Pete Stevenson is a teacher and former head teacher with 37 years experience in primary, secondary and special schools. He currently runs an equality and diversity creativity programme in schools.
Education has been a hot topic for as long as I can remember. Jim Callahan’s speech at Ruskin College in 1976 raised concerns that still exist such as gender inequality and informal teaching methods. The speech led to a reform of the examination system (reformed several times since) and the introduction of a national curriculum in 1988 which itself has been treated to many changes.
So, where are we now?
After a mountain of government discussion papers, initiatives, the arrival of Ofsted, teacher training reform, the introduction of systems of assessment, league tables and the expansion of pre school and higher education are we a more confident, articulate, numerate and literate society?
I think not.
It appears that governments are reluctant to invest in any major ways to elevate significant numbers of pupils from the poor parts of the country to seriously challenge the privileged pupils in middle class areas and crucially compete fairly with those from top independent schools who in massive numbers occupy the best paid and most influential jobs in the country.
Successive governments have merely moved the chess pieces of education provision around to create different formations but no significant changes have occurred to benefit working class children. There are of course exceptions but my recent experience of working with musical students from expensive private schools who could sing and sight-read in French and Latin and confidently play at least two instruments showed the extent of human potential. My work in state primary schools serving areas of socio economic deprivation has revealed a fall in the numbers of children who even play the recorder and rarely any emphasis on challenging children to achieve great things in music and other areas of the curriculum.
Academies, which are state schools operating outside of local authority control, have done little to help children from poor homes to achieve more. They fragment local provision by encouraging schools to view themselves as independent. Free schools add to the confusion with many, often with a religious identity, set up by parents who have no experience of managing a school.
Academies and Free Schools are able to employ unqualified teachers and may adopt their own admission policies and curricula rather like schools before the introduction of the national curriculum. They can apply their own pay and conditions procedures and it is possible for teachers to be dismissed at short notice without sufficient time to defend themselves.
Sadly local authority advisers, who once visited schools to offer free helpful advice, are now almost extinct, many having formed their own private companies to offer schools advice at a price.
The system of assessment and testing has forced some schools to adopt dubious practices. The judgements on secondary schools, increasingly linked to teachers’ pay, mean that schools must produce the highest possible percentage of pupils achieving grades A* to C at GCSE. This means a massive emphasis on so-called average pupils who may not achieve grade C without coaching. Evidence also shows that some schools will allow pupils to sit certain tests several times until they make the grade. This is surely the return of the Victorian practice of “Payment by Results”.
My observations in primary schools reveal a high level of complaints from teachers that the joy of teaching and learning is seriously challenged by a requirement to coach daily for the dreaded English and maths SATS at Year 6 (age 11). This has resulted in a significant narrowing of the curriculum with the creative arts often suffering.
Teacher and head teacher stress is a growing concern. Too often the increasing demands from Ofsted cause good teachers and managers to leave the profession.
The UK does not do well in international league tables and governments often reach out for simple answers such as the current emphasis on the daily teaching of phonics in primary schools. Increasing evidence, as explained by children’s writer Michael Rosen, shows that children learn to read by being introduced to a range of teaching methods, not just phonics, and he urges teachers to immerse children in books that are stimulating and meaningful so that they develop a great appetite for reading. It is surely the teacher’s job to generate this appetite in all subjects and those who cleverly manage to do this whilst also achieving high SATs and GCSE results deserve a great deal of praise. In my experience, they appear to be rare.
An impressive head teacher from the 1980s once announced his school motto as “Born Curious Stay Curious”. Our job as teachers is to embrace this aspiration. Sadly government policies make this increasingly difficult to achieve.
The Morning Star 2015
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