We are at a point in education where we need the help of politicians more than ever. In less than a year we have been challenged through cuts in the SEND band funding, a budget formula that is causing many schools to nose dive into a deficit, a recruitment and retention crisis fuelled by ramped up expectations against a curriculum that nobody knows how to assess, and an education bill that favours illogical and ideological change over common sense and reason.

Any one of these changes across one academic year would have been challenging enough, but altogether? Do you remember the last few seconds just before you lost at space invaders? When the multitude of alien ships, after growing relentlessly in number, finally overpowered you, and slowly but surely lowered themselves onto your head, crushing you, and turning you into a mashed up heap of broken bones, fluids and brain-jam? That’s a bit similar to what leading a school has felt like in the last few months.

Unlike the ineffectual laser cannon of space invaders however, we schools are not just trying to overcome the challenges that face us; we are also trying to deliver a service. And our customers have great expectations. The age of Mumsnet has given rise to a level of ‘parent-voice’ that is unprecedented in the history of schooling. So much so that politicians have succumbed to drafting education policy that would suggest courting the ‘parent pound’ is their top priority. Parents have been told time and time again that they have the right to demand, not only the best, not just more, but whatever they feel entitled to.

In recent years, schools have bent over backwards to accommodate parents’ wishes and demands. If anything is not deemed to fit in with parents’ expectation, it is fair game to be debated online, petitioned in the playground and complained about to Ofsted. You can’t blame the parents. They have the priority of their child at the forefront of their minds. So, of course, do we. It’s just that we happen to have everyone else’s kid to think about too and that’s what causes the problem. The education profession has been systematically de-professionalised by politicians whose default move, when confronted with a ‘this isn’t good enough’ scenario, is to simply put it out on twitter that ‘schools will have to make it better’. Schools are now expected to not only educate children but to solve the ills of society because that’s what every parent wants.

Well, if schools are going to survive all the budget cuts and the raised expectations in standards of reading, writing and maths, the politicians are going to have to give us something back. They will need to make it clear that schools exist purely to educate children. If they intend to strip back our funding and ramp up stringent accountability measures they will need to better manage parents’ expectations, as we will no longer have the capacity to do everything.

Parents will have to understand that we can do it all no longer. It’s a sad truth but, as schools begin to run themselves using the minimum number of teachers required, society is going to have accept it. Your child can’t swim? Take them swimming on Saturday. Your child was bullied online last night? Close their account. You think your child isn’t being stretched by the mastery curriculum? Go and hire a personal tutor. Your child has behavioural and emotional issues? Take them to a psychiatrist.

There will need to be a national understanding that schools that say ‘no’ are not cruel and uncaring institutions shirking their responsibilities as they hot-house children for exams. Schools that say ‘no’ will simply be prioritising in order to fulfil a statutory duty to raise standards in education. They’re not being difficult. It is not unacceptable. You can’t complain. They are just trying to do a job with limited resources. It isn’t a perfect model and it’s not one any educationalist would choose (well maybe a neo-post-punk-prog-rock-traditionalist would) but it’s the one that we’ve got and we need to make the best of it.

This is not a conversation I want to have with parents. It is not the way I’d choose to run a school. But the uncomfortable truth is, as good as we are, we can’t perform miracles.

If the government is serious about its white paper and its current valuation on the cost of running a school that meets the needs of individual children, then it better start flexing those opposable thumbs…because there’s going to be an army of parental space invaders rushing down to crush them and, trust me, they’re really good at winning.

If any parents at my school (and I know some of you will) read this particular post, please remember that I love you all, and will always try, as hard as I can, to meet the needs of your children whatever it takes. It’s just, well, it’s going to get harder and harder, so bear with me.

Lesson 1

The lesson started with a brief rundown of the learning objectives and, for a second, the children seemed engaged. The teacher attempted to positively engage with a disruptive child; this ended with the child and teacher tussling over a metre stick. Thankfully the teacher won and order was restored. Clear expectations were given and the children listened well to the instructions. As the children worked, the teacher wandered around seeing who was doing what. There were no targeted questions and all children were carrying out the task with little difficulty…this could be because there was no challenge. A mini-plenary was attempted but, as the worksheet had not been replicated on the interactive whiteboard and the visualiser was broken, the children had to strain their eyes to see the teacher modelling the next step on his own worksheet at the front of the class. Still, the children seemed to understand. The final stage of the lesson was not successful as the resources had not arrived, meaning the whole class had to share two silver pens. The lesson ended with the teacher saying that he would finish it off for them as there wouldn’t be time to revisit the activity later on.

Lesson 2

The main input fell flat because the image on the interactive whiteboard was too small and then became too blurry when the teacher enlarged it. However, the teacher soldiered on and the children seemed happy to go along with it. The main activity was completed successfully with the children regularly being stopped in order for the teacher to highlight examples of good work and learning attitudes. The final section of the lesson would, after the lesson, give the impression that the children had independently created a mnemonic that supported their knowledge of planets but, in reality, this was teacher-driven and all the mnemonics were harder to remember than the nine planets in the first place. The lesson ended earlier than the teacher expected and there was no extension activity planned. The teacher read a story about a lighthouse keeper that had no link to the lesson or any prior learning. All were engaged by the story, except for one pupil who repeatedly called out that he hated the teacher and the story.

Lesson 3

The lesson began with an ambitious starter activity. This comprised of a large-scale whole class activity involving a roll of toilet paper. The activity was meant to take place in the school hall but the teacher had not checked the rota and it was in use. Not to be deterred, the teacher made the decision to take the lesson outside. Five minutes later, thirty children were battling against the wind, desperately trying to hold down a roll of toilet paper that stretched the entire length of the playground. The teacher then tried to illustrate the position of the planets using sheets of toilet roll as a scale; however, as more and more of the toilet paper blew up from the ground, this became impossible, and the teacher made the decision to take the lesson back inside. Back within the safety of the classroom, and with no more toilet roll, the children worked in groups to create a planet map using black sugar paper (that the teacher had stolen from the art cupboard) and a metre stick. The plenary was surprisingly successful and prompted lots of interesting questions. Nobody seemed to mind that a third of the lesson time had been wasted.

Lesson 4

This lesson started well and it seemed as though all the steps had been thought through. However, it soon became apparent that the two resources the children were meant to use did not fully match, making it impossible to complete the activity. The teacher improvised and adjusted the purpose of the lesson. The children didn’t seem to mind and also didn’t seem to notice. As the lesson went on, it became more apparent that the lesson was based on the children’s ability to complete tasks on time rather than acquiring knowledge. The teacher made sure that at the end of the lesson this was revealed as the true purpose of the lesson. After the lesson, as the teacher was assembling the children’s work for a display, it dawned on the teacher that an opportunity had been missed and that the lesson would have a more nuanced purpose had one adaption been made.

Lesson 5

The introduction was clear and the lesson, backed up by decent resources, had a purpose. The lesson was differentiated and the teacher supported some key pupils. At regular times the teacher paused the lesson to explore how different pupils were choosing to approach the work. At times children became stuck but, through prompts and re-direction, the children were able to work their way through the problems. The lesson ended with the children’s effort and work contributing to the completion of a shared class goal. It was rather tedious to sit and watch the children go up, one at a time, to complete this goal, but they seemed to like it. Just before the plenary, the lesson was interrupted, as the teacher had forgotten that the morning session was ending early that day to accommodate Mothers’ Day Lunch.

Lesson Feedback

I enjoyed teaching every year group this week (except for Year 6, and not because of SATs before you roll your eyes, but due to my scheduling; their time will come, don’t worry) and I like to think that the children found it mildly entertaining. I put it down to conditioning over time that I was unable to stop the observer in me picking apart every detail of my lessons. However, a level of reflection is the life-blood of teaching. Not to needlessly dwell on what didn’t go right in every lesson, nor to bask in self-congratulation, but to continually ask of yourself: how can I make sure I am effective?

So much went wrong this week. Re-read my experience and take your pick. But it’s all about context. These were stand-alone lessons. I would have been kidding myself if I had thought I was going to waltz in and deliver outstanding lessons and I would be deluded if, afterwards, I claimed I had. I didn’t learn anything about teaching or myself as a teacher during the week but I gained experience. Experience that allows me to talk to teachers with one more grain of understanding.

Not of teaching. Any faults that I happened to make this week would still be faults I would expect to see improved in anybody’s teaching. And if you think I can’t pull you up on mistakes just because I once happened to make them too then you’re a fool. If you recognise ineffectiveness, you do something about it; that’s a minimum expectation for a teacher. This week I forgot about having to walk through one’s resources before taking them to the front of a class. By the end of the week I’d addressed this. I would expect any teacher to do the same; just as I would expect any teacher, who finds themselves outside with bits of loo roll flapping around the playground, to stop the lesson and start again.

The experience I gained was of children. I have conversations with teachers about children all the time. But I never really get to experience their ‘class’. Observations help, but until you’re the one ‘in charge’ you don’t know how it feels. Only when it’s your lesson that is being pushed and pulled in thirty different directions can you really talk to the teacher, with empathy, and discuss things that did or didn’t work. The benefits go beyond just giving teachers advice too. Opportunities to engage with parents because you also ‘know’ what the issues are, having experienced them first hand, are extremely valuable and supportive to teachers.

It’s a small gesture and it won’t change the world. But it helps keep you connected. It also, in my case, keeps you grounded and certainly makes you appreciate the fact that we don’t judge individual lessons anymore.

It was about 9:00pm on a Saturday night. I was in London, having spent the day completing the Bermondsey Mile. Maybe it was the fact that I was out with a fellow teacher and we were putting the world of education to rights. Maybe it was because I can’t switch off. Maybe it was the deregulated levels of alcohol in all the craft beer I had spent the day ‘evaluating’. But for some reason I found myself checking my work email, whereupon I saw that my budget had arrived.

Hurray!

Show me the money!

Let’s make some dreams come true!

I couldn’t be entirely sure what was suddenly causing my head to spin: was it the effects of hipster booze or was it down to the slim-lined figures that were now dancing in front of my eyes?

So I decided to do the decent thing and email it to my business manager. Knowing that it was now safely in her hands, I felt free to enjoy my evening of getting lost on the tube, speaking to cockneys and trying to take a selfie in front of Big Ben.

It was early on Sunday that I received an email from my business manager: firstly, telling me that in no uncertain terms should I ever email her at the weekend and, secondly, telling me that whatever I had planned on doing that Monday I should forget it because we needed a meeting to discuss our new budget that was, in her off-duty vernacular, tighter than the appalling skinny jeans I had worn at last year’s summer do.

My head hurt and my stomach was in knots – but you don’t subscribe to this blog to hear about my hangover cures – so I’ll spin on to Monday.

To cut a long meeting short and to save you from the expletives (me), the frantic calculator tapping (her), the shouting (me again), the long silences and staring into space (both of us) and the hiding under my desk and refusing to come out again until she promised to make it alright (me), the budget is pretty pants.

This year I, and many other schools, are battling with the added cost of the new National Insurance arrangements. This is where all employers have to pay the standard rate of National Insurance contributions instead of the contracted-out rate. In a two-form entry school like mine, where the teaching bill is over £1 million, this means that we will have to find in excess of £25,000.

This alone adds an even greater pressure to the additional cuts in general funding which are, in themselves, significant. There’ll be more than one Head this financial year that will be suffering frequent night terrors involving turning up naked at a governors’ meeting only to find that the word ‘deficit’ has been scratched onto their torso by the chair of the finance committee using a sharpened twenty pence piece.

The fact is, not only have we got to pay out more but we have been given less by which to do so. I still have the same number of staff to pay and I still have the same number of children to educate. As time goes on, and as additional cuts are made to services that I once used to rely on, I have an increased moral obligation to provide additional support to children and families that need it most and who are unable to access it elsewhere.

Now, more than ever, all eyes are on schools as we are expected to do more. We must do more for children academically. We must do more for children emotionally, socially, mentally and pastorally. It is every child’s and parent’s right to expect every school to deliver whatever is needed in whatever capacity or else we are judged to be failing.

And yet our ability to fund the resources that can help us help our families is being left to wither on the vine. The most vulnerable families are being told that schools have pots and pots of cash that are ring-fenced just for them so that we can buy in multiple support services that will help make a difference and allow them to make accelerated progress whilst nurturing their social, emotional and mental stability. Whereas, in reality, it is becoming harder and harder to justify the added expense that these additional services are costing. Never mind the old expression ‘what they give with one hand, they take away with the other’; this year’s budget is more like ‘what they take out of one hand they prise out of the other with a massive claw hammer’.

Thank goodness that ‘quality first teaching’ is still such a buzzword because it’s about all schools have got left to afford.

I will be watching through my fingers how other schools cope under such financial pressures. The really lucky schools will have members of staff who resign or retire and they simply won’t be replaced. The less lucky schools, I imagine, will reluctantly slash the ‘above and beyond’ elements of their provision. The unlucky schools will be having to go down the road of ‘managing change’.

And all through this we will be expected to dance to the tune of ‘raising standards’. Standards that have not so much been raised but rather catapulted into the sky without a parachute.

It’s difficult to pin-point a time when the odds have been so stacked against a school’s favour.

I fully expect every school’s reimagining of their vision statement in September to result in the following strapline:

Striving to achieve more with less.