To wonder what teaching will be like in ten years?

[springtimevintagedream]

The other thread about OPs husband not taking time off inspired this one; it (obviously) isn't a TAAT, though :)

What do you think will happen to the profession in 2026?

..who should make decisions relating to it?

As noodle says: A cross party committee with professionals with an educational background who know what they are talking about.

Ironically, proposals to take schools out of local political control are being resisted on all sides hmm

Perhaps because people don't want them in the control of organisations trying to make a profit of their children's education?

(Oh yes, they are all non-profit though - the organisations involved are doing it from the good of their hearts.)

*trying to make a profit out of their children's education?

A cross party committee with professionals with an educational background who know what they are talking about.

So what about at a local level? Who provides school improvement services? SEN assessments? Who employs the teachers?

It's all very well saying take it out of political control but either a Gov Dept runs these services, or local Government does, or the private sector does.

The reality is, all the while the Government pays the bills, education will remain a political issue.
The only way to remove political influence would be to privatise, and give every parent the funds to pay directly for their DCs education.
Even then, the requirement to educate DCs is written into statute - it's a political issue.

A model independent of political control works for the Bank of England Time. Privatisation isn't the answer when it comes to a public good.

I think in all schools will become sponsored academies. So where I live, poor area, multi ethnic, there would be The KFC academy (specialist Service & Food Technology school), Sports Direct (specialist retail &sports school) etc.

All parents will be given a voucher to spend as they wish, either to put towards private education or buy your child's education from aforementioned academies.

Each area would have a set amount, so somewhere with high number of preps would be deemed a "high cost area of efucation" and parents would be given a larger voucher.

Qualified teacher status will not be needed.

Fucking depressing myself.

Education not efucation!

A model independent of political control works for the Bank of England

That's not a great comparison, because The Bank of England doesn't deliver services to the public. it regulates those businesses which do.

Banking to the public and businesses is delivered by corporations - led by high earning financial and banking experts, who operate (when they have to) within the regulations set by the Bank of England. Is that what you want to see for schools?

I think it will be much better. We're approaching crisis point now so I think we'll be well past it by 2026 and back on the up. It's like recessions, isn't it; these things go in cycles.

Time No, perhaps not the best comparison but the point is that important decisions (on interest rates etc) can be made without political ideology muddying the waters.

And the Bank of England is more than a regulatory body.

I think the old adage that you Can't please all of the people all of the time holds true, manic - it'll be different, but not everyone will be happy with it!

Schools have changed very little throughout history as in there are still 30 pupils in a room with a teacher.

Which is a vast change from the Victorian era, with up to 60 pupils in one room.

I too despair - I think that in 20-30 years time we will be bemoaning a lost generation education wise.

No, perhaps not the best comparison but the point is that important decisions (on interest rates etc) can be made without political ideology muddying the waters.

The whole premise of the Bank of England's mission is inherently ideological. There are alternative economic models, such as some of the things that McDonnell's people are proposing, that could not be done within the confines of the Bank of England's current regulatory mission. Now you can - and I would - argue that some of those things are pretty far-fetched, but they are the legitimate topic of democratic debate and if the country elects a government that is willing to, say, weaken the pound and risk a bit of inflation in order to provide better public services, that is something for the electorate, not regulators.

Similarly with education; it is ultimately political. You cannot pass laws which make education compulsory, funded from general taxation, and then remove it from any form of democratic accountability. Suppose your much-vaunted experts decide to, say, re-introduce the 11+ and go back to secondary moderns, or stop all teaching of music as being a decadent waste of time: do you not think that the electorate should not have at least some say in that?

Education is inherently ideological: how it is delivered, where it is delivered, how it is funded, what it contains. It needs democratic accountability, as do all public services. The lust for technocratic governments in which "experts" run everything and the electorate have no say is one of the main reasons why the EU has become so unpopular, and is in general now being rowed back. The last thing we need is more of it.

But a cross party committee would still be democratically accountable.

But a cross party committee would still be democratically accountable

The proposal upthread was "accountable to the House of Lords". How, roughly, is that democratically accountable?

And if it is democratically accountable, could you remind me how it achieves your aim of not being politically influenced, given the only means we have of democratic accountability in most countries is by party-heavy elections?

The proposal upthread was "accountable to the House of Lords". No it wasn't.

And if it is democratically accountable, could you remind me how it achieves your aim of not being politically influenced, given the only means we have of democratic accountability in most countries is by party-heavy elections?

Because no one party would be able to push through educational change purely for the sake of political ideology.

Hey, it's not my political manifesto or anything, I'm not particularly political. I'm an recent ex-teacher worried about the education of my own children. It's an idea that I think might work better than the existing mess. I haven't sat down and worked out all the details.

regulations set by the Bank of England

The BofE is far from all powerful when it comes to setting regulations. Many are imposed directly from Brussels - if the EU agrees a regulation then it is directly applicable and the national authorities around the EU cannot change it in any way. The directives that are issued do have to go through a national process and the BofE has a little more leeway to carry out the national process than some of its peers on the continent but it is still implementing decisions that were made, through a process that is subject to democratic oversight (the European Parliament is elected and the Council - whcih represents the national governments also reflects the national democratic choices).

The choice to give independence to the BofE was itself a political one that had to survive a political process in the UK. The flip side should be good transparency and accountability and I'm not saying I think that UK is perfect - don't think anyone is - but there are worse models out there.

But my main point is that the BofE is not a free agent when it comes to regulations. However its degree of independence is intended, in part, to ensure that when major banks who have friends at the top political tables don't like the regulatory decisions then at least the BofE is not required to water things down just because its political masters tell it to (again I wouldn't claim that any system is completely immune from potential for influence when it comes to the big global players, but it's certainly better than having to run decisions formally through No 10 or No 11)

I started teaching ten years ago. On the surface it doesn't look like much has changed, I'm still standing in front of a class of 30+ kids banging on about maths, but there have been some things which have made a big difference.

Technology - I've gone from an OHP to an IWB to a projector and whiteboard, the main thing is the amount of resources available online to help with lesson planning, Twitter is amazing for teachers to get resources, advice and CPD. The kids have access to so much more stuff at home, videos, interactive lessons, past papers and mark schemes.

Ofsted - gone from a massively stressful inspection over days where everyone was seen teaching and graded, to a far lighter touch (I've not been seen the last two Ofsteds I've been through) and no individual lesson grades. This is great but now there's far more emphasis on marking rather than observed teaching, massively increasing workload. More attention is paid to evidence-based approaches to teaching meaning we don't have to do group-work, VAK and other bollocks which is fab as I like chalk and talk and find it the most effective way to teach maths, but have previously had to pretend I've been doing discovery learning and kinaesthetic activities.

Accountability - league tables, performance measures and performance related pay now mean that each student's grades are more important to the school and teacher than the student. Things have gone insane in terms of intervention. Easter revision, half term revision, after school revision, kids being pulled out of tutor time, PE, lunch, to shove more worksheets and past papers down them. They can get through their GCSEs barely lifting a finger in terms of independent work. This has created helpless sixth formers who don't know how to learn. If they are failing, they don't need to pull their finger out because the school will swoop in and do it for them.

In the next ten years I would love to see more responsibility being put back on the kids for their learning. I'd love for my job to be to lead the horse to water, not to force its head back and syringe in joyless packets of exam facts only to be judged and paid less based on how many times it shakes it its head.

I totally agree with noble giraffe-particularly about putting responsibility back on kids to learn. My DH has hired 3 people this year-graduates and school leavers-he says they have zero ability to think for themselves!!

I wonder how the current levels of scrutiny (observations, book hauls, learning walks, climate walks, support plans, triangulation, capability, deep marking etc etc) will survive with unqualified teachers in post? I can't see that standards won't drop, so would they face the same scrutiny?

But then what will all those layers of SLT do with themselves Letseatgrandma? You're right, it's a puzzle!

Completely agree with this statement from noblegiraffe Accountability - league tables, performance measures and performance related pay now mean that each student's grades are more important to the school and teacher than the student. Things have gone insane in terms of intervention. Easter revision, half term revision, after school revision, kids being pulled out of tutor time, PE, lunch, to shove more worksheets and past papers down them. They can get through their GCSEs barely lifting a finger in terms of independent work. This has created helpless sixth formers who don't know how to learn. If they are failing, they don't need to pull their finger out because the school will swoop in and do it for them.

Currently re marking 120 controlled assessments yet again as first time round Deputy Head wasn't happy with the results - I feel I have put more effort into the students work than they have!! They just don't seem to care until they get the results and I get parents moaning they haven't had enough support even though I have spoken to the all individually repeatedly plus given up 2 lunch times, 2 after schools a week since January when I only work 3 days a week!

I dread to think. This year is the first that I seriously wish I could home educate my children. One leaves secondary education at the end of this term, I wish it were both of them.

They can get through their GCSEs barely lifting a finger in terms of independent work. This has created helpless sixth formers who don't know how to learn.

As the mother of a 17yo I totally agree.

But what we'd love to see, and what will happen are two very different things.