http://www.naht.org.uk/susanyoung.rss The Department for Education's submission to the School Teachers' Review Body on performance pay is one of those documents which manages to be perfectly normal -- boring, even -- for pages on end, before slipping in notions which appear to be deliberately ignoring the elephant in the classroom. Which isn't to say that a fair chunk of it isn't quite reasonable, I'd like to add. The document points out that pupils tend to do better in countries where teaching in a higher-status profession, and that high-quality teaching has a demonstrable effect on pupil performance, particularly children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Performance management which includes incentives to teachers and provides "development opportunities" improve teacher quality, says the report. "Improving the quality of both new and existing teachers is therefore a priority in the drive to raise educational standards in our schools," it adds. The next section of the paper argues that the reform of the current pay system is "fundamental" to driving up teacher quality. " It is, however, the decisions taken by schools, governors and head teachers which have the biggest impact on the supply and demand for teachers. The existing national system of teachers' pay does not routinely support schools to recruit the high-quality teachers they need to meet the needs of their pupils," it says. But then comes the bit which got me scratching my head. " Attracting and retaining the best head teachers is also crucial to achieving improvements in schools. The 2010 School Workforce Census found that 0.1 per cent of head teacher posts were vacant and 2.4 per cent of head teacher posts were filled on a temporary basis." As the document says, half of heads will be eligible to retire in the next ten years, and there is an "urgent need" to address the recruitment and retention of high-quality school leaders. It notes the NAHT research that the re-advertisement rate in the primary sector was 28 per cent in 2010-11, rising even higher in faith schools. "All figures have increased from the previous year, suggesting that more schools are having problems finding new head teachers," it says, continuing: "The current national pay scales mean schools in some parts of the country struggle to recruit and retain good teachers and head teachers. 52 per cent of head teachers in research conducted by ORC International (2011) on behalf of the Office of Manpower Economics (OME) felt that the current allowances do not sufficiently cater for the need to reward high performance." The implication of this is that it is pay -- or the lack of it-- which is deterring good potential head teachers from applying for those jobs. But I've never yet met a school leader who's complained (in anything other than a jokey manner) of being underpaid, or who intends to go for a promotion for a different school purely because of the cash on offer. Teaching per se hasn't been a job that people do for the money, and from what I know I'd say that's the same around the world, regardless of whether the pay is intermittent (as in some developing countries), peanuts, or comparatively good. Teaching's one of those Marmite jobs -- you'll love it or hate it -- and my observation is that's got more to do with retention than pay, although pay might well be a recruitment issue. I'm absolutely not arguing that heads' pay doesn't matter, or that larger pay packets aren't entirely deserved. It does, and they are. But after a weekend at the NAHT conference earlier this month, it seems clear that the deterrent for would-be heads is the increasingly punitive nature of the job, and the unhelpful rhetoric surrounding it. For some heads, it's hardly pay any more: it's danger money. Mr Gove, addressing the conference, was almost effusive in his praise for head teachers. But as heads pointed out, it's all very well doing that in a closed conference hall -- the same message needs to go out in the media, to combat the daily onslaught of less positive publicity. In a world where satisfactory will shortly mean not good enough, where school leaders warn each other about "rogue" inspection teams in the area, where there are fears about "forced" academisation and where one dodgy Ofsted report -- whether fair or not -- means the end of a career, it's hardly surprising that lots of people just don't fancy being heads any more. It's not the pay that's the problem: it's the conditions. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=552 Wed, 16 May 2012 18:40:34 GMT 20120516184034 Wed, 16 May 2012 18:40:34 GMT 20120516184034 Wed, 16 May 2012 18:40:34 GMT 201205161864034 Show me a union conference where people discuss how happy they are with every aspect of their working lives, and the government's impact upon them, and I'll ask you in which parallel universe it's taking place. Unions are there to focus attention on problems, to work together in their resolution, and to work together to improve things. To outsiders this might be seen as moaning: to insiders, it can be both cathartic to share experiences and genuinely useful to work on widely-experienced problems. So I wouldn't expect a head teachers' conference to be full of uplifting stories about the brilliance of the current education system, particularly at a time of funding cuts and an undermining of the pension. Even though there seem to be more natural optimists among heads than the population in general. But what rather took me aback at the conference in Harrogate at the weekend was the sheer depth of despair and misery when heads talk about the problems they're facing. If you weren't there, you'll have had a bit of a snapshot in the news reports about motions attacking the Chief Inspector for Schools (plain Mr Wilshaw, interestingly, to just about every conference speaker I heard). You may also have heard about the emergency motion of no confidence in Sir Michael, mooted on Saturday afternoon and re-presented on Sunday with an alternative message of “sadness and disappointment” rather than the more inflammatory "no confidence." Heads being heads, they couldn't kick a former colleague that badly -- yet. In a year's time, if matters haven't improved, I wouldn't bet against a motion of no-confidence actually being passed. Feelings were summed up neatly by a pair of delegates kind enough to chat to me over breakfast on the Sunday. One was the head of a school which had been put into special measures by an inspector whose lesson observations were unfair and who cared only about the data. This head told me that there was no member of staff whose lessons were neither satisfactory or good, and yet lesson observations on the first day had included some unsatisfactory ratings. “I did joint observations all the second day once I realised what was happening, and we didn't get any more unsatisfactories,” said the head. A member of the team who was there only during the first day issued a quiet warning in the head's ear about what was likely to happen next. And, subsequently, visiting HMIs on monitoring visits, says the head, are clearly puzzled as to why the school was in special measures at all as it is moving out in record time. This head wasn't the only one to have been, as they put it, "mugged" by this particular inspection team, and a warning has gone round schools in the area. Why would the inspector want to fail schools which were performing reasonably well, I asked. The head shrugged. "Put it this way, it wasn't long after that I had someone in a suit from the DfE come to see me about academy status." Speaker after speaker described bad experiences at the hands of Ofsted, worries about forced academisation, disbelief that the goalposts were being moved once more on inspections, worry at the way in which younger staff are being put off school leadership, and dismay at the way neither the Government nor Ofsted can quite bring themselves to praise the profession's achievements -- or not where it counts. When Michael Gove spoke to the conference late on Saturday morning, beginning with an encomium of praise for head teachers and NAHT leaders Russell Hobby and Kathy James, he was met with a suspicious silence. "We need kind words said outside the hall as well," said Mr Hobby in response to his speech, drawing the warm applause that eluded the education secretary. School leaders being the professional people they are, the conference was not all doom and gloom. For a start, there was the stand-up comedy routine from Lancashire member Les Turner, seconding a motion about the performance of Ofsted teams. "What's the difference between Ofsted and toothache?" he asked. "It is easier to get rid of a toothache. What's the difference between Ofsted and God? "God isn't arrogant enough to think that he is always right. What's the difference between Ofsted and the Black Death? It is easier to recover from The Black Death." The famous -- infamous -- dinner dance featured the usual packed dance floor, interestingly half-cleared by Michael Jackson's Thriller and filled again by a Wham! number. There were clearly a few sore heads round the conference hall next morning. And there's clearly a busy year ahead for president Steve Iredale, who's going to find himself removed from his favourite Black Sheep Ale as he goes about union business all over the country. With ambitious plans to revive branches and create a virtual network for new members, as well as helping colleagues with school improvement, the association has had its say and is getting on with its work for children and schools. But if I were Mr Gove, I'd be listening carefully to what I'd been told on Saturday -- and I might be having a quiet chat with my Chief Inspector. Because if this bunch of people are saying there's something badly wrong in the education system, they deserve to be taken seriously. Perhaps he could tell another of Les Turner's jokes. "What's the difference between Ofsted and NAHT? One cares passionately about school improvement. The other is a tool for the implementation of government policy. I will let you decide which is which." Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=551 Tue, 08 May 2012 17:20:31 GMT 20120508172031 Tue, 08 May 2012 17:20:31 GMT 20120508172031 Wed, 09 May 2012 08:15:10 GMT 201205090881510 Six-month sabbaticals for teachers? I bet that's one idea from the new MPs' report on the recruitment and retention of teachers that gets kicked into the long grass: after all, why would a government now expecting teachers to continue with passion and a healthy fear of Ofsted to the age of 68 consider time off for good behaviour? Still, apart from that little fantasy, this is a genuinely interesting report, permeated largely with enormous respect for teachers and their profession, and it deserves to be read carefully by education ministers and policymakers. There are, I'd say, a few judicious nudges about government pet projects, such as the idea of limiting teaching bursaries to those with better degrees (they don't quite buy that idea, especially for primary, and suggest that some research needs to be done), and some balance brought to the debate about where teachers should be trained. There is also a second little bombshell in the form of the final recommendation -- a call for performance-related pay, an idea which in previous decades made it as far as the threshold system before expiring quietly. "We strongly recommend that the Department for Education seek to quantify, in a UK context, what scale of variation in teacher value-added equates to in terms of children's later prospects. We further recommend that the Department develop proposals (based on consultation and a close study of systems abroad) for a pay system which rewards those teachers who add the greatest value to pupil performance. We acknowledge the potential political and practical difficulties in introducing such a system, but the comparative impact of an outstanding teacher is so great that we believe such difficulties must be overcome," they say. The MPs don't expand on this, but my guess is that they may feel this is an idea whose time has come thanks to the recent fragmentation of the system as academies do their own thing and free schools pop up, adding further changes, and shouty headlines, claiming Government interest in the suggestion, tend to support that idea. However, the committee are exceptionally keen to dissociate themselves from any claim of teacher-bashing, concluding that "We urge the Government to consider how best it might continue to engage non-education sectors with the fantastic and inspiring work which goes on in many classrooms around the country. We similarly urge the Government to continue championing the work done by teachers up and down the country—not least through shadowing some of them, which the Secretary of State has committed to doing—and to sell the many benefits and rewards of the profession to the brightest and best candidates. "Our inquiry made clear that, whilst the majority of teachers are strong, the comparative impact on society of the best and worst teachers is dramatic. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to state with confidence that raising the quality of teaching yet higher will have profound consequences for pupils' attainment and progress, and subsequently for their adult lives and the contributions they make to society. There is, therefore, a moral imperative to improve teaching even further, and to ensure that there is no place for bad teachers in our system (particularly considering their disproportionate impact on students who are already from disadvantaged backgrounds)." It's not, though, 88 pages of sensation. There are some lower-key recommendations, some of which may irk the current government nearly as much as performance-related play has pleased it. They include some interesting ideas on creating better career progression for the profession, such as exists in countries such as Singapore. It suggests three possible paths of classroom teaching (rising to master teacher); school leadership, and specialists, leading to senior specialist. This, they suggest, might allow specialists providing their skills and training over a number of schools whilst continuing to teach in their home school, a "particularly valuable function in the light of the increasing number of schools outside local authority control," they say. Hopping between streams would be possible, with the right CPD, and the whole thing might be much more attractive in recruitment terms. Continuing professional development itself gets a section devoted to it, concluding: "We are concerned that England lags seriously behind its international competitors in this regard, and recommend that the Government consult on the quality, range, scope and content of a high-level strategy for teachers' CPD, and with an aim of introducing an entitlement for all teaching staff as soon as feasible. The consultation should include proposals for a new system of accrediting CPD, to ensure that opportunities are high-quality and consistent around the country." The sabbatical idea is part of this, and supported by no less a headteacher than Sir Michael Wilshaw, who told the committee: "I have never had a sabbatical so I would strongly support that, because there is an element of burnout and people need to be refreshed. This all comes down to money at the end of the day and whether it can be afforded. I think it has to be, and we have to look at creative ways of doing this—of giving people who are successfully doing very tough jobs time off to refresh themselves. Although I have never taken a sabbatical, when I have noticed someone on my staff suffering because of burnout—a successful person who is not backsliding and wanting more time off—then I have found the money to do that." The committee wants more research into where teacher "wastage" is actually teacher "movement" and deliberate over teacher training, welcoming the idea of testing teacher training applicants for their "interpersonal skills" but suggesting this should go beyond a written test and should include a teaching observation. Assessment panels must they say, include a "high quality" practising head teacher or teacher. They want potential teachers to be able to "taste" the profession with internships for schools and college students. Again, they must actually teach a class during this time. " Applying to do teacher training is a 'high stakes' decision and the purpose of these sessions is to give people a chance to try out their own aptitude before committing. We believe this approach could help both deter some people who are not best suited to teaching and persuade others to consider it." They believe "a diminution of universities' role in teacher training could bring considerable demerits," adding " The evidence has left us in little doubt that partnership between schools and universities is likely to provide the highest-quality initial teacher education, the content of which will involve significant school experience but include theoretical and research elements as well, as in the best systems internationally and in much provision here." And significantly for schools, they recommend that the Government should develop proposals to provide "more adequate" funding to schools providing placements. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=549 Tue, 01 May 2012 11:48:58 GMT 20120501114858 Tue, 01 May 2012 11:48:58 GMT 20120501114858 Tue, 01 May 2012 11:48:58 GMT 2012050111114858 No explanation was given as to why the education select committee's questioning of Michael Gove this week started late, but I think he was probably out somewhere doing a little light smiting. He certainly arrived in cheerfully combative mood (so what's new?) entertainingly dented during the last half-hour by the equally combative Labour MP Lisa Nandy, who couldn't work out how a man with a vocal opinion on everything was so positively low-key about the Border Agency's apparent practice of X-raying young refugees to establish their age. When things are going his way, Mr Gove is a man of waving hands (think wiping a table), puppydog eyes and long sentences punctuated by extreme words and images. For today, those included "vendetta" (what some local authorities are apparently doing to free schools and academies) and "voiceless eunuchs" (Directors of Childrens' Services, apparently). When they're not (in this case, when Lisa Nandy was refusing to go away) he gets noticeably more subdued. Either way, though, he doesn't answer most questions with much clarity.So, what did we learn from seven MPs quizzing one Education Secretary? Occasionally, so convoluted were the responses, that it's hard to tell. The MPs' opening gambit was to attempt to pin down Mr Gove on the opinion of the Chief Inspector of Schools that there needed to be some early-warning system of failing schools as local authorities' influence wanes.Ask me what I think Mr Gove actually said, and my opinion is that he didn't agree with Sir Michael but really didn't want to say so. But his answer wasn't as clear cut as that: he waffled, about not wanting to replace one layer of bureaucracy with another, and that the Government's publishing of data would show up any problems. National Leaders of education should be getting involved, as should the national college, he said. Why, even professional organisations "including unions" had come forward with constructive ideas on how they could help. And 3 per cent of converter academies were helping others. It didn't seem a high percentage to me, but Mr G was apparently pleased about it.A question about CPD was answered going off at similar tangents: that there were all sorts of wonderful organisations doing such things and it would be bureaucratic to impose some sort of national organisation. Scribbling frantically to keep up with the ceaseless flow of words, the thought crossed my mind that at least a bit of signposting for schools to find all these wonderful resources might be good. If Mr G didn't think that was too bureaucratic of course.There was a worrying exchange about whether or not it was possible to complain about academies to the YPLA/EFA. In a nutshell, Mr G was convinced that was part of their remit, and they were handling such problems but the committee reckoned there was evidence to the contrary.There was a long and slightly opaque question and answer session about the national curriculum review, from which I drew the information that two of the maths committee members seem to be at odds with the recommendations, and that there is some thought about splitting KS2 in half (but without extra testing. Probably). There also appears to have been discussion about whether or not history or geography should be made compulsory to 16, but Mr G appears to think the Ebacc option has increased uptake of both, and other approaches might be detrimental in other ways.There were also hints that everyone will be expected to have a minimum level of maths, which would mean that post-16s in colleges or apprenticeships might need to continue their studies.Committee chair Graham Stuart wondered whether teaching schools weren't being expected to do an awful lot for the £60k they get. I haven't the will to read my verbatim note of the answer to this, let alone transcribe it, but let's say Mr Gove defended what the schools are being asked to do, at length, and ended with a hint that maybe his interlocutor had a point.There was a completely left-field moment in which Mr G linked good children doing well academically and their chances of indulging in “risky behaviour”.And he has no plans to take up Jamie Oliver's campaign to force academies to adhere to the national school meals standards, because apparently, this is likely to lead to lower standards across the board. There is going to be a report on "the best" which Mr G thinks is likely to inspire other to do better, but for the life of me I don't quite follow the logic of this. Nor did the committee, with one particularly dogged member pointing out that he was worried about the children who were getting the worst, with Mr Gove retorting that it was better to look at those getting the best, so that lessons could be learned.So: bureaucracy and central diktat bad, that's the clear message from Mr Gove.Well, not entirely. The subject of Downhills school came up, where apparently it was right for the Secretary of State to override local parents, governors and the school head, because of the political element to the campaign. Had the terrier-like Lisa Nandy stepped in at this point, we might have untangled the contradictions a little better: but sadly, she didn't. Can I please suggest that it's time for Ofsted to carry out a rigorous inspection of the Secretary for State? Then perhaps we can find out what's really happening. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=547 Fri, 27 Apr 2012 09:54:47 GMT 20120427095447 Fri, 27 Apr 2012 09:54:47 GMT 20120427095447 Fri, 27 Apr 2012 09:54:47 GMT 201204270995447 Mossbourne school is up there with Roedean, Eton, Grange Hill and St Trinians -- a very familiar concept but we don't really know all that much about it. Bar, of course, that it is probably the Government's favourite secondary and its last head is now the Chief Inspector of Schools.So when I met someone at a party the other week and happened to discover that her child is in Year 7 at the inner London comp, I'm afraid I pumped her mercilessly for information. At this point, thought, I should insert the caveats that I didn't have a notebook, and I did have a glass of wine -- and her child has only been in the school for two termsYet as they say, the devil is in the detail...and I found the minutiae of Mossbourne frankly fascinating. One phrase in particular was uttered frequently (and smilingly) by my new friend: "It is crazy disciplined." And by her descriptions, it certainly is. When Year 7 arrived, on their first day, staff were on hand to carefully check that each and every pupil was wearing their uniform perfectly with no aberrations or missing items. Anything out of line, and, according to Mrs X, the child was sent home. Subsequently, wardrobe malfunctions, including missing bits of PE kit, earn detention -- no ifs, no buts. Her own 11-year-old had got a detention for losing a minor piece of kit, probably on his way to school. I won't out the child by explaining what it was, but, crumbs, detention for that, I said. Didn't she think it was a bit over the top? "It's how it works, and the kids understand that," she shrugged. Detentions, generally, are on a Saturday morning.Haircuts are regulation, and the girls' uniform skirt is either knee or mid-calf length. My jaw dropped a little: schools round our way appear to be fighting a losing battle against the knicker-skimming skirt, despite various crackdowns. Don't they try and push against the boundaries? No, came the reply: it's compulsory, the school checks uniform all the time, and the children have a real sense of pride in being at Mossbourne.Other rules, as I recall them, included a total ban on mobile phones ("At all?" I squeaked. "At all," she replied) and no talking when moving between lessons. Oh, and no stopping off at shops on the way home from school. Teachers, she said, were stationed on the surrounding streets to strictly enforce that one. My eyebrows were by now somewhere in my hairline: according to my new friend, much of the rationale was to deter gang activity in an area of London notorious for it. (A subsequent Google check has confirmed that not a single Mossbourne pupil was involved in the riots of last summer.)Three mornings a week, the pupils go in half an hour early (at 7.45, I think) for compulsory reading, with every child in a class handed the same book. Many of the Mossbourne pupils are from homes without books, some arrive not reading well enough to thrive, and so everyone takes part in these early morning sessions to ensure everyone's skills are up to scratch.There were, she said, regular tests, the results of which might affect the set a pupil was in for a group of subjects rather than a single one (though she was a little hazy about this), and this was motivating her child to do as well as possible.What on earth did the kids make of all this, I asked. "They're really proud of their school," she said. "They're proud to wear the uniform, and they know that every member of staff at the school cares about them and is doing their best for them." Had she met Sir Michael? "Yes. He's absolutely inspirational," she said, adding that she was also pretty impressed by his replacement.There was a slightly difficult question I wanted to ask: middle-class parents (like my party acquaintance) might well be desperate to get their kids into a school with fabulous results like Mossbourne, but were they as keen on the range and inflexibility of the rules? Clearly, the one is linked to the other -- but equally clearly, there are lots of parents around who fight tooth and nail to get their child into the school of choice but then behave as though its rules should not apply to their little darling.Interestingly, she'd already thought about this one, and explained that as far as she could see some schools in the vicinity had turned themselves into what she called "Mossbourne-lites". In other words, the same kind of ideas but less extreme. "They just don't work in the same way," she said. "As far as I can see, all the Mossbourne parents support the system, even when their child's in detention for doing something daft, because the rules are clear, and they can see it works, and because the school cares about each one. It's kind of tough love."I'm really hoping to bump into this mum again further down the line -- perhaps when her child hits 14, or is sitting GCSEs, to find out how the experience has developed.Lots of food for thought, here, though, including the nagging question of whether our frontline politicians who so love this school would fight to get their own children into it. It clearly works -- but would it work as a universal model for all secondaries? . http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=546 Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:23:29 GMT 20120423102329 Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:23:29 GMT 20120423102329 Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:23:29 GMT 2012042310102329 Though the image of Michael Gove stroking a white cat and cackling "Mwah-ha-ha!" is a superficially attractive one for story-hungry journalists and conference delegates, I don't subscribe to the general Easter view of him as some real-life Dr Evil. Most disliked education secretary in living memory? In my experience they all are at the time (with the possible exception of Estelle Morris) especially in the Easter conference season. But I do think the implications of his reforms are now becoming clear. In a couple of years he's set in motion enough individual and apparently unconnected changes to the education system to perhaps completely transform the English system by the end of this Parliament. And as the Guardian has pointed out in its leader column, the Education Secretary was fly enough to get his legislation through Parliament and onto the statute books without the sort of fights experienced during the NHS legislation. So let's put together a little list of what's happened or is on its way: academy schools (which will form the majority of secondary schools by September); Free Schools popping up, often in places where there are already surplus places; fast-track capability procedures; more detailed league tables; less support from many effectively-emasculated local authorities; effective privatisation of many back-office and school improvement services; the expansion of grammar schools as "satellites"; no compulsory NPQH; no-notice Ofsted inspections; a new funding regime which may force small schools into new unions; a new curriculum (shrouded in mystery, according to my colleague Warwick Mansell), de-modularised GCSEs; the Ebacc; diminished numbers of non-academic qualifications; A-Levels reformed in a way which suits the Russell Group universities; financial support for fewer 16+ students; and vastly-increased fees to attend university. And yes, I know this list is far from exhaustive: there's the new SEN criteria, changes to teacher training, discipline advice, and so much more. But the point is that even my basic list, taken as an educational whole, has the most enormous implications (good as well as bad, I'd hasten to add). And yet discussion of these changes has been and continues to be minimal, with talk of the ensuing bigger picture almost non-existent. Forecasting the future is notoriously difficult, but to take just one example, the changes to GCSE and A Level look likely to create exams which will be harder to pass. The Government would no doubt argue that these exams need to be rigorous for us to compete around the world, and that other changes it is making will enable pupils to pass such exams -- but how is this actually going to work? At the moment the implications are only just becoming clear to the providers -- schools, exam boards, governing bodies, unions. For now, Daily Mail-reading parents will probably applaud the educational reforms in general terms -- until it affects their own children. But what then? How are parents going to react (particularly those whose children will be in the first cohort of the new system) when their children get fewer or worse exam passes than older siblings? As I asked last week, how will employers relate "new" GCSE and A Level grades compared with "old" ones? Will anything be there to mark the academic achievement of children who would struggle under the new system, but for whom many vocational qualifications have been removed? Jobs requiring few or no qualifications have vanished as a result of globalisation, let's not forget. I guess the Government's free market argument is that fewer pupils will fail, as the new generation of free and academy schools will get better results for their pupils, or themselves lose out to rivals. But in the immediate aftermath of exam changes, what would happen to schools which initially drop down the league tables as a result, perhaps even under the GCSE floor targets? Suppose they are already academies: what happens to those when they fall below the floor and are given "notice to improve" by Sir Michael Wilshaw's crack troops? Is that when academy chains become the new local authorities, and bring in their breadth of experience and broader funding to help the schools for whom the goalposts have moved once too often? And in this brave new world, how is good practice to be shared? As Dr Sue Robinson told me a few weeks ago, the current model of a self-improving school system relies on the free-flow of information -- and willing people -- between schools, a situation made increasingly less likely as the number of self-standing and chain-owned academies increases. And what's going to happen to primary schools, which in the main are not becoming academies but may find LA services dwindling in some areas? I think my major concern is that the system is being atomised, which is why it is hard to predict where all these changes are going to lead us. The only individual or organisation with a finger in all these newly-separate educational pies is the Education Secretary and the DfE: any sort of collective responsibility or opinion is being written out of the picture. Take last week's announcement on A Levels, for instance: the ball is now largely in the court of 24 leading universities, though we are promised that parents, teachers and employers will be consulted. I emphasise that I am arguing from a point of strict neutrality here: not that the changes are good or bad. It is simply that some of them (like exam reform) are so major that they deserve more and wider discussion, and as part of a bigger educational picture, rather than a series of cherry-picked solo announcements. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=544 Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:43:51 GMT 20120412094351 Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:43:51 GMT 20120412094351 Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:43:51 GMT 201204120994351 It's been clear for months that something was going to happen about A Levels, to the extent that this factor formed part of the conversations in our household about what our daughter should study post-GCSE. Her choice was unusually wide, since one of our local sixth-form colleges does the International Baccalaureate, and after a lot of thought and asking of questions (and talking to hugely enthusiastic teachers and students), that was what she chose. While I still have a few concerns about the offers some university admissions tutors might make on the IB compared with A Level, at least her qualification of choice is removed from the turmoil which may be about to be inflicted on our "gold standard" exam. Because for those students taking it either side of any reconstruction, there are inevitably going to be problems. The clear implication of the documentation on the Ofqual website is that the academics and ministers suggesting change would like to see a return to a more linear and "synoptic" exam structure which would, I assume, be more akin to the old two-year, plenty-of-reading-time-in-year-one-and-big-exams-at-the-end qualification. It's also notable that it is the academics from the universities demanding higher exam scores from applicants who are suggesting this change, rather than those from institutions further down the food chain or employers, who simply want some "good" A-levels, perhaps in maths and sciences, to demonstrate that their would-be staff members have "brains". Well, so far so good. There have been concerns over "grade inflation" for years (since before the introduction of the current A Level, if I recall correctly) and it is sensible to re-evaluate things every so often. But the lack of detail we currently have about what's going on here is, I think, worrying for what is becoming our main school-leaving exam. The Education Secretary is talking about Russell Group universities working with the awarding bodies to have a very real input into exam content and style. Does this mean that different universities might be working with different awarding bodies -- and if so, that taking an A Level in, say, History with input from York University might limit your choice of institutions which would accept you for a degree? If different awarding bodies' examinations are then felt to be slightly easier or harder (as has been the case even when universities ran the exam boards, when I took O and A Levels) then what do schools do? Do they opt for the exam which they feel pupils may pass more easily, thus improving their league table position -- or do they go for the one which may enable pupils to apply to Oxbridge and some of the Russell group with more expectation of success? Which option counts higher on the league tables? Which is better for more of your students? Which do you choose? On the face of it, we seem to be talking about harder A Levels. That's fine -- but needs a proper discussion. The official school leaving age has risen and A-Level is now the mass academic qualification of choice for students staying on beyond GCSE. Splitting it in to As and A2 was a deliberate strategy, to allow many students to get an AS and others to get a higher-level qualification which might have been impossible with a final exam structure. So if this is to stop, what happens to students for whom the new A Level may be just out of reach? Do we want numbers of young people to try, fail, and end up without qualifications at all? Is the plan to create something new for them, or play up the AS again? Is there a plan, or is the market going to decide? And finally -- what will employers and universities make of A Level scores taken before and after the change? Will there be a clear table of equivalences if the new exam turns out to be much harder than the old? Will this include the likelihood that the exams in different subjects will be changed at different times (STEM subjects are apparently the priority) Extra allowances for those taken in the first couple of years of the new regime, before it's all settled down? What's lacking in all this at present is any form of proper public debate or discussion. A Levels have become a mass exam, to which students have increasingly aspired. If that's to change, schools, employers, parents and all universities -- not just the charmed few -- need to be in on the discussion. Further consultation is promised, but for a change of this potential magnitude, this needs to be seriously and properly done -- and probably not at the speed required to get the first students on their new courses by 2014 as per the current suggestion. The Education Secretary's letter to Ofqual is intended to be read as the Government removing politics from the A Level exam, instead letting the best academics choose what's best for everyone. My concern is that the universities are deciding what's best for a relatively small group of students (Miss Brodie's creme de la creme, you could say) rather than the whole cohort. And that makes this a deeply political decision. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=542 Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:59:29 GMT 20120404155929 Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:59:29 GMT 20120404155929 Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:59:49 GMT 201204041535949 Various reports which have landed in my inbox this week have got me thinking, again, about the power of research... and how woefully underused it is when it comes to education policy and implementation. Would you be surprised if I told you that a longitudinal study has just found good early years provision, having educated parents (especially mothers), being in a good school and having regular homework at KS3 all make significant differences to how well pupils are doing at the age of 14? Thought not. And were we surprised by the report into the riots which found those taking part were often worse-educated or had chaotic home lives? No, thought not either. But that doesn't make them a waste of time, does it? We should know, as the Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education Project's latest findings tell us, that social class has a strong influence on academic success but that that children can do better by a whole national curriculum level if they had parents who actively helped their learning before they started school. We should know (rather than assume) that spending two or three hours a week on homework is shown to help pupils do better in English, maths and science, and behave better. And we should know that a high-quality pre-school and the academic effectiveness of the primary school are both visible in children's schooling at the age of 14. Because if we have evidence that these things are true, then policymakers and to a lesser extent schools can build on the findings to improve chances for all children. For instance, if we know that parenting is so important, then the government can justify spending money on parenting programmes (as it has announced it is doing in three pilot schemes this week), But will either of these documents be built on in any significant way to improve what happens to children in our education system, or used in any more than a cherry-picking sense by politicians who want a bit of support for already-formulated policies? It's vital that we commission and pay attention to this sort of research, in order to prove that our suppositions about education are correct. Otherwise, we're building policy on knee-jerk reactions, supposition, and personal experience. You wouldn't want to be treated by a health system which worked on this basis now, would you? Interestingly, one of the Government's favourite sectors, technology, brought out a report this week stressing the major role of evidence in developing teaching and learning in IT, and making a direct comparison with medical research. It went on to suggest the creation of an "information hub" to help guide researchers on good practice and "build banks of trusted research-based evidence to assist practitioners." Evidence-Based Policy Development In Learning Technology also pointed out that we also need the right kind of research -- practical, evidence-based, and "future-proofed, not future proffed," Specialist, yes, but not a million miles away from the suggestion made by shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg a few weeks ago about establishing a "clearing house" to spread the most relevant research and good practice. Last week, I was lucky enough to talk to the chap who helped put together one of the world's most successful education systems, Professor Ben Levin. We've got lots of research telling us how to improve schools, he says. So why don't we do it? Easier not to, he said. People like to carry on doing things the way they always have, he said, adding that we all know we should take exercise but how many of us actually do? So perhaps this week's research didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. But it should encourage us all to make sure we're doing things right -- and to keep on asking those questions. Even if the answers do sometimes seem to be statements of the obvious. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=540 Thu, 29 Mar 2012 16:59:03 GMT 20120329165903 Thu, 29 Mar 2012 16:59:03 GMT 20120329165903 Thu, 29 Mar 2012 16:59:03 GMT 201203291645903 As someone who didn't get their maths GCSE until several years after graduating from university, I'm always interested in stories about how we teach this most important of subjects. Even if my first reaction to the sight of an algebraic x is rising panic. So the chat I had last week with Professor Dave Pratt, Professor of Mathematics Education at the Institute of Education, University of London, and one-time secondary maths teacher, was absolutely fascinating. Not being anything approaching a mathematician, I feel I should apologise in advance for dumbing-down his argument -- but it's well worth checking out. And if anything sounds mad, that'll be my fault, not his. As I understand it, Professor P is arguing that we are still failing to engage most pupils properly with maths because we're not explaining what it actually does and why it's useful. The argument here, he says, isn't about teaching kids to do compound interest on the grounds that they may want to save money later. And I'm sure he doesn't mean those grim SATs questions about Dirk and Dolores popping into a shop to buy healthy fruit with their pocket money. Especially since, as he points out, you can no longer assume that in a society of computerised tills and credit cards that totting up the bill and counting out change are familiar concepts to many pupils. But what you can do, using those same computers, is present maths ideas to pupils in a far less abstract and more accessible way, which is the argument in Professor Pratt's inaugural lecture, Making Mathematics Phenomenal. What he means is that the numbers, signs, letters, graphs and formulae in maths are there to represent ideas. In order to create mathematicians and get pupils truly engaged, he argues that they need to properly understand the underlying principles before going on to learn what I'd describe as the formal rules. For instance, he says, you can ask children to use a basic programming language to create a picture of an animal. To make this happen, they use a procedure. The teacher then asks them to make the animal move, thus introducing variable inputs. Effectively, this is what happens in algebra. "You get pupils asking what x is after they've been learning algebra for years... it's mortifying when that happens," says Professor P. But, he argues, this is the result of teaching the language of maths before the underlying concepts. Refreshingly, he also talks about teaching students and young people about the limits of what maths can do. So, past work has included presenting students with a complete set of information and asking them to make a decision. One of these projects involved presenting students with a map, costings, and a mission to choose the best route for a new town by-pass. Should they go for the cheapest route, which would also involve knocking down the local hospital, or does the decision need to involve more factors than the purely mathematical? "This kind of thing highlights the power of maths, and also its limitations," says the professor. So, if the professor was in charge of maths in a hypothetical school, how might he change the way in which things are taught? He would, he says, concentrate on 12-20 "powerful ideas" and consider how to approach them. Lessons would need to be longer, more like 90 minutes, as pupils worked through ideas rather than rows of calculation. As I said, apologies to all you mathematicians out there who are probably tutting at the fact that much of this is a new concept to me. But I suspect I am in the majority here: and that these ideas are worth sharing as the discussions about the new curriculum continue. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=538 Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:36:09 GMT 20120319163609 Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:36:09 GMT 20120319163609 Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:36:29 GMT 201203191643629 It seems to be one of the rules of the trade. Chief inspector + reporter = controversy + implicit/explicit criticism of English schools. So far, so true for the current row over Sir Michael Wilshaw's appearance on Newsnight, in which he appears to have used the word "average" instead of "expected" to describe the status of Level 4 at the end of primary schooling. It's even more interesting for old hands like me, who recall the start of SATs testing when Level 4 was indeed the average and treated that way (ie, that not every child was expected to achieve it). For a fascinating analysis of the background, click here. Anyway, the unfortunate thing about all this fuss is that it serves to conceal the true nature of the Ofsted report under discussion, Moving English forward: Action to raise standards in English. You'll probably have seen this reported in the context of inspectors saying that children should be encouraged to read for pleasure. That's just one aspect of a wide-ranging report which amongst other things takes a fascinating swipe at lesson plans. In fact, without a hint of irony the report does quite a bit of complaining about teachers who, er, teach in a way they think inspectors want to see. So too much pace, over-complicated lesson planning and sticking to the plan come what may are all criticised as being NOT what the inspector wants to see. (Do try to keep up at the back, there). Schools also get it in the neck for tackling test or exam work too early. Given the high-stakes nature of testing for English schools these days, it's surprising that Ofsted is surprised about this. Does it expect schools to follow the directions given by the sticks and the carrots of Government policy and inspection frameworks, or not? The answer is, of course, that Ofsted reports themselves can't help but be political, and there is a new message out there. Lesson plans, league tables and pace were the thing under the last Government. They still are under this one, but tempered with additional messages about headteacher freedom, kids reading 50 books a year, and raising floor standards again to keep up with the international competition. (Which reminds me, there's a lovely line in the report about the point of their work not being made sufficiently explicit to KS3 pupils: so are inspectors suggesting teachers explain they have to do spelling and read Bleak House because 13-year-olds in Finland and Singapore are beating them at it? No, thought not.) However, don't let these inconsistencies put you off reading through the report for yourself as there is some really interesting stuff in there, for instance on the use of school libraries, better transition arrangements and the desirability of subject specialists in primary schools, as well as the point that children should be studying fiction in English because they're looking at non-fiction in the rest of the curriculum. Interestingly, while spelling and grammar are covered, there's no mention of specifically teaching children to structure and write essays, a vital skill for A Level if not GCSE but often not explicitly taught in any secondary school subject, as far as I can see. The sections on lesson planning are particularly fascinating: "Inspectors believe that the effectiveness of learning in this and many similar lessons was limited by some common misconceptions about what constitutes good teaching and learning," says the report, adding (in more detail than I include here): "There seems to be a belief that the faster the lesson, the better the learning. While pace is important – a slow lesson is likely to lose pupils' concentration – teachers too often concentrate on the pace of their planned activities rather than the pace of learning...As implied above, some teachers appear to believe that the more activities they can cram into the lesson, the more effective it will be. This is often counterproductive.." Other problems, according to the report, are over-detailed and bureaucratic lesson plans, which can cause "teachers to lose sight of the central focus on pupils' learning," an inflexible approach to planning, and constant review of learning. "Significant periods of time were spent by teachers on getting pupils to articulate their learning, even where this limited their time to complete activities and thereby interrupted their learning! Pupils need time to complete something before they can valuably discuss and evaluate it." But it appears to be the emphasis on the rules that's changing. "These points should not be seen as a plea for teachers to skimp on planning, teach slow-paced lessons, or leave pupils unsupported for long periods. However, given the positive impact of recent guidance and training on lesson methodology, there are good opportunities now for teachers to be more flexible in their approach to teaching and planning lessons. This should include a greater readiness to respond to the unexpected in lessons and to change the direction of lessons as they develop. Teachers should also be encouraged to be creative and adventurous in their teaching, and to vary approaches depending on the nature of the learning planned for the lesson." So, to precis this report (another rare skill in the English curriculum these days): English teaching is mostly good but that's no longer good enough: lots of teachers have been doing what they think we want but actually they were wrong. And the subtext (do I get a Level 7 for this?): next time we write a report and you're all slavishly doing what we say here, there'll be something else you're doing wrong. Wise heads will do as they always do. Read the report, take note of the useful bits, and then do as they think best. In this case, in the full knowledge that English and the rest of the curriculum is currently under full review, and the requirements may be dramatically different anyway in a year's time. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=537 Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:08:43 GMT 20120315170843 Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:08:43 GMT 20120315170843 Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:08:43 GMT 201203151750843 If there was one bit of reading I'd recommend this week to anyone in education, it's the first book by Birmingham head teacher Sue Robinson. School and System Leadership is a fascinating peep beneath the bonnet of how English schools have developed, particularly in the past decade, and what their leaders think about it. More pertinently, it asks some difficult questions about exactly what is currently being created as schools are encouraged to go it alone and the old support and early warning systems are dismantled. Robinson, who is a National Leader of Education and head teacher of Cherry Orchard Primary School and Children's Centre in Birmingham, was so interested in what made her colleagues tick and how the system works that she wrote a doctoral thesis on the subject a couple of years ago. At the time, this attracted a fair bit of publicity and won a national prize. Since then she's interviewed more heads and removed much of the academic reference to turn it into a book. There's an awful lot in there, far more than can be covered in a short blog. But it would be fair to say Robinson is really worried about the children in many English schools in the future, where the current early-warning systems (Ofsted for outstanding schools, regular local authority visits, and so on) have been dismantled, and where good and bad practice alike may be hidden from wider view after years of sharing. Interestingly, she covers some of the same ground as the Commons education committee did only last week when quizzing the Chief Inspector for Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, suggesting that a head of steam is now beginning to build around particular concerns. "An issue for any government committed to 'a self improving system' is where to draw the line between freedom and control. Government needs to allow enough slack in the system for heads to work and solve the messy 'adaptive challenge' of school improvement, but with sufficient checks and balances to enable all participants in the system to be assured that the schools are progressing and not following an unchecked 'slalom ride' to failure," argues the book. Robinson casts a wider net, however, with concerns about how the system can continue to improve when the current free-flow of information is hindered by increased insularity and chains which operate as closed systems. And she stresses that she is not opposed to what the Government is trying to do. "I wouldn't stop the idea of increasing variety and choice for parents, but what I would do is spend more time looking at the evidence-based research as to what is likely to be initiated by that policy. I think we are looking at fragmentation of the system," she says. "If they are not going to use local authorities I think we need to have some kind of system where intelligence is gathered on what is taking place in all schools in the state system." Robinson stresses, though, that she's talking of early, collaborative help. Robinson is concerned that the Government is blithely assuming that "the market" will solve problems in schools whilst talking about giving power to heads. It is children in quietly failing schools who will lose out, she fears. The book itself is quietly eloquent about her worries for the future. Robinson, like most of the school leaders she has interviewed, is used to working with other schools which need help, whether as some sort of federation or as an NLE, and it is this formal and informal system which has been a driver for school improvement in recent years. But with some schools increasingly going it alone or becoming part of closed academy chains, not only may the early warnings about schools requiring help disappear, but also the ability of many leaders to provide it. Moreover, the current free flow of information around the system is likely to be impeded. "It doesn't necessarily follow however that school structural change leading to more diversity in the system will lead to improvements in outcomes for children or better leadership," she argues, adding: "Innovation can drive or be a lever for school improvement but if the freedom to create new school structures and chains leads to poor quality outcomes for children it will be more difficult to discern as the system fragments." She continues: "If chains of schools become an increasingly large part of the middle tier replacing much of the role of LAs then will who will gather and disseminate the knowledge of effective practice in the system? There is no guarantee that chains will do so beyond their own schools. It needs to be a priority for government as there is a potential that having unleashed innovation they will fail to profit by it if they lack the mechanisms to gather information about it or transfer it. The transfer of knowledge across the system argued as important for school improvement could be lessened not expanded by a more diverse and less managed school system....There is an expectation that schools collaborate across the chain but what will be the drivers and incentives for them to collaborate with schools outside their chain? Will other schools want to collaborate with these potentially closed organisations?" Ofsted inspections need to change, she says, to accommodate the different ways in which federations under a single headteacher actually work. And head teachers, argue the book, could find themselves in tricky situations. "If a head is leading a federation they will have the intelligence, power and authority to monitor, evaluate and put in improvement strategies. However even if they are aware of the vulnerability in neighbouring schools will they publicly acknowledge this and identify issues in schools for which they don't have a direct responsibility? This is a much more interventionist approach for heads than being brokered to find solutions already identified by others. What will be their authority for doing so if the substantive head of a school in difficulties chooses not to access help? The system can't correct unless there is power to do so." When asked, Robinson suggests that there might be some way of using HMI as an early warning system, using inspectors in a collaborative rather than a punitive way. But she is not optimistic that the risks of fragmenting the system have been fully understood. "I think by the time it actually happens, it will be too late." Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@gmail.com. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=535 Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:59:19 GMT 20120308155919 Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:59:19 GMT 20120308155919 Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:00:50 GMT 201203081640050 I don't know what it is with the select committee's grillings of the Great and the Good, but last time I tuned in for a session it was to watch Michael Gove requesting permission to nip out for a quick wee. This time, we were presented with the spectre of a naked and dripping chief inspector of schools. In answer to a question about how Ofsted plans to monitor the value for money schools get from the pupil premium, Sir Michael Wilshaw admitted he had been "sitting in the bath thinking about this," recently. "I think we'll try and erase that image," replied the startled questioner. Sir M didn't miss a beat. "I do all my blue sky thinking in the bath," he replied, stern-faced. Humourless? Actually, I don't think so -- just very, very dry. Even when discussing being wet.Watching Sir Michael in action two months into the job is a fascinating experience. We've all heard and read about the hardline pronouncements on failing heads, satisfactory schools which aren't, and so on. And his previous outing before the committee, a legal requirement before he could formally take the job, was an object lesson in rather spiky body language.The current outing was rather different, and I think could well give some cheer to school leaders. For here is that rare thing, a real, experienced, working school leader in charge of the whole train set.Sir Michael described how his "eyes started to glaze over" when he started to read Ofsted's annual report, adding "I shouldn't say that as chief inspector." Individual school reports were too full of jargon. And one of the most telling moments came when a committee member described an incident where an Ofsted inspector had assured a colleague that the poor lesson they had just observed could not possibly have been poor, as the school was outstanding. The expression which crossed Sir Michael's face was, I'd say, pure fury, and directed at the inspector and the school, rather than the question.When Chris Woodhead talked about incompetent teachers and the like, it always felt like he was playing to the gallery. In Sir Michael's two-hour grilling by the committee, he was asked about the plans to tackle coasting schools (including those in the Prime Minister's constituency) and the reclassification of satisfactory to mean anything but. Again, what shone through was the head teacher's desire to ensure that every child got the best possible education. "I've been a teacher for 43 years," he said, as part of an answer to a tricky question about a remark he apparently made that low staff morale was a sign of a school being turned around. This hadn't been what he had meant, said Sir Michael. He had been reading out a four-page letter he received from an underperforming teacher in the 1980s, accusing him of affecting staff morale in the school he was leading, to a group of fellow professionals. The point of reading the letter was to share his experience. "High morale is very important," he said, adding that he'd learned a lesson about dealing with the press. So, what else did we learn about Sir Michael's thinking and future plans? On the upcoming ruling that schools rated as satisfactory would have a deadline to improve, he was resolute. Head teachers, he argued, had access to a wealth of data and knew exactly how their schools should be performing, and therefore Ofsted findings should come as no surprise. Heads and "governing boards" would have two options, of which one was rolling up their sleeves and making improvements. He did not specify the other. Why was he gunning for satisfactory? "Because it's not good," he explained. And with 3,000 schools in that category, it was ridiculous not to do something about it.The session also including some fascinating discussions about childminders, which Sir Michael appears to see as a weak link in early years education, and also the slow moves towards ensuring that teachers in FE colleges get qualified teacher status. It also sounds as though he is advising the DfE that it would be handy if Ofsted could inspect school chains as well as the individual institutions.And perhaps most interesting of all were his responses to questions about creating an intermediary level between the Secretary of State for Education and academies. Members of the committee returned to this issue again and again, on the back of Sir Michael's remarks about the increasing necessity for some form of monitoring schools in between inspections.Each question drew out slightly more, and to paraphrase several answers, it seems Sir Michael has advised Michael Gove that something is necessary, and that regional HMIs might just be part of an early warning system, although their role would be to refer schools to other schools or chains which could provide help and support. And it sounds as though Mr Gove is listening, and that's a fascinating scenario. All school leaders are unique, and many would heartily disagree with some of what Sir Michael is saying. But he clearly still sees himself as a head (touchingly, talking in the present tense about his governors and senior colleagues) and thinks like a head -- and crucially, has the respect of the Education Secretary. While the next few years may not be an easy ride for his former colleagues, it's going to be fascinating to see what happens when the government really does trust a teacher. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=532 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 10:29:44 GMT 20120301102944 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 10:29:44 GMT 20120301102944 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 10:30:16 GMT 2012030110103016 The devil may well be in the detail, but three cheers for Stephen Twigg's idea of creating an independent Office for Educational Improvement. After 20-odd years as an educational journalist, I'd identify the biggest obstacle to improving English schools as politicians. I'm sure they all share a heartfelt desire to raise standards, but it's hard to believe that the combination of extreme changes of direction every time there's a new government, coupled with a frenetic programme of initiatives once in power, provide the kind of targeted and long-term support that our system needs. I've argued more than once that these "reverse ferrets" (as dramatic and unexplained changes in editorial policy were described on The Sun) are just plain damaging, and suggested that education should be directed by an independent commission. It's hard to escape the feeling that the educational success of Finland and Singapore might have a lot to do with politicians allowing stability and small-scale evolution, rather than constant revolution. So Mr Twigg's promise to create an organisation "independent of ministers, along the lines of the Office for Budgetary Responsibility" is a very welcome one. In his speech, the shadow education minister said his new baby (will it really be called the OEI?) would take responsibility for promoting high standards, spreading best practice, as a clearing house for research, and to improve England's standing in international education league tables. It would also act as the authority on evidence in education policy: wouldn't you love to see it unpicking the available evidence on free schools? I suspect most seasoned heads would agree with his aspiration to "take political dogma out of the education system and put evidence at its heart". Though we'd probably all be sensible to take the promise with a pinch of salt: politicians spend so long struggling for power that there is an understandable reluctance to give any of it away, especially to people who might not share your ideology. Anyway, Mr Twigg says doesn't just want to park the great and the good in an office and create yet another quango: he wants to involve people "with experience of the front line... a head teacher who has example of getting poorer kids into university, for example." His three driving priorities in education will henceforth be "evidence, evidence, evidence". That's as much detail as we've got so far, with Mr Twigg promising that his next step is a consultation, when he will "welcome views on the best remit, composition and working method for the Office for Educational Improvement". As Russell Hobby says, it makes a "refreshing change from the current barrage of criticism. Engaging the profession in change is always the best strategy and much more likely to succeed than top-down edicts." While it's a brilliant idea to act as a conduit for all the really interesting educational research going on in universities, and schools as well, (and perhaps to encourage more studies which would be of really practical use) one problem I can foresee is that lots of the kind of research needed to underpin English education reforms isn't currently available. And good research takes time: time which politicians tend not to have. I have a slightly jaundiced memory of pilot schemes which became national educational policy before their time was up under the last Government. The evidence wasn't conclusive, but the politicians couldn't bear to wait. I also wonder, as Mary Bousted did, about the elephant in the room of the UK's extreme social stratification. As Warwick's blog this week demonstrates, poverty and low achievement are inextricably linked, but it's not the done thing to acknowledge this. Could the OEI commission its own research into areas where politicians would prefer not to stray? Could the OEI pipe up if it disagreed with something an education minister was saying or doing? Would it look at work done by Ofqual, Ofsted or any of the remaining educational quangoes? It will be interesting to find out more about what Labour has in mind, and what comes out of the consultation (which will be affected by what goes in: make sure your voice is heard). But no matter how brilliant and sensible the idea, it won't work unless all political parties agree to sign up to the idea of losing some control over education. Frankly, I'll be amazed... but I live in hope. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=531 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:15:09 GMT 20120223101509 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:15:09 GMT 20120223101509 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:16:21 GMT 2012022310101621 It being half term, I've strayed slightly late into the education row of the week, which arose out of a sweet little column tucked away in the resources section of the TES. You may have read it. It's written by a maths teacher at a sixth-form college in Norfolk, and in ooh, all of 300 words, he tells how an A-Level maths student came to him for a little after-school reassurance when he "only just" got an A in his most recent module and was worried he was making silly mistakes. The student was clearly in something of a state, describing how he had started to cover his walls with yellow Post-Its because he'd set his heart on an A. The teacher, Jonny Griffiths, then utters three fateful statements, asking who, apart from the pupil and the teacher, cares what he gets at A Level; pointing out that he might be happier with 3Cs at Bangor than 3As at Cambridge; and finally that both universities and workplaces will be fighting over the boy. "You are gold dust. Just enjoy being 17," he says. Cut to the final paragraph, where the boy visibly relaxes in a maths lesson. Internet uproar has ensued over this (not that it takes a lot to stir up such a thing). There are at least two blogs attacking the teacher for his attitude, one by free school founder Toby Young (with more than 300 comments) and one in support. There is a story in the Daily Mail, which is such a interesting re-telling of the original that I'd highly recommend it as a resource for English or Media teachers. One of Mr Gove's advisers seems to have waded in, though I've failed to track down more than a reference to this. And, bravely, the teacher himself commented below one blog to give the added details that the incident happened in 2004 or so and that the pupil got his grades and went on to do maths at Warwick. And incidentally, that it made a refreshing change for him not to be warning a pupil to work harder. So, although readers of the original didn't know the full facts, this was a story which appears to have ended happily ever after (though, be warned, the Daily Mail is appealing for the boy to get in touch. Perhaps we'll learn he became a banker?) Tracking this row back, it struck me anew how little most people know or understand about education, which appears to have been reduced to caricature and stereotype in the public mind. The favoured interpretation of the tale was that the teacher was lazy and unwilling to be disturbed at 4pm after school, and was furthermore anti-elitist for not whipping the kid into a further frenzy over his marks or giving him extra tuition there and then. Read the original, and this pretty clearly isn't the case. The boy is getting himself so wound up over his marks that you'd surmise his performance is going to suffer, and Griffiths does what most sensible teachers would do: gently point out that he's doing very well, has a bright future ahead of him and that if he drops a mark or two it isn't the end of the world. When you get students as motivated as this one, the last thing they need is an extra dose of guilt. Moreover, this piece is aimed at fellow professionals -- if it had been meant for wider circulation, clearly it would have been written with more explanation. But this black-and-white narrative about how schools, school leaders and teachers work is what's driving the current education changes, and the unquestioning response many news outlets have to them. Schools seem to exist in some sort of parallel universe for most of the national press. I read a story in the Daily Telegraph this week which described how nobody helped a "schoolboy" who passed out on a train, despite his uniform and "satchel". Satchel? One of those leather things with straps and buckles? Not a monster backpack? Perhaps this was highly accurate reporting, but I doubt it. In the current culture, the bravery of Passmores School in Essex was even more extraordinary, in that they allowed in the TV cameras for a teenagers-and-all look at life as it is lived in many schools. Catching up with an episode of Educating Essex in which the bright head girl was coping with nasty text messages, and a lanky, hairy teenager was engaged in an ongoing spat with one of his best friends, several things shone through. These included the sheer humanity, persistence and hard work of the school leaders and staff, who were determined to make sure that every child did as well as they could despite their teenage ups and downs. The other message was that things are rarely as simple as they seem: the two stories featured were about bullying... to start with. But it wasn't that simple, and both sets of friends/protagonists protagonists were seen chatting happily together at the end. We are in a worrying spiral where education policy is being sold to the public on what can be inaccurate stereotypes and assumptions, but where it is becoming increasingly dangerous for schools to stick their heads above the parapet and explain what really happens in classrooms and the corridors. Otherwise we risk creating a generation of glossy "Stepford schools", which beam an endless stream of upbeat achievement messages on to the internet but fear the consequences of engaging in professional discussions on good practice, or simply educating the outside world about what they do. I don't imagine a consequence of that would be better schools, or better education. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=528 Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:25:21 GMT 20120215142521 Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:25:21 GMT 20120215142521 Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:25:21 GMT 201202151422521 Embattled prime minister John Major gave a couple of gifts to the English language. The first was the tautological phrase "safe havens" which was initially derided but now in common usage. The other was the ringing phrase that we should "condemn a little more and understand a little less" when it came to criminals. I'm now wondering if that mantra is engraved on the desk of the Chief Inspector of Schools. Chris Woodhead was famous for loudly and frequently asserting that there were 15,000 incompetent teachers in English schools. Now, a month into the job, Sir Michael Wilshaw is effectively saying that a quarter of school leaders aren't good enough. You won't find this anywhere on the Ofsted website, where the news and press releases section are filled with rather more anodyne tales. Sir Michael confined his remarks to the Sunday Times, telling a reporter he wanted "less tolerance of poor leadership" from which "everything flows... that just had to be said." But did it really have to be said, in those terms, at this point in the game? Underpinning Sir Michael's words are Ofsted figures showing that one per cent of schools have "inadequate" leadership, with "satisfactory" leadership in a further 23 per cent. The problem here is that Sir Michael is about to decree that satisfactory is anything but. Instead, it is about to become "requires improvement". Well, Sir M is the chief inspector and if he wants to move the goalposts on what is or isn't satisfactory, that's his prerogative. I'm just not sure that this is the way to manage people effectively. If I were a head whose rating was "satisfactory" I suspect I'd be feeling more demotivated than determined in the aftermath of those comments. Leadership theory talks about carrots as well as sticks: at the least suggesting that there was room for improvement and help on offer for leaders in the "satisfactory-but-won't-be-satisfactory-next-week" category might have been helpful. And if a quarter of school leaders are not satisfactory at a time when applications are not keeping pace with vacancies (funny, that) then where are these 5,000 good new head teachers to come from? Does Sir Michael see increasing numbers of school federations and chains plugging the gap, with "outstanding" schools swallowing their "satisfactory" neighbours? Where is the remedial programme and support for heads who may be struggling, particularly as local authorities lose staff? And while I entirely agree that poverty and deprivation shouldn't be an excuse for poor results, to completely disregard these factors isn't fair to schools or pupils either. There are many schools getting terrific results in areas of great deprivation, in contrast to their neighbours. But for one reason or another, some of those neighbouring schools may be getting a higher percentage of the really hard-core pupils, whose personal and family inclination is to disregard school and all its works. Despite the Government's best efforts, I have yet to see a league table which differentiates between the deprived and malleable child from an education-friendly family and the deprived and intransigent one from a family of school refusers. And he's right to stress the importance of good school leadership, and not least to the staff being led. I used to spend more time than was strictly healthy peering into the TES teacher chatrooms, where a regular complaint was about senior management team members' lack of support on disciplinary issues. But leadership is also about tone, and the tone emerging in reports of the Sir Michael interview is punitive rather than supportive. I do wonder why it always seems to be teachers, school leaders and schools which get the public whippings. Remember, we're in a world where officials could overlook hospitals with soaring death rates where patients were reduced to drinking water from flower vases, where bankers could carry on investing money in financial products they didn't understand -- and nobody cast the slightest aspersion until everything had gone disastrously wrong. But then, I'm not sure that any other profession is scrutinised in quite the same way. Our dentist was sighing the other day about yet another new regulation his tiny practice has to meet, that of proving that he is protecting patients' data. Does anyone actually look at his dentistry? "They used to call in patients at random, look at what you'd done and order you to re-do it if they didn't like it," he said, adding: "but they haven't done that for years now. Nobody checks the quality of our dental work: just everything else." Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack at googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=527 Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:48:15 GMT 20120206134815 Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:48:15 GMT 20120206134815 Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:52:12 GMT 201202061315212 If Michael Gove was a tennis player, I suspect Andy Murray would have yet another self-assured opponent to worry about. Watching him perform for two and a half hours whilst answering a selection of friendly, unfriendly and plain bizarre questions from the House of Commons Education Committee was like an object lesson in political confidence. He was even relaxed enough to ask for permission, two hours in, to leave the room for a wee. Perhaps he'd adopted the technique apparently favoured by David Cameron, that having a full bladder is an excellent aid to swift response in these situations, and misjudged the quantities required. I'm sure he's not the first witness to have found himself in this situation, but I'm pretty sure (especially judging by the reaction of the committee) that he's the first to have admitted it. He was cheerfully unrattled by that, and by most of the questions asked by the committee save an increasingly tense exchange between him and Labour member Lisa Nandy, who was delving into the question of private email use in the Department. Here, he was somehow less than convincing, blinking uncomfortably as he was grilled. So, did we learn anything new during this session, apart from the aside that Gove minor is, as a new QPR fan, learning to deal with disappointment? And that dealing with disappointment is part of the reason that Gove major has emphasised competitive team games in school rather than those which might guard against obesity? And that if he were to be a James Bond villain, he'd like to be Hugo Drax, because of the rocket science? (I'm sorry Mr Gove, but whoever asked that question via Twitter was clearly thinking of the baddie who used to stroke the white cat in a menacing fashion). A quick glance through my notes confirms my overwhelming impression that no, Mr Gove barely deviated from what you'd expect, although there were some really interesting answers. It might be the first time a nursery worker for two-year-olds has been compared with a Regius Professor of Hebrew, but it was a point well worth making that both are equally important and part of the intellectual life of the nation, as are all teachers between those two extremes. A question on class sizes elicited a response suggesting that he thought 16 might be the average, but perhaps (as often) he's thinking of upper secondary rather than KS2. I suppose politicians always have to believe they are right, otherwise they'd be guilty of cynicism. The overwhelming message I took from the Gove tour de force is that he does genuinely believe that everything the Coalition is doing on education, whether it is the Free School programme, the shifting of school improvement from the LAs to the academies and their organising chains, or the hiking up yet again of floor targets is going to improve children's educational achievement and so their life chances. He had several goes at his interrogators for asking questions that he thought betrayed a mindset that disadvantaged children were less capable of leaving school with five good GCSEs, on one occasion suggesting that it was a "Trot campaign" to fight the move to turn Haringey's Downhills School into an academy. MPs are good at synthetic outrage, as ten minutes watching Prime Minister's Questions would attest, but the committee looked genuinely startled by this retort. While it's clear that Mr G clearly believes in what he's doing, following his logic is sometimes trickier, and the MPs' session did give one or two helpful insights here. I was scratching my head in puzzlement at his argument about schools being expected to perform above the average, apparently routinely (against the laws of maths, surely?) when chairman Graham Stuart (who suggested that Mr Gove's strengths might be literary rather than mathematical) read out a very handy question sent via Twitter: "Is there any evidence that it is possible to overcome normal distribution in educational attainment?" Mr Gove paused, then pounced: "I think there's a tendency for people to believe the normal distribution curve described educational attainment in the past and those have always fallen either side of it in the past are destined to always stay there. I don't know if you can shift normal distribution but I do know two things: the Flynn effect showing children becoming cleverer over time, and that in other countries you do not have the same relationship between deprivation and educational destiny as we do in this country." Could it be the drivers that are doing this, retorted Mr Stuart, adding that the "five good GCSEs" rule had seen England drop in the international league tables. He continued: "Your response to reinforce that floor and show increased machismo and commitment to raise the floor higher, at the same time making it harder to get there, thus pressuring the schools to game the system rather than focusing on the poorest and the weakest who are likely never to count." Pat Glass, a Durham Labour MP, put her finger on another apparent contradiction when asking how Mr Gove could reconcile his desire for Downhills to become an academy with his frequent assertion that his Government believed that head teachers should lead. On the one hand, he said, criticism was made of the government for being laissez-faire and only caring about grammar schools in rich areas: on the other hand they were accused of being heavy-handed. "We can't simultaneously be couldn't-care-less figures and wild interventionists," he opined, adding: "If people are doing a brilliant job, applaud them and get out of the way. If they aren't working: get stuck in." So there you have it: education policy, as the Government sees it, in a nutshell. Susan Young is an education journalist. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=525 Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:41:16 GMT 20120131224116 Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:41:16 GMT 20120131224116 Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:41:16 GMT 2012013122104116 The new performance tables contain 400 per cent more information, according to schools minister Nick Gibb. At times it feels more like 4,000 per cent, with a diminishing chance of making anything sensible out of it all. The political message surrounding these new tables was that parents could now see how much progress children made at secondary school, based on their SATS results or whether or not they are disadvantaged. Presumably this is meant to help parents choosing a secondary, but the admissions timetable means they'd have to rely on an informed guess about whether their child was going to get a level 3, 4 or 5 months ahead of the test, and choosing a school on that basis. They'd also have to assume that the SATs were always marked perfectly, and that secondary schools actually took any notice of those results, as opposed to the CATs test which in many secondaries has become the Year 7 equivalent of the Harry Potter Sorting Hat. Moreover, parents or carers wanting to do well by a "disadvantaged" child would have to have a good old hunt around the data, and not just the top-line stuff. As well as its shiny DFE webpage, each school also has a freakishly detailed Excel spreadsheet, which stops just short of costing the head teacher's socks. Delving into that for one school, for instance, revealed that disadvantaged pupils were actually likelier to emerge with a full quota of Ebacc passes than all other groups bar the high-attaining ones. However, I suspect it's unlikely that many parents will wade through all the top line data on their local school and then fall on the additional spreadsheet with cries of joy. It's hard enough to make comparisons between what two schools are doing as it is. Where I think the new tables may genuinely be useful is in allowing schools themselves to look at detailed data from their neighbours. It may start as a curtain-twitching exercise (the average staff salaries at the school up the road are always interesting to read) but then some of the other figures start to catch the eye. If their stats for disadvantaged pupils look healthier than yours, or if their "low achieving" students are actually performing really strongly at GCSE, then you may want to pick up the phone and find out a little more about their approach. Education journalists like me have been writing about the "long tail of underachievement" attached to the English educational system for decades, but despite much theorising about the problem, nothing much has happened to counter it. I do wonder if this version of the tables might actually have a beneficial effect on the problem -- but note that much-praised school systems abroad generally don't publish data in this way. I haven't been a fan of performance tables, because of the distorting effect they've had on the education system and the high-stakes accountability which is now making life hell for many school leaders. They've been configured around a simplistic set of figures: not only were they high-stakes, but positively encouraged gaming the system, as the select committee looking at 16-19 exams has been hearing. The new tables are far from perfect, but also far more useful than their predecessors, nudging schools away from concentrating on pupils on the C/D boundary towards a broader approach. Perhaps, just perhaps, we're moving towards a system where official policy will encourage broad and deep education for all pupils, rather than the kind of political short-termism which got us to where we are now. If the Government truly wants to encourage this, subsequent tables will need to compare subsequent years' results for each group of students, to reward schools which are making a real effort. It will be interesting to see how they play this next year. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=524 Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:44:44 GMT 20120130104444 Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:44:44 GMT 20120130104444 Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:44:44 GMT 2012013010104444 The black hole is a staple of science fiction films, as the plucky spaceship crew do their best to avoid getting sucked into it and dashed to oblivion. I had much the same feeling watching this week's instalment of the education select committee's enquiry into England's public exam system. The committee, bless them, are spending quite a bit of time testing the hypothesis that a single exam system might be the best answer to grade inflation, teaching to the test, over-helpful seminars by examiners and all the other allegations which have brought this issue to the boil. But this week's rather wonderful gang of witnesses had other ideas, and although they were willing to agree that all of these problems did exist, insisted on citing all sorts of other interesting causes for them, dragging the committee into areas it wasn't sure it wanted to go. To sum up several threads of argument across two sessions, the various witnesses were pointing out that the English exam system has changed for all sorts of reasons, usually good ones. Take the desire to broaden opportunities. So physics, for instance, has been made more accessible in order to get more girls taking it, and has been very successful in that. UK universities are unusual in that students are ranked for entry, and therefore A Level results are important for that -- and as the system changed to mass entry, so the exams had to cover a wider range. And as one witness pointed out, this wider range of student ability would also partly explain why first-year university courses had often had to change. And, as various witnesses pointed out, exam results have improved over time for a multitude of generally good reasons: teachers and schools are more focused on getting those C-plus passes, the cohort has become more middle-class, exams have been modularised to make them accessible to a broad range of students the nature of the questions themselves have changed, and there's a "ratchet effect" where people get better at doing an exam which remains stable. Professor Jo-Anne Baird of the Oxford Centre University for Educational Assessment explained: "Learners and teachers these days are very strategic. We've made it transparent. We talk as though it's a bad thing to demonstrate to people what you have to do to get the grades in a particular subject. That's what we call teaching to the test. But throughout the system there was always access to that transparency for some people who had access to examiners now it's ..transparent for everyone. It has its problems... but it also has its advantages." The killer question -- or perhaps I mean the killer answers -- came when MP Damian Hinds outlined an enormously long list of suspects and asked what each panel member would name as the top three factors in grade inflation. Dr Michelle Meadows of AQA cited the reforms to A Level which meant students would start off with four AS courses and drop their weakest subject at A2. This alone made a big difference, compounded by "teaching to the test" -- which the panel, unlike the MPs, clearly thought was not inherently bad. The question was then asked of Tim Oates of Cambridge Assessment, and the chair of the expert panel on the Government's current curriculum review. Clearly reluctant to give a simplistic answer, he was pressed, firmly by Mr Hinds. "With all those caveats... change is the top," he said. "Change has driven the system in all sorts of directions which has meant that standards have been technically difficult to control. Teaching to the test, narrow instrumentalism right the way through the system and a culture of ever increasing results and expectation and performance pervades the system." This theme of change was one to which the witnesses returned with vigour, implicitly making the point that whatever action Mr Gove decides to take over exam standards, that it actually risks accelerating grade inflation. As one panellist said, wearily, making such changes were something that needed to be done in real time rather than political time in order to avoid the inevitable unintended consequences. But it wasn't until the second witness session of the morning that the focus really changed to the contribution of schools. Stephen Ball said the work of schools was "unequivocally" responsible for the increase in exam results and it was a stunning achievement. But, he said, this was at the expense of targeting some students at the expense of others. And it took the second session and the contribution of my colleague Warwick Mansell to drag the MPs once again towards that black hole, reminding the committee of the enormous pressures facing schools to meet assessment targets or face the consequences. "If you wanted a good system, you wouldn't start by assessing schools on a set of statistics," he said. "You set schools performance indicators... do I think that helps or hinders schools trying to give pupils a good education? I think it hinders it. I just think it's very English this system... but generally we tell teachers what matters this particular number or set of numbers. "People acknowledge the side effects, and say the answer is to look again at the measures, to change the measures, because we can't change this idea that we need to have statistical monitoring of some kind or to put such emphasis on it." He said: "There's huge issues about saying that all that matters about what you learn is that grade at the end of it." At this point the panel moved on to other matters, safely away from the black hole. But it's going to be fascinating to see what they make of all this -- and what the Government decides to do on exams, with or without any advice contained in the committee's upcoming report. Susan Young is an education journalist. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=520 Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:28:26 GMT 20120119122826 Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:28:26 GMT 20120119122826 Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:30:00 GMT 2012011912123000 Talk about double whammies. From September, Ofsted inspectors can turn up without so much as a five minute warning, just as the ICT curriculum vaporises, to be replaced with -- what? It's enough to turn any headteacher into a gibbering wreck. Having read all the stuff on the DfE website about the disapplication of the curriculum, noted the twitterstorm of happy ICT-wallahs, and attempted to watch an (inaudible) live webcast of the Gove speech from someone in the second row, apparently armed with a smartphone, I didn't feel much the wiser. From various hints dropped in the speech and various media outlets, plus the information available on the official website, you're left with the picture that there is about to be a 12 week consultation on the disapplication of the ICT curriculum from September, which would last until September 2014 when the compulsory status of ICT in the school curriculum will have been considered by the National Curriculum review team. The documentation mentions the potential for universities and business to set up GCSEs for schools and programmes of study. "Companies such as Microsoft and Google and Cambridge University are already working with technology education organisations, such as the British Computer Society, to produce free materials for schools. More are expected to follow," says the press release, which opens with the following lines: "Education Secretary Michael Gove today announced he was scrapping the existing ICT curriculum. In its place, he will introduce new courses of study in Computer Science. The move, which is being supported by industry experts including Ian Livingstone – co-founder of Games Workshop, would give schools the freedom to create their own ICT and Computer Science curricula that equip pupils with the skills employers want." I scratched my head and contacted the press office to ensure I'd understood correctly that for two years ICT will remain compulsory but without a compulsory curriculum: that teachers could teach what they liked, with the possibility of getting some degree of help from the industry. Frankly, this seemed pretty extraordinary, even from a Secretary of State who says heads and teachers should make their own professional decisions. But a little further digging has revealed that's probably not quite the situation. You'll have noticed that the speech was given at BETT but the consultation isn't formally announced until next week. It's looking likely, shall we say, that any interim arrangements between a disapplication (if it goes ahead) and the Review's conclusions would contain rather more in the way of formal requirements and curriculum help. A bigger question, though, might be where heads are going to find teachers who can fulfil the demands we're presuming any new ICT "curriculum" will make of them. There's been much talk of pupils learning to program, and much of the current impetus for change has come from the UK games industry: but what proportion of the current teaching force has used that skill themselves? There's also the note of caution that while everyone is likely to need to be a computer user, far fewer people will need or want to do programming. Lessons will still need to cover the basics of word-processing, internet use and emailing, in the same way that structuring an essay should be (but often isn't) a basic taught secondary skill. However, the difference is that these things are now everyday tools rather than something exotic. I recall a conversation with a teacher some years ago, in which it was emphasised that my child was on course for a distinction in the ICT qualification if she managed to successfully forward an email. Something tells me that part of Mr Gove's zeal on this comes from personal experience on discovering exactly what children are expected to do in earning these qualifications. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=519 Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:46:39 GMT 20120111154639 Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:46:39 GMT 20120111154639 Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:47:40 GMT 201201111534740 While it's not the start of a new year for schools, the early days of January often set the tone in a very different way. Such was probably the thinking of the education secretary, Michael Gove, when the decision was made for him to give a keynote speech on the academies programme in the first couple of days of term. It probably wasn't part of the plan that the tub-thumping speech was being delivered on the same morning that sentences were being handed down in the case of an 18-year-old murder case which in many ways has transformed British society. I remember being sent by the TES to Eltham in the aftermath of the murder of Stephen Lawrence to see how the local secondary schools were dealing with it and attempting to raise the aspirations of their pupils. There'll be a cutting somewhere in my attic which would remind me of the details, of the hope and the ambition which the schools (both since renamed, I suspect) were trying to instil. But what stands out for me are two memories: the resigned, almost unsurprised, attitude of the pupils to what had happened, and the strangeness of standing, in the dark, close to the spot of the attack. The road was wide, busy, and solidly suburban: not a place you might imagine would hold such dangers for a hard-working young man on his way home one night. In short, it wasn't a stereotypical haunt of racist young thugs -- which meant, chillingly, that anywhere could be. The black youth, Stephen, was hard-working and academically aspirational, in notable contrast to his white attackers -- that, too, challenged the stereotypes still held in some minds. While things have changed a great deal since then, people in the UK are still being physically attacked purely for their race or origin. And in a new interview, Stephen's mother Doreen points out that there is still much to be done in society and particularly in education. Those convicted of murder this week would have gone through school in the 1980s, a very different time to now, but this issue almost felt like a missing element of Michael Gove's speech on academies. "Not enough has been done in the education system; they did not roll out proposals of the inquiry, saying that it was up to individual schools and teachers. But it shouldn't be, some things need to be imposed, nobody is holding them to account," said Mrs Lawrence, adding: "After 18 years we are still struggling and we shouldn't have to." The Stephen Lawrence Trust itself has a mission to support young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, having so far created 100 bursaries and now fundraising to create more opportunities with an educational and a job-ready programme. Clearly it would have been wrong for Mr Gove to have made any reference to the case in a political speech, and might have been seen as opportunistic. And clearly heads don't need reminding about the fundamentals of equality. But perhaps in a self-congratulatory speech about how schools can work to create the best outcomes for all their pupils, that might have included some reference to how education can overcome not only social disadvantage and poverty, but low aspirations and perceived disenfranchisement, and challenge attitudes which can prove so harmful for society (big or otherwise) and individuals themselves. Citizenship is one of those subjects which is likely to find itself shifted from a central position in the curriculum as part of the current review. It might be timely if political support were given to the idea that discussions about equality should remain part of every school's educational remit. And it might also be timely for papers now cheering on how British justice has come good after all these years to remember this week next time they chase up a story on how a school's tackling of racism is "political correctness gone mad". Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=517 Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:10:36 GMT 20120104171036 Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:10:36 GMT 20120104171036 Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:13:06 GMT 201201041751306 I am looking forward to finding out whether there was more heat than light generated by the newspaper story suggesting that primary schools are going to have to get a lot tougher on poor attendance. The nuggets of hard fact in the tale appear to be the new Ofsted framework, now just days away from a school near you, plus quotes from the Government's behaviour tsar Charlie Taylor, who's suggesting that nurseries should be chasing up early patterns of non-attendance. But it's such a grey area, this one, that many schools will venture into it at their peril. Yes, there are clearly some families who aren't terribly sold on the notion of school, and whose dedication to good attendance may be somewhat on the casual side. You might well want to chase up there. But there are also families for whom the worsening economic situation may mean that a few days or a week out of school is the only way they can have any sort of break or holiday, which may be much-needed. There are families -- I've met them -- who keep their children off school at the slightest sniffle, because that's how seriously they take any sort of illness. But there are also families whose kids are going through one of those awful periods where they pick up one bug after another. Not only do they need a little time to recover, but it's also helpful if they're not feeding into the constant swirl of snot and infection which is your average primary class. So how are schools to differentiate between the sniffling child whose family tradition says they should be tucked up in bed, and the streaming child who's suffering their third heavy cold in a term and feels too rough to learn anything? I am not convinced, either, that the heavy rhetoric currently directed at parents as to the evils and lifelong loss to a child's education of a single day out of school is a useful tactic. Parents aren't daft: they are perfectly aware that the degree of learning which goes on in, say, the last week of the summer term isn't comparable with what's happening in the classroom six weeks earlier. Simply repeating the mantra that losing a day's education (no matter which day, at what stage in a child's school career) risks losing the trust of the people who are being addressed. But I do have an idea, which I'd like to offer as a little New Year present. There are five Inset days in the year. Why not put the dates of a couple of them up for a parental vote: would they prefer these days to be arranged at one end of a holiday, as usual, or placed sometime mid-term, either tacked on to a weekend (to give the opportunity for a cheap, short break), or midweek to allow families the opportunity of a cheaper and less crowded day out or shopping trip? If parents actually had some influence over days when they could legitimately take children out of school, then some of the less legitimate days might well stop. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=516 Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:22:29 GMT 20111230102229 Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:22:29 GMT 20111230102229 Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:22:29 GMT 2011123010102229 f you've got a bit of time before the New Year, there's some interesting reading to be done on the new National Curriculum. As so often with these things, the spun version of the expert group's progress reports doesn't bear much resemblance to the roughly 300 pages, spread over three weighty documents plus appendices, of material which explains their research and thinking so far. I approached it in the knowledge that a) the whole project is so huge that it's been put back by a year, b) the Government is keen to get times tables and other bits of maths into the primary curriculum, and c) there's a lot of comparison with high-achieving educational systems going on. And that, I think, was about all I knew. But read at least the main document, The Framework for the National Curriculum, and things are suddenly a lot more interesting and a lot more reassuring. There is a proper debate about the aims of education and what it means to us culturally going on around this curriculum review. And while it's correct (and fundamental) that the expert panel are looking at countries which do better than us in PISA and TIMSS, it's not just with the idea that we'll nick bits of curriculum wholesale, the impression which the daily papers seem keen to foster. "We recommend that a statement expressing the contributions of education to national development should be published and debated in a public consultation on the proposals that emerge from this review, with a view to setting explicit, high-level expectation to frame the greater autonomy that is now available to schools under the Government's wider reforms," says the report. The list of aims "which indicate our thinking" also makes interesting reading. "The school curriculum should develop pupils' knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes to satisfy economic, cultural, social, personal and environmental goals," it says, going on to describe five specific outcomes. In brief, these are: *to satisfy future economic needs for the individuals and the workforce as a whole, including the development of secure knowledge and skills in communication, literacy and maths, and confidence in acquiring new knowledge and skills;*to appreciate national cultures, traditions and values of England and the other UK nations, whilst recognising diversity and encouraging responsible citizenship;*provide opportunities to participate in "a broad range" of educational experiences and gaining knowledge and appreciation in the arts, sciences and humanities, and gaining "high quality" academic and vocational qualifications at the end of compulsory schooling;*supporting personal development and empowerment*promote understanding of sustainability But that's not the half of it. On a quick read -- and I plan to come back to this document for a slower perusal -- there are really interesting things being suggested and discussed. There are suggestions that Key Stage 2 might be chopped in half, to improve the experience for children in year 5 and 6. The National Curriculum might lose some subjects to the basic curriculum -- in other words, they would still have to be taught but as each school chose. This would give schools the chance to develop specialities they felt important, such as thinking skills. Design and technology, ICT and citizenship would move to the basic curriculum. Core subjects would remain as now English, maths and science, with geography, history and PE foundation subjects at KS 1-4, art/design and music foundation subjects at KS 1-3, and modern foreign languages in the foundation for KS 2-4. The expert group is worried that existing arrangements narrow the curriculum too early, and notes that this happens in England earlier than high-attaining competitors. " This has the consequence at Key Stage 4 of depriving many young people of access to powerful forms of knowledge and experience at a formative time in their lives, and foreclosing on some pathways and choices. As with many of the changes that we feel are suggested by the international evidence, this would place pressure on the skill base of the existing teaching force, and we recognise that significant problems of teacher shortages in specific subject areas exist," says the report. It continues: "Specifically we recommend that, in addition to existing arrangements, curricular provision in the following subjects should be made statutory at Key Stage 4: geography, history, modern foreign languages (all foundation subjects within the National Curriculum), design and technology and 'the arts' (both parts of the Basic Curriculum). We go on to explain our recommendation about 'the arts' in more detail later in this chapter). "We are aware that, contrary to the intentions of the review to slim down the National Curriculum these recommendations may appear demanding. However, while it is proposed that core subjects in the National Curriculum will have detailed Programmes of Study and Attainment Targets, other subjects and topics including those outlined above could be stated in the form of short, refined and condensed listings or descriptions of requirements concerning essential knowledge, understanding or skill. This would protect the breadth and associated quality of learning experience which we have observed as a tendency in high-performing jurisdictions without creating an overloaded curriculum." This doesn't mean, says the panel, that this whole range of subjects would be tested at GCSE or in any other way. In addition, it says work would need to be done on whether this was motivating or demotivating for pupils, and might affect attendance. However, the report is very definite that the arts and music are a good thing for students in many ways and that England is unusual in allowing them to be dropped at 14. And then, comes a glorious paragraph. " In addition, we are concerned that an instrumental attitude, which values test and examination results and certificates as ends in themselves, has become increasingly evident in the English system. This diminishes the priority that should be given to ensuring that the underlying learning being accredited is deep and secure. In order to mitigate this narrow instrumentalism in learning, urgent attention will need to be given to relevant control factors, particularly assessment systems and accountability measures affecting all schools. If assessment and accountability systems are to be valid, they need to represent all valued learning outcomes not just a narrow subset of them. In this context, the role of Ofsted and school governors in ensuring that a school's curriculum is broad, balanced and fit for purpose will be crucial." What else? In brief, the panel want to see a place for oracy in the curriculum, and are exploring alternatives to assessment by the current system of levels, preferring a "ready to progress" indicator. "Performance tables could be constructed on the basis of the proportions of pupils in any cohort having reached the 'ready to progress' level at the end of the key stage (i.e. every two years, if our earlier recommendations are accepted). Of course there are a range of subsidiary issues that would need to be considered. However, the proposition holds the potential to make a simpler system that is also more valid. It would also preserve the importance of teachers' ongoing assessment in relation to specific learning objectives, whilst providing concrete information for parents/carers and receiving teachers, " says the report, adding that this idea should be fully explored through consultation. You can see why they need extra time: this one is going to take a lot of discussion and consultation to get right. And there really will need to be consensus on this one, given that its implementation would be perilously close to the next general election. And that can be fatal: remember the Rose Review curriculum that failed to become law even though all the documents were already in schools. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=514 Wed, 21 Dec 2011 09:57:28 GMT 20111221095728 Wed, 21 Dec 2011 09:57:28 GMT 20111221095728 Wed, 21 Dec 2011 09:57:28 GMT 201112210995728 You wouldn't expect a House of Commons committee session asking questions about exam standards to be a barrel of laughs, and you'd be right. But there was one utterly joyous moment in this week's session, when the discreetly glamorous head of Ofqual, Glenys Stacey, was answering questions about her view on the relative ease of different boards' exams. She had recently visited an independent selective girls' school and asked one teacher why they had decided to move boards. "She was very impressed by the levels of service provided around the qualification," said Ms Stacey. The chairman, Graham Stuart, leaned forward. "I don't know how many teachers are going to say to the head of Ofqual that we thought this would be easier," he said, adding words to the effect of: "Call me cynical, but they're not going to say we've got the worst results in this area and the head is going to sack me." This moment of cheer was all the more welcome for its status as, frankly, a nugget in a workmanlike session. The MPs enquiry into exams for teenagers had taken a minor diversion this week to poke around the Daily Telegraph's sensational stories about examiners' seminars. It was a curious morning. The first half-hour was given over to the three examiners whose words had been splashed over the Telegraph. To paraphrase the three, two of whom who spent a great deal of time pointing out the details of papers (a pity the cameras were trained on their anguished faces, rather than the presumably bemused expressions of the MPs) they had been misunderstood and taken out of context, providing no information about upcoming exams which was not available on their board's website. There were striking moments. Paul Barnes, answering a question about exam passes versus education, recalled his own O-Levels in the 1970s, where he passed history with a single exam containing five essays. The current cohort, he said, had to do three one-hour papers and two controlled assessments for which "an impressive amount of material" had to be known. "Multiply that by 10 or 11 subjects as well," chimed in fellow examiner Paul Evans. The head honchos of the big exam boards, wheeled out next, gave such a good impression of themselves and the system's integrity that one member later commented that he was minded to give them a knighthood. And finally came Ms Stacey, admitting that her current bedtime reading was my colleague Warwick Mansell's Education by Numbers, which lifted the lid on the exceptionally-helpful nature of some exam seminars years ago. So far, she said, the rough transcripts provided by the Telegraph had not contained anything of concern but 54 hours of tape were now being transcribed by Ofqual. The MPs repeatedly asked questions about the system and people's confidence in it, each of which she answered with exquisite precision (Ms Stacey is a solicitor by trade) and outlining work already undertaken since the regulating body came into being. There were, she said, good signs but sufficient concern about grade inflation, construction of questions, where boundaries lie, "for us to sit up and take notice" she said, adding: "Let's get a grip on this. There is a a little bit of correction to be done." "We are identifying facets of the system which will undermine confidence," she said, identifying grade inflation. An area of concern to teachers, she said, was marking, and Ofqual was working on these two areas. Readers may be interested to know that she is also mindful that whistleblowers contacting Ofqual don't currently enjoy the same protection as those reporting concerns to other public bodies and this is one new power she is seeking. Was a fundamental reform of the system necessary? "The question as to whether fundamental reform should be applied up to the Government. My view is that I am the regulator and I will regulate." There may only be specific points of concern at present, but I'd lay money that Ofqual's regulation is going to be both firm and effective as the rules are tightened in 2012. Susan Young is an education journalist http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=513 Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:34:55 GMT 20111216163455 Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:34:55 GMT 20111216163455 Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:35:51 GMT 201112161643551 So the big story of the day is the strong steer apparently given by some exam boards to teachers going along to their paid seminars, and Michael Gove is demanding a full report on this practice within a fortnight. But it's not a new story. My colleague Warwick Mansell wrote all about this for the TES in 2007, and the BBC had another go at it a couple of years later. Why the furore this time? And why such a furore when the House of Commons education committee's current full enquiry into exam practice is looking at some of the questions arising from today's reports? I suppose the difference is that this time round it fits the current political agenda. The last Government's narrative was that it was doing everything possible to raise standards and achievements in school, and an improving rate of exam passes supported the idea that they were succeeding in this. League tables and the way Ofsted inspections work meant that no matter how many doubts schools had, it was not in their interests to raise awkward questions. Now, the Government narrative on education is very much a traditional Tory one, with the promise of a return to basics and rigour, and this story is therefore a perfect fit for whatever Mr Gove would actually like to do around exams and curriculum (remember, the new draft curricula are still not out and getting later and later). The new enquiry into exams also has the advantage of being comparatively simple and provable: older hands will remember the Standards Over Time enquiry in the 1990s where it proved nigh-on impossible to prove one way or the other whether papers had actually become easier. The thing is though, that if examiners are dropping stronger than allowable hints about upcoming papers and how pupils should answer them, that would clearly be wrong ... but would also be the result of an awful lot of other major changes in education during the past 20-odd years. What we have is the situation where politicians are demanding more and more of schools, and league table position becomes vital. If teachers could either teach the whole syllabus or concentrate on the bits they knew were likelier to come up, with a side order of intensive exam technique, what would their preferred option be? They want their pupils to do well, their department to do well and the school to do well: therefore there's a lot of pressure to go for the option where results might be a bit better. You can see this drive in the homework given out by many secondary schools, where the actual task is accompanied by a level descriptor sheet. Pupils have to juggle the two lists of demands to get the best marks. Fiddling the system or a broad education? You decide. But remember, Ofsted likes to see that pupils know their level and what they have to do to improve. Then of course the education market goes far beyond schools. Each of our exam boards is competing for trade with its rivals, as Education Committee MPs heard last week (see my last blog for details). It's not in the interests of any exam board to be less competitive, which in this context would probably means setting harder papers. The customers -- schools -- want the maximum number of passes and top grades, which in turn pleases parents, potential parents, and the LA, academy chain and the government. Schools not getting the grades they want can simply vote with their feet. So one option open to the Government might well be to have a single exam board, as the MPs were considering last week. But to hand a multi-million pound industry over to a single provider would be a huge step, particularly for a party which traditionally likes to break up state monopolies in favour of competition. And exam boards are only part of this particular story. It will be really interesting to see what happens next. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=511 Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:52:23 GMT 20111208155223 Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:52:23 GMT 20111208155223 Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:52:54 GMT 201112081535254 It's a bit of a sad indictment of our national interest in education that the best and widest-ranging discussions on education -- what it's for, how it's organised -- are often tucked away in a Commons committee room. This week the MPs' education committee was taking evidence from heads and college principles on 16-19 exams, in a lively discussion which ranged through the EBac and university technical colleges, through modular courses, through the plethora of exam boards and the continuing failure to provide excellent vocational pathways. And they managed all this in just over an hour. You're unlikely to read anything about this anywhere else, thanks to the committee's impeccable timing. It opened proceedings for the day shortly before George Osborne stood up a few hundred yards away (and with what he said, further stiffening the resolve of heads and teachers to strike by announcing a public sector pay cap on top of the current freeze). It's a shame that the discussion was so overshadowed by events: the eventual report should be required reading for DfE mandarins and -- dare I say it -- ministers. The committee had some interesting questions to ask. The opening gambit was to ask the panel whether the current exam system for 16 to 19 year olds "served them well". Rob Pritchard, head of St Mary's Catholic High School in Ilkley, pointed out that at present GCSEs are seen as a passport to A Levels, an indicator of a child's knowledge and to inform employers. In addition, they were seen as a method of judging schools. "We have a plethora of examinations... confusing to many young people, employers and universities," he said. Martin Collier, head of St John's School in Leatherhead, was in favour of examinations at 16 and 18 but was equally concerned by the number and variety now available, including the International Baccalaureate and the Pre-U. "There's no overview... people are looking for what they perceive to be the better qualification," he said. But there needed to be a clear pathway up to 18: the current situation was complex. There was some debate round the English Baccalaureate, with the panel concerned that it might limit the options of some pupils who might be better off with other qualifications, but some consensus that it was working well with the pupils currently opting to take it. The main dissenter here was college principal Teresa Kelly, Principal of Abingdon and Witney College, who wanted a real vocational equivalent. Vocational qualifications were a recurring theme, with the ghost of Tomlinson invoked "with a wry smile" and mention of the "stillborn" Diploma. UTCs? The drawback there is that they involve taking students who are doing well out of their existing school. Ms Kelly explained how her college was currently working on a potential partnership which might get round this problem. One committee member wanted to know how much schools and colleges involved their local employers in a practical way, to be told that the demands of the syllabus set limits on the possibilities. Modularisation of the GCSE syllabus? Mostly not a good thing, opined the heads and principals, but something which had its place in some subjects. And as Mr Collier pointed out tartly, once the system changed back to a "linear" form with final exams, the exam boards would need to revise their courses, currently geared to a modular model. Ah, exam boards. It's fair to say that the current system came in for a bit of a hammering, whether for the branded tie-in course books, the modular exams ("If I was being cynical I'd say it was to increase profit") or the sheer number of boards out there. One of the heads pointed out, rather sweetly, that the current system legislated against exams being made harder as the boards had customers to keep. And it emerged, clearly to the committee's surprise, that schools and colleges might choose to change boards for a particular subject if they felt marking and the response to any subsequent complaint were poor. So given the panel's reservations about the current system, who should drive change? The answer was interesting: a partnership of "interested parties" to come up with a "coherent plan, a long-term vision" of how to develop qualifications for different groups. This partnership should include universities and employers. Politicians, notably, weren't included in the answer. Which is why this eminently sensible suggestion is unlikely to ever come to pass. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=509 Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:05:47 GMT 20111201140547 Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:05:47 GMT 20111201140547 Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:05:47 GMT 201112011420547 Prime Minister's Questions should be an entertaining watch next Wednesday, since Mr Cameron agreed with Tory MP Louise Mensch that where possible parents with childcare problems caused by the strike should take their offspring to work. Danny Alexander of the Treasury is apparently planning to do so. While this clearly won't work if the day job is in A and E, it's hard to see any reason whatsoever why MPs couldn't sort out their little local difficulties in this way. And it might even raise the tone of the debate, particularly when, as this week it was largely about youth unemployment and the strikes. Having a few kids and teenagers dotted around the venerable chamber as the two sides slug it out about whose fault it is that there are now more than a million under-25s out of work, and whether the newly-announced job creation plan is enough, might perhaps concentrate minds a bit. What would MPs actually say to teenagers for whom the post-school prospects are either uncertain employment or some of the most expensive universities in the world? What might the (mostly) expensively-educated Government front bench ask their young guests about their education, and their hopes for the future? But all these questions are probably academic, as MPs and their families probably don't cover the broad spectrum of British society that you might get in other workplaces. The age profile is probably high enough that there are comparatively few MPs with younger children, and the higher-than-average salaries might help with emergency childcare options. Moreover, I'd lay a (modest) amount of money that private schooling is a more common choice among this group of parents than it might be in, say, A and E. Furthermore, even state schooled MPs kids are not going to be an entirely representative bunch, are they? There has been the odd lurid tabloid tale in the past about some MP's teenager going off the rails with drink or drugs for a bit, but in the main they are privileged middle-class kids, most of whose parents would have ensured well before the EBac arrived that they took the academic GCSEs, including maths and English, with education to 18 and beyond almost a given. And in some ways that's a real shame, because it might be genuinely useful for MPs and frontbenchers to encounter real young people from all walks of life themselves. Lord Puttnam told a conference at the weekend of his concern that politicians he'd met recently in the DfE "aren't looking at the reality of our current context but instead are looking at education as they wish it was, and as it used to be, " and that there was a risk that pupils would simply give up in the face of a traditional curriculum being forced on schools. While I don't think he's entirely right about the answers, it does seem to me that this generation is going to face a rather different life -- both inside and outside work -- than their predecessors and that any reform of the curriculum and discussion about what should happen in schools and colleges should be taking this into account and discussing with some urgency. What skills will these kids need in five or ten years time to look for work, to navigate what looks like an ongoing housing crisis, and to live enjoyable and useful lives in what may still be difficult times? How can we help them make sense of the worlds where any information is a mouseclick away and as a result general knowledge can be alarmingly sparse? How can they learn the resilience to keep on trying for jobs, or to keep on improving their skills? It would be good if strike day actually led MPs and other opinion formers to actually chat to some of the kids they meet and consider their concerns. Unfortunately the likelier option will be that they simply bleat about the lack of a day's childcare. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=507 Fri, 25 Nov 2011 12:04:19 GMT 20111125120419 Fri, 25 Nov 2011 12:04:19 GMT 20111125120419 Fri, 25 Nov 2011 12:04:19 GMT 2011112512120419 After the same gestation period as a baby elephant, the new Education Act has finally been born. It's been almost 11 months since the Bill's first reading in the House of Commons, and the thing has gone through 46 separate events and sittings in both houses during that time. Remarkably little has changed, but there's been a lot of debating and arguing around particular areas, with some significant movement on some of these. But reading through the main points once more, it feels as though most of it has been law throughout this Government, given the number of times in which we've been assured that the contents are going to transform our schools. So from now on you can search pupils without consent for "dangerous or banned" items and issue instant detentions. Teachers accused of assaulting pupils can't be named before they are charged (unless they work in an FE college), and the Secretary of State can now close underperforming schools. Disadvantaged two-year olds have an entitlement to free early years provision, and the GTCE can finally be closed (may it rest in peace). There's also the presumption that any school which needs to be opened will be free/academy, and outstanding schools are now exempt from regular Ofsted inspections. All the hours and hours of time which have gone into the making of this Act have produced some small but significant tweaks, mostly in the final knockings. For instance, the final sitting this week included a full-on charge from Labour against the outstanding schools' Ofsted exemption, particularly in the light of the Prime Minister's rant against coasting schools. Schools minister Nick Gibb gave a very interesting qualification of this new rule, saying: "I can confirm that there will be annual risk assessment for outstanding schools, which will normally commence three years after the last inspection. Where there is a change of head teacher before that point, however, the chief inspector has agreed to bring forward the risk assessment, including an HMI review. "Ultimately, however, we have to leave it to the professional judgment of the inspector to determine whether an inspection should be triggered. Factors to be taken into account might include: a school's performance data that had previously been judged to be less than outstanding in achievement or teaching not showing signs of improvement since its last inspection; progress measures showing that pupils or students were not making good progress in comparison with similar groups nationally; or below-average attendances showing little sign of improvement. Many factors can act as a trigger for an inspection." Other changes made along the way are a promise made in the House of Lords that the Secretary of State would keep a list of registered teachers as well as those who had been banned from the sector. Equally significant for many schools is that the removal of the "duty to co-operate" which was in the Bill until some six weeks ago, was itself removed after the passionate intervention of Lord Laming and a couple of other peers. Though it turns out that this potentially "prescriptive" duty has been allowed to remain for purely pragmatic reasons: that it may be required while new SEN arrangements are being made. Or, to quote Mr Gibb: "We were never against co-operation. It is very important that schools, academies and free schools continue to co-operate with other state bodies, locally and nationally, that affect children. That was our reason for removing the prescriptive duty. A number of changes are happening in relation to the Health and Social Care Bill and the SEN Green Paper and, having considered the matter further and reflected upon it, it is better to maintain the duty until deliberations over those measures are complete and until decisions about the SEN Green Paper have been taken." I suppose that might be a hint that the duty to co-operate may eventually be legislated out of existence, but, refreshingly, that's the only suggestion so far of any further education legislation beyond what may be required over SEN. Perhaps that's because no-one concerned can face the prospect of another 11 months mulling over legislative details If that really is it for this Government, that would be almost as much of a record as the time this Act has taken -- but on the other hand, when you've turned upside down many of the structures of state education during your first 18 months in power, it's probably unnecessary to do much else other than sit back and watch the consequences. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=505 Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:53:37 GMT 20111116135337 Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:53:37 GMT 20111116135337 Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:53:37 GMT 201111161315337 What with all the current concentration on school status, bribing first-class physics graduates to become teachers, and elevating the classic GCSEs to league table sainthood, there isn't much talk of school development these days. Perhaps that's because schools aren't allowed to develop any more, only improve. So I was quite intrigued by the new book just published by Raphael Wilkins, an associate director at London University's Institute of Education and a chap with a wide background in education. It's a large book, and I can only claim to have skim-read it so far, but the title gives you the basic premise: Research Engagement for School Development. What Wilkins is saying isn't surprising in the least, but interesting: that schools where staff are encouraged by school leaders to do some of their own research are less likely to meekly accept what they are told and more likely to trust their own judgement. Schools which operate in this spirit of enquiry also tend to have better morale, find the best learning approaches for their pupils, and discover good effects on the community. Moreover, teachers who are encouraged to do their own research are better able to think for themselves and trust their own judgment, although Wilkins stresses that it's better to have a whole-school approach. Being "research-engaged" means reading and investigating published research as well as doing your own, he says. However, Wilkins finds that telling schools to take a particular approach because research suggests it works is counterproductive. Teachers do not feel personally engaged by this, he argues. “The idea of research engagement at school level rests upon a different set of assumptions. Its emphasis is not upon the top-down systemic application of 'proven practice', but rather upon the self-motivated professionalism of teachers, drawing from a range of internal and external sources of evidence to make judgements about what will 'work' best in their specific context.” On the face of it, this fits perfectly with what the Government says about trusting heads and teachers, and yet somehow seems curiously subversive. After all, this would suggest that the 1950s model of schooling which appears to be inspiring current educational policy could even -- eek -- be challenged by informed schools where staff had collectively researched what works and decided to go their own way. Any research-informed schools out there? I'd love to hear about your experiences. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=503 Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:46:28 GMT 20111111104628 Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:46:28 GMT 20111111104628 Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:46:28 GMT 2011111110104628 So Sir Michael Wilshaw has jumped the final hurdle to becoming Chief Inspector for Schools, with the publication of the Education Select Committee report recommending him for the job. But frankly, it was a foregone conclusion, having watched the MPs and Sir Michael in action earlier this week. From the rather desultory line of questioning, and the large number of empty chairs, I'd guess the committee had rather felt that way as well. But sometimes interviews can be interesting without actually taking you anywhere, and this one rather fell into that category. Above all, I was fascinated by the body language of the new Chief Inspector. Not for him the steepled fingers of the politician. Sir Michael's arms spent the entire session folded robustly across his body. Defensive? He didn't seem particularly defensive: more, I'd think, that he couldn't quite see why he was being questioned by the MPs. And many of the questions were pretty good, circling round his ability to run such a huge organisation across a wide range of places to be inspected from the background of an (excellent) head teacher. His answers were pretty straightforward as well, and delivered with some humour. No, he couldn't claim to know lots about children's social care, but there were experts at Ofsted with whom he'd be working closely. No, he hadn't managed a budget this big but his school's budget was large and he'd be working with the experts at it. And so on. He got animated when explaining that he'd never have likened himself to Clint Eastwood had he known there was a reporter in the room, but stuck by the underlying idea of the analogy. And he effectively revealed that he'd been headhunted by Michael Gove for the job, which is no great surprise but nice to have officially confirmed. This looks better, too, when you read the Committee report and discover that there were two attempts to fill this post over several months, with only one applicant from each round (of whom one was Sir Michael) found to be appointable. For many people this will have been an opportunity for a first look at the man whose utterances for at least the next 18 months are really going to matter to people working in schools and children's services. Refreshingly, there was no management-speak or educational jargon, no impenetrable sentences designed to sound good and mean nothing. Unless he gets nobbled, I think his first outing has confirmed what we were expecting: a plain-speaking HMCI with high expectation of schools, particularly those doing just well enough. He has first-hand knowledge of the kids who need the help of social services, and clearly genuinely cares that they get the best possible help. It's a big job, but he's a big man, physically as well as in presence. He's a headteacher, who's devoted his working life to the areas where Ofsted is acting as a critical friend: what better preparation or qualification could there be for the job? And while it might have seemed a bit of special pleading for Michael Gove to get his favourite headteacher in this enormously symbolic post, he's looking to me like a good choice. Just don't expect him to be a comfortable one. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=501 Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:43:10 GMT 20111103184310 Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:43:10 GMT 20111103184310 Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:43:10 GMT 201111031864310 In a few years time, I think we'll be remembering this week as the date when the job of being a head took a significant lurch in a different direction. Broadly speaking, anyone who's come into the job during the last decade or so is used to dealing with a budget which tends to get bigger or at the worst case stand still. As the IFS report now makes clear, we've arrived in the era of shrinking education spending where the only state schools unlikely to get an enforced "haircut," as the bankers like to put it, are those with large numbers of kids eligible for the pupil premium. Total public spending on education in the UK will fall by over 13 per cent in real terms between now and the year 2014-15, the largest four-year cut since the 1950s. Capital spending is being slashed, higher education is losing out, and 16-19 provision and early years funding also face dramatic cuts. Schools, say the researchers, are relatively protected, although the majority will see real-terms cuts. Moreover, this comes at a time when the rhetoric of the Coalition puts increasing weight on the role of the headteacher in doing the right thing and schools going it alone. For those new to the concept of making major and consistent educational economies, there's a rough ride ahead. One problem for heads is that as a nation what we expect schools to do has changed an awful lot since the 1950s when we last saw a contraction like this. In those days, kids were sent off to school for a basic academic or technical education. Bad behaviour earned lines, detentions or corporal punishment, with expulsion as a last resort. Neither parents nor government expected schools to work with pupils to solve the underlying problems preventing them from learning, and academic expectations were generally lower, with a school-leaving age of 14, few pupils taking O Levels, and CSEs not introduced until later. Effectively, many pupils left school without any qualifications and went straight into work. A Levels were for a minority, and a tiny percentage expected to go on to university. Society's changed a lot too, with less certainty around family structures. Moreover, we now take the trouble to find out about how children feel whereas 50-odd years ago they were just expected to get on with it, no matter how miserable family or school life might have been. Dyslexic or autistic in 1955? Tough. Special educational needs? What are they? Aspirational parents then might have tried to get their children into the grammar school for a nice white-collar job, but helicopter parenting, tutoring, and all the rest of it were unheard of.All these genies aren't going to go back in their bottles. The Government isn't going to stop demanding rising standards, and parents aren't going to go back meekly to accepting anything that school says. But the money available is going to shrink as heads and their governing bodies face up to some increasingly unpalatable decisions. Unfortunately, the past will hold few useful lessons: we've all changed too much in the last half-century. Heads are going to be making it up as they go along. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=499 Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:15:38 GMT 20111027171538 Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:15:38 GMT 20111027171538 Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:15:38 GMT 201110271751538 Spoilt for choice, this week, on what to write about. Should it be Nick Gibb's riveting YouTube video on why schools need to tackle the scourge of persistent truancy? (I know, I should get out more -- but so should quite a few other people. I was the fourth viewer -- when I went back for another look an hour later, the count was up to 53.) Or should it be the new checklist from headteacher Charlie Taylor, the Government's advisor on behaviour? That's an interesting one, too -- as far from the page upon dreary page of pious instruction you got from the last government as you could hope to imagine. It is a very basic list: as Taylor himself says in the introduction, "The checklist may seem too simple, but managing a school or a class is a complex operation and because of this complexity it is easy to fail to get the simple, but essential, things right." He's not even demanding that you follow his list: rather he's suggesting that each school uses his as a basis for its own short and bespoke version. So, heads should model the behaviour they expect from teachers, be visible in the lunch hall and the playground, at the start and end of the school day, and make sure the rest of the SMT are there as well. Heads should know the names of all staff, praise good performance, and take action to deal with poor teaching. They also need to monitor how teachers are doing with behaviour and make sure the praise and the sanctions are doled out as they should be. On first glance you might think that Mr T's list is a statement of the blindingly obvious -- but on second glance, you realise that the blindingly obvious things are also those we sometimes overlook, or become complacent about. (Interestingly, he got the idea from a surgeon whose checklist of team must-dos -- like handwashing -- improved surgery success rates and has led to the development of similar lists across many professions. You may be alarmed to hear that these include air traffic control). "The teachers run through the checklist first thing in the morning and again after lunch to ensure the correct preparations are in place. It serves as a reminder of what needs to be done and ensures consistency across the school," it says. Interestingly, Mr T's checklist also recommends that heads check up on behaviour outside the school. If ever there was a suggestion likely to improve the reputation of a school locally, that would be it, and yet it's a rare school where you see staff beyond the gates with their walkie-talkies, annoying the kids sneaking a not-so-crafty fag in the places every local knows about. In order to make the checklist approach work, a little preliminary thinking is necessary. It would be an interesting exercise if the Government applied these principles to the persistent truants who are effectively missing a month's worth of lessons each year. Quite right to ask schools to tackle absences before they get to this kind of level, but the question for a checklist would be: why aren't these pupils in school? Sickness figures are down a little, which makes me think many parents, worried for their jobs, are sending children in where they might not previously have done -- but what's the motivation for this long tail of underattendance? Are they kids who can't follow the curriculum because they can't read or write well enough? Do they want to be learning something else entirely? Or is poor behaviour making school intolerable? After all, if Mr Taylor's checklists are such a good idea -- and I think they probably are -- then not only should schools be using them in a wider context, but so should the Department for Education. In fact, I plan to write one myself. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=497 Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:44:50 GMT 20111019144450 Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:44:50 GMT 20111019144450 Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:44:50 GMT 201110191424450 U-turns are done quietly by governments, with the shouting and pointing usually coming from the opposition. Unless everyone's looking the other way, of course. And everyone seems to have been looking the other way last week when three members of the Lords quietly undid a clause in the Education Bill, which seems to be taking forever to wend its way through Parliament. The amendment -- tabled by Government minister Lord Hill, Every Child Matters instigator Lord Laming and Baroness Walmsley, the Lib Dems' spokeswoman on children and families -- simply instructs that clauses 30 and 31 be left out. To misquote Rolf Harris, can you guess what they were yet? These were the clauses which removed the duty of schools to work co-operatively with other frontline services for children. The government's original précis of these clauses said the Bill "allows schools and colleges to decide for themselves locally how to work co-operatively with other organisations such as local authorities... the provisions in the Bill do not prevent schools and colleges from working co-operatively with other front line services for children. "They will be free to develop the type of partnerships which make most sense locally and help them to raise standards for all children." So, schools "deciding for themselves" appears to no longer be a good thing, and given the heavyweight nature of the Coalition peers who overturned these clauses, this appears to be a done deal. Clearly, this wasn't the sort of inconvenient nod to bureaucracy that Mr Gove was going to include in his conference speech last week, but it does beg the question: what on earth could have happened? Some informed opinion suggests that the clauses threatened to create problems for one of the coalition's other big ideas, the reform of SEN provision and its organisation and funding, and that alarmed local politicians (who often have a different view of the world than their MP colleagues) had been lobbying hard for the duty to co-operate to be reprieved. Clearly these clauses are hugely symbolic for a government whose mantra is setting schools free from bureaucracy, and to ditch them is probably rather embarrassing. But what does the change actually mean for schools? Common sense suggests it would make very little difference to most. The vast majority of schools include children with special educational and other needs, which means there are benefits from co-operating with other children's services. And our schools are run and staffed by people who are there because they care about children and their welfare. Presumably even the new Free Schools are covered by the duty to co-operate until the Bill becomes law. Yet this view appears not to be shared by the group representing directors of children's services. Their president, Matt Dunkley, has said the amendment is "immensely helpful," adding that "the removal of the duty to co-operate had, perhaps inadvertently, given some schools the message that they no longer had a role in supporting vulnerable children. This attitude threatened much of the partnership working that had been established in local areas over the last few years." While directors of children's services are clearly going to be keen to play up a rare victory under a government which has effectively shrunk their influence, this is a very specific statement of concern -- the first sentence more so that the second.Could we have we created such an education market that some schools feel able to ditch the most vulnerable pupils in their race to the top of the league tables? If so, what's the effect on the children, and on the vast majority of schools left to pick up the pieces? Or, alternatively, were schools gratefully absconding from partnership working because in some areas they were simply being expected to do too much, at the expense of their "core business" of education?When it drafted the bill, the DfE clearly believed that the vast majority of schools and colleges would co-operate with the spirit of the law, even if the letter had been repealed. It has clearly caved in for a good reason: let's hope it was to ensure that the planned SEN changes work well and efficiently, which seems the likeliest and most pragmatic of explanations. Because if that's not the case, I'm not sure whether to be reassured that the Government has kept this particular regulation in place to protect children and the notion of schools working together, or alarmed that it was felt to be necessary to do so. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=496 Wed, 12 Oct 2011 11:01:40 GMT 20111012110140 Wed, 12 Oct 2011 11:01:40 GMT 20111012110140 Wed, 12 Oct 2011 11:01:40 GMT 2011101211110140 Interesting speech from Michael Gove at the Conservative party conference this week, in that he was full of praise for the way things are going -- and resisted the temptation to announce a basketful of new policies. For veterans of these things, that was frankly astonishing. What we had was a quick, self-congratulatory whizz through differences his government has made to education, including (apparently) an 80 per cent rise in the number of students taking physics (not specified at what level), more kids doing history and geography, 40 per cent more academies, and the "best-ever" generation of teachers. Ballots of industrial action over pensions? Not in this speech.The delegates who clapped Mr Gove's achievement in moving teacher training from the "ivory towers" of universities (has he never seen a typical university teacher training building?) therefore remained unaware of three potentially enormous changes coming down the road.Next week sees the closing date of three consultations: one on a common funding formula for schools, one on future capital spending, and one which deals with changes to teacher induction and discipline.I suppose it would have complicated a crowd-pleasing good news story to have talked about these, but for headteachers these will be a major issue compared to physics or teacher-training.In a nutshell, one consultation is about how teacher discipline will work in a post GTCE world, when heads and governors have discretion about which teachers to refer to the Secretary of State and the only sanction is barring from the profession. One is a wide-ranging list of questions on how funding should be allocated to schools and local authorities in future, including the thorny subject of whether the cash that goes to LAs for schools should specify the intended amount for each. And the final one asks interesting questions about how maintenance and capital spending should be funded.For heads managing academies, the likely changes to funding may not make all that much difference. But for the 60 per cent who are not, there could be some interesting implications, particularly in a scenario where an official funding formula says their school should be receiving a certain amount of money but this is not coming through from the LA. You might currently suspect you're underfunded: what do you do if that becomes more overt?Discipline could be even more interesting, for a generation of heads and teachers used to posting cases off to the GTCE to sort out.The Government's revised advice on performance management had the implication, if I remember correctly, that problems would go onto a teacher's record and would be visible if they went for another job. Things have changed a lot since the days of List 99 of banned teachers, which much clearer expectations of teacher performance -- but heads are still going to be left with an awful lot of ethical headaches and managerial struggles. Do you refer to the Secretary of State a good teacher who's done something stupid on a night out, in the knowledge that they may be barred from their job? Might you be economical with the truth if one of your weaker members of staff was applying for a job elsewhere (yippee!) and it was time to write a reference.The GTCE was far from perfect, but usefully removed many of these very tricky decisions from heads. It'll be fascinating to see whether this, or the changes to funding, rate inclusion as success stories into Mr Gove's conference speech next year. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=494 Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:16:48 GMT 20111005181648 Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:16:48 GMT 20111005181648 Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:16:48 GMT 201110051861648 The amount of heat being generated by an exam board's suggestion that a the quality of an university applicant's school should be taken into account along with exam results is quite staggering. "Headmasters" in the Daily Telegraph are horrified by the idea, but since we're talking independent school heads here, what else would they be? Michael Gove has weighed in as well with a good kicking for the idea in the Daily Mail (where else, you might ask?). His argument is that we shouldn't make excuses for poor schools and that if Mossbourne and Burlington Danes can do better than schools "in leafy areas" then everyone can do it.It's not a black and white issue, but everyone concerned appears to be treating it that way To be fair, Barnaby Lenon in the Telegraph does point out that a child at a fee-paying school might be weighted down by all sorts of social problems unknown to the exam board, whilst the kid in the bogstandard comp might have been helped by all sorts of tutoring, but that kind of supports his central tenet that this is A Bad Thing.But what both he and Michael Gove seem to be ignoring is the elephant in the room: that a kid in sixth form at Eton is going to be in rather smaller tutor groups, probably with rather better resources, than his eighth cousin twice removed at a state-funded college in Birmingham. As far as I'm aware, even Mossbourne's results don't equal those of Cameron and Clegg's alma mater, and to insist that there'll be a level playing field if every state school ups its game to equal the best independent is surely just plain wrong. Even I can see that, without the benefit of an expensive education.AQA's suggestions may be far from perfect, and there may be all sorts of good reasons why their ideas are unworkable, but to shut down any discussion of them in this way is surely intellectually wrong and simply smacks of fear. There is a debate to be had here, and planting dismissive stories in newspapers whose readers are likeliest to aspire to private schooling is an efficient way of kicking it into touch. But it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=492 Fri, 30 Sep 2011 09:35:12 GMT 20110930093512 Fri, 30 Sep 2011 09:35:12 GMT 20110930093512 Fri, 30 Sep 2011 09:35:12 GMT 201109300993512 So, was your first reaction on hearing about Nick Clegg's planned summer camps for deprived children:a) brilliant, just what we need?b) daft idea?orc) Haven't I heard that somewhere before? Being terribly elderly, I have to confess to the third reaction. I had this dim memory of hanging round a South London playground sometime in the summer holidays of 1997 as a beaming David Blunkett (the education secretary) told the assembled journalists that this was an example of the new government (elected just weeks before ) hitting the ground running. Or something similar.The kids looked pretty cheerful, their parents were reasonably keen, and everything was relatively positive. Can't find my story online, but others written about the scheme reveal that they were intended as literacy camps to get kids who'd fallen short of Level 4 in their SATs up to speed before they started at secondary.The first year of the scheme saw 50 of the courses being run, partly funded by donations from News International, WH Smith and Alton Towers.As far as I can then remember or work out from the online cuttings, the numbers of literacy camps then grew hugely over the next few summers, taking in numeracy as well. And then, somewhere along the line, the idea expired quietly. I have a vague recollection (but can't prove this with any cuttings) that the gains made by the kids during their two weeks turned out not to be so brilliant in most cases, as the idea only really worked with excellent focused planning and brilliant staff. Anyone out there remember?So I have to admit being slightly underwhelmed by the new summer plan and its chances of success, unless it's really carefully thought out and targeted. While it's an encouragingly non-kneejerk reaction to the riots, it's a big ask to turn round 11-year-olds' attitudes to school and dissuade them from rampaging through JD Sports in a balaclava at midnight in just a fortnight .The very little I know about this scheme suggests that schools getting the pupil premium will lose some of that cash if they don't lay on their own summer school -- but would that be purely for their own, entitled, pupils, or other people's?It's also a little unclear to me precisely how schools are going to entice kids who already aren't keen on school into doing an extra fortnight in the classroom if there's no compulsion to do so. The 1997 schemes included, I think, days out at Alton Towers but the Daily Mail would have a field day if the 2012 intake -- already branded as potential rioters -- were bribed in a similar way.On the upside, there's at least plenty of time to plan, unlike in 1997. And if schools can find ways of running residential and other trips which can open the eyes of inner-city teenagers to life's possibilities if they work hard at school, then it might be a worthy revival of an old scheme. If the Government wanted to be really helpful, it could track down some of the research which came out of the previous programme so schools would have a better idea of what works -- and what doesn't. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=490 Wed, 21 Sep 2011 14:46:32 GMT 20110921144632 Wed, 21 Sep 2011 14:46:32 GMT 20110921144632 Wed, 21 Sep 2011 14:46:32 GMT 201109211424632 Hunting around to find a copy of Michael Gove's famous speech which apparently suggests that outstanding schools shouldn't be allowed that status unless their teaching is outstanding, I happened upon what's been called his Gove Compare website.Which, frankly, was much more fun, especially once I'd managed to locate and read said speech which said nothing at all about outstanding schools. It was accompanied by the usual rider that it should be checked against delivery, and I suppose I could have watched the video version of it to do just that... but it doesn't really matter whether he said it or not, since the Ofsted line is clearly being spun.So, I returned to Gove Compare, which appears to be a tarted-up version of the (unusable) spreadsheets the DfE put out earlier as part of the transparency agenda. This very pretty site is apparently aimed at parents, researchers, and people who might want to ask questions about their local schools.Having spent a few happy minutes checking out my local schools, I had a few questions to ask all right. Like -- how often do they update their database? And does anyone check it before it goes live?Here's my example, based on a very tiny sample of five schools in my immediate locality. Well, there should have been five, but the school in which my seven-year-old son is currently being taught apparently doesn't exist at all. There's a question: was I hallucinating when I waved him into his school with around 400 other kids this morning? Where did I leave him, then? Should I turn myself into social services right away?Even this little omission gets more complicated, as my boy's school is the juniors end of what is a newly-merged primary. The infant school is there, resplendent in its glory. But technically, the infants doesn't really exist any more: it's been succeeded by an all-through primary. So even the school that is there, is wrong.In fact, it's doubly wrong, because the lady named as its head retired at Easter. That's six months ago. And the name of the new head (of the school that apparently doesn't exist) was also in the public domain six months ago.But it gets better and better (or worse and worse). Of the other three schools whose details I perused with interest and some local knowledge, the names of TWO of the heads were wrong. To be fair, one of them only officially retired in July, but he'd resigned some time earlier. The other head moved on to a different post at least two years ago, if not three.Perhaps my five schools were a statistical freak, but it doesn't inspire confidence about the rest of the data, does it? There's a nice little rider on the site explaining that the data comes from Edubase and may occasionally not be up to date. What is Edubase? Keep searching, and you find the following explanation: "EduBase is a register of all educational establishments in England and Wales, maintained by the Department for Education. It allows both the general public and government officials to access up to date information."To ensure accuracy, the information you will find on this site is provided by a range of suppliers, from the establishments themselves to Local Education Authorities and specialist agencies."Now I'm really worried. Wonder where I left my son?Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=489 Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:39:09 GMT 20110915153909 Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:39:09 GMT 20110915153909 Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:39:09 GMT 201109151533909 This time of year is all about the big picture: getting everyone back into school, setting the ethos, ensuring everything settles nicely for the year ahead.But the bit that new heads can often struggle with is the details round the edge of the big picture where a little time can make an enormous difference.I was struck by a message on Twitter from Birmingham head Sue Robinson, whose list of accolades demonstrates that she knows a thing or two about the job. Dr Robinson's Tweet talked about the usefulness of her annual chat with her lunchtime supervisors, and how, as usual, they'd given her fresh perspectives on her school.Intrigued, I got in touch to ask more. Much to Dr Robinson's surprise. The pastoral conversations, as she called them, were a routine thing for her: didn't they happen in most schools? I was not at all sure that Sue's agenda-free scheduled 20-minute chats with every member of staff were the norm in most UK schools, so I pressed her for more information. It would, she said, be a more difficult task for a head in larger schools (Cherry Orchard is a two-form entry primary plus children's centre in Birmingham) but other members of the SMT could also initiate the meetings in different set-ups.It's exactly as simple as it sounds. Every summer term, each and every member of staff gets a 20-minute meeting with Sue to talk about anything they want to. These are emphatically not performance management interviews, which are entirely separate.Some staff arrive, chat about how much they're enjoying the job, shake hands, and leave. Others talk about training ambitions, previously-unknown qualifications and skills, or ideas for making school systems run more smoothly. As a result, several members of staff have moved into new roles, and problems have been solved. Lunchtimes run very smoothly, and that has knock-on effects throughout the school.As Sue puts it: “ It's not necessarily going to improve my Level 4 English but it improves the operation of the school, and improves morale, which makes everything better in the long term and encourages people to stay. It's a bit like the butterfly wings and chaos theory. It's all about the ethos of the school.” Susan Young is an education journalist http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=487 Thu, 08 Sep 2011 11:55:45 GMT 20110908115545 Thu, 08 Sep 2011 11:55:45 GMT 20110908115545 Thu, 08 Sep 2011 11:55:45 GMT 2011090811115545 Nice to see that the DfE has finally decided to share its list of September-start Free Schools with the rest of the world in a free and open way. I spent an interesting few days in July trying to collate exactly this information myself, and found extraordinary contrasts between the Government's stated aim of transparency and the ease of finding out exactly how all this public money is being spent. The official list of Free Schools, as it appeared on the DfE's website, turned out not to be exhaustive. Nor did it tie up with the YouTube promotional videos about a select band of new Free Schools which were in the same section of the site. Some schools were on the list, others were just in the selection of videos. A further check using Google turned up yet more schools due to open in September but not mentioned anywhere on the DfE website. Moreover, it was astonishingly difficult to draw together all the relevant information about each school from its own website in a way which you would expect from a government committed to transparency. Two did not even give the name of their headteacher: a lot of delving round on the TES's job ads site revealed the identity of one, but the other remains a mystery to me. I could pick up the phone and ask, but that's hardly the point, is it? The new Free Schools are an interesting bag. Several are straightforward conversions into the state sector, which will no doubt please parents of paying pupils very much indeed. Around four of the schools appear to be fully parent-led, with another couple started that way before being handed over (very gratefully, I should think) to one of the chains to establish. One school talks about banded admissions. What else stands out? Overall, apart from in the faith-based or specialist schools, the main selling points appear to be class size, uniform, longer hours, discipline and promises of higher attainment. It would be fascinating to know how these new schools can afford to run such small classes, in marked contrast to their existing state-run colleagues. On raising standards: The Ark schools go into some detail on how they would, do this, but in some cases this bit of the promise is less fully explained. A notable exception to this is in the only school-sponsored school, Woodpecker Hall, which clearly and in much detail explains how it its founding school works to improve children's attainment in a hugely deprived area, and how it intends to widen its offer to many more families. To be fair, since Cuckoo Hall is already doing this work, it is easier for it to explain precisely what it intends to do than for schools starting from scratch. Faith and specialist schools aside (there's a Montessori opening in Crawley) the overall impression I'm left with is of schools appealing to aspirational parents, rarely in areas of the most pronounced social deprivation, promising something closer to the private school experience in terms of uniform, hours, perceived discipline, and achievements. Oh, and offering lots of wraparound childcare to accommodate working parents. It'll be fascinating to see how they fare, and how they deliver on those promises. It will also be fascinating to see how openly such information is offered. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=486 Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:47:48 GMT 20110830164748 Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:47:48 GMT 20110830164748 Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:49:04 GMT 201108301644904 There's a different undercurrent around this year's GCSE results. No matter how well or badly every individual child has done, the sense of optimism and progression we've been used to during recent years has evaporated. What does the future hold for the class of '11? Or come to that, anyone currently in secondary education or college? Between them, the economy and the coalition government have created a perfect storm for the young. Tuition fees and tightly constrained student numbers will cut off thoughts of the university route for many. The loss of the EMA will probably keep others out of college. Job prospects are pretty grim. And just to top it all off, a bomb has been put under the careers service, such as it was, at a time when kids are sorely going to need some decent advice. It strikes me that no matter what the Government says about the importance of education, and no matter how many Free Schools are created, and no matter what new curriculum emerges, we're entering a time when kids and parents re-assess what's important about education. In fact, pretty much uncharted waters. After more than a decade of mass higher education, when the rhetoric was about upskilling the country to compete with developing economies and increasing numbers of jobs have demanded degrees, large numbers of kids will inevitably look at starting in life with a vast debt and decide it's not for them. The positive economics of a degree worked best when it was a rarity: the financial benefits now are much less clear cut and it would be astonishing if entry levels to many jobs did not drop back once again to A Levels or their equivalent, as they were in the 1980s. But it is unlikely to happen overnight. The knock-on effect of this and the deteriorating jobs market will be felt earlier in school years. If there are few jobs around and university is no longer seen as a viable option, some teenagers may conclude that it's not really worth putting themselves out to work hard at school for uncertain future benefits. Deferred gratification is tough for teenagers who can't see any future at all, and it will be a miracle if the number of NEETs doesn't rise sharply during the life of this government. Most of this is going to fall on the shoulders of schools, many of whom are already working against the odds to enthuse their pupils. Not only will they have to redouble efforts to make kids see the point of working hard, but the qualifications they provide will have to make sense in a very difficult jobs market. While I can see the arguments for the Ebacc, it may well seem increasingly irrelevant to many pupils and their schools, and proper Government enthusiasm needs to be forthcoming for more vocational options. And handing over all face-to-face careers advice to schools at this point is a hell of an ask. The jobs market is in complete turmoil – how on earth can individual schools and their staff interpret what's happening and give the best possible advice to all their pupils? Those doing the advising will have come through a route now consigned to history – school, followed by affordable higher education, a subsidised post-graduate qualification and then employment. Realistically, only a small proportion of teachers have worked their way through unemployment, career changes and portfolio working, and may not be best-placed to help pupils cope with these prospects. The national careers website is likely to give messages which are idealistic rather than pragmatic, or risk Government wrath, so no practical help is likely there. It would be nice to think someone in authority is thinking through all these changes and how assumptions around education are likely to change for the current generation, and might even be thinking about what the best advice would be for schools, pupils and parents. But somehow I think the official line is going to be business as usual, with the unspoken subtext: you're on your own. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=484 Thu, 25 Aug 2011 11:21:54 GMT 20110825112154 Thu, 25 Aug 2011 11:21:54 GMT 20110825112154 Thu, 25 Aug 2011 11:21:54 GMT 2011082511112154 The post-match analysis of the riots, as we might flippantly describe it, is almost as depressing as the events themselves. If you're on the right, then permissiveness is to blame. On the left, and it's deprivation and threatened youth cuts. Nuance? Forget it. Yet as we're beginning to learn more about the people ending up in court – who perhaps by definition are less likely to be the movers and shakers, but more the opportunists and followers – the more bizarre the whole thing becomes. Twenty per cent are juveniles, with the vast bulk of the others in their 20s. Many of them have jobs or were of previously good character. By no means do even half of them fit the stereotypes you might have of them. The vast majority, it seems, went rioting and looting simply because they could – normal reality had been suspended. But does that mean it could have been any of us rushing into Curry's for a new plasma TV, or is there something subtly different in the way younger people relate to the rest of society? Schools and discipline are clearly going to be on the Government's frontline of restoring order in our cities in the next term and for the next few years, but it strikes me that this is only one tiny piece of the bigger picture in the way we as a society bring up children. The last few years and decades have seen many separate changes which have come together in the past few years to create a very new way of child-rearing. For tens of generations, children may have had more freedom than they do now, but they weren't left to their own devices in the same way. Traditional societies effectively apprenticed children to learn from adults from an early age, and we've socialised children in roughly the same way ever since. In the last century, boys and girls left school at, say, 14, and worked their way up from the bottom in workplaces where they were in the minority and adults taught them how to work and behave. More well-to-do children were also surrounded by adults and expected to behave and develop in particular ways. Adults were everywhere, in large numbers, in the lives of children and teenagers: at church, at Scouts or Guides, at work, or just as part of the community and unafraid to comment on behaviour. And while class sizes have varied over the years (from the enormous to the merely large, in the state sector), schools used to be so much smaller that every member of staff knew your name and was unafraid to bellow it down a corridor for the slightest transgression. But now we have teenagers, who expect to live lives separate to their own families and spend most of their waking hours with friends or out and about. We have schools so enormous that it's easy to be anonymous. We have a consumer culture that tells a very impressionable group of children and young people that they must have the latest things. We have a culture that encourages the separate grouping of children almost from birth, with nurseries and wraparound childcare replacing rearing methods which had much lower adult-child ratios. And then we started demonising adults, gradually seeing them as potential abusers unless proved otherwise. It's become less and less acceptable for children and teenagers to be in small groups with adults, so learning models of adulthood from perhaps Scout leaders or other interested grown ups are disappearing. We seem to have decided it's safer that way. We even encourage teenagers to learn from each other – peer education – thus further subtly undermining the idea that adults know stuff which is of value. It's a small part of a huge picture, but I'm not convinced humans can psychologically adapt to such new child-socialising methods over a mere half-century or so, after millennia where the lives of children and adults were intertwined in a kind of apprenticeship-for-life. We've allowed teenagers to withdraw across a battle-line of trust, where they think the adult world has nothing to teach them, and where a spectre of potential abuse – or accusations of abuse – can hover. Somehow, we've got to make sure we all spend a lot more time together rather than in situations where adults are a distant and tiny minority, and that may mean rethinking both how we do things in school and how we socialise children in other ways. And that doesn't just mean handing out detentions at the drop of a hat. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=483 Mon, 15 Aug 2011 11:50:52 GMT 20110815115052 Mon, 15 Aug 2011 11:50:52 GMT 20110815115052 Mon, 15 Aug 2011 11:50:52 GMT 2011081511115052 As the clean-up of London begins after its third awful night of mob rule, you can see that what's happened here -- and in other cities -- isn't going to be put back in its box quickly. It's only three weeks till the start of term: what on earth are schools going to be dealing with on their return? Particularly if the violence continues. Younger children are likely to be traumatised in many areas. They'll have been woken by the sounds of the riot, or by parents preparing to get out of their homes for fear of what may happen next. They will know other families who have been affected. A walk to the local shop will perhaps involve going past looted shops, burned-out cars or devastated buildings. For children who are among the poorest in society, their sense of safety may be almost destroyed by stories of gangs breaking into occupied houses. The television news pictures are hard enough to see: what if it was your friend or your gran who was affected? Among this group of kids, schools may find themselves with kids manifesting various stress disorders. Schools are used to their role as a haven, but managing to be a haven in the middle of a divided community is something entirely new in mainland UK. What primaries face is going to be a walk in the park compared with what secondary schools may be facing. First reports suggest that many of the rioters and looters were in their early teens: one arrested boy is 11. There's a fair chance, then, that secondary schools in the affected boroughs will have among their pupils both kids who took part in the riot, and those whose families were badly affected by it. The rioting kids may not be keen to advertise their involvement to adults, but may be boasting about it to the other kids as part of the hardman act. So what on earth do you do if you begin to suspect that a couple of your pupils were involved in the burning and looting, but have so far not been picked up for it? Do you tip the police off? Talk to the parents? Talk to social services? If you do any of this, what are the consequences? What do you do about the tensions and the fear between the kids who were the victims, and those who helped put that fear into them, and are perhaps still doing so? What do you say in school assemblies and tutor group time about the riots, when you know perfectly well that among your audience are kids who are swaggering about their involvement once your back is turned? What do you do when your locality split down racial lines during the riots, as in one area where the Turkish community turned out to defend their neighbourhood? What do you do about kids whom you suspect got carried along with the stream of events and now desperately regret their actions? And again, what do you do to reassure the victims and help them rebuild their strength and trust? For some kids, the notion that schools are their main place of safety is going to become even more important in the coming months. Schools will find themselves on the front line in many of our city districts within a month: they're going to need all the support they can get in dealing with this new reality, whilst remembering their core purpose -- to help these kids do the best they can in life without using violent affray to get new trainers. And schools in these areas are going to need all the support they can get. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=481 Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:20:48 GMT 20110809102048 Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:20:48 GMT 20110809102048 Tue, 09 Aug 2011 11:35:29 GMT 2011080911113529 Transparency is the name of the game in Government at the moment, covering everything from teachers' pay through to exams taken and passed and what the inspectors thought. There's so much transparency washing round out there that it's hard to believe that any member of the public is going to spend much time wading through it, unless they've got a serious axe to grind. No problem with that, though: schools and governments with nothing to hide shouldn't tuck things away as a default position. However, we could do with a bit more transparency in some areas. I'm thinking of this week's SATS results, which as usual are being used for a bit of political point scoring. As in: yes, results are better this year BUT a third of children are still leaving primary school without reaching the expected level. Personally, I think results could be a lot better BUT I'd like a bit more background information. For instance, the KS2 results came just days after we heard about the plight of children who arrive at school without having any concept of their own name -- what realistic chance would those kids, for instance, have of catching up with their peers by the age of 11, without years of intensive 1-1 tuition? I'd like to know what proportion of the cohort each year are really capable of reaching the expected level at the right age: how many have English as an additional language, or a special educational need, or a disruptive family background which might make such an achievement highly unlikely? I'd like to know how realistic the expected level is, especially given that once upon a time it was the average level -- which is an entirely different thing. Is 100 per cent of the cohort the only result any Government will accept -- which may be impossible -- or is there a more realistic target? However, whether average or expected, if 11-year-olds need Level 4 achievements in order to function in the secondary school environment, then every stop needs to be pulled out to help them. And this is where a bit more transparency would be useful. How many of the children who don't achieve Level 4 have EAL? How long have they been in their current school? How long have they been in the UK? What about the Level 5 achievers? How many of them are eligible for free school meals? How many of them have parents with university degrees? How large are the classes in the schools with higher and smaller numbers of high achievers? It's interesting that many of the new free schools are promoting their smaller class sizes. And -- this would be an interesting one -- what proportion of the kids at different levels learned to read using phonics, compared to other methods? None of this information would be to excuse schools from doing their jobs, which is to create the best possible outcomes for all pupils. But it would give us all a bit more context to work in. We could learn more about schools which are doing brilliantly against the odds, and perhaps use their experience and methods to help that group of kids who fall short of Level 4 across the board. Perhaps we might even consider holding back for an extra year of primary those children who aren't going to make the grade in time, giving them the best possible start for their secondary schooling. In the light of all this, we might then be able to applaud the achievement of schools where half the cohort are not only new to their classrooms, but new to the UK, doing a brilliant job with their pupils, but aiming at an impossible target. In a country where the wrong sort of weather and inconvenient royal weddings can be blamed for a flatlining economy, the reasons children don't meet an expected target are surely also up for discussion? http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=480 Thu, 04 Aug 2011 10:42:16 GMT 20110804104216 Thu, 04 Aug 2011 10:42:16 GMT 20110804104216 Thu, 04 Aug 2011 10:42:16 GMT 2011080410104216 I don't read many official reports in a playpark, but it's the summer holidays and we working mothers must take their pleasures where they can. So I learned what the Commons Education Committee thought of the introduction of the Ebac (or Ebacc – Mr Gove clearly trusts us enough to come up with our own nickname for his baby without official guidance) whilst surrounded by kids for whom five GCSEs is in the infinite future. Talk about damning with faint praise: that committee sure knows how to praise with one hand and take away with the other. My inaccurate précis would be that while they've got no great beef with the idea and might even think it's quite good, it's been fatally undermined by being announced at great speed and without consultation. And it may not actually benefit anyone very much, even though the underlying rationale – to make sure as many kids as possible get GCSEs which broaden rather than narrow their options – is not a bad one. They urge Mr Gove to remedy some of this in his review of the not-a-qualification, but you just know (and so do they, from the tone of the report) that this just isn't going to happen. And watching small children assert themselves on a sunny day, you can see that sometimes in politics it is going to seem better to do something decisive and quick, rather than go through a consultation in which the outcome either pleases nobody because it's so watered down, or listen to everyone and then do what you wanted to do anyway. Which makes me think of the mutterings earlier this week about the length of the summer holidays, which to my mind is one of those fixtures in the news calendars. The difference between this and the Ebac(c) is that this isn't an area where Mr Gove can just issue an edict and sit back: it's down to each individual LA to decide on their dates, and, increasingly, non-LA schools. I have to confess to being a Luddite on this one. As far as I recall (and remember, I'm sitting in a play park and am thus excused from checking) there is no good research evidence to support major learning loss from the UK summer holiday, which these days weighs in at a paltry five and a half or six weeks as a result of local authorities deciding to trim it quietly. Such evidence as does exist, I think, comes from the US where the summer lasts for up to three months and many of the poorest kids won't be moving beyond their ghettoes. Here, we're being bombarded with arguments about learning loss, childcare problems and cheaper holidays. On the childcare front, I don't quite see how it's more difficult to get children looked after for a total of 13 weeks if it includes a longer break as well as shorter ones but perhaps I'm being dim -- or just middle class, as the Guardian's editorial on Monday suggested. I'm also less than convinced that if we end up with two shorter summer holidays it would be cheaper for families to go away. People whose business is tourism do notice when it's school holidays. All of them. Not just the big summer one. Ask any parent or teacher, and they'll point how accurately those price rises in the brochure mirror every single school break. And what about families with relations abroad? The days are mostly gone where minority ethnic kids were taken out of school for weeks on end to see Granny and Grandad and the rest of the extended family, with those visits crammed into the summer holidays. Cut the summer holiday, and those families are not going to be happy. I don't see European countries with good education outcomes and lots of working families rushing to scrap their long holidays (nor even Northern Ireland) , and it seems yet another symptom to me of the punitive idea that since adults spend most of their waking hours banged up doing what they're told, that children should learn to do the same (partly to enable their parents to work, work, work). Many parents notice a change in their children during the summer holiday. To start with, the kids are utterly shattered and wail that they're bored. Old-fashioned parents like me tell them they've got to learn to entertain themselves, switch the telly off, and get away from wall-to-wall Wii. And gradually, they get it. As the weeks wear on, your once wacky, inventive children creep back into sight, entertaining themselves, having fun, remembering how to be themselves, and learning about resilience, boredom avoidance and all sorts of other stuff. And then we send them back to school to have every minute of the day regimented once more. I know it isn't going to be like this for all children, and that for many school is the place of security and certainty. But it would be an interesting exercise for someone to do some proper research into the benefits and problems associated with the five-week holiday to inform the regular July "debate". http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=477 Fri, 29 Jul 2011 10:33:02 GMT 20110729103302 Fri, 29 Jul 2011 10:33:02 GMT 20110729103302 Fri, 29 Jul 2011 10:33:02 GMT 2011072910103302 As the daily news bulletins get more and more surreal, I've found myself turning for sanity to the calmer world of education. Fat chance of sanity here either, just now. The latest outbreak of madness must be the boundlessly barmy marking of this year's SATs tests, swiftly marshalled by the NAHT before despairing heads went off on holiday. Over three quarters of the schools which took part reported problems with this year's marks, particularly in the writing test. Some schools are sending back all of the papers, with a formal complaint. Others found wine stains on the papers, crossings-out, marks added up wrongly and a wholesale downgrading of kids who should have got Level 5s. These problems have caused their own scandals in previous years -- with the exception of last summer, when I'm guessing the low numbers of schools actually taking SATs meant there wasn't a shortage of markers -- but this week is probably an excellent time to bury bad news and it will be interesting to see whether this one can resist the spades. If SATs marking were schools, you have to think Ofsted would be along in a moment to rate it as failing and put the whole organisation into special measures. But the thing about government -- any government -- is that it sees what it wants to see, and rubbish test marking -- which may have huge ramifications for some schools -- isn't high on the priority list. Something even more surreal, though, is the way the Free Schools movement is developing. As part of a recent job, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr Rob Higham about a paper he had yet to write for an academic leadership conference to create a press release. Dr Higham had spent a lot of time tracking down Free School proposers, and had discovered the intriguing fact that just over a fifth of them were headed by a teacher who was proposing to become the new head. As he rather sweetly put it: “Interestingly, nearly all the lead teacher-proposers appear to aspire to become the free school's head teacher from usually a teacher or middle leader level. For most it would represent very rapid promotion.” Interesting tale, I thought, and turned it into a press release (which you can read here). But what I didn't fully realise until almost ten days later was that Free School heads, like those of academies, are exempt from having done the NPQH. While I'm sure that the DfE will be scrutinising all these applications very carefully, this seems a bit of an open goal. Why does someone leading a community school with oodles of back-up from their local authority, established systems and all that need to have done the National College course, while someone who is spending public money on starting up something from scratch is allowed to do so with no specific qualifications in the job? I just don't see the advantage to the Government in allowing different rules on headship qualifications for new academies/free schools and state sector institutions. They are all accountable for the public money they spend, and if the NPQH is a qualification worth having, then everyone in publically-funded education should have it. Granulating it a bit further, I could -- at a push -- see the argument that academies which had earned that status through being awarded "outstanding" status might be exempt from certain rules and regulations. But new free schools haven't earned anything apart from kudos for a good plan before they actually open. Again, pushing it a bit further, perhaps the thinking is to encourage specialists such as Montessori teachers to bring their schools into the mainstream. But I'd still hazard that every head needs the same skills, and if the NPQH is required for the head of a teeny weeny village primary, then why not another publicly-funded school of similar size? If this is about the Government's drive to cut bureaucracy, then it seems odd to apply it only to free schools and academies, unless the aim is to provide another carrot for the creation of these schools. It will be interesting to see how many proposals with an un-NPQH'd head actually make it off the drawing board. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=476 Tue, 19 Jul 2011 13:52:52 GMT 20110719135252 Tue, 19 Jul 2011 13:52:52 GMT 20110719135252 Tue, 19 Jul 2011 13:52:52 GMT 201107191315252 The first hundred teaching schools are apparently going to be announced imminently, which is why it was so interesting to hear a well-informed conference speech outlining the details at the weekend. Maggie Farrar from the National College gave the Belmas educational leadership conference a fascinating insight into how they see the teaching schools developing as part of a “self improving school system” as opposed to mini teacher-training outlets. It was an extraordinary vision that she gave, which would transform the role of heads, teacher development and school improvement, and probably compensate to some extent for the effective disappearance of local authorities in many areas. The College sees school leaders at the heart of the raising of standards, working with local partners to improve practice, peer learning and provide both ITT and CPD. They will also be talent spotting potential new leaders and providing support for other schools. “Will this lead to an atomisation of the system?” she asked. Not on her watch: there's no place here for the hero head. “We don't want teaching schools to be hermetically sealed from the rest of the system. They'll be working together and with other clusters across the country,” said Farrar. Even more interestingly, schools are strongly discouraged from going it alone. “No teaching school can do it alone. If they think they can it is highly likely that they will not become a teaching school, or they will be de-designated,” she warned. So the clusters will usually involve a training school or two (there have been applications for training school job shares, often from primaries) plus several strategic partner schools and a higher education institution. Although the current applicants were obliged to have outstanding status, said Farrar, there were many schools which had outstanding aspects and the system should be able to recognise and make use of those. The system leader view of heads is one which has been growing for a few years, but Maggie Farrar's speech suggests a strong push into a new role. “Are we asking too much of our leaders?” she suggested, going on to explain what their role would be in a self improving system with other strategies such as national, local and specialist leaders for education, which would see them strongly working in partnership with others. She quoted her boss, Steve Munby, as saying this was a “once in a lifetime opportunity for leaders to seize the agenda.” What could go wrong? Farrar's answers included empire building, school leaders motivated by ego rather than a desire for the greater good, and schools not wanting to be involved. “What we have to do with this is keep it rooted in common sense, not over complicate it and not make it overly bureaucratic.” There would be opportunities and challenges. Challenges would include distributing leadership across the whole country, finding ways of sharing good practice across the system, and to create schools good at enabling adult learning, all at a time of much reduced resources. Exactly how the model developed would be determined by the first hundred schools, she said. Farrar had one final concern, as drawn out by a question. “One of the things I am worrying about is they were somehow seen as the top of the pyramid… that we are straight away getting into a competing mentality and it's very hard to get away from that. But I am very worried that we'll get a hierarchical pyramid model. It's meant to be collective.” Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=474 Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:11:00 GMT 20110712101100 Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:11:00 GMT 20110712101100 Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:20:16 GMT 2011071210102016 On a day when journalism has become the story, it's fascinating to see that one education tale has made it onto the news agenda: the Sutton Trust's research showing that four public schools and one state sixth-form college sent more teenagers to Oxbridge than 2000 state schools.More than all the pious talk of widening access to university, this bit of research with a point demonstrates that Oxbridge admission is a walk in the park for some kids and scaling the north face of the Eiger for others.The Sutton Trust, founded 14 years ago by Sir Peter Lampl, is a fantastic example of how a combination of research and campaigning together can raise the profile of issues which the British media finds deeply unsexy to the point where they get serious coverage.The Sutton Trust's raison d'etre is to promote social mobility through education, and it has succeeded in getting the problem onto the agenda, even if not an awful lot is then being done about it. The public might vaguely envisage their own sons and daughters getting into a medieval college: it comes as a bit of a shock to realise that many of the old Brideshead stereotypes about Oxbridge students are actually true.Contrast that with some pretty interesting research papers which have been, basically, dumped on the DfE's website this week. One at least is very pertinent to the Sutton Trust research, comparing the educational experience of kids from different socio-economic backgrounds who did better than expected or worse than expected in school.In a nutshell, having interested parents who play with you, talk to you and perhaps cook with you before you go to school makes the most enormous difference to the fate of children from lower-income households.But then there are extra chances. A good early years setting is particularly beneficial to boys, giving them a boost to become resilient learners later. And there's another window of opportunity in early secondary school, if the school decides to run catch-up classes. This is even better if there are adults around – and friends, too – who take an interest in the kids and encourage them to do well.I agree it's not rocket science but it demonstrates yet again the value of pre-school and that it's not too late to reverse problems, even in secondary school. It also demonstrates the value of the best Sure Start programmes, which encouraged parents from less well-off backgrounds to interact with their toddlers and support their learning. You could argue that this kind of knowledge ought to help more kids realise their university potential than pointing out the un-levelness of the current playing field, though again the Sutton Trust is excellent at that end of the argument as well.The other thing that caught my eye on the DfE site was another bit of research about excellent Year 5 teachers as opposed to – well, less than excellent ones. Hallmarks of such teaching included the use of plenaries, a light but firm disciplinary touch with humour and a willingness to veer off the lesson plan if it was obvious the kids weren't getting it. Fairly obvious, you might think, and I mentioned it to a teacher friend. She snorted. “I was failed in an observation for doing just that – they obviously weren't properly understanding what I said so I went on a different tack. Not good practice, apparently.”Perhaps the DfE didn't particularly want to publicise either of these bits of research, nor the ones accompanying them. Recent governments, of whatever political colour, tend to like getting on with their own pet projects without the inconvenience of waiting for research results which might be less clear cut than the spinners would like. But, somehow, all this useful information has to get out there and inform what people do, or we'll still be needing the Sutton Trust's campaigning zeal in 50 years time. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=472 Fri, 08 Jul 2011 12:18:29 GMT 20110708121829 Fri, 08 Jul 2011 12:18:29 GMT 20110708121829 Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:18:34 GMT 201107081421834 There is something almost provocative about the timing of the latest consultation from the Department for Education. Here we are, in the week that teachers are striking in protest at Government plans for their pension scheme, a situation further inflamed by Mr Gove's televised suggestion that parents might be able to volunteer to help keen schools running, and the DfE goes ahead with its plans for initial teacher training. The introduction (accompanied by a photo of Mr Gove smiling so hard that it's deeply unnerving) contains a few sentences which appear to have come from a parallel universe: “If we want to have an education system that ranks with the best in the world, then we need to attract the best people and we need to give them outstanding training,” it says, continuing: “There are many excellent teachers in this country, but many who could make a huge difference in the lives of children choose other professions… We value our teachers highly, but the current system of funding does not incentivise the best. The system needs to change.” You may be nodding vigorously, but I suspect the profession's ideas of ways in which it would like the system to change in this particular week bear little relationship to Mr G's ideas for improving teacher training. The Government line is clearly business as usual, combined with an element of going on the offensive. It's surely not a coincidence that Mr Gove has been here, there, and everywhere in the past couple of weeks, pronouncing on modular GCSEs and all sorts of other stuff. Given the circumstances, it'll be interesting to see what sort of responses the teacher training consultation actually gets. There's some interesting stuff in there, some of which potentially has wider ramifications for some schools. You may have read the suggestions for an enhanced bursary of up to £20k for graduates of some subjects (those with Firsts get the top whack) but other proposals that the new training schools would get that money passed to them, and could charge for the training they provide, appear significant to me, as would the other suggestion that GTP students might no longer be “extra” members of staff. As universities will be able to charge anywhere from £6k to £9k for a year's tuition, does that mean that a training school could legitimately do the same? The paper doesn't say, but it opens up the interesting prospect of schools potentially competing to undercut universities for the best students – or certainly do very nicely out of them as, effectively, full members of staff. So will barring those with Thirds from Government-funded training, cutting the number of times literacy and numeracy tests can be taken, and new aptitude tests for applicants raise the status of teachers, as the paper suggests? I suspect the problem is deeper-seated than that, and a suggestion from a Government minister that parents could be roped in when teachers walk out over contractual changes can only make the process slower. Susan Young is an educational journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=470 Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:44:09 GMT 20110627154409 Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:44:09 GMT 20110627154409 Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:44:09 GMT 201106271534409 You can't quite escape Michael Gove at the moment, as he announces new free schools here and more rigorous exams there. The man's a positive whirlwind of activity at the moment. I was struck by a sentence from today's speech on free schools, in which Mr Gove said “… the highest-performing education systems are those where government knows when to step back. We want a school system in which teachers have more power and in which they are more accountable to parents – not politicians.” Goodness. If he achieves that he'll be doing something not attempted by any Education Secretary in living memory. However, a more rigorous reading of Mr Gove's quote finds that he hasn't set himself up by providing any kind of target for this hands-off aspiration. Unlike the targets he's currently advocating for all schools, of a 50 per cent pass rate for a basic basket of GCSEs. Wiser statisticians than I have already gone into the detail of why this is well-nigh impossible. In fact, while we're on the subject, the 50 per cent GCSE target is surely an example of where schools are being made accountable to politicians rather than parents, but perhaps I am being picky and Mr Gove would say he's merely voicing parental desire here. If so, that really is a carefully worded aspiration. Anyway, there's some really interesting stuff brewing at the moment which I'd like to tackle in no particular order. The first was in the Free Schools speech, in which Mr Gove worries about the woefully low numbers of people with the right maths and science skills available for British employers, especially among those educated in deprived areas. I share his worries, but I also worry that other Government policies may make this problem worse. One of these policies is tuition fees: the participation-widening schemes universities must now have will certainly be targeted on the areas of deprivation where science and maths achievement are low, but are highly unlikely to remove the fear about huge levels of debt from every poor teenager who might well have the talent to study those subjects at degree level. Economics dictate that there will be finite numbers of children who can be helped: what of the rest? England's new level of tuition fees is, let's not forget, the highest in the world for state universities and will be a deterrent for teenagers of all backgrounds, not just the poorest. The second policy with a bearing on this is the Government's aim of reducing immigration to “the tens of thousands”. The easiest way to do this is by cutting the numbers of international students who study at our universities (often, say the vice-chancellors, keeping open science, technology, engineering and maths departments who can't get enough home-grown students). All the Government's rhetoric is about encouraging “the brightest and the best” and that university students will still get their places, but if the supply of students first improving their English here is choked off then those teenagers will go elsewhere for their engineering degree, thus potentially closing yet another course to British recruits. (I'll declare a combination of specialist knowledge plus a bit of an interest here, as I do some work in the English-language teaching sector). The other issue bubbling under in the Gove repertoire is the curriculum, with various hints and nods about “more rigorous” GCSE exams and a more classic subject base (including, according to the Guardian, the study of Newton's previously unknown Law of Thermodynamics: the publication is silent on whether this was their mistake or his). It is hard to shake off the feeling that the curriculum review team is being steered in a particular and very traditional direction by the politicians. There is nothing new in this: in the original, history more recent than 20 years previous was banned from study lest teachers inject any politics into their interpretation. Interestingly, Estelle Morris, a former education secretary and teacher herself, has this week written of her suspicions that Mr Gove is recreating his own schooling. The more rigorous exams business is another warhorse: the original Standards Over Time enquiry, set up to look into this some 15 years ago, couldn't find enough evidence to prove that exams had got easier but was pretty sure that they hadn't. What seemed to be happening, and certainly is now, is that kids are being taught to the test. If exam formats change, then pupils will be drilled to pass the new versions. For schools in more comfortably-off areas, some kids may get a broader education more akin to that enjoyed by the young Michael Gove: but no matter what freedom academies and free schools “officially” have, it is the league table which says whether they have succeeded or failed, and so teaching to the test will remain the order of the day. Is that what we mean by education? Is that how it works in Singapore? What happens to Singaporean school-leavers from the most deprived neighbourhoods? And, crucially, do Singaporean schools instil or benefit from a positive attitude to education in society? Given that this is a country where you can be fined for dropping chewing gum or failing to flush a public loo, schools are clearly operating in a very different atmosphere to those in England. I don't claim to have the answers to any of these questions, but it would be good if there was some wider consideration of them before yet again setting education policy in stone. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=469 Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:10:11 GMT 20110620141011 Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:10:11 GMT 20110620141011 Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:10:34 GMT 201106201421034 Well, it's not great timing, is it? If I were Education Secretary (as if) and I were exhorting schools to significantly raise their game on GCSE results, I'd be thinking twice about doing it in the same week that two teacher unions vote to strike over pension reforms. Or would I? If I were really cynical, I'd be wondering about the brilliance of the timing of Mr Gove's speech, and his advance on it to The Guardian's political team (not, note, the education specialists). There are two ways of looking at it. Teachers and probably many heads, also considering voting for industrial action over pension changes, will see it as yet another example of the Government wanting more for less. There are some carrots in Mr Gove's grand plan, including higher pay for good teachers and apparently more autonomy for schools and heads to do things their way – but there are some tree-sized sticks as well. Not least among those is the demand that the children currently in year 7 of secondary school should be the first universal cohort where half get five good GCSEs. Even now, senior staff are frantically analysing every known fact about the year 7s in some schools, working out where the best bets lie. Anyway, from that point of view it seems counter-intuitive to demand more of a profession which is increasingly making clear that it is less than gruntled about the way in which it perceives it is being treated. But take the wider political view, as Mr Gove will have done. The ratio of rabid to reasoned comments about the prospect of striking teachers (even for one day when all the exams are done) at the end of news stories about this is running at about 20-1. For one thing, last time there was a teachers' strike, there were far fewer working mothers than now, and like it or not school has acquired an extra dimension of essential childcare since then. And attitudes towards working mothers (remember Sirallen on the subject of women going off and having babies?) mean many spend their office hours trying to pretend that no, they don't have any of those pesky commitments at home. Having to take off a day to care for the kids is usually inconvenient at best and often really difficult. Add to that the perception that teachers have actually had it quite good (you'll never persuade the general public that 13 weeks' holiday doesn't mean 13 weeks' holiday) and that the pension arrangements are still generous. Even the argument that teachers can't really go on till 68 doesn't cut it with most private sector employees, many of whom expect to be dismissed or demoted long before that age and anticipate a twilight career as shelf-stackers. Mr Gove knows all this, and it's this gallery he's playing to. Suggest that the desired pace of change might look a little unrealistic, perhaps, and the perception is spread that the profession has just had it too good and isn't up to the job. Spinning is alive and thriving. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me via educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=468 Thu, 16 Jun 2011 11:46:34 GMT 20110616114634 Thu, 16 Jun 2011 11:46:34 GMT 20110616114634 Thu, 16 Jun 2011 11:46:34 GMT 2011061611114634 Latin. One of those subjects which the Conservative bits of the Coalition government think is A Good Thing for children to learn in school. Latin is therefore a subject which counts towards an EBacc. But not always, it turns out. Believe it or not, the Coalition has managed to infuriate the small but enthusiastic band of Latin teachers operating in the state sector. Delightful people, not exactly life's natural militants: how on earth, you might ask, have Mr Gove and Mr Gibb managed this? In a nutshell, it's down to what exactly constitutes an iGCSE. The state comps which do offer Latin (a much-praised band by the current government) are doing so on a shoestring, scraping enough curriculum time to offer the subject as an exam option but often doing the whole course in two years flat as an exam option for those kids who really want it. Increasingly, those schools have found the needs of their pupils better met by doing the WJEC certificates – accepted as a GCSE equivalent by universities including Cambridge. Those doing it have found numbers of teenagers wanting to take Latin at KS4 and beyond have more than doubled. The problem is that they're currently not accepted as GCSE or iGCSE equivalents for the EBacc, which means that many of the state schools offering Latin have done a hurried rethink, and are often going over to less-suitable “proper” GCSE courses (sometimes with only a year to go before the exam) unless most of the kids are doing or have done another language, thus making the Latin an extra. One Latin teacher of my acquaintance wrote to the Parliamentary education committee: “As a comprehensive school, we are incredibly proud to be able to offer a course in Latin for our pupils and feel that a study of this level of academia helps to bridge the gap between private and state education; opening doors into further education which may otherwise have been closed. It is clear from personal anecdotes of my current year 11 that the local colleges are impressed by the inclusion of Latin on their application forms and regard it highly. “The decision to move from GCSE Latin to the WJEC certificates was taken by my predecessor as a response to the fact that previously our pupils were compared with private school pupils who had been studying Latin from year 7. This demand to catch-up created an unfair gap and meant that the teaching of the subject was too rushed, skimming the surface as oppose to a stimulating and deep study which must surely be more engaging.” Where the argument gets complicated is in why this Latin course isn't counted as an IGCSE. It seems (and I'd be delighted to hear from anyone who thinks I've got this wrong) that there is actually no such thing as an iGCSE, but that they are Level 1 and 2 certificates, just as the Latin qualification is. What's the difference then, you may ask. No idea. There is a bit of a campaign going on around this subject: the Cambridge Schools Classics Project, which underpins the WJEC certificate (a course so venerable I remember it from my O-Level Latin course centuries ago – and before you accuse me of special pleading, I was hopeless), has also been lobbying the Department for Education along with the teachers. As a result, Lord Hill spoke in Parliament about the issue, saying: “The WJEC certificates in Latin are not currently accredited as either a GCSE or an iGCSE and so were not included in the 2010 performance tables English Baccalaureate measure. In the longer term we will draw up criteria that qualifications will have to meet to be included in the EBacc, which may allow qualifications other than GCSEs or iGCSEs to count towards the EBacc." That was in February. You would think that the campaigners would be pushing at an open door, given that this appears to be the perfect way to get more state schools doing Latin. This is what schools minister Nick Gibb told a conference last November: that learning Latin “equipped me for life. And it is for this reason, that the decimation of the teaching of Latin in the state sector over the last few decades is so alarming.”“So I thank you for putting on today's conference – about how schools can take advantage of the new freedoms that the Government is giving to teachers, to bring Latin to more state schools…. “One of the overriding objectives of the Government is to close the attainment gap between those from wealthier and poorer backgrounds. The fact that the opportunity to learn Latin is so rare in the state sector is one of a range of factors that has led to the width of that gap.” Apparently the DfE has now said it will make a decision over the summer, almost a year after this problem first emerged. It seems a remarkably difficult process for something which inherently supports the aims of its own ministers, unless the underlying block is a visceral hatred of any qualification other than GCSE and A Level. It'll be fascinated to see how this one pans out. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=466 Wed, 08 Jun 2011 11:54:22 GMT 20110608115422 Wed, 08 Jun 2011 11:54:22 GMT 20110608115422 Wed, 08 Jun 2011 11:54:41 GMT 2011060811115441 Admit it, you'd pay good money to see Madonna's former mother-in-law grill schools minister Nick Gibb about sex education. Well, you don't have to. It happened in the House of Lords last week, and you can watch all the salacious details on House of Lords TV. Blimey, those Lords are vicious. Those ladies who make money out of humiliating football stars and high court judges in dark chambers could learn a trick or two from this lot. It's all perfectly courteous… but probing. The committee in front of which Mr Gibb had been summoned was actually the House of Lords enquiry into HIV and Aids. The committee had recently heard that despite the compulsory nature of HIV/Aids education, a quarter of children don't get it (the lessons, that is). The committee wanted to know what was happening to PSHE and SRE in the curriculum review. Mr Gibb didn't really want to tell them anything beyond that the subject had been under review since November, that the remit for a consultation was currently being constructed within the Department for Education, and that it was expected in weeks, or possibly months. Their Lordships and Ladyships were having none of it. Led by former health minister Lord Fowler, they probed and delved as Mr Gibb twirled his spectacles rather desperately and repeated his mantra. It has to be said that it wasn't difficult to pick holes in his arguments. “It doesn't sound as if this review is being given much priority,” barked Lord Fowler. “That's not true… we've only been in office one year when it comes to education policy we're acting with enormous pace,” he said, launching into his list of admissions code, examinations, free schools, academies…. “Why isn't it part of the general review of the national curriculum?” asked Lord Fowler. Mr Gibb had his answer ready. “I think the issues involved in PSHE are different. It isn't a set body of knowledge like history. The process devised for the national curriculum review is not appropriate for PSHE,” he said, divulging than an internal review would be followed by an external one. The Lords version of uproar followed: a hard stare from Lord Fowler, remarks that it all sounded dominated by civil servants, and then the killer comment. “It gives the impression of being done behind closed doors, secretly.” “Well, you know about it. The committee knows about it,” protested Mr Gibb. To no avail, as the committee (many of whose names, sadly, it was impossible to catch) piled in for the kill. “I don't know what you mean about there being no body of knowledge. This is something every child will use in their lives. This is something going to affect them,” remarked one lady member, adding that it was to misunderstand PSHE to talk about it in the same way as geography and history. “That's why don't think that's the right approach. That's why we're initially starting with an internal review….we want to make sure get the remit right before we announce what's in it,” said Mr Gibb. When? “Shortly,” he replied. Another titled lady took over, querying why the mechanism was going to be different to that for the rest of curriculum. “It does give the impression that this is not a set of issues that are very different from history or geography but a set of issues that need to be discussed in a slightly more covert way and whether you wish to see it or not, that's the way it will be seen.” Everything would be transparent, promised the Minister, querying whether anyone really wanted a named figure to head an external review. “They might come up with an inconvenient proposal you might reject,” commented Lord Fowler, a seasoned politician. “It's the responsibility of ministers to balance those views,” said Mr Gibb. The battleground moved on to improved teacher training, peer mentoring and continuing professional development, nice safe ground for the Minister. The peers were having none of it, piling in with surveys showing that the majority of parents and pupils wanted PSHE, and asking how those views were going to be taken on board. Lord May, a former President of the Royal Society, pointed out that “having done an extraordinarily good job with HIV and other diseases in the 80s, not just on HIV but gonorrhoea and syphilis as well – studies suggest young people are less well informed than 20 years ago,” adding that the civil service culture he himself had had experienced was sympathetic with many of Mr Gibb's answers. “You can write a series of Yes Minister,” he added. A lady member suggested that if it was such a sensitive issue it was time to “lance the boil” and get not just parents involved but a national debate. “Let's throw the Daily Mail and the Sun at it,” she said. By this point Mr Gibb was beginning to look like that mythical character he quoted, the PE teacher thrown into a classroom to run a sex ed session. He tried being conciliatory, conceded he might have “overstated the issue of academic specialism” and that he mustn't get “overwhelmed by process.” You've got the idea now. The fight moved on to whether more of the PSHE curriculum (notably sex education) would be enshrined in law, the parental right to withdraw, and whether academies and free schools would be able to get away without teaching the subject. Mr Gibb wanted to talk about children learning resilience to sexual pressure, about concerns over premature sexualisation, to reject calls for things to be put into law and to refer the peers to the as-yet incomplete remit for the review. Baroness Ritchie (Madonna's former mother in law) asked about giving priority to teaching about HIV/Aids. “I think I am nudging,” she beamed. Others asked about timetabling, curriculum, and so it went. Mr Gibb was adamant that laws didn't make things happen. One lady asked a very neat question, which in essence suggested that the English Bacc had been introduced by the Government in just this way to force schools to teach those particular subjects. I'll quote one more joyous volley. Lord Fowler: “Has the Government closed its mind to SRE becoming compulsory in schools?” Mr Gibb: “All these matters will be set out in the remit.” Lord Fowler: “You haven't, otherwise it wouldn't be in the remit?” Mr Gibb: “We haven't published the remit.” Lord Fowler: “Either you are considering or you aren't. You must be able to give mew a reply on whether you are considering it or not.” Lord May: “I am genuinely unclear whether you agree whether it is genuinely important for the country to turn round this trend. When you keep retreating it leaves one with the impression that you are more Sir Humphrey than the driver in charge.” Mr Gibb: “We do regard it as truly important… we are concerned about the fact that 1 in 4 are not taught about HIV, we are concerned about early sexualisation, emotional maturity -- all these issues are very important to the government.” And then he went on to talk about the remit again. I can hardly wait to see it, after all this build-up. Can't help thinking it stands a high chance of being delayed until the Fowler committee has produced its own report and there is zilch chance of him being summoned before them for a second whiplash session. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=465 Fri, 03 Jun 2011 10:21:51 GMT 20110603102151 Fri, 03 Jun 2011 10:21:51 GMT 20110603102151 Fri, 03 Jun 2011 10:21:51 GMT 2011060310102151 Ooh, exactly what we all needed on a windy Monday morning: an interview with Michael Gove in which he outlines his Next Big Educational Idea of allowing popular schools to expand their admissions. Let's get the old stuff out of the way first: this idea's been mooted at least twice in the time I've been working in education. And opposition hasn't been rooted entirely in those terribly egalitarian local authorities determined to keep their weaker schools open, either: lots of heads don't want their schools inflated to monster size, and often neither do the parents of the pupils. So this time round changes are being made so that it will be easier for schools that want to expand to do so. That appears to mean maintained schools as well as academies, which could well put some schools on a collision course with their local authority if they wanted to expand against the wishes of their council. If they were outstanding schools (and presumably they'd have to be pretty good, or they wouldn't need to expand to meet demand) that might perhaps be an added impetus to go down the academy route. “Weaker” schools which lost pupils as a result might get some financial protection under the current delegated schools grant arrangements, but don't forget that the Government is also consulting on a national funding formula which could plug the cash straight into schools' bank accounts. That would surely accelerate the decline of less popular schools – but then what? Under the current financial circumstances it's hard to see where the money's coming from for mass building programmes in expanding schools, particularly where extra school places are going to be needed at the primary end of the spectrum during the next decade. So logically, the successful schools would somehow annex the weaker schools, exporting their “brand” to the other site and thus (apparently) meeting parental demand. Sounds familiar – ah, yes, that's what the current breed of academies are allowed to do with their less outstanding neighbours. If that is what happens, that's the point at which things get interesting. Will parents in some areas find that actually they get less choice about schools rather than more, as successful players swallow up the minnows? Will the parent school remain socially segregated from its satellites (which still might be a recipe for unhappy parents whose kids were in the wrong site of the right school) or would classes be mixed up a bit? What if exam results at one site remained stubbornly low – would the league table for the parent school be affected? There are quite a few unknown unknowns in this. How would parents react to getting the school of choice for their child – but at the price of the school having a 10 or 15-form intake? Or that their child is allocated to the site on the other side of town, on the slightly worrying estate? And what of school leaders and governors? Is this a game many will want to play? Or is this the kind of territory successful standalone schools will want to avoid? I do wonder if that's part of the idea. It just doesn't make sense for schools to expand indefinitely (if it was such a brilliant idea, surely Eton would be a Titan by now?) and you just can't leave kids to languish in a doomed school with dwindling funding. Local authorities' school improvement services are now subject to the oversight of a national improvement adviser, who can approve or veto plans. Does that make it more likely that local authorities will be advised to turn over their “vulnerable” schools to either become part of an academy chain or for incorporation into a free school which just happens to be seeking a building? It all makes perfect sense. What remains to be seen is how it would actually work in practice. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=462 Mon, 23 May 2011 12:22:51 GMT 20110523122251 Mon, 23 May 2011 12:22:51 GMT 20110523122251 Mon, 23 May 2011 12:22:51 GMT 2011052312122251 One of the current narratives among political journalists is the way in which the Lib Dems have been keen, since the debacle of the local elections, to demonstrate that they can flex their muscles in the coalition government. But any such rebellions have clearly not reached the Department for Education, where the Conservative Michael Gove and the Lib Dem Sarah Teather are said to have had a very friendly relationship from the start. It was quite educational to watch Ms Teather giving evidence on the SEN Green Paper to the House of Commons Education committee this week. Initial impression: that she looked very young and a lot more human than either Messrs Gove or Gibb. Second impression: that she uses phrases like “iterative process” without sounding like a robot, but cunningly without saying very much,either. As usual, the Committee wasasking some pretty useful questions. How would special needs work be monitored in outstanding schools no longer routinely visited by Ofsted? Why could parents not ask for children with special needs to attend independent schools? Why would opening up alternative provision to new providers make it any better? And so on. And, also as usual, the Minister was sticking closely to the Ministerial line. Parents concerned about schools could trigger an Ofsted inspection, she said. And if nothing else was suitable, of course children with SEN could attend an independent school, she said, not quite answering the original question, asked several times. The committee was clearly not entirely convinced by some of the proposals in the Green Paper, and Ms Teather herself trod an interesting line of restrained optimism on how it would work in practice. Of course, there is currently a huge potential hole in the whole thing in the shape of the Health and Social Care Bill, currently “paused” , but which will be crucial in the Green Paper's aims of getting everyone to work together to help children with SEN. If nothing else, MsTeather's low-key appearance before the committee was a useful reminder of how much is currently going on beneath the surface. Not only does the consultation on the Green Paper end next month, but the more hurried first stage look at a National Funding Formula closes next week, with a second stage promised swiftly afterwards. The NFF in itself has the potential to go politically nuclear, with winners and losers scattered round the land. The Government may need a unified formula to cope with academies and free schools, but exactly how brave can it afford to be is going to be an interesting question if the LibDems continue with their newpolicy of muscularity. As if that weren't enough, tenders are now up for grabs on academy building, while it's all gone very quiet on capital cash for maintained schools in the wake of the (late) James Review. Also ominously late, and getting later, is the new draft school admissions code.Finally, there's the Bew review, which many heads feel, after the much-criticised literacy SATs paper last week, can't report a minute too soon.The Education Committee is, I think, in for a busy summer of asking useful questions. Susan Young is an educational journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=460 Fri, 20 May 2011 14:23:22 GMT 20110520142322 Fri, 20 May 2011 14:23:22 GMT 20110520142322 Fri, 20 May 2011 14:24:13 GMT 201105201422413 It feels like a bizarre week for education. Year six classrooms are full of kids concentrating and doing their best in tests which may be getting their last outing this year. Year 11s are going on study leave: younger secondary students are revising for mocks. Yet there are insistent questions arising of what it's all for. For starters, you wonder why we're making this particular cohort of 11-year-olds sit tests which may be on their way out, and when the first action of their secondary school is to put them through a morning of CATs tests, usually completely disregarding the SATs results. One plus point of the SATs, though, is at least the parents get to know about them – unlike CATs whose results are treated on a need-to-know basis by schools despite the importance they attach to them. Anyway, I'm digressing. For perhaps two decades now, we've been encouraging kids to aim high, to go to university, to make the best of themselves. The middle-class kids took up the challenge, and those with aspirational parents. Others were encouraged, gradually, by schemes such as AimHigher, which worked to overcome the feeling that university was for other people, and that the scale of debt involved was just too overpowering to consider. And now there are huge swathes of kids and their parents who feel the same way about the prospect of a debt of at least £27,000 for a fairly ordinary university education. When fewer people went and it cost less, the cost-benefit analysis was a bit of a no-brainer. When a degree is less exclusive and much more expensive, the economy is in the doldrums and young people are priced off the housing ladder across most of the country, a lot of them are questioning what they really want to do. Ministers can talk until they are blue in the face of it being a virtual debt, one that some students will never have to pay because they won't earn enough, and that poorer students will be protected, and so on. But those are the same ministers who said that a £9k tuition fee would be the exception rather than the rule: who's going to trust the rest of it? Politics, they say, is all about the narrative. What David Willetts is saying and what everyone is hearing are two entirely different things. I do wonder how much this is going to feed back into schools. The current generation of older teenagers have worked hard and feel the rug has been pulled out from under them at the last minute. Nobody can sensibly advise them on whether a £27k qualification is really worth it as it's entirely new. But with the economy in its current state, there may not be job-related options either. Thousands of bright kids from all over the world brave our visa system every year to improve their prospects by improving their English before taking a university degree here – it would be good if the Government could actually do a bit of research on why they think it's worth the investment, and tell our home-grown students a bit more about the competition. But all we're getting is the right for some students to pay the same as their overseas colleagues, without the subsidy. It isn't hard to guess the institutions where this might be a popular option, nor the institutions from which those students will come. Meanwhile, the Government's education bill is being amended to attempt to crowbar some element of careers education in there for this poor benighted generation, many of whom are finding their exam options changing (sometimes a year into the course) thanks to the Government's Ebacc. For goodness sakes, in the current upheavals a bit of good careers education is the least we can do. And we're expecting them to work hard at school? It would be nice if we were able to dangle a few carrots in front of them, rather than doom and yet more gloom. And quickly. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=455 Tue, 10 May 2011 13:25:46 GMT 20110510132546 Tue, 10 May 2011 13:25:46 GMT 20110510132546 Tue, 10 May 2011 13:26:09 GMT 201105101312609 Just don't disagree with the new president of the NAHT is all I can say, after watching him receive a giant (and I mean giant) ceremonial gavel from a Dutch colleague as he chaired his inaugural session. It was just one of those joyously loony moments that national conferences always throw up. Journalists moan about them, a bit, but we all love them. You've got a hall full of dedicated people giving up a Bank Holiday weekend to support a really worthy cause, and a fair amount of after-hours jollity when the work of the day is done. What's not to like? And this year's Brighton conference is no different. By the end of the second day, the membership had survived a lockdown in the hall caused by a demonstration of (apparently) 15 different anarchist groups having an early celebration of May Day. Your correspondent was even asked if she was an anarchist whilst trying to enter the Brighton Centre before having got an official badge, which is a first, and one session was extended because nobody in the hall was going to be allowed to go anywhere, let alone enjoy a quick fag break on the seafront. Cheery moments were to be had in the conference hall, the venue of Bing Crosby's last public performance according to one plaque on the stairs. New president Chris Harrison – he of the very big hammer – was greeted with an encomium by his local Director of Children's services which included the anecdote of What Happened When Chris Googled Big Ben for a day trip to London. “Don't try this at home,” said Simon White, with an eloquent shudder. It's not a tale of which Mr Harrison was ashamed, either – he apparently embellished it further in the telling himself. Moments later, Mr Harrison himself promised he was telling us a true tale as he embarked on a shaggy dog story – or perhaps that should be a spotty dog story – about his mother's days as a head teacher, when she took her Dalmation to work. A naughty child was brought to her room: being otherwise occupied, Mrs Harrison senior handed the recalcitrant some felt pens. Some minutes later, she heard some mumbling. What was the problem? “I've looked, and I can't see the shape at all,” replied the small boy. “Mum went round the desk, and saw that Russell had joined all the dots.” What other joys in the hall? There was Sue Street, a London e-learning co-ordinator, in passionate defence of deputy heads as a vital bulwark against the possible mood swings of heads and as the person who implements the vision of heads. An alternative rationale for deputies was provided by Vince Burke, who mused on the time when a student brought a 16-inch shell into school for a sketching lesson, a little problem which he had sorted out in a great hurry. “I loved that one,” he grinned. The conference slogan this year was The Best Job In The World. It was these little asides that proved it. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=451 Sun, 01 May 2011 12:44:24 GMT 20110501124424 Sun, 01 May 2011 12:44:24 GMT 20110501124424 Sun, 01 May 2011 18:19:55 GMT 201105011861955 If you're short of entertainment over the next series of bank holidays, may I recommend to you watching a rerun of the light grilling given to education minister Nick Gibb over the English Baccalaureate by MPs. Mr Gibb was invited to give evidence to the education select committee whose line of questioning suggested that they were less than convinced by the manner in which the Ebac was conceived or introduced, or how it will be used in practice. Adding to the faintly surreal nature of the exchanges was an increasingly persistent percussive noise, which sounded a bit like someone menacingly wielding a blunt instrument somewhere just off camera, in the manner of an EastEnders villain. Anyway, what the genial chairman Graham Stuart wanted to know – and a persistent theme of the exchanges – was about the accountability of the new measure. Surely, he said, schools would now be measured on how many pupils got the Ebac, and this would distort the system. “It's not an accountability measure… the long term objective of the government is to publish as much data as possible and enable parents… to find out what they want to find out,” said Mr Gibb two minutes into his evidence. And on several subsequent occasions during a good-humoured but persistent 45 minutes with the MPs. Mr Stuart was unconvinced. “It's not credible to say it's not an accountability measure,” he replied. Floor standards would remain the same, and there would be no intervention for schools which did not score highly on the Ebac, argued Mr Gibb. “Doesn't that suggest a certain naivety about the way the education system works?” asked Mr Stuart, reminding the room of the stories about schools “deconstructing” their existing arrangements and “dismantling” useful programmes such as pupils taking short courses in history and geography as a precursor to A Levels. “It feels like an accountability measure, it looks like an accountability measure and I think it quacks like one as well.” At this point Mr Gibb began to flannel gently, before diving headlong into sheets of statistics demonstrating that the more pupils on free school meals are in a school, the fewer kids will get an Ebac. It was part of the Government's agenda to give children from rich and poor backgrounds the same opportunity, he said. “These are subjects which lead to progression,” he concluded. Mr Stuart was not convinced, agreeing with the end but not the means. He feared that pupils would actually be worse off if a school decided they were incapable of attaining the EBac and would instead give support to those who could.” Mr Gibb replied with another recurring theme, which was that schools should only enter pupils for subjects if it was “appropriate” for them, and that in the past there had been a mindset where exam entries were not in the best interests of the pupils but for the league table position of the schools. The Ebac subjects were “entitlement” subjects, not astrophysics, and most of them were anyway compulsory to 16. Another MP, Ian Mearns, weighed in to ask how it was not an accountability measure when it was published in a league table format and would be read that way by the public and parents. “Well, I think it will be in that sense,” said Mr Gibb. And then a gem of a question: what consultation had there been before the measure was introduced? Mr Gibb talked about the election campaign. So unimpressed was Mr Stuart with the answer that he repeated the question at the end of the session, as the ominous background thumps grew louder and more insistent. There was one further element to add to the mix: Mr Gibb's repeated promises that the Government would provide more and more information (“granularity”) which could be used by parents and interested parties to find out what they wanted to know about schools, and that results for children receiving the pupil premium would also be added in some form to the available information. Round and round and round it all went, with the MPs returning to their thesis that the Ebacc had been brought in without consultation, and that it was an accountability measure which schools were reacting to and Mr Gibb retorting that the idea was to reduce the “perverse incentives” of the previous system, to ensure children of all backgrounds got the chance to take subjects which enabled progression, and that modern foreign languages and history were important. He made a few concessions, including that the Government might look at the issue of short courses in the Ebacc, and hinted that there might be some changes in the next lot of published information. Entertainment value: 10. Revelation value: 8. But is anything going to change as a result of the exchanges? I doubt it. Well worth watching, though. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=450 Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:38:17 GMT 20110427153817 Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:38:17 GMT 20110427153817 Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:38:17 GMT 201104271533817 For years and years and years there's been debate about having a national funding formula for education. The current system is packed with inequities: the way the cash is distributed locally in the first place, as the lowest funded local authorities (they call themselves the F40) will tell you, and then the different ways in which the local authorities choose to pass on money to their schools. The funding system is probably as mad as the capital funding horror uncovered by the James Review (see last week's blog) and often in similar ways. Where James was surprised by the criteria for Building Schools for the Future which prioritised poorly performing schools in deprived areas rather than crumbling buildings, the current funding arrangements can benefit privileged schools in poor areas. As someone who's used the government's transparency information to look at school budgets, I've occasionally been staggered by the largesse some institutions attract and equally staggered by how other cope at all. Yet this consultation has attracted remarkably little publicity, which is rather on the surprising side as the main fact I drew from the government's consultation document on creating a “fair national funding formula” last week is that this time, they really mean business. As the document (sort of) says, the current funding system just gives up with a little whimper with the government's new stuff – free schools, widespread academies – tacked on to it. Not only is it non-sustainable, but as the document sternly points out, it creates “perverse incentives” to set up new schools in some areas but not in others, and new providers would still be sidelined by more timid reform On those grounds alone it's a no-brainer that something will actually happen this time. My interest was even more piqued by the options given in the consultation: that there might be some element of money kept back from schools and going direct to LAs to be spent on “local priorities,” as now. But this wasn't a preferred option. My perhaps cynical interpretation is that changes will be made because the current system is too generous to academies (which is why many are jumping while it lasts, which won't be an unwelcome situation for many in government) and because it doesn't cater for Free Schools. It will also be changed because although local authorities aren't being overtly written out of the picture, their future role is intended as something very different. (Exactly how different may become clear when the interestingly-delayed new admissions code finally sees the light of day.) As the TES says, ironing out the anomalies in the current system is quite likely to see inner-city schools with a more privileged intake as the major losers. The interesting thing will be: what happens then? Those may be the schools attended by the children of those whose votes the Coalition wishes to keep or entice… who may lose out to schools attended by the offspring of natural Labour voters. So what's the game plan? Do they think those schools will magically attract children trailing a Pupil Premium behind them (perhaps with the help of the new admissions code, when it finally appears sometime next month?). Do they think the pupils will fan out into Free Schools, which will (somehow) manage to appease parents without any extra funding? Could they think that the inner cities are a lost cause anyway, and that it's a good idea to please the F40 authorities, which tend to be more rural? To be fair, the current situation is so mad that creating a level playing field will inevitably divide schools into winners and losers, even if that's a reflection only of the unfairness of their previous situation. It could just be that the interests of the two political parties together are conspiring to create a level playing-field. That really would be something to applaud from a coalition. Unfortunately, it's schools that will have to cope with the transition arrangements, at a time when there's precious little cash floating around. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=447 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:01:58 GMT 20110417230158 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:01:58 GMT 20110417230158 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:01:58 GMT 2011041723110158 Industry and education: mind the gap Business leaders are occasionally given to accusing teachers of being snobbish about industry. I don't think it's so much snobbery as a yawning chasm between the two sectors. Yet it takes an unusual event to make us notice the gap, and we've had a couple of those in the last week. The first was the James report into schools' capital spending, which I had the pleasure of reading in full (and turning into an Education Leaders' Guide on this website) at the weekend. Frankly, it's been a while since I read such an entertaining report. It's written in a perfectly straight-faced way, but every so often the authors can't help themselves and emit little batsqueaks of horror about the squirming truth they've hauled into the light. And a lot of that will have been because what they found was genuinely new to them: there was one local authority chief executive in the mix, and a former vice-chancellor of Oxford University, together with four industrialists from Dixons, Tesco, BAA and Mothercare. You could see why they were aghast. Leaving aside the Alice in Wonderland system that was Building Schools for the Future, there was the rest of it. To paraphrase, they found that there is no overall picture of the state of repair of schools in England; that nobody was checking whether maintenance funds were being spent on maintenance; that money for specific Government projects was often not ringfenced, and that it's rare for anyone to try and club together to make economies of scale in maintenance or building contracts. Worse still was the BSF organisation, where need was not defined by the extent to which a school building was crumbling, but instead based on how poorly a school was performing and deprivation levels in the area. The goal was “educational transformation,” although nobody involved could explain this or how a new building would wreak this magic if it contained the same kids and staff. Even more stunning to the team was the idea that the starting point was to wave the cash available at builders and ask them what kind of school they could construct for the money, rather than doing the normal thing of drawing up plans and putting them out to tender. And despite a hideously complicated process for getting the schools built – which could involve 12 different sets of people who often had no idea of everyone's part in the system – millions of quid spent upfront, and huge delays before a single brick was laid – a large percentage of the buildings were rated as having a poor design. There was no learning from the schools already built – it made no difference to subsequent builds if there was a gaping design flaw or a very neat solution. Every school was planned from scratch, taking up large amounts of head and pupil time and anecdotally making achievement worse rather than better for those kids. My jaw dropped as I read through this, and I'm not exactly a hard-headed captain of industry. I can only imagine their reaction as they uncovered these various cans of worms, and marvel that it hadn't previously occurred to anyone in Government or the civil service that the school capital system was pants/not fit for purpose, however you wish to put it. But I suppose it wasn't the glamorous end of politics, and might have remained so had Mr Gove not dug himself into an enormous hole over BSF. What else? Well, today Ofsted has had a go at schools for allowing sexual stereotyping in work placements. Sorry, chaps, but I think you're hitting the wrong target here. I've got a daughter doing a work placement this summer (no idea yet what she'll do) but she's a keen scientist and not very interested in hairdressing. But there aren't that many of those kind of industries round here, and the strictness of the rules surrounding the placement meant she was pretty much stuck with what the school could find unless we happened to personally know a captain of industry. So there are probably lots of hairdressing, childcare and building placements, reflecting what's available locally. And I'm not absolutely convinced that it's pure sexism which would stop a girl wanting to spend a week in the very male environment of a building firm, or a boy in the generally female environment of a hairdressers. At 15, it would be terrifying. Thing is, there's a disconnect here between a reasonable idea – getting teenagers into a workplace for a bit – and getting it to work, with enough placements of different kinds. Lots of businesses aren't terribly keen about finding a teenager stuff to do for several days, and the state schools seem rather more hampered by regulations on this than private ones. Better, perhaps, to step up schemes like those which place heads in industrial settings for a short period, or put teachers in similar settings for a bit. Teach First may really come into its own here, too, as some of its graduates head into the private sector jobs they first intended to do with real understanding of the challenges of the classroom. But in the meantime, mutual incomprehension may continue to reign. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=445 Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:50:30 GMT 20110412125030 Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:50:30 GMT 20110412125030 Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:51:41 GMT 2011041212125141 For nearly a year the news agenda has been driven by Coalition policy. So although there've been fights along the way, the story has been about the raising of tuition fees, free schools, and the pushing of schools towards a more traditional curriculum. But events are now starting to take on a life of their own, and it's all starting to look pretty interesting. The Bew committee are keen to tell us that most respondents aren't in favour of the current version of primary league tables, nobody but MPs are surprised now that the highest-possible tuition fees are the rule rather than the exception, and senior conservative David Davis (brought up on a council estate by a single mum) is dissing education policy in general and free schools in particular as unlikely to help the kids who most need it. But the clearest harbinger about the way things are moving, I suspect, is the Deborah Eyre report for Policy Exchange, a think-tank set up by Michael Gove in 2002. Eyre's past includes a stint running the Government's Gifted and Talented academy at WarwickUniversity, and her argument in this document is essentially that in the UK we've got a hang-up about kids being innately bright and treating them accordingly. Rather, she says, education should be organised so that all kids are encouraged and worked to do as well as they possibly can, as happens in many countries overseas. Part of the problem, she says, is the current league table set-up. Eyre recommends an end to floor targets, a move away from league tables which reward results simply for being on the right side of the C/D boundary towards a points-scored measure, publishing league table data on high achievement and rethinking Ofsted inspections entirely. Eyre says all schools should be expected to offer “advanced learning opportunities as the norm” and “routinely expect large numbers to perform highly on them”. The system needs to recognise the importance of “informal learning opportunities”. And probably most controversially, it should not all have to be free: “Many parents are willing to pay, and scholarship schemes coupled with the pupil premium could ensure full access.” This feels distinctly zeitgeisty, given the current zeal for disregarding vocational qualifications felt not to be equivalent to GCSE, the English Bacc and all the rest of it. Eyre's argument sounds similar to Gove's in that she compares UK performance with that of overseas systems. It strikes me that we're going to hear a lot more about this kind of thing, as schools are encouraged to push kids in a different way to before. And the debate is already moving along these lines. Mathematicians are worried about the increasing trend for pupils to be entered early and sometimes repeatedly for GCSE by schools keen to ensure that pupils get a pass. The worry for the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics is that it puts kids off, stopping them progressing further. Director Professor Celia Hoyles says: “We want students of mathematics to aspire to the highest grades and to pursue the subject to the highest level. But this means becoming creative problem solvers rather than solely efficient examination performers.” And Andrew Hall, CEO of exam board AQA is voicing concern as well, pointing out a three-fold increase in the numbers of students aged 15 and under being entered for maths GCSE. He told the Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education conference: “For some students, early entry may be a good thing, particularly for the really strong performers who continue to the higher levels of mathematical study and learning, beyond GCSE. But this continuation of learning is the crucial point during the remainder of the period up to the age of 16. Where there is no gap in learning, students maximise what they have learned, and all the options for further mathematical learning remain open. “But what about others, including the less able performers? Are the pressures of league tables forcing teachers to enter students early to try to bank a Grade C, so they can then focus their teaching time and effort of those who don't get that Grade C? What is this doing to the depth of learning for those who do make the Grade, but who with the extra time would have built on and consolidated their learning, performed even better and kept more options open? Is this an unintended consequence of league tables? What damage might it do to the take-up of mathematics at A level and ultimately to national competitiveness? What about those students who really struggle through being entered early – will it scare them off and increase the pool who believe they can't do maths?” Not entirely sure how the mathematicians' views accord with those of Michael Gove that bright kids should be fast-tracked to A Level without dallying at GCSE, or how that view fits with that of Deborah Eyre. But I suspect the arguments are going to become increasingly mainstream. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=443 Tue, 05 Apr 2011 19:18:39 GMT 20110405191839 Tue, 05 Apr 2011 19:18:39 GMT 20110405191839 Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:41:09 GMT 201104061534109 Gosh, it's a great life being an education journalist, and spending the whole day trying to find, let alone understand, the Department for Education's newest (ta-raa!) parent-friendly school tables. I should point out that it was the whole day with some caveats: that I was finishing off some other urgent jobs and dipping in and out of the league table saga. But that still probably means I had a lot more time to devote to finding and reading the damn things than the average parent at whom they are apparently aimed. The saga began with the arrival of a video of that nice Mr Gove on the DfE website explaining how parents had a right to all this buried information that naughty schools had been keeping to themselves. Nowt else on the site. My former colleague and fellow blogger, Warwick Mansell, then very helpfully began to tweet that the tables were up on the DfE website. I went to look, and spent some time wading through dreadful Excel spreadsheets which didn't seem to be quite what I was looking for. Back to the DfE website, which by now has added a press release and the usual gubbins to its front page. Click here to go find the new tables, it promised. I did. Back to the same old page and its various options. I wade through some more of the wrong tables. I then revisited my Anglo Saxon heritage with a few choice words and returned to the other job of the day, meaning to ring the DfE press office and ask exactly where the bodies were buried. Warwick, meanwhile, was having similar problems but actually called the Department. But it took an intervention from another former colleague, Helen Ward of the TES, to point out exactly where the tables were – in an unmarked zip file on the same page. No fanfare, but a rather bland sentence which in retrospect tells you where to go, sort of. But no big pointers for those keen parents who want to know exactly how many kids at their local comp got a GCSE in PE rather than a BTEC. And there's another point. Despite all the fanfare, there's actually only GCSE and iGCSE data on the spreadsheets, so you can't compare what's there to how the schools fared when alternative vocational qualifications were counted as well. After all that looking, I'd lost the will do analyse what I'd found (and anyway, that's Warwick's department). But I'd make the following observations based on a what-schools-do-I-know-a-bit-about whiz through the tables: *Seeing the breakdown of the individual subjects does make attainment rates look oddly low in many of them: 50-odd Geography passes in a huge comp, for instance, and about 2/3 of the cohort getting a C or above in maths. *Missing out the more vocational qualifications just looks silly. Lots of parents will be interested in how pupils do in those subjects, possibly in addition to getting the basics at GCSE. *Does this mean the less academic kids are going to be pushed into doing academic vocational courses, which could mean them dropping out with no qualifications at all? *Lots of the schools well-known for pioneering alternative qualifications still perform well on these tables. *What's the logic behind removing vocational qualifications altogether but including GCSE art (for instance?) for which the bulk of the work isn't strictly academic? *Why is a GCSE in PE or ICT morally superior to a BTEC in the same subjects? *Lots of parents are going to struggle to use the Excel spreadsheets properly, even assuming they find them in the first place. *How dreadful are the new University Technical Colleges going to look on these measures? So, if it's a good idea to publish this information a) why not add the “outlawed” qualifications to give parents a full picture and b) why not make it easier to find? If you're looking yourself, this is the place to go: http://www.education.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000985/index.shtml Then scroll right down till you get to the section which says additional information, and click on Archive (zip). Obvious, innit? Well, no, actually. Susan Young is an education journalist Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=440 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 19:00:12 GMT 20110331190012 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 19:00:12 GMT 20110331190012 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 19:08:53 GMT 201103311970853 Michael Gove is a bright man. His journalistic background ought to mean that he has a wide knowledge of the world in general, and one would hope that recent events mean he's picked up a bit about the education world in particular. So how is it that he seems to think that all secondary schools have a sixth form? Twice in the past few days we've had pronouncements which would suggest so. First of all there was the story in the TES that ministers are “considering giving state schools the freedom to bypass GCSEs and fast-track bright pupils straight to A-Level”. Now there's an interview in the Daily Telegraph suggesting that schools could be ranked on the numbers of pupils going on to university. Before going on to consider these thoughts, let's please just wave nicely at the elephant in the room. Yes, that one over there – the many kids who deserve a good education and a great start in life, but whose talents maybe just don't lie in A Levels, a degree, and God knows how many tens of thousands of pounds in debt? The kids who might be brilliant chefs or carpenters, or car mechanics? The people who make things and fix things and fit things, without whom we'll all be in a worse mess than we already are. Maybe even the entrepreneur types, the Richard Bransons who were climbing the walls at school. Alison Wolf was cross enough in her report about our collective failure to make sure that a large percentage of kids finally got their GCSE passes in English and Maths, instead parking them on vocational courses rated only by school league tables. Now the danger seems to be that the powers-that-be will ignore them altogether unless they can pass that mystical Ebac. In fact, as far as I can see this Government has only done one good thing so far for kids whose first language may not be academic, and not only was that aimed at those who were already kicking off about it, but also heavily disguised as something else. You may have read that the Government is continuing to fund Skills Force involvement in schools, but you might have read the heavily spun headlines that ex-Forces personnel would be moving in to give stroppy teenagers a taste of proper Army discipline. Not quite so. I had some involvement with Skills Force a few years ago, and found it stunningly impressive at motivating and inspiring teenagers for whom conventional schooling just wasn't working, in the days when even vocational courses are more about writing than doing. The schools I interviewed were delighted with the scheme, and so were the kids, who were working for ASDAN qualifications and were beginning to see what they could do and how to make life work for them. What Skills Force isn't about is shining boots or standing to attention, but this Government didn't feel able to say that publicly. Anyway, back to the rant of the day. First of all, the idea of missing out GCSEs in favour of A (or actually AS Levels): that was exactly what my school did. But we just skipped them altogether and started the A Level course at 16 with everyone else: the idea was that you didn't need duplicates and that it was a good idea to cut down the number of exams being taken. I suppose this might have that effect, but am not entirely sure where it leaves the kids. If they get AS levels a year early, do they then do A2 a year early as well? Probably easy to do in an 11-18 school, not so easy in a system of 11-16 schools followed by a choice of college. Will this give time for teenagers to enjoy more depth of study? No, just more frantic exam taking, perhaps enabling them to get an “extra” AS level later. I've got no problem with Mr Gove sorting out the loony position with league tables whereby schools are penalised if kids take the “wrong” exam at the wrong time – but then that brings us back to whether or not RE should be in the Ebac along with history or geography. Perhaps parents could just be allowed to read the data on exam passes and then – gasp – make up their own minds on whether the school would do a good job for their own kids or not? As for the university idea – sorry, but this really would be tenuous data. Even in an 11-18 school, where credit could be claimed for the entire period of secondary teaching, it would be hard to show any added value on this indicator. Schools in middle-class areas are going to send more kids off to university, and cutting the EMA and imposing vast tuition fees aren't going to change that situation, except perhaps to make it more pronounced. And as a parent, I wouldn't just want to know about university destinations, especially if I suspected it might be in a school's interests to persuade my kid to go for a “softer” course which might help the league table but not the individual. I'd want to know about jobs, further education, and apprenticeships. Because every child is different, but every child deserves to succeed. And that doesn't just mean going to university. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=437 Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:27:23 GMT 20110321162723 Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:27:23 GMT 20110321162723 Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:27:23 GMT 201103211642723 Education news: what to choose today? We could go for the review of teaching standards, the Green Paper on special educational needs, protests about the EBacc, heads' worries about redundancies, the reported plan to allow the children of FreeSchool founder parents to jump the admissions queue, the Wolf review of vocational education, the developing curriculum review, or the (temporary) dearth of a national careers service. Phew. It's great for journalists who are restlessly seeking something new to write about, but is this hive of activity good for the pupils whose futures depend on their education, or the country whose future depends on these children? I've been writing about this for a very long time, during which time English education has been in a constant state of change, interspersed with major revolutions (usually when there's a new government in power) where the whole damn thing gets thrown in the air and reinvented. But it's much worse this time, I think because of the stealthy creep of powers to the centre – to be precise, to the Secretary of State for Education – which has happened during the past ten or 15 years. The nineties and the noughties were essentially about mass social projects, with league tables and Ofsted used to get schools doing the Government's agenda. The agenda was that schools had to be seen to be improving, with more qualifications for all kids and the rise of vocational exams to bring everyone into the fold (and, it has to be said, to help many schools up the league tables). Suddenly all of that has gone from being Wright and Wromantic to Wrong and Wrepulsive (to horribly misquote the mickey-taking history book 1066 And All That, which some fear will be the model for the curriculum of the future). Now it's all about pushing kids to get a baseline of six academic GCSEs, with problems previously known as SEN apparently to be outlawed by good teaching and rigorous discipline, with the creation of cottage-industry free schools which may well deal a fatal blow to local schools doing a good job with a wide range of kids. One day the old way was right: now it's not. Can anyone tell me if George Orwell's 1984 is still a set text? Because it really ought to be. I am absolutely sure that a lot of what Michael Gove is trying to do is well-motivated and will be great for pupils, in the same way that a lot of what the Labour governments did was well-motivated and good for pupils. But that leaves the rest of it: it was pretty clear that some of the vocational qualifications being pushed in schools desperate to claw their way out of the relegation zone in the league tables weren't going to do a lot for their recipients in later life, for instance. Yet it still comes as a shock now to read Alison Wolf's report, or the Demos report which reckons that schools “routinely neglect” children with vocational aspirations and fails up to half of all teenagers in England and Wales. Those schools which kept afloat by doing the Government's bidding on vocational qualifications are now, as Ronald Reagan used to say, in deep doo-doo now that overnight double-science and Latin rule the roost. It is deeply unfair to penalise them for adapting to do as they were told, without anticipating that a new government would not only want something entirely different, but want it retrospectively. When Labour came to power in 1997 it was praised to the skies for one of its first acts, which was to hive off to a Bank of England committee the power to set the bank rate, thus putting it beyond politics. It would be a brave and foresighted politician who chose to do the same thing with the basics of the education system in England and Wales, putting targets, curriculum matters, exam formulations, inspections and teaching styles and standards beyond the reach of prevailing dogma. We can't afford to keep changing tack like this every few years. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=434 Mon, 14 Mar 2011 14:27:58 GMT 20110314142758 Mon, 14 Mar 2011 14:27:58 GMT 20110314142758 Mon, 14 Mar 2011 14:27:58 GMT 201103141422758 Though it's early days, there are some interesting snippets coming out about the Government's overhaul of the National Curriculum. According to an interview published in The TES with expert panel chair Tim Oates, there are “serious questions” about the key stages which have been a defining part of the curriculum since its inception in 1988. Instead, the panel are seriously considering moving over to a curriculum outlined by year – in some subjects at least – and a revision of the idea of describing pupils' attainment by level. No decisions have yet been taken, and apparently there has been a mixed response in consultation on this idea, with some professionals wanting to stick to the structure they know. But Mr Oates points out that not only do “most” high-performing nations have a curriculum requirement defined by year rather than phase, but that key stages and levels are hard for parents to understand, and may make it more difficult for them to provide support. “It is not enough to know whether a child is level four… parents want to know whether their child is struggling with a particular area of the curriculum. Or, conversely, areas in which their child has particular strength,” he said. From conversations I've had with parents and teachers over the years, my reaction would be: about time too. In primary maths in particular, it's vital for kids to learn and practice the basic four rules until they've really got them nailed. Yet there is so much else to get through in the four years of KS2 that there is a constant rush to get on to the next thing. The risk is that deficiencies in those basics don't get picked up until the end of the key stage, by which time it's too late to sort things out before secondary. But if the curriculum was broken down to year-long chunks, where it was clear what the children had to master, it would be obvious to everyone how things were going, and – yes – easier for parents to keep a handle on what was going on in school. Year-long curriculum requirements would also be enormously helpful for the parents of secondary pupils who are trying to keep up with what their children are learning, and to help and support in that. The caveat, though, would be that schools do need flexibility at KS3 where they may be reinforcing the basics and being inventive about sparking interest in pupils who have yet to embark on examined courses. The other possible plus point about defining the curriculum by academic year is that it ought to be impossible to overload it. There's much more wriggle-room in a three or four year key stage than in a single school year. As Russell Hobby told the TES, having the content more closely aligned to age might not be a bad thing in a curriculum where the overall level of prescription had been slimmed down. Oates' other point about levels and parental understanding is pertinent as well. Parents do want and need to know if their children are struggling in particular areas – or, indeed if they're doing very well at something, and they need it in plain English. School reports have become so determinedly neutral in the past couple of decades that many parents feel none the wiser after reading them. It may not be fashionable, but it's easy to grasp if a child is doing better, worse, or about the same as his or her peers rather than that they are working towards the expected level. Especially when the expected level is at the end of year 6, your child is in year 3, and the parent is baffled by the explanation that they are expected to progress at two sub-levels a year but not to worry if they haven't. If everyone knows what a child is meant to master that year then it's far easier to see what's actually happening. It occurs to me (but I'm probably wrong on this, being no expert) that it ought to simplify teacher assessment no end as well. I wouldn't argue for the curriculum to be broken down by year across all subjects – English is clearly one area where flexibility is more useful. But I'll be watching the progress of the review with a great deal of interest. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=432 Mon, 07 Mar 2011 16:58:42 GMT 20110307165842 Mon, 07 Mar 2011 16:58:42 GMT 20110307165842 Mon, 07 Mar 2011 16:58:42 GMT 201103071645842 The shouty bit of the education bill is over and done with for the time being, and the quiet, painstaking hours of work have just begun. Thanks to the joys of Parliamentary TV, it's now possible to eavesdrop on what the scrutiny committee is asking of the witnesses it decides to call. Boy, have they got a busy schedule – so busy that this morning the chaps in charge of the two heads' associations got a princely 30 minutes to give evidence, and were congratulated at the end for their brevity. Interestingly, what the committee wanted to ask Russell Hobby and his ASCL counterpart, Brian Lightman, was fairly restricted in its scope. After a wide ranging session with academy representatives, Hobby and Lightman were quizzed about new provisions in the bill for searching pupils, no-notice detentions, and exclusions. Some of the questions were curious: Lightman, as a former head, found himself fielding queries about what level of staff training was planned for the new search powers. He had to make some pretty robust points in evidence that these kind of searches would be done only as a matter of last resort (perhaps if particularly malicious texting was a problem, or if there were fears of banned items coming into school) and that as such only senior staff would be involved. It seemed extraordinary that he had to reiterate that there was no question that a search would be carried out without a second adult present, that it would be carried out by a person of the same sex, and that it was not a good idea for another child to be present as well. But despite the limited range of questions, Hobby slipped in a few points of real concern to NAHT members. When one MP enquired about the “paradox” of heads being given more powers on the one hand, contrasted with the “more controlling” aspects of the Bill, there was the opportunity for a nice one about the presumption that new schools must always be academies, even if a local community wanted a particular type of local community school. It was down, he said, to the Secretary of State determining whether the area would get an academy contrary to the wishes of the local community. He also made good use of an opportunity to point up problems which might be thrown up over exclusions in the future, in that schools could remain responsible for the educational fate of their ex-pupils even if they had not control over that fate. And, as both general secretaries expressed their concern about the demise of behaviour improvement partnerships, Hobby nipped in a sneaky supplementary about the proposed pupil destination league tables, on which schools would be judged about matters outside their control, such as family aspirations and the local economy. “They should be used to help schools improve themselves,” he said. What's going to be interesting now is to see how the committee makes use of all this expert advice to modify and polish legislation so that it becomes more user-friendly. And also how much the demands of politics and spin will win the day. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=431 Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:53:23 GMT 20110301185323 Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:53:23 GMT 20110301185323 Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:53:23 GMT 201103011865323 So how many of you are spending half term practising the lone warrior look in the bedroom mirror? Narrow the eyes a bit, walk with that certain swagger….but maybe leave the poncho in the wardrobe. Puzzled? Then you must have missed out on the talk from the Government's favourite headteacher, Sir Michael Wilshaw, on models for 21st century school leadership. According to the TES, the Mossbourne Community Academy head told the 100 Group of leading heads from both sectors that Clint Eastwood's characters were the model for modern school leadership and called for heads to become “the lone warrior, fighting for righteousness”. I do wish I'd been there to see it. Sir Michael then apparently continued: “I'm not that bothered about distributed leadership; I would never use it. I don't think Clint would either. You see heads who don't use 'I' and use 'we' instead, but they should. We need heads who enjoy power and enjoy exercising that power.” Gosh. Where to start on this one? How about closing the eyes for a brief moment and enjoying the delicious fantasy of every headteacher you know with a gun in their pocket and the will to use it. “Make my day, year 9,” Mrs Smith could hiss, with narrowed eyes. “Do you feel lucky, punk?” growls Mr Jones at the teenagers smoking a crafty fag at break. Perhaps Sir Michael doesn't regard Dirty Harry as a role model though, and he's talking about leadership style with staff here. And that's where I am scratching my head a little. For the people who go into teaching by and large aren't lone warriors. I'm not an expert on psychometric testing, but I think people with lone warrior traits tend to go into other professions. Moreover, I suspect teachers tend not to respond well in the main to leadership by lone warriors. Few people do. I recall a former boss of mine who had the less-than-affectionate nickname (among many) of Scud: as in the type of guided missile which got lots of publicity but tended to explode anywhere except on its actual target. This punk made nobody's day. Moreover, elsewhere in his talk Sir Michael was apparently dismissive of primary heads who took part in the KS2 boycott last year, although you could well argue that perfectly fitted his mantra of “fighting for righteousness, fighting the good fight”. As the NAHT's very own Clint Eastwood, Russell Hobby, put it: “It's about schools being measured on what matters. I'm proud of people who would risk careers and reputations to make that happen.” Other than that, I do think Sir Michael's on to something, although his analogy of choice may say more about him than the profession as a whole. Leadership is one of those relatively modern inventions which goes in fashionable cycles and one size doesn't fit all. Distributed leadership may be brilliant in some teams, but in others there'll be a grassroots rebellion where the staff think it's shorthand for dumping all the work and keeping all the glory. The out-of-fashion hero head works fantastically in other teams with different personalities. Leaders have to do what works for them with the team they've got. And I think the point Sir Michael's trying to make is probably more that the head should be a lone warrior telling interfering outsiders (politicians, Ofsted, local authorities) to butt out while he takes the decisions he/she feels necessary for the success of his/her school. If that's going to be the leadership zeitgeist for a few years, I think quite a few heads would like to take his lead. Poncho and cigar, anyone? Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=427 Mon, 21 Feb 2011 14:25:20 GMT 20110221142520 Mon, 21 Feb 2011 14:25:20 GMT 20110221142520 Mon, 21 Feb 2011 14:25:20 GMT 201102211422520 So Jamie Oliver's sorted out school dinners, restaurant apprenticeships, and cooking skills (or the pitiful lack of them) in Yorkshire and the USA. What now? Ah – obvious. Schooling. Who better than to affect the disaffected than the pukka father-of-four, who apparently left school with two GCSEs? Since the new telly series, Dream School, doesn't even start until next month, I'm not even thinking on commenting on the details. But I think there are some interesting things about this venture: some good, some bad. And the interview is occasionally jaw-dropping, particularly when Jamie namechecks “Govey”. (Mr G is the fifth education secretary Mr O has met during his media career, which perhaps tells you all you need to know about any problems that might be lurking in English education). So, a quick catch up on the TV show which put together 20 kids who left school with fewer than 5 good GCSEs, and an unconventional staff of “high achievers and inspirational figures” to teach them, including Simon Callow, Alastair Campbell, Rolf Harris and Daley Thompson, with others such as Tinchy Stryder and Cherie Blair pitching in for the odd lesson. You may not be surprised to learn that “the kids prove a tough audience and the learning curve is often steeper for the teachers.” Oliver adds: “Like most of the other teachers, I'd done a bit of teaching and we all think we're great at what we do, but you realise that normally you have an audience who are all onside, who all want to listen. All of us very quickly had a lesson in how hard it is to be a secondary school teacher in the UK today.” They're not saying exactly what happened, but it seems that historian David Starkey – “incredibly structured and razor-sharp about this plan of action” fared rather well with his class compared with some of his colleagues. And the kids appear to have been completely unmoved by the stardom and achievements of their new teachers – no surprise as teenagers tend to think anyone over 20 is past it. I'll be interested to see how Tinchy Stryder does with them – they'll at least have heard of him – but I think there is a genuine problem here that teenagers have been increasingly isolated as a group during the past half-century. It's now entirely the norm for teenagers to be interested only in the views of others their own age or slightly older, via You Tube channels and other internet sites. They don't watch mainstream TV, read papers, or have any involvement in the adult world. And the recent concentrations on safeguarding and peer education have made it increasingly rare for teenagers to spend much time with anyone older other than their teachers (whom they can then dismiss as teachers). As far as I can see this is a radical departure from the traditional way in which humans were raised: could that be why we seem to have large numbers of kids with no interest in becoming educated? Anyway, back to the point about teaching. Now I know that the human race evolved because the older generation teach their skills to children, and that PGCEs and BEds are a comparatively new invention… but I'd still love to know why everybody (except David Starkey, by the sound of it) seems to think they can just amble into a classroom and teach. Would we accept people just wandering in to work in A and E, or as bus drivers, or on the bins? So why do we have this blind faith that anyone who's good at anything can teach it? This realisation seems to have dawned on Oliver's Teach Last crew…the hard way. “We hadn't bargained on keeping the class active, productive, putting up with the disturbances going on left, right and centre,” confides Oliver. “At first, we looked weak and pathetic, then there was a middle stage where we didn't want to be at Dream School, but then we had to be a bit more humble and more dynamic in our approach; then you start to feel relationships and fall in love and start to run classes that are achieving stuff… I think this show proves how hard it is to be a teacher and what they put up with every day.” Really, Sherlock? Blimey. But despite that, Oliver's still apparently happy about staffing Free Schools with untrained teachers. “I think DreamSchool is questioning everything about schools that we know, including whether you need traditional qualifications to be a teacher – I think we both know that's a no. Govey could be on to something quite profound there.” Well, maybe. I'd be surprised if many Free School teachers find themselves teaching large classes of kids with no interest in education week in, week out, as many mainstream teachers have to do. That's when you need those skills and that background. Jamie's Dream School had 20 pupils in all – difficult pupils, maybe, but it's not hard to get to know each individual there, in marked contrast to a vast comp. And then the interviewer asks Jamie if he was now inspired to set up his own free school. The answer is curiously interesting. “When I'm more financially robust, I would definitely think about it. Ultimately, it's about an inspirational head teacher, employing a brigade of teachers with a really clear, singleminded approach that is relevant to the area; you know you're investing in gold. I wouldn't be surprised if I don't do something in the next five years, for sure.” More financially robust? These things are entirely Government funded aren't they? Or is Oliver thinking about running his own chain of schools, which would be entirely different? Does he perhaps know something we don't? Well, I'm looking forward to the series for several reasons. I'm hoping that it will clearly demonstrate that teaching really is difficult and usually does require some professional training. That perhaps we need to find a way of reaching large numbers of kids before they get to the stage of the Dream School pupils – and that might not necessarily mean sticking them all in for the EBac. That perhaps teenagers need an awful lot more direct adult contact, in small groups, to help them develop properly. And perhaps to see that teachers do deserve respect and help with what they do all day long. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=426 Tue, 15 Feb 2011 15:17:25 GMT 20110215151725 Tue, 15 Feb 2011 15:17:25 GMT 20110215151725 Tue, 15 Feb 2011 15:17:25 GMT 201102151531725 Having followed the first debate on the new Education Bill, I'm beginning to wonder if there's something strange in the Parliamentary water supply at the moment. It's a long time since I've seen a performance like this in the Commons, with mild-mannered Michael Gove behaving like a rugby player scattering the opposition as he charged up the field, with a range of cheery insults for anyone who managed to halt him momentarily. Mind you, the Labour big guns wheeled out against him were equally extraordinary. The reward of going through the whole debate until the vote at 10pm was the joy of hearing former Labour minister Kevin Brennan accuse Mr Gove of being bent on world domination. Yes, really. “I do not know whether any Members with children have ever seen the TV cartoon "Pinky and the Brain", but the Minister of State and the Secretary of State rather remind me of it,” bellowed Mr Brennan. “As the title suggests, there are two characters. Pinky is good-natured, but he is dominated by the Brain, who is self-centred and thinks he is a genius. Every episode, after the opening titles, there is the following piece of dialogue: Pinky says, "Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?", and the Brain says, "The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world." That could almost be a transcript of the ministerial meeting at the Department for Education,” said Mr Brennan, adding that the centralised powers in the Bill were actually a recipe for chaos rather than world domination. Warming to his theme, Mr Brennan warned that Mr Gove was so intent on grabbing power that he was abolishing bodies such as the GTCE twice, in separate bills. “Presumably just in case abolishing them once is not enough to make absolutely certain that they are absolutely dead... “Why this centralising power grab? It is not just power for power's sake, it is part of his vision of education. In their mind's eye, the Secretary of State and the Minister of State see serried ranks of schoolchildren sitting at individual desks, preferably wearing short trousers, chanting after their teacher their conjugated Latin verbs and copying down the dates of the kings and queens of England from the board. Did I hear a "Hear, hear" from the Conservative Benches? I think I might have done. “If the Secretary of State thinks that is how to raise standards, he is wrong. A curriculum designed to train a few people to run the empire is not a system that will inspire and motivate the next generation to use their talent and creativity to the maximum benefit of themselves and the country. He has made it clear that in his mind a grade C GCSE in an ancient language, a laudable achievement in itself, is more valued than an A* in engineering or information and communications technology. He is, to coin a phrase, creating an analogue curriculum for a digital age.” Former Secretary of State David Blunkett weighed in too, accusing Mr Gove of “megalomania”. But really, you shouldn't feel too sorry for the Secretary of State, who started by cheerily accusing one of his own party of “as ever, leaping straight on to sex,” because he was seeking an assurance that there would be no compulsory sex education in primary schools. To give you a flavour, Mr Gove continued: “I know that it is a subject of great interest to him and to many in this House. I always feel that one should discuss money before discussing sex, because the one and the other are so intimately connected in the minds of so many Members.” Right. I also feel I should share the even madder exchange between Mr Gove and the veteran Labour MP and former actress Glenda Jackson, which went as follows: Mr Gove: “The honourable lady is passionate, and I do not doubt her commitment…” Ms Jackson: “Don't patronise me-just answer the question!” Mr Gove: “The honourable lady has won an Oscar for being successfully patronising to others. It is a pleasure to be patronised by the Virgin Queen-I feel rather like the French ambassador. I hope this requires no translation: the Bill includes provision for improved primary education and for extra investment in the early years, which is why I hope she will put aside the histrionics and give us her support.” Well, that's probably enough of the fun and games (although there was much, much more during a sometimes bad-tempered debate). On the serious side, there were some excellent points made, some of which perhaps had less than illuminating answers. On the question of untrained teachers in Free Schools, Mr Gove replied: “I should point out, of course, that many of the highest performing schools in this country-in fact, some of the highest performing schools in the world-are the fee-paying independent schools, which have earned this country so much foreign currency and have ensured that we continue to have beacons of educational excellence in the fee-paying and state sectors alike. Such schools draw in and welcome a wide variety of highly trained individuals, some of whom do not have qualified teacher status. It is important that we continue to innovate and to learn from the fee-paying independent sector. We must also continue, as we are doing, to invest in high-quality training for all teachers. That is why we are reforming initial teacher training, investing in Teach First, and setting up a new generation of training schools for teachers to develop the best practice from higher education institutions and elsewhere.” Clear as mud, that answer, as was a further reply to a question as to why the names of teachers found guilty of misconduct would be placed on a central register, but there would be no similar provision for those fired for incompetence. “We will have an opportunity to consider it in Committee,” said Mr Gove. “The phenomenon that he refers to is known in the United States as "the dance of the lemons", whereby teachers who are not up to the job are removed from it and reappear in another educational setting. We have explored with a variety of professional bodies the best way of ensuring that that cannot happen. There is no consensus that a central list of the kind he mentions is the answer. I am happy to discuss with him, in Committee and elsewhere, how we can ensure that teachers who are not effective do not continue in the classroom.” And there was a lot of argument about the composition of the English Baccalaureate, including from members on Mr Gove's side of the house who worried about the subject composition. Other real concerns expressed were on the centralising aspects of the Bill, careers guidance, the loss of parental power over school admissions and complaints, and special needs. Shadow Secretary of State for Education Andy Burnham was eloquent on the academic-vocational divide and Mr Gove's reading of international education statistics. Barry Sheerman, long-time chair of the Education Select Committee, was particularly measured. “I am going to be honest: much of the Bill could have come from the previous Labour Administration. I think some colleagues would agree with that... “We often throw across the Chamber allegations that the other side is being ideological- those on the Government side say it about the Opposition and vice versa-but I cannot find any ideology in this Bill. Indeed, if I were to vote against it, it would be because it is a bit of a mish-mash. There are some very good things in it, but there are other things that I do not really like and want to know much more about. I do not like the fact that the Government want to get rid of the Training and Development Agency for Schools, as that would be a retrograde step. I do not agree with what they have said about schools adjudicators or with giving parents less chance to challenge admissions policies and get them changed. “I am not going to vote against it today because I want to see whether we can improve it in Committee. However, I get very irritated when I hear about PISA studies and TIMSS tables and about the OECD. ..The truth is that many such evaluations are quite flaky and have changed dramatically over the years. “When I chaired the Select Committee I was constantly saying that I wanted our country to be compared with other countries such as ours-large, populous countries with high migration and high turnover in inner urban schools. The United States, Germany and France, and perhaps Italy and Spain, would be fairer comparisons for the UK. On that measure, our education system has improved dramatically in the past 13 years. I do not believe the PISA studies showing a cataclysmic decline: I do not believe that is true and I do not think that Ministers believe it either. Let us have some good sense,” he said, calling for more research on why England does not get better results. It's going to be interesting to see what happens during the Committee stage. But I can't see it being so eloquent as these four hours in the Commons. Before I go, I'll share one last joke with you (at least, I think it was a joke) from David Blunkett, the Education Secretary at the start of the Blair government who introduced naming and shaming of failing schools, and all sorts of other things. “I say to the Secretary of State that on reflection nothing is ever quite as good or bad as we think it is: I was not as good a Secretary of State as I thought I was, and I have a feeling that the right hon. Gentleman is not quite as bad as I think he is - at least I hope he is not.” I think that's called damning with faint praise. Susan Young is an educational journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=425 Wed, 09 Feb 2011 12:52:34 GMT 20110209125234 Wed, 09 Feb 2011 12:52:34 GMT 20110209125234 Wed, 09 Feb 2011 12:53:14 GMT 2011020912125314 Would you want to run a school in the Department for Education's central London headquarters? Well, the mandarin in charge of the DfE wants someone to do it, in order to concentrate civil servants' minds on their “mission” as they get to their desks every morning. David Bell is a nice man, and usually very practical. But having visited Sanctuary Buildings on more than one occasion, I'm left (unusually) speechless by this idea. Have you ever been there? For the benefit of those who haven't, here's a quick rundown. A rather beautiful old façade conceals a vast atrium, which used to be filled with plants and a water feature so that visitors used to joke about the Hanging Gardens of Sanctuary Buildings. Presumably they've survived the cuts, so far. Ministers have got rather nice offices high up, but below that there's a rabbit warren of little meeting rooms. As I recall, apart from the atrium and the rather generous hallway to the glass lifts, it's all a bit cramped. So where shall we stick the kids, then? In the basement, safely away from all those nasty potential falls you might get round the atrium? Up on one of the business floors, with natural daylight? Well, assuming the forced redundancies of all these civil servants is going to create enough space somewhere in this building, let's think in a slightly more detailed way. Let's start by assuming secondary-age kids (who might be a better bet in an office environment). They're going to need science labs, or they can't get an EBac, and that would be a bit embarrassing on Government premises. Are there any health and safety regs which might affect running science demos in an office environment? What are all these hulking teenagers going to do at lunchtime? Will they be allowed to hang round the atrium and sneak a crafty fag behind the weeping figs? Or a quick snog beside the water feature? They might want to leave the premises for lunch – what if they forget the security pass essential in a Government building? And where on earth are they going to buy a cheap lunch in central Westminster if there's no school canteen or they're desperate to get out of the building? Perhaps a primary school might be a better bet, then. But primary kids are pretty noisy, and might actually distract the civil servants from their mission. They'll definitely need somewhere to play and let off steam during breaktimes (when they'll be even noisier). Still, a few games of It and Stuck In The Mud in the atrium should fix that. But where on earth are they going to play their compulsory competitive sports? On College Green, where all the TV crews go to do political interviews in the open air? Should be fun for the mums doing the school run, too. Presumably they'll all need a security pass, in case they need to pop in for a word with the teacher. And I'd pay money to see the look on Mr Gove's face if he catches any of them in a coat pulled over their PJs as they drop off Chantelle and Ryan. But perhaps Free School clientele get dressed properly, with full makeup, before hopping into the Chelsea Tractor to take the little darlings and their violins to school. Could be a bit of a traffic nightmare, in that case, bang in the middle of the congestion zone. Mind you, as Mr Gove pointed out to the assembled throngs at the Free Schools conference where this idea was reawakened at the weekend (he's dropped hints about it before): "The Department has buildings in Runcorn, Darlington – in a historic building – Mowden Hall, Sheffield and Central London." So perhaps Runcorn and Sheffield are likelier bets, perhaps having fewer security issues, possibly a less relentless design, and just maybe more scope for the kids to have a little R&R. Or to be able to speak above a whisper without disturbing civil servants' productivity, anyway. But Mr G has his heart set, it seems. "The most exciting thing would be to have one in the heart of London," said Mr Gove, according to The Independent. Without wishing to be cynical, the difficulties with teaching in Sanctuary Buildings is just the first set of problems I can think of, and I'm not an expert in leading schools. The former New York education chief who was also at the Free Schools conference was clearly inspired – and inspiring – about having a charter school in his building, explaining: “You see a child and symbolically in a deep and powerful way you understand: that's why I'm here.” I can see why David Bell and Michael Gove want to offer underutilised office buildings to encourage the whole Free School malarkey… and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if one ended up tucked away somewhere in Sanctuary Buildings. But you'd need to be a head with a brass neck to want to run a school right under the eye of The Boss. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=424 Mon, 31 Jan 2011 22:48:28 GMT 20110131224828 Mon, 31 Jan 2011 22:48:28 GMT 20110131224828 Mon, 31 Jan 2011 22:50:10 GMT 2011013122105010 Though it now seems extraordinary that we didn't have a National Curriculum more than two decades ago, it's never felt particularly satisfactory. Early versions had everything desirable shoved in there, to the point where the Government's educational Mr Fixit, the glorious Sir Ron Dearing, was wheeled in to “slim it down”. He did well enough to be lumbered with an even more ticklish problem, that of university funding, but did point out that his fix was likely to be a temporary one. Since there there's been various bits of fiddling round the edges – politicians do love to fiddle – with systems of assessment being bolted on so that often the tail has wagged the dog. And it's still far too prescriptive – I've never quite got over the shock of sitting in on a year 3 art lesson where the kids (disbelieving that they'd actually got paintbrushes in their hands) were taken through primary, secondary, and then tertiary colours. Why? Meanwhile, kids miss out on vital reinforcement in the basics of maths because the class have to cover the set syllabus and time is running out. But the current curriculum review looks, finally, like it might be A Good Thing. Although I'd also lay money that there will be howls of disapproval over some high-profile casualties. And if you want to have your say, do so here. The remit is interesting, but then so is a paper published back in November, written by Tim Oates, who is chairing the review's Expert Panel (with a fantastically experienced and interesting group of participants). The first part of the plan is to look at what needs to be in the English, Maths and Science curricula, which are remaining on the curriculum. PE is being done at the same time, with a “clearer expectation that all pupils should play competitive sport.” The remit adds: “The Government will also consider whether there would be merit in providing some form of guidance to schools about the allocation of time to outdoor physical activities. These considerations will be informed by the outcomes of the review.” Wonder if William Hill will take a bet on this? Or is the hint too broad? The review “will also consider whether each of the remaining subjects should be part of the National Curriculum, with statutory programmes of study, and if so, at which key stages. For any subjects that are not recommended to be National Curriculum subjects in the future, the review will advise on whether there should be non-statutory programmes of study available at particular key stages, and/or whether those subjects – or any aspects of them – should nevertheless be compulsory but with what is taught being decided at local level.” Would you lay money on ICT or citizenship retaining their current status? Is it all starting to feel a bit Back to the Future? That was what I thought too. But then, as I say, I read Mr Oates's really interesting paper, Could do better: Using international comparisons to refine the National Curriculum in England. This really is worth a read, but here's my inaccurate précis: the National Curriculum has been driven by all sorts of competing demands over the years (not least from politicians) and as a result is hugely overinflated and overprescriptive. Curriculum and assessment don't work properly together, and content and context have been horribly confused. The problems are increasingly shown up by international comparisons such as PISA, but the last thing we should do is simply import the curriculum ideas of countries where the system performs better. There is plenty for professionals to like in his analysis: “Refinement in the National Curriculum is necessary, can be informed by transnational comparison of high-performing systems, and that once the National Curriculum assumes a form more consistent with high-performing systems, stability in arrangements is highly desirable.” What he is arguing for is an “evidence-based review” of the NC “and that such a review should effect change only where justified, in order to avoid unnecessary disruption to the education system.” Even more hearteningly, Oates points to research showing “the extent to which English processes tend towards satisfying the conflicting demands of competing societal and lobby groups rather than developing more radical policy solutions, which have greater potential to confront chronic structural problems.” So how much prescription does Oates think might be desirable? “The weight of evidence from transnational comparison is that a certain degree of curriculum control is necessary (that this need not be associated with 'top down' control or control exercised exclusively by the State) and that this control should be directed towards attaining 'curriculum coherence'. The analysis in this paper shows how curriculum control is necessary, but can be enacted in very different ways – some systems emphasise high levels of teacher qualification, others emphasise tightly controlled curriculum materials, and so on.” NAHT members may relish his argument that problems with the curriculum mean the relationship between its aims and assessment have resulted in “narrow drilling for tests at KS2 inconsistent with the purpose of the curriculum.” He is unhappy about recent revisions to the curriculum which have led to prescription on teaching methods and the need for “constant updating” because subject requirements have moved away from the essential elements. And then there is a really interesting paragraph from which I am going to quote selectively (removing the names of academics, in the main): “[The] National Curriculum should include that which is essential for participation in a modern, democratic society – the fundamentals necessary for progression. Such content is unlikely to be obviously motivating or demotivating. It is a conceptual confusion to call 'ratio' or 'photosynthesis' motivating or demotivating. It is for teachers and schools to construct programmes of learning which will be motivating for their learners– it is teachers who understand the specific keys to unlocking the motivation of their learners in respect of essential bodies of knowledge. This suggests that there is a powerful distinction between content and context. In areas such as maths and science, the National Curriculum should focus on being a clear statement of content – a listing of concepts, principles, fundamental operations, and key knowledge.” On the evidence of this, I'm pretty optimistic that the revised curriculum won't end up as a throwback to the 1950s. But I still wouldn't bet on the survival of ICT or citizenship. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=421 Tue, 25 Jan 2011 21:40:05 GMT 20110125214005 Tue, 25 Jan 2011 21:40:05 GMT 20110125214005 Tue, 25 Jan 2011 21:40:18 GMT 201101252194018 If I've started something, I apologise. But there I was, perusing the Government's shiny new school spending tables, when I noticed something funny. No infant schools. I rubbed my eyes and tried again. There were secondary schools, primaries, juniors and infant-juniors. But absolutely no infant schools. I consulted the Frequently Asked Questions, which informed me that academies were exempt from the publication of this information. I snorted with derision. And then I picked up the phone to the Department for Education. “Hello, I'm looking at your spending tables and I can't find anything there about infant schools. Is that right please?” The chap confers quietly with a colleague. “Good question,” he says. “I'll have to call you back on that one.” A day later (“sorry, we've been under the cosh”) the DFE is back on the phone. “The infant schools aren't there because the idea was that parents could compare spending with results. And there aren't any results for infant schools.” “That makes sense,” I said, properly grasping for the first time that Mr Gove is expecting parents up and down the land to divide KS2 or EB results by their school budget and then descend on the place with flaming torches to demand – well, what exactly? “But people want to look at infant schools so we're pulling something together and the workbook will hopefully be on the website this afternoon,” she continued. (At the time of writing, the new data hadn't appeared.) I thanked her, put down the phone, and scratched my head for a bit. If the infant tables are being put up in response to demand, but without any test result data by which “value for money” could be gleaned, then it's surely there to satisfy pure nosiness? And if my local infant school's decisions to fork out for tooth fairy stickers or a new set of reading books are there for anyone to see, without any indication of whether every kid or none hits KS1 targets, why isn't the same light being shone upon the budgets of academies? Why is it that can I work out what it costs St Bogstandard's to produce each A*-C GSCE by checking through their financial and results data, but not the neighbouring St Bogstandard's Academy? It's all public money, isn't it? Back to the FAQs: “If your school is an Academy, it is currently not required to submit Consistent Financial Reporting data. This includes schools which have recently converted to academy status. Academies' accounts are published on the Charity Commission website. Academies' financial reporting and monitoring arrangements are currently being reviewed and this review is taking account of the wider transparency agenda and the current reporting requirements for maintained schools.” That's something to keep an eye on, then. In the meantime, as someone who's had a good old nose through the spending data on my local schools, am I tempted to ring up any local heads and suggest they should be spending less on toilet paper and more on dictionaries? Well, no actually. This is what I was tempted to do: Ring primary school A to commiserate with them about apparently having the lowest budget in our LA's low budget category, and marvel at what they'd managed to do with it. It occurs to me that the tables might be very handy for schools which suspect their neighbours are getting all the money. And then they can kick up a fuss… or become an academy. Ring secondary school B, (which boasts an apparently enormous grant settlement), to advise they pre-empt angry callers by posting somewhere on their website that actually that cash is there because they're the hub of the local School Sports Partnership. But, hey, why bother? That nice Mr Gove is solving that problem for them by axeing the partnerships, so they'll have a hugely reduced budget in next year's spending data. I've yet to hear of a school receiving a phone call from a gang of marauding underemployed amateur accountants, but if it does happen, then there's a fantastic get-out clause: become an academy. Do you think that's the idea? Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=420 Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:31:08 GMT 20110118183108 Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:31:08 GMT 20110118183108 Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:31:08 GMT 201101181863108 The publication of the GCSE results this week threatens to be such a media event that it could even overshadow coverage of the first by-election to pass any sort of judgment on the coalition Government. This is a Government – and an Education Secretary – who are making no bones about being in a hurry to change things. Even by those standards, though, the decision to include the “English Baccalaureate” in this batch of league tables is an interesting one. After all, the announcement on exactly which five GCSEs qualify to make up an EBac (or whatever it's going to end up being called) was only made at the back end of last year. By that time, the schools and pupils being judged on their achievements this week had made their exam choices almost three years previously, under a Government which was pushing the system in rather a different direction. So on one level, it's clearly not fair to effectively denigrate schools and pupils who made their choices under certain circumstances, which are now being changed rapidly. If I were a gambler, I'd lay a fair bit of money that some previously very highly-regarded schools are going to be the target of a media frenzy this week as they slide from the top of the “old” 5 A*-C (including English and Maths) tables to the bottom of the EBac version which also insists on a language, science and a narrowly-defined humanity. Meanwhile, other schools are going to find themselves blinking in the glare of the Daily Mail's approval. A disproportionate number of these may be language colleges: a similarly disproportionate number are also likely to be found in solidly middle-class areas. It is probably going to look like a massive kick in the teeth for schools which have been working hard to send their more deprived intakes out of the door with a good handful of qualifications. It's going to be horrible for them, and horrible to watch. Even if the Government's view is that some children have been short-changed by the previous workings of the league tables which in some cases encouraged high-scoring GCSE equivalent exams rather than more academic and traditional subjects, that's something to take up with the previous Government rather than individual schools. If it thinks modern foreign languages (and even Latin) were dumped in the race for higher league table positions, then that too is down to the Government which created that particular set of circumstances. Pushing the blame on to schools would be unfair. The next steps in this are going to be interesting as well. While adding the EBac hoop to league tables now fits the agenda of a government in a hurry, it also raises the issue high up the agenda of every school, and also provides a conveniently low starting baseline. Next year's league tables will be equally light on EBacs unless enterprising schools have laid on crash courses in French and History, but presumably numbers will be satisfyingly up by the next election campaign, which makes it a bit of an easy win. And at what point in the proceedings will schools be given a floor target for EBacs, rather than it being strictly optional? The most vicious fighting of all is likely at this stage, with debates raging on the fairness or otherwise of such a requirement among some particularly deprived communities. Especially if schools which failed to reach the floor (awful jargon, sorry) then found themselves lined up for Academy status as a result. It's very difficult to know what moral, if any, can be fairly drawn from this week's events, given that the goalposts have been moved and secondary schools' past decisions are being judged on brand-new rules which they could not have anticipated. Is the message that schools should have ignored the push from the government of the day to get themselves out of the danger zone and up the league table by pushing pupils to take perfectly legitimate qualifications? That schools should somehow have known better? If so, that's a very dangerous game for politicians to play. Especially those who proclaim that heads and teachers should be free to make their own decisions. If schools are hung out to dry over this, then it will leave a nasty taste in the mouth. If, however, the clear steer from Sanctuary Buildings is that something different is now being asked of schools and there is no criticism of the very real efforts and achievements of the last few years, then that would be helpful and only fair, under the circumstances. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=418 Mon, 10 Jan 2011 17:28:28 GMT 20110110172828 Mon, 10 Jan 2011 17:28:28 GMT 20110110172828 Mon, 10 Jan 2011 17:28:28 GMT 201101101752828 OK, apologies are due before you read any further: what I am about to write on this occasion is gleaned from parental experience as much as the day job, which is something I usually deliberately avoid. But I've come across quite a few parents bleating about it, and am beginning to wonder if there's a bit of an issue here. It's the rather muddy issue of secondary school homework which involves, as it often seems to, a piece of research. And for those of you in primary schools, it's a close relative of the Big Project, where submitted homework on Egypt will range from a scaled architect's model of the Great Pyramid (guess what Daddy does for a living?) through to Barbie swaddled in toilet-paper bandages. Presumably, this means hours of fun for the teachers to mark fairly, as well as being a fantastic place to spot competitive parents. (I even heard of one project – to create the wrapper for a new chocolate bar – where one child turned up with a bar of individually made and wrapped confectionary for every classmate.) Anyway, I digress. What I'm interested in is the tendency for secondary school teachers to set (rightly) more interesting and challenging homework than the old days of answering the questions at the end of Chapter 3. It seems common to send pupils off with a sheet giving a very short outline of what they have to do, plus detailed information on what is required to gain different levels. There's usually no textbook, and no preparatory cross-subject lessons about research skills, and how to separate the wheat from the chaff and the plain nutty on the internet. I'd suggest that's a pretty tall order for many pupils in the early years of secondary school, and also a problem for their parents who may not be all that computer-literate themselves, let alone have a working knowledge of the subjects their children come home with. In the old days, if you were struggling with homework, mum and dad could at least look at your textbook to see what you were meant to know and supposed to be doing. No-one in my family knew any French, but if I was struggling they could at least look through the book I was using and give some support. These days, pupils coming home with a textbook appears to be a rarity. Nowadays, the system depends far more on you having computer-literate parents – with broadband access – and a willingness to support without overstepping the line into active help and interference. Does your school advise new students on internet research skills, and how to structure this kind of project? Does your school advise parents on how to help with homework? And does it issue advice on how not to overstep the mark? If so, what do you say? Part of the problem is that the internet mostly isn't intended for kids. Some important curriculum subjects do have useful sites specifically aimed at this age group, full of relevant and comprehensible information. BBC Bitesize is good here (though more about revision), as is the Science Museum. But how many parents know to suggest typing KS3 as well as the topic into Google when their child starts researching their homework? And I've heard tales of some homework tasks where the only information to be found on the internet was so specialist that it was impossible for parents without a working knowledge of the subject themselves to bridge the gap for their children. Yes, I know there are still libraries out there, with reference books which might have done the job, but if schools aren't pushing books then parents are on to a loser here. Increasingly, I am concerned that there are thousands of bright kids struggling under the expectations of this system, because for one reason or another their parents can't help them through this 21st century homework jungle and schools don't fully comprehend the difficulties. I'm going to sound a bit Luddite here, but there were other benefits to pupils bringing home their textbooks, including gaining a clear understanding of what you were meant to know and a straightforward way of filling in gaps if you missed or daydreamed through something. It also meant parents could be reasonably up to speed on what their children were learning. I'm not arguing for the return of personal textbooks travelling between home and school all the time, and I've even tried to talk one parent out of my acquaintance out of buying the science text she'd heard was being used in another school. Mostly because she believed that (a) all schools would tackle the curriculum in the same way and (b) they'd do it in the chronology given by the book. (“You could make sure they'd understand what they'd done and look at what they'd be doing next,” she chirruped). But I do think this is an area which schools need to look at carefully. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=417 Wed, 05 Jan 2011 12:13:45 GMT 20110105121345 Wed, 05 Jan 2011 12:13:45 GMT 20110105121345 Wed, 05 Jan 2011 12:13:45 GMT 2011010512121345 Two U-turns in a fortnight is the kind of thing most Governments hope to avoid. And the same scenario is something most individual politicians most definitely hope to avoid. It hasn't really been Michael Gove's month, has it? First of all there was the fun and games (or lack of them) over the school sports partnerships, their axing, and partial reinstatement, after a lot of yelling and screaming from schools and sports stars. Then—and you may have missed this one amid the festivities – there was the story of Booktrust, whose £13m grant was axed a week before Christmas, and partially reinstated (in some form yet to be fully decided) on Boxing Day after a lot of yelling and screaming from famous authors. There appears, you might think, to be a pattern emerging here, (and as a more cynical commentator than I has noted, involving reprievals after interventions from the well-known). The strange thing about the Booktrust story is the all-or-nothing nature of the original cut. All children, rich or poor, were eligible for their little packages of books in infancy and toddlerhood, with the choice of one final book as they entered Year 7. Yet not only would Florence Cameron not have got her first package of books, but the child of a single mum on benefits living in a nearby damp flat would also have been deprived of them. And this is a Government which worries about children's reading enough to have decreed a new test to be given to six-year olds to check progress, and to have plonked Michael Gove on the Today programme earlier this month to talk about boys' underachievement compared to girls. But reading doesn't happen in isolation: in order to like reading, it helps enormously for children to have families who read aloud to them from an early age, and themselves understand the importance of books. Which is why removing books from all English children in this way (but not those in Wales or Scotland, whose devolved governments apparently wish the scheme to continue) seems so curiously Gradgrindian. If libraries go as a result of the local authority budget cuts, poor children may not even see a book outside nursery or school, which is surely a retrograde step. But I do wonder if there is simply lack of understanding here. A rather surprising opinion piece in the Telegraph found the author grateful for the books given to his baby daughter, but dismissing the scheme for the reason that he didn't need the books. I looked, but failed to find any acknowledgement that as a middle-aged journalist working for national newspapers, he might not be a typical recipient and that there might be plenty of kids and families out there for whom the Booktrust gift makes a real difference. Or that it might be an idea for the scheme to continue, targeting recipients more carefully. Having said that, though, it's not just about money: I do know of well-to-do families who could easily afford books for their baby, but for whom the idea simply hadn't occurred. Could it be that ministers in the Department for Education are in such a hurry to act and cut that they hadn't thought this one through properly? Or hadn't realised that children's authors carry a lot of emotional weight, especially at Christmas? Either way, it doesn't really bode well for the way decisions are being made within Sanctuary Buildings. It will be interesting to see how Bookstart does eventually change… and whether the DfE can move towards a more considered pace of change in the New Year. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=416 Tue, 28 Dec 2010 18:50:04 GMT 20101228185004 Tue, 28 Dec 2010 18:50:04 GMT 20101228185004 Tue, 28 Dec 2010 18:50:04 GMT 201012281865004 News management is a wonderful thing. If Michael Gove had announced a few weeks ago that he was ending dedicated funding of School Sports Partnerships in summer 2011, and would be cutting the money it got in the meantime to £47m there would have been an outcry. His plan to spend a further £65m (unringfenced, as I understand it) to 2013 to free a PE teacher in every school for one day a week to promote pupil participation in sport – as happens now, but with more resources – would probably also have attracted grumbles. But because this is better than what he'd announced he was going to do – cut school sports partnerships altogether, allow headteachers to spend money on sport as they wished, and organise some ill-defined Schools Olympics, the new situation is being hailed as a fantastic U-turn. And he's still yapping on about competitive sport as for some reason being the only sporting thing worth getting out of bed for. Here we are, with something like a third of Year 6 children weighing in as obese, up from roughly a quarter in Reception, and the education secretary wants them involved in the offputting process of being picked (or likelier, not picked) for teams before failing to shine in the netball or football match Mr Gove says is “character-building” for them. It may not be very team-spirited, and may not win us Olympic medals or World Cup glory, but actually right now it's the taking part which counts. And that means taking part in absolutely anything which encourages the idea that exercise can be fun and makes you feel better, setting up good habits to last a lifetime. Like healthy eating, which schools are still encouraged to promote, but healthy exercising. If we want to be competitive about it, let's chuck in the recent statistic that the West Midlands contains the fattest people in Europe. See – we can win things. And if prophesies about the local authority funding cuts turn out to be true, we may be winning more accolades for our flabbiness as leisure centres shut their doors and the only options remaining are pricey private gyms, running or walking. Nothing wrong with running or walking, but it would hugely help the kids from some families to introduce them to the idea at school. I am still flabbergasted that Mr Gove last week quoted Baden-Powell in his decision to junk school sports partnerships in favour of “competitive sport” on the grounds that the latter was “character-building”. Baden-Powell was a pragmatic man, a forward-thinker and a man of his time. And that time, let's not forget, was a century ago when most people routinely walked miles each day and hard physical work by someone was required to even get hot water upstairs in a house. Had Baden-Powell been around now, I suspect he'd have been urging the Government not to be so hung up on competitive sport. And thank goodness that the health secretary and the culture secretary have prevailed enough to create a little bit of a U-turn on what was looking like a decision built on pure ideology. Even if it's a little defeat snatched from the salivating and very greedy jaws of a bigger one. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=414 Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:07:06 GMT 20101221120706 Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:07:06 GMT 20101221120706 Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:07:06 GMT 2010122112120706 If you want to know what makes Michael Gove tick, then 90-odd minutes of watching him being lightly toasted by the Parliamentary Education Select Committee is a reasonably revealing exercise. And if you can think of better ways to spend that 90 minutes, I can offer a bit of a précis – subject, that is, to the odd gaps when my internet connection gasped to a halt. First off, he's an accomplished performer although he does have a tendency to flannel for a few moments when an awkward question is lobbed in his direction – something Labour's Lisa Nandy was more than adept at doing. She pursued him like a terrier on Education Maintenance Allowances and the findings of last week's massive Pisa report, which appears to damn the Free Schools plans by demonstrating that competition doesn't actually help education to improve. “That is a superficial reading of the facts,” said Mr Gove, smoothly. He went on to explain that on page 90 of volume 4 it demonstrated that there was no net gain in competition between schools for disadvantaged families where fees were payable. “That is a problem that doesn't apply here,” he concluded. What about the poor showing of Sweden, the model for the Free Schools policy? There was an answer for that, too. The author of the report had explained in a briefing last week that reliable data was a problem, and this had applied to the Swedish information in this context. There was quite a bit of flannelling round the EMA scrapping, with committee members asking for exemption for pupils currently on two-year courses to be allowed to receive the grant for the full period. Mr G contended that actually all the publicity was a good thing because it would help encourage people sign up for the new grant. They also failed to land a blow on him over school sports partnerships. The talk last week was that these might be reprieved from the axe, but I'd doubt that from this morning's showing. What he wanted, he reiterated, was competitive sport within and between schools and the upcoming Olympics provided a great opportunity to organise a competition which would not be about “elite athletes” but schools working as a whole. “The reason I emphasise that that is that sport is about more than getting fit… it's the the effect team spirit confers on those taking part. The effect on schools, to use the old Baden Powell phrase, is character-building.” My jaw dropped slightly. Unfortunately the camera wasn't on the committee members at this point to see the effect of this particular name-drop on their faces. But I can't recall hearing Baden-Powell being approvingly cited by a Government minister… well, ever. And on it went. The Government would give cash to sport (“You'll say, come on Govey, where's the money?”) as well as other areas it wanted to support including music, science, maths and modern foreign languages. The committee changed tack. What had made the current generation of teachers the best yet? “Andrew Adonis,” came the rather surprising reply. Lord Adonis's contribution was apparently to set up Teach First which attracted “elite” Oxbridge and Russell Group graduates to the profession, thus setting up a “beneficial halo effect” which made others want to apply. Knighthoods and the Teaching Awards had all played their part. “Aren't you cutting the Teaching Awards?” asked a sharp committee member. “We're in negotiations,” came the reply. You may be surprised to know that the word “safeguarding” – enemy vocabulary, surely – passed the Govean lips. But it was nothing to do with child protection. Rather, he sees the role of teachers, lecturers and academics as“being responsible for the most important thing in our country – safeguarding our intellectual life.” Teachers should be encouraged to build on their subject knowledge in such ways as taking Masters or attending one of the Prince of Wales's summer schools. What else did we learn? That taking a range of different GCSEs is apparently good for brain development, stimulating different areas and developing analytical skills. Though in parallel there was a need to ensure skills wanted by employers were provided, including the ability to write a business letter and wear a tie. “Without wanting to be fogeyish about it the best schools instil these skills,” he said. Teachers were to be trusted to hand out on-the-day detentions if they thought it necessary, and parents, who had the right to choose their child's school, then had to support discipline there. Otherwise there was a risk of the “corrosion” of adult authority. And heads are in charge. I wish I'd tallied the number of times he uttered the phrases “strong heads” or “weak schools,” particularly with reference to the changes when the former took over the latter. It's fascinating stuff, like having a guided tour of the Govean brain. What shines through is that he has a very clear vision of what English education should be, and some of it does hark back to an unfashionable past. Sport is about teamwork, rather than the narcissism of individual fitness; education is about developing the brain and the individual rather than league tables; teachers should be at the heart of the intellectual life of the nation: heads should be in charge of all this, with a bit of nudging from the Department of Education. It's a clear vision partly because Gove has the luxury of starting from scratch, after years of developing his ideas. Not for him the position of a new education secretary in an established Government, having to make his own mark with new policies while the old have still to bed down. But there is one tension in the argument: the Government is explicit that heads are running the show and in academies have a pretty free hand to do as they wish. Will they share the Baden-Powell view of sport, or the desire to lead the nation's intellectual life? And if they don't, will the Government be able to resist the temptation to meddle? Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=410 Tue, 14 Dec 2010 13:17:09 GMT 20101214131709 Tue, 14 Dec 2010 13:17:09 GMT 20101214131709 Tue, 14 Dec 2010 13:17:09 GMT 201012141311709 First off, let me confess. I haven't read all five volumes of Pisa's 2009 report into education in the OECD countries, but then it was only published this morning. Lots of it is clearly going to be worth mining in future, both by education journos like me and no doubt by political advisers keen to make capital. But what I have read is absolutely fascinating, with quite a lot of good news for anyone involved in education in the UK. You will have read that we've dropped down the rankings since 2000, but at what pace is hard to tell as the UK failed to provide enough data for the 2003 exercise. But that doesn't begin to tell the whole story. Science teachers can start preening themselves at this point. And everyone else had better book a holiday in Shanghai, as their results are so stunning that it can only be a matter of time before our politicians change the record from Swedish free schools to Shanghai teaching methods. It's such an enormous document that you could probably find support for just about any argument you cared to make within its pages, or draw any conclusions you wished. Some countries do better with bigger classes, some with smaller… and so on. Top line stuff is that our 15-year-olds perform at around average in reading and maths and above average for science out of the 34 OECD countries. However, that reading score is “well below” the highest-performing countries. The gender gap in reading is also lower than in many other nations. But – the gap between boys and girls in maths is the second highest after Chile's, and for science is the third highest (after the US and Denmark). And class rears its ugly head. 77 per cent of the between-schools difference in student performance in the UK is explained by socio-economic background. Only in Luxembourg is this difference more significant, against an OECD average of 55 per cent. We spend lots of money on education, with only seven others forking out more per student. However, as the report then points out, “moderate spending per student cannot automatically be equated with poor performance by education systems.” Estonia and Poland spend about $40,000 per student perform as well as Norway and the US, which spend $100,000 per student. New Zealand is one of the highest scoring countries for reading but spends well below the average. Our $85,000 per student buys an average performance comparable with that of Germany ($63,000) and Hungary. “It is not just the volume of resources that matters but also how countries invest these, and how well they succeed in directing the money where it can make the most difference. The United Kingdom is one of the 13 OECD countries in which, for example, socio-economically disadvantaged schools have similar student-teacher ratios to socio-economically advantaged schools. Furthermore, the quality of the teachers or other resources is also similar across schools with different socio-economic backgrounds.” Interestingly, we also have a below-average share of children from disadvantaged backgrounds in the UK, but a relatively large proportion of students with an immigrant background. Most OECD countries have a larger performance gap in favour of “native students” than the UK. Unsurprisingly language plays a major part in this: second generation immigrant students who speak English at home perform at similar level to students without an immigrant background. Those who don't speak English at home lag behind by up to 40 points. Almost 20 per cent of 15-year-olds don't reach the baseline (Level 2) of reading proficiency enabling them to participate “effectively and productively” in life. This is around the OECD average. We've got an average proportion of the best readers. 20 per cent do not reach Level 2 in maths, compared with an OECD average of 22 per cent. We have a below average share of the top performers. The news is better in science, where just 15 per cent of UK kids don't reach Level 2, compared to an average of 18 per cent. That's something we've actually improved at since 2006. And we have an above-average share of top performers. So: how do we organise ourselves compared with others? Unlike the majority of OECD countries, we put more teachers in the socio-economically advantaged schools than the disadvantaged. “The equitable distribution of the quantity of teaching resources seems more to be of an issue,” says the report's summary. Socio-economic disadvantage has an effect on student performance in the UK which matches the overall average for the OECD. But some countries do enormously better. The UK's figures show that students in large cities perform below average on the reading scale, with those from smaller communities doing better. Students from single-parent families are also outperformed. Socio-economic factors explain both of these findings. Students in schools with a predominantly disadvantaged intake do worse than expected, with “advantaged” students doing much worse than expected compared with the OECD average. In schools with a mixed socio-economic intake, disadvantaged students do better than expected and advantaged ones worse than expected, but by the same margin as the OECD in general. And in the posh schools? Everybody does better than expected, but the poorer kids still do worse than across the OECD average. “In fact, in the United Kingdom, both the within and between school impact of socio-economic background are well above the OECD average,” says the summary. And here's an interesting thing. In the UK 24 per cent of disadvantaged students are considered “resilient” because they perform better than predicted. This compares with an average of 31 per cent across the OECD. But in SEVEN OECD states, including three Chinese regions, 40 per cent of disadvantaged children manage to excel at school. “The international achievement gap is imposing on the United Kingdom economy an invisible yet recurring economic loss. A recent study carried out by the OECD in collaboration with the Hoover Institute at Stanford University suggests that a modest goal of having the United Kingdom boost its average PISA scores by 25 points over the next 20 years – which corresponds to the performance gains that some countries achieved between 2000 and 2009 alone – could imply a gain of US$ 6 trillion for the United Kingdom economy over the lifetime of the generation born in 2010 (as evaluated at the start of reform in terms of real present value of future improvements in GDP). Bringing the United Kingdom up to the average performance of Finland, the best performing education system in PISA in the OECD area, could result in gains in the order of US$ 7 trillion. Narrowing the achievement gap by bringing all students to a baseline level of minimal proficiency for the OECD (approximated by a PISA score of 400), could imply GDP increases for the United Kingdom of US$ 6 trillion according to historical growth relationships.” There are many other nuggets in the report to which I'll return, but since this is turning from blog to essay it's probably time to finish for now. But a couple of quick points first: student teacher relationships are notably good in the UK; the UK does averagely well on discipline in classrooms (but there are huge variations in the UK and a strong discipline between poor behaviour and poor performance). And finally: what you do as heads in the UK is rather different to what your colleagues round the world see as part of their job description. Principal's leadership is highest in the UK, the US, Chile and Poland and here there is much more focus than average on the head monitoring what happens in the classroom. Across the OECD around half of students attend schools whose principal often observes classes, compared with 93 per cent in the UK. “Among OECD countries, 61% of students attend schools whose principal “quite often” or “very often” considers exam results when making decisions regarding curriculum development; while in the United Kingdom 97% do.” Now, I wonder why that might be? Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com. First off, let me confess. I haven't read all five volumes of Pisa's 2009 report into education in the OECD countries, but then it was only published this morning. Lots of it is clearly going to be worth mining in future, both by education journos like me and no doubt by political advisers keen to make capital. But what I have read is absolutely fascinating, with quite a lot of good news for anyone involved in education in the UK. You will have read that we've dropped down the rankings since 2000, but at what pace is hard to tell as the UK failed to provide enough data for the 2003 exercise. But that doesn't begin to tell the whole story. Science teachers can start preening themselves at this point. And everyone else had better book a holiday in Shanghai, as their results are so stunning that it can only be a matter of time before our politicians change the record from Swedish free schools to Shanghai teaching methods. It's such an enormous document that you could probably find support for just about any argument you cared to make within its pages, or draw any conclusions you wished. Some countries do better with bigger classes, some with smaller… and so on. Top line stuff is that our 15-year-olds perform at around average in reading and maths and above average for science out of the 34 OECD countries. However, that reading score is “well below” the highest-performing countries. The gender gap in reading is also lower than in many other nations. But – the gap between boys and girls in maths is the second highest after Chile's, and for science is the third highest (after the US and Denmark). And class rears its ugly head. 77 per cent of the between-schools difference in student performance in the UK is explained by socio-economic background. Only in Luxembourg is this difference more significant, against an OECD average of 55 per cent. We spend lots of money on education, with only seven others forking out more per student. However, as the report then points out, “moderate spending per student cannot automatically be equated with poor performance by education systems.” Estonia and Poland spend about $40,000 per student perform as well as Norway and the US, which spend $100,000 per student. New Zealand is one of the highest scoring countries for reading but spends well below the average. Our $85,000 per student buys an average performance comparable with that of Germany ($63,000) and Hungary. “It is not just the volume of resources that matters but also how countries invest these, and how well they succeed in directing the money where it can make the most difference. The United Kingdom is one of the 13 OECD countries in which, for example, socio-economically disadvantaged schools have similar student-teacher ratios to socio-economically advantaged schools. Furthermore, the quality of the teachers or other resources is also similar across schools with different socio-economic backgrounds.” Interestingly, we also have a below-average share of children from disadvantaged backgrounds in the UK, but a relatively large proportion of students with an immigrant background. Most OECD countries have a larger performance gap in favour of “native students” than the UK. Unsurprisingly language plays a major part in this: second generation immigrant students who speak English at home perform at similar level to students without an immigrant background. Those who don't speak English at home lag behind by up to 40 points. Almost 20 per cent of 15-year-olds don't reach the baseline (Level 2) of reading proficiency enabling them to participate “effectively and productively” in life. This is around the OECD average. We've got an average proportion of the best readers. 20 per cent do not reach Level 2 in maths, compared with an OECD average of 22 per cent. We have a below average share of the top performers. The news is better in science, where just 15 per cent of UK kids don't reach Level 2, compared to an average of 18 per cent. That's something we've actually improved at since 2006. And we have an above-average share of top performers. So: how do we organise ourselves compared with others? Unlike the majority of OECD countries, we put more teachers in the socio-economically advantaged schools than the disadvantaged. “The equitable distribution of the quantity of teaching resources seems more to be of an issue,” says the report's summary. Socio-economic disadvantage has an effect on student performance in the UK which matches the overall average for the OECD. But some countries do enormously better. The UK's figures show that students in large cities perform below average on the reading scale, with those from smaller communities doing better. Students from single-parent families are also outperformed. Socio-economic factors explain both of these findings. Students in schools with a predominantly disadvantaged intake do worse than expected, with “advantaged” students doing much worse than expected compared with the OECD average. In schools with a mixed socio-economic intake, disadvantaged students do better than expected and advantaged ones worse than expected, but by the same margin as the OECD in general. And in the posh schools? Everybody does better than expected, but the poorer kids still do worse than across the OECD average. “In fact, in the United Kingdom, both the within and between school impact of socio-economic background are well above the OECD average,” says the summary. And here's an interesting thing. In the UK 24 per cent of disadvantaged students are considered “resilient” because they perform better than predicted. This compares with an average of 31 per cent across the OECD. But in SEVEN OECD states, including three Chinese regions, 40 per cent of disadvantaged children manage to excel at school. “The international achievement gap is imposing on the United Kingdom economy an invisible yet recurring economic loss. A recent study carried out by the OECD in collaboration with the Hoover Institute at Stanford University suggests that a modest goal of having the United Kingdom boost its average PISA scores by 25 points over the next 20 years – which corresponds to the performance gains that some countries achieved between 2000 and 2009 alone – could imply a gain of US$ 6 trillion for the United Kingdom economy over the lifetime of the generation born in 2010 (as evaluated at the start of reform in terms of real present value of future improvements in GDP). Bringing the United Kingdom up to the average performance of Finland, the best performing education system in PISA in the OECD area, could result in gains in the order of US$ 7 trillion. Narrowing the achievement gap by bringing all students to a baseline level of minimal proficiency for the OECD (approximated by a PISA score of 400), could imply GDP increases for the United Kingdom of US$ 6 trillion according to historical growth relationships.” There are many other nuggets in the report to which I'll return, but since this is turning from blog to essay it's probably time to finish for now. But a couple of quick points first: student teacher relationships are notably good in the UK; the UK does averagely well on discipline in classrooms (but there are huge variations in the UK and a strong discipline between poor behaviour and poor performance). And finally: what you do as heads in the UK is rather different to what your colleagues round the world see as part of their job description. Principal's leadership is highest in the UK, the US, Chile and Poland and here there is much more focus than average on the head monitoring what happens in the classroom. Across the OECD around half of students attend schools whose principal often observes classes, compared with 93 per cent in the UK. “Among OECD countries, 61% of students attend schools whose principal “quite often” or “very often” considers exam results when making decisions regarding curriculum development; while in the United Kingdom 97% do.” Now, I wonder why that might be? Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=407 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:57:09 GMT 20101207145709 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:57:09 GMT 20101207145709 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:58:57 GMT 201012071425857 We learned last week the extent to which Michael Gove wants to change the landscape of state schools in England. What we don't know as yet, is how likely his dreams are to be realised, and how quickly the landscape might change. But I found myself getting a few glimmerings at a conference held the week before the White Paper was launched. Declaration here: it was an event organised by Belmas, a 300-plus group of academics and school heads who research educational leadership, and I was there as their press officer. The day job aside, it was an interesting concept, as the gathering was to find out more about the new educational landscape and work out in which areas research most urgently needed to be done. And, boy, did some fascinating nuggets of information emerge. There was the school head, who I won't name, who described being in a meeting about a pilot he was involved in with a very senior Labour minister. The one and only pressing question from the politicians' end was: how soon can we scale this up? Do we have to finish the pilot? That was the last Government, agreed, but the political imperative to show that Something Is Being Done (before the next election) rarely changes. There was also a fascinating presentation from Professor Philip Woods of Hertfordshire Uni, who demonstrated to the mild surprise of those present just how many academies and free schools are either up and running or in the pipelines. And last – but really not least – was the session from another prof, Stephen Ball of the Institute of Education. The easy bit of his thesis concerned ownership of school chains and educational organisations both in this country and abroad. As he pointed out, the global market in education and complicated sales of organisations mean that in order to research policy and ownership in this area, it's necessary to start reading the Financial Times. As for the second part of is presentation…. well, it's almost impossible to replicate what he said, without providing access to his same PowerPoint charts which looked from a distance like Damien Hurst's dot paintings. Except that joining all the coloured dots, from side to side, top to bottom of the various slides, were a spiders' web of lines. And each blob represented an individual or an organisation. What we were seeing, he told us, was the new web of influences in English educational policy-making. Realistically, it's probably never been straightforward or opaque, and those traits were probably magnified long before the current government came to power… but even so, you could hear the sharp intake of breath round the room. I collared him after and asked if that meant that making educational policy wasn't so much about what you knew as who you knew, and Ball told me an anecdote where he'd asked an educational philanthropist what sort of influence he thought he had. “Oh, nothing really,” came the answer, “But as I was saying to X over breakfast last week…” X was, you've guessed it, another senior government person. Put all that information together with what's in the White Paper, and with the sensible desires of many schools to do their best by pupils by grabbing academy money before it disappears, it seems fairly clear that the educational landscape, structurally at least, is going to be enormously transformed by the start of the next academic year. What's harder to foresee is whether that transformation will indeed translate to better results in schools as Mr Gove says he wants. Because, true to educational form, it's one big experiment with no pilot project. Time for the researchers to start crawling all over it. Susan Young is an educational journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=404 Mon, 29 Nov 2010 15:05:45 GMT 20101129150545 Mon, 29 Nov 2010 15:05:45 GMT 20101129150545 Mon, 29 Nov 2010 15:43:05 GMT 201011291534305 I was a bit of a porker as a schoolchild, and utterly loathed PE at my secondary school. You see, what we did was competitive sport. I was chubby, clumsy and so short-sighted that I could barely spot the difference between my team and the opposition, let alone whether the hockey ball was heading my way. I could at least see a netball, but I was always the last choice when the sporty types were choosing their teams. You get used to these weekly humiliations surprisingly quickly. Tennis, which we played in the summer, was equally hideous as I spent most of my time looking for the ball which had somehow gone over the wire fence. I was too unfit to run or hurdle, and was simply lethal with a javelin or discus in one hand. At least my layer of blubber helped in the (unheated outdoor) swimming pool, and I do recall the rare occasions when we played rounders as being a bit of a treat. Flash forward into adulthood, and I spent many lunch hours teaching myself how to swim a length, then ten, then a mile. Then I learned how to walk for hours in the hills and mountains. And finally, last year, I discovered that running (which, truly, I'd never done before) could be addictive. I just needed to start slowly and build it up gradually. And I discovered that doing enough of these things is good for you not only physically but mentally. These days, I am fit enough to impress NHS staff with my resting heart rate. For all of those reasons, I am utterly horrified by the Government's intention to do away with ring-fenced funding for school sport and the current partnerships scheme, promising instead a £10m Olympic-style competition. More than almost any other change being made in the education system, this one strikes me as harking back to a golden age which simply didn't exist. Though I can see the point of competitive sport, I am not the least interested in either watching it or participating myself, and I am absolutely sure I am not alone in this. Some kids love football, rugby, hockey, cricket and netball, but for others it's a refined form of torture. For many, it's much more useful to try a variety of different forms of exercise, and get turned on to sport that way. Our local school sport partnership in Brighton has been brilliant in bringing all sorts of different exercise opportunities and enthusiasm to local kids, and I'm sure the other 439 have had equally good effects. The Sunday papers suggested some sort of Cabinet revolt was afoot over school sport, with Nick Clegg speaking out and asking whether his party were fully consulted, and the health secretary worrying about the effects on health and fitness. Yet Michael Gove, on Sunday morning television, was still talking about how the numbers of kids playing football and rugby hadn't increased. Nice though it would be to have a bit more home-grown talent in the Premiership, I can't help thinking that school sport should be about helping the many and not the few. And for most people that's about finding some form of exercise which you like doing, and learning good habits for adulthood: habits that aren't dependent on finding a football team to join or having the money to join a gym or a leisure centre. The old-fashioned, competitive model of school sport failed me and millions of other kids. Please, Mr Gove, let's not go back to that. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=401 Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:56:27 GMT 20101122145627 Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:56:27 GMT 20101122145627 Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:56:27 GMT 201011221425627 Tabloid journalists used to call it a “reverse ferret” when a newspaper's stance on some issue not only did an instant and improbable U-turn but simultaneously pretended it was continuing exactly as before. And that's exactly how current education feels at the moment, except there's absolutely no pretence that things aren't changing. But pretty nearly everything that's happened in education in the past 20 years seems to have been slammed into reverse, and the scale and sweep of what's happening is so enormous that it's hard to see what the big picture is going to be. But it's starting to become clearer. In future, it's going to be all about heads and probably their academy sponsors. And it's not going to be a good time to be a shy and retiring leader. Taken to their logical extreme, the Government's plans for as many schools as possible to become academies could well create a system where state primaries and secondaries will increasingly resemble their independent counterparts. Academy heads can opt out of the national curriculum and set the pay and conditions of staff, with the only approval necessary that of the governing body – which will no longer have LA members on board, and doesn't have to have a teacher rep, either. There isn't even any worry about Ofsted turning up in one of the Gove academies created from an already outstanding/includes outstanding features school. As of this week, just about every school can join the party by teaming up with an institution eligible to go it alone. There's precious little detail that I can find on exactly how this would work as yet, so the benefits for becoming part of an academy trust aren't exactly clear. Would such heads find themselves with less power than if they continued to go it alone as a local authority school? Is it better to be in bed with another head than what's left of the council's education team? Or will it come down to the council being so skint that shacking up with a colleague, metaphorically speaking, is the best way to follow the money? And then there's another of this week's manic rush of announcements. The aspiration to create a national funding formula for schools has been a kind of Holy Grail since the introduction of local management 22 years ago, and ought to make the whole system much fairer. But again, how would a national funding formula work in a system where some schools are academies, getting extra funding to pay for services previously provided by their LA, while others still get (what's left of) the services. Would it go hand-in-hand with schools having to pay for all services, thus encouraging them to shop around? Or would money have to be diverted from LA schools to county hall? Obligations which have crept up on schools during the past two decades are being swatted like flies. The latest quango to bite the dust is the Children's Workforce Development Council, which under the last government aspired to make sure everyone working with kids, from teachers to police officers, shared a single core of training. The fate of the National College is still undecided. And all this is before the publication of the White Paper in a couple of weeks, which is bound to contain a few more bombshells, or the final decisions on exactly what the role and remit of Ofsted will be in this brave new world. We don't even know what's going into the national curriculum (which academies will not be obliged to teach). The one given, it seems to me, is that external monitoring of school performance will be increasingly important with Ofsted and local authorities removed from the equation. Secondary schools can use their exam results as an indicator, which means that something rigorous and external will continue to happen at the end of KS2 and league tables are probably here to stay. As NAHT general secretary Russell Hobby has pointed out, many schools currently don't take advantage of the freedoms they already have. So it will be interesting to see how many heads do choose to move to academy status over the next few years, and how many then make use of the new rules on staff and curriculum. There's probably never been a more interesting time to be leading a school, but it may take nerves of steel. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=398 Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:13:32 GMT 20101117231332 Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:13:32 GMT 20101117231332 Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:13:32 GMT 2010111723111332 With all the talk of long-term unemployed people having to go out and do public service for a month, slashed housing benefit and lost child benefit, now was the time for ministers to don their own little hair shirts. Well, the 21st century equivalent, anyway. And, buried in the small print of the Department for Education website, the modern hair shirt comes in the form of endless Excel spreadsheets outlining sternly who received gifts or hospitality in the first quarter of the year. Not exactly a quarter, I'd say – actually just six weeks from May 13 to July 31. It's the Government's new Transparency agenda, and it's almost embarrassingly banal. The ministers in the education department come across as a bunch of Norman-No Mates. Nobody's had any gifts, or at least anything costing more than £140. (I'd be surprised if the odd bunch of flowers or bottle of something nice hadn't been delivered to Sanctuary Buildings for the benefit of its new inhabitants, though. And you can buy an awful lot for either for £139.99 or less) And you'll be elated to know that nobody's given any gifts over that value either. Nobody's been overseas, whether on Eurostar or with the Queen's Flight. Phew. And the only bit of hospitality worth mentioning was that Michael Gove spent two days at the Hay Festival on May 29 and 30, courtesy of Sky. But then, he did work for The Times for many years. (However, there might have been hospitality of the following kind: specifically excluded by the rules: light refreshments, modest meals served as an integral part of a meeting or the occasional formal working lunch; attendance at functions hosted by HM Government or the Royal Household; attendance at 'diplomatic' functions in the UK or abroad, hosted by overseas governments; offers of hospitality which were declined.) All the ministers met a huge list of people in those first weeks. Again, nothing to raise eyebrows – Mr Gove rattled through representatives of church education, both heads' associations, most teaching unions, the Sutton Trust and Ark. Oh, and Apple. (But clearly they didn't bring him a present as I'm not sure if they do anything under £140.) Seeking thrills, I moved on to the most recent report of the DfE's Executive management Board. Three joyous paragraphs, saying precisely nothing. No wonder the current lot wound it up. Maybe the spending habits of quangoes (sorry, arms'length bodies) would hold more excitement. National College? Yawn. Partnerships for Schools? Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. And then I clicked on the link headed, enticingly, “more”. Hidden there were similar records pertaining to the Balls years. Were they any more exciting? Well, no. There was a heady quarter when Mr B attended a concert, a football, match, and took a guest to a rugby match AND buffet (ticket value not known). Baroness Delyth Morgan perhaps had more thrills in her life, attending the Brits and meeting a delegation from the Coalition for the Removal of Pimping. Notably, they both met fewer people than the current lot, but they'd been in power a lot longer. At this point I lost the will to live. Goodness knows what they're hiding. But with so much detail washing round, you could hide an elephant in there. I shall certainly be sticking my nose in the latest spreadsheets every so often, just in case I catch a glimpse of Jumbo's trunk. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=393 Mon, 08 Nov 2010 17:16:40 GMT 20101108171640 Mon, 08 Nov 2010 17:16:40 GMT 20101108171640 Mon, 08 Nov 2010 17:16:40 GMT 201011081751640 John Prescott may have said that we're all middle-class now, but a swift look at the English education system is enough to prove him wrong. Class is the elephant in the room, disguised by the euphemisms we find for it. The middle classes become “pushy parents” whilst the old working class has been reborn as “white boys” or “the most vulnerable” or “the poorest”. It was therefore interesting to compare and contrast this week's news coverage of the pupil premium together with the new research finding that schools are often forced to raise their game by the expectations of middle-class parents. There's a caveat in that I have not managed to get hold of a copy (yet) of Must Try Harder, the research paper compiled by academics at Leeds and Leicester universities and have a few questions about it. One very large question is in exactly what way the researchers have used the data from the National Child Development Study, which followed individuals born in one week in 1958: are we talking about these people as children, or as the parents they later became? If it is the former, as I suspect, then we're getting a snapshot of the education system in the 1960s and 70s, when it was a very different beast, actually allowing more social mobility than now. But I digress. Must Try Harder appears to support the argument advanced over all these years for comprehensive schools; that most children will do better in a non-selective school. In other words, schools with a reasonable spread of kids from different social backgrounds and aspirations. And that's because of the activities of those “sharp-elbowed” parents who've been denigrated for the last few years, particularly when it comes to school admissions. It's probably the self-same group of people now being targeted by Michael Gove as prospective founders of his free schools. So does this make the pupil premium a waste of time? The answer is beginning to look as though it depends how we use it. If the result is that we end up with schools which are still overwhelmingly for poor children but are themselves rich, the pupils may not be all that much better-served than they are currently. If, on the other hand, the extra money can somehow get those kids into the more middle-class establishments, (or encourage more middle-class parents to take a punt on richer but socially-mixed schools) then perhaps the recipient children will really benefit. The increasing popularity of the original academies suggests that the middle-classes will follow the money in this way, but it's more unlikely that the parents of the poorer kids are going to be able to buy their way into more socially diverse schools without help. So, what happens next could be interesting, particularly as the politicians work out exactly what the premium will mean in their constituencies. Many Tories, it seems, are going to be watching the money drain from their local schools into those with Labour majorities. Will they be pushing for a revival of the 1980s school voucher idea, to mitigate some of the damage? Will heads of high-performing schools be enlarging their catchment areas and offering blandishments to kids on free school meals? Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=389 Mon, 01 Nov 2010 01:39:02 GMT 20101101013902 Mon, 01 Nov 2010 01:39:02 GMT 20101101013902 Mon, 01 Nov 2010 01:39:02 GMT 201011010113902 Well, the mists are beginning to clear in an interesting manner, now that the spending review is out of the way and the civil servants have a bit of time to do things other than wait to find out whose name is on the redundancy list. And I don't know whether to be more intrigued by the drip feed of information about free schools or the clarifying of exactly what the spending review means. But together and with other ramifications of the spending review, it's starting to look as if there are going to be significant effects on schools and those who work and learn in them. And one of the most significant changes may be connected to housing benefit. You may have seen the stories surfacing over the weekend that several London boroughs are planning to tackle the cap on housing benefit by shifting families out to cheaper areas. These apparently include Watford, Luton, Reading and Hastings. I'm not quite sure of the logistics of whether this can happen without the acquiescence of the receiving local authority – a social work manager I talked to at the weekend seemed to think it couldn't. But the implication clearly seems to be that some of the poorest families are likely to be shunted out of the inner cities, probably into areas where the schools are already teaching disproportionate numbers of the “most vulnerable” children. So, on the upside, these schools can probably expect a decent financial settlement from the pupil premium – but what will they be losing simultaneously as the result of cuts to existing programmes under the CSR? Meanwhile, neighbouring schools with slightly different pupils may well lose out in some way as at least some of the pupil premium money is coming from elsewhere in the DfE budget, despite the promises of the summer. Add to this increasing pressures on space -- 20 per cent of primary schools are officially overcrowded – and what happens next starts to look interesting, particularly as the Local Government Association are loudly pointing out that some new schools need to be built. Let's take a detour for a moment into the latest information on free schools. The Government has just opened a consultation on how planning law might be amended to make it as easy as possible to open a new school. It is consulting on four main suggestions on what changes of use might be allowed. In a nutshell, it is asking for opinions on whether planning permission to create a school (and often the concomitant transport consultations) should simply be waived for groups of buildings ranging from the least contentious (libraries) through to shared use with offices, and possibly empty pubs. The only no-nos appear to be nightclubs, for some reason that I can't quite fathom. Another interesting revelation, courtesy of today's Financial Times, is that “Mr Gove has decided teachers at these institutions should neither need to hold qualified teacher status nor have a national professional qualification for headship to work in or run free schools.” Time for a cheap joke, I think. So they might not be free schools, but blimey, they really could be run on a shoestring. To be fair, I suspect saving money isn't the prime consideration here: it is ideology. This Government is keen to cut bureaucracy, and appears to want to create a new class of school which is like those in the independent sector but funded by the state. The rationale is therefore impeccable: the parents who set up the school, and those who choose to send their children there, are perfectly capable of deciding whether or not they want trained teachers and a head with an NPQH or not. Caveat emptor, as we must assume many of these pupils will learn to say in years to come. It must be possible, and is probably even desirable, to run schools with far fewer bureaucratic requirements than have been layered upon them in previous years. And I seem to remember the litany of complaints and anxiety there were about the first headteacher training programmes and compulsory qualifications. The way in which free schools are being created may well be the thin end of the wedge – but while they are an option for parents to choose, then that's probably up to those parents. If, however, parents found themselves in a situation where a free school was the only option because the LA school was overcrowded, and permission to create another had been refused, then that would be a different matter. Choice is one thing: compulsion is different. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=386 Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:55:53 GMT 20101025145553 Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:55:53 GMT 20101025145553 Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:55:53 GMT 201010251425553 I had one of those blinding flashes reading the newspaper last week. You know – you read something, and suddenly the fact you've just ingested puts something else into stark relief. Well, I was reading the Guardian's front page story suggesting that the Department for Education was going to lose around 30 per cent of its staff as a result of the upcoming cuts, and then the penny dropped. There may well be ideological reasons for the Conservative elements of the coalition to want schools to become academies and go it alone – but there are going to be some pressing practical reasons, too. Many local authorities are currently planning for almost apocalyptic scenarios, with outsourcing of services the name of the game, and planned cuts of a third in budgets not unusual. Put those two facts together and it becomes obvious that, whether they like it or not, schools are going to be getting access to a lot less support (and official guidance) than at any time in the recent past. Statutory services, such as admissions, will remain. I'd also guess that anything aimed at the neediest and most vulnerable kids will also remain, if only in the short to medium term. But, increasingly, it looks as if schools will have less access to the support and help local authorities have been providing, whether that's in advisors (who've all been put under notice of redundancy in at least one borough) or book borrowing services. The implications of fewer staff in the Department for Education are slightly less clear-cut, but are likely to be no less far-reaching. Again, the implications are likely to chime with the underpinning ideology of doing less. I'd expect less guidance and fewer directives, as the Government has already promised. There will be less bureaucracy, because there will be fewer bureaucrats to process it. Add into the equation some of the functions of the quangoes which have just found their way onto the Government's bonfire -- the GTCE's regulatory functions for instance -- and there will be more statutory work which will have to be done somewhere by a civil servant. Which means less of something else. So my guess is that the Government would really rather give schools it thinks can handle extra freedom a bit of extra money so they can go off and buy the services they need from wherever they like, perhaps keeping someone in employment along the way. Yes, it's about ideology, but it's about saving money as well. I'd also guess that a few months further down this particular line, and there may be something of a clamour from schools which currently aren't eligible to opt out. Their services may have become so limited that they, too, would like the opportunity to go it alone with a little money to spend. And I suspect this will be the case no matter how well (comparatively) education does out of this week's spending review The cuts are going to have other, less-predictable effects on our schools, too. We've seen an increase in social segregation since the advent of league tables and parental choice, as many families stretch their budgets to buy homes by a desirable school. For the first time since that social change became entrenched, moving house is not an easy option. It's even beginning to look as though a lot of people are going to be unable to move house in the next few years, a situation which may be exacerbated for some families by the impending loss of child benefit and child tax credits. I'd hazard a guess that as a result, catchment areas of desirable schools may actually grow for the first time in a decade, as “older” families are unable to make way for those with children of the right age. The result, curiously, may be that some popular schools actually become more socially mixed. Which is likely to mean that more aspirational parents seek solace in Church schools if piety trumps catchment to get a place. And, as a result, church schools may become more competitive yet, as if that were possible. Is this the market in which Gove's new Free Schools will flourish? Or will the increasing numbers of new academies be enough to keep parents happy? Or are we about to see an unprecedented interest in organised religion? We live in interesting times – and that's before we know the size of the axe which is about to fall. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=383 Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:18:15 GMT 20101018111815 Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:18:15 GMT 20101018111815 Tue, 19 Oct 2010 12:08:36 GMT 2010101912120836 A week on from the Conservative party conference, and the education news agenda is fascinating. It's not the impact of the coming cuts, or potential problems with the Baccalaureat mark scheme. It's not even the report the Observer practically cleared its pages for, outlining how different groups fare very differently in life, and particularly in school. No. Education news stories for the past few days have revolved round three things: a London deputy head, the historian Simon Schama, and a bunch of authors whom most educated people have heard of but far fewer have actually read. (Especially John Dryden, but we'll get on to that). Playing a minor role in all this is the charismatic Harlem head Geoff Canada, introduced by Michael Gove as one of his heroes. These four apparently disparate elements appear to be locking together as the narrative, as the spin doctors would say, of the Tories' education policy. We already know about the bones of it: the academies and free schools. But the maverick educationalists and curricula which throw back to an age that probably never was are beginning to look like the heart and soul of Gove's big idea. If you haven't seen footage of Katharine Birbalsingh addressing the conference, it's worth looking it out. She was extraordinary: driven, knowing, and loving the attention. You could not take your eyes off her. It was a bit like watching a reincarnation of Edwina Currie, as she told the conference she was speaking educational heresy. Heresy, which of course they adored. She was also a revelation because the Conservatives are currently in the lucky position of being able to blame Labour for anything they don't like. Recent Labour conferences had to be full of heads and teachers praising how good things were, but how they were going to get better. We're not very used to seeing professionals telling us how crap things are. With her talk of a failure to discipline black boys and dumbed-down exams, Birbalsingh was perfect political dynamite for a party which believes vested politically-correct interests in the educational establishment are to blame for the current state of schools. Somehow, they manage to overlook the paradox that quite a few of the local authorities from which schools are being urged to escape are being run by, er, the Conservatives. So it was even more perfect for conspiracy theorists and the party faithful when Ms Birbalsingh's school asked her to work at home for a couple of days whilst they digested the impact of what she'd said so publicly. You could practically hear hands rubbing together at the Daily Mail. My reaction might have been closer to yours: amazement that Ms B would have thought any school would have been relaxed about her remarks in such a public arena, and particularly one which has apparently only employed her from the start of this academic year. Though, to be fair to her, she did clearly say that she'd worked in five different schools, and my assumption was that self-preservation would have suggested that if she was going to whistleblow about low expectations it would be in previous jobs rather than her current one. Geoff Canada fits into a similar mould: ethnic minority, pushing to get the best out of inner city kids; tough love; no excuses. So here's part of the Tory narrative: got to be tough and be prepared to go it alone to rescue poor kids from those politically correct apologists who limit expectations of achievement and behaviour. Expect to see a lot more of both Birbalsingh (who's got a book of her blog coming out next year) and Canada (whose work in the Harlem Children's Zone bears an uncanny resemblance to that banned British concept of Every Child Matters). What of Dryden and Schama? As far as I can see they represent academic rigour and purity, coupled with a healthy slug of patriotism (although, interestingly, the latter is the emotion that dare not speak its name, even to the party conference). But there are hints: that the authors on Gove's little list are “every child's birthright.” That the history curriculum will tell “our island story” – the title of that rather twee primer which inspired 1066 And All That, and which I seem to remember was reprinted by the think-tank Civitas and sold or distributed to schools five or six years ago. (I saw piles and piles of them in a Civitas office one day, but can truthfully say I have never ever seen one in a school). My view is that Schama is a fine storytelling historian who may just find a way of tapping pupils' interest in history (Horrible Histories aren't bestsellers and a very popular children's BBC programme for no reason) whilst actually conveying some sense of the chronology of the country's history. The newspapers seem keen, because they've actually heard of him, he does good telly, and because his appointment has apparently seriously miffed an academic who specialises in school history. Another couple of boxes ticked for Mr Gove then: celebrity yet serious historian hired; member of the education establishment annoyed as a result. Proper history on its way (but will he make it compulsory beyond 14?). Mr Gove must really be on a roll: none of the right-wing press appears to have noted that this saviour of the British past is, er, American. And so to Dryden. Confession time: I've got a degree in English and History for which the only compulsory module (as they weren't called then) was on the Augustan age. I know I read and enjoyed Pope and Swift. I have no memory whatsoever of Dryden, and reading excerpts online in the past week have neither reawakened memory of having done in the past nor the desire to do so in future. All I can say is that Mr Gove must have been a very clever child, and perhaps that's what he's trying to tell us. Keeping Dryden a closed book during KS3 is not dumbing-down, but a sensible move. As for the rest of the birthright list – well, quite a few of them are already on the syllabus. But most of the national press and the Conservative delegates don't care about that. Mr Gove has just intimated that the hellish forces of political correctness, dumbing down, and those who wish to keep the poor in their place will be vanquished by Freedom, Raised Standards, Traditional British Books and History, and Proper Discipline. So that's the story, and how it all fits together. Or does it? What if some schools decide to use the Freedom bit of it to opt for academy status to actually avoid Dryden and discipline? And suppose those pupils' parents are quite happy about it? Will the Government resist the temptation to interfere? Or is it their birthright? Susan Young is an education journalist. contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=379 Mon, 11 Oct 2010 13:22:06 GMT 20101011132206 Mon, 11 Oct 2010 13:22:06 GMT 20101011132206 Mon, 11 Oct 2010 13:22:06 GMT 201010111312206 Since I'd already had teeth drawn this week (well one puny wisdom specimen, anyway), watching yet another round of party conference speeches was going to be a doddle in comparison. But as the dentist's chair was far better than anticipated, so conference speeches are always more gruelling than you think they're going to be. And for the education section, we got six for the price of one. Not just Michael Gove, but an assortment of heads, academy CEOs and other educationalists banging the drum for the Coalition's education policies, plus a high-powered head from the New York slums. It was tiring just watching them. At times, I wondered if I was on the same planet as this lot, as they talked about legions of the poorest children being failed, turfed out of primary unable to read or write, completing secondary school without GCSEs in English and Maths. One energetic deputy head, who gave her name only as Katherine, drew standing applause from delegates for her tales of children who blamed all their problems on their “anger management”, kids who begged for practice papers from 2005 not 1999 because they were easier, and black boys allowed to fail through lack of discipline. And – whisper it – she'd voted Conservative. Teachers, she intimated, just don't do that. Funny. I'm sure I've met some which do just that. Anyway, the overweening message of this lot is that They (bureaucrats and idealogues according to Mr Gove: unspecified people according to everyone else) are dooming kids to fail through low expectations and bureaucracy. What a wicked plot. Perhaps Scotland Yard should get on to it after they've done with alleged phone hacking at the News of the World. But crowd-pleasing aside, there were interesting things to be learned. I wondered if Mr Gove had been taking lessons from his Scottish counterpart, Michael Russell, who has recently been conducting a love-in with the profession. Starting by “saluting” teachers and making effusive noises about the staff who had just addressed Tory delegates, Mr Gove went on to promise that teachers would “be helping us write a world-class curriculum, which we need to reform subject-by-subject.” I'd like to be a fly on the wall in those meetings. Pope, Dryden, Keats, Shelley, Dickens, our children's birthright, are going to be “at the heart” of school life. Science and maths are going to be hard again, like they are in Massachusetts, Korea and Singapore. And Simon Schama is going to advise on the new history curriculum which is planned to tell “our island story” rather than the “vivid episodes” of Henry VIII and Hitler currently on the menu. Perhaps it was different for Mr Gove at school in Scotland. But my schooling, rather too many years ago, also had jumps from the Beaker people to the Victorians and back again. And it wasn't until I had the good luck to be taught by a bloke who'd just got his history doctorate that I at least got a coherent history of the 20th century. So if Schama can bring off a curriculum which does, like his excellent books, give a narrative version of British history then that's brilliant. But I can't see a modern take on Our Island Story pleasing Conservative delegates in years to come; rightly, Schama's books are clear-sighted rather than patriotic. What else? New academies are apparently to be set up in DfE buildings where there's space to spare. Details weren't even sketchy, but it sounds like the Government is going to set those up itself. And discipline is going to be played up, with heads given the right (which they may or may not already have) to tackle kids causing problems off school premises. And that was about it, really, apart from some rather touching comments about Mr Gove's own background as an adoptive child given every chance by his parents who valued education despite their own having ended at 16. There was plenty of mood music, with vigorous professionals outlining their own plans to improve the life-chances of children, and forays into familiar Gove territory of dumbed-down subjects and a lack of history and modern languages. And there does seem to be genuine respect for heads and teachers, which is certainly welcome, and a genuine intention to hand over more freedom. But hard facts, or clues about what is going to emerge from this autumn's education White Paper and subsequent legislation, were about as common as challenging questions on a science GCSE paper. As Mr Gove might say. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=376 Tue, 05 Oct 2010 16:52:23 GMT 20101005165223 Tue, 05 Oct 2010 16:52:23 GMT 20101005165223 Tue, 05 Oct 2010 16:52:23 GMT 201010051645223 Brilliant news for NAHT members that the Government is commissioning an independent review on KS2 testing and the association has been invited to be “fully involved” in its workings. It's one of the few upsides of England's politicisation of education that there is the opportunity to drop duff policies without losing face when a new government arrives. (You generally also acquire a raft of equally duff new policies, but that's a different story.) Which is why it's a bit sad that Ed Balls' planned rant about Coalition education policies today is going to be such a waste of time. His role as Labour's leading attack dog is going to be a vital part of holding the Government to account – but unlike Miliband minor's good-in-parts assessment of the Labour administration, Balls is going to be in no mood to admit to any mistakes in his own policies as the last Education Secretary. And given that the new leadership is talking about shiny new policies all round, anything Mr Balls is currently defending may well be chucked out of the next Labour manifesto. As Labour is the only Opposition party these days, it's going to be really important for the next shadow Education secretary to get his or her act together fast and cast a critical eye over what the Government is up to without just shouting about everything. But back to the assessment review promised by Mr Gove. His letter to the NAHT is carefully-worded and certainly doesn't promise the end of testing as part of assessment. But, as Russell Hobby points out, there is a significant line in the letter which suggests the Government genuinely wants to work with heads on this: “Your members have reflected and articulated many of the most significant criticisms of how the current tests operate, and I would like to see if we can reform our system of assessment and accountability to take account of those concerns that have been raised by committed professionals.” Another paragraph could be even more promising, or more pragmatic, depending on how you read it. “I hope that NAHT will be fully involved in this review and would look forward to working closely with you to bring about real improvements to the testing and accountability system. It is clear that your members have strong views on this subject and professional buy-in is important in the success of any accountability system.” His letter acknowledges the feeling of many members that too many schools are drilling pupils for tests in year 6, at the expense of productive teaching and learning, and adds: “The Government believes that its goals are best achieved through ensuring that schools and teachers are free to set their own direction, trusted to exercise their professional discretion and accountable for the progress of the children in their care…” Coming, as it does, a week after Mr Gove axed the SEF requirement for Ofsted inspections, then I'm tempted to give credence to the idea that maybe this Government really does trust the professionals and will genuinely let most schools get on with it. But there is still a long way to go before there is such huge trust and respect as seems to be the case in Scotland, where the Education Secretary Michael Russell spent much of a speech last week praising teachers and heads for their hard work in helping to shape the country's new curriculum and assessment system. Here's a flavour of what he said: “In May I set up the Engage for Education website. In part it was also a debt to my father, who always used to say - as a teacher - that no one ever listened to what teachers thought. Well I listen every day at home, and I think as a minister I should listen more widely too. So a key part of my role within the months and years to come is the continued dialogue that I want to maintain with you, the educators, so that we can work together to bring out the best in our children and young people. Engage for Education will be central to that.” It's worth reading his full speech, just for the novelty value. And if Michael Gove isn't moving strongly in this direction of forming proper, grown-up relationships with the teaching profession (and it's beginning to look as if he might well be) then perhaps there's an opportunity here for (new) Labour? Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=371 Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:23:04 GMT 20100929132304 Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:23:04 GMT 20100929132304 Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:23:04 GMT 201009291312304 It's always interesting to see what happens when well-known journalists wade into areas that you know something about, which is why I watched John Humphrey's BBC2 programme on inequality in schools with some interest. The documentary had got a thorough plug on the Today show the same morning, complete with an interview with Michael Gove, who agreed politely with all his interviewer's points about problems in the system, before intimating that free schools and academies, plus the expansion of Teach First, will level the playing field for poorer kids. Humphreys, to his credit, sounded doubtful, even as he and Gove were exchanging confessions about being sharp-elbowed middle-class parents. This, as it turned out, wasn't just his usual interviewing technique, but as a result of the rather disquieting conclusions he'd clearly arrived at during his work on the documentary. The contents of the programme won't have come as much of a surprise to anyone in teaching or education, with a fairly well-rehearsed trot though Liverpool teenagers considering university after some AimHigher interventions, a bit of filming at a school which is on the up after poor results meant it was abandoned by the middle classes, and then a triumphant lap of honour round Mossbourne Academy and Phoenix High – deliberately not an academy. But in an hour long, it couldn't dig deep. We were told that the middle classes will move hell and high water to get their kids into the schools they think are the best, leaving the poorer kids in their wake. And then we were shown the schools which were making a difference – so how long will it be before there's no space for the poorest there? We saw kids being jumped on for uniform transgressions like loose ties, and we heard that aspiration and university is drummed into them as young as Year 2. If that's the formula, asked Humphreys, why don't all schools do it? According to the primary head in Tower Hamlets, most of her colleagues don't do it and nor do their staff: it's plain hard and dedicated work. But other schools could do the same, she said briskly. Perhaps she's right: ask any teacher who works in more than one school and they'll often marvel at how kids are marshalled ruthlessly between lessons in one establishment and arrive in dribs and drabs in another. (One teacher I know, looking at schools for her own offspring, was aghast at the discipline compared to where she teaches. “We're hoping to do something about that next term,” she was told. I'll leave you to surmise whether she took up that place for her child.) There were hints, but only hints, at why the poorer kids fall behind to start with. It was a bit of an eye-opener to see the primary head barking a mother to stop carrying her child into school (looked like a nursery child to me, but hard to tell) and even more of an eye-opener when she explained that many children who live on the edge of Victoria Park in Hackney have never once been taken there by their families. Surprisingly, I thought, Sure Start didn't get a mention, and there was no discussion of why a school might go downhill if the middle-class parents started to desert it, or how an academy might get the funding to run a hugely extended school day. And the statistics about private tutoring were also interesting: this is an option taken by half the parents in London, apparently. Are they all middle class? One father interviewed was clearly making huge financial sacrifices for extra tuition for his son – though he might be poorer, he was clearly aspirational in a middle-class way, and was presumably doing his best to enrich his son's life. So what was going on in the boy's school? Another hour would have been great, finding out more about why poorer children fall behind, the kind of interventions that really work, and how the UK compares with other countries. It would also be interesting to have explored the concept that poorer kids do better in schools with middle-class intakes as well, and the effect this has on the education of the richer kids. As it was, it was a bit of a guilt-trip for the middle classes, with no obvious personal or public solution in sight. As Humphreys pointed out, solutions costing big money aren't going to be an option right now. Perhaps, he hoped, more Phoenix Highs could be created. And, well, that was it really. It's impossible to see a top-down solution working, and Humphreys, interviewing Gove on the radio, pointed out the huge numbers of different school type which have come and gone in the last century. Gove says parents want discipline and uniform and proper qualifications, and he's probably right – but the schools then have to have the will to enforce these things day in day out. And his free schools and academies may well help schools find their own ways of improving the education of the poorest kids – but what about the schools which aren't currently outstanding? How does he think they will improve if he doesn't believe in the way they are currently supported by local authorities? Poor John Humphreys. He looked a little chastened at the end of the programme, and I can't really blame him. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=367 Tue, 21 Sep 2010 13:06:33 GMT 20100921130633 Tue, 21 Sep 2010 13:06:33 GMT 20100921130633 Tue, 21 Sep 2010 13:06:33 GMT 201009211310633 There's been a lot of sound and fury round the Ofsted report into SEN in schools, most of it rather predictable. You'll have come across either the line that the report is wicked and an excuse for the government to cut budgets for the “most vulnerable” children, or that schools are labelling any child who's not doing as well as they might for nefarious reasons to do with league tables or funding. Given that the report was actually commissioned by Ed Balls and there's been remarkably little Government spin round it, for once I don't see a conspiracy. In fact, it's one of the best Ofsted publications I've read for a long time, measured, thoughtful, and well researched. As far as it goes, that is – but I'll come on to that. And it's completely undersold by the press reports. This is a report which it's well worth making time to read. Even if you only get through the executive summary, and promise to return to it, I'd strongly urge that you do that. There's also an official and useful NAHT take on it here. To précis the report's many findings, the special needs system works best for kids with a severe enough disability that it's identified early and clearly. Other children who also need help may struggle to do so, and may not end up with the right sort of help. And some schools are treating pupils as having special educational needs when they have not been well enough taught in the past, says the author in an assertion which is going to infuriate many schools. What are the outcomes for these kids? (“The achievement of disabled children and young people and those who had special educational needs was good or outstanding in less than half the providers visited and in just over one third of the case studies that inspectors undertook.” And there are some shockers about the way the system works: “Inspectors found poor evaluation by a wide range of public agencies of the quality of the additional support provided for children and young people. Too often, the agencies focused simply on whether a service was or was not being provided rather than whether it was effective. In particular, it was not enough for pupils to have a statement of special educational needs. The statement itself did not mean that their current needs were being met, but merely that they were likely to receive the service prescribed by their original statement,” it says in one section. In another, it says: “Once children and young people were assessed as having particular needs and consequent rights to specific support through a statement, the accountability system focused schools and parents on processes and on how much support was being provided… while the annual review processes for statements and School Action Plus should focus sharply on the progress of the child and challenge the effectiveness of additional provision, this was not always the case.” Joined-up services for children, loudly promised during the past few years of Every Child Matters (apparently now a banned phrase in the Department for Education) appear to be anything but, partly because education, social services and health all have different definitions of what special needs are, and different levels of accountability. And even where children have a full statement, there's a lot of faffing round and timewasting as medical staff on rotation or new educational psychologists decide to assess them once again from scratch. The report does suggest that there may be cases where schools might classify pupils for resulted in a positive influence on the school's contextual value-added score. This provided an incentive for higher levels of pupils to be identified as having special educational needs. In some of the less effective schools visited, this over-identification contributed to lowering expectations for children and young people.” Another section added: “In local areas where the formula for funding schools took into account the proportions of children identified as having special educational needs, this gave an obvious motivation for schools to identify more such children.” But, unlike the press reports, that's about as far as it goes. There is more praise for how many schools and local authorities are making it work for children with special needs than you might have grasped from the press coverage. “In the local areas where there were complex social issues but also the necessary expertise, the most successful providers met the needs of very many children and young people, including learners who were potentially vulnerable, without having to define pupils as having special educational needs or learning difficulties. This in turn enabled higher-level expertise to be directed towards those pupils whose needs were the most complex,” says one section. Another says: “The review found that, for some children and young people, the current system is working well. In some local areas, the identification of needs was well-managed and appropriate… Some schools and other organisations were working together and focusing on the outcomes for the young person rather than simply on what services were being provided or on their own internal priorities. What consistently worked well was rigorous monitoring of the progress of individual children and young people, with quick intervention and thorough evaluation of its impact. High aspirations and a determination to enable young people to be as independent as possible led most reliably to the best educational achievement.” But – there's usually a but – this is how the paragraph continues. “However, this combination of effective identification and good-quality provision was not common. The review found both widespread weaknesses in the quality of what was provided for children with special educational needs and evidence that the way the system is currently designed contributes to these problems.” The review team also found that despite all the statutory guidance, consistency of identifying special needs varied even in a single area. “Across education, health services and social care, assessments were different and the thresholds for securing additional support were at widely varying levels. In some of the individual cases that inspectors saw, repeated and different assessments were a time-consuming obstacle to progress rather than a way for effective support to be provided.” Worrying, inspectors found additional provision “was often not of good quality and did not lead to significantly better outcomes for the child or young person. For pupils identified for support at School Action level, the additional provision was often making up for poor whole-class teaching or pastoral support. “Even for pupils at School Action Plus level and with statements, the provision was often not meeting their needs effectively, either because it was not appropriate or not of good quality or both.” Teachers are key. “Where children and young people's learning was good or outstanding, there had been careful assessment. Teachers had used this to focus their teaching and to ensure that they tackled any gaps in children and young people's earlier learning.Where the children and young people were learning faster or more slowly than originally expected, the best teachers seen were confident to adjust the lesson to take account of this. A focus on what children and young people were learning, rather than on just keeping them busy, was also critical to success… The most effective lessons had a clear structure that was explained well to the children and young people, so that they knew what they would be doing and what they were aiming to learn. Teachers knew how to adapt the structure to fit what the children and young people needed to learn.” So, what's to be done? Ofsted is recommending a simplification of the legislation and guidance, to improve consistency and make the system easier to negotiate. It is also critical of the use of language to describe children, saying “we should not only move away from the current system of categorisation of needs but also start to think critically about the way terms are used.” But there are wider contexts here which aren't mentioned: why some schools might feel pressurised to get children classified as having special needs; whether there's enough in teacher training to help a mainstream teacher cope with special needs of whatever degree in a classroom already full of other kids. What is doesn't say is that schools and individual teachers are doing their best in a system which is both contradictory (league tables vs inclusion) and where getting the best help for children who need it can be a marathon undertaking. And I have a final question which was never going to find its way into this report: since children labelled with special needs are likelier to be poorer or from areas of disadvantage and social difficulty, what's going to happen to schools in certain areas when government spending cuts lead to redundancies, reduced housing benefits and so on? http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=364 Tue, 14 Sep 2010 15:00:05 GMT 20100914150005 Tue, 14 Sep 2010 15:00:05 GMT 20100914150005 Tue, 14 Sep 2010 15:00:05 GMT 201009141530005 Apologies for the late blog this week, but I've spent the past three days at an extraordinary event in London which acts as a reminder of just how much importance people round the world attach to education. The event – which has been running for over 40 years – brought 450 people from 62 different countries to a hotel in central London. They are language travel agents, whose job it is to locate the best school, college or university for their clients to get the best education they possibly can. For most of their clients, learning English is either a vital stepping-stone to that university degree or Masters qualification, an essential skill for their working CV – or simply a skill they think will be of great use in our global economy. The StudyWorld event brings together the agents from this global industry with many of the schools – the vast majority in the UK – which give these students the education they want and are willing to pay thousands for. It's far more than European schoolkids spending a couple of weeks in Bournemouth during the summer: we're talking Koreans, Russians, Turks, Saudi Arabians and South Americans coming for months at a time to get their English to university standard. As native English speakers, it's sometimes difficult to comprehend that level of commitment and necessity: the small numbers of UK students who choose to go abroad have a good choice of universities in their own language. But that doesn't mean that English speakers don't need any other language: far from it. And that's why we should really take seriously the worries that modern foreign languages, for which GCSE uptake has fallen markedly, are going to fall foul of cuts being made in schools. The OECD's Education At A Glance, published this week, shows how much less time we devote to language teaching in the UK than other countries. Perhaps Mr Gove's plans for an English Baccalaureat will help rescue languages, but it's difficult to see how they can be promoted from the then likely status of a necessary evil to something which pupils and parents push as a career must-have. But then, education is largely about the transmission of culture from one generation to the next. Our culture is largely uncomprehending of the importance of language, a position bolstered by the global growth of English. Perhaps that's why overseas students – a group who, government research shows, are likeliest of all migrant groups to go home within two years of arrival – have become the focus of anti-immigration rhetoric. We just don't understand why anyone would want to travel to learn another language. But then, as a culture we also have some odd expectations about the education. Who'd have guessed where the Wayne Rooney allegations would have ended up after a few days? The most pressing question for one of today's papers is: how did a privately-educated young woman end up charging £1,200 for the pleasure of her company? I'm not quite sure about the wider implications of the argument here. Is the paper suggesting that kind of education buys higher career aspirations, or higher moral ones? Or that comprehensive kids are generally regarded as classy escort material? But in any case, it's a thin argument. Education is battling against a culture where sex and fame is more than ever a commodity, teenagers routinely describe each other as sexy, and school skirt hems hover round knickers. We should perhaps be surprised that more kids don't end up as Belles de Jour – or recognise that there is a pretty strong moral message passed on in all schools, whether state or private. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=361 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:17:30 GMT 20100910141730 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:17:30 GMT 20100910141730 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:17:30 GMT 201009101421730 I've seen some spin in my time, but even I'm quite impressed by the the press release that's just arrived from the Department for Education. “142 schools to convert to Academy status weeks after Academy Act passed,” it proclaims. Gosh, how amazing, I thought, and opened the attachment containing the list. Which is where it started getting rather more complicated. Of the 96 academies opening this week, about two thirds are actually old-fashioned academies, replacing failing schools. The other 32 are schools which amazingly have jumped through all the hoops since it became legal for outstanding schools to become academies back in July. Turning back to the release itself, you can see where the figures have come from. The 142 schools proclaimed are this week's 32, plus a further 110 where Academy Orders have been signed. However, the attachment shows that the financial arrangements aren't yet in place for most of them, so it could be quite a lot of weeks before they break free. So the release is true, but confusingly worded. And its own attachments show that on the one hand it's overstating the case – and simultaneously understating it. The same attachments show that something like 170 schools have applied to convert. These figures show there is clearly real interest in the scheme. And given the nature of what schools had to do to convert, even under the new legislation, it's quite an achievement that even 20 have managed it in the time. So, you wonder, why not trumpet those facts in a straightforward way? It does make me give a little more credence to a story I saw in one of the papers during the holidays, claiming that Michael Gove was annoyed by the slow rate of school conversions and claiming that the academies project was being effectively sabotaged by three things: the Labour amendment to the Bill which meant there had to be some consultation of parents and teachers before a school became an Academy; a dogged union campaign against the scheme; and slow civil servants. At the time, the story struck me as a bit of spinning by a traditional Conservative-supporting newspaper. But now, I do wonder a bit – and if there were elements of truth in it, that's quite worrying. For if it were true, it would imply that the education secretary didn't really understand how schools work, and how big decisions are taken, and that these take time, particularly over the summer holiday. If schools haven't rushed to sign on the dotted line, that's not going to be just because of slow civil servants or obstructive unions – and surely consultation is a good thing? Perhaps Mr Gove's been reading children's fiction, like Professor Pat Thomson. She's been ploughing through everything from Harry Potter to the Demon Headmaster series, and concluded that they are often more truthful about the power of headship than many adult discussions about school leadership. And she's been telling other researchers at the British Educational Research Association conference about it this week. Power, she says, is often regarded by heads as a “dirty word”. “Children's stories come clean about head teachers' work in ways that mainstream educational leadership texts often do not. “The implied reader of children's books is a child who recognises that power can be used wisely and to ethical ends – or not; who understands that pupils can use their individual and collective power to challenge school/headteacher authority; and who sees that the judicial use of power is preferable to symbolic or actual violence. “By contrast, the implied reader of educational administration texts is arguably someone who prefers to avoid questions about power.” Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=354 Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:32:18 GMT 20100901123218 Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:32:18 GMT 20100901123218 Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:32:18 GMT 2010090112123218 I should probably put off writing this till tomorrow, when the GCSE results come out. But what's the point? It's one of those annual events where the script is written in advance and everyone reads into the figures exactly what they want. There will be the stories of kids getting 15 starred-A grades, eight year olds getting a top GCSE or two, and league tables of schools which will be required reading in estate agents' offices. Ministers will praise pupils for all their hard work, whilst simultaneously insinuating that under the brave new Government things will be much better. Newspapers will concentrate on the schools at the bottom of the table, the number of teenagers failing to get any qualifications, and the number of diplomas or (in their eyes) non-rigorous exams counted in results. And academies can, if I understand correctly, refuse to publish some of the relevant details. Which is where next year's rows will be as unions and opposition politicians seek to discredit the new academies for opting out of the national curriculum and using their privileged situation under the Freedom of Information act. But back to this year. Vast swathes of news time will be devoted to the exams, and everyone will interpret the results as they wish – not unlike the recent situation with the SATS and the sample SATs, which were interpreted by some as showing that teachers teach to the test, whilst others came to completely different conclusions. (Warwick's latest blog, also on this site, is a must-read on this subject). There are fewer cries of grade inflation with the GCSE than A Level, but no doubt there will be allegations that captains of industry despair of the standard of current school leavers, and so on. There's almost no prospect of education being depoliticised in England and Wales, but these August debates are almost futile because they happen for the wrong reasons and tackle the wrong subject. If exam results could come out any time except the silly season they would attract far less attention – but perhaps far more useful attention. My old editor at the TES, Caroline St-John Brookes, used to argue fervently that GCSEs should be scrapped to avoid the notion that it was possible to end education at 16. I was unconvinced at the time – there are kids who just hate school, and it's better that they leave with something to show for all those years. But with the compulsory school leaving age rising again, it's time for a broader debate on what GCSEs (and A Levels, and diplomas, and all the rest of the qualifications) are actually for. If it's true that the more sought-after universities do operate an under-the-counter blacklist of A Levels they reject – business studies, theatre studies, law – then that should be part of the debate. If they only acknowledge the older academic subjects rather than anything vocational, then we need to know this. If these subjects are being rejected on the grounds that they are easier to pass, then that should be official, and agreed by an independent body. If it's not true, then that needs to be discussed as well. But there's another question at GCSE and A Level, and that's what the exams actually mean. I've had some experience of a child doing fast-track French, sitting the GCSE at 14, and the exercise seems entirely pointless apart from adding another notch to the belt of the school and the pupil. The only ways to get to GCSE standard by the end of Year 9 are: start learning in primary (supposed to happen but we're in chocolate teapot territory here); give extra timetabled lessons to it (ditto) or rote learning of questions and possible answers. You've guessed what actually happens. The upshot is that the kids learn how to pass the exam, probably, but learn zilch about the language except how to hate it. What's the point in that? Any employer who thinks the teenager will have rudimentary French is being taken for a ride, and another child's interest in developing useful skills in another language has been shot to pieces. So what does our system offer? Are we giving teenagers a good education, in the old-fashioned sense, which will help them make sense of the world as adults and cope with what life has to throw at them? Are we creating good employees? Or are we just teaching kids how to pass exams to the benefit of neither recipient or employer? It would be nice to have that discussion. But while August remains the crucial date, it's not going to happen, is it? Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=353 Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:56:31 GMT 20100823185631 Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:56:31 GMT 20100823185631 Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:56:31 GMT 201008231865631 We invented a new game in our holiday cottage in Cornwall. Middle-class bingo, it was called. And it was a hoot. You got ten points for a chintzy Cath Kidston beach bag, five points for Boden clothes on children and eight if you spotted it on parents. Breton tops? Lumbering four-wheel drives? Long shorts? Too ubiquitous for points. All with a village shop which sold fresh ginger, a zillion different New World wines, and the most chi-chi little bouquets I'd ever seen – and as a former tabloid reporter, I'd once been responsible for sending a few to people we wanted to butter up for interview. I'd never holidayed anywhere quite like this before: truly, it was the posh bits of Islington and the Home Counties-on-sea. No idea how we ended up there: our habit of booking last minute holidays doesn't usually have this effect. Anyway, the place came to mind when I read that news story about how good early-years teachers added to the lifetime earnings of their little charges by some £10k. That equated to some £200,000 per class, which the Harvard researchers thought should be reflected in their pay packets. Because it's in a place like Port Boden that you see how middle-class parents spend their waking hours educating their kids. Little Tobias and Clover's mum, dad, and Grandma don't give them a minute's peace. On the beach, they're surrounded by a running commentary on the sea, the waves, the lovely hole they're digging. They're in the rockpools, they're in wetsuits in the sea – and all the time there's an adult there explaining it all. And we did it too. Joking about the sheer middle-classedness of the whole thing, we ended up trying to explain middle-class to the 14 year old and the 11-year-old. They got the old-fashioned working, middle and upper class thing, but I think we completely lost them with the current markings of the species. And that's why a good kindergarten teacher is worth his (or more probably, her) weight in gold. As past studies have proved, the middle class kids have a much bigger vocabulary drummed into them by their parental overachievers, bringing them up the only way they know, who will point out every seagull and drag their reluctant offspring round boring castles. These parents may well be pushy later (their elbows in the queue for the newly delivered pasties were a sight to behold) but they bring up their kids in the only way they know: responding to calls for information and explaining everything they can. It's not just the middle classes, either: words are the advantaged parents' version of the worms that birds automatically jam down the throats of their young. I'm not saying that it's only the middle-classes who do this: most parents from every walk of life do the same. It's just that little Araminta's mum and dad do it loudly and visibly in public. But not every parent can do the same. Kids with less involved parents, detached perhaps by poverty, overwork, or simply lack of good parental role models themselves, simply miss out on so much dedicated but informal education. The “rich but thick” (a memorable recent Conservative quote) pull ahead for this reason. The new Harvard research about kindergarten should be required reading for education ministers during their much-needed holiday. It raises its own questions but reinforces earlier research such as that into the famous High Scope project, which famously saved money by using good pre-schooling to turn kids away from crime later. In the UK we start our children in school younger than almost everywhere else in Europe, apparently in an effort to make up for swathes of less-than-optimum parenting and because we appear culturally averse to letting infants learn through play. That makes it particularly important to get the best teachers in there, with the best-possible curriculum so that the least hothoused infants can get off to a flying start and learn that learning can be fun. I wonder if the Coalition has actually got an advantage over the previous government here. Labour was keen to improve schools in deprived areas with academy status – but only secondary schools. Sure Start became universal, so as not to stigmatise the families who really needed it. Perhaps we should have been concentrating on those four and five year olds far more, beyond ensuring they were taught phonics. Perhaps this new research will give the Coalition impetus to concentrate on the youngest, neediest children as it considers how to use the pupil premium demanded by the Lib Dems, waits for the result of a review of current early-years provision, and pares Sure Start is pared down to the neediest families. Perhaps – perhaps -- allowing primary schools to go for academy status will help kids too. Intriguingly, Frank Field is thinking long-term, apparently pushing for a parenting GCSE so that kids could have a better idea than their own mums and dads of how to do it. So what are ministers thinking? Are the anti-academy campaigners correct in saying that what's good for failing schools is socially divisive when the best ones do it? Or do ministers genuinely believe that academies are universally beneficial? Are they going to monitor what happens next? And how aware are those in charge of our educational policy of these kids who really need the outstanding early years teachers – and the same encouragement for the rest of their school careers? The kids who really need the undivided attention of the education secretary are also the least likely to be spotted on any holiday beach or being dragged round a museum, even if it's free, this summer. Let's hope that this government has the imagination to remember they are there, and the determination to make a significant difference to their life chances through education. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=350 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:43:02 GMT 20100810164302 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:43:02 GMT 20100810164302 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:43:02 GMT 201008101644302 It's been haunting me for the last couple of days. It turned out, you may remember, that there are some 62 reasonably solid applications for Free Schools registered with the Department for Education. This has been compared unfavourably with the numbers claimed some weeks ago, which were, ooh, about 640 higher. This story seems to bear a certain resemblance to the academies figures, where something like 150 schools are actually primed to go ahead, compared with more than a thousand strongly suggested a month ago. But then there seems to be confusion all round about this: my local secondary school has sent out a letter to parents explaining that it was “invited to apply” for academy status by the Government and was currently considering this. Poor loves: do you think they'd feel horribly betrayed if I wrote back to the chairman of governors and tactfully explained that the same invitation had gone out to rather a lot of schools simply on the basis of their last Ofsted report? Or do you think they understand this perfectly well but think maybe the parents don't? Anyway, I digress. The killer quote was in a story about free schools: “The secretary of state has been working closely with NSN [the charity New Schools Network] to meet the demand for more good school places.” The thing that really gets me is: how do they know that the Free School places will be good ones? Nobody sets out deliberately to create a school which isn't good, do they? Heads and teachers don't get up in the morning, stretch, and say: “Y'know what, I think I'll just go and ruin some kids' life chances today.” And what is good? Some parents will think it's an exam factory, others might think it's a place where their children are happy, and others will opt for a solid middle-class intake. Just wanting to be really good, and working to be really good, doesn't necessarily mean that the end product will be good, and it'll be interesting to see how many parents take up places for their kids if there are other, more established, choices in the area. Do parents think "good" is an exam factory, a school which educates kids for life, or one with a solid middle-class intake? So, why might Free Schools be better, do we think? They will still have teachers and heads drawn from our current pool of school staff, unless Mr Gove has some plan to hire supply teachers from Mars. No difference there then. Which teachers will be attracted to the Free Schools – and why? Are the kids in them likely to be easier to teach? Will the buildings be a plus or a minus point? Will the money be any better, or the promotion prospects? You don't need me to tell you the importance of getting the best teachers to make a good school. If a free school is run by parents, (who by definition don't know much about the complications of running a good school), then why would that make it any better than existing schools? Unless, of course, you don't need expertise, Ofsted is wrong, and we've all been wasting our money on improving the training for heads. No, I don't think that's the intended message. And if a free school is run by a teachers' group, then unless they can be in two places at once another school is being deprived of those fantastic members of staff. So good places in one school may equal less (and fewer) good places in another. Is the DfE saying that free schools are going to be better than other schools by poaching staff from the “bog standard” competition? Not sure that's the intended message, either. I am utterly fascinated by the experiment which is about to unfold in front of us, and for the sake of the children in those new schools and their neighbours I do hope Michael Gove is right, and there will be some magic ingredient which just makes it all work. But I've got this nagging reservation that the old Star Trek command of “Make it so” may not actually work on Planet Earth. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=349 Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:05:41 GMT 20100803000541 Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:05:41 GMT 20100803000541 Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:12:18 GMT 2010080300121218 During the past week – and especially the past few hours – I've read huge chunks of the debates on the Government's academy bill. I've done so partly to keep myself up-to-date on education matters, and partly so you don't have to do the same. To nobody's surprise, the Bill has passed with very few changes. Not only is it a flagship bit of legislation (although certainly not part of the LibDem manifesto), shoved rudely through Parliament on an accelerated schedule, but there's also been some ruthless whipping going on to ensure the Coalition all voted for the official line, vetoing some fairly sensible amendments. Or, let's listen to one of the few Lib Dems who did break out of line, John Pugh. “When were elected this May- God, it seems years ago- we all knew that there was some prospect that politics in this place might never be quite the same again. “What do we have with amendments to the Bill, however? We have the spectacle of Ministers who have already told us that they will accept no amendment, period, and the sight of Whips new and old cracking their knuckles off-stage and perfecting basilisk-like stares in the mirror, persuading people not to vote for amendments such as amendment 8 and others that, it could be argued, align with the spirit and improve the detail of the Bill. Paradoxically, they are doing that because they assume that is how coalition politics work. I say paradoxically, because the amendment-denying Ministers in front of us, whose agents the Whips are, seem to be the most mature, civilised and benign advocates of the new politics.” So what amendment was Mr Pugh supporting? An obligation on schools to hold a ballot if there was a disagreement among the governing body over an application for academy status. Rather surprisingly, he continued: “You might recall that under Mrs Thatcher, in the Education Reform Act 1988, a parental ballot was an essential precondition of the change to grant-maintained status in any school. There were votes across the country on those matters. Sadly, subsequent Governments seem to have lost interests in the views of parents and, in my view, have disempowered parents, with one exception.” That exception, he went on to say, was grammar-school ballots. A LibDem colleague then joined the fray: “Does my hon. Friend accept the suggestion that there are to be no ballots because most of them might be lost if parents knew all the facts? That situation is being avoided simply by not making provision for a ballot in the first place,” said Mike Hancock. Mr Pugh thought this might suggest a “cynical intention” on the part of Ministers, which he “hesitated to endorse” – at least, during this early stage of the evening. He added: “I am arguing simply that we should be at least as permissive as Baroness Thatcher was in 1988. My hon. Friend argues that we should be more permissive, but the Government are arguing, and anyone who votes against my amendment will clearly be convinced by that argument, that we should be less permissive.” Less permissive than the Iron Lady? Good grief. Mr Pugh's arguments became even more interesting as he continued, reminding the House that the last time schools were given “greater financial freedoms”…”nearly every governing body was presented with a paper from the headmaster showing that his salary should go up because the headmaster down the road would be getting a significant increase. We saw salary inflation across the headmaster class, so headmasters may have something to look forward to from new academy status.” Caroline Lucas, Brighton's new Green MP was also vocal in the debates, tabling several amendments of which one would provide for academy status to be reversed. “The Government want academies to be like private schools funded by the state, yet if things go wrong at a private school, parents have more recourse than parents of children at an academy as envisaged in the Bill. For example, if a private school behaves in a way that a parent does not like, the parent can stop paying the fees, withdraw their child or pay for their child to go somewhere else. There is no comparable control in the Bill for parents of children in academies.” Veteran Tory John Redwood was sniffy about this. “I think hon. Members are making obstacles where none need occur. Changes will go speedily only if the local community is happy. As soon as it gets out that a school is considering academy status, the local community will be engaged. There are local newspapers, local websites and all sorts of ways to do so, and the usual school grapevines will be in operation. “Surely it is high time that we set free the schools that wish to be set free. I can assure the Committee that should groups of parents not wish a change to academy status to happen, they will mobilise quickly and democracy will work. It is still alive and kicking.” Well, I think I've given you a flavour of some of the arguments, which were largely good-humoured to the extent that Nick Gibb, the new Schools minister, referred to his opposite number at “the minister” and then apologised with the phrase “It is all so new”. I may come back another time to some of the more extraordinary Conservative explanations on why parental consultation doesn't need to be explicitly written into the Act, and doesn't need to happen until after the decision has been made, and Mr Redwood's grasp of precisely how schools might consult parents during the holidays. I am pretty sure that the Bill is so skeletal that Ministers are going to have to do a fair bit of firefighting further down the line, but that in most cases the debate was formed purely down party lines. Conservative = freedom is good; trust heads and governors. Labour = this Bill is unfair and will further disadvantage the disadvantaged. Further explanation on either side was not really forthcoming: it's simply a tenet of political faith. A rare exception was Barry Sheerman, former Chair of the Education Select Committee, who actually articulated why he thought Labour academies were more egalitarian than the Gove version may prove to be. “Under the last Government, Building Schools for the Future and academies were not just about improving schools, but about transforming the communities in which they sat. That was at the heart of what the last Government were doing, and that is what the present Government seem to be missing. Transforming the community is what a great school does.” So did anything change during the hours of rather well-attended debate? (It's notable that around 500 MPs took part in each of the votes on this Bill: when I tuned into live debate of the Labour government's final education bill there seemed to be a handful of MPs slugging it out over home education in an empty chamber). But summing up, Nick Gibb, the schools minister, was able to run through some changes which have been made in the Lords and the Commons. Here are his explanations: “The noble Lords were concerned about schools changing their age range and the Bill was amended to allay those concerns. Subsection (4) of clause 9 makes it clear than when a maintained school becomes an academy under the current school closure processes, further to the Education and Inspections Act 2006 and not further to an academy order, when the age range is not like-for-like, the school would be classed as an additional school, so the Secretary of State would be required to evaluate the impact. That would include, for example, an academy created as a result of the amalgamation of two or more schools or an 11-to-18 academy that replaced an 11-to-16 maintained school, if that involved a closure rather than a conversion. Any school wishing to add a sixth form would need to follow the relevant statutory provisions. “The answer to the question whether the admissions code and the appeals code will apply to free schools, too, is yes, it will. “The problem with the shadow Minister's speech in moving the amendment was that it was written, I think, before he heard of the Government's intention to put in the funding agreement an explicit requirement to promote community cohesion. On top of that, it already requires academies to be at the heart of the community. “Amendments in the other place have given children with special educational needs greater rights to admission to academies than existed in previous academies legislation, and new requirements for funding for low-incidence special needs have been added. New duties to consult have been included in clauses 5 and 10, and the Secretary of State will now be obliged by statute to take into account the impact on other schools of any new school established under the Bill. That is now in clause 9. “My noble Friends have added greater parliamentary accountability through an annual report to Parliament, which will also enable us to analyse issues of concern to my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), such as the viability of primary schools that opt for academy status. He made a compelling case for increasing the number of parent governors, so as I mentioned earlier, the model funding agreement will be changed to increase the number from one to two. Opposition Members have successfully ensured that the funding agreement includes a requirement for looked-after children to have a designated member of staff.” He concluded: “The Bill is about trusting the professionalism of teachers and head teachers. It is about innovation and excellence, about giving parents a genuine choice and children the opportunity for a better future. It is a short Bill, but its impact will be long lasting. I commend it to the House.” What happens now, I suspect, is going to be interesting. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=347 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:30:43 GMT 20100728003043 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:30:43 GMT 20100728003043 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:31:48 GMT 2010072800123148 Today, it was going to be all about the Academies Bill, and I've been spending a lot of time mugging up on Hansard accounts of the debate as the week has worn on. But despite the Government's desperation to get the thing onto the statute books and schools away from their local authorities, the parliamentary action doesn't conclude till Monday. So let's do it then instead. Which brings me to a much happier subject, and one I have a feeling that most Government ministers haven't got a clue about. I've just been to my daughter's junior school leavers assembly, which was just brilliant. Not always technically brilliant, which I have a feeling might upset Michael Gove and his ilk. Not playing Grade 5 piano? Not performing ballet, or reading poetry, or putting on Shakespeare? What kind of school show is that then? We got something much better, and something that I guess is replicated in state primary schools up and down the country. It was enthusiastic, committed, inspired, sometimes extraordinarily talented, and good humoured. And that's not to mention the teamwork the pupils used to get their acts together, and the way in which each kid or group of kids created something unique, all by themselves. Teacher managed it wasn't. As the MC, one of the year 6 teachers said, they were looking for parental applause when it was deserved and parental indulgence at other times. What followed was a big musical number for each class, in which there was clearly adult input, and then a plethora of sketches, dances and some stunning musical performances, which the kids had done all by themselves. And the running theme: their teachers and the head. Probably half the acts were about the staff as babies, as children, as pensioners or as gameshow contestants. There was clearly a lot of affection and a certain amount of folk knowledge, with constant references to the “clubbing” antics of a couple of respectable staff members. There were also a motif of the Head's assemblies (note-perfect, from what I could tell) as well as rather a fine example of him doing a robot dance. Possibly slightly less likely, but who knows? The affection they displayed for their teachers was almost breathtaking: the TDA could almost have used it in a recruitment campaign. Have those teachers all got higher level degrees, which the pre-election Conservatives thought so important? No idea: clearly completely unimportant. And then, at the end, that slide show of pupil photos which showed them as babyish-looking Year 3s, older kids growing in confidence and awareness, and then finally as Year 6s on their adventure week last month. A handful of them showed so much talent that I'll be looking out for their names in lights a few years on. But all of them have now got what it takes to function with good sense and poise in a world in which they will be increasingly independent operators. They may have done brilliantly in their SATs, but what the school has done for them is what all parents hope for but can't be measured in a test: helping kids to find their potential as funny, well-informed and self-aware 11-year-olds with the potential to fly with the extra freedoms of secondary school. Brilliant stuff: thank you. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=345 Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:57:46 GMT 20100723145746 Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:57:46 GMT 20100723145746 Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:57:46 GMT 201007231425746 I had my very own Dutch moment this weekend, and it didn't involve football. I found myself sitting next to a headteacher from Amsterdam at a conference dinner on Saturday night, and had one of those unexpected encounters when you learn a lot more than anticipated. (I have to declare an interest here: it was the annual conference of the British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society (BELMAS), whose members – practising heads and academics -- research leadership. And they'd asked me to publicise it for them. Which I'm doing right now… but that's not my motivation for writing this piece, I promise.) Anyway, knowing probably more about Dutch strikers than Dutch education, my initial polite conversation with Karin turned into a bit of an eye-opener. Her school, just outside Amsterdam, has 2,000 pupils who leave at 16 for vocational education, 17 for higher vocational training or at 18 for university. The Dutch government does like to change education about, as here, and is currently issuing edicts on sex ed and very frequent national testing. “Oh, it changes about every four years”, she said. However, as head of an outstanding school, Karin can simply ignore them. And, as she explained with a big grin, she does. What about inspections, I asked? Another big grin. “We're an high-performing school and so we don't get inspected. We haven't been inspected for eight years,” she said. OK, I said, putting my fork down and picking my notebook up, we're talking about similar developments in the UK: where's the accountability in your system? The answer was not what I expected. The compulsory national exams have two elements: one part marked externally, and one part internal assessment. If the deviation between the two sets of marks is less than 0.19 the school is excellent: 0.2 to 0.45 is normal and 0.46 and above is “poor” and will trigger an inspection. Parents, says Karin, know all the marks, how everyone is performing. And teachers are subject to 360 degree feedback which includes anonymous comments from pupils. “The unions are quite worried about that here,” I said. “We find the pupils tend to pull their punches,” replied Karin. She talks about “horizontal accountability” to parents, pupils and the school's board, and the openness of everybody knowing exactly what is happening and how it is performing. If parents don't like what's going on in their child's school, they have the right to move them although finding another place may not be straightforward. Popular schools can expand to meet the need. “I don't believe in balloting so my school is growing and growing. If people choose to come to my school I will not refuse them. I don't think I've got the right to do that,” she said. How does she accommodate the extra pupils? “Extra temporary rooms,” came the reply. The conversation moves on to her school building which is situated on a lake, at which point Karin says – to British ears -- the most surprising thing of the evening. “Oh, it's lovely. The children like to skate on it. Everybody gets on the ice.” Good Lord. Haven't they heard of health and safety? Karin hadn't, so at that point we spent some time explaining the current UK safety culture to her almost frank disbelief. So, if schools really are going to be encouraged to go it alone as academies, it might be a jolly good idea to look at the Dutch system for tips on accountability. And possibly elf 'n' safety, too. Susan Young is an educational journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=341 Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:01:28 GMT 20100712140128 Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:01:28 GMT 20100712140128 Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:01:28 GMT 201007121420128 Never has one man apologised so much in such a short space of time. Michael Gove makes Tiger Woods look like an amateur. Women? Pah! If you're going to apologise, clearly the best work is to be done when you've somehow produced a list of schools explaining which are going to be able to get the builders in… which turns out to be wrong. Exactly how they managed to do that was not explained, though someone who's been in the Department for Education a couple of times recently suggests that it's just all a bit chaotic in there because they're determined to do so much so fast. By the end of Day 1 all the old rainbow signs were down, and things have apparently continued at the same manic pace ever since. Anyway, not only was Mr Gove sorry for the “distress” caused to MPs and schools by the raising false hopes, he was also sorry for putting the list in the wrong place. Yes, His biggest crime appears to have been putting his little list (on which some of them were missed) in the House of Commons library at the end of his original announcement rather than on the table of the House and the vote office at the start. Which he'd now done. Were I involved with a school in the thick of all this, I'd have been incredulous by now. But to be fair to Mr Gove, I'm pretty incredulous about the whole thing. As far as I can see, Building Schools for the Future has not been the best-organised venture from the start. If Mr Gove is to be believed on this, his little departmental hiccup is as nothing compared to the whole saga of BSF. According to his original speech in Parliament, it was a kind of bureaucratic obstacle course of nine substages, each of which had meta-stages (do try to keep up at the back) “It is perhaps no surprise that it can take almost three years to negotiate the bureaucratic process of BSF before a single builder is engaged or brick is laid. “There are some councils which entered the process six years ago which have only just started building new schools. Another project starting this year is three years behind schedule,” he said. Given all this, it is perhaps a little rich of Mr Balls to complain that most of the projects are being pulled, since with a less complicated system more of them might actually have been built during the past years. But then, the terms of reference outlined by Mr Gove for how school buildings projects might be handled under this government make interesting reading as well. Here – cherry picked, admittedly – are some choice bits of the document which the new review group will consider: · To consider how to generate sufficient places to allow new providers to enter the state school system in response to parental demand · To review current methods of allocating capital (for example, by formula to local authorities); · To enable the establishment of new schools. · To consider the relationship between schools, local government and central government; · To increase choice locally determined by parental demand; · To review and reform the requirements on schools including the building/School Premises Regulations, design requirements and playing field regulations If I'm reading this correctly, it does start to look as though they're intending most of the available big project funding to head in the direction of free schools (or possibly, to be charitable, build new primaries where necessary). And that seems totally potty, where there are school buildings which could be nicely refurbished for a lot less money. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=337 Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:27:55 GMT 20100708122755 Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:27:55 GMT 20100708122755 Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:27:55 GMT 2010070812122755 Well, I've looked at the list. Have you? It's the one that's tucked away behind several different links on the DfE website and tells you the names of the schools which have “expressed an interest” in going for academy status. I'd guess many school leaders have gone through the list to see what neighbouring schools and colleagues are up to, in the same way that people used to read the TES jobs pages to work out who was moving on. My perusal was for both professional and personal interest. It's good to keep an eye on the schools which are more than just interested in the idea, as the trailblazers who will set the tone for what happens next. And I had a strong hunch that my daughter's secondary school would be on there. I'd heard the local authority were laying bets on how long it would take them to apply, too. Sure enough, tucked away towards the bottom, the only one in our local authority, there it was. I rang a friend, also a parent of the school and former governor of another. She too was unsurprised, but asked: “What does it mean, then?” I ran through the basics: possibility of more cash, different T and Cs for teachers, ability to modify the curriculum or school hours and terms, but being outside the LA and therefore not part of any democratic process. “What do you think about it?” was my friend's final question. And the truthful answer is that I really don't know. The major con is the “local democratic control” part of it. But I'm just not that sure what that means. I've never gone to vote in a local election with schools uppermost in my mind, as most prospective councillors don't raise the subject. My LA is a trailblazer for a particular admissions system, which has not, as far as I am aware, ever been part of anyone's election campaign or raised as an issue by anyone seeking votes. There are some acute problems with primary school places locally, which may have helped to swing it for a councillor in one by-election. But -- to play devil's advocate -- that meant a group of irate parents elected a councillor on a single issue, ignoring the rest of the manifesto and outvoting people with perhaps broader concerns. Might it not have been a better use of democracy for them to campaign for a Free School, whilst voting for the best representative on a broad range of issues? I'm not sure what the answer should be. I'm also troubled by the lack of any requirement to consult with parents and staff before going for academy status. For various reasons, I'm not really surprised that my daughter's school hasn't posted anything on its website. It is presumably early days and unless the governing body has discussed it there would be little to say. And yet… it would be a fundamental change, and if the school has actually expressed an interest with the DfE, that is actually fairly significant. It shouldn't be a secret. And I am fairly aghast that the DfE thought it could get away with keeping the names quiet, only publishing the list after it was forced to. And what a mess it is: it starts with a school in York, then has a chunk in alphabetic order by authority, before reverting to randomness in the final third. My guess is that the randomly ordered schools are the most recent entrants to the list, which also makes for interesting reading. The number of primary schools on there was a bit of a surprise, though may well be explained by Mick Brookes's theory that many have had such a hard time over the SATs boycott from their LA that they would prefer to go it alone. As for the secondaries – well, I didn't spot many names of former GM schools that might have spent the last decade or so gagging to go it alone once more. Not many of the usual suspects there. The teacher unions are playing down the numbers of those schools on the list as a tiny minority. Taken in context of total school numbers they are right – but out of the pool of schools which are currently eligible for academy status, that's a fairly high percentage. So on limited evidence, it is beginning to look as though quite a few schools may go for this, and that it might be a popular offer when opened up to those which don't hit the magic Outstanding status. And as the new history curriculum arrives, and the funding cuts, it may become an attractive option for even more school leaders. But do I think it's a good idea? I wish I knew. Susan Young Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=330 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:35:51 GMT 20100628143551 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:35:51 GMT 20100628143551 Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:25:41 GMT 201006291642541 Perhaps I'm missing something, but we still don't know just how bad it's going to get, do we? We've had the Budget, after weeks of warning that we we're all doomed. And while we know the household stuff, many of the big ticket items are still sitting in the shadows. The Treasury is warning that the only departments which will be ring-fenced come the spending review announcements in the autumn will be health and international development. Education, we're promised, will enjoy some protection, but there is no word on what degree of cushioning there will be. And for everyone else, cuts of 25 per cent are promised. And there are extra things on which the Government wants to spend its education cash, particularly the pupil premium (as yet a mystery in all its details) free schools (currently funded to the tune of just £50m) and academies. Something is going to give, somewhere – and my guess is that many schools which are currently ambivalent about going for academy status will jump because they need the money. It's not going to be much fun for heads, teachers and public sector workers when their pay is frozen, particularly as the pensions issue has been kicked only temporarily into the long grass. And the timing may be particularly grim for heads and teachers who will get the agreed rise this September – but whose freeze begins thereafter. Very few private sector workers have had pay rises for the past couple of years, but if we continue to creep out of recession they may once more be able to improve their earnings while teachers can only look on in envy. Similarly, the rate of job losses in the private sector may reverse at precisely the same time that education starts looking like a dodgy career choice. Leading a school under these circumstances is going to require, I'd guess, a whole new skill set from what we may come to regard as the years of plenty. Will Ofsted and the Government be expecting more as resources disappear, staff may be cut and those remaining feel less than chirpy about their working lives? And I suspect it's going to be more important than ever before to belong to an organisation like the NAHT in these times, as school leaders need to draw on collective support and group wisdom. But on the other hand, schools and public services have been unusually well funded in the past decade. Think about more than a century of state education: how often have schools had large numbers of colourful new textbooks and equipment, often in brand new or refurbished buildings? Rather, making do and mending has usually been the story. Or perhaps help will come from another direction. Several local authorities have been experimenting with a scheme called Total Place, in which the idea is to look at all the public money going into an area, and try to work out where it really needs to be spent. Another couple of organisations, the Institute of Government and the Public Chairs' Forum – the heads of 40 government agencies – have formed a coalition suggesting ways of improving services whilst making efficiency savings. It could be sensible to start taking a real interest in these kinds of initiatives. *To take my mind off the football, I've been musing about what its managers have to teach about leadership. It's instructive just watching them on the World Cup touchline: Sven Goran Eriksson, late of this parish, allowing no expression more than mild perturbation. The French coach, looking ready to murder most of his team. And our very own Fabio Capello, muttering grimly in his designer specs and neatly shafting his team canary, John Terry, by dismissing his solo press conference as “a mistake”. If that wasn't menacing, I don't know what is. Apparently the England players have been bored senseless by Capello's insistence that they spend days off as a team on safari and playing table tennis. Remember the Wags handbag shopping, and the drunken shenanigans? Yet they got to the quarter-finals twice in those days. For a while, the Winnie the Pooh interpretation of staffroom dynamics was a popular training course for heads. If England manages to stay in South Africa beyond Wednesday, I predict a rash of consultants promising to teach the Capello method (menacing comments, a staffroom tiddlywinks tournament, lots of clean living and that famous glower). But on the bright (ish) side, you may have an opt-out from tedious training courses: no money. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=327 Tue, 22 Jun 2010 23:26:01 GMT 20100622232601 Tue, 22 Jun 2010 23:26:01 GMT 20100622232601 Tue, 22 Jun 2010 23:27:17 GMT 2010062223112717 Don't know about you, but something doesn't seem right. Here we are into the second month of a new government, and there's only one bit of education legislation coming to the boil (potentially far-reaching, I'd agree – but definitely singleton). Michael Gove has committed a couple of swift knifings in that time as well, but neither Becta nor the GTC are going to be very much lamented, from what I can see. Ah, the GTC. What an extraordinary organisation. One of its aims was to unify the profession – and it did, against it. I've had my ear bent by heads moaning that it completely failed to do anything about their truly incompetent teachers, and my ear bent by teachers who were completely aghast at the hectoring tone whose most recent outing was in that embarrassing code of practice, which stopped just short of reminding professionals to change their underwear daily. Part of the problem for the GTC from the start was that it was entering a crowded market: not on the disciplinary front, but as the voice of the profession. And I wonder if its unwanted child status actually led to a bunker mentality which caused persistent problems. I've just remembered that football chant: “No one likes us, we don't care, We are Millwall, super Millwall…” For a long time, the organisation used such impenetrable jargon that education hacks would joke about translating from the original Klingon. That was coupled with the slightest air of we-know-best defensiveness with campaigns like the push on professional development and that saintly code of conduct. All a bit of a shame as there were some really interesting ideas buried underneath an impenetrability of words (such as the Teacher Learning Academy, one of those TLAs you could rearrange anyway you like to mean nothing very much). I think the organisation has improved a lot recently, probably thanks to the leadership of Keith Bartley, who comes across as a fully paid-up member of the human race. But it can take a long time to erase the whiff of sanctimoniousness, and Michael Gove probably thought he was safe in giving the GTC a bit of a kicking. Low-hanging fruit and all that. Bet he was astonished when the ATL came out in its defence. And, as the TES pointed out, it's a bit cavalier to chop the profession's own disciplinary scheme without consulting on something to replace it. Pre-GTCE, there was List 99. In future: what? And will the new scheme have some connection with the vetting and barring system which may itself be under review? Oops, I've digressed. The point I was going to make was that during the first days of Labour David Blunkett never stopped naming and shaming schools or announcing changes, a pattern which remained for a full 13 exhausting years of government. Ed Balls is still at it, tweeting madly about schools and hospitals and free school meals. But Gove is, well, eerily quiet, and that's something we're just not used to. I suppose it could just be that he's a different character to Balls (and isn't scrapping to become leader of his party). But I was rather intrigued by the final paragraph of his reply to Balls, outlining his planned spending. “I am keen to benefit from work you commissioned at the Department, when Secretary of State, on potential efficiencies in the sector. In the spirit of transparency I would be grateful if you would be prepared to discuss publishing confidential advice given to your ministerial team on the best way to achieve saving, specifically the Handover Report on spending in schools. I am sure that, in the national interest, you will want to do everything possible to help us reduce the deficit in the most sensitive and careful way.” I suspect there's something interesting buried in this paragraph (rather like the impact assessment for the academies bill). But I also suspect we aren't going to find out what it is unless Mr Balls agrees. Susan Young is an education journalist Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=323 Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:01:47 GMT 20100614180147 Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:01:47 GMT 20100614180147 Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:01:47 GMT 201006141860147 Well, the first month in to a coalition government and I suppose we should all be getting used to odd things happening. But it's all very peculiar. The current thing which is getting me scratching my head in bewildered wonderment is the very strong suggestion that in some form the Alexander primary review is on the official agenda. You will remember that this massive, intensively researched and overarching edifice of a document was rudely dismissed by the then Government, whose researchers would barely have had time to read the title page. But then, it was widely surmised that the Department for Cushions and Soft Furnishings had commissioned its own Rose review in order to be able to sideline anything Professor Alexander's team said about KS2 Sats. Wrongly surmised, I am quite sure. It came as a surprise that the Rose curriculum was abandoned in the pre-election “wash-up” of legislation, particularly since Labour had been confident enough about its future that they had sent out all the documentation to schools, presumably at vast expense. So quite why they ditched it in those last frantic days – when the election was called at a time of their choosing – is a bit of a mystery. With all its talk of “domains” the Cambridge Primary Review, to use its proper title, seemed unlikely to be of much interest to Michael Gove, whose expressed desires have included a push on the basics and more proper subjects. But it appears that the two sides have been in communication for some time now, and that the new Government is looking seriously at the Alexander documents as it considers how to proceed, with high-level meetings in the pipeline. When you look at some of the top-line items again, it's possible to see a certain synchronicity (but if Michael Gove ever talks about new primary domains, I might have to eat my own dunce's cap). It's worth looking at the team's newest document, Policy Priorities for a New Government, which does highlight some of the issues which would have to be faced as part of any reform. “Perhaps the most frequent and disturbing comment voiced by teachers at our dissemination events has been this: ʻWe're impressed by the Cambridge Review's evidence. We like the ideas. We want to take them forward. But we daren't do so without permission from our Ofsted inspectors and local authority school improvement partners.ʼ It continues: “the Review has identified eleven post-election policy priorities for primary education. But hereʼs the proviso: we commend them not just to the next Prime Minister and Secretary of State, but also to schools. “For if schools assume that reform is the task of government alone, then compliance will not give way to empowerment, and dependence on unargued prescription will continue to override the marshalling and scrutiny of evidence.” To help with this, the review team is launching a network for schools which are keen to develop some of the ideas for themselves: (email Julia Flutter onjaed100@cam.ac.uk). Interestingly, the 11 priorities include the following: “…seize the opportunity presented by the dropping of the primary curriculum clauses from the Children, Schools and Families Bill. “Understand that the Rose Review's narrow remit prevented it from addressing some of the problems of the primary curriculum which are most in need of attention, especially the counterproductive sacrificing of curriculum entitlement to a needlessly restricted notion of ʻstandardsʼ, the corrosive split between the ʻbasicsʼ and the rest, the muddled posturing on subjects, knowledge and skills, and the vital matter of the relationship between curriculum quality, expertise and staffing; and that the curriculum debate therefore remains wide open. “But don't think that the minimalism of the 1950s (or 1870s) is an adequate alternative. Look instead at the Cambridge model: an aims-driven entitlement curriculum of breadth, richness and contemporary relevance, which secures the basics and much more besides, and combines a national framework with a strong local component.” The others include a debate and decisions on what primary education is for, and proper assessment of the broad curriculum to replace the current KS2 Sats, officially-approved teaching and removal of the old professional standards for teachers. Nothing controversial there, then. But given that the approach the Government has taken so far is that heads and teachers should be given the freedom to teach, with academies having the freedom to ignore the national curriculum, perhaps it is genuinely possible that the Alexander proposals could form at least an underpinning to the changes to come. Perhaps more lies ahead for primary schools than a return to the 3Rs? Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=321 Wed, 09 Jun 2010 16:07:40 GMT 20100609160740 Wed, 09 Jun 2010 16:07:40 GMT 20100609160740 Wed, 09 Jun 2010 16:47:18 GMT 201006091644718 Not too sure what it is about education which ensures that more heat than light is generally thrown around during debates, but that rule is holding true once more as the new Government's plans for extending academy status to any outstanding school which wants it come closer to reality. Following the arguments over the last week or so, your average Martian would have come to some very odd conclusions about the English education system. Depending which bit of the British media was being monitored on the red planet's spaceship, the alien race might reasonably have concluded any of the following: local authorities always protect the rights of all children and all schools Successful schools secretly hate children with special needs headteachers of schools which are considering becoming academies secretly want lots of power and don't care about children outside their school local authorities control everything that goes on it their schools with a rod of iron any school which does not opt out will lose all its funding and be forced to exist on scraps all schools in all local authorities are currently equal I could carry on, but am losing the will to live. As, probably, is the bemused Martian observer witnessing an argument being carried out in starkest black and white, with no shades of grey permitted. Clearly, the Martian's conclusions are extreme and nutty – but not much more so than claims being made for and against the new policy. Unless some of the rhetoric is toned down a bit, we risk returning unnecessarily to the past where grant-maintained schools were often at daggers drawn with their local authority neighbours. And that doesn't do anybody any good. My problem with the new academy status is that I don't wholeheartedly think it's either a good thing or a bad thing, and that very little nuance has entered the argument just yet. The important thing is that it's a done deal. The legislation is on its way, and some schools will use it. Therefore, it is everybody's job to make sure that children are not disadvantaged as a result. The antis, led by Ed Balls (who, let's remember, is currently taking part in a fight to the death to lead the Labour party, had a penchant for telling people exactly how to run things, and himself encouraged the creation of new academies, sometimes against the wishes of the locals) are painting the initiative as the death of locally-accountable schools, and as a way of creating a two-tier system where poorer kids and those with special needs will languish. The pros, led by Michael Gove and most of the right-wing press, claim they are only seeking to remove schools from the jackboot of wickedly controlling local authorities who seek to prevent diversity or success. But these simplistic arguments miss two major points. The first, and most overwhelming, is the heads and teachers staffing these schools are the same people that they were last week or last year. Which means, most are teachers not for the money, power or prestige, but because they like kids and being able to make a difference to their lives. So while it's entirely possible that one or two schools will opt out and quietly start dumping pupils who make trouble or have special needs (in much the same way that it is claimed some existing academies replacing failing schools appear to have done) it's probably wrong to think that every school would do this. And the second point is that in most cases local authorities can interfere very little in the day-to-day running of their schools. Local management of schools has been around for a very long time now, but you'd hardly think so from the current portrayal of local authority politics. However, it is true to say that many schools are strongly irritated by their LA and the way it is run, and some will make the jump just to be free of that. And despite all the rhetoric, it's hard to believe that zillions of schools are currently plotting to jump in September. Around 3,500 are currently eligible, as outstanding schools. A few will be itching to go and are prepared to start now: others will wait to see how things look in the next academic year, and how the financial benefits look. They may look very tempting as the cuts start to bite further down the line. Many are effectively window-shopping and thinking about it. But even the DfE's own documents are only projecting 200 conversions a year for the next three. There is a third point, which is the Prime Minister's family history. Having had a son with extreme special needs himself, he is unlikely to be keen on any policy which makes life harder for children with SEN and their families. Coupled with the Lib Dems' pupil premium, there should be adequate safeguards for less privileged kids in society – but, equally, campaigners are right to be cautious. In the end, the devil will be in the detail and how we all behave. What Mr Gove does on league tables and accountability is crucial: he needs to make sure these clearly reflect the progress of all children, not just those which can be hauled over the C/D border. Similarly, there needs to be careful work around the demand for all new Academies to help a named, less successful school. Empire-building should not be the name of the game. And admissions rules will stay the same for the new academies, which should mean they get the same intake as they do now. With no Ofsted inspections and no local authority backstop, there are clearly some risks that some schools may behave in a solely self-interested fashion. But heads aren't business people: they are former teachers. They are there because they care about kids and have spent a lifetime working with kids. And my gut feeling is that this makes a huge difference. Come September, schools are going to be able to become academies and do their own thing, no matter what anyone thinks about it. The important thing is for everyone to make sure the system continues to work for pupils. Alienating those who have made the jump risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=315 Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:05:26 GMT 20100601120526 Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:05:26 GMT 20100601120526 Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:25:07 GMT 201006291642507 Right now, I wish I had a crystal ball which would give me an idea of precisely how many schools will take up the new Government on its kind offer of academy status. Last time round, when the then Conservative government invented grant-maintained schools, many secondaries jumped at the chance, not least because of the extra cash on offer. As the financial inducements dried up, so did the numbers of new schools wanting to join in the party. At the time of writing, it isn't clear what kind of extra cash would be there for the new academies. The existing ones, set up in the old-fashioned way with sponsors, have generally had the sponduliks for some multi-million pound building work. Given the financial state the nation's in, it's hard to imagine that every new academy is going to be able to find itself a sugar daddy – which leaves them with funding “at a comparable level” to maintained schools, according to the précis of the Academies Bill. So the drivers for aspiring academies are unlikely to include money: it will be more about the promised freedoms. And that's where things could be very different from the days of GM schools. My hazy memory of GM schools was that very many of them were avowedly independent and often disdainful of their local authority. In turn, the local authority often loathed these schools. The big exception to this was Kent, where memory suggests the local authority actually encouraged schools to opt out as they got extra money for doing so, and where relations remained generally good. But it was a very different time. The national curriculum was in place, and testing, but league tables were either non-existent or not important. Moreover, the spirit of the day was competition, with a school-eat-school mentality in many cases actively encouraged. But now the mood music is very different. Talking to a couple of directors of childrens' services last week, there was a relaxed attitude to the thought of schools going down the academy route. For one, working in a big city, this was because schools now routinely work together, sometimes sharing staff and resources, sometimes helping with improvements. She had already talked to heads, stressing that there would be real opportunities for flexibility ahead and that if they did choose to go for academy status she hoped the current working arrangements would continue. Her colleague, from a different city authority, had herself helped parents set up an academy in a situation where there was an unmet demand for a faith school. The process was long and arduous: now, she said, the LA was keen to help parents who wanted to set up a free school under the new legislation to do so. After all, she had already learned the hard way how to do it. And that's not all. There is some acknowledgment among DCSs that perhaps the focus has been too much on safeguarding and perhaps not enough on education. The mood music from the new DfE is all about education as a transformative universal service, and directors of childrens' services in the main agree with that focus. And no matter how many schools do choose to go down the academy route, last year's legislation means local authorities remain responsible for 0-19 education. Yet there are doubts. The head of the Local Government Association, herself a Conservative, has expressed worries about the effect on poorer children. Most of the teacher unions have concerns. We don't yet know how the governing bodies would work if the new academies don't have a big business sponsor, like the older ones. And with other flexibilities on curriculum and so on promised in the second education Bill, it's not entirely clear what extra opportunities and freedoms will be available for heads who make the jump. So it's hard to call on where we'll all be in 18 months time when the next Queen's Speech outlining upcoming legislation is due. But on the current, limited evidence, it doesn't look as if we're returning to the bad old days of GM status. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=308 Wed, 26 May 2010 14:58:19 GMT 20100526145819 Wed, 26 May 2010 14:58:19 GMT 20100526145819 Wed, 26 May 2010 14:58:19 GMT 201005261425819 Stick two political parties' education policies in a head-on car crash with each other, and what survives the wreckage? That's the way I feel picking through the interestingly terse 33-page coalition document which presumably provides the bare bones for next week's Queen's Speech. Each party's headline policy has made it intact: the Lib Dem pupil premium is there, alongside the Conservatives' parent-led free schools and off-the-shelf academies. And it's as interesting for what it doesn't say as it does. Primary curriculum, left in limbo after the Rose version bit the dust in the hurry to pass education education before dissolving the last parliament, remains unmentioned. Michael Gove has apparently expressed a desire to revisit the Alexander review and have another think: he's certainly stressed the 3Rs and “proper history” in the past. Neither are mentioned specifically in the coalition document, but there are hints of the vaguest kind: “…all schools have greater freedom over the curriculum” Diplomas are another potentially divisive area. You may remember that the Tories wanted to scale them back, the Lib Dems wanted more. On the evidence of the coalition document they've kicked this one into the long grass while they argue a bit more, because presumably this is the crucial sentence: “We will improve the quality of vocational education, including increasing flexibility for 14–19 year olds.” In fact the interesting thing about the curriculum is that the only specific bit of name checking is for the iGCSE, which some state schools – but not overwhelming numbers – would like to be able to stick on the curriculum. If I was being suspicious, I might think that was designed to appeal to the new schools which the coalition is encouraging, some of which will no doubt be part of international chains. Even though the document signals rather a lot more change to come, it looks as though there may be much to cheer for schools. There is a promise to review how KS2 tests operate, although external assessment will stay. There is a promise to reform league tables so schools can focus on the progress of all children, not just those on the C/D boundary. There is also a promise to “simplify the regulation of standards in education and target inspection on areas of failure.” Presumably this means Ofsted: exactly what it means is unclear. And another interesting line promises to publish “performance data on educational providers, as well as past exam papers” – an attempt to scotch the ongoing standards over time row, perhaps? But what it does appear to suggest that it isn't only schools which will be under scrutiny in future, but other parts of the education system as well. There are clear areas where pre election promises have been watered down: the Conservative desire to bar graduates with Thirds from publically-funded teacher training has disappeared, replaced only with an aspiration to hire more good maths and science graduates. The small print in all of these areas will be genuinely interesting. Exactly how will schools be helped to prevent homophobic bullying or improve discipline? How will they “improve the quality of the teaching profession”? And what will happen if schools have “greater freedoms to pay good teachers more and deal with poor performance”? For many heads, this would be a double-edged sword. So far, it's positive that the administration's To Do list is in plain English, without any of the bombastic but ultimately meaningless language of recent educational pronouncements. If the Government is genuinely serious about giving schools more freedom and flexibility, then there could be some interesting times ahead. But the devil is generally in the detail… and if the Queen's Speech doesn't give a clue as to where the little imps may be hiding, then the first Education Bill of this administration will probably flush them out. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=307 Fri, 21 May 2010 17:05:12 GMT 20100521170512 Fri, 21 May 2010 17:05:12 GMT 20100521170512 Fri, 21 May 2010 17:05:12 GMT 201005211750512 Wouldn't you just love to be in Sanctuary Buildings at the moment? (That, by the way, is where the Government's education department lives. Given the number of name changes that Ministry gets, it's probably the safest way of referring to it) As a hack, I'm delighted that the Department for Children, Schools and Families is no more. It was a devil to type and remember – the only way I could ever do it was as the department for cushions and soft furnishings. Before that, for the benefit of very young heads, was the Department for Education and Skills, the Department for Education (I think), possibly the Department of Education and definitely the department for Education and Science. So what we've got now is the Department for Education, again. Blissfully simple – as is the website, which has lost all those rainbows and smiley faces and suddenly looks crisp and businesslike. But like swans, there's an awful lot going on under the water. The home pages contains the warning: “All statutory guidance and legislation linked to from this site continues to reflect the current legal position unless indicated otherwise, but may not reflect Government policy,” and I'd put that forward for understatement of the year so far. Twitter contains some glorious clues to the fun and games going on. An anonymous “mouse wielder” has posted twice today, first: “Web revolution sweeps Whitehall!!! First as tragedy. Then as farce. You wouldn't believe the chaos behind the scenes.” And then, moments later, the afterthought: “Actually you probably would. Think the IT Crowd crossed with the Thick of It.” Of course, the name change reflects the politics. Michael Gove has made no secret of his desire to reinstate Education as the important bit of the department. Directors of Children's Services have become increasingly twitchy during the last months as a result of his remarks on the subject, although none of them have been willing to believe – on the record at least – that the government would split their roles once again. While there's nothing official as yet, the new departmental set up is giving some interesting clues. Under the previous set-up the Children's Minister was a proper minister of State, with the right to attend cabinet meetings. Now the Children post is held by a parliamentary under-secretary (still Tim Loughton, though, who has shadowed the job for the past four years) which is quite a demotion. It is beginning to look as though schools will be concentrating on education once more, with further integration of what has been called “the children's workforce” in many quarters being halted or rolled back. The department contains Lib Dem Sarah Teather, who knows her stuff, and it looks as though we're going to get a fast mix of free schools and academies, with some pupil premium money thrown in. Cuts are clearly going to be on their way – if not at the frontline, then to back-office functions which make life easier for schools. What else do we know? Michael Gove isn't a fan of the Rose review primary curriculum – so don't bother reading that huge pile of bumph clogging up the corner of your office. He is, apparently, in favour of revising the Alexander document and moving on from there. And expect directive on teaching Proper History. Got your copy of 1066 And All That to hand? He doesn't approve of Ofsted's limiting judgments – so a possible chink of light there for heads. SATS – some talk of shifting them to year 7, I recall – but he definitely thinks they're A Good Thing. But according to my horrified 14 year old, he is going to impose full school uniform on everyone. I thought she was hallucinating (and bonkers, since her school insists on uniform anyway) but I read a snippet yesterday suggesting that he wants all schoolchildren to wear ties. Perhaps it's me that's hallucinating. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=304 Fri, 14 May 2010 15:04:44 GMT 20100514150444 Fri, 14 May 2010 15:04:44 GMT 20100514150444 Fri, 14 May 2010 15:04:44 GMT 201005141530444 At this point in an election campaign – especially this election campaign – it's images which tend to stick in the mind. The weekend's NAHT conference told the story of heads chucked on to the scrapheap because of a single Ofsted report, of heads with only 18 months' life expectancy if they are still in the job at 60, and of children who introduce themselves by SATs level. In a sane world, none of these things are desirable. You look at the blank face of teacher Peter Harvey, cleared of attempting to murder a pupil who goaded him once too often, and discover that – perhaps surprisingly – large numbers of the people who join in on chat sites are broadly sympathetic towards him. The thought crosses your mind that something will surely be done to create a more sensible system, without the waste of talent among heads, teachers and pupils. And then you look at what our leading politicians are currently doing to themselves and realise: they're hardly going to sympathise with anyone else right now. For politicians, there are currently just two thoughts: winning the election, and the horrors that will be unleashed once it's won. For the winner, there's the knowledge that the whole country is likely to loathe them as soon as the first Budget has been presented. For the loser, there's probably shedloads of blame and a ritual defenestration. So, do they care about making schools more sensible places, and harnessing the talent which is there? At this point in the game, on zilch sleep and a diet of tea and Kit-Kats, highly unlikely that empathy for anyone else will kick in when their own suffering is so extreme. But on Friday, the SATs boycott becomes the first problem in somebody's in-tray – at which point, resolving it becomes a major priority. So the terrible timing dictated by trade union legislation, which led to an 11th-hour boycott of the SATs, does at least have one upside. But the interesting thing will be if not much happens: that the incoming Secretary of State blusters a bit and kicks the problem into the long grass. In the event of a hung parliament, this scenario strikes me as a distinct possibility. What happens next? Will parents scream and kick, and refuse to apply to schools with no SATs results? (unlikely: they'll do what they usually do which is look at the Ofsted report, ask other parents, and go and look round). What will happen to the annual league tables? Will Ofsted fail all schools with no SATs data to pore over? Be jolly interesting if they tried. Would they rewrite the inspection process to include teacher assessment instead? Spend more time looking at lessons? Certainly, with an election out of the way the boycott will take on its own momentum as a story, as the incoming government faces its first industrial dispute, and reporters are diverted back to normal duties. It's going to be an interesting time. Susan Young is an education journalist. Email me at educationhack@googlemail.co.uk http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=301 Mon, 03 May 2010 23:32:41 GMT 20100503233241 Mon, 03 May 2010 23:32:41 GMT 20100503233241 Mon, 03 May 2010 23:32:41 GMT 2010050323113241 Being an education journalist is a terribly Green calling – wait long enough and the stories just recycle themselves. So I wasn't terribly surprised by this week's story in the TES about a couple of advanced skills teachers who fear they're going to lose their jobs as part of a money-saving exercise, and that this may be part of a bigger picture. There were dire warnings about the consequences when local management of schools started (rather before my time, but I heard about it), when grant-maintained schools came in, and when the teachers' pay threshold was introduced. But I was also intrigued by a neighbouring story suggesting that teachers over 50 were being badly treated by young heads. A survey, conducted last month by NASUWT, found more that a third of teachers over 50 had been patronised or condescended to, a third had heard negative comments about their professional skills, and a third said their views were deliberately disparaged. Presumably there are a few oldsters who are guilty as charged – but all of them won't be. A few may have attracted the wrong kind of attention because of their position on the pay scale. And some people do love to moan. But it's a shocking survey even so, not least because of the waste of talent and misery such attitudes can engender, even if they're not so common as this survey would suggest. Some of the most illuminating time I've spent in the classroom as a journalist was in a school where a couple of the permanent cover teachers are older (much older, actually) and part time. I swear to you that one of these teachers had eyes in the back of his head, and a sixth sense which sprang into life as soon as childish fidgets went over the line into something else. Not only was this teacher one of the best exemplars of managing a class that I've ever seen anywhere, but he also taught a damn good lesson – you know, pace, rigour, vigour, all those buzz-words. And it looked fun. The kids were engaged… and didn't dare take their eyes off him, either. What's interesting about this school is that this pair of teachers were actively valued for their contribution– and much of that is because of their years of experience. You could see that they were just as much at the heart of things as the younger ones, and everyone benefited – not least the kids, who regarded the two oldsters as characters. Which they certainly were, but in a good way. The interesting thing is that under a previous head these teachers clearly had been sidelined, although in different ways: grudging respect and mutual avoidance seemed to be the better of the available options. From all accounts, it took the arrival of a new head to evaluate clearly the strengths of the staff and then work to them. Moreover, as staff report it, the atmosphere became different for everyone: a real team where everyone was valued. And that's one of the important things about it. Sideline or belittle a couple of members of staff whose faces don't fit, and (unless everyone agrees that they're underperforming) you create an atmosphere of fear rather than that go-ahead team. I really hope the survey overstates the problem. And I really hope that if budget cuts are on their way, history isn't inevitably going to repeat itself. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=284 Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:04:34 GMT 20100426160434 Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:04:34 GMT 20100426160434 Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:04:34 GMT 201004261640434 If this academic year isn't an annus horribilis for school leaders, then frankly I don't know what is. First it was the snow, the school closures and all the sniping about school closures (and in some cases, school openings) from people with an entirely different set of priorities and pressures. For primary heads, there's the fun and games of a new primary curriculum – or not, since the Rose reforms were snatched away in the final “wash up” as politicians got ready to take to the streets on the four-yearly baby-kissing frenzy. Ed Balls, answering questions on the TES forum this week, cheerily advised schools to just get on with the new curriculum – not, I suspect, his first choice of sentiment in most circumstances. But then, he's still hoping to get back in and have another try with the legislation. And, presumably, he'll be miffed if schools take his advice to do what they think is right in another way, by following the unions' ballot and boycotting the SATs. Now there's the joy of the volcano with staff and pupils stranded all over the world. Again, the rest of the working population has a bit of trouble understanding why this particularly affects schools. And sometimes so do school staff – see the raging arguments over whether Rarely Cover should be invoked or ditched in the current circumstances, again on the TES website. And then there's the interesting question of what's going to happen under a new Government. Mr Gove's rewritten history syllabus is beginning to look a less likely option – so what might happen with a Lib/Lab pact? (I'm coming over all 1970s just typing that). The main points of the Lib Dems education policy are joyously simple: get shot of university tuition fees, give more money to schools in the most challenged areas, bringing down class sizes, and prevent politicians from meddling in schools. Here's that last bit as a direct quote: “We will slim down the curriculum and pass an Education Freedom Act banning politicians from getting involved in the day to day running of schools.” Quite how that would square with the Labour tendency over the last 13 to legislate and interfere, I'm not quite sure. But what a thought. Talking about politicians interfering in schools, I'm now beginning to believe that they should be banned from canvassing anywhere that most of the punters are too young to vote. My two local sixth form colleges have both had visits within the past few days. At the first, the students had to be shipped in specially to meet Gordon Brown as they were still on holiday. What's more, students from the other city college were invited as well (or at least those studying politics were). Days later, the second college played host to David Cameron, in tie and shirt sleeves. But it really is taking advantage, isn't it? In a sixth-form college, in early May, only the A2 kids with birthdays between September and now are going to be eligible to vote – charitably, something under half of them. And the leaders take advantage of their fresh faces whilst using their youth to bat away any tricky questions. One kid, having seen Mr Brown “sucking up” (my polite interpretation of what he actually said) to Mr Clegg in the debate, asked a question of the PM and said that he'd “intimated” that he'd be prepared to do a deal with the Lib Dems. He was swatted aside in a way that an adult would not have taken without an argument: is that very fair? And my final question: have the politicians signed up for vetting and barring? After all, they're meeting young people regularly – and it was their idea in the first place. Thought not. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=283 Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:15:43 GMT 20100420121543 Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:15:43 GMT 20100420121543 Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:15:43 GMT 2010042012121543 There was a really interesting bit of research published last week which purportedly showed that the amount of time parents spend with their kids had risen significantly since the 1970s. There are some real oddities about it (how did mothers then manage to spend an average of only 8 to 21 minutes a day with their children? It takes at least that long to feed the little blighters three times a day) but I was particularly struck by the comments of the researcher. She thought many parents now actively take their children to museums and so on to help them get into a good university. I think that might possibly be true, but is only a small part of the picture. As a child of the 1970s myself, I've got the distinct memory of being told lots of stuff about the way the world worked by the adults around me. Parents would chat to you, parents of friends would chat to you, and the random adults you saw every day would chat to you. They'd tell you about the war, the unions, why the three-day-week was happening, and so on. You'd sit round the table eating, and listen to the adult chat. It might have been boring, but you weren't allowed to say so. There were only three telly channels, so everyone – including the kids – would watch the news. I spent some years in a confused haze thinking Mr Wilson and Mr Heath took it in turns to be Prime Minister and shout at each other. To put it another way, kids knew about grown-up stuff – not private stuff, like sex or scandal – but about recent history, and politics and so on. And it strikes me that as a society we're now very successfully not doing that for our own offspring– which is possibly what those parents are now trying to do more consciously. I don't quite understand why, but we're positively ghettoising younger people into their own clans with their own interests. From the age of 10 or younger, kids seem to live in a world of teen pop stars (ever heard of Justin Bieber?) and quasi-reality shows. The popularity of peer learning can often reinforce the idea that adults are irrelevant, old, or paedophiles. Teenagers are expected to do their own thing and be uninterested in what goes on around them. My next-door neighbour comes from Iran and says teenagers there are not expected to behave badly or differently in the way they are in the West. Her own son, brought up with an extended family of aunties and cousins, has grown into a young man, apparently without going through the regular teenage stuff. Children can spend most of their waking lives most weeks with kids their own age, going from schools to afterschool clubs and only finally home to spend a bit of one-on-one time with an adult. Increasingly, safeguarding means out-of-school activities are also becoming limited to spending time with other children. My kids go climbing at a local centre each Saturday morning. The centre currently has a discussion document considering its future, which suggests that they may be pushed to stop adults climbing at the same time as children and young people. Perhaps I'm naïve, but I haven't heard of lots of cases of paedophiles trying to chat up kids in a smallish and very public space. On the other hand, kids mixing with and learning from older and more experienced adults is the way humans have learned and evolved. One famous sociologist, Norman Dennis, has suggested that most boys were taught how to be responsible men by older colleagues when they started work as teenagers. Children are getting used to the idea that adults are not to be trusted, though, and the power it gives them. I've recently heard of a case where a primary-aged child who was violent in class running out of the school and threatening teachers (within hearing of the other children) that any attempt at restraint would result in a call to “the child protection agency”. Interesting that Ed Balls launched new guidance on teachers' use of restraint at the Nasuwt conference. But it strikes me that it may be time to think a bit more widely about the way we seem to be isolating children and young people as a result of other social policies, and consider the wider effects of that – as I suspect those museum-visiting parents are doing. It's something of which schools are clearly aware. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=280 Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:35:45 GMT 20100413153545 Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:35:45 GMT 20100413153545 Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:35:45 GMT 201004131533545 There won't be much mourning among heads – or teachers, or home-educating parents – if the current education bill going through the Commons has to be eviscerated because of the election campaign. It's a bigger mystery why the Government has been staunchly persisting with bits of new legislation which just about every head in the land and many others beside had loudly complained was unworkable. And good on the opposition parties for listening, and working to lose the problematic bits – pupil and parent guarantees, licence to teach, and the register of home educating parents. I watched some of the debates live, and was horrified by the tiny numbers of MPs taking part. The pupil and parent guarantees were just plain silly, opening the door to all sorts of malicious or (as the lawyers put it), vexatious action against schools by disgruntled families, perhaps goaded by ambulance-chasing lawyers. Apart from anything else, the current maths and literacy tutoring arrangements for pupils who have fallen behind appear to be both popular and working rather well – why add yet another (unworkable) layer of action before the previous one has been properly evaluated? Licence to teach, equally, just seemed like yet another stick to beat teachers with. There is a competency process for teachers who are incompetent or sub-standard, which ought to do the job perfectly well. The problem is that actually, it doesn't work all that well. Heads complain about endless procedure, foot-dragging by the local authority and deals often cut with the teacher's union which means that all too often they end up failing in another school's classrooms, where the procedure starts all over again. Heads of my acquaintance haven't been so impressed with how the GTC handles these cases either. And as for the punitive measures against home-educating families – well, if local authorities can't work out which kids are not in their schools after years of “joined up” services then it's a pretty poor lookout. Khyra Ishaq, the Birmingham seven-year-old who starved to death, was removed from school by her parents but not only had she been there to start with (where teachers reported their concerns to social services) but social services also knew perfectly well about the family and had visited. Citing that case as a reason to start regulating home education seems a bit opportunistic. For a country which has money troubles, ditching these over-the top measures is just common-sense. There would be other, much cheaper and more direct, ways of achieving these stated measures to improve education. Thinking of offering parent guarantees to stop pupils falling behind? Why, when the tutoring looks good and can be used as necessary? Want to ensure teachers are up to date and good at their jobs? Give each one an entitlement to a bit of CPD outside the Inset days, and encourage them to do it – and that includes supply staff. You might need to spend a little bit on either providing cover at work or compensating supply staff for loss of earnings. Oh, and it might be an idea to beef up heads' powers over competency procedures, looking again at the GTC system if necessary. Worried about home-educating parents? Then encourage a bit of flexi-schooling, offering such kids a morning or so in school each week for particular subjects, or provide a resource room in the children's centre for such families to use. Much cheaper, much less bureaucratic, more carrot and less stick. Perhaps, in the new financial climate of the next Parliament, school leaders can hope that cheaper and simpler options will be preferred. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=272 Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:13:38 GMT 20100406121338 Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:13:38 GMT 20100406121338 Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:13:38 GMT 2010040612121338 I got thinking about school policies this week, for unashamedly personal reasons. Middle daughter will start secondary school in September, and I'd dutifully sent back the enrolment form giving contact and medical details, and so on. The uniform one I parked for a week, on the grounds that I was going to check what outgrown clothes we already had lurking in her elder sister's cupboard. This is probably why I managed to miss the other bit of paper, about the school's acceptable use of the internet policy, until after the date they'd wanted it signed and returned by me and my 11-year-old. What happened next? I made that Homer Simpson noise (“D'oh!”) when I realised this particular bit of paper was overdue for action. I read it through (something like a side and a half of closely-typed A4 of internet rules aimed at staff and kids – so only about half of it was applicable). I signed it and stuck it in front of my daughter, racing to complete her year 6 project. Sign here, I said. What is it? she asked. It's you promising to be good on the internet when you start your new school, I said. No going onto bad websites or giving out personal details to anyone you meet online. Oh, she replied, absentmindedly, and signed it. My point in telling this dull story is: what is the point of sending out an almost unintelligible (for an 11-year-old) policy to be signed some six months before it's needed? She won't remember it now, let alone in September. There can be only one possible reason, which is that the policy has to be signed in order for the school to cover its back on policies. Look, Ofsted, job done. I can hope and believe (for I know it's a good school) that they will reinforce the rules, in plain English, when the new Year 7s log on to the system for the first time, with frequent reminders. Ofsted is clearly very keen on schools having a policy for everything, and everything in order: the Sunday Telegraph had a large story this week on independent schools falling foul of the inspectors because they had lots of separate policies rather than drawing them all together. I also remember my successor as chair of a rather old-fashioned parent-run playgroup tearing her hair out because the new Ofsted guidelines meant it needed to have boxfiles full of policies on absolutely everything. A quarter-century of basic rules and common-sense, previously adequate for little group of kids and adults in a small, safe space, was no longer deemed acceptable. And then there is the tragic case of 11-year-old Samuel Linton after an asthma attack at school. With five staff now suspended while an inquiry takes place, I don't really want to comment on this one – but I can tell you that the jury found the school had “failed to implement an in-school asthma policy, failed to train staff in dealing with asthma, failed to keep a health care plan, failed to share information with staff about Sam's asthma attacks and failed to monitor Sam's condition on the day of his death.” The family's lawyer, Jonathan Betts, summed up the rather more intemperate comments of many people when he said: “The inquest has shown the lack of training, lack of communication between staff, lack of record keeping and a complete absence of common sense in the event of a child suffering from an asthma attack.” It's far too easy to sling criticism round in this case, without really knowing all the facts, but it does make me wonder: do schools really need more policies? Or, perhaps, a different approach altogether? And is a different approach possible without completely rewriting the inspection rules? Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=270 Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:25:27 GMT 20100329162527 Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:25:27 GMT 20100329162527 Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:25:27 GMT 201003291642527 You know that phrase about there being an elephant in the room, which everyone is politely ignoring? Well, I can see one now, and it's not even pink and floating. Rather it's grey, very large, and faintly terrifying. My particular elephant is financial, and more particularly what any incoming government is going to have to do to balance the country's books this summer. I know there have been various political promises that education and health will be ring-fenced against cuts – but I'm beginning to wonder how long such promises will last. You see, I've been tempted into the pages of the Financial Times where there are people who actually understand money (my brain exploded the night Robert Peston explained what all the noughts meant on the amount of money the government had spent on bailing out the banks for a second time) and it's getting harder to see that education can possibly remain immune. The FT has a columnist called Martin Wolf, who says the cuts which will need to be made over the next two parliaments are equivalent to a sixth of total spending, two thirds of the public sector pay bill and all the spending on the English NHS. Last week, he quoted something called the Green Budget, from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, saying “the forecast level of public sector debt in the UK [increases] faster over the period from 2007 to 2014 than in any other G20 country, with the exception ... of Japan. As a result, while the UK had the tenth-highest debt out of 19 countries in the G20 in 2007, by 2014 it is forecast to have the fourth highest [behind Japan, Italy and the US].” Wolf's understanding of this? “Far worse, I fear the government denies the task ahead. Ed Balls, secretary of state for schools and Mr Brown's closest associate, told another newspaper that he has been asked to make savings of £500m by 2013. That is 0.3 per cent of this year's public sector net borrowing and 1 per cent of the spending of his own department, itself the third- largest spender after social security and health. This is simply risible.” The FT has also quoted IFS economist Rowena Crawford, who reckons that with the promised ring-fencing of education and health, the cut then required for the Ministry of Defence would be equivalent to no longer having an army. According to Libby Purves in the Times this morning, every public sector worker in Ireland has taken a pay cut of 13 per cent in the past year, in order to help nurse the Celtic tiger back to recovery. Even frozen budgets are going to have huge impacts on schools and education, but it's hard to believe on this kind of evidence that whoever wins the election is going to be able to keep a promise on maintaining spending for very long. I'm starting to wonder whether the politicians have any better grasp of all this than I do. Saturday's suggestion that free school meals for all might be included in Labour's manifesto had me snorting tea all over the Guardian. I can see this might be a fantastic aspiration, possibly, for improving the diets of lots of children – in good economic times. In our current mess – well, at best it would risk turning off a lot of voters without children who tend to think that feeding children is generally their parents' responsibility – which further risks such voters chafing against the wholesale protection of education. What may save heads from having to make painful budgetary cuts a year or so from now could be the rising rolls which our same politicians and officials failed to predict. But the net effect is likely still to be spreading the cash more thinly. It strikes me that it would be highly sensible for those at the frontline of education (and that means you) to think through what is really essential and what may not be. And that means thinking about everything – the extended schools' agenda, the development of the childrens' workforce, SATs, quangoes, licence to teach, upgrading technology, new buildings. How things are done may perhaps be up for consideration as well. Is the cost of vetting and barring going to slash numbers of parent helpers and volunteers in schools? Are current interpretations of health and safety rules overly prohibitive? What about “rarely cover”? What about PPA? What you'd cut and what the politicians would cut may well be separate things: but it may be vital for the profession to decide on its own essentials and then present a good public case if ever that elephant starts rampaging round the room. Which I suspect it may, sometime after May. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@gmail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=269 Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:23:59 GMT 20100322132359 Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:23:59 GMT 20100322132359 Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:23:59 GMT 201003221312359 Was your education fit for the 21st century? I ask because it seems to be one of those buzz questions at the moment. At one end of this particular argument you've got the techie types who argue that it's useless teaching kids to do anything except use technology and master Google searches as everything will have changed by the time they enter the world of work. Therefore it's useless to teach them any facts – they'll all be irrelevant or wrong – and it's vital for them to learn using their mobile and their MP3 player. At the other end there's Michael Gove arguing for a good old-fashioned curriculum, with lots of reading, writing, 'rithmatic and plenty of history. I've paraphrased the arguments a bit , and probably polarised them rather more than they deserve, but you get the picture. I was delighted therefore by the head at the weekend whose comment on Michael Gove's proposed curriculum was that this was much how she was taught in the early 1960s, and it hadn't prepared her for life in the 21st century. Well, I don't know that my education prepared me for life in the 21st century – but on the other hand, I am not really sure what could have done. And if my school had tried, would I have lost the will to make it as far as now? What could prepare you for the horrors of hanging on the phone for hours to organise your banking via a call centre, sitting in a traffic jam on the M25 for weeks, or listening to politicians trained by spin doctors? Just perhaps, sitting in the back of a stunningly boring lesson. If I think about my personal and professional life: how could school have prepared me for the boss so gratuitously horrible that one of my colleagues regularly drank a stiff brandy on the train on her way into work? How could it have prepared me better to battle in to work each morning as bomb threats brought the capital to a standstill? Could it have prepared me better to create a stable home life for my children? Survive years of sleepless nights? Or do any of the other things we might think are important? My school taught a very traditional curriculum, with a few mavericks bringing it all to life. I learned about creativity and trying different things from a fantastic art teacher, useful biology from another barmy member of staff, and a real sense of how events can shape things from a history teacher who'd gone off and got himself a doctorate with the OU. Unless you count the hockey lessons where I hid, the only teamwork I experienced was when the art teachers staged his own rather avant-garde plays, much to the horror of the school establishment, and I learned to do the lights and stage-management. In other words, I learned as much from what wasn't officially on the curriculum as what was. Oh, and I learned how to deal with boredom and get on with what I had to do even if I didn't want to – a very useful skill for a working life, that. What do I wish my school had been able to teach me to survive and thrive in the 21st century? With hindsight, I wish they'd really drilled maths and French into me so that I'd got a good grasp at the time (it's never the same doing it later – and both of these things are really important, especially in a Europe where we can work anywhere). I wish they'd taught me useful cooking, rather than puff pastry and how to make Harlequin sandwiches (they're the ones with brown AND white bread – the height of sophistication, eh?). And I really wish they'd got me to like sport, ideally running. I've taught myself how to run now, starting with minute-long bursts, and it's a brilliant form of exercise and relaxation – but I needed to build up my skills at school, not be expected to run miles without preparation. All of which is a long way of saying I think the techies and Michael Gove are both right in some ways. Yes, the traditional stuff is important. Yes, it's also important to be comfortable using new technology, and being able to work in teams. But life isn't all about work, and education is also about the transmission of culture from one generation to the next. Is it possible to have a proper, grown-up debate about this? Or didn't we learn how at school? Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=265 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:20:35 GMT 20100315192035 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:20:35 GMT 20100315192035 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:20:35 GMT 201003151972035 Interesting to read the comments of new children's commissioner Maggie Atkinson in the Sunday Times yesterday. Until very recently a director of children's services, Ms Atkinson had made a chat with some local teenagers one of her final acts before moving to her new job. What did they tell her? That they had too much work to do. From this, she concluded that 8 GCSEs might be a better number for most teenagers to be taking than 10 or 12, taking off the pressure a bit. Moreover, she'd apparently like to do away with the KS2 SATS for much the same reasons. I've been impressed with Ms Atkinson when interviewing her in the past, so I've scratched my head a bit over this. Surely as a hands-on DCS such views shouldn't come as news to her? Presumably her former authority has put pressure on schools to improve their results by getting teenagers (and ten year olds) to aim as high as possible? Could she be demonstrating her detachment from Ed Balls after the mini row over her appointment, when the Commons committee on education was refused its right to interview her before she was confirmed in post? But now I'm wondering whether there's more of a sea-change going on among directors of children's services, whose role encompasses getting children to work as hard as possible, often worrying about their achievements, at the same time as they are responsible for their mental and physical health and happiness. Are the education and health aspects of the brief becoming mutually contradictory? I have just interviewed another DCS for another publication, and she too was expressing qualms about the way children are being pushed. One headteacher had asked her: “how come everybody has got to be average these days?” She was becoming, she said, seriously bothered by the effect on children's mental and physical health. So, if NAHT and NUT members do indeed vote against using SATs to assess children's progress this May, there may be a growing body of support quietly massing in the form of the Children's Commissioner – personally appointed by Ed Balls -- and perhaps more than a few directors' of children's services. I'm also starting to happen what happens next if there is a boycott. By that, I mean how dear old Ofsted's inspections will go ahead without the usual data on which they rely to make judgments. Will they accept teacher assessments with some form of external validation or will schools with no Sats data automatically fail on some technicality? Given that infant school inspections must rely on teacher assessments, presumably this ought to be perfectly legal for Ofsted purposes – but I wouldn't bank on it. And if they start failing schools right, left and centre, the consequences start to look weird. Will parents and local authorities rise up in revolt? Will governing bodies resign en-masse? Do we end up losing heads at an even faster rate than now? And if those in charge are starting to get concerned over the effect on children's mental and physical health of academic pressure, then are Ofsted's new “raising the bar” inspections moving against the tide? Is the bar being raised because those softies in charge of local authorities are starting to worry about what's happening to children who are all being forced to achieve at least an average level, and as a result are not felt to be pushing schools hard enough for the Government? Last week's horribly plausible TES analysis of recent inspections did indeed seem to show that schools are being seriously downgraded because the framework has been designed to “raise the bar”. I for one will be really interested to see exactly what is in Ofsted's report on itself this week. Susan Young is an educational journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=262 Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:12:54 GMT 20100308101254 Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:12:54 GMT 20100308101254 Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:12:54 GMT 2010030810101254 I remember the phone call vividly. On the other end of the line was the late, great, Ted Wragg, the much-loved professor of education at Exeter who took great pleasure in taking a rise out of authority (particularly Ofsted and the Department of Education) whenever he felt it necessary. In other words, pretty often. Ted was never less than whole-hearted in any conversation, but he was particularly aerated on this occasion. “Falling rolls!” he said. “Huge problem brewing and nobody seems to see it coming. It was terrible last time. The TES needs to do something about it, now.” (I think this would have been late 2003, because as the project “to do something” developed, so did my pregnancy. And I have an equally vivid memory of Ted enquiring solicitously – and fortunately for him, over the phone -- if I'd entered the 'bovine' stage yet. ) Ted was the first person to start shouting about this demographic change, and local authorities appear to have taken heed of the warnings over falling rolls – but so late that the rolls are rising once more. According to this week's TES, roughly a third of the school closures of the past decade have been in the past two years – yet many local authorities are adding temporary classrooms to their infant schools to meet the rising demand. Ted was right then, but it seems as though everyone in authority has remained fixed on that 2003 message. How can it be that nobody noticed the rising birthrate, increasing numbers of newly-arrived families with young children, and the dramatic population shifts in certain areas? Who is planning now for the consequences of last year's record birthrate? And it seems odd that a Government so willing to intervene in family life hasn't found a way to officially track local birthrates and household mobility to sort this one out. You'd have thought it would be relatively simple: perhaps a short tick-box form to be completed with the nursery vouchers application when a child was two would do the job. It could even be anonymous, and would simply ask the parents if they were likely to be living in the same area when their child reached the age of five, and if they were planning to educate in the state or private sector. Children moving to the area could be given the form when signing up with a GP, or registering later for nursery vouchers. Surely even the Every Child Matters joined up databases could be used (and would also give a clear indication of how many kids are being educated at home, also about to be the subject of an unwieldy new regime). Unfortunately there are several reasons why school numbers matter to heads. One is the obvious one that coping with sudden rises or falls in numbers has dramatic effects on schools. The other is that some of the recently-vanished schools have been federated, often to save money on running costs (such as your salary, dear NAHT member). Pushed by Ed Balls and seconded by local authorities desperate to save money, mass federations are starting to have the air of Tesco schools. In other words: you've been told what to teach; you've been told how to teach; that must mean that we can join you up at will to any other school and not only will it work but standards will rise. Hooray! Local authorities already routinely consider federation if the head of a “linked” infant or juniors resigns: what would be next once all those are done? Hundreds of thousands of parents are in a tizz today waiting for the school admissions letter telling them which secondary school their 11-year-old will attend. School choice (sorry, preference) really matters. Mass federations and closures could prove highly unpopular, but how many parents are going to notice what's happening, all unofficially and without announcement, until it's too late? Susan Young is an education journalist Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=260 Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:26:51 GMT 20100301112651 Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:26:51 GMT 20100301112651 Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:26:51 GMT 2010030111112651 It wasn't quite the half term I'd planned, when Big Daughter wound up in our local children's hospital for an appendectomy. But, once the worries subsided, it was a fascinating experience. Read most newspapers and you'll be left with the impression that hospitals are filthy places where patients are left drinking their own flower water and leave with worse bugs than when they arrived. You know that every single hospital can't be like that, but… Anyway. I've never been anywhere so clean, ever. Every surface was immaculate, hand gel dispensers bristled on every wall and landfill must be groaning under the weight of disposable gloves and aprons. Given, it's a brand new hospital, but this place was more like a luxury hotel. Despite the state she was in, Big Daughter was entranced by the tiny televisions which curved down over the beds, and the beds themselves, with their patient controls to make them move this way and that. I was astounded by the equipment, the fixtures and fittings and the fact that every single cubicle included a specially-designed fold-out bed for a parent to stay the night. The interesting thing is that the reputation of this hospital is based on its previous century-plus of service in increasingly ramshackle buildings whose Victorian walls were covered in murals lovingly painted by the staff. People talk about how marvellous it is from the basis of long-ago treatment in a now-derelict building. Talk to people who are singing its praises, and you'll discover they haven't set foot inside for years, and probably couldn't even find the new building. The same phenomenon surfaced this week in the Millenium cohort report which found that parents claimed to be startlingly uninfluenced by league tables when choosing a primary school. What bothered them was the location and available childcare, rather than SATs results. While this doesn't mean it's wrong to have report cards or objective evaluations of pupil progress, it does get you thinking. The Academy programme takes this approach to extremes, by excising old buildings, old names and in some cases the old pupil cohort to improve the image. After years and years of improving schools, it still doesn't take much for the papers to start snarling about trendy teachers (Talk about outdated slang) and all the rest of it. Government ministers banging on endlessly about world class education (what does that mean) and new initiatives doesn't help: what would? I still think the Teaching Awards are a slightly odd idea, given that unlike the Oscars on which they were based, you can't then go and see the winning staff in action. (“Cor, that Mr Smith's a bit of alright and he's got a real way with physics – let's go and catch one of his lessons, shall we?”) And also because most people in this country watch the Oscars to mock the acceptance speeches. But having said that, they're as good an idea as we've currently got for getting real stories about real teachers, heads and schools out into the mainstream, and I can't quite work out why schools don't plug them more. Especially now there's new awards, including one for teams and one for special schools. I've once seen a school tell parents about the awards and how to apply – no more. And yes, I can see it looks a bit like fishing for compliments but if motorway service stations can stick up a portrait of their Colleague of the Month, then why not? After all, if it makes parents think about the service their kids are actually getting, that's all to the good. One of my children was taught by a couple of regional finalists (a fantastic team of teacher and TA). They were so pleased about the nomination, and what the judges said about them, and wore their badges in class. They were utterly wonderful – which got me thinking about all the other utterly wonderful teachers my kids have had whom I've never thought of nominating. Perhaps, with a week to go until March 1 when this year's entries close, I'll actually do it. And perhaps heads and governors should remind us all to do it as well, and maybe even institute more in-school nomination schemes for great staff doing good things. And then, gradually, maybe the rest of the world will know about it. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=259 Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:09:26 GMT 20100222110926 Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:09:26 GMT 20100222110926 Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:09:26 GMT 2010022211110926 If you haven't opened your copy of the TES yet, here's a little health and safety advice before you do. Make sure you are sitting down and your mouth is empty. Put any hot drinks well away from you. Now open up, and on page 28 there's Chris Woodhead talking about Ofsted and about how maybe it should be abolished if it can't be reformed. Yes, I am talking about that Chris Woodhead, the man under whom Ofsted terrified an entire profession. The man who reckoned loudly that there were 15,000 incompetent teachers. And these days, the man who's probably recalled fondly by heads and older teachers who remember the days when school inspectors looked at a bit more than the data. Let me regale you with a few of his juicier morsels (he was always a brilliant polemicist and well worth reading, even if you subsequently wanted to hit him with something heavy). “What matters most in any school? The quality of teaching. What is the point of a system of school inspection that prefers the analysis of data to the observation of classroom practice? There is no point... “Forget education, education, education. What matters now is compliance, compliance, compliance. …The clock could be turned back. If the Conservatives win the next election, it will be turned back. Inspectors might again spend time in classrooms watching teachers teach… they might bin the policies and the paperwork and ask themselves the only important question: would I want my son or daughter to be taught by these teachers? That is the question that mattered most to me when I was chief inspector. It is the only question that should matter now.” He goes on to list the changes which he believes are necessary to Ofsted, but doubts they are likely to happen. Even if Michael Gove were to be next secretary of state for education, he says he would be unlikely to welcome reports that expose the failures of his policies. Therefore, says Woodhead, he is pessimistic about the future of education. “It pains me to say it, but Ofsted might as well be abolished.” You'd expect Mr W to be gloomy about what's happened to his baby since he left, but an awful lot of heads would agree with his analysis. Schools, as those inside them understand, can be utterly banjaxed by their data, even if they've got the best teachers in the land who are doing fantastic things for their kids. If your school is in a deprived area and trying to make good the deficiencies of parenting in many deprived families, outlined today by the Sutton Trust's new research, or is a junior school in a less deprived area with a feeder infant school with unbelievably good ks1 results (which perhaps don't seem replicable at the start of year 3), then it can be doomed to a dismal Ofsted report. And that can demoralise your excellent teachers and send them and pupils from the most motivated families elsewhere… and so on. There was talk in the weekend papers and this morning of the need for a new great education debate because education has become so "formulaic and mechanised" that there is an urgent need to "remodel and refashion" it. The man shouting for this, you may not be surprised to hear, is Anthony Seldon, head of Wellington College, Blair biographer, and academy sponsor. But in a funny way he's turning into a genuine national figure, in that he's willing to talk about the big picture in education in a way that few people are. To some extent he appears to be backed by Professor Dylan Wiliam, who says something needs to be done to improve teaching but says a Callaghan-style great debate is unnecessary. Well, I'm not so sure. If Chris Woodhead is calling for the abolition of Ofsted unless it is simply allowed to judge the quality of teaching once more, then perhaps we've gone horribly wrong somewhere. And I'm not convinced that allowing schools which teach meditation, backed by Goldie Hawn (as reported over the weekend, honest) is the answer either. You really couldn't make it up, any of it. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=256 Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:22:53 GMT 20100215102253 Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:22:53 GMT 20100215102253 Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:22:53 GMT 2010021510102253 Holding two mutually contradictory ideas in your head makes it ache, as I've discovered today, reading round the wonderful world of British education for this blog. On the one hand… a large and well-attended conference at the National College ten days ago was considering how schools were going to cope with a small 0.7 per cent budget rise. And on the other is the Conservative party draft manifesto on education, which is promising heads the “power to pay good teachers more”. Well, I'm fascinated as to how this one is going to work. Swedish-style schools and teachers with firsts have got all the attention so far from the manifesto and I'd somehow overlooked this. The document makes no mention of heads being able to pay bad teachers less, so presumably anyone wanting to take advantage of this power is looking at spending more of their budget on staffing. Given that most of the budget is staffing, it's hard to see where the shortfall is going to come. I think it'll take the combined forces of all the school business managers (much praised by the NCSL as being able to tap into the black arts of making money go further) to sort this one out. (Thinking about it more, there aren't enough heads to go round the current number of schools: what's going to happen if Mr Gove's parent-led Swedish-style institutions do actually open? Would his promised changes to the Ofsted regime actually make being a school head a more desirable occupation once more? How much freedom would the new schools have? And – could they really be as small as the Scandinavian ones which do sometimes have just 100 pupils?) But as the inevitable election draws closer and the political frenzy increases, it'll be interesting how many more apparently hard-to-deliver promises will be made about schools without reference to those expected to carry them out. That means you, of course. A fascinating development is the Mumsnet-style hustings, where politicians communicate with the electorate via webchat. Today found Ed Balls (who's already done Mumsnet) in the hotseat at Times Online, facing an interesting demographic of questioners. Put it this way, in the instant poll on the page, support for private education hovered at around the 70 per cent mark and that for grammars not far below. But, interestingly, more than half of respondents, whilst keen to keep testing in school, wanted less of it. The questions which were answered by Mr B mostly involved disruptive kids in mainstream, private vs state education, home education and stammering. Reader, I asked a couple of questions relevant about heads on your behalf (because you were presumably working at 1pm) but these clearly just didn't fit the theme. Would we have been any the wiser if my questions had been picked? Not really, judging by the tenor of the answers he did give. And although he generously did an extra 15 minutes at the end, none of the questioners seemed much happier for their answers. Mumsnet itself, meanwhile, has just subjected Jim Rose to a light grilling in which the questions were actually much the same as those chucked at Ed Balls late last year. Major themes: the rights and wrongs of home education; why premature babies can't start in Reception at 5 if necessary; phonics teaching; the infant curriculum. (See below for a marvellous, but long, quote from Sir Jim which gives the flavour of the thing). The trouble with these webchats is that they're diverting us. Politicians can appear as though they've endured a Paxmanesque grilling at the hands of bolshy consumers (usually parents) when they've only dodged questions about biscuits and swerved the specifics. They can claim to have connected with the people and been full and frank, when the format makes it very easy to spot the tricky questions and either ignore them or give a formulaic reply. Compare Ed Balls's 75 minutes online with Michael Gove's recent four-minute grilling on Newsnight about the efficiency of Swedish schools… and then start to worry. Because if political rhetoric is going to be increasingly put unchallenged before the electorate in this way – with parents with axes to grind replacing experts, researchers and journalists -- then heads may find themselves handling increasingly unrealistic expectations in future. *And this was the Jim Rose quote which was just too long to use above.. “JimRose: Hello LoveBeingAMummy, I am thinking of stealing your great title and becoming LoveBeingAGrandad. Interesting – this is a question [f you had three wishes and could change things instantly, which three things would you change and how?] I often ask of primary headteachers and usually receive answers to do with: reducing the amount of testing (SATs); dropping publicly reported school league tables; making an over-demanding National Curriculum less prescriptive, and giving more time for schools to consolidate existing initiatives before introducing additional ones. All of these things are now at the forefront of professional and public debate and there is no doubt that some significant changes are being made by policy makers while holding to that which is good. I have never put much faith in 'quick fixes' but I hope the recommendations of the reviews on reading, dyslexia and the primary curriculum with which I have been involved will contribute significantly, in the short and longer term, to children's education and well-being. My wish would be for all primary schools to be as good as those at the leading edge (of which we have many that are 'world class'). Since we are constantly told that the 'the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers', how we fulfil that wish, must mean investing in securing and assuring top quality teaching.” And on that point, the Commons select committee on education has got some interesting recommendations on teacher training, including forcing schools to provide placements by making a good Ofsted dependent on their participation, increasing use of Masters' qualification and ring-fencing of CPD money. They're also recommending the trickiest thing of all: ensuring that supply teachers get CPD and performance management, paid for in the same way as employed teachers. It's interesting (especially as the report also wants graduates with the best degrees to teach) – but where are the votes in teachers' professional development? It's never going to be a hot topic on Mumsnet…. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=254 Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:49:22 GMT 20100209154922 Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:49:22 GMT 20100209154922 Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:11:20 GMT 2010021510101120 Monday again, and you can't get through the morning news programmes without politicians boasting about how they're going to make it a fairer society if you vote for them. Ed Balls was notable by his absence this morning. Instead, we had a BOGOF of Michael Gove and Nick Clegg, both basically singing from the same hymn sheet (which itself bore more than a few similarities to the Balls version). The motherhood and apple pie bit is that we need to become a fairer society and in order to do that we need to give equal opportunities to all our children. And that's where you come in, as head teachers. It's schools which are largely going to deliver this vision. To Gove – who to be fair is also talking about a far more targeted version of Sure Start as well -- this is “a moral imperative and an economic imperative”. Clegg, meanwhile, says kids in Tower Hamlets have had much more money spent on them than equally impoverished children in Rutland or Bristol. He's planning to spend even more, funded by slashing the “great plethora of quangoes, inspection regimes and bureaucracy which has grown up in the educational establishment under Labour.” Sensing blood, his interlocutor asked Clegg to name names. His answer may not have been the one you were hoping for, but it seems that if the Lib Dems get the key to Downing Street, the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and Becta may be having to raise some of their own money. But it's interesting, isn't it, that the politicians are so united on fairness and equality of opportunity -- and that schools are felt to be the obvious engine for these desired changes. And yet it's a terribly old message: comprehensives were going to put everyone on a level playing field, as were academies, and Every Child Matters. Retired teachers have told me how they used to keep bags of clean clothes and nice soap tucked away in their classroom to help those pupils whose parents couldn't organise or prioritise keeping them clean and fragrant. And still politicians feel that they are tapping into a national zeitgeist of unease for which schools provide the natural fix. But the trouble is that it's all terribly vague. Are politicians troubled by this because of last week's report on the increasing inequality of life in the UK, or because of youth unemployment and recession, or because of the headline-grabbing horrors of Baby P and the Edlington boys? What do they expect schools to do about it? Is it purely to educate kids into a better life with a handful of qualifications, or to do the soft stuff like social skills, mental and physical health referrals, wraparound childcare and SEAL classes? For it strikes me that there could be a great deal of unrealistic political expectation about to be dumped on the heads of our heads, and this was brought home by two unrelated stories this week. In the first, research has shown than if your mum or dad is obese, then you also have a much higher chance of being obese by the time you start school. Healthy lifestyle lessons at school just don't have an impact. But of course, don't expect previous advice to be withdrawn any time yet as, frankly, schools are easier to target than podgy parents. And then there's the very silly tale about Tesco banning customers in pyjamas from one store. Radio 4 and the posh papers made a real meal of it – with the underlying assumption that actually this was about class, or a lack of it. There were tales of mums saying that getting the kids to school in the morning meant they had no time to dress themselves, and what was the problem, anyway? But the problem may be later, for those kids. Because in the real world people do better if they can operate within the often unspoken rules – being polite, dressing up for job interviews, being organised. It's not fair on those children if they grow up assuming it's OK to wear nightclothes almost anywhere you want – because they'll be up against other youngsters who know how to play by the rules. But if schools are going to be the engine of equality for children (again), will they be asked to teach these life skills or just concentrate on Gradgrindian facts? How can they ensure that children are making the most of the their talents, and aren't being pushed into easier but less useful qualifications? Should they be teaching the art of good parenting, to help the next generation? And how much difference can a school really make? It's only early skirmishes as yet, but it does look as if schools are going to find themselves at the heart of this election campaign with a lot of political hopes and aspirations pinned upon them. And that means it's time for some urgent debates, involving heads as well as policy makers, about what is expected and what is realistic. And also whether the sort of school which seems to be wanted can exist in the land of the league table. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=252 Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:26:39 GMT 20100201152639 Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:26:39 GMT 20100201152639 Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:26:39 GMT 201002011532639 So the ballot on SATS-stopping action is actually going ahead. Is it striking fear into the Government? Well, the most recent announcement from the Department for Cushions and Soft Furnishings since is the easily misread Tweet, “Ed Balls launches sex & relationship guidance.” (My first thought: ugh. Second though: oh, that's not what they mean, is it?) Anyway, back to the crux of the matter, which is the ballot. Presumably the Government is intending to do its usual thing, which is to stoutly assert that parents want their children tested and that responsible heads will Keep Calm And Carry On. But I'm not so sure that strategy will work. For one thing, we're at the dog-end of a Government where even MPs aren't terribly interested in education. I tuned into the BBC Parliamentary Channel to watch some of the second reading of the education bill a couple of weeks ago. My first thought was: where is everybody? There was probably a solid handful of MPs on each side of the house, and many of those, though not household names, have a particular or enduring interest in education. Like the Conservative, for instance, who argued passionately against the proposed changes to home education. A quick Google search revealed this to be his specialist subject. If MPs aren't interested in pupil guarantees or home school contracts or all the other stuff in the latest Bill, then presumably they don't think their constituents care either. Which probably means that they won't be manning the tumbrels if heads explain rationally why they don't think the testing regime at 11 is the best way to help pupils and schools and offer an alternative. And in another example of the law of unintended consequences, parents in some areas are getting very cross about official pronouncements on their cherished and high-achieving schools. I'm talking about junior schools, which are increasingly caught between a rock and a hard place. Some feeder infant schools are increasingly sending on children with, frankly, unfeasibly high grades at KS1. One head routinely acquires moppets bearing Level 4 and occasionally Level 5 labels. Her first action is to re-test, whereupon she discovers that the infant is not quite a child prodigy. The LA moderates the teacher tests at 7, apparently – but on self-selected papers. Anyway, the child is permanently labelled and under the current Ofsted reign of terror, the receiving school is well and truly stuffed even if it can prove that Jocasta and Tarquin were actually merely average when they arrived. Formerly outstanding schools are now being put in special measures as a result, and parents (who know how good the school really is) are becoming furious that not only may their much-loved head be leaving as a result, but also that there is all sorts of unnecessary upheaval going on. The current system just doesn't hang together, and a thoughtful administration would at least have a quick run through the problems and perhaps consider the alternatives which the NAHT's senior members have spent months of their spare time poring over. Any chance of a strike ballot concentrating minds? We'll see. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=249 Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:22:14 GMT 20100125222214 Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:22:14 GMT 20100125222214 Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:22:14 GMT 2010012522102214 It's Monday morning so there must be a new educational policy being announced somewhere by one of the political parties. This week's is certainly eye-catching… but the more I think about it, the more it seems to unravel. The basic premise is simple: the Conservatives are promising that they would entirely prevent graduates bearing anything less than a 2:2 degree from PGCE courses. Maths and science graduates from “top” universities, however, will practically be snatched off the street to train as teachers. Such trainees will get all their loans paid off providing they stay in the classroom, plus free Ocado deliveries on a Friday and a clothing allowance at John Lewis. OK, I made the last two bits up… but you get the drift. And career changers will also be hustled into the classroom to do on the spot teacher training, apparently displacing teaching assistants and back-to-work mums who can't afford to train any other way. According to Michael Gove on Radio 4, this will help us emulate the system in Finland and Singapore, where only the brightest graduates are accepted into teaching. It will also mean teachers become truly respected once more and our education system improves. At which point the blissful Evan Davies asked the question I'd been shouting at the radio: “Aren't you going to raise their pay?” Apparently this will not be necessary, because of the kudos of being an elitist teacher. Why, in Finland, teachers are paid about the same as they are here and they're STILL queueing up to get into classrooms. I applaud the aim and some of the means but the fundamental problem is that the UK isn't Finland or Singapore. There, education is valued and teachers respected in a way they are not here. Years ago, the last conservative Prime Minister, John Major gave a speech promising to raise the public image of teachers – whose car, he said, would be the “battered jalopy” in the car park -- by raising their pay and so their standing. Did it work? You tell me. Anyway, the current government has been waving incentives at “shortage subject” graduates for years… and we're still not overendowed with maths or science teachers. There is of course one very good reason for this: that those who are truly talented in the sciences are also less likely to be truly talented at people skills which are an essential ingredient of teaching, particularly of younger children. You can stick a boffin in front of a motivated A Level class and probably get away with it: but put the same teacher in with a group of lively nine-year-olds and watch the mutual incomprehension grow. It's also hard to see how these graduates are going to feel elitist in a profession which is so mercilessly hemmed in and patrolled by Ofsted inspectors, lesson plans and league tables. Rogue geniuses tend not to thrive under those working circumstances. Even the merely very brainy might chafe at the complete lack of autonomy. I'm also thinking about some of the best teachers I've ever encountered – the really inspiring ones, who appear to perform everyday miracles with the children. I have a feeling that most of these teachers haven't got an Oxford 1st in Physics… and that they might be markedly worse at what they do if they had. So: is it a good idea to only go for the best graduates? Probably not always. Will making entry-level more elitist raise the numbers who want to do it? Maybe in a recession – but if you want to keep it going later the profession will need to be loosened up to make it more attractive to stay. So: it's the start of a good idea. But needs more work, Mr Gove. * I rather wonder what the Tories would make of some of the interesting stuff presented at BETT last week. I was fascinated by a graph presented by Sheffield teacher Paul Haigh, showing that 56 per cent of a student sample used a computer to do their homework nearly every day, and only ten per cent never used one. “This was considered thought-provoking,” he tweeted. Given that secondary schools now rarely issue textbooks to kids which they can take home, and that most teenagers loathe writing by hand but are magnetically attracted to computer keyboards, I was only surprised that the percentage of teenagers never using a computer for homework was so high. (What percentage of that 10 per cent never do homework at all, I wonder?). Then he posted another survey, showing all the “untapped” bits of technology owned by the pupils at his school. 81 per cent have a mobile: 30 per cent a wi-fi enabled mobile, more than half have a laptop… and so on. Get those being used in a classroom and you've got a real resource, he says, which can be topped up with the school's own purchases. In recessionary times, that could well be the way forwards. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=245 Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:40:50 GMT 20100118114050 Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:40:50 GMT 20100118114050 Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:40:50 GMT 2010011811114050 Sorry, but I want to talk about snow today. I know everyone in the media and politics has been banging on about school closures and snow and 'elf n safety for the best part of a week now, but it seems to me that they're all skating around on the surface. As usual, you might say. So, I've got a few observations to make. The first is that I wonder about the precise role being played by PFI contracts in the problems schools have faced with clearing snow. From a few quiet, off-the-record chats I've recently enjoyed with school staff at all levels, this seems to be a significant problem for several reasons. The first is that clearing the snow away is the responsibility of the maintenance and caretaking staff – who, in PFI schools, are employed not by the governors or the LEA, but the PFI company. Let's call them Cashflow, for the sake of argument. So, Cashflow has, let's say, three staff for each secondary school it runs, and a small central supply of grit. There's a big snowfall and then it freezes. It's going to take more than three blokes with spades to clear what needs to be cleared. Is there anything in the contract forcing Cashflow to import some extra navvies, or actually locate its grit? And have they any reason to care? Is anyone with a bit of clout putting pressure on them? What about asking parents to come and help out with a shovel? Tricky too, apparently, because the site actually belongs to Cashflow. Does their permission have to be asked? And can you actually get hold of anyone there to do that, or to strongly request that every path round the school gets cleared, pronto? Multiply that up by the number of PFI secondary schools out there, and this alone could be a sizeable problem. And if a desperate school wants to hire its own little digger, then what? And finally, if councils are persuaded to help their schools out with a little of their carefully-hoarded grit, is it going to go to the PFI ones whose maintenance technically is someone else's responsibility? Another problem, away from PFI, is the sheer numbers of pupils in secondary schools now. On some sites, it's almost physically impossible to move them around without going outdoors. And outdoors there's inches of snow and ice. “And can you imagine teenagers coming to school in wellies? They just wouldn't,” one teacher confided. Perhaps not willingly, no. But my guess is that if a school specified strongly that it was open, but only for kids with sensible footwear and clothing, quite a few parents might exert a bit of authority. Especially if it was made very clear that kids without correct footwear were warned not to attend school and would be sent home if they did. Not being a lawyer, I have no idea if such warnings would have any legal status – but again, it might help. Retired teachers are baffled by the closures. “Our contract said we had to make all reasonable efforts to get into school,” one told me. “I used to walk. What's going on?” Well, we all live further from our workplaces now… but there is that much-ignored proviso about reporting for work at your nearest school if it's impossible to reach your own. I've never seen any attempt to make that work, but a hospital administrator in the Scottish Borders was talking happily of how something similar had been fantastic for medical services in the area in the previous week. Perhaps this will be a good use for the new vetting and barring scheme than under the current CRB-for-every-institution scenario. And if lessons are to be learned, as people like to say, from the current situation, it might be an idea to provisionally rig up lists in LEAs of who lives where. Another thing I've noticed during the Great White Out is that closed schools are yet another reason for a little light teacher-bashing. Schools must be closed because staff aren't trying hard enough, seems to be the argument. The Telegraph suggests adding “snow days” on at the end of term (yes, like parents are going to like that idea when they're only allowed to holiday during holidays as it is) in a punitive kind of way. I'd also argue that schools aren't necessarily helping themselves here. Those which can't open should explain clearly exactly why not on their websites. Vague talk of weather or health and safety doesn't help. Detail helps people understand, and gets them on side. Oh, and stick a bit of work to be done by the kids there while you're at it. A bit more leadership from the very top would have been good too. Ed Balls doesn't help by talking smoothly about heads' risk-gauging abilities whilst urging schools to open as quickly as possible. Were he able or willing to do something more positive, such as make clear that heads personally will not risk being sued if someone slips on the ice, or to direct local authorities to divert grit to open schools up, that would be a different matter. It doesn't really help that since the last bad winter, schools have become in part a giant child-minding service to enable the whole population to go out to work – at the same time as the government has upped its rhetoric on the importance of kids attending every single lesson. Which makes it very difficult for anyone to advocate the commonsense approach of perhaps welcoming the odd snow day but making sure schools open pretty damn quick thereafter. So in an ideal world, what's to be done? Bad winters come in clusters, and we may get another couple of snowy ones – or just the usual drizzle. But it might not cost a lot to look at how the PFI contracts are working, and perhaps look at safeguarding heads against personal injury claims if they open up in good faith. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=242 Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:06:09 GMT 20100112100609 Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:06:09 GMT 20100112100609 Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:06:09 GMT 2010011210100609 You can tell we're into an election campaign as everyone's spin machine moves up a few gears. I delayed getting down to writing this week, as a series of excitable news reports on Sunday indicated that we were going to get a big educational announcement on Monday. One particularly favoured organisation was able to reveal, breathlessly, that this would include a promise to teach Mandarin Chinese to tots as young as seven. Phew! So I waited patiently. And because I missed breakfast telly with Ed Balls, this much-vaunted announcement was fairly well-hidden by the time I went looking. And also, not all it seemed. If you were feeling pedantic (and I often am) you might wish to rewrite the thing in plain English. Which is, that the Government is reminding everyone that this year kids in KS2 will have the “opportunity” to learn a second language “This comes a year ahead of foreign languages becoming a compulsory part of the national curriculum for children over seven, which will allow schools to choose which language to teach, from Arabic to Mandarin, Japanese to French.” [my italics, Government press release.] Right. So what he's actually saying is that schools which want to can jump the gun on language teaching. And they can teach any language on the national curriculum… if they can find someone to teach it. Given that secondary schools are also being urged to teach Mandarin and Arabic, anyone who can teach either is in danger of having limbs ripped off in the rush. Let's go back to the press release for more edification. “As Mandarin becomes a GCSE this year, the Government is also today setting out their aspiration that all secondary school pupils should have the opportunity to learn languages like Mandarin if they choose... ”Through language partnerships between schools, Ministers want every school to have access to specialist teachers, and are encouraging Heads to join up with neighbouring schools to share knowledge and expertise to give all pupils the chance to learn. ”On top of putting more specialist language teachers into schools, Teach First is into its second year of a pilot to recruit the best language graduates to become specialist teachers in the most challenging schools.” But you'll be relieved to know that's not all they've done. “To back up the Government's commitment to get all children learning a language for at least six years, it has invested £7 million in training around 5,000 specialist primary language teachers since 2003, the most primary subject specialists to have ever been trained. Around one thousand more will start courses in September 2010, which means that around 7,000 language specialists will have been through the intensive training by September 2011.” So that's all right then. Except I think 5,000 and 1,000 actually makes 6,000 not 7,000. Perhaps they're not counting the ones currently on a course. And -- how many primary schools are there? 24,000 is the number that sticks in my mind, which means roughly one specialist language teacher for every three and a half schools (or four, if my six thousand is the correct number of teachers). If this plan is to “ensure children develop a love for languages early on” as Mr Balls hopes, then I'm not hopeful. I'm prepared to be shot down in flames on this, but I think it would be really tough for non-specialists to teach languages to young children. Yes, children learn languages better when young, but with lots of practice and help. On these figures it looks like if even primaries share the language teachers out fairly, (perhaps hiring one between a cluster), each school will have about one and a half days each week to teach four year groups. The likelier scenario is that of haves and have-nots. Or, possibly, of secondary language teachers (probably mostly redundant German specialists) being recruited, but a lot of retraining would be necessary. The grand plan, as I recall, was to de-compulsorise (sorry!) secondary languages and redistribute the resources a bit to “build a love” for languages in younger children which would carry through to public exams. It's beginning to look as if we've decimated secondary languages and are not going to give primary schools the tools to do the job either… but we have successfully raised the aspirations of parents in an election year. Do let me know when the first one collars you to ask when the Mandarin lessons are starting for little Olivia, won't you? Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=241 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 12:32:24 GMT 20100105123224 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 12:32:24 GMT 20100105123224 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 12:32:24 GMT 2010010512123224 Here you are: an awards ceremony you can attend in your slippers and dressing gown. Or your Christmas jumper. Well, you've got to wear it somewhere… The Chris Woodhead prize for tact and motivation: The judging panel took about five seconds on this one. It goes to Mr Ed Balls for his remarks on schools saving money, and his suggestion that it might be better to have fewer heads and spread them around a bit. The Victor Meldrew prize for most remit-expanding decision by an official: the revelation that schools might end up in special measures for having doorhandles low enough for children to reach (sponsored by B&Q). The judges felt this was a crowded field and gave an honourable mention to the inspector who insisted that the headteacher's small dog be risk-assessed. The media prize for most wilfully misunderstood educational innovation: Remember the furore? A successful, technically-savvy teachers innocently pointed out that since teenagers routinely carry enough computing power with them to have easily organised the 1969 Moon landings, it might be an idea for schools to capitalise on this by getting them to use phones and laptops in class. And they might actually enjoy the lessons, too… Months later, the teacher is still blinking from the mauling he got once the story escaped from the friendly surroundings of the TES and the Observer. It was last seen running frantically through the pages of the Mail, hotly pursued by irate slate-wielding journalists and readers. The La, La, La, can't hear you award: Vernon Coaker, government minister, wheeled out to dismiss the gargantuan Cambridge Primary Review within moments of its publication. Also known as the Campbell Rebuttal Prize. The 1066 And All That Curriculum Prize: awarded to Michael Gove for his Conservative conference promise to bring back Real, Chronological History of Britain lessons in all schools. Clearly a vote winner, that one. The Damned if you do… (or if you don't), award: Given to those authorities which penalised schools which actually opened in the early 2009 snows, but failed to get all the kids in. Meanwhile, neighbours which closed their doors did fine, merely incurring the wrath of the Daily Mail for proving that the country no longer has a backbone. The Met Office Long Range Forecast award: will go to me if I try to predict anything much which is going to happen in 2010, apart from a general election. Will it be schools in office blocks with wall-to-wall history lessons, or yet more centralisation and education acts? Your guess is probably as good as mine… so a happy new year to you! Susan Young http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=239 Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:03:19 GMT 20091229210319 Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:03:19 GMT 20091229210319 Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:03:19 GMT 200912292190319 So. Three days to do your Christmas shopping, now, eh? That'll be a test of your organisational abilities… and you'll be experiencing exactly how other organisations deal with their customers at a time of stress. Many of the best shops sharpen their act by hiring “mystery shoppers” who find out what the customer experience is really like. I shouldn't suggest this while Ofsted inspectors seem to be on the rampage trying out their lovely new regulations, but it does sometimes strike me that schools might benefit from an occasional visit of an educational mystery shopper. This came home to me fairly forcibly last week as I picked up a copy of the free paper, Metro. Its screaming headline was Scrooge School. The story was of a pair of infant children who weren't allowed to attend their primary's Christmas party because it was only for children with 100 per cent attendance records. The children missed out because their father had died from cancer this term, and they had missed several days as a result. “I rang the school office… and the woman said 'bereavements count,'” the children's mother told the paper. The school – which I won't name – said the children should not have been barred but the mother “had spoken to the wrong person”. No school would willingly court this kind of publicity. Presumably, no school would truly want to be so hardline about these kind of attendance inducements that it would behave in this way. But it appears that at least one staff member in this school was under the impression that this was the correct answer to give, without even thinking about referring the query to someone else. How on earth could that be? And while this is an extreme example of miscommunication, it is the everyday interaction between parents and staff which build strong home-school relationships which ultimately will have an impact on teaching and learning. Canny heads are on the lookout for this kind of thing: just as well, because Ofsted is only geared up to discover tensions when they have become problems. From this point of view, the Ofsted parental feedback form is hopeless, particularly with no-notice insepctions. From recent personal experience, I can tell you that if it makes it home in a teenager's bag, it only emerges two days after the deadline for its return. And if you're going to be motivated enough to fill it in during a busy week, that's because you either love or hate the school. Less strong feelings than that and it'll slip into the drift of paperwork which needs doing, sometime. But what often matters to parents and carers on an everyday basis is how they are dealt with on a routine basis by their school. Are the office staff friendly or dragons? Are they helpful or officious? If a day off is required to deal with a death in the family, what is the tone of the reaction? Does the head wander round cheerfully, hide, or clearly mingle reluctantly with parents? Does the website work, and is the useful information (term dates, dinner money costs, non-uniform days, etc) all up there for the desperate parent at midnight? What's the tone of the newsletters? Is useful information also displayed around the school – complete with contacts parents might need? And so on. I remember my TES colleague Gerald Haigh, himself a former head, talking in this vein some years ago, and suggesting leaders should regularly walk through the public areas of the school with an outsider's eye. Something to think about, perhaps, as you wait in the queue for the Tesco car park. * Thank you for reading! I hope you all have a very merry Christmas. You've certainly earned it…. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=237 Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:39:48 GMT 20091221103948 Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:39:48 GMT 20091221103948 Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:39:48 GMT 2009122110103948 Excellent news that some sense has been seen in the vetting and barring mess, and that some of the loonier regulations have been loudly amended. But would it pass the Santa test? You can just see the official checklist, can't you? Elderly man, visiting child's home once a year to bring presents. Well, it's just once a year so it's not frequent contact (but it is regular). But that's every child in the world in one night, so does it mean he needs to be vetted? Brings presents. Is that grooming? Goes into children's bedrooms at night? Sounds a bit dodgy. Nothing on him, not even a speeding fine, but it just doesn't add up. Better bar him to be on the safe side. Loved hearing Sir Roger Singleton blame the previous mess on MPs in the Commons this morning, asserting in a wonderful civil servanty way that yes, the rules were devised during the debates on the Bill which happened whilst everyone was still rather emotional in the wake of the Soham murders. Presumably it can't have been MPs who gave the definition of regular and frequent contact with children as being once a month, or the rules couldn't have been amended as they have been. But it still doesn't really work, does it? It's a small victory for common sense, in the meaning that the rules are better than they were going to be. But they're still not what most heads and people who work with children would devise if you were starting from scratch. As most primary heads will be painfully aware, the new definition of “regular” and “frequent” contact is now set at weekly. I've just finished a six-week stint in my local junior school, hearing year 6 kids read for ten minutes each every Thursday. I do have a CRB in this school for a different reason, but in order to run this kind of scheme in future every parent volunteer – five per class in this case – would have had to have had a vetting and barring check. Or it would have had to have been set up fortnightly, which presumably would not have worked so well for the kids. That level of bureaucracy is going to take these kind of helpful initiatives off the agenda at many schools, or will mean that you end up with a small pool of parents who are pressganged to help with anything because they've already been vetted… and those who wait, unvetted, in the playground, to pick up their kids. Let's not forget that most of them will just as trusted by the pupils as the adults who make it into the classroom. There are several other things about this which make me cross. One is that the vetting and barring scheme would have saved the Soham girls from Ian Huntley – but only because he himself worked in education. If he'd been a bank clerk or a builder, checks on his girlfriend Maxine Carr would not have covered Huntley, and the girls would still have trusted him. Another is that this supposed victory for common sense is still going to cause huge problems for schools and youth organisations, and the result will be to further impoverish relations between the generations. Why do we need to spend so much time now protecting children from adults, and are the rest of Europe following the same path? According to a social worker friend of mine, the reasoning is that more paedophiles are being created by the availability of child pornography on the Internet. The Portsmouth nursery case suggests that might be true, to some extent. But surely it is time for some serious energy to be expended in discovering what really is going on, and then doing more to protect children by barring such material and upping the sentences on those found guilty of viewing it. Better to restrict Internet freedom than the freedom of children to trust adults. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=235 Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:04:10 GMT 20091214150410 Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:04:10 GMT 20091214150410 Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:04:28 GMT 200912141530428 Who'd be a head? Not many teachers, according to new research. The National College found that just nine per cent of teachers fancied trying for headship within the next three years. Even among middle leaders, currently being groomed for headship, only 40 per cent actually wanted the job. You could pick holes in the questions – if teachers wanted to become heads in the next three years, for instance, they should probably already be a middle leader or on the NPQH course. And why wouldn't middle leaders fancy staying in that job if it was interesting, rather than move on? But then another report pops up. Pisa, as you'll know, is the tremendously authoritative snapshot of education across the world published by the OECD. They have taken an interest in headship in England, and have come up with some interesting conclusions: the Government, and Ofsted, is to blame. Here's a couple of quotes, courtesy of the Financial Times. “In England, the role of principal is seen by classroom teachers and middle-level leaders as involving high risk and high stakes. . . The Education and Inspections Act of 2006 gives local authorities new, strict powers of intervention. In addition, the English inspection agency, Ofsted, has new powers to intervene on the grounds of parental complaint.” “Fear of their schools being deemed as failing is a powerful disincentive to teachers who are considering applying for National Professional Qualification for Headship, which is mandatory for those in principal posts.” “Concern about being responsible for a failing school restricts initiative and innovation as principals may fear making mistakes . . . Principals need to be confident that leadership is not a form of tightrope walking. [They] should not be expected to leave if their schools are given warnings about the need for . . . improvements.” This is a tremendous vindication of what heads' leaders have been saying for ages, as education secretaries stick their fingers in their ears. It'll be interesting to see if anyone in government pays any attention at all to this report, or even if it any other papers pick it up. It's also interesting to look at the Pisa information in the context of a couple of documents newly placed on the NAHT website: the union's breakaway proposals to the RIG group and also the fruits of the union's work on other forms of pupil assessment than the current KS2 tests. My brief and probably inaccurate précis of these and their significance is this: the NAHT feels strongly enough about the importance of a flexible leadership structure in schools – with posts which could be a stepping stone to headship, and support the head in a difficult role – to create a separate document from the rest of the rewards and incentives group, then someone should be listening to the reasons. This could be one key to helping the next generation of heads come forward. And the current Year 6 tests are part of the football manager syndrome which afflicts heads now that good Ofsted rankings are possible only with good pupil results. No-one's arguing for a get out clause for hopeless or lazy heads. But it would be nice if the Pisa report was read thoughtfully, with an open mind, and those in charge of our education system considered carefully what was actually being said. * Still, at least Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling aren't going to be demanding you send some of your pay back to the Treasury. School heads currently don't seem to figure on the Taxpayers' Alliance list of public employees paid more than £150k, and for whose pay packets special permission will henceforth have to be sought. But I can tell you who does (or did in the past financial year, anyway): Mark Haysom of the Learning and Skills Council (departed/departing,), £289k; Christine Gilbert of Ofsted, at number 155 in the list and earning £230-235k; David Bell of the DCSF, at just over £200k; another two Ofsted directors with salaries of £177 and £162k; and then Ken Boston of the QCA (both departed) on a range of £160-£165k. A couple of others on the list are (at number 655) Steve Munby of the National College, earning a total of £161,360 and just below him Tom Jeffery, Director General of the DCSF, on £157,500. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=232 Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:21:41 GMT 20091207162141 Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:21:41 GMT 20091207162141 Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:21:41 GMT 200912071642141 Years ago, when I was a national newspaper reporter, I interviewed a really interesting American bloke whose job was to analyse what people said, usually for the police. I can't now remember his name, but I do remember his central message, which is that people always tell the truth – somehow. What they really mean will sneak out despite their best endeavours, although you might need an expert like him with a tape recorder and a very astute ear and questioning method to help things along. This has been a useful party game ever since, notably when you get those tearful press conferences on the news with someone appealing for the murderer of their loved one to come forward… but I digress. What reminded me of this was the fantastic Ed Balls interview on the front of the TES. There are so many holes to pick in what he said that I barely know where to start – except with the sentence which simply jumped out at me. To put it in context, he's talking about heads and governors having to make hard choices about their school budgets, which he says, will be “rising” but “tougher” than in the past. (Pause for a bit of head scratching). The italics in what follows are mine, by the way. “If they want to keep the one to one tuition, which we're guaranteeing in the new legislation, and if they want to keep the extra teaching assistants and teachers – over 120,000 more teaching assistants, 40,000 more teachers – and if they want to keep the smaller class sizes, then they will have to look elsewhere for savings to make their budgets add up.” So. Let's get this straight. If heads want to keep one-to-one tuition (did anyone ever ask if they wanted it?) which the government has guaranteed in new legislation…they've got to cut costs elsewhere. Want? If the Government has guaranteed something in the legislation, in what sense do heads have a choice about it? This is a sentence worthy of George Orwell. To continue with our analysis of that one sentence of Balls (Drat. Must learn to be more careful with apostrophes.), he continues with the presumed desire of heads to continue employing the extra TAs and teachers, and having the smaller classes. Well. Either these things are an essential, in which case the Government should continue funding them and make it very clear that they are necessary, or they're a luxury, in which case that's where cuts should be made. You can't have it both ways, and you can't have it both ways and issue threats. Well, clearly you can, actually, because that's effectively what the education secretary has done, throwing in a bit of electioneering for good measure. And that's not the only shocker in the interview. We're back in the argument that heads have got to federate schools in order to save money and avoid firing teachers and teaching assistants. So it's bad to fire teachers and teaching assistants, but good to fire heads? Are heads expected to fall on their swords to save their school's budget (but sacrifice its autonomy)? I'm sorry, but I just don't get this idea at all. Parents are going to be far from ecstatic about their school losing a head to save money, and becoming a satellite of decisions made elsewhere. Leadership, we're told, has been the bedrock of school improvements made during the past decade. And the choices seem to be to actively lose heads (fire them? Let them go?) and federate deliberately, or to wait for people to retire or move on and then tack that school on to another one. As my teenage daughter would remark, that's a bit random. And then who's going to sort out all the paperwork demanded by Ofsted and the DCSF? I can see votes in cutting back hospital bureaucrats, and I can see votes in cutting back government bureaucrats in the DCSF, Ofsted and all the quangoes. But heads are bureaucrats with a point. People understand why they're there. So. I think what Ed Balls is really saying is that he wants to cut the education budget but keep all his own staff, and teachers and TAs because he can boast about how many more Labour has provided. And it sounds good to present heads with a choice even if it's not real. You just couldn't make it up. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=228 Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:32:20 GMT 20091130103220 Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:32:20 GMT 20091130103220 Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:32:20 GMT 2009113010103220 Howling wind, hammering rain, more floods possibly on the way… and in Cumbria school heads are calmly opening up for business. Every workplace in the area is going to be suffering from many of the same logistical problems – but it's different for schools, where the role is to provide normality for upset or even traumatised children and their families, and work around the difficulties faced by staff. So it was fantastic to hear a report from All Saints primary in Cockermouth on Radio 4, with head Nicola Smallwood explaining in matter-of-fact tones that they had wanted to get things back to normal as soon as possible. Even though, that is, the school kitchen is currently being used as a feeding station for the emergency services. The school is dealing with some upset pupils, particularly the younger ones. But the spirit is clearly upbeat, with the Year 6 kids meeting to organise a fundraising event for flood relief. One teacher interviewed had spent the weekend as a volunteer and would clearly have felt guilty at being in the warm and dry of his workplace had it not been for his role with the pupils. “The children wanted to talk and I have been really pleased with their reaction. But I thought we'd spend minutes on it, and it was an hour.” It's that kind of story which demonstrates why a recent survey of parents found that heads were among the best leaders in the country, just two percent behind army officers. Interestingly, heads (voted the best leaders by 29 per cent of those polled) were ten percentage points above police officers, and almost 20 per cent above football managers and councillors. Admittedly, the poll was purely of parents, and you might say they are likely to give a different answer to other members of the population. But they are also the main customers of schools (or do I mean stakeholders?) so you'd hope they feel good about heads. Rather less impressive, though, was the reaction of the Scottish schools minister Fiona Hyslop upon arriving at a heads' conference in Glasgow last week, and according to ASCL leader John Dunford causing upset with her “uncalled-for” remarks about the number of “large cars” in the car park. He doesn't say if she arrived in a chauffeur-driven vehicle herself, so we can only speculate. We can also only speculate on the future of SATs tests since last week's announcement that teacher assessments would be published from 2011. For the moment, this year's tests appear to be firmly in place, but Mick Brookes and the NAHT leadership clearly hope there is more to be gained if heads stay firm – and that includes not replying to the QDCA survey of optimum SATs tests timing with a date. After all, what education secretary would want to muck with such a well-respected group of people in an election year? *Two interesting bits of zeitgeist this week. The first is that Ofsted seems to be in for a good kicking over inspectors' interpretation of the new framework, and for the way it's going into children's services. With a former chief inspector suggesting the agency may simply have taken too much on, there seem to be some interesting developments. And the second is lower key but also interesting: pupil voice. Professor Dennis Hayes – a bit of a character -- says the current “obsession” with consulting pupils over issues such as homework and the school curriculum undermines the power of adults. He's not wild about pupil voice, as he told the Daily Telegraph after outlining his views in a speech in London. “Everywhere I go the clearest sign of the rejection of adult authority is listening to learner, student, pupil [or] infant voice. Anybody's voice but the voice of adults,” he said. “I love debating with pupils and students and getting them to research but basically they know nothing.” Interesting, I thought. The next day my TES arrived, and wonderful Mike Kent – a heads' head – was making a similar argument in his column, pointing out that asking children how they feel will get a response based on that precise moment only, and that the expertise of schools and teachers should not be downgraded. So: is the fashion for pupil voice about to subside a bit? Or is the Government's planned new bit of legislation about rights and entitlements for pupils about to push the phenomenon further still? Watch this space. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=224 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:56:17 GMT 20091123155617 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:56:17 GMT 20091123155617 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:56:17 GMT 200911231535617 You can often learn a bit more about Government policy by the audience they've chosen to tell about it. We've had an interesting example this weekend, where Ed Balls got into bed with the Sunday Telegraph – probably not, one would suspect, his newspaper of choice. The Telegraph was happy to accept (and edit) Mr Balls' honeyed words about how he plans to chastise local authorities which have failed to get improvement plans sorted in 50 underperforming secondaries. These are newly-acquired powers, which apparently Mr B intends to try out sometime this week. His column also included strong hints as to the contents of the Queen's Speech this Wednesday, which will set out the final legislative programme of the current Parliament. And possibly the current government. He is promising “stronger powers for parents and local communities to demand change and faster progress… all councils conducting an annual survey of parents on the provision of local secondary schools. If parents are unhappy with the schools around them, local authorities will have to address those concerns. “And where standards are unacceptably low, Ministers will be able to direct a local authority to issue a warning notice to a school and to close any school which fails to comply with a warning notice.” Also on his shopping list are new guarantees for pupils and parents, including an entitlement to “one to one tuition” for children falling behind and “to ensure tough discipline”. And – my favourite -- “we will reduce bureaucracy so that - like colleges, universities and voluntary-aided schools - all academies are guaranteed charitable status.” Not like independent schools then? Better not to mention their charitable status, for some reason. Interestingly, he doesn't mention much of the other stuff which is going to people the Queen's Speech, including the teacher MoTs which he promises will put the profession on a par with doctors. For this article is what it is and where it is for purely political reasons. You can almost visualise the foul-mouthed spin doctor in The Thick Of It yelling into a phone in the background. After a few paragraphs outlining how tough he's going to be, comes this one: “Michael Gove fundamentally disagrees with what he calls our 'statist' approach. He does not think we should be intervening where there is under-performance and wants to remove any role for locally elected councils.” An interesting one, this, given that many of the actions of this Government have been to reduce the role of locally elected councils, particularly in education. Also interesting that he is overlooking the Gove intention to jump hard on failing schools. But this is a clear attempt to present Labour as tougher and badder on schools than the Conservatives, to an audience which is likelier to be naturally Tory. It's beginning to look like schools and education are going to be right in the firing line in the upcoming election – perhaps surprisingly, given the state of the economy and the likely ideological battle over the NHS. And it also looks as though Labour doesn't feel entirely confident about its record on improving education. It's not moving fast, either. Cynically, I can see two ways in which the party could attack Gove's Swedish schools idea whereby parents can set up their own establishment. One is that parents haven't exactly fallen over themselves to set up their own schools under previous legislation and it's hard to see them doing it now. Though I suppose it wouldn't go down well to say that “we sort of tried this and it failed.” And two: the Tories did their own bit of spinning last week and told the TES that groups of expert schools might be good candidates to set up their own schools. Teachers running schools? Nice idea, but it does feel a little like bet-hedging. Anyway, you might expect Labour politicians to think that idea would terrify Tory voters, and to use it accordingly. Interesting that they didn't. But the bigger picture for school leaders has got to be that the heat is going to be on this autumn as education once again becomes a battleground – with the obvious knock-on effect that no political party is going to be advocating steady-as-we go policies. It's going to be another bumpy few years. Should you trouble yourself with the upcoming legislative programme? There's got to be a reasonable chance that the Education Bill won't make it through both Houses before an election is called (the Tories are apparently geared up for March). There's also got to be a reasonable chance that the next Government will have entirely different fish to fry and won't be interested in personal tuition and legally-binding home-school contracts. Either of these look like a potential nightmare for schools, if parents think their children have lost out in their education and threaten legal action. It could even have the curious consequence that schools in catchments of traditional low expectation can heave a sigh of relief, whilst those dealing with more aspirational families acquire shedloads of potential legal trouble along with all those nicely-behaved children. Any incoming government might want to do without this particular bit of legislation. The trouble is that ditching it might attract adverse headlines – and actually, it's the schools which are likely to be tearing out their hair over it rather than those in charge. It's beginning to look as if the only escape could be an early election. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=223 Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:56:01 GMT 20091116115601 Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:56:01 GMT 20091116115601 Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:56:01 GMT 2009111611115601 I've done more headscratching than usual over today's blog (and before you ask: not, it's not nits). You're all busy doing the stuff school leaders do in the thick of the autumn term, with perhaps more than one eye on Rose review curriculum changes, or considering how to answer the indicative poll on a possible boycott of next summer's tests. And the politicians, mercifully, have gone all quiet since Ed Balls's foray into sex ed last week. Though that was a revealing episode in itself. The news media is absolutely fascinated by school sex lessons, isn't it? To the extent that last week's headline was not about the terrific new syllabus, but that parents can't fish their Year 11 offspring (many of whom may already be sexually active) out of the lessons. Ever since the furore over the book Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin, and how it was used in a limited way in some schools, the reactionary end of the press has been telling us that kids are being taught how to 'Do It' at a disgustingly early age and that messages about contraception just lead to a rise in teenage pregnancies. You'll know it's the Daily Mail if it includes the line that “children are losing their innocence”. Innocence? In a society of explicit pop lyrics and even more explicit early evening soap operas, I'm not too sure how kids can ever be innocent. The crime would be to keep them ignorant, so that they can't make sense of what the media throws at them every day. And you can shelter children from the TV, internet, radio and newspapers all you like, but it's a bit more difficult to deafen them to horribly savvy teenage siblings, whether their own or someone else's. When a perfectly ordinary child from a very middle-class home does as instructed and posts an anonymous question for discussion during the sex ed class – and that question is “Can you do it with your bum?” then it's hard to see what innocence might be damaged. This isn't a newspaper urban myth either: I heard about it from the teacher involved, who had taken it in her stride and then talked to colleagues about how to handle it. The interesting thing is that as I recall the question hadn't been deliberately provocative, but a general, genuine enquiry. A tiny proportion of parents do choose to remove their children from lessons now, but beyond that the subject is so little of an issue that when schools invite parents to view The Film they'll be showing to year 5 or 6, perhaps a third of them choose to attend. Beyond that, parents outside faith schools are rarely told exactly what will be taught, and a vanishingly small proportion of them choose to ask. How many currently know they've got the right of withdrawal? How many of them know the sex ed syllabus is currently drawn up locally? Very few, is the answer: and that's because the vast majority feel safe with what their school chooses to do. It's just that the media and a few loud pundits don't get that. But then, there's a lot about education that the media doesn't get – probably in common with the rest of the adult population as well. And although a lot of it is our fault for assuming that we all know about school because we've all been to one, it's also up to the profession to keep us up to date. And to do it in language we can all understand, too. I had a fabulously ranty email this week from Dave Borrie, head at Shaw Primary in Wiltshire, about an interview John Humpries did on the Today programme last week. (Thanks, Dave.) Here's a flavour… “His emotive and aggressive response to the thought of teachers and heads getting hummy with students, being human, in other words, rather than distant, authoritarian figures, was amazing and the reaction to the word Headlearner was positively Gradgrindian! He's lost a lot of my respect... “Why, oh, why is education seen as a preserve of the National Trust or English Heritage? We just aren't allowed to make a curriculum and schools fit for the 21st Century and the challenges of tomorrow!” I can see where Dave's coming from, and have a lot of sympathy for him. Humphries and his interview subject were somewhere back in the 1950s, and things have changed since then, usually for good reasons. But then I remembered the comments made by Libby Purves this week about her reasons to stop presenting The Learning Curve after a ten year stint. "I had to go to the controller and say that I was actually afraid I was going to slap somebody," she said at a lecture organised by Theos, the think tank for religious affairs, in Westminster. "I told him that if I had to talk to any more educationalists or curriculum designers violence might happen." Now, Libby knows her stuff. So I think there is a genuine disconnect here, either of ideas or presentation. Talk of 21st century schools and lifelong learning all you like, but unless you explain precisely what you mean by that, most people think you're talking nonsense. Because, they reason, surely the fundamental principle of school remains the same? Apart from computers, what can have changed? In the coming months, there are going to be some battles fought over education as politicians line up to attack or defend the Diploma, traditional/modern teaching methods and all the rest of it. There may also be public relations battles over the KS2 tests. Being a Headlearner is a perfectly valid concept for schools – but only if you explain it to the outside world without using jargon, and are prepared to good-humouredly repeat that explanation to anyone who raises an eyebrow. And that goes for everything else which is going on in schools which may have changed over the years. Embedding change really does take time, and in a nation where most adults still think about headmasters and mistresses, headlearner is probably a jump too far. After all, think about your reaction if your hospital consultant described him or herself as a learner, even if you know perfectly well that he has to do professional development too. It's looking like we're on the cusp of big changes again. If you get a chance to get out there and explain precisely what your 21st century school is doing, in simple terms, then do it. It's the only way John and Libby and their huge audiences are really going to catch on to what you're doing. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=209 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:50:44 GMT 20091110115044 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:50:44 GMT 20091110115044 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:50:44 GMT 2009111011115044 Postal workers permitting, NAHT and NUT members will be getting an important document over the next few days which just might have some far-reaching consequences. You'll probably know it's about the possibility of taking action over the KS2 tests: would you like to see them abolished; would you be willing not to administer the tests next summer; and would you like to see their phased abolition? Answering yes to the above doesn't yet commit you to anything, but it's another line in the sand for the membership of both organisation, and for everyone concerned with primary education. Interestingly, it looks as if the Government is slightly rattled by the chance of action against next year's tests. It's not every day you get Gordon Brown (or, more likely, his chief spindoctor) writing in the TES, though it's not unprecedented – I seem to remember Tony Blair did it once or twice. Interesting message though – talk about the velvet glove on the clunking fist. Or do I mean a lump of lead in an old sock? Boiled down, he seems to be saying that the Government has spent its time in office whacking schools into line and now that there's conformity and improved performance it's possible to loosen the leash. That's as long as schools and teachers behave, of course. And one of the ways of making sure you behave is those external tests at KS2, along with GCSEs and A Levels, which are apparently vital to “hold schools to account”. Interesting to see it so explicitly put when the official line has been that such tests are all about ensuring that children reach the expected level, and recognising children's achievements. As for GCSE and A Level – well, always thought those exams were more about ensuring the lifechances of the individual. You mean they're just to tell us how good the schools are so that parents can lie to get a place there for their own kids? Anyway. Surely there's cheaper ways of holding schools to account than externally testing every pupil? Read your consultation paper carefully, and you'll find suggestions for how this might be done. You'd have thought the DFES, with a little encouragement from the Treasury, might have been able to come up with its own ideas on this. So. If the overwhelming answer to all three questions is yes, then the Government may have a fight on its hands. I wouldn't expect a boycott to get much support from the Tories, either, even though they've been talking about moving KS2 tests to year 7: they're not going to want to support industrial action on the eve of an election. That election is a major reason the Government is palpably nervous on this one. Also, if there's one respected group of people left in the country, it's probably primary heads. The Mail may set its attack dogs on “trendy heads” (no doubt trained in those terribly Lefty colleges), but there's an awful lot of parents out there with very different personal experience. By the nature of the job, primary heads tend to be known personally to parents. And unless something's gone wrong, the head will have earned the respect of the parents, which then tends to be extended to the whole profession. Moreover, even if the boycott does go ahead the children will be assessed. Unlike the postal dispute (which may mean your consultation paper doesn't arrive till December), it would appear to have little deleterious impact apart from doing an army of test markers out of a few extra bob. Children would not actually miss out at all. It could be, if you like, a victimless crime. Given the recent fiasco over KS2 tests and the dumping of those at KS3, it's hard to see much of a head of steam building up over this. But on the other hand, it's individual heads who will be getting the pressure piled on to comply. And pressure there would be, because the Government can't risk losing face at this point in its proceedings. It's even helped to box itself in by preventing Sir Jim Rose from looking at Sats in his primary report, and acquiring an expert group report which recommended that they continue. It's going to be really interesting to see how this one develops. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=204 Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:10:37 GMT 20091103151037 Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:10:37 GMT 20091103151037 Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:12:07 GMT 200911031531207 I'm just learning how to use Twitter, one of those new-fangled social networking sites, and boy, it lets you know some odd things. Put very simply, you sign up to “follow” the Twitterings (and that's often a very apt description) of people or organisations that interest you. And then you get all sorts of stuff coming your way. Perhaps unsurprisingly, politicians and government departments are very keen on using this new method of making us feel in the loop. So I'm following Ed Balls. And this Tweet sent me to bed last night scratching my head in puzzlement. “in a caravan in the Lakes finalising our new careers advice strategy... and baking a chocolate and passion fruit roulade (swiss roll)” In a caravan? Well, I suppose it's half term. And it's very Man of the People. Don't suppose government ministers are allowed to be seen in hotels with their families during a recession. Finalising our new careers advice strategy? Suggests it's not a family holiday then. … and baking a chocolate and passion fruit roulade? So is it a family holiday, or isn't it? Do ministers routinely bake fancy cakes for their staff whilst finalising a careers strategy? Or do they routinely finalise careers strategies whilst on a family caravan holiday in the Lakes? Must be a big caravan if you can bake a roulade AND finalise a strategy inside it, with either a full complement of kids or a full complement of advisers. Or, worse, both. Ugh. Either way, surely a chocolate and passion fruit roulade doesn't meet healthy eating guidelines which schools are urged to follow? And most mysterious of all, why call it a roulade and then explain it's a swiss roll? Is that going for the middle class vote and the working class one as well? Baffled, I gave up. It's just amazing how much confusion and ambiguity can be contained in less than 160 characters. Today, it turns out, the government is launching a pilot careers advice scheme in seven areas, aimed at primary children in deprived areas. As I understand it, the idea is to raise aspirations early, suggest the idea of university and get parents talking to their kids about the sort of jobs they might do in future. Interestingly, Sutton Trust research shows that three quarters of 11 year olds think they might go to university, so there appears to be no lack of aspiration there. But what happens next? And here, we perhaps come back to the underachievement of white working class boys. Some of the problem is undoubtedly lack of aspiration but there is more to it than that. Some secondary teachers I've talked to say the problem is that no-one's made the connection for these boys between doing well and school and getting a good job later. In middle-class homes, that connection is made explicit and implicit: parents and relatives explain exactly why you need to sit down and listen, and how that attention is likely to lead to good exam results and then on to more education. But in families with less positive experiences of education and employment, the link is less likely to be made and reinforced. So if the school pilots are able to address some of this, it might genuinely give children the edge that middle class families often give. And in an age where kids' ambitions can be summed up as a desire for fame, the idea of some early or consistent career advice can only be a good thing. Another bit of Sutton Trust research found the proportion of 15 year olds who recalled having formal adviser meetings fell from 85% in 1997 to 55% in 2008. During the same period the numbers of those who had learned “something” or better from careers advisers or teachers halved to 25 per cent. Only 22 per cent had any form of careers talk, down from 45 per cent. Now that is truly shocking, and the upside information – that many more kids had visited university – doesn't really help. Again, middle-class parents are probably likelier to talk about careers with their children, even if their information may be limited or out of date, so again, it's the deprived kids who really miss out. And if the bulk of the information kids are getting is university related, that may certainly influence them to go there. But if they are doing this with the vague idea that a career will suggest itself at some point when they are there, then there's every likelihood that they'll emerge still without the faintest idea, and possibly without the right qualifications as well. Not really surprising that poorer families are still suspicious of university education, is it? Accruing debt with no clear idea of how it will be paid off is not going to appeal to poorer families – and that's a sensible approach. I've long thought that was the real Achilles heel of the AimHigher approach. Debt is real, and scary, and it really isn't bright to incur it without a clear plan of how to pay it off. The problem is that many middle-class kids did go to university with no clear career plan – but that was when a degree was a huge premium in itself, whatever subject it was in, and before the days of fees and loans. I'm not advocating vocational courses, but we seem to have hung on to that old-fashioned approach of university being a good place to grow up and delay the evil day of deciding on the future, despite new circumstances. Careers information really is the missing link for equalising opportunity, and it's a scandal that it is currently a big hole in the system. I'm still completely mystified by the caravan and the roulade, but if those are what it takes to help great swathes of children, then fine. Desperate means, desperate measures. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=191 Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:27:19 GMT 20090930182719 Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:27:19 GMT 20090930182719 Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:17:40 GMT 200910261751740 Politicians can be just breathtaking sometimes. The official message for years has been that headship is so important that it has to be renamed Leadership, with a whole college dedicated to its promulgation and Ofsted inspectors checking out how it works in each school. But now heads are the first port of call when it comes to saving public money, named by Ed Balls as part of the “bureaucracy” which can be trimmed down to save a couple of billion quid. If heads are bureaucrats, it's largely because this government has made them so. Now that the success of a school depends on its jumping through various hoops and meeting myriad targets, then the success of a head depends on making all that happen. Newer heads might take all this for granted: if so, check out the TES website for past columns by Mike Kent, who retains the ability to be cavalier about official form-filling. I can think of many more painless ways of saving money, starting with the enormous bureaucracy of the KS2 tests and the inspection regime. There could be savings at the National College for School Leadership itself, which has just spent seven grand asking kids who their ideal head would be. (David Tennant, since you ask – a fine choice. But I could probably have found that out for the price of a box of sweeties and a CRB check). And yes, I know seven grand is a drop in the ocean – but take care of the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves, as my gran used to say. I might also reconsider putting vast sums into those academies which aren't actually replacing failing schools. But there is more than a whiff of political expediency about this, and in more ways than one. Ed Balls is talking about creating more school federations. This was an option anyway, because of a looming shortage of heads – but quite convenient to be able to kill two birds with one stone. But does it actually save money to have federations in this way? You might have one superhead earning a bit over the odds, but then each school has to have its own raft of deputies and so on to actually run the thing. How much money is actually saved? And then, if you're getting the back-office staff to do for two schools rather than one, why not really save money and get a lot of the admin work and schools spending a bit more centralised? We could call it…. a local authority. Nah, silly idea. Governments have spent the last 20 years trying to get rid of those, haven't they? Being cynical, I also wonder about the motives for the weekend's intervention. Clearly, the politicians have now worked out that the public have realised that there are going to have to be spending cuts and the parties are now falling over each other in their race to see who's hardest. But it's rare for ministers to offer up their own departments for slaughter, which makes it look a little like positioning in case Gordon Brown gets the chop after the party conferences or the next election. It's notable that Ed Balls isn't actually naming any of the educational bureaucracy he's considering for surgery except heads, and the salaries of teachers – no mention of cuts in the DCSF quangocracy, for instance, or any of the other burgeoning bureaucracies. So why heads and teachers? Is it because they are seen as middle-class and well paid? That he thinks the electorate still think school staff have a cushy number? That he genuinely thinks heads are fairly expendable given the centralisation of the curriculum and the target culture? Or that the demographics and national debt means that school federations and pay freezes would happen anyway, so he might get some political mileage out of it? Interestingly, I'm not sure that this will play terribly well with parents, if not the rest of the electorate. People expect schools to have a head teacher, not some remote figurehead. Some federations are clearly created for compelling and individual reasons, and while these are accepted by the public and by parents, it would be interesting to see whether doing it wholesale, to save money, would be. Susan Young is an educational journalist. Contact me at educationh http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=187 Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:28:34 GMT 20090921162834 Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:28:34 GMT 20090921162834 Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:11:37 GMT 2009092211111137 You can't have missed the advert for the general secretary's job – so what do you think? Impressed that your own organisation is asking for nominations from members? Convinced that you couldn't do it, and nor could anyone else you know? Or letting the thought marinate gently in the back of your mind? For me, it shows how far the NAHT has come in a few short years. Last time a general secretary decided it was time to call it a day, in came the headhunters and up came the name of an education official. As I recall subsequent events from an outsider's point of view, the men in suits were keen to defend their nice safe choice whilst Mick Brookes, then a real working head in Nottinghamshire, turned up on his motorbike and demanded to be added to the interview list. When Mick won the vote, education journalists were cheering him on and have continued to do so. Not only was it one of those David and Goliath moments which happen all too infrequently, but it was also a matter of common sense. Why shouldn't someone who leads for a living be able to up his or her game a bit and lead the leaders? Again, my personal and probably flawed recollection is that some people were waiting for Mick to slip up somewhere. But a larger number of people were willing him on and thoroughly enjoying watching a working head broaden his canvas, whilst never losing sight of the practicalities of what really goes on in a school. Like John Dunford, he's been a great ambassador for heads and what they actually do. So good luck to anyone who's considering applying for the job themselves. It's refreshing to see the net being intentionally cast so wide – and also that the advert itself has been written in plain English. *Watching the latest Harry Potter epic in the cinema at the weekend, my mind kept on wandering to wonder what exactly the officials at the independent safeguarding agency would have made of the goings-on at Hogwarts. I don't even know where they'd start. The students like to hang out with Hagrid, who lives in a shack outside the grounds, breeds dragons, multi-headed dogs and giant spiders and has some funny secrets in his past. They also appear to be encouraged to drink by members of staff, including at a local bar and in the Potions tutor's private rooms. And it's not unknown for teachers to be alone with students – with doors shut. And worse still, the school head (a shockingly old man who wears a dress) is prone to dragging off lone students on hideously dangerous adventures and ordering them to keep secrets. Put that way, the school sounds like a paedophile's charter – but however, fantastical, there is an innocent explanation for everything and rather a lot of safeguarding going on. Hard to see, though, how a paper-sifting official in Darlington is going to be able to make those sorts of judgments trawling through bits of “evidence” of whether someone is suitable to be in contact with children. Many listeners of Thursday's Today programme were open-mouthed at the convoluted way in which the children's minister reluctantly “clarified” how the new regulations might work for parents giving lifts to other people's kids. Her apparent difficulty in answering the question clearly, which might have killed the story stone dead, left the way open for all kinds of other concerns, which have flooded newspapers and the internet over the weekend. Although lots of the shouting has been about the effects on voluntary organisations, schools are clearly going to find even more implications than they have already experienced through the CRB regulations. One might be that parents and grandparents become more reluctant to volunteer their time, either because of all the publicity or because they resent the lack of trust. Those with spent convictions in their past may also be concerned about being turned down on a check, even if their misdemeanour was nothing more serious than shoplifting. Would they be willing to take the risk? Possibly not. Children, meanwhile, are quick to pick up on this sort of thing, and there is a definite shift of power implicit here. ISA officials will be looking at “soft” information, which might include malicious allegations. And if a bit of childhood spite can have that potential effect on your career or personal life, who's going to want to take the risk? Children should not fear adults – but adults shouldn't fear children either. And that looks like a real risk under the planned arrangements. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=182 Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:19:27 GMT 20090914151927 Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:19:27 GMT 20090914151927 Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:19:27 GMT 200909141531927 It's not often that reading a book really is a life-changing experience, despite what blurb-writers like to suggest on the cover. But I've just finished Ben Goldacre's Bad Science, a book whose mission is to teach useful scepticism about alternative medicine, medical research – and above all, the way in which research is reported by drug companies and journalists alike. I've been pressing Bad Science on everyone I meet since, because even as a practicing journalist of far too many years, I have developed a tendency to give some credence to the Daily Mail style headlines along the lines that eating a bunch of dandelions for breakfast will stop you getting cancer. You assume that the journalists are accurately reporting the science, and that in turn the researchers were accurately reporting their research, and that in turn the research was conducted properly. Wrong! And possibly on all three counts. Anyway, it was the Bad Science approach that floated in front of me when I read this week's research suggesting that teaching assistants actually hinder the progress of their pupils. I usually go back to original sources before blogging on anything (I read it – so you don't have to) but Dr Goldacre's cheery rants have strengthened that instinct. Boy, am I confused now. According to the TES coverage, the problem is down to low-attaining and SEN pupils being put in the charge of TAs and therefore taken away from the curriculum and teachers. “It's the routine way in which children in most need of support are regularly separated from the curriculum,” research leader Professor Peter Blatchford told the TES. But go back to the press release put out to support the Institute of Education research by its press officer – who I know to be precise about getting things right – and there is another quote from Professor Blatchford. He says: "The reasons why pupils have this support in the first place – lower achievement, learning and behaviour difficulties, social class – have all been accounted for in the analysis. So we cannot say that pupil characteristics are the cause of their slower progress." So if these pupils were kept with the teachers, would they make the expected two subgroups of progress per year? If they did, would the rest of the class suffer from less teaching time? The Blatchford team make the useful point that teachers should be trained in how to manage TAs, and each pairing should get scheduled time to discuss pupil progress. But although this is a huge study, it contradicts previous research – including an EPPI review of previous research which looked in depth at 32 earlier papers and found that TAs, used properly, could help enhance children's basic literacy skills as well as other areas. Interestingly, this review also called for teachers to be taught how to manage support staff. You get another dimension of the argument by reading the postings on the TES website, many of which assert that the problem lies more in the policy of extensive inclusion of kids with special needs, often severe. Reading some of these rants, it's hard to agree with the conclusion of most of the research that pressure on teachers has been eased by having a TA in their classroom, but there you are. But by conducting a quick and dirty review of the research on offer, one thing is common to every study – the recommendation that we teach teachers how to manage their assistants. The only problem now is that there are probably 15 different bits of research telling you the best way to do it… and they'll all contradict each other. Ah well – that's what leadership is all about. So over to you on that bit. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=176 Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:42:40 GMT 20090907094240 Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:42:40 GMT 20090907094240 Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:42:40 GMT 200909070994240 Blogging today feels a little like intruding on private grief. Here I am, sitting peacefully in front of a computer, whilst I know thousands of school leaders are rushing round schools on that adrenaline high that September brings. And on top of the usual extra layers of paperwork and bureaucracy that the new year has brought, few of which have anything to do with actually teaching the kids, there is a real feeling of change in the air. To misquote Donald Rumsfeld, there are lots of knowns this year – but even more unknowns, or partially unknowns. For a start, there's the likelihood of action against the KS2 SATS. It's a long time since heads threatened to act alongside a teacher union in this way, and therefore lots of unknowns. How would parents react? What official action would there be? What about the governors, or the local authority? And given that we might be in the middle of a general election at that point, would all the politicians be looking the other way? And then there's swine flu. If it does come back with a vengeance, as we've all been warned, at what point will it be deemed OK for a school to close? What happens to the new “rarely cover” rule if half the staff are at home in bed? How will attendance be judged if you decide to close because staff levels are unsafe? And what about league tables? Then there's all the whip-cracking stuff about coasting schools, national challenge schools and the new powers the Government has taken for itself to intervene if it thinks the local authority is being a bit lily-livered. Whether it does or not probably depends, as so much else will during the next few months, on the progress of the H1N1 virus and also on how things are going politically. Politics may well prove important to schools for other reasons. According to a long op-ed piece in the Telegraph this weekend, the Tories have decided that the NHS is too sacred a cow to touch during a first term in office (and thereby by implication during an election campaign). Education, therefore, is going to be The Big One for them as far as campaigning goes, and also during a first term of office should Mr Cameron gain the keys to Downing Street. And the Gove plans would have enormous implications for school leaders. Primaries would lose SATs tests to secondaries. Diplomas might stop in their tracks. League tables would be reformulated and parents could start their own schools. Since as far as I'm aware, that option has been on the statute books in some form for a while now, it's not clear to me that it will make a lot of difference. Except, interestingly, one or two high-profile parents are actually threatening to do it under the new plans. Toby Young, journalist and inspiration for the film How To Make Friends and Alienate People, says he wants to start one for his four London-based children. Not too sure what qualities will be required by heads of these schools… Anyway, it's clearly going to be an interesting year… Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=174 Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:37:09 GMT 20090901133709 Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:37:09 GMT 20090901133709 Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:37:09 GMT 200909011313709 Apparently VisitBritain is trying to concoct a perfume which evokes the UK. Desirable elements apparently include the whiffs of cut grass and lawnmower petrol. If there was a smell to the pointless educational debate which is routinely fired up every August, I'd suggest that should be the number one ingredient in the mix. If I were a head, or a teacher, I'd spend August in a state of fury as the whole nation has a go at you for doing what you've been instructed to do. Does any other nation on earth work itself into a froth about exam results, on the grounds that they must be getting easier/they are the wrong subjects/school leavers still can't spell? Meanwhile the Government minister wheeled out to comment comes out with something soothing, whilst we all know perfectly well that plans are being hatched for yet more stuff to be done by schools next year. The problem as far as I can see is that we need to have a bigger debate about education, not the smaller one we roll out every summer. Put simply: what is education for? As a nation, what do we want it to do for us and our children? Is education about the transmission of our culture to the next generation? Is it fitting them for a lifetime of living? For work? To sort out social inequality? Other nations now seem much clearer about this than we are, perhaps because they have done less mucking around with the system in the first place. It's also easier for independent schools, which have also resisted wholesale tinkering with what they do and why. Private school parents are paying for their kids to emerge “well educated” in the old-fashioned way, with reasonable knowledge of science, history and literature, the chance to have developed their interests with music and sports, and also enough good exam results to take them further. But the state sector is a bit more of a mess, driven by all sorts of competing imperatives which all started as good ideas but are not necessarily working well together. Take the National Curriculum, which emerged from the desire to make sure everyone would have had access at school to the same body of knowledge – the idea that education is transmission of culture. Most people can relate happily to that idea, but the curriculum was just too damn big to start with, and is about to change yet again. Still, it meant I could have a cheery conversation with my seven-year-old niece at the weekend, bursting with information about Henry VIII and how he cut off the head of Elizabeth's mummy. (Mummy's name, it emerged, was Amber Lynn…) Then came the “simple pencil and paper tests” to make sure kids were keeping up and not slipping through the net. Again, these became rather more complicated – and then acquired a whole new purpose to make sure schools were kept on their toes. Parental choice – sorry, preference? Great idea. How can we help them choose? Let's have a league table, created from exam and test results. But not all academic exams will count – so it doesn't matter how many kids opt for the International Baccalaureate, you'll only get points for this IT diploma. Maths and English not doing well enough? Right, let's have a new sort of league table which only counts your A-C grades if they include both of those subjects. A Levels too old fashioned? Make them modular, then muck around with the number of modules when it doesn't work. Pupils don't know what to do to improve? Set them tasks which include clear definitions of the marks they'll get for including different levels of information. So out of years of good intentions, we now have the mad system whereby tests intended to check kids were doing well enough at school are primarily there to show how well the schools are doing. Schools may find themselves making decisions about what exams the pupils should sit to maximise their league table potential, rather than the pupils'. And, as the rather fantastic Assessment in Schools – Fit for Purpose report points out, there's an awful lot of weight being placed on tests which are intended for something entirely different. And still the arguments rage on about grade inflation, setting, selection and grammar schools, with politicians promising to tinker around the edges of how the league tables work. They can chunter about rigour and world-class and employers and vocational education till they're blue in the face, but it doesn't take us anywhere. What's needed is a proper, grown-up debate about what we really want education to do, and then make the necessary changes. Time to look at the big picture. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=173 Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:06:28 GMT 20090824150628 Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:06:28 GMT 20090824150628 Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:06:28 GMT 200908241530628 Here it is: the blogger's nightmare week of the year. A Level results out, improved for the umpteenth year running. Time for the annual shouting match as one side claims lower standards and the other improved teaching and hard work. There was even a study attempting to prove it one way or the other about a decade ago, which as I recall turned out to be inconclusive because there were great gaps in the papers which had been kept, and because the content and style of the exam had changed. It would be interesting to re-run the exercise now with particular reference to pre and post curriculum 2000 A Levels, and looking at the effect re-takes have on results, but I suspect it's not the interests of the current government or its quangoes to do it. At least this year there are a couple of interesting interventions from Professor Alan Smithers and Peter Hyman, the former Blair adviser who's now a deputy head at a London secondary. Put briefly, Smithers is arguing that pass rates for the IB have fluctuated over the past years but not shown an upward trend, unlike A Level. Therefore, A Level must have been getting easier and the IB has not. Hyman describes “spoon feeding” exam candidates their GCSE material whilst desperately trying to get them thinking during school assemblies and other off-lesson time. If he thinks the exam system needs an overhaul, then he's in an interesting position as a former “one of us” with aquired specialist knowledge. The think tank Civitas have got in on the act, releasing a survey of teachers who mostly mutter about dumbing-down of A Levels. And, unsurprisingly, the Tories have decided to tell us a little about how their education review is going, revealing that they plan to do something to make GCSEs and A Levels more rigorous (no idea what, yet) and, interestingly, that league tables could be revamped with a sliding scale of points for different exam grades. Most vocational qualifications wouldn't be eligible for league tables at all. Which I can see in one way, but also seems to take us back 20 years. I hate to mention France or Germany, but I'm going to – two economies apparently emerging from recession before us, both with strong traditions of good vocational and technical education. Meanwhile, the pilots of our hideously complicated new diploma, which seems to involve bussing kids all over their home towns for different elements of it, are apparently disappointing, with the worst aspects being functional literacy and numeracy. There do seem to be serious problems here, not of schools' or teachers' making, and it would be sensible – not to say a nice thought – if politicians were to make a habit of asking teachers what they think of what they are doing. But ironically, just as a real head of steam is building up over this, it is being dwarfed by a much more real problem: the immediate future of this year's school-leavers, whether at 16 or 18. For many of them, it's going to be bleak: not enough university places for everyone who wants them, and high rates of youth unemployment. As many as 20 per cent may be long-term unemployed by the age of 21 – and past experience shows they may never properly make it into the job market, even when the recession is over. What do you say to them, as schools, when they come in for their exam results? What do you say to next year's GCSE and A Level classes, who are working for an uncertain future? This is one area where platitudes won't do. Swift and sensible planning, perhaps for more apprenticeships is urgently needed. And schools need some quick and dirty advice on how to reassure, advise and guide a generation of young adults who may be about to be dealt one of the worst hands of the past century. Seen any signs of action in this area? No, nor have I. Susan Young Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=171 Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:35:37 GMT 20090817153537 Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:35:37 GMT 20090817153537 Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:35:37 GMT 200908171533537 Normally, I'm a news junkie even on holiday, getting my daily fix from echoing longwave bulletins and the odd overseas edition of the British press. But not this summer. Ten days abroad was a blessed respite from swine flu hysteria, economic gloom, the Jordan divorce and political non-stories about Harriet Harman's views on women in charge. So in between the holiday washing, I've been settling down to read several missed copies of the TES. And the distance brought by even days out of touch makes you realise just how nutty many of the nation's attitudes to education are. My first jaw-dropper was the revelation that former bankers and the like aren't necessarily capable of being classroom-ready in the few months proposed by the Government's new fast-track teachers scheme. The Institute of Education, running the pilot programme, is sending most applicants off to conventional courses and says it may not fill its 40 places. Well, der, as my daughters would say. Only starry-eyed Government ministers would assume that the skills which make a good banker are identical to those of a good teacher. And possibly the authors of that new report from Politeia whose general thrust was that our teachers are the most underqualified in the world. And in their later careers, also among the worst paid, most of them didn't add. Then there was a report finding that Japanese teachers work longer hours than their British colleagues – but despite that, teachers here are far more stressed because of league tables. Wonder what the bankers will make of that? Sats results are apparently hideously disappointing because they actually dropped (shock, horror!) by a whole percentage point on last year. One percent! The outrage! And they say teachers are underqualified at maths… But then there's the stuff which is under the radar. For instance, the new regs which mean everyone in schools has to be CRB checked every three years and even the most fantastic schools won't score well with Ofsted unless they are seen to have dotted all the paperwork Is and crossed all the Ts. And then there's the row over authors refusing to be vetted to do book readings in schools. I can see their point. It's not as if they are going to be doing one to one sessions with kids, or taking them off into dark corners. It gives the sinister feeling that no adults can be trusted to meet children unless the State vets them. Even Michael Bichard, whose report into the Soham murders started the whole CRB circus, is quoted as saying that including the authors seems to be overdoing it a bit. And a couple of final thoughts on this. One is that Ian Huntley, whose murky past wasn't revealed when he got the job as a school caretaker in Soham, did not know Holly and Jessica through his work. He knew them because his girlfriend was their class teaching assistant. Which means, as far as I can see, that the same thing could happen again, providing the murderous boyfriend or girlfriend didn't actually work in education themselves. The next Maxine Carr's boyfriend may work in IT or some other blameless job. He would still be trusted by children who knew his girlfriend, or simply knew him as a neighbour. And unless you check absolutely everybody who children might trust (other parents in the school playground, for instance) you can't legislate against that. The other final thought: I was interviewing the HR director of Brighton Pier recently about the difference training members of staff has made to their job satisfaction. In passing, he mentioned that staff from other parts of Europe, particularly southern and Eastern countries, hate working on the children's rides. Why? Because they are allowed no physical contact with them, which feels completely unnatural. Are abuse rates astronomically high in the rest of the EU? I'd really like to know if we're really helping children – and what the long-term effects of all this will be. Maybe all this will seem sane and normal after another week back in the UK... Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=168 Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:00:06 GMT 20090810160006 Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:00:06 GMT 20090810160006 Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:00:06 GMT 200908101640006 I've been scratching my head a bit ever since listening to former minister Alan Milburn talking about how to improve social mobility, and the recommendations in the Fair Access report he and a committee of experts have published today. He's impeccably qualified to lead such a project, given that his life's journey took him from a council estate to the heart of Government. Presumably that's one reason Gordon Brown asked him to take it on. You could argue that like every politician, he has aspirations in spades. And being a successful politician, he probably has the hide of a rhinoceros, which is also a useful attribute for getting on in life. And you cannot argue with the premise that people from every background should have the same opportunities to succeed and use their talents, and that the most “desirable” jobs (judges and journalists, from what I can work out) should be open to all. For once, schools are only part of the argument, but an interesting one. The Fair Access report is arguing that many more children in disadvantaged areas need to get five GCSEs, including maths and English, to even start to compete for these desirable jobs or university. They also need schools to teach “soft skills” for employability, and join up to organisations which are more common in the private sector, such as the Cadet Force or the Duke of Edinburgh award. I couldn't agree more with all this, but not purely because it makes people more employable. There used to be this quaint idea that education was all about giving people the building blocks for adult life – all of it, and not just the 9 to 5 bit. This notion has survived in private schools to some extent, but government expectations from state schools over the past decade or so have been frankly utilitarian. There is also useful talk of giving money for disadvantaged pupils directly to their schools, and a slightly vague suggestion of allowing children in underperforming schools to carry extra cash to encourage a more popular school to take them in. We're told this will encourage the popular schools to expand. Not really convinced, again – firstly, because it's usually down to the local authority to give such permission, and secondly because good schools aren't infinitely elastic. There's also a suggestion that governors should include university employees to encourage closer links with schools. All of which is interesting stuff, but again suggests a punitive attitude towards schools which are experiencing an uphill struggle in their everyday work with the poorest people in society. One primary head regularly makes my hair stand on end when he outlines the routine problems for children and their families with which he struggles each week— alcoholism and violence being the basics. Aspirations? On the estate in which he works, families wonder if there is something wrong with their children if they are not themselves parents at 16. Getting the children to aspire to anything outside what they know is a full-time job. Schools and Sure Start really aren't enough to challenge this kind of nurture, and it's partly a product of the exceptionally polarised society in which we live. My other slight concern is of letting down the pupils who do manage their five GCSEs, or their A Levels, or their degree – and then find the bar has been raised still higher for that desirable job. Sorry, you'll need a Masters now. That's one of the odd (to me) underlying assumptions of this report: that apparently experts have told the committee that most of the new jobs created over the next decade will be professional and managerial ones, and that we're going to be even more of a service industry nation than we are now. Leaving aside the puzzling idea that we will somehow require more lawyers, or that the NHS will be able to afford more doctors, or that any media organisation will pay for more journalists while the old financial model is still being undermined by free news on the Web, I can't quite see what all these people are going to manage. Surely part of our current problems is that most of the jobs we've had in the UK recently have been providing services to each other, and then using our wages to import stuff that other people have made or grown. Is it a safe economic model to come out of the recession doing exactly the same, but more so? And if only super-privileged kids are getting into the desirable jobs, surely that's partly because the pool of jobs that people regard as desirable have mysteriously shrunk over the years. Fair Access is all about getting children and young people and their parents to be aspirational, but to a very narrow range of jobs. On a swift reading of its 167 pages, there's no mention I can see of getting children aspiring to be scientists or high-quality engineers, or anything else which would enable UK PLC to compete technologically or at least make more of the stuff that people want to buy. Given that today the Government has given the go-ahead for 10,000 more university places than it originally intended – but only in science, technology, engineering and maths – there seems to be a bit of a gap in its joined-up thinking here. Does it want practical, highly educated people, or does it want “professionals”? Shouldn't we as a nation aspire to more? Fair Access points out that journalism is now stuffed with privately educated people from backgrounds of income which is way above average, but that not all that long ago a school-leaver could join a paper as a messenger and work their way up to being a Fleet Street star. When I started out, as a graduate from a very modest background, all the training was geared to people with A Levels. The old hands all loathed graduates. We were apprenticed to our papers for a couple of years, till we passed the proficiency test which checked our accuracy and flair as reporters as well as practical knowledge of law, institutions and shorthand. It was a fantastic way to train, because you learned about tenacity, hard work, how to get people to talk and how to then present the information. You learned from mistakes (I still cringe at the memory of my second day, when I asked a rabbi for his Christian name) and you learned it wasn't a glamorous job, but a really interesting one. Why has it turned into a graduate profession? Because we've all been sold the idea that it's better to learn at university, and because competition is so enormous for a job in “the media” that you have to jump through more hoops first. Has the level of professionalism increased? Some of the best journalists I know started work at 17 or 18. These days, when schoolkids or students ask me about careers in journalism, my opening gambit is to suggest they consider doing something else. The current hunger for celebrity means there is so much competition for media work, and it's increasingly hard to actually find a job. If they are determined, I suggest getting a science or maths qualification first. If they still want to be journalists, at least they've got a unique selling point among all the arts and journalism grads. And they can always fall back on a real job. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=162 Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:52:56 GMT 20090721155256 Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:52:56 GMT 20090721155256 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:50:41 GMT 2009072211115041 Last week there was much wailing and wringing of hands because some scientists had created sperm in a lab, leading to fears of the redundant male. This week we need more men, urgently, in the nation's classrooms. In the newsroom of The Sun, this is known as a reverse ferret – in other words, when you completely change tack on a story. I've got a vague memory of a big research project coming out about five years ago, which concluded that the sex of the teachers was irrelevant to how the kids did. I can perfectly well believe that – and yet, I do think that male and female teachers often bring something different to the party, and that difference can be hugely important. Unscientifically, I thought back to my own schooldays and realised that the male teachers were the ones I really remember, and not just for their rarity value. They were the characters, the ones who brought themselves into the classroom, the ones – as Denis Healey would say – with a hinterland. There was Mr Wheeler, the primary teacher who rode a penny-farthing round town and owned a steam engine. He was also nutty about Gilbert and Sullivan, and put on The Mikado and the Pirates of Penzance with a cast of ten-year-olds. Marvellous, that was. There was his colleague, the enormously tall Mr Stone, who encouraged the writing of stories that went on and on, getting ever more inventive. In secondary there was the art teacher who was also a published poet. Mr Szirtes wrote a couple of extraordinary school productions (even more extraordinary in the context of a rather staid girls' grammar school), encouraged our creative writing efforts, and ran a printing club with an ancient press at lunchtimes. There was an irascible Physics teacher who had a mean aim with a board rubber, and the most fantastic biologist, Mr Graham, whose cheery explanation for the evolutionary benefits of eyebrows I remember clearly to this day. That's enough teachers, but you get the picture. They were interesting, unpredictable, and wanted to share their own passions and interests with the pupils. And it's partly because of this collection of maverick males that I have such affectionate memories from school, making me (I hope) the sort of parent who fully supports and encourages my own children's education. Perhaps we should be shipping such teachers to areas where schooling isn't much valued? Don't get me wrong – I had fantastic female teachers too. But they tended to leave their obsessions outside the classroom. Or maybe it's only men who have those kinds of obsessions? And I know not all male teachers have that quirky edge, although unscientifically I'd think it's a much higher proportion than in their female colleagues. They're still in the system as well – I know of one whose former pupils can sing along to most Beatles songs. Maybe as a man, you have to be a bit of a character to brave the tide and go into teaching. Modern teaching probably does actively dissuade men. False accusations are a real worry for all teachers now, and men feel particularly vulnerable. And (this is purely my personal opinion), in the same way that boys and girls often learn in different ways, men and women operate in different ways. Men prefer not to read the instruction manual (“it's cheating”) and refuse to ask for directions until they've been round the same one-way system three times. If you want more men in the system, the system may have to allow them to go off-piste in lessons a little more often, and make them feel truly protected against a casual accusation. In other words, some big changes are needed. Can't see them happening though. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=154 Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:56:23 GMT 20090713115623 Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:56:23 GMT 20090713115623 Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:46:16 GMT 200907151424616 It's that brilliant time of year where most of your hard graft is done and there's fun on the timetable. Sports weeks, activity weeks and school fairs have the upper hand on policies and planning, and school leaders are on show, meeting and greeting, congratulating pupils and gladhanding parents. But there are a few clouds gathering on the horizon. Public sector pay is clearly being put up for discussion as a “painless” cut which could be made to ease our rickety finances. More ominously, there are signs of public anger brewing over the issue. A local paper website ran an article about the number of “fatcats” earning more than £50k in one local authority, naming heads as among these highly-paid staff. Reaction from readers was, universally and vociferously, outrage. Strangely, there seemed to be no differentiation made between heads and anonymous County Hall managers, and that really surprised me. And with Alastair Darling, David Cameron and the head of the Audit Commission all touching on public sector pay in some way, shape or form over past days, smaller pay rises or a freeze all look increasingly likely – which could be doubly problematic for heads if one or more of the teacher unions decides to take action over it. It also puts a question mark over schools or federations which either decide or are forced to pay big bucks for a head to do the job. Some school leaders may decide to sit tight on their current salaries if advertised jobs are going at a lesser rate. And what about these heads of school chains which the White Paper is so keen to establish? You'd want a few bob for that kind of responsibility. Trouble is, you can't have one rule for bankers (“we have to compete to keep the talent”) and another for the public sector. Or you can, and wait for the trouble to start. Especially if you're also trying to make those same staff jump through yet more hoops, such as a five-year MOT or running chains of schools. And it's not only me who was somewhere between baffled and horrified by the parenting requirement put on schools in the White Paper last week, which will also cause all sorts of problems for heads. Here's the relevant section: “In applying for a school place every parent will agree to adhere to the school's behaviour rules. Once their child is in school, the parents will be expected to sign the agreement each year and will face real consequences if they fail to live up to the responsibilities set out within it, including the possibility of a court-imposed parenting order. In turn, parents will also have the right to complain if they believe the school is not holding other parents to their responsibilities.” Heads I've chatted with since have generally been unaware of this one, although a poster on the TES website has helpfully brought it to colleagues' attention. A gift for the pitchforks and lanterns brigade, thought one head, whilst others were left speechless. As I said last week, the wording is weaselly – parents are “expected” to sign the agreement each year, and “will face real consequences” if they don't live up to the agreement. Sanctions may include taking them to court to get parenting orders. For starters, how legally enforceable is this? Suppose a school's home school agreement is deemed unreasonable by a court? Could faith schools impose a continuing worship requirement on parents, for instance? Or will the agreement be purely about pupil behaviour? And, as one head pointed out to me, how many schools have the time, the inclination or the cash to take parents to law? The licence to teach idea also needs a bit of flesh on its bones. The GTC's floating of this one suggested teachers would need to demonstrate their continuing professional development, but rather than chalking up hours should do some action research via its own Teachers' Learning Academy. This would verify work done in the teacher's own classroom. Somehow, I can't see that being what the Government is after, especially after reading last week's piece by Michael Barber, who shaped early Labour education policy. It's an interesting read, on how to improve schools on shrinking budgets, based on worldwide learning about what works. Cheerily for heads, a lot of what works is giving schools the money to get on with it. But that's not all, inevitably. Let me cherrypick a couple of paragraphs. “Every system needs to create an environment in schools in which every lesson is a good one, and teaching is - in Michael Fullan's well-chosen word - "deprivatised" so teachers continuously improve their pedagogy. Experimenting on the basis of deep knowledge, continuous professional dialogue and rapid feedback will drive improvement, lead to bottom-up innovation, and enhance professional satisfaction,” he says. Later, he adds: “….there are other more serious problems. “Obsessions with policies that are wrong and expensive, such as continuing marginal reductions in class size or protecting teachers' "rights" to teach as they wish in the citadel of their own classrooms, is widespread. Many still cling to the demonstrably false view that creativity consists of each teacher making it up in the classroom. This is not creativity, it is betrayal.” So, a Labour version of the licence to teach is likely to include specified forms of CPD. Will this take place during school hours, Inset days, or in a teacher's spare time? Will supply cover be needed? Will it be down to heads to monitor the system, as with the threshold? Or are we looking at another new quango, which would them presumably be on David Cameron's hit list if he won the next election? Goodness knows how it's going to work, but I suspect the licence to teach idea isn't going to go away, whoever wins the next election. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=152 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:51:06 GMT 20090706165106 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:51:06 GMT 20090706165106 Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:46:49 GMT 200907151424649 Maybe it was the stiflingly hot afternoon. Maybe I've been in education too long. Or maybe the new Speaker was feeling kindly when he said there was no evidence of briefings to the media on the new education White Paper before it was announced to the Commons. Whatever the reason, and despite all the hype – it's hard to avoid a sense of deju vu about the thing. The surprising bits – the ditching of the strategies and the school chains idea – found their way into the public domain days ago. But much of the rest of it has either been knocking around for months, if not years (the licence to teach and school report cards) or are actually in the current education bill (the raised school leaving age which is now, mysteriously part of the pupil guarantee). Lots of it is familiar if you've read official documents on the children's workforce, or children's health – but the full import of those two plans is still fairly heavily disguised in this one. And, as ever, there are some fantastically convoluted sentences. This is probably my favourite: “We have asked TDA and NCSL to work together to consider how the current resources supporting Training Schools, Teaching Schools and Leadership Development Schools could be best used to support and develop a more comprehensive and sustainable network of quality-assured cluster-based professional development provision, which takes advantage of links to existing providers of top-quality teacher training.” At least I understand that one, after a couple of readings. More baffling to me is the explanation of why Ofsted is about to become tougher when inspecting schools. The White Paper explains what inspectors will now be looking for, and concludes: “Through these changes, Ofsted is strengthening its focus on key aspects of schools' performance. Along with revisions to the descriptors for existing judgements, this means Ofsted will be raising its expectations of schools. Schools previously judged as 'satisfactory' or 'good' might find that unless they can demonstrate ongoing improvement they do not maintain that grade.” Translation (I think): we're moving the goalposts, because we can. But it's a really odd document, and after wrestling with it now for several hours, I think I might be starting to understand why. Reading between the lines, why are the Government publishing an education White Paper at all, with less than a year to go to the next election and a Bill currently in the works? Well, because of the next election, and the desperate need for the Government to look like it's got a vision. But since they've been legislating like crazy for the past 12 years, announcing fundamental changes now makes it look like they've got it wrong all that time. So what to do? Stick in some promises, say the spin doctors. But promises are a bit dangerous, so what we get is the pupil guarantee, which is effectively promising that schools will be safe and responsive to individuals' pupils' needs. Not much of a promise, that, is it? Oh, and there's something about an entitlement to five hours' sport and PE in and out of school each week. That one's been directly lifted from the children's health paper that came out earlier in the year – but it's less than clear how much of that sport has to happen in school hours, or in school. Anyway, in return for the guarantee parents must sign up to a home school agreement. Well, they're encouraged to. And if they don't comply (even if they don't sign) heads can cart them off to court for a parenting order. And other parents can shop mums and dads who don't comply. I'll be really interested to see how that one shapes up as legislation, and what heads then do with it. And I'll be interested to see what parents think of it, when effectively what they are being offered is what schools should be doing anyway, with threats if they don't sign up to it. Do I think this new version will improve parental support for good behaviour? Well, do you?? The personal tuition promise has also attracted attention – but again, it's already under way. Less well-publicised is that the entitlement is ten hours for primary children, and catch-up work, which may be in small groups, for stragglers in Year 7. The other crowd-pleasing stuff has also probably been oversold. The stuff about getting parents' take on local school provision sounds as though local authorities will be slapping up new primaries all over the place, if parents want them. Er… only if the capital budget is available, and if all the consultations have agreed that's really necessary rather than new federations, etc. Ditching the National Strategies is genuinely interesting. The cynic in me wonders how much of that is about saving money: this document suggests the cash will instead go to schools direct. But since Ed Balls, answering questions on the Today programme and also in Parliament, somehow omitted to explain where he'd found savings in his budget to fund the training guarantee, the suspicion has to remain. It didn't help that he answered almost every question by accusing the Conservatives of planning to cut education budgets to slash inheritance tax for squillionaires, to the point where the Speaker wearily suggested we'd all got that particular point. I quite took to Mr Bercow at that moment. For heads, the other big stories of the document are the prettily named Accredited Schools groups, and probably the ever-complicating circles of accountability. What's not made clear is how they might fit together. If you're a head of a fantastic school who then tucks a less fantastic school under your wing – and it still fails – what happens to you then? It's funny to read all these pious words about getting schools to work in partnership, or in chains, or federations – because that was how most did work, informally, before the advent of league tables and grant-maintained secondaries. Once every school had been put into competition, all that sensible stuff had to go out of the window. Perhaps enough has changed to make it work again, especially since Ofsted is going to be looking for partnerships – but with report cards, which will in practice create a new form of league table as well as what we've already got – it's not quite clear how it will all work. But with an election in the offing, who knows how much of it will have to? Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=150 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:29:37 GMT 20090630192937 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:29:37 GMT 20090630192937 Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:47:06 GMT 200907151424706 What is it about teaching and schools which appears to attract political types in their darkest moments? The headlines from Gordon Brown's weekend interview all concentrated on one thing. Not the “enormous” ears memorably described by the journalist, but his remark that he might choose to go into teaching after handing over the keys to Downing Street. This was quite something, coming within a day of the even more startling revelation that the disgraced spin-doctor Damian McBride has apparently made the shortlist for a job at his own former comprehensive, which would involve taking a pay cut of around two thirds. If that is true, that makes McBride the THIRD Labour spin doctor to publically find a new life in state education. There was Peter Hyman, whose ten years as a Blair aide found him writing speeches and organising strategy. He's now a London teacher with an interesting sideline making occasional appearances on Newsnight at times of high political drama. And most famously of all, there was Jo Moore, the spin doctor whose reaction to the 9/11 terrorist attacks was that “it was a very good day to bury bad news.” Not to mention her own career. She has kept a very low profile since, but was reported as doing primary teacher training in 2003. Leaving aside the statistical significance of this (it probably doesn't even register) – there's some fantastic unpicking of motives to be done. Are Labour politicos likelier to want to work in real public service in some way, after years running and spinning things? Do Tory insiders instead duck out of public life to spend more time with their moats? So what's going on? Is it Banker Syndrome – a conscience-salving retirement option once you've done the fun, lucrative, stuff (has your school had any applications from former bankers yet? Or is it all over-hyped?). Or– and this one worries me more – is working in a school seen as some kind of atonement? Some sort of hair-shirt for all the political expediencies you've been involved in? Something you do because you should? Or something that shows you're a nice person, really, and are willing to do a challenging job on a lower salary? All of which, frankly seems rather patronising towards teachers and teaching. Gordon Brown going into the classroom, though, would be in another league. His degree was in history, so he might struggle a bit to find a job in that subject. And I'm not entirely sure he'd be temperamentally suited to primary teaching, though I am sure he's a delight with his own kids. But here's the final sticking point – what head would take on a former prime minister as a newly qualified teacher? Would you? At around the age of 60? Would you fancy managing him? Giving performance related feedback? Encouraging him to reflect on his own practice? Spending a staff meeting with him? Letting him loose on parents' evenings? In short, the system created over the past decade by his own government has meant there is little place in a state school for someone who would effectively be a maverick – but what a fantastic one to have on board. If Mr Brown ends up teaching anywhere, it will presumably be either at a university, or a private school with a bit of wit and imagination – Anthony Seldon's Wellington College springs to mind. Not too sure how that would accord with his principles, though. But there again, going back to the source material – the original interview – it's clear that you're not going to be getting an application from G. Brown any time soon. He starts talking about education because he wants to make the point that we're living in a progressive age, the proof being that for the first time teaching is the most popular profession for university leavers. As it usually is during a recession, in my experience. Anyway, this is what the interview then actually says: “ 'It's a great profession. I could move to teaching…' He beams, as if to say, You see! There's always something else I can do!” Subtext? I think he's trying to put over the idea that he's neither wedded to power nor its trappings. I'm still not sure whether it's a subtle insult, but I suspect he doesn't mean it to be. But it provides insight into what politicians really think of teachers. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=147 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:01:17 GMT 20090622130117 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:01:17 GMT 20090622130117 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:01:17 GMT 200906221310117 The summer term is usually the one time of year when you've got a reasonable expectation that fewer vile bugs are doing the rounds of your pupils and staff. Windows are open, the kids are outside more, and sneezing is likely to be hayfever than anything catching. But not this summer – and we could be building up to an interesting autumn. Measles is currently the big thing round our way, and I don't live in Wales or the North of England, which are the only outbreaks which seem to be getting any national publicity. That makes me think that reports of an imminent national epidemic could well be right. What dismays me is that all those papers which gave minute details of the discredited links between the measles vaccine and autism (bugs in the bowel wall of affected children, if I remember rightly) have almost completely ignored the same level of detail when it comes to measles outbreaks. We are getting bald figures for an outbreak in an area – twenty, thirty, forty cases -- which doesn't sound all that scary. But on the ground, what's been happening is shocking – and I am speaking as someone who's so ancient that I remember catching measles when I started school, and passing it on to my baby sister, who was really ill. No MMR then – it was just one of those childhood illnesses. Last week I heard from a school governor how one mother – of vaccinated children – had somehow picked up the virus whilst taking or fetching to school. She hadn't been inside the building, so had been infected by a child coughing or sneezing in the open air of the playground. That woman – too old to have been given the MMR injection – has been hospitalised, seriously ill for three weeks, and “at death's door” for one of those. How many other school staff, parents – or adults in general – will also be without immunity? It's not just adults who are becoming critically ill. At least one child from two affected families that I know of have been hospitalised with breathing difficulties or requiring a drip. Even children who get milder cases seem to be properly ill for two or three weeks. If one child gets it, their siblings inevitably seem to follow, by which time they've also infected children at their own schools. And as far as I can see, there's no policy of asking siblings of infected families to stay away from school – and no incentive for individual schools to do so, given attendance regulations which stung those schools which stayed open during the winter's snowstorms. And so inevitably it spreads within schools and between schools. Since parents are asked to keep children away from school for 48 hours after sickness or diarrhoea, allowing them in with known exposure to measles seems peculiar. And there is one other knock-on effect, which may be of less interest to school leaders but which is worth being aware of, and that's the corrosive effect on relations between parents. In its mildest form, it's the way a conversation peters out once a pro-vaccine parent has enquired after the health of a child who's caught measles. What else can you say which isn't implied criticism? But if a parent has a child who's either too young for the MMR jab or immunosuppressed in some way, then they are likely to be really angry with others whose actions are allowing this potential killer to re-emerge. And while some tardy vaccinators have been prompted to get their children jabbed, the militant wing is still refusing. I've heard mutterings that this kind of thing is tantamount to child abuse, and I've seen some very awkward conversations. How long it will be before this boils over into a parental playground argument or worse, I can't imagine. But I can see school leaders having to wade in tactfully. The former leader of the British Medical Association had a point about following the line in other countries and insisting on a full vaccine record before children are allowed to start school, but I can't see any government trying to make that happen right now. The other idea, that schools should set that stipulation themselves, is clearly unworkable (but as was slyly suggested, means non-vaccinated kids would be segregated in their own little infection zone. Tough on the kids – and their teachers.). But September is going to be where the real problems start. It's medical wisdom that schools are the fount of most infection, with disease peaks just after the start of the autumn and spring terms. Swine flu numbers are expected to rocket then, with potentially a rolling programme of school closure. Add measles to that and there's a pretty horrific scenario. How many of your pupils – and staff – are immune? Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=134 Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:54:16 GMT 20090608185416 Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:54:16 GMT 20090608185416 Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:54:16 GMT 200906081865416 Education reporters joke that if you've been in the business long enough, there are no truly new developments. Vouchers for education are floated as a brilliant idea roughly once every two Parliaments. Curriculums veer between one extreme and the other. Education theory is cyclical. But even I choked on my cornflakes at the school arson statistics, which got MPs all fired up about something other than their duck houses last week. In case you missed it – an average of 20 schools are damaged or destroyed by fire each week – yes, each week – costing something like £58m a year. Just over half of all fires are started deliberately. Schools minister Jim Knight has now been pushed into meeting council bosses, academy builders and insurers, apparently to find out why only 400 of the UK's 32,000 schools have sprinkler systems. All new builds are supposed to have been fitted with them since 2007, including those in the BSF programme. The reason for my choking wasn't that this was a new story, but that in the early 1990s, when I started on the TES, one of my first contacts was a big cheese in the Fire Protection Association, an organisation which basically does what it says on the tin. I can't even remember his name now, but he was really concerned about schools. Millions of pounds was, even then, going up in smoke every year, and he argued that sprinkler systems, even installed after schools were built, were a cost-effective measure. Then, as now, schools were high-risk buildings: they are a symbol of oppression for disaffected pupils and former pupils, empty at night, and often quietly situated in the middle of housing estates, hidden in grounds or behind walls. I wrote a few stories about it, and we returned to the theme over the years after particularly high-profile blazes. But since nothing really changed, and (thankfully) injuries are comparatively rare – 290 in a decade – it's one of those stories which doesn't really go anywhere. And it would be a brave minister who'd decide to spend millions protecting schools against teenagers with matches. But, also, it would be a far-sighted politician who'd decide to take action. And that's why the letter sent by the other heads' union to the prime minister this week, urging him not to reshuffle yet another education secretary out of post, is an interesting line in the sand. Clearly Mr Brown isn't going to take a blind bit of notice. If he wants Mr Balls for Chancellor, that's what he'll do. But it does no harm to point out that having a new education secretary roughly every two years means piling unfinished policy on top of unfinished policy. At least the Merits of Statutory Instruments committee has finally told the DCSF that regulations can only start on September 1 (except in exceptional circumstances – wonder how many of those will arise?), that a term's notice has to be given, and that the impact of new regulations must be reviewed. But in many ways that treats the symptoms, not the cause. And of course, it's a wider problem than education. Currently there's no incentive for governments to think long-term about anything. That problem might be usefully addressed in the current debate on how our government should work… but it's hard to see it happening. Perhaps a few postcards from heads of schools which have gone up in smoke might help. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=133 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:26:32 GMT 20090601172632 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:26:32 GMT 20090601172632 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:26:32 GMT 200906011752632 It's half term and you're on the home straight. Tests have been sat, exams are chugging along, and anyone who was going to resign should have done it by now. And you've probably done lots of interviewing to fill your vacant posts, and are feeling quietly confident about the future. But – what have you appointed? Did you choose the best candidate for the job, or the best candidate for your team? Because current practice in recruitment is causing its own problems. Classic leadership theory says that teams work best with a mixture of personalities and attributes. A team of six high-achievers is doomed to perform more poorly than a team which probably doesn't look so good on paper. So you might have a chairman figure leading the show, whose role is to bring out the talents of other members. You have the ideas person, who maybe doesn't have a clue to put them into practice – and then you have the practical one who can figure out how to make the next step. You have the person who can go outside to pick up useful information, you need those who'll do the donkey work – and you need the finisher, the details person who will painstakingly bring it all together. And you need someone to push everyone to work together and get it all done on time. People can, and do, swap roles in different teams according to what's already there. But when you've recruited recently, was that your driving concern? According to a business psychologist I spent a fascinating hour with recently, more and more leaders are hitting their heads with frustration about how to hire the person they need for the job, rather than the best candidate. “I'm often being asked how they can employ the person they really need without ending up with legal challenges,” she said. “It really is a problem now.” There are things you can do to help ensure you get the right person – starting with being careful about your job specification from the off – but it's the sort of minefield heads could do without. On the subject of roles, the transformation of Chris Woodhead from teachers' bogeyman in chief to minor sainthood is one of the wonders of our time. The letters page in the TES has several letters praising his new stance on Ofsted, although it's not clear that they agree with the whole of his argument that it was quite good when he led it but has turned into an arm of government policy since. Being very old, I seem to recall that The Man Who Inspected Schools For The Queen had harsh words to say about the organisation almost as soon as he stopped being in charge of it. So why do people seem to like him now? Was he a man ahead of his time, whose time has now come? Is he such a natural contrarian that at some point he's bound to be fashionable? Is it because he's being rude about Ofsted and government control of teaching, finally chiming with what teachers have been saying for years? Or is it a combination of his disdain for what's happening to teaching and what's happening to him through serious illness? Whatever it is, you'd rather have him inside your tent than outside it. Even if he is a late convert, and he still has view on some things (eg middle-class kids) to have the Daily Mail swooning at his feet. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=126 Tue, 26 May 2009 15:27:33 GMT 20090526152733 Tue, 26 May 2009 15:27:33 GMT 20090526152733 Tue, 26 May 2009 15:27:33 GMT 200905261532733 Well, that's the end of an era then. The last science SAT has been sat, and the jury is out on what will happen with the maths and English tests for next summer. And the question is not just what might be sat next year, but when. The Government's expert committee on the tests has slung the cat among the pigeons by suggesting that they should get shifted to the second half of the summer term in Year 6. There are apparently worries that some primaries ease up on the maths and literacy after SATs and this causes problems for the children when they start at secondary several months later. My immediate thought is that – yes, most primaries will ease up a bit on the literacy and numeracy focus. Of course they will – because the previous weeks and maybe months will have seen an unusual level of focus on those two subjects because, er, there are tests coming up. So, providing they don't completely abandon maths and English for the last six weeks, what's the problem? The thing is, that if the tests weren't almost seen as the point and climax of primary schooling in some corners, then you could hold them whenever you liked and it wouldn't make much of a difference. Maybe the new school report cards will erase the league-table mentality, but since the whole system is based on targets, that's not going to happen in a hurry. And shunting the tests closer to the end of term may sound like a minor change – but while the tests themselves are given such importance, that change has major ramifications. Heads who are accustomed to taking Year 6 out on residentials and doing interesting things with them once the tests are out of the way are tearing their hair out, not knowing yet if they can honour next summer's bookings or if they'll have to turn next year's curriculum upside down. If there is a shorter window of freedom between SATs and the summer holidays, fewer schools are going to be able to take the children away as there is less time to do it in, and economics suggests prices will rise with increased demand in those weeks. Schools could, and do, take the kids camping in Year 5, or – perhaps – earlier in the year, but these solutions have their own disadvantages. Weather and also SATs preparation are against an earlier Year 6 residential: doing it in Year 5 means the children are that much less mature. Residentials and post-SATs activities are a brilliant part of the kids' development. They combine a bit of reward for hard work, with a gentle repositioning of the pupils as more mature people who are ready for the comparative independence of secondary school. You can see the Year Six kids grow before your very eyes in that last few weeks, somehow outgrowing primary and looking far more ready for secondary. Part of that moving on is the final reports and the graduation ceremonies which are slowly being adopted. But if the test results are seen as achievements of the children, rather than for the school, then there is more than an element of unfinished business to graduate without them. I do wonder what impact it would have on children to get their results at home, by letter, whilst in that slightly nervy time just before starting secondary school. Perhaps if SATs were rethought, and lost their high-stakes overtones, then moving them would be fine. As things are, moving them sounds like a small change – with huge ramifications. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=125 Mon, 18 May 2009 18:13:47 GMT 20090518181347 Mon, 18 May 2009 18:13:47 GMT 20090518181347 Mon, 18 May 2009 18:13:47 GMT 200905181861347 You just can't stop yourself reading it, can you? Pipes under tennis courts, the services of a mole-catcher, dog food, toilet seats, light bulbs…and dry rot treatment. The details of MPs expenses, enumerated in eye-watering detail for the past week and perhaps the one to come as well, are just horrifyingly compulsive. The justifications are pretty uniform, though, veering between blaming cock-ups on the accounting front to a blanket assertion that the claims were within the rules. I seem to remember NAHT members being sternly told last week that it would not set a good example to children if heads boycotted next year's SATs tests. Fortunately for Ed Balls, the minister doing the admonishing, he seems to have come through the expenses row reasonably unscathed. But in the present climate, that was a risky thing for any minister to utter. But there is a bit more synchronicity between the MPs expenses row and the SATs row, and that's public accountability. Most MPs fought tooth and nail to keep their expenses secret, trying to exempt themselves from the Freedom of Information act and taking the argument to the High Court. And, as I understand it, when the expenses are officially released in July, they will have the relevant addresses blanked out, which would have made it hard to understand which home MPs were claiming for, and other salient details. In the current climate, the media and the public are unlikely to approve of any changes which make official bodies less open about operations and efficiency. MPs expenses are going to come back to haunt everybody in the public sector, probably for years. Which means that there is some very careful thinking and presentation to be done around the handling of a SATs boycott and suggesting alternative strategies for both the monitoring of children's progress and ensuring that schools are seen to be accountable. For while it would be cheeky for ministers to use the example of their colleagues' expenses to argue for openness in public services, it will no doubt be alluded to as the campaign wears on. In the weeks to come, and assuming Parliament has taken some action to clean up the abuses, a useful euphemism will be coined – perhaps “in the current climate” – which can be wheeled out against opponents. But on the plus side – who are the public likeliest to believe? Headteachers, promising full accountability but arguing for a better educational experience for children – or politicians accusing heads of wanting to go backwards. And in the meantime – good luck with the SATs revision. It will be interesting to see whether you are still doing it this time next year. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=124 Mon, 11 May 2009 16:53:46 GMT 20090511165346 Mon, 11 May 2009 16:53:46 GMT 20090511165346 Mon, 11 May 2009 16:53:46 GMT 200905111645346 It was one of those brilliant coincidences. On the very day NAHT members were gathering in the rather gloomy surroundings of the Brighton Centre, to vote on whether they would support continuing tests for 11-year-olds, outside the streets were a riot of cheerful kids. Thousands of pupils from more than seventy schools in and around the city take part in a Children's Parade which each year launches the Brighton Festival. Each year there is a different theme, and schools, kids and parents spend hours making costumes, huge mobile centrepieces and rehearsing samba bands. It's a fantastic example of just what creativity in schools can foster, and is a genuinely happy morning as children take over the streets with pride in their achievements. And it would have been an interesting experience had education secretary Ed Balls, en route to speaking at the conference, had joined the crowd and informally asked a few parents what they really think of SATS in their current form. In my experience, it's hard to find the parents of pupils in Year 6 who are keen on what education gives their children between September and mid-May, and they tend to be even more horrified when their children get tested all over again when they arrive at their secondary schools. It's also hard to find, outside London, parents who obsess about the difference of one or two percentage points in the league table performance of local schools, or might go for a school which looks worse but actually has fabulous value-added. How much do most parents use league table information to choose a primary school, if there's one they like close by? Debatable. And what Mr Balls told the conference left me scratching my head a bit. "We must ensure that parents and the public get the information they want and need about the progress of every primary age child and the performance of every primary school." Do the public need to know about the progress of every primary child? Why does the English public need this, but not the public in Scotland or Wales? Why does every child need to sit a week of tests, expensively marked, at a point where they are about to leave their school? I wasn't terribly convinced by the scolding, either: that a heads' boycott of the tests would “set a bad example” to pupils. Given recent events in politics, including the emails intended to smear political opponents and the little matter of MPs expenses, that has overtones of pots and kettles. I also have a feeling that if it does come to a boycott, headteachers currently have a much higher degree of public trust than politicians. Present parents with an alternate way of monitoring their child's progress, backed up by random official checks, and most would be happy. Present the public with a way of saving the vast outlay on tests each year with a cost-effective method of spotting problems, and they'd be happy too. So we could now be in for a game of brinkmanship as individual heads decide whether or not to vote for a boycott, as the Government weighs up how badly it wants this fight. Looks like an interesting few months to come. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=121 Mon, 04 May 2009 11:41:13 GMT 20090504114113 Mon, 04 May 2009 11:41:13 GMT 20090504114113 Mon, 04 May 2009 11:41:13 GMT 2009050411114113 It's hard to avoid the feeling that Sir Jim Rose's final report on the primary curriculum, due out this Thursday, is going to feel like a bit of a damp squib. That's partly because the thing was comprehensively leaked not all that long ago, allowing Government ministers to issue loud reassurances that of course history wasn't going to be junked so that children could learn the black arts of Twitter. And also, informed sources say that although the final version has been tweaked, it isn't going to differ radically from the interim report that came out in the winter. But far bigger is the feeling that it has just been overtaken by events. This weekend, the Conservatives have talked of their plans to allow primaries to go for academy status, with cash being diverted towards pupils in poorer areas. Should they win the election, which is now only just over the horizon, that single announcement could make a huge difference to primary education. It's hard to gauge how many primary heads would be willing to go it alone in this way, but the opportunity to organise your own curriculum – well, that could be irresistible for quite a few people. And then there's Ken Boston, former head of the QCA, who took the opportunity this week to express a few home truths in forthright fashion. In a nutshell, he clearly feels that the Government has stitched him up over last year's SATs horrors. Readers who've been to see comedy film In The Loop, about how spin just might have led to the Iraq war, may be particularly minded to feel sympathy for him. He says he's been stitched up more than once, too. The nub of his evidence to the select committee this week was (a) that he warned the Government that marking should move to a computerised system because the “cottage industry” method currently used was enormously risky, and that (b) that Government evidence given to the Sutherland enquiry was both “sexed up” and “fiction”. Since then, he's been warming to his theme with a fantastic rant in the Sunday Times. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/incomingFeeds/article6168874.ece It's worth reading in full, but the argument is roughly that children are less work-ready than previous generations not because of the primary curriculum, but because schools are under such pressure from SATS tests that valuable experiences such as playing in orchestras or going on camping trips are jettisoned or downgraded. “The present problem is not the result of inadequacies in the primary curriculum. The curriculum needs to be reviewed, and this is being done by Sir Jim Rose, but there is not much wrong with it and much to say in its favour. “The real problem is that teachers and schools aren't able to get on with teaching it,” he says, adding that the government's approach to the key stage tests has “sucked the oxygen from the classrooms of primary schools,” turning the curriculum in many schools to “a dry husk”. So far the Government spinners have done quite a nice job on avoiding the elephant in the classroom of the SATs tests, but it's hard to see that Sir Jim's words will be reported without mentioning that the tests were outside his remit. Unless, of course, a shocking sex ed announcement is made at the same time, to distract attention. Nah. They'd never do that, would they? Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=120 Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:01:33 GMT 20090427130133 Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:01:33 GMT 20090427130133 Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:01:33 GMT 200904271310133 In all the coverage of the union conferences, I was struck by the complaints about the “Stepford heads” – a small group of people who've made it to leadership young and then do everything by the book, to the extreme misery of those they manage. It might have sounded like another typical Easter union conference tale, had it not been sourced from several directions, including the chief executive of the Teacher Support Network, and indirectly backed up with sensible reactions. Mick Brookes, for instance, said he was aware that some new heads were getting into difficulty early in their careers, whilst Steve Munby of the National College for School Leadership explained that the qualification had been redesigned to offer “a more personalised approach to dealing with sensitive issues.” Empathy with staff was key to effective headship, he added. But there were quite a few things the story didn't say. One was whether the heads being highlighted here were behaving deliberately in the full knowledge that they could go about things in a different way, or whether they genuinely had no idea. You got the idea that their (relative) youth was part of the scenario, so perhaps it was the latter. One thing which struck me forcibly was that this kind of approach to management is now practically expected in the private sector. If your staff don't hate you, you're not doing the job properly – that kind of thing. You've only got to look at The Apprentice to get the idea. Lots of businesses now operate under the idea that if the manager treats everybody badly, they'll all work harder. Probe a little further and you discover that everyone is under so much pressure that mistakes become more frequent and goodwill simply evaporates. Those who can, leave – leaving you with those who can't. And it's not only the private sector, is it? Hospitals are now awash with management so petrified about hitting financial targets that it's apparently OK for patients to drink their flower water in the absence of nurses. There's even the example of government. Under what sort of leadership do you get a scenario where it is felt to be OK to even consider putting out smear stories about the wives of your political opponents? I've got a suspicion most of this current management culture oozed out of the banks in their glory days when they were the rulers of the universe and could do what they liked. Will it survive the recession that it probably helped to cause, where it was possible to ignore vital but unwelcome information? So, does the Stepford story mean this phenomenon has finally reached schools? Or just that in the main, heads and teachers expect better of each other? For years the message boards of the TES have hummed with disapproval about the management style of particular heads, but close reading often makes it hard to work out where the fault mostly lies. All of which is a bit of a roundabout way of saying it's possible to feel sorry for most (but probably not all) of the Stepford heads. If the general culture is telling you that macho is the way to go and that compassion is for wimps (very 1980s), and your training doesn't tell you much different, then you're in trouble. It seems that the Stepfords are particularly lacking in experience. This is partly because they've been very busy being high-flyers and fighting their way to the top –not much room for the messiness of a real life there. And only being in their 30s, they are at a point in life where it's mostly about the good times and success rather than the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. It can be hard to deal compassionately with people if you just can't comprehend the problems they are dealing with. And there's the other aspect of experience – that it gives you the bravery to stand your ground for what you believe is the right thing to do, rather than simply doing what you think the Government or the inspectors would want. The trouble is that the ensuing management style might work fine in a bank where your employees are motivated by huge pay cheques – but not in a school where your staff tend to be people-oriented and expect to be treated like humans. Let's hope that the tweaks to the NCSL leadership course and the peer support project will do the job for the next generation of new heads…because the demographics suggest there will shortly need to be a lot of them. Perhaps there's room there for increased mentoring of newbies and aspiring heads by the old hands. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=119 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:57:15 GMT 20090420095715 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:57:15 GMT 20090420095715 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:57:15 GMT 200904200995715 Sometimes I ask myself the question: do they think we're goldfish? In this context, the “they” are television reporters and government officials, and the “we” – well, that's anyone on the receiving end of information that assumes we struggle to remember anything for longer than three seconds. So there I was, marooned on my sickbed and flicking through the news channels when I saw the reports of the NUT voting to boycott next year's SATs (by the way – I think a tactical trick is being missed here – get one of your members to use their best scary teacher voice to explain why SATs are wrong and the whole country will fall into line instantly). Oops, I digress. So, nothing unusual about the report so far – but then the reporter appears and tells us that the Government is terribly unhappy about the effect such a boycott would have on children's education, parents want the tests, blah blah. All of which might well be true – but might be more accurate when taken in context of what happened to last year's tests. To remind goldfish and government ministers – they were a disaster from the off, partly because no-one tried to sort out the problems with the new company doing the work until it was far too late. Schools struggled for months to get their papers marked and results out, and children and parents were disappointed not to get the results, since the pupils had actually sat the tests. But the sky didn't fall in. Schools didn't fail. The education system didn't come crashing to a halt. Parents still applied to get their children into the schools they wanted. And secondary schools were spared the extra work of comparing the SATs results with those of the tests they routinely put year 7 pupils through, because they don't trust the SATS results they get from primary schools. Am I ranting? Too right I am. Given the phenomenon of the three-second memory, it's going to be interesting to see how long it takes the mainstream news media to latch on to another education story which needs to be joined up for the full impact to appear. I'm talking about the knock-on effects of the budgetary horror with which we now associate the Learning and Skills Council, and what's going to happen after the new education bill comes into law this year. To recap on the two facts you need here: 1. sixth forms and colleges are currently reeling from the discovery that money they thought they'd been promised by the Learning and Skills Council to rebuild and also fund extra bums on seats from September doesn't actually exist, and 2. local authorities are about to take over most of the responsibility for all education up to the age of 19. I'm no economist (nor were the bankers) but I can see that local authorities are going to inherit rather a large problem here, whereby they acquire a financial deficit and the blame if the Government's promises of post-compulsory education for all who want it cannot be met. So unless the Association of Directors of Children's Services can persuade the Government to hand over the colleges with some extra cash attached, there may be some real local difficulties ahead which may not leave schools unscathed. A Sats boycott might just be a handy Government smokescreen for this mess, particularly if it falls during an election campaign…. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=115 Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:27:11 GMT 20090413122711 Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:27:11 GMT 20090413122711 Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:27:11 GMT 2009041312122711 I'd like to do an unfashionable thing this week and speak up for MPs: those poor, maligned creatures whose expenses we want to pore over in all their embarrassing glory. Have I gone mad, you ask? No. I'll ask you a question in return: have you read the report of the Commons schools select committee on the National Curriculum, published at the height of Michelle-mania last week (and therefore overlooked)? You should. From the title of the first chapter onwards (The evolution of the National Curriculum: from Butler to Balls),you are left in no doubt as to the committee's opinion on Government meddling and micromanagement. “At times schooling has appeared more of a franchise operation, dependent on a recipe handed-down by Government rather than the exercise of professional expertise by teachers. The education system needs confident and well-qualified teachers capable of shaping the best possible education for their pupils. This has implications for the content of teacher training, but also for the role of the Department and its agencies. We want to see the centre take on a different role to the one it currently has—with much greater emphasis on intelligence gathering and research and development, and less on monitoring and compliance,” says one early section. The MPs are unhappy about several things: several very large things, as it happens. They think the National Curriculum is just too big and prescriptive and should certainly not take up all available teaching time. “We would like to see the National Curriculum underpinned by the principle that it should seek to prescribe as little as possible and by the principle of subsidiarity, with decisions made at the lowest appropriate level,” it says, adding later: “… we recommend that a cap is placed on the proportion of teaching time that it accounts for. Our view is that it should be less than half of teaching time.” They aren't over-enamoured by suggestions in either of the current primary reviews, and are particularly concerned by Jim Rose's suggestion that four should be the school starting age, and want the early learning goals to do with reading, writing and punctuation removed until the foundation stage is reviewed next year They appear frankly astounded that given the level of political meddling with the curriculum, there is little attempt to ensure continuity and coherence from the age of 0 to 19. “Despite the Department's emphasis on pupil voice in schools, nowhere in the evidence submitted to us did we get a sense that the Department particularly concerns itself with how the National Curriculum is experienced by children and young people. If it had, we suggest, it would have tackled the disjunction that children and young people face in their learning as they move from one phase of education to the next.” It suggests a statement of aims outlining what people should know at 19. The MPs are “concerned” that the QCA and its successor body, the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, lack autonomy, and want it accountable to Parliament rather than Ministers. The curriculum should be routinely reviewed every five years, methodically, and in a joined-up fashion. They can't see why academies are allowed to suspend the curriculum in a way that other schools aren't, and would also like all schools to get similar powers to change their own working arrangements for the school day. In another glorious paragraph, inspired by NAHT evidence, the committee says: “The idea that there is one best way to teach is not supported by the research evidence and so should not be the basis for the delivery of the National Curriculum. The Department must not place pressure on schools to follow certain sets of nonstatutory guidance, such as it has done in the case of Letters and Sounds. We recommend that the Department send a much stronger message to Ofsted, local authorities, school improvement partners and schools as to the non-statutory nature of National Strategies guidance.” Warming to their theme, the MPs want the Department to stop presenting the National Strategies as a “prop” to the profession, and instead disseminate research findings to teachers. Teachers should get more training in the theory and practice of curriculum design. Optimistically, the report says: “We expect the Department to set out how its role and that of its relevant agencies will change in relation to the National Curriculum over the next five to ten years in order to support the move to a much less prescriptive curriculum and less centrally-directed approach to its delivery.” Read more for yourself at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmchilsch/344/344i.pdf It's all good sense. I particularly like this paragraph: “Parents should be provided with a copy of the National Curriculum for their child's Key Stage so that they might be better informed of the curriculum that their child should experience.” You half wonder why the Government hasn't thought of this itself, but a glance at the size of the thing tells you all you need to know. Not only would it be life-sappingly impossible for most parents, it might also spark some awkward questions about who had decided every child had to learn all of this, and why. Which brings me to my other point, sparked by ATL leader Mary Bousted's Observer article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/05/children-social-skills-parenting) describing the problems which poor parenting are causing in schools, often because the parents expect so much of teachers yet fail to back them up. As the Select Committee report makes clear, education is the way it is because Government doesn't trust anyone else to do what it wants. And, increasingly, it seems to me that many parents may be getting the same message: that the Government doesn't trust them to do a good job, instead encouraging them to work and send children to regulated nurseries and childminders. Parents are no longer allowed to decide that it is right for their children to go on a short family holiday – even a day -- rather than sit at their school desk, which means that lies about sick kids are increasingly being told. Meanwhile, all sorts of black propaganda seems to be currently doing the rounds on the motives of home educators. At home, we've just waved off an Australian family who brought their teenage son, not for the first time, along on their two-month work-and-pleasure trip round Europe. His school, they said, had wished the boy an interesting trip and suggested he take some textbooks. The parents were making sure he did some work, and the boy knew he'd have some catching up to do on his return. They were utterly astounded to learn here that parents are fined and jailed for their children's truancy, remarking: “What a fantastic bit of power for a teenager.” In England, they too would risk being jailed for truancy for taking a considered decision for their family. It strikes me that schools are getting increasing problems from parents failing to take responsibility for their kids, because they are getting the message that the Government doesn't trust them to do so. And I can't see that improving. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me via educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=112 Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:22:36 GMT 20090406142236 Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:22:36 GMT 20090406142236 Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:22:36 GMT 200904061422236 There's been lots and lots of twittering (or should that be Twittering?) about the revelation that the new primary curriculum will recommend that children be taught about Twitter and Wikipedia, apparently dumping Churchill to make way for all this new-fangled stuff. That wasn't quite the angle taken by The Guardian, the first paper to run a story about the leaked copy of Sir Jim Rose's report – but it was the angle taken by every paper which ran a story based on the original story, rather than the original document. If the leaker had wanted to make a point about children being taught to use original sources (perhaps such as Twitter) he or she could not have done a better job on it. And so it was left to the TES, the other paper to acquire a leaked version of the report, to run a full version outlining the kind of thing teachers are waiting to learn about the curriculum they will almost inevitably be teaching come 2011. Leaking is usually done for a reason, though, and trying to fathom out the motivation behind this one is interesting. No-one is claiming credit for it, and the document hasn't turned up on Wikileaks nor, as far as I can see, any of the other websites which host such things. If the leaker had wanted to stir up a fuss about, say, the Twitter aspects of the thing, you'd have assumed the brown envelope would have been directed to the Daily Mailygraph (the outraged end of the newspaper market, as named by Private Eye), for a good old fume. But it wasn't. Sometimes leaks are quasi-official, made to test the water on something or smooth public opinion so that when the final version arrives the shouting is all over and done with and nobody pays much attention. Given that the bits of the document mentioning web research and Twitter are so minor, it's hard to think that was the explanation either – particularly since if more papers had been leaked the whole thing, they'd probably have gone into more detail about the rest of the curriculum as well. All of which means detail was left to the TES. What most teachers will want to know is whether the curriculum has truly been put on a diet, as was promised. Part of the problem with a low-calorie curriculum might have been that the KS3 tests appear to be fixed and immovable – and might have dominated even more than now if less of the curriculum was centrally prescribed. So the answer on the size of the curriculum is less than clear-cut – there is less prescription in the curriculum itself but rather a lot of supplementary detail included as “explanatory notes”. The TES thinks “few cuts have been made,” whilst the NUT's John Bangs regards the leaked report as portraying a halfway house between the current level of prescription and something which schools can genuinely develop for themselves. But reading through the detail, it's hard to see why someone wanted to leak the report the month before its official publication. There is entirely sensible stuff in there, such as the recommendation that infants will be taught to type (to suggest otherwise is a nonsense in a digital age), and yes, that pupils will have to understand emails, messaging, wikis and tweets alongside more conventional forms of communication. Children are going to be living in a world where it's important to understand what weight to give to different forms of information, so this shouldn't be a controversial recommendation. I cheered when I read the bit which said there would be more hands-on artwork and less discussion of any emotions inspired by the work, under the new curriculum. Pupils seem to do little enough real art in school without eating into that time talking about it. But no mention of reading for pleasure. And, interestingly, no fuss made about that by any of the newspapers which reported the leak. Odd, for a nation which does enjoy reading – but perhaps not for a nation which thinks children shouldn't really enjoy their time at school. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=109 Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:10:25 GMT 20090330141025 Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:10:25 GMT 20090330141025 Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:10:25 GMT 200903301421025 I've got a question. Why is it that a hospital can kill 400 patients without anyone taking a blind bit of notice, even if informed locals are jumping up and down and screaming – and yet Ofsted can stroll into any school for an impromptu inspection with no notice? Reading the weekend's papers, I was forcibly struck by the contrast. At Stafford Hospital thirsty patients were allegedly drinking from flower vases as the board concentrated on gaining foundation status, ignoring one doughty campaigner horrified by the filth he catalogued, and presumably also ignoring the hospital's high death rate. Meanwhile, the first schools have gone through the new no-notice Ofsted inspection as one primary is still picking up the pieces of a disastrous visit, carried out in the middle of extreme staff illness, which decided the school was failing within a couple of hours and was posted on the Ofsted website despite being contested by the local authority. Lincolnshire's complaint that Caistor Primary was not fit for inspection and that inspectors did not treat properly its request to drop the inspection were upheld, and Ofsted offered “a sincere apology”, replacing the damning report with the 2006 “outstanding” one. But the school is to be inspected again this year and the head, who says he was “shattered” and made to feel “valueless”, is questioning whether he will be able to lead again. Clearly, schools have an impact on children's life chances, but the chances of them killing anyone – let alone 400 people – are vanishingly small. Why is it, then, that Ofsted strikes terror into the heart of blameless heads, and tells nurseries and childminders what to do – and yet no equivalent force turns up to inspect the quality of care in your local hospital? Actually, I am genuinely scratching my head over this. Are hospital inspectors not as terrifying as the Ofsted variety? Do hospital administrators simply get away with more than school ones? And – am I really asking this --- could it be time to extend Ofsted's remit? Or perhaps simply gift the whole operation to the health service and see what happens next? *The Department for Transport is currently thinking about last week's fascinating report on school travel, produced by the Commons Transport Committee (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmtran/351/351.pdf The report has already delivered a mild slap on the wrists for the fact that diplomas, which require teenagers to travel to different institutions, are up and running with decidedly ad-hoc travel arrangements to support them. But I can't find much on the effects of lotteries and other admission arrangements which may well be admirable in creating a level playing field, but are undoubtedly creating a more congested one. Whilst it floats the idea of dedicated yellow buses, the report really wants to replace a good chunk of the third of school journeys currently done via private transport with walking or cycling. CABE, the official buildings organisation, also wants school routes to be made more attractive to those on foot, to tackle the growing problem of obesity. The problem is that what's needed here is some truly joined-up thinking. As the authors of school travel plans know, families will walk to school if they live close by – unless the parent who takes them has to continue to work, in which case driving becomes the only option. Teenagers won't walk with parents, but they are happy to be dropped off as close as possible to their desk. And for children in the later primary years, who might feasibly be able to get to school under their own steam, official safeguarding worries often over-ride family judgements that the child may be ready to take that daily step to independence. Transport is complicated. If as a society we genuinely want what the report calls a “modal shift” away from the four-wheeled school run, then we have to discuss school catchment areas and child safety at the same time. *Jade Goody is being credited with getting young women along for their smear tests and potentially saving lives. I have a suspicion that she will have another effect on people's life chances: by making education a desirable aspiration for whole swathes of people who have not previously seen the value of it. Jade, if you remember, leapt to prominence in the Big Brother house by cheerfully exposing her own ignorance about the location of places like “East Angular.” Yet in her final weeks she was been dedicated to raising enough money to ensure that her two little boys will be better educated than she was. And everyone knows it, from those who've followed the story in the broadsheets to those who buy celebrity magazines. Amazingly, her final choices have probably done more to convince doubters of the value of education than decades of Government publicity. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=107 Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:08:13 GMT 20090323120813 Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:08:13 GMT 20090323120813 Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:08:13 GMT 2009032312120813 Headlines can sometimes be deceptive. I was struck – as probably were you – by Gordon Brown's plans to allow users of public services to feed back their thoughts via their websites. Schools, doctors, hospitals: all would be scrutinised under the unforgiving light of informed public opinion. And boy, is it unforgiving. I've done a fair bit of work on websites in the past and the scariest thing is the voice of the great British public. Every site has them. My local newspaper website boasts a horrendous collection of bad-tempered trolls whose reaction to any news is negative. Jamie Oliver opens a new restaurant: what's not to like? No-one's going to make you eat there if you don't fancy it, end of story. But online vitriol is, as always, the dish of the day. And the BBC has them. In fact, if you want a good laugh, there is a fantastic website which collects the looniest, most vitriol-drippingly awful comments posted on Auntie's website and parades them with a little light sarcasm. It's worth five minutes of your time: try http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/. Even the TES gets them, although the huge majority of posters there are the brave, the principled, the well-informed and the generous, sharing insights and helping colleagues struggling with a particular part of their practice. But every so often, up will pop the trolls and the sock-puppets (For the benefit of those of you who have led sheltered lives, trolls are posters whose mission in life is to stir up trouble. Sock-puppets are different identities used by trolls) to have a little sport. And there's my point. If that's what civilised, educated people – colleagues -- will do to each other when protected by anonymity, what happens when the great British public lets fly with its opinions? So I went online to find out what Mr Brown really wants to happen in this brave new world of feedback. And guess what – in reading Working Together: Public Services On Your Side (http://www.hmg.gov.uk/workingtogether/excellence.aspx ) it's not quite as it seems. Parents will be able to post their opinions , but not for schools – only for childcare. There is some government speak about parents being surveyed for the new school report cards, and also talk of an improved complaints process for individual children, but as far as schools go, that's it. Which is pretty sensible when you think about ways in which the embittered already react to schools, varying from charming little websites like RateMyTeacher through visits by aggressive parents, to arson attacks. Have to admit, though, I am scratching my head as to why it's thought that your local nursery will get off any more lightly. This is what's planned for them: “A new national price comparison and parental feedback website covering the full range of childcare providers will be established early in 2010. As well as containing information on prices and from Ofsted on quality, the site will contain parents' views, for example by providing a message board that allows parents to feedback on any childcare provider. This will mean that when making choices about childcare parents will be able to read the views of the people who often know most about how good a service is: other parents.” Looks horribly to me like a backdoor attempt to create a kind of informal league table of childcare providers. We can't do it by how well the kids do in the foundation stage, so let's create a market of parental opinion and ensure that it's impossible to get into But at least school leaders can sleep easy in their beds. For now. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com . http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=103 Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:58:17 GMT 20090316095817 Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:58:17 GMT 20090316095817 Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:58:17 GMT 200903160995817 It's one of the weird paradoxes about life in this country that everyone talks about how schools need to change in order to become better – but then run away screaming if something different is actually proposed. Unpicked, what the public means by changing schools for the better actually seems to mean changing them back to the way we think they were when we were pupils, or some misty approximation of it. And in another peculiar paradox, most of us have a vague assumption that schools have stayed more or less the same since their own childhood, except that clearly things aren't so good now. All of which is why I think the proposal by Monkseaton High in North Tyneside that they hope to change their school hours to fit in with teenage body clocks has had such prominence on the news. The school has carried out research with an Oxford neuroscientist which showed the pupils' brains worked better in the afternoons, and headteacher Paul Kelley says that this suggests some form of biological programming rather than laziness. He believes that forcing the students out of bed could have an impact on their mental and physical health as well as their education, and hopes governors will agree to timetable changes that could see teenagers arriving for their first lessons at 11, comparatively bright-eyed and bushy tailed. He's keen on the idea, but you can detect that most tellings of the story contain an underlying grumble about pandering to teenagers, although no-one is actually saying that. The most usual arguments against are that more research is needed, that it will cause problems with bus timetables and for parents. But if the school thinks it can get pupils in and out later in the day (and surely travel will be easier at off peak hours?), and teachers are willing to do change their working days a little, perhaps doing preparation and marking before school rather than after, then surely it's worth a punt? After all, if the teenagers really are learning better for starting later, then whether the cause is bodyclock or placebo effect doesn't really matter. Does it? What might matter rather more is the sheer number of heads losing their jobs at the moment to what can only be described as football manager syndrome. It's something which both headship organisations have been concerned about for a time, with the current hit of publicity coming out of the Association of School and College Leaders finding that 150 heads were sacked last year, up from 30 the year before. I can believe many impossible things before breakfast, but not that the standards of school leadership have plummeted so dramatically in a year. Nobody is arguing that underperforming heads should be fireproof, but it might be an idea for some areas to consider retraining rather than defenestration. But an entirely different story sheds a little light on it. I'm fascinated by the response on my local newspaper's website to the tale of the protester who hurled green custard over business secretary Peter Mandelson, particularly in the context of the proposed code of practice for teachers. The paper interviewed Leila Deen's mother, quoted her approval of her daughter's action, and mentioned that she was a primary teacher at a local school. At this point all hell was let loose in the readers' comments section, with calls for the mother to be sacked not an uncommon reaction. This roughly gives the gist: “Would the mother of this girl be equally encouraging if one of her pupils decided to stage a protest against authority by throwing slime in her face?” I think this reaction may tell us why failing heads are losing their jobs so fast, and why the nation becomes anxious about unfamiliar changes to schools. Fair it isn't, but people really do expect more from schools and their staff than almost any other sector or professional. If Sir Fred Goodwin was a former head, rather than a former banker, he'd have been lynched weeks ago. It's probably a compliment: it may not feel like one. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=102 Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:37:50 GMT 20090309143750 Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:37:50 GMT 20090309143750 Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:37:50 GMT 200903091423750 The cynic in me wonders why the Government has now asked its new chief schools adjudicator to look again at how lotteries are being used to select school places. Ed Balls seems to be singing from a new hymn sheet in his comments, reported over the weekend, that he would be “very concerned if it was happening other than as a last resort.” Has anything changed since generally approving noises were made about lotteries in the last year or so? More than half a million families will find out this week whether their children will get into their first choice schools, which almost one in five failed to do last year. Could it be that the figures are going to be even worse than recently, and this review – reporting in September – is a way of kicking problems into the long grass? Up until now the official line was that lotteries are a good and fair way of deciding places – but as a resident of an area which uses them, I haven't been impressed by the way in which odd children can find themselves the only one out of their friendship group to be transferring to a different secondary, or indeed the way in which parent can be set against parent as a result. Many heads aren't wild about the system either, complaining that it can undo traditional bonds between what used to be feeder primaries and their secondary. But I also wonder whether the review has something to do with the planned School Report Card, on which consultation ends this week. Its purpose is to tell parents exactly how good a school is in between inspections and beyond narrow test criteria. In other words, parents with kids at a school will be fairly interested, but the information will be most eagerly pored over by those who are choosing where to send their offspring. If they spend lots of time and energy researching their choice, only to have names picked out of a hat, the whole exercise starts to feel like a giant con trick. My cynicism temporarily drained away, though, when I read through a new book published this week by the National College for School Leadership and the Teaching Awards (it launches online on Wednesday, and can be downloaded free at http://www.teachingawards.com/attachments/NCSLTurningHeads.pdf). What's it all about? It's ten profiles of heads who've won teaching awards, written by a mixture of journalists and teachers, and which should be required reading for people who moan about the state of education in this country. Each head is different – and yet in many ways, the stories intermingle. Each one is experienced, absolutely dedicated to the kids, and completely human. Pupils and staff alike are treated well and as individuals. There is an obsessive level of attention to detail, and the schools are created in their image. They are living proof of the heartening message that perhaps you don't have to be a clipboard-wielding dalek to make it as a head these days (and probably living proof that ex-bankers won't transfer well to the education sector unless the original career was a huge mistake). Each and every one of this lot is a character. At least two were inspired in some way by the late Ted Wragg. At least one of them talks cheerfully about dumping initiatives he has no time for. Thankfully, there's no whiff of sainthood about any of them – and not much whiff of a work-life balance either, although I was heartened by the duo working in Halifax who've arranged things so that one of them gets a lie-in and a gym session every Wednesday morning… before working till late in the evening. Goodness knows how the report card would indicate whether an institution had a maverick or a dalek in charge… but that's why a report card can only ever be part of the story. And that's also what these heads are – part of the story. For without coming over all “all should have prizes” about it, I know that a huge proportion of the heads I've met or know about are pretty much as amazing as the ten in the book. And if the government wants to do away with the need for lotteries over-riding what parents see as sensible choices for their own children, then somehow more of the committed mavericks have to be encouraged from the ranks and into headship without feeling that they will suffer death by a thousand initiatives or Ofsted inspectors. A few weeks ago I wrote about a really interesting bit of National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics research on how schools improved their maths teaching. If you've got a keen member of staff with interesting ideas on the subject, the Centre is making grants of up to £5,000 available for teachers doing enquiry projects. Closing date is Monday 9 March, so they need to be quick. Details at http://www.ncetm.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=41&module=research&researchid=2685 Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=99 Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:33:14 GMT 20090302083314 Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:33:14 GMT 20090302083314 Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:33:14 GMT 200903020883314 If the latest instalment of Robin Alexander's primary review does nothing else, it has done us a great service in reminding that education is more than just acquiring the skills for an economically active adulthood. Again and again he reminds us that education serves a much wider purpose: that “education is a major embodiment of a culture's way of life, not just a preparation for it;” and “Education is necessarily a process of acculturation”. Just a decade ago, the philosophy of the then editor of the TES was that education was the transmission of culture from one generation to the next. Now the idea is so unfashionable that Alexander notes: “Such was witnesses' preoccupation with the logistics and politics of the national curriculum that many did not ask what it was all for. Yet one can hardly argue about a curriculum's scope, balance and priorities without taking a view of the educational aims which it should pursue and the values by which it, and the work of schools more widely, should be underpinned.” And, he says, one effect is that the curriculum has become narrow, impoverished and skills-based. “In these severely utilitarian and philistine times it has become necessary to argue the case for creativity and the imagination on the grounds of their contribution to the economy alone. Creative thinking is certainly an asset in any circumstance…” So how did we get to this point? We could probably argue about this all day. And that would probably be a good start, because if the idea is to create a new curriculum maybe – to quote the old joke about road directions – we shouldn't start from here. Which is precisely the point made by Professor Alexander: that each curriculum appears to have been built on the last. The National Curriculum, whilst undoubtedly ensuring that consideration is given to what children should learn, is in itself part of the problem. Think of the rows over British history and Shakespeare, about languages. And think of the way that literacy and numeracy have developed, and as Alexander points out, have somehow been parted from English and maths. Then there are the five outcomes of every child matters. I've always had a soft spot for the enjoying bit of it, but there is little there apart from the achieving economic well-being to take you into a contented adulthood, or about becoming part of your culture. And I suspect there lies the real problem. We're not entirely sure any more what our culture is – is mine the same as yours? – and are either desperately keen not to give offence or worry that well-meaning officials may decide that somebody, somewhere, will take offence. And since our common culture seems to be a strange mix of reality TV, celebrity magazine, virtual friendships and falling foul of the health police on obesity and alcohol, we wonder just what culture we have that's worth passing on. In France, by contrast, even the school dinners are intended to transmit the national culture to pupils – three courses, good food and leisurely eating are expected. In a funny way, the schools that manage this best here are the faith schools, as they have a clear idea of the culture their pupils are joining and no qualms about living it either. Perhaps that's the real reason that parents who don't share the same beliefs queue and even lie to get their kids in. I'd like to give the final words on this to a contributor to the BBC website debate on jailing the parents of truants. To put what he says into context, “David” says he was an incorrigible truant in the 1970s and with the passing of decades fails to see why there is so much unquestioning support for the idea that children should be forced to attend school. “Writing as an uneducated man, not being much of a scholar at all, I don't know whether to label the imprisonment of the parents of truants as Kafkaesque or Orwellian. One thing I do know is that the question at the top of this thread should be, "Did you use to.....?" rather than, "Did you used to.....?" Uneducated? I don't think so. Yet can we guarantee that current pupils will find themselves with a similarly pleasurable mental library and resources when they, too, are in their forties? Lifelong learning isn't just about being prepared to upskill for a new job every few years: it's about staying interested in thought and argument and culture. Bring on the debate. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=95 Mon, 23 Feb 2009 09:00:26 GMT 20090223090026 Mon, 23 Feb 2009 09:00:26 GMT 20090223090026 Mon, 23 Feb 2009 09:00:26 GMT 200902230990026 So what do you think is happening right now to that rather fantastic civil servant who made the mistake of saying what he actually thought about the education system during a lecture last week? Is he still in possession of all his fingernails? Has he had a low-energy bulb shone into his eyes? You may recall that Professor Adrian Smith, director general of science and innovation, suggested that the Government should focus on getting the current exams right before launching “schizophrenic” new diplomas and suggested that “the masses” were being educated at the expense of the most able. Warming to his theme, the professor admitted that ministerial rhetoric was exaggerating improvements in science education and that elf 'n'safety is stifling scientific curiosity in schools. “If you ask a lot of scientists, chemists and engineers what turned them on in the first place, I am afraid it was things like making bombs,” he said. And – probably the killer comment – he warned that universities were threatening “not to touch” the new A* A Level grade because they felt it favoured independent schools. Ooh. You just want to give him a hug, don't you? But since his rather candid assessment of the situation was made in front of a TES reporter, the poor Prof has been forced to eat his words, probably with a side order of humble pie. A spokeswoman for his department said he “deeply regrets” what he said (I bet he does), adding: “His comments were made as part of a wide-ranging and open discussion and were never meant as a criticism of government policy. Professor Smith took up his government post late last year and his remarks do not reflect the advice he has given to the secretary of state." Why do they do this? What is it about officialdom that makes them think if they assert that something is true then we will believe it – no matter how improbable? You're left with the strong impression that the Government hires experts and then simply makes them toe the party line. If Professor Smith is saying this kind of thing in public, why isn't he saying it to the Secretary of State? Or, a likelier scenario, why aren't we allowed to know that's what he tells the S of S? Why isn't it possible for us to know that an adult discussion is going on about what really needs improving, rather than just being told that things are fine and yet getting better? A better way of handling inconvenient truths was demonstrated in another revealing education story. Warwick Mansell (who, I'm quite convinced, has bugged all the exam and qualification body buildings) has discovered that Ofqual can't quite work out how to maintain exam standards when their structure changes – which will happen shortly. Leaked QCA minutes reveal that Ofqual and the exam boards "need... to arrive at a clearer picture of what is meant by 'maintaining standards' when the structure of qualifications changes.” Had Ofqual worked out whether or not papers should be made harder after modularisation, when pupils can retake for better grades? "No, we haven't,” said acting chief executive Isabel Nisbet. And then (amazingly) she added “There should be a debate on this." If there can be a debate on this really important subject, why not on diplomas, or health and safety, and the real state of science education, rather than shutting up the man who has raised important questions? And presumably was hired (not all that long ago) because of his expertise and knowing what the important questions were? Why was the Government's official primary review so constrained in what it was allowed to look at (avert your eyes from the Sats, Sir Jim). Why is public debate on Sats at 11, or academies, or kids starting school at four, stifled before it starts? Oh well. Expect more fun and games at the end of the week, because the Alexander review really does come out then (I know I promised the same thing last Monday, but it got held off). And if he doesn't administer a few more home truths, I shall be very surprised. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=93 Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:23:07 GMT 20090216102307 Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:23:07 GMT 20090216102307 Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:23:07 GMT 2009021610102307 It was a jolly cunning idea of the NAHT to poll parents on what they thought of their children taking SATs tests. Given that the Government's usual response to criticism is that parents want the tests, it'll be interesting to see what the response is next: expect official moans about selective use of statistics and skewed samples. And then remember the row the Government had with its own statisticians about knife crime a few months ago, and sigh deeply. Still, your poll isn't the only chipping away at the tests we can expect this week. The Primary Review, Professor Robin Alexander's mammoth project, is due to report on Friday and if his previous pronouncements are anything to go by, the policy of tests for all 11-year-olds is unlikely to get his seal of approval. Given that the Government's own primary review (commissioned after Professor Alexander had got going) did not have testing in its remit, cynics might conclude that there is some concern about what any independent expert might say on the subject. Assessment of schools, and of pupils' progress, is clearly here to stay in some form. But since under the current system it's the same assessment method which is supposed to fulfil both functions, you have to question how well it works. Worse still, it appears to be having some unhealthy effects on the education system, not least by distorting what is taught and the way schools are assessed by league table position. And those are the problems which may bedevil the new Conservative policy on schools, unveiled in an interview with the Telegraph on Saturday. I'm not entirely sure about the medium chosen by David Cameron and Michael Gove, his shadow education spokesman, since their message promised a new commitment to state schooling in a paper currently preoccupied with the poor loves who are being driven by finances out of their private preps and into council primaries. Or perhaps that was the point: he's promising those parents “a good school in every community”. He's also promising a “great education reform bill” should the Conservatives win the election and plans which appear to include the possibility of parents and business setting up schools along the Swedish model. Schools will get a bit more freedom to pay teachers more, exclude children and restrain violent pupils in the classroom, and (if successful) could control their own admission policies, though with an underlying code banning discrimination, and it would even be possible to put down children's names at birth “in some areas”. There would also be “academic rigour” with setting and streaming, schools able to take international exams, and pass marks upped in the GCSE. And finally, there is one bit I must quote directly: “He vows to put teams into badly performing areas and says a Tory government will ensure that 'all the people who drive you wild when they're on the radio will be out of the educational establishment.'" (Maybe I'm being thick, but I don't have a clue who he means. Maybe I don't listen to the right radio stations. And how does he know who drives me wild?) Anyway, the whole interview is at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/4537403/David-Cameron-Tory-leader-talks-to-the-Daily-Telegraph-about-education.html As always with these things, the devil is in the detail. And there really isn't much of that in this interview though the message is clearly put across that father of three/Old Etonian Cameron intends to keep his kids in the state sector. So how are schools going to get so much better so fast? Will streaming do the job? Are these new schools competing for pupils going to do it? There is some talk of sending “teams” into poorly performing areas – I have a dim memory of similar things happening with particular local authorities in the early days of Labour. How will the new rigour on education fit with the enormous Conservative report on “broken Britain” in which they acknowledged the problems of communities where even getting kids into school daily is a struggle? And will the devil be in the league table as well, once setting and streaming starts? Will the tables describe how each stream fares? What about the initial fall in standards you might guess would result from harder GCSEs? It's impossible to make any sensible assessment of the plans on current information, but it's an interesting start. Where on earth will the educational battle-lines be drawn on polling day? The Lib Dems: smaller classes, more resources for the poorest. Conservatives: setting, streaming, harder qualifications and more school independence. If Labour is forced to major on education because of what the other parties do, it's a little hard to see which way they can jump. It could be the most interesting election for education in years, if the money is there to implement any of the policies. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=92 Mon, 09 Feb 2009 09:38:47 GMT 20090209093847 Mon, 09 Feb 2009 09:38:47 GMT 20090209093847 Mon, 09 Feb 2009 09:38:47 GMT 200902090993847 Children and snow may lead Britain's news agenda this week – a welcome change from financial doom and gloom. But whereas kids and snow sounds like a really good mix, we're going to learn, yet again, that any weather veering from the bland can bring the nation juddering to a halt, and that we are possibly the most rubbish adults attempting to bring up kids in the whole of Europe. At the time of writing, only broad principles of A Good Childhood had been publicised (the Children's Society is going to release different sections each day this week till Thursday, when the whole report is published). But it is clearly going to be thought-provoking, if we allow it to be. Advance reports suggested it will call for “a radical shift away from the excessively individualistic ethos which now prevails, to an ethos where the constant question is, 'What would we do if our aim was a world based on love?' It will also talk of how the exam and testing culture in schools is putting children under serious levels of stress. Also, it will say Britain has some of the worst rates of child unhappiness, poverty, family breakdown and child violence in the western world. It expresses concern about the amount of time children spend with parents: 60 per cent of those polled said it was insufficient. The report will say parents should not rely excessively on nurseries, but ask relatives to help with childcare. Something like this could easily be a five-minute wonder – or the timing could really be on its side. Parenting was anyway under the spotlight, thanks to headlines about Baby P and Shannon Matthews. And if materialism and individualism are turning us into worse parents, might recession and job loss encourage us to reconnect with more traditional family life? If we're tightening our belts and living on less, and house prices are coming down, and circumstances are forcing us to spend more time with kids, will we get a taste for it? If so, the implications for schools could be fascinating. In Every Child Matters, we are creating an enormous support structure which almost assumes that every child in the country is being badly parented and needs extra help and wraparound care. The current push to create a “children's workforce” by 2020 – barely understood by most people – is indicative of what's happening. If there is some element of parents reclaiming childcare, or enlisting relatives to help, then that structure may start to look somewhat overblown at the time when it was supposed to be coming to full power, in just over a decade. And if we could learn to be better parents, then perhaps teaching would become a more straightforward task as behaviour and concentration improved. Schooling itself may also come under the microscope as part of the report, which will talk about how constant testing is damaging children – though expect fierce official resistance to that idea. Children's minister Beverley Hughes was at pains to say over the weekend that testing children helps prepare them for adult life. What the report will propose seems an unimaginably big social change, but given some of the other upheavals which are becoming part of the everyday landscape, perhaps it is one whose time has come. *Not entirely sure, though, that the time has come to send Carol Vorderman – famous for doing sums on Countdown – into schools to find out about maths teaching. But apparently she's going to be finding out what makes people afraid of numbers and spearheading the Conservatives' new task force on maths in schools. Perhaps while she's at it she could explain numbers to a few of our fallen bankers. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=88 Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:36:27 GMT 20090202093627 Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:36:27 GMT 20090202093627 Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:36:27 GMT 200902020993627 What is it with doom and gloom this week? If it's not riots at a new academy, it's nepotism at an inner-city school. And if it's not the death of A Levels it's the underperformance of diplomas. And if it's not education, then it's debating whether UK Plc is actually bankrupt. But then – thank goodness – something cheery and positive arrived in my inbox: news about a launch this week of a report which explains exactly how seven London schools, all in fairly challenging surroundings, have bucked the trend and built themselves great maths departments. And better still, how they did it is far from rocket science. The management skills involved would be easily transferable to other schools and other subjects. So: what happened? The National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics thought it would be interesting to find out how seven London secondaries with improving results in maths had done it. So they talked to the heads and the teachers. The results were surprising. The schools had used maths to build student confidence, especially in girls, and to help underachieving working class boys, and help them into higher education. It also turns out that maths can raise literacy levels. “When there are two of you and neither of you speak English well you can at least have a mathematical argument on a more complex level. It can be a release for those who are learning English and are struggling to express their internal thoughts,” one head explained. The researchers were also told improving mathematics in schools can improve recruitment, advance teachers' careers – and even smooth administration. The heads' treatment of maths had four things in common: proactive recruitment, a high profile, regular staff training and creative uses of mathematics across the curriculum. They had all built close links with teacher training providers, keeping a close eye on promising trainee maths teachers, and one even makes regular trips to Ireland to find good teachers so that her school is not among those – almost a quarter -- who have under-qualified mathematics teachers. Once they'd got the staff, they worked hard at building a department where the teachers were proud to work and happy to work with each other, and where training was useful. Staff were valued – and they knew it. Promoting them was important, too. “The more successful the department becomes, the more positive feeling grows and the more the staff put in. You need to kindle that feeling,” said one head. And the final part of the picture is that maths is valued in the school, and by the parents and the pupils. One head ran regular maths competitions to highlight the subject. And that's it – nothing fancy, but lots of hard work and tender loving care. As one head put it: “I know a good maths department won't happen by accident and, now that we have one, I know that I have to look after it otherwise we will be back to the bad days of not being able to get quality staff.” This is more than a story about maths teachers: it's simply about good leadership. Schools are pretty unique places in that as a head you're leading not only your staff but your customers (who are the parents and the kids). Making everybody feel valued is a tricky line to tread, and takes not only vision but the imagination to put yourself in others' shoes and treat them as you would like to be treated. And knowing schools really does matter. When it goes wrong it can be quite spectacular – but it can be equally spectacular (and far more uplifting) if it goes right. To read the full report, which goes live on 27 January, go to the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) website: ncetm.org.uk Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me via educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=87 Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:37:18 GMT 20090126143718 Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:37:18 GMT 20090126143718 Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:37:18 GMT 200901261423718 Leadership is going to be one of the big news stories of the week, as the world watches Barack Obama take the enormous step from inspirational campaigning politician to what must now be the planet's biggest job. As well as the usual US president's in-tray of work, Obama has to sort out the (world) economy, resolve a couple of his predecessor's wars, and cure climate change within his first term (or we're all doomed, according to one group of scientists). At the same time he's got to manage everyone's expectations but continue to inspire the electorate, and remember to see his kids occasionally. If you were to translate this lot into headship, the school would not only be in special measures but on fire as well, with Ofsted circling, National Challenge status assured, and some sort of turf war going on with half of the local heads. But the parents and pupils would be wildly supportive. Perhaps the picture isn't quite so bleak after all. One thing the new President may learn pretty quickly is the law of unintended consequences – or, to put it another way, the law of predictable but ignored consequences. My current favourite example comes from a transport expert at University College London, who will warn in a lecture next month that parental choice of schools may mean more children are becoming fat. Since the weather is atrocious this week, you won't even need to guess the connection: school is more than two miles from home for half of children, so they get driven there rather than walking. And, as he says, the more they get ferried around in cars, the harder it is for them to learn the skills of independence such as crossing rounds, and so they end up taking even less exercise. There are other reasons why teenagers don't walk to school. The prime one, proved by the snarling gridlock approaching my local secondary every time it rains, is that they rarely wear coats nowadays and so get dropped off by a parent at the door. How did coats become tribally uncool? I bet you wore one to school, and I know I did. But then, when I went to school you could hang your dripping wet mac on a peg for the day rather than either having to carry it round till hometime or stuff it into your locker full of dry books. And although it seems far more sensible on environmental and health grounds for kids to walk to their nearest schools, you could argue that this would penalise those living in poor areas. So what's to be done to sort out the unintended consequences? Lockable coat hooks in cloakrooms? Some sort of incentive for children to walk, cycle, or get the bus to popular schools? Time to get thinking about this one – but think for long enough to avoid yet more unintended consequences. And the same goes for the Rose Review suggestion that children should start school at the age of four. I cannot claim to be an expert in child development, but it seems odd for our schools to diverge even more from successful education systems in Europe and the rest of the world where children may not make a formal start until as late as seven. The Nineties change in funding arrangements for early years children effectively caused the unofficial drop in the school starting age: shouldn't there be a bit more debate and research before formalising this? Good nurseries are very different to Reception classes, where very young children are coping with long days away from home, with confusing numbers of other kids and many demands to concentrate in formal surroundings on things which are new and perhaps difficult. Some kids are ready for it – usually the September-born girls. Others are not, and suffer real stress and misery as a result. This is a country, after all, where a thousand schools have had to create nurture groups to provide a safe, small-scale learning environment for children with emotional, behavioural or social difficulties, and the charity behind them is now trying to become better known. (http://www.nurturegroups.org/pages/about.html) So three cheers for the Government advisers who are warning that the change could damage the social development of summer-borns and might raise the numbers diagnosed (wrongly) with special needs. It'll be interesting to see which side wins this battle… but given the official desire to keep kids in school for as long as possible, I'd lay a small amount of money that Sir Jim will win the day. Unintended consequences? You can probably guess exactly what they'll be. Susan Young is an education journalist. Email me on educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=86 Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:12:55 GMT 20090119141255 Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:12:55 GMT 20090119141255 Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:12:55 GMT 200901191421255 Recessions can have positive as well as negative effects, and it looks as though political interest in equalising life chances of richer and poorer kids may end up being a good legacy of the current financial turmoil. The LibDems social mobility commission published a report on the subject at the weekend, and the Government has wheeled in one of its former big guns, Alan Milburn, to front its own campaign which will officially launch on Tuesday. And suggestions that schools should concentrate on middle-ability pupils is also from the same kind of mould. Schools seem likely to be a focus, but that has been the case for every recent equality drive. What is Every Child Matters about if not improving life chances of disadvantaged kids? What about Sure Start, and free nursery provision? Is it too early to genuinely tell if these initiatives are making a difference, or are they not working? The Commons Schools Select Committee may have given a clue to where the problem lies with its recent report suggesting that as little as 40 per cent of the additional funding intended for children entitled to free school meals actually gets through to their schools. Even Ed Balls, the education secretary, conceded that no more than two-thirds of that money reached the schools which most needed it. So, not unusually, schools are being asked to do a job with one hand tied behind their backs. But I also wonder if it's time for more of a debate on what schools alone can practically achieve, and the real benefits of ambition and a good education – after all, families which have so far resisted the idea of university for their kids may feel vindicated by the current reports of graduate unemployment and much-reduced earnings premium. The slant given to this story so far is that it is privilege, pounds and push which mean the children of richer parents succeed more. I would argue that those attributes are symptoms – the most important thing is that those parents themselves feel well-educated, whether state or privately, and have the confidence to academically back up what their children are doing at school. They are the mums and dads who worry that their child can't spell, or is having trouble with maths, and feels motivated enough to work on it at home with them. That selfsame education, motivation and confidence may well have led them into well-paid jobs and reasonable housing. Parents used to get a Government-funded parenting manual called From Birth to Five. Perhaps there is a gap in the market for similar tomes, to be given to the parents of Reception and Year 7 pupils, which would explain exactly what their kids learn in maths and English in different years, and how to back it up at home. Or, could parents with no qualifications get some kind of credit for joining targeted courses which would give them more confidence with the basics, and with homework help? Time for schools to tell us – loudly – what might work. *Another odd side-effect of the recession could be that headships could be one of the few jobs for which applicants are not queueing. Figures for last year, released by Professor John Howson (the experts' expert on school recruitment) show 37 per cent of primaries had to readvertise headship vacancies, with rates even higher in faith schools and the South of England. Around a quarter of secondaries had to readvertise vacancies. One bright spot was Wales, where only 16 per cent of schools failed to hire first time. Heads' leaders wearily explained, again, why the job has become increasingly unattractive for deputies. But at this point I'd like to hand over to one of your colleagues, the head of a large Yorkshire primary, who sent me this little rant after I wrote about the ludicrous number of official documents sent to heads each year. “Two days before the return to school I started waking up at 4am fretting over things I knew I needed to do, things I didn't know I needed to do but would find out as soon as I went in to school and things that didn't exist except in the empty spaces of my brain. I even tell myself not to be stupid but I still hear the milkman and the birds coughing. The really sad thing is that I have begun to have less patience with adults who seem to add to the pressure (children are great – even the ones with problems – they're the ones I'm there for!) “I believe that communication into schools from DCSF by email should be banned, that all documents should be sent as hard copies in order to stop me paying for the printing, that any initiative should be allowed at least 1 full year before any new one is introduced and that all Government officials should be fined heavily if someone can prove 'we've done it before – it was just called something else!' “I do not get that warm glow when a letter from Ed Balls tells me how wonderfully well I am working – I would if I knew that all such officials at this time of year were buried with a stake of holly through their hearts (apologies to Scrooge – and yes, Tiny Tim did die).” Government ministers, please take note. *Susan Young is an education journalist Is there something you want to get off your chest? Something I should write about? I'd love to hear from you at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=83 Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:33:28 GMT 20090112133328 Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:33:28 GMT 20090112133328 Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:33:28 GMT 200901121313328 Black ice, snow, flu and the sick bug… if anyone makes it into school at all this week it'll be a miracle, according to most of the British media (but don't expect them to treat it like one). Mind you, I detected a bit of very smart PR by the heads unions in the epidemic of flu and norovirus tales which swept the Sunday papers at the weekend, as a bit of a fightback against the Conservative-inspired stories of the rising amount of sick leave taken by teachers (a whole 5.4 days a year, apparently). Notably missing from that story was any comparison of teachers' sick days compared with anyone else's, or acknowledgement of the sheer number of bugs floating around in schools and the unhygienic habits of their young hosts. Sometimes you have to wonder: do journalists actually know any children? So good on Mick Brookes and John Dunford for quietly putting the other side of the story with their concerns about serious illness problems arising from the start of the new term when illness statistics are dramatically up anyway. A couple of years ago I interviewed the colourful Professor Ron Eccles of the Common Cold Unit, who pointed out that schools are the epicentre of most seasonal epidemics, which is why sickness peaks shortly after the start of the winter and spring terms. And it doesn't help that parents are increasingly sending in unwell children, partly because they are working themselves and partly because of the official drive to keep attendance as high as possible. Perhaps we need a new winter campaign encouraging parents to keep ill children at home, and not just if they've been vomiting… but I can't see it happening. What I can see happening, though, is more families wanting permission to take holidays during termtime as the recession really starts to bite – and it's heads who will face the competing demands of a local authority desperate to keep its absence figures down, and stressed families who will genuinely only get any sort of break if it is outside the timetabled holidays. Will you be hardline or humanitarian? And could it be time for a quiet official softening of this policy for a year or two? A softening of anything seems pretty unlikely though with the news that Ofsted is going to be even harder on the standard of teaching, blaming it for children's boredom or insufficient progress in class. I can see a few lively discussions about that one this week, assuming any of your staff actually make it into school. Still, with the pervasive doom and gloom we should highlight good news wherever possible, and that has to include the imminent announcement that a programme of job-creating public works will include school repairs. Many otherwise serviceable buildings could be transformed if the roof or windows were sorted, or even just with a new paint job, but those are the very schools which have often been at the back of the queue. Replacement windows and a bit of roofing felt just weren't so damn sexy as an architect designed, multi-million new building, even if the end result for pupils was much the same. I'd also like to be hopeful about this week's launch of a campaign to help primary children master basic maths. Apparently innumeracy costs Britain £2.4 billion a year, means children are likelier to truant or leave school earlier, and later become unemployed or get into trouble. This much is about as surprising as the revelation that the SATs tests may not run smoothly this year (no kidding) but more of an eye-opener is the figure put on affected individuals' financial losses: £44,000 by their late thirties, according to consultants KPMG. (In my experience most journalists are people who failed at maths, which is why you need to take percentages in news stories with a shovelful of salt.) So how are kids to be helped? This is where it all gets a bit more worrying. This particular scheme is to be run by businesses helping their local school, and funding maths-friendly games. In a recession? And the Government's own plans to help children falling behind, by using personal tutors, have apparently hit problems in the pilot scheme as not enough tutors could be found, although higher pay rates are apparently helping. Maybe the recession will help there, too -- could public works include basic skills tutoring? Silver linings, silver linings… http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=79 Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:09:31 GMT 20090105090931 Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:09:31 GMT 20090105090931 Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:09:31 GMT 200901050990931 It's one of the unwritten rules of journalism: when there's not much going on between Christmas and New Year, make a list. In fact, make as many as you can. Not wishing to be drummed out of the profession, I've made mine a wish list. Here goes: 1. I'd like to see some research done into the optimum size of school, from the point of view of the pupils. Yes, I know the arguments about economy of scale and maximising the curriculum – but I also know that in my own secondary school, which felt pretty big to me, the staff knew everyone by name and the kids knew everybody by sight. There were just 600 of us, including sixth form, which is pretty minute by today's standards. Pupil rolls in secondaries round my way mostly hover round the 1500 mark. Hands-on though the SMT are, they cannot possibly know everyone, and there is no space where the whole school can meet apart from on a playing field. At one school near me, I've watched in amazement as GCSE entries are sorted with the year group herded into a space between two buildings as teachers with megaphones rearrange them for each subject. You'll tell me that there is nothing wrong with this as long as it's all managed properly. I'd point out that it's not all that long ago before most people wouldn't see 150 different people in a lifetime, let alone ten times that before the age of 12, and we're combining this great psychological experiment with another in the form of shifting family structures. It would be really sensible to find out if this actually has a detrimental effect on teenage behaviour. Wouldn't it? Free school meals: rather than give them to all children in an attempt to encourage healthy eating, let's extend the group who are entitled to get them. This year is going to see more and more families who will be coping with a drop in income (with perhaps one parent losing a job, or both losing hours) who would struggle to pay approaching £20 a week for a child's meals but who are not currently entitled to get them free. This would also help schools that find themselves supporting children from newly-struggling families. KS2 SATS: let's ask Sir Jim Rose to turn his attention to sorting these out as part of his primary review. If the idea is really to make sure children leaving primary school can read, write, and do maths adequately, then surely testing them on these skills as they leave is a waste of time – better to do it a year earlier and then spend Year 6 sorting out any problems? And if it's to measure primary school performance for league tables, there must surely be a better way to do that as well. Faith schools: Time for all concerned to accept that faith schools will do better because the parents of kids in them will by definition have been organised enough to get their offspring baptised and, often, worship regularly or have strong community ties. Ethos might help a bit, but only if it appeals to that same group of motivated parents. The experiment I'd like to try is sticking a faith school into an education lottery system, and seeing what happens to results then when you get a genuine cross-section of parents. Never going to happen though, is it? School specialism and selection: what's the point of having specialist schools if they are so oversubscribed that there is a lottery system for places? If SATs are going to have a use, why not modify them to identify kids who'd benefit from going to, say, a specialist language college or sports college? And if kids on diplomas are being bussed round town on various bits of their course, why not extend that to send pupils placed in the “wrong” school to benefit their particular talent in specialist lessons elsewhere? There needs to be a real debate on controversial aspects of the proposed new teacher code of conduct being consulted upon by the General Teaching Council for England. Some teachers are up in arms at the thought of being required to act as a role model at all times, whilst others think it's part of the job. Should people in the public services risk losing their jobs for certain transgressions? And should the Code include very specific examples of what is acceptable and what is not? If all this isn't fully aired by teachers before the consultation closes, I predict uproar if the final wording is unpopular. You've got until Friday February 27 to take part at http://www.opm.co.uk/gtc/ So that's my rather ranty wishlist. What would be on yours? Let me know on educationhack@googlemail.com and I'll share your thoughts in a future blog. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=78 Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:59:10 GMT 20081228185910 Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:59:10 GMT 20081228185910 Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:59:10 GMT 200812281865910 You may have the turkey to wrap and the presents to stuff, but what is this unbearable lightness of being? Could it be the temporary release from the six thousand pages of official nagging sent out annually to schools by officialdom in all its various guises? Let's read that again. Yes, six thousand pages – more than the Complete Works of Shakespeare – is showered upon the heads of heads each year. You'd probably mind less if it was all about teaching and learning, but includes such essential reading as background on the national child measurement programme, and a whopping 500-plus pages on how to deal with common medical conditions in school. Unfortunately most of the harassment is done electronically so you won't even be able to use all this stuff to heat the school when UK Plc goes bankrupt in, ooh, February. (What do you mean, that's news to you? You've been too busy reading about human papilloma virus education and how to discourage termtime holidays? Maybe there is an upside to information overload, if it has kept you from the terrifying Robert Peston and headlines threatening financial meltdown followed by riots). Adding insult to injury is the annual document from the DCSF (nicely renamed by the Tories this week as the Department that Can't Stop Fiddling) telling schools how to reduce their administrative burden, which this year weighed in at a mere 89 pages. I could do it in two lines: forbid anyone from sending anything to schools unless an independent committee has agreed that it is actually important and makes a difference to learning; give schools carte blanche to bin anything they think is a waste of time. Actually, let's make that three lines: nothing should go out on more than two sides of A4. And three cheers for Mick Brookes, your own general secretary, who as a former head knows what it's like to wade through never-ending paperwork apparently designed to transform schools into perfect surrogate parents. His view? “There is a crisis in primary school recruitment because of all this. Head teachers are working 60 hours a week trying to get through it. For heads in small primary schools who also have to teach pupils, it is impossible. Ministers and officials need to look at the responsibilities and requirements on schools and pare it down." Not a hope, Mick, if the latest Government initiative is anything to go by. 'Tis The Season To Be Careful (http://www.surestart.gov.uk/_doc/P0002579.pdf) is a cheery little leaflet being handed out to warn about the dangers of Christmas to small children. You'll want to avoid glass baubles as broken ones have sharp bits, stop your toddlers swallowing batteries or aftershave, and make sure you drain your wine glass so that your kids can't do it for you. If any of this comes as news to people who would be bothered to read such a leaflet, I'd be amazed, but apparently they've printed 150,000 of them. Which is jolly handy for school leaders who are suffering cold turkey from lack of official bumph in the holidays, but otherwise infuriating. What single message can you draw from all this? Simple. They don't trust anyone, whether parents or teachers, to do anything with children without full instruction. The human race has survived for hundreds of generations, yet there seems to be official panic that we're about to collapse for want of a household policy on tree decorations and official guidance on teaching Roma kids. Why? So let's move swiftly on to another official pronouncement: this week's launching of a £40m campaign to get primary pupils singing. They Who Must Be Obeyed want daily singing “to build children's confidence and social skills” and also to help their self expression, memory and ability to listen. Not just because it's fun and good for you, then? Don't get me wrong – it'll be fantastic to get children singing regularly again, as the generations who sang hymns in school assembly every morning would testify. But why did schools stop doing it? Because they were told to do lots of other things, that's why. To quote Homer Simpson: D'Oh! I hope you all have a fantastic break – you've really earned it. Give yourself a present: try not to read anything bossier than a Delia Smith recipe. Susan Young is an education journalist. Contact me at educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=77 Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:46:16 GMT 20081222154616 Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:46:16 GMT 20081222154616 Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:46:16 GMT 200812221534616 What is it about the English and exams? We make our kids sit more than almost any other nation, whilst wringing our hands about lost childhood. We like to tinker with the system, but worry about grade inflation. We push kids to do well, but dismiss the results as teaching to the test. And every so often the whole thing goes so catastrophically wrong that the poor devil in charge has to resign – unlike almost every other area of public service, where it is the done thing to hang on by your fingernails until the baying mob retreats, or the government delivers the coup de grace. So Ken Boston, the plain-speaking, well-paid and well-liked Australian brought in to sort out our exam system joins former education secretary Estelle Morris on the sword. What did for her was the failure of rushed A-Level reform, while his nemesis came in the shape of a complete meltdown of last summer's SATs tests, being run for the first time by an enormous American company, ETS. The report into the affair, which prompted Boston's resignation, is clearly going to make fascinating reading, particularly if it can add to what a Parliamentary enquiry was able to establish in September, when an ETS official blamed the National Assessment Agency for moving the goalposts whilst the new system was being developed. Of course, the really interesting stuff may not be there at all. How much interference did Boston's Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and the NAA have from higher up the food chain as they sorted out details of the contract? Did they choose the lowest bidder? Was any political pressure brought to bear? And how do-able did exam bodies with more experience of the English SATs think the ETS contract would be? Heads may well think the elephant in the room is quite simply the testing system, which remains untouched for KS2 despite being abandoned altogether for secondary kids after last summer's debacle. Since the selfsame pachyderm is also lumbering invisibly round the Rose report into the primary curriculum, perhaps it's time to introduce a professional tamer. Or start a small circus. Either way, it is hard to see how the Government can keep on ignoring the beast and hoping it will go away. Still, one ray of light for English education and exams came last week in the form of the international maths and science rankings for 10 and 14 year olds. England did well in Timss, putting it its strongest performance for eight years, improving in maths and staying in the top seven for science. (http://www.nfer.ac.uk/research-areas/timss/timss_home.cfm) Surprisingly, it was Scotland which felt it had the black spot, finishing below its southern neighbour in all four tests and “only” achieving the international average. According to its education secretary, Fiona Hyslop, such results were “alarming” and “completely unacceptable”. But then both nations reverted to type. Teachers taking part in the study were asked about “limitations” which inhibited their ability to teach – and Scotland came top for ease of teaching maths, with England at number 2. This neither impressed the experts nor the ordinary teachers posting on the TES website, who united in their snorts of disbelief, opining that the question must have somehow been misinterpreted. But isn't that what we always say in England when exam results improve? educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=75 Mon, 15 Dec 2008 07:23:49 GMT 20081215072349 Mon, 15 Dec 2008 07:23:49 GMT 20081215072349 Mon, 15 Dec 2008 07:23:49 GMT 200812150772349 Blog dec 8 Speaking as a product of a topic-taught primary school system, I'm fascinated by Sir Jim Rose's proposals for reforming the current system by introducing themed areas of learning. Back in my junior school, we painted murals on the classroom windows, made whatever we fancied from balsa wood and glue and performed Gilbert and Sullivan operas every year. There was English, with lots of creative storywriting, and maths, which I never quite got the hang of. And I can still name most of the Great Lakes, and the Canadian states, but have no idea what the rationale was for learning them. In short, I loved it and like to think the experience left me fitted for a lifetime of problem solving. But balsa wood isn't about to make a comeback. Instead, children are going to be removed from their subject-based “silos”, and be encouraged to use their computer skills to demonstrate learning. Leaving aside the wisdom of teaching seven-year-olds how to inflict Death By PowerPoint (though I've been recently amazed by a Year 8 effort which involved animated ghosts flitting across every screen – why don't the usual conference slides do anything as interesting?) there are some huge implications in all of this. One is going to be finance. If pupils are going to be using computers more, there will need to be more computers. Do you then put those in already cramped primary classrooms, or scrape out space for extra computer suites? Even with falling rolls, most primaries aren't exactly over-endowed with space. More recording of work using computers theoretically suggests less time writing and so another implication – some pupils have a hard enough time acquiring this skill in the time they currently get to practice. And are we going to spend time teaching infants to touch-type properly, in the same way we teach them to form and join letters? Leaving them to hunt and peck, as most computer-users do, would be criminal. And (call me a Luddite) but as Sir Jim's report says, children are good at learning how to use computers. (My four-year-old can do things that leave me not only open-mouthed but vowing to try them for myself). So might it not be better to focus school more on things pupils find harder and are less inclined to learn for themselves? And of course, there is still that jolly old pachyderm wandering round the room in the form of tests for 11-year-olds and the overwhelming effect they tend to have on Year 6 if not Year 5 as well. No matter how good a job Sir Jim and his team do on reshaping primary education for the 21st century, they are operating with a hand behind their backs if they cannot consider this as well. Anyway, as if the implications of the Primary Review interim report weren't enough to ponder for one week, there are the intentions of Children's Secretary Ed Balls on improving social work practice, which will apparently find would-be heads seconded to social work departments, and would-be social work managers temporarily joining school leadership teams. Given the very different culture of the two services – with much more informal sharing of information in schools than social work duty rooms – it's going to be really interesting to see how this pans out, and what plans the National College for School Leadership has for the social work manager modules. Getting more information about the underpinning philosophy would be interesting, too. Is it to try to achieve the joined-up services described by Every Child Matters, so that heads and social work teams know each other before having to share potentially devastating information? Is it to help those at the sharp end, working with the most troubled families, understand how different “normal” families can be? Or is the aim to demolish more of these troublesome “silos” which are being blamed for many of our current ills? And then, how might it actually work? Will only certain schools find themselves being used for social work training? And how hands-on will the experience actually be? For, if we've learned anything from the unfolding events of the past few weeks, it is the sheer uselessness of doing just enough to tick the relevant box. educationhack@google.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=73 Mon, 08 Dec 2008 10:01:20 GMT 20081208100120 Mon, 08 Dec 2008 10:01:20 GMT 20081208100120 Mon, 08 Dec 2008 10:01:20 GMT 2008120810100120 When was the last time you read a piece of research with a smile on your face? School leaders seeking some elusive Christmas cheer should search out the newly-published evaluation of the Every Child A Reader project (http://www.everychildareader.org/pubs/third_year.pdf) and take ten minutes to whizz through it. I guarantee (well, almost) that you'll be smiling by the end, and not only remember why you went into teaching, but be telling all your colleagues about it. You probably already know what it's all about: an extended trial of Reading Recovery in a good handful of local authorities, targeted at six year olds who are at the bottom of the social pile and – even worse for reading – more often boys. They get 41 hours of one-to-one tuition with a specially trained teacher – and at the end of the intervention, had on average improved their reading skills by 21 months where four or five might have been expected. Pupils helped in the first year have achieved expected levels in their SATs tests at 11, thus proving that the effects aren't just short-term. All of which is great. But it is the individual children's stories that truly bring home the wondrousness of this project. My personal favourite is Jim, a Traveller boy who couldn't read or write at all. He did know the names of sixteen letters… but tended to mix them up. Two weeks in, he could write four words. Now – after attending 40-odd out of a possible 100 lessons, his concentration and attendance have improved, and he can read. Not only can Jim read, but he is the first member of his family to do so.How good is that? Now the scheme is being rolled out nationally over the next three years – Christmas presents for thousands of children, even if they don't know it yet. Actually, Every Child A Reader wasn't the only thing which made me smile this week. There was also the story – reported in tones of shocked horror – that middle-class parents are beating a path to academies, perhaps dislodging the deprived pupils the schools were created to target. Forgive me if I'm wrong – or perhaps just very cynical -- but I seem to recall the whole point of academies was to create inner-city schools which more proactive parents would seek for their pupils, thus creating the sort of social mix which is regarded as being helpful for success. Since these pushily parented pupils were previously being bussed into entirely middle-class enclaves or going private, surely this means the policy is working as it was meant to? Or perhaps I'm just missing something. On a similar vein – is anyone thinking about what will happen if significant numbers of parents decide that private education is unaffordable during the recession and start heading back into the state sector? The Telegraph has quietly launched a column comparing state and private provision in particular towns, and is reporting rumblings of unprecedented competition for places in 11-plus areas. Earlier this year, it was reported that the number of children in private schools had reached a record high at 511,677, with an increase of 0.8 per cent in the previous year,despite falling numbers of children. Suppose ten per cent of those parents lose their jobs – statistically likelier, it seems, in the South East and London – and you might have the recipe for a fair number of particularly sharp-elbowed families finding their way back into the local schools market (perhaps followed by some of their erstwhile teachers). What happens then could be really interesting. For starters, schools have been getting rid of surplus places caused by pupil demographics, so there may be some squeezing on spaces – particularly in oversubscribed schools, which is where these parents will want to go. Moreover, if people aren't moving house in the usual way, predictions about future pupils might anyway be skewed. Then, once the ex-private families are actually in the schools, what difference might they make? Will some state schools increasingly clamour to do the Baccalaureate or international GCSE, pushed by their new clientele? Or – even more radically – might the Government start to reconsider some sort of education voucher system if large numbers of families start using services for which they've paid but previously haven't used? Presumably it's highly unlikely that there's going to be enough previously private parents winding up in state education to make these kind of changes, but their presence may start a few political debates. Moreover, unprecedented economic times can lead to previously rejected policies becoming popular. And parents are used to it with pre-school, and childcare – why not schools? educationhack@googlemail.com http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=70 Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:11:21 GMT 20081201101121 Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:11:21 GMT 20081201101121 Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:11:30 GMT 2008120112121130 After more than a decade in which education became a sexy subject for the national media, the current silence is unnerving. Inattentive readers of the national papers might have completely missed what Ofsted had to say about schools last week (though their thoughts on child protection were deemed newsworthy) and even the sorry tale of a GCSE howler struggled for space. Of more interest to most of the papers, though, was the suggestion that classics exams might have to be ditched to cover potential compensation payments made by the boards for marking errors, and also the tales about a stampede for grammar places, coupled with private schools falling on hard times along with their customers. In other words, the kind of stories that tell you more about the interests of news editors during a recession (are we allowed to call it that yet?) than the general public the media is supposed to reflect. If it shows that education is only of interest in the good economic years, then that's significant -- but we may have to wait to find out. I've hung around to write today in the vague expectation that there might be something in the Chancellor's Pre-Budget report of real interest to school leaders. And then I've done a swift trawl through the pages of the document, so you don't have to (I know how much bumph clutters the average head's in-tray and inbox). So, in a nutshell, here are the three main points: Public sector pay restraint, “with multi-year settlements where appropriate.” (Don't expect to be going into the new 45p tax bracket just yet) £800 million to be brought forward in the priority schools capital programme (good news if you head a primary school in need of a kitchen, or have a secondary school which is either energy-hungry or needs to adapt classroom to personalised learning, of which more later.) More efficiency savings (if your school is still going it alone on the electricity bill, expect a nice salesman from the Office of Government Commerce to doorstep you about a better deal) That's it, very roughly, but if you want more than just the gist, go to http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/pbr08_chapter6_161.pdf But read in context with the other education news that the national media isn't very interested in, and it all gets a bit more dynamic. The personalised learning money, for example. According to the TES's coverage of the parliamentary education committee last week, no-one really knows what personalised learning actually is. Even Professor David Hargreaves, who was a member of a Government taskforce on that very subject, admitted they struggled to come up with a tight definition. The definition they eventually came up with, weighing in at more than 40 words, is currently being used by the Government but was rather endearingly described by the professor as “well-intentioned waffle”, adding that the term had “outlived its usefulness.” Mick Waters of the QCA agreed he used the term as little as possible, and Committee chairman Barry Sheerman, rarely a man to mince his words, said he found the whole thing confusing. But the Department for Children, Schools and Families isn't confused: the latest guidance says personalised learning is “central” to the “vision.” And it told the TES that this is something that heads and teachers “clearly understand.” If that's true, perhaps one of you should explain it to the Professor and the parliamentary committee. How about another Budget story, the tax rises for those earning over £150k? Not in education, you may snort, as former Cityboys and girls apparently queue to become science teachers and bright graduates are enticed into Teach First as the lure of job security outweighs a salary at which they would have previously sniffed. Then you might find interesting reading in the Taxpayers' Alliance rich list of public servants' remuneration. The highest name in the list (at number 47) is that of Ken Boston at the QCA, whose total package is worth £328,900, including international air travel. Next up is Mark Haysom of the Learning and Skills Council, in 68th place, with a total of £284,000 which includes £29,000 towards his pension pot. At 105th is Christine Gilbert at Ofsted, still way above the £150k mark, with David Bell, permanent secretary at the DCSE coming it at 189th, on a total package of £190,200. There are a few others on there, but what makes the list so fascinating is not finding out what those in other parts of education are earning – you probably know already -- but how they compare to other public servants, such as Channel 4 executives…. and Gordon Brown. Want to see for yourself? http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/files/public-sector-rich-list-2008.pdf. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=69 Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:57:03 GMT 20081124175703 Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:57:03 GMT 20081124175703 Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:44:37 GMT 200811261644437 I was going to write something positive about the under-reported finding that headteachers are the second most trusted group of professionals in the country, a bit behind GPs, just ahead of judges, and way, way outscoring MPs and Government ministers. (Remember that next time they're telling you what parents want). After all, this is one bit of genuinely cheery news: school leaders may get regularly sniped at by the tabloids (whose reporters are trusted to tell the truth by just TEN per cent of us), but the mud fails to stick. So that was the plan. But then I read the stomach-churning weekend coverage of the Baby P case, and wished that little boy had made it to school, where I hope he would have encountered a wider group of adults, whose concerns might have succeeded in saving him. And my mind turned not to social services, and their staff dealing with an almost impossible tide of human misery, but the haven that a caring school can provide. For even before Every Child Matters and joined-up services, it was schools that took note of pupils' wellbeing. Years ago, there were the primaries who quietly kept a stock of clean, ironed uniform for particular children who would otherwise be shunned by classmates because they didn't smell too good. But by and large, families tended to live in more settled communities and problems worse than those of benign chaos tended to get picked up by neighbours. But the enormous social changes of the last couple of decades have had the strange effect of magnifying the age-old role of the headteacher as pillar of the community, to an astonishing degree in some particularly troubled areas. Some years ago I interviewed a dynamic, newish comprehensive head in a suburb whose once-skilled workforce had been decimated by factory closures. As he turned his school around, tackling teenage behaviour and creating a new ethos, he realised something odd was happening. Parents were coming to me for advice, in the same way as they would once have gone to see their local vicar, he said. He claimed no hotline to the Almighty, but did have what many people locally had lost: a sense of right and wrong and the will to enforce good communal behaviour on both sides of the school perimeter. Primary heads can find themselves even closer to the frontline. One friend of mine, the head of a school in a desperately tough area, is matter-of-fact about things which leave you open-mouthed: the child he packed off to hospital in a taxi, with grandmother, for a potentially life-transforming appointment which the child's father had repeatedly failed to do; the pupil whose whole family is being pursued in a bullying vendetta which even extends to blameless visitors like a nurse. It's almost impossible for outsiders of whatever class to comprehend how different life is for pupils of this school. Here, staff battle to raise children's aspirations to travel beyond their estate, to get qualifications, but it is so much the norm to be a teenage parent that would-be grandparents take 16-year-olds to the doctor complaining that something must be wrong because they've been trying for a year but haven't fallen pregnant. (Can't see the contraceptive injections for teenagers apparently planned by the Government going down too well there). And then there is the crippling worry for heads, like this one, of what might befall their pupils outside the safety of school. Schools surrounded by streets and streets of need can sometimes find it difficult to summon help for children in anything less than the most dramatic circumstances. My nameless friend rang social services about two tiny children who he feared were going to be left alone all weekend by a parent on a bender. Are they at immediate risk of harm? he was asked. There simply weren't the resources for this kind of neglect. Another former head, still in education, recalls making a similar phone call years ago and it being suggested to him that he might take the child home with him for the weekend. It seemed odd then. It seems extraordinary now, he says. All of which probably explains exactly why it is that heads maintain such an astonishing position of trust in our public life, at a time when we're so cynical about so much. If I were a Government minister I'd be not only encouraging you to lift the lid on the state of many 21st century families and communities, as part of a wider public debate, but I'd be moving heaven and earth to give heads the space to get on helping their local communities. Is that building community cohesion? It should be. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=62 Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:07:09 GMT 20081117110709 Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:07:09 GMT 20081117110709 Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:07:09 GMT 2008111711110709 Perhaps it's a symptom of advancing age, but it can be hard to go a week these days without coming across some pronouncement that just sounds like a statement of the blooming obvious. Apparently parents are the new must-have for schools; the key to improving achievement among hard-to-reach pupils. Recent research for the Department of Cushions and Soft Furnishings and the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust has found that what parents do is more important than what schools do in determining children's success. (I thought all the many rows about league tables and catchment areas had already proved that point, but there you are). It is a very powerful lever for raising achievement. However, it is underutilised in many schools. Parental engagement in the home is the major thing that affects achievement, the fantastic Professor Alma Harris of the London Centre for Leadership in Learning, who carried out the research, told the TES. Quick question: is anyone surprised? Despite the Government's best efforts with wraparound care, children spend the minority of their time at school and (sorry, all you hardworking heads) will inevitably find their families more influential than experiences they have in a class of 30. The odd thing is that we've had a decade or more where education policy has been created with the explicit intention of involving parents yet there is clearly a long way to go, as statistics about excluded infants and drunken juniors have recently revealed. One of Labour's early Big Ideas were home-school agreements not a bad premise, but which is now effectively just one more bit of paperwork to show Ofsted. Bolshy parent that I am, I don't sign, on the grounds that both parties are simply formalising our obligations the school's legal, mine moral. Signing therefore won't make a blind bit of difference to what actually happens and allows us all to think less about parental and school partnerships as the paperwork is sorted, job done. Other developments supposedly intended to get parents more involved in education can distance many. League tables, Ofsted fine if you've got the time, energy or cash to get into a different school. Some official policies such as getting lone parents to work can even make it harder for proper support to be provided at home. And dare I say it? some heads and teachers are just better at dealing with families than others. I asked parents what influenced their choice between two good secondary schools in one area. The answer? One head greets prospective parents at the open evening with an emotional speech talking about your children and our children in contrast with the then neighbour's riff on take on young adults and independent learners. Guess which was the more popular school. Meanwhile, in primaries, a quick poll found that the head who inspires unwavering parental help and loyalty is the one who's in the playground in all weathers, just waiting to chat about an anxiety or an achievement. Despite all these good intentions and good practice, there undoubtedly are parents who see schools as glorified babysitters and schools which are poor at reaching out to home so what's to be done? Do we need expert parents modelled on the NHS scheme? Do we need to be even clearer in the information which goes to parents about exactly what they can do to help their children's life chances, and how? Do we need to pay parents if their kids are demonstrably trying hard and behaving well? (might not be as mad as it sounds) Do we need to look at the jargon and explanations that go home, and think about what parents actually make of them? (My guess would be: what you say, and what parents think you're saying, are not the same thing at all.) For instance, the growing trend to have parental appointments during school time is supposed to show that your child's education is of paramount importance. It might do that but if the parent gets ten or fifteen minutes, and has had to negotiate time off work with a unsympathetic boss, what overall impression is created. Watch out for next month's seminar looking at the differences schools can make to communities, hosted (online as well) by the National College for School Leadership, because the schools Professor Harris looked at were trying some really fantastic initiatives. These went far beyond parental fundraising or signing the homework books, and got family members through the gates and working in paid or unpaid school roles which appeared to result in better behaviour. After all, what's scarier than having your mum in school? Someone else's mum And finally, a good social trend may finally come from the US thanks to Barack Obama's election victory. Mindful of the needs of their children, the Obamas have made sure someone will be there to support the lives and schooling of the First Children. Step forward, First Granny. . http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=60 Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:02:20 GMT 20081110140220 Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:02:20 GMT 20081110140220 Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:02:20 GMT 200811101420220 Or perhaps that should be legislation, legislation, legislation. As a school head, have you any idea how many laws you have to obey, and exactly what they say? Researching a feature on just this subject earlier this year, I tentatively asked an expert in school law how many rules and regulations apply to heads, and whether he could talk me through the list. By the time the poor man had stopped laughing, I'd got the message. There are a ridiculous number of laws applying to schools. So how does the average head cope with it all? According to the unscientific survey I then carried out with some friendly school leaders, you concentrate on what's important, do what you can and keep your fingers crossed. Keeping in touch with colleagues, and keeping an eye on advice from a professional association, is also important. And you can of course subscribe to a service which exists purely to keep heads up to date on the law. Until now, Government ministers have appeared blithely unaware that the heads of most schools have to be on top of more rules and regulations than the average small or medium business. But, finally, an obscure arm of the legislature the Select Committee on the Merits of Statutory Instruments has decided to have a look at the impact of these bits of legislation on various different organisations. And surprise, surprise, the Committee's initial finding is that heads have to cope with more changes than anyone else. During the last full year of legislation, the then Department for Education and Skills came up with 135 regulations. Compare that with the 24 changes in the law affecting the armed forces, 13 targeting Wales, and just five issued by mandarins in the Foreign Office The committee was also clearly unnerved by the Government's habit of enacting these things during the summer holidays and expecting heads to make the necessary changes at the start of the school year. Far more rigorous assessments were carried out of the potential burden of new regulations on businesses than the public sector, said the preliminary report. So, they are now asking all sorts of interesting questions about the effects of regulations on schools, including whether enough notice is given, whether publicity is good enough and even whether they are workable or not. If you haven't already submitted your two sides of A4, the closing date was Friday but find out more at: http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/merits/schools.cfm. But will it be within the enquiry's remit to look at some of the stunning contradictions now littering Government education policy? More specifically, where Ofsted disagrees with other verdicts on a school. I'm thinking of this week's crop of inspection reports, where Canterbury High, a National Challenge school, was graded outstanding (despite being threatened with closure if it doesn't raise its exam results) and The Ridings in Yorkshire, which has improved hugely -- but will close to make way for an academy next year. Both schools are in difficult areas. But in a situation where the Government is clearly determined to micromanage schools (statutory instrument anyone), the chances of them sorting out any of these contradictions anytime soon is limited. After all, part of a 95 page report released by Downing Street this week says social mobility, as expressed through educational outcomes, appears to have improved during the lifetime of this Government. Ministers are carefully not crowing but draw your own conclusions. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=59 Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:15:29 GMT 20081103151529 Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:15:29 GMT 20081103151529 Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:55:57 GMT 200811101315557 It's half-term, the clocks have gone back, the world's financial system might as well be run by Reception pupils and snow is forecast. Oh, and anyone who tried to escape it all for the week would have run the gamut of what the BBC cheerily calls Black Friday apparently the worst day of the year to travel. You need a holiday to cope with the rest of the longest, darkest term but if you're reading this website, it suggests that relaxation is perhaps not uppermost in your mind. Perhaps your school is one of those which has been waiting a full year to hear the results of its GCSE appeals? Perhaps the idea of an Ofsted dawn raid is giving you sleepless nights? Or perhaps you're hurriedly re-organising that teambuilding weekend you'd planned in Iceland, substituting a weekend in a Skegness trailer park? Schools have been copping bad press recently at any hint of a foreign jolly, and given everything we're now hearing about the marine holidaying habits of those who'd like to run the country and those who own half the world, it's increasingly hard to understand why. Compared to those yachts we're hearing about (which look oddly like cruise liners to me), what's the problem with a couple of days in a Spanish resort, or studying poverty in the USA? Three possible explanations: (a) we're innately suspicious of training days/weekends; (b) we don't think public employees should do anything which sounds glamorous, even if Bilbao is actually cheaper than Birmingham or (c) we never grow out of the firm belief that teachers actually live at school. What the profession needs is a really glamorous role model: perhaps Daniel Craig could be persuaded to swap Bond's gun and gadgets for pupil tracking software and a smartboard. Although if High School Musical 3, half term's other major film release, can't make schools glam on Disney's budget, there's probably no hope. Still, if you steer away from exams (anyone want a science GCSE now we know they're easier to pass?) and pupils' behaviour (getting either better or worse, depending where you read about the survey results) it's not been such a bad week for anyone wedded to a school. And something's going really well for heads. According to new research from the National College for School Leadership, teachers are once more actively eyeing up the top job, particularly those who haven't yet bought their first pot of wrinkle cream. http://www.ncsl.org.uk/tlt-home/tlt-about/tlt-about-headshipindex.htm. And the change is all down to serving heads: they approve of the bursar you've hired to take the strain, and they like the fact you're taking an interest in their career development. Not ready to retire yet? Time to delegate the Inset Awayday then and then alert Her Majesty's Press to the glamorous venue chosen by your would-be successor. http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=57 Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:31:27 GMT 20081027143127 Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:31:27 GMT 20081027143127 Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:31:27 GMT 200810271423127 Do you remember any of your sex education lessons (as a pupil, I mean not those red-faced teaching moments which still have to power to wake you in a cold sweat)? Were they titillating? Did they leave you with any horrible hang-ups about vegetables and condoms? Did they have any discernable effect on your bedroom activities? Thought not. But newspaper editors and family campaigners were clearly scarred for life by the birds and the bees, which is why sex ed tales are among the few stories to dislodge the financial doom. The Telegraph went big on the Government's impending recommendation that primary sex ed should become compulsory, somehow adding a whiff of disapproval. Expect more when it launches this week. Much worse was the tale of No Outsiders, a primary educational project which according to the TES called off an official launch after death threats from extremists. Lurid tales had appeared in the tabloids alleging young children were being taught about gay sex. Well, as they say in the trade, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Then there was the revelation that Scouts could soon be getting advice on more than the correct use of a woggle. Underpinning all this is the bizarre belief that telling kids about sex will have them off buying a pack of flavoured condoms with their pocket money. And you probably wonder, as I do: have family campaigners and news editors ever met any children? In my experience all primary pupils know when to expect the yucky stuff lesson, and they may share notorious highlights from the sex ed film. (Look out for the cat on the roof when the mum and dad are in bed!). But the general idea never comes as a huge surprise: innocents will be surrounded by classmates with teenage siblings or more informative parents. Girls can start their periods at 10 or even 9: would campaigners return to the days when terrified children thought they were bleeding to death? It's time for primary schools to tell it like it is: that any suggestion that adults might have sex for fun is met with baffled incomprehension by your average kid. I leave you with the comment of a 13-year-old, gently teased about the prospect of kissing her first boyfriend. I wouldn't go anywhere near him, she grimaced. I wouldn't know what he'd had in his mouth. * I have one final cynical point to make about the Government's decision to scrap secondary tests whilst keeping primary one: It's hard to think of a neater example of the principle of divide and rule than to split schools and heads in this way. Presumably it's pure coincidence that Peter Mandelson, the most political politician of his generation, arrived in the Cabinet just days before? http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/comment/blogs/susan-young/?blogpost=54 Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:48:37 GMT 20081021114837 Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:48:37 GMT 20081021114837 Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:48:37 GMT 2008102111114837