Finally, some standardisation/consistency

[Kazzyhoward]

I've long since thought that a lot of the problems in school was that individual teachers did their own thing, which meant loss of quality, extra work for them, difficulties when kids move between classes etc.

Just noticed that our son's school have "standardised" their English Literature. Instead of individual teachers randomly chosing their own texts (from the exam board lists) to study, the head of dept has imposed her own texts on all the GCSE/A level teachers.

Not only that, she's imposed time frames in which each text is taught, i.e. they're all being taught a particular book each term.

This means that they can now "bulk" order the texts in larger numbers, so parents can get a better discounted price. It also facilitates the children being able to move up/down a set whereas in the past they were "trapped" for the entire 2 year period.

Despite the school historically getting very good results in Maths, Science and humanities, for some reason, English grades have always been a lot lower. They are hoping that standardisation will address this. We shall see in 2 years' time!

Personally, I'm a great believer in standardisation. I never could understand why teachers wanted to "do their own thing" all the time, which to my mind just makes more work for themselves.

Although I agree with you, I think I have seen argued that some texts have more 'meat' in them, making them harder for less able, but better for the more able as they can show their ability.

As long as DD2 doesn't have to do LotF. I find it very disturbing, and DD will too.

In DD's school English is streamed with sets in within the streams. The streams have slightly different texts top stream pride and prejudice, bottom stream Christmas carol. You can move sets within your stream, but not move streams.

Well, I can tell you, in terms of staff recruitment and retention, I wouldnt work in that school!

Piggy May I ask why?

At DD's school the maths department has a clear schedule. All sets are on the same topic (e.g algebra) at a time, with level of difficulty depending on the set, and then after 3 weeks they move on to the next topic. I believe Science act similarly, in-fact they must do as the end of term tests are the same topics for everyone so they can't have one teacher teaching out of order.

Why shouldn't English be the same with a time frame for any module, and standardisation across the department enabling set movement?

I'm sure you have good reasons, so it would be interesting to hear them. (Not being sarcastic, genuinely interested).

English isn't maths. Some English teachers are happy all to go the same way but so much of literature teaching is about engagement. It is hard to teach something you hate. I am an individual myself and instinctively react against words like 'consistency. I think It is taken to be the same as uniformity. All classes are different and I choose texts based on their make up, really.

I understand why parents might want uniformity but ,as I have already read once today, most parents aren't educators...

The time when a Teach First type came into our department and tried to enforce lesson by lesson uniformity upon us led to a very unhappy department.

Not sure I have explained very well but I know at least 6 members of my department would not work in the one described. It usually indicates a department with non specialists.

Also, I am not a sets person...! If sets are not rigidly done by ability there is no reason for all this constant movement between sets anyway!

Also probably controversial!

Having a schedule is just basic long term planning and I'm surprised it hasn't been done that way before! You can still have a good standardised long term plan and allow teachers SOME autonomy over their text choices. This is how I run my (very successful) English dept.

We have done that for years. It is tedious in the extreme. And our schemes are rubbish

I think it makes a lot of sense for some standardisation.

Much as I would love to teach some brilliant, but unpopular with stafff, set texts, I think it's best for the students to have consistency.
If someone goes on maternity leave and there's people ready to go to step in. If students need to move groups for whatever reason then there's no spending 6 weeks on one text and then 3 on the tail end of another.
It's also better for moderation of mocks because everyone has done the same texts (or same within a band eg 1-3 do text A but 4/5 do text B).

There doesn't need to be lesson by lesson uniformity but a certain level of consistency is common sense to me.

As i say, I'd love more autonomy on a personal level, but then I've also been leading in teams where those who claim they want autonomy were also utterly incapable (unwilling) to do anything other than pursue their own agenda and then when results weren't good or there were issues they'd blame the students. Sadly not every department has a team of effective and strong teachers who are team players.

I never said anything about not having a schedule although I rarely manage to stick to it

At DD's school the maths department has a clear schedule. All sets are on the same topic (e.g algebra) at a time, with level of difficulty depending on the set, and then after 3 weeks they move on to the next topic. I believe Science act similarly, in-fact they must do as the end of term tests are the same topics for everyone so they can't have one teacher teaching out of order.

Yep, it's like that at DS's school for Maths and sciences, and also for Geography. Makes far more sense - as you say, they all do the same end of topic tests so they can compare the classes/teachers. It's taken the new English HOD a few years to get a grip with the department where all the teachers did their own thing, and yes, as mentioned above, there were real problems when a teacher left half way through a GCSE course. In Maths and science, it's very easy for cover/replacement teachers to hit the ground running.

Out of interest piggy (because I know we get on well on here), do you still meet the things that impact on other people?

E.g. We have some department deadlines which are tracked back from SLT deadlines and I find it infuriating when I can't do my job because someone's not got reasonable information to me by a deadline.

I couldn't care less if someone overruns a text by a fortnight as long as they meet the few reasonable deadlines we have.

I think on a personal level I feel the same as you, but I've been bitten by staff who seem to think that they can and should do whatever they like so now favour a level of consistency.

Yes, I always meet deadlines! We do have some menrenegades in the department , but I am not one.

I did rebel when someone tried to enforce a route march through a text at a ridiculous pace with lesson by lesson conformity, however.

But it is easier for teachers to hit the ground running because the things that need to be learnt are the same, no matter what. The exam boards in English lit, history etc build in choice for the teachers.

If a teacher arrived to do mat leave, for example, and a whole department was doing Frankenstein and they had never read it or taught it, life would be no easier. And you can argue they'd be better off instead teaching, say Jekyll and Hyde , if they had vast, recent and relevant experience in it.

Of course any mat leave type cover would expect to carry on with nay text if a teacher was half way through teaching it.

What’s this about parents buying the texts? Don’t schools just have boxes of ‘Holes’ knocking around? I’d have thought doing the text at different times would then mean needing one box of books instead of 5.

In my maths department we have the SOL that we all follow in basically the same order because of regular assessments by which you have to have covered all the content. There’s a bit of flexibility to switch around topics within those times - I might say ‘god I’ve not got the printing budget left this month to do transformations so I’ll skip to solving equations then go back to it when I’ve got more money’ but by the next assessment that work will have been covered.

I believe sets are less important in English so moving sets is less of an issue.
tbh Pretty much the only reasons I can see for enforcing consistency of books would be:

• less effort compiling exams
• out of school / last minute revision sessions - the department could put on one 'Macbeth' session, rather than needing (if they though extra sessions were needed) Macbeth + R&J + aMoV.

But I can see a benefit to a department head mandating order of topics and general timescales.

noble We (parents) buy the texts so the pupils can annotate them.

Piggywaspushed
That's good. You sound like me. I'm no fan of lesson by lesson conformity either and wouldn't work somewhere that does that. Equally I think it's good to raise issues and challenge bad decisions.

I'm not a fan of the renegade approach either as in my experience they tend to be staff who think they are better than they are and are more bothered about doing what they want than getting kids decent progress (because in my experience they are quick to blame external factors over taking any responsibility). Not all will be but the ones I've met are.

noble
It depends.
Some departments I've been in will have a half termly rotation. Others encourage kids to get their own so they can make annotations in it. Others buy a whole cohort of texts.

But holes? Holes? Terrible book.

Yes, you are right, revision and 'intervention' has brought about more uniformity teen. Tail wagging dog and all that.

noble we do provide books, as it goes , but ask students to buy their own. If anyone wants to do a radically different text choice , they might be allowed to, but it is negotiated based on whether we have budget to buy a set.

What I have never understood is why I wasn't allowed to do a different poetry cluster

I'm good friends with our English HoD. He firmly believes that teachers need freedom to teach texts that they love - he sees it as part of their job to nurture a love of literature (whether that it's poetry, a play or a novel) and doesn't think that's possible if he imposes set texts beyond those set by the SQA. He also believes that not all texts are suitable for all classes - not just because of ability but due to the balance of personalities in a class.

English isn't Maths or Science - I don't think they are comparable in that way.

As an English lecturer this makes me sad. All the creativity, passion and playfulness is being taken out of the study of literature. Students are no longer encouraged to think independently. It starts with taking away autonomy from teachers and succumbing to a relentless drive for standardisation.

The exam system is driving schools to act in this way, to the detriment of teachers and also to the greater punishment of the creative kids who don’t fit in boxes. Your school probably didn’t have as good results because they weren’t submitting to the Gradgrindian misery of the modern exam system. Or they were badly managed.

Teachers should be able to choose texts that they love and think will suit the class they have - one year, a class may have a dynamic that suits one text, another year it might be totally different. A good SLT will help and support their teaching team in these decisions.

I work with a lot of wonderful teachers who have been hamstrung, infantilised and forced to shove kids through a depressing quote ‘n’ rote learning system. They do their best to defy the system and give space to students to develop their creativity, independence and passion for reading, but the relentless drive for grades - which are measured on spurious aspects of literature and in no way prepare students for studying literature at university - means that schools keep pushing towards homogenising everything. This is to the detriment of students’ and teachers’ mental health, never mind the fact that the things the study of English literature help you to develop - independent thinking, the ability to argue, creativity - are no longer centred on the curriculum.

Sorry, this is a real rant point from me because I have seen so many broken and alienated young people who don’t fit the boxes of the current school system but would make wonderful literature students at university. I also work with some extraordinary teachers who have to defy the system in order to teach in the inspiring ways they feel that their students deserve, and often they too break themselves in the process.

Margot - he sounds like the kind of HoD all schools need

Insanity. In English this is nuts. Maybe a level of conformity that is ok in maths or science, but an English teacher not being able to choose a text that matches their class and their own passion? Surely you are teaching various skills through the medium of the text, can't see why it matters which one as long as a balance of drama, poetry etc. OP sounds like she'd prefer robots than professionals.

Margot - he sounds like the kind of HoD all schools need
He sounds like the HoD that people like me and Piggy would love (along with other experienced staff who balance autonomy and accountability well).

That approach doesn't work in a department where 2/3 your team are non specialists. Or where your KS3 is partially staffed by PE/DT/Geography staff who are a few hours under allocation.

It also doesn't work if you have a number of renegades who seem to think that autonomy means do what you want, pretend the curriculum hasn't changed, but blame the students or any other factors if challenged about progress.

In a time when we've not got a consistent supply of strong core subject teachers in all schools then we've got to work accordingly.

Two thirds of your department aren't actually English teachers? I should have saved my "insanity" comment for that!