STEVE FRANCIS
Top 10 trends for schools in 2012 Know what’s ahead and how it’ll affect our schools.
Teachers Matter
More emphasis will be placed on “value added,” where the results of individual students are compared over time. The emphasis on “value added” will be confronting for some schools and teachers in affluent suburbs. Whilst their students appear to be successful, the impact that the school or teacher makes is less than that of many other schools or teachers. Sensational value adding in some schools will be lauded and attempts made to analyse and duplicate their strategies.
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Putting teachers under an accountability “microscope” will add additional stress to teachers. The increasing average age of teachers, additional stress and a demanding society will contribute to higher levels of teacher absence and stretch existing resources. Quality assurance and accountability expectations will continue to rise significantly for teachers. Principals will be expected to more closely monitor the quality of teaching. Establishing a culture of feedback will be challenging as efforts are made to de-privatise teaching. The benefit of principals working with teachers to be “the best teacher they can be” will be distracted by a call for performance pay for teachers. The issues must be kept separate. Further emphasis on data will lead to calls for more teaching time. Options pushed will include extending
the school day and decluttering the timetable. This will lead to an inevitable call for the K.I.S.S principle as staffs continue to suffer change fatigue. In many schools the number of excursions and school events will be questioned. Uninterrupted teaching time is a valuable asset to be pursued and protected at all costs. In response to increasing demands on teachers, there will be increased calls for smaller classes. The debate about whether or not class size makes an impact on student achievement is likely to reopen again. Whilst many bureaucrats have told me that research does not support smaller class sizes having an impact on student achievement, that just doesn’t make sense. I am convinced that the better that teachers know their students (and their families), the better the student’s learning outcomes. There will be an increase in “creative class” configurations including lecture style classes teaching multiple class groups in secondary schools, followed by smaller break-out tutorial groups.
PHOTO: PAUL HAKIMATA
T
he increased use of data will continue down to the individual teacher. The analysis and comparison of stateby-state, district and school-wide data will extend to finer analysis than before at the teacher-by-teacher and class-by-class level.
