He says,

Having planned out a “pop up curriculum” over the weekend we decided to try and implement a “Louth based School” on Monday. We have never tried this before and are often asked by parents why this is not possible. Having evaluated our efforts, we now know that despite the planning we did over the weekend it is simply not possible to offer any meaningful education on this basis: let alone offer pupils continuity in the courses that they are following.

I had assumed that the school had been caught by the unexpected severity of the weather, but we now know that the shambles that occurred was the result of a meticulous plan!  The school planned to bring in only the 150 local kids.  They planned a “pop up curriculum” (whatever that might be).  And, presumably they planned to have sufficient teachers to offer some sort of service to the students.

As I understand it, approximately 150 students did arrive; as did at least 13 teachers.  So, with the “pop up curriculum” in hand, why was it not possible to follow through?  It seems to me that the comments of teachers that have been reported to this site (see previous article) may well provide the answer.  They simply weren’t on board.  They didn’t want to be there.  What other explanation can there be for a programme, that according to the headteacher took the weekend to plan, failing after just 50 minutes?

Over the past few days news channels have reported endless stories of innovative endeavours by public servants to overcome the difficulties.  After the worst snowfalls on Wednesday, the BBC reported that half the schools in Lincolnshire were still open for any pupils that could make the journey to them.  One headteacher was reported as saying how important it is to set an example to children.  “We have a can-do culture here”, she said.  The King Edward’s culture is increasingly clear – can’t do, won’t do.  Or is it – don’t know what to do?

Mr Lascelles says he now knows it is not possible to provide any meaningful education on this basis.

So there we have it – 13+ experienced teachers are unable to get together and provide a worthwhile and enjoyable learning experience for 150 students, despite having a whole weekend to plan it.  I think that says it all.

“Don’t blame us”, a teacher tells his disgruntled students.  “I don’t want to be here either.  We don’t have a plan to do anything with you.”

“If it wasn’t for Mrs xxxx and Mr xxxx, I’d still be in bed”, says another.

Angry parents have been emailing this site, but how many have made their feeling known to the school?

To respond to some of your points:-

Yes, I too would have expected teachers to show the dedication and commitment to get to school.  Yes, I would have expected them to have a plan to provide some learning opportunities for the kids that made the effort.  Yes, I agree it does set a very poor example and yes, the dithering and lack of clarity is disrespectful of parents and does demonstrate poor leadership and management skills.

Any other comments?

It is difficult to square these claims with all the other evidence.  Evidence like the view of Sir Digby Jones, former CBI head, that half of all school leavers are unfit to enter the job market.  Or the comment of Tesco’s CEO, Sir Terry Leahy 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”.

If education is improving so markedly why is it that, according to Education Secretary, Michael Gove, the UK has slipped from 6^th to 18^th averaged across three key subjects?  And why do so many employers now need to look outside the UK for skills and ability which are simply no longer available in the UK?

Despite all the evidence, teachers argue that teaching is becoming more effective and examinations more difficult year on year.  There has, they say, been no dumbing-down of exams.

Not so, says former director at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, Mick Waters.  He claims that exam boards are conniving in the dumbing-down of school exams.  Until he began working for the QCA he thought such claims were “unfair”; but now thinks the system is “diseased, almost corrupt”.  Is it any wonder that concerned parents are beginning to take control and setting up their own schools?

Critics of Michael Gove’s Free Schools policy have made much of the fact that only fourteen applications for Free Schools have been lodged with the Dept of Education.  Considering the degree of organisation, commitment and time required to succeed, it is a wonder that any applications have seen the light of day.  In fact, it is a clear indicator of just how bad the situation has become.

Parents have an understandable resistance to criticising their son or daughter’s school.  Not only is it risky to put one’s head over the parapet, but we fear undermining the hard work our children are doing.  The problem is that a child’s time at school is the most influential in terms of  their life chances.  Surely we all have a duty to ensure that they are given the best opportunities available.  Second best just isn’t good enough.

Parents need to wake up to the reality and recognise what is really going on in their local schools.  Those who continue to be hood-winked by the smoke and mirrors of the education sector will suffer a rude awakening when they find that their son or daughter’s 2.1 degree is nothing more than a ticket to a lifetime on jobseeker’s allowance or a lowly paid job working for a properly-educated Indian or Chinese short-term immigrant.

Perhaps the next time the school newsletter arrives proclaiming the enormous success of the entire exam year, parents will remember the views of those who actually deal with the output of our schools and take it all with a rather large pinch of salt!

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?

corporateappareltrends.com

The new “Business Casual” dress code  is compulsory for 6th formers at KEVIGS from September.  The school’s website carries pictures and details of what will be required.

Is this a positive move that will help build students’ personal responsibility for their appearance at the same time as enhancing the image and reputation of the school, or just another unnecessary initiative that erodes freedom of expression and further drains the finances of increasingly stretched parents?

What do you think?

The average reader stays for more than 5 minutes and about 5% stay for 14 minutes!

All we need now is for more visitors to add their views before they leave.

What do you think?

Is it valuable for parents to be able to raise issues?

What should be included that is not here yet?

Nick Gibb MP, Minister for Schools, announced today that the Government would seek to:

• end the rule requiring schools to give 24 hours written notice for detentions
• allow heads and school staff to search pupils for legal highs, pornography, cigarettes, fireworks and personal electronic devices such as mobile phones, MP3 players and cameras, in addition to the alcohol, controlled drugs, and stolen property already planned for September.  (Searches for knives or other weapons are already legal.)   
• strengthen guidance and legislation if necessary surrounding use of force in the classroom
• give anonymity to teachers accused by pupils and take other measures to protect against false accusations.

Today’s announcement also states that the Government will issue simplified guidance about the use of force for safety or restraint. Schools should not have ‘no touch’ policies and teachers should feel able to use force when they need to.

That teachers feel able to enforce discipline without feeling at risk themselves is long overdue.  Could this government be about to consign the whole concept of political correctness to the waste bin?  It would be good to think that a teacher might again be able to stick a plaster on the leg of an injured pupil and parents might again be able to take a photo of their child performing on stage!

However, I hope teachers will use their search powers wisely. Pupils will obviously benefit from the increased security provided by any reduction in pornography, cigarettes and alcohol - but MP3 players, cameras and phones?  Many parents will find the inclusion of these items rather perplexing.  Most that I speak to think that the mobile has added a valuable layer of security and parental management and pupils certainly will not take kindly to being parted from their MP3 players.

I have no idea what is in the Minister’s mind, but I assume he is not proposing that schools should ban phones and music players.  If schools do seek to move from the current position on electronic items, particularly with regard to mobiles, I for one would welcome a degree of consultation in advance.

What do you think?

Despite estimating that there are 15000+ incompetent teachers in English schools and recognising the enormous damage that incompetent teachers can do to the children in their charge, the programme’s conclusion was that there is NOTHING that parents can do about it.

The documentary revealed that only 18 teachers have been struck off for incompetence in the past 40 years, despite teacher numbers of over 500,000.

Chris Woodhead, former Chief Inspector of Schools for England, told programme that there could be thousands of incompetent teachers at large in the UK.

The programme focused on the impact that bad teachers have on pupils: potentially making the difference between acceptance or not at university or getting or not getting a job.

Woodhead said teacher incompetence was a serious issue. He explained: “You tell me a profession where there aren’t 5%, 10% of members who are incompetent? The strange thing about the public sector in general and teaching in particular is that no-one will admit that there is this problem.”

I know exactly what he means. During ten years consulting in the public sector I came across at least a dozen very senior managers who were clearly incapable of even adequate performance.  They were kept in place by Chief Executives who were aware of their shortcomings, but felt powerless to do anything about it. In cases where action was taken, none were sacked and at least one was shipped off to a directorate where he was presumably deemed to be less harmful.

Using data from Freedom of Information requests, Panorama concluded that the system meant to identify incompetent teachers is not functioning, and that incompetent teachers are actually being moved from school to school rather than sacked in a game of “pass the parcel”.  Parents, the programme said, felt powerless to change the situation.

I don’t know about you, but I do not feel powerless.  If there is no official route to resolving the problem, there is always our ability as parents to withdraw our children from the classroom.  Given the extent of damage that bad teachers can do to your children, would you be prepared to continue to send your child into a classroom to receive what is, at best, a poor education and, at worst, psychological or physical abuse?

Do you have doubts about a teacher at your children’s school?  Do you believe that your children or others have been damaged educationally, physically or psychologically?  Have you taken any action in an attempt to resolve the problem?

On this issue and on many others, isn’t it time parents had an opinion? Please share your experience below.

Why is it that whenever there is the slightest threat of snow, Louth’s children can be found huddled around the radio, desperate to hear the name of their school amongst the list of today’s closures?  What happened to those smiling, enthusiastic, happy faces that attended the first year of primary school?  Why doesn’t secondary education engage and inspire our young people?

The Monks Dyke website says, “We pride ourselves on providing an enjoyable and rewarding time to all our students…”  Cordeaux’s head teacher says, “Our students enjoy being here…”  Think about it: how do these statements sit with your knowledge of your children on a snowy day?

It is not that these head teachers don’t care, quite the opposite – most teachers do much more than the minimum.  Many of the initiatives undertaken by all Louth’s schools demonstrate that care.  It’s not even that they have got it wrong; given the degree of freedom available to them, all Louth’s schools have the reputation of being good places to be.  Yet the plain fact is that these schools still frustrate students, do not engage and enthuse them and simply fail to help them become adults who can think for themselves.

Schools are places where specific items of knowledge are transmitted to pupils.  Exactly what that knowledge should be is determined by civil servants as, by and large, is the mode of transmission.  Teachers are merely the instruments of delivery – no wonder many of them have lost the sense of vocation that brought them into teaching in the first place.

The development of flexible, inquiring minds is not the goal of the education system.  Turning students into “proper members of society” is seen as far more important than developing creative thinkers.

Schools are organised around the ideas, needs and challenges of yesterday and they fail even our brightest children by the system’s own measures.

Just consider how we organise lessons: one teacher stands in front of thirty children trying to get each one to the same place at the same time. Occasionally a classroom assistant attempts to help stragglers to keep up or, even more occasionally, gifted children to keep ahead.  This approach assumes that we all learn the same things in the same way – we don’t.  It ignores everything we have discovered about natural learning, which is primarily a process of experimentation and reflection – learning by doing.

Intelligent people question information; they seek support for the premise at hand.  Amongst the questions we will all have heard children ask are:  Why?  How do we know that?  Why is that important?

Such questions are often actively discouraged by teachers who have the curriculum to follow.  There simply isn’t time to address every child’s enquiry.  And so they plough on, often leaving behind the most intelligent students who coninue to seek their own answers, rather than listen to the teacher.  Thus, what we have is lowest common denominator education that, despite the fine words, gives very little attention to individual needs.

And what about that idea of curriculum – the notion that there is a particular body of knowledge everyone should know?  It is generally acknowledged that what we learn in school is largely forgotten and irrelevant to the lives we lead.  When did you last use Pythagoras’ Theorum or need to bake a novelty cake?  Do you consciously avoid splitting your infinitives, or just not do so because you learned English by listening?  Children naturally learn facts about the world because they feel the need to know them; often because these facts will help them do something they want to do. What are the right facts for one may be irrelevant facts for another.

The level of dissatisfaction, disillusionment and anger at the education system has never been higher. Stories of falling standards and inequalities in education abound. And now there is a glimmer of light as this new government seeks to relax the reins and allow schools more freedom.  There is now, for the first time in many years, the opportunity for those parents who care and can raise the energy, to step in and create better educational opportunities for our children than we had ourselves.  Education for lives, not just for jobs.

In the famous scene in To Sir, With Love, fictional teacher, Mark Thackeray, dumps the text books in the waste bin and begins a two-way communication with his class of unruly teenagers.  He talks to them about their lives and experiences and relates those to art, science and maths.  He sets high standards of respect, values and discipline and broadens their perspectives and aspirations.  He engages their interest, fires their imaginations and raises their horizons.  In doing so, he eliminates unauthorised absence; and when they leave, they give him flowers.  Author, ER Braithwaite, knew the answers 50 years ago!

The challenges and dangers that lie ahead for today’s students are unprecedented.  In whatever field one looks, be that anthropogenic, social, economic, political or natural, the threats have never been higher.  Are we producing adults that can meet these threats?  Are we really preparing our young people to meet the future as opposed to the present or the past?

We’ve known about natural learning for decades.  It’s time we put it into action and it is time for parents to demand it.

Do you agree?

Being independent from governmental and bureaucratic control could result in an entirely different emphasis.  Provided a high standard of academic results is maintained, and subject to meeting defined admissions rules, a free school could largely determine its own curriculum and priorities.

It really could look quite different, for example: there might be no requirement for uniform; there could be an emphasis placed upon high standards of discipline or spiritual development.  There could be a far more vital social element, with families centred around the school.  A free schools might major in particular subjects or even operate outside normal school hours and holidays.

Should Louth have a free school?  What would you like the perfect school to offer?

Would you be involved if a “Free School for Louth” group were to be formed?