Sunday, July 20, 2014

Gove's reforms will expose rather than reverse Britain's educational decline

Like Thatcher's before him, Michael Gove's demise was greeted with gleeful cheers from the militant Left and disconsolate tears from the libertarian Right - peppered, of course, with a fair bit of enraged apoplexy. Peter Oborne, for example, columnist for The Daily Telegraph and unapologetic Govian neophyte, described him as 'the greatest education secretary since the Second World War', and angrily dismissed his removal as 'an act of sabotage' orchestrated by George Osborne's Machiavellian desire to dispense with his rivals and succeed David Cameron as Conservative party leader in the not-too-distant future.   

James Forsyth, another centre-right commentator and passionate Govian apostle, bemoaned his departure as a sop to the cosy Etonian club that dominates political and public life. Children schooled in the old Etonian art of power, he lamented (something Michael Gove wanted to extend to all, regardless of socio-economic circumstance), will now remain unchallenged by their state-school-educated contemporaries, courtesy of the former Education secretary's dastardly removal.

On the other hand, Christine Blower celebrated the apparent efficacy of her union's strike and menacingly, if indirectly, threatened Nicky Morgan, Michael Gove's replacement, with a similar fate should she dare to upset her members by, among other things, attempting to improve our schools.

It may or may not surprise you to know that I do not agree with either view. Neither do I share Peter Hitchens' typically surly and uncharitable assertion, though, that Michael Gove 'is the most overrated Education Secretary in recent British history'. On the contrary, Michael Gove, in my view, deserves credit for some courageous and long-overdue reforms.

Through his refashioned National Curriculum, for example, the core subjects have been injected with more rigorous, knowledge-based, intellectually challenging programmes of study - a reform that not only reverses a child-centred obsession that's scandalously led to nationwide, multigenerational ignorance and entrenched disadvantage (especially when one considers the private sector's unwavering focus on rigour), but one that really does force teachers to adopt a culture of high expectations, rather than one that simply pays lip-service to this hitherto overused, largely meaningless, shibboleth.

After years of government- and teacher-sponsored dumbing down, moreover, he has imbued our national qualifications with real value again. Many so-called BTEC equivalents have been abolished; others toughened up to more accurately reflect their stated value. Likewise, GCSEs and A-levels  have been armed with gold-sheathed rocket boosters as end of course exams replace their modularized, easier predecessors. Thanks to Michael Gove, no longer will our children be hoodwinked into taking meaningless courses, cruelly convinced of their artificially inflated value by venal politicians and their self-interested colluders in the teaching profession. For this, the former Education Secretary deserves considerable credit.

He also deserves credit for redefining what makes a good teacher, debunking long held prejudices that outstanding teachers talk less, encourage children to work collaboratively (in other words, in groups) and reject didacticism in favour of emollient facilitation. It's now, thankfully, all about pupil progress, without reference to teaching style.

He's granted Head teachers greater autonomy over behaviour management, allowing them, for the first time, to permanently exclude unruly pupils without the threat of having their decisions overturned by detached, all-powerful appeals panels. In addition, teachers no longer have to give 24 hours' notice before detaining a pupil - another potent, enabling reform that should, if used, make a profound difference. On reflection, I find these changes extremely difficult to oppose and, quite honestly, feel baffled by the profession's general hostility to an Education Secretary with the vision and courage to push them through.

However, as welcome as they are, these reforms do not go far enough. In fact, as they currently stand, they will only expose rather than reverse our educational decline. As a consequence, and with much regret, I do not view him as the 'great reformer' he's reputed to be by the likes of Peter Oborne and James Forsyth. Increasing demands through tougher exams and a more challenging National Curriculum, for example, and for all their merits, will not lead to higher standards; instead, as pupil outcomes get worse, unable to cope with the extra challenge, they will only illustrate the system's shortcomings, shortcomings that, unfortunately, Gove's reforms do not adequately address.

His attempt to reintroduce teacher-led, traditional lessons has been thwarted at every turn by Ofsted's refusal to play ball. Just last week a Civitas report exposed the organisation's unwillingness to enforce the will of its Chief Inspector who, in this case at least, fully supports Michael Gove's reform agenda. In reality, then, away from the headlines, child-centred learning continues unabated, leaving yet another generation to wallow in a morass of ignorance and want.

Most significantly, though, and this will come as no surprise to those of you familiar with this blog, he has not done enough to challenge the truly appalling behaviour so prevalent in our schools - behaviour that leads to such poor educational outcomes for so many of our children. OK, as already acknowledged, I concede that he's given Heads more power over behaviour management, but, quite often, those same Heads are unwilling to use their newly acquired authority, so indoctrinated by fluffy group think they've become - my Head being just one example.

During his tenure, rather frustratingly, Michael Gove made lots of noise when it came to behaviour, but much of it was hot air, platitudinous drivel designed to get a headline. For example, the use of reasonable force to restrain uncontrollable pupils is too vague and open to question – I can certainly see the lawyers rubbing their hands together at that one. Increased powers to stop and search those suspected of skulduggery are equally nebulous and frankly, unwanted – we are not police officers. Moreover, surprisingly, some of his reforms actually conspire to encourage the bad behaviour he said he wanted to eradicate. Through financial penalties, to give one such example, schools are now discouraged from permanently excluding persistently disruptive pupils. This is absurd. Schools should be urged to follow clear, easily understood sanctions ladders. If this means permanent exclusion as a last resort, a final sanction when all other avenues have been exhausted, so be it. They certainly shouldn’t be penalised for following their own procedures, procedures that exist to protect the education of the majority. 


'So what needs to be done?' I hear you say. Simple. Through a refashioned Ofsted school leaders must be forced to address the issue of behaviour in a much more meaningful way, only then will we see lasting improvements. Inspectors must indeed make it their number one priority. This will need, I suspect, especially when one considers their continued defiance of Michael Wilshaw's leadership over teaching styles,  a drastic, wholesale change of personnel - preferably to include the voices of commonsensical teachers and educational bloggers (here I am!) - accompanied by root and branch reform. They must forensically examine behaviour policies, question students and classroom teachers and, most importantly, and this is where Michael Gove again deserves some credit, arrive without prior warning. All schools, not just some, must be seen warts and all, only then will inspectors get an accurate picture. 


If adopted, and I implore Nicky Morgan to seriously consider it, this approach will initially lead to an increase in permanent exclusions that should be facilitated and supported through the creation of more specialist schools specifically designed for children with behavioural and emotional needs- something that could be encouraged through Michael Gove's Free Schools programme. 


A similar remedy should accompany the long-overdue reversal of David Blunkett's cruel Inclusion policy - a policy built upon the tacit, misguided assumption that children with often severe special educational needs should be educated in mainstream schools.This can only be seen as a missed opportunity, thus far.


Finally, for all their fanfare and the impassioned hysteria surrounding them, Academies and Free Schools aren't the game changers being touted. They are instead a continuation of the Marx-inspired status quo: the very same Leftie group-thinkers dominate the top positions with one significant change, thanks to Michael Gove: they now have more freedom to do their worst.


The lesson here for Nicky Morgan is that you can create as many Academies as you like, but, in my experience, as someone who works in one, they will make precious little difference without recasting Ofsted and through it, addressing the issues at the heart of our educational malaise: poor behaviour and trendy child-centred teaching methods. Who knows? Perhaps Michael Gove needed more time to become, like Thatcher before him, a truly great reformer.

Also published on www.conservativehome.com on July 24, 2014

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

The pitfalls of unencumbered immigration

Recently I started to read a book called Bloody Foreigners. Written by a regular contributor to the New Statesman, Robert Winder, it seemed, at least initially, quite intriguing. I felt that I just might learn something. However, my optimism quickly wilted as the author's ultimate objective became clear, his patronising, sanctimonious style apparent. 'What do you expect?' I hear you say. 'He's a Lefty, a New Statesmanite, an arrogant member of the chattering guardian-reading classes, a quixotic imbecile convinced by his own agitprop and self-righteous diatribes. You should have known better!' But in the interests of balance, and in the knowledge that, like most fallible humans,  I can be pretty blinkered myself, I thought I'd give it a go.

Needless to say, its message was predictable. Masquerading as an example of learned scholarship and objective commentary, the book purports to be a history of immigration to Britain. However, its barely concealed prejudices are quickly revealed as the author's true intentions become clear. Winder aims to convince the reader - as long as he doesn't alienate him first with his sententious, pontifical tone - that no reasonable person could possibly oppose unencumbered immigration. After all, he argues, Britain has been the destination for untold numbers of immigrants for centuries. In fact, if you go back far enough, we are all the descendants of foreign peoples seeking new opportunities and better lives. How can we possibly deny to others what was granted to us? Moreover, if our provenance can be traced to foreign climes, how can we claim to be homogeneous and, worse still, the proprietors of the land we arbitrarily call Great Britain? In essence he implies that Britishness, as we think we understand it, based on shared customs, values and traditions, does not exist. It is a myth, a human construct, a figment of our imagination. We are, and always have been, a multicultural salad bowl. 

Of course he does have a point, we are the descendants of immigrants, and we are a strange hybrid people as a consequence; but over the last two millennia, we, the disparate peoples of these islands, have developed a collective consciousness and visceral sense of belonging that the Left, with its purblind devotion to social liberalism and natural hostility to the nation state, finds hard to accept. We have continued to absorb and assimilate newcomers, granted, even adopting many fine aspects of their native cultures, but this gradual process of cross-fertilisation has not undermined society's social contract, expressed through our commitment to the nation state. If anything, it has strengthened and renewed it. 


Having said all that, it is important to recognise that immigration has not always resulted in inter-communal harmony. We should not, therefore, assume that it is always beneficial, for the immigrant or the indigene (sorry, Will, I meant descendant of an earlier generation of immigrants). Indeed, history tells us that inter-communal violence is no stranger to multi-confessional, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural societies. We should, as a consequence, be eternally vigilant, surely, and not take our hitherto exemplary record when it comes to assimilating newcomers for granted.


The key here is in the word assimilate. All immigrants must be assimilable. They must share our inalienable commitments to individual liberty, parliamentary democracy and the rule of law; they must also feel a deep affection for the history, institutions and traditions that have shaped and defended these defining principles. Yet this eminently sensible objective is being undermined by mass immigration, a phenomenon encouraged by Lefties like Winder. How can we possibly guarantee the loyalty of every one of the 600,000 newcomers who arrive each year? It is simply impossible. It therefore stands to reason that we must reduce the numbers to manageable levels. This would not only allow the authorities to adequately scrutinise each applicant's suitability, it would also represent a response, albeit unintended, to a long-overdue recognition of humanity's natural resistance to radical change. 


Settled communities have been forced to endure unprecedented levels of immigration over the last twenty years, and continue to do so. Without any consultation, the defining characteristics of entire villages, towns and cities, loved and cherished by their inhabitants, have been irredeemably lost. In short, areas have been rendered unrecognisable. To expect people to graciously welcome these alterations and embrace the liberal-Left-ordained creed of multiculturalism to boot - a creed that conspires to amplify the upheaval -, is both arrogant and vacuous. Being attached to the familiar is a very human instinct; moreover, it is a human instinct that should inspire pride, not shame. It is surely the job of government, therefore, to ignore the likes of Winder and satisfy this instinct by implementing policies that encourage gradual - not revolutionary! - change. Over to you, Boris.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

‘Student Voice’ demoralises teachers, encourages irresponsibility and promotes a culture of excuses

Back in September 2004, during my first year of teaching, a senior member of staff politely rebuked me for pushing in front of a student in the lunch queue. ‘They don’t like it when you push in front of them,’ she said.
I, albeit in a state of bewilderment, begrudgingly acceded to her request before heading back to my classroom and ruminating on its implications. When I was at school, I thought, only nine years earlier, the teachers always pushed in front of us students. They even sat on a raised platform, overlooking us, their young deferential charges. We didn’t consider it to be inequitable. They were our teachers and that was that. Does this innovation, I pondered, represent a break from the traditional conception of teacher-student relations? I felt a tinge of discomfort as I considered the possible consequences of this new direction.
Ten years on, it is brutally clear why I was so exercised. My discomfort was indeed well founded.  I now inhabit a world in which the adults openly exhibit a deep respect and reverence for the children; the children, in contrast, counter-intuitively and contrary to common sense, view the adults as little more than servile providers of a mundane service. My admonishment was certainly a harbinger of things to come.
According to the latest edition of the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), 73 per cent of schools in the UK ask their students for written feedback on the performance of teachers and the quality of lessons. Furthermore, in a troubling extension of this relatively recent trend, many are now arguing that student feedback should be used to determine teachers’ pay. So teachers are being treated like restaurateurs and hoteliers, open to public criticism and, if Michael Gove’s Policy Exchange gets its way, salary determined by customer satisfaction – the students, of course, being the customers.
Honestly! Where do they think up this inane folly? I simply do not buy the assertion that student feedback improves educational outcomes. In fact, in my opinion, determined by ten years of experience, not only does it have a dramatic and detrimental impact on teacher morale; it also encourages student irresponsibility and a culture of excuses – two factors that contrive to ensure educational failure.
First, though, let’s consider the effect on teachers. Many disgruntled students, in my school at least, where the children are widely consulted, use it as an instrument of torture for the hapless staff member on the wrong end of their wrath.  Moreover, they feel buoyed by a new found freedom, an intoxicating sense of power that inevitably leads to a combination of arrogance and smugness.
For us teachers, though, there is no such perverse pleasure. We are reduced to obsequiousness and desperate attempts to ingratiate ourselves with the children judging us. Often this manifests itself in the construction of ‘fun’ tasks that do nothing to help student progress; or teachers choosing not to sanction unruly behaviour, fearful of the child’s subsequent response. You can only imagine how demoralising and downright demeaning it is – negative feelings that will only worsen if ‘Student Voice’ is used as a determinant of teacher pay.
Secondly, however, and most importantly, we need to consider its impact on the children themselves. They are being given a responsibility for which they are unprepared and unqualified. Many cannot recognise, for example, the value of efficacious teaching methods that may be construed as boring. In short, although many of our students are intelligent and sensible, others lack the maturity to make judgements about a teacher’s ability, their vision clouded by petty disputes, perceived slights and the fickle nature of peer pressure.
On the odd occasion, it would indeed do schools no harm to consider why children are still living at home, cared for by parents and carers. This societal convention implies, quite rightly, that children cannot fend for themselves, make sensible, prudent decisions, or judge what is in their best interests. Adults, therefore, make the decisions for them. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t listen to their concerns. Of course we should. But we should do it with circumspection and careful thought. We should not, under any circumstances, institutionalise a system that gives children a decisive say in the appraisal, thus the lives, of teachers and their families. Giving them such an enormous responsibility is unfair on them, if nothing else.
Paradoxically, moreover, encouraging children to formally evaluate teacher performance divests them of any meaningful responsibility for their own progress. After all, they are being taught, albeit unintentionally, to search for excuses. It must be Mr Robinson’s fault. His lessons are boring. This misguided, interminable focus on the teacher can only lead to student fecklessness and, as an inevitable consequence, underachievement and failure. Regrettably the students have been led to believe, quite erroneously, that we – the teachers – have more to lose than them. It is incredibly sad to see.
The kids do the bare minimum; we, in contrast, run around like headless chickens, demoralised and exhausted, working 15-hour days, six days a week. It can only be described as perverse. Call me an old fashioned traditionalist, but shouldn’t the students be evaluating their own performances, and, rather than being taught to make excuses and denounce adults, be taught to accept their respective circumstances and work hard regardless? It is the Senior Leadership Team’s job to root out professional shortcomings, after all, not the children’s.
Back in 2004, when my career was in its infancy, I bore witness to an egalitarian phenomenon that has done enormous damage to our education system. ‘Student Voice’, its natural offshoot, should be renounced and discarded without delay. Children need to be given back their childhoods, and teachers, their pride.

Also published on www.conservativehome.com on January 30, 2014

Is Michael Gove playing into the hands of ‘The Blob’?

The expansion of the academies programme is being promoted as the long-awaited solution to educational underachievement. According to the Government, the pathology of failure will be eradicated by sponsored schools, liberated from the stultifying shackles of local authority control. Greater autonomy will lead to the removal of needless bureaucracy; innovative, pioneering ideas will be free to flourish, and standards will inexorably rise as a result. Moreover, in a bid to encourage competition, popular schools will expand whilst their failing counterparts disappear. Sound good? The Coalition certainly thinks so.
Yet as a teacher who works in one, in my opinion, academies aren’t the catchall panaceas being touted. First of all, let’s address the root causes of underachievement. In many schools, including mine, bad behaviour and indiscipline are the most important factors responsible for student failure. Indeed, common sense tells us that nobody can learn in an anarchic environment, and, regrettably, anarchic environments have been inadvertently created throughout the state school system over the last 20-odd years.
In my school, as is the case in many other schools, this problem has been created by the blind refusal of our senior leaders to discipline disruptive children. They are solely responsible for our current malaise.
I did once hope that reform would accompany academy status. Perhaps our sponsors would take the opportunity to dismiss our underperforming leadership – something, ironically, being considered by the local authority before the academy took over. How wrong I was. Instead they foolishly renewed the Senior Leadership Team’s (SLT) legitimacy and with it, ensured the survival of the status quo. SLT, buoyed by its benefactors, remains stubbornly wedded, against all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, to an outdated Leftist dogma that proscribes the punishment of badly behaved students. As a consequence, our children are still prevented from learning by unrestrained, recalcitrant yobs.
My fear is that Leftism – unashamedly promoted by Marxist and ex-Marxist school leaders – is so deeply ingrained in our schools that, with a few notable exceptions, only like-minded individuals and organisations are interested in running them. Our academy is just one example. So the academies programme, rather than incentivising a stronger approach to behaviour management through increased competition is, in reality, granting greater autonomy – and therefore greater power – to the very people responsible for our current problems.
Likewise, as with the academies policy, the Government’s decision to make it easier for head teachers to dismiss failing staff seems, prima facie, perfectly reasonable; after all, it happens in every other profession. But, I hear myself ponder, when is Mr Gove going to address the problem of failing heads and poor behaviour? Up until now, his actions have failed to match his rhetoric on behaviour, and he has said very little about the scourge of poor leadership. Indeed, he appears to believe that declining standards and failing schools are caused by bad teachers protected by omnipotent unions. In this analysis, head teachers are innocent victims, bullied and shackled by a malignant conspiracy. In reality, though, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Our head’s ideological commitment to ‘non-judgementalism’ has led to classroom chaos and poor standards. If we, the teaching staff, have the audacity to complain about the inhumane treatment we suffer as a consequence, we are threatened and bullied into silence. Our unions are pusillanimous in the face of a wily, union-savvy head and a conflict of interest – after all, they represent members of the SLT as well as ordinary classroom teachers. I am not against this proposal – poor teachers should be fired -, neither am I against the introduction of performance related pay, but I am concerned that it will give left-wing heads a licence to dispose of unwanted, conservative staff who would like to see rules enforced and higher standards of discipline. Is Michael Gove, through these reforms, playing into the hands of ‘The Blob’?

Also published on www.conservativehome.com on November 24, 2013

Gay marriage has nothing to do with equal rights

Entering the discussion over gay marriage, especially when one has misgivings, as I do, is a dangerous endeavour. The level of hysteria surrounding the subject is indeed frightening; the virulence of attacks dispensed by opponents prohibiting. Nevertheless, and after tortured deliberation, I have decided to enter the fray and risk vilification.

As a school teacher I witness, on a daily basis, the malign consequences of family breakdown caused, in large part, by the erosion of marriage and the loss of respect for its historic role as benign cultivator of the next generation. For a vast array of reasons, too numerous to discuss here, marriage has become a rather quaint, old-fashioned commodity to be coveted, and then casually discarded once the initial impulse wears off. For many couples, moreover, it is an anachronism to be completely rejected, even though to do so makes a break-up - with all its harmful consequences for the innocent children involved - statistically more likely. 

The innumerable, irrefutable societal benefits accrued as a result of traditional marriage are therefore being lost to modernity. Its demise should indeed be a cause for great concern. 

It is against this backdrop, in my view, that the debate over gay marriage should be conducted; yet in its current manifestation, the intimidation suffered by those of us brave enough to stick our heads above the parapet and loudly, unapologetically, venerate traditional marriage does not only coarsen the quality of public discourse, it also retards it as most traditionalists, or neo-heretics, demur from taking part lest they're publicly branded homophobes. Sadly, as a result, we are in danger of enacting a profound, irreversible change without having had a mature, intelligent national conversation about its effects on an institution responsible for the stability of community life over the last two millennia. 

As the law currently stands, a marriage is consummated through sexual intercourse as an expression of love and the primordial human desire to procreate. Its absence is indeed a reason for annulment. But if constituted, gay marriage will effectively rescind this essential marital rite thus altering the very meaning of the term. Sexual intercourse will no longer be seen as an important aspect of married life. Yet if the sexual imperative no longer exists, and marriage simply becomes a legal union, devoid of any meaning beyond the arrangement of one's tax affairs, why not allow two sisters to marry or, perhaps, and rather alarmingly, even a mother and son?

Surely extending the right to marry erodes its sanctity and fails to recognise its unique contribution, in its current form, to the health of society. It will thus be derogated, debased and, as a consequence, devalued.

This is not to belittle the laudable aims of gay couples to celebrate their relationships, aims that have been rightly recognised through civil partnerships. But what's the purpose of getting married and, just as importantly, staying married if it has no greater meaning than any other legally binding contract? Stripped of its essence, people, especially the young, even more so than now, will view marriage as nothing more than an agreement between two consenting adults - an agreement to be frivolously entered into and whimsically broken. In short, my objections to gay marriage are not based upon some atavistic, deep-rooted, antediluvian antipathy towards homosexuals; they are based upon a teacher's concern for the survival of an already beleaguered national institution that appears to be in its death throes and the malign social consequences of its demise, consequences that I see every day.

So why are so many commentators, lobbyists and activists so keen to see the destruction of marriage, to the obvious detriment of society, to satisfy some bogus vision of equality? After all, for all intents and purposes, homosexual couples already enjoy equal rights through the imposition of civil partnerships. Why do some so-called libertarians now feel the need to eviscerate marriage as well? What is so wrong with recognizing the special, unique place in society of traditional marriage as an institution that conceives and nurtures the young? Is that not possible whilst also recognizing the unique, but ultimately different, benefits conferred upon society by civil partnerships, too?

Alas, many believe that it isn't. But I suspect a more sinister force at work. An unholy alliance of cunning Gramsci-inspired cultural Marxists, genuine - though inane - equality campaigners and an indifferent, unsuspecting public are conspiring to realise Marxist aims - a conspiracy orchestrated, of course, by the Marxists themselves. The petit-bourgeois family unit, spawned, accreted and supported by marriage, is anathema to the extreme Left; not only have these Leftists encouraged promiscuity, as their even more extreme brethren did in Soviet Russia during the twenties, and discouraged marriage through the tax system - an astonishing act that the Tories were, and still are, happy to acquiesce to -  but now they see the opportunity, through the veneer of bravely fighting inequality, to destroy marriage once and for all.

The naivety of our political masters is truly breath-taking. This debate is not just about equal rights; it is about the preservation of an institution that bestows an incalculable number of benefits upon society, benefits that I am, in my profession, due to their conspicuous absence, all too aware of. It should therefore be protected and celebrated, not assaulted as a result of specious reasoning and misguided sentimentality.