Rewards - something for nothing?

This news story was floating about on social media today, a story about a middle school that held a "mufti day" only for those who had reached their accelerated reading targets. Click here to see the full story from the Telegraph.

This got me thinking about the expectations of students about to sit their GCSEs and A Levels. The Easter holidays have just begun but many secondary teachers will spend some time in school delivering revision sessions, or in the case of many of their charges, "desperation" classes for those who didn't listen in class first/second/third time around and can't be bothered or don't have the discipline to revise independently.

I had a conversation with a colleague the other day who described this telephone conversation with a parent about their underachieving child in an option subject (names have obviously been changed):
Teacher: I was just ringing to say that Alice is currently on about a C grade but is very capable of getting an A grade if she puts in a bit of effort and knuckles down for the remaining 5 weeks or so at school.
Ms Smith: "Knuckling down" isn't really Alice's I'm afraidt.
Teacher: It really wouldn't be that arduous, in fact I can tell her specifically what she needs to improve upon.
Ms Smith: I really can't see her doing it, but it's great that she's capable of getting the A grade. Is there any way she could get the A grade without putting in the work?
Teacher: Not really I'm afraid, but I was thinking that if you had a quick word that might give her some encouragement.
Ms Smith: It won't work so I probably won't, but I look forward to her A grade in August.
Teacher: *Sigh*

I'm not embellishing this conversation; it actually happened. It's not untypical in the school I work in either. Something for nothing is almost expected. The entire culture of holiday and after-school revision sessions is a toxic one that encourages this "something for nothing" attitude; one no longer has to bother to listen in lessons as you will get numerous other opportunities to be taught what you've missed. After all, teachers have to do all they can to get their classes through 4 levels of progress or whatever ministers and their quangos decide is acceptable nowadays. Ofsted's and the DfE's obsession with data/exam results is the root cause.

And who can blame the students exclusively? At home students receive rewards for nothing. An obvious example immediately springs to mind: a student who has had to leave one school due to his behaviour and is lucky to still be at his current one received but a brand new vehicle for his birthday, despite being woefully below target in every subject on his timetable. So what chance have we, as a school, got? None is the short answer.

Deadlines are not deadlines and students know that if they wait long enough a teacher will essentially be forced to write coursework for them, having been pressurised by a nervous SLT who fear a visitation if the following summer's results are below par. No wonder employers think that schools don't produce young people ready for the workplace (as this story from January 2014 highlights). I'd have to agree that they don't, but aren't allowed to, despite what ministers say.

So when a headteacher tries to highlight the fact that if you work hard you get rewarded, like the workplace, loads of people moan and pick out that those who miss out, for whatever reason, have their self-esteem damaged. You can't win.

How will those children, future members of the workforce no less, how will their self-esteem be when they can't get a job that feeds their excessive lifestyle that they see in the media because they didn't work hard? Where do you draw the line? They have to learn the lesson at some point.

Coping With School

There's been a bit in the press recently about young people coping with life after school - click here.

I have said for a long time now that schools in England, at least the ones I've had experience in, do not prepare young people for the big, wide world. I'm sure that there are some that do, in fact the school I went to had a pretty good go, but the majority fall way short of the mark. It's not their fault I hasten to add, it's the system that's at fault.

In a sense you can't blame children, parents or staff either, but politicians must take the blame for the current situation. Schools in England have become exam factories, with every judgement based on results. This sounds fair enough you'd think, but a school's, and therefore its staff's existence is purely dependent upon the results they churn out over the academic year. So can you blame staff for literally spoon-feeding its charges? This is the reason young people struggle with the outside world, because as older generations will tell you, you get out what you put in, unless you are in education. Employers are constantly moaning that many young people they employ almost literally know nothing of use, and they mistrust exam results as a consequence. Gove's policy of changing the GCSE to the EBacc will not address this in any way, shape or form as schools and their staff will still be based upon their results.

There will be no discernible change until young people in schools and colleges are "allowed" to get what they deserve. The problem is that in order to "allow" young people to get what they deserve, all schools will have to buy into the idea and not spoon-feed their cohort, which will never happen unfortunately because anyone in education will tell you that as soon as you stop spoon-feeding, results will take a hit for a year or two until the young people, and just as importantly, their parents learn that they have to make an effort.

I have a couple of Year 11 classes who have exams in January and I've been telling them to do some past papers that we've put on our website and bring them to me when they get stuck. How many have actually done this out of around 40 students? None. And my classes are not unusual as out of around 150 students who are taking exams in a couple of weeks, the total number seeking the help offered is under 10. We still get students asking what they should do to revise despite letters being sent home as well as texts and emails. And many of the parents are just as bad if I'm honest as they flatly ignore the messages sent home.

The trouble is that our students all know that they will get to college with whatever results they end up with, because "bums on seats" is the key phrase - their funding from government relies on numbers, so again you can't really blame them, The young people therefore find it almost impossible to fail, which is why when they start work and get both barrels from their employer for not doing their job, they crumble because it's probably the first time it's ever happened.

Due to the pressure on results, staff in schools also struggle to cope with the pressures placed upon them, especially when you consider that they are essentially having to do the work they are setting as well as teaching it. As the years have gone by my term time sleep patterns have changed hugely. I now get around 4 hours sleep per night during term as my brain races over how to deliver certain topics to certain classes/students in order to encourage them to think for themselves. This is now creeping into my holidays, which frankly can't be healthy for anyone, me, my family, the students I teach or my colleagues.

Not that any of this seems to bother Michael Gove or his old mucker Sir Michael Wilshaw. Their rhetoric seems to be "put up, shut up or we'll get rid of you". Now that's fair enough but replace me with someone as good or better. Good luck with that...

Gove Levels

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

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

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

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

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

Teachers and Students: Inversely Proportional

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maths Teachers Are Rubbish

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

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

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

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

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

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

Changes In Examinations

Michael Gove is leaving no stone unturned as he attempts to take Britain's education system back 50 years. I hear nasty rumours of a return of coursework to mathematics, which really will be a backwards step in my view. Maths coursework was the closest a maths teacher ever got to dentistry, and despite it giving the lower ability a chance to get a higher grade because they weren't great at exams, the ressurrection of maths coursework will do no-one any favours other than the students who essentially copy their work.

Those who would like to see coursework return will say that it will be controlled assessment, meaning that students won't be allowed to take their work away and will have a set amount of time to complete the task. What they don't tell you is that the students spend hours trying to remember what their teacher has told them to write and the topic of the controlled assessment is no surprise at all as it is known well in advance by both teacher and students. With the pressure to get results with all students (even those who don't deserve them) the temptation to dictate the answer to a class must be great.

The marking and "moderation" of coursework is a time consuming waste of time compared to what the teacher could be doing with the time in the form of planning and preparation. It takes hours and is essentially a case of trying to justify the highest grade possible, even though most bits of coursework are total rubbish due to the lack of any relevance to anyone's potential work-life.

Anyway, enough of coursework - hopefully Gove will be caught in an uncompromising position, doing something he shouldn't before he gets too far with his changes. The problem is that the guy seems so devoid of any concept of reality that he won't realise that he should resign. He currently doesn't realise that he's loathed by everyone in education, so I don't hold out much hope.

There are whisperings of four subjects being made tougher: English Literature, Maths, History and Geography. This seems reasonable as long as the fact that the exams are getting trickier and so therefore the percentage of passes will go down is taken into account when teachers are being thrashed by senior management in August/September following the publication of results and league tables.

I can foresee what is likely to happen though, as this sort of policy/idea comes around everyfew years: the exam gets tougher for a year or two until the opposition party claim that the worse marks show a drop in standards due to government policy, and exams get easier to show that standards have, in fact, risen. In the meantime, teachers will get it in the neck.

What really winds me up is that 99% of government education policy is geared towards one of these things:

1. Winning your vote.
2. Making their political opponents look silly.
3. Trying to move up the political food chain.

The other 1% is for the benefit of the young people of Britain.

Ten Years To Notice The Difference

Michael Gove has suggested that it will take 10 years for his educational policies to bear fruit and send the UK back up the worldwide education league table, from about 25th position currently, to who knows where. The trouble is Michael, that you may have very few teachers left by then.

His proposals, as far as I can make out, are something along these lines:

1. Cut spending and make schools more efficient. I'm not sure that he really has a choice on this as everywhere is having to suffer cuts in funding to prevent financial meltdown countrywide, if not worldwide.
2. Encourage as many schools as possible to become academies, the reason apparently being to give schools more control over their budgets, but in reality it just threatens staff due to changes in contracts, and the top brass in schools award themselves disproportionate wages. Millions of pounds, that could be spent far more effectively elsewhere in schools, is spent building new premises when the old ones were perfectly workable. At the end of the day, the same kids will be walking through the door, a new building just gives them a fresh canvas.
3. Allow headteachers to sack any consistently under-performing teachers (a good thing) and any teachers they don't particularly like (not a good thing). Another policy that threatens all staff, even the good ones, who by the sounds of Gove's speeches, don't really exist, since he seems to be constantly undermining teachers and their professional judgements, informed by years of experience. Gove likes listening to people who don't actually enter the classroom very often, and headteachers will just manipulate observations and targets to oust teachers they are not keen on.
4. Make it almost impossible to permenantly exclude children by forcing the school that excludes a child to continue paying for that child's education. In a time of dwindling budgets, and the fact that the school only gets paid for the number of students in the school, this policy will mean a worsening situation in schools, where the few consequences that could face a misbehaving child are even further removed. Lawlessness is around the corner.
5. To ensure that exams are tougher and the higher grades are tougher to come by. I have no problem with this per se, as standards have dropped in recent times due to the inflation of top grades, or in layman's terms, giving top grades to those who don't really deserve them. My only issue is that teachers will get it in the neck because their classes will not be reaching the targets set by the school/government, as presumably they will not reflect the increasing difficulty of the children achieving the top grades.
6. To change the curriculum in many areas, which again I have little problem with in theory, the only problem being that those writing the new curriculum haven't ever or recently done the job. Teachers seem to be totally excluded from any discussions regarding their profession with this regime, although it was the same with the previous government.
7. Give the school more powers over the children, and not allowing parents to retain all the cards in the pack as they currently do. I have seen or heard no evidence of this policy in schools or on the news, but I did hear that this was a policy from the horse's mouth, as it were. Not Gove himself, but one of his underlings. Some of the comments made could only have been made by someone who has no experience of the workings of a school, such as telling parents to send their children to another school for simply not allowing their child to attend a detention. This is simply not workable, as anyone working in a school would know. That school wouldn't survive a a couple of years due to falling numbers and therefore falling budget. They are convinced though, because Sir Michael Wilshaw did it in Hackney, and he's God in their eyes - I jest you not.
8. Talking of Sir Micahel Wilshaw, Ofsted inspections will be far more rigorous and schools will be given no notice. I haven't a problem with the no notice thing, but the more stringent Ofsted insoection is a worry. These people (I mean the inspectors rather than the politicians, although I can understand if you were confused) are clueless and arrive in school with pre-formed judgements, the school having little or no chance of changing the inspectors' minds. The more stringent the inspections become, the more excuse the inspectors have to just slate a school for no reason, meaning that the staff in that school's lives become hell until the next inspection.

I'm sure that there are more policies up Mickey's sleeve, but these are the ones that stick in the mind. As I say, by the time Gove's policies bear fruit, I would be surprised if there are many teachers left due to ever-plunging morale in the profession.

Gove wouldn't know that though, as teachers' opinions are never actually sought.

Examiners - Cheating?

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

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

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