education

DfE – the F is for ‘Frankness’

theprimaryhead1 Comment

Although beforehand none of us really knew what we were going to talk about, one thing was clear; we were all going to exploit this opportunity to speak our minds. Not in a mad old rant sort of way but through civilised and respectful conversation. (I think we mostly managed it)

We were an odd collective bunch of educationalists but we all shared thoughts and ideas about the old system, the incoming one and what we thought could improve our world of education.

I think all parties were honest in their comments – including the DfE. It wasn’t a case of them necessarily defending their ideas, frameworks and policies against a barrage of criticisms: more a case of them listening to the ‘real world’ implications of what they had put in place.

The curriculum

Although this got a rather favourable review from the people around the table, below are some key points made that challenged it (forgive me if I don’t attribute each point to who made it – although if I start talking in metaphors you can be pretty sure that it came from one half of @thought_weavers)

Broad and Balanced – well it is and it isn’t. The increase in expectations within reading, writing and maths coupled with the ‘stripping’ away of certain broader and balanced elements may, could, just might, result in some schools in challenging circumstances not feeling able to do the ‘it’s not in there but it’s implied you should cover it but we won’t be checking’ elements of it. The pressure to do ‘well’ in the tested bits could mean that these areas are overdone and the balance becomes distorted.

The counterpoint is that if you don’t ‘perform’ well in these tested areas you are in fact letting the children down more so than by not committing to the full curriculum. If children can’t read, write or calculate effectively how are they able to cope at secondary school? If making children ‘secondary ready’ is the hidden agenda behind primary schooling shouldn’t we focus on that bit if that is the bit that required improvement? The counter-counterpoint however is, in my opinion, starker; how is a child secondary ready if they have not received a fully rounded education that has included citizenship and has allowed them to persevere in all manner of disciplines not just literacy and numeracy? I’m sure there is yet another counter-counter-counterpoint to that argument but I’ll move on.

Support – Although much of the curriculum hasn’t really, really changed an awful lot there are some areas that have. I’m thinking computing and the content of the history curriculum. There was a general sense around the room that we had been left a little high and dry in how to skill up staff so they can deliver this effectively. We may be pleased that there are no prescriptive QCA schemes of work and that schools have freedoms to tailor much of the curriculum to their own tastes but where do we start and more worryingly…what if we get it wrong? What if we interpret differently to (whisper it) the ofsted team that come in to inspect our curriculum? There has been no support or guidance for schools to get the curriculum working for their schools.

Elizabeth Truss MP was concerned that ‘teaching schools’ hadn’t been involved in this process of offering support to local schools. We pitched in saying they either hadn’t offered it, the local authority hadn’t brokered any support packages, the teaching schools themselves did not have the capacity to support everyone else. One teaching school represented at the meeting made the point that they too needed to trial it in the first year before being able to support others which seems fair. All of these points seemed at odds with Truss’s perception of how teaching schools were supporting other schools.

At this point it was nearly impossible to discuss the curriculum without straying into our other topic for the day which was assessments.

Assessment

The disappearance of levels – Caroline (because it was her idea remember) was asked very bluntly why levels had been taken away and no other system had been introduced. She gave an answer. I can’t quite remember what it was. I seem to remember thinking if the aim was to make it more transparent to parents then I think you’ve failed as I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about. (But then again, I was onto my third cookie by then and the sugar was starting to distort my senses)

Many people in the room seemed to be of the opinion that many schools were leaving levels alone until they had sorted out the curriculum. Caroline made an interesting point that levels, although not the preferred method of assessment, were not banned. I thought this sounded like pokemon cards at school: if they stay in your drawer and you only use them when I can’t see then that’s fine but don’t let me catch you playing with them in class or you’re in trouble.

Caroline did say that levels are gone because they are too crude an assessment. The children are put into boxes and it is difficult for teachers to move them to a different box. There needs to be a more gradual, well rounded, all-encompassing and detailed picture of assessment. But then she started talking about a standardised score that children would get at the end of Reception that would relate to a standardised score children would get at the end of KS2 and this would be the indicator of progress. Well, isn’t that just a bit like levels and APS? Don’t we expect children who are at this level at KS1 to be at this level at KS2 based on expected rate of progress? If you’re going to have a scale that you are going to use to track my Reception pupils all the way to Year 6 – why not tell me what it is and what it looks like in all other year groups because then I can make sure we’re judging my pupils’ achievement in the same way. Making me invent my own system feels really dangerous and makes me feel quite vulnerable. Just a thought.

Testing – This took up a lot of the discussion. The concept that testing to get a score was at odds with a holistic system of assessing children that went against trusting teachers’ judgements seemed to be an alien one to the folks at DfE. And I can see why. You do need, at some stage, a baseline check to see how everyone is doing compared to everyone else. It’s an easy way to get a collective score for a school. It was pointed out how much testing actually helps the child as opposed to helps the schools to be judged by those who are doing the judging.

We were asked what would our way be? I wasn’t the only one to suggest some kind of pupil portfolio where bodies of work were sent in. From my own perspective, I like this as one of the most frustrating conversations I have with teachers is during ‘assessment week’ where teachers will say things like: ‘I’ve got evidence in his book that he’s a 3B and I know in class, on a really good day he can write at a 3B….but on the test he might not, so, I’m going 3C.’ Now, I know why teachers do this, they don’t want to be ‘caught out’ on test day only for me to say ‘What were you thinking? 3B indeed!’  I don’t want unrealistic teacher judgements that are not representative of a child’s ability (either too high or too low) but I trust my teachers more than a test and I have moderating systems that allow me to do this confidently. That is why a national system that puts more faith in a pupil’s real achievement over time would be more valuable than one that sticks rigidly to a 45 minute test paper.

Ofsted – not on the agenda but how can you get people involved in education in a closed room for 90 minutes and not mention the beast in the room? No one criticised the purpose of ofsted but we had a few things to say and a few pointers. (Not that the DfE can do anything about ofsted)

  • Why not go back to longer inspections so ofsted can see the whole school for real.
  • A commitment that ofsted want to see a broad and balanced curriculum in every school.
  • Better links with what the DfE sends out and what Ofsted comes in to see.

I shan’t say no more about Ofsted because it wasn’t why we were there. But also, I can’t remember anything else particularly so I’ll leave it there anyway. You can read part three now you lucky bugger.

DfE – the D is for the ‘Day’

theprimaryhead2 Comments

 

Ooh I was terribly excited. Being invited to the DfE to discuss…well something educational I guess. I didn’t really know anything about it. Who was going? Why had I been invited? What was the purpose? What on earth could I contribute? Would lunch be provided?

 

The night before I got a DM from Tim Taylor saying that some of the other invited Twitter folks were meeting up in a pub beforehand and would I like to join. Would I? You bet – this was starting to sound like a right old jolly. In the morning I made my sandwiches and went to the train station, picked up my tickets (69 quid that I was told I could claim on DfE expenses – this is the bloody life I thought) and soon I was sat on the train zooming to London.

 

On the way, I thought I should probably brush up on the National Curriculum, so I read that for a bit. Then I got bored and ate my sandwiches. Pulling into Paddington I skipped to the underground and got to Westminster. By this time I was running very late to meet the gang in the pub but I googled the address anyway. I arrived just in time to shake hands with @imagineinquiry, @cherrylkd, @debrakidd and @educationbear; grab a soda and lime (75p…come on London, behave!) before I was back out the door walking towards Sanctuary Buildings.

 

Upon arrival we were ushered in to the DfE waiting lounge, where @emmaannhardy and @heymisssmith were also waiting. Luckily it seemed that none of us had any clue what this meeting with the DfE minister and policy men was about and when @thought_weavers completed our group and also said they weren’t sure what to expect we were badged up, crammed into a lift and were soon sitting around a table. There was no lunch but there was a tray of cookies. I positioned myself next to those and thought, well if nothing else, I’ll probably eat more cookies than anyone else so it won’t be a day completely wasted.

 

From the DfE we were met by Vince Jacob (and later) Jim Magee who as far as we were concerned actually wrote the national curriculum word for word (they seemed quite intent on confirming and then denying this in equal measure…I think they did). There was also Caroline Barker who was solely (well as far as we were concerned) responsible for the abolishment of levels. We chatted about implementing the new curriculum, assessing without levels, our own thoughts and experiences of educating in the current climate. Then, in a whirlwind of mobiles and whispering assistants Elizabeth Truss MP joined, left and came back again. While she was there we repeated stuff that we’d already said, explained what differentiation was, I very nearly got her to answer a very important question that I had come up with but she had to leave to go and vote on something. I tried to get her assistant to vote for her but, as you would expect from a committed MP, she did her duty – albeit by promptly leaving the meeting she had presumably set up in the first place.

 

When she came back from her vote – a distraction to the group that I used to my advantage by swiping another biscuit – it was getting near my return train time. So it was my turn to say that I was very sorry but I had to leave and go and vote on something back in Bristol. She can’t have heard otherwise I’m sure she would have laughed. I flew out of DfE – oh thanks to Cait Mellow, who I think had been the person who set it up as she is in charge of the DfE social media team leader, and pointed me in the direction of the nearest Tube. I missed my train as it turned out. I couldn’t get on the actual next train because that was a ‘peak time’ train and my ticket was not valid. I asked if I could pay the difference and was told that to pay the difference between my original ticket and a peak time ticket would cost £128 but if I bought a new peak time ticket it would cost me £96. I failed to see how this was mathematically possible but I really wanted to go home. Two things popped into my head at that moment: the first was I hoped that the DfE expenses claim form would cover this unexpected additional cost to my day out and secondly, I thought maybe the incredibly prescribed maths curriculum wouldn’t be a bad idea and could someone give a copy to the ministry of transport.

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Today we are learning how to do the things your parents should have taught you

theprimaryhead4 Comments

I’ve worked in three schools that had a Nursery as part of its early years setting. Two out of three of them were, in my opinion, outstanding examples of what provision at that age should be. They were lovely and fun places to be; the children expressed themselves and enjoyed all manner of child initiated learning; the adults did more monitoring and assessment in one day than a SATS marker would do in a lifetime and, most importantly, there was rigorous literacy and numeracy teaching every day.

Occasionally, especially if talking to certain Early Years experts, you had to keep that last bit quiet. If you told them that you had just seen a great maths lesson in a nursery class where the children sat in a circle for about twenty minutes whilst being taught number bonds (sometimes up to 20) followed up by some investigative practical maths activities, well first you would have to help them back onto their feet after they had fainted from the shock and then you would have to suffer a telling off that would go on for so long you couldn’t help but think it contradicted their own advice about inputs being very short.

Their argument: ‘You’re not meant to teach them, they’re not at school, they need to be nurtured, they need to explore the world, they need to be led by their own curiosity not by formal lesson structures…you evil, evil man.’

My response: ‘You see that child there? He’s just made a hat out of leaves and that one has just learnt paint isn’t tasty. Pretty sure they’re being led by their own curiosity thanks. And as a bonus they’re learning loads about maths because they can do it and they seem to enjoy it.’

I was often never more impressed at what schools can achieve than when I visited Nursery classrooms. When the teachers and support staff refused to adhere to a glass ceiling of what the youngest children in our system could learn and how far you could stretch their understanding. None of this ‘but they only need to count objects up to 10’ nonsense. They’ve done that, they did it really easily; imagine if you put two more counting bears on the carpet? All of that PLUS more creative and child centred learning than you could shake a bead bar at. All that PLUS a level of assessment that is thorough to the point of lunacy.

I do think the aforementioned Early Years Specialist is a now a rather dated gross stereotype-but I have met those ‘types’ in my career. And I normally ended such a meeting with a swift word in the nursery teacher’s ear to say ‘yeah, ignore what they said, keep doing what you’re doing.’

So, imagine my delight when I heard that Sir Michael Wilshaw was suggesting that children should be taught more and taught earlier. Bring it on, I thought. At last someone understands. The ‘gap’ that develops between many of our disadvantaged children and their peers is often there at the very start. It should be our job to give them a leg up before we’re even aware they need it. Don’t wait until you know they’ve fallen behind. Crack on and teach them how to enjoy stories, make them love putting crayon to paper, get them counting, adding, taking away, grouping anything that can be grouped. In short, exploit the time you have with them to the max. They’ll enjoy it, they’ll associate school with learning which will fuel their curiosity and they’ll have a better chance of succeeding later on. Good on you Sir Michael, you’re a star.

But wait…

What about that checklist though? How’s that going to work? Is he saying that children won’t be able to attend full time school until they can successfully hold a knife and fork, ask to go to the toilet in a complete sentence and then sort themselves out after they’ve done a poo? Are nurseries now going to have less time to teach all the stuff I went on about because they’re going to be modelling the sentence ‘Please Miss, may I nip to the loo as I really need a wee?’ on flashcards to a distressed child who is now bent double from trying to keep the wolf from the door (as it were)?

What if they can’t do it? When they join Reception are we going to have to split the class into two groups: those that can eat spaghetti correctly using the fork and spoon method and those that consider cutlery to be a distraction that they have neither the time nor the inclination for? Are we going to lose half a year of potential literacy, numeracy and wider curriculum progress because the autumn topic is now ‘putting on a coat and asking for things nicely’?

Why is it now the school’s job to teach children how to put on outer layers of clothing and using a type of knife that isn’t preceded by ‘craft’ or ‘stanley’? Forgive me, Sir Michael, but it feels like you’re dumping society’s failings onto us again and expecting us to fix it. Responding to the challenges of a changing society is one thing but I know how this works; you’ve put it out there now. You’ve released this concept that schools should teach this rubbish so pretty soon every parent up and down the land is going to expect it. Mums and dads across the country will gradually absolve their parental responsibility as it will be deemed the school’s job to sort it.

Call me a weak minded, moaning quitter if you will, but we can’t have complete responsibility for the holistic development of every child…that ain’t fair!