Sunday, November 20, 2016

My colleagues oppose Brexit, hate free speech and spread fear among our foreign pupils

It is Friday 24th June. As I squeeze into the overcrowded train carriage with the rest of the oxygen-starved commuters, I contemplate how I can approach my colleagues after voting for Brexit yesterday. They’re all Remainers. How can I possibly tell them that we’re leaving the EU because of me? I’ll be lynched.

I decide to keep schtum and, if challenged, and if faced with a blood-thirsty Remainer looking to exact revenge, I’ll tell a big fat porky. I’m going to be an indignant Remainer from now on, whingeing and whining about the ghastly, xenophobic, racist little-Englanders who’ve finally got their way.

Walking into our faculty office, I see a young colleague crying. She is distraught and inconsolable about the result. She’s been a fully signed up member of Project Fear from the beginning of the campaign, forever wailing and railing against evil Brexiteers and their fascistic Daily Mail-reading supporters who inhabit the darker corners of our society. She has spent the last few months publicising her beliefs to anyone who’ll listen, including, of course, her most attentive and easily manipulated listeners – our pupils. I ask if she’s okay before slinking off to my classroom. The schadenfreude evoked is hard to resist.

My first lesson is interesting and worrying in equal measure. The kids can’t stop talking about it and, being mostly first and second generation migrants of Asian extraction, generally feel certain that it’s going to lead to pogroms and deportations. Astonishingly, they’ve been led to believe that those who voted out are genocidal neo-Nazis. I do my best to reassure them without exposing my preference for leaving the European Union.

Their misapprehension doesn’t altogether surprise me, though. Many of my colleagues have spent the last few months openly claiming that the only thing standing between immigrants and the baying, xenophobic British hordes is the EU. As an appendage to Project Fear, it’s clearly done the trick. In a school referendum organised to replicate the real thing, over 70 per cent of our pupils voted to remain inside the European Union.

I later hear about another colleague who has burst into tears, this time in front of her class. There are reports of pupils doing the same. It is pandemonium. They think it’s the end of the world.

At lunchtime, curiosity gets the better of me so I decide to eat in the faculty office. The fury of my colleagues is palpable. I agree, albeit in a subdued and unenthusiastic way, with everything said. It is easier that way, and, more to the point, I remember only too well from past experience how alternative views are received. They are neither welcomed nor permitted, particularly whilst caring internationalists are in mourning.

In amongst the sound and fury is another, male colleague, quietly marking books. He is a young, podgy, gregarious character who usually orchestrates our lunchtime chats. On this occasion, though, he is mute. As the bell goes and everyone eventually disperses, I give him a wink and whisper, ‘You voted out, didn’t you?’ He grins and nods his head. ‘So did I,’ I say. ‘It’s our fault.’ We both chuckle like two naughty schoolkids before heading back to our lessons.

The irony of all this is, of course, that many voted for Brexit because of this suffocating, unrelenting, need-to-conform-lest-you-upset-the-thought-police bullying that is so prevalent, not just in our schools – though they are certainly an extreme manifestation – but across the whole country.

Keeping up politically correct appearances has indeed become exhausting, stressful and all-consuming. I really don’t know what I can and can’t say. This, I think, is compounded by the age of my colleagues. As older teachers have left the profession, exhausted and demoralised by the overwhelming workload and woeful pupil behaviour condoned by inept head teachers, NQTs in their early twenties have replaced them. This is Generation Snowflake – the ruthless no-platformers with an aversion to free speech and representative democracy; these are the cry-babies devastated by the referendum result, the cry-babies teaching – no brainwashing – our children.

Last week, during what should have been a relaxed, lunchtime conversation with one of them, we got onto the subject of women’s boxing. I said, quite innocuously, or so I thought, that although I support their right to do it, I don’t really enjoy watching women hit each other. You can probably guess what happened next: she pounced on me, calling me a misogynist, saying that I shouldn’t be teaching children and expressing her inability to work with a male, sexist reactionary like myself.

The irony was too delicious to ignore. ‘So you want me to say that I love to watch women beat the crap out of each other, instead?’ I asked.


Seriously: these are the unhinged lunatics who teach our kids; these are the people spreading misapprehension and fear among our pupils. They think they’re going to be deported, for heaven’s sake. That’s just cruelty dressed up as moral outrage by imbeciles desperate to publicise their own virtue. It’s also a lie. 

Saturday, July 9, 2016

Government policies have failed to weaken the influence of progressivism in our schools

David Cameron’s administration has made no secret of its belief in the efficacy of traditional educational practices. It has radically reformed national assessments at all key stages to reflect its commitment to rigour and the pursuit of knowledge and excellence for all, regardless of sociocultural and economic background, in the belief that schools, faced with these new realities, would necessarily adopt more traditional methods to ensure their students’ progress. Traditionalist means to meet traditionalist ends, if you like.
The Government also introduced a new, knowledge-rich National Curriculum which rejected the promotion of ignorance intrinsic to its earlier 2007 incarnation – apparently and rather laughably based on ‘21st century skills’. And under the stewardship of Michael Gove and his successor, it initiated market reforms to encourage healthy competition and, as such, respond to the demands of parents, the majority of whom still yearn for traditional practices.
It was a three-pronged attack designed to weaken the influence of progressivism and reintroduce knowledge-rich curricula alongside traditional teaching methods; methods that were, in theory, to become necessary as the most efficient and effective way to impart knowledge.
In a speech delivered at Durham University earlier this year, Nick Gibb MP, our Schools Minister, outlined his government’s objectives: ‘Since…2010,’ he said, ‘our reforms…have focused on bringing a new level of academic rigour to English state schooling. And central to this mission has been elevating knowledge to become a central component of a good school education.’ His and his government’s commitment to traditionalism couldn’t be clearer.
But thus far it has signally failed to deliver on this most laudable of aims. Despite the Government’s best efforts, schools remain mired in a progressive morass. Their leaders – after investing so much of their self-worth in such practices – obstinately refuse to let go of a failed, damaging dogma that’s unfathomably come to define good teaching, against all the evidence to the contrary.
Nick Gibb, Michael Gove and his well-meaning successor, Nicky Morgan, have all grossly underestimated the profession’s rabid faith in the illusory benefits of progressivism. ‘Nudge Theory’ – whereby governments act in an effort to gently manipulate behavioural change instead of enforcing it, exemplified by the DfE’s policies – simply doesn’t work with fanatics.
Indeed, with the contrivance of Ofsted, school leaders and powerful academy chains continue to insist upon using progressive teaching methods, even though more rigorous, demanding and knowledge-based public examinations require a more traditional approach that emphasises teacher/expert-led lessons, hard work and discipline.
In addition, academies can and do opt out of the new National Curriculum in favour of knowledge-light, skills-based and project-based schemes of work inimical to learning.
By far the Government’s biggest failure, though, has to be its flagship academies policy. This has not led to the adoption of traditional methods as liberated schools compete to attract parents empowered by marketization. On the contrary, the Government has given the patients the keys to the asylum. Unshackled and unrestrained, educationalists and teachers – supported by monopolistic academy chains that have been infiltrated by the very same progressive fanatics the Government wanted to neuter – are now freer to impose their destructive dogma on our benighted children. This huge leap of faith was just that: a blind hope that more freedom would lead to a long-awaited return to traditionalism and higher standards. Apart from a few notable exceptions, it hasn’t and it won’t. Children continue to be force-fed a diet of ignorance-inducing progressive bilge that no parent in their right mind would knowingly choose for their offspring.
Meanwhile, teachers now have the worst of all possible worlds. On the one hand we face intense pressure to successfully guide our pupils through the Government’s new, tougher examinations, whilst, on the other, being impelled by our senior leaders to use progressive, inadequate methods to do so. We are being forced to use progressive means to meet traditional ends. And, as if that isn’t bad enough: our performance is being judged by pupil outcomes invariably retarded by the progressive means being prescribed by our superiors. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.
The Government needs to stop ‘nudging’ and start using its democratic mandate to impose reforms that weaken progressivism and embrace traditional educational practices. Such an approach would certainly enjoy the support of parents.
First published on the Conservative Education Society website on 8th July 2016

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

The ‘London Effect’ won’t last

It has been characterized as a tale of extraordinary success. As a consequence of enlightened and collaborative leadership unleashed by the New Labour-initiated London Challenge and the current government’s radical extension of Lord Adonis’ Academies policy, when it comes to our most disadvantaged children, inner London’s schools, after years of lagging behind, are now outperforming those found in the rest of the country.
 
In 2013, 48 per cent of children on free school meals in inner London obtained five or more A* to C grades at GCSE or their equivalent (including English and maths) – up from 22 per cent in 2002 – compared to just 26 per cent outside London – up from 17 per cent in 2002. It is indeed a considerable achievement.
 
But is it down to Labour’s London Challenge, the proliferation of academies or, as a report by the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics suggests, a combination of factors, including the abolition of the Inner London Education Authority, gradual improvements in primary education since the mid-90s, more vigorous inspection regimes and greater parental choice enhanced by increased competition between schools?
 
Simon Burgess, an economics professor at Bristol University, doesn’t think so. He cites immigration and the ethnic makeup of inner London’s schools as the decisive factor. ‘The children of recent immigrants typically have greater hopes and expectations of education,’ he argued in a Guardian comment piece back in November 2014.
 
As a teacher in an inner London, ethnically diverse and multicultural school – and having taught for most of my career in places outside London, where the white indigenous population still predominates – I wholeheartedly agree with Professor Burgess’ explanation.
 
Inner London’s schools have benefitted enormously from high levels of immigration. My school, for example, has large and increasing numbers of bright, highly motivated young migrants, most of whom are hardworking, courteous, unashamedly moral and desperate to succeed.
 
It has indeed been a welcome culture shock. I’m used to chairs flying past my nose, not pupils requesting extra homework; surly parents covered from head to toe in tattoos, arguing and swearing about how I pick on their faultless little angels, not respectable looking foreigners evincing their unqualified gratitude. It really is quite a pleasant surprise.
 
That said, I do fear for the future. In fact, I’m not a betting man, but I’d be willing to put money on the so-called London Effect not lasting. But you sounded so upbeat, I hear you say.
 
Well, regrettably, that’s where the good news ends. Just like other schools around the country, including my previous employers, our senior leaders continue to encourage pupils to challenge the authority of their teachers through crazy initiatives like ‘Restorative Justice’ and, as a consequence of a misguided commitment to moral relativism – a doctrine that makes virtues of excuse-making, low expectations for our most disadvantaged kids, ambiguity and inconsistency -, they’ve effectively abolished rules and promoted amorality. Our success is indeed entirely dependent on the cultural provenance of these fantastically committed kids. It’s nothing to do with the school, whose leaders continue to do everything in their power to subvert and extinguish the traditional values that make these pupils so successful.
 
And as our leaders continue to infect our newcomers with the values of a valueless, non-judgemental society, they too – just like their wretched white contemporaries who’ve been cruelly left to rot on the scrapheap of life – will eventually descend into an amoral abyss that inevitably leads to misery and failure.
 
Mark my words: the London Effect won’t last.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Restorative Justice is an insult to teachers

A colleague slinks into the office. She sits quietly for a moment, deep in thought. She then begins to cry. ‘What’s wrong?’ I ask. ‘Oh…bloody Restorative Conversations. I’ve just been torn to shreds by Sabrina and Tess.’ She’s sobbing now, uncontrollably. Being relatively new, though – I’ve only been at the school for a few months -, I feel a little too unfamiliar to offer a comforting hug, so put the kettle on instead.
 
‘Who’s Sabrina?’ I ask, half-expecting to discover that she’s yet another member of our oversized Senior Leadership Team. ‘She’s an extremely manipulative Year 9 student,’ she replies. Tess, believe it or not, is our headteacher. I’m speechless. ‘Tess was siding with Sabrina and blaming me for her behaviour,’ my colleague continues. ‘Apparently, her calling me a ‘F****** b****’ was my fault. I only asked her to remove her jacket, for Heaven’s sake. Okay, I raised my voice after my first two requests were ignored, but how does that make her abusive behaviour my fault?’ I feel like weeping with her.
 
It doesn’t matter how long I’ve worked in schools, I still can’t come to terms with the madness that stubbornly refuses to relent. Indeed, after 12 long years in the profession, and having experienced a number of different environments, I cannot help but conclude that to be a senior leader you must first be a misanthropic lunatic who naively believes in the infallibility of children and, I suspect, the tooth fairy, too. Why else would you institute something as ridiculous and counterproductive as Restorative Justice?
 
In its educational incarnation, it’s meant to resolve disputes between pupils and teachers. The antagonists are brought together by an intermediary (usually a member of the SLT), as if they’re both equally to blame for the impasse, and encouraged to air their differences before both offering their apologies, extending their little fingers and singing ‘make up ginger nuts, never do it again’. Okay, I concede that the singing was a slight embellishment, but you get my point: teachers are being treated like children; or to look at it from another perspective: children are being treated like adults. Either way, it’s incredibly damaging.  
 
The former insults the intelligence of the professional and leads to an infantilized and demoralized workforce (I wonder why there’s a retention crisis…); the latter gives the child a responsibility that he or she is likely to abuse. And if you think such practices are confined to secondary schools, you can think again: my wife, a Year 2 primary school teacher, had training in Restorative Justice just last week. Imagine being forced to listen to an eight-year-old say he misbehaves because your lessons are boring. How humiliating.
 
Like its discredited 1960s antecedents that saw, in some schools, pupils addressing their teachers by their first names, and the relatively recent approach to recruitment whereby job applicants are interviewed by a panel of kids, Restorative Justice directly challenges and undermines the authority of teachers and with it, the hitherto settled and accepted way of raising, teaching and socialising our children. With every meeting and every SLT-sanctioned opportunity to spit vitriol at a member of staff he or she doesn’t like, the child becomes less deferential and more contemptuous of the teachers trying to help them – with entirely predictable consequences for behaviour and learning.
 
Let’s pause for one moment and consider the logic of this now pervasive approach to behaviour management. If headteachers believe that adults should not hold dominion over children, then, taken to its logical conclusion, surely parents should be prohibited from sanctioning and making decisions on behalf of their kids, too.
 
When put in these terms, it really does underscore the policy’s vacuity and with it, the contradiction at the heart of our schools. Advocates of ‘Restorative Justice’ want teachers to be in loco perentis and, as such, responsible for the children in their care, both pastorally and academically – presumably because they rightly recognise that children, in the main, are too vulnerable and immature to make sensible decisions; but they are unwilling to give teachers the authority to adequately fulfil these duties. Instead, through such meetings, they encourage children to actively challenge their teachers’ authority. They really have got themselves into a terrible pickle.
 
And before you accuse me of being some cruel Gradgrindian monster who believes that children should be seen and not heard, I add this disclaimer: I am not against listening to a child’s concerns; neither am I against sitting down and explaining what he or she did to merit a sanction.
 
I am against a systematized approach that, through ‘enlightened’ mediation conducted by some smug, condescending, self-congratulatory and self-righteous senior leader – which in itself assumes that the teacher can’t be trusted to be fair -, treats pupils and teachers as equals. When it comes to schooling, we are not equals – that’s why my pupils address me as Sir and, in theory at least, follow my instructions. As a professional, my word should not be gainsaid, but supported. If you happen to doubt my intentions, and insist on questioning my every decision through a disgruntled adolescent lacking the maturity to know what’s good for them, don’t employ me. It really is that simple.
 
Meanwhile, my colleague sips her tea, wipes a tear from her cheek and makes a promise. ‘I’m leaving at the end of the year,’ she says. ‘I can’t stay here.’ Another one bites the dust.

First published on www.conservativehome.com on 18th May 2016. Also published on www.conservativeeducation.org on 19th May 2016

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Banning tag and rugby tackling is stopping boys being boys

A recent diktat issued by an over-cautious primary head prohibiting the playing of ‘tag’ at break time came hot on the heels of an open letter signed by over 70 doctors and health ‘experts’ urging the banning of tackling in schoolboy rugby. Both cases, in my view, reveal a long, barely noticed trend in society’s treatment of boys.
In short, masculinity has been the victim of sustained assault over the last several decades, and in no place has this assault been more prevalent, more zealously pursued and more enthusiastically executed, than in our schools.
Competitive sport has been the most obvious casualty – and not just because its benefits stubbornly refuse to be quantified, colour-coded and neatly recorded on some departmental spreadsheet in preparation for the next data-focused Ofsted visit. It’s been neglected and degraded because, according to our self-appointed, Guardian-reading consciences in the upper reaches of the education establishment and, of course, at the NUT, it crudely indulges the very masculine traits of risk-taking, aggression and competitiveness that we should be discouraging. These cause wars, after all.
Okay: so the aforementioned doctors and so-called health ‘experts’ claim that tackling in rugby should be banned to protect pupils from serious injury, as should ‘tag’ at playtime – at least according to the head of Christ the King School in Leeds.
But let’s be honest: reasoning of this kind is often simply a convenient excuse: these are just the latest offensives in a decades-long war being waged against maleness, the last bastion of which resides in a tiny minority of mainly independent schools, stoic in their refusal to deny their male pupils the obvious benefits of taking part in competitive contact sports and games.
Competition in most areas of state-school life is, if not strictly forbidden, then quietly discarded in favour of egalitarian approaches, subtly stripping young boys of a powerful motivational stimulant. Every child ‘must have prizes’, for example; mixed ability classes are widespread; in Key Stage Three, as a result of ‘life after levels’, refusing to grade pupils lest they become competitive and hurt the feelings of those less able is becoming more and more common.
In addition, Physical Education has gone from being a vital part of the school curriculum to an inconvenient add-on – something to combat obesity rather than nurture virtuous attributes like courage, the ability to work in a team, perseverance, competitiveness and resilience. Sadly, chivalry has become a concept to be embarrassed about and recoil from rather than a code to be followed. In most schools in which I’ve worked, games against other schools have been a rarity; as for weekend fixtures, they just don’t happen. Pupils aren’t even expected to do PE in the rain, for heaven’s sake.
Like the mad push to realize a communist utopia, this is yet another example of a fanciful left-wing attempt to change the very essence of human nature and deny reality. And like the push for Kallipolis, all kinds of unforeseen, malign implications arise as a consequence.
Boys, starved of the activities that quell their baser instincts, find other, less productive, less controlled means of fulfilling their needs. They become frustrated, more belligerent in class and, as a result, tend to underperform, especially when compared to girls who of course, in a comparative sense, benefit from the gradual feminisation of the system.
Last year, 73.1 per cent of girls’ GCSE entries were awarded at least a C grade, compared to 64.7 per cent of boys’. I am not for one moment suggesting that this gap is solely the result of boys not being able to pursue competitive and what were once deemed masculine activities. There are other factors involved – not least the long-fought-for emancipation of the fairer sex. But discriminating against boys by preventing them from playing and acting like boys can’t help, either academically, physically or in terms of building character and attributes one might consider virtuous.
It really is time to face up to reality, reject the apprehensions and paternalistic lunacy of a self-important haggle of medical and childhood ‘experts’ and, once again, let boys be boys.
First published on www.conservativehome.com on 18th April 2016

Sunday, March 27, 2016

We must halt the relentless march of the Thought Police

I was recently interviewed for a Channel 4 documentary on the gradual erosion of freedom of speech in modern Britain – to be aired this summer. In a dank, dark hallway I sat, silhouetted in an effort to conceal my identity, rambling on like a badly-prepared job applicant desperately trying to fend off the ferocious attacks of a Paxman-like interrogator.
In truth, my ‘interrogator’ was a kindly young woman who went to great pains to make me feel comfortable – notwithstanding the cold, rusty old chair I was asked to sit on. This didn’t stop my interminable, incoherent rambling, though. It really was desperately painful.
All this said, my interlocutor’s probing, and my efforts to search the darkest recesses of my cerebral cortex for anything like an intelligent response, contrived to help me explore some important issues. And in amongst the verbiage was indeed the odd gem of insight.
For me, this highlighted the fundamental importance of free and frank discussion to the development of ideas, the exploration of the possible and the pursuit of truth. Never before had I consciously realised the essentiality of this Socratic approach to effective teaching and, of course, ultimately, human development – if, that is, we actually want our pupils to engage in critical thinking and problem solving.
Without frank discussion, ideas stubbornly refuse to surface. They lie undiscovered in the hidden, labyrinthine recesses of our sedentary minds. It is therefore incumbent upon us teachers to encourage our pupils to engage in such exploratory activities, surely.
Unfortunately, though, free and frank discussion is strictly forbidden in today’s censorious climate. Pupils and teachers face ridicule and ostracism for so much as uttering a single word of support for the Conservative Party. Margaret Thatcher’s name is particularly riven with toxicity. My niece, a sixth form economics student in a nominally excellent school, recently explained to me how her teacher and peers never miss an opportunity to decry and spit scorn at Thatcher’s ‘cruel’ reforms. Each lesson sounds like a competition in left-wing virtue-signalling – a veritable festival of Tory-baiting.  Just last week a colleague prefaced her support for one of Michael Gove’s education reforms with, ‘I don’t wish to sound like a Tory but…’
In such a censorious climate, children and teachers learn never to question the prevailing orthodoxies. Conservatuves are bad. Lefties are good, caring and, even if they occasionally cock up, generally do things with the best of intentions. Anthropogenic global warming is an indisputable fact. Mass immigration has been and will continue to be an unqualified success. The Government’s desire to stop the continued profiteering of people traffickers by refusing to welcome illegal immigrants and, among them, a smaller number of refugees is the very personification of evil. Nelson Mandela is the embodiment of virtue: so too is Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and anyone else who has challenged and thrown off the shackles of the white oppressor. These are just some of the ‘truths’ left unexplored and unquestioned in our schools.
In short, our children are being force fed a simplistic, dualistic, black and white view of a world neatly divided into good guys and bad guys. Such a one-sided take necessarily stifles the stimulation of each child’s critical faculties. In a place where they should be encouraged to challenge orthodoxy, they’re sadly being compelled passively to accept its veracity.
So all you progressives can forget this ‘child-centred approaches are necessary to develop critical thinkers’ guff. If our kids are being told what to think, and being actively prevented from questioning received wisdom, how can they possibly think critically and, more to the point, be creative? They can’t!
Another obstacle to free and frank discussion in an effort to stimulate critical thinking and creativity is the propensity of schools to conflate teacher-talk – or lecturing – with teacher-led discussion. Let’s not forget: teacher-talk is still strictly frowned upon, especially in the state sector. We are therefore discouraged from engaging our pupils in an invaluable exercise. If a discussion lasts more than five minutes, we begin to panic – paranoid that an overzealous senior leader could drop in at any moment and, horror of horrors, see us standing at the front of the class looking like a teacher rather than a benign facilitator – wrap it up quickly and initiate another, so-called child-centred task instead.
Meanwhile, our pupils are being deprived of taking part in an important, interesting and eminently enriching dialectic. Through these vacuous practices, moreover, society is also depriving its citizens of the intellectual wherewithal to spark creativity and ensure continued progress. Without wishing to sound too alarmist, we surely risk civilizational stagnation and eventual decline if we continue along this path.
Almost as damaging is our self-imposed reluctance to tell pupils the truth. God forbid we should ever shatter their fragile egos with unqualified criticism. Before berating a half-hearted, lazy, unsatisfactory non-attempt to complete a task, we must first tell them ‘what went well’ instead, even if the answer is sod all.
If a pupil is incessantly disruptive we dare not call him naughty – that would be far too honest. We must say that deep down he’s a nice lad but, at the moment, he’s making the wrong choices. So yet again the child is divested of responsibility as the teacher makes an erroneous distinction between him and his actions. He’s not naughty, his actions are. It’s as if his body’s been possessed by alien forces beyond his control. As a predictable consequence, and as kids are patronized and mollycoddled, bad behaviours continue unabated. It’s not their fault, after all.
During my confused responses under the mild scrutiny of my interviewer last week, some illuminating realisations struck me. Attacks on free speech, so prevalent in our schools, conspire to stifle the dialectic necessary for creativity and, no less alarming, encourage our children to indulge in fecklessness and wallow in their own self-pity as moral agency and free will are damagingly undermined. We must resist the relentless march of the thought police. The continued success of our civilization depends on it.
First published on ConservativeHome on 20th March 2016

Friday, March 25, 2016

'Independent learning' creates irresponsible excuse-makers entirely dependent on their teachers

It’s funny: the more independent we try to make our learners, the more dependent they seem to become.

After all, I suppose, at the heart of independent – or discovery – learning is the pupil’s right not to discover anything remotely valuable or, worse still, anything at all. They are masters of their own learning, encouraged to work at a pace that suits them and given the freedom to do as much or as little as they please. Unsurprisingly, given such options, many choose to do the bare minimum.

But instead of blaming the discredited teaching methods responsible, senior leaders stubbornly cling to the philosophy behind them and blame their staff for not satisfactorily engaging and motivating their charges.

So children are not only permitted to do nothing; they are also encouraged to blame their teachers for doing nothing – hardly conducive to the development of personal responsibility and independence.

Let’s take the profession’s longstanding obsession with group work, as an example. Apparently, group work cultivates ‘collaborative learning’ – another nauseating, meaningless term that sends the education establishment into paroxysms of joy every time it’s uttered by some self-satisfied university professor from the Institute of Education – and, by extension, and rather paradoxically, ‘independent learning’ through encouraging pupils to initiate their own investigations and work together on loosely defined projects. In short, group work is viewed as inherently beneficial to the development of pupils as independent, self-motivated learners.

In the real world though, and for the overwhelming majority of children, group work is absolutely useless as a method for encouraging independent learning. The most vocal kids invariably take control of the activity whilst the rest either demurely withdraw – too shy to take part – or take the opportunity to put their feet up and discuss the approaching weekend. It’s simply ludicrous to expect children to do anything else.

But in my experience and, I suspect, the experiences of many of my colleagues around the country, senior leaders stubbornly refuse to accept this reality – so wedded to progressivism they’ve become – and continue to insist upon a pedagogical approach that doesn’t work.

Frustrated at the dissonance between theory and practice, moreover, they lash out and blame us – the teachers at the chalk face. Apparently the frameworks we set aren’t fun, relevant and interesting enough. They therefore conclude that it’s nothing to do with the methods they themselves promote. The fault lies in their poor execution through badly designed, unimaginative lessons.

Yet when our pupils begin their GCSEs, if we don’t begin to actually teach them, make clear the need to work hard and keep pace with the content and timing stipulated in the course specification, they’ll fail their exams. We simply can’t afford to use the inefficient and unproductive methods central to discovery learning.

After ten years of progressive, so-called child-centred education though, and with senior leaders still insisting that pupils, even in Years 10 and 11, learn through discovery, they are completely unprepared for the demands of their courses and, as such, are destined to underperform. We are being forced to teach them using methods that don't work. It’s incredibly frustrating.

Incidentally, like consumers purchasing theatre tickets, pupils demand that their lessons are fun and amusing, as they’ve been led to expect throughout their school careers. And lest I forget: if these expectations aren’t met, many complain that their lessons are boring and bad behaviour ensues.

So there is a huge contradiction at the heart of independent – or discovery – learning. Children, largely left to their own devices, often choose not to learn and teachers invariably and often willingly take responsibility for such failures.

As the exam season approaches, we give up weekends, evenings and even holidays in an effort to make up for the inadequacy of our classroom provision. This evening I’ve spent over two hours organising intervention time for my underprepared Year 11 pupils. I’ve spent weeks chasing non-attenders, phoning homes and setting detentions. I’ve even drawn up spreadsheets to track the efficacy of this exhausting – eminently avoidable – strategy.

Now you tell me: how on earth does this encourage independent learning? Put simply, far from nurturing independence, progressive approaches cultivate passive, irresponsible excuse-makers entirely dependent on their teachers. It’s about time the powers-that-be woke up and accepted reality.