The Problem With Top Graduates...

The government has been on about attracting more top graduates into teaching for a while now. They've offered bursaries (see here), expanded the remit of the teaching recruitment charity Teach First to allow it to recruit greater numbers (see here), and made various announcements that have been lapped up by the media of varying quality (Telegraph, Independent, Mirror, Daily Mail to link just a few). A simple search online will unearth hundreds more articles I have no doubt, if you can be bothered that is.

The requirement to actually have a qualification to teach in the state schools of England has been relaxed in the most favoured types of school for the Department for Education, namely academies and free schools. The qualification requirement has never been compulsory in private/public schools, the type of school that a high proportion of MPs attended, or in the case of my local MP, wish they'd attended. Now you may say that if it's worked in private and public schools, what's the problem? They get great results that state schools could get after all. It's a question of intake, student motivation and support from home that is a major difference my friends. Anyway, that's a separate point; what I wanted to cover is the myth regarding top graduates.

There are a few subjects that have been highlighted by DfE ministers and other MPs on programmes like Question Time that really ought to have top graduates teaching the youth of today; namely mathematics and science. You could throw "new subject" computer science into that mix too, as you are either very good at it and therefore probably did it at university; there is no middle ground with computer science: either you're brilliant or you're crap. I'm the latter.

At A Level and Degree I couldn't agree more that maths and science could do with being taught by top graduates, although they need not be the be all and end all. Teaching of those courses is to children who have chosen to take those subjects and already have an deep-seated interest in the subject. They not only want to know how to do something, they want to know why it works that way; something that a top graduate can explain with ease, whilst others would possibly have to do a little research. So, dear DfE and those in expensive suits in Westminster, feel free to attract top graduates for those posts, but don't disregard others. You will have to dangle numerous carrots in front of these high flyers to divert their attention from the lucrative careers that top mathematicians and scientists have traditionally entered. It might help if DfE press releases and various Ofsted employees didn't consistently criticise teachers in the media too. I digress again...

My main query is whether a top graduate really is the best type of person to teach maths and science to disinterested children who have no choice but to be there and just want to get the minimum grade in order to never have to sit through a lesson again? Unfortunately with a total lack of interest in the subject, the likelihood of achieving that grade is minimal. These students need to be taught in a different way. Empathy with the inability to understand a concept first time around is hugely helpful. A top graduate in their subject will invariably have found most, if not all of their subject pretty straightforward. The trouble is this means that our much lauded top graduates will get increasingly frustrated as their charges fail to grasp covalent bonds or simultaneous equations. A teacher who was not a top graduate probably won't have found everything easy, and can therefore understand the frustrations.

If you couple this lack of empathy for a  student's woes with a lack of any teacher training or qualification then the recipe is potentially disastrous. If there's one thing that my PGCE did teach me it was different strategies for dealing with classes, mainly through teaching placements admittedly, but without it I would have floundered even more than I actually did in my NQT year.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that top graduates couldn't empathise, they are just less likely to understand. So Mr Gove, DfE, Sir Michael and the various other political types who drone on and on about top graduates, they may not actually be the answer to all your problems!

Is The End Nigh For Graded Lesson Observations?

When I was training to be a teacher all those moons ago, lesson observations were generally a pretty positive experience. They were essentially pass or fail, and would have to be pretty awful to fail. They would focus on the following:

• What went well (where have I heard that before?);
• Even better if (Groundhog Day?) I did a couple of things - how I could have improved the lesson;
• My target is (Deja vu?) to try some new stuff to improve my teaching.

I actually quite liked lesson observations, although I wouldn't say that my day was made by one, but I saw them as a positive way of improving my practise.

Nowadays, in the era of "performance related pay" and express capability procedures brought in during Michael Gove's watch as Secretary of State for Education, although I suspect others would have brought it in as a desperate attempt to tighten education's belt, lesson observations can make or break a teaching career or a school, depending on who the observer(s) is. They have moved away from their supportive nature and become a threatening entity in education.

For those (presumably few, if any) of you who don't know, lessons are graded by management or Ofsted inspectors on a scale from 1 to 4:

1. Outstanding.
2. Good
3. Requires Improvement
4. Inadequate

In order to avoid "action plans" or "capability" procedures, a teacher must be consistently a 1 or 2, although the odd 3 is acceptable as everyone has a bad day, but expect to be seen again pretty quickly and make sure you get a 1 or 2 or else! You'd think that's fair enough, and so would pretty much every teacher as we all, as educators, want to produce lessons that encourage and enhance learning. And actually you knew where you were when Ofsted had a particular style of lesson/teaching that they wanted to see, because ultimately the observation was a box ticking exercise.

Now I'm not saying that I agree with Ofsted wanting to see a particular type of teaching, in fact I actively oppose it, but if a teacher's livelihood depends upon lesson observation gradings, then I don't see that you there is any fairer way. The problem is that now Ofsted have actively said that they don't want to see a particular style of teaching as long as learning is "rapid and sustained".

This therefore leaves observers in a bit of a dilemma when grading lesson observations, because it now becomes a personal opinion, which is anything but fair. One would hope that observers could set aside personal opinions regarding the teacher and just grade the lesson, but in my experience, this is seemingly impossible. Comments such as "I would have done it this way" and "I didn't like that" in the feedback are fairly commonplace, and surely it's irrelevant what the observer thinks; what the children in the class think is the important thing. Gradings that are linked to pay or, at worst, capability, become a personal opinion; expect numerous lawsuits for wrongful dismissal

So, as a result, some schools are abandoning lesson observation gradings to make teachers more comfortable and allow them to try to improve their practise without fear of reprisals if it doesn't go to plan straight away. It's brave but actually sensible. My school won't do it (for many reasons, most based upon the personality of the person at the top of the tree), and the fact that we now have numerous leaving speeches every term seems to be the modern trend (I personally find this cut-throat attitude towards staff/people unpleasant). The fact that children don't respond well to constantly changing staff seems to be ignored now, and please don't think that if a teacher is not up to the job then they should not be moved out, but many teachers who are "forced" (I did use the correct word there) out are actually pretty good in the classroom, but not liked by the person/people making the decisions. And what is rarely taken into account is whether the teacher being forced out can be replaced with somebody as good or better - often this isn't the case.

But what this also should mean is that Ofsted inspectors will no longer need to observe lessons, making an Ofsted inspection less stressful for classroom teachers, and ensuring taht leadership in schools actually earn their hefty pay packets. A "learning walk" (I hate that name too, but you all know what it means) will be sufficient to judge the atmosphere for learning in a school. Consistently good lessons will deliver consistently good results in exams. Inspectors therefore, will just need to look at the data of the school, aided by some informed words from SLT, to judge the school. This won't happen as I get the impression that inspectors like going into classrooms and making teachers uncomfortable; maybe I'm wrong.

The trouble is that I think that Messrs Gove and Wilshaw like threatening teachers, so the status quo will remain and the DfE budget will soar as thousands of teachers face capability based on the whim of SLT, or possibly because that particular member of SLT finds separating personal and professional feelings difficult.

This is without mentioning the potential exodus from the profession that already has a huge shortage ,in certain subjects, of adequate staff. Politicians and suits in large offices really are working wonders in education...

The Holidays Are Upon Us, And We Know What That Means...

The first term of the year is always the hardest for the following reasons:

1. It's the longest term of the year, usually 15 or 16 weeks altogether (before you non-teachers moan, feel free to train as a teacher and then get back to me).
2. The days are getting shorter, the weather getting worse and therefore children less opportunities to expend energy outside.
3. Christmas always makes the students excitable and therefore drain more energy from teachers as they try (occasionally in vain) to control them.
4. You know that due to the nature of the Christmas break (you rarely relax due to the various commitments at that time of year) that you will go back in early January just as tired as when you broke up.

The trouble is that rather like the sale of turkeys skyrockets at this time of year for obvious reasons, politicians and their ilk, as well as journalists with little to write about, regard this as open season on teachers - don't they get long holidays?

Some of this year's examples are below, from a mixture of broadsheets and tabloids, containing various messages to the general public, but the main one being, in many teachers' opinions, that teachers are the scum of the earth.

• From the Daily Telegraph and suggesting that a significant percentage of teachers are suspended due to illegal activities, which is costing the taxpayer - all their good readers - thousands of pound each year. Here is the article. As a teacher I read two messages from this: 1. Lots of teachers are criminals, whereas actually less than 1% of the teaching profession is suspended, and no comparison with other professions is available; 2. This has made a significant contribution to the economic downturn in the UK, whereas actually the amount being paid to teachers, some of whom are innocent, is tiny in comparison with, for example, MP's expenses. It's a blatantly a selective use of data to illustrate a non-point; Gove would be proud.
• From the Daily Mail, Michael Gove suggests that all schools should remain open for 51 weeks per year and longer every day. The article is here. Now I don't have a massive problem with this since me and my partner spend hundreds every month on childcare costs, and I'm pretty sure that many other teachers do the same. The unions have, as is their regular tactic, moaned a lot about the idiocy of the policy and how teachers are being made to work harder for less money. But as usual the unions, the voice of teachers in the public eye, missed the opportunity to question Gove on how he plans to implement this initiative. Who will staff these extra hours, especially since there aren't enough quality staff around to man every classroom in the country as it is, according to Ofsted? How will these extra weeks and hours be funded or will teachers just have to have their contracts changed and do more for less money? When will teachers get their holiday? Flexi-time will be hard to implement in schools after all. It's the sort of sound-bite that idle journalists and editors crawl all over, and Gove knows that as a former hack himself.
• From The Guardian/Observer there was an exclusive interview with Ofsted Chief Sir Michael Wilshaw who states, amongst other things, that moaning parents are to be applauded for driving up standards. The article is here. So why pick on the parental part of what he said? simply because the parental stuff is the bit that infuriates me the most. Parents often get just one side of the story (often not bothering to listen tot eh other side), namely the myopic view of their child, who in a self-preserving way, will make themselves look angelic and the teacher some kind of ogre. How does this drive up standards? All it does is demoralise a staff who can only feel "got at" by this. A demoralised staff will not perform to their potential in the classroom, which will, in turn, mean that the students aren't getting the best from their teacher. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but that will not make us, as a nation, climb the "oh so important" Pisa league tables. I think what Wilshaw is trying to say, but extremely badly, is that all "stakeholders" (whereas my bullsh*t bingo card?) have a part to play in the improvement of schools, and he's right. He has moaned a lot about his comments being mis-interpreted by the press, so why does he continue to talk to them? Idiotic.

There are probably many more stories, but these are the ones that have stuck in my mind. You will notice that a large percentage of the column inches are dedicated to the words of Gove, Wilshaw or whoever has decided to stick their oar in despite having little or no recent classroom experience. Teachers rarely get to offer their point of view, in fact the main respondents being union leaders, who are no longer teachers, if they ever had been. Those who make decisions about classroom practise are rarely affected by them; the teachers who are affected being left with no right of reply. And herein lie the frustrations of the teaching community.

I actually tell a little porky here, teachers do have one opportunity to speak out in The Guardian's "Secret Teacher": the link is here. Now I suspect that the majority of the readership of "Secret Teacher" are teachers, and the rest of the population just see the articles on there as the regular teacher moans. Now not all teachers moan (a huge number do I hasten to add) but the press have created that impression and the unions reported at whinging at every given opportunity. If those in charge actually read the "Secret Teacher", they should be very worried about some of the practises in schools and the ramifications upon the mental state of the country's educators; I am assuming that the "leaders" haven't buried their heads in the sand over this.

Ultimately the press in this country are, in many teachers' views, in the pockets of the politicians. There's little evidence to argue otherwise and Gove, Wilshaw et al are making hay whilst the sun shines. I suppose that you can't blame them for milking the press for all they're worth, if only the unions were as clever. You can blame the journalistic community for laziness however, which is frankly, unforgivable.

Has Michael Wilshaw Lost It?

I read with interest the Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw's speech to the Westminster Education Forum on 7th November this year.

You can read it for yourself HERE.

Now I don't know about you but I've not been Sir Michael's biggest fan. The reasons for this are listed below:

• From the evidence I've seen and experienced via Ofsted, I think his methods of leadership are tantamount to bullying.
• His Ofsted regime has led to a climate of fear in education in England that could be disastrous for young people for many years to come.
• He is phenomenally arrogant (although people who know me may see that as the pot calling the kettle black!).

His "raising of the bar" regarding education has been unreasonable in the sense that schools and teachers have absolutely no idea of what is now required of them. What was once graded "outstanding" is now far from being that and schools don't know why. I have no problem with bars being raised but when you've no idea what you've been doing "wrong" for years, it's difficult to put it right.

However, recently he's been saying things that I've found it difficult to argue against, namely that Ofsted should not be looking for one particular style of lesson (specifically those with group work integrated) but the lesson must exhibit good or outstanding learning no matter how it's delivered. I don't think that any educator would argue with this point of view - learning is the ultimate goal after all. The problem is that his inspectors don't appear to have got the message, as @oldandrewuk talks about in his blog "Scenes From The Battleground" repeatedly.

He seems to be trying to quash the rumour that his quango is the DfE's lapdog, by sending letters to a whole load of academies that they need to up their game and judging free schools as "inadequate", something that can only embarrass the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, which is no bad thing. Wilshaw still has work to do in this area, as his pro-academy leanings are well documented.

The speech on Thursday undid all the positives and gains he'd made though. As I read it my blood pressure rose. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but from classroom teacher's point of view I got the following messages from it:

1. Great teachers don't exist without great leaders.
2. Headteachers should consult with staff, but then do their own thing anyway.
3. Teachers should put up and shut up.

I'd like to deal with each point in turn:

1. Surely educational "greatness" it's a symbiotic relationship between classroom practitioner and leadership; you can't have one without the other. To dismiss the efforts of classroom teachers and place them firmly at the feet of management is frankly insulting as a classroom practitioner. What Wilshaw is saying is that "inadequate" schools must have 100% "inadequate" teachers, which simply can't be true; the school is only inadequate in the eyes of some inspectors whose judgement is potentially questionable (although not by MPs), but that's another story. But simply, on inspection, I can't believe that an "inadequate" school had 100% "inadequate" teaching.
2. Here's where Wilshaw's true colours shine through. Classroom teachers clearly aren't valued by the Chief Inspector, but he forgets that without them, schools couldn't function, or could only function if those "great leaders" went back into the classroom. He bemoans the fact that too few are being groomed for leadership in education, but when the expectation upon leaders is to be a tyrant, you can understand why few are champing at the bit to do the job. And as an aside, those who do want to do the job are probably the last people you'd want with that sort of power and attitude.
3. How to motivate an already demotivated workforce; or perhaps not. Teaching has been advertised as a short-term career for would-be city highflyers for a number of years now. Workload has become almost unmanageable for teachers and of those entering the profession from the various pathways available, only around 40% survive beyond 5 years, with some subjects facing a major shortage of staff. How helpful is Wilshaw's rhetoric? Not at all is the answer.

And I haven't even mentioned this part of the speech:

"There is absolutely nothing wrong in my view in saying to youngsters ‘do as I ask, because I am the adult, I am older than you, I know more than you and, by the way, I am in authority over you.’"

Would you want your child taught by a man who thinks this? Nor would I. Respect for authority is a good thing, but respect should be earned.

I was starting to warm Ofsted's great leader, but forget that now. Teachers will always dislike the Chief Inspector of Schools, but when I see parents slating him on social media, surely the man's position is now untenable. Fingers crossed...

Ofsted's Whimsical Judgements: The Fallout

I work in a school that has been through an Ofsted inspection within the last year. I won't pretend that it was a pleasant experience because it was anything but. A large number of colleagues were reduced to tears and a significant number have left or are leaving teaching as a result. Perhaps some of them should leave the profession, but not all.

At the time the school was certainly not outstanding, and only had elements of good, but Ofsted deemed that it should be placed in Special Measures. The reasons given were harsh but accepted by the school and everyone got on with it because there was nothing we could immediately do about it.

This Ofsted grading has had a far greater impact and could, not just in a worst case scenario, actually end up being fatal for the school. The Ofsted inspector's unquestioned judgements have far reaching consequences that these whimsical individuals fail to realise, whether through choice or ignorance.

Since the "judgement" the number of complaints from parents has increased hugely. Some are certainly justified but if all the complaints are valid then why weren't they raised beforehand? What we are finding is that parents can now justify their unquestioned backing of their "faultless" children by saying "it's the school that's crap because Ofsted said so". The kids aren't stupid either and are fuelling this to save their own bacon, but as a colleague pointed out to a serial miscreant "Would you have agreed with Ofsted if they'd have said we were brilliant?", to which the answer was "No".

Due to the Ofsted grading we now have various pressures on us as staff (not just teachers) to do exactly what HMI say in order to "improve". What staff are quickly realising is that what one person regards as improvement, another person doesn't due to teaching's subjectivity, so ultimately whatever we do as a staff body we are in the laps of the gods - you are either in favour or you're not. If the inspectors aren't in a good mood we're stuffed. Is that really fair?

New initiatives are dreamt up every five minutes it seems, and teachers are understandably jumping ship as quick as they can meaning that the school has to replace them. But who wants to come to work in a school in Special Measures? Not enough people it seems, so classes in many subjects will be staffed with supply teachers which isn't going to help anyone other than the supply agencies who fill the positions. Good exam results come from diligent children with consistent teaching from as few different teachers as possible. Constant change is a recipe for disaster, a recipe that schools in this position have no choice over.

Whatever you think of Ofsted Chief Sir Michael Wilshaw (I can't say that I'm a fan myself), he does occasionally make the right noises from his plush office in Westminster regarding inspections. Unfortunately his finger is so far from the pulse that whatever he says is irrelevant because his inspectors simply aren't doing it. Their judgements go unquestioned and ultimately they could argue that Sir Alex Ferguson was the greatest manager Chelsea ever had and people would believe it. Teachers in school are being pulled and pushed in numerous directions by a desperate management who don't really know how to get Ofsted to give the school a better grade, because even Ofsted aren't sure what they are looking for. It's making people ill (more supply staff required to cover) and forcing people out who can't be replaced (yet more supply staff required), so what chance have we got?

Ofsted is now a beast that probably can't be tamed and will destroy education in the schools that aren't fashionable in government/their eyes. They are not independent of government, in fact they have recently stated that if schools don't follow the new government Performance Related Pay guidelines, they will get downgraded upon inspection. They are too big an organisation and their inspectors too out of touch to be effective or accurate in their assessment of schools. Training is not a replacement for recent, hands-on experience. Schools genuinely close due to their whims, and this is can't be right because the inspectors are not always right.

But Michael Gove loves Ofsted, so that's ok then.

Conference Season

I really don't like Easter. It's not the holidays because after all, that is one of the few benefits of being a teacher. It's because the three major teaching unions (NUT, NASUWT and ATL) have their conferences.

Now I like unions, and I think that they have an important part to play in the life if any teacher (those who aren't members of a union are fools I'm afraid). They provide support for any teacher who finds themselves in a bit of a jam whilst at work. They will, if the case warrants it, provide legal support whose cost would be prohibitive otherwise.

So if I actually like unions, why do I dislike their conferences?

The problem is that anyone who is a member can make a speech in theory. Now I might sound undemocratic at this stage, but some people need to be prevented from talking in public. All unions have militant members, many of whom probably have a reasonable point, but the fact is that they just sound a bit pathetic and ranting.

Currently teaching has a few issues of which these are the main two:

1. Ofsted - the fear of senior management in schools is almost unbearable and the Chief Inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw comes across as a bully and an idealist living in a fantasy world. The workload his rhetoric has produced is unsustainable and is driving people out of the profession.
2. Michael Gove - Secretary of State for Education. He is in the process (presumably because he knows that his party won't get voted back in at the next election) of radically changing the way schools work and teach the youth of the country at a frightening pace. Some of it is sensible and needs doing but much of it is lamentable, and this has been stated to him repeatedly by "experts". He ploughs on regardless.

There are others: pensions, pay freezes, attitude to learning and pupil/parental behaviour being among them.

The problem is that rather than focusing on pointing out the flaws in Wilshaw and Gove's policies, members if the various unions have cried "strike" at every given opportunity. There's a reason that this is a stupid and frankly annoying way to go from those speaking at the various conferences. The votes of no confidence are fair enough however - Gove and Wilshaw need to know just how unpopular and unwanted they are.

In the public's eyes teachers are doing a job that few would choose; on a par with the police if truth be told. Teachers do get 13 weeks of holiday each year (something the police don't get), and it's an accusation regularly levelled at teachers. So when the NUT are reported to have asked for teaching time to be limited to 20 hours per week this doesn't go down well with Joe Public as our Joe doesn't realise that classroom time is the least of a teacher's worries. The general public have no idea what goes into a lesson, and why would they? They just assume that teachers turn up and whitter on about stuff then mark a few books - end of.

What teaching currently needs is public support before a series of strikes over pay and pensions from the NUT and NASUWT who represent around 90% of teachers. By asking for what the public will perceive as less work is frankly idiotic. The fact that most teachers have little more than 20 hours per week of teaching time makes the request even more idiotic.

Teaching unions must get their act together. Most of the country find politicians abomnible, but by making silly requests they are playing into these people's hands. I have no idea if the unions have a PR department, but if they do they need replacing. It's inviting the press and public to label teachers as lazy, whinging freeloaders with too much holiday.

That's why I hate Easter.

Ofsted Don't Want A Show

Sir Michael is out of his hibernation period and greets schools with this: Click here!

This interview only goes to show how out of touch the Chief Inspector of Schools is. I have a number of issues with this:

1. Not for one minute does he consider why teachers "put on a show" for Ofsted inspectors.
2. He claims that Ofsted don't have a preconceived idea of the ingredients that make a good lesson.
3. Schools should just carry on as normal when Ofsted are in.

Ofsted holds all the cards in education at present - they have outgrown their remit. Their judgements go unquestioned and unchallenged in the main. When someone does dare challenge an Ofsted judgement they are accused of not being forward thinking, happy with mediocrity and various other politically barbed comments from various parts of Whitehall.

Ofsted has the power to make or break careers in education with one of their judgements. Many teachers firmly believe that inspectors judge a school before they have actually arrived based upon exam results, value-added etc. As any half-competent mathematician will tell you, data can be made to show what you want it to show without too much effort. Lesson observations and conversations with management are also subjective. Observations can go a number of ways that are generally out of the control of the teacher. A really bad lesson is obvious to both inspector and teacher, but otherwise it's harder to call unless you literally tick off bulletpoints in a list of things inspectors want to see. So Wilshaw's claim that there isn't a particular type of teaching expected has to be at least partly rubbish, or the message hasn't filtered down to the Ofsted minions.

Wilshaw claims to want to see children engaged in their learning, but his inspectors seem to regard this as meaning "the teacher says as little as possible" and the students "discover" what they would have been "taught" is bygone eras. There are some things that are very difficult to "discover" and need to be "taught", although this is frowned upon by Ofsted as the learning is deemed "passive", whereas Ofsted want to see "active learning". If you are playing Education Buzz Word Bingo you may be close to shouting "HOUSE" at this stage.

A teacher should be allowed to decide whether their charges can "discover" something new or need to be "taught" it. Teachers are (still) professionals, for the time being at least. The trouble is that this decision is taken out of their hands. Thousands, if not millions of pounds are spent by schools every year on speakers who tell staff that Ofsted want to see teachers leading less from the front, "playing the Ofsted game". This money could be used to resource faculties fully rather than giving tips on Ofsted hoop-jumping. The fact is that these (presumably rich) people are employed by many schools each year, and must know what they are talking about in order to keep getting invited. So Wilshaw claiming that there is no game is frankly wrong and the fact that there is a market for Ofsted inspectors to charge £600 per day to "help" schools get through an inspection only proves this (see this article from The Independent: Click here!).

The main thing is that teachers are rarely sure of what Ofsted actually wants and their "show" for the inspectors is just like a pet trying to impress its owner, which many appear to get panned for. With Ofsted regularly changing the goalposts since Sir Michael's ascension to the "throne", teachers have no idea what to do.

Eventually teachers will just give up in a number of ways. They could leave the profession as many are doing, to be replaced by fresh faced top graduates through scheme like Teach First, but these schemes are a mixed blessing for the future of education as many of these graduates leave teaching after just a few years. How teachers should give up is by not caring what Ofsted say, and they can do this in a number of ways:

• Don't get lesson feedback - by getting feedback you are showing the inspectors that you actually value what they think, and let's face it, no teachers really do. So don't bother.
• Only be civil to them, never go out of your way to smile at them, even if they smile at you. Let them know that they are unwelcome because they are. Some inspectors delude themselves into thinking that they are doing schools and teachers a favour (I have had an interesting conversation with the partner of an inspector who was brave enough to call themselves "Anonymous"). They are not, they are an expensive political animal that no-one wants or likes except other inspectors, their partners or narcisistic politicians.
• Get them involved in a lesson by asking them questions. Embarrass them; put them on the spot; after all that is what they are doing to you and your colleagues so why shouldn't they taste their own medicine? If they make a stupid comment, make it very clear that you think it's a stupid comment; I once replied to an inspector who observed a challenging class and said "They seem like a nice bunch" with the following: "How would you know? You've seen them for half an hour and just looked at books and folders, not talking to a single one of them." He left with his tail between his legs after he asked if I wanted feedback and I replied "There is nothing you could possibly tell me that would be of any benefit to my teaching practise".

Wilshaw can make all the noises he likes from his ivory tower in Whitehall, with his direct line to his mucker Gove. Ofsted is now a political vehicle, used unapologetically to drive through ill-conceived government policy without question. Wilshaw may appear to disagree with Gove on some issues but his inspectors don't appear to.

Ofsted has outgrown it's own remit and really should be abolished for the future of education in England. If this doesn't happen the exodus of staff will continue and there won't be enough teachers left.

This Academy Business Is Not Fully Thought Through

As English education careers at towards privatization, because let's face it, that's what's happening, there's something I don't quite understand: how come the buck stops with a bunch of volunteers?

These unpaid, although mostly dedicated and hard-working people generally do a great job, don't get me wrong, but ultimately a load of people with little or no experience have the final say in what is essentially a multi-million pound business. School budgets would probably stagger most people, and it is generally money well spent, but if you went to Dragon's Den asking for £3 million per year so that you could run a private hospital with your medical experience being the dishing out of Calpol to your child you'd laughed out of the room. Ok, so I'm being a bit extreme, but essentially that's what's happening up and down the country to local schools.

Actually I have no real objection to academies or independent schools, who they can hire and how much they want to pay their staff. What I do object to is that the Gove/Wilshaw show keep telling us that academy will bring immediate results, which is frankly not true. What I also be a problem is the fact that the people running these academies need both business experience/acumen as well as school experience as an employee rather than student. The issue is that the people running academies either have one or the other but rarely both.

Essentially the DfE awarding academy status is a gamble in each and every case and some will fail due to lack of expertise, which generally will be no fault of their own. Governors, those unpaid volunteers, are supposed to hold the headteacher and therefore the staff to "account". What does that mean/entail? Does anybody really know? Do most governors know enough about education to be able to effectively hold headteachers to account? And even if they do spot that something is awry, what useful advice could they offer?

Before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, I know that there are plenty of teachers who become governors of schools that their children attend, but they won't be able to walk around the school during the school day. I also know that many retired teachers become governors, but with education moving so fast, their experience is often out of date before they've started.

Wilshaw, the Chief Inspector of Schools, has suggested that governors should get paid to make them more professional, or to encourage them to work harder. This has gone down like the proverbial fart in a lift with many current governors who suggest that it could encourage people to do it for the money rather than for the good of school. He may or may not have a point about paying governors but he has failed to mention where these payments are going to come from? School budgets are already stretched to breaking point, the DfE has overspent on academies by £1 billion in a year and the country is facing a "triple dip" recession, which adds up to the fact that there ain't no money out there.

To be honest, I'm not 100% sure that Wilshaw's brain and mouth are connected as every time it opens he seems to annoy another portion of the educational world; or perhaps the annoying of everybody is all part of a grand plan and he's immensely intelligent, only time will tell. Those who have been subject, and I use that word intentionally, to the new Ofsted regime will tell you that Wilshaw pontificates from his ivory tower, making, on occasion, sensible noises about lessons/teaching that are seemingly ignored by his minions - I'm talking about there not being a "standard Ofsted lesson", but inspection evidence would suggest otherwise.

Anyway, I digress. Governors have a really important job, namely making sure that the staff are running the school to the best of their abilities. The problem is that there is a danger that the governing body will just believe what they are told by the headteacher, and due to the fact that governors hold down full time jobs as well, they may be all they have time to do. What many people don't realise is the time and effort that goes into being a governor until they become one.

As far as I can see the whole system could collapse at the drop of a hat, but Gove/Wilshaw will or should not be in post when that happens. Picking up the pieces will be an unenviable task for whoever is charged with doing so.

The Problem With State Education

You may (probably not) have noticed that I haven't posted a new blog for about a month and a half. There is one reason for this: I've been ridiculously busy. And there are two reasons for this, listed below.

Problem 1 - Politicians/DfE
Education is seen as a major vote winner at the moment and this is a disaster for teachers and students as it means that people with little and more often, no experience like to tinker and make education "more rigorous". This has led to major exam reforms, that have been scrapped after significant opposition from those who might actually have some idea of what they are talking about. Pay reforms have also been tabled by the government so that a teacher's pay can be linked to performance, or should I say, a teacher's pay will be determined by the results that their students achieve, so therefore most will end up losing out for reasons that will become clear later on. The government claim that this new pay policy will enable "good and outstanding" teachers will be rewarded very quickly - presumably these "good and outstanding" teachers will only teach top sets or work in schools whose admissions policy is more of a grey area than perhaps it should be.

Ministers keep ploughing the academy furrow as though it's a bag of magic dust, although some "flagship" academies have had their collars felt over results/progress, admissions policies are becoming increasingly suspect in top performing academies and alleged reports of staff altering exams to increase grades. The bad press seems to get brushed under an increasingly lumpy carpet and the DfE have a stock answer to any criticisms that goes along the lines of "we can't stand aside whilst students are being failed by poor schools and teaching, and academy status can improve standards". When they talk about academies they do tend to mean "sponsored" academies, or public money ending up in the pockets of private firms. In fact the privatisation of schools is another hot topic with leaked memos from DfE emerging, along with accusations of inappropriate behaviour from some of Michael Gove's aides at the DfE.

The future is neither bright or orange!

Problem 2 - Ofsted:
Now you could argue, quite forcefully, that Ofsted should be part of the previous problem as it's quite clear that the £200 million per year quango is driving government policy. The Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw keeps saying that Ofsted don't have a particular type of lesson that they want to see, which is great, it would just be nice if he would tell his inspectors, who quite clearly do have a formulaic view of what a good or outstanding lesson should look like. Wilshaw seems to increasingly be forcing his head into a place that the sun doesn't shine, be that the clouds or anywhere else.

Ofsted added "rigour" to its new assessment framework, which basically means that what used to be fine is no longer so. Schools are therefore panicking and are passing that panic onto their staff. Neither really know what they are supposed to do meaning that leadership at some institutions are essentially bullying staff who they either want rid of or who in their opinion of Ofsted's view, aren't cutting the mustard. Stress is becoming a major issue in schools and supply budgets are being decimated around the country as a result.

The problem for education is that all this hammering from both politicians and Ofsted is giving carte blanche to parents who can now fully justify blaming schools and teachers for their poor parenting, with the cartoon below neatly summing it up:

Now I'm not saying that 1969 was better than today, in fact I think that teaching has got better since that time, the problem is that we now live in a blame society where it's never your own fault for poor performance, it has to be someone else's.

I suppose that this post could be accused of blaming other people (DfE and Ofsted) for the woes of the teaching world, but unless something is done soon, there will be no teachers left to teach your children. The DfE being put on a "war footing" by Gove and his pal David Laws does anything other than help, although imminent strikes over changes in pay and conditions were clearly envisaged.

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...

New Year, New Career?

As 2012 disappears and 2013 arrives it's a time for resolutions. And what will mine be this year?

This is my list of possibles:

1. Give up smoking.
2. Cut down on drinking.
3. Go on a diet.
4. Find a new job outside of teaching.

I'm sure that there are more, but these four immediately spring to mind.The one that should be easiest is number 3 as I have been building up to it since September, cutting various things out of my daily intake. The others are all linked though which makes them somewhat tougher but at the same time easier if one can be nailed down initially.

Why are numbers 1, 2 and 4 linked so closely? I actually gave up smoking in the middle of the summer and lasted until around October but found myself getting so annoyed with the apathy of students and demoralising edicts from government (Gove/Wilshaw, that means you two) that I started again. I realise that I was weak willed, but unfortunately I reverted back to smoking when I was at the end of my tether. A similar thing happened with the drinking, although I never gave up completely. I cut right down to less than half of what I been consuming on an average term time evening, but that has also slipped back into the old regime.

I have therefore come to the conclusion that teaching is bad for me and that I need a change. A colleague of mine said to me, knowing that I wasn't the happiest, that there was a job being advertised in the local sixth form college, to which I replied: "Why would I want to apply for that? Teaching's shit". And that is genuinely how I feel, but I didn't wlays feel like this, so why now?

There are a number of reasons, and they are below in no particular order, but in some cases are linked:

1. Teaching has become an exam factory, where league tables and results mean more than actually giving young people a proper education, the problem being that when young people leave school and go into the workplace they are not prepared and that means that business leaders say to the press that education in this country is rubbish and that's teachers' fault. It's not teachers' fault, it's the fact that exams results have become more important than imparting knowledge. With education the most popular political football, teachers get caught up in a slanging match between the political parties, where unqualified politicians with no experience of the things they are talking about and making policy on, come up with bright ideas about the system in an attempt to make their mark and move up the political ladder. Health has suffered similarly, it's just education's turn.
2. In order to justify the constant changes of policy to make his mark and ultimately become leader of the Conservative Party (he thinks, hopefully mistakenly, that he will be Prime Minister one day), Michael Gove has turned teaching upside down. Now don't get me wrong, not everything was rosy in the education garden before, with exam passes having become easier and easier under successive governments of different colours, but the way Gove has justified change (by rigging exam results for example) is beyond comprehension. The way he has forced schools into becoming academies by cutting their funding until they agree to convert is also scandalous and had it been done in a playground would be described as bullying. New policy is consistently controversial and never comes directly from the Department of Education but is leaked the the press on days when there are major news stories that will bury it.
3. As a result of the constant abuse from politicians and the negative news stories emanating from the DfE regarding teachers, the general public now feel empowered to criticise teachers. A colleague of mine told me that every weekend people phone him to literally abuse him about the school, teachers and anything else they want to get off their chest. This is simply not on and purely due to the constant statements from suits in Whitehall saying that teachers are rubbish.
4. And so we come on to Ofsted. Goalposts have been moved for right or wrong reasons, I sugest the latter. Wilshaw (I can't bring myself to give him his full title) was handpicked by Gove, and therefore one could suggest his puppet. All Ofsted's goalpost moving has played, unsurprisingly, into the hands of Gove who uses the findings of the inspectorate to impose his policies - the irony is not lost on me!
5. Ofsted bases their entire judgement of a school before they arrive at it, looking at exam results (notice we've gone back to these) which you may think is fair enough, but the judgement comes purely from targets that are generated by a computer program based upon where you live and what each child got in an exam 5 years previously. This target takes into account whether they are entitled to free school meals, but not their general attitude which changes hugely in that time. We were (un)lucky enough to have a visit from Ofsted recently and since we weren't told the grading, one has to assume that it wasn't very good! But they had made their mind up beforehand, and nothing they saw was going to change this, so why bother with the visit in the first place? What this will mean is increased pressure on staff and some being hounded out of the school, to be replaced by who? Not a good time for anyone.

Education has got its priorities all wrong, is putting undue stress on staff (whether teaching or non-teaching), and couple this with frozen pay (in reality a pay cut relatively speaking), the only thing that's keeping education in the UK afloat is the fact that we are in an economic downturn meaning that people are stuck. As economic recovery materialises you will find that more and more people seek their fortune in other areas. There's already a shortage of decent teachers according to politicians - this is not going to get better by demoralising those who are there and actually might be competent.

The pros of teaching (the holidays and ?) are now hugely outweighed by the cons (everything other than the holidays).

I must go and tidy up my CV...

Performance Related Pay - A Heads' Bully Charter

The "Heads' Bully Charter" is a comment I read by author Michael Rosen (follow him on Twitter, he's a genius on @MichaelRosenYes" and he's absolutely correct.

All those who work in the private sector will be sitting there wondering what the problem is - they've been doing it for years after all. The difference is that they work on sales, teachers work on attitudes and aptitude/willingness for pubescent teenagers to learn. Gove, in his wisdom, says that this will encourage hardworking young, good teachers to join the profession and encourage poor teachers, whose pay will stagnate, to leave the profession. Once again it's the talk of porr teachers that is amusing, because you will never find anyone argue that poor practioners should not leave the profession (if it 's still considered that) but those "poor" teachers are the best of those who applied. Get rid of all the "poor" teachers and there won't be enough people to teach. Plus, "poor" teaching is generally an opinion of a headteacher.

What you have to remember is that headteachers often don't teach at all nowadays and haven't done so regularly for years. Those wishing to become a headteacher are weird in the sense that they have entered teaching and then opted to do as little as possible, if any at all. I have been the victim of a headteacher who has prejudged my lessons based on the fact that they don't like me or don't understand the banter that occurs in a healthy classroom. The very same headteacher also told a new head of department that they would see an inadequate lesson when they observed me despite having no idea what I was doing. This same headteacher will control my pay soon. How is that fair?

Now I would never describe myself as a brilliant teacher, but I have had enough decent feedback from parents, students and colleagues to know that I'm not rubbish, but Gove's plans will allow a headteacher who isn't keen on me as a person to freeze my pay indefinitely unless I move, which I may be forced to do.

Once again the unions are objecting, but due to the various policies Gove have introduced since he came to office, the unions just seem like moaners. It's been a very clever campaign from Gove as he essentially outlaws unions and isolates teachers more and more.

The bloke has been and will be a disaster for education in this country, mark my words.

From the ridiculous to the paradoxical

Now whatever you think of the Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove and/or his politics, you have to admit that he's probably pretty clever, what with being an Oxbridge graduate etc. He is being somewhat careless and forgetful at the moment I would suggest.

Why is this?

I shall explain.

Last week he announced that teacher training requirements are going to be made tougher (Click here to read the BBC article) so that the requirements for those wishing to embark on teacher training must pass tests in maths, English and "reasoning" (whatever that may be). They will get two chances to pass, and if they fail to do so they will not be allowed on the course. Where's the problem with that then? Well on it's own there is no problem, and no teacher will ever argue that there is. The only quibble one could have is that many of the skills that these tests will examine haven't been used for a long time, especially the maths ones, and the equivalent GCSE grade would be B, so not overly simple. Currently teacher trainees take the test during their qualification period and can seek help on it.

The problem is that in July, just 3 months ago, Michael relaxed the rules on teaching qualifications for those wishing to work in a free school or academy (Click here to see the BBC article), meaning that people without any qualifications can teach in those types of school.

Confused? Me too. In one breath he want more rigorous testing of teachers, and in the next breath he wants to allow unqualified teachers to practice.

Conspiracy theorists have suggested that Michael is using this as a smokescreen to get more people from industry into teaching and the increased difficulty of the training programme will mean less competition for those with no qualifications. Schools have to fill teaching posts, and if the only people who apply are not qualified, what choice does a school have?

I don't buy into the conspiracy theory particularly, although I see where it's come from. I just think that all the reforms that Michael's trying to cram in before his party gets voted out of government or he gets sacked have confused him, meaning that the backside has no idea what the elbow is doing. In other words, he's making it up as he goes along.

Gove's seemingly perpetual digs at the teaching profession just show how much he dislikes the people he leads. His policies have undermined education in the England (other parts of the UK are sensibly now opting out of Michael's reforms), as although there may have been the occasional decent idea, much of the educational policy emanating from Whitehall has been hogwash and designed to undermine teachers' rights.

The good thing is that it does appear that he has finally lost his marbles and therefore he can't be far from losing his job. The problem is that he has possibly inflicted irreparable damage on the teaching profession. 

Teaching's s**t: If management don't get you, Gove/Wilshaw will

Thinking about becoming a teacher? Don't, no really, don't.

Someone once said to me that teaching, policing and nursing will always be in demand, and they were right as there will always be children in need of education, criminals and sick people. The trouble is that in the UK it really isn't worth the grief now.

Government interference is at an all-time high in education. New initiatives from the Secretary of State for Education arrive ona weekly basis via the press in the same breath as "teachers are rubbish". It's the same in the police and health service. The public can only go by what they are told, via the press, and if a teacher dares to speak up they face reprimand and possible loss of employment.

League tables place increasing pressures on management in schools who pass that pressure onto teachers who are faced with an increasingly apathetic bunch of "learners". Parents, having read in the press that teachers are rubish, then blame teachers and schools for all their own failings and the cycle spirals out of control.

Teachers are expected to teach children not only their subject specialism but manners and also provide nutrition for their class. Ok, so they are not expected to feed their charges, but 16% admitted to buying some of them breakfast every month. With little or no parental support becoming increasingly the norm, how can standards be raised? I don't care what you say, but teaching does not pay well enough to burden its practitioners with the responsibility that society increasingly seems to expect. Politicians do anything but help in this matter by making repeated soundbites to achieve headlines that bear no resemblance to the reality.

And then we get to Ofsted, the "independent" regulator of teaching. Everyone knows that it is far from independent, considering that its leader is one of the Secretary of State's pals. Inspection teams take a snapshot of practise within a school and more often than not tell them that they are not doing well enough, placing the teachers in that school under increasing pressure to make silk purses from sow's ears.

Teaching is being held together as a profession by those decent practitioners who would love to get out but can't because they have hit a financial point where they couldn't afford the drop in wages to change career. The private industry grass is not always greener, we all know that, but there is the potential to earn a better living for the same pressure/stress.

I vowed after the first couple of years of my teaching career to do all my school work at school and take nothing home. I arrived at 7.30am and left at around 5.30pm and managed to keep this promise to myself and my family. Over the past 6 months I am regularly work in the evening despite keeping similar hours at school, and I know that I'm no the only one. For the privilege of having no life outside of teaching I am paid just the princely sum of around £35,000 and can just about afford the mortgage on a reasonably sized three bedroom house. I'm not moaning about my wage as I knew exactly what I was going to be paid when I started, but I didn't sign up for 15 hour days, a constantly reducing pension and a pay packet that shrinks every month due to it having been frozen for a significant amount of time.

Pressure is not an issue if I'm being paid enough to wear it, however, I'm no longer paid enough to wear the consistent barrage of abuse I get from management, Gove and Wilshaw as well as parents who want to know why I'm not doing their job for them too.

I repeat, don't even think about it. Empty bins, flip burgers, do anything other than teach because the cons so outweigh the pros now, it's really not worth it.

Gove Under Pressure

Well if he's not, he should be. The current list of gripes and headaches facing the Secretary of State for Education is a long one:

1. That pesky GCSE English fiasco has been joined by a GCSE Science fiasco (and will eventually be joined by other subjects I suspect). A legal challenge has been mounted by schools and students and is gathering pace. Ofqual is predictably saying that they are not budging and the pressure on Gove to step in is growing. He's keeping a stiff upper lip and currently sitting on his hands, despressingly predictably.
2. Various experts are stating that Gove's changes to the exam system are being bundled through too quickly, including his own colleagues on the Education Select Committee and Glenys Stacey, the Head of Ofqual, who frankly should be getting her own house in order before commenting on other people's. If your allies are telling you that you may need to slow down, maybe you should listen, but no, not our Mikey.
3. Sir Michael Wilshaw, Gove's pal and Head of Ofsted, has been shooting his mouth off again, saying that teachers shouldn't get pay rises if they don't put the hours in. I don't think anyone would argue with the sentiment, but the tone and phraseology of the man leave a lot to be desired. This seems to be a common theme in Wilshaw's life, where he only appears to open his mouth to change feet.
4. The two biggest teaching unions have started their "action short of strike action" this week, with rumours in our local area that a couple of academy heads have threatened staff with punishment if they choose to adopt the policy. Not a great advert for staff, or indeed a great morale booster for already low-esteemed teachers. Academy freedoms may work well for the headteachers of those schools, but stories of staff being essentially bullied and threatened in them, and the fact that these academies have an extremely high staff turnover, would suggest that the benefits for ordinary teachers are limited at best.
5. An academy has been accused of doctoring students' exams to increase grades, and even worse, it's an academy that was highlighted by the Conservatives due to their improved results - no wonder, the teachers were apparently doing the exams for them! The anti-academy issue won't go away and these sorts of headlines are not helping. The money has dried up and the benefits are rapidly disappearing. Claims that academies are performing better in exams are baseless, not helped with this news of possible cheating.

Knowing our Michael, he will be blissfully unaware of any issues in education or with the teaching profession as he revs up his policy steamroller. What Gove has done to education in two and a bit years has been remarkable, but mainly in a bad way. Teachers were pretty demoralised before he stepped into the role, but now, having overseen an exodus of 10,000 teachers in the last 12 months, teaching is at an all time low in my experience of over ten years in the game - recruiting new staff is not always the answer due to them needing time to find their feet in the classroom. I was talking to a former colleague of mine who is leaving his school, along with another teacher, purely because they can't stand it any more. Neither member of staff has a job to go to - surely this has to set off alarm bells, doesn't it? Couple that with a Head of Ofsted who seems hellbent on winding the profession up and making their lives a misery, the recipe is not a tasty one!

I think it would be fair to say that education in this country needed some change, but the underhand way in which Gove has gone about his business, alongside Ofsted and Ofqual leaves a nasty taste in the mouth if you are a teacher. It's all well and good to have ideas of the way to move something, in this case education, forward, but wouldn't it be sense to seek advice and support from "experts", or at the very least, those who will have to face the consequences of the changes proposed. Seemingly not.

Gove may have achieved his goal by the time he leaves Education in that he will go down in history, but will it be for the right reasons? I doubt it.

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.

How To Get Your Own Way

You cannot fail to have noticed that many schools in the country are a bit annoyed at the moment due to "raising of standards" according to Ofqual/Department of Education, or "moving the goalposts without telling anyone" according to everyone else involving GCSE English results.

Michael Gove and anyone else from the DfE have been uncharacteristically quiet during the entire incident, partly due to the fact that they are on holiday and partly because whatever they say, they can't really win because what has happened is so totally appalling that there is no defense. There won't be a single educator in the land that doesn't agree that standards need to be raised as far as exams are concerned because the general public, or employers more specifically, have lost faith in them. Gove actually has a point that we can't expect pass rates to continue going up forever. If that were the case then why not just put all the targets to 100% pass, which would be equally pointless.

I read a great piece written by a teacher saying that exams are designed to discriminate (not a popular word in society nowadays), to show who is good academically and who is not. If everyone passes the exams, then exams are pointless - failure can be a positive thing at times, a fact that has been neglected in recent times. The trouble is that Ofqual or the exam boards (whoever you choose to believe) decided to raise the pass mark without telling anyone, which is even worse when the teacher marks the "work" and therefore knows what grade each child should have got with whatever mark scheme you are using. The plain fact of the matter is that students got different grades for the same quality work depending upon when they were entered for the exam, and that is patently unfair.

Gove maintains that he has never direct contact with Ofqual, but frankly he doesn't need to. His "contact" with Ofqual is via the press. Gove is not shy of the press (apart from at the moment) and has repeatedly stated his desire to raise standards, with the baseline for schools now being 40% of pupils achieving 5 A*-C grades including English and Maths. If a school drops below that magical 40% (which will go up again soon) then they face being taken over by the DfE and forced in to being an academy - another of Gove's educational wishes.

What I find sinister about the whole episode is that everything that has happened has been purely for political reasons, at the expense of the futures of thousands of youngsters. It has also been designed to force schools into academisation, against their wishes, but in line with current government policy of what conspiracy theorists would call the privatisation of state education. The constant denials from both Gove, the DfE and Ofqual only highlight what people in power think of their subjects; they think were are too stupid to understand.

What Gove needs to do is re-grade (no need for expensive and time-consuming remarking) all the English papers (and I'd be surprised if this was limited to English alone, it's just more obvious in the English exam as the teacher know the marks and boundaries) and then make up a totally new qualification that is more difficult to pass. Don't call it the iGCSE or the O Level, call it something totally new and make every school (state or private) take the same one. Gove is right that currently standards aren't high enough but the way he's forcing this policy through, either directly or indirectly, is underhand at best.

You do get the impression that he's going to get his own way on education policy by hook or by crook, whether it's for the best or not. The trouble is that the teaching profession (even those who were on his side before the exam grade fiasco) are now unconvinced by the man, and that can only be a bad thing for his future political career - I've got my fingers crossed anyway.

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.

Unqualified Teachers Are Welcome

A mate of mine watches Top Gear every week, but I wouldn't ask him to fix my car.
My sister is a big fan of Holby City and Casualty, but I wouldn't expect her to take my appendix out if the need ever occurs.
In which case, why do the government think that it's acceptable to have unqualified people teaching the young people of the UK?

Supporters of Michael Gove will tell you that people have been teaching in the top private schools of the land for centuries and produced the best results, so why not have the same policy for state funded academies? The reason is not that those without Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) don't know their stuff - according to the DfE there are engineers, scientists, musicians and university professors with a burning desire to relinquish their large salaries and swap them for the average salary afforded to a teacher. Of course, academies have the freedom to pay more to the "right" candidates for teaching posts, but with the news that the Natinal Audit Office are refusing to sign off a £63 million overspend by the DfE last year, this "benefit" may not last too much longer, unless savings are made elsewhere.

There is a marked difference between private/public schools like Eton and Harrow and many academies/state funded schools that will almost certainly ensure that those who haven't done a teaching qualification will struggle in the classroom and that is behaviour. A university or school based teaching qualification trains its attendees in two main areas:

1. How to plan a lesson effectively.
2. How to control a class of 30ish kids.

The key for both points is behaviour. If the class is "nice" and has a will to succeed (like almost all classes in private schools) then a teacher will get away with a poor lesson and some learning will take place. In a classroom with less diligent children shall we say, a poorly planned lesson from an inexperienced and unqualified teacher will be mayhem at best, and once that has happened that teacher will struggle to win the class over in future lessons.

Trainee teachers always say that the hardest part of their teaching practise is controlling a class and discipline within the learning environment. To think that anyone who knows a lot about a particular subject can just walk in off the street and be a success in the classroom is frankly naive, insulting to teachers and only goes to show how out-of-touch politicians really are. It is also another stealth dig in the ribs of the profession itself, something that appears to be an active policy from Michael Gove and his chums.

This government has been a disaster for the morale of the teaching profession in the UK. I have to be honest that all I can forsee for the near future are more strikes and disruption as teachers, having been backed into a corner, have little option other than to vote with their feet. Recruitment of teachers will slow and experienced staff will look to get out, leaving a pretty bleak future for the young people of Britain.

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?