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...