teaching

Hypocritical kiss

theprimaryhead10 Comments

Tristram Hunt

To be fair to Tristram, teaching really is a profession where we could do with a little more commitment. You only have to look at school staff car parks at 3:30pm up and down the land, empty and deserted, to know that. Walk into any staff room during lunch time and, as you listen to every adult within judging distance, giggling with glee at the prospect of being home in time for ‘Pointless’ whilst they book their seventh holiday of the year, it’s clear that any ‘moral calling’ to join a ‘noble profession’ is falling on deaf ears. Teachers are well known procrastinators, deliberately wasting their time and underperforming. If I had a free school meal for every time a teacher said to me during performance management ‘but I became a teacher for the holidays’ I’d be able to feed the juniors for free as well as the infants.

Governments have tried to address this before. Knowing full well that teaching encourages even the hardest working individual to become an opportunistic slothful slouch (the sort of person who avoids ‘professionalism’ like they would the wet footprints left behind by a child wearing a verruca sock), they tried to increase the teacher’s workload. But it doesn’t seem to matter how many initiatives you throw at them, teachers just keep on hiding in the shadows and getting away with it. You would have thought performance related pay, league tables, testing nonsense words, pupil premium, sports premium, SPAG tests, removing assessment systems and having to invent your own, constantly changing inspection frameworks, new curriculums…all these, you would have thought, would have had some impact. But no: teaching remains a sullied profession and Tristram has, quite rightly, had enough.

I mean what makes it worse is that it’s not just ‘those in the know’ who have noticed. Parents are beginning to wise up to the fact that teachers don’t know what they’re talking about. Luckily they can now do something about it. Due to the canniest political move since Blair told Brown ‘of course you can take over after five years’ and then mouthed ‘NOT’ whilst poor Gordon was distracted trying to add the 10% service charge to the bill, parents can have even more control over their children’s education by building free schools. There may only be a few of them, but they are the only schools where the right people are in charge with the right people in the classrooms – the more unqualified the better I say, as it makes it easier to do what the parents want if you haven’t got to view their requests through a lens of ‘knowledge’, ‘experience’ or ‘being an actual educator’. Spare a thought then for all the other parents, who have to live with the fact that their local authority school or academy chain is being run by people who consider weekends as some kind of entitlement.

Luckily, Tristram has a two point plan to change all of this. He will first make teachers take a ‘Hippocratic oath’ and he will then give them an actual compass. I could go into details here about why these two things are brilliant ideas, but I wouldn’t want to patronise you. It is a brilliant plan; anyone can see it: the oath will mean that teachers finally see that they are expected to work hard ‘educating’ and the compass will help them navigate their way to the toilets in a new build. There really is nothing more to add. Bravo.

It is so nice to be able to get behind someone who ‘gets us’ and sees the wood despite all the trees. Like a laser beam zoning in on James Bond’s balls, Hunt has teaching in his sights and knows how to sort it all out. He knows that the profession must elevate itself from the bargain basement expectations we currently have and soar like Icarus towards the light – and his two point plan will make sure we never get anywhere near the sun. Clever Tristram.

What better way to make us better than giving us an oath and a compass? I mean, you could argue that dismantling free schools, redefining assessment procedures so they are meaningful, cutting back on nonsense policies that distract us from teaching and learning, not dumping social issues onto our laps and expecting us to fix them/eradicate them with no more cash or time, creating an inspection system that isn’t driven through fear and inconsistency, respecting schools to make decisions that benefit the whole community rather than pandering to lone, loud voices, and generally valuing teachers for doing an incredibly complex job in an increasingly complex world, would also help restore teaching to its stature as a noble profession, but, like most of us teachers out there, maybe he’s afraid of hard work. Never mind, I’m sure the compass will work just as well.

Freeze sucker!

theprimaryhead1 Comment

So September loomed closer into view, a blot on the summer holiday’s horizon. Very much like the slow dance at a disco: all the fun stops and the dancefloor slowly clears leaving you feeling isolated and alone – well maybe that says more about me than the start of a new term. But as I relentlessly updated Twitter on my phone desperately trying to find an important tweet to distract me from reality it became apparent that the dancefloor was not in fact empty. There were hundreds of folks on there, jiving away to the sexy and exciting tune of ‘I’m going to a new school!’ Fresh faced NQTs about to embark on a new exciting career; middle leaders about to start the rocky road to senior leadership; and once jaded long in the tooth heads, given a much needed shot in the arm as they prepared to tackle and untangle a new school of mysteries and problems. Was I the only person staying put? Was I the only one on the twittersphere without anything new to look forward to? Why will no one dance the rhumba with me?

So I went to sleep the night before school feeling…nothing. I wasn’t dreading it. I wasn’t itching to get back. It felt like a regular Monday albeit after a massively long weekend. I knew what I was getting: same school, same teachers, same kids, same challenges. I imagine at this point you’re probably thinking, that should the opportunity ever arise, you probably won’t be booking me for a motivational inset, but do you know what: I don’t care. Sometimes going back to school isn’t exciting, sometimes you don’t have a year full of anticipation and excitement and wonder. Sometimes you’re just going back to school.

I went out to the playground to meet and greet the children and parents. I do this every morning and I’ll admit that as the year builds so does the knot in my stomach as I pick up the school bell, push open the door and step out onto the playground. I scan the playground for faces that look like they have something to say to me which at 8:45am is usually not a positive, but a pent up, over-rehearsed, distorted and angry complaint. But on this morning, the first morning of a new year the playground was nothing but smiles and I realised, just then, that I should embrace this moment. No one has anything to say except for happy hellos and cheerful enquiries into each other’s holidays. The children are all excited to be back and there is a real buzz and most delightfully, nothing awful has happened that I can be blamed for!

Throughout the day I caught up with not only the staff but the children. I was genuinely surprised at how (almost) emotional I got when I saw a very ‘vulnerable’ child who I worked extensively with last year, bound around the playground looking happy and healthy. Seeing all the children en masse in assembly sat beautifully looking up expectantly at me, I began to feel so lucky that I knew them and they knew me and it was a pleasure to welcome them back to OUR school, a place we know and value so much and promise them that this year was going to be awesome!

Then the meeting with the staff to go through the handbook. The school’s bible, containing more than just the ten commandants – this epic tome makes clear every nuanced expectation, routine, system and structure in the school. Nearly two years in the making, it is now finished, a blueprint for the school we have created and I again, internally pause to embrace this moment. We’ve done it. We’ve built this school from the ground up and it is ours; it is ours and it will succeed. We go through the tried and the tested and although it’s a lot to digest, we take comfort in the fact that there are no more changes, we do not need to evolve because for now we are perfect.

Then there are the changes of course…universal free school meals, life without levels and the new curriculum. But we don’t care. Not least because we’ve already thought about them and have things in place – we don’t know if they’ll work but they’re in place. But better than that, we know that all schools are going through these changes. And for a third time I allow myself to enjoy being here, in a school that isn’t playing catch up to every school I know or have worked in, due to a lack of care or attention to policy and principles through past leadership regimes, because we’ve put that right. Now we can tackle the national challenges of the day on an even battleground and that feels…wonderful.

I know that one day I’ll get itchy feet and long for a new challenge. I know that one day my way will be the wrong way for this particular organisation and it will need a fresh pair of eyes to sort out the problems I would have become to blind to. And when that day comes I’ll be blogging and tweeting about how excited I am about my new venture, I’ll be dancing on the podium and spreading the love of change to anyone that will listen.

But for now, I want to enjoy being frozen in a state of suspended animation. I want to revel in leading a school I know like the back of my hand and where for the briefest of moments (and let’s face it, it will be brief) I am in control!

I haven’t moved schools…and I’m very, very happy.

 

I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart…

theprimaryhead1 Comment

images

There was a bit of Twitter chat on male and female teachers today. Is it right that there is a shortage of male teachers? Are women better teachers? Do heads prefer a specific gender with which to populate their school? You will be thrilled to know that I don’t know the answer to these questions and I would balk from answering them as I haven’t done any research. I haven’t, for example, set up three schools, one with all male teachers, one with all female teachers and a control school with, yes you’ve guessed it, no teachers. And I haven’t then observed these schools over a period of ten years to see which of them achieves the highest percentage of Level 6 scores in the spelling, punctuation and grammar test.

I also haven’t conducted experiments with myself such as ‘Skinner’s Pavlova’ whereupon I enter a classroom blindfolded and after observing a lesson declare the teacher to be male or female, resulting in a shard of meringue being fired into my open mouth or getting electrocuted in the face, depending on whether I was right or not.

No, I think it would be wise of me not to answer – plus I’ve kind of already written a little bit about it here. But what I will say is that when I go about the task of selecting a teacher to join my school I don’t care whether they are a man or a woman, I care about their abilities as a teacher. (I’m great aren’t I?) But there is one very important trait that I observe that will help me make up my mind and, if I’m honest, certain elements of this trait, in my experience, are more prevalent in one gender than the other. I won’t tell you which and what – that can be a little game for you to play.

For this very important trait I’ve turned it into a question and I’ve compiled multiple answers for which I have a point system that I won’t share with you now as I wouldn’t want to ruin your fun. If you like, you can come up with your own point system and use it at school when you’re interviewing or maybe just in the staffroom as a bit of self amusement. This is great. It’s like devaluing education and putting teaching on a par with some teen magazine questionnaire about deciding which member of ‘No Direction’ you’d be best suited to having a short term and emotionally devoid relationship with. This is exactly the kind of thing education needs; Nicky Morgan, take note and let’s go….good luck everybody – and just so you believe that I really don’t value the sexes differently, I would like to convey that luck equally to both men and all you lovely ladies.

@theprimaryhead’s big question:

Do you have a special teacher voice?

  1. No, I talk to children the same way that I speak to adults in the staffroom accept  with less swearing (for primary teachers at least; I imagine you secondary lot swear like dockers as you struggle to maintain control of the hooligans that you blame us for creating)
  2. Yes. Normally I speak in a, well, normal voice. When put in charge of a class of kids however I feel compelled to use what I consider to be modern vernacular in order to hoodwink the children into thinking that I have my finger on the pulse and that I relate to them. The hit ratio is horrendously low – I may start off using current phrases but will soon descend into using words from TOWIE Season one and trying to crowbar a reference to Gangnam Style during a PE lesson. I will eventually use phrases that wouldn’t seem out of place in a 1950s documentary about teenagers – do you dig it Daddio?
  3.  Yes. If you and I were having a conversation you would hear and understand me perfectly and you would be able to stand at a reasonably close distance to me – when you enter my classroom you will see that tone, pitch, volume and an assumption that anyone else can speak English are vocal considerations that I have neither the time nor inclination for. My voice becomes more of a strangled harsh bark of the highest register and my vowels come out shorter than your average consonant, unless the word I’m saying is a ‘filler’ word in which case the vowel sound will be stretched to such an extent that it makes a Reception phonic lesson sound like a condensed rap performed by Alvin and his band of chipmunks: Noooowwwwww, riiiiiiight, okaaaaaaayyyyyy, liiiiiisten pleeeeeaaaaase. I also like to stress the main ‘learning’ words so that children are quickly trained to pick up on key vocabulary without actually hearing them in context and I always phrase my questions in such a way that it is impossible to choose the wrong option.
  4. Yes. When I speak to children, particularly in independent work time or during break/lunch/registration, I tend to sound like I’m auditioning for a part in ‘The Wire’. I mumble, assume that all children have an intricate knowledge of ghetto lifestyles and often end each sentence with a question such as ‘You feel me?’ or ‘Ain’t that right bruv?’ It’s almost as if I think children won’t tolerate or respect the vocal honesty in my plummy Received Pronunciation accent.

So there you are. How did you do? And did you spot the man or the woman or do we all have an equal chance in being vocal idiots? I will let you decide, but for the record, and based on the results of all my extensive research into the matter, I know which answer I’d go for. And that means that not only do I have a higher chance of dating Harry Styles but that I also have the perfect teacher voice, init?