What does Nicky Morgan not seem to understand?

[theluckiest]

Nicky Morgan urges teachers' unions to 'do their bit' www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35899478

No Nicky, teaching is not wonderful at the moment. No, teachers are not just moaning yet again (because that's what we usually do, isn't it?). No, your constant interfering, moving of goalposts and unnecessary 'reforms' are not helping anyone. In fact, you are damaging education irreparably.

Here's an example: the 'more rigorous' testing that you insist all 11 year olds should be put through are actually damaging. They are demoralising teachers but much more importantly, they are seriously damaging children's mental health. Yes, really. The stress these children are being put under is unforgivable this year. As a school we are held to ransom because of these tests (let's be honest, tests that we teachers, parents and schools know are bullshit).

They feel like they have failed already because your 'rigour' is inappropriate, unnecessary and completely pointless. They despise learning this nonsense and I can't blame them. At a time of their lives when learning should be exciting, they are force-fed inaccurate, archaic grammar and given the message that their writing cannot be good enough if it doesn't have a semi-colon.

Sounds crazy doesn't it? Because it is. So forgive me if I don't "Use the tools available to them to build up teachers, promote the profession and tell the story of what a rewarding job teaching really is" at the moment. (how I laughed when I read that one!!)

And don't get me started on academisation....Nicky, take your fingers out of your ears and listen. Before it's too late.

I will have to stalk sixteen year olds around the building
Utterly ridiculous - when did it become the teacher's job to chase this stuff up instead of the pupil's to deliver it?
(DH asked me this the other day - had no idea - when did the balance shift?)

raininginspringtime

Believe it or not there are things that we agree on.

I don't believe that having a degree makes you a good teacher, nor does passing the QTS, PGCE or teach first.

However. I also don't believe that it is beneficial to open up teaching to all without some form of baseline.

To a certain extent I am happy with changes to the curriculum, with the proviso that the changes are backed by research and that everyone knows what the changes are before teaching takes place.

At the moment all I know about my subject is the separation of controlled assessment against exam and that it is being separated from its 'parent' curriculum area.

Do you know that drama is going to be 80% exam based?
and to get higher than a C in music you have to know how to play an instrument to a banded national level?
I can't tell you what is happening in Technology as nobody knows.

I also know that in order to teach the full maths curriculum that math teachers will need extra time each week.

Economies of scale MrsGuy?

This man explains why that is nonsense far better than I could:

*MATs bring economies of scale

Economies of scale are savings you make by pooling functions, so not every school has to pay for its own back office requirements. They are usually said to occur when smaller organisations come together as a larger one. Now think on this for a moment. LEAs are larger than MATs, and this pooling of functions was precisely what they did before, er, the Government tried to stop them. So the argument the Government is making is that you will gain economies of scale by leaving a large organisation, and going into a smaller one. Hello?

Illogical Rating: 9/10. I’m knocking off 1 because they used an actual economic term. They didn’t understand it, to be sure, but they did use it.

Detached-From-Reality Rating: 5/10. At least it’s not complete fantasy to recognise that schools benefit from working together under the umbrella of a larger central organisation. It’s called a “Local Education Authority”. *

From (the very funny & informative): disidealist.wordpress.com/2016/03/27/arguments-for-schools-privatisation-is-this-really-the-best-you-can-do/#comments

MrsGuyOfGisbo
"No reason why centralised schemes of work could be produced to avoid all the unnecessary reinventing of the wheel done by everyone scratching their heads to create their own resources."

Because it doesn't work, you would still have to spend time personalising the lessons to the children in your classroom.

And you are assuming that schools will be teaching the same curriculum, this is allegedly a plus point for academies.

Also does surprise me (maybe I am easily surprised ) that apart from the endlessly and tediously rolled out references to Finland, best practice is not discussed and shared across countries. I know the French system, but not other European/East European/African/American etc systems.
How does Austria or Kenya or Thailand or New Zealand.... organise education?
(I asked my POGCE tutor - she was bemused at me asking - she said I was training to teach in England, so not relevant )

The problem is that I think the ideas behind academies are popular when we look beyond mumsnet, Twitter and so on.

Many academies are borne out of old decaying buildings pulled down and new shiny ones in their place. Many have uniforms that closely resemble uniforms of private schools and many (not all, don't jump down my throat!) have made improvements in the sense that when you google New Soulless Academy there are many newspaper articles about how it used to be St Claptrapped Old Building and OFSTED grade 4 and now it is New Soulless Academy and grade 2.

In other words what people see - shiny new building, smart, scrubbed children - gives an overall favourable impression. I'm not shallow well maybe a little but I am pleased the feeder secondary school for my own children is a pleasant building and a smart uniform and clear behaviour policy even though that's a long way off which is probably the biggest understatement on this thread but I like to look ahead!

i don't believe it is beneficial to open teaching to all without some sort of baseline

I absolutely agree with this.

I am neither for nor against academies. If we could go back in time I'd rather not have them but we can't and they are here to stay.
I worry that in putting our energy fighting this we are giving an impression to the public that we argue for the sake of arguing.

Yes to sharing best practice MrsGuy!

I think the main problem is all the politics in education. Too many changes are made for political reasons alone. I believe there needs to be an independent (or at least cross party) body that makes decisions on education.

IT dept? The C20th called, Guy - they want their BBC micros back.

That aside, if economies of scale are such a good idea - & I agree they are - why are MATs inherently in a better position to deliver on this than an LA? Why was it such a brilliant idea to break up associated LA schools into individual academies, only to discover that duh, they now need clumping together again?

As for centralised schemes of learning: haven't we all been agreeing that greater autonomy in what/how we teach is a good thing?

I don't re-invent the wheel. I look at the many, many SOLs & resources available, pick out the good stuff, do my own where mine will be better.

Doesn't work so well for IB literature, given the abundance of available texts - there you do have to do a lot of work...

I worry that in putting our energy fighting this we are giving an impression to the public that we argue for the sake of arguing.

Please don't worry, the public are arguing against this too. It's not just teachers.

I think that is mostly on social media which as we learned last May isn't actually representative of what people really think.

But also everyone I speak to in RL raining.

And Ofsted, and Conservative councillors and others speaking out in the media.
What else can public opinion be judged from?

If only it were possible to design a system completely from scratch - I don't think either the LA or academy system would be implemented. I

I don't think it can be. The real 'teller' will be in 2020 if this government are voted back in. I suspect they will be but at the moment a lot could change and we just don't know.

I would agree with you for what it is worth that academies aren't 'better' than LA schools; where I suspect we disagree is that I don't think LA schools are 'better' than academies.

If neither one is better than the other, then there can be no possible argument for forcing everyone to convert from one to the other at great expense and effort. That money and time could be spent better on actually improving the kids' education.

No reason why centralised schemes of work could be produced to avoid all the unnecessary reinventing of the wheel done by everyone scratching their heads to create their own resources

It worries me that these-along with text book-will obviously not be free. They will be produced by publishers like Pearsons and will not be cheap. Wonder how many MPs have shares in Pearsons?

I think people are suspicious of the motives of Ofsted and councillors, conservative or otherwise. Obviously councillor will not want less control over local services. Ofsted do not want to lose their power either. Teachers are protecting their P&C. So who can the public believe - everyone has a vested interest.

I think people are suspicious of the motives of Ofsted and councillors, conservative or otherwise. Obviously councillor will not want less control over local services. Ofsted do not want to lose their power either. Teachers are protecting their P&C. So who can the public believe - everyone has a vested interest.

None of those things mean the public should trust Nicky Morgan though!

She has given no evidence to show why state schools should be forced to become academies.

Of course if that wasn't a genuine question but a way to discredit me by implying I am not an English teacher but a spy placed here by the government, I don't think I need to point out how daft that is!

Why would that be daft? You have only been posting under your username for two days and you are one of only two voices on MN seemingly not in opposition to the current plans. It certainly isn't the daftest idea I've heard over the last three weeks.

raininginspringtime

"In other words what people see - shiny new building, smart, scrubbed children - gives an overall favourable impression."

but this could be achieved in existing schools.

"Many academies are borne out of old decaying buildings pulled down and new shiny ones in their place. Many have uniforms that closely resemble uniforms of private schools"

What is weird abut this is the amount of threads on here complaining about school uniform, public opinion always seems to be slip on this, in the same way that they are split on homework.

MrsGuyOfGisbo

SBP across countries would be OK as long as we take in to account the differences not only in education but the attitudes towards education.

Can you really see pupils coming in early to set up the classroom and then staying late to (not tidy) clean the classroom?

Or a government reducing contact time for teachers so that they can better prepare their lessons?

Or providing care for teachers that are near breaking point?

The argument is monetary giraffe we have established that and freedom/flexibility which is either a positive or a negative depending on how you look at it.

Personally I am not a fan of privatisation but I don't feel there will be a huge ripple of negative impacts although I agree the positive ones will also be minimal.

Whose argument is monetary, raining? Not the DfEs.

Sarah Vine has posted here before, and Nicky Morgan must have at least one minion friend willing to stick up for her.

I would just like one decent reason why it would be a good idea. I think the rest of the public would too.

The government wants to essentially remove the local authorities giraffe thus saving money.

There are some very sound economic arguments for Academies if you look at value for money. Setting aside for one moment the cost of "setting up" the model (which is an ideological investment), there is more accountability for the same cost in an academy model.

Currently, each LA is issued a set figure to deliver Education services in the area. They devolve that down to schools, top slicing a proportion through de-delegation to deliver essential services to schools. The value of this and the services delivered vary from LA to LA - with stakeholders having an input onto that decision through their representation on the Schools Forum.
The schools then have to buy in additional services they need. If they are lucky, the LA provides a comprehensive, competitively priced suite of services that the school can tap into without having to source open-market commercial services. However, as LAs have got increasingly strapped for cash, they are seeing schools as "paying customers " - and charges for those services not only cover the cost of delivery, but subsidise other departments through commercial pricing structures. A school could pay a TA for a month for the cost of a Pupil Premium Review provided by some Authorities, and an External Review of Governance is twice that. That's a lot more than the actual cost of delivery. Although LAs can't "make a profit" I've seen some very creative pricing structures that take into account a proportion of the office building costs, utilities, stationary etc to justify the fees charged by LAs for these services.

So the LA rakes back in a lot of money from schools over and above the dedelegation, and atvthstvsa,e time it cannot be held to account for the quality of the service it provides, or the ultimate quality of education delivered by schools in its area. An LA can have every school it is responsible for in a category, and the government cannot take the responsibility for those schools away from the LA. Whole generations of DCs can, and have, been failed by LAs who have not been held to account for poor standards.

In the academy model, the amount of money handed to each school in a MAT is the equivalent to the money handed to the LAs. Like the LAs, the MATs can charge for services they deliver to the schools. The risk is they will cream off even more than the LAs do. The difference is that the MAT is held to account for quality of education delivered in its schools - a MAT with every school in a category can be stripped of its responsibilities. So, unlike an LA, which can, and do, leave schools woefully short of cash without any risk to themselves as the responsible body if standards at that school drop, an MAT has a vested interest in ensuring that standards remain high. Which will, very quickly, eliminate those MATs who think this is a way of making a quick buck from the MAT gene-pool.