There’s a crisis in our schools and our new government is going to need big and bold ideas to turn the lives of our young people around.
There’s going to be a huge financial cost to recruit thousands of more teachers, pay them a fair wage, and to fix our falling-down schools. That’s a given. It must happen.
But there are other ways, far less costly, simple but profoundly effective, and which could begin almost immediately.
I have worked in the profession for over 40 years, for most of that time as a teacher and leader, and latterly as a consultant and advisor. My school was often described as ‘succeeding against the odds’: a large comprehensive on a deprived council estate with many dysfunctional families. Yet we achieved four successive ‘outstanding’ Ofsted judgements and year-on-year, we recruited and retained a highly trained and engaged staff.
All well and good. But here’s the surprising thing: the ingredients of our success did not require ‘big’ money. As in many walks of life, the important factors aren’t easily measured or costed. An ‘ethos’, for example, cannot be simply quantified or described. But if it’s there, rock solid and everyone is signed up to it, then policy and practice fall in behind it. Not everything of value costs money.
Here are seven ideas for the new Secretary of State for Education to consider that are high impact, low cost:
- Boost teacher morale: win back the teaching profession
Cost: minimal
- Make teaching attractive: raise the status and recruit the best
Cost: minimal
- Take the anxiety out of teaching: review the efficacy of ofsted
Cost: minimal; possible savings
- Reduce workload at a stroke: review testing and assessment
Cost: minimal
- Interim curriculum action: a full curriculum review is encouragingly underway
Cost: minimal
- Make successful primary schools the basis for change
Cost: minimal
- Talk to successful school leaders, past and present, in challenging schools
Cost: none
- Boost teacher morale
Teachers are more than ready for a government that genuinely shows that they care about them. Lots of different people in positions of power need to tell them that they ‘count’. And one sure way to prove it, is to listen to them. Get into schools and listen.
Ask them questions about how schools could be improved: what are the right things and what are the wrong things about school? Give them the chance to speak. Make them believe that they have a part to play in the solution. They are best placed to contribute. Teachers are at the chalkface, with their feet planted firmly on the ground.
Most teachers come into teaching to ‘make a difference’ to young lives. This is why it should still be considered a ‘noble profession’ and this ideal should never be disregarded as cliched.
Many teachers have lost their initial sparkle and belief. They have become much less in control due to outside political influences as the curriculum and the testing regime have narrowed many children’s chances to succeed.
The whole profession is poised and set for a ‘rekindling’. DfE recognition and acknowledgement cost nothing. Step into schools, listen and demonstrate support.
Get the teachers involved and on board; stop them leaving.
2. Make teaching attractive
Teaching is one of the most important jobs in the land. For a short period of time, teachers are in charge of the world’s greatest resource – our children. It is an enormous responsibility but a privilege too. We can’t afford to get it wrong. But recruitment is currently low and not enough graduates are attracted to the profession.
The aim to recruit 6500 new Maths teachers is a bold enterprise and if successful will answer the shortfall in Maths. However, attracting them to apply in the first place, and then vetting and retaining them will be a challenge. As it stands, teaching does not appear to be the choice of enough graduates. There are vacancies right across the board as well as Maths.
Advertising pays we’re told. The current recruitment ads on television seem powerful enough, especially to attract more men into the teaching profession. But have they been successful? Has there been any research to claim return for the money spent? This is worth a look.
A key question to ask is: who are the best advocates of the teaching profession? And how can they be used?
- Famous people in the past have been used in advertising campaigns for teaching. There will be many well-known people in the wider community who could tell their stories and would give their time for free. After all, many people remember a great teacher who set them on their way to success.
- Similarly, there are thousands of ‘ordinary people’ who could speak up as advocates: ambulance drivers, electricians, care workers, plumbers etc. It would be a worthwhile research project to find people who could recount their positive, life-affirming experiences on camera. Limited cost.
- Also, consider the ‘clients’ themselves. Ask the ‘small’ children and the teenagers what makes a great teacher. They are likely to speak with a high degree of honesty, and freshness. Put them in front of a film crew and let them do the talking. (Think of the impact of the children featured in the John Lewis Christmas ads).
- Finally, find current teachers who absolutely love their jobs and make them ‘advocates’. Put them on film, describing their jobs. They could also take their place on recruitment panels. They will be among the best at spotting a ‘natural’, and those who show potential to become one.
A consistent way of vetting the candidates is crucial, especially in a time of teacher shortage when wrong decisions are more easily made. The selection process needs to be rigorous and those entering the profession need to be very clear about the responsibility that they will bear, and how they will be valued by society.
Clarity is needed about the current criteria for recruitment: academic qualifications? character? stamina? emotional intelligence? Attracting more people into the profession is urgent, but they must be the ‘right people’. Our young people deserve nothing less.
3. Take the anxiety out of teaching
There has been plenty of debate recently about the pressure inflicted on schools by this inspection regime.
There is no doubt that it has had a hugely adverse and often demoralising effect on the teaching profession. Many Headteachers and individual teachers feel very badly done by, bitterly disappointed by snapshot judgements.
No one in the profession is likely to forget the tragic case of Ruth Perry. The widespread criticism in the media which followed her death, revealed deep flaws in the reporting system. Ofsted had dismally failed in its duty to protect her. Over many years, the structure and ways of working have often proved to be counterproductive to the improvement in schools.
The name itself is ‘damaged goods’ and could easily be replaced. For example, ‘The Schools Advisory Body’. A shift of ethos needs to be about supporting schools: the sharing of good practice; advice; assistance; information – a change of emphasis at no cost.
Teachers and Headteachers are run ragged chasing results, in fear of league tables, and the next visit from Ofsted. Rebranding and a rebuilding are possible if there’s a will to do it.
Last year research showed that 92%of teachers from schools across all gradings agreed that Ofsted is not “a reliable and trusted arbiter of standards” (University College, London November 2023)
4. Reduce workload at a stroke
It’s a fact that teachers work very hard. But they are often working very hard at the wrong things. It’s bad enough to be involved in mountains of paperwork, and marking, but far worse to be working so hard at something they don’t believe in. This is soul-destroying and often the least talked about reason why teachers are so disillusioned; why they leave their profession, early on or well before retirement age.
A long hard look at the testing regime in our schools needs to be a priority. This is a big subject and deserves a proper review. For example, by reducing the amount of testing, money can be saved. Current dependency on national exam boards (at primary and secondary level) is very costly. They are the providers of exam papers, practice test papers which are linked up with the publishers of textbooks. It’s a profitable industry that is not necessarily cost effective in terms of improving the quality of education. The whole exam system eg. why grade 3 is deemed a failure at GCSE, needs a rethink. It’s an urgent matter, and will be tied into any curriculum review, and what it is we value in society.
Research has shown that schoolteachers spend an inordinate amount of time preparing children for tests, teaching for the tests, administering the tests, and then worrying about the results. Research has shown that our children are the most tested in Europe, and the most stressed.
However, a more immediate possibility is releasing teachers from the strain of constant in-house assessment and recording of progress of children, of all ages. Learning is not linear, and all children learn in leaps and bounds, and have fallow periods too.
Begin to build trust in teachers. Show confidence in them to teach and assess in the way that meets the demands of the children in their care. Allow them the creativity and freedom to teach.
Some parents may be unnerved by any change to the existing arrangements. eg less dependency on frequent in-class testing. But most could be persuaded to support the argument that this would allow higher quality teaching. Changing the assessment system does not mean a drop in standards. It can mean the opposite. Parents and carers need to be given sufficient information to convince them that there are far better and fairer ways of doing things. Step forward good Headteachers who have a deep understanding of their communities and will know how to explain the changes. ‘Educating the parents’ is key. They need to be on board.
Under the current testing arrangements, failure is ‘baked-in’ to school life; stacks of data given as evidence of having failed. This is unacceptable. There are fundamental problems with standardised testing, the least of which is that children don’t come in standardised sizes. A starting point for debate is how we tend to over-value the things we can measure, and how schools are attached to ‘false’ measurements. The whole definition of ‘intelligence’ needs a refresh.
5. Interim curriculum input
The ‘curse of irrelevance’ is deeply rooted within our secondary schools. Many of our problems stem from an inappropriate curriculum: disengaged learners, high levels of boredom, poor student behaviour and high absenteeism. The continuous emphasis on the academic, and the downgrading of practical skills, Sports and the Arts, has had a profound effect on young people’s lives.
There will always be a need for academic rigour, surely a good thing. But it doesn’t suit everyone. There are countless people who are brilliant with their hands, or have boundless creative flair, and who do badly at school. What happens to them? Potential and talent squandered.
The new government is rightly committed to bringing back the Arts into schools and reviewing the current hierarchy of subjects. Many of our schools have been blighted by the continuous emphasis on the academic, and the downgrading of ‘soft’ subjects. The curriculum review will inevitably attract costs in terms of setting up an appraisal body and employing researchers and will take time.
In the meantime, however, an immediate change to the quality of the school experience might be possible. Raising the status of Drama, Art, Music and Dance could initially be achieved by the offer of lunchtime and after-school clubs. Many currently exist successfully. They can cost very little, if volunteer artists, musicians and actors who have publicly bemoaned the loss of the Arts can be invited and encouraged to come forward and become involved in this venture.
Previous governments have been wedded to a National Curriculum which to this day, have continued to fail in keeping up with the rapid changes in our society, where the need for knowledge shifts and turns on an almost daily basis. Any broadening of the curriculum is likely to reach some of our most disengaged learners. Meaningful success in the non-academic subjects and genuine celebration of their achievements will have an immediate effect.
There are some very fine minds in the world of education who have wrung their hands at the prescriptive and inflexible curriculum laid out by Michael Gove in 2014. Their research and advice were wholeheartedly rejected. Track them down and bring their expertise and creativity to the table.
6. Make successful primary schools the basis for change
Get into highly successful primary schools, especially in the early years. The early years teachers are at the beginning of these children’s social lives where they learn to take their place in the world outside of home. They are profoundly important in setting them up to succeed. These are the teachers who understand how children learn best, and how a sense of failure is only a whisker away. They are advocates of the joy of learning, and their enthusiasm and commitment have a great deal to teach a profession which appears, at times, to have lost its way.
Outstanding early years teachers get so much right: the creation of highly motivated learners, happy children at ease in their learning, generating a sense of fun and no fear of being wrong. This is where the enthusiasm for learning begins.
But it’s a fact that the offer often deteriorates as the children get older, and this is a very big topic for a new Minister of State. Even before they leave their primary school, it’s likely that they will have experienced some pressure from their teachers to produce results at KS2.
All good primary Heads will try to protect those pupils who don’t do well at national tests. They will go all out to encourage and celebrate success in other areas – Art, Music, Dance, Drama, in Sports – so at least their charges are sent off to secondary school with a degree of self-confidence and hope.
Even so, secondary teachers often find themselves picking up the pieces from those 11–12-year-olds who’ve already decided they are, for example, ‘rubbish at Maths’ or ‘hate reading’. Thanks to the very narrow testing at Key Stage 2 their incompetence has been ‘proved’ in these subjects.
As they move through secondary school there is more pressure to produce results. The joy of learning is easily extinguished by a dull curriculum, delivered by teachers who have had no part in its design.
There are many wonderful Primary Headteachers, current or retired, whose knowledge and experience could add to the debate about how to improve our schools. Iain Erskine, in his book ‘Brilliant Headteacher’ describes how his school’s ethos was inspired by the phrase: ‘Do you know a place that makes you long for childhood?’ It’s a terrific ideal for any Headteacher to follow: to make their school that ‘place’.
7. Talk to school leaders who have a proven track record of success, especially in challenging schools
This is perhaps the easiest of all. These people will have encountered many of
society’s problems: poverty, economic and cultural deprivation, discrimination, and disruptive student behaviour. Ask them simply: how did they succeed? How did they retain and recruit their staff? How did they look after their staff? How did they motivate the youngsters? How did they succeed against the odds? The answers are in the schools: with Headteachers, with classroom teachers, with teaching assistants, with the school librarian, with the ancillary staff.
Put these school leaders, past and present, at the table with DfE advisors and ministers. Let them explain how they built their schools to withstand and overcome the many disadvantages experienced by their pupils. These are the people who know how to address inequality head on. They consistently demonstrate a tenacity and a drive to offer the best education despite a tide of constraints. They are the believers in the power of education to change lives. They are the people who are well placed to advise on how to achieve it. Find them.
Afterword
In my school we worked out how to succeed with the most disengaged students; how to attract and retain the best staff; how to build a school community built on mutual respect and trust; how to keep teachers centre stage and look after them; how to build success into pupils’ lives.
We got used to questioning the worth of our systems, and whether they encouraged the best outcomes for our students. We tried many different things, ventures that failed, with plenty of missteps along the way. We recognised the dangers of flogging a dead horse and we became better at cutting our losses. But when something worked well, we figured out how we did it so we could repeat it.
Ultimately the success of my school revolved around the quality of the teachers. I taught with some of the best teachers and, very occasionally, some of the worst. Both made a difference. Whichever way you look at it, the quality of teaching is at the centre of any conversation about education. The recruitment, training and retention of teachers will always be top of the agenda.
Get the teachers right and most of what you hope for, falls into place.
There is a huge opportunity for Bridget Phillipson and her team to turn round the fortunes and the futures of our young people, especially those in the poorest areas of the country, and the most disengaged from their education – immediately and with very little cost.
Someone once said that “a school should be a reservoir of hope”. With our new Labour government, it’s time now to make it so.
Lindy Barclay
Ex Headteacher, Education Consultant, and Writer
October 2024