The annual ‘debate’ over whether or not examinations are easier now than they have been in the past is so much more personal and class driven than commentators and politicians acknowledge.
Intelligent thinkers and observers around this issue all share one common trait; they have all been to school and sat an exam. Indeed it would be safe to posit that the vast majority of those whose opinions reach the largest media audience did so very successfully. High achieving individuals have a tendency to view their time at school with understandable pride. For most, by definition, it must have been a period of high self esteem and reward. Just as one balks at imagining a former partner ever scaling the heights of pleasure and bliss they shared when coupled with you, it can be equally hard to imagine a younger generation thinking, working and learning as well or better than you once did. It is inherently threatening to imagine a brighter and better motivated generation snapping at your heels. For many the ocular proof of said generation’s ignorance and indolence is evident any time one catches a bus, wanders down a high street or tunes in to Big Brother. For some it stands to reason, it stands to COMMON SENSE, that this generation are feeble, spoilt and cosseted in ways in which we never were.
Except that the evidence rather contradicts this analysis every August. Pass rates have a tedious habit of rising, as more and more students seem to be attaining the highest grades. For many, the logical explanation for this puzzling dichotomy between perception and reality can only be that the exams are easier, that a political desire to show improved results has somehow led to a conspiracy to undermine and devalue the qualifications we once strived so hard to attain.
It isn’t difficult to find popularly acceptable evidence to support this viewpoint if you dig around a little. Journalists and television crews have placed old O Level papers in front of GCSE students and taken their bafflement as evidence of the ‘inferiority’ of the new qualification on many occasions. The use of calculators in modern exams is commonly held up as clear evidence of a drop in mathematical standards. Mental arithmetic is frequently the preferred measure of ‘ability’ in numeracy in such media analyses, even if it is of limited contemporary day to day or even academic application. Science papers come in for particular stick when multiple choice questions are used, despite such questions usually being ‘knowledge’ as opposed to ‘skills’ focused (educational conservatives tend to lend primacy to the former).
Curriculums change over time, and the shifting emphases will please some and enrage others. No doubt a student in 2010 will very likely be baffled by much of the terminology used and skills required in an equivalent (very roughly - O Levels were a different beast to the GCSE, a fact rarely acknowledged when comparing like with like) exam from 1960, just as a 65 year will old struggle to meet the requirements of many elements of their grandchild’s paper. Such experiments are silly and near impossible to conduct under objective and meaningful controlled conditions. Different generations would be totally lost in the pedagogical landscape of each other’s classrooms. Times change, requirements shift, and accepting that more teachers and students are working harder and smarter than may have been the case in the past is an anathema to many of a reactionary or conservative persuasion. So the argument rumbles on. Standards have fallen because I believe them to have done so, I can prove it because I knew x at their age, and they now don’t. The fact that I don’t know y is irrelevant because I’ve done very well thank you very much without knowing y, and don’t get me started on behaviour…
Where I do have some sympathy is in the question of whether an A grade is of the same distinguishing value to higher education when 27% of students sitting the paper achieve it as opposed to 10%. There is a case to be made for distinguishing between the very highest achievers in a cohort, if for no other reason than to enable universities to ensure that they are accepting the very best candidates. This year the first A level students will achieve the new A* grade. I doubt that you will hear very much about this, because it is a measure introduced to address just the issue which has the right frothing at the mouth. It plays better to the galleries to point to the (likely) rise in overall A grades and to repeat the insulting attacks on students and educational professionals ad nauseum. To achieve an A* a student needs to score over 90% in both modules of their final A Level year, and at least 80% total across both years of study (including the controversial ‘AS’ examination so hated by Mr Gove). This should provide those who seek to identify the true elite a means of doing so and will be a useful marker of the absolute best students.
The argument tends towards a frustration at so many more students doing well, as if earning top grades were something which we should only encourage in a very small number of people. This notion is elitist and deeply conservative when one exercises the art of deep thought around it (you see, I have been listening Mr Gove). However, those of us who are cheered each year by rises in results among young people should also be cautious. The climate of fear and competition created by league tables will have no doubt helped to drive these improvements in attainment (conservatives seem to have little understanding of, or interest in, the effect this process has had upon state schools). For this reason alone to dismiss targets and competition out of hand is foolish.
The question should be whether the pursuit of higher examination attainment alone is enough. Such a debate should be the real driver to delivering a better skilled and more effective generation of young people. As long as the examination stakes are as high as they are for schools and young people (witness the thousands of young people who will not receive a university place this year as a result of the coalition government), the tendency to coach and hothouse will be in place. Mr Gove may change the mode and language of assessment to one he deems ‘harder’, or one that he feels will better credit knowledge and the acquisition of facts, but schools will still do everything they possibly can up to, and sometimes beyond, cheating in order to protect their statistics. And when we allow the statistics to drive and conclude the debate, we are all at risk of truly having been ‘dumbed down’.
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Sunday, 11 July 2010
It's all a question of Gove and take.
So I haven't proven to be a terribly consistent blogger I'm afraid. I can only plead mitigating circumstances in defence of the nine month interregnum between posts. A new job, a pregnant wife, an Ofsted inspection and a coalition government. Only one of these things could have been reliably predicted in September.
But as the primary focus of this blog was always to be education and pedagogy, let me try and focus this post on my thoughts post election. The landscape has shifted, we are under new management, and the next decade of learning and teaching in British schools is going to be very different to the last ten years of 'strategy' and consultant led centralisation.
Around September time I found myself engaged in a spirited exchange of correspondence with the now much more ubiquitous Toby Young. In a rare fit of pique I had responded, perhaps rashly, to an article he had written in the Observer about his desire/intention to set up a school in the style of the Swedish 'free school' system in his corner of London.
From: spencerrichard1979@hotmail.comTo: howtolose@hotmail.comSubject: HelpDate: Sun, 23 Aug 2009 12:38:56 +0000
Sir,
Can you explain to me how a 'comprehensive grammar' would manage to solve the need to raise access, achievement and well being in working class children and, by definition, how existing comprehensive schools and academies are failing? If you seek to embrace an 'inclusive philosophy', then surely everyone in Acton will have access to your Utopian dream? Or will it become a cosy ghetto for you and your middle class friends?
The best thing about the political landscape of the 1970s was that it was honest. The left and right had clearly defined goals and constituencies. You and the other Cameronites are so intellectually dishonest it is staggering. Your aims are not inclusive, but very much exclusive. You seem to have very little grasp of educational philosophy other than a very simplistic notion that Grammar = rigour and excellence / Comprehensive = mediocrity and failure. As an educationalist I wouldn't dream of pretending to know how best to run a hospital, a military campaign or a legal chambers. What then, qualifies you to establish a school in your own image?
Can I suggest that you stop agonising. It is clear that you want the best for your children, and that you fear sending them to the local state school will not furnish them with the best odds of success. You are wrong, but you are entitled to make that choice (although I would ask you to carefully consider the impact of people making that choice has upon the success and viability of state schools in your part of London). What could be truly dangerous is peddling the patent lie that allowing middle class parents to set up schools in their own vision (I presume you are also happy with mosques, churches and temples doing the same?)will somehow raise the bar for the most socially disadvantaged children. That isn't what you really want is it? You'd like to be able to segregate your children from these sections of society without calling upon your wealth and privilege to do so. The current government has betrayed many progressive principles through its education policy of late, although at least it has retained a stated intention to promote inclusion and to raise standards for all.
If you believe in streaming children from a young age and a three tier education system, then
go for it. Wave the flag for that model, which has many strengths and many enlightened and erudite proponents. In the meantime, perhaps visit some of the most successful comprehensive schools and join in the debate as to how and why they succeed in providing a well rounded, rigorous and inclusive experience for a range of students from diverse backgrounds. These schools (and there are thousands of them) follow many of the paths and practices which I suspect your 'comprehensive grammar' notion would seek to emulate.
Articles like yours do so much damage to a system which suffers from the ceaseless barrage of armchair experts. Your own experiences in the 1970s do not make you an expert. Having an educationalist for a father doesn't either. Visiting a few schools and consulting some serious research around the contemporary debates in education might.
Richard Spencer
Now, ok, I was angry and somewhat intemperate in my expression. But I stand by what I wrote, and feel justified in holding up the whole 'comprehensive grammar' piffle for the oxymoronic tripe it so self evidently is.
I won't (and probably legally can't!) betray Toby's confidence by publishing the exchange which followed. Suffice to say he was charming and persuasive in his defence, but in the final analysis was happy to claim to be an 'unashamed elitist'. It is this phrase on which I think I'd like to hang my commentary on the philosophy which is in the ascendancy in the Govian present.
Whatever crimes Labour was guilty of in their handling of Education (and despite being a card carrying and unbowed Labourite, I am perfectly happy to accept that they are multifarious and occasionally heinous), with the exception Ruth Kelly's brief and depressing period in charge, I always had the sense that the core values and intentions of policy makers were essentially progressively sound. This provided some small comfort in moments of anger and indignation at the dunderheaded pronouncements and data-insanity which punctuated so many of New Labour's education policies.
The new tone was set within just four hours of the formation of the coalition and the appointment of Michael Gove as Secretary of State. With the ink literally still drying on the Faustian pact the Liberals entered into with so many whey faced smiles, Gove immediately and summarily excised the 'Children and Families' elements of his brief. Within four hours the garish 'rainbow optimism' desktop theme of the DCSF website had been replaced with an 'austerity blue' background, and the somewhat sinister warning that all content 'may not represent current government policy'. This was the 'Department of Education' and Michael Gove meant business.
And so it has proven. GTC gone, BECTA gone, QCDA on its way. Diplomas withering on their feeble vine (Pity Tomlinson and his brave, lost vision). The bulldozer excitedly looming over many of the foundation blocks of Curriculum 2000. The Secondary national strategy (check out the yellow health warning at the top!) busily 'legacy planning'. The apparatus of New Labour's centralised approach is being dismantled in a bonfire of the educationalists. PGCE is under threat (Gove has publicy stated teaching is a 'craft' which requires an apprenticeship). While the 'art of deep thought' is the desired sunlit academic upland of the Govtopian future, the 'craft of quick cuts' appears to be the reductive and ideological reality of his approach to governing.
And all this without mention of the Academies Bill. My own school found itself on a published list of schools 'seeking Academy status' which Gove excitedly published (within mere days of announcing the policy and writing to schools) as evidence of the popular clamour to attain this cherished bauble of freedom from state oppression. In reality we are extremely wary of the move, and simply expressed a desire for more information out of fear of being left behind in the nervous and unseemly rush. Spin the fear, grease the engines of rapid, cost effective (?), change.
And then we have the extermination of BSF in the most attention grabbing move he has made so far. There has been a rearguard action to highlight the inefficiencies and cost of the programme, but the axing of it means we have lost the best chance we've had in a generation to replace so many of the asbestos riddled, leaky, cold and poorly designed shacks we still educate our children in. In defence we are told in sombre tones that the quality of the experience in the classroom, of the teaching, is of primary importance. No doubt all true, but a three star meal served up in a pig sty would still likely give me indigestion. I'd like to see Mr Gove teach a five period day in the asbestos building which I teach in and tell me that the extreme heat/cold (delete depending upon time of year and whether or not the boiler has packed up for the umpteenth time) has no impact on learning. One only has to spend time in France, Germany or Scandinavia to witness that we offer up uniquely shitty environments to support teaching and learning in this country. It is poor now - in five years it could degenerate to the level of national disgrace.
And all this is of course due to Labour's profligacy. Of course there is no ideological strain evident in this process at all. We regret the need to terminate all the attendant public and private sector jobs which the gleeful Gove's posturing will result in. Clearly the cutting of capital spending projects will have no impact on the private sector or raise unemployment in the wider economy. Obviously any spending undertaken by the Labour government was done so out of a wicked and wilful desire to destroy the British economy and leave it ready for Sharia law. Ok, I need to calm down. But I think you can see my own ideological fury emerging quite clearly enough.
Few teachers or education professionals will weep at the loss of the GTC (what did it ever really achieve?). Some will miss BECTA (I count myself among their number), while most will grudgingly accept that in the context of cuts to non essential services it may have run its course. The ideological case can be made for any of these cuts as long as you are prepared to accept the reality of living without them.
The teaching profession looks as if it may, just about, accept the case for a two year pay freeze. However the popular, media and political rhetoric against our pensions, working conditions and practice has been noticeably dark since the new government took power.
So, before I bring this unashamedly self righteous polemic to a close, let me return to the 'unashamedly elitist' badge Toby Young so proudly wore. His school now looks like becoming a reality. I now interpret what he meant by that phrase differently to how I did back in September. They (the government and the West London Cameroonians) are the elite now. They have their ideology, they are determined to see it through, and they are unashamed. The politically awkward details and the progressive heart of the public sector may eventually provide the Achilles' heel, but for now they are the masters and we the public servants.
There may be trouble ahead. But while the sun is shining, our (below inflation) pay rises are assured for September, and the cuts to come aren't yet casting our teaching and administrative assistants onto the dole queues, we can just about still pretend that the core 'coalition' values are sound and that those nice Liberals will take the edge off the nasty party in power. Stay tuned progressives!
But as the primary focus of this blog was always to be education and pedagogy, let me try and focus this post on my thoughts post election. The landscape has shifted, we are under new management, and the next decade of learning and teaching in British schools is going to be very different to the last ten years of 'strategy' and consultant led centralisation.
Around September time I found myself engaged in a spirited exchange of correspondence with the now much more ubiquitous Toby Young. In a rare fit of pique I had responded, perhaps rashly, to an article he had written in the Observer about his desire/intention to set up a school in the style of the Swedish 'free school' system in his corner of London.
From: spencerrichard1979@hotmail.comTo: howtolose@hotmail.comSubject: HelpDate: Sun, 23 Aug 2009 12:38:56 +0000
Sir,
Can you explain to me how a 'comprehensive grammar' would manage to solve the need to raise access, achievement and well being in working class children and, by definition, how existing comprehensive schools and academies are failing? If you seek to embrace an 'inclusive philosophy', then surely everyone in Acton will have access to your Utopian dream? Or will it become a cosy ghetto for you and your middle class friends?
The best thing about the political landscape of the 1970s was that it was honest. The left and right had clearly defined goals and constituencies. You and the other Cameronites are so intellectually dishonest it is staggering. Your aims are not inclusive, but very much exclusive. You seem to have very little grasp of educational philosophy other than a very simplistic notion that Grammar = rigour and excellence / Comprehensive = mediocrity and failure. As an educationalist I wouldn't dream of pretending to know how best to run a hospital, a military campaign or a legal chambers. What then, qualifies you to establish a school in your own image?
Can I suggest that you stop agonising. It is clear that you want the best for your children, and that you fear sending them to the local state school will not furnish them with the best odds of success. You are wrong, but you are entitled to make that choice (although I would ask you to carefully consider the impact of people making that choice has upon the success and viability of state schools in your part of London). What could be truly dangerous is peddling the patent lie that allowing middle class parents to set up schools in their own vision (I presume you are also happy with mosques, churches and temples doing the same?)will somehow raise the bar for the most socially disadvantaged children. That isn't what you really want is it? You'd like to be able to segregate your children from these sections of society without calling upon your wealth and privilege to do so. The current government has betrayed many progressive principles through its education policy of late, although at least it has retained a stated intention to promote inclusion and to raise standards for all.
If you believe in streaming children from a young age and a three tier education system, then
go for it. Wave the flag for that model, which has many strengths and many enlightened and erudite proponents. In the meantime, perhaps visit some of the most successful comprehensive schools and join in the debate as to how and why they succeed in providing a well rounded, rigorous and inclusive experience for a range of students from diverse backgrounds. These schools (and there are thousands of them) follow many of the paths and practices which I suspect your 'comprehensive grammar' notion would seek to emulate.
Articles like yours do so much damage to a system which suffers from the ceaseless barrage of armchair experts. Your own experiences in the 1970s do not make you an expert. Having an educationalist for a father doesn't either. Visiting a few schools and consulting some serious research around the contemporary debates in education might.
Richard Spencer
Now, ok, I was angry and somewhat intemperate in my expression. But I stand by what I wrote, and feel justified in holding up the whole 'comprehensive grammar' piffle for the oxymoronic tripe it so self evidently is.
I won't (and probably legally can't!) betray Toby's confidence by publishing the exchange which followed. Suffice to say he was charming and persuasive in his defence, but in the final analysis was happy to claim to be an 'unashamed elitist'. It is this phrase on which I think I'd like to hang my commentary on the philosophy which is in the ascendancy in the Govian present.
Whatever crimes Labour was guilty of in their handling of Education (and despite being a card carrying and unbowed Labourite, I am perfectly happy to accept that they are multifarious and occasionally heinous), with the exception Ruth Kelly's brief and depressing period in charge, I always had the sense that the core values and intentions of policy makers were essentially progressively sound. This provided some small comfort in moments of anger and indignation at the dunderheaded pronouncements and data-insanity which punctuated so many of New Labour's education policies.
The new tone was set within just four hours of the formation of the coalition and the appointment of Michael Gove as Secretary of State. With the ink literally still drying on the Faustian pact the Liberals entered into with so many whey faced smiles, Gove immediately and summarily excised the 'Children and Families' elements of his brief. Within four hours the garish 'rainbow optimism' desktop theme of the DCSF website had been replaced with an 'austerity blue' background, and the somewhat sinister warning that all content 'may not represent current government policy'. This was the 'Department of Education' and Michael Gove meant business.
And so it has proven. GTC gone, BECTA gone, QCDA on its way. Diplomas withering on their feeble vine (Pity Tomlinson and his brave, lost vision). The bulldozer excitedly looming over many of the foundation blocks of Curriculum 2000. The Secondary national strategy (check out the yellow health warning at the top!) busily 'legacy planning'. The apparatus of New Labour's centralised approach is being dismantled in a bonfire of the educationalists. PGCE is under threat (Gove has publicy stated teaching is a 'craft' which requires an apprenticeship). While the 'art of deep thought' is the desired sunlit academic upland of the Govtopian future, the 'craft of quick cuts' appears to be the reductive and ideological reality of his approach to governing.
And all this without mention of the Academies Bill. My own school found itself on a published list of schools 'seeking Academy status' which Gove excitedly published (within mere days of announcing the policy and writing to schools) as evidence of the popular clamour to attain this cherished bauble of freedom from state oppression. In reality we are extremely wary of the move, and simply expressed a desire for more information out of fear of being left behind in the nervous and unseemly rush. Spin the fear, grease the engines of rapid, cost effective (?), change.
And then we have the extermination of BSF in the most attention grabbing move he has made so far. There has been a rearguard action to highlight the inefficiencies and cost of the programme, but the axing of it means we have lost the best chance we've had in a generation to replace so many of the asbestos riddled, leaky, cold and poorly designed shacks we still educate our children in. In defence we are told in sombre tones that the quality of the experience in the classroom, of the teaching, is of primary importance. No doubt all true, but a three star meal served up in a pig sty would still likely give me indigestion. I'd like to see Mr Gove teach a five period day in the asbestos building which I teach in and tell me that the extreme heat/cold (delete depending upon time of year and whether or not the boiler has packed up for the umpteenth time) has no impact on learning. One only has to spend time in France, Germany or Scandinavia to witness that we offer up uniquely shitty environments to support teaching and learning in this country. It is poor now - in five years it could degenerate to the level of national disgrace.
And all this is of course due to Labour's profligacy. Of course there is no ideological strain evident in this process at all. We regret the need to terminate all the attendant public and private sector jobs which the gleeful Gove's posturing will result in. Clearly the cutting of capital spending projects will have no impact on the private sector or raise unemployment in the wider economy. Obviously any spending undertaken by the Labour government was done so out of a wicked and wilful desire to destroy the British economy and leave it ready for Sharia law. Ok, I need to calm down. But I think you can see my own ideological fury emerging quite clearly enough.
Few teachers or education professionals will weep at the loss of the GTC (what did it ever really achieve?). Some will miss BECTA (I count myself among their number), while most will grudgingly accept that in the context of cuts to non essential services it may have run its course. The ideological case can be made for any of these cuts as long as you are prepared to accept the reality of living without them.
The teaching profession looks as if it may, just about, accept the case for a two year pay freeze. However the popular, media and political rhetoric against our pensions, working conditions and practice has been noticeably dark since the new government took power.
So, before I bring this unashamedly self righteous polemic to a close, let me return to the 'unashamedly elitist' badge Toby Young so proudly wore. His school now looks like becoming a reality. I now interpret what he meant by that phrase differently to how I did back in September. They (the government and the West London Cameroonians) are the elite now. They have their ideology, they are determined to see it through, and they are unashamed. The politically awkward details and the progressive heart of the public sector may eventually provide the Achilles' heel, but for now they are the masters and we the public servants.
There may be trouble ahead. But while the sun is shining, our (below inflation) pay rises are assured for September, and the cuts to come aren't yet casting our teaching and administrative assistants onto the dole queues, we can just about still pretend that the core 'coalition' values are sound and that those nice Liberals will take the edge off the nasty party in power. Stay tuned progressives!
Monday, 2 November 2009
Below is my latest article to be published in NATE News on the revised criteria for Ofsted lesson observations. Enjoy!
English (and Ofsted) at the Crossroads.
Phillip Jarret, HMI and Specialist Subject Adviser to Ofsted for English visited NATE council this September to introduce his team’s latest evaluation of English teaching in England. This article takes a look at the report and considers how far its findings are reflected in the new criteria for lesson observations used by Ofsted.
The recent report from Ofsted on the current state of English teaching, ‘English at the Crossroads’ should be essential reading for all NATE members. The report offers a stimulating and relevant appraisal of recent trends, as well as thoughtful and sometimes inspirational examples of good practice as case studies. To read a centrally produced document which takes such a qualitative approach is genuinely refreshing in a world in which English teachers increasingly need to be expert statisticians in order to defend their practice and their records.
I was intrigued to hear Phillip Jarret, HMI and Specialist Subject Adviser for English, Ofsted, speak about his report at NATE council in London last month. He presented the report with passion and with the obvious weight of expertise which one always hopes for from Ofsted. I found myself agreeing vigorously with his calls for the DCSF to help the most challenging schools recruit and retain effective teachers, for improved subject plans along with clearer curricular targets within schools as well as more consistent and effective marking of work. He identifies a need for independent learning opportunities (reading for pleasure anyone?) in the English curriculum, and for the quality and focus of homework to be improved. He also had some very interesting observations to make about the ways in which the most successful schools had embraced APP (Assessing Pupils’ Progress) as a tracking system and planning tool, rather than as simply a series of short assessment tasks. In short, there is something in the report to stir the interest of any English teacher, and the section on ‘Leadership and Management’ should be required reading for all subject leaders.
As a subject leader with an Ofsted inspection looming myself, I was intrigued to know how far the findings of this report have permeated down and helped inform the revised lesson observation criteria for section five inspections. Having recently observed a ‘Satisfactory’ English lesson as part of a mock Ofsted inspection which, by general agreement, would have been judged ‘Good’ under the old criteria, I am deeply concerned by some of the implications of the strong emphasis on evidencing ‘progress’ in the new observation criteria. The lesson in question was the fourth lesson my colleague had delivered to her new Year 7 English class in September. They were studying ‘The Ruby in the Smoke’, and were at the early stages of exploring the style, genre and plot of their class reader. We observed the first forty minutes of the hour long lesson before retiring to ‘make judgements’ or, if you prefer, reflect and share our perspectives. I was told by our visiting expert (a former English teacher) that the main reason my colleague should be judged ‘satisfactory’ was that there had been no reference to progression through the NC levels made in the early stages of the lesson. This was despite the fact that such references were a feature of her plan, and that explicit reference was to be drawn to this in the plenary (which we never saw). When I raised this point in her defence, I was told that the focus should be ‘relentless’ in terms of evidencing and referencing how students can progress. In all other areas, the visiting expert was full of praise for the lesson and for my colleague. Fair enough, you may think. But are we really at the stage where English teachers should mention levels or grades in the opening ten minutes of a lesson or face being damned as merely ‘satisfactory’? Is this ‘good’ practice anyway?
Thinking back to the excellent advice, for example on marking and feedback, in ‘English at the Crossroads’, there seemed to be something of a conflict here. I write not as someone with any particular axe to grind against the existence of Ofsted, or against inspections in general, but as a subject leader with a genuine fear that the new criteria are going to be looking for a language of assessment and an approach to pedagogy which is at odds with accepted good practice in our subject. We are told that Ofsted inspectors may only ‘drop in’ to a lesson under the new style of inspections. This visit may be as brief as ten minutes, and the implications of my particular experience (which may not be representative) is that teachers may need to make sure that they reference grade/level progression at some point in those ten minutes to stand a chance of being judged ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’. I asked Phillip about how far he felt section five inspectors would be aware of the findings and recommendations of his report, and his answer concerned me. There seems to be no way of telling whether inspectors are aware of the report’s recommendations, and very little link up between the work of the subject advisers and the section five inspection teams. I was depressed to hear him admit how rarely he sees speaking and listening lessons delivered when he inspects English teams; not because speaking and listening isn’t taking place, but because teachers have learned all too painfully that the type of reductive measures used to judge teaching and learning such as those I describe above can be harshly applied in the context of a classroom with a focus on oracy as a measurable skill.
The danger of the current inspection regime, it seems to me, is that delivering a reading lesson, for example, may not be an option many teachers would feel comfortable taking when faced with an Ofsted inspector. Is it perhaps far safer to focus on a lesson which explores one or two specific writing skills which can be wrapped up and exemplified in the study of some gobbet of text, mapped to the Assessment Focus and corresponding level ladder of the day, and churned out by the end of the lesson? The problem we face as English teachers (although it is surely not one unique to our subject) is that progress is not typically measurable in ten minute chunks. Progress should be central to all that we teach in English, but it is about something far less quantifiable than the ‘drop in’ style of lesson observation will ever be able to adequately identify. Anyone who ever fell in love with our subject knows that the breakthrough moments, the shining hours of pleasure in hearing a wonderful teacher read to you, and the life affirming confidence of knowing that you can finally express yourself adequately using our language, is more than an inspector can measure by employing such a methodology. Having heard Phillip Jarret speak to council, it seems he understands this (I wish he’d been my English teacher). His targeted subject inspections seem more thorough and considered, more contextual in their findings than whole school section five inspections can be. I’m just afraid that my colleague – and she’s a great teacher, never mind good – will carry with her that rather hollow and joyless advice she received this September and seek to be ‘relentless’ in the pursuit of ‘progress’, perhaps at the expense of the students’ pleasure and excellent or inspirational teaching.
English (and Ofsted) at the Crossroads.
Phillip Jarret, HMI and Specialist Subject Adviser to Ofsted for English visited NATE council this September to introduce his team’s latest evaluation of English teaching in England. This article takes a look at the report and considers how far its findings are reflected in the new criteria for lesson observations used by Ofsted.
The recent report from Ofsted on the current state of English teaching, ‘English at the Crossroads’ should be essential reading for all NATE members. The report offers a stimulating and relevant appraisal of recent trends, as well as thoughtful and sometimes inspirational examples of good practice as case studies. To read a centrally produced document which takes such a qualitative approach is genuinely refreshing in a world in which English teachers increasingly need to be expert statisticians in order to defend their practice and their records.
I was intrigued to hear Phillip Jarret, HMI and Specialist Subject Adviser for English, Ofsted, speak about his report at NATE council in London last month. He presented the report with passion and with the obvious weight of expertise which one always hopes for from Ofsted. I found myself agreeing vigorously with his calls for the DCSF to help the most challenging schools recruit and retain effective teachers, for improved subject plans along with clearer curricular targets within schools as well as more consistent and effective marking of work. He identifies a need for independent learning opportunities (reading for pleasure anyone?) in the English curriculum, and for the quality and focus of homework to be improved. He also had some very interesting observations to make about the ways in which the most successful schools had embraced APP (Assessing Pupils’ Progress) as a tracking system and planning tool, rather than as simply a series of short assessment tasks. In short, there is something in the report to stir the interest of any English teacher, and the section on ‘Leadership and Management’ should be required reading for all subject leaders.
As a subject leader with an Ofsted inspection looming myself, I was intrigued to know how far the findings of this report have permeated down and helped inform the revised lesson observation criteria for section five inspections. Having recently observed a ‘Satisfactory’ English lesson as part of a mock Ofsted inspection which, by general agreement, would have been judged ‘Good’ under the old criteria, I am deeply concerned by some of the implications of the strong emphasis on evidencing ‘progress’ in the new observation criteria. The lesson in question was the fourth lesson my colleague had delivered to her new Year 7 English class in September. They were studying ‘The Ruby in the Smoke’, and were at the early stages of exploring the style, genre and plot of their class reader. We observed the first forty minutes of the hour long lesson before retiring to ‘make judgements’ or, if you prefer, reflect and share our perspectives. I was told by our visiting expert (a former English teacher) that the main reason my colleague should be judged ‘satisfactory’ was that there had been no reference to progression through the NC levels made in the early stages of the lesson. This was despite the fact that such references were a feature of her plan, and that explicit reference was to be drawn to this in the plenary (which we never saw). When I raised this point in her defence, I was told that the focus should be ‘relentless’ in terms of evidencing and referencing how students can progress. In all other areas, the visiting expert was full of praise for the lesson and for my colleague. Fair enough, you may think. But are we really at the stage where English teachers should mention levels or grades in the opening ten minutes of a lesson or face being damned as merely ‘satisfactory’? Is this ‘good’ practice anyway?
Thinking back to the excellent advice, for example on marking and feedback, in ‘English at the Crossroads’, there seemed to be something of a conflict here. I write not as someone with any particular axe to grind against the existence of Ofsted, or against inspections in general, but as a subject leader with a genuine fear that the new criteria are going to be looking for a language of assessment and an approach to pedagogy which is at odds with accepted good practice in our subject. We are told that Ofsted inspectors may only ‘drop in’ to a lesson under the new style of inspections. This visit may be as brief as ten minutes, and the implications of my particular experience (which may not be representative) is that teachers may need to make sure that they reference grade/level progression at some point in those ten minutes to stand a chance of being judged ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’. I asked Phillip about how far he felt section five inspectors would be aware of the findings and recommendations of his report, and his answer concerned me. There seems to be no way of telling whether inspectors are aware of the report’s recommendations, and very little link up between the work of the subject advisers and the section five inspection teams. I was depressed to hear him admit how rarely he sees speaking and listening lessons delivered when he inspects English teams; not because speaking and listening isn’t taking place, but because teachers have learned all too painfully that the type of reductive measures used to judge teaching and learning such as those I describe above can be harshly applied in the context of a classroom with a focus on oracy as a measurable skill.
The danger of the current inspection regime, it seems to me, is that delivering a reading lesson, for example, may not be an option many teachers would feel comfortable taking when faced with an Ofsted inspector. Is it perhaps far safer to focus on a lesson which explores one or two specific writing skills which can be wrapped up and exemplified in the study of some gobbet of text, mapped to the Assessment Focus and corresponding level ladder of the day, and churned out by the end of the lesson? The problem we face as English teachers (although it is surely not one unique to our subject) is that progress is not typically measurable in ten minute chunks. Progress should be central to all that we teach in English, but it is about something far less quantifiable than the ‘drop in’ style of lesson observation will ever be able to adequately identify. Anyone who ever fell in love with our subject knows that the breakthrough moments, the shining hours of pleasure in hearing a wonderful teacher read to you, and the life affirming confidence of knowing that you can finally express yourself adequately using our language, is more than an inspector can measure by employing such a methodology. Having heard Phillip Jarret speak to council, it seems he understands this (I wish he’d been my English teacher). His targeted subject inspections seem more thorough and considered, more contextual in their findings than whole school section five inspections can be. I’m just afraid that my colleague – and she’s a great teacher, never mind good – will carry with her that rather hollow and joyless advice she received this September and seek to be ‘relentless’ in the pursuit of ‘progress’, perhaps at the expense of the students’ pleasure and excellent or inspirational teaching.
Saturday, 12 September 2009
Tories set to scrap the Diplomas
So it seems that opposition to the new diplomas will be formal rather than merely implied, if the TES is to be belived:
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6022646&navcode=94
I'm not sure whether the hopeless fudge of Tomlinson which Ruth Kelly initiated, or the Conservative's evident distaste for any serious reform of qualifications is worse. I think that mostly I feel sorry for all the students who have enrolled on a course that nobody is likely to recognise in ten years, and for all the schools and teachers who have spent so much time and money setting them up. What a farce, and what a wasted opportunity the Tomlinson report was. Now progressive change to qualifications seems further away than ever.
Expect to her lots about 'Gold Standards' during the election campaign, and see how the diplomas are held up as a shining example of Labour waste. Sadly, given the lack of conviction with which they were launched and marketed - the Tories may have a case on the latter point.
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6022646&navcode=94
I'm not sure whether the hopeless fudge of Tomlinson which Ruth Kelly initiated, or the Conservative's evident distaste for any serious reform of qualifications is worse. I think that mostly I feel sorry for all the students who have enrolled on a course that nobody is likely to recognise in ten years, and for all the schools and teachers who have spent so much time and money setting them up. What a farce, and what a wasted opportunity the Tomlinson report was. Now progressive change to qualifications seems further away than ever.
Expect to her lots about 'Gold Standards' during the election campaign, and see how the diplomas are held up as a shining example of Labour waste. Sadly, given the lack of conviction with which they were launched and marketed - the Tories may have a case on the latter point.
Sunday, 6 September 2009
Welcome
Welcome to my first ever blog. Thanks to Ed Gerstner for encouraging me to start this up, and thank you to anyone who may take the time to read my outpourings - such as they may prove. What I hope this blog will enable me to do is to share ideas, links, resources and thoughts with those interested. As I start this blog up, English teaching and education policy stands at something of a crossroads. The fault lines for the next decade are emerging and teachers and schools need to prepare themselves for a different emergent tone from central government. In the coming months, I shall be interested in the vision (if any) Ed Balls presents for Education under a fourth term for Labour, and shall seek to scrutinise the words and actions of Michael Gove for clues as to how we pedagogues may have to adapt under a new, Tory, regime.
In addition, and just because it makes me happy, I may from time to time say a little about the following topics:
- Doctor Who 2010
- The latest revelations from my reading group
- The trials and tribulations of contemporary pug dog ownership
- The battle for a people's republic of Yorkshire
- Why the BBC needs defending from the enemies without and within
I hope you enjoy and feel free to interact and contact me to say nice things!
Richard
In addition, and just because it makes me happy, I may from time to time say a little about the following topics:
- Doctor Who 2010
- The latest revelations from my reading group
- The trials and tribulations of contemporary pug dog ownership
- The battle for a people's republic of Yorkshire
- Why the BBC needs defending from the enemies without and within
I hope you enjoy and feel free to interact and contact me to say nice things!
Richard
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