoralising.
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
More Good News
There was an interesting article on the TES website regarding teacher suicides: click here to read
It says that in 2008 and 2009 the rate of teacher suicides went up by 80% according to the Office for National Statistics, with the number of teachers rising from 35 to 63 in 12 months. It doesn't sound that many (although you could argue that 1 is too many) and I'm sure that politicians would spin the information in that way, but the fact is that numbers are on the increase. Another article in the TES magazine concerning teacher suicide apparently amounted to a huge response from readers.
The Teacher Support Network has been increasingly busy in the last couple of years, with call numbers doubling between 2010 and 2011. Stories along the lines of the teacher who set themselves on fire due to exam result anxiety, the teacher who walked out of school one break and threw themselves under a bus, and various others.
So why is this? There are various thoughts in the article and in the comments below, but I thought I'd add my own.
Teachers have various sources of stress:
Be a teacher - it's so rewarding.
It says that in 2008 and 2009 the rate of teacher suicides went up by 80% according to the Office for National Statistics, with the number of teachers rising from 35 to 63 in 12 months. It doesn't sound that many (although you could argue that 1 is too many) and I'm sure that politicians would spin the information in that way, but the fact is that numbers are on the increase. Another article in the TES magazine concerning teacher suicide apparently amounted to a huge response from readers.
The Teacher Support Network has been increasingly busy in the last couple of years, with call numbers doubling between 2010 and 2011. Stories along the lines of the teacher who set themselves on fire due to exam result anxiety, the teacher who walked out of school one break and threw themselves under a bus, and various others.
So why is this? There are various thoughts in the article and in the comments below, but I thought I'd add my own.
Teachers have various sources of stress:
- Workload - this can include merely planning lessons, although this becomes more problematic and time-consuming when being observed either internally by a line manager/colleague or by Ofsted. Whichever way it's being done, the lesson is judged based upon Ofsted's current ideals as to what makes a decent lesson and what doesn't. Your guess is as good as mine as to what the current fad is, and actually it's unlikely that Ofsted know themselves. Often, and this adds to teacher stress, the lesson is judged based upon the observer's own prejudices/pre-conceptions, so unless you are a carbon copy of the observer and in their good books, you will struggle to gain a decent grade whatever you do. It's happened to me on a couple of occasions in a couple of different schools, with the only justification for giving me satisfactory being "I didn't like the way you did it/I wouldn't have done it like that" rather than "you did it badly because...". This boils down to confusion in education as to what is good and what is not, and that is Ofsted/government's fault, bearing in mind that teachers' jobs depend on these lesson gradings. I am constantly hearing about teachers spending from 7.30am to 6pm at school and then doing more at home. If this is the case, and I have no reason to doubt the stories, then this is beyond the call of duty. The constant pressure to reinvent the wheel in order to make the curriculum more accessible and interesting for a more and more spoon fed generation.
- Control/Behaviour - this is made all the worse when a school's leadership is weak or unsupportive. It also depends on the teacher, their personality, and often how long they have been at the school or what sort of reputation they have with the students. Public perception of teachers is at rock-bottom due to media representation of teachers as deviants (I can think of relatively recent Coronation Street and Hollyoaks storylines immediately, but I'm sure that there are more) alongside the seemingly constant belittling of the profession by members of the Department for Education.
- Pay - teachers' pay should never have been moaned about by teachers as it's advertised so obviously. The problem is that with pay freezes and increased pension contributions, teachers may be finding it difficult to make ends meet - teachers now have something to moan about in the monetary sense. With the increased workload, there is less time to fit in any extra work, so no way to make up the shortfall.
- Ofsted - an inspection was cited as the reason a headteacher killed themselves i the article, and those in the profession would understand the stress placed upon all staff when the phone call comes.
Be a teacher - it's so rewarding.
Saturday, 5 May 2012
I Can Hear The Beeping Of A Reversing Politician
It must be in the genetic make-up of a politician to make a bold, inflammatory statement and then retract at a far faster rate when they suddenly realise that these policies are both unworkable and unpopular. And so it comes to the turn of the Secretary of State for Education to putting his blunder bus into reverse on Ofsted inpsections whilst speaking to the National Association of Head Teachers. This isn't the first time when actually faced with talking to real people in education that Michael Gove has said stuff that will get him out of the room in one piece.
The "no-notice inspections" have been scrapped apparently, although Gove didn't manage to say what would replace them, which may suggest that he has no idea and was in fear of a lynching had he not made the comment. This also comes at a time when headteachers are being encouraged to report on the inspectors via a website the newly set up School View website, with cries of a lack of consistency and of inspectors having made up their mind before even arriving in school. It's something that I've experienced, so I know it goes on but what will that actually achieve? Headteachers will not want to rock the boat for fear that if they complain, the repercussions during the next inspection could be disasterous.
Gove also questionned whether Ofsted inspectors are paid enough at a mere £60,000 per year - more than most teachers, or should I say more than every regular classroom practioner in the country in a bid to encourage "the best" people to become inspectors. Outrageous suggestion - these people are parasites on the education profession and should be paid nothing. Any encouragement to force the collapse of the quango should be shouted from every rooftop in the country.
I notice that Gove made no reference to his deeply unpopular policy of forcing schools in to academy status, especially the day after the DfE asked dozens of academies to pay back their share of £15 million, due to a mis-calculation in Whitehall over the usage of predicted roles instead of actual roles. This will mean, according to the news, that the academies will each have to pay back around £200,000 and could lead to disaster for those institutions, unless their financial managers spotted the error, which one would assume is a little unlikely. Not great advert for educational independence.
Until the British public vote by spoiling their ballot papers or not turning up at all, these idiots in Westminster will think that they are important and wrap themselves up in their own self-importance, surrounded by "Yes" men and women destroying the public sector. It makes no difference what their political affiliations are as all parties seem to have similar, if not identical policies designed to destroy the public sector.
Rant over.
The "no-notice inspections" have been scrapped apparently, although Gove didn't manage to say what would replace them, which may suggest that he has no idea and was in fear of a lynching had he not made the comment. This also comes at a time when headteachers are being encouraged to report on the inspectors via a website the newly set up School View website, with cries of a lack of consistency and of inspectors having made up their mind before even arriving in school. It's something that I've experienced, so I know it goes on but what will that actually achieve? Headteachers will not want to rock the boat for fear that if they complain, the repercussions during the next inspection could be disasterous.
Gove also questionned whether Ofsted inspectors are paid enough at a mere £60,000 per year - more than most teachers, or should I say more than every regular classroom practioner in the country in a bid to encourage "the best" people to become inspectors. Outrageous suggestion - these people are parasites on the education profession and should be paid nothing. Any encouragement to force the collapse of the quango should be shouted from every rooftop in the country.
I notice that Gove made no reference to his deeply unpopular policy of forcing schools in to academy status, especially the day after the DfE asked dozens of academies to pay back their share of £15 million, due to a mis-calculation in Whitehall over the usage of predicted roles instead of actual roles. This will mean, according to the news, that the academies will each have to pay back around £200,000 and could lead to disaster for those institutions, unless their financial managers spotted the error, which one would assume is a little unlikely. Not great advert for educational independence.
Until the British public vote by spoiling their ballot papers or not turning up at all, these idiots in Westminster will think that they are important and wrap themselves up in their own self-importance, surrounded by "Yes" men and women destroying the public sector. It makes no difference what their political affiliations are as all parties seem to have similar, if not identical policies designed to destroy the public sector.
Rant over.
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Come and have a go if you think you're clever enough
Making sixth formers trying teaching to encourage the high achieving students of the UK to join the teaching profession is the latest plan from those in Westminster. I can see the logic, sort of, the only problem being that those sixth formers will only see a rose-tinted version of what teaching is, not the day in, day out abuse that teachers put up with.
It seems a remarkable change of tack from the Department for Education to start saying things along the lines of "Schools Minister Nick Gibb said the government valued teachers highly, but many top graduates chose other careers." The government has been slating the profession ever since it got into power, but just after figures stating that there are 10,000 less teachers than a few years ago come out, panic buttons are being pulverised in Whitehall.
What is reassuring is that many people who commented on the story on the BBC website (see the article here) seem to agree that teaching really isn't the way forward for anyone who wishes to have any form of job satisfaction. I am a mentor for trainee teachers at my school and always ask new student teachers whether they are absolutely sure that they have made the correct career choice. Many teaching posts are inundated with applications, certainly in certain subjects, but the quality of the applicants is questionable. The culture of allowing almost anyone to undertake a teacher training course has been disasterous for the profession, but can you blame the universities as bums on seats equals more money?
Top graduates can demand a far higher wages in other professions, and even if they did feel that they could sacrifice the financial benefits of working in industry, top graduates often make very poor teachers due to the fact that they find their subject easy and therefore have trouble explaining concepts that are simple for them, to others who aren't as gifted in that area.
The policy is also insulting because politicians are implying that anyone can do it. If anyone could do it surely they would take the opportunity to claim their 13 weeks holiday per year by signing up; or perhaps not.
Every time a politician speaks I just want to shout "idiot" - they are totally clueless about how any of the public services actually work, whether it be teaching, nursing, policing or whatever. They are only interested in winning votes at whatever cost they deem necessary.
No-one wants to become a teacher these days because it is a terrible job, with increasingly poor pay and awful conditions of service, alongside continual public derision, a lack of social discipline and zero public or parental support due to political interference as well as derisory portrayals of the profession through the media.
The profession is dead, and no amount of sucking up by an inconsequential politician will change that.
It seems a remarkable change of tack from the Department for Education to start saying things along the lines of "Schools Minister Nick Gibb said the government valued teachers highly, but many top graduates chose other careers." The government has been slating the profession ever since it got into power, but just after figures stating that there are 10,000 less teachers than a few years ago come out, panic buttons are being pulverised in Whitehall.
What is reassuring is that many people who commented on the story on the BBC website (see the article here) seem to agree that teaching really isn't the way forward for anyone who wishes to have any form of job satisfaction. I am a mentor for trainee teachers at my school and always ask new student teachers whether they are absolutely sure that they have made the correct career choice. Many teaching posts are inundated with applications, certainly in certain subjects, but the quality of the applicants is questionable. The culture of allowing almost anyone to undertake a teacher training course has been disasterous for the profession, but can you blame the universities as bums on seats equals more money?
Top graduates can demand a far higher wages in other professions, and even if they did feel that they could sacrifice the financial benefits of working in industry, top graduates often make very poor teachers due to the fact that they find their subject easy and therefore have trouble explaining concepts that are simple for them, to others who aren't as gifted in that area.
The policy is also insulting because politicians are implying that anyone can do it. If anyone could do it surely they would take the opportunity to claim their 13 weeks holiday per year by signing up; or perhaps not.
Every time a politician speaks I just want to shout "idiot" - they are totally clueless about how any of the public services actually work, whether it be teaching, nursing, policing or whatever. They are only interested in winning votes at whatever cost they deem necessary.
No-one wants to become a teacher these days because it is a terrible job, with increasingly poor pay and awful conditions of service, alongside continual public derision, a lack of social discipline and zero public or parental support due to political interference as well as derisory portrayals of the profession through the media.
The profession is dead, and no amount of sucking up by an inconsequential politician will change that.
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Play The Game
As a teacher I am constantly being told to "play the game" with regards Ofsted, something that most teachers do, but I refuse for one reason or another. Why don't teachers tell their unions to play the game?
Teachers' unions are currently entrenched in a battle with the Department for Education over pretty much every thing from the curriculum taught to the terms and conditions of service. What makes or breaks an issue or argument generally is public support, and this is gained essentially through propaganda. Propaganda is the using of facts to back your argument and make the general public support your cause. Politicians are professionals in propaganda, and so should unions be as the General Secretaries are politicians in all but name.
Good propaganda involves picking your issues very carefully, so why on earth are the NUT making a big thing about changes to the summer holiday? If there's one thing that is guaranteed to get the public's back up, it's teachers who moan about holidays. The general public already believe that teachers get far too much holiday (if only they knew that there would be a huge shortage of teachers to teach their little darlings were it not for the holidays) - 13 weeks per year in state education, and more in the private sector. It's the six week summer holiday that the NUT most object to losing.
The teachers of Nottingham are up-in-arms about proposed changes to their academic year whch would mean a five term year of 8 weeks per term and only 4 weeks off in the summer, and they have every right to be if they believe that is a big issue. I have no opinion either way if I'm honest, other than this is destined to turn the general public against all the other legitimate issues that teachers are tackling the government over at the moment.
What the government will bang on about (or I would if I were them) is that teachers are contracted to be in school for 195 days per year and there's no proposed change to that, so what's the fuss about? The general public will see this as a solid argument and understand it. Teachers will rightly say that teachers will face burn-out as well as the children who need also need down-time, and this will affect teaching and learning. The general public will not understand that I'm afraid as it involves some understanding of the pressures on teachesr and children and the knock-on effects. The general public do not possess this understanding, so the argument is the government's.
Choose which issues to make a big noise about carefully! One poor decision can derail everything.
Teachers' unions are currently entrenched in a battle with the Department for Education over pretty much every thing from the curriculum taught to the terms and conditions of service. What makes or breaks an issue or argument generally is public support, and this is gained essentially through propaganda. Propaganda is the using of facts to back your argument and make the general public support your cause. Politicians are professionals in propaganda, and so should unions be as the General Secretaries are politicians in all but name.
Good propaganda involves picking your issues very carefully, so why on earth are the NUT making a big thing about changes to the summer holiday? If there's one thing that is guaranteed to get the public's back up, it's teachers who moan about holidays. The general public already believe that teachers get far too much holiday (if only they knew that there would be a huge shortage of teachers to teach their little darlings were it not for the holidays) - 13 weeks per year in state education, and more in the private sector. It's the six week summer holiday that the NUT most object to losing.
The teachers of Nottingham are up-in-arms about proposed changes to their academic year whch would mean a five term year of 8 weeks per term and only 4 weeks off in the summer, and they have every right to be if they believe that is a big issue. I have no opinion either way if I'm honest, other than this is destined to turn the general public against all the other legitimate issues that teachers are tackling the government over at the moment.
What the government will bang on about (or I would if I were them) is that teachers are contracted to be in school for 195 days per year and there's no proposed change to that, so what's the fuss about? The general public will see this as a solid argument and understand it. Teachers will rightly say that teachers will face burn-out as well as the children who need also need down-time, and this will affect teaching and learning. The general public will not understand that I'm afraid as it involves some understanding of the pressures on teachesr and children and the knock-on effects. The general public do not possess this understanding, so the argument is the government's.
Choose which issues to make a big noise about carefully! One poor decision can derail everything.
Sunday, 8 April 2012
Playing Them At Their Own Game
So all the teaching unions conferences have finished and surprisingly its been the NASUWT rather the NUT who have been making all the headlines. There has been a lot of whinging that won't win much public support, despite the fact that many of the points raised have been legitimate, the public will generally just wish that teachers would stop moaning. Hot classrooms are not going to extract much sympathy I'm afraid.
Arguably the best bit of conference season was Chris Keates' (General Secretary of NASUWT) closing speech. Having taken a leaf out of Gove's book she used the gimmick of having a cadboard cut out of the Secretary of State for Education to symbolise the fact that not a single Minister has attended any part of any conference. Keates described Gove as a teaching union's poster boy as his reign in office has led to a huge increase in membership for all three teaching unions. This is worrying for two reasons: government policy has made more teachers feel threatened but also because there are a lot of teachers who aren't union members, which is naive at best.
Keates used the opportunity to accuse Gove and his cronies (yes Wilshaw, you are one of those) of "eroding the professional status of teachers", and she is absolutely correct. Gove seems hell-bent on demoralising the profession in what he claims is a bid to raise standards. An army general doesn't instil courage and fight in their troops by telling them repeatedly that they are sub-standard and should be worked into the ground. All the Department for Education ever say is that teachers have been given more power to rid classrooms of disruptive influences and that academies offer schools and staff greater freedom to teach children without government interference.
Anyone who has had any recent experience of schools will tell you that it is still nigh-on impossible to exclude pupils, and is arguably even more difficult now since the excluding school has to pay for the excluded student's future provision from an increasingly shrinking budget. Academies, it is claimed by unions, are a step towards privatisation of education and an invitation to privateers to make a profit from schools. I think that it may be a little dramatic to suggest that private companies want to take over schools to gain profit but there is very little evidence that academy status raises standards at all, especially considering that the new academy has the same under-achieving students wandering through the doors, probably late. Academies offer most teachers worse money, worse benefits regarding sick, maternity and paternity pay as well as longer hours. Are the government really surprised that teachers are opposed to the move? Turkeys don't queue up to vote for Christmas.
The fact that no-one from the Department for Education has attended any conference shows the contempt for the unions who represent the profession, and in my view, the cowardice of politiians. Ministers are happy to sit in press conferences or typing up press releases in their comfy, air-conditioned offices that slate teachers, but are extremely reluctant to actually face them.
Strikes seem imminent - bring on the revolution!
Arguably the best bit of conference season was Chris Keates' (General Secretary of NASUWT) closing speech. Having taken a leaf out of Gove's book she used the gimmick of having a cadboard cut out of the Secretary of State for Education to symbolise the fact that not a single Minister has attended any part of any conference. Keates described Gove as a teaching union's poster boy as his reign in office has led to a huge increase in membership for all three teaching unions. This is worrying for two reasons: government policy has made more teachers feel threatened but also because there are a lot of teachers who aren't union members, which is naive at best.
Keates used the opportunity to accuse Gove and his cronies (yes Wilshaw, you are one of those) of "eroding the professional status of teachers", and she is absolutely correct. Gove seems hell-bent on demoralising the profession in what he claims is a bid to raise standards. An army general doesn't instil courage and fight in their troops by telling them repeatedly that they are sub-standard and should be worked into the ground. All the Department for Education ever say is that teachers have been given more power to rid classrooms of disruptive influences and that academies offer schools and staff greater freedom to teach children without government interference.
Anyone who has had any recent experience of schools will tell you that it is still nigh-on impossible to exclude pupils, and is arguably even more difficult now since the excluding school has to pay for the excluded student's future provision from an increasingly shrinking budget. Academies, it is claimed by unions, are a step towards privatisation of education and an invitation to privateers to make a profit from schools. I think that it may be a little dramatic to suggest that private companies want to take over schools to gain profit but there is very little evidence that academy status raises standards at all, especially considering that the new academy has the same under-achieving students wandering through the doors, probably late. Academies offer most teachers worse money, worse benefits regarding sick, maternity and paternity pay as well as longer hours. Are the government really surprised that teachers are opposed to the move? Turkeys don't queue up to vote for Christmas.
The fact that no-one from the Department for Education has attended any conference shows the contempt for the unions who represent the profession, and in my view, the cowardice of politiians. Ministers are happy to sit in press conferences or typing up press releases in their comfy, air-conditioned offices that slate teachers, but are extremely reluctant to actually face them.
Strikes seem imminent - bring on the revolution!
Friday, 27 January 2012
Teachers' Standards
Usually I get nervous when I receive an email from the head, but this one appeared to be pretty safe as it contained an attachment of the latest document published by the Department of Education entitled "Teachers' Standards".
What an interesting read it is too, albeit most of it fairly obvious and what you'd expect to be honest. It has probably taken a huge amount of time and money to produce when there was a similar thing around before called the Core Standards.
There are a couple of interesting bullet points mind, and I shall review them below.
The very first bullet point says the teacher should "establish a safe and stimulating environment for pupils, rooted in mutual respect". The first bit is fine, if a little rose-tinted as not everything on the curriculum (a curriculum that the government wrote, or their minnions did at least), The final bit does make me laugh a little. I presume that the children will all be informed of this mutual respect thing. Respect is a two-way thing after all.
It reminds me of a time when I taught one of a set of triplets who liked to disrupt every lesson he was in and that meant me (as well as his other teachers) constantly trying to chivvy him along, asking him not to disturb the rest of the class and inform him that he lacked respect for his classmates who were trying to learn and was therefore quite selfish. It resulted in him standing up in the middle of the class and shouting "I hate you", to which I replied "I reckon I'll sleep tonight". At that point everyone (bar me, I hasten to add) laughed at him and he ran out, never to be seen again. It meant everyone else having a chance of actually passing. There's no way that you can convince me that he would ever show respect to anyone, let alone any of his teachers, to whom he clearly felt some sort of pre-conceived revulsion, for no apparent reason.
That point could be interesting to enforce.
The other part of the Teachers' Standards document that made be laugh/despair was the bullet point that says teachers should "be accountable for pupils' attainment, progress and outcomes". I've always struggled with this accountability thing that politicians go on about. The one major issue I have with it is that the outcome isn't entirely down to the teacher; the children have quite a lot to do with their final results through paying attention, making an effort, revising, and many other things that would contribute to their eventual success. Strangely enough the pupils' role in this isn't mentioned. This appears to be a fairly common theme in the public sector at the moment.
The rest of the document is the usual standard, wishy-washy tripe so often spewed from Whitehall, of the "act decisively when necessary" ilk. The document itself is yet another stick to clobber a teacher with when they have fallen out of management's favour and once again fails to give youngsters any responsibility for actions, choosing to blame teachers for things out of their control.
I eagerly await the publication of the "Parents and Childrens' Standards" document. It should be an entertaining read.
What an interesting read it is too, albeit most of it fairly obvious and what you'd expect to be honest. It has probably taken a huge amount of time and money to produce when there was a similar thing around before called the Core Standards.
There are a couple of interesting bullet points mind, and I shall review them below.
The very first bullet point says the teacher should "establish a safe and stimulating environment for pupils, rooted in mutual respect". The first bit is fine, if a little rose-tinted as not everything on the curriculum (a curriculum that the government wrote, or their minnions did at least), The final bit does make me laugh a little. I presume that the children will all be informed of this mutual respect thing. Respect is a two-way thing after all.
It reminds me of a time when I taught one of a set of triplets who liked to disrupt every lesson he was in and that meant me (as well as his other teachers) constantly trying to chivvy him along, asking him not to disturb the rest of the class and inform him that he lacked respect for his classmates who were trying to learn and was therefore quite selfish. It resulted in him standing up in the middle of the class and shouting "I hate you", to which I replied "I reckon I'll sleep tonight". At that point everyone (bar me, I hasten to add) laughed at him and he ran out, never to be seen again. It meant everyone else having a chance of actually passing. There's no way that you can convince me that he would ever show respect to anyone, let alone any of his teachers, to whom he clearly felt some sort of pre-conceived revulsion, for no apparent reason.
That point could be interesting to enforce.
The other part of the Teachers' Standards document that made be laugh/despair was the bullet point that says teachers should "be accountable for pupils' attainment, progress and outcomes". I've always struggled with this accountability thing that politicians go on about. The one major issue I have with it is that the outcome isn't entirely down to the teacher; the children have quite a lot to do with their final results through paying attention, making an effort, revising, and many other things that would contribute to their eventual success. Strangely enough the pupils' role in this isn't mentioned. This appears to be a fairly common theme in the public sector at the moment.
The rest of the document is the usual standard, wishy-washy tripe so often spewed from Whitehall, of the "act decisively when necessary" ilk. The document itself is yet another stick to clobber a teacher with when they have fallen out of management's favour and once again fails to give youngsters any responsibility for actions, choosing to blame teachers for things out of their control.
I eagerly await the publication of the "Parents and Childrens' Standards" document. It should be an entertaining read.
"Below Average" Kids
I found this article on the BBC News website the other day: Click here!
What a bizarre story! It essentially says that those children who turn up at secondary school with below average grades, finish secondary school with below average grades. Thank you Sherlock, I'd never have guessed.
This is fairly typical of politicians who will never admit that some children aren't cut out for academia and may have talents in other areas, but due to the nature of education in the UK and it's academic focus, these children "under-achieve". What do you expect from teachers? They can't work miracles for all those "below average" students. Some do close the gap with enormous amounts of extra help from staff, but with average class sizes still at around 30 and funding being cut, the time that politicians suggest teachers devote to these children just isn't available.
If the time required to raise these children's attainment was afforded to them, those who had worked hard before entering secondary school would have to be ignored which would therefore have a detrimental effect on their grades. Once again teachers can't win and are chastised by those in suits as a result.
What is also ignored is that these children may not actually want to learn, whatever efforts are made. A lot depends on parental support, which in many cases isn't forthcoming as statistically these children tend to be from backgrounds where schooling wasn't seen as important. You'd be surprised at how many parents support their child's lack of application at school, making excuses for their child's lack of enthusiasm for learning.
I teach an intelligent lad who entered secondary school with above average grades but has since decided to enter the tattooing and piercing profession (which is fine) and, with the support of his parents, is convinced that he doesn't really need qualifications. Due to his natural aptitude towards learning and his knowledge gained up to this point he will probably leave school with the statutory 5 A* to C grades, but well below what he has been targeted by the algorithm schools use to generate targets. Whose fault will it be? Mine, and his other teachers despite the fact that this is a choice made by the child with the full support of his parents. This doesn't really seem fair to me, as all his teachers have tried to enthuse him with little or no success.
My other issue with this report is the fact that the statistics were released by the Department for Education, who would have ploughed thousands, if not millions of pounds into the frankly obvious findings of this research, and that money surely could have been used far more effectively elsewhere.
It got the government another headline though, I suppose, at the expense of teacher morale once more.
What a bizarre story! It essentially says that those children who turn up at secondary school with below average grades, finish secondary school with below average grades. Thank you Sherlock, I'd never have guessed.
This is fairly typical of politicians who will never admit that some children aren't cut out for academia and may have talents in other areas, but due to the nature of education in the UK and it's academic focus, these children "under-achieve". What do you expect from teachers? They can't work miracles for all those "below average" students. Some do close the gap with enormous amounts of extra help from staff, but with average class sizes still at around 30 and funding being cut, the time that politicians suggest teachers devote to these children just isn't available.
If the time required to raise these children's attainment was afforded to them, those who had worked hard before entering secondary school would have to be ignored which would therefore have a detrimental effect on their grades. Once again teachers can't win and are chastised by those in suits as a result.
What is also ignored is that these children may not actually want to learn, whatever efforts are made. A lot depends on parental support, which in many cases isn't forthcoming as statistically these children tend to be from backgrounds where schooling wasn't seen as important. You'd be surprised at how many parents support their child's lack of application at school, making excuses for their child's lack of enthusiasm for learning.
I teach an intelligent lad who entered secondary school with above average grades but has since decided to enter the tattooing and piercing profession (which is fine) and, with the support of his parents, is convinced that he doesn't really need qualifications. Due to his natural aptitude towards learning and his knowledge gained up to this point he will probably leave school with the statutory 5 A* to C grades, but well below what he has been targeted by the algorithm schools use to generate targets. Whose fault will it be? Mine, and his other teachers despite the fact that this is a choice made by the child with the full support of his parents. This doesn't really seem fair to me, as all his teachers have tried to enthuse him with little or no success.
My other issue with this report is the fact that the statistics were released by the Department for Education, who would have ploughed thousands, if not millions of pounds into the frankly obvious findings of this research, and that money surely could have been used far more effectively elsewhere.
It got the government another headline though, I suppose, at the expense of teacher morale once more.
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