What is education for?

Similar where I worked ..though I took voluntary redundancy from the Link inspector team as they needed to reduce by one. All secondary advisory teacher colleagues went too and the primary team were depleted and only 3 remain! 43 schools!

That's great. We had pretty much 100% buy in from schools for link inspectors, but many of the advisory teachers were funded by the strategies and of course that has all gone.

It is a struggle for them and this is partly what the partnership is about..the schools have all committed to buy into the services for so many years which is securing salaries. But all the schools we spoke to /consulted said they would like to see the support team expand its capacity.

That is great news. Can the LA sustain the staffing levels though? My former LEA has lost loads of people because of cuts.

my consultancy recently carried out a quality review of an organisation made up of all the schools in a LA and the LA together. They are hoping that by demonstrating this positive partnership (schools & LA) that they can ride the Govian storm and come out the other side as a strong LA with good or better schools. Even the 2 academies joined the partnership because they valued the advice and support the LA provide.

Good article here
www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/mar/11/education-policy-thinking-from-professionals

One example of the problem is a teacher whose pupils have not reached a literacy target, which consists of a number of percentage points of improvement over a term.

His pupils are by no means illiterate, but they have not achieved an artificial target by a few points.

Who is measuring what they HAVE achieved? His class is full of music; of lessons about rhythm (so good for understanding maths); of inspired literature; of stories being read to the children (so good for getting children interested in reading - but the effect not measurable in a term); of fascinating knowledge about other cultures and history and art; of hands on care for the environment.....and so on. There are no measures for this, so it goes unrecorded and he just gets slated for "failing" by the narrow definition of the literacy testing.

I also have a concern about trust. How desperate for teachers to feel they are not trusted and have to be put under the microscope all the time - I find that very uncomfortable. There are rotten teachers and their lack of skill is usually obvious to parents and fellow teachers. There need to be robust procedures for dealing with this when it comes to light; but to start from a premise that teachers are not doing a good job and need to be checked up on at every turn is psychologically destructive.

Oh yes, Mishap! I retired a few years ago from an "outstanding" comprehensive school, which was outstanding because it was and was recognised as such. But we still spent a lot of precious time to be able to show the inspectors what we already knew about our school. And that, in itself, is no bad thing, since we had to examine the intricacies of what we did, and be honest. However, the public perception of the OfSTED pronouncements governs the success of a school in attracting students, or not, so the "winners" win, and the others are seen as failing, which puts them in an invidious position.

Two of my three DC teach; one is a Deputy Head, the other a senior English teacher; one DiL is a SENCO - all in big (and not all "successful) comprehensive schools. I hear them talk about box ticking, priority setting, etc.etc. and am, despite all this, happy to see that they (mainly) have the same joy in teaching that I had. But it is SO hard.

One of my daughter's friends was a primary school teacher. She worked at one school which was full of happy & enthusiastic pupils & teachers, but never did well with OFSTED. Then she moved to a school where she was very unhappy but it got very good reports from OFSTED because they told the "difficult" children to stay at home when an inspection was due.

My grandson is only in year 1 and already complaining that the work is too easy. Luckily we are able to do a lot with him at home.

On Eggheads last week Chris was saying that he got thrown out of Grammar School because they weren't teaching him what he wanted to know. Teaching for the test even than. I think a properly educated person has a wide general knowledge and a constant desire to learn and understand more. (That lets out most of our current politicians then!)

I have a friend who is an experienced primary teacher - she gets excellent results and the children are disciplined and happy and enjoy their schooling. Her view is that she gets the box-ticking out of the way, then gets on with her real job.

She often has to justify her methods (which might be seen as a bit "left field") so she twists things around to seem to fit the requirements.

Somehow the monitoring and bureacratic requirements need to be made positive and productive rather than being a millstone round everyone's necks. Clearly there needs to be some degree of monitoring, but it needs to be incorporated into the normal process of teaching rather than being stand-alone.

I think the staff at our local school are doing an excellent job, in spite of rather than because of the dictats that descend upon them with alarming regularity and frequently feel more like window-dressing than anything of real substance.

I am, as you probably have gleaned, a bit of an anarchist when it comes to education! Children need to have the basic academic skills for life (reading, writing, arithmetic) and the opportunity to learn what is relevant to their lives (be it vocational or academic). But equally importantly they need to learn to discriminate between what is important and what is not, to learn to use their time wisely, to be able to amuse themselves, to give full reign to their imaginations, to be uplifted and cheered, to learn about sorrow and how it is dealt with through a love of stories, to hear and learn about wonderful music, to develop their creative abilities, to learn how to share and care.....etc! These are equally important. What they do not need is teachers who have had the stuffing knocked out of them and are dragging themselves through each day under the dead weight of bureacracy and inappropriate micromanagement from afar.

I don't think anyone was in a fit state to enquire!

Did they have a policy and measurable assessment criteria for progress towards the afterlife?

I'm just catching up with this thread. I remember being at a conference many years ago when this topic was under debate. A teacher from a faith school stood up and announced that the purpose of education 'was to prepare the boys for the afterlife that is to come.' It's not often that you see teachers stunned into silence, but that was one of those times.

There is indeed far more to education than school. My son, who hardly ever went to school is the living proof. He is almost entirely self-educated as an adult and one of the most interesting people I know. My friend who is a retired teacher suggests that 'not going to school was the making of him'. Not sure what that says about her view of the education system

The thing is that the policies should be there as a bottom line. They should focus on "this is how we do things here" and provide clear guidance for staff. As an LEA we used to support schools in developing policies that were clear and sensible and ensured that legal requirements were met. Policies are definitely not bits of paper just to show to Ofsted. They will pick up very quickly on a paper policy that staff don't understand or use. I am a great believer in robust assessment data though. If schools have a clear process for monitoring progress then they will be to support the children far more effectively. This should never be a box-ticking exercise, it should be rigorous, simple to use and provide data on progress for all pupils and groups of pupils. If you know what children know, understand and can do then you can help them move on.
If you read nanaej's posts she describes how her school had systems and processes in place that allowed them to be creative, because the fundamentals were in place (hope I am not misquoting her).
Good schools get all this in place and focus on teaching and learning. It is very hard work though and the pace of change is often too fast.

It is interesting to get a perspective from someone who has been involved in the inspections Mamie.

I think what the schools do is to involve themselves in box-ticking. I am very concerned about the amount of time our deputy head spends writing policies, completing monitoring exercises, doing courses etc. when she could be engaging with the children. She is the head of learning on the ground; and whilst I think the school should have policies in place, there are too many of them which basically state the b******g obvious and are a waste of peoples' valuable time. So often the courses she is doing are to tick a box, not because she obtains new knowledge. She is learning little, but OfSted has its proof that she knows the stuff. And the monitoring is valuable up to a point, but there is so much of it - a good teacher knows where his/her pupils shine and where they need help - they should not have to prove this with stats all the time. And the self- evaluaitons are then themselves monitored and mentored and evaluated - and round in circles it all goes.

The danger is that the joy and inspiration goes out of teaching for everyone.

I suppose I am also looking at the boxes that governors need to tick to prove they are doing their job aright. We are a tiny shcool in a tiny community and scratch around as it is to get governors at all sufficient to maintain a quorum. If you ask too much of them in terms of time and additional courses, then no-one will come forward. We are fishing in a tiny pool and need to provide encouragement to join up not disincentives.

Nobody should be teaching for Ofsted. Ofsted inspectors look at a huge range of evidence and would recognise if something had been done just for them. Good schools take Ofsted in their stride and will have a secure body of evidence to demonstrate achievement.
There is now far less advance notice of a visit. A school that is secure in its own evaluations and can demonstrate sustained progress should have nothing to worry about.
When I was doing Ofsted inspections I used to marvel at the difference between what we actually did and people's perceptions of what we did. I don't suppose that has changed much.

My DGD aged 11 asked me yesterday what use algebra was and how much she hated it. I can vividly remember struggling with quadratic equations and can honestly say that I have never ever used them in the 55 years since!

All my sympathies were with her therefore but I did stress how useful arithmetic has always been.

Sadly Jadey it really isn't that easy. Firstly I would be a lone voice; and secondly the imperative to get a good OfSted report is critical for small primaries now in order to keep numbers up - parents look at the OfSted report when deciding on a school for their children. We simply cannot risk a bad OfSted or the school might die; in spite of the fact that teaching to the OfSted and SATs is the death of real educaiton.

There is much more to education than school. It's a lifelong process whether formal or informal and that's what's so sad about the withdrawal of funding for so many ad ed courses and a 'tick box' approach to what's left.

That's very sad about your wife, Frank, but great that you get on so well with your in-laws.

Yes, I also got a lot from my (co-ed) grammar school. The teaching was great, and we were encouraged to think and question. I got my 8 'O' levels, but alas my parents were not willing to let me stay on for A levels. Never mind, I got my BA (Hons) later in life.

I believe education is there to develop a child, to stimulate them, teach them about the world around them, and most importantly to teach them to think.

There is a school of thought that the purpose of their education should be to train them to be useful in a job. However, as the nature of work changes all the time, teaching them to think is much more important.

They are not monkeys to be trained to perform!

I think I got more than my fair share from school.
I came away with 8 good O levels and 4 good A levels and got a degree in Business studies at university.
I also met my future wife and got a wonderful mother and father in law.
My mother in law was the headmistress of the school I went to which was a grammar school but my parents second choice and my father in law was the headmaster of my parents first choice school but it was an all boys school so I may have never met my wife.
Sadly my wife passed away prior to her mother but at that point she did not have any relatives but I did look after her as best as I could along with my father with the help of my daughters.
Obviously my mother in law was not happy when my wife passed away but she said she felt very wanted by myself and the wider family in general and lead as good as life as possible.
She said towards the end that I was meant to be at her school.

Frank

I agree with your earlier posts when , sadly I think that this is the situation in my grandchildren school today.They are very bright and intelligent despite the school not because of it. They attend a brand new school but the standard of teaching is very poor and I believe OFTED are heavily involved at the moment . I find it extremely frustrating that my 5 year old GD started school just over 6 months ago. She was a confident reader before she started school ( as was her older sister who is 7) and yet she seems to be ignored in favour of the children with more "special needs" .

How right that headmistress was janeainsworth I totally agree with what she said. You can bore someone to death with facts and figures, but find that certain something that lights a spark of interest and who knows where it could lead?

MISHAP being a school governer, can you not put forward your ideas, which in my opinion are spot on. To make a difference to at least one school.