To not understand why Nicky Morgan is looking towards the US for a replacement OFSTED Chief

[ReallyTired]

The USA is hardly the centre of educational excellent or high achievement. The fact that people like Donald Trump are popular in the US, or the right to bare arms shows that American educators hardly excel at the development of critical thinking skills in american citizens.

Why doesn't the UK recruit someone from Finland or Singapore? Or maybe a truely outstanding headteacher who works in the UK. At least the likes of Sir Michael Wilshaw has some idea of what its like to teach in an English classroom.

Yes, that's a good article, as far as it goes, although I believe the exams are actually taken at 18, not 16, and only by the half of students who are taking the academic route in upper secondary school, as opposed to the vocational one. But it doesn't talk about what the most common Finnish teaching methods are. (Although the picture shows the front-facing desks.)

As for Pasi Sahlberg, I'm not really sure he's the most eminent Finnish educationalist, although he's certainly the best known outside Finland. For me, the most interesting thing about him is that he wrote a 200 plus page book about why Finland is so successful, but never once mentioned the subject of teaching methods. (He himself is on record as supporting 'progressive' methods, which I suspect is why he omitted that topic from his book.)

They say only 10% of teachers drop out between training and retirement in Finland.

I can't find statistics about retention of teachers in the UK (apart from 40% dropping out within first 5 years according to daily mail...)

There's no doubt it's a lot better being a teacher in Finland - you'll get no argument from me there! I have enormous sympathy for teachers here; they are being driven into the ground by overwork, and by not being supported by their senior leadership teams in managing poor behaviour (with some honourable exceptions).

The trouble is, as long as teachers are taught in their training that the kinds of methods used in Finland are inappropriate and ineffective, and headteachers are terrified of Ofsted giving them a bad rating for using such methods, then teachers will continue to find it impossible to achieve the Finnish-type results that governments (of all stripes) believe they should be achieving. It's like they have one hand tied behind their backs. (Of course I'm also aware it's not that simple; there are other issues involved as well, for example class sizes and funding the kind of SEN provision they have in Finland.)