Nervous Headteachers

Sir Michael Wilshaw, Lead Inspector of Schools has been at it again, this time threstening around 5000 headteachers nationwide for being weak or lacking leadership. The man has grand plans for Ofsted, making reports "jargon-free" and with "blunt" comments on page one so that people don't have to wade through a load of irrelevent stuff before finding out what they want to know: is the school any good or not? And no-one can really grumble with the removal of "Ofsted speak".

Wilshaw, in a fairly typical statement of intent, claims that around a quarter of headteachers in the UK "require improvement" (new terminology for "satisfactory") or worse. He blames lack of leadership on the statistic that 40% of new teachers leave the profession within two years. He has a bit of a point on this, but it's not the be all and end all of the issue. Leadership does set standards of behaviour throughout the school, but ultimately other government policy is to blame as well.

Parents (and their offspring) still hold too many cards, if not the entire pack, despite what government ministers claim. If a parent complains about anything, they are listened to, whereas if a teacher complains about a child they tend to be ignored and told to put up and shut up in various, probably more polite, ways. I have a feeling that this could be part of the reason that new staff leave the profession. It takes a few years for a teacher to establish themselves at a school, no matter how good their classroom practise is. It clearly helps when they are good teachers or better, but few start off at that level as experience often informs planning. The pressure placed upon all staff by Ofsted and therefore leadership who attempt to prepare their staff for an inspection is sometimes unbearable, and the mixed messages given out by the inspectorate don't help.

What tends to happen when a teacher is observed is that they suffer from criticism borne out of what leadership "think" that Ofsted want to see. It is almost impossible to guess at what Ofsted's flavour of the week is, leaving a teacher planning for an observation confused as to how they can impress. The other thing is that unless a lesson is awful or absolutely superb, the judgement of the lesson can vary hugely depending upon who is doing the judging. Character issues or clashes come to the fore in some cases and this is nothing short of demoralising.

Wilshaw's plans to improve teaching are fine in principal as there are poor headteachers and teachers out there, but his blunderbuss approach will win him few friends and won't aid the recruitment and retention issues that teaching currently suffers from. The silver lining in the Wilshaw cloud is that his budget appears to have been cut from around £200 million per year to around £140 million which will mean that implementing some of his ideas could be difficult due to affordability.

The problem is that Michael Gove, the puppeteer in charge of Wilshaw, has promised to "see what he can do" about the budget, so dire times could yet be around the corner for those who have chosen a career in school.

Satisfactory Is No Longer Satisfactory

It must officially be teacher baiting season at the moment as Sir Michael Wilshaw, the new Chief Inspector of Schools has joined his boss, Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove, in kicking the teaching profession whilst it's down.

In recent weeks and months we have seen teachers face:

• A reduction in real terms pay due to a pay freeze, followed by a well below inflation rise of 1%;
• An increase in pension contributions, but a decrease in pension payments;
• The mandate that all teachers will have to work until their late sixties before collecting that reduced pension; 
• Schools being forced to adopt academy status (against parents, teachers and governors wishes), meaning that teachers see a change (usually for the worse) in their contract, pay and conditions; 
• The introduction of what is commonly being called a "bully's charter" whereupon headteachers can almost literally sack a teacher on a whim for "under-performing", or as many suspect will happen, headteachers will get rid of teachers they don't like in about a term; 
• Changes in the curriculum (meaning more work for teachers in planning) because teachers make stuff boring according to Gove; 
• The school day is to be extended and holidays shortened, but with no change in wage as far as I can see.

The list is relatively long and I have probably forgotten parts, but teachers are metaphorically black and blue as a result of these things alone.
Enter stage left: Sir Michael Wilshaw, who suggests that:

• Scruffy teachers be given official warnings (scruffy in whose eyes?);
• Ofsted inspections become far tougher to achieve the higher gradings (gradings that are in fact illegal in the first place according to the Hampton Review passed in 2005 - look it up);
• Ofsted inspectors will give schools no notice of an inspection (which will almost certainly mean increased workload for teachers as headteachers panic);
• Ofsted inspections will be more frequent for those schools who "require improvement". (Any ideas where the extra money for these extra inspections will come from?)
• And finally, "satisfactory" is being rebranded to "requires improvement". Now this last one may not seem a huge deal, but as Ofsted gets tougher, more and more schools and their teachers are going to be put under more stress to improve students (and parents) who don't want to change because they will be too busy listening to politicians tell them via various tabloid media forums that all teachers are rubbish, so why should they change in the first place.

I'm not 100% sure what the overall goal of the current regime is at the moment, although they presumably believe they are doing the right thing. If it's to totally demoralise the teaching profession, they have succeeded, outstandingly one could say. If it's an attempt to raise standards, I'm afraid they require improvement, or arguably are inadequate. And here is why:

• Teachers already work quite hard actually, despite what the gutter press tell you. Most teachers (there are always exceptions) work from around 7.30am until about 5pm at school itself, and many work at home in the evening too, as well as weekends.The work/life balance that politicians promised a few years ago has all but disappeared.
• Getting rid of so-called "satisfactory" or "requires improvement" teachers sounds wonderful, but those teachers beat worse teachers in interview to get the job in the first place, so who's going to replace these rubbish practitioners? There won't be enough new teachers leaving university of the standard talked about as it takes years to become established in the classroom. Some ought to go, that's fine, but most schools find that when they get rid of someone, the replacement is often worse.
• Are they going to change the students who "require improvement"? Of course not, they can't. In a growing number of cases, it doesn't make the blindest bit of difference what the teacher is doing, the student is not interested in learning. Social phenomena such as "X Factor" and "Britain's Got Talent" give young people the impression that they can get rich quick through fame on a reality TV show, and you don't need qualifications to do that. At our last Ofsted inspection at least two of my colleagues were told that due to the class they were teaching they couldn't get higher than a "satisfactory" grading, and quotes to staff such as "you will need to change your stock (meaning students) if you want to get higher than satisfactory" don't fill me with a huge amount of confidence.
• Making all students do more academic subjects like Latin, History and Geography, to name but a few. Some young people just aren't cut out for these subjects. Most, if not all lessons would be like bad dentistry - pulling teeth.
• Forcing schools to become academies and building them new premises is a white elephant as the "clientele" aren't going to change. I like to call this "turd polishing", meaning that "you can make it as shiny as you like, but at the end of the day it's still a turd".
• Making teachers work longer hours means that they have less hours to plan all those outstanding lessons so desperately craved by Ofsted and headteachers alike. They will also be more tired for their classes and not be able to show enthusiasm for what they are trying to get across to their class.
• Ultimately people will start leaving the profession as the pressure increases until there aren't enough teachers to go around (we are already seeing it in some subject areas), meaning that the remaining, presumably outstanding staff, are having to teach larger and larger classes that in turn makes their own standards fall and they get sacked for being inadequate in front of too many children.
• As a result of all of the above, teachers will be off sick with stress, depression, exhaustion and various other things, meaning that non-specialist cover staff will be drafted in to teach the lessons of those who are ill. These lessons will be worse than the original ones so reviled by Wilshaw and Gove.

These are all the things I can think of for now, but I'm sure other people could add some. We are currently seeing the systematic dismantling of the teaching profession and I fear for the youth of tomorrow, who as a result of the changes being made, will end up facing the consequences of this ill-advised edicts from Whitehall and get a pretty raw deal from the British educational system.