What do you think of the Education White Paper?

[Shamster]

Our head went through the key points at last nights staff meeting and the effect was pretty depressing. Sounds stupid but two of us almost started crying! Just wondered if anyone has read it for themselves, rather than picking up whichever bits each paper decides to highlight according to their leanings. If you have; what do you think?

Yes, well that's why I don't tend to take much notice of the press. Each newspaper has it's axe to grind; really hard to find the actual truth out there. We did, in the staffroom, all feel very glum and a bit like Gove and his cronies think we are all crap. I noticed that they kept referring to teaching, but the word learning is obviously no longer a buzz word. It is a two way process and the learner is not passive in the process. Neither do I think that hiring ex-military will sort out our bahaviour. Some of our most challenging children do respond to extreme firmness but others turn the corner when they realise that you actually like them and are on their side. Turning soldiers into teachers in 6 weeks sounds like a recipie for disaster to me. (I don't have anything against the military by the way; I just think they are very different jobs)

But many parents do take notice of the press

The other problem with in school training is that the students can have very different experiences and support depending on which school they go to. We had one who was a brilliant student but had come for his second practise as they were, in that schools eyes, failing. A little more digging showed it was the school and not the student at fault. Also, in 'teaching hospitals' because their is such an emphasis on teaching, the standard of patient care is sometimes better in the smaller non teaching hospitals where their only focus is the patient. Is this what would happen to schools?

Shamster

They were indeed taking colleges out of the loop (Teach First becomes Teach Next)-which raises fascinating questions about how schools are supposed to compensate for the personal and physical resources of a university education department, or where the next studies which evaluate teaching methods are to come from. And unions are right to be worried, because schools are collaborative ventures, you can't parachute people in (even if classroom competent) and expect them to add more broadly to the school.

And all of this doesn't make sense on three levels, all of which have cropped up here:

1. The government is recommending specific practice, but simultaneously removing the professionals who develop, evaluate and disseminate it (e.g. ASTs, university education departments) from the loop. Whether or not you agree with phonics, there is an inconsistency in saying 'let teachers teach and be judged on results', but then 'for some areas they must do this'.

1. The 'choice' mantra is damaging to non-average kids, either in certain schools which are seen as failing (as now) or generally. Government always intervenes in markets to protect those who are vulnerbale to exploitation-anti-discrimination law is a case in point. For schools a mish-mash of initiatives, from SEN funding, free school meals and specific funded interventions is being stripped away and it is highly unclear what (pupil premium?)will replace it. A school with an SEN pupil will receive less help and funding, and get no obvious competitive advantage from doing well. Schools with wealthy parents with time on their hands will continue to thrive, and receive extra funding if they do so.

1. That parents are being enshrined as arbiters and choosers, and professionals disregarded. Why parents are best placed to judge education just because they care is not clear or set out-it's just that a market must exist, and 5-year-olds aren't trusted. This has become so accepted in education nobody is even asking why.

And if that sounds deeply silly and over-the-top, it's becasue the same debate has been running in HE circles for some time now, even if all the attention has been on the middle point (why have a market and prioritise some subjects; what will increased tuition fees do to social mobility, and what will giving 18-year-olds choice over the future research output of the country really do). And the consequence of the two combined is that parents will get to decide what schools teach, and then by implication what univeristies research (because pupils prefer to take known options at university).

Which is not only horrifying because I (even as parent and an academic) don't think I can make those judgments for the curriculum as a whole, but because the point of education is that it develops the new generation differently, that it advances knowledge, not that it reinforces what is already 'basic common sense'.

20 years ago phonics was viewed with suspicion, now it's an orthodoxy. That change was led by professionals in disagreement with orthodoxy challenging, experimenting and gaining evidence for SP. They would have no room to do so under this White Paper.

I've just received an email from CYPN and the School Home Support charity is warning that many schools in deprived areas will miss out on Pupil Premium if parents don't claim free school meal entitlements (which many of our's don't preferring to send a Gregg's sausage roll and cake) than a school dinner with all those vegetables ... as I was once told.

AdelaofBlois: I totally agree with you. Pupil premium will in no way replace the services we are finding it harder to access. My first question when it came to the 'Teach first, teach next etc, was 'What will happen to all the courses provided by colleges? I learned lots of theory yes, but become a teacher over 4 years meant I could go to a variety of schools and experience a variety of age groups. I also had very close mentoring from my Personal Tutor and it certainly helped me feel confident enough in my first year of teaching. I am a much better teacher now, through experience but atleasy I wasn't thrown in front of children and allowed to mess around with their learning after a crash course! Schools are the start of the next generation and the damage that I believe is going to be done, will not be fixable. Society as a whole will be poorer for it, the gaps will get wider, there will be more little lost souls. An advanced society needs to be a well educated one but the way see it going, ths is going to be harder to sustain for the masses. So the concerns that you have; I share those too

There we go, the linking to the all telling free school meals. We don't have many but we also do have quite a few, thought not as many by the sounds of it as you, deprived children. Some of the parents are too proud to claim free school meals. What can we do though? I really don't think the general public are aware. I've had several friends say 'Yes, but education has been protected hasn't it'.

All our children are entitled to free school meals but not all have them.

Not nearly as many then, at our school. That's my point; not everyone who is entitled takes it up. I wonder what would be the fairest way to decide who the most needy children are. What about non deprived families who have a child with learning difficulties; we have many of these. A learning difficulty will afffect a child which ever background they come from.

We have high levels of SEN too plus LAC and CP which all impact on children

I couldn't find details of eligibility for the pp in the White paper but I did find the Pupil Premium Consultation Paper.

It explains why they were recommending "6 year FSM" as the determinator for the pupil premium. It also recommends that LAC qualify.

The consultation period has closed. But if this is what they are going with - it seems reasonable.

Sorry - I've linked to Children England response - which recommends 6 year FSM - no idea if this is what has actually been adopted.

I think that's a big problem with the whole document to be honest. Lots of soundbites but not much substance or detail of the how and when

To be fair - it looks like they are still working through the consultation process on pp eligibility. Gove has only been in the job for 6 months - I'd we more worried if all the implementation was nailed down so early.

they are also consulting on the proposed reading test for 6 year olds so much of what has been announced may never happen or may happen in a different form.

"The National Curriculum will act as a new benchmark for all schools. It will be slim,
clear and authoritative enough for all parents to see what their child might be
expected to know at every stage in their school career. They will be able to use it
to hold all schools to account for how effectively their child has grasped the
essentials of, for example, English language and literature, core mathematical
processes and science."

Surely this is a joke. How can Gove propose to raise the status of teachers whilst also advocating that parents will be able to call schools to account for their teaching standards, when the focus of the parent will be very narrow.

There is no mention of "learning" or the child's ability to learn these "essentials" Perhaps parents of children with mild undiagnosed cognitive problems could hold a school to account because at age 10 their child can not do long division!

and perhaps parents of children with mild undiagnosed cognitive problems should be able to hold schools to account for not recognising the problem?

Maybe, but parents can not be absolved of their responsibility either.

Ok, something has clicked for me. My ds's school sent home a letter explaining that the school could be entitled to more money and asked for people who are able to claim for free school meals to come in and "register" even if they didn't want to actually have the dinners each day.

I don't like the lack of the word 'learning'. Teaching and learning go hand in hand don't they? The more schools that are deemed to be lacking, the more academies they can open. Michael Gove is not interested in raising the status of teachers if he believes you can master the skills needed in 6 weeks.

Funnily enough, I don't think testing 6 year olds reading level is a bad idea. We screen our children as standard, to identify the children who are falling behind, or galloping ahead, and make sure that the provision is suitable. I'd like to find an additional test though, to Salford. Any ideas? It also depends how they intend to screen/test.

I think the proposal to screen in the summer term of Y1 is too late.

We screen in September. In fact we screen every year in September. What do you use? I'd have thought that would make more sense than the summer term.

Mrz. In the y1 summer term some of the children are still 5. Is there a test that can accurately measure a reading age of 5 and 9 months?

Certainly I was told by an Educational psychologist that 6 was too young to diagnose dyslexia. So how can you tell, at that age, what's normal development for that child?

We screen in September too and use a system developed by a JP consultant I worked with when I took over as literacy coordinator. We also use Progress in English assessments across the school for spelling, grammar and comprehension

Timing of the screening check
We propose that the screening check should take place in mid-June. This timing will have allowed pupils to develop their phonic decoding skills over the majority of Year 1, and will also provide an opportunity for schools to support the pupils who have not reached the expected standard during the latter part of the Summer term of Year 1. The timing also avoids the Key Stage 2 test window.
We propose that the pilot of this screening check takes place in the week commencing 13 June 2011. We expect approximately 200 schools will be involved in the pilot, and a representative sample of schools will be chosen at random. We will write to the sample of schools later this year to ask if they are prepared to be involved in the pilot.