Accountability and Resilience - Give Me Your Vote

There's an election in around 6 months, a troubling time for every public service as controversial policies are either rushed through before a party is voted out or idiotic statements by desperate politicians searching for your vote are made. The latest fad amongst the political classes regarding education is character, resilience, grit and the ability to pick yourself up and have another go. A couple of links are below (there will be more as the election looms):
BBC Education
Telegraph

It seems that the military are going brought in to teach "grit" and "character" and teachers must back this up, with Labour's Education spokesperson Tristram Hunt stating that if he were in charge then all new teachers would be trained to teach "character", which would no doubt be eye opening.

As you've probably guessed, I have a couple of issues with these noises emanating from the offices of Westminster.

1. At what point do parents get involved in the process of bringing up their own offspring? It seems to me that parenting has all but been abolished by government and the various agencies/quangos that claim a stake in education. The number of times I get a note in a child's diary to tell me that a child didn't understand (despite links to tutorial videos that apparently can't be accessed or weren't known about) or that the child "had a busy weekend" just shows how a complete lack of resilience, grit or any other character trait that might aid a young person in the big wide world is condoned by parents in general. And if parents won't allow their children to have "grit" what chance have teachers or military personnel?
2. Why do students at school need resilience nowadays anyway? Students have no responsibility whatsoever regarding their academic outcomes; teachers claim all that whether they want it or not. Students know this and realise that if a teacher wants to avoid capability proceedings then the teacher will essentially do the work for them, in fact only recently this very problem hit the media (The Guardian's coverage is here). DfE and Ofsted obsession with data, or in layman's terms, exam results means that this is an ever increasing phenomenon; kids aren't stupid, they know it and literally let the teachers get on with it. The days of "you get out what you put in" are no longer with us for some, but fortunately the majority of students are conscientious.
3. What on Earth are MPs doing telling anyone about resilience and grit? The first whiff of scandal and there's a resignation and expensive inquiry.

Politicians in the UK need to make their mind up and choose one of the following two options:

1. Insist that parents play a role in the upbringing of young people rather than just blindly blaming public sector workers.
2. Remove every newborn from their mother at birthand bring them up in their own vision in thousands of state sponsored workhouses.

I'm pretty sure they'd prefer the second option but it's unaffordable in times of austerity. More importantly it might lose them a vote, so it's definitely off the menu.

Behaviour Policies

Frustration is at the heart of many a teacher's day. It can manifest itself in many ways:

1. The kids won't listen and aren't taking their education as seriously as they should.
2. There aren't enough hours in the day to do the various tasks you have to do as a teacher.
3. The photocopier's broken and you need a class set of worksheets.
4. Your computer crashes in the middle of an observation.

There are many frustrating issues that go along with being teacher, and probably most jobs in fairness, but my main frustration has to be exclusive to educators:

How some kids essentially get away with everything: doing no work, being rude, smoking, swearing at staff, the list goes on.

Take an example from last week of a child who is regularly in trouble with the police for offences such as burglary, drug dealing, theft in general and wagging school. His home life is extremely settled, or should I say, should be extremely settled. This child's parents have applied for the child to be taken into care because of the carnage that surrounds their every move. This student, whom I attempt to teach when they are there, last week went nose-to-nose with me and called me a "fucking idiot" whilst I was on duty only to go on and threaten a colleague of mine, warning them to watch their back as you never know what might happen.

Both myself and my colleague wrote the incident up, but bright as a button, the student strolls into my lesson the next day. This student doesn't intimidate me in any way, although perhaps that's pretty foolhardy of me considering some of the people they hang around with, and this is not the first time this kind of thing has happened. The student clearly feels that they can do what they want, when they want. In fact they threatened another member of staff a day or so later. Nothing's happened.

Not only is this absolutely shocking, but when you see normally nice kids make a mistake or lose their temper and get the full rule book lobbed in their general direction, receiving time in isolation and phone calls home to explain to their parents just how naughty they've been, it makes me wonder why every child isn't misbehaving more. The more you do, the more untouchable you seem to become.

I'm not saying that schools should be excluding every child who sneezes in the wrong part of the corridor, but unless there are consequences for those who misbehave, where's the incentive to toe the line? The government (no surprise there) has made it almost impossible for schools to exclude, although they will obviously claim otherwise. If a school does exclude, it still has to pay for their education. In a climate of decreasing budgets this is not an option for many schools.

Consequences For Actions

FACT: If I told my boss to "F*** Off" I'd get the sack.
FACT: If I repeatedly told colleagues to "F*** Off" in anger, I'd get the sack.
FACT: If I prevented colleagues from doing their job, I'd get the sack.

The constant moan from employers is that schools aren't preparing the youth of Britain for the world of work, so why don't the same consequences listed above apply to school children?

The summer is a period when many schools send students on work experience. Many students, if they had been bothered to find a placement that they might be interested in, find work experience extremely rewarding, but the number who act like they do at school (ie. refusing to follow instructions) seems to be on the increase and turn up at school having had a strop and stomped off from their placement.

Why is this?

In my view it's purely down to a lack of consequences for actions in schools for students.

Now I'm not advocating that schools should kick out every child who misbehaves, and I also realise that school children are liable to make more "mistakes" than adults, but part of the problem is that when a student seriously crosses the behavioural line, a day spent out of circulation and then a return to a regular school day is perhaps not enough of a deterrent.

Behaviour of children is a major gripe amongst teachers (although politicians are up there too). Every school, no matter what the headteacher says, has challenging students who you would think would be in line for possible exclusion. As a colleague of mine was saying the other day, there are a few things you need to weigh up when prioritising who should possibly face this (extreme) sanction:

• Do they regularly misbehave?
• Is there evidence for this behaviour? (Evidence is crucial now due to the appeals process.)
• Has the school put a plan in place to help this child modify their behaviour?
• Is this plan making a difference to their behaviour?
• Does the child regularly prevent other children from learning (a consequence of preventing the teacher from teaching in many cases)?

I don't want to see loads of children excluded from school - they have to go somewhere after all, but does repeated poor behaviour mean that they relinquish their right to choose where they are educated? The problem is that if there are no obvious consequences for poor behaviour, the problem will only get worse as those students push the boundaries further and more students jump on the poor behaviour bandwagon.

At my school we have a few students whose names regularly crop up in behavioural discussions, but none appear to be on the brink leaving for good despite the fact that their behaviour is getting worse. One child who I have had the "pleasure" of teaching recently appeared on the board yesterday, presumably for swearing at the teacher, constant disruption of lessons, refusal to follow instructions, storming out of class and then telling a senior member of staff to "F*** Off". I don't actually know why they've been excluded, but that is what has happened on numerous occasions in the past, and still that child will come back in a few days as if nothing has happened, despite having been told repeatedly that they are in "last chance saloon". 

Government introduced red tape, including the right to appeal, doesn't help as schools lose money every time they exclude a child permanently, but they would lose a lot more if they kept a child who affected the results of many due to their behaviour. If politicians genuinely want standards lifted (a debatable issue) then they may want to think about allowing schools to excluded children who keep those standards low through their choices regarding how they behave. Teachers often complain that most of their time is spent on the minority of students who misbehave rather than imparting knowledge that may actually raise standards. This clearly isn't right - teachers shouldn't essentially be stewards, predominantly keeping control in their classrooms, they should be teaching, the job they were trained to do (in most cases). How are standards going to improve if teachers aren't allowed to teach?

And then we get to parental support...

It is often no coincidence that many of the students who fall into the category above have parents who either don't set consequences for their children's actions, or will defend their children until they are "blue in the face". But that's a subject for another blog.

Why Teaching Isn't For You

Or at the very least, shouldn't be!

I regularly check the BBC News website for education stories, which currently there are plenty. Every now and then they allow people to comment on the news stories and hundreds of people do so. They mainly fall into two, admittedly broad, categories:

1. Teachers, former teachers or people who are related/in a relationship with a teacher who claim that they are working every hour God sends in a desperate bid to keep on top of things.
2. General members of the public who despise schools and all those who work in them, considering the "profession", if you can call it that, work shy, overpaid, having too many holidays and all union activists.

Now everyone is entitled to their opinion and that's fine, don't get me wrong, but why the BBC continues with these opinions is beyond me as the ground is well trodden to say the least, and invariably ends in each side abusing the other. I would like to comment on both groups however.

Group 1:
I have been a teacher for over a decade and apart from my first year or so where I was attempting to find a routine that worked for me, I have rarely taken work home. I get in early (around 7.30am) and leave late (around 5pm) and aim to get all my work done in that time. It's not always possible, but in general I manage. The teachers who post on the BBC who say that they arrive at 7am, leave at 6pm (or when kicked out by the caretaker who understandably also has a home to go to) and then continue to work until 10pm or later every evening, plus at least one day over the weekend I have always considered to be doing too much or lacking in organisational skills. It has been known for me to use the phrase "It's all about time management". In the last year however, I have been doing much the same thing. It has meant that I rarely talk to my partner in the evenings (I'm sure they won't grumble too much about that!) and I struggle to sleep because I'm thinking about all the stuff I am yet to complete. Now I consider myself pretty organised, but I genuinely can't avoid this and still certain things have to be put on the back burner until I can find the time to complete them. Why is this? Three things: government initiatives, Ofsted and apathy of the young people of the UK. It's not a healthy state to be in, whatever way you look at it and will surely lead to burnout and leaving the profession.

Which brings me onto my next point and that is that if teachers are genuinely working this hard, and I genuinely believe that they are now, then people will leave for jobs that pay similar or less wages, but offer a better quality of life and that begs the question "Who will replace those people?". Government of all colours, but recently blue/yellow, have been saying how we really need to get rid of poor teachers, and they are correct, but who is going to replace them? Attempts to encourage top graduates are the current trend, but as a mentor of trainee teachers, I can categorically say that "there ain't a lot coming through", both in numbers or quality of teacher, which is different from "highly qualified teacher". This is not a healthy situation.

Children nowadays expect everything to be plated up for them nowadays, and I suspect that this is the reason why many teachers are working such long hours. I call it the X Factor generation where success can literally land in your lap with minimal effort being spent. The problem is, and many children don't realise this, that for every success on this route, there are thousands, if not millions of failures, I remember teaching a PSHE lesson where we were discussing possible careers and I had one conversation along these lines (the names have been changed to protect the idiot):
Me: So Tracey, what do you want to do for a job?
Tracey: I want to be famous.
Me: Ok, for doing what?
Tracey: Just being famous.
Me: But you have to do something in the first place in order to be famous.
Tracey: I'll go on Big Brother or something.

I know I sound really old when I say that "there's no substitute for hard work", but the number of ex-pupils who say to me "I wish I'd tried harder at school" is astounding. Pupil apathy is often backed up my parental stubbornness where their attitude is instilled into their offspring: can't do it, won't do it. Maths is a prime example of this. Many parents will say at some point in a parents evening appointment, usually at the start: "I am useless at maths" or "Don't expect me to be able to help" and then wonder why their child has a similar attitude.

It's what's known as a losing battle.

Group 2:
These people clearly had a bad experience at school. Presumably they were bullied by other children or even the odd teacher and are understandably scarred by their experience. They assume that teachers arrive at 8.30am and leave at 3.30pm, do nothing at home and jet off around the world in their 50-odd weeks holiday that they get every year.

The trouble is that these opinions aren't entirely their fault. Politicians over the last 15 years or so, and possibly longer, have taken every opportunity to bash teachers with large sticks. The people of Group 2 are only believing what politicians are telling them, and why wouldn't you? Politicians have been very clever in setting up a situation where they can now cut teachers' wages and pensions with the majority of public support. The only option left to the teaching profession being strike action or work-to-rule which just compounds the view that teachers are lazy, work shy and left wings union people.

It's what's known as a losing battle. Deja-vu!

So all in all, don't bother teaching, it really isn't worth the grief. Those moments when a child's eyes light up and they say "I get it" are now far outweighed by all the negatives, an you can't even go on a decent holidays in the umpteen weeks we get off because travel agents hike up the prices so much that they are unaffordable on the wages that teachers now receive. Brilliant!

Olympic Legacy? Good Luck!

With the continued success of Team GB (the only way to get some people interested in the Olympics is to give Great Britain a brand - says it all really) politicians have leapt onto the bandwagon with gusto. In order to make the Olympics of 2012 a legacy in the UK, schools and teachers must "play their part" according to the prime minister.

Frankly this is an insult to the thousands of teachers and volunteers in clubs who give up their time for free only to be told that they ought to try harder in the face of dwindling facilities, finances and resources. The current government (and the previous one wasn't much better, despite what they say) have done little other than cut services and facilities for sport. Funding is the key to the delivery of this "Olympic legacy", but seemingly the government are oblivious to this.

As far as I can see these are some major problems with this "Olympic legacy":

1. School playing fields being sold off is a bit of a red herring, but funding to schools through the SSCO and School Sports Partnership schemes is the real issue. The government has cut the SSP and therefore the SSCO scheme, meaning that the only PE provision now provided by primary and middle schools who can't afford a full-time PE teacher is delivered by non-specialists or by teachers giving up their own free time out of hours. Teachers have always been prepared to give up their time in the past, but with increased pressures to deliver "outstanding" lessons, league tables, Ofsted, a drop in real wages, being screwed over regarding pensions and various other things, including having a life outside of school, the goodwill of teachers has dwindled to a massive extent and there's no sign of that trend being reversed. Teachers have already "played their part".
2. Funding for equipment/facilities is the key - for most sports the correct equipment and/or facilities are needed for the sport to be played properly.and this doesn't come cheap to either schools or clubs. If the child wants to continue the sport then their parents will have to fork out for the equipment themselves and pay to join a club, which often isn't cheap. At every turn the issue of money rears it head, and this is the one issue the government want to avoid.
3. Government policy to "reduce the deficit" means that councils have to cut costs at every given opportunity. Sports facilities are always going to be the first to feel the pinch.
4. The introduction of competitive sports days will be purgatory for teachers, trying to control the kids who didn't qualify for the competitive events. I used to enjoy sports days when I was at school but that's because I was good at sport. There are those who just want to join in but are not that good, and by bringing competitive days back will discourage them from taking part. In the school where I'm a teacher we have a sports day contining a load of team games where everybody takes part as a tutor group. It sounds awful, and to be honest I thought it would be, but it's brilliant. Everyone joins in, staff and students alike, and the competitive element is still there as points are awarded to each group in categories such as "participation" as well as for the result. Competitive sport should be provided by clubs and state schools should introduce sports to their charges. Once again though the government have a "one size fits all" policy where they try, in vain, to compare private education (where facilities are excellent and time available to play them as well as money to pay for specific coaches) with state schools (no time available, relatively poor facilities and no money for expert coaching). It doesn't work! How many times do they have to be told?

The basis of the government's "Olympic legacy" policy is in volunteers from clubs and the teaching profession, and that's never going to work. It's all well and good making the right noises in speeches but actually putting your money where your mouth is (literally in this case) is the key, and I doubt whether our current set of politicians are capable of doing that, whatever colour their rosette.

Is it worth paying for education?

I've been a bit busy recently, but a conversation with a parent the other day got me thinking.

Their child is very good at sport and has been offered a place at a decent public school, which would normally cost in the region £9k per term. The family is very close knit and asked my advice on what the benefits would be, bearing in mind that you couldn't describe the child as particularly academic, by the family's own admission. The child currently attends the local state comprehensive.

My advice was that they should seriously think about it for the following reasons:

1. The facilities and coaching for sport will be much better. This is due to money and time being invested in sport at public schools, money and time that simply isn't available in state education.
2. The child will almost certainly get better exam results. The parents worry that all the others would be more intelligent and that would add increased pressure on their child, but I pointed out that they were offered the place for sport and that because the teachers could just concentrate on teaching rather than disciplining other members of the class, as they do in state schools, the child would learn far more. The teachers in public schools are no better or worse than their counterparts in state schools, there's just not the behavioural issues to deal with so that they can actually do their job.
3. Even though the child would have to board, a major worry for the parents, that child would almost certainly enjoy it hugely. It's not ideal for everyone, but this child, I have no doubt, would thrive in the environment. It builds a sense of community and that can't be a bad thing.
4. It opens doors in the future. Like it or not, a private education and the old school tie still hold weight and open more doors than would otherwise present themselves. In an ideal world this shouldn't happen, but the fact is that it does, so if you are offered that for nothing, take it with both hands so that you have the choice in the future.

The parents said that I really shouldn't be suggesting that public schools are better than state schools, but in general they are due purely to the ill-discipline of too many children in comprehensives. Private schools just get rid of these troublemakers who disrupt others' learning, but state schools, because of government policy on "inclusion" means that state schools have to try to cope, often to the detriment of those who are well behaved.

State education is broken for many reasons, but the fact that there are no consequences for poor behaviour because these poorly disciplined children at home ruin the futures of those who toe the line.

Not that the politicians would notice - as long as money is being saved.

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.

Hitler, Stalin, The Secretary of State for Education?

I was on a popular social networking site recently where someone was commenting that the teaching fraternity shouldn't waste too much energy trying to get rid of Michael Gove as he's actually better than a previous one, namely Ed Balls. And this got me thinking.

I've been teaching for over ten years now and in my experience we haven't had a decent or supportive Secretary of State for Education in my entire career. There have been numerous changes in the curriculum, which costs money and energy in stress/replanning and this ultimately helps no-one: teachers or children. We have had numerous new (and again expensive) initiatives, none of which have lasted very long.

In my time as a teacher I have never felt appreciated or valued by either politicians or the public in general - small violins please. The public's attitude has a lot to do with the politicians and their press releases. The job of Secretary of State for Education is fairly small fry in the grand scheme of politics and the job is seen as a stepping stone to greater things meaning that those in the educational seat are looking to make an impact and move on up the ladder.

So lets look at the candidates from the last 15 years:

David Blunkett - lasted about 4 years and was generally disliked by teachers but I can't remember him doing anything too drastic, but maybe that's because I was wet behind the ears and too busy panicking about the next day's lessons. According to the internet he took on the unions and increased the number of teachers by tens of thousands. He spent a lot more on education than anyone else had done before, so job's a good'un it appears. The worse thing during his time was that Chris Woodhead was the Chief Inspector of Schools.

Estelle Morris - a former teacher if I'm not much mistaken and therefore had the potential to show a bit of empathy and understanding. She was hounded out about 18 months later by the press. Did essentially nothing in her time.

Charles Clarke - a funny looking individual at the best of times, who actually visited a school I was teaching in, but was introduced only to top set kids and the head (I was hidden away in the dark recesses of the building). He lasted a couple of years before moving on to better things. Most of his policies were university based.

Ruth Kelly - a non- descript type who only lasted 18 months or so. Made schools stay open longer and have to provide child care. She did reject the scrapping of the A Level for a four-tier diploma, which was probably a good thing.

Allan Johnson - lasted about a year before moving up the food chain. Actually tried (unsuccessfully) to get teachers a better deal on pay and said that children shouldn't use the excuse of separated parents to blame their bad behaviour on.

Ed Balls - an odious character who is hell-bent on becoming prime minister, no matter who he tramples on. Look out for him changing his rosette depending upon election forecasts. He lasted about 3 years. He did get rid of SATs, so he's not all bad, just mostly.

Michael Gove - I must stop before I vomit. Oh, ok, he's just trying to annoy the teaching profession intensely with every breath.

What most of these people have in common is that they have no experience of schools other than they had once attended one. When looking at them, most are using the job as a way to get noticed.

The other common denominator is that none of them has ever asked a practising teacher what they think - former headteachers are not worth asking, I hasten to add. When are politicians going to swallow their pride and actually admit that they could do with advice? I disagree that Michael Gove is better than the previous incumbents of the job, but he's not much worse than any of the others.

Bullies Win In The End

So sure enough the primary school in London, Downhill Primary in Haringey, that Michael Gove wanted to force into academy status but fought back has been re-inspected and put into "special measures" meaning that they have to accept Gove's judgements.

This seems to be a modern tactic in education from government level all the way down to individual school level. Gove clearly had his nose put out of joint when Downhill decided to fight back - he's not used to the minions actually having an opinion after all. It is something he may have to get used to though as I am convinced that more an more of this kind of rebellion will happen as the Secretary of State attempts to force through new, ill-advised policy.

What did for Downhill initially was an Ofsted report claiming that the school was giving its children inadequate provision for education. The re-inspection was, and I quote Gove here, to "provide an indepedent assessment of the school's position". It is a well known fact in education that Ofsted inspectors will support each other through thick and thin (mainly thin), and with the previous judgement being so public, "independent" was the last thing that this inspection could claim to be.

Current pupils were reportedly distraught as their headteacher resigned having received the new judgement, and despite parental support for the school, their pleas has fallen on deaf ears. Like so much in education nowadays, Gove and his cronies clearly have targets to meet regarding the conversion of local authority schools to academies. I still don't really understand the motivation for this policy as the government ultimately still pays the money but has little say in how it runs anymore. If you held the purse strings, surely you'd want some kind of say in how the money's spent? Obviously not.

Gove's bully boy tactics have won the day, and his "best pal" Wilshaw seems to enjoy using the same tactic. In his short tenure as Chief Inspector of Schools he has managed to alienate and worry almost the entire profession. He consistently talks only to Ofsted "outstanding" headteachers at conferences, although that judgement is all relative. Surely if he wants to make a difference to schools he should talk to all the other "non-outstanding" people and try to to indoctrinate them. Maybe because he knows he will get lynched by others (the "outstanding" heads are all his mates, I should add), such is the vitriol from the teaching proffesion aimed his way. His budget is supposed to be cut this year but he's been quoted as saying that his mate Gove should sort that out. Makes you want to vomit, doesn't it?

Sir Michael (of Mouse?) has been on the television a lot recently trying to justify his appointment, enormous pay packet and the existence of Ofsted that many experts are currently claiming is too big for its boots, lacking any real accuracy or consistency in its judgements. Wilshaw is a wholly unimpressive man when interviewed; he can barely speak and looks uncomfortable. That's not to say that professionally he hasn't worked wonders in some schools; his bullying tactics of forcing his staff to work above and beyond what is healthy or sociable clearly works on a small scale (in one school at a time),as he can easily replace the few staff who refuse to sell their soul to devil, I mean Sir Michael. Nationwide there just aren't the numbers of staff in reserve to do that, and the fact that the staff in tenure of the jobs currently, beat the "reserve staff" at interview would suggest that those in reserve aren't always better. He will no doubt try though and at the same time alienate an entire profession.

No-one in education can argue with both Gove and Wilshaw's apparent philosophy of improvement of education and raising of standards, but the way they are going about it leaves a lot to be desired. Their bullying policy is a common one in schools though as teachers who dare to question their leadership (whether constructively or not) or simply fall out of favour for whatever reason, find their progression up the pay scale blocked and life made very uncomfortable indeed (mainly through aggressive and demoralising lesson observations/judgements - a headteacher's trump card over their staff) purely down to the judgement of one or two at the top.

If you are thinking of becoming a teacher, you'd better think long and hard about it, as it really isn't all it's cracked up to be. Although, on the plus side, there will be plenty of vacancies soon as current classroom practitioners race for the door, whether through retirement or career change. This coalition government has obviously set its stall out to completely ruin education in this country, and they are doing a remarkle job of it.

What Do Teaching And Policing Have In Common?

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

Everyone has an opinion on how to do the job.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Academies - The Way Forward?

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

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

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

What actually happens is the following:

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

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

Article here!

Financial Sense Classes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can I have a B please Carol?

Gambling Lessons

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

League Tables Are Rigged!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Teacher Bashing Season Is Open!

As the schools go back in September, so the non-teaching critics pipe up, usually at the behest of government ministers and their thirst for political points. This year is no different and it's maths teachers who are the focus of the seemingly bad press. I wasn't aware of this until I opened The Sunday Times to page 7 last weekend and saw the following headline: "Number of clueless maths pupils soars". It was accompanied by a picture of "celebrity mathematician" Carol Vorderman and two maths exam questions:

1. O-Level Maths 1979: "Prove that the internal bisector of any angle of a triangle divides the opposite side in the ratio of the sides containing the angle".
2. GCSE Maths 2010: "Write the number 50,000 in words".

Now I hate to be picky, and I regularly read what I would normally regard as a reasonable newspaper with well rounded and balanced articles, but I am very tempted to change my allegiances from now on. The article is the most shoddy piece of work I have ever read, and I have read the some shoddy stuff in my time.

The first thing I'd like to point out is that the two questions illustrated by the picture of our Carol are aimed at two totally different students. The O Level question is aimed at a high achieving student, maybe A or A* grade, possibly B at a stretch. The GCSE question is G grade, and no more. And let's face it, a G grade isn't worth the paper it's printed on in many cases (not all, I realise that for some, a G grade is an achievement, although ultimately useless). The newspaper's education correspondent, Jack Grimston, ought to have been pulled up on this by the editor.

I would also like to question the relevance in everyday life of bisecting the angle of a triangle so that it divides the opposite side in the ratio of the of the sides containing that angle. When is anyone ever likely to do this? They might be have to write the number 50,000 in words if they write a cheque though. Some of the billions of pounds spent on mathematics in the past 30 years has gone on making the curriculum more relevant and therefore accessible to the majority, meaning that less pupils are left in the cold by an irrelevant and archaic curriculum that Vorderman and Grimston clearly pine for.

A "specially devised test" on algebra, ratio, decimals and fractions was taken by 14 year old in 1979 and 2008/9 and the proportion of pupils getting level zero approximately doubled. Now this is probably a fair point but to lay the blame purely at the feet of maths teachers is unfair. Part of the reason for this increase in "cluelessness" is down to the fact that parents who struggled with maths at school pass their phobia onto their children. This means that numbers will increase and could go towards explaining the rise.

There's also the fact that governments over the past 30 years have taken away any powers teachers once had, and it is now nigh on impossible to get a student to work if they don't want to. I'm not calling for a return to corporal punishment, but it would be nice to feel as though I had some power in my classroom.

Vorderman does make a reasonable point towards the end of the article though when she says that those who struggle initially are thrown on the "scrapheap" to be taught predominantly by non-specialists. This doesn't happen in every school, but happens in most, and can be placed squarely at the feet of government once more, as they aim to cut budgets by making tiny little savings in some areas that have a huge effect on education in schools rather than saving a whopping £200 million per year plus by abolishing Ofsted and other pointless quangos that are remarkably still in existence. It's not fair on those students who are "taught" by non-maths teachers but schools often don't have a choice. The statements seem to suggest that those teachers don't really try, which in almost every case won't be true.

Apart from Vorderman a Professor Dame Julia Higgins, chair of the government's education committee is quoted as saying that we need to get more specialist maths teachers in schools, and she's absolutely correct. The problem is that teaching is becoming a genuinely unpleasant profession to be in, and most people who are competent at maths could earn more or the same in a different profession which almost certainly has a far more pleasant environment. It is for these reasons that poor maths teachers do get employed, because there aren't enough good ones to go around.

Maths teaching is not in any way desirable nowadays; many students don't want to learn the subject but are (rightly) forced to do so, however staff have zero comeback on a student who refuses to make any effort. The pressure on teachers to achieve unrealistic targets of C+ grades also makes many teaching positions untenable. Why do people who advise not actually try the job for a year or two before criticising those who do? Wasn't George Bernard Shaw who said "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach". Perhaps he should have added "Those who can't teach, advise".

I would agree that gaining a C grade is now a lot easier (political targets need to be met people), but it's still just as tough to get the top grades of A and A* and don't let anyone tell you different - the article claimed that an A grade now is equivalent to what a C grade was at O Level. That's harsh, and in my opinion wrong. C grades are now probably equivalent to about an E grade at O level, but you can't blame teachers for that. Government set targets, and grade boundaries are lowered in order to meet those targets. It's a badly kept secret in education.

The only way these sorts of comments from Vorderman and Higgins could be of any use is if it forces central government to put more money into education, but I reckon there'd be a snow day in Hell first.