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.

If sets are not rigidly done by ability there is no reason for all this constant movement between sets anyway!

Works fine for non tiered English.

Bloody nightmare in Maths though.

I honestly had no idea that some departments could choose their own texts.

Our SOW runs like nobles. Mostly doing the same topic at once but at different levels. Until GCSE when higher sets have more content.

Mistressiggi
I'd like to say I've never seen that but I've been in supporting schools where that's the case. Or schools where the head of English is in their 3rd year of teaching (2 years teach first so one of those 3 was their training year) and TeachFirst can place you in subjects other than your degree. Or departments that are staffed by a revolving door of cover supervisors.

I think it's not a case of robotic uniformity or total autonomy in all areas because both extremes are bad for the pupils in my opinion. If you've got a department of highly skilled staff, experienced, low staff turnover, no renegade cliques then you can offer more freedom than if you've got inexperienced staff, non specialists, high staff turnover or renegade cliques. Most departments are at different points in the middle.

While there is a whole bunch of English teachers on this thread, may I ask a question?

I keep reading about pupils having to learn masses and masses of stuff off by heart now they don't have the texts in the exam.

Is that true? When I did O levels ~40 years ago we didn't have to learn loads. Yes, you needed quotes to support your views of characterisation, or themes, but mainly they went in naturally as you studied and discussed the texts, it wasn't a big task.

They have to know the texts well and be able to discuss the big themes and characters. They also need to be able to analyse key quotations.

I don't have a problem with the closed book element as it means less messing around flicking through books in the exam and more is automatic.

I originally thought I'd hate the new approach but actually I quite like it. There's been a lot of needless hype in the press over it in my opinion. I do have an issue with the exam being 2hours 15mins though. I think it's excessive and would be better split down.

I too have a problem with 2hrs 15mins. My DD gets extra time, so that makes it the best part of 3 hours. I'm just praying she doesn't have 2 exams on those days.

I agree with lola. I think the 'learning off by heart' is a little bit of hysteria. To be honest, that is exactly how I revised English back in the day!

The 2 hr 15 exam, though, is brutal.Especially when I taught a child with extra time and rest breaks!!

nags, I think I love you!

@LolaSmiles and @Nagsnovalballs - he's great, respected by colleagues, pupils and parents, good results as well. But we are in Scotland where they HAVE to be English specialists...

To be fair, he's also an excellent manager who has reined in some would be renegades whilst still allowing the flexibility.

Does Scotland have the same shortage of staff? Is there a good supply of specialists?

The renegades I've worked with have been really horrible to even nice and reasonable heads of team. They've even done things deliberately to try and make the HoD look bad to SLT.

I'm not sure in that subject area Lola. There are definitely difficulties filling some posts, especially temporary ones. We are hoping our recent pay rise will go some way toward retaining staff

There are definitely shortages in Scotland in most subjects (bar PE, as far as I can see) but you would never be timetabled to a subject permanently outwith your specialism, although maybe as short term supply

Yup the quotation hysteria is just hysteria. We get to teach what we want from the spec. Parents buy books (HoD sends good second hand links as well) but if this was a struggle for anyone we would supply.
It is important to choose the right book for the right class and the right teacher.
We also stopped doing the same thing at the same time in KS3 so that we only had to buy one set of certain books.
The different options on the spec are there for that reason. I've never taught in a school where that decision was made for me at GCSE or A Level (I have only worked in two schools though).

The approach described in the OP shows a lack of understanding of the pedagogy of a subject like English. Being a head of English is a difficult job and due to lack of time, I can see why the regimented approach is appealing to managers. But kids don’t go to school to make managers’ lives easier and deserve to be taught properly. In English that is about complex relationship between student, teacher & text.

Teachers should be able to choose texts that they love and think will suit the class they have
This is absolutely right. The enthusiasm that can be awakened in a pupil from a good teacher is almost unbelievable!