Tag Archives: Teaching

“Tesco boss raps school standards” – BBC

October 14, 2009 8:48 am \

The BBC reports comments made by Sir Terry Leahy, Chief Executive of Tesco at the Institute of Grocery Distribution’s annual conference in which he says

“As the largest private employer in the country, we depend on high standards in our schools,”

“Sadly, despite all the money that has been spent, standards are still woefully low in too many schools,”

“Employers like us, and I suspect many of you, are often left to pick up the pieces.

“From my perspective there are too many agencies and bodies, often issuing reams of instructions to teachers, who then get distracted from the task at hand: teaching children.”

I hope that Sir Terry isn’t trying to blame the appalling treatment my partner received at a branch of Tesco (which, by the way means that we will never again shop at a Tesco store) on school standards.  Poor service isn’t because of poor school standards, it’s because of poor training on your part.  It’s a Tesco uniform that person was wearing.  It was Tesco who approved their presence on the shop floor.

Sir Terry’s final point is quite right and one I see first hand almost every day.  Some schools and local authorities have an obsession with paperwork, external consultants, change for the sake of change and half baked fad of the week initiatives rather than concentrating on getting the basics right.

What I have seen is that teachers aren’t just distracted from the task of teaching children, they are railroaded into half witted schemes by incompetent management who care nothing for the school or the students.  Instead of managing the students and their problems, management are concerned only with achieving exam results with as little provision as possible.  Teachers’ morale plummets further as a result, the troublemaking elements in the school (from management and students) pick up on that and then people wonder why standards are seen as being low?

Perhaps Sir Terry could use some of his influence to get Ed Balls and Gordon Brown to get in touch with me and arrange a session where each of them is left in a real classroom with some real year 10 or year 11 students.  As a former Chancellor of the Exchequer I’m sure Mr Brown is ideally qualified to teach a year 11 maths class.  In fact I know just the class for him.  While Mr Brown is teaching the year 11s, I’m sure there are a number of teachers who wish to challenge Mr Balls on his views and policies.

What about it Gordon?

Posted in: bad management, business, education, Management \ Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Ed Balls: Another Good Reason Not To Vote Labour

June 30, 2009 7:24 pm \

As if any more reasons were needed not to vote Labour at the next general election, another prime example has come forward in the shape of Ed Balls.  His latest idea, the 5 yearly teaching MOT is another pie in the sky, half-witted theory from someone who has no teaching experience at all.  Mr Balls is an economist.  Another theory man.

Let’s look at the school environment for a moment.  When I was at school teachers were respected.  Some were liked, some disliked but all respected.  The head teacher was respected and the ultimate arbiter of justice.  Not so any more.  Now teachers go into school every day fearing for their safety.  Hardly a day goes by when a secondary teacher doesn’t get threatened, verbally abused, their parentage questioned or their safety threatened.  Things have changed.

Has the education system been reinforced to protect teachers and ensure discipline?  No.  Now pupils have more rights than teachers.  I would never have even raised an eyebrow to my head teacher .  Now one head teacher I am aware of is too scared of his pupils to take any kind of action when one calls him “a lanky c**t” straight to his face.  This is the reality of education today: teachers can’t even defend themselves from physcial attack.

Tell me Mr Balls, have you ever had a thug stand over you and threaten to put you in hospital?  Have you ever had a thug hold a blade to your face and threaten to slit your throat or disfigure you?

When a school does say “enough is enough” and enforces a strict code of conduct after informing parents, there are complaints from those parents to the newspapers!  Correct me if I’m wrong here, but surely one attends school to be educated, not behave like a lunatic thug?  There are rules in place in society, clubs and workplaces so school rules really should come as no surprise.

The “New Labour generation” isn’t about doing the right thing, proper respect for oneself and others and taking responsibility for one’s actions.  It is about “I want this now, I want it on my terms and if you don’t give it to me I will bully and threaten you.”

Tell me Mr Balls, how much front line teaching experience do you have?

Certification is, in theory, a sensible idea.  Consider the reality: teachers spend a year being trained where they receive daily supervision.  Teachers spend a probationary year where they receive daily supervision.  Like any workplace they are subject to regular line manager appraisals and occasional supervisions.  Add into that OFSTED (my thoughts on OFSTED could fill a book.  Suffice to say that there is a new line to the phrase “Those who can do, those who can’t teach” which goes “Those who can’t teach become OFSTED inspectors”)

The head teacher of the school is going to be responsible for delivering these observations.  The head teacher is already supposed to be responsible for implementing policies, managing budgets, enforcing discipline in the school and perhaps teaching some lessons.  This brings to mind more questions:

  • How are they expected to fit this additional workload into their existing workload?
  • What of those heads Mr Balls wants to bring in who have no teaching experience? How can their judgement be trusted if they do not have that vital experience?
  • Is the license renewal dependent on one supervision? What if the teacher doesn’t see eye to eye with the head teacher but is still a competent teacher?
  • What appeals process will there be? It needs to be independent and transparent
  • Talking of budgets, where will the funding come from to ensure that CPD is ongoing?
  • Will teachers be given protected time to devote to their CPD?
  • Who sets the requirements for this license?

That last question is a serious one.  Teaching, like management, has its fads and fashions.  Chopping, changing and interference in curriculums helps nobody.  And don’t even get me started on National Challenge.

The guarantee of personalised tuition for all pupils who have fallen behind in English or maths is a great soundbyte but does it bear detailed scrutiny?  I’m not sure it does unless you are prepared to increase staffing levels and provision to cater for those who fall into this group.  Again I highlight the lack of discipline and therefore commitment on the part of some pupils.  Some pupils genuinely struggle.  Others do not, are more interested in larking about and disrupting the lesson.  If I had £1 for every time I’d heard “there’s no doubting they’re intelligent but he/she isn’t prepared to pay attention and do the work” then I could fly to Los Angeles.

Head teachers’ leader, John Dunford, said: “We expect our doctors to be up to date when they treat us. It is reasonable for the public to expect teachers to be up to date when they teach their children.”

Does my GP or my dentist get compulsory assessments to confirm they are up to scratch?  I think not. I have yet to see multiple certificates of competence from the last twenty years of testing posted on the walls of my local GP and dental surgeries.  Correct me if I am wrong Mr Dunford, but does the education curriculum suddenly change because of a new discovery or development?  As far as I am aware, math is math and hasn’t changed that much over the last few years.  Teaching fads and ideas for the teaching may have changed but the basic principles are still the same.

Then of course there’s the implementation of this.  What of all the teachers currently in post?  Are they all to be tested en masse?

In conclusion Mr Balls, your latest idea may be well intentioned but is deeply flawed.  Once you have given schools and teachers back the authority to enforce discipline and made it clear to parents that they have a responsibility to teach their children to respect schools and teachers then you can start looking at ideas for certification and CPD.  Your interference and failure to provide a decent educational system is driving decent teachers away because they are disillusioned.  That’s not the fault of the pupils, that is your fault.

I’ll make a deal with you Mr Balls – get in touch with me and let’s organise a couple of sessions where you teach a class.  I’ll sit in the corner and film it.  If you’re going to get involved with teaching it’s only fair that you have recent real life experience.

Are you up for it?

Posted in: bad government ideas, ethics \ Tagged: , , , ,

Oi Gordon – if teaching is so easy, you spend a day in my classroom

March 11, 2009 2:20 am \

“Oi Gordon – if teaching is so easy, you spend a day in my classroom” is the simple challenge laid down to Gordon Brown in response to the latest ill-considered idea from the UK “government” that people changing careers to teaching can be fully trained and qualified in six months.

That is six months compared to the usual year that it takes to train a teacher.

Let’s look at the reality of the situation.  The suggestion seems to be that because a lot of bankers have found themselves unemployed (some through redundancy, some perhaps through incompetence) their skills might be put to good use in schools teaching maths.

I know someone who teaches maths quite well.  In a real world school, not a grammar or private school.  So we had a chat.  And let me tell you there’s a world of difference between what politicians with little education experience think schools are like and what they are really like.

Let’s dispel a few ideas for you.

Firstly, the idea that a teacher’s starting salary is anything near the £30,000 figure that I’ve seen mentioned in some places.  It is more like £20,000.  It’s like those IT training company adverts which claim the average IT salary is £37,000 a year.  That claim is, in my 12 years or so experience, utter garbage.

Secondly, the idea that classrooms are full of kids who are willing to learn and engage positively with their teacher, whom they respect and admire.  Not on the evidence I’ve seen.  When I was at school a sarcastic comment got a detention which, if you didn’t attend led to a suspension.  No hanging around.  That’s not how things work these days.  Kids wh0 misbehave are “referred”.  A predetermined number of referrals lead to a temporary “exclusion” and only after a number of such “exclusions” are continual offenders “permanently excluded” (what I used to know as expelled).

I have never gone a week without referring somebody.  Last week I referred 12, so far this week I have referred 4.  I was threatened with physical abuse yesterday, today someone used an unacceptable racial insult.

I do not believe that teachers work in a safe environment.  They are not allowed to defend themselves from physical attack, any claims students make against them are taken as gospel truth while a teacher’s word has to be backed up with other witnesses, preferably staff.  They are subjected to physical and verbal abuse, treated with the kind of contempt that you and I would find deeply offensive and unacceptable and work longer hours than many, including the media, know.

I have written previous entries about education.  That entry and this one show the real world of teaching.  Teachers work damned hard to get qualified.  These proposals belittle that training and experience. Yet these proposals could lead to more people with no educational experience becoming school heads.

Let’s turn that around.  Come on Gordon, how about giving me 6 months of training and then letting me be Prime Minister?

No?  This is the equivalent of what you are proposing here.

If politicians think Prime Minister’s Questions is hard going with insults then are they in for a shock if they ever get left to teach a real world classroom.  Much as I’d love to see a few bankers get a nice karmic return in the form of 30 kids telling them they are useless and incompetent in very offensive language, that tempting vision shouldn’t detract from the fact that this proposal is poorly thought through and shows, yet again, that this “government” is living in its own cloud cuckoo land.

So come on Gordon, if you think teaching is so easy then get your office to respond to the Facebook group or drop me an e-mail (click the Planet Jamie link on the right hand side and you’ll see my contact details) and we’ll arrange for you to spend a day in a real world classroom.  Just you and a few maths lessons.  No security guards, just the same provision that every other teacher has.

Have you got the cojones for that?

Posted in: education \ Tagged: , ,