The DfE and Sir Michael's Cocoa

As ever, when I get a reply from the DfE, it gets posted here in the interests of balance. Followers of this blog may now recognised what looks a bit like a standard reply. Draw your own conclusions about that. However, here goes:

Sir Michael Wilshaw was appointed to the position of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector as a result of his track record as an outstanding head teacher who has demonstrated that he can achieve excellent outcomes for pupils in deprived areas.
Successive Chief Inspectors have spoken without fear or favour about aspects of education and schools and it would be inappropriate for Ministers to appear to censure the Chief Inspector for doing so.

The Chief Inspector is accountable to Parliament, through the Education Select Committee, for his actions and for the performance of Ofsted.

The press and media can be selective in what they use from interviews and in the way that they present things.  What is important in considering Sir Michael’s comments is the underlying message he was making, which was that strong school leaders do not shy away from the difficult decisions that need to be made to bring about improvement in poor performing schools.

Well, that may all be true, but it doesn't solve the question of the untended geraniums!

Time for your cocoa, Sir Michael

What does Sir Michael Wilshaw think he's doing? At a time when his political boss is making slightly conciliatory noises and is apparently rowing back on no-notice inspection, this foolish old man is whipping up yet more vitriol against the teaching profession.

The trouble is that, rather than tending geraniums on his allotment,  Michael Wilshaw has been diverted from a well-earned retirement to become head of Ofsted, a position that requires both professional integrity and great emotional intelligence, neither of which he would seem to have in great measure. To alienate the profession he claims to espouse is a blunder of considerable magnitude. But not necessarily if you are an elderly old boy locked in your own little world.

As we become elderly, three things tend to happen: our world view narrows somewhat around our own perspective, we get more irascible and willing to say things that previously we would keep private, and we tend to relate things more and more to ourselves. The Chief Inspector's performance to date suggests an early onset of just these things. When he was first in post, Michael Wilshaw spoke glowingly about the 'hero head' as if this was the pinnacle of leadership. Why did he take this view? Because he was a hero head, riding out of the sun to rescue a failing school. There is no denying that he did a magnificent job as head of Mossbourne and is rightly regarded as its saviour. However, being a hero head is not the only way; there have been equally highly regarded and successful heads whose management style has been collective and collegiate.

I remember an elderly aunt saying to me, 'you can get away with saying a lot more when you're ninety than when you're forty' and Wilshaw seems to have discovered the veracity of this quite early. Why else would he tell an assembly of headteachers that teachers don't know what stress is? The profession is already sick and tired of the way this man rubbishes it but he doesn't seem to learn. Instead, characteristic of his way of thinking, he turned the topic to himself, saying that stress was what his father felt,  searching for a job and what he felt, as a new headteacher in a time of industrial action.

What arrogance! Of course the unemployed are stressed, we all recognise it. Of course Wilshaw would have felt the stress of headship at that time, as were so many of his colleagues. The stress of the job is relative to the times. But to criticise headteachers for complaining while being well paid is disingenuous in the extreme. Teachers are feeling stressed, headteachers are worried about the way their profession is being judged by Ofsted. It is a characteristic of modern society that there are so many stressors, for the unemployed, of course, but for the employed too. People want to know they are  doing a good job - few teachers are the work-shy slackers Wilshaw would portray them.

Teaching is not the only job where there are high stress levels but, as Mary Bousted of ATL has pointed out, the HSE reports that it is the occupation with the third highest amount of work-related stress. The Chief Inspector is perfectly aware of this but perhaps chooses to be selectively deaf to it because he knows that his policies are a contributory factor. Somehow it all seems to fit in with the intractability of age and self-obsession. 

What shall we do about the problem called Sir Michael? Well, it might be time to move his chair into the sun, give him his cocoa and let him have an early night. The geraniums might need attention in the morning.