Loading ...Why Louth’s Parents Need To Think Again About The Quality Of Their Schools!
Writing in the Sunday Express, Michael Gove, Education Secretary said,
“Every parent in the land knows that we need to improve our education system.”
Well, that was a promising start! Unfortunately it’s downhill all the way from there.
“We’ve got great teachers doing a fantastic job across the country, but they’ve been held back by a bureaucratic and dumbed-down approach which has seen us fall behind other nations. Labour spent money but far too much of it has gone on red tape, interference, quangoes and politically correct pet projects. Teachers have been denied the powers they need to keep order, they’ve been restricted in the exams they can offer so children in state schools couldn’t sit the more rigorous tests they have in the private sector and they’ve been judged not on how well they teach but how many bureaucratic boxes they tick.
The result has been that, over the last ten years, this country has slipped from 4th in the world to 14th for the quality of our science education, 7th to 17th for literacy and 8th to 24th for maths.”
So, Britain’s schools are churning out unemployable, illiterate numbskulls, but it has nothing to do with the quality of their teachers! I don’t think so.
The real problems in schools don’t come from red tape, interference or quangos – wasteful though those may be. Neither do teachers need “powers” to keep order in their classrooms - good teachers have natural ability to do that. Nor is the quality of education controlled by the type of exams: those are supposed to assess the quality of learning, not determine it.
No, the problem with the education system can be summed up in eight words: No vision, no values, no leadership, no commitment. In other words, schools are faced with a crisis of culture resulting from a lack of authentic leadership. That is not to say that there are not some good teachers, some good headteachers and some good schools, there obviously are – and interestingly, they succeed under exactly the same regime that Mr Gove condemned.
What is lacking in too many schools is a carefully defined mission, based upon clearly articulated and communicated shared values, along with the quality of commitment necessary to align every stakeholder - parents, governors, LEA, teachers and pupils – behind it. Sadly, most teachers and headteachers see the job, not the goal. This is the thinking that led one local headteacher to tell a large assembly of parents that the role of a headteacher these days has more to do with the Filofax than the classroom! No, the role of a headteacher should have one single focus: the pupils – each individual one of them. Everything else is just padding.
Schools lack a performance culture and that is a management issue. Teachers, good and bad, need guidance and leadership. Without those there is no common focus, no common direction and no common purpose. When pupils ask the teacher why they need to learn this or that, they are routinely told that it is to pass the exam. Surely the role of a school is to prepare people for life, not exams. That understanding should guide every teacher at every moment. At present, it clearly does not.
The Sunday Times recently quoted the managing director of a medium-sized IT company, “There’s a big difference between people passing exams and being ready for work.” This was obvious, he said, even before he began interviewing 52 “brilliant students”. Each had three As at A-level from state schools and a 2:1 degree. Of the 52 applicants, half arrived late. Only three of the 52 walked up to the managing director, looked him in the eye, shook his hand and said, “Good morning.” The rest “just ambled in”. When he asked them to solve a problem, only 12 had come equipped with a notebook and pencil.
The three who had greeted him proved the strongest candidates and he hired them. Within a year they were out because of their “lackadaisical” attitude. They did not turn up on time; for the first six months a manager had to check all their emails for spelling and grammar; they did not know how to learn. It was the first time they had ever been asked to learn on their own. Their ability to “engage in business” was “incredibly” disappointing and “at 5.30 on the dot they left the office”.
Sir Terry Leahy, the chief executive of Tesco, recently commented that too many children have been leaving school after 11 or 13 years of compulsory education “without the basic skills to get on in life and hold down a job”. He said 5m adults were functionally illiterate and 17m could not add up properly. “On-the-job training” cannot act as a “bandage or sticking plaster” for “the failure of our education system”.
These graduates have one thing in common – they lack values like respect, self-discipline, responsibility and reliability. It is no surprise when schools operate without a system of core values that the pupils leaving them have limited understanding of values themselves. When heads and senior teachers exhibit lackadaissical, unfocussed attitudes, they are bound to be picked up by teachers and pupils alike.
A fine example of the problem can be found in the merit system at King Edwards: a system which is supposed to inspire, motivate and reward. In the latest report to parents 46% of entries didn’t list the subject in which the merit was awarded and in 30% of entries the teachers didn’t even manage to include a description explaining why the merit was awarded. On two occasions recently the school placed so much importance on the merit certificates that they forgot to hand them out. Those pupils that could be bothered, had to beg their form teacher for them some weeks later.
In a private company, employees who consistently failed to operate a basic recording system would be out on their ears after a few months; and any line manager failing to ensure that his or her people performed would very quickly find himself or herself in the same position. In schools, poor performance and incompetent management is tolerated year after year.
Values form the basis of a performance culture and in so doing, they determine strategy and outcomes. What does it say about the focus of a school’s culture when leavers are unable to undertake simple jobs in industry without immediate additional training? Why, for example, do schools not teach pupils basic computer skills – installing a programme or typing?
The task of drawing together and achieving commitment to shared values is no easy one. Using those values to inform policy-making and create a palpable vision that inspires an organisation, requires considerable management skill and expertise. Creating a culture in which every action of every individual is aligned to and supportive of an organisation’s mission, calls for years of management experience and some pretty advanced leadership and personal attributes. Is it fair, right and reasonable to expect a career teacher, often with no experience of business let alone today’s globalised markets and advanced management techniques, to possess all these abilities?
In the Fire Service, it is no longer a requirement for Chief Fire Officers to come up through the ranks. Indeed, it is now assumed that the best place for good firefighters is fighting fires. Perhaps now is the time for the education system also to accept that the running of a school is best undertaken by a professional manager and that good teachers should remain where they are most needed and best qualified – in the classroom. Until it does, or at least finds a way to bring a far broader breadth of vision into the headteachers’ studies, any more power and responsibility passed down to schools is likely to make students’ employability worse, not better.
Do you agree?
Yes – with every word.
It is quite clear that one of Louth’s headteachers is completely out of his depth. He understands the process of school management and that is where his vision ends.
Disaster!
Thanks for your comment.
I find it fascinating, and more than a little worrying that we parents do not feel able to clearly articulate our concerns for fear of reprisals affecting our children. I have a number of emails expressing support and encouragement, but very few are prepared to do any more than whisper their anger and talk in code.
Somehow that has to change.