It feels a long journey to HQ in Haywards Heath from anywhere beyond London. This is probably because travelling across London by Underground quickly loses its uniqueness with familiarity. My second full week as President started with chairing the monthly Strategy Group at HQ. This Group is made up of the National elected and senior employed Officers of the Association. It looks at key issues – both internal and external – facing the NAHT and takes its lead from National Council and Conference policies and decisions. Strategy Group ensures effective monitoring of progress of Association priorities and business between Council meetings, and that Council is fully informed of this in order to make informed decisions when charting our direction.
We have a dedicated HQ workforce who are skilled and knowledgeable about supporting school leaders.
On Monday night I arrive at The Valley for the League 1 Play-off second leg, Charlton Athletic v Swindon Town. Swindon are leading 2-1 from the first leg. Having watched the Town for a documented 57 years it’s ‘in the blood’ and I meet up with several friends as over 3000 Swindon fans arrive at the match. After an action packed 90 minutes and extra time, with each side down to ten men, the teams are tied at 3-3 on aggregate. We are now in a penalty shoot-out with the winners going to Wembley. Town are notorious for their poor penalty shoot-outs, but what’s this, the Charlton captain misses and the Swindon players keep hitting the back of the net. It’s the last penalty and Steven Darby, a fullback on loan from Liverpool, has the chance to send us through.
In front of nearly 30,000 he steps up and scores! Pandemonium breaks out and the Swindon fans trumpet the ecstasy, and the Charlton supporters in virtual silence, the agony. We are at Wembley on 29th May. The Town players and fans share fifteen minutes of undiluted pleasure. As we leave I do a three-sentence interview for GMTV, which it seems every child in my school sees.
On Tuesday it’s the Operation of Council Task group. Excellent debate and engagement leads to a positive direction of travel in trying to ensure our National Council is the most effective it can be when representing 28,500 Members. The ideas that have surfaced will be reported back to Council in June.
Later in the week I meet with Carole Whitty, our former Deputy General Secretary, to discuss some members having access to the SSAT’s Leading Practitioners in Enterprise for identified staff in their schools. Carole’s husband, Tony, has just been inaugurated as Mayor of Totnes in Devon. I’m sure he is going to have a great year.
I attend Secondary Committee on Friday, and we interrogate funding, accountability and curricular issues such as Diplomas facing Secondary colleagues. This is a very good meeting and we set ourselves clear tasks.
There has been vibrancy about the week.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
First full week as President of the NAHT
Monday 10th May is the start of the NAHT and NUT SATs Boycott. I’m approached by a wide variety of media, and undertake three radio interviews and several newspaper interviews from across the Country.
On Tuesday 11th, I travel to the Royal Commonwealth Club in London for a meeting in the morning with ASCL (Association of School and College Leaders). This looks at developing some joint positions on issues such as accountability, and funding. We are joined by the National Governors’ Association for the afternoon session. Discussion includes the future role of School Governors; and information about the rather sad berating of Chairs of Governors whose Schools were taking part in the SATs Boycott. My own Chair of Governors characterized this as being ‘bullied’.
Train to Manchester on Wednesday, to take part in interviewing candidates for the new post of NAHT Director of Operations on Thursday 13th. This post is designed to be responsible for the day-to-day operational concerns of an organization serving 28,500 Members and a further 11,000 life Members, and will be line-managed by the General Secretary. It will enable the General Secretary to concentrate on key issues relevant to the Association. A very good field. After a fairly exhausting day we (Stephen Watkins, Jack Hatch, Margaret Evitts, Russell Hobby and myself) arrive at a decision and await a response from the selected candidate - which is a Yes. Arrived home Thursday at 10.15pm.
Catching up on Friday with preparation for next Monday’s Strategy Group meeting at HQ in Haywards Heath, West Sussex. The Strategy Group meets monthly and is made up of the National Officers: President, Vice President (Chris Harrison), Immediate Past President (Chris Howard), Treasurer (Jack Hatch), General Secretary (Mick Brookes), General Secretary Designate (it is Russell Hobby’s first official day of working for the NAHT), and invited senior staff. Media interviews continue throughout the week. Several further invitations arrive for meetings and speaking engagements. I’m also working on writing two articles, and following up letters from two Branch Presidents.
My first full week as President is set against the SATs boycott, and the construction of the first coalition UK Government since 1945. What will the next week bring?
On Tuesday 11th, I travel to the Royal Commonwealth Club in London for a meeting in the morning with ASCL (Association of School and College Leaders). This looks at developing some joint positions on issues such as accountability, and funding. We are joined by the National Governors’ Association for the afternoon session. Discussion includes the future role of School Governors; and information about the rather sad berating of Chairs of Governors whose Schools were taking part in the SATs Boycott. My own Chair of Governors characterized this as being ‘bullied’.
Train to Manchester on Wednesday, to take part in interviewing candidates for the new post of NAHT Director of Operations on Thursday 13th. This post is designed to be responsible for the day-to-day operational concerns of an organization serving 28,500 Members and a further 11,000 life Members, and will be line-managed by the General Secretary. It will enable the General Secretary to concentrate on key issues relevant to the Association. A very good field. After a fairly exhausting day we (Stephen Watkins, Jack Hatch, Margaret Evitts, Russell Hobby and myself) arrive at a decision and await a response from the selected candidate - which is a Yes. Arrived home Thursday at 10.15pm.
Catching up on Friday with preparation for next Monday’s Strategy Group meeting at HQ in Haywards Heath, West Sussex. The Strategy Group meets monthly and is made up of the National Officers: President, Vice President (Chris Harrison), Immediate Past President (Chris Howard), Treasurer (Jack Hatch), General Secretary (Mick Brookes), General Secretary Designate (it is Russell Hobby’s first official day of working for the NAHT), and invited senior staff. Media interviews continue throughout the week. Several further invitations arrive for meetings and speaking engagements. I’m also working on writing two articles, and following up letters from two Branch Presidents.
My first full week as President is set against the SATs boycott, and the construction of the first coalition UK Government since 1945. What will the next week bring?
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Presidential Speech to 2010 NAHT Annual Conference
Presidential Speech to 113th NAHT Annual Conference.
My Conference theme of freedom to flourish is based upon the urgent need to ensure the power-holders in our society recognise that the creeping centralization of education in our Country has had its day and we should move forward to release the talents and creativity of our children so they can succeed with the lifelong challenges that will face them.
We also should challenge the growing fragmentation of our school system and it becoming a marketplace.
Freedom itself was well understood in previous generations, but more recently it has been seen in absolute terms.
Freedom to allow the weakest and most impoverished to go to the wall is unacceptable. I see freedom from child poverty as a key aim of society. Freedom must have a moral imperative to it.
In educational terms it is essential that every child, and every school, have the opportunity to succeed.
The question is: will this come from draconian measures that denigrate many in league tables, will this come from calling schools failed rather than in need of targeted support, will this come from hounding out Headteachers who have given their whole careers to encouraging children and raising standards of performance and then expect this to be an attractive post for Deputy and Assistant Heads to aspire to. What Michael Fullan calls ‘high stakes vulnerability’.
When I sat for the fifth time in my career waiting for the last 30 minutes of an OFSTED Inspection in February this year, and the final judgements I was with my Deputy. She knew the Inspection had gone well and I asked her if she now wanted to go for Headship. Her answer was a clear and resounding ‘No’. ‘I never want my career on the line for what we might hear in 30 minutes time’.
There was no answer to that, as I have known excellent Headteachers who have suffered such a fate. Assessment has to be proportionate, fair and supportive. Accountability should not be destructive by being permeated by a lack of trust.
Data is very important but it has been elevated to an industry in its own right. We must regain its context of assisting in identifying children’s progress and then support intervention and good professional development when necessary.
Reductionism plays to the sound bite and trite headlines. Our schools deserve better.
There is a rather sad view from Government and some of the Oxbridge-educated elite, that parents are unable to comprehend a few sentences to indicate the progress of a school. The idea of a School Report Card poses a challenge to us. If a school is to be reduced to a single letter then this should be opposed root and branch. It would, of course, feed into a whole new league table system with the A’s to the F’s.
However, a School Report Card with a wider range of weighted indicators, and identifying trends over time is something worth negotiating. Schools are complex places and even to capture a range of indicators and weigh them requires careful and professional engagement between educationalists and those who have a meaningful grasp of statistics. Although the construct will be difficult the outcomes could be a well-rounded and accessible Report.
We hear a lot about Austerity
If we think front-line services are well-funded then why at a recent meeting of local Heads one explained how she was a dab hand with the boilers and her deputy was A* at unblocking the drains when the caretaker wasn’t on duty. Another Head spoke of the financial work she had to engage with, as there was no money in the budget even for a shared bursar.
We must expect that all Heads receive effective support for their role as of right. The Workload of school leaders is immense and these posts require effective support in all phases.
• This should include good direct and personal administrative support for Headteachers as of right.
• Our default position should include the time to read, think strategically and visit other schools as part of the job. This is essential in sharing good practice.
• How much resource has been wasted in the last thirteen years on quangos and consultancies. One major private consultancy went from having 43 major contracts with the Department in 2003 to 141 major contracts in 2007. Did any one of these raise standards in any school, did anyone of these teach a child to read, and to read for pleasure?
• We must retain the investment for schools.
What about key support from the wider educational field? Whilst the GTC has yet to capture the hearts and minds of the profession it should consider focusing more on its core business which is not professional development, and completing its work more expeditiously. The National College – and it is important to have a National College - now talks of Schools as quote ‘Outlets’. Why doesn’t the National College insist with local Governance that it broker bespoke support for every School leader where aspects of performance cause agreed concern. It is far too in the thrall of exalting the latest fad of structures and models of leadership than working with all existing leaders. School leaders don’t need Chain schools or outlets, they need effective advocacy and appropriate support.
Rather than tackle the issue of recruitment we are now hearing that Federations are the panacea. Two years ago I had the opportunity of running two schools until a new Head could be appointed. I would suggest that with additional non-contact time for Deputies, the savings being suggested are illusory; apart from the immense pressure it can place on Heads. If a Federation is part of a bottom-up approach and retains a school presence where otherwise it would disappear then a case can be made. As a major instrument of Government policy it is a fig leaf.
Autonomy is multi-layered. In essence it should be about not a market culture, but a collaborative one where schools support and inspire one another. It is the ability to place decision-making at a level where it counts and makes a difference. This has had more effect than many misplaced initiatives, because it liberates professional thinking and action. We should guard this autonomy carefully. In many parts of the world, from Canada to Kenya, Headteachers are regularly rotated and moved without choice by provincial or district education authorities.
This often happens when a Head has worked in a school for four or five years. Research suggests Headteachers are particularly effective between years 4 and 7 in any school.
I’ve been a head for 24 years so I must have been effective at least a couple of times.
As the advert states ‘everyone remembers their favourite teacher’ and I would add everyone remembers their Headteacher
What do we deduce from this? For the last 13 years successive Governments have attempted to run schools, the curriculum and even classrooms from the Department in Sanctuary Buildings in SW1. I don’t believe they understand Local Management of Schools. As Bernard Levin said, ‘the less the power, the greater the desire to use it’. They have invested heavily in expensive quangos to do their bidding and second-guess schools. This amateurish command and control approach has had its day so what do they do - try to blame Headteachers and Schools. Well it won’t wash.
There are some congratulations to the Government
On investment, and, for example, with Children’s Centres. This is an excellent example of a Government working at its best. It realised the lack of joined up services for 0-4’s, and it has rolled out a programme embracing both statutory and voluntary sectors with a core offer and message. Where Children’s Centres are run by Schools or work in close harmony they have been particularly successful in early intervention and removing the inhibitors to learning.
Now though you place a blight on this success by making them subject to heavy handed OFSTED Inspections and we have another accountability industry set up, providing a major distraction for staff and parents.
The challenges with Society ahead include:
• The quick fix. Building and maintaining a good school takes time. Seeing a quick data fix by pushing children through hoops does not embed learning. We must move away from the football metaphor of saying that unless the manager achieves promotion this season then they should face the sack. On that basis we would see the departure of many more Secretaries of State. There is the need for effective and continuing professional development that resonates with the school culture.
We have simplistic messages going out from the Media and this reflects a failure of governance by the Government. In the Times in March an editorial suggested that OFSTED had indicated some 40% of children at the age of 11 ‘could not read or count at the level expected’ and then carried the message that the Government would have a ‘guarantee that parents could sack failing Heads’.
The Culture of celebrity
The celebrity based and all-embracing sound bite media in modern life elevates the shallow. It does not encourage taking on the difficult or hard tasks, which might not be immediately rewarding. It does not encourage perseverance in the face of adversity. It does not encourage positive risk taking. It does encourage the soft option of gambling. It does encourage children to be grown up before their time and in the loss of childhood and innocence that this means. Consumerism needs to be balanced with the real. Spending time at a football match with your child rather than always seeing it on television. Going swimming together, or having a picnic, has to be encouraged rather than just the latest fad on the games machine.
We also have the evil of drugs – we require fresh thinking – what has been attempted to date by successive Governments has failed and the spectre of drug dealers near the school gates must end. The market in drugs must be destroyed. Too many young people are ending up in the criminal justice system to feed their drug habits. A Magistrate friend estimates that 60% of cases before him are in some way drug-related. The burgeoning prison and young offender institutions are a testament to this failure. As with racism we need to be part of the answer. Schools play a vital role in community cohesion, but we must expect others to be partners with us in society.
Professor Andy Hargreaves speaks of parental responsibility. I would expect any future Government to echo this. We must expect parents to be full partners with schools and to support our work. The creation of a Local Commissioner to hear parental complaints again moves in the direction of lacking trust in schools and Governing Bodies.
The NAHT defends its membership – most LA Officers and OFSTED Teams are fair and professional - and fortunately the vast majority of Parents and Governors are challenging but supportive – but the message must go out loud and clear that the Association can no longer tolerate its members having their careers at the mercy of rogue elements and will take these people on - if necessary in the Courts to end the culture of the ‘disappeared’.
Is there hope in the Election Manifestos?
A hero of mine is Dickens
The other night I had a dream, and in it there came the clunking of chains: followed by three spirits
• The first was a vision from sanctuary buildings via Keble College, Oxford
It was the Secretary of State.
As we know the number of colleagues applying for Headship is very low so what are we going to do to make it more attractive? He and his closest advisers put their collective wisdom together and came up with:
Yes let’s introduce parent votes to remove school leadership teams that’ll do the trick.
• There followed a vision with a full mock up of sanctuary buildings via Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
It was the Shadow Secretary of State.
There has been huge structural change in schools and public sector funding will be very tight. What does the education system need? He and his closest advisers put their collective wisdom together and came up with:
Swedish-style free Schools, which will allow all and sundry to set up and run schools and take critical funding away from the rest.
• The third vision was someone with a rail ticket to sanctuary buildings via Kings College Cambridge
It was the hung-parliament Secretary of State.
The blame culture has a demoralizing effect upon hard working teachers and school leaders. So what shall we start our manifesto with? He and his closest advisers put their collective wisdom together and came up with this introduction:
Too many children are still leaving school without the knowledge and skills to be successful. Finding a good school is a struggle, lessons don’t always stretch the brightest or support those who need more help…..
How far are our politicians away from reality?
We are offered more ineffective accountability, more structural change, and more blame.
My concern is that current and prospective Governments have a grad grind view of education, which is materialist in outlook and is designed for a bygone age. The Conservatives look back with rosy-coloured spectacles to a time when Ladybird books ruled and there was a policeman on every street corner. Well, Michael this did not exist for all and many children were condemned not to reach their academic potential by selection at 11. I work in a community where the average child has heard 17 million words and had limited experiences by the age of five, yet I live in a community where the average child has heard 50 million words and has had a wide range of first hand experiences by the age of five.
I would not suggest that materialism is unimportant to those without modern essentials. It is that we are not as a society providing the riches of mind or as T S Eliot put it: It is in fact a part of the function of education to help us escape, from the intellectual and emotional limitations of our time.
• The 1956 Doris Day song
• Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
• What will be will be
• The song did win an Oscar for best original song in a film, but its sentiment must be challenged.
Another hero who did challenge is Paulo Friere. Friere saw the struggle for popular education and informal education of adults as liberationist. He saw those without power in society transforming their lives. Freedom indeed.
Carmen was a 33 year-old mum with two girls living in an inner area community. She wanted to help in school. From this she became a Teaching Assistant and gained NVQ 2 and then 3, followed by a Foundation Degree, and a B.Ed (Honours) with six marks away from first class. Carmen took part in the Graduate Teacher Programme and received QTS. Her practice was excellent and she progressed to Early Year Foundation Stage Leader and is now an Assistant Headteacher.
That wouldn’t happen this year as with the economic downturn some are looking for shelter in teaching until the storm abates. We must remain a vocational professional with the highest calling.
It also challenges the education establishment who are involved in developing policies and initiatives. They must come from a wider spectrum of society. How many understand the searing experiences of growing up in some of our inner area communities. Last year, Oxford accepted 12 children from free school meal backgrounds.
To doff our caps in deference to power holders without accountability on their part can lead us to the Banking disaster, that is causing untold damage to private and public sectors in our Country.
The challenges of the next forty years are complex. The personal, national and global challenges of climate and environmental change and its effect upon the natural world including mankind are manifest. It is our children’s and grandchildren’s world we are custodians of. How are we preparing them for their decision-making?
• Or as Tamsin Elliott when aged 8 put it ‘The world is in such an awful state
When I’m older I’ll make it great
No more wars or pollution
How I wish I could find a solution.
No more oil in the sea.
But this won’t happen just because of me.
So I’ll find some people to help me,
And together, we’ll save the
WORLD!”
There are positive programmes such as UNICEF’s Right Respecting Schools Award, the Transition Towns movement, and the International Schools Award amongst others that assist children.
What does international experience tell us?
A common theme doing the rounds is that in forty years time Africa with the lowest wage rates will be the workshop of the world, South East Asia and India will be the businesses and entrepreneurs of the world, and Europe will be the pensioners of the world. Now Mrs Oakley in 1958 in Gorse Hill Juniors ensured that I knew this didn’t cover the whole globe, but the theme is still relevant.
Singapore has some Primary Schools where whole classroom walls are covered in a Computer screen and children can place themselves as characters in the Second World War in Singapore harbour, and gain information and make decisions as they participate. They can also do this from home with their parents engaged as well. What I would give for that in Swindon, with its heritage of the Great Western Railway, and other areas of the Country for children to engage with the past, but with learning for the present and future.
Benjamin Disraeli stated that ‘Upon the education of the people of this country, the fate of this country depends’.
We look forward to an interdependent world, but must also think through what the UK vision for excellence in that world should be.
That vision, excitement and engagement cannot be created or communicated through the structural changes, league tables, and the dead hand of command and control from Sanctuary Buildings. Nor can it be developed through a fragmentation of schooling where structural change will no doubt favour the metropolitan chattering classes to the detriment of every other child who will have larger classes and fewer resources.
It is interesting to be compared with Finland. Finnish teachers have class sizes of no more than 24. They have a fully comprehensive state system. Have Ministers checked their assessment regime with no external tests until 15. What they do is liberate their school leadership and provide additional development funding to all schools.
There is often referral to PISA and similar international comparisons of academic attainment between Countries. The two features that stand out are firstly, UK children coming near the bottom of the well-being comparison. Although there is much hand wringing it has led little practical response; and secondly, there is much more disparity within Countries than between them. Parental occupational status and socio-economic background has a much greater effect on student performance, than whether you operate an education system with different structures.
These then are some of the challenges and inhibitors to progress.
So what are approaches and culture we need for success?
Trust is vital. As Andy Hargreaves states, Active trust. We have to be persuasive in developing this. Local stakeholder governance is essential. We start from a positive base. Surveys indicate that parents have high trust in their Headteachers. We believe in hope, and have relentless optimism for our children.
Mutuality This is an old co-operative word, but it suggests that there are shared interests, which should encourage partnership and being connected in a landscape where schools collaborate on working together rather than remain isolated in unfettered competition.
Most Parents send their children to their local school. Some voices are now contemplating a lottery for secondary places as the only way forward. As Ted Wragg said, ‘The idea that the market place takes care of quality by itself is one of the most bogus arguments that (has) emerged’.
Schools not structures. Deal and Paterson suggest that:
Of late far too much emphasis has been placed upon reforming schools from outside…while policymakers…are pressing for new structures…..too little attention has been paid on how schools can be shaped from within….excellent schools can be at the heart of every community, schools which teachers and the vast majority of parents can ensure are positive, caring and intellectually challenging’.
We must then trust schools and school-leaders to raise standards.
Successful school cultures have leadership emanating from many people – authentic leadership that maintains and supports learning for all children as well as learning for all staff. Successful cultures have leaders who know how important schools are to children and want to make them the best places they can be.
Early intervention is vital. This cannot be compromised, and should be enhanced.
Schools are organic as with all organizations. Over a few years we can be on top form some of the time and pretty good most of the time and occasionally have a hiccup. Just at the time the school might want some support which if carefully and jointly targeted and accepting of responsibility, is effective, instead, along comes OFSTED and instead we get a punitive, clunking fist which demoralises rather than enthuses.
Christine Gilbert talks of raising expectations and then only uses the big stick to do this.
We should remove the blame culture and celebrate success
School leaders and teachers do not walk into schools each morning and say ‘how am I going to lower standards today?’ We must challenge Government to stop directing schools from the latest tabloid headline or sound bite discussion on breakfast tv.
Ministers should understand that Waterloo Road is a fictional series not a documentary.
We share the vision of every school, a good school and stretching the minds of the next generation of children.
There is a challenge for the media here. Be courageous and celebrate our children’s effort and success. You are part of their well-being as well.
Ensure schools are subject to fair and effective accountability.
Tim Brighouse and Ted Wragg identified the need for an inspection system that provided support and less destructive pressure.
What do we need to achieve this?
Well it is here. It’s The NAHT Charter
Fair accountability, and real accountability as in our Charter. It accepts that we are accountable to society and parents in particular, and ensures that accountability can support progress not hinder it. This is not a soft option. It is rigorous and ensures that schools can become in Sergiovanni’s phrase, ‘Communities of responsibility’.
We need to build a consensus around the Charter as the way forward. It is a developing document.
We must however, work with our democratically elected representatives to develop and construct a better understanding.
They must in turn listen to and engage with School leadership prior to pouring out more legislation and regulation.
Irrelevant and bureaucratic initiatives such as ‘licence to practise’ should go.
Now I wish to turn to the future of the NAHT.
I am proud to be the President of an Association, which stands up for its Members and for the children of this Country.
We are in a period of change, and I would like to give sincere thanks to the work and leadership of Mick Brookes as our General Secretary. I will return to that theme tomorrow, but for now, I would also like to praise the dedication of Branch, Regional and National Council post-holders who give dedicated service week in week out for the benefit of Members across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We have an able and high quality team of paid staff at Headquarters, and I would like to mark the tragic passing of Ian Foster a former Council Member and latterly an Education Officer at HQ, whose wit and friendship is much missed.
In the field our Regional Officers ensure the best information and representation is available without any comparators in the land.
So where now:
Whilst we expect Government to create a fair and equitable playing field and conditions for success, we should also look to ourselves.
From another hero, JFK, I turn to say - ask not just what your Association can do for you, but ask yourself what can you do for your Association?
To build upon the excellent foundations of service and support should come professional sharing and development. In the Ontario Principals’ Council in Canada, 95% of continuing professional development is led by school leaders themselves.
We should consider that amongst our 28,500 members there is a tremendous amount of expertise to share. How often do we have the opportunity to go into each other’s Schools to see excellent practice? I have seen a state of the art programme on learning to read in a Hampshire Primary, a brilliant web-based school development planning and progress toolkit in Cornwall, innovative early years outdoor play in Corby, thought provoking international engagement in Treherbert, music to raise the soul in a school in Belfast, sporting prowess in an East London High School, a Special School providing fabulous opportunities for children with severe learning difficulties in Swindon, creative dance in a Gateshead Primary, and if I want to know how Diplomas are funded then I have to weave my way to Plymouth to speak with a Deputy Principal who certainly does know!
These are a small sample of the many thousands who could share and gain from such practice. Let us make the NAHT the vibrant natural home of sharing this. We are considering whether the Education Conference in the Autumn of each year should be its pinnacle and entitled ’Sharing the very best practice’, and we need you to nominate school leaders in your area – sometimes yourselves – who could assist in developing this.
A second and allied theme is communication and expertise. Our website continues to develop and we now have the means to set up Communities of Interest, for example: the Early Years Foundation Stage, or Design and Technology, or in ICT perhaps Social networking: friend or foe? These Communities or Forums are a great opportunity to engage online with colleagues, again to share best practice. We need Forum Leaders to develop areas of interest. This will compliment our excellent printed professional publications.
The third area I want to mention is debate, discussion and representation.
We should be confident about debating education policy and providing the school leadership view to influence future thinking and making strong representations on proposed legislation.
…..and that leads me to move to how having made the professional case, and winning the educational high ground with widespread support from Parents, Governors, and Researchers, and even the House of Commons Select Committee, it would be foolish of any Secretary of State to ignore our position on assessment. Last year, we offered to work with the Government to end the iniquity of SATs.
SATs which in particular humiliate school leaders through league tables, and leads directly to the disappeared: those Heads whose lose their job directly due to the use of SATs data as the basis for Inspection. I now have excellent former colleagues, in one case running a bed and breakfast guesthouse in the West Midlands, and many others sitting on imposed early retirements through the blandly termed, but professionally deadly ‘compromise agreement’.
We are also stuck on the moral dilemma of having booster classes for those on the margins of Level 4 or additional support for a ‘C’ at GCSE. Why aren’t all children in a booster class?
As parents know the stress for 10 and 11 year olds is palpable.
Why, if is it acceptable for 5 and 7 year olds to have their teacher assessment moderated, and SATs disappear for 14 year olds overnight and no-one notice,
is it acceptable for 11 year olds to have their final year in Primary distorted and disfigured.
As John Coe, from the National Association for Primary Education, reported to the NAHT Commission of Inquiry, the SATs testing and league table regime is unfit for purpose and deeply damaging to the quality of primary education. It is unfit for assessing children’s progress, for assessing schools, and for assessing national standards.
Despite exploring - and exhausting - every avenue to try and negotiate a way forward, we have met a brick wall. Secretary of State, we advised you last year not to test our resolve on this issue, well the NAHT membership has spoken, as it has the right to do so in a democratic and pluralist society, and has voted for the first time in decades, to end this iniquity for you.
Michael Rosen shares a poem with the sense of optimism in life starting with understanding the terrible experiences of children in the Lodz ghetto in the second world war.
Today
The rain has died
My shoes have died
The sun has died
My coat has died
The earth has died
Today
One day
The rain will flower
My shoes will laugh
The sun will sing
My coat will fly
The earth will dance
One day
We look forward to discussing a new approach to accountability, based upon the NAHT Charter, to be considered by Conference today, and underpinned by thoughtful work such as we heard from Professor Andy Hargreaves on the Fourth Way this morning. This accountability is not a soft-option instead it is an effective and professional one. One, which our children, and Country deserve.
Whoever is Secretary of State on 7th May we to invite you to engage and negotiate with us.
Let us have 24,000 flourishing Schools with children who we – that’s schools, parents and local communities - want to communicate the will to work and the desire to learn. Let us have real partnerships. To enable freedom to flourish continue to give the real front-line the resources we need, remove the blame culture, and trust School Leaders and teachers, the best ever school leaders and teachers, to enthuse, excite, and enable, our children to be the very best they can be.
Then the earth will dance.....
My Conference theme of freedom to flourish is based upon the urgent need to ensure the power-holders in our society recognise that the creeping centralization of education in our Country has had its day and we should move forward to release the talents and creativity of our children so they can succeed with the lifelong challenges that will face them.
We also should challenge the growing fragmentation of our school system and it becoming a marketplace.
Freedom itself was well understood in previous generations, but more recently it has been seen in absolute terms.
Freedom to allow the weakest and most impoverished to go to the wall is unacceptable. I see freedom from child poverty as a key aim of society. Freedom must have a moral imperative to it.
In educational terms it is essential that every child, and every school, have the opportunity to succeed.
The question is: will this come from draconian measures that denigrate many in league tables, will this come from calling schools failed rather than in need of targeted support, will this come from hounding out Headteachers who have given their whole careers to encouraging children and raising standards of performance and then expect this to be an attractive post for Deputy and Assistant Heads to aspire to. What Michael Fullan calls ‘high stakes vulnerability’.
When I sat for the fifth time in my career waiting for the last 30 minutes of an OFSTED Inspection in February this year, and the final judgements I was with my Deputy. She knew the Inspection had gone well and I asked her if she now wanted to go for Headship. Her answer was a clear and resounding ‘No’. ‘I never want my career on the line for what we might hear in 30 minutes time’.
There was no answer to that, as I have known excellent Headteachers who have suffered such a fate. Assessment has to be proportionate, fair and supportive. Accountability should not be destructive by being permeated by a lack of trust.
Data is very important but it has been elevated to an industry in its own right. We must regain its context of assisting in identifying children’s progress and then support intervention and good professional development when necessary.
Reductionism plays to the sound bite and trite headlines. Our schools deserve better.
There is a rather sad view from Government and some of the Oxbridge-educated elite, that parents are unable to comprehend a few sentences to indicate the progress of a school. The idea of a School Report Card poses a challenge to us. If a school is to be reduced to a single letter then this should be opposed root and branch. It would, of course, feed into a whole new league table system with the A’s to the F’s.
However, a School Report Card with a wider range of weighted indicators, and identifying trends over time is something worth negotiating. Schools are complex places and even to capture a range of indicators and weigh them requires careful and professional engagement between educationalists and those who have a meaningful grasp of statistics. Although the construct will be difficult the outcomes could be a well-rounded and accessible Report.
We hear a lot about Austerity
If we think front-line services are well-funded then why at a recent meeting of local Heads one explained how she was a dab hand with the boilers and her deputy was A* at unblocking the drains when the caretaker wasn’t on duty. Another Head spoke of the financial work she had to engage with, as there was no money in the budget even for a shared bursar.
We must expect that all Heads receive effective support for their role as of right. The Workload of school leaders is immense and these posts require effective support in all phases.
• This should include good direct and personal administrative support for Headteachers as of right.
• Our default position should include the time to read, think strategically and visit other schools as part of the job. This is essential in sharing good practice.
• How much resource has been wasted in the last thirteen years on quangos and consultancies. One major private consultancy went from having 43 major contracts with the Department in 2003 to 141 major contracts in 2007. Did any one of these raise standards in any school, did anyone of these teach a child to read, and to read for pleasure?
• We must retain the investment for schools.
What about key support from the wider educational field? Whilst the GTC has yet to capture the hearts and minds of the profession it should consider focusing more on its core business which is not professional development, and completing its work more expeditiously. The National College – and it is important to have a National College - now talks of Schools as quote ‘Outlets’. Why doesn’t the National College insist with local Governance that it broker bespoke support for every School leader where aspects of performance cause agreed concern. It is far too in the thrall of exalting the latest fad of structures and models of leadership than working with all existing leaders. School leaders don’t need Chain schools or outlets, they need effective advocacy and appropriate support.
Rather than tackle the issue of recruitment we are now hearing that Federations are the panacea. Two years ago I had the opportunity of running two schools until a new Head could be appointed. I would suggest that with additional non-contact time for Deputies, the savings being suggested are illusory; apart from the immense pressure it can place on Heads. If a Federation is part of a bottom-up approach and retains a school presence where otherwise it would disappear then a case can be made. As a major instrument of Government policy it is a fig leaf.
Autonomy is multi-layered. In essence it should be about not a market culture, but a collaborative one where schools support and inspire one another. It is the ability to place decision-making at a level where it counts and makes a difference. This has had more effect than many misplaced initiatives, because it liberates professional thinking and action. We should guard this autonomy carefully. In many parts of the world, from Canada to Kenya, Headteachers are regularly rotated and moved without choice by provincial or district education authorities.
This often happens when a Head has worked in a school for four or five years. Research suggests Headteachers are particularly effective between years 4 and 7 in any school.
I’ve been a head for 24 years so I must have been effective at least a couple of times.
As the advert states ‘everyone remembers their favourite teacher’ and I would add everyone remembers their Headteacher
What do we deduce from this? For the last 13 years successive Governments have attempted to run schools, the curriculum and even classrooms from the Department in Sanctuary Buildings in SW1. I don’t believe they understand Local Management of Schools. As Bernard Levin said, ‘the less the power, the greater the desire to use it’. They have invested heavily in expensive quangos to do their bidding and second-guess schools. This amateurish command and control approach has had its day so what do they do - try to blame Headteachers and Schools. Well it won’t wash.
There are some congratulations to the Government
On investment, and, for example, with Children’s Centres. This is an excellent example of a Government working at its best. It realised the lack of joined up services for 0-4’s, and it has rolled out a programme embracing both statutory and voluntary sectors with a core offer and message. Where Children’s Centres are run by Schools or work in close harmony they have been particularly successful in early intervention and removing the inhibitors to learning.
Now though you place a blight on this success by making them subject to heavy handed OFSTED Inspections and we have another accountability industry set up, providing a major distraction for staff and parents.
The challenges with Society ahead include:
• The quick fix. Building and maintaining a good school takes time. Seeing a quick data fix by pushing children through hoops does not embed learning. We must move away from the football metaphor of saying that unless the manager achieves promotion this season then they should face the sack. On that basis we would see the departure of many more Secretaries of State. There is the need for effective and continuing professional development that resonates with the school culture.
We have simplistic messages going out from the Media and this reflects a failure of governance by the Government. In the Times in March an editorial suggested that OFSTED had indicated some 40% of children at the age of 11 ‘could not read or count at the level expected’ and then carried the message that the Government would have a ‘guarantee that parents could sack failing Heads’.
The Culture of celebrity
The celebrity based and all-embracing sound bite media in modern life elevates the shallow. It does not encourage taking on the difficult or hard tasks, which might not be immediately rewarding. It does not encourage perseverance in the face of adversity. It does not encourage positive risk taking. It does encourage the soft option of gambling. It does encourage children to be grown up before their time and in the loss of childhood and innocence that this means. Consumerism needs to be balanced with the real. Spending time at a football match with your child rather than always seeing it on television. Going swimming together, or having a picnic, has to be encouraged rather than just the latest fad on the games machine.
We also have the evil of drugs – we require fresh thinking – what has been attempted to date by successive Governments has failed and the spectre of drug dealers near the school gates must end. The market in drugs must be destroyed. Too many young people are ending up in the criminal justice system to feed their drug habits. A Magistrate friend estimates that 60% of cases before him are in some way drug-related. The burgeoning prison and young offender institutions are a testament to this failure. As with racism we need to be part of the answer. Schools play a vital role in community cohesion, but we must expect others to be partners with us in society.
Professor Andy Hargreaves speaks of parental responsibility. I would expect any future Government to echo this. We must expect parents to be full partners with schools and to support our work. The creation of a Local Commissioner to hear parental complaints again moves in the direction of lacking trust in schools and Governing Bodies.
The NAHT defends its membership – most LA Officers and OFSTED Teams are fair and professional - and fortunately the vast majority of Parents and Governors are challenging but supportive – but the message must go out loud and clear that the Association can no longer tolerate its members having their careers at the mercy of rogue elements and will take these people on - if necessary in the Courts to end the culture of the ‘disappeared’.
Is there hope in the Election Manifestos?
A hero of mine is Dickens
The other night I had a dream, and in it there came the clunking of chains: followed by three spirits
• The first was a vision from sanctuary buildings via Keble College, Oxford
It was the Secretary of State.
As we know the number of colleagues applying for Headship is very low so what are we going to do to make it more attractive? He and his closest advisers put their collective wisdom together and came up with:
Yes let’s introduce parent votes to remove school leadership teams that’ll do the trick.
• There followed a vision with a full mock up of sanctuary buildings via Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
It was the Shadow Secretary of State.
There has been huge structural change in schools and public sector funding will be very tight. What does the education system need? He and his closest advisers put their collective wisdom together and came up with:
Swedish-style free Schools, which will allow all and sundry to set up and run schools and take critical funding away from the rest.
• The third vision was someone with a rail ticket to sanctuary buildings via Kings College Cambridge
It was the hung-parliament Secretary of State.
The blame culture has a demoralizing effect upon hard working teachers and school leaders. So what shall we start our manifesto with? He and his closest advisers put their collective wisdom together and came up with this introduction:
Too many children are still leaving school without the knowledge and skills to be successful. Finding a good school is a struggle, lessons don’t always stretch the brightest or support those who need more help…..
How far are our politicians away from reality?
We are offered more ineffective accountability, more structural change, and more blame.
My concern is that current and prospective Governments have a grad grind view of education, which is materialist in outlook and is designed for a bygone age. The Conservatives look back with rosy-coloured spectacles to a time when Ladybird books ruled and there was a policeman on every street corner. Well, Michael this did not exist for all and many children were condemned not to reach their academic potential by selection at 11. I work in a community where the average child has heard 17 million words and had limited experiences by the age of five, yet I live in a community where the average child has heard 50 million words and has had a wide range of first hand experiences by the age of five.
I would not suggest that materialism is unimportant to those without modern essentials. It is that we are not as a society providing the riches of mind or as T S Eliot put it: It is in fact a part of the function of education to help us escape, from the intellectual and emotional limitations of our time.
• The 1956 Doris Day song
• Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
• What will be will be
• The song did win an Oscar for best original song in a film, but its sentiment must be challenged.
Another hero who did challenge is Paulo Friere. Friere saw the struggle for popular education and informal education of adults as liberationist. He saw those without power in society transforming their lives. Freedom indeed.
Carmen was a 33 year-old mum with two girls living in an inner area community. She wanted to help in school. From this she became a Teaching Assistant and gained NVQ 2 and then 3, followed by a Foundation Degree, and a B.Ed (Honours) with six marks away from first class. Carmen took part in the Graduate Teacher Programme and received QTS. Her practice was excellent and she progressed to Early Year Foundation Stage Leader and is now an Assistant Headteacher.
That wouldn’t happen this year as with the economic downturn some are looking for shelter in teaching until the storm abates. We must remain a vocational professional with the highest calling.
It also challenges the education establishment who are involved in developing policies and initiatives. They must come from a wider spectrum of society. How many understand the searing experiences of growing up in some of our inner area communities. Last year, Oxford accepted 12 children from free school meal backgrounds.
To doff our caps in deference to power holders without accountability on their part can lead us to the Banking disaster, that is causing untold damage to private and public sectors in our Country.
The challenges of the next forty years are complex. The personal, national and global challenges of climate and environmental change and its effect upon the natural world including mankind are manifest. It is our children’s and grandchildren’s world we are custodians of. How are we preparing them for their decision-making?
• Or as Tamsin Elliott when aged 8 put it ‘The world is in such an awful state
When I’m older I’ll make it great
No more wars or pollution
How I wish I could find a solution.
No more oil in the sea.
But this won’t happen just because of me.
So I’ll find some people to help me,
And together, we’ll save the
WORLD!”
There are positive programmes such as UNICEF’s Right Respecting Schools Award, the Transition Towns movement, and the International Schools Award amongst others that assist children.
What does international experience tell us?
A common theme doing the rounds is that in forty years time Africa with the lowest wage rates will be the workshop of the world, South East Asia and India will be the businesses and entrepreneurs of the world, and Europe will be the pensioners of the world. Now Mrs Oakley in 1958 in Gorse Hill Juniors ensured that I knew this didn’t cover the whole globe, but the theme is still relevant.
Singapore has some Primary Schools where whole classroom walls are covered in a Computer screen and children can place themselves as characters in the Second World War in Singapore harbour, and gain information and make decisions as they participate. They can also do this from home with their parents engaged as well. What I would give for that in Swindon, with its heritage of the Great Western Railway, and other areas of the Country for children to engage with the past, but with learning for the present and future.
Benjamin Disraeli stated that ‘Upon the education of the people of this country, the fate of this country depends’.
We look forward to an interdependent world, but must also think through what the UK vision for excellence in that world should be.
That vision, excitement and engagement cannot be created or communicated through the structural changes, league tables, and the dead hand of command and control from Sanctuary Buildings. Nor can it be developed through a fragmentation of schooling where structural change will no doubt favour the metropolitan chattering classes to the detriment of every other child who will have larger classes and fewer resources.
It is interesting to be compared with Finland. Finnish teachers have class sizes of no more than 24. They have a fully comprehensive state system. Have Ministers checked their assessment regime with no external tests until 15. What they do is liberate their school leadership and provide additional development funding to all schools.
There is often referral to PISA and similar international comparisons of academic attainment between Countries. The two features that stand out are firstly, UK children coming near the bottom of the well-being comparison. Although there is much hand wringing it has led little practical response; and secondly, there is much more disparity within Countries than between them. Parental occupational status and socio-economic background has a much greater effect on student performance, than whether you operate an education system with different structures.
These then are some of the challenges and inhibitors to progress.
So what are approaches and culture we need for success?
Trust is vital. As Andy Hargreaves states, Active trust. We have to be persuasive in developing this. Local stakeholder governance is essential. We start from a positive base. Surveys indicate that parents have high trust in their Headteachers. We believe in hope, and have relentless optimism for our children.
Mutuality This is an old co-operative word, but it suggests that there are shared interests, which should encourage partnership and being connected in a landscape where schools collaborate on working together rather than remain isolated in unfettered competition.
Most Parents send their children to their local school. Some voices are now contemplating a lottery for secondary places as the only way forward. As Ted Wragg said, ‘The idea that the market place takes care of quality by itself is one of the most bogus arguments that (has) emerged’.
Schools not structures. Deal and Paterson suggest that:
Of late far too much emphasis has been placed upon reforming schools from outside…while policymakers…are pressing for new structures…..too little attention has been paid on how schools can be shaped from within….excellent schools can be at the heart of every community, schools which teachers and the vast majority of parents can ensure are positive, caring and intellectually challenging’.
We must then trust schools and school-leaders to raise standards.
Successful school cultures have leadership emanating from many people – authentic leadership that maintains and supports learning for all children as well as learning for all staff. Successful cultures have leaders who know how important schools are to children and want to make them the best places they can be.
Early intervention is vital. This cannot be compromised, and should be enhanced.
Schools are organic as with all organizations. Over a few years we can be on top form some of the time and pretty good most of the time and occasionally have a hiccup. Just at the time the school might want some support which if carefully and jointly targeted and accepting of responsibility, is effective, instead, along comes OFSTED and instead we get a punitive, clunking fist which demoralises rather than enthuses.
Christine Gilbert talks of raising expectations and then only uses the big stick to do this.
We should remove the blame culture and celebrate success
School leaders and teachers do not walk into schools each morning and say ‘how am I going to lower standards today?’ We must challenge Government to stop directing schools from the latest tabloid headline or sound bite discussion on breakfast tv.
Ministers should understand that Waterloo Road is a fictional series not a documentary.
We share the vision of every school, a good school and stretching the minds of the next generation of children.
There is a challenge for the media here. Be courageous and celebrate our children’s effort and success. You are part of their well-being as well.
Ensure schools are subject to fair and effective accountability.
Tim Brighouse and Ted Wragg identified the need for an inspection system that provided support and less destructive pressure.
What do we need to achieve this?
Well it is here. It’s The NAHT Charter
Fair accountability, and real accountability as in our Charter. It accepts that we are accountable to society and parents in particular, and ensures that accountability can support progress not hinder it. This is not a soft option. It is rigorous and ensures that schools can become in Sergiovanni’s phrase, ‘Communities of responsibility’.
We need to build a consensus around the Charter as the way forward. It is a developing document.
We must however, work with our democratically elected representatives to develop and construct a better understanding.
They must in turn listen to and engage with School leadership prior to pouring out more legislation and regulation.
Irrelevant and bureaucratic initiatives such as ‘licence to practise’ should go.
Now I wish to turn to the future of the NAHT.
I am proud to be the President of an Association, which stands up for its Members and for the children of this Country.
We are in a period of change, and I would like to give sincere thanks to the work and leadership of Mick Brookes as our General Secretary. I will return to that theme tomorrow, but for now, I would also like to praise the dedication of Branch, Regional and National Council post-holders who give dedicated service week in week out for the benefit of Members across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We have an able and high quality team of paid staff at Headquarters, and I would like to mark the tragic passing of Ian Foster a former Council Member and latterly an Education Officer at HQ, whose wit and friendship is much missed.
In the field our Regional Officers ensure the best information and representation is available without any comparators in the land.
So where now:
Whilst we expect Government to create a fair and equitable playing field and conditions for success, we should also look to ourselves.
From another hero, JFK, I turn to say - ask not just what your Association can do for you, but ask yourself what can you do for your Association?
To build upon the excellent foundations of service and support should come professional sharing and development. In the Ontario Principals’ Council in Canada, 95% of continuing professional development is led by school leaders themselves.
We should consider that amongst our 28,500 members there is a tremendous amount of expertise to share. How often do we have the opportunity to go into each other’s Schools to see excellent practice? I have seen a state of the art programme on learning to read in a Hampshire Primary, a brilliant web-based school development planning and progress toolkit in Cornwall, innovative early years outdoor play in Corby, thought provoking international engagement in Treherbert, music to raise the soul in a school in Belfast, sporting prowess in an East London High School, a Special School providing fabulous opportunities for children with severe learning difficulties in Swindon, creative dance in a Gateshead Primary, and if I want to know how Diplomas are funded then I have to weave my way to Plymouth to speak with a Deputy Principal who certainly does know!
These are a small sample of the many thousands who could share and gain from such practice. Let us make the NAHT the vibrant natural home of sharing this. We are considering whether the Education Conference in the Autumn of each year should be its pinnacle and entitled ’Sharing the very best practice’, and we need you to nominate school leaders in your area – sometimes yourselves – who could assist in developing this.
A second and allied theme is communication and expertise. Our website continues to develop and we now have the means to set up Communities of Interest, for example: the Early Years Foundation Stage, or Design and Technology, or in ICT perhaps Social networking: friend or foe? These Communities or Forums are a great opportunity to engage online with colleagues, again to share best practice. We need Forum Leaders to develop areas of interest. This will compliment our excellent printed professional publications.
The third area I want to mention is debate, discussion and representation.
We should be confident about debating education policy and providing the school leadership view to influence future thinking and making strong representations on proposed legislation.
…..and that leads me to move to how having made the professional case, and winning the educational high ground with widespread support from Parents, Governors, and Researchers, and even the House of Commons Select Committee, it would be foolish of any Secretary of State to ignore our position on assessment. Last year, we offered to work with the Government to end the iniquity of SATs.
SATs which in particular humiliate school leaders through league tables, and leads directly to the disappeared: those Heads whose lose their job directly due to the use of SATs data as the basis for Inspection. I now have excellent former colleagues, in one case running a bed and breakfast guesthouse in the West Midlands, and many others sitting on imposed early retirements through the blandly termed, but professionally deadly ‘compromise agreement’.
We are also stuck on the moral dilemma of having booster classes for those on the margins of Level 4 or additional support for a ‘C’ at GCSE. Why aren’t all children in a booster class?
As parents know the stress for 10 and 11 year olds is palpable.
Why, if is it acceptable for 5 and 7 year olds to have their teacher assessment moderated, and SATs disappear for 14 year olds overnight and no-one notice,
is it acceptable for 11 year olds to have their final year in Primary distorted and disfigured.
As John Coe, from the National Association for Primary Education, reported to the NAHT Commission of Inquiry, the SATs testing and league table regime is unfit for purpose and deeply damaging to the quality of primary education. It is unfit for assessing children’s progress, for assessing schools, and for assessing national standards.
Despite exploring - and exhausting - every avenue to try and negotiate a way forward, we have met a brick wall. Secretary of State, we advised you last year not to test our resolve on this issue, well the NAHT membership has spoken, as it has the right to do so in a democratic and pluralist society, and has voted for the first time in decades, to end this iniquity for you.
Michael Rosen shares a poem with the sense of optimism in life starting with understanding the terrible experiences of children in the Lodz ghetto in the second world war.
Today
The rain has died
My shoes have died
The sun has died
My coat has died
The earth has died
Today
One day
The rain will flower
My shoes will laugh
The sun will sing
My coat will fly
The earth will dance
One day
We look forward to discussing a new approach to accountability, based upon the NAHT Charter, to be considered by Conference today, and underpinned by thoughtful work such as we heard from Professor Andy Hargreaves on the Fourth Way this morning. This accountability is not a soft-option instead it is an effective and professional one. One, which our children, and Country deserve.
Whoever is Secretary of State on 7th May we to invite you to engage and negotiate with us.
Let us have 24,000 flourishing Schools with children who we – that’s schools, parents and local communities - want to communicate the will to work and the desire to learn. Let us have real partnerships. To enable freedom to flourish continue to give the real front-line the resources we need, remove the blame culture, and trust School Leaders and teachers, the best ever school leaders and teachers, to enthuse, excite, and enable, our children to be the very best they can be.
Then the earth will dance.....
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