In Memorium

When the third primary headteacher takes their own life in the space of four years it has to be time to do something to reduce the pressure on colleagues. Sir Michael Wilshaw and his political masters should be ashamed that the system they have created is killing decent, caring people whose only mistake has been to care too much for the children they served and the schools they led.

Is it any wonder that there is a shortage of candidates for senior posts in schools? Is it any wonder that something over 50% of new teachers are now deserting the profession within five years of qualification?

Yet political rhetoric would have us believe that the battle against ‘mediocrity’ is being won and that there are national leaders of education who will show us how to run schools properly.   These are not exactly lies, but they are optimistic half-truths. There are some excellent schools that have upped their game to meet the challenges of education in the second decade of the millennium. But the figures clearly show us that it’s not academisation  or Trusts with their £250K salaried CEOs that are the solution – they are as mixed a success story as are any schools. There are some highly effective school leaders who are righty recognised and valued. But there are also the bully-boys, the Johnny-come-latelies who are all puff and little substance who talk in mantras but lack integrity.  We’ve got a lot to learn about looking after our people - there is plenty of evidence from plenty of sources that confirms the importance of school ethos in the drive to raise standards and time will doubtless prove that those schools where staff sign up to the mission because they sig up to the vision will be more successful than those where teachers are bullied into submission, irrespective of short term improvements.

But it’s also our school leaders whom we need to protect, not just from the punitive culture promoted by Wilshaw and Morgan but from the local authorities and academy trusts who lack the respect they should show for their headteachers and think that, by putting them under pressure, they are somehow fighting mediocrity. This is morally wrong, philosophically bankrupt and educationally dangerous. Three headteacher suicides is surely enough. But whether or not the Secretary of State and her Chief Inspector really care has to be doubted.

The odd world of the politics of education and the future of inspection

You may be aware of the tensions between Sir Michael Wilshaw and the right wing of the Conservative Party. Wilshaw is squaring up for a fight by trying to align the inspection of independent schools with Ofsted while the Right are putting pressure on the Secretary of State to remove Ofsted's right to inspect Free Schools and Academies.  This is what recently caused Wilshaw to hold a press conference at which he said he was 'spitting blood'. However, round one to the Chief Inspector for, from April, Section 162 inspection (of 'non-association' independent schools) will no longer include the 'Adequate' judgement as it will be replaced by 'Requires Improvement' - quite a change if you're paying £4K a term for your child's education.

However, Round 2 is currently going the way of the Right as the link below will illustrate. This throws the whole future of inspection into doubt. Policy Exchange is a fairly small group of Neo-Conservatives with enormous power and influence. Their current view is that Ofsted should not observe lessons any more because inspectors' views are unreliable (as they say, you may as well toss a coin). Now,  whilst it may be true that one inspector's RI is another inspector's Inadequate, it would be unusual to be more than a grade different. However, as Mike Cladingbowl has recently pointed out, "Ofsted does not grade lessons and does not grade teachers", so we're half way there anyway. But, if self-evaluation is important, then lesson observations are a legitimate way to check out leadership judgements.

Policy Exchange also want to ditch experienced inspectors in favour of serving teachers. While this idea has merit, many AIs are already practitioners. In my view it is the serving practitioners that tend to be a bit variable on an inspection because they don't inspect that often. On the other hand, inspectors who have held senior and successful positions and now work for Ofsted, tend to get a much quicker handle on things.   Civitas would like the inspection of Free Schools and Academies to mirror the system used by The Independent Schools Inspectorate and so remove the risk of a dodgy Ofsted judgement.

What we are seeing here is two right wing think tanks, Civitas and Policy Exchange, engaged in a pincer movement to outmanoeuvre the Chief Inspector. There are a limited number of these movers and shakers and, because of the very close links between the two bodies, there are probably even fewer than you might think. And there are almost certainly some vested interests involved. Let's say, for example, that a key member of Policy Exchange was planning to set up a Free School, or that people close to Civitas already ran one that could be vulnerable at its first Ofsted inspection. In these cases the idea of ditching Ofsted in favour of a softer approach makes every sense. Of course, this is pure conjecture...!

Let's not forget that the founder of Policy Exchange was one Michael Gove so it's quite easy to predict the result of this boxing match.

Sir Michael - who, by some strange quirk of fortune, seems now to be the Teacher's Friend, is 68 in August so I suspect that he may not be in post much longer. If I was the Secretary of State, I think I would want to replace the Chief Inspector sooner rather than later so that my man (or woman) was in place before the election.  I may be wrong....

Anyway, do have a look at the TES 'breaking news' in the link below.

Here's to the future of inspection!


Education Monkey

Scrap 'unreliable' lesson observations from Ofsted inspections, says Policy Exchange - Education - TES News
news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2014/03/14/scrap-lesson-observations-from-ofsted-inspections-report-says.asp

Latest Ofsted Advice - charter for weak teaching?

The Education Monkey completely agrees with The Chief Inspector's expressed view that teachers do not have to teach to a formula that reduces their autonomy. However the recently published subsidiary guidance for school inspection includes the following instruction:

(Inspectors) should not criticise teacher talk for being overlong or bemoan a lack of opportunity for different activities in lessons unless there is unequivocal evidence that this is slowing learning over time. It is unrealistic, too, for inspectors to necessarily expect that all work in all lessons is always matched to the specific needs of each individual. Do not expect to see ‘independent learning’ in all lessons and do not make the assumption that this is always necessary or desirable. On occasions, too, pupils are rightly passive rather than active recipients of learning.

In the light of the Teachers' Standards 2012, and the many recent injunctions by Sir Michael that the leadership of teaching is the most important quality of headship, the above statements can appear to be contradictory and confusing  There are already several bloggers who have picked this up and seem to be using it to justify an 'anything goes' approach to teaching, which we know it is not.

My questions, then, are based on this apparent contradiction:-

1. Teacher Talk.  It is self-evident that teacher talk can often be overlong and therefore leads to student disengagement. This is especially true in the case of young children and this advice appears to ignore the research evidence of many years that explore the cognitive development of young children when which over-long teacher talk is frequently counter-productive and rarely results in good learning.  While Jean Piaget's work has been built on since its publication, there is not a body of research that suggests a broadly different picture.  The instruction above speaks of 'slowing down learning over time' yet it is in the lesson that learning is often perceived to slow. Therefore it is inevitable that, both in inspection and, more importantly, with school leaders attempting to drive up the quality of teaching in their school, some teachers are going to seek justification for weak teaching in the very instructions given to inspectors.

2. Different activities. The instruction does not make clear what might be the alternative to different activities. Does this mean a range of activities that meet the needs of the range of students, or does it mean a series of sequential activities in which students engage as part of their learning joutney in that particular lesson.  This needs clarification - already I hear teachers using this as an excuse for both setting work that is either not challenging enough or too challenging, and for 'teaching to the middle' as was the practice of some teachers thirty years ago. Again, this instruction is hampered by inspectors having to find out if learning is slowed down over time, rather than in the lesson. At a time when we are looking for teachers who are focused on rapid and sustained progress, this advice seems to be counter-intuitive.

3. Matching work to the needs of the pupils.  The instruction above suggests that work does not ned to meet individual needs. While it is true that mainstream teaching is about identifying and meeting the needs of vulnerable groups (personalised learning), it is self-evident that, if a student is given work that does not meet their needs, then they are going to become disaffected and disengaged. The instructions ignore many years of research about the way that young people learn. In particular, the work of Lev Vygotsky and others, provides a framework for learning through carefully structured tasks and, matching the work to the needs of individual students falls within this pedagogical skill-set. How does the view that work does not need to meet individual needs sit with Teachers' Standard 5, which an provides excellent overview of effective differentiation?

4. Do not assume that independent learning is necessary or desirable.  It is very unclear what this instruction means. In what way can a student's learning be other than independent? Given the overall thrust of HMCI's recent commentary on what constitutes good teaching (ie 'what works) and the literature that sits behind the recent review of the National Curriculum, then the assumption can be made that this advice means that, when students are set individual work, they are not necessarily learning from it. Indeed, few modern educators would disagree with this view and we are now more aware than ever that students do not learn by just 'looking things up'. However, if this is what the advice means then it needs to be made clear.

5. On occasions  pupils are rightly passive rather than active recipients of learning. While this may be true, the advice needs to be clarified because there is a vast body of research that suggests that people learn better through active involvement (eg Michel, Cater & Varela 2009). While research such as that carried out by Dartmouth College (2008) indicates that similar brain activity can be tracked in response to both active and passive learning, the application is limited and does not outweigh the case for active learning.  Yet here again, I am aware of teachers reading this advice to inspectors, who regard it as justification for adopting a lecture approach. This kind of approach is not without some merit but this depends on the circumstances in which the teacher is teaching and the students learning. For this reason the bald advice lacks clarity and adds to confusion.

I understand that the purpose of this supplementary guidance is to reinforce the Chief Inspector's very appropriate drive to move away from a formulaic approach which, he says, 'traps too many teachers in a stultifying mould' but its effect, unless corrected, is likely to be to provide a charter for sloppy teaching that will make it more difficult for inspectors and much more difficult for school leaders trying to drive up the quality of teaching in their schools.

The Steamroller rolls on

It's been a while since the Education Monkey last swung around these branches. This has not been for lack of interest but lack of spare time!  I have happily been very busy in the world of education and, sadly, clients come before personal indulgence.

Throughout the intervening time I have continued to be amazed at the way neo-conservative ideology continues to drive education policy and continue to fragment education provision. f course, it's not been wholly bad news; there have been some exciting and innovative developments and, were I looking for another headship right now, there are a wealth of thrilling new opportunities. Of course, the question is, whether or not the climate had been right for innovation anyway. Having spent some time in the USA recently, I am always mindful of the way the fragmentation of education in the public schools has caused the same kind of ideological rifts that it causes here. The arguments about Charter Schools stealing away public school funding finds an easy echo in the UK with The Independent recently reporting  on the reduction in available money for maintained schools because of the free-school initiative.

There was probably a stronger case in the USA for introducing an alternative to bog-standard public schools because the teacher unions had them sewn up and any kind of teacher accountability was stifled at birth. However, now they have been around for a while, it is clear that the education offered by Charter Schools is, broadly, little better than the old model, despite their high teacher accountability, and several are failing or have been closed.

There was no such justification for what has happened in the UK and I think what I find most offensive is the increasingly overt and cynical way in which ideology is pushing past reasonable practice. Under the good guys Academies were being seen as a developing solution to under-performing schools and were beginning to make a difference. Then we had a change of administration and the introduction of a lot of rushed legislation - and haste rarely makes for good law. The Academies Act was just the first step. The Men Who Saw were telling us to take care because, while our eyes were on the health service debacle, education was being privatised. and here we are, having sleep-walked into exactly that.

Which is why both the Secretary of State and his Chief Inspector hatchet man can afford to make more and more outrageous statements and accusations. The Chief Inspector is not a stupid man - and came over as a very reasonable one at the London Festival of Education. But his various offensive comments about schools and headteachers about being lazy, workshy, frightened moaners who do so with no justification seem pretty idiotic to those in the profession. But are they aimed at those in the profession or are they really for the Daily Mail reader?

The depressing thing is that, whatever is said and whatever rational, reasonable counter-arguments are generated, they have absolutely no impact whatsoever on the single-minded, some might say blinkered, plans that continue to steamroller their way across the English education system,. Not even Liz Forgan, recently departed Chief Executive of the Arts Council who spoke, in her valedictory speech of  Michael Gove as "upending the entire school curriculum in a grand plan, carefully thought out and with a clear strategic purpose. A plan to nourish young minds with a new academic rigour but which as we speak makes no effort to do the same for their artistic development."

It is not as if Forgan is without admiration for Gove, indeed she speaks of him as an exceptional figure "with the determination and brilliance to make a difference" unlike most politicians, who "on the whole are bad at culture". Forgan, was asked to resign at the end of her first term by then Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt. She was, presumably, not sufficiently towing the Party line.

In the next blog - Education Monkey looks at the changing face of teacher training

It's a strangely balanced world

 

As anyone who follows this blog will know, I could not be described as a fan of this government’s perverse education policy yet there are some exciting opportunities around that help to balance the bonkers ideas. I’ve just found myself nodding at Gove’s rejection of his backbenchers’ calls for a return to Grammar schools, saying they were not the ‘magic bullet’ many supposed them.  This seems a little different from the neo-conservative reactionism we have come to expect from the Secretary of State who many, including this writer, have often accused as having a desire to re-create the education system of his childhood. It might have something to do with the drubbing the Tories received in the local elections, but far be it from me to suggest that.

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Reading, David Bell is better remembered as that long-serving Permanent Secretary at the DfE who was once New Labour’s HMCI and who served in Whitehall under four Secretaries of State. Bell commented on the ease with which the Gove steamroller has bowled on without much serious opposition, citing two reasons for this lack of resistance. First, Gove spent a lot of time in opposition “rolling the pitch: in other words, preparing the ground for what he wanted to do.” Secondly, he claimed, the DfE’s policies are “genuinely driven by local demand…The vast majority of teachers in those schools are seeing the benefits of their school having more control over what it does. There’s a sense in which this is just going with the grain.”[1]

There are many who would disagree with this ‘local demand’ – converting to Academy status is frequently the result of fear of trying to operate as an LA school while the LA is struggling to keep going or of DfE bullying and coercion.  I am Chair of Governors of a large Junior School and we have twice had the Academy discussion but, somehow, it’s just not that alluring and there doesn’t seem to be the will to take the risk. And it is a risk – the financials do not stack up quite as favourably as they do for us in an LA context and there is a lot more isolation for the headteacher; the buck comes to an even more sudden stop when there is not a LA officer to criticise!

It is a pity that our LA is picking its way round the ruins of its own collapsed empire. It seems to have rather more schools than it can properly service with the rump of its resources. But somehow, it is a comforting billet…for the moment.  I was once told by a Man from the Ministry, ‘Oh, you’ll become an Academy…. one way or another’.  Was that a threat? Surely not!

Nevertheless, the changed landscape of the strange admixture of schools that now characterise UK education, is throwing up some extraordinary opportunities for those prepared to take the risk. Each week I look at the TES and see posts that I would have killed for: strange and exciting opportunities to forge a unique future and shape education, a real chance to make a difference.  But there, I have always liked the element of risk and thrived on instability. There are plenty of my colleagues, good headteachers whom I respect, who are not risk takers and who run highly successful schools. In this Brave New World of opportunity, is there still a place for them? The trouble with risk taking is that it is quite as easy to get it wrong as it is to get it right and, even at this stage in Govian education, the machine is driving over the corpses of the risk takers for whom it all went horribly wrong.

But, were I looking for a headship right now, in the current fairground of education there are many really thrilling rides and I look at some of these roller-coasters in envy. From time to time I consider going back into headship but then I think I am probably better to use my experience and expertise in working alongside my colleagues - the risk takers and the safe-players.

It’s a funny old world. Let’s hope, like the GM Schools debacle, we can look back one day and laugh. Hmm.

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[1] Civil Service World -  Interview with David Bell 13th October 2011

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.