You may know that Ofsted have been thinking, which is good. It’s even better that they’ve been thinking about ‘What is the real substance of education?’ or as a normal person might put it ‘what are schools for?’

​HMCI commentary: curriculum and the new education inspection framework
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The clipboard brigade make several points, all of which deserve a big tick. I thought you might like a digest, shamelessly condensed and filtered through my own prejudices. They say:

1. Education is the vast, accumulated wealth of human knowledge, and what we choose to pass on to the next generation. A ‘curriculum gives a school purpose’. Hurrah!
2. That curriculum is the heart of education. It requires the pursuit of real, deep knowledge and understanding of subjects.
3. In too many schools, the curriculum is just a combination of the exam board specification, the timetable and the exam results. Not enough schools really think about what they want children to learn. This leads to a narrow range of subjects being taught and too much ‘teaching to the test’.
4. Inspections have placed too much weight on exam results.
5. The 2019 inspection framework will emphasise ‘the curriculum as the substance of education’. Inspectors will look at a school’s ‘curriculum intent’.
6. They’d like to see schools focusing on subjects and subject vocabulary.  
7. They’d like to be sure that ‘disadvantaged pupils are not put onto a stripped-back curriculum’.
8. They observed that expert teachers in the schools they visited ‘lived and breathed their curriculum’ and that good subject teachers are likely to stay in schools where subjects are valued.
9. A well-constructed, well-taught curriculum will lead to good results because those results will be a reflection of what pupils have learned. 
10. Parents need to know the substance of what their children are learning throughout their time spent in school. 

So far so good. Tallis approves Ofsted’s new thoughts, which will doubtless be a relief to them. But hold on!  What’s this? They don’t like three-year key stage fours, like we have. Why?
 
Three-year key stage fours originated at a time of intense exam pressure. Lots of schools did it to give more time to GCSEs and therefore improve results. This is part of the reason for the current panic about schools just focusing on English, maths, science, history, geography and languages, because that’s what’s been valued in national education talk in recent years. Therefore, lots of schools just do a quick rotation of arts subjects in year 7 and 8 and then don’t offer them much at KS4 so they can tick the ‘EBacc’ box of the subjects above. 
 
Tallis doesn’t do that. We have a very broad curriculum at key stage three with six hours a week of dance, drama, music, art and DT and a very large range of options in KS4. Choosing options early means that our children – who do one more option than many other schools, in any case – have the chance over three years to get into deep subject content, absorb it and make it their own. When I arrived at Tallis six years ago, I was very sceptical about choosing options in year 8 but was quickly converted. That’s not to say that we couldn’t improve the way we do it, of course. So, when the moment comes and we have to defend ourselves, we’ll have a few thoughts to offer inspectors about the what and the why, and how our choices enable us to keep a broad curriculum for everyone. Hurrah again!
 
It’s good news for everyone that Ofsted have made this commitment to the curriculum. I’m not just saying that because it’s Ofsted, but because it’s right. Schools are where society looks after its young, and the curriculum is what society thinks they should know. A broad, common curriculum which enables young people to think and reflect also means that the democracy speaks a common language. It builds up our communal life. That’s why good comprehensive schools with a wide curriculum are every bit as important to the health of the nation as the NHS.  A nation educated together across the whole range of human experience should be well-equipped to understand and change the world for the better. Hold on a minute, that sounds familiar…..
 
Speaking of which: Black History Month. We’ve had dancing, eating, talking, films and workshops. We’ve had two mini carnivals with mass dancing and Caribbean Come Dine with Me.  It’s been a joy. During the lower school carnival I was having our performance review with our Local Authority School Improvement Partner. I had to keep making excuses to sneak looks out of the window to see the children dancing to Sir’s music. They sent me up a plateful of outrageously good food but it didn’t make up for not being outside in the sun. A new colleague said ‘some schools would worry about losing control’ but we don’t. Our systems are good, our community strong and we love to dance, sing, cook and make things. We’re confident to do it because we value it, we do it all the time, and when we go back to class we know each other well enough to settle back down.

What are schools for? Being able to celebrate diversity and inclusivity with laughter and exuberance. That’s not a test you can teach to.
 
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18.10.18

How often do you walk backwards? I was accosted by a toddler last week keen to demonstrate forward and reverse gears. I thought I should tell him that reversing has limited utility, but now I’m seeing it everywhere. Teenagers walk backwards as much as forwards given half the chance because, like toddlers, they are unbelievably nosy. They can’t tolerate conversation without their input and when space is limited try to walk in a clump with a couple at the front walking backwards to maintain the circle of discussion. That’s all very well, but eyes are located at the front for a purpose and reversing in a group through a door while holding a football, arguing about love or PE and not knowing how big your feet are is positively hazardous. Face the direction of travel, I cry. Save yourselves.
 
People have been dropping by just to tut and roll their eyes and tell me how long January’s been. This is strictly unnecessary as it’s the same blessed length every year, but coming back to school before Twelfth Night makes it seem interminable. And then there’s February to contend with, which is no better except for half term. It would make perfect sense to have a moratorium on any excitement this half term and just concentrate on getting through the days and heading home before nightfall.
 
However, we are gluttons for punishment. We’ve had a pretty constant stream of visitors (apart from Them) attracted by our website and our general stuff. A much-visited colleague reasonably asked ‘Do we ever say no?’ Yes, but not very often and perhaps I should. Fine words from someone who’s arranged another Civil Service Immersion visit straight after half term.
 
Anyway, yesterday’s visitor was again impressed by the self-regulating multi-directional traffic on the bridge. Like an elderly 14-year-old I can’t leave a good thing alone so went forth to hassle the crowds today. Feeling sprightly for my age, I didn’t grab the trusty anorak. I shuddered theatrically therefore and a forward-facing youth asked if I was cold, as if being cold was an unacceptable sign of weakness. In February. In a thin jumper. Post-Ofsted. Perhaps I needed Clara’s spotty headscarf?
 
Unacceptable weakness was exactly what was being tested (I think) by an enthusiastic group throwing eggs off the bridge after close of play on Wednesday. No, not that kind of egg throwing, we don’t hold with that here, but something sciency. Eggs with parachutes, accompanied by groans, howling, derision and cheers.
 
Much like this week’s staff briefing which included gardening, birthday parties, fidget toys, slime, year 11, year 13, a knockabout double act between me and Gov & Pol, but thankfully no mention of parking. I’m pretty intolerant about fidget toys, but hypocritically so. I can’t sit still to save my life and invariably pick at my face, hair, teeth or just get up and wander about in meetings. Rank has its privileges. HMCI knits: I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
 
But this week also brought us Year 13 parents' evening, the end of the road for some long-term parents. The former Chair of Governors, for example, with child number three now in the final furlong. It’s a strange experience and I’ve said it before: we should print certificates, or strike medals.
 
Except that parents do it for love and generally don’t begrudge the time spent queueing and arguing (usually with the child, occasionally with a teacher and we try to resolve that). We do it for love too, in our own way and we try to give our time freely. A new support colleague asked if she should make an announcement to hurry parents along as time wore on, but we tend not to do that. Parents’ evenings overrun, its part of the warp and weft of school life. I can usually predict who’ll be last. Yes, Bradshaw.
 
Even when everyone’s gone, a handful will remain picking over hard cases or the unexpected upsets and wondering about how we could do it better. Then we all go home. Children and parents to happy or sad homes, filled with pride or regret. Teachers likewise. Mr Smith rewards himself with a kebab after parents’ evenings, and why not?
 
When we get back we can turn to face the second half of the year with confidence and commitment.  Our Platinum Artsmark award buoys us up that our holding onto creativity is valued, and a super conference yesterday sharing practice on transgender young people went really well. It’s getting lighter! Have a nice half term
 
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9.2.18

I do love clear and specific communication. The best notice I’ve ever read was on a ferry from Orkney to Papa Westray. A large handwritten sign above a pair of laundry machines read ‘Do not tumble dry other peoples’ overalls.’ There’s human pain behind that. I was reminded of the ferry while afoot in block one during the straightforward part of the week. On the Broadcast Studio door a (typed) sign reads ‘Do not put broken chairs in this studio’.  Broken chairs are a hazard to shipping in schools. There isn’t room for them in a classroom and if you put them in the corridor people sit on them and break them further or slide them around or use them for fencing practice or just trip over them. Putting them in the studio is a bit extreme. I trust the notice worked.

Did anything more exciting happen this week? Oh yes, OFSTED. You know I can’t tell you the result until it’s gone through their knitting. I can tell you about the effect on the good ship Tallis, though.

Ofsted has a communication methodology all of its own. We’ve been due an inspection since May last year so I don’t like any phone calls immediately after 1130 because that’s when they ring.  It used to be at 12, but it’s crept forward. Perhaps by the time I retire it’ll be breakfast time, early enough to spoil the whole day. So, just as our Business Manager was starting to explain further catastrophic developments in local parking regulations, the phone rang and the dread word mouthed through the door at me. I may have cursed the blameless instrument.
Ofsted obviously employ people with calm and sepulchral voices to deliver clear but unwelcome news to scrambled Heads. They must be used to having to say everything seven times. I was so shocked I couldn’t remember how many children are currently on roll. The first phone call warns you you’ll get a second one from a Lead Inspector who’ll tell you what’s on the agenda. You sort out a base room and parking spaces and they turn up the next morning at 0800 and do their thing. I’ve called them the clipboard brigade, but actually they carry these large zippy-up A4 leatherette affairs. It’s all done on paper, which you may find mildly interesting.  

Wandering about during our time of trial I was accosted by a youth. He and I have not always seen eye-to-eye on coat-wearing in the dining room, but he was onto the matter under advisement. ‘Miss, when does the thing come out?’  I requested further particulars.‘The thing, you know.’ We’d reached an impasse when, with a sudden rush of blood to the head he rephrased: ‘When is the inspection report published on the OFSTED website?’ ‘About three weeks’. I need to keep an eye on him: he may be a plant.

He was certainly more articulate than the girl exasperating the calmest Head of Year as I passed. Attempting to justify what sounded like pretty foolish actions, she turned to extra verbiage for cloud cover and had to be restrained. 'Don’t start every sentence with ‘basically’. I’ve got to go and teach in five minutes’. She had to strip her explanation down to the bare facts without added rhetoric. Ofsted’s bit like that too. 

The long week is finally over and I gaze at the whiteboard in my office. The priorities are still the same no matter who’s visiting, but I sometimes add a line of verse to make me think. This week it was from a poem by David Harsent called Tinnitus. The first line, which I like, would have been best:
                  ‘Now footsteps on shingle. Make of it what you will’

What I actually had written up, thinking about a likely visit, was the last line:
                 ‘Now chains through gravel. Make of it what you will’.

but I rubbed it off when we got the call.  It might have seemed rude. We’re all public servants.   
  
In school you can always hear Ofsted either approaching or departing, but the day was sunny and everyone worked together beautifully. We had Danish visitors and lots of messages of support from our friends. Sorry this is rushed.  You’ll be the first to know when we get the report.
 
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26.1.18

The White House book sounds gripping. I picture the Wolff man sitting quietly in a corridor smiling pleasantly so that people stop for a chat. Perhaps he had cakes. Who can resist someone listening sympathetically when you’re tired and irritated?

If OFSTED had any sense, that’s what they’d do. A day spent in reception with an open smile and some fancy biscuits and you’d learn a lot. Who’s late, who’s angry, who’s ill, who’s in tears, who’s got time to talk, how many supply teachers are signing in, why are the Police there, who is that bedraggled old soul who never remembers she needs her keys to get back? Ah, that’s the Head. 

Daily sights are available to any watcher. Monday Mr Springall had trousers on. (Not that he’s usually overexposed, you understand, just that he lives in shorts and generally only wears trousers for awards ceremonies. I didn’t think he’d been issued with tracksuit bottoms.) Tuesday I admired a matching pair of hair ribbons and the wearers gave me the biggest smiles. Wednesday I took issue with a camouflaged hat. Thursday the police came to tell us something we’d told them. Friday I returned to the classroom as a rusty supply teacher.

So that means that Monday everybody was cold, Tuesday year 7 are still perky and charming 16 weeks in.  Wednesday ‘It’s been a week now. No hats indoors no matter how new.’ Thursday nearly working in partnership with external agencies. Friday another nasty case of bronchitis so Roberts had to dust off her Religious Attitudes to Crime and Punishment.

This at least demonstrates I’ve put in a whole week. We came back on Wednesday last week but I spent Thursday to Saturday at a conference in Oxford, talking with philosophers and ethicists from around the world on Civic Friendship. It was the intellectual equivalent of a Christmas Dinner and I’m still digesting it. In particular, from Berkowitz of St Louis-Missouri University’s nugget ‘Children are the only known raw material from which adults can be made.’   
 
So Tuesday wasn’t just hair ribbons. Tuesday was early close for training, on trauma, on understanding the causes and damage of early childhood trauma and looking at how this might affect young people’s approach to adults, to school, to experiences, to life. Once you’ve grasped that, some inexplicables start to make sense. Why might some children be fearful and angry all the time? Why does the slightest change to routine throw some completely off kilter? Why is it important for teachers to be predictable, consistent, reliable, calm and – to return to the White House – stable?
 
It’s important because kindness and empathy can repair some of the damage already done, and even if it couldn’t it would still be the right way to live. When I looked round Tallis one of the things that made me want to come and serve out my twilight years here was the sight and sound of teachers talking calmly, firmly and kindly to struggling souls, about a better way to be. It permeates the place. Civic friendship indeed. 

I try to show this to visitors so I make them look out of my window at lesson change. It’s a bit of a risky strategy as you never know what might emerge in human community, but as a spectacle it’s never let me down (though Toby Young didn’t quite know what to make of it when he watched in May). New governors yesterday had been on a guided tour with some exceptionally loquacious year 8s who’d even commissioned a dance performance en route, so could be forgiven for wondering why it took 55 minutes to get around the building when 1900 people could emerge and disappear in 4.

But the best uncapturable moment of the week was Thursday in the quiet of the after-school gloaming, hearing George whistling Auld Lang Syne as he crossed the yard. 
                 
And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!
And gie’s a hand o’ thine
And we’ll tak a right gude-willie waught,
For auld lang syne. 
 
Don’t be anxious about willie waught. Loosely translated it means ‘take my hand in friendship and make a toast to the times we’ve known’. That’s as good for a new start as for an ending, for a reunion as for a parting. Here we are, the raw materials of civic life, holding out a hand to each other as we reboot Tallis for 2018.    
 
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12.1.18

Due to my advanced age and objection to any kind of cold weather I’m offered a lunch duty slot in the year 11 study hall. We say hall, but it’s actually 0311, a geography room of average size. 20 young comrades join me for 45 minutes of absolute, blessed silence. ‘It’s like a rest cure’ I remark to Sir as he barrels in at the front of a tidy line of 30 year 9s. We pause to retrieve a football appearing in entirely the wrong place. The ball’s owner is aggrieved: they took it off me, not my fault, not fair. He eventually agrees that all concerned should participate in brisk questioning after school and the resultant culprit issued with the appropriate sanction for the activation of a football indoors.
 
Fairness is one of our Tallis Character traits and particularly valued among the young, understandably as powerlessness attracts injustice in our flawed world and who has less power than a child? Football manager above didn’t want the indignity – or the football-affecting inconvenience? – of a conversation to establish how he got into trouble. Or perhaps he was wary of those whom he’d dropped in it. Perhaps dear readers are gnashing their teeth now. What a performance about a football  Haven’t they got something else to do? What about Sir’s lesson?
 
Don’t fret. While this 30-second legal wrangle was going on outside the door I was inside the door purring over the geographers, many of whom I’d known as puppies. I admired their height and wisdom and what a pleasant combination the gods of the option blocks had thrown together. I reminded a huge specimen that he’d been foolish in assembly and he had the grace to look sheepish. Books were given out, everyone settled. I didn’t even have time to ask what Zoe was reading before Sir, with a parting shot of ‘This is me being reasonable’ returned to the earth’s crust.
 
We’d had a furious complaint from a parent the previous night about our method of dispensing justice. Why must the innocent be questioned? Outrageous infringement of human rights. Well, we take rights seriously and the innocent must be questioned so that justice is dispensed fairly.  Innocence and justice must be protected and supported so that the community is safe and happy. We actually staff this. We spend money on it so there’s always someone to hear a story, take a statement, and, where possible and reasonable, broker restoration. When a youth comes blundering back into class late with the excuse ‘I had to have an RJ’ that’s what she means. Restorative Justice: a bit of a trade name, but useful none the less.
 
On Tuesday Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector offered reflections on the difference between education and examinations. She talked about the need to offer children real learning and the value of all the grades at GCSE. I’ve been arguing this point for years so I can’t disagree. What she says, however, feels different at the sharper end: fine words are bowdlerised into tick-lists for inspectors. Ofsted have tried to deal with that too. But HMCI can’t address the high-stakes accountability in which a confused system is mired and someone needs to be honest about that. But we can’t until we have a clear view of what education is and isn’t for, and what a civilised and developed democracy actually wants for its young and sets about doing it as fairly as possible. There needs to be a restorative process between the regulator, the department and the profession, which will take time and good will. At least she’s not calling us enemies of promise.
 
(I’ll return to the Ebacc argument in the piece when I can summon the strength. Sufficient unto the day are the troubles thereof.)
 
I’m a fan of the American philosopher and jurist John Rawls, insofar as I understand him and in particular, his fundamental principle of justice as fairness. Justice must not only be done, but must have a fair effect. Rawls underpins this with his concept of the veil of ignorance (I’ve have written about this before, sorry dear readers).  Imagine that you were setting up a system in which you have no idea about the characteristics of the people it serves, or your own characteristics. Will it work as well for rich and poor, for all genders, ethnicities, aptitudes? If it won’t, then its not fair. Try again. Try again DfE.
 
There’s a marvellous scene in that film of high art, Nuns on the Run. A hapless policeman lurches into a convent looking for the villains who are having jolly adventures disguised as nuns. After being unable to tell the Superior who or what he’s looking for, or why, she says ‘We’re all very busy here. When you know what you’re looking for, come back, and we’ll tell you if we’ve found it’.
 
It’s like that in education at the moment and all we can do in schools is to get on with the day job and account for ourselves as best we can. I’m trying very hard to persuade educators to think about the purpose of schools and our social role in loco parentis before we think about examinations and assessments. In the meantime, we’ll work hard like year 11 and try to be fair, like Sir and the indoor football.
 
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12.10.17
 
 
 
 

A dog came to visit me last week before helping on a Duke of Edinburgh trip. We’re pretty comatose at 0730 but as she set off for a lie-down in block one, children appeared from all over running to inspect such a novelty item.  How we enjoy diversion. Then we had two great events in a week, which helped. The first was the dance showcase on Friday, cast of thousands, exuberantly bursting and a real demonstration of a broad curriculum.  The second was a London Schools footie final at Crystal Palace, Tallis U15 v London Nautical (2-2, shared the trophy). Our boys were tenacious and determined, Tallis habits throughout. 

It was a while since I’d been to a football stadium. 39 years. Let me tell you Selhurst Park was considerably more fragrant than Ayresome Park in 1978 and I’d forgotten how diverting others’ commentaries are. A Dad in front of us didn’t let up with focused, specific, very loud tips for the team, each repeated 3 times, throughout the match.  I especially liked ‘get organised early’ and, when he’d yelled himself into a frenzy, ‘settle down’.

I’m much the same now its OFSTED season. Three years is up so the clipboarders could parachute in at any point.  This is how it goes: we wait in quivering panic by the phone every Monday-Thursday lesson 3.  (Anyone else ringing at that point risks castigation as an unfeeling oaf)  When I say quivering, I mean that we remind ourselves to quiver while doing something else. If they ring, they’d tell us they’d be there in the morning at 0800, for a day. In that time they’d check that senior staff know what they’re doing and everyone is competent and able to answer questions intelligently. Entry level, but we do practice. They watch lessons and behaviour and give our safeguarding processes a good going-over, then check that we took them seriously when last they visited. If that goes well, we stay ‘good’. If not, or if we’re better, they invite themselves for a second day. Some of you may have relations a bit like this. Or as Father Dougal said of bishops ‘They come in, they strip the wallpaper, they fumigate the place and then they’re gone’.

Why do Heads moan on about it so much, I hear you cry? There’s nothing wrong with being accountable. There’s nothing Ofsted do that isn’t a reasonable public service, but the conclusions drawn from it have, in recent years, been a bit outré. People lose their jobs after critical comments in reports. Sometimes that may be right, but really?  Inspection, like Radio 2, shouldn’t really be telling you anything you don’t know already. So my zen-like calm, which may just be old age, suffers a ruffle in the middle of the day. Truly, when the call comes, you’ll be among the first to know.  We’ve got the text ready.      

A chum stops me as we enter the building at crack of dawn this morning. ‘Are they coming, or should we stand down?’ Wish I knew. The talk is that they’re behind schedule, but then sometimes they’re bang on. This is literally 50% of what heads talk about when we meet, and I can’t do anything other than issue contradictory instructions: ‘Get organised early! Settle down!’ 

And year 11 had their final full day in school and assembly, shirt-signing etc. All very pleasant and cordial, a song from the Head of Year and a Purple Rain pianist who thanked his 270 peers for ‘accepting me as who I am, so I don’t have to feel ashamed’. 

We had a non-Ofsted visitor a bit ago who was very pleasant. We talked buildings and went for a wander around to see the hordes at work. I’ve picked up a bit of knowledge on this over the years and can have a superficial discussion on BB99, nickel sulphide inclusion and post-torsioned concrete with anyone. I showed him the hall and it was a sight to behold, GCSE Dance warming up with stretches, chairs, bowler hats etc. He hadn’t realised that dance was offered at GCSE or A level and had to assimilate this into his worldview.  I wondered, as I watched the cogs turning, how many others are oblivious to the arts, which may be why they’re not bothered about the cuts. If you don’t know what can be done, how can you regret its passing? The parents at the Dance Showcase knew, and some volunteered to help campaign to protect the arts.

Dance, like PE, reaches the parts other subjects can’t, and it’s physically good for you. Children need exercise and confidence: dance and football both provide it. At a time of obesity, worrying mental health problems among the young and shifting accountability through Ofsted and others, schools will have to balance their budgets by looking closely at anything that falls out of the Ebacc, but none of those involve physical exercise or self-expression. It just doesn’t make any sense. ‘Look where you’re running’ Dad shouted last night. Too right.
          
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16.5.17

The best is the existential demand repeated a thousand times a day: where should you be? Let me set the scene. A child is found in an unauthorised place (in our world where authorisation and unauthorisation change according to time). ​

​He may be at a watering hole or moseying along a corridor.  She may be lurking outside an office or emerging from the loo. Sensible forensics would require a thorough investigation: where he or she has been, why, how long and on whose say-so. It’s much quicker to invoke the future. Where should you be?

Again, a range of answers: maths, reception, the Library, my Head of Year, art. Those enable a youth to pass on, with just a quickly then, shooing motion or chop chop.  Actual dreams are discouraged:  somewhere warmer than this, in my bed, on holiday, at the chicken shop, with my luurrve would be rewarded with a personal escort to a destination of the escort’s choice and an unceremonious posting through a classroom door with another question: ‘This one of yours, Miss?’

But where should they be? Somewhere happy, somewhere safe. Somewhere people know them and love them. Somewhere the people are reliable and human.  Somewhere you can look out of the window when you’re 11 and watch the 16-year-old gods pass by. Somewhere where they listen, somewhere where they care.  Somewhere taxpayer’s money is spent wisely and effectively. Somewhere you can learn how to measure things in the sun with your LSA. Somewhere you can learn things, somewhere you can discover things. Somewhere your geography teacher will show you what’s under the drain cover. Somewhere where they’ll smile at you. Somewhere where they’ll teach you how to live, how to behave, how to create a somewhere that’s better for the next generation. Somewhere they don’t treat you like a fool, or a criminal. Somewhere they won’t judge by externals.
Questioning lasts all day. Sir appears in my room with a flourish and a bright idea about a marquee: what do they cost? He’s joined by another who claims to have solved two problems: is this ok? A third poses a conundrum: am I right? A fourth, however, issues a communique: news of a Pride Drive at OFSTED from a conference in town. Inspectors don’t like lippy children, untidy classrooms, scruffy (tie-less) uniforms.  Who does? Children should learn how to be friendly and confident. Classrooms should be physically and emotionally orderly. Uniforms, duh, should be worn as designed. But having a joke with a teacher isn’t lip, having a lot of stuff out at once in a lesson isn’t untidiness and wearing a polo shirt isn’t a personal affront to Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector. I spoke at a Policy Exchange gig this week and there was barely a tie in the room. Where’s the research behind these time wasting-personal prejudices? 

Education policy is littered with these non sequiturs: a range of rhetorical questions present themselves. Who are they kidding? What are they on? Why don’t they understand? We’d do well to stick to ours: where should you be, child?  Somewhere better than this.
 
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11.5.16

New teachers are the same. If you’re newly qualified then you expect to not know which way you’re up for a year and asking about everything is required.  If you have arrived with – ahem – a position of responsibility then you worry that people expect you to be abreast of the arcane. You may know the lot about all possible A level specifications, the latest Statutory Instrument or recite pi to 4000 places but what do you if your computer’s in a huff?  Where do you take a child who’s poked himself in the eye? Where exactly is the door to the library? We like to keep people on their toes at Tallis with a byzantine room numbering system. Now in my third year, I direct people with confidence. Floor, block, room number, unless you’re talking to premises staff who need you to convert your answer into algebra where x = 5.

The start of the year is curtain-up on the preceding 6 months’ planning and rehearsal: recruitment, staffing, exams, cleaning and tidying, bright ideas and missives from the government. This summer, precious little on the exam results in the press (hooray hooray) but lots about academies and free schools, again. A rallying-call from the Secretary of State arrives simultaneously with Ofsted’s report on KS3, neutrally entitled ‘KS3: The Wasted Years?’ Why, thank you, Sir.

I talk to a highly effective and perpetually cheerful colleague who reflects on the pace of activity as we start the year, how it takes a few days to get to peak speed, even for the best of us. Another says: we get it, we really get it, but the pace is daunting. I stop a year 8 youth who appears to have doubled in height over the summer. Perhaps his parents stand him in compost every night. He’s proud to be taller than me, but we agree that he could literally aim higher. His little mate is downcast, but it’ll come.

Like growing a teenager, some things take time and can’t be forced. Schools have focused on KS4 because that’s where the national focus is.  Loopholes allowed some to adapt procedures to influence outcomes without putting the leg work into learning. Now, the pressure is in a better place, but it’s still oddly expressed. If I was HMCI or the SoS – an outcome as likely as growing 6 inches over the summer, curses – this is what I’d say.

Item 1: GCSE grade 5. G5, as a spiffy young colleague called it, is the new C. G5 is where the measuring will happen, a bit higher than C, more of a B-lite. Got it? Our KS3 plan (taken us 9 months) won’t quite work so we needed to adjust, on Monday too. Stop me if I’m boring you. It’s not a big deal, but we’ll have to do a shedload of work again and it gives the lie to Morgan promises about lead-in time and workload. Who knew?

Staying calm, let us contemplate item 2: the EBacc, now compulsory for everyone starting year 7 in 2016. We’ll have to think. We spread KS4 over three years to develop a bit of depth, but that means we need to be ready for September 2018, which isn’t long if you have to retool without any money. We quite fancy a TBacc, which is EBacc with Tallis bonus, but we’re not through thinking yet. Perhaps we’ll install one of those French barber’s pole affairs as a foxy addition to our foyer, and just remove an A. It’s enough to make you yearn for a Gauloise. 

And now, ta-dah! Item 3: a school is coasting if fewer than 60 per cent of pupils get 5+GCSEs A*-C with English and Maths. Or, after 2016, if our yet-to-be-defined progress measures aren’t up to scratch. Hmm. Wouldn’t it be great if the coasting measure was ready before it was introduced. Wouldn’t it be great if the 60% figure meant anything more than adding 50% to Gove’s 40% which just doubled the number Ed Balls first thought of. Wouldn’t it be great if accountability wasn’t driven by the Regional Schools Commissioners’ academisation targets? Wouldn’t it be great if teachers had been consulted? Wouldn’t it be great if the progress measures weren’t loaded at the top end to make it easier for leafy or grammar schools? And has anyone thought about teacher supply? Even academies don’t have spare mathematicians stacked ready in cupboards. However, all will be well if you have a credible plan, hard to devise on Planet Incredible.

Item 4 to ensure that our cups runnethed over: OFSTED published a jolly new handbook.  

Our professional associations are desperately trying to help the DfE understand that you can’t simultaneously promise stability but bring upheaval if you don’t want to look like an idiot. I blame the posh schools they all went to: did their character education not include honesty or restraint (let alone foresight, common sense or an understanding of averages)?

Anyway, we continue tripping and the glorious galleries and museums of the capital are alive with Tallis turquoise. We have a brilliant photo of year 9s looking at Tracey Emin’s bed. Concentrating hard and respectfully, knowing it’s an important piece they still look slightly bamboozled, as if they can’t quite see it yet, as if they don’t quite get it. They will, because it does make sense and skilled teachers will get them to articulate a measured personal appreciation and decide if its art or not.     

I’ve seen the same expression on the faces of headteachers this week. We’re looking hard at all the policies but we don’t quite get it yet. It looks like Gove, but Nicky Morgan said she would take it steadily. It looks like playing politics with schools the same as everyone else has, but she says some Heads are complacent. I know heads who are tall or short, saints or loons, tutting or sobbing but I’ve not met a complacent one this century. This week’s policies are Tracy Emin’s Bed so bear with: I haven’t quite got it yet.  

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Not so much with the election: I regret to report that politicians have not fared so well. Two of the leaders grew tidy Hitler moustaches mysteriously overnight and have had to be replaced (the pictures, not the leaders). Instructions about the democratic process have been reiterated: we don’t deface, we vent our feelings in the ballot box. Participate civilly!

I’m not surprised that the Get Over It campaign was more respected than some politicians. Young people cannot fathom the ways of the old. It is blindingly obvious to most of them that inclusivity is the right way to live. They’re interested in people’s struggles and would like to understand the world and change it for the better. Prurient prejudice is incomprehensible: why would you be bothered about sexuality? What is the matter with you people?    

Politics, however, is encouraged by a bad press which gives an excuse for not voting. Young people and non-voting adults believe that politicians lie and can’t be trusted. One reason is that it’s hard to make a political promise – an economic promise - that is simultaneously easy to understand and true. Politics involves compromise, and you need a clear understanding of the flawed possibilities of human life to keep cheerful about it. Being outraged about inequality and politicians’ refusal to tackle it is reasonable and understandable: not voting is unreasonable and nihilist. Decisions are made by those who show up. We do the best we can. 

However, one does sympathise with despair at political pronouncements. The government have decreed that all year 7 students who didn’t meet the expected standard (what we used to call level 4) in reading, writing and maths in year 6 will have to take the tests again. That was 21% in 2014.  21% of Year 6 students have SEN and are mostly exempt from the proposed re-sits. So who’ll do the tests? When? Will secondaries keep these little ones out of the timetable until they pass? Will that help them get cleverer? How will Ofsted measure it?

And so to #2 in an occasional series of Things Overheard That Make Me Want To Bang My Head Against A Wall. A renowned prep school was being discussed at a small hotel to which I betook my weary bones after Easter. Thus: ‘It’s wonderful, so very child-centred. They value childhood and even teach some of them how to be children. Oh, and they all swim across the river with their clothes on.’ Try that in a state school and count the days until the Head appears in the paper and her job in the TES. I hope that none of the children frittering away their time learning to swim were under par in the KS2 tests.  Oh, I forgot: they don’t have to do them in the private schools. Endless testing: good for other people’s children. Learning how to save your own life and have fun too: good for rich people’s children.

Sometimes at school we have hard messages to impart which help young people grow up. We tell them if they generally tell the truth, try hard and act honestly that they will be believed. If they generally behave unfairly or thoughtlessly they are less likely to be trusted when it matters most to them. Children understand that so most of them learn that honest error is forgivable but sustained deception makes community life unsustainable. We teach them to make up their minds about people based on how they treat others. And then we tell them to vote.  

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Hippocrates goes on to swear fidelity to his master, his master’s children, his pupils and their claim on his skills and knowledge. He wants medical knowledge protected, which is wise (we wouldn‘t want anyone having a go at removing gallstones, or diagnosing chickenpox). He talks about healing the sick, the importance of diet, not causing hurt or damage, not poisoning anyone and behaving well.  He’ll leave surgery to the surgeons, make himself useful in any house, tell the truth, refrain ‘from acts of an amorous nature’ and keep secrets.

We could easily swear something similar.  We’d remember our own teachers, from the inspirational to the inept. We’d swear to keep up the tricks of our trade: how to teach trigonometry to the reluctant and science to children who we’d hardly trust with a spoon. We’d value how to learn and remember things, the importance of eating well, not teaching children lies, or hitting them, and trying to keep calm. We’ll leave surgery to the surgeons (I think that’s probably a universal principle), make ourselves useful in any classroom and yard, report accurately, refrain from any untoward behaviour and only keep the secrets that need to be kept.

The importance of the oath emerges slowly, like sixth formers loping to lunch. For all its antiquity, it is familiar to us. It forms the basis of what we expect from doctors. It makes us feel that they are people of honourable and righteous purpose, that we are safe in their hands. It echoes some current principles: safeguarding, accountability, healthy eating and the end of corporal punishment. It’s helped us form the modern world. 

So I try to poke fun but I’m not opposed to Hunt’s hope. In fact, I’d like to have a go at drafting it.  I think that there’s work to be done on explaining the purpose of education, schools and teachers to the taxpayer. I wrote last year about the principles that I think underlie public education, of powerful knowledge and exciting teaching, social justice and fair opportunities. In a post-Hippocratic world where we can’t swear to serve the families of our masters we need principles and ethics to liberate trust and effectiveness. Children need that too. They need to know that shoving each other in the corridor will attract the same opprobrium no matter who stops it, and that we will all do our best to teach them to become non-shovers. Even if we don’t know each other well, we can rely on each other’s motives.

Let me share something. We have codes for staff too at Tallis, beginning with the senior team. Part of our code is this school-ish version of the Nolan Principles for Public Life. So, we value 

• Selflessness – acting for the greater good, not for our own power or status
• Honesty – reflecting issues as they are and being honest with each other
• Openness – explaining our actions and responding to criticism, not just demanding compliance
• Integrity – doing what is right to build up a solid and reliable education system
• Objectivity – making decisions on merit, not because they make life easier
• Accountability – taking responsibility for our actions, as public servants
• Leadership – acting according to these principles and enabling others to do so too

We hope that we keep this promise to the children we serve, to the utmost of our power and judgment. As Hippocrates said,  

If I faithfully observe this oath, may I thrive and prosper in my fortune and profession, and live in the estimation of posterity; or on breach thereof, may the reverse be my fate. 

Quite so, and if we can’t do it then the children can’t trust us and they don’t prosper either. I think it’s an oath worth commissioning.

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How do we improve teaching? That needs time, which is money, calm and stability. It needs reliable measurements and long-term thinking.  It needs sustained hard work by people of good will and common sense.  It needs not to be skewed by ego or the prospects of fame or fortune.  It means recruiting the best, training them thoroughly, giving them time to flourish and trusting their judgment. It needs wisdom and courage in making difficult or ambiguous decisions about those for whom teaching is a poor match to their skills. It takes thinking, planning, imagination, endurance and not a little cunning. Teacher training needs to be highly competitive, based on exacting standards of pedagogical research and practice and top-notch subject knowledge. It cannot be done on the cheap and must not be downgraded. Incidentally, it shouldn’t be used as a freakshow for cheap television viewing, but just call me an old misery.   

Learners have needs too: an orderly, kind and supporting home:  being fed and watered, washed, talked to and well-slept. They need routine and shared laughter, predictability and the occasional excitement. They need direction and increasing freedom, rules to batter themselves against and shared ‘let’s-see-what-happens‘. They need structure and love in the teeth of adolescence. None of this is easy.

Listening to an assembly about Black History Month I thought about Mandela quoting Nehru’s no easy walk to freedom anywhere and the importance of our Tallis habit of persistence. Our best teachers put in the graft to make themselves inspirational and utterly, completely reliable.  They work ridiculously long hours and focus on the details that they know will make a difference to learners. Was I pleased with Nicola Morgan’s promise on workload this week? Yes, if it comes true – but we are our own worst enemies.  It’ll require schools too to wean themselves off easy answers and flashy solutions to lifelong human issues, or impossible documentation demands. Teachers need to think, to plan and to assess.  None of these are easy, and they need to be allowed to get on with it.

Our own community of endurance jogs along. We’ve finished picking over the exam results and adjusted this year’s plans. Year 12 Graphics go to look at street art, the World Marathon runners come second and we’ve made some progress on the art rooms’ floors. Our homework monitoring software is treacherously good. I think about funding. Y8 physics run up and down a lot to think about energy. A young man learns to apologise nicely. It’s World Poetry Day on the theme of the Great War: Dulci et Decorum Est to be in a big comprehensive school.               

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2.10.14

After that it was half term. I had a wet week in Germany and visited the Nuremburg courtroom, where genuine British values played a part ‘the tribute of power to reason’ that picked up the stitches of civilisation again. US Judge Jackson’s speech for the prosecution is an astonishing feat of rhetoric, but it was Maxwell-Fyfe’s calm and methodical cross-examination which broke Goering. Unflashy but effective is a British value too.

The memories of wars are heavy this year. Before half term we’d met with our vicar to plan our part in the redevelopment of the war memorial in St James’ Kidbrooke. We think it’ll be interesting to find out who we’re related to and what happened to them. We need to think about the D Day anniversary too, once we can have some assemblies again after exams. Remembering (and getting round to it in the end) are British values too.

And so is going to Tyn y Berth for a week with year 8 to be outdoorsy or walking down to Sports Day in Sutcliffe Park or selling doughnuts for charity or other ordinary things. It’s being so astonished by the sun that you get half-dressed outside after PE just for the feel of it, or getting really cross with an inanimate object and having to climb down afterwards. But it’s also putting other people first and creating the circumstances for everyone to get along together, and taking care of the hard-won victories of democracy and equality. Trying to make things better for everyone is surely a British Value?

There are so many irritating factors in the Trojan Horse furore, so many ways in which conspiracy may be alleged on all sides that paranoia and suspicion may well have become British values as well as Corporal Jones-y panic. Useless to speculate on Wilshaw, Gove or May’s motives but I wouldn’t be British if I didn’t add my two-penn’orth. We HAD a statement of British Values for schools – it was in the preamble to the 2008 version of the National Curriculum and it was wonderful.  It said

We have them in the Teachers’ Standards 2012, telling us that teachers must not 

We had all this and a great Citizenship Curriculum. We’ve standing orders for RE which ensure children learn about and from religion. We’ve a distinguished tradition of assemblies and community activities and an inspection system that, until two weeks ago, was in grave danger of working sensibly. Struth, we know what to do. But now we’ve got academies and free schools that don’t have to build up the common good, a moral panic just before an election, knee-jerk reactions, and wanton ignorance of the honourable purposes that direct daily life in school.  Such a shame that hypocrisy is a British value too.

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11.6.14

Anyway, I have had cause to consider the measuring of what we do. Is it reasonable to measure the progress of children and schools?  Yes. Is it reasonable to investigate whether that achievement, behaviour, teaching and leadership are up to scratch? Yes. Does this damage schools?  Probably not: the new schedule, as we winsomely call it, is much more sensible than it has ever been before. Does it give a full picture? Maybe not. As Dougal once said to Father Ted about bishops ‘Ah Ted, they just come in, fumigate the place and then they’re gone.’

Children are both oblivious to and troubled by OFSTED. Generally speaking, adult concerns are tedious and while they are nosey about what’s going on, they get back to the dramas of their own existence sharpish. Suits and clipboards are not crowd-pullers. They’re more likely to be outraged by the sheer impertinence of inspection – who are these people?  What do you mean, they’re seeing if the school’s alright? Of course it is. Young people see themselves as arbiters of quality: who are these amateurs?

One inspector had had a conversation with a couple of young people over a bin. The responses were thoughtful and interesting, one pictures chin-stroking. I think that’s a good way to find out about a school, but the child was unimpressed ‘He talked to me over a bin.  Seriously?’ Another small member was perturbed by the whole experience. Tuesday break he asked me if they’d arrived, and at lunchtime how long they were staying.  When we reconvened Wednesday break he shook his head in disbelief that they were still among us. ‘How long can this go on?’ he despaired. He’d have hated it when they stayed for a week.

But after it was over school life picked up again as if the previous 54 hours hadn’t happened. Last week’s dance showcase had fully 29 acts and the time flew, like the dancers. Despite the suits we had a street hockey launch day with remarkably few bruises. 30 Norwegians came to maths. New teachers have been interviewed and appointed for this expanding school: 4 this week, despite OFSTED. Outdoor ping pong proves popular. Photography and art exams happen.  

Last night, immediately post inspection, our A level creative writing students performed work from their residential week, to a packed studio audience. Their poetry and prose was witty, poised, serious and a balm to the soul. The anthology is called Everything In between, an apt title for the week. We’ve been scrutinised and picked over, our practice laid bare under 4 inspection headings but it’s everything in between that makes us what we are and who we are: Tallis happy, Tallis proud.

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We are looked at a lot, and we take that for granted too. The Director of Education visited us last month.  We had a walk around and found the Head of Maths keeping an eye on his kingdom at lesson change. Unrehearsed, we had a detailed conversation about our habits of mind project and the enthusiasm our students show for inquisitiveness, collaboration, persistence, discipline, and imagination. On the way back we talked about OFSTED  – but that particular entrail-reading is unsuitable for a newspaper column. I presented her with a Tallis umbrella for the current deluges. 

Last night was Governors and we powered through our agenda in 95 minutes, because of the amount of sub-committee and visiting work our team do. We talked about how best to represent our community and thought of some more ways to encourage a wider range of people to take part. Three members of the sixth form came to talk, and presented a better scheme for student representation. Another friendly professional from the local authority came to train governors in inspection skills.    

Parent and student surveys, commercially commissioned, tell us that we are doing a fine job.  The performance tables paint a healthy picture. Detailed national achievement analysis is covered in good green boxes with hardly any bad blue boxes. This half term I have drafted a new Behaviour Policy which staff and governors are currently looking over: we’ll meet with parents to talk about it after half term and include their views too. Yet the papers are full of advice for us. The secretary of state tells us that children should be punished by being made to run round a field (we don’t punish them with fitness) or write out lines (there’s proper work to be done in detention) or pick up litter (obviously). The former Behaviour Tsar’s advice is re-peddled: teachers should know children’s names (you don’t say), prepare their resources in advance (strewth) and use praise as well as reprimand (give me strength). Another politician describes public servants as having unaccountable power and tells us (reminds us, actually) that parents can trigger an inspection. There’s not a Head to whom this is news. 

We are correctly, accountable, every hour of every day. To OFSTED, the Local Authority, governors, our communities, parents and one another. Teachers support and challenge one another in equal measure and a staffroom can be unforgiving to someone not pulling their weight. I’ve never met a representative of a teacher union who wants to keep the wrong people in classrooms or a lecturer in education who wanted to train teachers badly. We live like the man in Amos who ran from a lion but was met by a bear, who escaped to the house, rested a hand on the wall and was bitten by a snake.  We observe, scrutinise and plan for improvement every breathing day and yet we’re castigated as if we were unprincipled oligarchs. How did this happen?

It is the children to whom we account and mustn’t let down. While we make account of ourselves the daily work goes on. Geography lessons are taught, basketball teams play, year 9 astronomers see Jupiter’s moons, next year’s timetable is written, drama, dance and music perform at the Cutty Sark (and appear on Woman’s Hour), ICT is tussled over, money is worried about and angry, distraught or confused young people are helped to make sense of the world.

We don’t need telling to be accountable.  We don’t know any other way to live.

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13.2.14       

Wednesday is sixth form council. They reminisce about life lower down the school, how to encourage that happy absorption in interesting events in their younger colleagues.  ‘Fairtrade Week!’ one cries, others groan. I make peace with a young chap who acted foolishly and apologises graciously. Year 12 have mock results and a parents’ evening. It’s lovely to see personal traits we know well reflected in parents.  We see different faces of the child: one who’s painful at home may be all charm at school, and the opposite. Parents want to know what we’re doing and we are pleased to be accountable. Year 11 have mock exams but the weather gods are only partially kind to PE while the sports hall is full of anxious desks. All 21 staff who took level 1 BSL have passed. More ukeleles appear.

Thursday we review our new improved lunch queuing system, instigated by communal outrage from the small about pushing in from the large. We face the challenge of a dining room built without space to train The Great British Queue of the future. Young people simultaneously demand and resist change, and support and complain about decisions. They want to know why we decide as we do.  We’ve brought the queue indoors and it’s quick but loud.  A slow-loading computer poses problems for the year 9s presenting assembly: they react with aplomb. I read OFSTED’s latest guidance so to predict their scrutiny when it comes.     

Friday is observing in history. Year 8 students tussle with the ending of the slave trade in Britain. Despite complexity, they articulate honourable and economic reasons. They understand pragmatism and moral imperatives and contort themselves across chairs the better to make their points in group debate. I talk to a man about door-stops who thinks children are much bigger than when he was at school. Are they? Everyone over 12 looks tall to me. I give the Director of Education a Thomas Tallis umbrella.

So ends a week that began on Sunday with teacher licensing on the news.  I was irritated that politicians and press think this might annoy or challenge us. We are analysed and examined from every angle all the time and none of that as closely as we study ourselves.  At least it’ll expose the old lie that there are thousands of incompetent teachers skulking in the staffrooms of the nation.  I planned to mull it over in church, but the sermon was too interesting.

Monday of week 18 we start again.  Notwithstanding alarums and excursions, about 3,500 lessons will be planned and taught, 40,000 pieces of work created and 8,000 or more lunches cooked.  An inestimable number of pens will have run out and homework sheets been glued in upside down.  We’ll have theatre trips, job interviews, residential visits and visitors from 6 countries. 

Tallis spends another week fulfilling our responsibility to the community’s young under the public’s eye.  Changing the world, one day at a time. 

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16.1.14

Barack Obama said at Mandela’s memorial service that ‘nothing he achieved was inevitable’. I’m ridiculously irritated by cheesy school mottos, and would like to decree that this should replace every single one of which I disapprove. Nothing we achieve is inevitable, nothing that children become is inevitable. There is always a choice and a chance to set them on another path. 

We’ve worked very hard in schools for years now to know everything we possibly can about every child’s skills and achievements. We have data enough to submerge us and acronyms sufficient to launch a new language. But my second pause for thought of the week related to the dreaded PISA. There’s some evidence, apparently, that more successful countries know less about individual children than we do and therefore expect more of all of them. This is really interesting: do we serve our young people better by knowing their ability inside out or by not knowing them? Do we expect the inevitable or plan to avoid it? Our schools have always been built on care for the whole child but does detailed achievement data free us to help them more or less?  No doubt OFSTED will tell me what to think.  

However, we try not to be inevitable here at Tallis. Our young people incline to the quirky and we put a premium on creativity. As I write 20 students are working with a designer to try to perk up our reception area which will look even duller once the red tag tree departs.  While a suggested slide and ball pool may present a challenge too far for the reception staff I quite fancy the comfy seating and 2000 hellos of another option. That’s something to look forward to after Christmas.

One of the red tags on the smaller tree says ‘I want to be less bad next year’. A plangent human hope, perhaps from a child who experiences the trials of adolescence as inevitable? He wants to escape from badness’s consequences: failure at school, unhappy relationships, frustration and disillusionment. I hope those around him will be less bad too: more patient, more generous with their time, more structured.  Being less bad demands more than not making off with your colleagues’ whiteboard markers or making cutting remarks to the cat. It involves making changes that model the kind of world we want to live in. It involves taking hold of ourselves, deciding that what we are now doesn’t necessarily dictate what we become and what we think or know about children doesn’t become their inevitability.

So, here’s to the red tree, the less bad New Year and confounding the inevitable. May all your Christmas trees be covered with cheery messages and if a ball pool or a slide would improve your workplace, consider them. If you know any children, get them to write you a message for your Christmas tree.  You’ll see that nothing is inevitable to them until we make it so.      

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