Hug a Teach Firster

jomorgan1

There’s been a bit of negativity about Teach First this week. I’m not a Teach Firster and I know they’re capable of sticking up for themselves, but let me offer my perspective on where some of this aggression stems from.

Not just in teaching
Teach Firsters, you may feel under attack, but I hope you find it reassuring to hear that this happens (to a lesser extent) to your non-teacher friends too. When I started on a graduate training scheme in banking, there were 25 graduates on my intake. In the first few months we all used to sit together in the canteen at lunch and excitedly share our experiences and chat about all our ideas. Unbeknownst to us, in doing so we were pissing a lot of people off. I once overheard an experienced and well-respected colleague say ‘those graduates think they’re something special’. What had we done wrong? Well, nothing it seems, other than being young new recruits, friends, full of enthusiasm and not yet jaded and cynical.

I soon stopped sitting with the other graduates at lunch. So there I was, a couple of months into my first proper job, all bright-eyed and ready to learn, already feeling disillusioned. So, Teach Firsters, I’m afraid this kind of behaviour is just par for the course. I’m sorry you have to experience it.

The critics of Teach First would never admit this, but they don’t like Teach Firsters because they’re smart. Clever people tend not to like other clever people. ‘How dare you come along into education and be all brainy and well-educated? We already have enough clever people here!’. Being intimidated by colleagues because they have good degrees from top universities is silly. If you don’t like people who are well-educated then perhaps you shouldn’t be working in education.

Rather you than me
When I decided to change career I didn’t even consider Teach First. Not because I didn’t have the qualifications or skills to get through selection, nor because I’m opposed to the ‘in at the deep end’ approach to teacher training, but to be honest my main reason for not choosing Teach First was because I didn’t want to work in a really difficult school. I knew that the transition to teaching would be hard enough without working in one of the toughest schools in the county.

Coincidentally, my second PGCE placement ended up being at a Teach First school anyway. God, I hated it. The behaviour almost killed me. I taught very little maths – I spent the whole time breaking up fights and being sworn at. Now, as a more experienced teacher, I’d be better able to cope, but at the time I was grateful that my placement was only a couple of months. When I left that placement I said goodbye to all the teachers (including the Teach Firsters) with sympathy and a huge amount of respect and admiration – they had a challenge on their hands and rather them than me.

Teacher shortage
This country is facing a very serious shortage of teachers in some subjects. In maths, which you have to admit is a rather important subject, we are facing a recruitment crisis and are desperate for new teachers to join the profession. Teach First is a successful and well- established initiative that continues to attract new teachers. I would much rather my daughter be taught maths by a Teach Firster than a computer or – worse – someone who knows very little maths. Some initiatives to attract teachers have failed, but Teach First succeeds. Yay for Teach First. Our children need teachers and we welcome your contribution.

‘I once met a Teach Firster who I didn’t like’
Indeed, I’ve met a couple of Teach Firsters who take themselves way too seriously. But I also once met an English teacher who couldn’t spell – does that mean all English teachers can’t spell? Of course not, silly.

Many Teach Firsters I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with have been thoughtful, hard-working and smart. In addition to working hard in their day jobs, they also contribute important ideas to debates in education. They challenge and question things, they innovate and analyse. Regardless of the route they’ve taken to come into education, all teachers like this should be embraced.

I’m not saying the scheme is flawless. But come on, we’re all in this together, we have a common goal. A bit of support for your fellow teachers would go a long way. It is the season of goodwill after all.

A family-friendly profession? Absolutely not

jomorgan1 , ,

Some people wrongly assume that teaching is a good career choice for a woman who wants to start a family. They are wrong. For females, teaching is far less compatible with having a young family than other professions.

I don’t want to worry any young teachers who are planning to start a family – these challenges are not insurmountable. But I want to manage your expectations. And for those teachers who choose not to have children of their own, I ask that you read this post with a sense of empathy for your child-bearing colleagues.

Challenges
I wonder whether school leaders are aware of how difficult it is to be a teacher with a young family. If you’re a headteacher in the UK then it’s likely that the majority of your teaching staff are female and under 45. Of those teachers, probably around 80% either have children or plan to have children. So the issues I’m addressing in this post are applicable to a significant number of employees.

A head should be aware of all the factors that make teaching a challenging profession. By offering the appropriate support mechanisms, their school will gain a reputation as a good employer where all talented employees feel valued, regardless of gender, age and life choices.

In this post I want to look at what makes it particularly hard to juggle teaching with being a mum. If I can increase awareness on the part of school leaders, that will be a good start.

Let me first explain my reason for focusing on mums but not dads. From what I’ve seen, teaching works well for fathers of young children. The main reason for this is the school holidays – teacher dads get to spend a lot more quality time with their kids than non-teacher dads do. The time lost at weekends during term-time to marking and lesson planning is gained over summer.

In this post, I’m assuming that teacher mums are the primary carers. Apologies – I am stereotyping for simplicity.

Life Events
Now I’m not a particularly sentimental person, but I can guarantee I’ll shed a tear on my daughter’s first day at school. This isn’t because I’m deeply worried about the quality of the education she will receive (though that is a worry), but because it will be such a huge life-changing event for my family. Sending my daughter off to school is a really big deal. Waving her off in her little uniform and wiping away her tears will be incredibly emotional. Even more so for me because I won’t bloody be there will I? I’ll be at my school, probably sitting in a pointless Inset day. So I’ll be delegating this huge life-changing moment, a day when my daughter needs me more than ever, to a childminder.

The same goes for school plays, sports days and other big events. For my daughter’s nativity play I will make her costume, help her practise her lines, comfort her nerves, but I won’t be able to watch her big moment. Sad for me, and sad for her.

Working Patterns
Most mums of young children want to work part-time. They want, perhaps need, to remain in employment when their children are young, but they also want to spend time with their offspring – that’s only logical. Part-time teaching jobs are very hard to come by. And if you’re lucky enough to find a school that will let you teach 3 or 4 days a week, you will probably be stuck there. You could be treated appallingly and you’d have to stay, because there are no part-time opportunities elsewhere.

I understand the business case here. Part-time teachers can be hard to timetable. At my school they now have a policy of turning down all requests for part-time working. Their argument is that they need full-time teachers to be form tutors. It’s been heart-breaking for many members of staff at my school. Talented and hard-working teachers have gone off to have a baby then been told that they can not return part-time. Refusing to let the school take them away from their children, these women have been forced to resign. They are not only devastated at losing their job, but also financially crippled by having to pay back their maternity pay. A horrible situation for a woman who feels she has no option other than to leave teaching. What a difficult thing for a mum with a new baby to deal with.

Those who do manage to secure a part-time position are at the mercy of inconsiderate timetabling. They are made to feel like a huge inconvenience – part-timers in other industries are not treated this way. At my school absolutely no consideration is given to childcare costs and arrangements. One teacher was expected to come into work on Mondays and Thursdays in ‘Week 1’ and random periods on Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons in ‘Week 2’ – it’s almost impossible to find childcare for the kind of inconsistent working patterns that arise from two-week timetables, especially at short notice (nursery places are filled months in advance).

‘Evening’ events that start at 4pm are also incredibly difficult and expensive to make arrangements for.  Part-time teachers spend a huge proportion of their meagre salary on childcare, and spend much of their time worrying about how they are going to make childcare arrangements for the many events they are expected to attend outside of their paid working hours.

The inflexibility of working hours is another complication. My daughter’s nursery opens at 8am – I’m expected to be at school at 8.15am. I drop her off as soon as the nursery opens its doors and then speed to work, arriving stressed at the last minute, to face colleagues glaring at me, thinking I’m disorganised or lazy. Meanwhile my friends in other industries have negotiated more easily achievable start times. I know this situation can’t be helped, there’s nothing anyone can do about it, I just want people to be aware of the stressful life teacher mums lead.

Time off
No-one wants to take time off sick. Especially not teachers, because our students suffer. When you have young children, they get sick more than you’d anticipate. An unwell child can not be sent to nursery. Mum is forced to take a day off and suffer that crippling guilt of letting people down. And, while she holds her sick baby in her arms, frantically worried about the health of her child, she is expected to prioritise sending cover work to school over caring for her baby. She is forced to put her sick child down, open her computer and do some work. And while she sits in a doctor’s waiting room, exhausted and frantic, she receives angry emails from work about reporting deadlines and marking workload. Horrible.

Communication
In my experience, schools are pretty bad at communicating. A lot of communication is done informally. In fact the primary medium for sharing staff news at my school – new recruits, leavers, promotions etc – is ‘the grapevine’. This frustrates all staff, especially part-timers who are the last to know everything.

At my school we have a weekly briefing every Monday morning in which all the important information for the week is shared with staff. If you’re a part-timer not scheduled to work on a Monday, tough. You have to muddle through the week on the snippets of information you’re lucky enough to pick up. This one is easily fixed – minutes from briefings and staff meetings should be circulated afterwards as a matter of priority.

Final Thoughts
No employer likes it when a member of staff gets pregnant. It’s disruptive and costly, but it is par for the course if you are in the business of employing human beings. Accept it, be mature, be kind.

Part-time staff can be useful ‘timetable fillers’. My school controls how many days I work, which makes it difficult for me to manage my finances, but they can decide whether I work 2 or 4 days a week, or anything in between. This is more helpful for timetabling than a workforce made up entirely of full-time teachers. So I’m not as much of an inconvenience as I’m led to believe.

When I returned to work from maternity leave I had no desk to work at, nowhere to park my car, no pigeonhole in the staffroom. It was the most unkind ‘welcome’ I’d ever experienced. A bit of thoughtfulness on the part of leadership would go a long way. It’s wonderful to see that John Tomsett’s school sets a good example – I was delighted to read of his thoughtful policies in his article ‘How can headteachers and leaders promote staff wellbeing?‘.

So, young women who want to start families, before you get distracted thinking about all the lovely school holidays you’ll get to spend with your children, think about the sacrifices and the challenges. I’m not saying don’t have children. For most people that’s non-negotiable.  I’m saying that if you want children, think carefully before becoming a teacher.

Further Reading
I had this post in draft for months but was prompted to publish it after I read ‘When you’re a teacher, every child matters but your own‘.

mom cartoon

What can leadership do about morale?

jomorgan1 , ,

I just read the excellent post ‘How can we keep teachers happy? Thin red lines between wellbeing and misery‘ by Harry Fletcher-Wood (@HFletcherWood). It struck a chord with me. The way schools are run – particularly with regard to how human capital is managed – is a source of great frustration for me. This is partly because I haven’t always been a teacher. I used to work in organisations that were incredibly well-led. I’m astounded by the contrast. In education, there is a very serious problem with morale and wellbeing.

I’d lost all hope until I read the article ‘How can headteachers and leaders promote staff wellbeing?‘ and realised that some school leaders actually give a damn about staff wellbeing. It gave me hope. If my school’s leadership team doesn’t get its act together, I’ll move to a school where things are better.

Morale is low in schools for many reasons. I’ve touched on issues surrounding performance management and recruitment before. I’ve also written about the importance of trust.

I’d like to mention a few more factors that have an impact on staff morale – I’d be interested to hear whether these are specific to my school:

  • Being patronised. Teachers have a habit of speaking to everyone like they’re children. I do it myself sometimes – when I started training to be a teacher I noticed that I sometimes used my ‘teacher voice’ when speaking to my husband. At best, it’s a clear and direct way of communicating. At worst, it’s patronising. I routinely feel patronised by colleagues and leadership at school. It’s difficult to change this culture, but self-awareness on the part of leadership would be a good start. In staff meetings and Insets, they need to take into account that they are addressing a group of intelligent adults.
  • Absence of praise and recognition. A teacher can work their arse off all year at my school and their manager won’t even notice, let alone acknowledge it. This article has some suggestions for how Heads of Department could tackle this one, such as holding “what went right” meetings (with cake!) and sending emails to leadership bragging about their team.
  • Communication. I really hope other schools do this better than mine. Most things – new policies, new procedures, new job opportunities, new staff – are communicated through gossip before anything official comes out. This one is so easy to fix – put a member of SLT in charge of staff communication. A fortnightly staff newsletter might work.
  • Flexibility. My school is so inflexible that it loses talented teachers when they become mums because all requests for flexible working are refused. The school has, apparently, already got enough part-timers so if you’ve just had a baby you either come back full-time or you lose your job (and have to pay back your maternity pay, which puts new mums in a very difficult financial position). Some of our very best teachers have had to leave teaching, devastated to be let down by the school they gave so much to. I don’t see much creative thinking from the leadership team. I’m sure they can solve this problem if they put their minds to it.

In his post, Harry Fletcher-Wood sets out some examples of cost-free commitments that schools leaders can make to improve staff wellbeing. Most are related to work-life balance. Any teacher will tell you that workload probably has the biggest impact on their wellbeing and morale. Teachers have a heavy workload, that is undeniable. In my previous career I often worked at my desk, knee-deep in spreadsheets, for 12 hours a day (on top of a long commute). That was a heavy workload but I found it more manageable than my workload in teaching. Let’s look at why:

  • Teaching is more physically and emotionally exhausting than other professions.
  • Teachers don’t want to let their students down, so deadlines can’t be pushed back – timely marking and lesson planning is essential. Unlike in other professions, most tasks are important, urgent and non-negotiable.
  • Teachers often have no-one to delegate menial tasks to (intelligent and highly skilled graduates spending hours photocopying, cutting, supervising, patrolling – totally unacceptable in any other profession)
  • The workload in my previous career was cyclical (there were four busy months in the year, and during those periods we were looked after – pizza deliveries to the office, taxis home, drinks on Fridays, all paid for by the company or out of our managers’ own pockets). Teaching is also cyclical but the busy periods are long and intense and the breaks are short. There is no downtime during term-time.

In teaching, the workload problem is hard to solve.

Harry makes some excellent suggestions in his post, all of which I support. I think the ‘everyone out by 6pm’ and ‘limited school access in the holidays’ points may be red herrings though. If I have a heavy workload then being forced to leave at 6pm doesn’t lighten my workload, in fact it makes it worse because I have to go to the effort of lugging marking home with me.

Schools must take meaningful steps to reduce workload. Less contact time is the most obvious answer. Smaller classes might help too, and perhaps even a change in the structure of the school year.

But how can schools possibly reduce contact time? Well until the Government solves this one, it’s up to school leadership to find a way to make it happen. I know it’s all about finance, but come on leadership! Think creatively, think ‘outside the box’. The school that finds a way to cut contact time, thereby reducing workload and raising standards, is the school that we all want to work at.

morale

Has performance management already lost its way?

jomorgan1 , , , , , , ,

The government had good intentions when it told schools to implement performance related pay. There were problems that needed to be addressed. Ineffective (sometimes downright terrible) teachers had no incentive to improve and, at the other end of the scale, brilliant hard-working teachers felt unrecognised and undervalued. Schools were given increased flexibility to help them recruit and retain staff and to raise teaching standards.

Senior leadership teams have invested many many hours in crafting their new performance management policies. In some schools implementing the policies – the annual cycle of performance management – has become a huge drain on middle management time. Focus has been transferred from developing teaching and learning to ‘managing performance’. These two things should be closely interrelated but it doesn’t seem to be working.

Effective performance management
Outside education, the most simple and effective performance management systems are those that are utterly objective. When companies pay their employees a cut of the profit they’ve generated (ie commission for salesmen, bonuses for City traders) this encourages them to work as hard and as effectively as they can. This maximises the company’s profits, which is the aim of the game. But in teaching, where there are no profits and no objective measures of performance, things are not so clear cut.

Look at another example from outside education – a professional in a large well-established organisation. Typically they have an annual appraisal (and perhaps also a mid-year review). The conversation between manager and employee is the most important part of the process – the paperwork is minimal. The conversation is very much two-way, focussing on the employee’s strengths, achievements, areas to develop and next steps. Salary increases and bonuses are determined by the manager, using their professional judgement and often with reference to external salary benchmarks. Although the employee sees financial rewards as recognition for performance and effort, the primary aim of these rewards is retention – ie retain the good employees by paying them at least what competitors would pay them. Whilst competitive remuneration may not be the main motivator, its absence will see a loss of talent.

Would the same approach to performance management work in teaching? Instead of all the observations and box-ticking, I would welcome an annual (or even termly) open discussion with my manager in which he asks me the following:
1. What has gone well?
2. What should you do differently?
3. What can we do to support you?

For example I might tell my Head of Department about how engaged my Year 11s are, and how well I explained circle theorems to Year 10, and how I’ve improved the standard of work produced by my Year 12s. He would congratulate me on these things and tell me what else I’ve done that has particularly impressed him. I might share my concerns about my formative assessment techniques, because I’m often unsure about levels of understanding during lessons. He’d make some suggestions (techniques I could try, colleagues I could observe, maybe even a training course). We’d agree to discuss it again the following term to see if I’d made any improvements in this area.

This conversation not only celebrates achievements, it also identifies actions to support improvement and sets achievable (albeit subjective) targets. The employee feels valued, trusted and supported.

What’s going wrong
My school has already lost its way with performance management. In addition to the huge burden of complex paperwork, the policy is not meeting the aims of motivating staff and developing teaching.

Individual lessons are observed and graded against criteria such as: Does the lesson have a starter activity? Are lesson objectives differentiated? Is there a planned plenary?. Regular book scrutinies check for adherence to the school’s marking policy. The level of detail is excruciating – nothing is left to professional judgement. Teachers aren’t trusted or respected enough to determine their own approaches and reflect on their effectiveness. No wonder morale is low. Teachers are told that performance management is “an evidential process – staff who cannot provide the evidence may jeopardise their pay progression”. Jeopardise? Is this meant to motivate and retain good teachers? Have they considered that a carrot may be more effective than a stick?

Oh but there is a carrot – a new bonus pot has been created. Bonuses are allocated to staff who ‘meet all of the teacher standards’ and ‘meet all their targets and exceed some’. Given that the targets in some departments are unachievable even for the very best teachers (Alps estimates are one example), it looks like the bonus pot will act as a motivator for very few teachers, if any.

Imagine being a newly or recently qualified teacher at my school. Only teachers who tick all the boxes can progress up the main pay scale. While there are ineffective and lazy teachers sitting comfortably on the upper pay scale, a new teacher who is working hard, trying to become an excellent teacher, will now be stuck on a low salary for the foreseeable future. Unless of course they deliver excellent lessons on the days they are observed and they keep their mouth shut when their manager asks them what they could do better. If they jump through those hoops, and if their students deliver in their exams, then they may be lucky enough to get a pay rise. Their teaching won’t necessarily improve though, will it? They are forced to be defensive when they should be asking for support.

A way forward?
Anecdotal evidence suggests there is huge variation in the way schools approach performance management. While my school’s approach consists of a barrage of formal observations, drop-ins and book scrutinies, underpinned by swathes of paperwork, other schools have a more constructive approach.

Schools that focus more on the importance of feedback to drive improvements in teaching standards seem to be on the right track. Some teachers are given the opportunity to video themselves teaching and – in private – watch the video so they can reflect on their effectiveness. This is a good way to identify areas for development. After watching themselves teach, teachers are invited to share their reflections with their manager and make plans for improvement.

I do see the value in getting feedback from others as well – I’m not against the idea of lesson observation – but it has to be done in the spirit of constructive feedback, as opposed to monitoring adherence to school policies and penalising teachers who are developing their practice.

I fear that my school’s leadership team has lost sight of the purpose of performance management. It should be about motivating, retaining and recruiting good teachers. It should be about raising standards of teaching. These things are not being achieved. Time to go back to the drawing board?

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A frosty reception for Maths Hubs?

jomorgan1 , ,

Maths Hubs, I know you’re finding your feet but you’re already missing a trick. You haven’t yet engaged the online community of maths teachers. Believe me, you need them on your side.

A ballpark estimate says that around 2000 UK schools are represented by maths teachers on Twitter. And those aren’t any old teachers. They are the innovators. They are the influencers. They are the ones who will go back to their schools and tell their colleagues to get involved in the new Maths Hubs.

You have a lot to learn from these tweeting teachers. They are leading the collaboration game that you want to be a part of. So find out who your local tweeters are and utilise them – don’t end up competing with them.

We like the idea of hubs, in principle. Centres of excellence in mathematics teaching, to inspire others and to lead the way. So why is there already a distinct feeling of suspicion, bordering on aggression, towards these hubs?

I want to be supportive. Let me tell you what’s going wrong and help you fix it.

A jolly?
Those trips to Shanghai were expensive. Show us that they were worth it. At the moment it seems that the main lesson learnt was that teachers need more designated time for planning and collaboration. So the maths hubs don’t even have the power to change the things that need changing. Or will they be lobbying the government?

Envy
Ok, so we admit to feeling a bit put out. Schools that haven’t been chosen feel undervalued. Remember, you have as much to learn from them as they from you. This needs careful management.

Networks
The Maths Hubs need to utilise Twitter as a means of communication, learn from the expertise and creativity of tweeters who have led the way in collaboration and sharing, and engage key people of influence in the online community. Do the Maths Hubs even know about the two weekly UK maths twitter chats? We have not yet seen any Maths Hub representatives contributing ideas and opinions to these chats.

The Maths Hubs also need to find out what collaboration is already happening and who is doing the organising and the speaking (Teachmeets, conferences, networking groups and so on). Don’t try to duplicate what they’re doing, instead support them and help them to expand their audience.

Representatives from every Maths Hub should attend all maths conferences so they know what the big issues are.

A slow start
Schools have felt isolated in the past so are sceptical that anything will change. And teachers are too busy teaching to be the proactive ones. Now the Maths Hubs have had their plans approved, I hope they actively attempt to connect with all schools – the comprehensives, the academies, the free schools, the special schools, the independent schools… Don’t wait for them to come to you. Seek out good practice, celebrate it and share it.

Summary
The most important thing to get right is communication. Keep us in the loop – we want to know what’s going on.

I remain optimistic. I look forward to seeing this initiative do good things for maths education. It’s a big challenge for you Maths Hubs, but if you want our support, you’ve got it.

Room for improvement in school recruitment

jomorgan1 ,

There are some things that the vast majority of schools do very effectively. Teaching children to read and write for example. Keeping children safe. Providing opportunities to gain qualifications. Schools excel at these things. At the same time there are some things that are done very badly by the vast majority of schools. Procedures and strategies involving staff management are in dire need of improvement.

Responsibility for HR is often given to the Bursar, whose primary concern is finance and is likely to have little or no experience of HR management. As a result, schools have inefficient and ineffective recruitment procedures, performance management systems, talent management programmes, training provision and line manager HR support. Little thought is given to how to motivate and retain staff. Even the basics of employee relations often go awry. When I asked my Bursar for information regarding maternity pay, she told me to ask my union.

Having come from a career in an industry where Human Resource management is done exceptionally well, I am very aware of the absence of effective procedures in schools. My recent experience applying for jobs confirmed this. Here’s a few examples of where things have gone wrong:

Lack of response
Some job adverts state ‘we will only respond to your application if you are selected for interview’. What? These schools can’t even spare 30 seconds to respond to an email with a sentence along the lines of ‘thank you for your application, we will be in touch if we select you for interview’. The applicant is left wondering whether their application arrived safely or was lost in the darkness of cyberspace.

Repetition
I applied for a job that asked for a CV, covering letter and application form. What an inefficient duplication of effort. Typing out all the details of my qualifications and previous employment twice drove me crazy. Teachers don’t have time to waste on badly designed processes! Application forms themselves are often poorly formatted, created by someone who lacks basic ICT skills. Talented people will be put off applying for jobs where no thought has gone into the selection process.

References
What’s with the custom of asking for references before the interview? I find this bizarre. I recently applied for a job where eight external candidates were invited to interview. For each candidate, two referees (including headteachers) were asked to complete a substantial reference form in advance of the interview. So, for this one vacancy, 16 senior and middle leaders each spent probably around an hour of their time writing comprehensive job references. That’s a lot of time invested in another school’s recruitment process. Is this really an essential element of selection? References are often biased one way or the other anyway. The interview day should provide enough information to make a recruitment decision and references regarding suitability to work with children etc should be part of the standard checks made after a job offer has been made.

Discretion
In teaching, everyone knows when you apply for a job. And everyone knows when you fail to get that job. Perhaps the practicalities of recruiting a teacher are such that discretion is impossible. But if only there was another way. Return from an interview without an offer and you feel humiliated and undermined, plus your boss now knows you want to leave the school. In other industries you can take a day’s holiday for an interview and if you’re unsuccessful, no-one need ever know.

Induction
Finally, a word on induction. A friend of mine was very excited to get a new job at a great school. On his first day he, and the other new recruits, were invited to meet the Deputy Head. They sat around a conference table expecting ‘welcome to our school, congratulations on your appointment, we’re excited to have you on board’. Instead, the Deputy Head sat down, looked around the room and said, in his stern monotone voice, ‘New staff. You need to know about our policies. First – marking…’. How very welcoming! Unfortunately this set the tone for the year to come.

My message to schools is this – if you want to recruit and retain talented staff then bear in mind that first impressions count for a lot! Get your act in gear, this stuff isn’t rocket science.

Teaching at a grammar school

jomorgan1 , ,

I currently teach maths at a girls’ grammar school. I realise I may have instantly lost the attention of a great many readers who have a tougher job. Bear with me. Let me shed some light on what it’s like to work in this type of school.

Intake
I live in an area dominated by grammar schools. Our students come from driven (often pushy) families and the competition for places is fierce. The entrance tests are heartbreaking to invigilate – many of the candidates are clearly under a lot of pressure to pass. Often girls are tutored intensively for these entrance tests so we get an intake of hard-working but not necessarily naturally bright girls.

To give you an idea of our results – I taught Maths GCSE to set 6 (out of 8) last year. When I started teaching this group at the start of Year 10 they were under the impression they were bad at maths because they’d been put in a relatively low set. I built up their confidence and shared my passion for maths. Out of the 24 girls in this class, 17 went on to achieve an A* in their Maths GCSE, the rest got an A (and were disappointed).

From the full cohort of 180 girls, the vast majority got an A* in their Maths GCSE. A handful got a grade B, no-one got a C. Most girls went on to take Maths at AS level.

A huge number of girls take maths and science at A level (there are around 150 Year 12 mathematicians). Gender issues don’t affect them – sciences are not seen as masculine subjects. Many students want to be doctors (coming from families of doctors). Unlike our GCSE results, our results at A level are not outstanding – many students struggle with both the academic step up and the heavy workload. We are not given as much teaching time at A level as other schools (apparently due to budget constraints) – this has an impact on results.

Behaviour
The challenges of working at a grammar school are unique. Behavioural issues revolve around low-level disruption in lessons (mainly chatting). There are also problems with cheating in tests. In four years at this school I have not dealt with any fighting, swearing, rudeness and so on – if I change schools I’ll be in for a shock! However my students do suffer from emotional issues (primarily related to stress and image. They’re a competitive bunch and some are terribly unhappy). The pressure to perform well academically comes from home, but the parents often claim we focus too much on results and too little on pastoral care (I am insulted by the insinuation that I don’t care for my students’ well-being).

Teaching
In terms of teaching, the main challenges are keeping the students engaged and suitably challenged, as well as preparing vast quantities of material for every lesson. My students quickly understand concepts and happily plough through practice questions at a fast rate, so new teachers often find they don’t prepare enough for each lesson. Lesson planning – and finding suitably challenging resources – is very time consuming.

Many of my students receive unnecessary private tuition – this frustrates me.

It is vital that grammar school teachers have strong subject knowledge. The smart girls instantly know if a teacher isn’t sure of themselves and will try to catch them out. I did well at school and got a first class honours degree from UCL but I’m painfully aware that some of my Oxbridge-bound Year 13s are more intelligent than me.

Leadership and culture
The senior leadership team are stressed. The staff room is not a particularly welcoming place and a great many teachers are disillusioned. The school has a hard-working, talented and intelligent teaching staff but they are made to feel inadequate. They are increasingly micro-managed.

The school is not particularly well-off and our buildings and facilities are somewhat inadequate. There is also a feeling that many talents – of both students and teachers – are wasted. We don’t share ideas with local grammar schools – there is an unnecessary sense of competitiveness.

We feel like we should be really proud of ourselves and our students, but parents and leadership are unimpressed. Teachers and students are constantly given the message that our results could be even better.

Despite our strong results, Ofsted aren’t convinced by us – we struggle to demonstrate enough progress with such a strong intake. A ‘mock Ofsted’ report once claimed that our lessons were ‘pedestrian’, suggesting we don’t do enough to engage students (we don’t really have to do much to engage them though, our students learn no matter what they are presented with). We are never rated ‘outstanding’, much to the frustration of our leadership team.

Rewards
For the most part my students are very pleasant. They are nervous of being wrong so reluctant to take risks in class, but they are polite and easy to teach. They take pride in their work. Instead of being consumed with behavioural issues during lessons, I get to teach a lot of maths. I enjoy my lessons and get a sense of satisfaction from helping students to reach their potential.

I admit I have an easier life than teachers in tougher schools, but teaching at a grammar school has its unique challenges.

Hands up wins, hands down

jomorgan1 , ,

When I was at school, I was consistent. Every single school report from when I was 5 years old until I was 18 said the same thing. Good at all the academic stuff, bad at sport, ‘must start to contribute in class’. 13 years is a long time to ignore feedback. Why did I make no attempt to contribute in class? Because I was perfectly happy the way things were, thank you very much. My academic achievements proved that my lack of contributions were not hampering my progress. As an adult, my ability to function in social circles and work as a ‘team player’ also suggests that my failure to contribute at school was not detrimental. In fact I’m now rather good at making contributions in meetings. Sometimes my colleagues can’t get me to shut up.

I was stubborn because I was happy with my decision. I didn’t want to contribute, so I didn’t. As a teacher I’m just as stubborn.

My lessons keep being graded as ‘good’. Never outstanding. This didn’t bother me until it had the potential to affect my pay, but that’s a story for another post. Why aren’t my lessons outstanding? My students do brilliantly in maths. I engage and enthuse them. I impart my knowledge. In the feedback following my last observation, I was given two pieces of advice: 1. write lesson objectives on the board and 2. don’t ask students to put their hands up. Do these two things and I might have a shot at being outstanding.

In this post I want to focus on the latter piece of advice. What did I (allegedly) do wrong? Apparently ‘hands up’ is old-fashioned. Apparently it’s not engaging or inclusive. Instead I should select students at random to answer questions. Lolly sticks are meant to be helpful here.

I’m pleased I went to school when it was acceptable to ask for hands up. It meant I felt comfortable in my lessons. I listened, I learned. If there was a risk of being randomly asked to contribute an idea, I would have spent the entire lesson worrying about it. I wouldn’t have learnt anything, I’d have been too busy panicking.

In English lessons we used to read out loud. I hated taking my turn. I understand that there is a need for English teachers to develop and assess their students’ speaking skills, but during these lessons I never paid attention to the story being read. I followed the text so I’d know where we were if I was picked to read, but I wasn’t actually listening. At GCSE we read the majority of Silas Marner in class. The teacher never asked for volunteers, she always selected readers at random. By the end of the book I had absolutely no idea what had happened. I’d been too busy worrying about being picked to read. I read the book at home by myself and got a good grade in English. For me, those reading lessons were a waste of time.

I don’t want to alienate my shy students. I want them to feel comfortable in my lessons so that they learn and enjoy maths. I want them to listen to me, and the contributions of their peers, without feeling a sense of impending doom. Doesn’t a ‘hands up’ approach benefit everyone? The more confident and extroverted students benefit because they want to put their hands up, therefore they are engaged in the lesson. The quieter students who don’t want to contribute feel at ease so they are also engaged in the lesson. And if anyone is not engaged in the lesson, I’ll identify them and engage them in a way that doesn’t involve lolly sticks.

I’ve had the same ‘no hands up’ piece of advice as a result of all my lesson observations since I qualified. They keep saying it, I keep ignoring it. I’m going to continue to ignore it. I may have been too shy to offer opinions as a child, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have them. The shyness has gone, the opinions remain. I like hands up and I’m sticking with it.

hands herminone

Look, just trust me, ok?

jomorgan1 , , ,

Trust is complicated. We spend our lives trusting people we’ve never even met. I trust food manufacturers not to poison me when I eat my breakfast. I trust my bus driver to get me to school safely. I trust the carers at my daughter’s nursery to look after her. So why don’t I trust my senior leadership team? And why don’t they trust me?

In my career prior to teaching, I had no problem with authority. My manager gave me work to do and I got on with that work by myself or with my colleagues, occasionally asking for guidance if necessary.

My boss trusted me to do my best. He supported me with training and advice. Importantly, he told me when he was impressed with my work – that made me want to keep impressing him. I felt contentment when he praised me for working hard. I felt ambitious when he said I was going to go far. I felt empowered when he delegated responsibilities to me. Since joining teaching, I have not once felt any of those things. No contentment, no empowerment. My ambition is ebbing away. I feel satisfaction from helping my students, but it’s bittersweet. I feel like I’m in a never ending battle for approval from my superiors.

All these damn lesson drop-ins get on my nerves. My SLT cheerily calls them pop-ins to make them sound less sinister (‘like Mary Poppins’, they say). Don’t get me wrong, I do see some benefit to an open door policy – collaboration and sharing are very helpful in teaching – but I don’t believe that’s the purpose of these pop-ins at all. They’re looking for bad teachers. They’re interfering and micromanaging. Big brother is watching.

mary_poppins

I think I’m a pretty good teacher but I live in fear of these drop-ins. No, it’s not ok for a member of SLT to randomly wander into my lesson and start looking through my students’ books. It’s disruptive, it undermines me and it suggests I’m not trusted. It suggests they think I don’t know how to teach effectively.

I’m constantly adapting my teaching practice and learning from my mistakes – I think I do a good job and I’m improving all the time. Everything I do is in the best interests of my students. So why can’t my leadership team trust me to get on with it?

If my school’s leadership spent as nearly much time recognising staff for their endeavours as they do criticising them, they’d have a much happier and more motivated workforce. Perhaps they need to be reminded that happier teachers make for a more successful school, and isn’t that what we all want?

trust

Performance Benchmarks – Alps

jomorgan1 , ,

I want to take a brief look at Alps target grades. My initial thoughts on the subject are based on small amounts of empirical evidence – I have not yet taken the time to do any formal research or analysis and I would be incredibly grateful if anyone could point me in the direction of anything that has already been written on the subject.

Background
Like most organisations, schools use data to benchmark performance. FFT data and RAISEonline data are widely used in the UK. It is understandable that schools want to know how they’re doing compared to others. It is sensible for leadership to evaluate the effectiveness of their strategies. Until last year my school used Alis data for internal analysis of A level grades. However the target grade that students were aware of – the one that appeared on their reports – was their UCAS predicted grade which had been determined by their teachers. Last year our new headteacher invested in Alps data. Alps reports are very well presented in a ‘we know what we’re talking about and we have good software’ kind of way. I’m not suggesting the people at Alps don’t know what they’re talking about, I’m sure their methods are robust, but I want to explore the effectiveness of Alps grades from a teacher’s perspective.
Setting students up to fail?
Let’s take two of my students as examples – I’ll call them Amy and Beth. They both did AS level maths with me last year. Both Amy and Beth did well at GCSE. They achieved a good number of A* and A grades. According to their Alps targets, they’ll both achieve straight As at A level, whatever subjects they take. Now we all know about the step up from GCSE to A Level – As are very hard to achieve at Key Stage 5. To do so, students need to be both very bright and very hard working.

In the first week of Year 12, our students sat an entry test in maths. The test covered basic maths skills including arithmetic, fractions and solving equations. The results were worrying – a large number of students scored less than half marks on this very simple test. I intervened with remedial lunchtime sessions in the first few weeks of the school year. This was effective for some pupils – they responded well to the message that their maths wasn’t up to scratch. They took the remedial sessions seriously, did the extra work to catch up and ultimately did well in their summer exams.

Amy achieved a mere 16% in her entry test. I immediately raised concerns with her Head of Year. In my opinion maths was not the right choice for Amy. But she stayed in my class. I worried endlessly about her throughout the year. She was neither a natural mathematician nor a hard worker. By the end of the first half term I knew that she would probably fail the course. I always want the best for my students so I kept encouraging and supporting her. I was also anxious because I knew I’d be criticised if she didn’t meet her Alps target. I’d be thought of as an underperforming teacher who failed to help her students reach their potential.

Poor Amy was being set up to fail. Her Alps target was misleading. She was new to my school so I never saw her GCSE grades but perhaps she had done well in arts and humanities. Anyone with any sense knows that if a pupil is good at humanities at GCSE it does not follow that they will be good at A level maths. But Alps targets are not subject specific and this is one of their fundamental flaws.

The numerous interventions I tried with Amy were not effective. She didn’t put in her share of the effort. She was full of excuses and didn’t try hard enough. The maths didn’t click for her. In her reports throughout the year I gave her D grades but even that was aspirational.

As expected, Amy got a U in AS maths in the end. Her grades in other subjects were low too – she certainly didn’t achieve the straight As that Alps had promised her. Dare I say that she just wasn’t clever enough?

I believe in the power of aspirational targets as a motivator but targets must be realistic or they become meaningless. Were these pseudoscientific Alps targets of any benefit to Amy? No. Was it all my fault that Amy didn’t meet her targets? No. She probably blames me though.

Beth was very similar to Amy at the outset. She struggled in maths from the word go but she worked hard all year and got there in the end. She got a C. I was overjoyed on results day. She may feel like a failure because she was two grades off her Alps target, but to me she should be very proud of her amazing result. I thought she might get a U so I’m chuffed with what she achieved – I worked hard for that C and so did she. She should be happy. What a shame her Alps target begs to differ. To me, Beth is a success. In a school driven by meaningless Alps targets, she is a failure, and so am I.

A measure of teacher performance?
I taught some very bright young mathematicians last year. They achieved As even though their Alps targets were Bs. Should I take all the credit for this outperformance? No. Their targets were wrong. They were always capable of achieving As. I saw that from the start of the year, and I told them so. I helped them reach their real potential, not the limited potential dictated by artificial targets. But in the same way I shouldn’t be criticised when girls like Beth get a grade C, I shouldn’t take all the glory for strong performance. My students sat the exam, not me.

I know I do a good job with my classes so why am I made to feel like a failure by SLT? Why are teachers constantly told they’re letting people down? I really do everything I can for my students. I don’t appreciate the criticism. And to determine my pay based on Alps targets? Surely anyone can see that’s not going to have the desired effect. Performance-related pay is apparently meant to make me a better teacher. But objectives have to be realistic, sensible and achievable otherwise they are utterly pointless. By holding back my pay – money that I need to support my family – because Amy and Beth didn’t achieve their targets, the school is not motivating me at all. They are frustrating me and driving me away. They will lose talented teachers and the situation will worsen.

I have one more example that’s worth a mention. It’s a small case study but opens the door to wider analysis. Last year we had two Further Maths classes in Year 13. The 10 students in each class had very similar Alps targets, but the teachers felt that one class was weaker than the other. Nevertheless, the classes were taught in exactly the same way. Same teachers, same lessons, same resources, same exams. One class met their targets and the other didn’t. So was it the teaching that determined whether or not the students met their targets? Both classes had the exact same teaching experience and yet performed differently. The Alps report for one class told the teachers they should have done better. The Alps report for the other class said the teachers had done a good job. Go figure.

Conclusion
Some people seem to have the view that there is a perfect cause-and-effect correlation between the performance of teachers and the performance of their pupils. Clearly this is not the case – there are numerous other influencing factors. Students’ performance is not a clear indicator of my effectiveness as an employee. I appreciate the need for objective measures of performance instead of wholly subjective measures, but these Alps targets are all wrong. The data makes no sense. Evidence suggests that in teaching, performance related pay does not impact teachers’ performance. If we’re being judged against targets that we don’t support, it’s clear to see why not.

In my opinion there are far better uses for school money than buying Alps reports. Instead we should just tell all students to aim high and do their best. SLT should trust and support teachers to help students reach their potential. When I did my A levels I wasn’t given a target grade. I don’t believe they’re necessary or even desirable.

I’ve been critical of Alps targets here but I am very open to hearing counter-arguments and evidence for their effectiveness. Please comment below or email me if you have a view or can point me in the direction of any relevant research, other than that written by the people behind Alps.

Update: Thank you to everyone who has emailed me their views on this.

I highly recommend the excellent article “Target Setting doesn’t have to be hard work…” by @CharlotteSISRA. I feel better knowing that the fault lies with my SLT who are clearly misusing the data. Alps grades are estimates and should be combined with professional judgement to make predictions. An aspirational element can be added to predictions to set targets. It makes total sense. My school are confusing estimates with targets and therefore missing the vital teacher input that makes them meaningful. Can I have a volunteer to tell my headteacher please?

fft.org.uk

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This post originally appeared on my other (non-anonymous) blog, so if you recognise it then shush please. 🙂