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.

Play The Game

As a teacher I am constantly being told to "play the game" with regards Ofsted, something that most teachers do, but I refuse for one reason or another. Why don't teachers tell their unions to play the game?

Teachers' unions are currently entrenched in a battle with the Department for Education over pretty much every thing from the curriculum taught to the terms and conditions of service. What makes or breaks an issue or argument generally is public support, and this is gained essentially through propaganda. Propaganda is the using of facts to back your argument and make the general public support your cause. Politicians are professionals in propaganda, and so should unions be as the General Secretaries are politicians in all but name.

Good propaganda involves picking your issues very carefully, so why on earth are the NUT making a big thing about changes to the summer holiday? If there's one thing that is guaranteed to get the public's back up, it's teachers who moan about holidays. The general public already believe that teachers get far too much holiday (if only they knew that there would be a huge shortage of teachers to teach their little darlings were it not for the holidays) - 13 weeks per year in state education, and more in the private sector. It's the six week summer holiday that the NUT most object to losing.

The teachers of Nottingham are up-in-arms about proposed changes to their academic year whch would mean a five term year of 8 weeks per term and only 4 weeks off in the summer, and they have every right to be if they believe that is a big issue. I have no opinion either way if I'm honest, other than this is destined to turn the general public against all the other legitimate issues that teachers are tackling the government over at the moment.

What the government will bang on about (or I would if I were them) is that teachers are contracted to be in school for 195 days per year and there's no proposed change to that, so what's the fuss about? The general public will see this as a solid argument and understand it. Teachers will rightly say that teachers will face burn-out as well as the children who need also need down-time, and this will affect teaching and learning. The general public will not understand that I'm afraid as it involves some understanding of the pressures on teachesr and children and the knock-on effects. The general public do not possess this understanding, so the argument is the government's.

Choose which issues to make a big noise about carefully! One poor decision can derail everything.

More Strikes Ahead

The two biggest teaching unions, the NUT and the NASUWT are having their annual conferences this week you are bound to see plenty of articles about strikes over pensions. It seems that anyone who is either a teacher or is related to one seems to be on the side of the teaching profession, but anyone whose experience of teaching is that they went to school a while ago seems to keep pointing out that teachers' work short hours, get long holidays and should see their job as a "vocation".

Whilst I sympathise with those on the outside seeing teachers striking seemingly on a whim, meaning that they are inconvenienced over strikes/closure of schools, something has to be done. I am not convinced that striking is the answer however, as dwindling public support will only give politicians ammunition.

It's funny how those who don't teach like to point out the benefits of the job - if the benefits are so great, why haven't they chosen teaching as a career?

So what are the benefits according to those who don't?

1. Holidays - 13 weeks per year in state education. Bear in mind that teachers have no choice over when they can take their holidays, and the lovely, supportive travel companies double their prices at least to cash in on the increased business. Also take into account that teachers don't get paid for the holiday time, only the time they spend in class - the wages are spread out across the year.
2. That leads me onto pay - competitive, indeed, and one can't grumble about the hourly rate paid for classroom time, but teachers get nothing for planning and preparation time outside of school hours, which is normally around the same number of hours as the time spent in the classroom. All of a sudden that hourly rate for time in the classroom is halved and not so attractive.
3. It's a vocation, as someone pointed out on a recent BBC message board, so teachers should just be happy to have their dream job and the money is irrelevent. I'd like to spend time on the cloud that poster came from, it must be lovely surviving on happiness alone.
4. Apparently teachers only work from 9am to 3pm during the week - I wish! I am not unusual in that I arrive before 8am and leave at around 5pm every day, occasionally taking work home. I know that many colleagues work at home until late into the evening - they certainly don't pay me enough to do that every evening. If something is urgent, then fair enough, but there was something called a work/life balance a few years ago, although you'd need a good memory to recall those days in teaching!

The problem is that people remember the bad old days when some teachers (the ones we all seemingly remember) were, shall we say, less inclined to plan lessons and spent much of a lesson sat at their desk reading a newspaper. They were few and far between, but for some reason everyone seems to think that they were the majority rather than the minority. In very expensive schools, you didn't even need to be qualified so essentially made it up as you went along!

What teachers and potential teachers face nowadays is the following:

• Training for a minimum of 4 years at the cost of thousands of pounds per year, and if you don't get a first or second class degrees, forget it. With those sorts of qualifications in some subject areas (eg. maths and physics), you could earn a lot more in industry with far less grief. Ultimately there will be no teachers in some areas of the curriculum.
• Pay freezes for a couple of years, meaning that teachesr are increasingly worse off.
• Pensions where you pay increasing amounts in and receive ever decreasing amounts when you retire, assuming you haven't pegged out by then.
• Retirement age increases to 67 or 68: I heard a great statistic the other day. Teachers who retire at 60 live for 17 years on average; teachers who retire at 65 live for 17 months on average. So the policy seems designed to kill ex-teachers off! Almost genocide!!!
• Conditions that are almost unbearable due to unsupportive parents and a system so wrapped up in red tape that students who cause a problem can't be dealy with effectively.
• A curriculum that is constantly being tinkered with by people who have no experience of teaching in the modern classroom, meaning extra work (in their own time) for teachers trying to keep up with the changes.
• Ofsted and politicians insisting that all students get good grades, whether they make any effort or not. If the student refuses to work, that's the teacher's fault.
• The threat of the sack hanging over every teacher due to recent government policy changes,
• The drive for all schools to become academies meaning that headteachers get more power and can sack any teacher they aren't keen on, regardless of teaching ability.
• Changes in regional pay to reflect the area in which the school is situated, which can only mean one thing: many teachers will see a drop in pay, or a frozen pay packet for far longer than previously advertised.

The list could go on and on and adds up to the fact that fewer and fewer people will enter the profession and more and more will leave. You don't have to be a genius to work out that this situation isn't healthy for anyone: teachers, parents or students. Politicians won't care, as long as they look good in the press.

I do understand that the general public are getting a bit tired of hearing/seeing whinging teachers in the media, but there are good reasons for the moaning, I just wish we could avoid strikes. The NASUWT had the right idea by working to rule, but it needs to go a bit further to really make an impact. Any suggestions?

Jeremy Clarkson and Shooting Strikers

The BBC have received around 5000 complaints from viewers about Jeremy Clarkson's appearance on TV promoting his new DVD yesterday. I was watching The One Show as Jeremy Clarkson stated that all those who were one strike should be executed in front of their families. As a teacher, his comments were partly aimed at me I suppose, but fortunately I realise that the TV presenter was attempting a joke, not a very good one, but a joke.

Upon my return home I see on the news that Unison are seeking "urgent" legal action over Clarkson's comments. Honestly, have they got nothing better to do. Ok, he probably shouldn't have said that, whether it was a joke or not, and he managed to make other pretty tasteless "jokes"/comments about people who delay trains by jumping in front of them. Unison are surely not going to waste their members registration fees on this publicity stunt, are they?

We do live in a democracy and in theory people can say what they like - if you don't like it, don't listen, that's what school children do, and hence we've lost a generation.

Clarkson has apologised, not that it makes much difference (or did it sound that sincere). But honestly, who cares what the bloke says or thinks?

Teachers Pensions - A New Deal?

I thought I'd go and see what changes were offered by the government today and copied this from the official government leaflet:

What will stay the same?
You will continue to receive a guaranteed income in your retirement.
You will keep the pension and lump sum you have already earned and this will remain linked to your final salary on retirement.
Regardless of any changes to teachers’ Normal Pension Age or the State Pension Age, you will retain options to retire at any age between 55 and 75.
Those within 10 years of normal pension age on 1 April 2012 will see no change to the age at which they can retire, and no change in the amount of pension they receive when they retire.
What is proposed to change?
A move from a final salary pension to a career average pension scheme.
A phased increase to teachers’ Normal Pension Age in line with changes to the State Pension Age.
A rebalancing of employee and employer contributions to provide a fairer distribution between members and other taxpayers.
When will this happen?
The intention is for a phased increase to employee contributions from 2012.
The other reforms are proposed for 2015.

Call me picky, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of change there.

• We still work until we're well beyond the age that anyone can function effectively as a teacher.
• We still have an average salary assessment rather than final salary meaning we'll lose out.
• We will still pay more and as a result of the previous point, get less.

I don't really understand the difference from the previous one, despite it being described as a deal for a generation by those in power. I therefore reckon that strikes may well be forthcoming, althoughI won't be joining in as I can't afford to lose a day's pay. And before anyone says that I'll be losing out in the long run, I'll have paid my mortgage off by then.

All another strike will do is alienate the popultion once more as they have to take days off or pay for child care.

Less and less desirable...

Strike Action

Today was strike day and due to being a rep for a striking union I duly stayed at home. I actually voted "No" on the strike, but as the union apparently overwhelmingly voted in favour of industrial action and the subsequent correspondence seemed to imply that I had little choice, I toed the party line.

Will it make any difference? No, in my opinion. At the moment we appear to have the backing of the general public but if there are more strikes (and I hear rumours that there will be) the sympathy will quickly disappear.

Is there an alternative? Yes - work to rule. Teachers are paid from the hours of about 8.30am to 3.30pm roughly. In that time they get free time (PPA time) to plan lessons and write reports (a mandatory one per year per student). Teachers are also supposed to go to one meeting per week and a parents evening for each child. The work to rule policy would mean that the statutory requirements would be covered but nothing else. No lunch duties for example (teachers aren't paid in their lunch hour) so children would have to be unsupervised or told to leave the school grounds during lunch. Meetings would end on time as people would just leave at 4.30pm (most should end long before then anyway, and many meeting. are ultimately pointless). This policy would not annoy the general public. This policy would not leave teachers out of pocket. This policy would give teachers a proper work/life balance again.

Surely it's a no-brainer. I won't be striking next time as I can't really afford to. It's not that I don;t agree that we should fight to save our benefits, but I think that we are essentially cutting our noses off to spite our own faces.

All those private sector people who say we're lazy and say that they have to contribute to expensive private pension schemes seem to conveniently forget about their hefty annual bonus, the fact that they are paid more to work longer in general, and can therefore afford to make bigger pension contributions.

The so-called benefits of being a teacher are these:

• Long holidays - they indeed are, 13 weeks per year to be precise, where travel companies double or triple their prices meaning that you can't afford to go anywhere.
• Good pension scheme - not any more!

Work to rule people, and stick to it for a while! It's the way forward.

Teachers' Pensions and Strike Action

It looks very much like the entire teaching profession in the state sector is going to strike. All the unions, including the one for headteachers, are balloting their members to see whether they want to walk out for a day (or however long it takes). I have to say that I am personally not in favour of strike action, although I do agree that the British government is clobbering teachers in many different ways by ploughing on with their policy of cuts to public services.

Why don't I agree with strike action? I think that there are pros and cons with it and the cons outweigh the pros.

Pros:
1. People notice that you are actually quite annoyed, rather than nodding and grinning in the right places.
2. Since all the unions appear to be behind the action that shows an unusual amount of solidarity between the various parts of the profession.

Cons:
1. You lose a day's wages, which in times of economic hardship is hardly desirable.
2. It annoys the general public because they then have to look after their children instead of the state doing it.
3. It can therefore make the public unsympathetic to your cause and ultimately defeat it.
4. If a march is organised it will almost certainly be taken over by idiots who like smashing stuff up, and your cause will be tainted by their actions.

Instead of strike action, in my view, working to rule would be far more effective because it means that you take home a full pay packet, you don't annoy the general public and the general public might notice that teachers do a lot more than turn up at 8.30am and leave at 3pm, looking after their offspring in the meantime.

Working to rule would highlight the fact that teachers work a lot harder than many give them credit for as many of the extra, "outstanding" lessons are planned in a teacher's own time. The free time given as part of the timetable for planning (PPA time) is only enough to cover the curriculum at a basic level, not produce resources that make Ofsted inspectors dribble. You would also find that teachers would be less tired because they will get the opportunity to rest properly, and no-one can tell you that you're not doing your job because you are actually working the hours that you are paid for.

Just a thought...