Journal of the Plague Years

Affiche of May, 1968.

• The Virtues of Phlogiston.
• Hammering Education.
• Half a dozen grapefruit is a gross lemon.
• Dis/Connected.
• Baby ASBOs
• The Way Forward.
• Payment-by-Results and the Old Right.
• Steer Clear of Childcare.
• The Early Years Foundation Stage. (EYFS)
• An Earlier School Day.
• I'm still angry at the Thought Police...
• The Mc-A level.
• On Private Education.
• The Bell At The End Of Class.
• Education And Skills Bill.
• Wells, Shaw and Dickens.
• Missing Teachers.
• Education as a Football.
• Spice Girls, Balls.
• Our Spice Girls Are Our Future.
• The Ugly Side of School League Tables.

The Virtues of Phlogiston.

30 April 2008 .

Chalfonts Community College in Bucks is allowing sixth-formers to cover a few lessons a week if regular teachers are absent. They take classes up to year 10, and the head says they do a better job than many supply teachers. The 'cover students' are paid a fiver for a 50 minute lesson.

The Tories, represented by their schools spokesman, Nick Gibb, are kicking up a fuss over this example of 'declining educational standards'. The real question is, of course, whether the scheme is educationally beneficial to the sixth-formers and to the youngsters they teach: the second question is whether the tory response is based on scientific evidence or on political opportunism. I bet it's the latter - if it isn't, why haven't they gone public with the documentation?

The scheme isn't a new one: in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, senior pupils taking junior classes was quite normal... the fact that it was happening 200 years ago doesn't of itself mean the idea is either good or bad - the assumption that old-fashioned is ignorant and that we know better is arguably one of the great failings of our culture.* I happen to think the idea has a lot going for it, on several levels; the problem is that I can't produce any evidence for my opinion, any more than anyone else can. A bit less shouting the odds, Mr. Gibb of the tories, and a bit more assessing the experiment, might be the more mature approach.

*It's interesting that one of the abuses heaped on fundamentalist Islam is that it's 'mediaeval'... which has no bearing at all on the pros and cons of that religion or its practices...

'Chalfonts Community College' 'Nick Gibb' 'cover students' 'Pupil teachers'

Hammering Education.

19 April 2008 .

The Universities, 20 years ago.

A generation ago, the Tory administration (Thatcherite, and in some fundamental and demonstrable ways contemptuous of education) redefined 'university' to include a rag-tag of polytechnics (some good, some awful) and other colleges, many of which didn't deserve the description of 'higher education'. I don't for one minute think I was alone in doubting the merits of the scheme (actually, despite some intelligence and my best efforts, I never worked out what the merits of the scheme were meant to be), but the general mood seemed to favour it.

A couple of hundred yards from my home is one of these 'new universities'. It might be unfair to speak disparagingly of some of the courses it offers: what is there for all to see is drop-out rates that have exceeded 50% (think about that); what I've seen on the few occasions I've had any dealings there is a terrifyingly low level of literacy.

It wasn't the first time that I wondered what government thought they were about: the consequences as I perceived them convinced me that politics, personal agendas, personal career paths and simply peeing on the gatepost all come way above education on the list of priorities.

I have to work very hard not to see... the poor educational outcomes which the media and others tell us we're experiencing... as resulting from the input of brains which decided to redesignate a failing college as a university. Often I fail.

-/-

Primary and Secondary schools, today.

The Public Schools (which, for the benefit of you in more sensible countries who may not understand English ways, are in the private sector) are being nudged, encouraged, pushed into a greater engagement with the state sector and with less advantaged children, which is to the good - and many schools are going down this path willingly. However, their very existence has always been a bete noire for elements of the Labour party, and the recent removal of their charitable status (which exists for some very good historical reasons) unless they tow the party line looks politically motivated; the indications are that while some laggardly schools will get their act together with a bit more energy, there are others that are going to find themselves with financial difficulties which may prove terminal.

It may be the case that (selective) Grammar schools damage the education of children in the surrounding areas who don't go to them (although it's far from universally accepted). Those who would like to see the back of these schools in favour of a truly 'Comprehensive' provision have the options of evidence or argument, or even politics, to advance their case. Within the last few months, evidence seems to have emerged instead that rather than pursuing these routes, Ed Balls (Secretary for education) may be using the much vaunted rebuilding and renovating programme as a means to close Grammar schools down by the back door.

Then, recently, the Faith schools found themselves in the firing line; they were accused (en masse, apparently) of demanding cash from parents hopeful of a place for their children. This charge seems to have come from Ed Balls. [I lose track of who exactly agrees with whom, but my impression is that Balls is not exactly with the late, pro-faith-school Blair on this any more than on a wide range of issues.] It finally turned out that only six schools in all (out of hundreds) were saying anything about a contribution from parents, and five of those were Jewish schools concerned with security. No massive apology from the accusers. (Nor even a muted one.)

-/-

If we set aside political views (such as the intense passion many of us feel for state, or faith, education, or for a 'comprehensive' system) and look at the measurable educational outcome for the individual pupil, then, on the whole, the best results tend to be found among precisely these three types of school. Or, to put it another way, it begins to look as if Balls is less concerned with improving the generality of schools to the levels of these (admittedly privileged ) examples - as he claims - and more concerned with sidelining those which offer too glaring a contrast. This impression is hardly dispelled when he says that a good comprehensive school which is forced (in extremis, as it generally is) to expel a pupil will be obliged to take on another - with level odds that the replacement child will be even more troubled than the one he/she replaces. Nor is it dispelled by suggestions - anecdotal but increasingly frequent - that successful schools are being merged with larger, less successful schools, ostensibly to widen the influence of good practice... resulting, of course, in the ethos of the smaller school simply being swamped.

Meanwhile we have stop-start on exams. This section may have slightly lost track of the convoluted course of events, and is therefore E&OE ... but it is a public perception of what's going on.

• Schools were going to be allowed to swap 17+ exam systems, from 'A' levels (established in the UK for two generations) to the internationally respected Bacca'. Suddenly the government (Balls) has blocked this possibility.
• Instead, all 17+ students will sit exams under a system which isn't even up and running yet.

The new system won't be fully rolled out for another few years. Those five initial subject areas being road-tested from this year... find schools and teachers have not been prepared for them yet, with training - such as it is - being limited to four days per teacher.

Balls intends that the new exam, a 'new standard for excellence', will have taken over, fully, within six or seven years. Great, if it works. More likely just bloody stupid to make such a prediction when we haven't even started the road-testing.

-/-

There never was a golden age of education, when every pupil had a good experience at school and left literate, numerate, and fully equipped to face the outside world. Nor do I necessarily think we live in a dark age now, notwithstanding the concerns of universities and business with poorly-equipped school-leavers. What is worrying is that our perception of government policies toward education and the management - sometimes micromanagement - of our schools, is that it is often either politically poisonous or incompetent.

It seems to be precisely the best schools which have each in turn received the close attention of Ed Balls, the secretary for schools, in negative and destructive ways.

Meanwhile, even the pretence that parents can appeal against the decision by the authorities as to where a child must go to school is being abolished. (Although, for a lot of parents, it never was much more than a pretence anyway.) Personally, I think parents demand far too many rights and privileges for their beloved sprogs; but this right, of some control over one's child's schooling, is fundamental in a free society. Unfortunately, the idea of choice in education obviously doesn't conform with Testicular Reality.

University 'Primary Schools' 'Secondary schools' 'right to choose' 'Ed Balls' 'A level' 'International Baccalaureat' 'Public schools' 'Grammar Schools' comprehensives 'faith schools' 'new universities' polytechnics

Half a dozen grapefruit is a gross lemon.

06 April 2008 .

I was shopping yesterday, out of town, in one of the wealthier parts of Hampshire. Waitrose first, where a young man held up a grapefruit and asked, "What's this?"

Then Clinton's (card shop) for some stamps: "a dozen first class stamps," requests I. "How many?" asks the (different, adult) fellow there. "A dozen," says I. "Yes, but how many do you want?" demands he, not quite as quick a flash.

Both guys were reasonable well-spoken, native English by their accents.

I know it doesn't matter, and that I shouldn't be bothered... but I am.


Dis/Connected.

03 April 2008 .

Shown on BBC 3 this week, Dis/connected was previously postponed because it coincided with the media coverage of the Bridgend suicides. For once they were right to delay; it was a very disturbing film about several teenagers in the days after they ignored desperate emails from a depressed girl who then killed herself. (Her death wasn't the focus so much as a starting point.)

I don't for a moment think that the brittle, superficial world of 'face' and appearances in which these teenagers lived actually exists (or, least, not without mitigation); the school they attended is more like some of the architecturally impressive but ultimately soulless portrayals from the US (where I don't think they really exist either) and the atmosphere fell somewhere on the line Kafka - Clockwork Orange - Grange Hill - Oreal advertisement. But somehow it all still rang horribly true; I don't think this film was a close caricature (let alone a representation) of the life we're giving our kids... but a small part of me is wondering...

'Dis/connected' 'Grange Hill'

Baby ASBOs

21 March 2008 .

Another of 'Children's Secretary' Ed Balls' increasingly surreal and nasty initiatives. Up to 1,000 children a year (apparently aged around 10) are to be given Antisocial Behaviour Orders and Individual Support Orders. It will not be a nationwide initiative; local councils will bid and twenty will take part. The total direct and associated costs are quoted as running to over 200 million over the next three years.

There is a process called 'statementing', by which children who need help, educationally, psychologically, socially or whatever, are supposed to be drawn to the attention of the local authority. However, a statemented child puts a burden on the council, not least financially (albeit offering a hope of reducing the burden on the community in the longer term), so many councils go out of their way to ensure that as few children as possible make it to that point. To which end, the process of statementing is made fiendishly complex and time-consuming; a single error in filling in any one of the 32 often dense forms will result in the whole process having to start again; the local authority will put up any barrier it can, often by insisting on information which isn't legally required and is difficult to get hold of; and in the end the authority, although legally obliged to act on behalf of statemented children, will often find all sorts of delaying tactics. Having had to statement children myself in the past (one of the great nightmares which still have me wake sweating in the small hours) I can report on children whose primary schools had spent years trying to statement, who were clearly exactly whom the legislation was intended for, whose parents wanted it, and who were still being blocked two or three years after arriving a secondary school.

So why do I find Ed Ball's initiative so distasteful? Because it's political wall-paper, of course. Because that 200 million spent properly, in the humdrum, non-headline way that it should be spent would change so many lives, of course. But mainly because of that figure, 1,000 children. It's not a target, for which I'm grateful; but it's a number, plucked out of the thin air, in exactly the same way as the governments targets: it has no connection to the real needs of our troubled young. And it stinks.

'Individual Support Orders' 'Educational statementing' 'Special needs' 'Baby ASBO'

The Way Forward.

20 March 2008 .

The local council in the Isle of Wight has voted to change the local education system from three-tier (change schools at 9 and 13) to two-tier (change at 11 only), dropping the middle schools, against the vehement protests of a proportion of the community. Naturally, the phrase 'the way forward' was in attendance.

We have local authorities changing from three- to two-tier and others changing from two- to three- at the same time. It's almost always against the wishes of a sizeable proportion of the parents (and sometimes teachers) involved. It's in the face of endless changes, initiatives and micromanagement from central government; there seems to be no clear evidence or science favouring one system over the other, for some children it's the final straw in a childhood experience of educational instability, and somehow insult is added to injury in that it's always 'the way forward'.

It's no wonder that English education is at rock-bottom (arguments to that effect elsewhere on this site). And it's no wonder that so many people who ought to be teaching either aren't or soon won't be if they can help it.

Unless you believe that state education in England is in fine fettle... in which case I'd love to see the evidence.


Payment-by-Results and the Old Right.

10 March 2008 .

Policy Exchange, a right of centre think-tank, has produced a report arguing that there is too much government intervention in schools, at the expense of the role of teachers ('Helping Schools Succeed: a framework for English Education'); it urges the abandonment of league tables. Its conclusions are in line with what almost everybody involved in the work of education, apart from the government and a few people whose careers are built on testing, is saying: John Dunford, Gen. Sec. of the Association of School and College Leaders today said 'league tables are a toxic influence from the era of market-based policy making', which I'd say about sums it up.

The report recommends the scrapping of the National Curriculum and its replacement by 'a brief set of core subjects' to allow teachers more freedom. [I bet I'm not the only one who's thinking, that's what I was saying twenty years ago - when I was called a dinosaur for arguing against progress: if I sound slightly vexed on this topic, it's because the National Curriculum undermined my own sense of vocation but, more importantly, has - I'm convinced - helped to thoroughly mess up the education of a generation of children. (And it was the first time I was called a dinosaur... although not the last...)]

The report backs performance-related pay.

The Right never lets go, does it, any more than the Left? Abandon league tables, they say... well, most of the rats are leaving that particular sinking ship... but bring back payment-by-results, which is what performance-related pay boils down to, and which was dumped a century ago because it did not work..

If you're going to have pay based on performance, you'll have to measure that performance for the system to work fairly, so you'll have to test - one way or another... so there may not be any league tables actually published, but they'll be there, under the surface.

But teaching is not piece-work: you cannot measure the number of washing-machines sold, or bales of cotton carried, in teaching: too much of the 'value added' by teachers is imponderable, measured if at all by the effect they have on students in later life. That's not to say that teachers should not be assessed, and pruned where necessary: that's the purpose of peer review and a strong, professional, independent inspectorate with teeth (who in turn need to be free of targets) along with parental involvement and all the other ways by which we come to have a pretty good idea of who is or is not a good teacher..

If you pay by performance, you'll end up paying those who are good at spinning their performance.

'Payment by Results' 'performance-related pay' 'John Dunford'

Steer Clear of Childcare.

06 March 2008 .

Whistleblower, on BBC this week, made unsurprising but still pretty depressing assertions about how poorly run some of the leading childcare nurseries are, to the extent that they endanger infants and toddlers - assertions only too well borne out by evidence offered in the programme and by a couple of recent high profile incidents resulting in children dying.

I doubt that either the programme or widespread if anecdotal experience will have much affect on the government's efforts to get mothers out of the home and back to work as promptly as possibly after the birth of their children. But at least it will test that the babies can use a remote control at 22 months.

Also sadly unsurprising was the supine hopelessness of the inspectorate, Ofsted - another government agency now wedded to the private sector. 'Get in and get out quick. Don't look for problems,' was how the Ofsted whistleblower in the programme described her brief. Funnily enough, ha ha, she added that inspectors could find themselves penalised for not meeting targets (q,v. endlessly).

-/-

Ofsted really is a waste of space, sometimes.

Not too long ago, the mother of a child I had taught got in touch with me. She was very distressed because the head teacher of their school had made arrangements for certain 'difficult' children to stay at home during a forthcoming Ofsted inspection in order to massage the image of the school: her boy was one of those and she was in some distress about it. (Professionally, I wasn't too pleased either, when I heard; the lad had made good progress; but for present purposes his progress is neither here nor there.)

The head was quite blatant about what she was doing: she even made a joke about it at a staff meeting.

An appeal to head and to the board of governors was dismissed without so much as a hearing (to which, in fact, the family were entitled). At the mother's request, I wrote, in my own name, to Chris Woodhead (who was near the end of his late unlamented watch as chief inspector) ahead of the inspection of this large comprehensive in North London; I told him what was planned and what had happened, and gave him sufficient documentary evidence to back what I was saying.

I got a reply, for which I suppose I should be grateful even though it arrived weeks after the inspection. It was curt and said, simply, that such things didn't happen - and that even if they did, they were not Ofsted's concern.

I wish I could report that the boy shrugged the episode off, returned to school and did well. Unfortunately the details are confidential, but I can tell you that that was very definitely, and rather chillingly, not the ultimate outcome.

It wasn't Ofsted's job to worry about either wrongful exclusions or fudged inspections, apparently. Nor, I found, did it appear to be that of the local authority or the Secretary of State for Education; in both cases I had to apply to the respective Ombudsmen (who both times found in my favour) because of delaying tactics. I found such a barrier on every way forward I might have taken that I regret to say that after eighteen months of frustration I gave up.

There is a possibility, I suppose, that someone from Ofsted will read this blog and sue me for libel. That would cut straight through the barriers, so bring it on.

'Ofsted' 'fudged school inspection' cosmetic fiddling 'Chris Woodhead' ombudsman

The Early Years Foundation Stage.

03 March 2008 .

The EYFS is the set of skills promulgated by the Department for Education and Skills for children as young as three, mandatory for child-minders (even family members) and teachers of toddlers, which I've already had a small rant about. Inter alia, it requires three-year-olds to have a closely prescribed and unworkably complex set of reading and writing skills - completely the opposite to more literate nations of mainland Europe which wait until a child is upwards of seven before starting reading and writing lessons. By its mandatory nature, it's also blocking debate at precisely a moment when debate is (or was) beginning to open up again, completely overriding those of us who believe in the virtues of unstructured play and self-socialising.

There is a wide range of opinions about the education and development of small children, many of them based on years of experience and/or good science, being ignored by this initiative..

One of the stated targets (!) is that every child 'understands that people have different needs, views, cultures and beliefs that need to be treated with respect.' A target clearly not applied to the lumpheads in the DfES.

If I were to go to town on some issues, I'd never stop. Ed Balls, who in any pre-Newspeak society would have been called simply the Secretary of State for Education (or, since it's getting so hard to follow, have I got that wrong?)... Ed Balls, anyway, shews a dismal lack of intellectual rigour, starting with an ignorance of the causes of our backward drift in educational attainment which verges on the sublime. Recent surveys have consistently shown that early educational performance in the UK ranks way behind every other English speaking nation except the US, yet Balls, instead of making an attempt to refute their findings (if that's possible), simply dismisses the research with a wave of his hand. Science and experience which demonstrate the need for a less prescriptive, centrally-controlled government micro-management of our schools is blown away in favour of an even more prescriptive but (and here's the point) ideologically driven 'initiative'. A couple of years down the line, Balls will have moved on, like all his recent predecessors: like them, he will have left behind him a mess which teachers will still be struggling with another ten years after that: he differs from them only in that the arrogance of his ambition has been even greater, as will be the mess.

And what on Earth does any teacher who's worked with children from poorer homes make of Balls' spectacularly ignorant statement that 'those who use poverty or deprivation as an excuse for poor performance are letting children down...' followed by the equally spectacular post-modern, 'That is why I am expanding city academies.'

As I say, I'd never stop...

'The Early Years Foundation Stage' EYFS 'child-minders' deprivation 'poor performance' 'Ed Balls' 'City academies'

An Earlier School Day.

12 February 2008 .

This item is not of great significance, but it does pull my chain. It comes up coincidentally after I'm still angry at the Thought Police... yesterday.

There is no certainty that the current 'best scientific evidence' in any particular field will survive testing or new findings - the scientists and technicians get it wrong all too often - but the fact remains that, for the moment, the best evidence is the best we've got.

For the present, the best evidence about teenagers and alertness is that youngsters don't fire on all cylinders early in the day - they aren't at their most receptive and, with the best will in the world, they don't learn so well as they do a few hours later. This becomes more acute as children approach their teens, with mid to late teenagers not becoming fully functional until early afternoon. Early-morning responsiveness starts to improve as people reach their twenties.

-/-

I've written about how teachers arguing against the wisdom of the moment (for classroom teaching rather then open-plan, say, or for smaller schools or for a house system in larger schools, for teaching to ability including possibly a degree of streaming, testing by examination rather than entirely by course-work, for a less rigid national curriculum, and so on) sometimes find themselves countered not so much by reason as by ad hominem argument, and even accusations of elitism, racism or conservatism (dinosaurism). I've admitted my agenda in some of this, and I've expressed my irritation at seeing some of my own arguments being applied as gospel 20 years later (20 years too late?).

I don't want even my own opinion being the wisdom of the moment: I believe that different systems suit different communities and different teachers and students. I don't even think my opinions are necessarily right: I just want to be able to argue them, and convince - or be convinced - by argument and evidence.

I have a friend teaching in a local authority which is determined to change the day from 8.45 am - 3.40 pm to perhaps 8.00 am (or earlier) - 2.20 pm. The head of his school has even spoken of 7.00 am - 1.30 pm, but there is a suspicion that this is only a bargaining chip.

Originally, many of the staff seemed opposed to the change, but most now (claim to?) favour it. My friend is still opposed.

He mentions these:

1) The best evidence, to which I referred, is simply ignored, he says. He's been told to shut up about it. (Although, knowing him, I have to admit that he probably kept batting on about it!)

2) He's been told quite clearly that he can forget about promotion if he doesn't toe the line.

3) He's been told (by rather aparatchik colleagues, he says) that he's holding to his opinion because a) he's lazy, b) he's a dinosaur.

4) Some (not all) of the parents would prefer not to have the change. The school's resources have been spent on trying to convince them. But not on listening to and considering their points.

5) He believes that the move is designed to save money - i.e. it's political - but somehow it's become portrayed as a moral issue - 'anyone opposing doesn't really care about the students'... (that one really does ring a bell for me.)

'Early School Day'

I'm still angry at the Thought Police...

11 February 2008 .

I'm watching a Horizon programme which is broadly on the thesis that many of our secondary schools are too large and that they are thereby failing too many children. It's a thesis that I've always agreed with, and it's infuriating to hear my own arguments of twenty years ago being treated seriously now. It's even more infuriating to remember how often it wasn't my arguments which were addressed, but me - ad hominem.

The changes which we faced were, as it happens, a shift from a 'house system' (the large school divided up for pastoral, discipline, teaching up to year 10, competition in sports, etc., into 'houses' of about 200 students, each with some space of its own) to a year system. I'm not saying one system is altogether better than the other, although clearly I have an opinion - I believed that in our school children who felt they had a place in the former system were becoming lost in the latter; I am saying that too often an orthodoxy is developed, and those who of a different mind are dismissed (intellectually and sometimes literally). There's often a 'moral' judgment adopted, which is what brings the orthodoxy to the point of becoming a weapon of the 'thought police'; in this argument, I was accused of 'elitism' - a charge as unfounded as that of racism often is, meaningless, impossible to refute and sometimes very damaging.

Actually: I think that different systems suit different teachers in different communities. One of the problems in the state secondary sector is that there can still be too much 'one-size-fits-all' thinking. I also worry that the guy running with the ball in this episode of Horizon, with whom I actually concur, is nevertheless a bit evangelical - what he (and I) like won't suit every case.

Horizon elitism 'large schools'

The Mc-A level.

30 January 2008 .

The good folks who brought us the McJob are now to be licensed to award a vocational qualification, which the government intends to give "A" level status; this will in theory qualify the holder to a university place. Network Rail will be given the same right.

These are firms which provide management courses, inevitably within the ethos of their own companies; what they will most closely represent is (hopefully excellent) commercial apprenticeships. What they surely won't provide is the sort of critical, liberal humanities education which would result in sceptical questioning - Network Rail will certainly not have room for that sort of thing - but scepticism and questioning should be a sine qua non of every university student's armoury.

[The country is, or should be, mourning the virtual disappearance of the old apprenticeship schemes - ironically, just at the moment when we were accepting that they were equal in dignity to any academic education. If the new public vocational qualifications can come to fill that gap, or even improve on what went before, then they are to be welcomed, and should have a social status on a par with academe, too.]

However, I'd like to try a little conversational paranoia. What if we were to believe that the government is not interested in producing critical thinkers? This piece of news might seem like another brick in the edifice of our conspiracy theory; and for the diligent seeker of conspiracy, there might seem to be quite a few such bricks.

Blair was given to conviction and he was unwilling to change. He bullied parliament; he was very careful whom in the media he spoke to; he orchestrated those rare occasions when the public could ask him questions and he selected apparatchiks and agreeables for posts in his gift (and many posts that shouldn't have been). Etc. Etc. Old men being dragged out of Party conferences for heckling - under terrorism legislation? Demonstrations banned near Parliament? He did not give the impression of a man who took criticism well. Thatcher before him was nearly as bad, brown after him apparently possibly worse.

Recently it was reported that teachers were not to be allowed to influence or advise students in the direction of an academic route through education. Some years ago, the universities system was diluted by the admixture of colleges and polytechnics - some of which were dire. A local "University", achieving poor results in mickey mouse subjects, also enjoyed - and possibly still does - a drop-out rate of over 50%. The great Universities are being told that they must admit on a basis other than of ability. The National Curriculum stifles the opportunity for much of the mental activity that, not so long ago, was taken for granted in schools. And it does go on.

It's all in the name of international competitiveness. Supposedly.

I don't (really) believe that there is any conspiracy to blunt the nation's critical thinking, but I do believe political decisions on academic matters carry their own dangers, and I do believe that we are going down a long dark road without a decent lamp.

'The Mc-A level.'

On Private Education.

26 January 2008 .

The country's going through one of its periodic convulsions about private sector education.

I've worked in both sectors, at two of the most eminent public schools (600 students each) and at two 'bog standard' comprehensives (600 and 1350+) in North London.

Teachers first: For the best and most dedicated teachers, the schools were indistinguishable. For the worst... there were one or two dire teachers in the private sector, but the most awful I encountered were in London - only a few, but folks who should certainly never have been allowed within a million miles of teaching. However; on balance - in terms of commitment, professionalism, training and sheer hard work - I am convinced that the state schools had the edge.

Students next: The longer I live, the more I've found that children are children - mostly good, a few rather less so - and background of race, class or money have no discernible effect on what sort of people they are. It might seem likely that children from academic, or high-achieving, or simply stable families are likely to follow in their parents' footsteps, and it certainly seems self-evident to some people (not to me) that such parents will send their children to private sector schools.

The arguments about selective education, streaming, even private education, are political: they're based on feelings and beliefs, not, on the whole, hard evidence. The same often applies to systems or even the environment of teaching: I did my teaching practice in a school that was committed to 'open-plan' teaching with a evangelism which verged on the religious - it was so self evident to the staff in that school that no child could be taught properly in anything else that in retrospect they could only be justified if their system had become universal. It hasn't, and being a not very self-confident trainee there was hell. (Once I'd found my feet, I'd have had no problem, but at that point it all but convinced me never to be a teacher.)

A class with one troubled child may not be disrupted by that child, but it will distract some of the teacher's attention; a class with two will almost certainly have the two of them feeding off each other and it will impinge on the welfare of the rest of the students; a class with three or more becomes, for more teachers than will admit it, a class for the troubled children with the remaining 25 or 30 receiving the balance of the teacher's skill and energy rather than the core of it.

An academic child in a class, on the other hand, will have a positive impact under much more limited conditions - the child to be bright or forthcoming as well as academic, the class to be fairly compliant (which is not an automatic part of our culture at present), the teacher able to understand and incorporate the brightness into his thinking in quite subtle ways - and, again in our culture, such a child will be under opposing pressures from peers, teachers, possibly parents (especially if, as can be the case, the parents are themselves overachievers). Of course, a critical mass of able students will transform as class - and then the sky's the limit: the critical mass can be two or three students, if they're determined or strong enough; four or five will certainly swing it.

If there are troubled students and able in the same class, assuming that they're not one and the same, then the dynamic can become very complicated. Unfortunately, it's easier for influential students to pull a class down than up. The troubled are more willing to push their corner, because they feel that they have less to lose. The determined 'bad' students may in a wider sense not be troubled at all; they may have great 'street' skills and, for teenagers, an apparent charisma- and be quite willing and able to use those skills in class to devastating effect. The academic students with those skills are comparatively rare: the 'academic' often goes with a life more biased to books or to adults, with 'sheltered' sometimes, or with shyness; they do not on the whole have the wherewithall to win the classroomebattle of hearts and minds. Add to that the overt culture of our society, where education is concerned, and the teacher has to work his/her miracle pretty much alone. It can be done, and is, but not always and not withou mental and emotional cost.

So in a class that is truly mixed, there will be troubled students who are 'quiet', difficult students and academic. The reality is that the difficult - come what may - have an influence on the class, the academic are often teased or shamed out, the class as a whole loses rather than gains and the greatest losers are the quietly troubled who are all too often overlooked completely.

When I've put this argument in the staffroom of my big comprehensive, I've not attracted support. The most common response was ad hominem - that if I was allowing these problems it was because I was a hopeless teacher. I found it hard to counter this at first because I wasn't sufficiently self-confident - were they right? - and it took me a long time to realise that ad hominem responses are usually a sign that one is on the right track rather than the wrong. It took me as long to realise that those most vociferously opposed to my argument often did in fact have classroom problems along exactly these lines - and often dealt with them a lot less effectively than I did. I wish that I had been at ease with my strengths and weakness much sooner in my career (and elsewhere in my life); I know that makes me about par for the course. I also wish that I had learned much sooner not to be so impressed (inntimidated?) by other people's certainties - and that goes for life in general, too.

[There were, of course, colleagues who genuinely had the skills and talent either to deal with these problems when they arose, or never had to face them. I can't think right now who they were.]

I may not sound like it at the moment, but I do have an dream of 'the best for all', and I am committed to universality of quality in education. I'm not even arguing against a 'comprhensive' system - on the contrary. But I am concerned that our decisions aren't always working for children either individually or as a generation, and I'm believe the bases on which people pronounce have too little to do with evidence and too much to do with politics, career, or plain defensiveness.

'Private Education' streaming 'troubled child' 'academic pupil'

The Bell At The End Of Class.

23 January 2008 .

This may have very little to do with anything at all. But, here goes anyway..

I've taught in public and state schools in England. I've also spent a bit of time in schools in Europe, Asia, Africa and the USA. The end of each lesson is usually marked by a bell. In every classroom in every country, the bell tells the teacher that it's time to finish; the pupils are expected to remain, seated, until the teacher indicates they should leave.

Except in the US: when the bell went at the end of the first lesson I ever taught there, the 15-year-old students stood, as one, picked up their equipment and started to leave, chatting. I was quite shocked, I admit, and I sat them down again, had them quiet and then let them go. As you would... In the staffroom afterwards, I was told that when the bell goes, the students are free to leave (and that, it seems, is how it is all over the country).

As human beings, students everywhere are much the same - and mostly good hearted; there's nothing to distinguish those in the US from those anywhere else. So it's always hard to understand the relentless picture of classroom dysfunctionality which is always coming out of the US, both in entertainment and in the news. (It's so consistent that I begin to question whether it really is just the 'rare exceptions' that we hear about.)

I have sometimes wondered whether the one thing is a very insignificant symptom of the other.


Education And Skills Bill.

15 January 2008 .

After this bill is enacted, it will become illegal for teachers to tell pupils or parents which exams the teachers feel most suit the pupils.

Particularly, the purpose seems to be to stop teachers recommending "A" levels as against the governments much vaunted vocational diplomas.

Never mind that it will take years for the diplomas to be proven, no matter how good they may be. Never mind that there is far from universal certainty that they will be fit for purpose. Never mind that they are first and foremost vocational. (The first courses planned included such subjects as 'Tourism', and seemed generally to be subjects which at "A" level proved to be non-subjects; while English and other academic subjects do appear to have been bolted on later. The only diploma which so far seems to be respected is engineering.).

Never mind all those... It's control again: we, your betters, will tell you how to live your lives and do your jobs; whatever your professional judgment, whatever your knowledge of the pupils concerned, whatever you think, you will obey. Just like the doctors. I'm too depressed by this one even to try to argue it. Either you see it, or you don't.

Incidentally, who will it help? If they can't be advised by teachers, who can parents and students ask?

'Education And Skills Bill'

Wells, Shaw and Dickens.

31 December 2007 .

Philip Hensher (on libraries, in the Independent today) mentions that in the late 1950's, an observer found that more than 90% of the working men he surveyed could give some account of these authors. Hensher adds that he would be delighted if any of the undergraduates he now teaches had ever heard of Shaw. (He makes the point that public libraries transformed the intellectual life of the country, and talks about their decline.)

The stock answer is that we live in different times, and that different skills are needed now. Perhaps we should acknowledge that Michael Moore has replaced Shaw and Hollywood has replaced Wells.

Or perhaps my old Granddaddy was right when he told me that once the intellectual drive had gone, we'd get the government we would then deserve.

'public libraries' 'intellectual life' 'Philip Hensher'

Missing Teachers.

29 December 2007 .

The comment by the shadow education spokesman to the effect that there are qualified teachers in their hundreds of thousands who aren't where we need them, in front of a class opening new horizons to their youngsters, is much quoted...

Even if they were in front of their classes, they wouldn't be opening many new horizons; the National Curriculum put a fairly firm nail in that particular coffin.


Education as a Football.

21 December 2007 .

For fifty years, we've had an endless stream of initiatives from the educational left and the educational right, frequently codified and equally frequently supplemented by politicians of all shades who have brought their own agendas with them.

Are the youngster leaving school any more balanced than those of 50 years ago? More skilled? More literate? More questioning? More intellectually acute? More socialised? Happier?

The youngsters themselves are the same youngsters - a generation or two down the line: they're as good or bad, nice or nasty, exciting or drab as they ever were. It isn't them that I'm querying, it's what the system has done for them (or with them) and for the society they come into.

The initiatives have see-sawed; what we've wanted for the children has see-sawed (child-centred or skill-centred, streamed or unstreamed, big schools or small schools, humanities or practical skills and so on and so forth); what a child has experienced in one school career has often - if you'll forgive the play on words - careered.

As in some many areas of our society, we don't seem to have the political maturity to accept that there must be a balance - that we can't let the dedicated followers of one wing or the keep trying to pull the system their way.

It was estimated in the late 1980s that a secondary teacher was expected to read about one-and-a-half million words (about 20 novels' worth, but rather less gripping) of policies, initiatives, reports and what-have-you on general educational matters alone - in addition to the literature which any good teacher would want to keep abreast of anyway, plus all the literature concerned with individual subjects (which, speaking as an economist, was copious and daily). I'll bet that it's not better under New Labour.

{Incidentally, anyone who thinks that teachers had long holidays even then, let alone now, is deluded - or the teachers they know are skimping, somewhere, in their work. When the Thatcher government insisted that teachers should do a 1250 hour year, many were already doing in excess of 2200 - no more than many other jobs, but by no means cushy.]

With a raft of new politically motivated educational initiative over the next ten years, the question boils down to: do you sincerely believe that either our children or our society in a broad sense, taking everything in balance, will somehow be better off in ten years time than they were fifty years ago, as a result of Ed Balls?

Personally, I wouldn't be a child in education in this country now if you paid me a doctor's salary.

'education initiatives'

Spice Girls. Balls.

19 December 2007 .

I've been castigated for misunderstanding Ed Balls promotion of the Spice Girls (Our Spice Girls Are Our Future, Yesterday, 18 Dec.). They are role models because of their success with what they were given, because of their hard work, because Mrs. Beckham, for example, is an excellent businesswoman and manager for her husband.

1. Since I certainly would have hoped that Mr. Balls did some thinking before he came out with this idea, I knew perfectly well, or at least assumed, that that was his reasoning.

2. So far as the women themselves go, all power to them. Purely personally 'twixt them and me, I have nothing against their success and the wealth that has gone with it. I've never said otherwise.

My point is that it has come down to marketing and making money for its own sake. What is being marketed is dross.

No... I'll amend that. It's a matter of values. I believe that what's being marketed is dross. Ed Balls clearly doesn't. And the world he seems to believe in is, to me, a nightmarish, vacuous world in which I and those who think like me want no part, for ourselves and our children. That's what my item was about.


Our Spice Girls Are Our Future.

18 December 2007 .

Within months of his accession as Secretary for Education, under whatever title now goes with that post:

• Ed Balls has announced a 10 year plan which will apparently bring in the most sweeping reforms since the 1944 Education Act...

and

• Ed Balls has suggested that schools should hold the Spice Girls up as role models.

God help us.

'Ed Balls' 'Spices Girls' 'Role Model' '10 year plan'

The Ugly Side of School League Tables:

12 October 2007 .

'The Whistleblowers' is a drama series being shown on ITV2. Last evening's episode concerned a teenaged boy excluded from a school in order to improve that school's image and league rating. It's not a happy story, but it does end with some resolution when the local authority eventually accepts that there has been wrongdoing.

The problem with stories like this in reality is that often they are not resolved.

I watched the episode with a sense of rather angry engagement. I'm wondering if I want to post the details of a similar but real life event, which I witnessed with considerable disgust. The youngster involved ended up in prison, and there is a good prima facie case that this resulted fairly directly from the exclusion.

I'll call him Fred. Briefly the story goes as follows:

Fred was one of half a dozen boys who were asked to absent themselves from a large secondary school for the course of an OFSTED inspection. There was no suggestion that any of the children had misbehaved, but they all suffered from dyslexia, hyperactivity or attention problems - Fred was certainly not an easy child to teach.

Fred's mother had the temerity to appeal: the head teacher's response was to organise Fred's constructive permanent exclusion from the school.

The unprofessionalism – and, indeed, malice – of the exclusion were appalling enough, but what followed was, if anything, worse.

1. The local council refused to agree to a meeting and failed to answer letters until it was told to do so by the Ombudsman. They then claimed that the matter had nothing to do with them and was for the Governors or the Department for Education. Actually, what they also said was that the matter was so far in the past by now [which of course it was, due to their inaction] that it was best forgotten

2. The local MP took six months to reply to letters, although when he did so he was very apologetic. Unfortunately, he had also failed to appear at three of his weekly surgeries: he did not send any warning or apology to the many people who waited for a long time at each of these to see him.

3. Although the Chief HMI was told that children were being kept away from school during his inspection, he stated that this was not his concern. He did not, so far as I know, pursue the matter.

4. The Department for Education also failed to reply until rebuked by the Parliamentary Ombudsman. They never did address the issue.

I have been told that the head teacher was a personal friend of the mayor of the borough and of the Secretary of State; however, I must emphasise that I have no proof of this, and do not know the source of this information well enough to know if it can be relied on.

Which brings me to this: what I have written has turned from a note to half an essay - not unnaturally, since I feel very strongly about it; however, in reading it, you have no idea whether it is true or simply the ramblings of a spiteful blogger. I see that I must put up or shut up: therefore, if I am unable to put up some reasonable evidence of what I have written, or if I realize it really is not appropriate for this site, I shall delete this note.

A final thought: assistant teachers in the school had worked hard and with some success to integrate Fred. After what happened, however, he became disaffected and ended up in bad company (as they say), after which it was not a long journey to court.

Whistleblowers 'School League Tables' 'Chief HMI'


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