Sir Digby Jones on today's Today

Absolutely searing.

Listen here.

Secret third objective

Officially, an 'outstanding' lesson starts with the teacher sharing his or her objectives with the students. Most of the time I tend to do this in a completely informal way, simply reminding them what we did last time and stating where we're going. Quickly. However, when The Inspectors are calling, I write three objectives on the board.

Thus, during our last inspection I found myself writing on the board the bizarre phrase:
'Secret third objective.'

I really can't remember what objectives one and two were. But the point of the last part of the lesson was for students to realise the necessity for something (it was an IT lesson.) I wanted them to understand that this thing was necessary because they had discovered the need for it themselves. The lesson was an adventure, a discovery, a confrontation. At the climactic moment, one of them would, I hope, say 'But this isn't working.' I would then have said 'OK, let's try and work out what will!' I hoped that a lesson learned this way would be a profound learning experience. If I had put the objectives on the board, there would have been no opportunity for them to make that leap for themselves.

How often we lose our collective nerve in our forced attempts to quantify everything: a good lesson must be X, must be Y, must contain Z. This is just a tiny example but it should make us question the recipes and formulae that we are often forced to use as we try to create good quality learning experiences.

The reason I mention this today is that I have just read this article on the very same matter. Go Philip Beadle!

PS The Inspectors didn't come in to that lesson. Wish I could say I was disappointed.

On raising the school leaving age

"Real change in education comes infinitely slowly, through calm and resolve and planning.

It begins (and ends) with good teachers and great heads. It depends on a steady recruitment of excellence into the profession, not surges of the second-rate followed by squeezes. It builds up a thirst for the benefits that education can bring, rather than ordering more booze in the last-chance saloon. It goes with the flow of ambition. It doesn't force, threaten or tangle in more webs of bumbling."

Peter Preston in the Guardian

Head teachers not that important... which is just as well?

Hum. I am a little perplexed by these two reports from the BBC. This one is about the shortage of Head teachers and this one is about that fact that we no longer need Head teachers. You will note immediately that they both have the same picture which seems to indicate that you can always recognise your Head, not by his grey suit, but by the fact that (s)he carries a sandwich at all times.

Now the situation seems quite confusing:

Are we short of Head teachers? Well, the NASUWT (who represent the teachers) say that when they last looked
"...up to half a million pupils in England's schools were without permanent head teachers..."

but as the DES (who are ultimately responsible for most of the schools) points out, this means that
"Less than 1% of schools at any one time will have a head vacancy and even then there will always be an acting or temporary head in place."

and while the GTC (who represent the teachers but in Not Quite The Same Way) predicts that
"... four out of 10 vacancies will be unfilled by 2011..."

the NCSL (who train the Heads) say it's OK because
"We are entering a new era in school leadership, which is challenging the long-held assumption that every school needs its own head teacher. In future school leadership may not be about just leading individual institutions, but about working in the wider system, although often still having one school as a base."

but the NAHT (who represent the Heads), say that the NCSL's report is
"extremely unhelpful".

So, a tentative conclusion: we do actually need more Heads.

League table commentary

This is Mike Baker, the BBC's education correspondent, and it's excellent.

The news goes from mad to worse

I'm so tired I'm having aural hallucinations. I was in the shower this morning, and thought I heard someone saying that the school leaving age is going to be raised to 18.

Can anything halt this New Year flow of outrageous educational ideas from Alan? It's as if he got really behind with his work and decide to cram all through the Christmas holidays. Now he's handing in all these frenzied pieces of overdue homework he's copied off the Internet.

PS By the way, for one week only, listen to the News Quiz here - there's a killer answer to the question on Ruth Kelly by Jeremy Hardy (about 5.30 minutes in.) And he is even funnier on the subject of the iPhone at about 18 minutes in.

It's League Table day!

Well, actually, every day is league table day. That is the problem. But as it's the day when you get to see that your school can be summed up by two numbers (such as 51 and 1061.5,) here's a handy worksheet (don't worry if you haven't got a pen, I've summarised it for you.)

Why league tables are bad for students

By Ms Pepperpot

1) They distort the curriculum.

Schools have limited resources and there are a finite number of timeslots on the timetable. In a climate of league tables, schools will favour courses and options that maximize the points scored for students. However, this is rarely the best thing for all students. For example, some schools insist every child does a GNVQ - worth 4 GCSEs in the league tables. What if they are not interested in any of the GNVQ options? Another example is the debate over the science curriculum.

2) They distort the advice given to students.

You might think, naively, that the best advice for a particular student will be the advice that gives them the best exam results; so striving towards league table success will guarantee the best chances of 'success' for each individual student. This assumes that 'success' is the maximum number of points on the league table scale, irrespective of how those are earned and whether they will help the student in the next stage of their education or in the workplace. It also leaves out any concept of risk, of allowing students to be exposed to challenges. It leads pretty quickly to the assumption that students should only be entered on courses they are guaranteed to pass. So what do you think about the theoretical idea of a public exam system with a 100% pass rate? (see Ouroborus)

3) They stop students ever experiencing the consequences of their own actions.

When a student is late, absent, doesn't hand in work or can't be bothered to bring a pen or make notes, this should have an impact on his or her learning. He or she should learn, as a result, that punctuality, deadlines, personal organisation and above all hard work, are necessary for success in life. However, if their behaviour impacts in a negative way on their study, the results will drop. This will show up in the league tables, supposedly indicating a failure on the part of the institution. Therefore... if a student is late or absent, we will help them catch up. If they can't be bothered to make notes, we will make them handouts. If they don't hand in their coursework, we will chase them and extend the deadline right up to the wire. By the time they reach their first workplace, they are deeply marked by this - a terrifyingly large number of students have never had to face the consequences of lack of commitment or effort.

4) They steal teachers' souls

Humans working under pressure in a stressful environment, who are constantly prioritizing and who know that they can never do enough, are acutely sensitive to the currents that surround them. What is the priority? What really matters? When push comes to shove, when you are up against it, what do you choose, creativity or exam success? Answer: Exam success. To which of these endlessly demanding hoards of kids will you give your limited supplies of energy? Answer: Borderline kids (those who hover on the boundary of a statistically significant grade or mark difference. Such as the C/D borderline.) We want to educate the whole person but we have to service the pass rate first.

I'm not against evaluation, I'm not against criticism, I'm not against challenging poor standards. But this is not the way to do it.

A blinding flash of inspiration in the middle of an INSET

It wasn't anything to do with the subject of the INSET itself. Here's what happened. The facilitator wanted us to do an active listening exercise; we would pair off, and then each speak for two minutes on any subject we wanted, while the other person listened to us. They would then feed back to us everything we had said.

However, the moment the slide went up on the screen, this is what went through my head...
...mm, could talk about blogging, no, ridiculous idea; could talk about role play gaming, no, he'll think I'm crazy; how about my new car? No, dull; My Mum? Too personal. My outfit? Just silly...

I was paralysed - it was utterly ludicrous! Then I suddenly realised that this is what happens to my students when I ask one of them for a random suggestion or contribution. I frequently pepper my explanations with demands such as, 'Let's imagine you are downloading a song by.... OK, someone name a pop group!' or 'Right, so you've got a database of names and addresses. Someone give me an imaginary name for a person in the database'. Invariably no-one says anything; and I then rant about how they have no imagination, how they are not paying attention and so on and so forth.

But they must be sitting there thinking
'Can't say Oasis cos I'll look stupid. Can't say Snow Patrol cos no-one will have heard of them. Can't say anything Goth cos Bob will laugh at me... can't... can't....

Anyway, I turned to my partner and spent two minutes explaining this insight.

Trying to work out a position on anonymity

I'm thinking a lot about my blogging at the moment. I'm coming up on my blogiversary and my 100th post, and I have been thinking again about anonymity. When I started blogging last year I hadn't really thought it through, beyond an idle plan to stun the world with my witty badinage, and to bring Tony Blair to my door, begging me for an audience, where I would succinctly explain to him how to reform state education.

But as time has gone on I have become more confident in what I will and won't do when writing about actual events at work. One aspect of this is a desire to protect my students, who really don't need to stumble upon their silly behaviour thinly disguised while busy looking for videos of people falling over. The other aspect is to do with criticism. In blogging, as in life, my frustration and anger at educational policy usually goes straight to the source - i.e. the government. Sure, I have my share of whinges and gripes with my place of work but who doesn't? They divide into the intensely situational (which I am not particularly interested in sharing, especially as I like my SMT and think they are doing a good job) and the basically political (where I am more interested in criticising the policy than having a go at the way it was implemented in our particular situation.)

I also mix my comments on school and college management with places I have worked in the past, and the management in other schools and colleges where I have friends.

As a result of all this intense introspection, I've been playing about with a short statement to put on the side bar. I don't want to sound like I am covering myself from tyrannical persecution or getting ready to expose some terrible secrets. This is my current draft. Any comments much appreciated.

I blog anonymously - it makes thing easier. I 'fictionalise' my anedotes to avoid making anyone uncomfortable by recognising themselves, but I don't exaggerate to prove a point. My criticisms are aimed at government policy makers, and comments on how these policies play out in institutions are not to be read as criticisms of my workplace. In expressing my opinions I am in no way representing any institution for whom I work.

Burning up on re-entry

Been back three days and it's been frantic up till the end of today. I always start the term exhausted as I get insomnia the last few nights of any holiday; however, once back at work I only have enough time to worry about one thing at a time so I am much happier. But during the first week, I always feel like a falling satellite, hitting the atmosphere and incinerating as I plummet back into the orbit of the school.

It's been a pretty hairy few days, culminating in the dispatch of 107 portfolios to the exam board this morning. This entailed a colleague and I checking every one, putting them into order by candidate number and then packing them lovingly into 17 plastic bags (the official bags each take about 7 portfolios.)

Doing this we both realised that actually the vast majority of our students are rather nice. When you are forced to consider, in turn, every single student, you realise how disproportionately the 'bad' kids take up your time and emotional energy.

By the way, for all you non A-level teachers; it is now January module time. So of course I have to go on a compulsory government INSET the day of my last lesson with my little lower sixths.

I'm just doodling about on this topic because I haven't really worked out what to say about the Ruth Kelly thing; and I really haven't the energy to digest the 'personalised timetables, SATs on demand, and private tuition on the government' thing.

I'll think of something. Promise.

A New Year's rude awakening

2007 started badly as two young men tried to break into our house in the early hours of New Year's Day. As I looked down on them from my bedroom window, they looked up... and scarpered. I worried momentarily about what I would do if I recognised either of them.

Nothing was taken, the only damage a broken window which cost us time, effort, money and peace of mind. In the days afterwards, I experienced that intense anger where you imagine or even verbalise the words you would use to tear into them should you have the opportunity to talk those who have wronged you. "What right have you got to break into my house? I am a hard working, public spirited person. What do you mean, I can claim on insurance? Don't you understand that insurance premiums go up if people are always being broken into? What about my right to live a peaceful life, my right to feel safe in my own home?" But the feeling passed.

I am a theoretical believer in restorative justice. But my experience in education lead me to believe that actually making people change their understanding of what they are doing on a profound level is very difficult and takes time, care and patience - things we lack in today's society. How long does it take to change a child's mind so they understand that lateness to school is a bad thing that is slowly corroding their education? How long does it take to make a child understand that their belittling or mocking behaviour is actually bullying even though they just think it is the normal warp and weft of teenage life?

One of my colleagues announced at the beginning of last year that she had decided to try and change her own mindset instead of railing endlessly about the way the students are. Instead of wasting her own anguish, railing about their attitudes and behaviour, she has decided to focus all that mental energy on working out how to deal with the students and move them on. Maybe she is right. Maybe our righteous indignation, anger and passion is misdirected and serves only to hurt us and dissipate what energy we should have for creative solutions to the problems that face us.

Or is she wrong? Is it the burning, personal, deeply felt sense of anger at the way the world is that drives us forward, that gives us the energy to keep working in education?

I don't know.

On a different note, this was my first encounter with the Police since I became a blog reader. I was very impressed with the police officer who attended; not at all shocked by the amount of paperwork the incident provoked; charmingly able to save her time by knowing the meaning of terms due to my obsessive reading of 'Wasting Police Time'; less impressed the following day when the SOCO turned up despite the first officer telling us it was OK to go ahead and clear up as there was no point in the SOC people attending (explanation - change of shift); and generally reaffirmed in my prejudices that while individual police officers are fantastic, they are hemmed in by statistics and beaurocracy in much the same way as teachers.

Grumpy old teachers

It's not that they're anti-computers. It's not that they are tiresome old stick in the muds, resistant to change, reluctant to embrace the future and let go of the past. It's just they know the foundations on which the future is built.

I am an occasional reader of 2 cents worth, a blog about the use of IT in education, written by self-styled 'education technology pioneer', David Warlick. Much of the discussion orbits around IT professionals and IT teachers who are embracing new technology (especially Web 2.0 etc) and trying to enthuse their colleagues about it. Often, they find that the response from other teachers ranges from the amused to the downright hostile. These 'stick in the muds' are often held up to criticism (not so much by David but by his readers) as being unwilling to learn new things. This kind of criticism always piques me and I have been thinking about it for a while now.

I am sympathetic, up to a point. I have done more than my fair share of advocacy for ILT. When you are an IT teacher, you also get an option on a second job of general muse and enthusiast for the progress of IT within an institution. And I can get angry, restless, judgemental as often as the next person. However, I am finding myself more and more on the side of the cynics and Luddites who bemoan the loss of library space in schools (culled to make way for more computers) and who sniff at their new electronic whiteboards. While we should be looking at the nature of the new curriculum and constantly asking ourselves what our students should really be learning, we must also remember that as 30-something and 40-something teachers, our own ability to deal with and adapt to this new digital era is built upon the rock solid foundation of really good reading, writing, mathematical and reasoning skills. We learned these from a paper-based curriculum. Thus we must fight for our students' right of access to literacy, numeracy and philosophical competency, and their right to be exposed to the painstaking, dogged and long-winded process of learning these skills to a high level.

I've been meaning to post about this for some time; it was M (of musingsonamac, who functions as my official supplier of right wing web content) who sparked me into writing by sending me this link to Boris Johnson on the subject of computer games.

However, lest you skim read this and come to the conclusion that I like Boris and don't like David, I am adding the always challenging and very readable Mr W to my blog roll as he continues to make me think, and is thus obviously a great teacher.

Blog jargon

Was looking up the correct spelling of blogiversary and found this fantastic list of blog jargon.

I can now confess to being a sufferer of hitnosis.

Hitnosis
To become mesmerized by constantly reloading a Web browser to see if a blog's hit counter has increased or comments section has expanded. (Coined by Perry de Havilland)

I was also tickled by this definition:

Clog Blog
A blog written in Dutch and/or by someone in Holland

This launched my partner and I into a frenzy of naming and we would like to be the first to coin the following phrases:

Hog Blog
A blog about pigs

Snog Blog
A blog about kissing

Tog Blog
A blog about duvets

Obviously, if any of you wish to add to this you are most welcome.

PS And to think, I was actually supposed to be writing a long, verbose, utterly profound 'what is the point of this blog' type posting... looks like another Christmas miracle, then...

A Christmas miracle

Most of the blogs on my RSS feed seem to have dried up slightly over the last few days... and who blames them. But I thought I might lighten your evening (when you creep to the computer to escape the present wrapping, saying that you have to check the weather reports for travel...) and reproduce the following.

As the chimes of midnight rolled over the battlefield, the gunfire fell silent. In the first moments of a frosty Christmas morning, they emerged from their entrenched positions and began to cross the barran no-man's land that was not, on reflection, so wide. The Windows users, weary and fractious from so many needless reboots, held out their hands in cautious friendship to the wary Mac users. The Mac users, bewildered by the unkempt and diverse nature of the enemy, who could not even manage a stylish uniform let alone matching lap top accessories, gradually overcame their fear and engaged the Windows users in conversation, finding after a while that one or two of them actually did know something about web design and new media. After a while, pieces of shareware were brought out and offered to the enemy. A cautious game of Tetris was struck up. Several people began to swap pictures, the Mac users biting their tongues at the delay while the Windows users fretted over their camera drivers. As the sun eventually rose, happy individuals were sat together, blogging and chatting away and remembering how it felt when there were just geeks and non-geeks, back in the day before the wars broke out.

Then, suddenly, a stray blog posting, shot off without thought, suggested that Macs were the lush toys of rich creatives who had never done a real day's work in their lives. Before anyone could add an emoticon, a Mac blogger had returned fire by implying that Windows users were all corporate drones with no souls. In a moment, the battlefield was once more riddled with gunfire and destruction. And the Christmas miracle was forgotten...

End-of-termitis

Symptoms
1) Bone-deep weariness, a shortness of temper, an overwhelming depression at how little has been taught and learnt this term, melancholic contemplation of other possible careers

2) A trance-like state caused by heady anticipation of the holidays, leading to stupidly late nights and a general attempt to burn out not fade away

3) The slow but irreversible degeneration of lessons into quizzes, games, videos and other mindless issues. Alternatively, a rarer but more virulent strain causes a rash of tests and mock exams. These lead to terrible bouts of marking, often delayed for many weeks and manifesting themselves when the sufferer believed themselves to be symptom free

Heads of Department, Faculty, School and others will find themselves suffering from Present Allocation Disorder. PAD is caused by desperately trying to work out whom to buy presents for, and how much to spend. Most schools have this nasty condition well-managed by a complex wine cascade, in which senior managers give middle managers bottles of wine from Marks and Spencers, and middle managers give their juniors bottles of wine from ASDA and so on.

Commiserations to all of you suffering with me at this time of the year. Some people hold summer bouts to be the worst, but in my opinion, the Christmas version, with its bacchanalian overtones and endless bags of Haribo, is the nastiest.

A definition of irony

The blogsphere has made me realise that the teaching profession is not alone in its insane slavery to the gods of statistics, targets and league tables. The police and the NHS are similarly burdened.

This post from The Policeman's Blog is great.

We are soap

Let's not be frightened of rumours. If you are even seen walking around with a member of staff of the opposite sex, the kids will speculate that you are in love. We are their entertainment, their soap opera... Here's a tip. Don't deny. Elaborate. Many years ago I would support a young male colleague in his two hours of Friday afternoon hell with the bottom set by drifting into his lesson to 'sort a few bits of paper out' at the back of the classroom every week. After a while the kids started teasing him and he got flustered. Finally, one of them challenged me. 'Are you and Sir going to get married?'
'Yes.' I answered. 'When my divorce from the Head comes through. And when Mr Jones gets custody of his kids from Miss Simpson in Art.'
They shut up.

PS Many years later another colleague was accused of fancying me by a Lower Sixth group. 'No, no' he protested, flushing 'Ms Pepperpot has a boyfriend.'
'And I bet they just sit and make spreadsheets together' came a sarcastic voice from the back of the class...

Contextualised Value Added - coming soon to a Self-Assessment Report near you?

This article was out of the blue.

Colleges have complained that a new government method for measuring "value added" penalises them if their students do too well in their A-levels. In certain cases, the system, which is being developed by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), lowers a college's value added score as more grade As are notched up by A-level students. It also adjusts scores downwards for bigger colleges because their students on average go for more qualifications and notch up more A-level points.

Having just done my annual write-up of my department's statistical data, I was stunned to read about this. We use ALIS (A-level Information System) which gives us a residual (a number around 1) which if it's greater than 1 is a Good Thing, and if it's below 1 is a Bad Thing. There's also an S (if it's statistically significant) and a three year trend. And then we also use the sparkly new ALPS (A-level Performance System) which gives us a single number, a ranking from 1 to 9, which is colour-coded, red being 'hot' (good department! Well done!) and blue being 'cold' (Bad department! Naughty teachers!) I haven't yet come across CVA, unless it's the same as 'distance travelled' which takes the form of a pretty graph.

The basic idea of any VA system is to take a large amount of data and then compare the progress made by students between testing landmarks (SATs, GCSEs, A-levels) with the average for the country in general. This data can be used to help work out if a student is progressing, or to try and indicate if a teacher, department or school are producing grades that are lower or higher than the national average (either to help them discern how effective their teaching is, or to incentivise them, or to provide a label for the general public.) But like any statistic they have a dark side. VA is much, much better than raw results when trying to evaluate education; but because the way these statistics are created is based on specific statistical judgements, the different systems give contradictory results. If you are not careful you are 'working the numbers' just as much as you do when going for exam statistics.

I confess even I, with my reasonably high level of mathematical literacy and freakish obsession with data don't understand the true meaning of the numbers. And now here's another VA system and it conflicts with the ones we use. I see a crisis looming, not least when I have to add another set of statistics to my already bloated SAR...

A-level reform

Sorry I didn't blog about this when it was announced yesterday. Did anyone know it was coming? I'd heard about some aspects of the change but some were out of the blue for me. I've been supervising exams all day so you would have thought I would have used the time to mull over a profound reply; but in fact I spent it honing a useful new acronym which I will reveal in a moment.

So... what have we got?

1) The extended project. Knew about that one - seen the draft proposals too. As far as I can see, everyone at the moment more or less agrees that coursework is becoming meaningless because of a) the Internet and b) the drive to improve results, which means students' work is endlessly remarked and deadlines endlessly extended. So how does throwing a project into the mix improve the situation - surely it'll have the same weaknesses as coursework?

2) The specialised diplomas. Seen some of these too, specifically one to do with computer games, animation and multimedia. Here's the thing. There are many kids who want to be computer games designers or web designers because they like playing computer games and surfing the web. If they are going to be any use to the industry, they need to be mathematically literate and learn hardcore progamming, system design etc. In other words some A-levels, or an established rigourous vocational programming course like BTEC or similar. Does the computer industry really want a load of students who for one reason or another were not able to study hard maths or programming courses and were steered into these new diplomas instead? I can only comment on what I know.

3) The A*. Fine. No problem. Quite happy with that. For all I honestly care, divide the A-level grades into A-J or any other arbitrary number of grades. All I know is that
a) I will carry on teaching as hard as I can and
b) there will be benchmarks and league tables and some grades will be more important to the reputation of an institution than others (currently it's A-B, it used to be A-C, no doubt it will be A*- A before too long) The real issue about standards is tied up with resits and modularisation.

4) The International Baccalaureate. Well, the qualification would seem to be a good thing in itself but we know that we'll end up with a two or three tier system. We couldn't even tolerate having both polytechnics and universities, we had to rename so they were all the same... we're not going to be able to resist the temptation to label the IB as 'better' than A-levels. And unless you live in a megalopolis, the illusion of 'choice' is usually deceptive.

All this is very nice. However, we need to remember that all these reforms will play out in the light of the defining feature of our wonderful UK education system. Which is of course... league tables.

1) The extended project will be delivered in such a way that the results are as high as possible with minimum risk of failure. Colleges and schools will make sure that students choose projects that will safely guarantee good marks. So no risk, no flair. And if they aren't good enough, maybe they will need to be draft marked... and if you don't hand them in on time... we're not going to let you fail your A-levels for that, now, are we...

2) Diplomas. One question. Will they get better grades (using whatever agreed point equivalency they dream up) than A-levels? We're doing them.

3) A-levels just gained an extra grade that only the best of the best should earn? Right now, let's see your action plan for increasing the number of students gaining an A* in your subject.

4) The IB. Yes, it will be offered. And the pass rate will go up and up and up until people are complaining that the standards are dropping. Becuase the teachers will work and work until they find ways of delivering it with maximum exam success; and students who aren't likely to pass it will be steered elsewhere.

Will it solve the problems? Ultimately no.

B.O.L.T.S.

Because of league tables, stupid

Dog nut spread shit...

...was the title of Jermaine's rather natty spreadsheet today (part of my soon to be published IT scheme of work 'How to teach everything using the Simpsons')