Two low cost immediate fixes for an education system in crisis

There is a genuine crisis within education. The morale in schools and colleges is through the floor. The mental health of teachers and students is a silent testimony to years of cuts and chaos and a system whose philosophy, purpose and direction has long since been reduced to 'getting through the day'

A new government faces a big challenge - how to stem the tide of teachers leaving the profession and how to tempt more to sign up to join. The maths are quite simple - there are far less people becoming teachers than are leaving the profession and therefore there are 'recruitment challenges' everywhere. Put simply, that means children without teachers. It means SEND kids lacking support. It means exams teams stretched to the absolute breaking point, it means unfixed computers, it means lunch staff absences being filled by other staff and every bit of that (and every other shortage you can use an example) feeds into crisis and workload.

A new government will need to spend money. There is no question about that. Buildings need maintaining, wages have lagged and infrastructure needs updating. That money is non-negotiable. However, I feel that rescuing teaching from the grim spot it finds itself in is about more than money and it's absolutely essential that a new government listens to first hand experience and looks at the evidence that emerges from the last decade.

It's very tempting to make grand statements about sickly neoliberal pigeons coming home to roost and suchlike but ideological grandstanding is never a great tool to try and make a point. Instead, I want to outline a few things I think would be a) realistic and b) positive and effective starting points.

1) Immediate curriculum reform.

This would initially, (like in the aftermath of COVID) be a simple case of removing some content and therefore reducing the burden of both delivery and assessment. Curriculums are absurdly overfull. I have spoken to teachers at different levels and different subject specialisms who tell identical stories of 'not covering everything' or 'just throwing information lesson after lesson with no time to make sure it sticks'

Vocational subject teachers tell stories of stripping out practical experiences to make sure content can be completed and of literal mountains of pointless box ticking assessment taking the place of visits, demonstrations and hands on work. My own experience is essentially I tell the students more, but they understand less because we don't have time to practice and review skills. There's just very little time for anything but 'the next thing'

A classroom can be a happy place and a group of students can be somewhere that friendships, self esteem, critical thinking and curiosity is formed. A good teacher takes pleasure in engaging with students and seeing their growth, developing their minds and capacity to function in life. Being able to take a break, review, reframe, discuss and from time to time digress shouldn't be apostasy. It should be part of an experience of learning which is both calm and purposeful. Behaviours have to be formed, routines created and practiced. Learning is more than the content. It is the act of learning to learn and that requires development of metacognition and critical thinking.

The atmosphere of learning right now is not this on a national level. It is rushed and fraught and that becomes a self fulfilling negative feedback loop of stressed or disengaged students interacting with teachers who deep down know they aren't really meeting their students'needs. I have spoken with teachers in all phases of education and the story is similar. The students need more than we are giving them and the 'more' isn't more content and more testing.

The debate around what a suitable curriculum for the mid 21st century is will take time. A new government should absolutely be looking at radical ideas and developing new approaches. Some of the subjects we teach have barely altered in form and content since I was at school in the 1990s and we live in a vastly altered world - that is rightly a challenge that mustn't be rushed or ill thought out (such as the shambolic T-level planning) - but an interim adjustment of content and priorities is required desperately and I see no good reason why it couldn't be achieved at pace and be effective almost immediately.

COVID also showed us that students lost out when schools were closed. It wasn't, however a simple case of 'lost learning' but loss of life experience - of conversation, of debate, of engaging in behaviours and of life itself. That we have responded to the developmental damage that has wrought on young people by doing basically nothing on a national scale, other than throwing tuition at the problem is a collective insanity. I have spoken with primary staff who say 'the children can't play' - I work with teenagers who flinch when asked for an idea and mutter at the floor in a shame faced way.

A reduction in assessed curriculum content is not lowering standards or narrowing the experience of students. It would be an opportunity to allow reading, visits, events, talks, experiences, discussions, projects, play, socialisation, debate, reflection and much more. All of these are as, if not more important than cramming knowledge for tests. A population of young people who have coped with the toxic combination of childhoods impacted by austerity and a dystopian science fiction pandemic in the midst of a dystopian unregulated science fiction explosion in technology and all that goes with that deserve a bit of head space and lower stakes time to use that breathing space to think a bit more freely and work out how to engage with each other, experience the joy of a game or a song or try out coding or tinker with AI just for the curiosity of it all.

The step above is simple. It could be enacted in weeks. It would see teachers breath a collective out breath and could be sold politically as 'investing in mental health and the happiness of children' - data appears to show that most parents want safety and happiness for their children above the ability to conjugate a verb after all. One of the very best teachers I know is a primary school teacher - an enthusiastic and career minded one at that. Watching them lose faith in what they are doing is an object lesson in where we are going wrong. Seeing their slow realisation that the content they are teaching is often useless information - but knowing that they have to keep throwing it at the children, day after day is like a scene from Kafka. In short, less is often more. A depth of knowledge is valuable. Mastery breeds confidence. It empowers you. The more we teach, the less depth there is. This has been evident for a long time. It's a simple point at heart and a simple fix to enact.

2) Make the system more interconnected and fluid.

This is a little harder to achieve - but it isn't a particularly taxing or radical idea.

Education has adopted many of the behaviours of the corporate world - staff engage in reviews with performance targets, data is poured over for insights, schools market themselves with buzz words and mission statements. Institutions guard things jealously from their competitors. Undoing 40 years of market driven philosophy will not happen in a few days or weeks but there's a definite sense that the system is fractured and broken up into many little islands and that educators are isolated from each other.

When you stop and think about that - it feels really strange. All across the nation, we share similar challenges. We're all essentially churning out the same product. It feels unbelievably wasteful that there isn't far more collaboration between schools.

One thing that struck me recently was a comparison between my pre-teaching experience (working for a large service industry company with businesses spread across multiple sites) and my time in teaching.

Within the first job, I would estimate that in a couple of years, I undertook 6 or 7 separate job roles. I also had the opportunity to apply, whenever I wanted to, for a transfer elsewhere. If an opportunity arose in Scotland or the channel Islands, I could potentially be transferred there if I wanted that. If I expressed an interest in learning a new role - when a chance arose, I was able to shadow and learn from someone doing that. Sometimes I was then able to take on that role if that person moved on.

I've spoken to a number of people from outside of education about their pathways in their careers and many of them describe fluid transitions from place A to B and from job role to job role. One of my closest friends has worked for the same company for about the same time I've worked in education. His career has been far more varied than mine - he has received much more training (and retraining) than I have and he has performed multiple job roles, technical, customer facing, support, front line, back office etc. He 'quite likes' his job. He isn't 'bored, burnt out, frustrated or trapped'

The point here is, that this is absolutely not as easy as it could or should be in education to either refresh your skills or take on new roles. Teachers are leaving in droves. It's never been harder to recruit support staff. Even managerial roles are sometimes being re-advertised because of a dearth of candidates. The system does nothing at national level to try and retain those people who are walking away. There is no opportunity to talk about role change, no opportunity to talk about fresh starts or new skills or retraining within the system. It's not joined up.

I can cite several teachers I have known for decades - who have reached a point in their current roles where they're demotivated and bored - but they are reliable, intelligent, curious, trustworthy and productive people. They have plenty to offer and much experience to draw upon. They are simply people who are ready for a change.

The education system has no function to catch these people and utilise their skills in different ways. A teacher works at a school or college (or perhaps an academy chain) and when they hit a patch of demotivation or discontent then in most cases they need to 'look for a new job' and sometimes that means the system loses their skills and experience completely.

Stop and think about the range of jobs within the education system as a whole. There are multiple forms of teacher. There are multiple forms of SEND support staff and assessors. There are coaches and careers advisors, there are technical staff and technologists. There are writers and creators of content and learning programmes. There are data people, MIS experts, there are PRUs and universities and nurseries and home school tutors and everything in between. We could go on and on and on.

Education is everywhere and an experience in one role is useful in another and yet, the training to transition from one role to another is a disparate and confusing web of uncertainty. I know at least one person in education who has a very valid desire to move from one role to another within the system as a whole. They would be a perfect fit - but no pathway is clear. The institution they currently work at has no interest in supporting that - the institution they would like to work at has no outward facing route into it. Therefore, the person involved is simply left with 'retrain in your own time' (which is limited) as an option and is therefore looking for jobs outside of education. After a certain point in any job, almost anyone will ask 'what now?' and the system has no clear answer for many. It doesn't look after the development, skills progression and career path of those within in anything like as effectively as some large corporations (and indeed some other public bodies) do.

If (for example a teacher wants to become a dyslexia assessor or a marketing manager or change phases or transfer to a different region or look to work in education policy or whatever it may be - it shouldn't simply be down to the individual to fund and plan that change. It shouldn't be as hard to move within the system as it would be to get into the system from an external position.

The fluidity of careers in other sectors speak of an understanding that companies need to retain people they trust and value and that they must understand that boredom and stasis will result when those people haven't got new challenges, stimulus and opportunities and a sense of control over their careers. Education has adopted many corporate mantras but it must learn that the success of any large scale operation of any kind relies on a) the workforce actually being there to do the job and b) the workforce approaching the job with some kind of enthusiasm. If (as is happening in the education system) people are walking off the job at a large scale and not being replaced - then that will undermine the project fatally and the exodus of education staff is something that should be of national concern.

Education could do far, far better in this respect and giving people the prospect of more flexible development and different pathways to progress down is as much a question of philosophy (is the system a whole or a series of separate entities?) and organisation (central hubs where opportunities, training and guidance can be found) as it is of huge funding. None of the above is to suggest that funding doesn't matter. Funding does matter and so does pay. Public sector pay should be pegged to inflation (indeed, all pay should pay) and all jobs should provide a basic level of dignity and quality of life. The fact some support staff in particular are paid miserly sums for an increasingly stressful life is a disgrace. What I'm trying to express however, is that discontent isn't solely a matter of finance. 'Fixing' the system is about more than just teacher pay. Investment matters for multiple reasons - the best education systems put in a much greater proportion of GDP than the UK does and that shows in their outcomes and the stability of their education system. I would also balance that by saying that investment matters beyond education. Society itself is in desperate need of investment in housing, transport, industry and so on. Throwing endless money into education alone will not improve circumstances very much because the idea that education alone can banish hunger, poverty, apathy and disaffection is a complete myth. Education can contribute to society in a myriad of ways - but it can't fix it.

I'm also not suggesting that the two ideas above will be a panacea - I do however, think they would be useful steps in going someway towards addressing deep seated problems (and perhaps buying the space and time to develop more long term and nuanced ideas about what education is) - my closing though is this - Neither idea seems particularly complex or difficult to achieve. If the UK system can't reflect on itself and develop some solutions like the above and apply them quickly - then it leaves you asking - what is the DFE actually for? I was struck, during COVID by the inaction and torpor that characterised the muddled, slow and contradictory response from the government. If enacting and directing simple system change and putting in place some rudimentary structures that would help engage and retain staffing isn't the job of central government - then what is their job and why do they retain control of education? We need action. We need ideas. We need to demand better of the system we work in. If we don't, who else will?

Condemned to burn in the hell of a fireplace salesman's incompetence

On the 21st of September last year, I wrote a blog which asked about 'what if' there's another lockdown/disruption to learning as it's handy as a teacher to have an idea of what the plan is, then you can help your students do the right stuff and y'know, teach them things they can use to pass the course.

In response (not to my blog specifically) I received many assurances that exams would go ahead. Definitely. Gavin was as certain a certain thing from Certain City.

I'm just a normal person with no particular scientific knowledge. I'd vaguely heard of the Spanish flue and watched an occasional bit of the news. I had a pretty good idea that Covid was coming back at some point.

Even if it didn't, I was teaching a mixture of remote and live sessions, had lost a lot of time from the first lockdown and had yet to recieve any update at all about how the exams might deal with that despite it being several months since lockdown had ended. It was mid October until that arrived, by which time, I'd already taught the stuff I could now take out to save time. Nice one. If an individual student had missed four months of teaching, my workplace would have been a frenzy with plans and support contracts. If all the students missed that much, then it seemed the DFE were prepared to do as little as possible. 

All I wanted was a sense of plan B was. If you're going on a long journey, it's reasonable to think of a couple of routes to get there.

"let's go to Devon!"

"M5 might be be busy"

"Well, we could always go via Wales then across to Bristol if it is"

That sort of thing.

That's all teachers needed. A sense of what the back up plan would be. That's really not unreasonable to ask for. In fact, if you are in charge of all the exams in the country, it's not really something a humble grunt like me should even need to ask for. It seems an obvious thing to provide. Instead,we've effectively been sat in a traffic jam for months, waiting for the Sat Nav to get a signal, having set of on the journey into peak time bank holiday traffic with only a dogged insistence that "the road will definitely be clear and anyone saying it might be otherwise is a negative enemy of the state who hates holidays and doesn't want us to get to Devon at all"

Gavin dithered, doing absolutely nothing. Literally nothing at all. I don't know how many people actually work for the DfE, Ofqual and the JcQ combined, but between them, they provided no clarity at all between the end of the previous years exam mess and April this year.

Bits of information dripped out, rumours and titbits being fed at various meetings and people guessed what might happen, but nothing substantial upon which a school or a teacher could base their plans. In turn, that meant a whole lot of confusion for students about what their exams might look like, whether they'd happen and how and what to prepare for them.

Finally the plan appeared. Exams were cancelled (cue rejoicing students) then a month later, into the vacuum came... exams (confused students) But they weren't exams, they were assessments. They were like exams. They just weren't exams because the exam boards weren't doing them. Apparently, it's not an exam if you don't put the papers in a big envelope at the end. It's an assessment. That's very different.

This was all dressed up in so much rhetoric, you'd think the guidance was a constitutional document for a complicated minor Eastern European nation with a border dispute on three sides.

The result is workload for teachers (tiny violin sounds) but more importantly, for students, a rushed, confusing and absurdly intense period of assessing often incomplete and patchy knowledge.

These are students who at VERY BEST have learned online for 6 months of their courses. That's the optimum disruption and many have missed significant chunks of time, content and suffered challenges to their mental health from the circumstances. Students who've been stuck in houses they hate, stuck with siblings, unable to concentrate, sent out to work because parents have lost work when zero hours contracts stopped, students who've grieved over their family or just gone a bit mad because you aren't supposed to stay inside for months on end at any time, especially not when you are 15,16,17...

The response to that from the government hasn't been to offer teaching to fill those gaps, or space to work out what has happened or to appreciate the historical significance, scientific causes of cultural and economic impact of what they've just lived through. It's not been some space to think or an opportunity for people to resocialise or anything even halfway human or remotely thoughtful.

It's been to test the living shit out of them in a crudely designed, half thought through back of a fag packet, last minute system which uses long words to disguise that it's just a half arsed too late fudge. It doesn't matter what they've missed, what they've been through or what they think. All that matters is they get measured.

Why? Because Boris wanted to play politics with Covid, because Boris caused a longer lockdown by rejecting lockdowns until he had to lockdown. Because Boris didn't have the backbone to not lockdown because the papers and twitter wanted him to not lockdown in November then lockdown in January. Because Boris is just a windsock.

The education system was dragged in the wake of the generally muddled and innefective maelstrom of government where everyone was certain but the opposite happened when a different thing became popular opinion.

So here we are. Living in the hell created by a fireplace salesman who must be the least proactive man in history. Whose reaction to having created a spectacular mess in the previous year was to do absolutely nothing at all until no one could do anything about it the next.

There is little doubt in my mind that guidance was held back until it was unfeasible for any teaching bodies to reasonably take action against it. Because teachers are utter bastards for wanting to know what the plan is. Imagine that. Being responsible for the education of young people and asking for a plan! Utter bastards, everyone of them.

If your a fan of passive aggressive control mechanisms, you'll love it. If you are a fan of students being taught well planned and sequenced lessons, leading up to a final point they are prepared for, you won't.

The lack of planning, communication and clarity was perhaps understandable in 2020. No one really thought there'd be a mad pandemic situation. Even the algorithm could (very generously) be described as 'an idea that went wrong' and we all have those. This year, it's an absolute disgrace, a dereliction of duty and an indicator of a grotesque incompetence or worse, a contempt for the education and wellbeing of the young people of the UK.

Education has long been a cattle market where the weighing of pigs takes place. This year, it's a shit covered, chaotic place where no one is entirely sure what the right weight is and that is firmly, without question, the fault of the DFE putting politics before basic planning, information and communication.

We are the algorithm now. That's the trick they've played. Human algorithms for a minister who must be able to write down his thoughts about education on half a post it note and a government whose sum total of ideas is 'outsource it' and whose one major success came when they didn't.

Bastards.

Covid in Colleges

Is this a college? How could I tell? 

It's been a while. Blogging angrily about teaching isn't good for my mental health. But neither is a global pandemic and silence so here we are.

Words, words, words. I'll try and keep it brief and to the point. 

I was struck by Grant Shapps' announcement today that people must conform to social distancing otherwise there would be a second wave of death. This was a surprise after absorbing a lot of material around June/July which confidently proclaimed social distancing was an optional extra in education.

Still, this isn't a time for churlishness. It's a time for clarity. Which again, I could do a riff upon at the expense of our dear leaders, but I won't. 

The simple fact is thus. I work in a post 16 education setting. It is a large one with significant numbers attending daily. 'Obeying social distancing' in any meaningful way is somewhat difficult. It varies across the buildings and classrooms but it's extremely challenging as a whole - Here's some basic reasons why. 

1) Classrooms are simply not designed for students at 2m+ distances. 
2) Class sizes are not designed for students at 2m+ distances
3) Many subjects are not designed to be taught in neat rows with everyone facing forward and listening or writing. Try teaching sewing from a PowerPoint.

Colleges have 3 basic options to respond: 

1) Continue as normal or a variation of 'normal' - i.e. all learners on site and clean as much as they can and distance as much as they can. This is clearly and demonstrably not going to square with 'social distancing at 2m+' (which is the widely agreed upon effective range) 

2) Provide a blended approach. This reduces class sizes but increases workload as teachers are delivering physical lessons and also preparing online lessons for students who aren't present. This will give 2m+ but it won't always provide the level of experience that learners would hope to get and also presents significant problems for vocational or practical classes who clearly can't access equipment or spaces they need to work. To achieve this, colleges need funding in technology, staffing and training. Some colleges barely have satisfactory computer and WiFi facilities for teachers, let alone machines to plug the gaps in students home provision and access. 

3) Provide remote learning. This will solve social distancing completely and arguably provide a more manageable workload but it's got the clearest implications for learning. All the issues of model 2 are exacerbated and funding for technology and training become even more important. 

Complicating the issue are a number of factors (these are not exhaustive)  

1) Colleges educate the most virulent group of all - the 17-20 yr olds. Unlike primary schools, this group are also in work much of the time (and bearing a significant load in covering for older staff in part time work) and are also generally more social, have wider friendship groups and finally, travel from a much bigger catchment area. Colleges typically serve an area stretching up to 10 or 15 miles in any given direction and sometimes much more in rural areas. 

2) Colleges don't have meaningful options to create bubbles outside of purely vocational courses where students study a single subject. A typical student will be in different classes each day and thus the primary model of 'small class bubbles' collapses. A year group bubble can consist of thousands of learners. This is not really a bubble. It's more like the air outside the bubble. 

3) Colleges sit uniquely between schools and universities. They have an intense programme of study and a significant amount of information to impart. Their learners are there, almost entirely, to 'get qualifications' - Primary schools have much more freedom (as do secondary schools for some year groups) to adapt curriculum to address changing circumstances. Universities effectively set their own assessments and thus can adapt as well. Colleges have to deliver a crammed post Gove curriculum from day 1 and have no input into the assessment process. 

It is therefore the case that the friction between 'Health and Safety' and 'Learning' is at a high point within colleges. 

What therefore must colleges do? 

1) Ensure that they are not treated as magic places where Covid19 doesn't transmit, or treated 'the same' as a primary school. Colleges are more akin to the largest workplaces than they are to a primary school. 

2) Measure costs of providing effective learning, be it through additional staff and reduced class sizes or through significant investment in technology. That is currently extremely challenging for budgets as they are. Either route requires external funding. 

3) Pressure exam boards and Ofqual to reflect further on exam content. There needs to be a reduction in content and a clear plan B. As it stands, learners are receiving and have received a wider range of delivery methods than at any point in the living memory of State education in the UK. Students have faced and are facing disruption. Simply saying 'no changes' is not good enough. 

The result of carrying on regardless is conflict between guidance. Stay distant but teach everything. Less contact but catch up. The instructions cannot resolve. It's not a case of reframing or attitude. You can't make 2+2 equal 5. 

Why do exams matter so much? 

The pressure this puts on learners is the biggest issue. Some students may have had continuous input from creative, tech adept and well resourced teachers. Some may have very little input from teachers who have not had the resources or experience to provide quality online learning. Some learners will have faced significant disruption, some may even have been forced to work to support families. Some will have had access to technology to receive input, some may not. Some may have been ill themselves and others not. 

In essence, we're facing a lottery with regards to students preparation and a lottery that the chances become slimmer of winning, the lower down the economic scale we go.

The very group for whom education has the most potentially transformational effect is the very group who loses out most by charging on regardless and paying no heed to the situation because they are most likely to be under prepared and under resourced. 

Our students need to know 'what if?' - they need reassurance and clarity. They need to know their grades will not be subject to the contrived and ultimately calamitous circumstances of the previous set. They need to know that the system 'has got this' - come what may.

And? 

We've had a dress rehearsal. Now the system needs to step up. 

To achieve that, we need to put aside the notions of competition and speak as one about how we get through what is to come. We need to unite and make clear that without structure and clear, timely communication, without targeted funding to solve problems, unless a structure of support and openness replaces a structure of guarded secrecy and punitive inspection, then we will let down the young people in our colleges and potentially place our wider communities at needless risk.

We need to share answers, resources, and ideas. We need to be honest and forget about 'reputation' and 'marketing' as these factors simply muddy the situation and prevent us from making the right choices. As a sector and as a country, we should be able to deliver high quality education. We should be able to do better than scrabble around constantly reacting to change with cheap solutions and half measures. We should be able to make educated guesses about the future and plan different strategies that then get followed through. We should be able to include different voices in this process. 

We should be doing better than back of the fag packet responses and pretending it's 'normal'  

This is the duty of us all but currently, I'm looking at the DfE with my glasses on the end of my nose and a hard stare. 

Keep safe x 

Efficiency and exam boards

I am sick of being told to find 'efficiencies' so I'm going to tell some other people to find them for me.

source: https://slightlychilledporcupine.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/the-grinding-gears-of-bureaucracy

I've always thought exam boards are really bizarre organisations. Who knows quite how they work? They seem to work on a shoestring, with hoards of part time staff on 0.05 contracts and spend their time passing the job of marking out to anyone they can get their hands on with a pulse and a vaguely relevant qualification even though most of those people already work 50 odd hours every week. In the mean time, someone who runs them gets an OBE and everyone says it's a jolly good show and we all go around for one more dance.

"I've got a fish tank and some free time between 9:06 and 9:21pm?" 
"Great, you can mark biology A-level then!" 

I have every sympathy for them in some ways. They live in shadow of the QCA, soaking up the ire and frustration of teachers which really should be aimed at 'the man' itself. Lets be absolutely fair - it wasn't any of the exam boards who were sitting about saying 'what these kids need is more grammar and remembering' 

but...

I do think there's a huge amount exam boards could do about general teacher workload and here's a few ideas and reflections based on my experiences with new specifications in the last couple of years. (I'll name no names as I understand from my colleagues that the experience is pretty universal)

1: Think about the fact a specification should be a document for students to read (at least in part) and carefully consider the way things like assessment criteria and coursework requirements are presented. At least some part of the specification should be designed to give directly to students.

In my spec, criteria spread across pages - I want to print out and give to students but every single student needs two pieces of paper, not one.

In my spec a lot of the language describing the tasks and criteria are obtuse. It is fair to expect different levels of outcome, but it's not fair to leave students baffled about what exactly it is they are supposed to be aiming for.

2: Provide some simple student focussed resources that can be used in class. Video would be great. A simple talking head video explaining what the assessment is, what the criteria mean. Why not? Why leave students at the mercy of varying interpretations by teachers, some of which will be inevitably inaccurate.

3: Organise the information properly. My specification has some criteria in it whilst some others are in sample mark schemes. Some content is outlined in the specification, some things are in notes on the website, somethings can't be discovered unless I log into a secure site and find additional material.  Some further things have been added to the 'news' tab of the website and still more emailed or revealed in online training sessions.

It's 2018, digital information is really easy to organise and update. As a member of a subject support group on facebook, I'd say 60-70% of posts are people asking 'where is X?' - that can't all be people who are too lazy to look - it must be an indication that the information isn't well organised.

4: Provide a hub for teachers to share resources. Why not? It's the absolutely ideal point to bring staff together and share resources. Why is this happening in 'the TES resource sharing area' (a private organisation profiting from education) or within ad hoc groups online but not at the source (i.e. the exam board web page)

Perhaps particularly useful resources could be 'endorsed' by the exam board, reducing their own workload in terms of providing training and support. In time, the exam board website could become a really well used hub saving people lots of time and sharing good practice which could only benefit learners.

5: Actually encourage teacher feedback. It's genuinely hard  to speak to anyone who is actually responsible for the content of the spec or the information on the website. It can be a positively Kafka-esque conversation and getting a response beyond 'Thanks, we have logged your comment' takes real perseverance.

As someone who is essentially the user of a service, I'm amazed I've not had a survey to fill in, or a phone call to discuss my impressions of the new specification and points where it could be developed. It's not that I think I have amazing insight, it's that ultimately, I am paying the exam board to enter my learners, I am paying them so I can fill in reams of (sometimes ill designed) paperwork or to sit trying to work out what the hell criteria x or y actually means and I feel as if it doesn't matter what I think, it doesn't matter what my experiences are, it's a 'put up or shut up' arrangement which seems to be

-----

These five suggestions would (I think) go a long way towards eliminating some of the long evenings spent trying to work out exactly what it is that 'the exam board want'

I'm well aware that it might be challenging for the boards to fulfil these points as I get the impression they aren't exactly generously funded at 'ground level' but if the Government is actually serious about teacher workload, it could do a lot worse than look at the work which could be saved 'at source' which for many of us is the exam board.

A small amount of funding here, to enable proper oversight, to update technical expertise, to provide a really good service and some full time commitment (at least in the first year(s) of a new specification could pay itself back many times over in time saved by teachers and thus more time to actually teach, assess and do things that really develop and benefit young people.

I'm not sure me endlessly rooting through quasi legal documents really is the ideal use of my time in terms of educating young people holistically.

When your taxes get spent on adverts then you know something is wrong.

'We need a more aggresive YouTube presence - lets get rid of some TA's and hire a marketing assistant!'

Hello reader. I pay tax.

I don't really mind cos I'm not that handy with my fists so I'd probably get eaten in a total anarchy and also they pay my wages so it would be a bit contradictory to be against taxes cos I'd have no job cos it'd probably be only rich people that went to school beyond the age of 7 and I'd be working in the silicone chip mines instead or have a job tending the maggot farm at 'prole foods inc' or whatever dystopian alternate reality scorched earth disaster porn vision floats your salvaged boat.

I'm not that fussed about paying tax because I'm not planning to open an armed gated survivalist community and I can afford potatoes and even stuff like that posh ginger cordial in a glass bottle. Neither am I planning on living in a tree with free loving like minded souls living only off nutrients leached through the souls of my feet.

I do think, though, that it might be an idea to question what tax gets spent on sometimes because (and this is where the fun bit ends) I'm not sure that public spending and a free market style vision for the public services really works that well.

I see on a daily basis (using my eyes which then sends signals to my brain which I use to process and make sense of the images in front of me) evidence of the fact that there isn't enough money being spent on some things which should have money spent on them.

You can make your own list using your own eyes and brain to eye wiring - It shouldn't be that hard if you have access to a high street or any public services.

Anyway, to keep things on track, what surprises me is the fact nobody seems to be outraged at the fact that a big chunk of the money given to schools to spend on their stuff, like teaching and learning and going on trips and all that normal 'getting kids to know about stuff and be able to do things' gets spent on advertising.

Sit in a school boardroom. Listen to the endless conversation about 'market share' and consider the number of hours spent 'considering what the competition are offering,' the money spent on branding, the hours spent trying to convince potential pupils and parents that school A is better than school B, the sloganeering, the full colour glossy brochures, the photo shoots, the videos on websites, the time spent creating 'positive news stories' the search for 'our USP' and so on and so on.

Think about how with academisation and the impact of central funding cuts the razor's edge of the 'marketplace' gets even sharper.

Think about how we can't afford

- to properly resource SEN support
- to finance either decent workloads for teachers or pay them in line with interest rates
- to do anything especially innovative or unusual
- ten million other wider social things which inflict problems on education system.

Think about how it maybe cost effective for the individual school to compete but ultimately how the money spent on competing for students overall is a waste as no matter how well marketed and branded every school is you can't increase the overall consumption of the service offered. One school will win and another will lose. This is fucking schools we are dealing with. Not Shreddies or computer consoles. Schools forced to fight within a closed marketplace set up as an ideological experiment.

The total number of schoolkids is the total number of school kids. End. There are x numbers of school places and y number of kids. Overall. No amount of marketing can change that.

It's not like a can of coke where you can buy a variable amount of the commodity on offer. Parents aren't going to think 'wow, I like this school thing, I might send my kids again in the evening' or 'can I get a bigger size or a multipack?' - There is a woeful lack of deeper thought about this.

Even if the average marketing spend is only 2% per school (that figure is misleading as it represents only the direct costs, not the indirect costs of time - for example, the indirect cost of a head teacher drawing up a marketing plan, which is drawn from ideas generated by a head of department, drawn in turn from ideas from the staff body or the cost of x number of staff representing the school on a weekend open day and receiving time in lieu) - then we are wasting a massive chunk of public money on playing a nonsensical game of 'survival of the fittest' instead of considering what it could be spent on to benefit the learners and manage the duties of teachers so they can in turn, benefit the learners.

What is frightening is no one seems to really know what the 'norm' is in relation to marketing spend. It doesn't seem to be monitored and scrutinised in the same way that a 7 year old's mastery of reflexive pronouns are. It doesn't seem to be subject to the same kind of penny pinching meanness that school milk or free lunches are. It's apparently wasteful to give a child a meal or some calcium but perfectly fine to give an ad agency a brief for a pointless logo change. I couldn't find any government papers or analysis relating to the impact of marketisation or it's recent acceleration.

Think about everything we apparently can't afford in the UK and think about how we seemingly CAN afford to allow schools to compete over pupils with little or no thought given to it.

Think about whether you want your taxes spent on adverts or something else.

Deserters will be shot!

It's pretty clear that teaching is a toxic profession right now. The combination of botched curriculum reforms that are unfit for the needs of the students, a performance management system that forces us to take responsibility for things we can't control, pay freezes, creeping private sector involvement, workload, Kafkaesque data systems and a pathetic amount of reflection time in comparison to more enlightened countries make working in teaching a pretty joyless experience at the moment.

I want to write a short piece starting with a reflection about the prevalence of the TES and Guardian 'That's it, I can't go on' articles which seem to be particularly en vogue at the moment.

There is a common theme to them. Summarised they tend to go like:

I wasn't a 'struggling teacher'
I did everything I was asked and did my best
I pushed myself to the limit for the sake of my students
I found myself in a terrible place mentally
I battled on and tried really hard.
A straw broke the camel's back
I quit.

There is no doubt about the validity of the personal experiences these articles cite. There is no doubt that there are some monstrous management regimes in education (as in most walks of life) and little doubt that teacher burnout is a major problem. I have nowt but sympathy for the people who have actually broken under the weight of what is a pretty impossible job to actually do all of.

I think the prevalence of these articles on 'teacher social media' (I want to kill myself acknowledging I know that is a thing) is symptomatic of a misunderstanding about what brings about change - Essentially it's a collective naivety, it's like we keep expecting someone to change it for us. For someone to sweep in and make a magical decree on behalf of everyone and click their fingers and suddenly teaching is a great happy place.

The only people who can change this system meaningfully are teachers and if we keep celebrating the fact teachers quit by enthusiastically sharing, publishing and recommending the stories of their breakdowns we are really only serving to further our own misery. We are perpetuating the idea of ourselves as victims of a cruel system we can do nothing about.

What we need is a clear understanding of the key problems facing schools and a broad agreement around what we want. 

We need a common framework that the majority of teachers agree would improve both their conditions and the experience of learners. Year after year after year we swing from political regime to political regime and like a pendulum move back and forth adapting to ideological changes and political career making. It's time to say - no more! Yes, it's satisfying to fantasise about walking away from a job but it doesn't achieve anything beyond throwing another NQT on the bonfire, rinse and repeat.

I'm not going to quit. You shouldn't either. At least not if you enjoy at least some of your job on some level. You should start seriously thinking though. What I think is important is the following:

1: Schools should be controlled by LEAs. It is more efficient. Maybe the LEA model needs reform, I don't know, but academies are fundamentally damaging to employment rights and inefficient.

2: Schools should co-operate not compete. Funding must be a longer term arrangement, not simply based on x number of pupils = x amount of money. This forces schools into competing for learners which is a significant expense of time and money, and can result in forcing learners to complete courses  which don't suit their needs because they dare not 'lose' or 'fail' a learner who might be better suited to a different environment or course.

3: In order to achieve 2 we really need to consider the impact of league tables on standards. Has there *actually been a positive impact?* (I'm interested in any evidence if anyone has any - it's always struck me that 'competition improves outcomes' is a truism that in 15 years teaching I've never seen any actual evidence of that isn't either statistically questionable given the shifting nature of exams and 'standards' or just a basic re-framing of an essentially ideological belief - clearly in sport, footballers try harder in competitive situations but they also get lots of rest, can see their opponent and are playing a simple game - lets not just accept the situation 'as is' as true.)

4: We also possibly need to really consider carefully whether outcomes tell us the real story of education. There's a fascinating study which suggests the real impact of education is not how children perform NOW but how they perform much later in schooling. It suggests that teachers who focus on real skills and underlying concepts and attitudes as opposed to cramming for the test are punished for not cramming for the test, but actually add much value to their learners on a longer term basis. In other words, feed the pig junk food and it'll get fat. Feed it health food and it'll live much longer or produce much better meat. We reward the junk food feeding. If I was actually writing a book I'd link to it. You'll just have to believe me because I haven't had any dinner yet and this is a bizarre cathartic ritual for me to try and clear my mind because it's full of thoughts and I seriously need to switch off. If anyone wants to send me a few thousand quid then I'll take my academic duties more seriously and start adding footnotes and all that jazz.

5: Teachers need to focus on teaching, assessment and reflection. Nothing more beyond an open day and a parents evening. The clue is in the name.

6: To do this effectively on a 23-25 hour timetable is already an almighty challenge. We know that genuine AFL and other effective strategies are built around reflection, preparation and thoughtfully constructed lessons. We know parents and learners want a system where staff have time to actually engage with kids and know them on some level. Not possible in the current system.

7: So therefore the priorities for us must be to a) reduce teaching hours per week by a significant amount. b) to guard against any reduction in teaching being filled with admin/marketing/data generation. c) to ensure this time is given to creativity and development of teaching d) because only this will improve the outcomes (both measurable and not) whatever model of pedagogy we subscribe to.

8: The money this would cost could in part be clawed back from the funding not being spent on competing and more efficient use of LEA services. I also think we could vastly simplify the exam system and save money there. The point being, that yes, we do need funding increases, but these increases must not be simply spent on making a broken engine run faster. Plug the leaks in the exhaust.

9: We must stop working 60 hour weeks. In simple terms, by doing so you are cheapening your labour and the labour of everyone around you. You tell yourself 'it's for the kids' but you are modelling a world in which the adults around them don't value themselves, don't value their rights and opportunities, don't stand up for themselves. In an increasingly volatile labour market and faced with stagnant growth, automation, gig economy bullshit, these learners are going to HAVE to stand their ground and demand a world that affords them dignity and humanity.

10: If you spend your time running miserably from job to job, doffing your cap to authority all the time how is that 'modelling' anything positive? 'Hey kidz, work hard, stay in school then you can get a good job and be miserable as fuck' - Teacher mental health and student mental health are entwined. Live with someone who is constantly unhappy (hello partner, I'm sorry, I love you more than I can say) and it'll grind you down (again, I'm sorry! I WILL be happier!) Don't give me some 'I don't let the kidz see' bullshit. They aren't stupid. They see exhausted, tired, drained adults trying desperately to communicate stuff they don't really see the importance of and understand absolutely the game being played. It's not a nice one.

Neo-liberal education isn't a pleasant bedtime story.

"Once upon a time there were some grown-ups, they were sad because they had to make some children try and do some things when they'd really rather have asked the children to do some different stuff. They didn't really understand why the children had to do the things but they did their best because it was what is called a 'target'. So, the grown ups all did it even though it took ages and seemed pointless and it made them even sadder because they felt rubbish doing it and the children were sad because they didn't like it or know why they were doing it and that made the grown ups sadder and it all just carried on because that's the way it is and next year the grown ups had to do it better to beat another school down the road because that matters more than happiness or sunshine or anything and that's all anyone can imagine because 'targets' are a bit like God" 

I'd MUCH rather read a child Nietzsche. Less scary.

11: We MUST support direct action. There are no excuses. None what so ever. Ask yourself seriously, genuinely, honestly, even if you want to work the hours, even if you want to climb the ladder, even if you love the job from bottom to top, from every intervention to every single column of data in every spreadsheet; can you look around your school and not worry about the staff? Can you look at your learners and honestly think 'this current incarnation of British education is working really well for them!'

I'm having my dinner now. It's over. Revolution begins and ends with you*.

*I don't really know if that's true, in fact, I suspect it isn't, but it's a nice way to end. What does truth matter anyway?

There's a maniac on the loose in the school

In which I begin with a moment of levity before writing an unremitting splurge of bleakness

Lets imagine a scenario. A masked person (of unspecified gender) bursts into a school. They open fire, killing, maiming and injuring both children and teachers.

The government, fully aware of this just shrugs and says 'carry on as you were'

That scenario seems unlikely.

I am old enough to remember my primary school (and high school) being a pretty 'free range' kind of environment. It was eminently possible to walk in (and indeed out) of the school but despite this it seemed fairly unthinkable that it wasn't a safe place to be. I remember Dunblane which changed that belief forever and now your average school resembles a low security prison.

It seems unlikely that the government would just shrug and allow things to remain 'as they are.' Evidence suggests when faced with a threat like Thomas Hamilton, the authorities act with fairly swift and decisive action.

Lets consider now that this 'gun wielding maniac' is a device. A manipulative weapon wielding device employed by the writer to grab your attention and focus your mind on the issue at hand. We are not actually considering the unlikely and almost impossibly painful possibility of a school massacre.

Let me present you with a few facts to guide you to what we are considering:

The suicide rate amongst primary school teachers is double the national average (according to this)

One of the prime causes of suicide amongst young people is exam pressure (according to this)

This well researched exploration explains that 27% of the suicides of young people studied in the report had at least some link to exam pressures.

This article explains that the majority of teachers feel their job has impacted on their mental health in the last year

This article - reports on the education select committee findings on the impact of primary testing on the wellbeing of learners.

However trite my analogy is (and I'm aware it's not exactly a sensitive one) the point is clear. We can link 'the education system' to the poor mental health of teachers and learners and even go so far as to suggest some link to the deaths of teachers and learners.

Even if we take away the hysterical proposition of the gun wielding maniac and replace it with someone who at the school gates intimidates, frightens or physically harms the children, it's really quite unthinkable that action wouldn't be taken. Not taking action would be considered a gross neglect, heads would roll, scandal and outrage would have its day, newspapers and phone in shows would fill with frothing fury and bilious outrage. 'Schools MUST be safe places' we would shout.

Danger is not always visible. Sometimes you have to look beyond what you immediately can see.

Now, lets take the analogy a little further. Suppose the gun wielding maniac had attacked and escaped. Suppose there was nothing to suggest they wouldn't do it again.

Suppose the response from the government was to take away the fences, security doors and id badges? 

Perhaps you're ahead of me here:

- Here is an article that deals with a parliamentary enquiry explaining the impact budget cuts have on mental health services
- Here is one of many articles explaining how workload increases are putting increased pressure on teachers

IF you've read this far, your probably aware of the corrosive impact of targets on education, you probably know that schools have to invest a huge amount of time and energy into the exam performance (at 7,11,16 and 18) of their learners. You probably know that if local authority schools fail to achieve a certain standard they are threatened with forced academisation which strips teachers of their hard fought rights and fundamentally changes the school's relationship with the support structures which surround it. You might be aware of the confusing and often botched changes to the GCSE and A-level structures and the removal or loss of focus on many of the more 'humanistic' subject areas in favour of measurement of a specific group of subjects.

You might possibly just look at the above articles and the brief paragraph of context and humour my overstretched analogy.

What if there was a threat to pupils and teachers alike, what if it was demonstrable, real and happening right now and the government just did nothing? What if our schools were infested with mould or dangerous wiring or some other kind of physical course of illness?

Why don't we take the raft of evidence of the impact of a target driven education system seriously? Why don't we listen to teachers and pupils when they speak out about this? How many breakdowns and suicides does it take before we take reform seriously and commit ourselves to properly looking at the needs of pupils (which are intrinsically linked to the needs of teachers.)

How do we allow education and the lives of those who live in it (young and old) to be subject to the whims of a tiny group of elite ministers who often have little or no experience of either comprehensive education or teaching?

I'm not suggesting that suddenly we can instantly turn education into place of happiness and joy unconfined overnight. Teaching is inevitably challenging and young people will continue to have complex mental health needs and suicide is something we should never simplify to one cause.

I am however suggesting very clearly that there is an identifiable human cost to some of the bad decisions made in education policy and a real negative impact from the structures imposed on schools and that we must, collectively, as parents, teachers and learners demand a more human system in which we are all encouraged to learn and teach in a more healthy way.

If we don't address this, the costs will keep mounting. We have to focus our energy, not on whining but on action and clear demands - not just for pay settlements and bribery for teachers to join shortage subjects, but for real changes. For pupils to receive an education which is broader and healthier than being drilled in grammar and Pythagoras or whatever 'because it's on the exam.' For teachers to be able to reflect, plan and access professional development and find some joy in their work. For us to be able to understand and appreciate that learning counts even if it isn't attached to a grade. To understand that teaching should be about giving people liberty, giving people skills, giving them things that make their lives better and that this isn't a stupid and romantic notion, it's actually the foundation and reason for the development of humanity.

We spend an increasing amount of time marketing schools, fighting in a competitive market place for learners, badging, branding, proclaiming USP's and asserting our 'identity' - why are we doing this? Does it have any impact on the actual experience of our learners or the quality of our teaching? Let's play a little mental exercise based on 'They Live' (a film in which a bloke discovers some magic glasses and sees the world as it is)

If we don these glasses, do we see signs like 'St Winifred's Academy - Our teachers are unstable and our support systems are overwhelmed, but with luck your child will escape with their self esteem intact' or 'Crowsend Primary - where 60% of the teachers are 'overwhelmed' and year 3 +6 are a miserable nightmare where you kid will learn a load of crap and forget about childhood'

Please can we properly discuss the mental health of our education system like grown ups? Can we drop the rhetoric and assumptions and have a really good think about it. Please can we at least try to fix it? We can send people to space, we can collide hadrons and have 76546 TV channels to choose from but we can't manage to make the innate (and very socially necessary) human skill teaching of young children a job that doesn't directly increase your risk of serious mental health problems?

What is this world we live in? Who is it for? Why do we keep perpetuating it? 

What would your answer be to the problems posed above?