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.

Teacher Training and EBAC - the DfE responds

As regular readers of this blog will know, I occasionally get a response from the DfE and, when I do, I publish it here. I thought things had gone quiet when suddenly I received this, which answers points made about teacher training and the Ebac. This comes from Pamela Kearns of the Ministerial and Public Communications Division. Although it is one of those generic replies you tend to get from government, Ms Kearns has at least got a sympathetic turn of phrase. She says...

I acknowledge and empathise with the two example cases that you have highlighted in your letter and I can appreciate how disheartening it must be for both these individuals not to be able to teach their chosen subjects and pursue their chosen career.

Initial Teacher Training continues to be a popular choice for the best graduates and experienced career changers. We expect to attract 35,000 new trainees to teaching each year from the brightest graduates and the most experienced career changers, of these places around 10,000 will come through our new school routes to teacher training. However the number of applications we receive always exceeds the number of places available. This year we expect competition to be very stringent for teacher training places with around twice the number of people applying than there are places available to train.
Well, ITT has always been competitive, ask anyone who's tried to get onto the GTP!
The Government wants to move increasingly towards a school led system of teacher training. This year the Teaching Agency has received strong demand for its School Direct places and allocated 9,500 places to just under 900 lead schools working with a partnership of schools. This shows a significant demand from schools that have the desire and capacity to take a head in the recruitment and training of their own trainee teachers. Around 400 additional schools have also registered an interest in future School Direct opportunities. But, as we have seen, it is this very fragmentation of ITT that is the difficulty; where you have fragmentation you have variation and some trainees will be well trained, others will not. This is why the system was centralised in the first place. Still, what goes around comes around... 

In respect of your comments on the English Baccalueate (EBacc), it was introduced as a measure in 2011 to encourage schools to offer more pupils the opportunity to study towards GCSEs in a suite of core academic subjects (English, mathematics, the sciences, geography or history and a foreign language). It is designed to leave 20-30 per cent of time for the study of other subjects as part of a broad and balanced curriculum. However the EBacc was and is not a compulsory requirement on all pupils; there are no targets associated with the measure and schools remain free to offer the range of subjects they feel best suits their pupils.Yes, do note the last sentence - this is the new position forced on the Secretary of State by the Select Committee.
On 7 February the Secretary of State made a statement on the future of qualifications, school league tables and the national curriculum. The announced proposals for qualifications at the end of Key Stage 4 follow on from the consultation held last year and set out plans for a comprehensive reform of GCSEs across the full range of subjects.

The Secretary of State also announced consultations on the National Curriculum (which runs until 16 April 2013) and separately on a new accountability framework for secondary schools (running until 1 May). The latter proposes that we judge schools against a threshold attainment in English and maths, and on progress based on pupils’ average scores in a range of both EBacc and non-EBacc subjects. This approach will provide a strong incentive for schools to offer a broad and balanced curriculum to all their pupils, including the academic core of the EBacc as appropriate, and to ensure high standards of teaching in a wide range of subjects

We wait and see. It's the fragmentation problem again - Academies and Free Schools can be national curriculum free zones

So, there you have it. However, I have also had a reply to Jackboot and Bribery and its very brevity smells of an uncomfortable truth. More in a week.

The great Teacher Training Cock up

I've been involved in teacher training for well over a decade. I have run a Training School with two ITT partners, I've been head of an ITT partnership school, I've interviewed and taught for an HE provider and I have tutored on the GTP for many years. As a headteacher I took the first GT in my local authority (with a 3-digit reference number!), in the days when the TTA were on the end of the phone for hours as we struggled to construct a Training Plan that worked and was manageable. In those far-off days the DfES and Ofsted looked at the mixed bag of provision for this new employment-based route and, a couple of years up the line decided that the variation made trainees' experiences inconsistent and risked badly trained teachers being given QTS. Whether this was right or not, it resulted in a move towards a sensible centralisation with training being in the hands of Accredited Recommending Bodies, working in partnership with schools.  Since becoming independent, I have enjoyed working with a highly respected GTP provider and have had the privilege of training or assessing trainee teachers from early years to post-16 up and down the country.

The GTP worked well (is still working well for the remaining teachers on the programme) so why am I not surprised that the Secretary of State has determined to turn back the clock under the excuse of giving power back to schools. It would be okay if it worked but the best view so far is that it is an almighty cock-up. Indeed, stir in the added complication  of the EBacc debacle and we have an unholy admixture of the usual Tory confusion and wrong-thinking that we have become used to from this incompetent administration. I could bang  on for ages about this as it is a subject close to my heart Instead, I will illustrate what I mean by two real examples.

The first example is a successful police officer, now a detective, with a Masters degree. This officer is desperate to leave the police, where they feel they are not making the difference they joined up to make. They thought long and hard and decided that the future with the most promise is to be a teacher, where they can use their many skills to touch the lives of children and young people. As a good degree holder the logical point of entry was through Teach First. But is was not to be. Having a good degree and an MSc do not  necessarily qualify the applicant for the programme if they are not directly related to teaching a subject - never mind that, in this case, they would suit a teacher of history, psychology, politics and citizenship. So, abandon Teach First and try Schools Direct. Lo, the same problem. So, with a solid determination, the individual turned to primary teaching and applied for Schools Direct places in primary settings. They did not make the cut the first time because, it seemed, the school had an existing TA they wanted to employ. Onto the next attempt The application was for one of five salaried places but the reality was that there was one salaried place and four with no salary. At the end of the process the candidate was told they had been unsuccessful and the headteacher gave  the required feedback. During this the head said 'we couldn't understand why you would want to leave the police'.  This is staggering!

Michael Gove made it quite clear that the PGCE would continue as a nonsalaried route into teaching for university leavers and via SCITTs  while the Schools Direct programme was for career changers. So, here we have a young person, highly qualified and with all the skills and experience police training brings; just the sort of applicant that Gove would have had in mind. But the people in charge of the decisions - giving power back to schools - have missed the whole point. So, fingers crossed for the next attempt where, with any luck, the decision makers will have read the manual!

The second case is that of a person who, having had a successful career in car sales,  was made redundant from a sales manager position for a major brand. Redundancy focuses the thinking, and they decided to become a teacher. Having no degree, they found an access course, completed it with distinction and got a place at Goldsmiths on their Secondary DT programme. This has been very successful and, from September, they will have a post in a visionary school where engineering, design and technology matters. But, of course these subjects do not matter to the Secretary of State and have atrophied since they were excluded from the EBacc set of subjects. Consequently, training places are drying up and this excellent Goldsmiths course will be closing, with DT becoming a PGCE option.

These individuals are fine young people to be proud of, but what a time to be joining the teaching profession as the clock steadily unwinds to 1960.