teaching

That Was The Year That Was

theprimaryhead7 Comments

There are two types of change: the obvious and the subtle. Obvious changes being things like a haircut, after which I can look at the pitiful mess of wiry curls sticking out of my scalp and appreciate that at least they’re shorter than before. Subtle changes are like going grey. I don’t actually notice the colour of my beautiful locks changing; no, that is for long lost acquaintances to notice when you bump into them on the street and they choose to point it out to you. And so, too, were the changes in the world of education throughout 2014 both obvious and subtle. Some happened overnight, some were a long time coming, and some, like my recent ‘just for men’ dye job, took people rather by surprise and will take a long time to get used to. 

TeachFirst – EducateLast

One of the changes that certainly took me by surprise, but then maybe I hadn’t been paying attention, was the dawn of the teachfirst teacher. It wasn’t until I tuned into BBC’s ‘Tough Young Teachers’ that I saw first hand the deal some of our most challenging and neediest pupils were getting from their unqualified teachers. The impact however, appears to be anything but subtle. The philosophy seemed simple: clever people can teach. This is fine if you also happen to believe that all fat people can cook and players of Minecraft are qualified town and city planners. 

I watched in a constant state of horror and amusement as these plucky graduates taught class after class of secondary school pupils. At best, it reminded me of my own trial and error experience that was my NQT year, but there were a number of times where it made me rather concerned about the state of teacher training for members of our own profession. It seemed like a cheap quick-fix way of getting educated people into the classrooms, rather than training and developing talented, professional teachers. It is, to my mind, an experiment that risks failure a little bit too frequently. 

I have no doubt that there are, and will continue to be, some great teachers that come out of this initiative and I know there are plenty of teachers who went through traditional teacher training methods who, shall we say, require improvement. I am not ‘that’ interested in the teachfirst debate (if you are then search for long enough on Twitter and you can become bored rigid by countless arguments for and against) but I am interested in what it will lead to. Unregulated teaching is my biggest fear from 2014 – maverick, inconsistent and at times just bat-shit crazy approaches to teaching appear to be all the rage. Forget the ‘traditionalist’ vs ‘progressive’ argument, we’re talking about cults of education here, and, in my opinion, this all started when it became OK to be an unqualified teacher. Governmental freedoms to help new types of schools appoint whoever they wanted (soldiers, clever graduates, wizards) have changed the profession at a time when professionalism is needed more than ever. 

The King is Dead

And then Gove left. Possibly the most wished for change of the year actually happened. Our man in Whitehall got himself a promotion and, like all good promotions, he’s hardly been seen since. What did this change mean? Well, not a lot. So many of his personal changes had already happened that it was difficult to see the light at the end of his tunnel vision. With the appointment of Nicky Morgan (more on that later), we now faced more change, but were told that it was going to be a softer and more cuddlier change. If Gove’s regime had been focussed on telling teachers what to do and how hard to work, Morgan promises us that her ears are open. But, like I said, more on that later. 

Gove has been called one of education’s biggest reformers. I think that means that there is now a longer list of stuff that we have to do so that someone else can look at it all and use it to say that standards are higher. He certainly was very personally driven – no harm in that – except that he was more rigid in his beliefs than those folks who laughed at Columbus for saying that the world was round. In fact, so insistent was Gove on flattening the education landscape, in order for him to traverse and rule over it more easily, that in the end he alienated himself from everybody and ended up on his own flat little island. A word of advice, Michael: don’t take up Minecraft. He has left behind him a battered warzone and, through deregulating the market, has left it harder for us to rebuild it.

The Undiscovered Country

A change that we all saw coming, but to which we prepared for by quite rightly hiding in a cupboard hoping it would pass us by, was the end of NC levels and the 2014 National Curriculum. One thing is for sure, some people are getting rich – our children might be getting stupider, but companies flogging schemes of work and attainment trackers are wising up to the fact that no one knows what the hell is going on. Up and down the land, harassed history subject leaders were panic conferencing and booking every Year 3 class to a trip to Stonehenge, while Heads were meeting up and avoiding conversations about assessments, hoping that someone from the DfE would come out and shout ‘April Fool!’

This is typical of bad change. No, that’s wrong; I don’t have a problem with getting rid of levels if that’s what the government wants, or changing the curriculum – what I have a problem with is the management of the change. The ‘over to you’ approach is not just lazy, but sets the whole country off on a wild goose chase. If we assume that judgements are made by comparing like for like and, where appropriate, taking into account contextual differences (we do don’t we?) then this massive example of buck passing must surely mean that we can no longer be compared accurately, therefore we can no longer be judged via statistics. This should mean that ofsted inspections should go back to those six week long endurance tests so that inspectors really get to know the school and how it operates…but I didn’t read that in the last updated inspection framework. In short, these particular set of changes – coupled with the fact that external judgements will not change – sets too many schools up to fail. 

Stressed Out

When I reflect back on 2014 what springs to mind is the feeling of pressure those in our profession are currently under. The workload has become unsustainable. Don’t get me wrong: you work in my school, you should be prepared to work hard, and, if you can’t stay on top of planning, teaching, marking, assessing and behaviour so that your pupils achieve (however we’re judging that today) then you should choose a different job. If you’re a middle/senior leader, be expected to do that, and more, with a smile on your face, and whilst supporting others. But it saddens me that we appear to be teaching in an age where nothing is good enough. I know how hard teachers work and many of the previous reforms and new initiatives often fail to take into account the contextual challenges of teaching. Therefore we are perceived as talentless fools who can’t even get a child to sound out a nonsense word. Teachers feel unloved because their masters have only been cracking the whip and inventing more stuff for them to do. 

All hail Nicky Morgan then, who is listening to us and wants to tackle the challenge of teacher workload. Call me a cynic but I don’t buy it. It’s election time and, as the scorpion stings the frog, the politician lies to the voters. She says she will carry us on her back and help us move forward. She can say that now because none of us bloody know what success is anymore! You wait until the standardised scores in Reception and Y6 start rolling in and they don’t start adding up: I’ll wager she won’t have carried us too far before we notice the sting in her tail.

Teach, Die, Repeat

Each year, after making substantive changes in my own school, I kid myself that this next year will be the year of no more change – this will be our consolidation year. It never is though because education never stands still. The profession, our communities, our politicians are ever changing, and we adapt and adapt and adapt because that is what we do. 2015 will bring with it more changes (obviously) but, for once, I think we are in dire need of them. I have no idea what the future holds for education but, as always, and despite the rather dystopian tone, I’m kind of looking forward to it…gives me something to blog about don’t it? 

It’s in the books stupid!

theprimaryhead2 Comments

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All this life ‘beyond levels’ stuff is very interesting. (I say that as someone who counts the number of sleeps before the RaiseOnline release date so you’ve been warned.) But I mean isn’t it though? Having to completely revolutionise the way you assess pupils whilst simultaneously getting to grips with a new national curriculum? If not interesting, it is, at the very least, a new challenge in education.

It is not just the practicalities that are interesting (watching each teacher’s brain melt inside their skull as they try not to peek at their APP statements whilst assessing a piece of writing); the discussions it has brought about are equally riveting.

There are the online conversations: fierce battles between those that loved levels, those that hated levels, those that have dreamt for the day when a 2B became as meaningless as it was interpretable, those that vowed to leave education if levels became defunct (as if it was in some way similar to a 95 pence supertax law), those that cynically denounced any other assessment system as ‘well it’s just levels in sheep’s clothing isn’t it’, and those that relished the thought of a convolutedly simplistic system that would come to define their appraisal prospects.

Then there are the fake real-life conversations – mainly conducted by sales reps offering a simple ‘Like levels but definitely not levels’ sales pitch, promising that all these systems will guarantee smoother progress trajectory patterns in each and every year group and, as long as you book out all five of your insets for their training, won’t cause your teachers any grief at all.

There are then the ‘real’ real-life conversations between schools:

Outstanding school not due to be inspected for another ten years: So what are you doing?

RI school about to be inspected: Well, we’ve had to get the ball rolling in case the big O rock up and want to talk life beyond levels, so we’ve launched a new system starting in every year group based on awarding pupils points according to a set of predetermined threshold criteria in every subject. Eight times a year these points are collected, averaged out and spread over an evaluation matrix that shows you exactly where the child was three months ago. However, we are still using levels as a back-up in Years 2 and 6 (obviously) but also in Year 1, 3 and 5. What are you doing?

Outstanding school not due to be inspected for another ten years: Oh we’re just sticking with levels. But do let me know how that system works out won’t you.

And don’t get me started about the conversations between staff members. Young teachers who only know levels and haven’t got the experience or confidence to look at a piece of work and go ‘Yeah, that looks about right for a seven year old’. Old teachers who have only ever used levels and can be seen wandering the school corridors clutching a crumpled and faded A3 APP spreadsheet like a security blanket. Ancient teachers who have only just got used to using levels since the days of educational freedom (which also happened to be the days of low standards, no planning, caning, and the occasional employment of non CRB’d paedophiles). Get a load of those teachers talking and the panic sets in faster than the reversal of achievement after the summer holidays.

As far as I can see the panic is caused for mainly two reasons:

  1. How will we know any new system works?
  2. What if I’m the only one it doesn’t work for?

To answer these questions we have to seriously ask ourselves what exactly are we looking for? Now, before you accuse me of coming over all Zen, let me explain. A large part of the conversations I have had with lots of people about life beyond levels is about children making progress. ‘I mean’, I hear the odd teacher cry, ‘If I don’t understand this crazy new system or use the system correctly, my children won’t make progress.’ WRONG. If you use the system incorrectly it will appear on paper that they have not made progress. In reality, they will have made exactly how much or how little progress your teaching has allowed. Progress is not determined by data – data does not even reflect actual progress. All data does is present a pattern of apparent progress, based on one individual’s interpretation of the progress measures being applied.

That is what is so gloriously silly about life beyond levels. It’s a sham. It’s not even the emperor’s new clothes. In the tale of ‘life beyond levels’ the emperor was butt naked from day one. Nobody really knew what a 2B was in writing – not to the extent that their judgement would chime exactly with every other practising teacher in the land. Nobody agreed with every single level judgement that came back from the SATS marker. No child ever graduated from one level to the next because of the inclusion of a single level descriptor. It’s all a nonsense.

Children make confusing, conflicting, incremental steps of progress all the time because, well, because they’re children: complicated little sods whose gradual rates of achievement occur like stages of evolution. You often can’t pin down exactly when it happens but, over time, it just does…providing?

That’s just it isn’t it? Progress happens providing the teaching is good and I don’t gauge that from data. I get it from monitoring the work of teachers: the planning, the teaching, the marking, the next steps. In short: It’s in the books stupid. Don’t worry about the system – that will sort itself out and settle itself down and be as accurate and frustrating as all ‘one size fits all’ systems have ever been. Yes, I’ll always check to see if the data patterns match up with what I see in the books and, when they don’t, I will investigate and support. The data may trigger an increased interest in your practice, but it won’t be the damning evidence that turns me into judge, jury and executioner. So, don’t panic, keep meeting the needs of your pupils, and the representation of your hard work through the ones and zeros of your data will look after itself.

Now get to bed – only 325 sleeps until the last ever RaiseOnline.

Modern life is rubbish

theprimaryhead1 Comment

I’ll keep it brief: Modern Britain sucks.

I don’t mean that being here, actually living on this small island is bad, for the record, I quite like it – we have a national health service, the BBC, a good solid class system that allows me to feel socially awkward pretty much constantly, and some of the best cheeses known to man. No, living here, suits me down to the ground.

What I dislike about ‘modern Britain’ is that it’s now been appropriated by politicians and become a ‘thing’. Modern Britain has now, apparently, arrived and of course, schools have not noticed. While we’ve been busy teaching girls how to walk in a steady line whilst balancing a pile of books on their heads and developing boys’ aptitude for shimmying up chimneys, the world has moved on.

Modern Britain is totally new. It’s all shiny and fast and touchscreen. And that’s great and people want that. But they also kind of want traditional things, how things used to be – you know, cups of tea, starched shirts, McDonalds. Imagine Britain was like the Booker Prize and the winning book was a mash-up of Thomas Hardy and Irvine Welsh. Modern Britain is exactly like that. Classic, sweary, comfortable, edgy, shabby, chic.

Except…there’s more. According to facts there is also radicalisation, separatism and a poisoning of good old fashioned British values. I’m not sure what these British values are: imperialism, colonialism, Thatcherism? But in between the Old Britain and the New Britain is the Bad Britain. Close your eyes and think of Britain today: you’re probably getting an image of a tattooed Mary Berry piping salted caramel curry sauce on a Yorkshire pudding whilst sexting. That’s modern Britain, red in tooth and claw, and that last bit…that’s the bad bit.

This is the full hard core Britain that we, as educators, were just letting children blindly wander into. But now, thanks to Ofsted that is set to change. No longer can we just get on and try to survive in whatever sort of Britain we wake up to – now we must prepare children for a pre-defined modern Britain; the one that we apparently all want and have subconsciously agreed upon.

There’s just one problem…this idea of Modern Britain is a bit, well, naff. And I say that knowing that I’m discrediting my previous three paragraphs. That’s how sure I am that the people who decided, in the new Ofsted consultation, that schools should prepare pupils for life in modern Britain, hadn’t really thought it through. I mean I put a lot of thought into the Mary Berry bit (a little too long to be honest) and well, even though I reckon that’s the most accurate picture anyone has ever come up with to describe modern Britain, I wouldn’t want to hang my school’s whole curriculum on it – let alone yours!

But soon we’re going to be subjected to proving how we’re preparing children for someone’s idea of modern Britain. How is that going to work? Who is that someone? Why will their version of British values be relevant for my pupils or yours? And does anyone really think it’s going to work?

My suspicion is that this body of work will be reduced to box ticking. All over the country websites will change, ever so slightly, to make sure words like ‘modern’ and ‘British’ and ‘values’ are visible to impending Ofsted inspectors. Every school policy will be updated with identical incidental paragraphs promising that promoting British values is an integral part of school life. During the inspection Heads will do whatever the modern British values equivalent is of lighting a candle in assembly in order to pass it off as ‘collective worship’.

No school will actually sit down and decide for themselves what British values are and how they promote these in their school. And if they did, what would stop a rogue inspector saying ‘No, no, no, these are not British values…these are!’ It’s an inappropriate misappropriated mess.

I don’t doubt that the concept has come from a good place. But seriously…let’s be British about it and think about it sensibly. How about bringing back community cohesion? That was pretty good wasn’t it? Looking at your community, celebrating its strengths and challenging its weaknesses. Working out how you could give your children the best start in, not just modern Britain, but the modern world – an even more rapidly changing place.

Some might say, that schools have been doing this for years, even when community cohesion wasn’t considered cool anymore. Yes, a minority of schools may have failed some of their pupils by not safeguarding them effectively from the more sinister fractions of their community but their failings are lessons learned and taken forward by all of us. We don’t all need another knee-jerked bolted on initiative to put into action…we just need to keep our ears open in order to hear the winds of change because modern Britain doesn’t suck…it blows.