|
NewsConference 2008 speeches: National Chairman
Date: 28.07.08
Speech to Voice Conference 2008 by National Chairman Andrew Broadhurst
Strictly embargoed until 15.30, Monday 28 July 2008
Andrew Broadhurst , National Chairman
Speech to Voice Annual Conference 2008, Daventry
Monday 28 July 2008: 15.15
Check against delivery
Introduction
Welcome one and all to the Voice Conference. Can I start by passing on my personal thanks to our outgoing Chairman. Geraldine has vast experience within education in general and the union in particular. I’ve learnt a great deal from her over the past year and I’m sure she will continue to pass on the benefits of her experience over the next one. Despite knowing for a year that this moment would come, being installed as your National Chairman is still, somehow, a bit of a shock.
For those of you who don’t know me, I’ve been teaching Physics for 22 years in four different secondary schools. I’ve had experience of the independent sector, grammar schools and inner London comprehensives. I’ve been a head of department and, like others, I have salary protection which runs out at Christmas.
I hope that, over the next year, I will be able to bring a fresh perspective to some of the work we do, but there’s no doubt that having a full-time teaching job means that I will be relying on the other National Officers, Council members and regional committee members to keep me up to date. I value all the help and advice I get, whether from students, nursery nurses, NQTs, school secretaries, experienced teachers, caretakers or indeed, and in some cases particularly, our retired members. We are an incredibly broad church and we need input from all our members if we are to serve them well.
Sat in the Physics department prep room the other day, I thought to myself ‘Is education like skiing?’ Are we rapidly going downhill until some politician makes a loud noise and we get buried under an avalanche of yet more initiatives? Maybe we’re a tug of war team, all trying to pull in the same direction but being dragged backwards by an enormous player called bureaucracy. Perhaps we are sailors floating around precariously on the sea being buffeted by unpredictable winds from all directions. Whatever the analogy, it’s true to say that we are faced with change after change after change. Whilst this might not be a new phenomenon, the pace of change and its scope means that teachers, early years professionals and support staff are being run ragged.
It’s quite possible, if we look at some of these changes, that they have the potential to do some good. It’s also possible that many of them will make very little difference to the educational experiences of the children under our care. Some are major, some are minor and some look like they’ve been written on the back of a cigarette packet when the Education Secretary we happened to have that week had a spare minute.
If I could turn first, Conference, to
The Children’s Plan
According to the DCSF, the Children’s Plan is the current government’s ten-year plan to make England the best place in the world to grow up.
It is built on five key principles:
1. Government does not bring up children, parents do. 2. Children and young people need to enjoy their childhood. 3. All children have the potential to succeed. 4. It is always better to prevent failure than tackle a crisis later. 5. Services need to be shaped by and responsive to children, young people and their families.
I want to look at some of these principles in turn and examine what the government hopes to do. The union Council has looked at these and I include some of our concerns.
Firstly, Parents
The Government hopes to provide… Better support and advice for parents everywhere through two parenting expert advisors in every local authority.
It will… Look at the possibility of a parent-held progress record for every child containing information about child development beyond five.
This might sound like a good idea, but experience with the ‘red book’ shows that keeping such a thing up to date depends on the parent or carer’s ability to do so and it may well be that those who would most benefit will end up with the least reward.
The government also hopes for… More involvement for parents in secondary schools through parent councils, more regular information on children’s progress and information sessions on primary-secondary transfer.
Where they work, parent councils may well be a good idea, but many of us know the difficulty of getting parents to become school governors. I do worry that it will prove difficult to attract parents or carers to sit on these councils. I also have grave concerns about the workload implications for our members of more regular information on children’s progress.
It’s true that such provision differs from school to school, but it’s also true that more and more teachers, burdened by evermore increasing demands on their time, are having to resort to cut and paste, jargon-filled reports which tell parents or carers very little. More information is likely to mean more members of staff spending more time typing in more data into computer systems that often can’t cope. If these things must be done, I fear it will be at the expense of the planning, preparation and delivery of lessons which makes such a real difference to the educational experiences of those we teach.
If we turn to… Children enjoying childhood
The government’s plan is to have, amongst other things… £225 million investment in better playgrounds in communities
Faster growth in youth facilities Schools to offer 5 hours a week of cultural activities
An interesting idea. This really needs more thought though. What kinds of things would count? Are we looking at during the school day or at other times? If it’s during the school day, what is going to have to be reduced or disappear to make space for it? If it’s after school, who is going to organise it? Where is it going to be held? Who is going to supervise the activities? Will our members be forced to ‘volunteer,’ fearing reduced opportunities for promotion otherwise? Are schools, instead, going to employ other people to do this? If so, where is the money going to come from?
The third of the key principles in the Children’s Plan is that:
All children have the potential to succeed
The Government is aiming for: More free places in early education for two year olds.
More training for early years workers.
Better links between early years and primary schools through 0-7 partnerships.
Another primary curriculum review.
Support for children falling behind in writing.
A package for children with disabilities and special needs (their words not mine) including better training for teachers.
New tests to be taken when children are ready to replace Key Stage tests so long as trials are successful.
This may sound like a good idea in theory, but practice might tell a different story. Will children have to take a level 3 test when they are ready for it, then a level 4 test then a level 5 test and so on? Are we, in effect, looking at testing every 6 months or every year rather than at the end of every Key Stage? The assessment burden on children would be tremendous. How would schools decide when a child is ready? Would they enter children in the hope that they would achieve the required standard or would they wait, fearful of negative publicity about failure rates? Would we be moving from Assessment for Learning to Learning for Assessment?
The Government also plans for: Teaching to become a masters-level profession.
Now we will debate this later in one of our motion sessions, but the proposal does raise all sorts of questions. How would a masters degree improve my ability to teach? Not a clue. What would such a masters degree entail? More training courses? More lesson observations? Writing essays or a thesis which is put in a drawer and forgotten about as soon as it’s written? Will taking a masters eventually be compulsory for all or will it be entirely voluntary? Will it be compulsory for new entrants to the profession but not for others? Will having a masters degree entitle teachers to a higher salary? Will it create a two tier teaching profession? Will it enhance the status of teaching staff with parents? I doubt it. Parents right now make no distinction between the different qualifications teachers hold, if they even know them. On the whole, I suspect this will prove to be an ill-thought-out ‘sounds good’ policy rather than one which will be of benefit to children or staff.
Raising the leaving age to 18
I have, along with many of you, grave reservations about this. Is it right to persuade as many pupils as possible to stay in education or training after they are 16? Of course it is. Is it right to expand provision and lay on more relevant courses for those who are turned off by the thought of A levels? Of course it is. There is, Conference, a world of difference though between this approach and compulsion.
Who is going to administer this? It’s all very well to say there ought to be a training course available for all those students who wish to leave the school environment, but what if there isn’t? Is a student who wants to be a plumber going to be happy with training to be a bricklayer? Is there really going to be a host of employers looking to provide on-the-job training who haven’t done so before? If a student fails to secure such training, will schools or colleges be obliged to let them remain, perhaps putting them on courses they have no interest in?
It seems likely, Conference, that we will be faced with groups of near adults who have no wish to be at their place of study. Will they attend regularly? I think not. Will they behave themselves while they are there? I think not. Will punitive punishments amend their behaviour? I think not. Is this a serious attempt to improve the skills base of our society or a cynical attempt to get troublesome youngsters off the streets? I’ll leave you to make up your own minds. The Children’s Plan also aims to build a: Service for children and families built around their needs
Children’s trusts expected to have consistent, effective arrangements to deliver improvements and to identify problems early.
Schools’ contributions to ECM outcomes to be recognised through new school level indicators of wider outcomes.
Building Schools for the Future to actively encourage co-location of services (e.g. schools and child health).
This sounds, at first glance, like an interesting idea, but I think we have to guard against what seems like an automatic assumption by some that bigger means better. A brand new school on a brand new site alongside medical and other children’s services might sound appealing, but if the sheer size of such a site means it has to be placed a good distance away from the centre of a town, for example, then we might end up making things more difficult for children and their parents rather than easier. We also need to be careful that the management of such a site doesn’t lead to the watering down of the quality of educational provision. There is already concern, from head teachers down, that such supersizing is leading to the importance of education being downgraded at a time when more and more schools, in more and more authorities, are being brought under the control of those with no background in education.
All in all, Conference, the Children’s Plan has the potential to produce some of the greatest changes in education we will see over the next decade. It contains things which we can all agree are a good idea, others which are debatable and some which are just downright wrong, but whatever your opinion, it’s not something we can ignore.
Let me move on now, Conference, to look at the issue of: Diplomas
We’ve all heard the name, but what precisely do they involve?
Diplomas are a new suite of qualifications offered at three levels. They are designed to combine elements of academic subjects and practical skills.
17 Diplomas will be available in broad disciplines. Together, they are supposed to provide a suitable offer for every young person. However, each academic institution will not be expected to teach all 17. Schools, colleges, training providers, universities and employers ‘will collaborate at a local level.’ Nevertheless, it remains difficult to see how students will be able to access a large number of these, particularly in the rural parts of the country the Government seems so profoundly unconcerned about.
The first five Diplomas in:
Construction and the Built environment Creative and Media Engineering Information Technology Society, Health and Development
are being taught in selected consortia from September 2008.
We are told that Diplomas will not narrow options. A year 9 student choosing a diploma could then go on to take an advanced Diploma at 16 or take A levels or an apprenticeship.
A year 12 student could choose to take an advanced Diploma without having studied a Diploma at a lower level. The student could then progress to university or employment since the qualifications will be ‘ understood and respected by employers and universities’.
3 levels of Diploma:
Foundation Diploma – equivalent to 5 GCSEs grades D – G
Higher Diploma – equivalent to 7 GCSEs grades A* – C
Advanced Diploma – equivalent to 3.5 A levels grade A* – E
Also available will be a ‘Progression Diploma,’ worth 2.5 A levels, suitable for students who do not wish to complete a whole advanced Diploma.
I wonder, Conference, if many people know just how complex a beast these Diplomas are?
Components of Diplomas
Principal learning – students to acquire work-relevant knowledge, skills and understanding. At least half of this is to be practical learning set in a work-related context.
Functional skills – students are to develop their ability to apply their English, Maths and ICT skills in situations relevant to work and life.
Personal, learning and thinking skills – e.g. teamwork, creative thinking, effective learning and self-management.
Additional or Specialist learning (ASL) – options that let students go into more depth in their specialist area through, for example, a language or science qualification. Such qualifications have to be at the same level as the Diploma or one higher so, in theory, a 16 year old studying the Higher Diploma could also study A level Physics!
Project – related to principal learning
Work experience – a minimum of 10 days, ideally related to the Diploma being studied.
Do you know, Conference, I am very concerned about all this. Yet again there seems to be an assumption that a change automatically means an improvement. The implementation appears to be haphazard at best. Large numbers of staff will be starting to teach the Diploma, or parts of it, in September with little or no understanding of how the whole thing works. Students are being sold the Diploma courses by staff who themselves have little understanding of what’s involved. I suspect that quotes about universities understanding and respecting the Diplomas will prove to be extremely optimistic at best and downright disingenuous at worst. Quality assurance on some parts of the courses will be problematic and of course administering the Diplomas will be yet another burden on already overworked school staff. The New Secondary CurriculumIn September 2008, changes to the curriculum at Key Stages 3 and 4 will come into effect. We are told that the changes will, amongst other things:
The changes include a framework for personal, learning and thinking skills, under the six headings of:
Independent enquirers Creative thinkers Team workers Self managers Effective participators Reflective learners
These six skills have, apparently, been built into the curriculum and will be assessed as part of the new Diploma programmes.
We are told that ‘skill development will become an integral part of enhancing learners’ knowledge and understanding’ – funny, I thought it was already!
How are these changes to the secondary curriculum going to make a difference? The key seems to be that there is less prescribed subject content in the new programmes of study. The Government claims that this will allow teachers to ‘personalise the curriculum, designing learning experiences to meet individual needs and engage all learners’. Teachers will be able to design ‘coherent learning experiences that are relevant and meaningful to learners’. They will be able to ‘use more dynamic and innovative teaching and learning approaches’. They will be able to ‘help learners recognise the progress they are making within, across and beyond subject disciplines’.
Seems great, doesn’t it? Waffle often does, but let’s pause for a moment. Over the years, to some extent rightly, less emphasis has been placed on subject knowledge and more on relevant skills. Surely there must come a point when subject knowledge is so minimal that having certain skills becomes meaningless. Being able to plot a current/voltage graph is fine, but what use is it if you don’t know what current and voltage are?
Whether you’ve been in the profession for twenty years or for twenty minutes, you will want to fulfil the aspirations I’ve just mentioned, but is the Government suggesting that we couldn’t do all this without changing the programmes of study? It’s true that, with more and more burdens placed upon us, there has been less and less time to be creative and yet I see nothing in these changes which will make it easier for us to do what they are suggesting.
I’m sure we would all love to be able to have the kind of personalised learning which really would made a difference to each and every child, but where are teachers going to find the time? Will the changes to the secondary curriculum really result in a sea change for teaching and learning or will this prove to be yet another initiative that collapses under the administrative burden placed on schools and their overworked members of staff?
Conference, I am well aware that it isn’t just schools in England which are facing change, nor is it just teaching staff. Although the system in Scotland, in particular, is rather different; they too have big changes to contend with. As the Scottish Executive Committee’s report says, implementation of ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ is causing concern and the Scottish Government is planning radical changes to the exam system.
Support staff are seeing massive changes to the work they do, often being asked to carry out increasingly complex tasks without a corresponding increase in pay levels.
Finally, Conference, if I might briefly turn to what could be called:
‘New’ Schools
Just think for a moment colleagues about the different types of school which have been or are being introduced.
In no particular order:
Community schools Foundation schools Grant maintained schools Voluntary-Aided schools City Technology Colleges Specialist schools or colleges with one specialism Specialist schools or colleges with more than one specialism Trust Schools Academies Whatever-daft-name-they-might-call-it-next schools!
When, when, when, Conference, will the politicians and the DCSF realise that what matters most is the quality of a school, college or nursery’s staff? You can piddle around with structural changes ‘till the cows come home, but unless any educational establishment has quality staff it will not succeed.
Teachers, lecturers, nursery nurses, office staff, caretakers, dinner ladies (oops, school meals supervisors) and everyone else involved in delivering education need to feel valued. They need to be properly recompensed for the work they do. They need to be given the time to do the job to the best of their ability.
What they don’t need is to be forced to take on responsibility for more and more tasks. What they don’t need is to be working all hours of the day and night. What they don’t need is a 55 hours or more working week. What they don’t need is to have to spend as much time sat in front of a computer as they are in front of the children.
Conference, until the politicians get this right, there is precious little chance that much will improve for the children we are all trying to help.
Andrew Broadhurst National Chairman, 2008-09
Ends
andrewbroadhurst@voicetheunion.org.uk
pressoffice@voicetheunion.org.uk (before/after Conference).
Mobile/Conference Press Office: 0794 871 0413
|
