Coming full circle new labour and education

Coming full circle?

The impact of New Labour’s education policies on primary school teachers’ work A first report by Rosemary Webb and Graham Vulliamy, University of York, for the Association of Teachers and Lecturers

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CONTENTS FOREWORD

4

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

5

1 INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY

6

2 THE NATIONAL LITERACY AND NUMERACY STRATEGIES

16

3 TARGETS, TESTING AND ASSESSMENT

38

4 THE IMPACT OF ICT

51

5 THE ROLE OF TEACHING ASSISTANTS

74

6 THE PRIMARY NATIONAL STRATEGY

96

7 CHANGING CLASSROOM PRACTICE

108

8 COMING FULL CIRCLE?

125

Appendix A School data sheet

134

Appendix B Examples of interview guides

135

REFERENCES

139

FOREWORD Primary school teachers have been overwhelmed with a plethora of initiatives in recent times, from national assessment targets and curriculum reform to workforce remodelling. Although there has been some evaluation of the impact of individual initiatives, there is little in the way of research into the cumulative effect of changes on primary teachers’ work. ATL was delighted to commission Rosemary Webb and Graham Vulliamy to revisit 50 schools which they had originally studied as part of an ATL project in the early ‘90s. Doing so has enabled them to give us an overview of the effects New Labour reform has had on teachers’ roles, attitudes and professionalism over the intervening decade.

For many teachers, the overwhelming feeling in the early part of this new century is that education policy has “come full circle”: that the most recent reforms are putting back into teaching what had been taken away by the imposition of narrow and prescriptive literacy and numeracy strategies. But teachers also recognise that there were benefits from the strategies; coming full circle does not mean a wholesale return to how things used to be. There is an emerging belief that the primary national strategy promises a middle path between freedom and prescription, and the possibility of developing a new kind of teacher professionalism which balances flexibility with accountability.

However, while we retain the narrow end of key stage assessment with results used for a variety of conflicting purposes, the resulting pressure is likely to continue to have adverse effects on children’s learning and teachers’ wellbeing. We are working hard to bring change to the system to make a new teacher professionalism a real possibility.

Teacher professionalism has also been influenced by workforce remodelling and, in particular, the greater role of support staff in the classroom. For some teachers, the increased responsibilities taken on by teaching assistants has felt like a threat; for many others there is excitement about how this increased support has enhanced teachers’ professionalism. ATL, in partnership with government and other teaching and support staff unions, is committed to supporting enhanced professionalism, for both teachers and support staff.

Each chapter in this report can be read on its own to provide an insight into particular changes to policy and practice. Taken together, the full report tells a fascinating and very readable story about the changes for teachers at Key Stage 2. ATL is pleased to find signs that teachers feel they are beginning to reclaim their professionalism.

Dr Mary Bousted ATL General Secretary

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS Rosemary Webb is a Reader in Education at the University of York. She has had a varied career in primary education including as a teacher, a Professional Officer at the National Curriculum Council, a lecturer and researcher. She was Chair of the Association for the Study of Primary Education in 1994-97 and is currently the convenor of the British Educational Research Association/Association for the Study of Primary Education Special Interest Group on ‘Primary Teachers’ Work’.

Graham Vulliamy is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of York.

He is an executive editor of the British Journal of Sociology of Education and the International Journal of Educational Development, and was President of the British Association for International and Comparative Education in 2002-3. He has published widely on comparative education, sociology of education and, in collaboration with Rosemary Webb, primary school teachers’ work.

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY This report is the result of an ongoing research project (2003-06), commissioned by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), into the impact of the New Labour government’s educational policies on primary school teachers’ work. These policies have resulted in profound changes at a variety of levels, from curriculum, pedagogy and assessment to performance management and workforce remodelling. In combination, they embody Prime Minister, Tony Blair’s, vision to “restore teaching to its rightful place as one of Britain’s foremost professions … recognising the need for a step change in the reputation, rewards and image of teaching, raising it to the status of other professions such as medicine and law” (Blair, 1999). The mechanism for doing this was laid out in the policy document Teachers: meeting the challenge of change (DfEE, 1998b), with its aim to “modernise” the profession and embrace a “new professionalism”.

While policy-makers and educationalists have contributed extensively to debates concerning this new professionalism (eg Hargreaves, 2000; Sachs, 2001), there has been little research into the impact such changes have had on teachers’ own perceptions of their work, to update the extensive pre-New Labour research on this theme conducted for the Primary Assessment, Curriculum and Experience (PACE) project (Osborn et al., 2000).

Our research incorporates a longitudinal dimension as it replicates a previous ATL-funded research project carried out between 1992 and 1994 in 50 primary schools in England and Wales (Webb, 1993; Webb, 1994; Webb and Vulliamy, 1996). The 1992-94 ATL study produced two research reports, the first of which (Webb, 1993) looked at the impact of the Education Reform Act 1988 and the introduction of the national curriculum on classroom practice; the second of which (Webb, 1994) looked at their impact on whole-school issues and the management of change. The first of two planned reports from the 2003-06 project, this publication specifically addresses the impact of the New Labour government’s reforms on primary teachers’ classroom practice and on their perceptions of teacher professionalism.

Research context In England and Wales the reforms of the ‘80s and ‘90s increased direct government control of teaching and exerted pressure for the remodelling, reskilling and change in culture of teaching. A rich collection of research texts document in detail the impact of the pressures created by curriculum and assessment reform on primary schools (eg Campbell and Neill, 1994; Galton et al., 1999; Woods et al., 1997; Osborn et al., 2000). Our 1992-94 ATL research portrayed the experiences and practices of teachers in the post-1988 Education Reform Act context of multiple innovations. It documented their responses to escalating workloads and the new demands of their expanding roles, such as subject development and monitoring (Webb and Vulliamy, 1996). While addressing whole-school issues, its focus in relation to classroom practice was predominantly at Key Stage 2 (KS2), in order to monitor the impact of the national curriculum’s introduction on the teaching of junior children. This also

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acknowledged the fact that the views of KS2 teachers are less frequently represented by professional groups than their colleagues in the early years.

At that stage we found teachers’ values, beliefs and prior experiences were powerful mediators influencing the range of responses to the changes.

Increasingly, as shown in our comparative research study of curriculum change in England and Finland in the mid-90s, government prescription of curriculum content, the associated intensification of teachers’ work and the increased managerialism harnessed to external agendas were de-motivating and disenfranchising teachers leading to “change without commitment” (Webb and Vulliamy, 1999b). In this context, external agendas were met out of fear, resignation or perceived necessity for self-preservation and the image of the school.

Osborn et al. (2000), in their data for the PACE project collected between 1989 and 1997, demonstrate how the shift from professional autonomy to contractual responsibility as the basis for accountability was associated for many teachers with increased stress, value conflict and reduced job satisfaction. Such undermining of teacher morale is reflected in the chronic under-retention of newly trained teachers and the resignation of experienced staff, leading to teacher shortages and unfilled teaching posts (Smithers and Robinson, 2001). However, from the inception of the reforms, research has also revealed teachers are creatively interpreting the requirements according to their own professional values and the perceived needs of their pupils and, through so doing, are developing new knowledge and skills (Webb and Vulliamy, 1996; Woods, 1995; Vulliamy et al., 1997).

The first major changes for primary schools introduced by New Labour were the national literacy strategy (NLS) in September 1998 and the national numeracy strategy (NNS) in September 1999. These required teachers to make considerable changes not only in the content of their teaching but also to pedagogy. Shifting government discourses on the theme of pedagogy provide a striking insight into the changing nature of policy-makers’ definitions of “teacher professionalism”. Prior to the Education Reform Act 1988, schools and teachers were not subject to any prescription concerning curricula or pedagogy and teaching methods, in particular, were viewed as the product of professional judgement (McCulloch et al., 2000). While the Education Reform Act introduced, for the first time in English schools, government prescription over curriculum content, it was made explicit that: The Education Reform Act does not prescribe how pupils should be taught. It is the birthright of the teaching profession, and must always remain so, to decide on the best and most appropriate means of imparting education to pupils. (NCC, 1990, p.7)

The strategies, however, introduced daily literacy and numeracy hours into primary schools and, crucially, specified class organisation and teaching methods. The justification for this was that “the time has long gone when isolated unaccountable professionals made curriculum and pedagogical decisions alone without reference to the outside world” (DfEE, 1998b, p.14).

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Introduction and methodology

At the outset of our research, government intervention in the primary curriculum continued with the publication of a new primary strategy (DfES, 2003a). This was intended to blend a more creative and flexible curriculum with the standards agenda already established by the NLS and NNS and the accompanying performance tables of SATs results in English and maths. It was therefore timely to explore the impact of the strategies on teachers’ classroom practice, values and perspectives on professionalism, and to establish the continuities or discontinuities in their responses with those generated by curriculum and assessment reform in the ’90s.

New Labour’s strong promotion of the use of ICT in schools also had potential implications for changes in primary classroom practice. For example, in 1998 the government launched the National Grid for Learning (NGfL), which provided a network of information, learning materials and funding for schools through the Standards Fund and its associated Virtual Teacher Centre (DfEE, 1998a).

Since then the government has committed resources both for the training of teachers in ICT and for the purchase of hardware, such as interactive whiteboards, in primary schools.

It was also timely to revisit the analyses of primary teachers’ work over the last decade because, in acknowledgement of the changing demands being made of teachers and the subsequent need for opportunities in professional growth and development, the government was implementing the raft of measures set out in the Green Paper Teachers: meeting the challenge of change (DfEE, 1998b). Together with the national agreement Raising standards and tackling workload — an agreement signed by most education unions, employers and the government in 2003 — such measures initiated a fundamental reorganisation of the management of schools and the remuneration of teachers in England. This included proposals for a major expansion in the use of support assistants, the allocation of 10% of teachers’ time for preparation, planning and assessment (PPA), redesigned patterns of progression through the career structure — coupled with a new performance management system — and the introduction of a fast-track to allow speedy progress through the restructured levels of the teaching force (Menter et al., 2004).

Given the general research aims and context discussed above, the study addresses the more specific research questions as follows.

1

What effects are the New Labour government’s educational policies having on primary teachers’ attitudes, values and experiences?

2

What are primary school teachers’ perceptions of the changes in their roles and responsibilities over the last decade?

3

How do primary teachers respond to these changes and how do they impact on teacher self identity, notions of teacher professionalism, job satisfaction and school cultures?

4

What formal and informal strategies are adopted by teachers, especially headteachers, individually and collaboratively to cope with, manage, harness and/or challenge the demands made of them?

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The focus of this first report is specifically on classroom practice and, as such, concentrates particularly on the first two of these research questions.

Research strategy The same condensed fieldwork qualitative research strategy has been used for this report as in the 1992-94 research. This involved classroom observation, teacher interviews and the collection of relevant documentation from day-long visits to a sample of 50 schools in 16 local education authorities (LEAs) throughout England. (Note that the term “LEA” is used throughout this report, as opposed to the term “local authorities or LAs” which is now in use, since this was the term used at the time the research was conducted.) Given the centrality to the research of teachers’ perspectives on their work, interviews formed the predominant method of data collection. The semi-structured nature of the interviews and the open-ended questions enabled teachers to convey their “work stories” (Kainan, 1992) in their own terms, metaphors and conceptual frameworks. The methodological rationale for such an approach is discussed more fully in Webb and Vulliamy (1996, pp.3-7).

The aim was, on the one hand, to capitalise on the potential advantages of qualitative research methods in providing in-depth insight and analysis that is faithful to the complexity of context. This overcomes the common drawback of national questionnaire surveys where the language used is often either ambiguous or used in totally different ways in different schools. On the other hand, we were conscious of the criticisms made of much qualitative research by some policy-makers and academics for the often very small, and unrepresentative samples used in such studies (see Gorard, 2001). Our research strategy was therefore guided by a combination of the use of qualitative research techniques — mainly tape-recorded interviews — with a sample of schools large enough to be likely to reflect the range of teachers’ responses to change.

The sample schools The potential to draw general conclusions from the findings requires consideration of the criteria for the selection of the original 50 schools in the 1992-94 study, and of the manner in which these schools changed over the subsequent decade. Thirteen LEAs, of which 12 were in England and one in Wales, agreed to participate in the original project and were chosen to reflect variety in terms of their size and inner city/urban/rural nature. Schools were selected on the following basis: ■

personal contacts (10)

■

from information given in the Primary education directory and other published sources (12)

■

following participation in an earlier research project (Webb, 1993) on the implementation of the national curriculum (11)

■

from LEAs’ suggestions of schools which they felt were either closely following LEA guidelines or were organising the curriculum in ways strongly approved by the LEA (17).

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Our aim in the LEA-nominated sub-sample was to ensure that we had examples that were perceived to be good practice. We wrote to and/or phoned headteachers requesting permission to include their schools in the project. This was granted in all but six cases, where headteachers stated that they and/or their teachers were under too much stress to participate in the research. A consequence of this may be that the original 1992-94 project research sample did not represent those schools throughout England and Wales who recognised that, at that time, they were really struggling with the implementation of the national curriculum.

The aim of the follow-up 2003-06 research was to re-visit each of the original 50 schools, if possible, in order to provide a longitudinal account of changing school and teacher fortunes over the intervening decade. We decided, however, not to include the one Welsh school in the original sample since English and Welsh educational policies have diverged over the intervening decade and a single school could clearly not be seen as representative of the Welsh experience. Instead, we substituted a school of similar size, the participation of which in two previous research projects (the York-Finnish project [Webb and Vulliamy, 1999a,b] and the York-Jyväskylä teacher professionalism project [Webb et al., 2004]) meant that we had teacher interview data and classroom observation data going back to 1994.

When we found that a small school in the original sample had closed in the first year of the project (2003), we made one other substitution of a small school that had also been part of the earlier projects referred to above. Following local government reorganisations, the 2003-06 sample of 50 schools came from 16 LEAs rather than the 13 in the original 1992-94 research. Using the DfES’s classification of LEAs by region, 7 were from Yorkshire and the Humber, 4 from the North East (all these four were in the same single authority in the 1992-94 study), 2 from the North West, 1 from East of England, 1 from East Midlands and 1 from the South West.

Fieldwork for the first phase of the research took place over a three-year period (2003-05) and, as with the 1992-94 project, further fieldwork is planned in about a quarter of the original sample of 50 schools in 2006. While most schools, when contacted, readily granted us research access, there were some schools that preferred to delay because of ongoing staff morale and leadership problems (eg having just been placed in special measures) or because the timing was felt to be inappropriate (eg a forthcoming Ofsted inspection). In such cases we waited for a year or so before trying again.

Despite some schools in our sample having been through extremely difficult circumstances, access was finally granted to each of the 48 schools from the original sample (giving, as in 1992-94, a total sample of 50 research schools).

Table 1a provides a comparison of the 1992 and 2003 research samples by type of school. This indicates that both the “first” schools in the original sample had been subsequently reorganised into primary schools. Two middle schools and four junior schools had also turned into primary schools.

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Table 1a Research sample by type of school in 1992 and 2003

Date 1992 2003

Primary 35 43

Junior 8 4

Middle 5 3

First 2 0

Total 50 50

Table 1b shows that whilst 12 schools from the original sample had remained about the same size as before (with a less than 10% increase or decrease in pupil numbers), 26 schools had increased their pupil numbers by more than 10% and 12 schools had pupil numbers that had fallen more than 10%.

Table 1b Distribution of changes in numbers of pupils in sample schools 1992-2003

Changes in pupil numbers

Down 50-74%

No. of schools 2

Down 26-49%

Down 10-25%

Down 9%Up 9%

Up 10-25%

Up 26-49%

Up 50-74%

Up Total 75-100%

2

8

12

12

8

3

3

50

As a consequence there had been a relative move towards larger schools in the 2003 sample compared with the 1992 one (see Table 1c).

Table 1c Research sample by size of school in 1992 and 2003 [%s]

Small schools 0-100 pupils

Medium schools 101-300 pupils

Large schools 301+ pupils

1992 research sample

18%

54%

28%

2003 research sample

14%

48%

38%

Table 1d gives the 1992 and 2003 figures for school size for primary schools in England by way of comparison with our sample. The original 1992 sample had a higher proportion of large schools than in England generally. This arose from a deliberate decision to include a higher proportion of larger schools, following the government’s pronouncements that they wished to encourage the wider spread of organisational strategies, such as specialist subject teaching and setting by ability, which were thought to be more commonly associated with large schools (assumptions which our original research subsequently showed to be incorrect — see Vulliamy and Webb, 1995). A comparison of the 2003 sample by size of school with English primary schools in general indicates that the relative reduction in the number of small schools mirrors almost exactly the national picture, but that the shift from medium-sized schools to large schools is slightly bigger in our sample than in the national average.

Table 1d Size of English primary schools in 1992 and 2003 [%s]

Small schools 0-100 pupils

Medium schools 101-300 pupils

Large schools 301+ pupils

English primary schools in 1992

18%

65%

16%

English primary schools in 2003

15%

61%

24%

Note: row and column totals in tables may not equal 100% due to rounding.

Sources: DES, 1992, p.125 and DfES, 2003c, p.45.

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Introduction and methodology

Our primary concern in selecting the original 1992 sample of 50 schools had been to ensure that it reflected the full diversity of KS2 provision in terms of size and type of school and that other aspects of the diversity of primary schooling were reflected. For example, it was important to get a mix of inner-city, suburban and rural schools, a multicultural mix (from all-white schools through to one school with 98% ethnic minority pupils) and a mix of religious denominations (including Church of England, Roman Catholic and Methodist). While the individual schools researched may not have been representative of others with similar characteristics, we believed that a sample of schools chosen in this manner should have ensured that the main issues and approaches to the implementation of the national curriculum at KS2 were identified.

The introduction of national standard assessment tasks (SATs) testing in the ‘90s provides us with additional data by which we can assess the extent to which the 2003 research sample may or may not be representative of English primary schools more generally. Table 1e indicates the distribution of the sample schools’ average point scores in KS2 SATs in the first year of the project.

Table 1e Distribution of sample schools’ average point scores in 2003 KS2 SATs

Average point score

21.0- 22.0- 23.0- 24.0- 25.0- 26.0- 27.0- 28.0- 29.0- 30.0- 31.0- No Total 21.9 22.9 23.9 24.9 25.9 26.9 27.9 28.9 29.9 30.9 31.9 figures

No. of schools 1

0

1

2

3

9

4

12

7

4

1

6

50

Note: the average score for schools in England was 27.4 Source: Primary School League Tables for England 2003, Education Guardian, 4 December 2003

The average point score for a combination of English, maths and science results is compiled according to the following points tariff: 15 points level 2 or below; 21 points level 3; 27 points level 4; and 33 points level 5. An advantage of the average point score figure is that many pupils achieved level 5, which is more than the expected standard, and the average point score reflects this. Our research sample contains schools at the extremes of low and high achieving.

The lowest performing school in our sample was in the bottom 20 for all English primary schools in 2003 (around 13,000 KS2 schools in total), whilst the top performing one was in the top 100. However, there were 28 schools in our sample above the English average figure of 27.4 and only 16 below this average (6 schools were too small to have their results recorded in the performance tables). Thus, whilst our sample covers the full spectrum of national SATs results, it is somewhat biased towards better achieving schools than the national average. This is probably a consequence of the likely exclusion of a representative number of poorer performing schools in the original 1992 sample (discussed above).

Data collection and analysis techniques Data from each of the 50 schools were collected during a day visit. The most common pattern for such visits involved: ■

completing a school data sheet (see Appendix A)

■

tape-recorded semi-structured interviews with the headteacher, deputy headteacher and between one and three further teachers, depending on the

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size of the school (see Appendix B for examples of interview guides); where possible, we re-interviewed any teachers who had been interviewed in the 1992-94 research. Most of the interviews lasted between 30 and 60 minutes ■

observation of a KS2 class for a lesson (focusing particularly on classroom organisation, teaching methods and the use of resources, especially teaching assistants), followed by a tape-recorded interview with the teacher who taught it

■

informal conversations with teachers at breaks and lunchtime and observation, where possible, of other school activities such as assemblies

■

collection of the school’s prospectus and any other relevant documentation (eg lesson plans for the lesson observed).

The fieldwork was carried out by Rosemary Webb (18 schools), Graham Vulliamy (19 schools), Jo Armitage (7 schools), Verna Campbell (4 schools) and Hilary Blundell (2 schools).

188 teacher interviews were tape recorded and transcribed in full. As can be seen from Appendix B, the interview guides contained some common questions for all interviewees but had different emphases for headteachers, deputy headteachers, coordinators and class teachers. However, the exact questions asked often varied. This was firstly because fieldwork was conducted over a three-year period with new government initiatives coming on stream. Secondly, the aim was to pursue themes in some depth rather than to obtain more superficial responses to every single potential question, given the limited interview time available. Overall, we aimed to ensure that, within the total sample of 188, we had large enough sub-samples to permit generalisations as to interviewees’ attitudes to key government reforms. For example, of the 188 interviewees, there were 124 giving evaluative comments on the literacy strategy and 119 on the numeracy strategy.

The analysis of the 188 interview transcripts followed the process of category generation and saturation, based upon the “constant comparison” method originally advocated by Glaser and Strauss (1967), used in our earlier research.

However, unlike the 1992-94 study, the depth and rigour of the analysis of our teacher interviews were aided by the use of MAXqda software for qualitative data analysis. The method combines an inductive category coding with a simultaneous comparison of all units of meaning obtained. As each new segment of an interview transcript is selected for analysis, it is compared with all previous units of meaning and subsequently grouped or categorised with those that are similar. If no similar unit of meaning exists, a new category is formed and consequently the emerging category system is constantly modified and refined. Given the unusually large sample size for a qualitative interview study, we have also been able to supplement the qualitative analysis with, where appropriate, quantitative comparisons using relevant variables, such as whether teachers began their teaching before or after the implementation of the Education Reform Act 1988 (see below).

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An assessment of the potential to draw general conclusions from our findings also requires consideration of the composition of the teacher interview sample.

Table 1f indicates the nature of the sample by role and gender. Whilst 27% of the total sample was male, the proportion of heads who were male was 44% and of deputies 33%, reflecting the tendency towards higher proportions of males at more senior levels in primary schools than has been found in other research (eg Wallace and Huckman, 1999; Southworth, 2004). Since 28 of the deputy headteachers in our sample were also class teachers (together with 4 headteachers from very small schools), 70% of the sample were class teachers and 30% of the sample members of senior management without a specific class (though, especially in the case of deputies, often doing a variety of teaching to different classes and groups throughout the school). The fact that 27% of our interview sample was male, compared with a national average in primary schools in 2003 of 16% male (DfES, 2003c, p.50), reflects our deliberate intention to ensure that senior management perspectives were obtained from each of our 50 schools.

Table 1f Composition of teacher interview sample by role and gender

Heads 50 (28 F; 22 M)

Deputies 39 (26F; 13M)

Other teachers 99 (84F; 15M)

Total 188 (138F; 50M)

Note: In one school the acting headteacher could not be interviewed due to sickness whilst in another school there was both an acting headteacher and an associate headteacher

Research in England has found that there are differences in teachers’ responses to the ‘90s reforms between those who had entered teaching before and after the implementation of the Education Reform Act 1988 (eg Day, 2002; Osborn et al., 2000). Such differences have also been found in the perspectives of teachers in other countries that have experienced similar reforms (eg Locke’s 2001 discussion of teacher professionalism in New Zealand). As seen in Table 1g, 68% of our teacher interview sample started their first job prior to 1990 and were therefore trained prior to the implementation of the reforms in the Education Reform Act, whilst 32% of the sample started their first job in 1990 or afterwards (including 8 teachers who started their first job in 2000 or later).

Table 1g Composition of teacher interview sample by date of first job

1st job pre-1990 127

1st job post-1990 61

Total 188

A final point to be taken account of in terms of the composition of the teacher sample in this research is the manner in which the teachers were chosen for interviews. In our prior telephone discussions with headteachers about our intentions, we asked to be able to interview the headteacher, deputy headteacher and anyone who had been interviewed in the previous 1992-94 study. In addition headteachers were asked to select one or two further members of staff for interview, one of whom should be the teacher of a KS2 lesson that had been observed. Such a sample is likely to be biased towards the more confident teachers. It should also be noted that, despite 4 of the

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schools in the sample having a more than 95% Asian pupil intake, there was only one Asian teacher in the sample. The rest were white (including two from European countries other than the UK). The school sample was such that no school had a high proportion of Afro-Caribbean pupils.

With the above in mind, we would suggest that the main limitations on drawing general conclusions from our interview findings are, firstly, that the sample is likely to under-represent both less experienced teachers and those who are experiencing difficulties in their teaching. Secondly, the views of teachers from an ethnic minority background are not represented.

As in the 1992-94 study, the analyses of data from the classroom observations were both less reliable and less valid. This is because they were based on open-ended observations and observation of just one lesson may well have been unrepresentative of the totality of that teacher’s lessons. Moreover, since headteachers chose which class would be observed, this is likely overall to be a sample of lessons taught by the most confident and better teachers in the schools. The original intention for such classroom observation was simply to provide a context for the class teacher interviews and also to use such observations to provoke questions concerning the relationships between whole-school planning and classroom practice.

Nevertheless, such caveats notwithstanding, we did use analysis of classroom observations (51 in total) first to look at relationships between curriculum organisation, classroom organisation and teaching styles. Secondly, by comparison with the similar analysis of the 54 lessons in the 1992-94 study, we used them to identify major changes (such as a very large increase in wholeclass teaching and the total demise in our sample of some previous approaches, such as the use of carousel and menu systems for pupil activities). Thirdly, they were useful in exploring topical classroom issues, such as the greatly increased use of both ICT and teaching assistants, which reflected major changes in classroom practice since our earlier study.

Throughout this report we have generally included the numbers of pupils in a school when presenting quotations from interview data, so that readers can differentiate between small and large schools. In a few cases such numbers have been omitted because we have wished to preserve school and teacher anonymity fully (for the same reason any names within interview quotations are pseudonyms). Dates of interview quotations are also stated because some government innovations came into force at different stages of our fieldwork period between 2003 and 2005.

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CHAPTER 2

HEADNATIONAL LITERACY AND NUMERACY STRATEGIES THE This chapter reports the diverse and contrasting views on the national literacy strategy (NLS) and the national numeracy strategy (NNS) held by headteachers and teachers in our study. While many criticisms were made of the NLS, despite some caveats the NNS received overwhelming support. Various reasons were given for this but, most importantly, the content and underlying principles of the NNS were regarded as preferable, with more to offer teachers and schools and more benefits derived by pupils. In all schools the strategies, particularly the literacy and numeracy hours, were being adapted to a minor or greater degree, ranging from modifications to teaching made by individual teachers through to major whole-school changes resulting from a review of literacy or numeracy practice. The much less popular NLS was subject to greater adaptation than the NNS. As a result of teaching methods promoted by the strategies, the literacy and numeracy lessons observed during this study were very different from those observed and discussed a decade ago. Teachers considered these teaching methods to have improved the quality of their teaching.

The DfES’ Standards and Effectiveness Unit commissioned a team of researchers based at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, to provide an external evaluation of the implementation of the NLS and NNS. The team collected data over the first four years of the strategies’ implementation at national and local levels producing three reports, the final one of which summarised the key findings of the evaluation and the implications for understanding the process of large-scale reform. At the outset they found that “headteachers and teachers were enthusiastic about both Strategies, numeracy in particular” (Earl et al., 2001, p.51) and that “most concerns or reservations that were expressed were with portions of the Strategies, rather than the Strategies on the whole” (p.55) – findings that were broadly replicated in their final report (Earl et al., 2003).

While our research suggests mounting criticism of the NLS, the data reveal a continuation and further consolidation of positive views and experiences in relation to the NNS. Earl et al. (2003) conclude that: “The major shifts associated with the Strategies have been an improved range and balance of elements of literacy and mathematics being covered, increased use of wholeclass teaching, greater attention to the pace of lessons, and planning based on learning objectives rather than activities” (p.3). Our data portray teachers’ perceptions of the strategies and the impact of these “major shifts” since the evaluation was conducted. This chapter reports these perceptions and considers how far, and in what ways, the strategies have become embedded in primary school culture.

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Teachers’ general response to the strategies Key criticisms sometimes made of qualitative research studies, especially in relation to their potential implications for policy makers, are that the samples are often too small to warrant valid generalisations and that it is not possible to assess the wider representativeness of the emerging themes that are subject to in-depth analysis from interview data (Gorard, 2001). Our use of a relatively large interview sample enables us to present, where appropriate, a broader quantitative picture of our interview responses as a context for the more nuanced qualitative analysis of key themes. To begin here with such a quantitative picture, each of the 188 interviews was scrutinised for evaluative comments made about either the NLS or the NNS or both. A threefold classification was used of “strongly like”, “strongly dislike” or “mixed responses” where interviewees could not be firmly placed in either of the other two extremes. Not all the interviewees were explicitly asked for their reactions to the NLS and NNS, and some used general descriptive terms without expressing evaluative opinions and therefore could not be included in the classification. The total number of interviews coded with evaluative responses was 124 for the NLS and 119 for the NNS. While inevitably such a simple threefold classification cannot do justice to an in-depth understanding of teachers’ views, it does have the advantage of providing a reasonably reliable representation of the entire sample’s views. In doing so, it highlights some interesting patterns.

About 20% of the sample (23 interviewees) strongly liked both strategies: I think that the national numeracy strategy and the national literacy strategy have been really, really big steps forward. They have been excellent and I like the structure of them [literacy and numeracy hours], and I think that is great for kids who do not benefit from just being given tasks and asked to finish them in their own time. (KS2 coordinator, 185, June 2003) Note: in this case and in each instance hereafter, where a number is given it refers to the number of pupils in the school, eg 185

However, as can be seen from a comparison of Tables 2a and 2b, the NNS was viewed very much more favourably than the NLS. Table 2a Teachers’ responses to the national literacy strategy (%s; N= 124)

Strongly like 19%

Mixed responses 68%

Strongly dislike 14%

Table 2b Teachers’ responses to the national numeracy strategy (%s; N= 119)

Strongly like 52%

Mixed responses 45%

Strongly dislike 3%

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Another indication of this differential response is that 7 of the 17 interviewees coded as “strongly” disliking the NLS were coded as “strongly” liking the NNS. For example, one headteacher was extremely critical of the NLS, principally because she perceived it as causing a drop in the school’s literacy standards: The literacy I think is a load of rubbish and our standards have gone right down. But I’ve always argued that. We’ve always believed you give it at least two years and give it a really, really fair trial doing it as it is. Our writing – we used to have a really, really fantastic standard of writing – creative writing, poetry, you know, letters of complaint, anything, and that just disappeared because they weren’t writing for any length of time. So we had a lot of problems. And the reading – if you didn’t hear them read regularly, independently and discuss their work with them then their reading standard was going down. (Headteacher, 43, June 2004)

However, this particular headteacher was very committed to the NNS, the implementation of which had led her to challenge her assumptions about effective practice: I think the numeracy has definitely raised standards. At first I thought no way is this going to work … I said a week visiting multiplication and division is no good and then going back a term later and doing it. And I was totally wrong because it is absolutely fantastic and it does keep some rolling and somehow, apart from the fact that it’s encouraging mental computation a lot more than we did before, the fact that they’re able to switch horses – instead of doing like two, three or four weeks on one topic they can switch and move on so our standards have definitely risen.

(Headteacher, 43, June 2004)

In Earl et al.’s research (2003) into the early stages of the implementation of the strategies it was found that headteachers viewed them more favourably than other teachers. In our sample, a comparison of Tables 2c and 2d with Tables 2a and 2b suggests that, when the strategies had more firmly bedded in, the responses of headteachers and teachers were very similar.

Table 2c Headteachers’ responses to the national literacy strategy (%s; N= 38)

Strongly like 16%

Mixed responses 63%

Strongly dislike 21%

Table 2d Headteachers’ responses to the national numeracy strategy (%s; N= 38)

Strongly like 53%

Mixed responses 45%

Strongly dislike 3%

Finally, whilst sometimes researchers have found teachers’ responses to the ‘90s reforms differ between those who had entered teaching before and after the implementation of the Education Reform Act 1988 (eg Day, 2002; Osborn et al., 2000), Tables 2e and 2f suggest only a very small tendency towards this in our sample.

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Table 2e A comparison of views on the NLS of teachers starting their first job prior to and after 1990 (%s; for pre-1990 N= 82, post-1990 N=42)

Pre-1990 Post-1990

Strongly like 17% 21%

Mixed responses 68% 69%

Strongly dislike 16% 10%

Table 2f A comparison of views on the NNS of teachers starting their first job prior to and after 1990 (%s; for pre-1990 N= 78, post-1990 N=41)

Pre-1990 Post-1990

Strongly like 50% 56%

Mixed responses 47% 39%

Strongly dislike 3% 5%

Benefits and limitations of the strategies The introduction of the strategies, designed to transform primary schools, was described by Earl et al. (2003) as “the most ambitious large-scale educational reform initiative in the world” (p.11). The need for such a transformation was viewed as a public declaration of the government’s lack of trust in the expertise of the teaching profession: I do think that when the strategies were introduced there was this huge implication that things were terrible and that teachers were not teaching correctly. I think everybody felt threatened by that. I know that from going on courses. There was a great feeling of discontent, particularly when the literacy strategy came on board because we had had nothing like that. People really did feel very, very threatened by it. (Deputy head, 430, Jan 2004)

The main downside of over prescription in the strategies was the lack of flexibility, which meant that if, by choice or circumstances, a lesson did not occur you fell “behind a day with everything knocked out” which was a source of anxiety.

However, for many teachers, knowing exactly what ought to be covered to teach the basics thoroughly, especially for teachers who lacked confidence in either literacy or numeracy, was very positive: For me personally I like it because I am not that strong on literacy. You have got the hour where you are sharing some text at the beginning and then you have got some sentence level, some word level work, and a plenary … but here I would say that it is a more flexible approach. You might not even have the hour one day; it might just be a lesson where you are doing some extended writing. I like it with the structure and you are showing the children good examples of literature and you are pointing out examples within that text. I like it, I agree with it and I think that it is good. (Year 3 teacher, 580, Jan 2004) Personally speaking as a teacher, and I have never stopped teaching though I have been a head for 16 years, but I have always, always taught and maths was my specialist subject. I think that the numeracy strategy is the best innovation I have come across in my time as a teacher because I think it has got the emphasis in all the right places, particularly the mental strategies and things like that. The support is there for teachers through the framework and I think that it is really well thought out. (Headteacher, 280, Feb 2004)

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Earl et al. (2003) described the infrastructure of the NLS and NNS, with its regional directors and LEA staff for literacy and numeracy in charge of linking schools to the central agencies and bringing about change, as “impressive and efficient” (p.54). The teachers in our study readily acknowledged that through national and LEA training, materials to support the strategies and school-based professional development, they had increased their knowledge of literacy and numeracy and reflected on, and improved, their practice. However, the need to maintain the direction and momentum of the strategies required teachers to continually update their knowledge. Thus professional development, rather than being a source of motivation and inspiration, was experienced as a constant pressure, a cause of anxiety and therefore a negative process: I think on all the various courses that you go on every subject leader puts forward their subject as a role of major importance within the school. There is this constant feeling that you are not doing enough about a certain element! So even within the literacy – at one point it was, well, we had a wonderful time, we have looked at this book, we have really done well and we have taken on so much. Then you will go on the next course and it will all be about syntax and you think, did I really mention enough of that to get it done? You might be teaching what you think are really sound numeracy skills and then you will find something will trigger the fact that you haven’t done enough investigative work with it. There is always something there that you seem not to be able to keep up with. In your real moments you know that you couldn’t possibly keep up with everything, but there always is that feeling you are never quite good enough. (Year 5/6 teacher, 144, June 2003) I just feel completely overloaded with it. I mean I do develop professionally now, but I don’t feel like it is me thinking “Oh I want to teach better”. I feel like it is a pressure.

It is more a negative thing now in that you think you are going to be identified as sub-standard or something if you don’t keep up to par – which maybe is what the profession needed – I don’t know. (KS2 coordinator, 280, Feb 2004)

The majority of headteachers valued the strategies for encouraging continuity and consistency of teaching across the school so “harmonising what is going on in a much more clear transparent way”. Several reported having used the strategies to monitor and support weaker members of staff, to improve the quality of their teaching and to exert pressure for improvement where teachers were reluctant to change. However, a small minority complained that such staff used the strategies as a “crutch”, delivering literacy and numeracy lessons “unthinkingly without taking into account the needs of the children”.

Headteachers also reported that “teachers don’t change into other years now because they have got their resources all lined up”, which made it difficult to spread expertise around the school and to prevent weaker teachers permanently teaching Years 3 and 4.

The strategies were generally viewed as very positive in ensuring children across England had access to the same content in literacy and numeracy, so that children moving schools would have had similar experiences to their new peers.

The strategies were also regarded as providing pace, structure and objectives that helped children to understand the purpose of their work and to work harder: 20

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We had the national literacy and numeracy strategies and so it was very set what objectives you need to cover in your year group. Whereas before literacy and numeracy, a lot of classes just worked through a text book and there seemed no sort of link from one page. That has completely gone now. The children can see the purpose of one lesson and the one before and the one coming next.

(Year 5 teacher, 450, Nov 2004)

In some schools the NLS was regarded as having brought about considerable changes in the teaching of reading: I mean really it has changed hugely in that there is now a clear structure for introducing phonics, which wasn’t there, and I think that is really positive. Reading in general — we used to hear children read as individuals and that is very rare now; the children read in the group reading session. The only time that we hear them read as individuals is where they are demonstrating a reading skill. (Deputy head, 391, Oct 2004)

However, this was also an area headteachers often felt had been well taught before the NLS, with many teachers declaring that to varying degrees they had always used phonics to teach reading.

For teachers that did not have a particular expertise in literacy, the NLS was very beneficial as it prescribed what should be taught, whereas before some had struggled to come up with varied activities: Before NLS you were scratching around sometimes for activities: “Oh I don’t know what to do so I’ll do a story today. That will fill a good hour.” Those days are gone because you’re more structured about what you’re teaching and it’s more like little bite-sized chunks that you put into it. So, it’s much harder to teach but probably beneficial, because if you took a standard literacy hour you’re working a lot harder to teach it rather than the example I just gave of doing a story.

(Year 6 teacher, 279, May 2005)

The most frequently cited benefit was that “it’s hugely increased the number of genres that children are exposed to both in reading and in writing and that is an enormous plus”: I think the literacy strategy and the numeracy strategy changed everybody’s views… I am saying “everybody’s” but it certainly changed mine — my views as a teacher and how to teach the subjects because I think that if we are all honest we weren’t teaching literacy as it should have been taught. I think… I am not saying everybody, but I think that people just tended to get out an exercise book or a Reasons for writing book. I know certainly that when I came in as an NQT I didn’t really have any clues how to develop the various genres of writing. It was a case of exposing the children to these genres rather than teaching the genre and I think that is a change. (Deputy head, 275, Oct 2003)

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One of the major things is that teachers show models of what can be done. I think that in the past, we used to expect the children to be able to do it from our introduction and explanation of how it is done. If they see an example of how something is done then they do produce a much better job themselves. When I was showing them a model of how to do the poster they came out with lots of ideas of clubs and things. (Year 5 teacher, 566, June 2003)

In addition to clarifying what was expected and providing ideas, “it gets children interested in all forms of literature so in my class last week we were doing these poems and they loved them – that Walter De La Mare poem about my brother’s horse – it was really good and they were translating the poem from poetic language into everyday written English” (Year 5 teacher). The NLS was also regarded as having focused attention on trying to address the underachievement of boys in reading and writing.

However, interview questions about the NLS invoked very strong negative responses from a small minority of headteachers, who were dismissive of it in its entirety because they perceived its implementation as causing a fall in their school’s standards. Also, most teachers tempered their positive comments with criticisms of the limitations of the NLS, particularly the adverse effects it had on pupil writing and the overemphasis on technical language and grammar: “It’s still very difficult to be talking to the children in terms of subordinate clauses and phrases and punctuation when some of them can’t even read properly.”

Some teachers also referred to the negative effects on pupils’ speaking and listening skills, attributed to an overemphasis on teacher input which “they [those responsible for the NLS] should have known from the beginning – they don’t necessarily know what’s good for children”. A few heads spoke of incorporating staff meetings and/or training sessions on speaking and listening into their school improvement plans for 2005-06.

While aspects of the NLS came in for considerable criticism from many teachers for having adverse effects on pupil attainment and motivation, the NNS was regarded by most teachers as having mainly very positive effects.

Several teachers favourably compared the level of numeracy of the children they taught with that of their own children and/or their own numeric competency on leaving school. As in Jones’ (2002) comparative questionnaire survey of the impact of the NNS with the numeracy initiative in Wales, headteachers reported that the NNS had improved teacher motivation and the quality of teaching in mathematics. Most also considered that it had directly contributed to raising their school’s maths standards.

In order to investigate the effects of the NNS on attainment, the Leverhulme Numeracy Research Programme and Nuffield Extension Study collected comparable test data on Year 4 pupils before and after the NNS in 40 schools (10 in each of 4 varied LEAs). Members of the research team found a “small but statistically significant change in attainment in relation to the changes in curriculum, in particular, the changed emphases and ways of teaching

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particular topics (eg using a number line)” (Brown et al., 2003, pp.667-8). They stress that this challenges politicians’ claims that it has been “an indisputable success” in increasing attainment.

However, as stressed by this headteacher, in claiming that the NNS raised standards in maths he was interpreting standards in broad terms and not solely in relation to SAT results: I think the quality of teaching has improved tremendously in numeracy. It is interesting because the way the government wants to measure success is by outcomes at SATs, at 11 and 7, and I don’t think that they always actually show necessarily how much progress some children have made. Certainly our numeracy results up until two years ago were very strong. We have had two very turbulent cohorts just gone through – the Year 6s – and so if you look at the raw figures they are not brilliant.

However, if you track those children that have been with us for some time I think the strategy has had an impact, it has made it a lot more focused, and I think that the children are getting a lot more switched onto maths. (Headteacher, 250, July 2004)

Indeed Brown et al. (2003), in line with headteachers’ perceptions, acknowledge that their data suggest the NNS “has been effective in improving teacher confidence, and in modernising the curriculum and the ways in which mathematical ideas are taught” (p.670).

The NNS was viewed as encouraging pupil enjoyment of maths and improving their learning: I think the numeracy strategy’s really worked, the oral and mental starter making children a lot more independent, a lot more knowledgeable, a lot more numerate – the ways of doing calculations are a lot more how your brain works. How maths was, we taught them a trick but if they couldn’t do the trick sufficiently well they had nothing. Now they are using a lot more common sense … and there are a lot more children enjoying maths than ever used to. They love the oral and mental starter and the class teaching. You can see them humming really, they’re all there – so it’s great – even the less able are far more involved now. I think that’s been good.

(Headteacher, 155, July 2005) I think that my job has been made easier with the Year 6 in teaching them because they have had such a thorough background. For teachers who are not mathematicians it has definitely worked. I am not saying that the children achieve any higher at the end of it; it has just been easier for me to get the children to be involved in mathematics more because they are coming up much keener on maths.

(Headteacher, 108, June 2003)

Teachers generally reported growth in children’s confidence in and enjoyment of maths, and believed that their understanding of mathematical concepts had increased. However, one teacher reported that “the children loved it to begin with but they got bored of the same programme every day and to me that was as bad as the unstructured was; you need to have a mixture of all those things so the children are not coming in to the same thing every day”. Other teachers said that this had initially been a concern but they had not experienced

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pupils becoming bored and disengaged. Adopting a more flexible approach to the strategies, and including a variety of tasks and activities in the middle of literacy and numeracy hours, was viewed as countering the potential for “too much sameness”.

Complying with the strategies Although not mandatory, the implementation of the strategies was forcefully recommended. As the DfEE (now DfES) put it: “Our presumption will be that the approach to teaching we set out, based on the National Literacy Project, will be adopted by every school unless a school can demonstrate through its literacy action plan and schemes of work and its performance in NC Key Stage tests, that the approach it has adopted is at least as effective” (DfEE, 1997, p.19). Looking back on the early years of the strategies and irrespective of their opinion of the strategies’ advantages and disadvantages, teachers in the 50 schools were highly critical of the government for imposing the strategies “in such a way that ‘You don’t have to do it, it is an option, but woe betide anybody who doesn’t!’” The pressure exerted on schools through Ofsted inspections and the LEAs to achieve compliance was also greatly resented.

Particularly in relation to literacy, many teachers trained in or before the early ‘90s found their beliefs about effective practice challenged and their confidence undermined by the extent and the detail of the strategies. There were very few who claimed to have been sufficiently confident to evaluate the prescribed changes and make decisions on how to respond to them in the light of their own values and experiences. The majority of teachers interviewed described how they “toed the line” even if they had misgivings about what they were doing and, if they did deviate from recommended practice, they did not publicise the fact to colleagues: Some people wanted to do it [the NLS] properly and I think that as a general group some teachers just lacked total confidence. I mean I suppose it is an important job in that you have got these children here and you want to do your best for them and you want them to meet all your targets and everything else with them. However, I think sometimes we are just a bit too anxious to toe the line. I think that the worst thing ever invented was that clock! I just couldn’t get my head around it and in the end you are in your classroom and you know that on a Monday, well my introduction is going to be that bit longer because I am introducing something new. On Wednesday I have a plenary, I am really going to take that time to mop up these misconceptions and it is using your professional judgement. (Year 4 teacher, 391, Oct 2004)

The minority of schools that decided against implementing the strategies as specified, and chose to modify the literacy and/or numeracy hour from the outset, found themselves “doing battle”, “fighting their corner” and “defending the barricades against all the onslaught” from LEA strategy consultants and advisors:

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We didn’t implement it in the way that the government had suggested. Right from the word go we decided it would be a three-part lesson, that it wouldn’t be four different activities with the teacher on one and the others all hopping around doing different things. We didn’t ever do that. So we were at loggerheads with the LEA right from the word go [laughter], but we stuck to our guns and said, “No, that is not how we are doing it here”. We are really pleased that we did because eventually the three-part lesson, which is in place now, replaced what they said in the first place that we should be doing. (Headteacher, 391, May 2005)

With the benefit of hindsight most headteachers and some literacy and numeracy coordinators were critical of themselves for giving in to national and local pressure, accepting most of the changes without protest and in the process relinquishing established good practice: We adopted it [NLS] without actually weighing it up in terms of what it was asking and … the practice we were doing already. I think that we tended to take the whole package and try and implement it and that was probably a bad thing to do … for the very good teachers probably it wasn’t as good as what they had – good practice that might have been cast aside and shouldn’t have been.

(Headteacher, 470, Oct 2003) I was in a unique position in my last school because it was a Beacon school and was very highly regarded within the authority. I was the English coordinator at the school. When the literacy hour came in even in that very, very strong position you still felt, “we will take it on board”. There is this thing of making that decision and if anything goes wrong – if, for example, you have a poor year and suddenly your results come down and the authority comes in or you have an Ofsted – people will say “but you are not doing the literacy hour, what have you put in place?” It seems that whatever I have put in place, or whatever is there, has got to be really, really very strong and you have got to be able to stand up and be accountable. Which I think we could have done, but it is about isolation in many ways to say “well I am not doing it”, whereas everybody else around you is…. It is having that courage, strength of mind, to say “no, this is good practice, this works within my school. I know my children and no we are going to keep this.” (Headteacher, 218, Jan 2004)

It was generally acknowledged that only schools with excellent SAT results and Ofsted inspection reports were in a position to resist implementing the strategies and maintain existing preferred practice. For example, a head of a very successful small school refused to introduce the literacy hour despite considerable continual pressure from the LEA. Her experience was in sharp contrast with that of the headteacher who took over a school in a very disadvantaged area, which was at the bottom of the LEA performance table.

As a result it was put in “intensive care”. This involved the LEA literacy consultant, who “had very strict, very defined ideas on how the literacy strategy should be handled” coming in to observe lessons and provide help. As a consequence of their position in the performance tables, the staff “felt that we had to do it her way” even though “it involved an awful lot of paperwork, a lot of planning, a lot of assessment, a lot of changing and moving around”.

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As argued by Jeffrey (2002), “the performativity discourse changed teacherinspector relations from one of partnership to one of subjugation” (p.541). LEA inspectors now have formal, hierarchical and authoritative roles geared to driving up pupil attainment to satisfy LEA accountability to the government and maintain their position in the tables of LEA performance.

Adapting the teaching of the strategies Earl et al. (2003) found that “the vast majority of teachers felt that they had developed new knowledge and skill through implementing NLS or NNS and indicated that they have the knowledge and skill needed for implementation” (p.93). Also, “nearly all” teachers indicated that they felt “comfortable making adaptations to the Strategy to fit the class” (pp.92-93). However, a different picture emerged from their survey of consultants as “consultants expressed concerns about teachers’ understanding of the principles underlying the Strategies, with less than half agreeing that teachers had a thorough understanding” (p.93). Earl et al. conclude that “some teachers may feel they have fully implemented the Strategies, but may lack awareness of the underlying principles”, or owing to lack of subject knowledge “will have made the easier changes required by the Strategies and may not recognise that many changes and more knowledge are still required” (p.94). Such conclusions clearly have major implications for the future development of the strategies and the associated shifts in classroom practice.

All the 50 schools in our sample were adapting the strategies to some extent.

This was in order not only to tailor the strategies to the needs of the children but also to account for the strengths and limitations of the teaching staff, and to abandon aspects considered unnecessary or unsuccessful and to bring back valued practices that were being “squeezed out” by the strategies. This process was facilitated by the perception that such adaptations were acceptable, even expected of them (eg Ofsted, 2002a), although the majority of schools weary of change opted to proceed slowly. Just as the role of LEAs had been crucial in policing strict adherence to the strategies when introduced, the stance of LEAs on adaptation and the nature of any published guidance was also highly influential. For example, in two LEAs, schools “probably wouldn’t have broken away so quickly” from the NLS if they had not been provided with units of work that covered the content of the NLS, but in more flexible ways “so you can lengthen it or shorten it, as you need to, to fit the term or the actual books or work you are doing”.

Adaptation took a variety of forms ranging from “modifications in small ways by different staff as they need to” to major changes in whole-school policy. Some schools concentrated on systematically reviewing practice and altering one of the strategies, while in others minor changes were occurring simultaneously across both strategies. Taking a whole-school approach involved staff sharing opinions and experiences and deciding jointly on the way forward: “We’ve

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freed it [NNS] up a little bit and made it more flexible and we’ve done it together as a staff talking about how we plan it and so on and it’s been evolving and we feel that we are in control of it”. The freedom to make changes was extremely important, not because staff necessarily wanted to make major changes but because feeling “in control” was crucial to the restoration of teacher confidence.

The adaptations schools were making can be placed into four overlapping categories, as follows.

Minor modifications to the strategies Essentially minor modifications involved “freeing up” school practices from adherence to the detailed prescription of the literacy and numeracy hours, especially the literacy hour, enabling teachers to make their own decisions about lesson organisation and pupil grouping. For example: We got half way through addition of decimals in columns and it [the lesson] is going to go on to tomorrow and so I didn’t do a plenary and that is that kind of flexibility.

Two years ago you didn’t appear to have that flexibility. It was either stop, do it or you got into trouble. (Teacher, 566, June 2003)

The most common minor modifications to the NLS in relation to the structure and timetabling of the literacy hour were: ■

ceasing to have a four-part lesson with a time allocation for each part

■

no longer organising work for four groups of pupils and planning in teacher support for each group in turn

■

not being tied to having a literacy hour each day.

While the notion that most literacy and numeracy lessons should have a definite beginning, middle and end with a plenary session was very strongly supported, departure from this pattern to take account of the content being taught and the children’s progress was now generally regarded as appropriate.

Adaptation also allowed for some spontaneity and opportunities to “bring our own knowledge of the world into our teaching that was lost when it was told ‘you will do this book and you will get this out of it’ and now we are a bit more free to use some different things”. The modifications to the content of the NLS that were commonly mentioned were:

■

teaching word and sentence level work together

■

spending much more time on aspects of writing, often having separate additional lessons to enable creative writing to be developed and completed

■

teaching grammar through the process of carrying out a piece of writing rather than teaching it in isolation

■

ceasing to introduce children to technical language terms and complex grammar regarded as unnecessary.

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The latter modification was also viewed as lifting some of the pressure on teachers and reducing their planning workload: There is so much to learn and to take on board and you have almost got to reeducate yourself. You have only got to mention the words onomatopoeia and alliteration to people and that is useful work, but most people don’t know what those mean. If you have got to constantly re-educate yourself before you can begin to educate the children then that is quite difficult sometimes. (Teacher, 440, June 2004) The literacy strategy imposed a great deal on the teacher… I think that it was actually requiring a level of grammatical knowledge which they had never been taught, they had never learnt themselves when they were at school. I think that it has taken teachers a long time to come to terms with the literacy strategy and feel comfortable with it and I am not sure that they all do now. (Headteacher, 280, Feb 2004)

However, for a small minority, usually literacy coordinators, the challenge to develop their own knowledge about language was welcomed: Certainly my awareness, and I would say other teachers’ awareness, of how the English language works has improved. I am a language person, I did French and Spanish at university, and so I have a good grounding and yet I have learnt a lot since implementing the literacy strategy. (Literacy coordinator, 185, June 2003)

As found by Earl et al. (2003), teachers were generally much more enthusiastic about the NNS than the NLS, which was why it was receiving much less individual teacher and planned whole-school modification. In part this support was thought to be because teachers regarded their maths teaching as a weakness prior to the introduction of the strategies, whereas they considered themselves to be successful teachers of literacy: The teachers’ perceptions – I think it was perception, not necessarily reality – but certainly teachers here perceived that they were teaching English very well. They perceived that they had trouble teaching maths and so there was resentment to the literacy hour. (Headteacher, 315, Feb 2005)

The teaching approaches brought in by the NLS were a major departure from existing practice for many teachers but they had become familiar by the time the NNS was introduced so, in some respects, teachers found the NNS was less demanding. Also as reported by Earl et al. (2003), “We heard repeatedly in our site visits that Numeracy benefited from going second and ‘learned from the mistakes made by Literacy’”( p.81). The introduction was thought to be better managed and the training more appropriate and useful. However, for most teachers the NNS was received much more favourably than the NLS because it was regarded as a superior strategy, with more to offer pupils, teachers and schools.

The main issue in relation to the NNS that was mentioned by many of those interviewed and had been the subject of debate in staff meetings was the organisation and pace determining the introduction of new mathematical topics. On the one hand this was perceived as having important advantages: 28

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On a positive note the sort of spiralling effect of the numeracy strategy is that they do re-cover skills over and over again, gradually building on those as they go up through the school. I think that it makes it much easier to link one skill with another.

Certainly within planning, knowing where you are going is something that is a big element of the numeracy strategy. (Year 5/6 teacher, 144, June 2003)

Reflecting on past practice, as one teacher put it: “I hate to say it, but before in the olden days you would do shape for weeks and you were thinking ‘Oh they haven’t got it and so I will do it differently and get the shapes out and keep them going’ and obviously at the end of the time you would hope that more of them had got it.” On the other hand teachers were concerned about the level of understanding reached by children with special educational needs (SEN), “because if you move on at too much of a gallop with a poorer child they never actually get hold of anything”. This was thought not only to adversely affect the learning of children experiencing difficulties but also their confidence and motivation – an observation supported by Ofsted’s (2005) findings.

With this in mind, a few schools were considering whether to continue as recommended or whether additional time should be spent on newly introduced topics. However, the majority of teachers felt that on balance the approach advocated by the NNS was preferable and shared the conclusions of the teacher who said: “It needs to be revisited, they are right I think as even in my maths now I have slipped back into some of my old ways but I do take that on board – you know if they haven’t got it, just leave it, do something else, come back to it.”

Major modifications to the strategies If a school simultaneously or cumulatively introduces modifications to the strategies like those listed above, classroom practice increasingly becomes very different from both how it was originally conceived in the strategies and how it was initially implemented. At what point in the process of adaptation schools might be perceived as making fundamental modifications to the strategies, or even no longer following them, is of course debatable (as is how desirable, or otherwise, such a move might be).

No longer teaching a daily dedicated literacy and numeracy hour can obviously be regarded as a major structural modification. For example, a few schools were taking certain aspects of the NLS to teach as separate lessons while incorporating other aspects across the curriculum. However, within alternative approaches to curriculum organisation, the fundamental principles of the strategies might or might not be adhered to, intentionally or otherwise. For example, a school of 185 pupils in a rural market town stressed that it intended to continue with the “literacy strategy ethos”, which was summarised as promoting children’s comprehension and writing through text analysis, but to teach literacy through their own units of work. Each unit was designed to harness text analysis to teaching an approach to writing for a specific purpose and audience, and to provide time for children to achieve depth in their writing and complete a piece of work before starting the next unit.

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While over half the schools were experimenting with teaching and/or revisiting some aspects of literacy through the foundation subjects, particularly certain writing skills, there appeared to be little evidence of the same kind of approach being taken towards the numeracy strategy. However, one school that was featured in The curriculum in successful primary schools (Ofsted, 2002a), and which had continued to teach the foundation subjects through topic work with a different subject focus each term, was looking at “moving away from numeracy as one solid hour”. Instead they were considering timetabling maths groups alongside groups doing other sporting and PE activities, taken and/or supported by teaching assistants, in order to give teachers more opportunities to work in depth with small groups of pupils.

Returning to past practices Part of the adaptation process was to return to aspects of previous practice, such as individual teachers once again making space in literacy and numeracy sessions to discuss with the class the interests and experiences raised by specific children. Also, many schools were broadening the curriculum in terms of opportunities for pupils to develop literacy skills, by putting greater emphasis back on or reintroducing practices such as book weeks, writers holding school workshops, visits by theatre groups and school plays.

In relation to the NNS one school was considering whether to continue encouraging children to develop alternative approaches to calculation or to return to teaching preferred methods: We’ve done the analysis of the results this year because we’ve always done quite highly on the numeracy but we haven’t for the past two years. I discussed it with my maths coordinator and with the consultant, and one of the areas where the children didn’t score very highly was the calculation. I said that I thought we were confusing our children because we were giving them too many different strategies so they don’t know which one to use. So, what we are doing now as part of our training programme for next term is to have a couple of staff meetings looking at the strategies we use for calculation through to Year 6 and decide which one and say “This is the way we are going to do it at our school”. (Headteacher, 159, Dec 2003)

However, for one school returning to past practice meant a major move away from one of the strategies: We abandoned the structure [for maths] that we worked on over a period of about seven years. We had developed our own scheme which was a mixture of all sorts and it was progressive, it had continuity, and it appealed to the children; it was resourced throughout. We overnight had to – like lemmings going over the cliff top – go for the numeracy strategy and it is only now that we are beginning to claw back … so we are just coming back really to what was basically Fletcher maths.

(Headteacher, 317, Feb 2004)

Extending and innovating For schools that did not have regular literacy events, such as book weeks, writing workshops and visiting drama groups, prior to the NLS, their

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introduction alongside the NLS constituted an innovation. In several schools where the numeracy strategy was viewed as “working well” the next stage was “putting the creativity back into maths like they are trying to put the creativity back into English”, through linking maths to other subjects, introducing more problem solving and holding maths events. For example, in one medium-sized town school the maths coordinator organised maths challenge mornings for KS2 twice a year. This involved setting up 20 different maths activities (games, puzzles and problem-solving tasks) in the hall. These activities were then tackled by each year group in turn with children working cooperatively on them in small groups.

Other activities that supported the strategies, especially the NNS, were those that involved parents through evening meetings and workshops so they could better assist their children with homework. For example, it was regarded as important for parents to understand how numeracy was taught so they could help their children without confusing them by using traditional methods of computation: When you send homework home there has been some confusion so I think that the maths coordinators are going to do an evening, or a couple of evenings, where they invite parents to come in and teach the parents how to do the maths. (Teacher, 580, Jan 2004)

The impact of the strategies on teaching methods An Ofsted survey in three inner-urban LEAs, which was reported in 1997 (Ofsted, 1999), identified weaknesses in the teaching of numeracy. These included “a debilitating overuse of individual work, often linked with an overreliance on worksheets and published schemes, where reliance on individual work isolated pupils in ways which made it difficult for them to receive any sustained, direct teaching”. Also identified were “inappropriate expectations in terms of the pitch of the work and the pace of the lessons, often linked to weaknesses in teachers’ curricular knowledge about how to progress number work” (p.96). Such an approach to mathematics teaching was predominant when the 50 schools were visited a decade earlier and, as reflected upon by a teacher trained in the ‘70s, could be extremely difficult to manage: The main thing [advantageous curriculum change] with me is in the maths.

We used to have a scheme and … I hated it because everybody would be following these books, like the old Heinemann books, and they’d all be at different levels.

I was teaching in one school and there were, like, 36 children and they were all at different levels working on their own – and it was a nightmare, an absolute nightmare… I ended up with queues and they’d say “I can’t manage this”.

And one teacher said to put them in groups but even in groups you’d have some children racing ahead and you couldn’t hold them back but you were trying to explain different things all the time. To me that had just got silly, you know.

(Year 2 teacher, 43, June 2004)

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Interestingly, she considered that the approach of the NNS had much in common with her mathematics practice at the beginning of her career: When I first qualified in teaching they didn’t have the schemes like that, so you had your maths topic each week (“Oh I’m doing time this week”), so everyone was doing time, but you might give differentiated worksheets or whatever to each group.

And to me that was great.

There were many examples of teachers’ perceptions that the NNS had improved the quality of their teaching often involving an unfavourable comparison of past with current practice (see also chapter 7). Maths lessons comprised of individual work, such as those criticised by Ofsted (1999), had been replaced by whole-class teaching at the beginning and the end, or as illustrated later in Box 2a, throughout the lesson. There was general agreement that the teaching of maths is better now than it was with “staff much more confident in exactly what they are supposed to be teaching” and “much more teaching going on rather than children completing exercises”.

As emphasised by Kyriacou and Goulding (2004), the nature of “interactive” whole-class teaching as promoted by the strategies is intended to be different from that of traditional whole-class teaching, particularly in relation to teacher questioning and pupil responses. The latter relies heavily on a teacher-centred didactic approach where “teacher questions and pupil answers are based on the teacher asking a high proportion of closed questions or questions requiring a simple recall of facts or procedures, and pupil answers are often short”. This is in contrast to interactive whole-class teaching that is intended to actively involve pupils in the lesson through “the use of more searching, higher-order questions which seek to challenge and extend pupils’ thinking, in which pupils’ answers are probed, built upon and elaborated, and which encourage pupils to ask questions and to interact with peers” (Kyriacou and Goulding, 2004, p.34). However, their systematic review of the literature suggests that teachers may not be aware of this distinction. Certainly some teachers in our study viewed whole-class teaching within the strategies as synonymous with traditional teaching: There is a place to stand up and talk to children and be more direct in your approach and the numeracy strategy hasn’t invented that — it is just part and parcel of what I think most teachers are doing anyway. I don’t think there are teachers who spend all their time teaching in groups and never ever face the whole class. There has been a turnaround and more of an emphasis on that. It has kind of made it okay now to be more didactic. (Deputy head, 391, May 2005)

However, most teachers did view whole-class teaching within the strategies as intended to be different from that practised in the past, but appeared to perceive the action part of the interaction as predominantly the responsibility of the teacher. This perception comes across in the comment of a Year 6 teacher about “a lot more waving your arms about and modelling and more interaction with the kids” and is embodied in the frequent reference by interviewees to “the all singing, all dancing teacher” of the strategies.

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Table 2g gives a comparison of proportions of time spent on individual, paired or group work within whole-class lessons in literacy and numeracy. Such a table allows readers to see how representative the detailed portrayal of the Year 4 numeracy lesson given below in Box 2a is in relation to the whole sample of 26 literacy and numeracy lessons observed. In addition, this comparison of literacy and numeracy teaching suggests that the latter had higher proportions of direct teaching than the former in our sample, although the small sizes of the sub-samples limit the potential generalisability of such a conclusion.

Table 2g A comparison of proportions of time spent on individual, paired or group work within whole-class lessons in literacy and numeracy

Time spent on pupil activities More than half of lesson Between half and a quarter of lesson Less than quarter of lesson

Literacy lessons (N=16) 44% 44% 13%

Numeracy lessons (N=10) 20% 50% 30%

In addition to more whole-class teaching, another major break with the past introduced by the strategies was planning the lesson to achieve specific learning objectives. These objectives were then shared with children so they were clear about the purpose of a lesson and reviewed at the end to consider what they had learned: I never would have thought a decade ago of actually telling them what I was going to do before we did it. At the end of the lesson too, something else I would never have done a decade ago is asking them, “well, what have you learnt in this lesson?” or “do you think you have understood…” whatever the objectives were that we were trying to get across. (Deputy head, 212, June 2004)

Plenary sessions were viewed as potentially very important in promoting pupil learning but often experienced as problematic and therefore a useful focus for staff workshops: I’m going to pick it up in the autumn term; looking at what plenary is actually about.

It’s not about saying we’ve done this. It’s about what we understand and what we are going to do next. And it’s about rounding it off, coming together, fixing the learning and I don’t think … well, it’s the weakest part. Also, coming at the end, it can be a bit rushed. For me it’s probably the most valuable part of the lesson. It’s where all the learning, all the strings are drawn together and really where the evidence for teacher assessment comes out – this person’s got it but that group hasn’t. (Headteacher, 226, June 2003)

Box 2a describes a numeracy lesson that was taught to a top set in Year 4.

It provides a breakdown of the components of the lesson and illustrates the ways in which pupils’ attention and interest was held by: the pace of the lesson; teacher questions; and the involvement of pupils in a range of related tasks, both individual and in pairs and groups, with a cooperative and a competitive element.

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While such participation is endorsed by the NNS, it has been called into question by the lesson observations of Denvir and Askew (2001) who conclude that pupils may be participating in activities rather than engaging in mathematical thinking and that the pace of the lesson may disguise this distinction from the teacher. The questions asked by the Year 4 teacher were predominantly closed and factual, reflecting the material she was teaching and her choice of how to realise her objectives. (A lesson on history described in chapter 7 that uses a similar lesson structure incorporates a wide range of different types of questions and also seeks to encourage pupils to ask questions.) The Year 4 teacher viewed her questions as moving the lesson forward, helping her to hold the children’s interest and enabling her to check their understanding. The interactive whiteboard (with some of its benefits and limitations being illustrated) was used to involve the whole class and to assess pupil learning in relation to the lesson objectives.

Box 2a Numeracy hour, top set Year 4

The lesson took place in the Year 4 teacher’s classroom. There were 28 pupils in the set. There were 4 tables each with 6 pupils and one with 4 pupils.

9.27 am The teacher introduced the lesson by telling the group, “Our learning objective this morning is to know what a quarter, a half, and a tenth of a litre is in millilitres.” She indicated to where these objectives were displayed on the interactive whiteboard.

On the board was written 1600ml, 850ml, 300ml and 13 tenths of a litre.

The teacher then put a scale on the board of more than a litre and less than a litre. She asked pupils to volunteer to come up and move the numbers to the correct place on the litre scale. To do this they touched the whiteboard and dragged the number across the board into position. The teacher then went on to provide a half-litre mark and a volunteer moved the 300ml below this and another the 850ml above it. They were asked to explain their positioning of the numbers.

9.35 am The teacher then moved to an ordinary whiteboard where she had put down the same numbers and told the children to list on their own little white slates the smallest through to the greatest.

9.36 am Pupils then had to take out of an envelope on each table a group of cards with numbers on them (eg 2000ml, 600ml). She asked pupils to work in pairs and take four of the cards each and put them in order with the smallest first. Then all the children at the table were told to work together to put all the cards in order. This generated lots of discussion from pupils as to which ones were correctly or incorrectly placed and why.

9.42 am The teacher announced that “there is a table here that has finished”.

She addressed the whole class and asked each table to hold up one card that was smaller than a litre and then to hold up one between 100ml and half a litre. She went around checking and commenting. She queried one choice and so the table selected another. She emphasised that there is more than one possibility. Then she asked the tables to suggest amounts between one and two litres. When this activity was finished, one pupil per table was asked to put the cards back in the envelope – the rest of the pupils turned to face her.

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9.47 am The teacher held up a horizontal stick with tenths on it and the group all recited in turn one tenth, two tenths, etc. She then said this was to represent tenths of a litre. She went to the interactive board and put on the screen a table with tenths of a litre on the left and an empty millilitres column on the right. [She had used the new Links software for lesson preparation; this allows lots of different programmes, eg PowerPoint or Excel spreadsheets, to be accommodated within the same lesson.] She then asked them to say zero, one tenth, two tenths, etc and frequently stops them to ask individual pupils how many millilitres eg seven tenths is. When they got it right she said “brilliant”. When all those asked could do this successfully she gave the group two minutes to write into their books the table putting the correct numbers of millilitres on the right-hand side. She put a clock timer on. She went around the tables looking at their work. Most could do it but one boy appeared to be confused. She then got another pupil to fill in the results on the interactive whiteboard, explaining how she arrived at them as she did so. However, as the girl could not reach the top two rows (the teacher tried to move the table down but this was not possible), the teacher completed those and then the pupil took over. [In an earlier tour around the school the head had said that in some infant classrooms they had lowered the interactive whiteboard.]

9.54 am The teacher switched to another table on the interactive board that was the previous one plus an extra column “amount to make 1 litre”. She took her metre stick and pointed to half a litre. A pupil said that as it is 500ml they need another 500ml to make a whole litre. One on the table gave an answer (400ml) to the last column (amount to make a litre) and then they had to say what the other two columns were (6 tenths of a litre and 600ml). She asked them to complete the rest of the table writing it into their books. She asked, “Is two minutes enough for this?” and they all chorused “No” so she said she would give them four minutes for the task. She told them when they had had two minutes. She went around helping individual pupils.

10.04 am When they had had just over four minutes she asked individual pupils in turn to come out and fill in one of the cells. Each time she asked if the rest of the class agreed that they were correct. They used a special pencil to write on the board – occasionally they had to be told not to lean their hand on the screen because this made extra marks (since the screen was touch sensitive). After several children had had a turn she said, “Boys and girls, I’m going to have to rush you a bit because otherwise we won’t be able to do the last activity.” She then went to the board, asked the children for answers and completed the table.

10.12 am She switched to a new slide on the interactive whiteboard headed “What do you know about a litre?” and there were two big squares (one yellow and one purple). She put the tables into two teams and told them that each of the two teams needed to give her a fact about a litre and if it was correct she would put a mark in their coloured box. Children on the tables suggested facts to each other and hands went up to volunteer answers such as “three quarters of a litre is 750ml”, “if you have a quarter of a litre you need 750mls to make a litre”, “if you have half a litre you need to add 500ml to it to make a litre”. When the bell went the yellow team had won by four to three correct answers. They waved their hands in the air.

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The influence of the strategies has resulted in more whole-class teaching, although initially for teachers following the three-part structure of the NNS (originally four part for the NLS), this was concentrated at the beginning and end of lessons. However, the increasing flexibility that teachers felt they had to depart from this three-part structure suggests that lessons like those described above in Box 2a are likely to become more commonplace.

It is interesting to consider the above lesson in the context of Wilson et al.’s (2001) comparative analysis of the shape and structure of maths lessons in England and Russia in 1998/9 (after the introduction of the NLS but before the NNS). Most of the Russian lessons consisted of whole-class teacher-led work characterised as “a focused series of linked tasks, each of which comprises a blend of oral work, pupil demonstration, written recording and teacher questioning and explaining, with the teacher directing the pupils’ activity throughout each task” (p.42). Only one of the 60 English maths lessons that they researched was found to have a characteristically Russian shape.

However, owing to the influence of the NNS, 3 of the 10 maths lessons that we observed, like the lesson portrayed in Box 2a, closely resembled the Russian lesson shape. Also, in the lesson in Box 2a, the Year 4 teacher taught in the same kind of ways as those described by Wilson et al. (2001) as typical of the Russian teachers.

Thus, her pupils benefited from the use of “a whole-class setting to make learning a social experience” (p.48) and the “high visibility (and audibility) of the work done” (p.49) in a shared public lesson which Wilson et al. (2001) consider the strengths of the Russian model of teaching and are also regarded very positively

by Alexander (2000). However, whereas the approach to teaching in Box 2a was predominantly derived from government diktat, as Alexander (2000) argues, the Russian model of teaching is underpinned by pedagogical theory and not only draws on more recent theorists, such as Vygotsky (1978), but is also underpinned by an older tradition derived from Comenius (1592-1670).

Conclusion The strategies, particularly the NLS, were implemented begrudgingly because of the top down, coercive way in which they were imposed on schools and enforced by LEA strategy consultants and advisors. The strategies not only specified detailed subject content but also how it should be taught. In this way, they challenged the one remaining area of teacher expertise not previously subject to government prescription and further undermined teacher competence and confidence. Notwithstanding the strong resentment of such government imposition still felt by many teachers, they expressed approval of aspects of the NLS and over half “strongly liked” the NNS. Adaptations, used to address reservations about the strategies, ranged from minor modifications by individual teachers to major departures based on whole-school decisions. Most schools claimed caution in their approach to change having become familiar with and institutionalised the strategies.

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As found in a questionnaire survey for the DfES completed by 4790 teacher trainees (Stewart, 2005), the biggest influence on the decision to become a teacher was a desire to help children and young people to learn. In our study, in answer to the question “what keeps you in teaching?”, interest in children’s learning, enjoyment of working with them and making a difference to their lives were the predominant responses. It is therefore unsurprising that teachers attached greatest importance to what they considered the benefits to children from the recommendations of the strategies. As a consequence they made changes to their practice, despite considerable extra work and stress, and challenged their past beliefs and assumptions which, in many cases, resulted in a change to previously held values. While some of these changes were subject content specific, most were related to teaching methods.

Our lesson observations and interviews with teachers indicate major differences in the structure of literacy and maths lessons than was the case a decade ago.

We found that teachers were making far greater use of whole-class teaching not only at the beginning and end of lessons but throughout. Their lessons were designed to achieve specific learning objectives that were shared with children – most usually through explanation at the beginning of the lesson and by being written on the side of the board. These objectives were revisited during plenary sessions that sought to establish what children had learned and to round off the lesson. Whether working with the whole class or groups and pairs of children, teachers were teaching more rather than setting tasks for children to complete on their own and at their own chosen speed. Through explanations and questions focused on the lesson objectives and ongoing monitoring and assessment of children’s responses and work, teachers maintained close control of the direction and pace of lessons. As is illustrated and discussed in chapter 7, the teaching methods advocated by the strategies were increasingly being employed across the curriculum and most teachers regarded this as an improvement on past practice. On the basis of our research reported in this chapter, much of importance in the focus, structure and control of lessons appears to have changed as a direct result of the strategies. These changes seem likely to be enduring.

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CHAPTER 3

TARGETS, TESTING AND ASSESSMENT As the findings of Pollard et al.’s (1994) research reveal: “In requiring teachers to implement externally derived tests, and in imposing on them externally determined requirements for recording and reporting children’s progress and achievement, standardised national assessment represented what was arguably the most novel, the most coercive and the most difficult part of the 1988 Act’s provisions to implement” (p.207). During the final stage of writing up the first research report on the impact of the national curriculum at KS2 in the 50 schools (Webb, 1993), industrial action by the three main teachers’ unions against the unreasonable workload generated by national curriculum assessment and testing meant that the piloting of the KS2 SATs largely collapsed. While the subsequent Dearing Review (1993) led to a review of all the national curriculum subjects and their assessment (SCAA, 1994), followed by a major slimming down of the national curriculum, in 1995 the implementation of statutory KS2 testing in the core subjects went ahead as planned. This chapter documents how, in the decade since then, national testing has had an increasingly deleterious effect on the primary curriculum, primary school pupils and their teachers. It is argued on the basis of the data presented that this has been greatly exacerbated by New Labour’s commitment to target setting and performance tables based on test results.

Targets In May 1997, two weeks after the New Labour government took office, it set English and maths targets for the country to achieve by 2002. Targets were thus created for LEAs which in turn negotiated targets for the schools within their boundaries. In 2002, 75% of Year 6 children achieved level 4 in English for the third year running and in maths 73% achieved level 4 after a slight drop the previous year. While more children achieved the required standards, the test results fell short of the government’s 2002 targets. This shortfall may have contributed to the resignation at the end of October 2002 of Estelle Morris, the then education secretary, since she had pledged to resign if the targets were not met. However, the new Year 6 targets requiring 85% of pupils to reach level 4 in English and maths in 2004 had already been set. Notwithstanding the criticisms of these targets as too demanding and putting unreasonable pressure on pupils, teachers and schools, Charles Clarke, the newly appointed education secretary, claimed, “the targets at 7, 11 and 16 are absolutely critical to everything we are about” and was unable to “imagine a situation where we would be about either removing or weakening those targets” (Ward et al., 2002). The timescale for the 2004 targets was extended to 2006.

In the Five year strategy for children and learners the government predicts that, by 2008, “we will have reached and sustained our literacy and numeracy targets of 85 per cent of children reaching the expected level at the age of eleven; and the proportion of schools in which fewer than 65 per cent of children reach this level reduced by 40 per cent” (DfES, 2004, p.43). Furthermore it claims that “standards for pupils who have traditionally been failed by the system will be rising fastest, helping to close the social class gap”. Results of the 2005 national tests showed a small increase with 79% of children reaching level 4 in English 38

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and 75% in maths and in science. More pupils reached level 5 but there was no improvement in the proportion reaching level 4, suggesting that the 2006 targets are likely to remain unattainable. While in England the government seems inextricably wedded to summative national testing, it is going against the trend in the rest of the UK. Wales is currently phasing out their end of KS2 tests. Scotland will also be ending national testing before the age of 14 years and Northern Ireland will abolish its controversial 11-plus examination in 2008.

The pressure on schools exerted directly by the LEA and indirectly through government pronouncements not only to meet their targets but also to achieve year-on-year improvement has become unremitting. Headteachers described how they exerted pressure on teachers to improve pupil attainment in their classes, particularly in schools with lower than average test results, and teachers passed this pressure on to pupils. Most schools were found to operate one or more types of booster classes for pupils with SEN and those on the borderline of reaching level 4. However, other specific groups of pupils were also targeted for additional support in order to raise a school’s attainment profile and performance table position: There’s not a high percentage of EAL children but we are still aware that we cannot get them to level 5, even though they are second and third generation. In literacy they are getting 4s but they still have so much missing because we only have the EAL support in one day a week, which we have to pay for ourselves because we don’t meet the requirement for LEA support and she has to try and work with everybody during that one day. And it’s not ideal but it’s better than nothing.

(Deputy head, 220, Oct 2004)

In response to complaints by headteachers about the adverse effects on schools and the curriculum of the unrealistic targets set for them by LEAs, in 2003 ministers told schools that they could set their own KS2 targets. Once the schools had set their targets, the LEAs were supposed to take these into account when setting their own targets. Headteachers in the 50 schools generally complained that in reality this was not happening, since they were still being pressurised into setting targets to fit in with LEA predictions. This perspective was supported by 2005 figures from the DfES revealing that more than one in four authorities in England had set targets for English, which were between 5 and 13 percentage points higher than their schools believed possible (Ward, 2004).

Performance tables The government decision to publish school test results as tables of school performance was an immensely contentious one and has been the subject of continual controversy. It was the one area of our research that received uniform condemnation from headteachers, even those who admitted that their school’s high position in the tables had given the school prestige within the local community, increased the number of pupils and afforded them a degree of “protection” from criticism during Ofsted inspections. When, for whatever reason, a school’s results went down (common reasons cited were: absenteeism, as performance tables count pupils absent from the tests as if A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S

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they were present; the arrival of several children from abroad; and a continually changing cohort from one year to the next, for example owing to parents’ seasonal employment), explanations were given to parents to try to offset the resultant negative effects: SATs are clearly important in this school and we have quite a good track record.

Last year our results were down, but we sent a letter to the parents explaining what had happened and said: “If you allow for the absentees then our SAT results are actually quite good comparable to the previous year.” However, when you have got nine children away from a single subject that immediately puts a big hole in the percentages and if you allow for that big absenteeism then the results are fine. (IT coordinator, 470, Oct 2003)

The measures introduced to determine value added between KS1 and KS2 and its effect on a school’s position in the tables came in for particularly heavy criticism by headteachers. Junior school headteachers regarded the flexibility in national assessment at KS1 in infant schools as leading to Year 2 children achieving totally unrealistic levels because “there’s no accountability as somebody else picks up the heartache at the end of Key Stage 2 and you have got to try and take the value added on from there”. However, primary school headteachers felt that they were similarly penalised if they had a strong infant department: Their [the government] value-added thing in comparisons of Year 2 and Year 6 is a nonsense. It ignores the fact that you could have a very poor Key Stage 1 department and have a very strong Key Stage 2 – in which case the whole school rejoices about this wonderful value added but it doesn’t tell you the story. Our problem of course is that we get children to high levels at Key Stage 1 and if they get a level 3 at Key Stage 1, which is the best they could do, and get a level 5 at the end of Key Stage 2, which is all they could do, they will get a value added of nought! So you have to get a level 2 “b” at Key Stage 1 and then a level 5 in Key Stage 2 to get a value added! So all my high fliers scored a value added of nought which is satisfactory. It doesn’t make sense. (Headteacher, 391, Oct 2004)

Headteachers were critical of the withdrawal in 2003 of the test whereby primary pupils could achieve level 6 and its replacement by extension papers for gifted and talented children that did not assign levels to their work. This had made it impossible for able children to achieve beyond level 5 and therefore constrained schools’ value-added scores. One assessment coordinator described how the previous year, despite getting high test scores, the school value-added score was only average. She reported that when they questioned a DfES official about the issue: …the answer was, “you’re making a rod for your own back, you are getting too many children with level 3 at Key Stage 1”, but that’s the level they are at. What do you do, depress the levels so you can get more at Key Stage 2? And we got a letter back from the DfES explaining how many marks we had to get an A [high value-added score] but it’s a physical impossibility… the only way we’re going to improve is if we can get those children who struggle up to a 5. (Assessment coordinator, 526, May 2005)

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While headteachers of high-attaining schools felt that they had been unfairly penalised by the use of value-added scores to adjust their performance table position, they tended to assume that, justifiably, colleagues in schools in disadvantaged areas would benefit. However, teachers in areas of social and economic deprivation with large numbers of children with SEN also considered that the value-added measures failed to recognise the pupils’ achievements, and made a minimal contribution to the school’s performance table position: The SATs results came back this week and there’s so much individual achievement in there. We’ve got children who’ve got level 3s and for them to get level 3s is absolutely brilliant and there are some children that have got level 5s – fantastic – but it all gets swallowed up in the statistics and it just doesn’t look as if anyone’s really done anything. Even the value added doesn’t always work with them because a lot of our special needs children don’t make that much progress and it’s the little bits of progress they make that are the great achievements but that don’t show up as half a level in the statistics. I have one child who got a level 3 in science, which is just amazing for him, and I don’t think anyone does the value added for science, so he’s just lost in the overall picture. (Year 6 teacher, 320, July 2005)

An examination of the tables based upon performance data in one northern LEA substantiated teachers’ criticisms (Easen and Bolden, 2005). They concluded that the tables not only present “a simplistic, even potentially misleading, picture of primary schools” but also “their construction and use consume far more energy and attention than would seem warranted” (p.54).

Unsurprisingly they found that the position of a school in the tables of unadjusted scores tended to reflect the background characteristics, in particular the socio-economic status. However, they also found that, while the value-added measures assisted understanding of the differences between schools, these took insufficient account of the background factors influencing pupil performance. Schools’ rankings were altered only marginally by the value-added system. Reflecting the complaints by the headteachers in our sample, they found that “the value-added rankings of those schools with low unadjusted rankings are slightly increased whereas the value-added rankings of those schools with high unadjusted rankings are slightly decreased” (p.52).

Interestingly, they found that only the school with the highest unadjusted score showed a dramatic change in rank – down the tables – when using the value-added system.

There are further technical problems associated with the value-added tables, such as the manner in which pupil mobility between schools within KS2 (evident in some of the 50 schools in our sample) distorts the value-added score for such schools (Goldstein, 2001). Another difficulty with tables raised

by Easen and Bolden (2005) is the assumption that “the assessments are based on centrally controlled tests that are ‘objective’ and also reliable enough to provide acceptable criteria for comparisons” (p.53). As they point out, such an assumption is questionable given the evidence from sociological and psychological research on testing that aspects of the tests themselves are biased against those children from lower socio-economic groups whose

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culture clashes with aspects of middle class culture and “school knowledge”.

This point also resonated with some of our teachers’ criticisms of testing and of the use of performance tables based upon such testing: Some of our potential level 5s in writing didn’t come up very well because the paper that they were faced with didn’t bring out the best in them. It didn’t tune into their values which is an important part of our teaching and learning policy. We spend all this time trying to educate the children by looking at what they are interested in and tailor making our lessons to suit them, but then all of a sudden they are faced with a paper that was about cowboys or something that they didn’t know anything about.

(Headteacher, 190, June 2005)

The impact of national testing Data from the PACE project revealed that “the effect of national testing on classroom practice is profound…. The pressure from a restricted but overloaded national curriculum, combined with ‘high-stakes’ national testing, appears to be diminishing the opportunities for teachers to work in a way that enables them to ‘develop the whole child’ and address the social concerns of the wider society” (Osborn et al., 2000, p.160). Likewise, teachers in our 50 schools complained of how “testing has gone far too far” resulting in primary schools being “over tested, scrutinised and squeezed” with “no allowance for your professional judgement”.

As shown by Osborn et al. (2000) and Galton et al. (2002), the standards agenda focused teachers’ attention on curriculum coverage in literacy, numeracy and science to the detriment of the rest of the primary curriculum, especially art, music and PE. This was still the situation during the fieldwork period for this project: It certainly focuses your teaching and it makes certain that people are covering the curriculum in English, maths and science. It’s like I was saying at lunch time to Pat [the Year 5 teacher], “Please make sure you cover all that sound”, because I know it’s going to crop up next year probably in the SATs paper. I don’t touch it in science because it’s not one of my areas – so, in that sense, it certainly has narrowed the curriculum as well. There is absolutely no doubt about that. I mean in Year 6, I do feel a great pressure – this “I cannot afford to miss a day of English or maths before the SATs are coming up”. You have to be very focused. (Deputy head, 212, June 2004)

Preparation for the tests, which completely distorted the curriculum, was an established necessity in all 50 schools. In their final year a minority of schools began revision classes and practice tests with Year 6 in the second half of the autumn term, although the majority began coaching in the spring term prior to the tests, which take place in May:

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At that stage of this term you teach towards the tests. It is like teaching to a syllabus, the topics have to sort of cease for a while and so that is one great, massive change that has been imposed…. Basically I haven’t covered everything in maths and English by the time the tests come around, so what I have to do is sit down over the Easter holidays and list the concepts that I need to do revision on before the kiddies get to the test. Throughout the rest of the year the curriculum has also changed because a lot of it is factual based. I think that it has gone that way more than ever really, just skimming across the facts that they are going to have to know. (Year 6 teacher, 144, June 2003)

In addition to booster classes, schools made use of standardised tests and QCA optional tests for Years 3, 4 and 5 (James, 2000, estimates that 80% of schools use the latter) and offered other school-specific initiatives to support children’s test preparation, such as the science homework programme set up in one small school and the after-school SATs club set up by another. Also, before the national tests, Year 6 children were unlikely to engage in activities, such as residential fieldtrips or class productions, which might disrupt their work on the core curriculum.

As one headteacher described it, in the current educational context breaking out of the “performativity” culture (Jeffrey, 2002) was almost impossible: At the moment anything that we are trying to do at the top end of the school is dominated by the fact that this school is going to be doing something on which it will be judged…. It frightens me because it is a huge barrier to what we want to do and everything that we are doing with the curriculum I am getting the question back: “But that is the term that we do SATs revision, that is the term we do booster classes.” …come next October the file is going to land on your desk and if you are an E or D school it reflects upon the whole school. Now whether you like it or not … that is where the staff are coming from, and now I want to try and change that culture because it doesn’t actually preach good teaching; it just preaches good SATs results. Our Year 6 teacher is an excellent teacher, a first-class practitioner, who does a marvellous job, but I know that she is totally stressed out and I want her to be fully focused on giving the children the best curriculum that she can.

(Headteacher, 117, Feb 2004)

Pressure for schools to meet their targets and demonstrate improved pupil attainment in the national tests was viewed as having a considerable negative impact on the school experience of children. The evaluation report on the 2002 tests by the QCA (Ward, 2002) gives voice to teachers’ growing concern over the stress the tests cause to pupils. It also reveals how sick children were being taken to school to sit the tests because of the importance attached to Year 6 test performance by the children themselves and their parents, plus the impact of performance tables that count pupils absent from the tests as if they were present. Year 6 teachers explained that the concentration on tests was against “their better judgement” but deemed necessary to reduce the children’s stress by thorough preparation, enabling them to do as well as possible for their own benefit and that of the school. Teachers said that they tried to achieve a balance between getting pupils to realise the importance of doing their best but without making them over anxious:

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My own view is that SATs are given far more prominence than they should be. I feel sorry for the children with the amount of pressure that is put on them. We are very open to them in saying that it is important to the school and the school’s results are reported, but it is important to you to feel that you have done your best and you haven’t let yourself down. Some parents are very pushy and so it is a case of striking the balance through saying, “this is important and you have got to work hard and do the best that you can”, but not pushing so far that they are nervous wrecks by the time SATs come along. (IT coordinator, 470, Oct 2003)

After interviewing 103 children across 9 schools about their experience of taking the tests, Pollard et al. (2000) concluded that while the children’s comments reflected both the reassurances of teachers and parents and the pressures of their expectations, “overall, the children seemed only too aware that whilst ‘trying’ was worthy, ‘achieving’ was actually the required outcome” (p.238). This perception was reflected in our teachers’ accounts of the responses of individual pupils to their test results: I just said to the children, “If you’d like to know your SATs results I will whisper them to you” and I told them they weren’t to ask anybody else unless that person had said to them “I got such and such”. So I whispered in each child’s ear the results – outside the classroom so nobody else could hear – and when I came back in the classroom one lad, who had actually achieved a level 4, which was what I expected him to achieve, was crying. Nobody else had said anything to him but he just felt that level 4 wasn’t good enough…. For him, that level 4 was a good result and, although I’d said so to him, his own self image couldn’t let him see that. So, for children like that, and for children who do, plod on, and who still can’t achieve a level 4, I do feel very sorry. (Deputy head, 212, June 2004)

As found by Pollard et al. (2000) some confident, competitive, high-attaining children found the challenge of tests exhilarating but for many others, particularly lower achievers, the tests were demotivating, stressful and alienating. Teachers in the 50 schools also often commented on the inequitable nature and demotivating effect of SATs, which rewarded ability largely irrespective of effort: Last year we had one boy who had a statement of special educational needs for behaviour, took up an inordinate amount of time and he got three level 4s. He was bright enough to get three level 4s and it was probably a true indication of his ability, but it certainly wasn’t a true indication of what he deserved to get, or his attitude or application to work whereas we had other children who worked their socks off and only got three level 3s and I think it is demoralising, you know. (Headteacher, 180, Dec 2004)

Classteachers held an overwhelmingly negative view of SATs and would like to see them abolished. Headteachers, however, were rather more ambivalent about the desirability of SATs per se as opposed to their use in performance tables. As one head put it: “If we got rid of the league tables, I could live with the SATs.” Most headteachers would welcome a greater role for teacher assessment, although only if supported by adequate training and moderation: “I would prefer not to have the SATs because I do think that teacher 44

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assessment, if it was moderated, and I think that it needs to be moderated for the same reasons that I gave when talking about people cheating on SATs, I think that it would be more accurate. It would give a wider picture, and a deeper picture of what the child is actually able to do.”

Headteachers acknowledged that whatever their perspectives on the problems created by SATs, the latter had played a crucial role in driving up pupil attainment in literacy and numeracy. For this reason a few heads viewed them very positively: I’m not the person who thinks that SATs is a complete disaster because I think that SATs have actually achieved something. I think that whatever politicians and the general public say and feel, the standard of literacy and numeracy of children nowadays is way higher than it certainly was in my day. If a member of the general public came and sat through a literacy lesson, they would suddenly realise how much more their children know than they do, aged 11. So I think that SATs are a very positive thing because they have forced teachers to raise standards, forced teachers to be more analytical about their teaching and forced teachers to keep on track. (Headteacher, 249, June 2004)

Government claims that rising standards in primary schools are one of its biggest educational success stories are used to justify performance measures, especially national testing. However, these claims are increasingly being challenged by research. Richards’s (2005) review of the evidence “suggests that there was some rise in performance in the core subjects between 1995 and 2001 as ‘measured’ by test results but not as great as national test data (and the government) have suggested” (p.25). Tymms (2004) has examined the appropriateness of statutory national test scores as a basis for monitoring standards at the end of English primary education. He has convincingly demonstrated that they are wholly inappropriate by identifying a range of crucial flaws (eg the changing form of the national tests; that while the results refer to English and maths, the data suggest that standards have changed differently within sub-areas of these; and the likely effect of teaching to the test).

Claims that improvements in performance at KS2 will benefit youngsters’ attainment at secondary school are also questionable. For example, in 1999 the proportion of children achieving the benchmark level 4 in English, maths and science rose by an average of 9 percentage points, but in 2004 the improvement in their GCSE results was much more modest. The proportion of grade C or better rose 0.3 points in English, 1.8 in maths and 1 point in science (Mansell, 2004).

Tracking pupil achievement Under the Labour government the collection and analysis of increasing amounts of assessment data, particularly performance data, by schools has been viewed as crucial to monitoring and promoting pupil achievement and in progressing towards government attainment targets. For example, the headteacher of one school of 185 pupils explained that the school had a A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S

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“fairly comprehensive regime of testing” consisting of an annual battery of performance indicators in primary schools (PIPS) tests to track children’s progress in relation to their attainment the previous year, their ability and their future potential. The school had developed a programme of formative assessment in literacy and numeracy with half-termly reading assessments, termly writing assessments and weekly mental maths assessments. These were recorded in an assessment file for each year group and “all those different issues are in different sections of the booklet, so it’s a pretty hefty booklet”. The booklet had a front section for analyses based on the data within it “to identify children who have made a lot of progress, plateaued out, etc”, in order to tailor teaching to their needs. This regime was supplemented by levelled samples of children’s work every term and teachers’ individual pupil records of objectives reached and those requiring further attention across the curriculum. These data were used for reporting to parents and setting targets for individual children, a process in which parents were encouraged to be involved: We have something after half term [in the autumn term] when we come back where parents and children and teachers work as trios and set targets for children which are then reported back on at the end of the year – fairly simple targets to do with reading or spelling or sometimes it is about personal development. It’s generally about just giving parents an idea of where the children are and we share that with them at that meeting. Something that PIPS does is actually give each child a percentage chance of reaching the national standard at the next stage of the SATs so we share that sort of hard data with them as well. But then later on in the year we do the formal reporting to parents with a full report against the whole national curriculum. So we have two sets of parents’ evenings or days across each year.

(Headteacher, 185, Oct 2004)

Increasingly schools are required to make comparisons between: ■

the school’s results and those of other schools in the locality and nationwide

■

current and past cohorts of pupils

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test results and teacher assessment or other assessment data

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pupils’ results with their own previous results.

Many schools used QCA’s optional SATs as the basis for such analyses – often administering them at the same time as the Year 6 tests in order to instil quiet throughout the school, accustom all KS2 children to test conditions and emphasise to parents the importance of their child’s attendance during “test week”. The marking of QCA tests in general was considered a very timeconsuming and demanding process, requiring concentration and reflection for it to fulfil a formative as well as a summative process: I’ve worked it out with my class on Friday when they were saying, “Oh we’ve had tests all week”. I said, “Just a minute – work out how many answers I’ve had to mark” and in one week of testing, not counting the writing, two pieces of writing, I had 6518 answers to mark. And I said that doesn’t count adding up time and levelling – that is only physically marking that number of questions. Marking is a technique in itself that you have to teach teachers, the younger members of staff

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how to do it. You do it your own way, but I try to encourage them to try different ways. If you’ve got a paper to mark, some teachers like to have the overview of one child and will mark the whole papers…. I do a page at a time and you get the ideas and you get the exemplars fixed in your mind and it’s easier for me to do it that way.

I note particular questions that are causing problems – the children obviously don’t understand this question, I haven’t taught it well. A lot of people have adapted to that method because it gives them an understanding of what they are marking and what their teaching has been like. You obviously add it up for each child and can look at individuals, but more often than not that’s what works. For multiple choice questions it also helps to have all the ideas in your mind and it’s easier to get that focused. (Assessment coordinator, 526, May 2005)

School information and communications technology has now developed to the point where schools can manage and interrogate the huge amounts of performance data they have collected as a vehicle for school improvement. For example, a headteacher described how she had all the pupil records on a view-only database from the day she joined the school. Previously she had used the QCA software for analysing test data but in 2004 the school changed over to using the pupil achievement tracker – introduced by the DfES in autumn 2003 to facilitate a variety of analyses of assessment data, including value-added data. All the data had to be entered afresh by an administrative assistant but, as the head explained, once the data were entered then she could begin the process of asking questions of it: If I’m looking through at where the weaknesses are in particular tests, then I’ll go through all the questions and sit and code them up and see how many children got a particular question wrong, what sort of question that was and whether that particular year group needs to focus next year on that sort of work. Then I look from the other point of view where all the children are listed down. I’ll do them in age order for a class and see if the youngest children in a class are struggling with a particular area, whether the ethnic minority children in that class are struggling and also whether the special needs children are holding their own or whether I need to be looking at those children being educated in maybe a different year group. (Headteacher, 220, Oct 2004)

In common with other headteachers, she considered the database and software to be very beneficial for the school. It enabled an in-depth profile of pupil performance to be built up and teachers’ judgements about aspects of literacy and numeracy learning to be confirmed or challenged. It also provided evidence to substantiate information and advice given to parents. Generally headteachers carried out or led such data analysis. In larger schools the process was shared with members of the senior management team and in a minority of schools delegated to a small team led by the deputy head.

While the focus of performance data analysis was the attainment and progress of individuals and groups of pupils, and curriculum strengths and weaknesses, issues were necessarily raised about the quality of teaching. Where weaknesses were revealed, headteachers stressed that these needed to be handled sensitively and teaching support provided by subject coordinators. If A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S

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issues persisted they felt that these could be addressed through performance management. Increasingly teachers’ performance was judged according to their ability to enable pupils to meet their attainment targets. For example, one headteacher explained that: From last years’ QCA to next years’ QCA, we are hoping that a child will make two thirds of a level and so they would go from a 2c to a 2a or a 3c to a 3a. We are going to try and link that to performance management by saying that teachers should therefore achieve 80% of their pupil targets in a year. (Headteacher, 440, June 2004)

However, the head emphasised it was crucial that the pupil targets should be realistic. They would be arrived at by each teacher in cooperation with colleagues on the basis, not only of performance data, but also on the views of those teachers who previously taught the children.

Teacher assessment Those teachers in our sample who had been teaching since before the Education Reform Act 1988 introduced curriculum and assessment reform were in agreement that the greater knowledge of individual children’s attainment derived from more formal and focused teacher assessment contributed to better planning, improved provision for children’s learning and raised expectations. However, enormous amounts of teacher time and effort were expended on assessment, especially on marking work and in recording pupils’ progress against lesson objectives and towards meeting their individual achievement targets.

The move from national curriculum statements of attainment (SoAs) to level descriptions (SCAA, 1994) made redundant the vast and unmanageable pupil records based on SoAs that we saw being used a decade ago. The response to this waste of teacher effort and school funds led to a rejection of the checklist approach to recording progress by the mid-90s. However, the current focus on lesson objectives, and setting and achieving individual pupil targets, has led to its widespread rebirth: My personal thing is with my mark book… I do a tick system where there’s a tick: yes they got it; question mark: needs a little more help next time we visit it; cross: no, they didn’t get it at all, needs a lot of work on that. So I have that as my daily running record of, yes, I’ve noticed that this group needs a bit more help and so on.

(Year 5 teacher, 249, June 2004)

Galton et al. (2002) found that “on average teachers are spending a day per week, in total, on some form of assessment and some of this activity occupies classtime” (p.5). They suggest that this increase in time spent on assessment from the three hours a week reported in Campbell and Neill’s (1994) study is likely to be a major factor in explaining “the increase in overall workload from around 44 hours a week, prior to the introduction of the national curriculum, and the present estimate of around 55 hours (p.31). Galton et al. conclude that not only do assessment activities generate considerable amounts of paperwork

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but “more importantly, they call into question the teacher’s professional competence in managing their pupils learning” and “not feeling in control is a major cause of stress” (p.7). Notwithstanding the amount of time spent on it, forms of teacher assessment backed up by records provided information on the levels at which children were working in the core subjects and justification for pupil targets, and were thus regarded by many teachers as a form of security if questioned about their practice by headteachers, LEA inspectors or Ofsted.

The work of Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam of King’s College, London and the Assessment Reform Group (eg ARG, 2002) has been hugely influential in convincing policymakers of the value of formative assessment in improving pupil performance. For example in February 2005 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published its own study of formative assessment in eight countries. In England, through its primary strategy and focus on personalised learning, the DfES (2003a) is encouraging formative assessment or assessment for learning (AfL), which promotes the use of assessment evidence to tailor teaching to the needs of individual pupils and to engage pupils in evaluating and developing their own learning.

Headteachers stressed that regular class tests in literacy and numeracy were being used together with the interrogation of performance data from QCA or other tests to diagnose and support the needs of individual pupils. Staff meetings on determining and moderating the allocation of levels to pupils’ work and reviews of marking policies had also provided opportunities to discuss the quality and impact of teacher oral and written feedback on pupils’ work. While, as shown in chapters 2 and 7, primary teachers now routinely share learning objectives with pupils and often involve pupils in discussion about the criteria that will be used to assess their work, they generally do not call such processes AfL or view them as formative assessment.

AfL is only one of the plethora of current government initiatives which all compete with one another for schools’ attention. This is probably the reason why, when asked about their assessment practices, teachers in only six schools mentioned AfL. For example, one small school, as a result of the LEA promoting AfL, cooperated with schools in the cluster to which it belonged to fund training and materials from a private consultant. As a result, the children in the school were set specific targets to help raise their attainment and each piece of work was marked in relation to progress on those targets. The children also evaluated their progress by ticking statements relating to “how do I know if I am meeting my target”. However, the contribution to children’s learning from such an approach appeared limited by the fact that the use of language in the children’s records was taken straight from the NLS, NNS and QCA documentation. Teachers in one school were in the process of producing individual “pupil friendly” learner diaries where objectives and targets had been rewritten. Teachers were also concerned that there was insufficient time for them to discuss progress on their targets with individual pupils, to write more than minimal comments on the work and to discuss work marked at home.

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Using AfL to increase pupil involvement in working towards targets and enabling pupils to recognise the steps in their learning leading towards the achievement of those targets, was regarded as a new dimension in teacher assessment. However, AfL was viewed essentially as formalising past practice in relation to differentiating work for individuals and groups by having it all written down: I mean to my mind, that’s the job of the teacher to do that [differentiate tasks] and we have always done it I think, but not on the formalised level of “this is your individual learning plan for this individual child” … it helps to see where they’ve achieved targets – to have a target book or something like that is probably going to be essential and it will mean more work because you are having to write it down for every child. Formally writing it makes a record of it, but you’ve still got to talk to the child and make sure they understand, whereas in the past we’ve tended to talk to the children without putting it down, so it is more work. (Assessment coordinator, 526, May, 2005)

Those teachers engaging with AfL viewed it as likely to “focus teachers more on the level descriptors, what level children are working at and make them realise exactly where to move children onto next”. However, one headteacher, who had allocated two school training days to AfL, viewed it as an opportunity to broaden children’s experiences and consider the wider aspects of the curriculum in addition to the intellectual: …things like how they are teaching the whole child rather than just the academic side of the child. How are we building success for everybody? How are we creating the right environment for learning? It is about the broad spectrum rather than just looking at individual subjects and SAT results which I think is so much more important. Really we aim here for our children to leave with self-confidence and the ability to think that they can succeed in what they do. (Headteacher, 190, June 2005)

Conclusion KS2 teachers, particularly those teaching Year 6 children, strongly resented the dominance of the national testing system and associated target-setting culture.

It was felt that it unbalanced the curriculum, created stress and anxiety for pupils and generated enormous amounts of additional work for teachers.

Headteachers, while more ambivalent about the national testing regime because of its perceived impact on raising standards of pupil attainment, were highly critical of performance tables and of the technical problems associated with the value-added version of these tables. They argued that such tables had a negative effect on the school curriculum and pupils’ experience of school.

The tables were also perceived as being profoundly de-motivating for teachers: firstly, a good prior performance at KS1 resulted in even the highest performance at KS2 meaning that a better than average value-added score was not possible; and, secondly, the achievements and progress of special needs children were not adequately recognised.

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CHAPTER 4

In his review of ICT in UK primary schools, Robertson (2002) argues that 20 years of relatively major investment have given rise to quite limited reforms and have not yet resulted in ICT becoming embedded in classroom practice.

When we visited the 50 schools in the early ‘90s ICT use was in its infancy.

While many classrooms had a computer, these were often switched off and appeared to be used infrequently. When they were in use, this was predominantly for individual or pairs of pupils to type up work for display or to work on drill and practice programmes. In their review of primary education from 1994-98 Ofsted (1999) states that “in the majority of primary schools, information technology skills, knowledge and understanding are not systematically taught, and almost never systematically assessed” (p.126). Although over the four years they report an increase in the whole-class teaching of IT skills to pupils in rooms with 10 or more microcomputers, they found that “the vast majority of schools are still unaffected by these changes in pedagogy: even where information and communication technology tools are used to promote learning, the teaching of information technology is mostly an adjunct activity rather than a systematic part of lesson planning” (p.127).

This chapter describes developments in primary school ICT provision and examines the role of headteachers, ICT coordinators and support staff in leading and managing its contribution to teaching and learning. The difficulties and possibilities teachers experience in changing their practice to accommodate and exploit the new technologies are documented and their views given on the implications of these for their pupils. In doing so this chapter demonstrates how, over the decade between our fieldwork visits, not only has ICT moved from having a very marginal place in the curriculum to playing a central role but is also contributing to substantial changes in primary classroom practice.

ICT provision The New Labour government is promoting a vision of a learning society underpinned by ever more powerful and innovative information communication technologies providing lifelong learning opportunities. Schools are crucial to this vision and, to promote their use of ICT since 1997, the government has launched a number of major initiatives. These include the National Grid for Learning (NGfL), which provided a network of information and learning materials and funding for schools through the Standards Fund and its associated Virtual Teachers’ Centre (the latter is now closed) (DfEE, 1998a). In implementing these initiatives the DfES has worked closely with LEAs, the TTA (now the Training and Development Agency for Schools [TDA]), the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta), the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) and commercial ICT companies. Regional Broadband Consortia (RBCs) were established in 1999 to develop the provision of broadband connections to schools to enable speedy access to the internet via school or LEA-managed intranets. Funding for this is allocated each year from central funds. Training in the use of ICT for teachers and school librarians was provided by the National Lottery’s New Opportunities Fund (NOF) from April 1999 until December 2003.

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programme with continued earmarked funding for schools to purchase ICT hardware.

Interactive whiteboards are the technological invention of the moment, with the government having pledged to put them in every school. The 2004 survey of ICT in schools (DfES/Becta, 2004) found that 63% of primary schools had at least one. In 2004 interactive whiteboards accounted for £50 million of the £252 million invested in ICT in primary and secondary schools. The DfES has also introduced new flexibilities in the use of schools’ Devolved Formula Capital funding to allow the viring of more monies for their purchase. In his 2005 budget speech the chancellor Gordon Brown claimed a further £1.67 billion investment in ICT to enable schools to be “no longer blackboard and chalk” (Cross, 2005, p.6).

The 50 schools we visited were at different stages in the development of ICT provision and use. Depending on the stage that they were at, ICT priorities in relation to classroom practice were to: ■

install or update computer suites

■

purchase mobile trolley systems with laptops

■

increase the number of PCs in classrooms

■

install data projectors and/or interactive whiteboards

■

provide teachers with their own laptops

■

network all the computers together linked to a server, to enable all available programmes to be accessible

■

provide internet access

■

move to wireless-based systems.

In schools with ICT suites the majority of teachers were in agreement that the provision of a computer suite had made an enormous contribution to more effective teaching of ICT skills and use across the curriculum. A unit of work to develop particular ICT skills could take over a term when taught in the classroom with one or a pair of children working at their own pace, on one or two classroom computers, perhaps with the assistance of a parent helper.

However, through focused whole-class teaching in a suite, such a unit could be taught and assessed in a couple of weeks. Children’s queries and ideas could be shared with the class and responded to immediately by the teacher.

Depending on the number of classes requiring use of the suite (some larger schools had two ICT suites), classes were timetabled for an ICT skills lesson each week, a general lesson when literacy or numeracy programmes might be used or research carried out for other subjects, and classes could sign up for any other available timetable slots. A few ICT coordinators also commented on the increase in teacher motivation and competence derived from using the suite because teachers were able to concentrate solely on teaching ICT. They prepared more thoroughly for such lessons and, as their confidence grew through greater familiarity with the hardware and software, were more likely to experiment. This was thought to be particularly the case in the small minority of schools where a technician or teaching assistant for ICT was available before and during the lesson to deal with any technical problems that arose and to offer advice.

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Small schools, and schools with insufficient space to create a computer suite and no possibility of extending the school building, concentrated on building up computer access in classrooms and mobile provision: Each classroom has two computers for the children to use. This year we have just got six laptops for the children on a trolley and they have got wireless connections so they don’t have any wires whatsoever. You can use the internet without having any use of wires, use the printers without plugging them in and so they are great.

They are really portable and the children love them because they are laptops.

(Year 3/4 teacher, 144, June 2003)

The positive view of laptops expressed above by the Year 3/4 teacher was a minority one as generally laptops were regarded as “too temperamental”, “too vulnerable”, “too prone to batteries going flat” and “too prone to being tampered with”. Teachers described how they often found them extremely frustrating: “I have nearly thrown that trolley out of the window several times because I have wasted an entire afternoon doing nothing apart from setting up the laptops and realising that they don’t work, trying to sort the problem out, putting them away, and ‘Oh look, that is the end of that!’” Such problems were exacerbated when provision was inadequate: My ICT lessons are usually delivered in the ICT room. When I use ICT in other subjects I would use the laptops because I can’t get in the computer room … we have only got 9 laptops and I have got 32 children in my class so that is almost 4 to a laptop which isn’t a good idea. I have got a teacher’s laptop so I always get mine out and let them use that, and I always think… umm… could be trouble! Then one group might use the computer in the classroom or whatever, but that is quite slow.

So I think that it is all very nice in principle, but if you haven’t got enough resources sometimes it can get a bit problematic. It is the logistics of it all I think, especially with it being such a big school. (ICT coordinator, 444, June 2004)

As was found a decade ago, enabling children to develop their ICT skills through productive use of one or two classroom computers was generally viewed as difficult. This was because any group or pair of children working at a classroom computer were likely to be missing aspects of teaching, distracting other children and not getting the support needed to move on their learning: I find it very difficult – meaningfully using a computer in many lessons. Because if I’m teaching for example, a maths concept, I want the children to be listening not over in the corner on a computer. And then when I’m working with a group obviously I don’t want somebody from that group out working on the computer.

Now it may be that, if I’ve got something appropriate, children from another group can be working on it, but then of course they can be frequently needing help or coming to me asking questions about what’s going on with the computer. I do find it quite difficult using it in all lessons in the classroom situation. Having said that, I really enjoy teaching ICT up in the ICT suite. (Deputy head, 212, June 2004)

Headteachers all expressed concern at the enormity of the costs involved in installing and maintaining an up-to-date system. They referred to the speed with which hardware becomes out of date, the knock-on effect of replacement A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S

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when new equipment is often not compatible with existing provision and the continual technical problems with individual PCs, the network and internet access, particularly with older equipment. Headteachers who felt they had insufficient ICT expertise were especially anxious about the financial implications of decisions on ICT and the costly nature of mistakes. For example, one headteacher was overseeing the amalgamation of her school with another and was making decisions about how best to integrate the provision in both schools: The financial implications are a nightmare because everything needs updating so regularly. The other thing that I find a nightmare is that everyone is telling you what you need! If you are not technically minded… which I don’t pretend to be, you don’t know what to believe and what not to believe. You don’t always know what the best course is to take…. The ICT suite has 15 computers but they are old and need replacing, the majority of them, so what we have done is, leading up to amalgamation each school has bought a trolley of 16 wireless laptops. So when we move to the new school we will have 32 wireless laptops and we are currently doing an audit to see which of the computers in the suite will transfer to the new school to run the whiteboards. Also because we need to update the server which is another massive financial implication … we have to have a new server and the computers that we have got won’t run on the new server because they are not good enough! So again that financial implication. (Headteacher, 180, Dec 2004)

One inner city school was in the process of a radical update in order to remain at the forefront of ICT innovation. It had moved to broadband, increased the power and speed of 80 of its 120 computers with gigabyte cards to enable video conferencing in classrooms, replaced Promethium whiteboards with Soft Touch Boards, bought projectors with higher resolution images and installed a video server to stream videos direct to classrooms. The headteacher explained that financing the ICT developments had been made possible by a combination of government ICT funding saved from one year to the next in order to buy equipment in bulk at reduced costs, control over the “full budget share” as a result of being “a self-sustaining school”, and being able to use monies from the Excellence in Cities programme to fund other projects, leaving more of the school budget to spend on ICT and staffing economies: We don’t have any facility to collect much money from parents. It is about being creative with your budget. It is about being three-form entry and being big. It is about running large class sizes so most of our class sizes are 30. We run vertically grouped classes to make sure that we get up to 30. We have been very economical with staffing which has released other money to put into some of the technologies that we have got. I have to say it has been my vision rather than the staff’s vision initially, but I have managed to sell that vision to the staff which is part of the responsibility of leadership. I did that by saying, “Look we can go for more staff but that means we have less resources in school which makes our job harder which means that we need more staff to support us, or we can try and work a little bit smarter by using the technologies” – so we’ve got a pretty IT-literate staff now who are sharing resources across the network and sharing planning and lessons.

(Headteacher, 564, June 2005)

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Most schools had at some time experienced the theft of equipment and realised that whiteboards in particular were attractive to thieves because they could be sold to clubs and bars for showing sports and other events. Consequently, having invested considerable sums on ICT equipment, all schools wanted to make the equipment as secure as possible, particularly in areas where theft was rife. The inner city school mentioned above that had upgraded its ICT provision had also invested heavily in security, dividing the school into seven zones that could be alarmed separately. CCTV consisting of 32 cameras covered the school entrances and perimeter, smoke screens were fitted in the computer suites and a Master Blaster alarm in the corridors. The projectors for the interactive whiteboards were encased in cages bolted to the ceiling. Although one classroom was broken into and the cage was ripped from the ceiling, it proved too big and heavy to get through the window. Projectors in the mobile classrooms were in specially made steel cabinets bolted to the floor. The headteacher thought the expenditure worthwhile, not only because it had prevented the loss of equipment, but also because awareness throughout the wider community that the school was so secure meant attacks on the premises were far fewer than previously.

Leading and managing ICT For a few headteachers, such as the head of the inner city school described above, leading and managing ICT was both challenging and immensely interesting and exciting. However, for all headteachers, while ICT was generally central to their school improvement plan (SIP), it was not the only priority area for development. Taking the lead in ICT was a worry to those who felt it was an area in which they lacked up-to-date skills and knowledge, not only because of the expenditure involved but also because of the need to support anxious colleagues who also lacked expertise.

Owing to the increase in administration, site management and personnel management, most headteachers spend very little time teaching and therefore do not have first-hand experience of implementing classroom initiatives such as the NLS and the NNS. The teaching of ICT skills and their application across the curriculum was an additional innovation that made some heads feel further de-skilled: I wouldn’t ask anybody to do anything that I wasn’t prepared to do myself, but I have to say that some of the teachers are more skilled than I am in ICT certainly. We have classes with interactive whiteboards and I am de-skilled, I haven’t had to get to grips with that and so that is something that they are better at than me. I can’t set them an example in that. (Assistant head, 470, Oct 2003)

Coordinators worked collaboratively with headteachers in leading and managing ICT, although their influence over decisions, particularly major expenditure on hardware, varied according to their expertise in ICT, confidence and status within the school. Given the monies involved in ICT development, coordinators felt considerable responsibility to ensure that their advice was based on thorough research. A few ICT coordinators were allocated the role because of their qualifications and past experience (eg three coordinators had a first degree A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S

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wholly or in part in ICT). However, more usually, where needed the role was given to whoever was willing to take it on. “Because no one else wanted it basically” was the most common reason given for becoming an ICT coordinator.

Despite government investment in ICT training for schools, ICT coordinators, like headteachers, claimed to have developed their expertise predominantly through their own efforts and the assistance of family members, friends and school governors whose work or hobbies gave them up-to-date knowledge of ICT: I’m pretty much self-taught really. My daughter has been helping me out because she actually did a degree in computer science when she was at university and I was a complete and utter dinosaur before then. She actually bought the first computer that came into our house and got me started. She doesn’t live at home any more, but whilst she was at home she would do this and that and I just picked the rest of it up really on my own because I quite enjoy it. So I can actually get carried away spending hours doing that. (ICT coordinator, 113, Feb 2005)

The role of ICT coordinator in the 50 schools included all or most of the following responsibilities: ■

to write ICT policies, eg on internet use

■

to advise on the teaching of schemes of work for ICT such as those provided

by QCA and/or to lead development of a school’s own scheme

■

to provide advice on the use of ICT across the curriculum

■

to oversee and make recommendations for updating software and hardware

■

to liaise with other subject coordinators about the evaluation, purchase and use of software for their subjects

■

to sort out technical problems (with or without the assistance of a technician or teaching assistant (TA) with ICT responsibilities)

■

to set up the school website and/or to oversee its updating

■

to organise and deliver staff training in ICT

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to monitor the teaching and learning of ICT across the school

■

to keep abreast of issues such as child protection and email use.

Generally the role was viewed by those who did it and by other teachers as an “extremely demanding” and “highly pressurised role”. This was because not only did ICT coordinators manage and lead ICT in the same way as those coordinating other curriculum subjects, but they also spent enormous amounts of time tackling seemingly endless technical hitches: The technician only comes in on a Monday afternoon, so if you have a problem Tuesday morning it could take … almost a week for it to get sorted out. I mean I can sort some of the problems out but something like the complex networking problems that you can sometimes come across just go straight over my head. You know, it comes up with jargon on the screen saying this and that is happening or there’s a firewall implemented which is stopping the TCP/IP and I’m looking at it thinking “I haven’t got a clue what it’s talking about”. So I go and email the technician so he comes in and he knows what to expect, he knows what to do before he gets here. So I mean it’s a rewarding area but it can be really frustrating at times. And there’s always things to be done. (ICT coordinator, 196, Nov 2004)

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As ICT was a priority area for school development, the purchase of new hardware and software was generating an escalating need for extra training and continual staff support. A designated ICT TA could help enormously both in providing such support and in maximising children’s use of ICT provision (see also Box 4a). As described by a Year 4 teacher, as only half a class could work individually at a computer in their computer suite, lessons in ICT skills were often taught collaboratively by the teacher and the ICT TA: Well, what usually happens for the ICT lesson is the teacher takes the whole class up when they’re doing the objective for that lesson, and introduces it and then they will leave a group in the ICT room and she [the ICT TA] just takes over and carries on doing the objective with a little group because we can only fit 10 children in as there’s only 10 computers. We could fit, like 20 in, which means sharing a computer but that’s not always ideal, especially when they’re getting older as well. And then the teacher takes the rest of the class back to the classroom and does something related to what the others are doing in the ICT suite. For instance, this afternoon, mine are doing cutting and pasting because we’ve been doing instructions. We’ve mixed all these instructions up that we did yesterday when we made some beans on toast so some children are going to the ICT suite this afternoon to use cut and paste to unjumble them and put them in the right order, and the children in the classroom are actually cutting out and pasting onto another sheet of paper, and then we’re going to discuss, when they’ve all had a go, what way we found easiest.

(Year 4 teacher, 220, Oct 2004)

Nearly all headteachers considered that there were one or more teachers in their school who lacked confidence in using ICT and were therefore hesitant in, or resistant to, using it. At the time of the school visits most schools were installing or expanding the provision of interactive whiteboards in classrooms, which required staff to learn how to incorporate their use in teaching: Some people are using them very well and have taken them on board and are wanting to use them and are quite intrigued by them and enjoy what they can do with them. Other people want to walk past them and would much rather have a stick of chalk and it’s not necessarily the older members of staff who want the stick of chalk, which is quite interesting. Some of the younger members of staff, particularly if they were trained in the ‘80s, seem to have missed the IT surge. It’s coming up now from colleges and universities, but the ‘80s younger people are quite fearful.

(Headteacher, 328, July 2005)

Staff who were anxious about incorporating ICT into their teaching were usually viewed as requiring gentle persuasion and considerable support. For example, the headteacher and ICT coordinators in the junior school described in Box 4a (later in this chapter) tried to alleviate teachers’ unfamiliarity with ICT by providing extra help, such as “crib sheets to follow in lesson plans” which gave individuals step-by-step instructions on how to operate particular programmes. Boosting staff confidence in, and understanding the potential of, interactive whiteboards was crucial for all classes to derive benefits from them. One of the two ICT coordinators explained how they tried to enthuse staff by introducing them to ways in which the new technology could enhance the teaching of subjects in which they had a particular interest: A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S

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The idea when we introduced the interactive whiteboards was not to say “this is what you have got and you have got to use it” and the head didn’t want us to do that anyway. One of the teachers in Year 4 is a phenomenal artist and she is art coordinator. So [the other ICT coordinator’s] idea was to just show her one thing that she could use with art and the Smart Board and let her run with that and then wait for her to come back and say, “I really like that, can I have something else?”

Just a little bit and that is what she has done. It has worked. We don’t feel that there is anybody who hasn’t got off the ground floor with the Smart Boards.

(Part-time ICT coordinator, 580, June 2005)

However, one headteacher, who had taken over a very low-performing school with inadequate ICT provision, found staff “absolutely terrified of ICT” and required pressure from her to get them to move forward. She described how the first stage in ICT development was to put a new computer and an interactive whiteboard in each class and provide every member of staff with a laptop. Once this was done she would insist that these were used: I like to say things straight, I’m a very straight person, and I’ve said that we’ll all get a laptop because we’re all going to plan and a member of staff came to me and she said, “Well I don’t need a laptop because I’ll do my planning by hand” and I said “No you won’t. You will be planning on the laptop and sharing because then, when you’ve done it one year, you’ve only got to tweak it the next year and get it even better and high quality” and this sort of thing. I think some people are waiting to see whether I put my money where my mouth is and make it, but I shall, I’m determined. (Headteacher, 647, July 2005)

Staff training There was much dissatisfaction with the New Opportunities Fund (NOF)funded training which only met its expected outcomes in about a third of all schools (Ofsted, 2004) – a failure that Ofsted attributes to its over-ambitious aims, the insufficient differentiation of provision to meet the diversity of teacher needs and teacher disillusionment with the self-study elements of the training.

However, irrespective of the success or otherwise of NOF-funded training, schools require considerable follow-up training on courses provided by LEAs, private consultants and/or school-provided professional development opportunities in ICT, to help teachers consolidate and update their skills and enable ICT to become embedded in their practice.

In the 50 schools training staff in the use of new hardware and software in order for them to have full and confident use was an ongoing problem: The big issue is we’ve got whiteboards but we’re not using them enough. One of the teachers uses it because she got it first and she’s been practising, so we’ve got to develop the use of the whiteboards in the classroom. And then another issue is getting the children to use more – it’s not just computers, we’re getting the children now to use the camcorder and do multimedia presentations. We want them to do more work with interviewing people with tape recorders and then putting

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that onto the computer. You know, developing their skills…. And the hard thing is, we don’t have the skills and we’ve got to get the skills to give it to the children.

(Headteacher, 43, June 2004)

As the headteacher of the inner city school that had invested heavily in ICT explained, although teachers were provided with a training session in the ICT suite at least once a month, to keep up with developments staff ideally needed weekly training sessions. However, in addition, the ICT coordinator, who had worked as an LEA ICT advisor, gave weekly informal staff workshops to demonstrate the use of new software, or “clinics” when individuals could seek help with specific queries. These were used regularly by most staff and were thought to be very beneficial. Nevertheless, the coordinator felt that staff were “becoming overwhelmed”, unable to keep pace with developments and needing a period of consolidation to “assimilate what is there”.

A few schools had bought in LEA expertise to provide whole-school training days or found ways of buying in external help from consultants, such as the small school where teachers used their individual learning accounts to fund a computer course that was attended by all support staff as well as teachers.

Schools benefited when support staff were trained alongside teachers but this was difficult to organise as training generally needed to take place at times when they were not in school, and so relied upon their voluntary unpaid attendance. Most of the training appeared to be provided by the headteacher and/or the ICT coordinator. For example, at the time of the interviews, giving staff instruction in using whiteboards was the main training issue. As one headteacher of a large school explained, 18 whiteboards had just been fitted into classrooms at “colossal expense” but the potential benefits of this expenditure could not be realised until the teachers were able to use them.

Consequently, he intended to undertake training and then train his staff himself.

Trying to find effective ways of training staff in new equipment and resources, particularly before their own skills were fully developed, created considerable difficulties for ICT coordinators. They had tried various approaches including: ■

PowerPoint presentations in staff meetings

■

supplying staff with trial resources and requesting feedback

■

producing handouts on the use of new software

■

arranging demonstration lessons by LEA advisors

■

working alongside colleagues to plan and prepare lessons using ICT. As claimed by Ofsted (2004), “working alongside others in the classroom is often the most effective form of in-service training” (p.26). However, this seldom occurred in the 50 schools because buying in external help was expensive and ICT coordinators seldom had non-contact time in which they could work alongside colleagues. However, a small minority of schools had either appointed, or were considering appointing (see Box 4a) a TA specifically for ICT. As illustrated in the quote earlier from the Year 4 teacher, such roles could contribute to staff development.

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Case study of one school’s provision and use of ICT The portrayal of ICT in a large junior school given in Box 4a below brings many of the issues together. It illustrates the school’s developing provision and the ways in which this is used by teachers and pupils. It shows how the leadership and management of ICT was shared between the headteacher and other members of staff and how ICT was having an impact on planning, tracking and reporting pupil progress. It also reveals how the school intranet with its “shared areas” brought work in the ICT suite, class-based lessons and pupil independent working into a closer interrelationship.

Box 4a: ICT at a junior school (580 pupils)

Over two years from 2003 this large junior school, two thirds of which was housed in mobile classrooms, underwent a major building programme, paid for jointly by the government and the LEA, that included a new hall, 16 classrooms, a music room and a staff room. At the same time the school paid for the old magistrates’ court on the school site to be joined to the new buildings and converted it into two ICT suites (court one and court two), with 16 computer stations in each. The suites opened into each other so they could be used together for staff training sessions and computer clubs. Having all the school housed in one block enabled the two computer suites and all the classroom computers to be networked to the server, with points throughout the school where other PCs and laptops could be plugged in.

Interactive whiteboards In 2004 the head attended a Strategic leadership of ICT (SLICT) programme of in-service training for senior staff provided by the NCSL, Becta and the DfES. He came back with two key messages. One was that, when introducing interactive whiteboards, they should be installed simultaneously in all classrooms rather than introduced in dribs and drabs, thus enabling staff to be trained together and to support each other by sharing experiences and ideas.

By drawing on capital funding for three years, Smart Boards with surround sound were purchased for every classroom together with laptops for each of the 28 teachers. A two-year programme of staff development was implemented, designating one in three staff training sessions for ICT using mainly LEA ICT consultants and through sessions in the weekly staff meetings.

For example, at the time of the school visit, the deputy head was introducing the staff to a new assessment and recording package which had been put on the network.

The head regarded the school’s approach of “moving everyone forward and no one having the option to say ‘I am not going to do it’ as having been very successful” because although “there is still a range of expertise … some of the teachers are amazed themselves about how quickly they can move forward”.

Also, “there is an element as well where people don’t want to get left behind so they have to push themselves”. During lesson observations, he was increasingly seeing excellent examples of interactive whiteboard use. However, he pointed out that, as an Ofsted inspector, he had also observed inappropriate use of whiteboards. He emphasised: “We want to make sure that we don’t

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just put an interactive whiteboard system into every classroom and say, ‘Right things will improve because we have done that’, because they won’t – you have got to make sure we are using them in the right way.” Consequently, he was stressing to staff “only use it if it makes the lesson better”.

The role of ICT TA The second message the headteacher brought back from the SLICT course was that a key way of improving teaching and learning through ICT was to have a TA solely responsible for ICT, who could support teachers in using ICT in their teaching and work alongside them in the ICT suites. A post for an ICT TA had been advertised and the TA was to start in September 2005. The TA would also be responsible for ensuring the suite was prepared for lessons and for assisting with maintaining children’s records. The ICT coordinators hoped that he or she would also be able to assist staff with technical problems, taking over the recording of technical faults in the “blue book” and liaising with technicians from the local company contracted to tackle these.

At the time of the interview a teacher on a temporary contract had this latter role because the coordinators found dealing with technical problems so time consuming that it was encroaching on their own classroom preparation as well as their ICT responsibilities. No longer having to cope with the many teething problems caused by staff unfamiliarity with the new equipment and software freed them to concentrate on monitoring, staff support and curriculum development. However, while the headteacher agreed that sorting out technical problems was a crucial issue, he did not view this as part of the ICT TA’s job description. He was hoping that, if the local secondary school was successful in its bid to be a specialist school in maths and ICT, the feeder primaries to this secondary school might be able to access its technicians.

The ICT coordinators Initially the school had one ICT coordinator who set up the first computer suite.

As ICT provision and use expanded, the senior management team decided it was too much for one person and made him the network coordinator. Two other teachers were brought in as additional ICT coordinators to work alongside him. When he left they took over his role and split their ICT responsibilities into those for upper and lower school. Subsequently the upper school coordinator became part time and, at the time of the school visit, she had just become English coordinator as it was felt that one ICT coordinator could manage the subject now the major development of provision was completed and the ICT TA was being appointed.

In addition to supporting teachers in the use of the new equipment, the other major aspect of their role was buying in software and advising other coordinators on the resources available in their subjects. In the first round of spending, e-credits were used to replace and upgrade software that was an integral part of schemes of work to make it compatible with the new ICT set up. In the second round the e-credits were allocated to subject coordinators to buy in resources for their subjects. At the time of the interviews the ICT coordinators were looking for new and innovative resources to support ICT teaching and cross-curricular work.

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Their other priorities were: ■

updating subject schemes of work to accommodate ICT developments

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monitoring the teaching and application of ICT across the school

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developing pupil self-assessment statements for ICT skills

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consideration of child safety and internet use.

The network coordinator had set up a school website but this had become outmoded, was difficult to update and so had been phased out. However, having a website was viewed as a necessity – parents and anyone seeking information about the school, such as job applicants, would expect it.

Consequently, a new site was being developed by a website designer, who had offered his services on a voluntary basis, which saved the school considerable expense. This was due to go live in September 2005.

Use of ICT in teaching All classes were timetabled in one of the computer suites for two lessons a week and these lessons were used predominantly for teaching ICT schemes of work. All the classes had a proportion of their numeracy and literacy lessons timetabled in the afternoons to ensure the full use of the suites. The few remaining untimetabled slots were booked on an opportunistic basis.

The school had developed its own schemes of work in all subject areas but to varying degrees drew on those devised by QCA, and the coordinators gave advice on how ICT could further contribute to these. Staff saved all their plans and lessons in a read-only folder so they could be shared, downloaded and adapted by colleagues. Increasingly teachers were incorporating the PowerPoint presentations, video clips, internet links and CD-ROMs that they were going to use in their lessons into their plans. These could then be used not only by the teachers that prepared them but also by supply teachers and TAs covering staff absence and/or providing planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time. However, over-reliance on ICT could prove problematic. As the head and the ICT coordinators warned: “There is a danger if you are relying completely on your laptop because if it goes down for any reason and that has happened with three of them recently, you know you can’t teach because you haven’t got your laptop there.”

As part of the school improvement plan for 2005-06 recording and tracking of pupil attainment was being moved from a paper-based to an ICT-based system.

Pupils’ SAT scores and non-statutory test scores for Years 3, 4 and 5 had been inputted by a clerical assistant working with the deputy who was leading the transfer. It was anticipated that the new system would increase efficiency in tracking pupils and assist with setting and justifying targets. It would also make attainment information readily available for teachers who could use it to identify areas of weakness in their teaching, and those aspects of literacy and numeracy for which individual pupils required additional support. Six years ago the school went over to computerised reports and the practice was being reviewed with a view to updating it. Originally staff wrote the comments for use in relation to the level descriptors for all national curriculum subjects and assigned these a code number. This enabled teachers to type in the codes to produce individual reports electronically and then add an overview of a particular child’s academic, social and personal development.

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All the children could log into the school intranet anywhere in the school using their name as a password to access their work in a read-only and “save to” folder. The internet service providers had installed a firewall to deny access to unacceptable sites when children accessed the internet to help with their work. Teachers considered children were motivated to pursue their learning independently by having such access. The next step in using ICT to allow pupils to make more decisions in their learning was to develop the use of other media forms and incorporate these into teaching. Examples included using the video camera to video work on fieldtrips and in English lessons, when drama and discussion were taking place, so these could be shared with pupil and parent audiences. Parents were kept informed of ICT developments and had been invited to presentations “to demonstrate what interactive whiteboards could do” because as the headteacher explained “things have moved on very, very quickly and so we wanted to take parents with us as well”.

The impact of ICT on teaching and learning As revealed in chapter 2, the introduction of the NLS and the NNS has led to more whole-class teaching than we found a decade ago, not only in literacy and numeracy but across the curriculum (see also chapter 7). Our data also suggest that increasingly whole-class teaching is likely to take the form of teacher explanation and questions interspersed with pupils individually, or in pairs or small groups, engaging in a series of short linked tasks involving oral work, pupil demonstration and written work. Internet access, PowerPoint and the installation of data projectors and interactive whiteboards facilitate and further encourage the development of this approach to teaching. The use of PowerPoint gives explanations and instructions greater presentational clarity and CD-ROMs, internet information and digital photographs can be incorporated into presentations, making them more visually attractive and providing material for pupil discussion and teacher-pupil interaction (see, for example, chapter 7 Box 7a).

Exploiting the new possibilities Teachers in the 50 schools who were becoming familiar with the use of interactive whiteboards enthused about how they could now produce higher quality teaching materials than before, which made lessons more exciting for pupils. A young teacher explained that since she was completely self-taught with regard to ICT having seldom used computers at school or college, she was initially “terrified” of using the interactive whiteboard. She got over her fear through constant use until “all of a sudden I stopped worrying about tripping over the wires on the floor and I stopped worrying if the pen didn’t work, and I started to realise what it could do”. From the moment after the science lesson she outlines below, when she thought “Wow, I couldn’t have done that if I hadn’t got it”, she tried increasingly to incorporate and experiment with using ICT in her lessons:

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I remember last year it was a really boring lesson because it was, “Do bones grow when we grow?” and most of the children know the answer to that anyway because it is fairly obvious. It is an investigation that you have to do and the idea is that the human skeleton grows. So I thought to myself I am not going to spend a whole lesson doing this and I sent the children home and they all measured somebody’s femur and they had to measure people of five different ages. So I set up Microsoft Excel on the whiteboard and I took in their data and I asked them what they wanted me to do with it. So they told me what to do and I put the information in and I highlighted it all and they told me what sort of graph I needed and why. I clicked a button and there was the graph! … one of the children who finds literacy and numeracy the most challenging put up his hand and he said, “I can see…” and his face was like that [lit up], and he said, “I can see exactly what you mean miss because that line up there means that it is getting bigger so that means they must get bigger”. Then, of course, at some point it stops and someone very intelligent put up their hand and said to me “the bit where it levels off…” and he talked about the science. I know that I could never have done that, that quickly, that powerfully, in any other way because on the board you try and draw yourself a graph and you get yourself in a right muddle of a mess, don’t you? So once that had gone, up came something that I found on the BBC website – it was a quiz to do with bones and stuff and we had a go at that. It was pacey, it was entertaining, the children loved it and we learnt loads and it was brilliant. (ICT coordinator, 440, June 2004)

However, rather than viewing technology as a way of enhancing teaching, a few teachers viewed it as a barrier coming between them and the children, which reduced their spontaneity and ability to respond to children’s needs and enthusiasms: From the point of view of having to put everything on a laptop and then delivering it through a Smart Board, is not, to my way of thinking, teaching. Teaching is a skill that you are delivering information to the children and making them want to learn.

It’s just a skill that I have at the end of my fingertips. I don’t think at the end of a computer; I think in a different way when I teach. (Year 6 teacher, 470, Oct 2003)

Teaching effectively and creatively using an interactive whiteboard requires more than just confidence in PowerPoint and accessing video clips and material from websites. It also requires getting used to teaching using large screen images and other unfamiliar possibilities. The lesson portrayed below was given by a teacher confident in the use of ICT and shows how the use of new technologies can bring together the teaching of ICT skills and subject knowledge – in this case history. It was also a lesson that demonstrated the power of ICT to motivate children and gain their enthusiasm.

Box 4b: Lesson on ICT skills and history

This lesson with 28 Year 6 pupils took place in the computer suite in court 1 in the school portrayed in Box 4a. The lesson’s two main objectives were to “know some of the important inventions of the Victorian age” and “to learn how to use PowerPoint”. The intended outcome was a virtual museum displaying what the class had learned about inventions.

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The lesson began with the children sitting on the carpet in front of the teacher, who went over material from a previous lesson questioning the children on what was invented in Victorian times and collecting their opinions on the impact of these inventions on life today. She then introduced them to the idea of making a virtual museum of Victorian inventions. This was followed by a discussion of the purpose of museums and a reminder, using the interactive whiteboard, of the internet sites that they used in previous lessons on the Victorian age. Next she showed them pictures of a penny farthing and a vacuum cleaner and the class discussed the information that would be needed for these to be included in the virtual museum – date of invention, inventor, how it works, what it did and what is used today. She then showed them some search engines, including Yahooligans and Google, and demonstrated how to copy and paste a picture into a PowerPoint slide. She also demonstrated how to copy and paste text but stressed that they would need to read the information they found carefully and only select the relevant parts. She told them she would be assessing them on their ability to do this.

The children then went into pairs to a computer, logged on and began finding and downloading images and text for their presentations. The teacher stopped them on three occasions to talk about the effect of background colours in slides, the need to check spelling and alter key words and phrases if the search engine did not locate the material they wanted, and the information that had to be included with the images.

After they had been working for half an hour she asked them to save their work and sit on the floor in front of her while she demonstrated how to incorporate moving images and noises into their presentations. She showed them examples of the previous year’s presentations using such images and noises, which they evaluated. They then returned to their computers for 10 minutes to experiment and the suite was filled with strange noises, gun shots and the sound of breaking glass. When they had selected some sounds to accompany their work she reminded them how to save their presentation in “the shared area”, and then asked them to log off and return to sit down in front of her.

She then asked for volunteers who would like their presentations shown. As she showed the presentations on the interactive whiteboard, she commented particularly on the use of text and where it had been modified rather than just cut and pasted. When the bell went she promised to finish showing the presentations at the start of the next lesson.

Resources for teaching Those teachers who were becoming confident in the use of interactive whiteboards described programmes and materials they felt had contributed to the quality of their lessons. For example, one Year 6 teacher described how she used ICT in an art lesson on distortion: Rather than having a picture showing distortion and holding it up and saying “Can you all see that? No, well pass it around or all gather around”, I found the same picture on the internet and put it on full screen. On the Smart Board you can spotlight, you can just put a circle around a piece of the picture that you want them

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to look at and that focuses their attention. I showed them natural distortion first of all from the pictures on the internet – you know, reflections in the water. Then we went onto artists’ sketches of distortion and then famous artists who used distortion and then I used the Smart Board to show them the activity we were going to do… which was fantastic. (Part-time Year 6 teacher, 580, June 2005)

The internet was a massive source of information, illustrative material and teaching ideas. However, the disadvantage of having access to such quantity and diversity of material was the time spent sifting through it all, trying to decide what to use and how to integrate together different information sources.

One teacher put it this way: “The internet is making teaching better and learning better, but it’s not making teaching any easier really.” Consequently, materials provided on government-approved sites were regarded as valuable because they saved time, their content could be regarded as sound and when they were designed to serve a specific purpose were particularly helpful: When we were, for instance, studying for the SATs there was a nice website on there where QCA had put together a revision pack. So when it was my turn, if it was my maths group we would be going in there and we would be using computers to revise. The science, we had a good one with science, revision of electricity and it literally teaches and tests all the way through which is a good revision. (Year 6 teacher, 566, June 2003)

Using commercially prepared materials could also save considerable amounts of teacher time. However, a few headteachers complained that such materials, particularly for whiteboard use, were of very poor quality: “literally putting a worksheet onto the computer”. They had anticipated that whiteboard use should enable lessons not only “to be everything our lessons normally are” but to go beyond this in quality and possibilities. Other headteachers disagreed and argued that: You can generate your own and you can personalise all sorts of things, but that is not an efficient way to do it. If it is commercially produced they are able to do it better than you would and why should you spend all this time doing that when you are not going to be better off. (Headteacher, 580, June 2005)

Most ICT coordinators had problems in exercising quality control over the software purchased by colleagues and a few expressed the view that teachers were insufficiently discriminating in their choice of materials, tending to make use of what was available irrespective of whether or not it was appropriate.

Teachers who were enthusiastic and growing in confidence in their use of interactive whiteboards were keen to expand the ways in which it could be used. They cited equipment they had seen demonstrated on courses and in exhibitions that they would like the school to purchase. For example, a teacher who particularly enjoyed art enthused about some equipment that would enable her to demonstrate art techniques to the class so everyone could see: “A camera that would be over your work, connected to the projector, throw it onto the Smart Board and ‘Can you see what we are doing here?’ Fantastic!”

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Producing and sharing lesson plans As described in the portrayal of the junior school in Box 4a, schools were increasingly moving towards getting teachers to use computers for drawing up and storing lesson plans, presentations and resources. This process was greatly aided in schools where laptops were provided for each member of staff.

The government initiative Laptops for Teachers, whereby it is estimated that two thirds of teachers will have benefited by 2006 (Ofsted, 2004), was assisting the schools in this. However, the distribution of laptops through this initiative was regarded as too slow and therefore a constraint on progress. Generally teachers viewed such developments in lesson planning and preparation as increasing lesson quality and making the production of documentation less arduous and/or rendering print versions of plans as unnecessary: I think that it saves me time. I think that the quality of the lesson the children do is far superior…. If I’ve prepared it on a slide it helps you focus your thoughts as well because I prepare my Smart slides on a night at home. So I am running through the lesson really and then I can go in and deliver a good lesson slide by slide, it is all there on the slides. Yes initially it takes time but then the better you become at using any kind of software the quicker you are at it…. Me personally I love it and it is on my knee on a night time and watching TV and fixing Smart slides. (Part-time ICT coordinator, 580, June 2005)

Assessing and reporting The relative newness of ICT as a subject, the different levels of teacher confidence and expertise, and therefore the variation between classes in the opportunities provided for pupils to utilise ICT and practise skills across the curriculum, meant that continuity and progression were a cause for concern for many headteachers: I suppose my biggest concern with development at the minute is the fact that, whilst there’s a lot of ICT going on, I couldn’t put hand on heart on progression and development across the year groups and I know it was a bit of a shock to Year 6 teachers who had to do end of key stage assessment last year ready to go to secondary. And I’m pretty sure that people haven’t a clue what the achievement levels are. So that’s where we are. I mean, we’re doing the ICT for QCA guidance — I suppose it’s a help. (Headteacher, 430, Jan 2004)

Formative and summative assessment of children’s ICT skills was a priority for all those schools where provision and timetabling had been addressed and children were routinely learning and applying ICT skills. One ICT coordinator described how teachers were devising ICT assessments at the same time as they produced the plans and materials for lessons both in ICT and across the curriculum, and these were being saved to form a bank of assessment activities. Another ICT coordinator was developing groups of “I can” statements which were “basically the level descriptors but in child speak” for each unit of ICT work. When the children completed a unit, they coloured in the statement in red, orange or green to indicate their proficiency in the relevant items. Badges were going to be awarded to pupils who could demonstrate that they had achieved various levels of competency.

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Headteachers and ICT coordinators also described how, as in the school in Box 4a, they were either introducing computer-based systems to track pupil attainment, identify areas of weakness and set targets or were already using technology to do this. Computer programmes also enabled the production of reports for parents that were consistent in format and adhered to the same criteria. However, at the outset, their introduction caused innumerable frustrations through lack of familiarity and/or support with the selected programmes. For example, one headteacher described her nightmare experience producing the school reports on her home computer as a result of her decision to use a now unsupported programme from her previous LEA: I have got a blip on the programme and so I can’t transfer it to a school computer. I have downloaded a new version and I can’t get the old version to talk to the new version. It is a real nightmare and I am just keeping my fingers crossed so that it will just hold together to get the reports printed out and then I am going to have a look at what we are going to do next year. We are going to have to invent or find something which is better than that. (Headteacher, 144, June 2003)

Impact on learning Teachers perceived that children were much more motivated and challenged in lessons where teachers used ICT. Children were said to enjoy the visually stimulating, faster paced lessons using data projectors and interactive whiteboards. Those with learning difficulties were thought to find such lessons more enjoyable and engrossing, helping them to learn: Children are excited by ICT and if they can use it within their learning…. Especially some of our children who aren’t particularly academic it will help them to succeed whereas if you put a book in front of them: “I can’t do that”. We have invested in a lot of software that will encourage them, like electronic books so instead of sitting with a book in literacy it is looking at the Smart Board and they are interacting with it. Quite a lot of our children that are lower achievers are so excited by the fact that they have got this technology in the classroom. They are engrossed before the lesson has even started whereas otherwise they may be demotivated.

(Headteacher, 190, June 2005)

Having material on the interactive whiteboard which children could discuss, add to and change was thought to hold children’s attention, challenge their thinking and keep them fully participating in the lesson – as indeed we observed in the numeracy lesson (chapter 2, Box 2a) and the history lesson (chapter 7, Box 7a). A few teachers reported that because of their regular use of the interactive whiteboard, children were “definitely absorbing information without it being taught” in relation to ICT skills and competencies. While previously it had taken several lessons for pupils to grasp such skills, now they were readily learned or consolidated in a single lesson. One female teacher who was enthusiastic and confident in her use of ICT also considered that “for girls, I think they find it quite empowering to see a female role model doing that”. ICT coordinators who in our sample were predominantly female also conveyed the implicit message that ICT skills were important for girls and boys.

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Teachers agreed that using ICT to do their work promoted greater engagement and better concentration from most children, especially those with behavioural difficulties or who were difficult to motivate such as Year 6 pupils after SATs: My kids absolutely love it and to be fair at this time of the year once SATs have gone because they have peaked for SATs they are now really coming down and with Ofsted coming we are having to peak again. It is creating a lot of unrest and behaviour problems that we don’t usually have. So to get in there on a more regular basis, even one offs, if I can say to the kids “oh we have the computer suite for an hour this afternoon” and they say, “Oh yes, great!” (Year 6 teacher, 566, June 2003)

Children particularly enjoyed using the intranet and internet to search for information. For example, in a lesson on homes during Tudor times, with the assistance of a TA the children enjoyed accessing supporting material placed on the intranet. They also searched the internet to find out what Tudor homes looked like and were built from, and to contrast those of the rich and poor.

Accessing inappropriate material occasionally caused minor disruptions; for example, in one of the lessons we observed, a boy was detected by his teacher sharing with friends a sexually explicit cartoon that he had found using Google images. Such incidents increased teachers’ concerns about the effects on children of intentionally or accidentally accessing violent and/or pornographic material at home, when unsupervised children might surf the internet unprotected by filtering systems. While children were taught about sending emails as part of the ICT curriculum, this was generally restricted to sending emails to one another within the class on the intranet. Teachers were similarly concerned they were teaching pupils skills that could endanger them if they used email at home. High-profile cases of online bullying, “happy slapping” and possible links between child assault or abduction cases and internet use further served to increase schools’ concern about e-safety, and what they should do to make children more aware of potential risks and how to avoid them.

Data projectors and interactive whiteboards were particularly valued for the way in which ideas generated during lessons, both by the teacher and the children individually or collaboratively, could be saved and revisited whenever required: You can keep something, so maybe you would write something on the board and then it is gone unless you have written it down. So you can bring it back up and you can save it and you can do stuff with the children. They all work on a floppy disc and then at the end of the lesson you can choose one of those floppy discs, whack it up on the board and say, “Let’s see what they have done, what do you think?” You know that is much better than reading out a story or whatever because everyone can see it, so yeah I think that it is great. (ICT coordinator, 440, June 2004)

While the potential for ICT to motivate children and make learning more stimulating appears undisputed, the likely effect on pupil attainment and school standards is unproven. Comparative data on educational performance in the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) programme suggested a positive correlation between computer availability and educational

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performance. However, Fuchs and Woessmann (2005), who subjected the data to further analysis, found computers in the classroom have no discernible positive effect on children’s educational performance. They suggest this might be because pupil computer use could be at the expense of other teaching approaches or funds were being spent on ICT provision that might have been used for other resources and teacher training.

The Alliance for Childhood, a longstanding critic of ICT in education, also argues that so far international studies have failed to show any correlation between computer use and children’s educational achievement. Its publication, Tech Tonic, is especially scathing about computer use in primary schools: “We remain convinced that, at the elementary school level and below, there is little evidence of lasting gains and much evidence of harm from hours spent in front of screens” (Cross, 2005, p.6). A few ICT coordinators also raised such concerns. They had discussed with staff issues such as the importance of ensuring pupils sat where they could see the interactive whiteboard, did not look into the projector light when coming to the front of the classroom to use it, and were sat comfortably when working at a PC. However, Ofsted (2004) claims that the increase in pupils’ ICT skills combined with their positive response to the use of ICT “bring clear benefits to their learning which was found to be good or better in 62% of lessons where ICT was used” and “in general, where pupils are encouraged to apply their ICT skills to their learning across the curriculum, they often make more rapid progress in other areas of their work”. In the 50 schools, most teachers considered ICT, particularly interactive whiteboards, to be a powerful aid to teaching and for this reason anticipated that it was of benefit to children’s learning across the curriculum. However, they felt it was too soon for schools to have any evidence as to whether, and if so how far, ICT and interactive whiteboards contributed to improved learning outcomes and higher standards.

A few teachers described how children with computer access at home had begun to follow up and extend work done in lessons: I have found this year more than any other year, and I know from speaking to a couple of other teachers that they have had the same thing, where we have been doing a piece of work and some children have gone home and they have brought disks in which has never really happened before. They might have done a PowerPoint presentation and they have just taken it one step further and done something with it and brought it in to show the rest of the class. (ICT coordinator, 580, June 2005)

Although teachers thought children who did not have access to a computer at home or who used one solely for playing games were at a disadvantage compared to those whose parents supported them in using ICT for school work, only a few schools had systematically collected data on children’s access to computers at home and the ways in which these were used.

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their learning and to engage in self-assessment. For example, in one primary school the Year 6 pupils made PowerPoint presentations incorporating digital photographs they had taken during a residential visit so they could show Year 5 pupils the kinds of activities they would do when they went on a similar visit the following year. However, generally ICT appeared to be under-exploited for such purposes although teachers thought that developing these areas was the next stage, made possible by both pupils’ increasing competency in ICT and the teachers’ own developing awareness of its possibilities. Moves in this direction were also regarded as being encouraged by the primary strategy (DfES, 2003a), with its emphasis on personalised learning, freeing up the curriculum and allowing more pupil choice in, and responsibility for, their own learning (see chapter 6).

Most schools offered computer clubs during lunchtime or after school where they could continue their school work by visiting recommended websites, using materials placed on the school website and preparing PowerPoint presentations to share with peers. One inner city school was convinced of the value of virtual learning environments (VLEs), which enabled parents and children to access help with their work and extended the possibilities of the school as a learning community for pupils, parents and teachers. For 18 months they had participated in a VLE project. Ultimately, however, it had floundered due to its complex and cumbersome nature, security issues around children using email and the need for parent and child training in order to use it.

Nevertheless, the headteacher had a vision of creating a VLE in the future that could even allow children to log on from Pakistan and Bangladesh during extended leave and so maintain contact with the school.

Conclusion The majority of headteachers were in agreement that change in classroom practice brought about by ICT “has been the biggest area of development in the school over the 10 years and has been fantastic”. The importance of ICT as a subject in its own right, and as a tool for teaching and learning, has benefited enormously from government funding and initiatives since our original study. In the latter part of the 10-year period, the exponential increase first in the development of ICT suites in primary schools and second in the installation of interactive whiteboards in classrooms appear to be crucial factors in the rapid implementation of ICT in schools and the dramatic observable effects on classroom practice. Both of these developments enable whole-class participation in lessons teaching or using ICT skills and require the teacher to lead (directly or indirectly), manage and monitor children’s learning in these lessons. This is in sharp contrast to the predominant situation in the original study where ICT use generally occurred when individual, pairs or small groups of children worked largely unsupported at one or two classroom computers, while the teacher taught and/or monitored the rest of the class engaged in often unrelated work.

The increased personal and professional use of ICT by teachers – greatly aided where schools have been able to provide teachers with laptops – also seems to have played a key role in boosting teacher confidence and competence in ICT knowledge and skills, and encouraging them to experiment.

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While all the 50 schools were developing in similar directions in relation to ICT, there was considerable diversity in the extent of existing and planned provision.

This depended particularly on the availability of funding in addition to that made available for ICT by the government and the knowledge about, and expertise in, ICT of headteachers. Schools also had very different approaches to training teachers and support staff in using new hardware/software. This impacted on teachers’ attitudes to ICT, their ability to keep pace with developments and the extent to which it was changing their classroom practice. Ongoing technical problems were a very frustrating aspect of ICT in the majority of schools.

Generally teachers regarded technical support as inadequate and/or insufficiently responsive to school needs, creating considerable pressure and extra work, particularly for ICT coordinators. The other major issue raised was e-safety, with increasing teacher awareness of how to teach children about the risks and to alert parents to possible dangers.

Coutts et al. (2001) are critical of the fact that enormous expenditure and effort is going into ICT in schools with “no consensus within many school staff groups and in the profession as a whole as to the extent to which practice is to be transformed, and on the particular form that any transformation will take” (p.226). They found from their classroom research three rather different views and developmental agendas: ■

an instrumental vision which sees ICT use as an additional subject or complementary activity

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a transformative vision held by teachers who have experienced the capacity of ICT to transform teaching and learning

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a revolutionary view which argues that constraints imposed by the system need addressing before a revolution in teaching and learning can be delivered.

Whilst believing that technology could greatly improve the quality of lessons, the general view amongst headteachers in our sample was that “it just enhances what is already there and used by a good practitioner there are some absolutely amazing lessons”, and “it is just another tool in people’s repertoire”. It would not revolutionise teaching in schools as “you are never ever really going to find that it is going to take the place of the teacher”. The 50 schools appeared to have moved well beyond Coutts et al.’s (2001) “instrumental” agenda and were engaging with the second “transformative” agenda. To varying degrees they all exhibited characteristics of what Coutts et al. term “extended schools” – one of two evolutionary positions between traditional schools and advanced cyberschools. Teachers used ICT to enhance the existing curriculum and to provide additional learning opportunities for children. They envisaged ICT as augmenting rather than challenging existing educational values and structures.

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In a few schools pupils had the opportunity to exercise choice and decision making in their learning, such as through the use of digital cameras and PowerPoint presentations. Pupils could also use the intranet and internet for independent learning within the school day, as well as pursuing school-initiated interests at home and in after school clubs, sharing these with peers in the class the next day. However, only very few schools and some individual teachers were exploring ICT development as a central feature in teaching and learning in ways that began to challenge existing school timetables, organisation and processes. This is not surprising. Teachers need much more time and training to be able to maximise the possibilities that ICT offers for diversity in pupil learning. A fundamental constraint is the knowledge and skills to be covered in the national curriculum, especially the NLS and NNS, and the pressure exerted by target setting, tests and performance tables. In combination, these factors limit the time available for, and discourage teachers from, creating situations where pupils can exercise more choice and exert more control over what and how they learn. Nevertheless, as revealed by our data, ICT has caused major changes in teachers’ classroom practice and seems set to have an even more fundamental impact in the immediate future.

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CHAPTER 5

THE ROLE OF TEACHING ASSISTANTS Teaching assistants (TAs) are known by various titles including classroom assistants, learning support assistants, special needs assistants and nonteaching assistants (Lee and Mawson, 1998). Clayton (1993) suggests that this multiplicity of job titles probably reflects the ad hoc way in which such teaching support has developed over the last 25 years. However, “teaching assistant” is the government’s preferred generic term of reference for all those in paid employment who support teachers in primary, special and secondary schools (DfEE, 2000, p.4). Research documenting the TA role reveals its gradual development in the ’90s from domestic helper to “assistant teacher”, contributing to children’s learning by working with small groups of children and providing individuals with more sustained and focused activity (Clayton, 1993; Fletcher-Campbell, 1992; Moyles and Suschitzky, 1997). For example, while a National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) survey based on 767 questionnaires completed by TAs revealed that most of them provided more than one type of support, 77% indicated that they worked with small groups within a class (Lee and Mawson, 1998).

The main factor behind this change in the last 10 to 15 years is the inclusion in mainstream schools of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) (Lee, 2002). The additional support these pupils need to cope in mainstream classes, as identified in their statements of SEN, was (and is) increasingly provided by TAs, often funded by the LEA on a temporary or short-term basis.

The introduction of the Code of practice on the identification and assessment of special educational needs (DfE, 1994) — which established that pupils with identifiable learning needs but who did not require the level of support provided by a statement should still have their needs met — “had a significant effect on the numbers of assistants employed to work in schools and the range of tasks carried out” (Lee, 2002, p.2). The number of pupils with SEN being educated in mainstream schools has risen further as a result of New Labour’s inclusion agenda, especially children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, with a corresponding rise in the employment of TAs. TAs are at the centre of the government’s workforce remodelling agenda. In Time for standards: reforming the school workforce (DfES, 2002) the government set out its intention to transform teachers’ working practices by removing from them a range of administrative tasks. At the same time, the roles of TAs and administrators were to be developed, including the introduction of higher level teaching assistants (HLTAs). The main reason given for these reforms was to take the pressure off teachers by reducing their workload and so improving their work/life balance, and increasing teacher retention. Also, if teachers could concentrate on teaching, standards of pupil attainment would be raised. Raising standards and tackling workload: A national agreement (DfES, 2003b) was signed by most public sector unions with members in education (with the exception of the NUT), employers and the government in 2003. It was introduced in three phases the first and second of which, although involving a range of strategies to review and reduce workloads, had major implications for the role of TAs. The first phase in 2003

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included the routine delegation of 24 tasks and the third phase in 2005 introduced the allocation of 10% of teachers’ time for preparation, planning and pupil assessment (PPA time). Implementing these changes continues to pose challenges to schools to train, support and remunerate TAs for their new responsibilities and to help teachers to reappraise their responsibilities and to work in different ways.

This chapter looks in detail at the increasing number and developing role of TAs, and the nature of the support they provide for primary school children and their teachers (it should be noted that while the nature of this support is reflective of recent practice, it is not necessarily endorsed by the national agreement). Considerable importance is attached to teachers’ perception of the support TAs provide and their influence on classroom practice because, although research has been carried out over the last decade (Lee, 2002), only a few studies have been published since the number and responsibilities of TAs have increased. Generally these are questionnaire surveys (eg Labour Research Department, 2002; Neill, 2002; Smith, P. et al., 2004) which detail the frequency of types of TA support rather than what they are actually doing in schools. Where studies include qualitative data, the focus is usually KS1 (eg Moyles and Suschitzky, 1997), where TA support has traditionally been concentrated.

This chapter also provides early data on the impact of the national agreement on teachers’ administrative workload and headteachers’ plans to provide PPA time in relation to the use of TAs. To date research findings on these issues have only been explored through reports on projects supporting schools in restructuring their practices, such as the Transforming the School Workforce: Pathfinder Project (Butt and Lance, 2005). Finally, the chapter briefly considers the changes taking place in TA qualifications and training to support workforce remodelling. It concludes that TAs are playing an increasingly central role in shaping primary school classroom practice and culture.

The deployment of TAs In 1991 Campbell and Neill (1994) found that, while primary teachers were assisted by parent and volunteer helpers, they had relatively little working time with paid assistants. Some 79% of 326 teachers surveyed had either no such time or only up to five hours per week. Our visits to schools and classroom observations a decade ago reflected this finding. In particular, we saw little evidence of TAs working in KS2 classrooms. Like McGarvey et al. (1996) we found TAs were mostly concentrated in reception and Year 1 classes. When we did encounter them in KS2 classes they tended to work as unobtrusively as possible with individual children. However, research by Galton et al. (2002), who surveyed 267 KS1 and KS2 teachers in 2001, found that just over half the teachers received more than five hours help per week from a paid assistant. This reveals a considerable increase since the late ‘90s. Owing to the government’s remodelling agenda and teachers’ growing appreciation of TAs’ work, this trend seems set to continue, providing schools have sufficient funding.

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The survey of TAs by Smith, P. et al. (2004) found that KS1 continued to have the highest level of pupil support, particularly in Years 1 and 2. The lowest level of support was in Years 5 and 6. This was also reflected in our data: If there was spare money out there I would put it into teaching assistants. A policy which I’ve operated for 8 years is to put the maximum amount of teaching assistant time into reception and KS1, so KS1 get 4 days a week full time and Year 5/6 get about 2 or 3 hours. (Headteacher, 131, March 2004)

Most schools allocated TAs to specific year groups or classes. However, small schools and those with least TA time allocated them to key stages. As the head of a primary school (328 pupils) explained: “I allocate them to key stages, so KS1 has three classroom assistants plus a nursery nurse, KS2 has the other two and the staff share their time out, and I just have a look and see how it’s going.” This particular primary school had no pupils with statements of SEN at the time of the fieldwork and experienced few behaviour problems, so the TAs mainly supervised groups in the classroom and carried out tasks to support the teachers. Where the number of pupils in a year group exceeded 30 but was insufficient to form two or more classes, schools had to have mixed-age classes. In such schools there was a tendency to concentrate children with SEN in specific classes and provide these with the most TA support.

In a minority of schools teachers complained about the lack of a clear timetable for when and where TAs were working, the confusion generated by working with several different TAs, and/or working with TAs for very short periods of time: Last year one would appear for literacy then one for numeracy and you might even get a different one for something else. We found that not very satisfactory because there were pulls on the teaching assistant’s time so now, for example, June goes to Year 3 and 4 to deliver the additional literacy strategy but she spends the rest of her time in Years 5 and 6. We try to keep them as much as possible within one team.

(Science coordinator, 408, Nov 2003)

On whatever basis TAs were allocated, it was clearly important to avoid fragmenting their role to the point where they were unable to give sufficient time to their various responsibilities, and their coming and going proved distracting for teachers. Clearly such fragmentation limited the contribution TAs could make to teaching and learning.

TAs carried out a range of overlapping roles that could be broadly categorised as:

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supporting individual children with SEN

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working with groups of children with SEN

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providing classroom support for particular teachers

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providing support for the curriculum particularly in literacy and numeracy

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carrying out administrative tasks.

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Generally teachers perceived TAs to be very hard working and often to be competently juggling diverse roles: As everybody else in a small school, she’s got three hats on: she’s special needs support teacher and our dyslexia expert so she has a timetable and usually withdraws children at KS2. Some of them do get a little bit sensitive about doing quite different work within the classroom setting and they’re more confident and speak out more in a small group. She also supports a child with behaviour problems in Year 6 and she’s classroom assistant in my class every afternoon, apart from the day she does her dyslexia course. (Year 4/5 teacher, 130, Nov 2003) The HLTA has clearly got a defined job description which is about overseeing some of the communication flow for the other teaching assistants, but the other aim is to work with the individual education plans (IEPs), help with that and monitor the progress, supporting the SENCO and special needs provision. And then there is her own role of possibly taking small booster groups — underachieving children — and she will do cover supervisory [with assistance from another TA supervising wholeclass task completion following teacher input] once a week as well, so she’s doing the whole lot. (Headteacher, 279, May 2005)

Several schools had a policy of monitoring TAs’ roles, their strengths, weaknesses and working preferences, particularly in relation to the ages of the children with whom they worked. They were then placed according to this information as well as to teachers’ perspectives and requests. Teachers thought appropriate placing to be crucial to TAs’ job satisfaction and viewed good relationships between TAs and teachers as very important. Such relationships were dependent on a combination of the TA’s skills and confidence in meeting the expectations of their role and compatible personalities. One head of a small school (30 pupils) emphasised this: “In a small school, probably even more than in a big school, personalities make a difference. You know it just does.” Few disadvantages of working with TAs were cited but, when they were, these were related to personal traits and conflicting values; as examples, two of the teachers’ comments were: “I’m the youngest in the school and asking things of older people was difficult for me at the beginning”; “Disadvantages — to be quite honest, when you have an outspoken assistant who tells you how to do your job.”

Most teachers, through good fortune, request or a shared understanding built up over time felt that they had good relationships with their TAs. They often commented on how their TAs intuitively knew what they needed and were able to anticipate tasks: She is just brilliant. She is ace. Actually she is quite perceptive with me as well.

She will say, “do you want me to go do so, so and so?” and it is “oh yeah, thank you”. She is reading me before I actually think of it in my head, if you understand what I am saying, because you have got one hundred and one things going on.

(Acting deputy head, 280, Feb 2004)

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However, a few teachers that had moved from schools with little TA provision to their present schools where they were given TA support, admitted to finding it difficult initially to work cooperatively. It took time to adjust to sharing the class and aspects of teaching with TAs and delegating responsibilities to them: I think when I first came to this school I wasn’t used to having any support because I’d been in a very small school and we had one nursery nurse to share between the whole school so we ended up with about an hour a week. I found it difficult when I came here because I was so used to doing everything myself and I found it hard to delegate. I must admit I resented them coming in and taking on this role. I felt very alienated with classroom assistants. Certainly, after the first year and last year I’ve found the advantages have been quite wide really; training them up to assess children when you are trying to teach others — they now do more highly skilled jobs than were thought of a few years ago. Also changing books and listening to children read, which are things you can’t do because of literacy hour. The advantages certainly outweigh the disadvantages in my eyes. (Year 1/2 teacher, 408, Nov 2003)

Since the expansion of the TA role, teachers in the sample schools have had to change aspects of their classroom practice in order to appreciate fully the benefits TAs can bring.

Supporting pupils with SEN TA support for pupils with SEN was drawn from both LEA and school provision.

However, increasingly schools preferred to control their own SEN provision as this enabled greater flexibility of TA deployment. For example, a headteacher described how the school (566 pupils) initially subscribed to the LEA’s provision for children on School Action Plus, which entitled them to TA support all day Tuesday. However, this necessarily shaped timetabling for the whole school and, because of the timetable for the classes from which the pupils were withdrawn, these children were missing the same lessons each week. Having their own SEN support at the school meant this no longer happened. Funding and controlling such support also enabled schools to provide a programme of TA training and gave more job security for both the TAs and the school: I realised that what was happening was I was spending a lot of money training up support staff but once the child with the additional needs left school I was losing them because they were dropping off the end. The LEA was holding that money, so the year that the authority delegated the money directly to school I changed it completely. I stopped the contracts for those working as special needs assistants and I redeployed them all as classroom assistants full time. If the money coming in for the special needs child was for 15 hours I put that into the school budget and topped it up from the school budget to make up the full-time equivalent and there’s one lady per class now. (Headteacher, 220, Oct 2004)

A school becoming known for providing good SEN support brought in more children with SEN, including those who had experienced difficulties elsewhere.

While on the one hand this was perceived as detrimental to the achievement of high SAT results, on the other hand, if children brought the extra funding, this provided more TAs and contributed to improved teaching and learning.

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As part of their role in supporting children with SEN, TAs: ■

gave individual pupils one-to-one support

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explained tasks

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further differentiated tasks by providing additional resources and support to meet the needs of individual children

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helped pupils to remain on task

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improved pupil motivation and self esteem

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encouraged and reinforced positive behaviour.

Typically, TAs took small, lower ability sets during literacy and numeracy lessons in the morning; in the afternoon they worked with individual children on IEP targets.

TAs who provided one-to-one assistance for pupils with SEN frequently did so within the classroom situation and supported other children at the same time: For the child with behavioural problems I have someone every single morning and three afternoons a week and that’s fantastic because he’s doing so well. She can work with another group and one of his targets is that he is gradually less supported but she’s there just in case. The other two children have someone for English every day and again that’s good. I think there’s a lot of support for me seeing as I have such a small class but it goes with the pupils. If they were just of low ability I probably wouldn’t get support but it’s been great. (Year 6 teacher, 130, Nov 2003)

TA support for pupils with SEN, particularly those with behavioural problems, was viewed as advantageous for the pupils themselves as well as saving time and reducing stress for teachers. As expressed by a teacher working in an area of social and economic disadvantage, the role of TAs was viewed as crucial both for behaviour management and to facilitate pupil learning: I couldn’t do without a teaching assistant. Last year for a period of time I was without a TA because my assistant had to go to another class and it was extremely difficult. We have very, very challenging children, both academically and behaviourally and so I find that, without a teaching assistant, I couldn’t do half my teaching because of either behaviour problems or problems with learning. (Year 4 teacher, 180, Dec 2004)

One headteacher of a primary school with a SEN base consisting of two classes spoke of how the 13 TAs were so vital that the school could not function as effectively without them. Consequently, when there was TA absence she employed supply TAs: We always cover our TA in the two base classes and in reception. If a TA is away and the teacher says, “Oh I really needed her today”, we have got two supply TAs on our books … and we are the envy of a lot of schools. We use our budget wisely, I think, and because of that our TAs input ever so much more because they feel valued … We treat them like teachers, they are respected like teachers by the kids.

(Headteacher, 185, June 2003)

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As illustrated earlier, where schools had HLTAs they often provided particular support to the SENCO by overseeing other TAs providing SEN support, coordinating IEPs and assisting with other paperwork: I act as SENCO for the school. My higher level teaching assistant does the paperwork associated with that but purely because of the difficulty or the nature of a lot of the case conferences I act as SENCO because I’ll be representing the school for those. But my higher level teaching assistant is excellent at coordinating the IEPs and everything around school. (Headteacher, 220, Oct 2004)

Providing in-class teaching support Often the TAs who provided one-to-one support for SEN pupils were also employed to provide general classroom assistance, support for the teacher and curriculum support: We have approximately one [TA] per year group. We have got two classes per year group but those people have to deliver the statutory provision to our three statements and they are also the same people who are delivering the support groups. They are in a year group class for approximately 14 hours a week so that is 7 hours per class in a week. When numeracy was a big focus for us we changed it so that every lesson had a numeracy assistant in it as another way of trying to push it. Then, as the focus came away from the numeracy, the staff had the freedom to say, “I would like somebody in for these lessons” and we try to organise it.

(Deputy head, 450, Nov 2004)

Teachers routinely referred to the benefits to themselves of having TAs in the classroom: ■

“they make life easier”

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“for the running around”

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“two pairs of eyes is better”

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“more bodies in classrooms to help out”

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“more input is better”

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“spreading the workload”

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“someone to discuss things with”.

The benefits given for pupils’ learning were predominantly the additional explanations and help with, and immediate feedback on, tasks which TAs gave groups and individuals. However, by far the most frequently mentioned benefit for children was that TAs were able to listen and talk to individual children whereas teachers had insufficient time: “Just having somebody to sit down and talk to, they don’t go home and sit down and talk at home”; “Children want somebody to listen to them and with the best will in the world if you are a teacher with 30 children you can’t”; “Just to have somebody else there to listen to them when they’re talking about something for 10 to 15 minutes, rather than you all the time, because they could take up all your time.”

In our research a decade ago — and echoed in other subsequent studies (eg Osborn et al., 2000) — the pressure to cover lesson content combined with ever expanding workloads was drastically reducing the time teachers felt that

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they had to devote to developing relationships with individual children. This situation clearly has not changed and TAs are now supplementing and/or substituting for teachers in listening, encouraging, mentoring and counselling individual pupils. It is therefore clearly important that the burgeoning responsibilities of TAs do not put them in a position where they also feel unable to give pupils sufficient personal attention.

Classroom assistance frequently took the form of supporting the teacher in whole-class teaching, working with groups within the classroom and sometimes, especially in small schools, team teaching the whole class.

When a teacher was taking the whole class, the TA sometimes sat with the individuals or groups most likely to disrupt the lesson in order to reduce distractions. Alternatively, the TA sat with quiet or less confident pupils, or those of lower ability, and helped them make contributions to the lesson or drew the teacher’s attention to their responses. Teachers accustomed to working closely with their TAs developed a preferred teaching style that was dependent on the TA’s participation and found it difficult to teach effectively without them: Last week she wasn’t so well and she was away and it was a shock. It was like having your arm chopped off. Right in the middle of a lesson you don’t think and you look for reassurance from your support assistant. You question one another like a role play during the lesson. (Year 4/5 teacher, 159, Dec 2003)

As illustrated above, teachers and TAs often formed a “double act” to present material to children, repeating or rephrasing each other’s questions, making comments on information and drawing children into the discussion. In one middle school a TA produced a PowerPoint presentation for a Year 4 geography lesson, comparing the village where the school was situated with Chembakolli in India. The teacher gave the presentation and the TA sat to one side. They both discussed the slides and elicited pupils’ opinions on a range of issues, writing comments and questions on the interactive whiteboard over the slides and encouraging children to come out and do likewise.

TAs’ contribution to supporting groups of children, which were often those of lower ability, overlapped with TA provision for children with SEN. It predominantly involved: ■

supporting children’s written work

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developing children’s oracy skills

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providing resources for the lesson

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feeding back to teachers how individuals and groups had coped with the work

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assessing pupils

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supervising ICT use.

Teachers in small schools viewed TAs as particularly valuable because they enabled them to differentiate work for the pupils in their mixed-age, mixed-ability

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classes and give additional support to pupils with SEN. The following two descriptions illustrate how teachers and TAs team-taught classes comprised of two or more year groups: In a maths lesson say, you would do the mental starter and during the mental starter she [the TA] tends to take individual children out that need a bit of extra, perhaps some tables or just counting. We have got one or two with special needs that need this daily sort of practice on a one to one. Then generally for the main part of the lesson, if I start with the Year 3/4s and move onto work with the Year 5/6s then she would be supporting the Year 3/4s and making sure that I don’t get disturbed. So she is supporting them during their work, or it may be the opposite in that I ask her to support the Year 5/6s while I then come back to the Year 3/4s, and maybe recap what they have been learning in that lesson and sort of do a plenary session with them. (KS2 teacher, 30, March 2004) She usually works with one age group so it means that you can home in on catering for the needs of that age group. I plan the work and she delivers it. I mark it and we discuss together where we are moving onto, because obviously I need to see how the lesson went and I plan the next session’s work for her. Throughout the year we swap so she has worked with both age groups and so have I. (Year 3/4 teacher, 70, June 2003)

This arrangement was considered to work extremely well except when the two groups proved a distraction to each other because they were involved in separate activities in a confined space. Such flexible ways of working with TAs meant that small schools could use them to provide PPA time. For example, the head of a school with 108 pupils described how she and a TA had both been trained to teach first aid. Next term the TA was going to teach this to small groups of KS2 children who would work towards achieving a certificate in first aid. As there were 70 children in the three KS2 classes, when the TA took a group out, this enabled two of the KS2 teachers to team-teach the children with the other TAs and provide the third teacher with PPA time.

TAs often supervised an ICT component to a lesson, sometimes working in another room or a corridor bay. Also, as discussed in the previous chapter, a small minority of schools had designated ICT assistants: I’ve an ICT assistant who works full time and supports class computer work. What happens is the class will go to the ICT room, the teacher explains the task to all the children, they go back to their classroom, she splits them into a manageable-sized working group and says, “Right, go to the ICT room and do that task”…. the ICT assistant picks them up and makes sure that task’s done. Then they go back and the next 10 go along and it works very effectively. (Headteacher, 220, Oct 2004)

Teachers also used TAs in a range of other ways to support class activities. For example, TAs worked with children doing activities in which they might hurt themselves. As a class teacher explained: “Like at the moment we are cutting out Christmas cards, they are using Stanley knives and you can’t have a lot of children doing that at once so we have two or three children with a support assistant.” TAs were also invaluable to teachers when children were doing 82

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complex practical activities or ones with the potential for making a mess of the classroom, and when they took children out of school on visits: We are making money containers for Christmas and… you are hairless if you try and do it yourself. You know you plan around it [the TA allocation] and I think it is a balance. I would say that half the time they are preparing the stuff that you need and the rest of the time they are supporting you in what you are doing. Going on school trips and things like that, all that has to be taken into account because we can’t pay them to do it, so you just have to think, “Well I will save my time up [with the TA] and can you come on the trip with us”. It is times like that when they are really, really valuable. (Year 4 teacher, 391, Oct 2004)

TAs’ specialist skills and knowledge were also used to contribute to extracurricular school activities, for example a TA in a small school who was an accomplished musician led the production of the Christmas concert and the musical aspects of other whole-school plays and performances.

Lesson planning Smith, P. et al. (2004) found that the main difficulty adversely affecting teachers and TAs working cooperatively was lack of time to plan and prepare together for lessons. A minority of the teachers we interviewed, particularly where they shared a TA with other teachers, only managed to brief TAs in snatched time.

This was usually just before the start of the lesson which limited the ways in which they could be deployed: We don’t have a chance to plan with them. Usually once I am on an activity then we sort of share the support around. We will both do the same things and I don’t often specifically set them up with a group. I do sometimes. I might say, “Please can you sit with that group and support them on this activity”. Otherwise we will both go around the classroom and I get my assistant to mark, write in their books, give them smiley faces and so they are on a sort of par with me at that point, after having listened to the initial input. Often I will just catch them before a lesson and say...

“Can you take them out and do this activity with them for the first 10 minutes of the lesson whilst I am doing some more mental work?” (Year 5 teacher, 470, Oct 2003)

Similarly, lack of time for discussion between teachers and TAs also meant that feedback on the progress of individuals and groups on the tasks set was passed on through brief exchanges at the end of lessons. However, most teachers had an agreed time for shared planning with TAs, even though this was often considered insufficient. For example, in several schools TAs started work at 8.30am in order to be briefed by teachers, who in varying degrees of detail went through the work they had planned with them: I’ve got a teaching assistant from 9 till 12, so Monday morning we’ll go through the planning and what we’re doing … she has a teaching group and so sometimes she will take her group out and sometimes she will stay in. Usually we do the input all together and she will take her group out or sometimes she just takes them out straight away and does the teaching for that group, and I make sure that I have that group at least once a week so that I don’t lose touch with them, and we swop over like that. (Year 4 teacher, 180, Dec 2004)

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Ofsted (2002b) has drawn attention to the fact that extensive TA support for particular groups, usually of lower ability, can lead to SEN pupils seldom receiving teaching and individual support from the teacher. Heightened awareness of this issue led some teachers, like the one quoted above, to ensure that they regularly exchanged groups with TAs in order to monitor the needs and progress of all the children in the class through direct contact. In addition to discussing plans in advance, some teachers also provided the TAs with a list of the days’ activities “so that they know what the purpose is, what we are aiming to achieve and who will be doing what, and when we will be doing it — then they have got a clear overview”. Particularly in relation to planning, TAs were generally regarded as both saving work and creating it. As the KS2 teacher in a small school of 33 pupils explained, while she spent large amounts of time planning the teaching of the TA who worked with her four days a week, without her assistance she would still have had to do considerable additional planning in order to cater for the wide range of ages and abilities in her KS2 class.

Intervention strategies Ofsted’s (2002b) evaluation of the work of TAs found that the training they were undertaking in how to support literacy and numeracy was “improving significantly their knowledge of these subjects and how they are taught” (p.1).

In the majority of our sample schools TAs had been trained for and become involved in delivering and/or leading one or more of a range of intervention programmes particularly in literacy, such as Additional Literacy Support (ALS), Early Literacy Support (ELS), Further Literacy Support (FLS), Better Reading and Talking Partners. As one deputy head explained, this gave TAs considerable extra responsibility that teachers were unaccustomed to TAs exercising. As these initiatives came on stream in quick succession, teachers were not necessarily familiar with what they involved. Schools had not always got systems in place for monitoring this work, linking it to children’s individual targets and keeping class teachers informed. As a result to begin with: The initiatives were all over the place, we didn’t have any tracking of who had done what initiative and some of the teachers weren’t expecting to take seriously the work that the support staff had done. So they might do better reading or nine recovery levels but when the children went back to class the class teacher would still be letting them read at the previous level. So a lot of the support staff felt very undervalued because they were doing a good job. (Deputy head, 564, June 2003)

However, this issue had been addressed over time by ensuring that TAs and class teachers shared knowledge of participating children’s achievement levels, enabling them to decide jointly on what needed to be done to get individuals to the next level.

Where TAs led such intervention strategies, headteachers generally praised their skills and commitment:

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Now two of the staff have actually been trained for doing this … and they have taken great pride in actually doing it [the intervention work]. To the point, and it was even their suggestion, that we couldn’t find time in the timetable so they said, “Can we not do it at dinner time?” and “Could we do 15 minutes at dinner time for that and actually bring them out of the lesson for 15 minutes so that we have got a half hour slot?” The reason for it is that last year we identified six children that we thought are not going to achieve level four. We decided that they would be the six that we target and out of those six, five of them got level four. Now that gave the support staff such a buzz that they have actually got a Year 6 group and a Year 5 group because they want to do an extended input themselves. (Headteacher, 113, Feb 2005)

Administrative tasks Ofsted (2002b) warns schools of the need to make sure that, as the amount of learning support provided by TAs increases, “there is no reduction in the administrative, practical and welfare support that they have traditionally provided” (p.4). Certainly, the growing complexity of TAs’ roles could cause such a reduction as was the experience of a Year 5/6 teacher who explained that, while her TA the previous year used to do administrative tasks, particularly photocopying: “My present TA hasn’t got time because she is also our speech and language assistant so she is preparing her own work and she has no free time to give to me.” However, the majority of teachers appeared satisfied with the classroom and teaching assistance provided by the TAs allocated to work with them. Often TAs also helped teachers by taking on specific administrative tasks that were closely allied to the classroom support they provided. For example, one teacher described how her workload had been reduced by her TA taking responsibility for facilitating and recording home reading: She also runs, more or less by herself and she consults with me, the home reading side — the books the children actually take home to read. She is the one who changes them and she is the one who, during the week, will hear them read as individuals at least once during the week to keep that going. She will be the one who monitors whether parents are hearing them read. If they are not, she will tell me and we will do something about it, so she has a very, very valuable role. It is something I would find very difficult with all the other jobs I am trying to juggle and I know that I can rely on her and trust her to do that very competently. (Deputy head, 250, July 2004)

In a small minority of schools TAs were also used to collect data to inform staff monitoring and understanding of aspects of their teaching. For example, in one primary school (226 pupils) the head explained how a TA studying for her HND had produced a highly informative piece of research on circle time, and this had alerted him to their potential to contribute to action research in the school. Consequently, they were being used to collect data for teachers on the nature of the teachers’ closed and open questions, and on the language and strategies they used to positively reinforce pupil behaviour and improve motivation for learning.

Our fieldwork coincided with the implementation in 2003 of the first phase of the national agreement involving the delegation of the 24 administrative tasks.

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In the minority of schools where little or no progress had been made in relieving teachers of these tasks, they were sceptical as to whether it might ever happen and concerned that, if TAs were deployed to carry out the tasks, this would adversely affect the time that they had for supporting children’s learning: I would just love to know where this time’s coming from, I really would. I cannot in all honesty see that I’m going to take my classroom assistants away from working with children to go and do all my display, or to stand there doing photocopying. They need somebody extra to do that. I don’t want to have to decide between the two.

It’s wrong to take it away from the children. (Literacy coordinator, 131, March 2004)

By the 2004 visits, the majority of schools had put strategies in place to relieve teachers of these tasks. However, a few heads commented that teachers had chosen to use the extra TA help given them to reduce workload to instead provide additional support for children: “Staff are dreadful; you give them all TA time and they just use it to help the children, which is wonderful, rather than let the TA do displays and things — so there’s quite a dilemma.”

Headteachers reported how teachers were now provided with considerable extra administrative help, as is illustrated in the following two descriptions: I mean the classroom assistants do an awful lot: collecting money, contacting parents if the children aren’t in on time. We have a display team who will actually rotate around the school saying, “Is there something you need doing and updating”.

Working with small groups, changing books, photocopying, laminating — they do all of that. The staff will simply say, “Right, I have got a plan. I have left it on your desk. Would you mind doing that for us as I would like it by next week if possible?”

They have taken an awful lot of that on board. (Headteacher, 113, Feb 2005) We’ve introduced a PA [personal assistant] for the teachers, so one of our teaching assistants does two hours a day, every day, of anything teachers want. It can be phoning up, ordering goods, photocopying, filing resources — you name it, she does it.… One of the other teaching assistants has taken over the money, so there’s a post box and the children post their money in an envelope in the post box and the teaching assistant takes it out and checks it off.… And the teaching assistants do all the sort of — typical stuff for primary schools — ticking off lists of children who’ve brought in their photos and children who haven’t filled in a form, so we’re not doing badly. (Headteacher, 249, June, 2004)

Notwithstanding their complaints about workload, for a variety of reasons teachers did not always choose to make use of the TA help provided. During the course of the fieldwork many teachers were observed doing some photocopying, usually before school or during breaks. The reasons given were generally that asking a TA to do it required advance planning and the photocopying was required that day, and/or it would take too long to explain or write instructions. For example, one teacher, who was observed briefly leaving a TA overseeing the class while she did some photocopying, was asked whether she would usually leave the TA with the class rather than ask her to do the photocopying:

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Yes, she does do jobs for me. You know she backed some boards this week, she has cut out some lettering for me, but it is like I say… for the bit of photocopying that I was doing I was taking three different sheets and chopping them up and rearranging them. So by the time I could explain to her what I wanted her to do, it was quicker to do it myself. (Deputy head, 250, July 2004)

As well as considering it was often quicker and easier to do a task rather than explain it to a TA, the slowness with which some TAs accomplished tasks was also given as a disincentive: We have done a whole corridor in Year 4 with cave paintings that the kids have done and she backed all those, but that is all she did for the week. I am actually finding that because of the speed that she works at, I am now doing my own photocopying because she just doesn’t get things done. She is too slow so if you are relying on something you are in trouble. (Deputy head, 580, Jan 2004)

Furthermore, the willingness to delegate tasks was often linked to confidence in the TA’s ability to carry them out. This was particularly in relation to putting up displays, a task that teachers both enjoyed doing and that was seen as an integral part of the teaching process: I can’t imagine a primary school teacher not doing display. That is part of your teaching and learning because it’s not just displaying the children’s good work; it’s a display for teaching purposes, so it’s part of your teaching to do it. I couldn’t imagine why I wouldn’t do that. (Year 6 teacher, 470, Oct 2003)

However, some teachers admitted they needed to be better organised to be able to identify in advance appropriate tasks to delegate.

Increasingly schools were offering facilities and clubs out of school hours; for example, one school in a very disadvantaged area offered a breakfast club on a Monday and Friday morning and two TAs came in at 8am on those days to run it. TAs were viewed by headteachers as able to play a very valuable role in such extended day activities. However, depending on the extent to which schools received additional funding for these, TAs’ participation could be at the expense of supporting children and teachers during school time. Consequently as one head, whose school provided extended school activities owing to its involvement in an Education Action Zone, speculated: I think we’ve got to start looking at whether teaching assistants and teachers need to be working at the same time all the time. A lot of schools have got into provision after half past three — targeting children who need additional support and using classroom teaching assistants in that role to give children sort of basic support then, and enable them during the day not to be deprived of the broad curriculum.

(Headteacher, 185, Oct 2004)

If TAs are used to enable schools to engage in more activities than they could otherwise do, then arguably not only could cooperative working between TAs and teachers start to decrease and recent gains for children and teachers be

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lost, but staff generally could find themselves facing greater, rather than reduced, workloads.

Teaching the whole class Smith, P. et al. (2004) reported that 55% of headteachers and 58% of teachers felt that teaching assistants never provided whole-class cover in the absence of a teacher, while 38% of headteachers and 32% of teachers felt that TAs were occasionally asked to provide cover. They found this contrasted with the view of TAs as 50% of them claimed to provide cover occasionally.

However, according to the TAs in their study, the circumstances leading to such cover were predominantly: while a teacher deals with an incident elsewhere (85%); and unplanned teacher absence (49%). Generally these findings reflect the situation described to us. For example, in a small school (33 pupils) on the morning of the fieldwork, the teacher who normally took science in KS2 was away and the TA, who was accustomed to supporting the class during science, took the lesson that the teacher had planned.

In small schools the culture of team teaching by teachers and TAs gradually evolved into TAs occasionally teaching a whole class. Teachers were comfortable with this and believed pupils benefited from the TAs’ skills. For example, in one small school the TA took Year 5/6 children for art: On a Wednesday afternoon it is a whole Key Stage 2 art afternoon except for small computer groups which he [Year 5/6 teacher] withdraws from. The children rotate so they all get an intense computer session. Even though he is officially the teacher, he is working with say six children on the computers in the big classroom. How it has evolved is she [the TA] works totally with the Year 5 and 6 children in the big classroom and does the art work, and I work in here. I plan it all and we discuss it, but she delivers it and does all the teaching in there for art under no direct supervision because I am in here and he is busy doing his computing…. She has got a very good eye for art and it is very beneficial to us. I would say it is a positive.

She likes doing it because I am sure it gives her job satisfaction and I think that she gets good results from the older children. She really gets the best out of them. I think that she is more artistic probably than I am and she draws on that strength.

(Year 3/4 teacher, 70, June 2003)

It was interesting that the headteacher of the small school referred to above, while full of praise for the work and commitment of the TAs, was adamant they should not take classes to release teachers. Perhaps because of the flexible way in which staff worked, she did not view the TA as fulfilling a whole-class teaching role. Maybe the fact that the teacher of the Year 5/6 class was also teaching, albeit engrossed in teaching another subject, meant that the TA was not regarded as being in charge of the class. An alternative explanation, and one that seems to underpin teachers’ understandings generally of whether or not a TA is teaching a whole class, is that a TA delivering a lesson planned by a teacher is “delivering” not teaching. In the above scenario the Year 3/4 teacher planned the art work that the TA delivered.

A few headteachers in the sample, who did ask TAs to teach a whole class,

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made use of a TA’s particular subject or cross-curricular expertise. For example, a TA in one school who had undertaken a considerable amount of training in philosophy for children taught the reception class one afternoon a week.

Releasing teachers for PPA time The majority of teachers in this study totally disagreed with the notion that TAs might take whole classes on a regular basis to release teachers for PPA time.

They viewed it as devaluing their professionalism: When it comes to asking classroom assistants to teach, I do not agree. I think that devalues me as a teacher if a classroom assistant can come in and take my class without any training…. We’re not being fair to the kids. These people do not have the skills and experience to teach in the way they should be taught, so we’re shortchanging children when staff are off. It’s teaching on the cheap and we’re not being fair to them. They’re doing a teaching job for half my salary and, no, I can’t agree with that. It’s happening, and it will happen more and more, but I can’t agree with that. (Year 3 teacher, 647, July 2005)

Whole-class teaching by TAs was characterised as “second-rate teaching”: They are very good at what they do but there’s a world of difference between doing what they do and taking a class. I mean, they are wholly unqualified and unequipped to do that and I think it would be detrimental to them as professionals, detrimental to the children and detrimental to the whole school because if it’s not done right … it’s going to create catastrophic problems. (Deputy head, 329, Nov 2003)

Deciding which aspects of teaching were the least important from a teachers’ perspective and therefore could be delegated to TAs caused considerable debate: I just feel it would be very difficult for me, and I am on the remodelling committee by the way and I have the greatest respect for the classroom assistants, but I think that it would be very difficult for me to spend an afternoon out of the classroom and not know what went on. It is not like a supply teacher where you know that it is a oneoff and you will be back in tomorrow and that is okay. I mean what would I leave for them to do? What is not important? Some people have said circle time — to me that is probably the most important time in my week! Okay there is one [TA] who is very keen on music and so I will give them the music session for the week, but what do I know about them musically? … So I think that it is very difficult and I can’t see it happening. (Year 4 teacher, 391, Oct 2004)

The value of having PPA time was generally regarded by teachers as likely to be offset by the planning, preparation and marking generated by the TAs’ lessons. On their return to the classroom, they also anticipated difficulties arising from inadequate discipline: They were saying about reducing workload by having a CSA [classroom support assistant] or somebody different, but you still have to prepare the lessons. So if you have spent the time preparing them then you want to do them. You will still have the marking to do. They are going to give you an hour off but you will be doing a lot

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more work anyway. Then there is a discipline problem and I don’t think that the CSAs can handle a class; the children aren’t going to see them as teachers being able to look after the whole class. If it is just them baby minding, doing a task that is so easy that they don’t need to be taught, then there is no point in them doing it anyway. (Science coordinator, 566, June 2003)

There were exceptions to teachers’ generally negative response to TAs taking classes. In the two schools where TAs were openly acknowledged to take classes occasionally, this was not viewed as a problem. Moreover, because of their knowledge of the children and the school they were perceived as preferable to supply teachers for providing staff cover: If I go sometimes on a course on an afternoon, she’s done it [taken the lesson]. Or if I’ve had to be called out because sometimes I’m the named teacher in charge and I’ve had to go out of the classroom and just left her and she’s been fine. … I wouldn’t say at first she would have been confident in doing it but as she’s gone on, she is now confident, maybe because we’ve had that class, this is the second year. It’s better having a classroom assistant who knows the children teaching them or taking over, instead of getting a supply teacher in sometimes, because the supply teacher does not know the children and the children will play them….

Whereas with her they won’t because they know she’s like me; she works similar to me now and she won’t stand for any nonsense. (Year 4 teacher, 220, Oct 2004)

In discussing the potential role of teaching assistants, 27 of the 50 headteachers specifically addressed the issue of whether teaching assistants should be able to teach whole classes. Fifteen thought that they should not, 6 felt they should and 6 were unsure, giving reasons both for and against. Those headteachers who were against the notion of TAs being used to provide PPA time held similar views to those expressed by teachers: A teaching assistant cannot take the place of a teacher and teach whole classes.

I find that… I think that is taking away the professionalism of the teacher and it is degrading isn’t it? No… degrading is not the word I mean… lowering the role of the teacher… It is outrageous to think that teachers have three years training to be a teacher and people think you can just put a teaching assistant without any training in front of a whole class and they can teach them – No! (Headteacher, 70, Dec 2003)

However, in the two schools with experience of TAs taking classes, headteachers perceived TAs providing cover for PPA time as unproblematic: Remodelling the workforce to be absolutely honest has not been an issue in this school because we have a really outstanding team of support assistants [nine TAs]. When we looked in the art room, neither of the two members of staff in there are teachers; both of them are classroom assistants. When we looked at the display of wheeled vehicles on the wall and we looked at the masks, all those displays were put up by support assistants; they weren’t put up by teachers.

(Headteacher, 280, Feb 2004)

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categorised as unsure could see both positive and negative sides to giving TAs such additional responsibility: The majority of teachers are very good but we will have at least one or two teachers, no more than two, who are not as good as one or two teaching assistants. So the gap, divide between the two, is diminishing and the teaching assistants are all very keen and very enthusiastic and have a lot to offer. … It is not totally negative and I can see positives and I can see some value in what the teaching assistants are currently doing; some have more skills to offer than they are actually doing. To some extent you are looking at a model almost like an apprentice, where the person is learning the job actually in situ as opposed to being … The problem being is how much theory are we going to provide, have we got the time and have we got the skills to do that and probably the answer is no.

(Headteacher, 315, Feb 2005)

However, those headteachers thought they might decide to use TAs if, for financial reasons, that was the most feasible option for providing PPA time. While they could conceive of using TAs to release teachers of the younger children, they thought it might be impractical in KS2, particularly in Years 5 and 6, “because whilst the younger children will accept and work for teaching assistants, the older children will see it as ‘soft soap’ time because they have not been used to it”.

When headteachers were specifically asked how they proposed to implement the PPA time from October 2005, the most common heads’ response was that they could not see how it could be done without the government making available extra resources. However, a few heads had either already implemented PPA time or had clear plans to do so. Various solutions were planned to provide PPA time that did not involve TAs taking whole classes, such as appointing an extra teacher to provide cover: When we saw the way the land lies, we decided that we would employ another teacher. The other reason for that was that we feel in a middle class area like this, it’s going to go down better with the parents if somebody who is teaching their children all the time is a qualified teacher. I think some schools will always have resistance, particularly in areas like this, if parents get the idea that somebody’s just been dropped in who’s not properly qualified. (Headteacher, 328, July 2005)

The most common solutions planned, with some schools intending to use a combination of two or more of these, were: ■

bringing in extra specialist staff (such as music, PE/sport, art) to take a class or classes together

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the head taking classes to release teachers

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appointing new teachers

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using existing staff in a different manner (eg combining classes to make larger groups for some sessions)

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using supply cover.

In only 6 of the 50 schools were there plans for TAs to provide PPA time which were dependent on one or more TAs achieving HLTA status:

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Two of our teaching assistants have been assessed as higher level teaching assistants and in September they are going to be responsible for releasing teachers for PPA time. So two of them are doing 16 hours…. One in Key Stage 1 and one in Key Stage 2, both comfortable with the areas that they are going to teach. Jill has worked in Key Stage 1 for the five years that she has been here and she is very confident with the children she is going to be working with. Sonia is going to work with Key Stage 2 children. She is going to work mainly with literacy because that is her strength. She operates a lot of our programmes at the moment, our special needs programmes, so she is very into literacy. She will mainly be doing literacy, but two sessions of RE. ….Our teachers are very, very happy and having the HLTAs doesn’t worry them at all. (Headteacher, 391, May 2005) She is actually training to be a high level assistant and the assessor is coming in next week to assess her. Now I think that she will definitely get it and so that means I could use her to actually help with classes … as long as the teacher has planned the work. (Headteacher, 218, Jan 2004)

One headteacher, while outlining her strategy for introducing the use of TAs to provide PPA time, shared the belief held by the majority of headteachers who were against the notion that this was in conflict with the drive to raise standards: I was anxious to maintain standards of teaching and learning and I do profess that it is “maintain” standards. I don’t see how you can raise standards of teaching and learning when you are asking to bring in people who haven’t had three years training and haven’t unpacked the QCAs and done everything. I don’t know, but “maintain”: I think that is a reasonable objective. I’ve written a development plan and done observations in the afternoons and there’s been one or two issues coming out, but they’re not issues that I wouldn’t perhaps see in an NQT. They’re just developmental and some training may be needed, perhaps, in just basic skeletal knowledge of why we structure things in objective-led ways because they are still task orientated. (Headteacher, 279, May 2005)

The headteacher quoted above explained how, through discussion with the governors, teachers and TAs, she had drawn up a plan whereby TAs had detailed job descriptions, were paid accordingly and could benefit from interesting and varied work, giving them career progression while contributing to reducing teacher workload and providing PPA time. Whereas parental responses to TAs teaching classes were a concern to headteachers who viewed the prospect negatively, she had kept parents involved with developments and did not anticipate any parental dissent: Parents have been informed as soon as we had somebody who achieved HLTA. I have written and we have congratulated them in the newsletter. So it is high profile and after the holiday I am writing to the parents to give them more detail as to what will be happening in September and we will give them the opportunity if they need to ask more questions about it. Now because those two people have worked with children at our school the parents know them. They know how highly regarded they are. I can’t see anybody who would say, “Why is our child being educated by a HLTA and not a teacher?” (Headteacher, 391, May 2005)

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TA qualifications and training In the 50 schools, the TAs had a wide range of qualifications derived from LEAaccredited TA training courses, City and Guild Certificates in Learning Support, Specialist Teacher Assistant (STA) courses, National Vocational Qualifications levels 2 and 3, based on the national occupational standards for TAs developed by the Local Government National Training Organisation and the TDA standards for HLTA status. One outcome of the workforce remodelling agenda was that TAs’ qualifications were recognised and encouraged by headteachers. However, it was acknowledged that not all TAs wanted to study and to make a career of their work: We have got a highly motivated, highly trained set of teaching assistants in the school. The one who left wanted more hours, but only as a classroom assistant and she knew that she couldn’t do that, but there were many more specific jobs to be given to people and so she didn’t want to train any more. So it was by mutual agreement that she decided the job had changed so much and she didn’t want to do that job. She had been here for 15 years and loved it, but the job had changed and so now we only have highly trained people. (Headteacher, 108, June 2003)

If, in the future, schools increasingly seek only to employ highly trained TAs to contribute directly to teaching and learning, this could reduce the provision by TAs of traditional practical classroom support for teachers, and even encroach on administrative assistance with the 24 tasks.

Generally headteachers spoke very positively about growth in knowledge and skills that TAs had acquired through their training. They were particularly supportive of those using the role as a career path into teaching, with several headteachers pointing out teachers who had first come to their schools in support roles and identifying TAs who were working towards becoming teachers. However, headteachers raised three main concerns. First, if in the future schools sought to appoint TAs who already had qualifications rather than, as traditionally had been the case, recruiting them from keen and able parent volunteers, this would deny such volunteers access to career opportunities. Second, putting TAs into a hierarchical structure was viewed as potentially divisive since the perception is that only qualifications were rewarded and not depth and breadth of expertise. Third, the growth of HLTAs who could take classes was regarded as likely to adversely affect the employment prospects of supply teachers.

Whether or not TAs received different levels of remuneration to reflect their qualifications varied from school to school and reflected the advice, or lack of it, from LEAs. The following two examples illustrate the differing practices seen during the research period. In a school of 566 pupils there were 14 TAs (2 per year group) who provided at least 5 hours support to each teacher. These TAs ranged from those with considerable experience but no qualifications to one TA who was a qualified teacher. However, in June 2003 they were all receiving the same level of pay. In another school (200 pupils) the HLTA was paid as an NQT for the two days she did HLTA work, and at the same rate as the other TAs A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S

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when providing general or SEN classroom support. If a teacher was absent and she covered their class, she claimed for the extra time at her HLTA rate.

In addition to undertaking training for specific qualifications, TAs went on courses to develop expertise in assisting children with particular learning and behavioural or emotional difficulties on topics such as first aid, health and safety and child protection, or on subjects of particular interest to them and their schools. As mentioned earlier, many TAs had been on LEA training to assist with the implementation of the NLS and the NNS. In the majority of schools training in literacy and numeracy had been consolidated by advice and/or further schoolbased training from literacy and/or numeracy coordinators. As pointed out by teachers, TAs also continually learned from the teachers they supported, who provided an ongoing form of training by modelling approaches to teaching: “It is important for them to listen to how you are teaching a lesson in maths so that they know then how to do the same with the children they are helping.”

Smith, P. et al. (2004) found that 39% of primary school TAs claimed they were always invited to whole-school training. In our sample schools some headteachers said they invited TAs to all staff meetings/training on a voluntary basis, anticipating that they would only attend those sessions of particular relevance to them and that the more committed or ambitious TAs would put in a more regular attendance. Generally heads felt that TAs were much more likely to attend school-based training than they had been in the past: They now come to things like whole school training — they’re very much part of the team. Hopefully we treat them the same as the teachers and they’re valued. There’s a lot of knowledge now. One of the TAs has probably got more knowledge of special needs than the teachers have, absolutely fantastic — and they’re so committed and loyal to the school. So we’re very lucky. (Headteacher, 155, July 2005)

Particularly in schools with a large number of part-time TAs (eg one large school of 430 pupils employed 17), it was extremely difficult to get them all together for training and too costly to pay them for other than specific TA meetings. Cost was a major constraint on involving TAs in whole-school training. As a result most schools identified a few meetings of particular value for TAs and for which they were prepared to pay them to attend: If I want non-teaching assistants to come then I have got to pay them for that day because their contracts are on so many hours. The things that we discuss in the staff meeting on training days and very often after school as well are curriculum things that wouldn’t always particularly involve all of the teaching assistants. So we do invite them to some meetings and not to others…. We have also got their line manager who is the senior admin. officer who has staff meetings with them. So now the senior admin. officer comes to the training day staff meeting where we look at the organisation and determine curriculum matters, and she then has a meeting with the teaching assistants and they go through the same things. (Headteacher, 580, Jan 2004)

A few schools addressed the issue of paying TAs for undertaking training by reducing their working hours in any week when time had been spent on school-based training.

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Some schools described how they were providing training specifically linked to workforce remodelling. For example, in one primary school the coordinators were cooperatively providing a series of workshops to give TAs ideas, practical hints and tips on producing displays of the quality required by teachers. In one of the schools where an HLTA was going to cover for PPA time, individual training was being provided on teaching RE: So for RE she has needed training and she has needed time with the RE coordinator to work through the programmes and the planning is all there. This week is her week of observation and she is in classes observing teachers, seeing what happens, how it is going to be, and in September when it starts we will need to just check and monitor that things are fine. (Headteacher, 391, May 2005)

Most schools had introduced performance management with “a fairly light touch”. This was more usually referred to as review or appraisal and was generally the responsibility of the deputy head, the key stage coordinators and/or HLTAs. In addition to enabling TAs to talk about their work and develop/evaluate their job descriptions, this provided an opportunity for them to discuss their training needs.

Conclusion The rapid expansion in the numbers and responsibilities of TAs, particularly in response to the government’s remodelling agenda, is bringing about a fundamental change in the culture of primary schools. Unlike a decade ago, support staff often outnumber teachers, considerably increasing the number of adults in the school community with whom both pupils and teachers can interact. TAs bring different and additional priorities, interests and expertise to primary teaching. It is now commonplace for primary teachers to share their classrooms for all or part of each day with one or more TAs, who contribute to whole-class teaching and work with individuals and groups.

Teachers perceive the support that TAs give pupils as promoting the latter’s self esteem, motivation and achievement. Increasingly they regard TAs’ contribution as crucial to effective classroom management and teaching. On the one hand, the work of TAs and teachers is viewed as becoming more interchangeable, with headteachers claiming their TAs are “treated like teachers” and “indistinguishable from teachers” when viewed in the classroom. On the other hand, the increased numbers of TAs in the classroom give teachers additional status as managers and demand of them new skills such as cooperation, delegation and mentoring. The workforce remodelling agenda is viewed both as a threat to teacher professionalism and as a means to enhance it by opening up new possibilities. As one deputy head expressed it: I am all for teaching assistants. They are a very under-used resource really and I think we are at the stage now that we are sort of visioning and saying: “We have got 12 teaching assistants; what do we really want and how are we going to use all this?” … “How are we going to do it?”, and it is actually quite liberating to think that we can change all of this now. So we are in an exciting phase really.

(Deputy head, 470, Oct 2003)

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THE PRIMARY NATIONAL STRATEGY In 2003 Excellence and enjoyment: A strategy for primary schools was published which appears to promise more autonomy for teachers over curriculum and pedagogy, and could be interpreted as signalling a change in the direction of government policy on primary education. It avows that “schools should feel empowered to develop their own rich and varied curricula” (DfES, 2003a, p.15) and that “a central message of this document is that teachers have the power to decide how they teach, and that the Government supports that” (p.16).

The impetus for the primary national strategy (PNS) can be explained by a growing sense of the failure of the standards agenda and a slowing down in the rate of improvement in literacy and numeracy (Brehony, 2005). At least some of this improvement was due to a Hawthorne effect (Earl et al., 2003) whereby increased attention leads to improvement irrespective of the nature of the innovation, and it became increasingly obvious that the government was not going to meet its ambitious targets. By 2004 the extent of that improvement claimed by government was coming under close scrutiny and being challenged (Tymms, 2004; Richards, 2005).

As outlined by Brehony (2005), pressure for a new policy direction was coming from a broad coalition that was against the emphasis on testing and qualifications, seeing this as detrimental to the development of the creativity and innovation required of a globalised knowledge-based economy. Hence the PNS calls for schools “to take control of their curriculum, and to be innovative” (DfES, 2003a, p.16). Such a knowledge-based economy was also viewed by those with influence on government policy, such as the Specialist Schools Trust (now the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust), as requiring individualised learning linked to ICT and assessment (Clarke, 2003). The PNS thus declares that “learning must be focused on individual pupils’ needs and abilities” and that “assessment for learning is a powerful tool for making sure that learning fits individual needs” (DfES, 2003a, p.39). Teachers’ improved use of assessment is to be achieved through the provision of data including the information provided through the Autumn Package (now updated by the Pupil Achievement Tracker) sent to schools.

However, much of the text of Excellence and enjoyment is devoted to reiterating the familiar messages of the standards agenda because “testing, targets and tables are here to stay” (p.20). In the foreword Charles Clarke, the then Secretary of State for Education, claims that “enjoyment” derived from “excellent teaching” is “the birthright of every child”. However, for him excellent teaching means the achievement of high standards in literacy and numeracy which “gives children the life chances they deserve”. Thus the intention of the PNS is to enrich the curriculum but not at the expense of the standards agenda. The focus on literacy and numeracy should remain and gains be built on by “developing the Strategies still further, and not losing sight of important fundamentals like the value of discrete literacy and mathematics teaching through the literacy hour and daily mathematics lesson” (p.27).

The views of teachers The PNS was generally welcomed by the teachers in our research as “a move 96

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in the right direction to get rid of all this narrowness in education” and to “put the fun back” into the primary curriculum. Regarded as a response to the negative effects of an overemphasis on the NLS and the NNS, the government was also perceived as “panicking” because attainment in literacy and numeracy was no longer improving. Teachers believed that ministers were now attributing this to the lack of spark and creativity in teaching that was resulting in “a level playing field whereby highly talented teachers were being brought down” and able pupils “being held back”. Consequently, teachers’ perceptions were that the government recognised creativity needed to be brought back into primary education: The strategies did focus people but it made them too compartmentalised. You knew what you had to do — you had to teach this, and this, and this, and you lost that flexibility and creativity. I think it's gone full circle. Creativity and flexibility are being valued now, and a lot of the constraints are being removed by the government because I think they've seen a lot was lost because of that. (Headteacher, 43, June 2004)

Curriculum change was regarded as vital to make primary schooling more enjoyable and to motivate both teachers and children. However, teachers had invested much time, energy and commitment into implementing the NLS and NNS and, as recorded in chapter two, these were widely perceived to have increased the effectiveness of teaching and improved pupil learning and motivation. Consequently, headteachers were concerned at the prospect of another major change of emphasis that might soon lead to the gains made being lost: I hope we don't lose the rigour. Everything seems to turn doesn't it? You know, we were bombarded with, first of all, the national curriculum and tests, then literacy and numeracy, the three-part lesson, everything being very automated in our responses and the way we teach. Then the government saw that wasn't delivering anyway, so they thought, perhaps if we made it a bit more interesting. So now we've got the primary strategy and we've got to be all singing, all dancing. We don't want performance tables —we don't want the pressure of that — but we do need the rigour. (Headteacher, 196, Nov 2004)

The PNS covers school policy and practice in relation to innovation and the standards agenda, individualised learning, partnership with parents, leadership and workforce reform. Consequently its aims were viewed as “all intermingled”, “diffuse”, “wide-ranging” and “all encompassing” and therefore open to a variety of interpretations: I think for everybody it means different things, doesn't it? Assessment is a big focus for us because it was one of our key issues and Assessment for Learning is one of these strands that is coming through the primary strategy and so those seem to fit really well. We are already promoting things like success criteria in lessons, assessment ladders and those kinds of things on a day-to-day basis.

(Headteacher, 440, June 2004)

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Schools already involved in their own or LEA-wide initiatives to develop breadth and/or depth in the curriculum or new approaches to teaching (eg use of whiteboards, “purposeful play”, the teaching of musical instruments and the role of emotional intelligence in learning) saw these as consistent with the recommendations of the PNS and appropriate to be classed under its umbrella.

Even if headteachers and senior staff were uncertain of its key messages and the implication for their schools, they were familiar with the PNS from looking through Excellence and enjoyment (DfES, 2003a) and attending local strategy conferences and/or regional dissemination events. However, teachers who had not been involved in such events were often unaware of the PNS, as the following two interviewee responses indicate: Interviewer: How much do you know, if anything, about the new primary strategy?

Has it had an influence here?

Teacher: No. [Laughs] I don't know what…

Interviewer: What about Excellence and enjoyment? Does that mean anything to you or not?

Teacher: Excellence and… no, no [laughs]. (Jan 2004) Interviewer: Do you know anything about the primary strategy?

Teacher: My mum works with the primary strategy but she's a foundation teacher.

Is it to do with the PIPS and new assessment scale? It's a new planning scheme and assessment… It's not publicised, is it? But I've seen it — the front of it's stripey. (Dec 2003)

“Freeing-up” the curriculum The PNS was viewed first and foremost as heralding a “freeing-up” of the curriculum which enabled teachers to exercise professional judgement and sanctioned them to depart from government and LEA recommendations: I think that it is really exciting because it is enabling us to actually get back to what we all feel education really is — the children and what is right for them. Not just somebody saying you have got to deliver this, and they will have it delivered whatever … there are still some advisors in the county who are saying, “you teach the Year 3 literacy strategy to those Year 3 children and they have it!” That is irrespective of their special needs and they might want to be working at Year 2 level.

(Headteacher, 144, June 2003) It has now been said that it is okay to plan in some things which are going to provide enjoyment but will still promote excellence, but excellence in more areas, wider areas. It doesn't just have to be the basics of literacy and numeracy; you can push to have excellence in art and that kind of thing. Primary schools are about developing the whole child and not just a bit of them. (Headteacher, 250, July 2004) You can be a bit more relaxed with the children and do things which don't exactly fit in with the QCA documents. They are not statutory anyway but I think you would be expected to follow them pretty closely. However, since this primary strategy I feel happier doing stuff that is not fulfilling targets all the time. (KS2 teacher, 33, Feb 2005)

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When asked for an example of something that she would not have done prior to the primary strategy, the teacher quoted above described how, during a history lesson on the Romans the previous afternoon, she had given out scissors and paper and let the children make stand-up figures of Romans. A year or so ago she explained that such a simple activity would have had to feature on a lesson plan or even be formalised as a design and technology project, and subjected to the full design and evaluation process “which gets to be a bit of a bore”.

In a few interviews the PNS was also described as encouraging a return to the flexible and spontaneous teaching that took account of national/local events and children’s experiences and interests, also associated with “progressive” primary education: More recently when I've done Excellence and enjoyment and I've seen other people speak who've been influential, they're actually saying “What did you do 20 years ago when it snowed? So why aren't you doing it now?” [re-emphasising the value of spontaneity in teaching] Because we were told that we had these objectives and we had to get these covered and it doesn't matter if so and so's had a new baby and mum's brought the baby in because it's not in my text that we're doing new babies. Whereas I think we're being able to be more creative again and having days out or weeks out to do a particular topic…We're going full cycle.

(Deputy head, 220, Oct 2004)

As illustrated by the above quotations, the PNS tended to be understood as allowing departure from the approaches within the NLS and NNS. The teachers felt it permitted some freedom from government prescription as opposed to actively encouraging and promoting innovation and curriculum experimentation. As characterised by one head, it is “just trying to inject a bit of excitement — what we could do within the limits of what Charles Clarke set for us”. Perhaps for this reason some teachers regarded the PNS as “very thin on the ground” and a rather “half-hearted attempt” to bring back the creativity that they regarded government policy as having effectively quashed. However, it appeared to be a very important milestone in restoring teachers’ confidence and belief in their own professional judgement: Deputy head: I think that teachers did go through a period of uncertainty as to what is right, what is wrong, and I do truthfully believe that some teachers, as a result of all the various initiatives we have been bombarded with, lost some confidence and belief in themselves. I feel it is only now that their confidence is being restored. We are well supported by all of the frameworks but now we are saying “that is good, that works, we will try that”.

Interviewer: What has brought the confidence back in your view?

Deputy head: Literally being given permission by advisors over the last year, messages from people who have seen how confined we have been by the rigidity of the frameworks — who have actually come out to school and to school meetings and said: “You have got this, you have got the structure, now use it as you feel….”

(Deputy head, 391, Oct 2004)

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Cross-curricular work A major spin-off of the “freeing-up” of the curriculum was experimentation with cross-curricular work. The PNS served both to legitimise changes to the school curriculum that were already underway before the publication of Excellence and enjoyment (DfES, 2003a) and to provide a stimulus to try out new approaches.

In a few schools it served to legitimise the topic approach they had already modified considerably to accommodate the national curriculum and the NLS/NNS but had never completely relinquished. However, in the majority of schools where the curriculum was comprised mainly of separate subjects, a move towards subject integration was approached with caution. Often such a move was influenced not only by a wish to help children appreciate the links between knowledge and skills in the various curriculum subjects, but also by a perceived need to provide more opportunities and relevant contexts for writing to improve the standard of pupils’ written work: That is why we have moved this year from English and called it language across the curriculum and appointed someone. … what we are aiming to do is keep the curriculum but look at putting some of the “Englishy” bits into the other subjects. So what we have got now is people linking up the literacy, the English and the history — for example, in the novel they are reading or the educational visit they are doing — then linking some of the geography into that. We are going back into the sort of thematic approach, but with structure. (Headteacher, 564, June 2003)

In other schools where the curriculum was taught as separate subjects, crosscurricular work involving a broader range of subjects took the form of variously labelled theme/project/topic days or weeks. During these the usual timetable was abandoned and practical activities on a theme, usually involving visits and guests to the school, took precedence. For example, one school had a project week — the week prior to the fieldwork — where each class chose their own topic focus for the week, including flight, Europe, living things and healthy living. As the deputy explained, “the project week was our first step to helping people to open up the curriculum and we're hoping to develop that more next year, possibly by having two project weeks and encouraging people to make more links between the subjects”. More commonly, all classes focused on aspects of the same theme in such weeks, with multicultural or international topics, Europe and healthy living being recurrent themes.

For some teachers trained in the ‘60s and ‘70s the move to cross-curricular work had a lot in common with topic work. These teachers listened to younger heads and LEA advisors enthusing about the kinds of creative and practical activities that the older teachers had been accustomed to doing pre-national curriculum “with words like grandma and sucking eggs coming to mind”. For them the PNS provided “an excuse to go back” to such aspects of “progressive” primary education. This is a concept that has been variously defined (Jones, 1983) and also subjected by many policy makers to a “discourse of derision” (Ball, 1990). However, several senior teachers expressed considerable concern about such attitudes:

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What does worry me is when I go to schools and people say, “Oh, we are going back to topic teaching” and I think “No, you are not”. It is upside down topic teaching. You are not seeing an idea and weaving things around it any more. You have knowledge to impart and you find the best way of doing it. … I do really think that is a message that needs to be put across to people. (Advanced skills teacher, 317, Feb 2004)

When the 50 schools were researched a decade ago, teachers were analysing existing topics to establish how much of the national curriculum programmes of study and attainment targets, especially the latter, were covered. When gaps were identified, the topic was modified to accommodate the missing subject matter. Where material could not be fitted in, it was covered in mini-topics and specific subject lessons (Webb, 1993). In “upside down topic teaching”, as the AST characterised it, the process is reversed. Starting from existing schemes of work based on the national curriculum and the NLS and NNS, potential overlaps in knowledge and/or skills and meaningful links between subjects are identified and exploited. In the ‘90s, shortly after the introduction of the national curriculum, teachers considered subject integration to be the only way in which national curriculum coverage could be fully achieved. Interestingly, this was once again the case post-PNS even though, since 2000, schools were increasingly making coverage of national curriculum content more manageable by deciding which aspects of subjects, especially history and geography, should be touched on or studied in depth.

Cross-curricular work, which might reproduce elements of topic work, was regarded as a threat to rigour, particularly in terms of attainment in literacy and numeracy and to SATs results: I mean we don't want to throw babies out with the bath water. My main concern is that we might end up — because people say “Oh right, we are going back to topicbased stuff” — losing the rigour. I have got to always think about the end point: that I want these SATs results and we need to keep a quality. (Deputy head, 580, Jan 2004)

However, as discussed in chapter 7, the majority of teachers accepted as valid the many criticisms made of topic work. They considered that the focus, structure, learning objectives and plenaries derived initially from the national curriculum and consolidated through the NLS and NNS greatly enhanced the effectiveness of their teaching. Consequently, it seems unlikely that these gains will be relinquished as a result of the recovery of the spontaneity, flexibility and creativity that had been lost in primary teaching over the decade.

Curriculum balance Galton et al. (2002) found that “teachers are devoting 22.04 hours a week to curriculum subjects, 48.5% of this time being given over to literacy and numeracy” and as a result “art, drama, music and ICT are being squeezed” (p.5). They report that “in some schools, music typically is now allocated thirty minutes a week while elsewhere art is dropped altogether for Year 6 pupils until their tests have been completed” (p.5). There was a general consensus among the headteachers in our 50 schools that the PNS was emphasising the A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S 101

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importance of the foundation subjects and requiring schools to strive for a broader curriculum, with a better balance of subjects and more opportunities for children to study aspects of these in depth. However, the situation reported

by Galton et al. (2002), whereby SATs are distorting the curriculum for Year 6 children, has not improved and from our data seems likely to have worsened: Excellence and enjoyment is so important; it is what was needed for such a long time to actually give some teachers the freedom to deliver the curriculum in a more meaningful way again. It is difficult to do it when we push, push and push to raise standards for SATs results. What we try to do to address that is to have specific weeks in the summer term …. We have just had an arts week. SATs are out of the way now so we downed tools on literacy and numeracy and let's do some quality teaching in the arts. That is because those are things that go by the by and get shoved into a corner. (Headteacher, 190, June 2005)

After being “very much heads down and get on with it”, the Year 6 children were provided with an exciting curriculum for the remainder of the summer term as they also had a week focusing on health and citizenship, another on wildlife working in groups with TAs and parents to develop the school’s wildlife area, and opportunities to pursue additional activities in PE. However, rather than such weeks being grouped together at the end of the year to compensate Year 6 pupils for and motivate them after SATs, teachers would prefer to intersperse them throughout the year.

The blocking of some subjects to provide longer periods of time was also regarded as a way to provide in-depth work in the foundation subjects within the limited time available after timetable allocations to the core subjects. This was already practised by over half the schools and in others it was being introduced or extended to other subjects: We'd already been blocking subjects, for instance for the first half term, it would be art and the next half term it would be DT…so we had three half terms a year on art, and three on DT. We've tried to add more first-hand experiences and we've tried to take the children out and have visitors in. For instance, in DT, in Year 3 we now have a gentleman who's been coming in for a couple of years to demonstrate packaging.

He worked for a local packaging company, and he's worked up a lovely PowerPoint presentation for the children. He's got practical materials there and the children then get ideas for their own packaging and it's been extremely successful.

(Headteacher, 212, June 2004)

A further constraint on extended in-depth treatment of the foundation subjects identified by headteachers was the lack of flexibility, confidence and ideas of teachers trained since the introduction of the NLS and NNS: I am still trying to break down barriers and get people to actually look at subjects rather than it being a one-hour lesson every week. Like, for example RE which is so difficult to teach anyway when you don't actually have that belief yourself, but to actually go out to different places and say, “Right, well instead of doing an hour for the next six weeks we will just spend a full day on our RE. We will go to the mosque and we will explain everything first hand because the children learn so much more

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from doing that rather than sitting there with a worksheet.” It is retraining staff almost because they didn't know how to do that before; they didn't have a day where you did all RE or you did all art because you had to have your hour of literacy, your hour of numeracy and that is the way they have been trained. (Headteacher, 190, June 2005)

A few schools were also reviewing the structure of the school day in order to minimise fragmentation and to organise the day in more effective teaching periods, thereby creating additional lessons in which to teach the foundation subjects.

As identified in chapter 5, when lessons were covered to free teachers for PPA time, this cover time was also viewed as an opportunity to increase pupils’ access to additional subjects, such as philosophy for children, and the foundation subjects, especially art, music and PE. This was particularly the case where schools were bringing in specialists to provide cover. For example, one headteacher explained that she employed a teacher for two days a week, who was a PE and science specialist and could teach those subjects in KS2 to provide others with their PPA time. The headteacher also employed a teacher who had taken early retirement but was returning part time to teach art as a specialism in KS1. While these “specialists” were also primary teachers, some headteachers considered it was likely they would use specialists who worked as sports coaches, musicians or artists, believing that their in-depth knowledge and enthusiasm for their area would be beneficial for the children and strengthen the subjects.

Personalised learning Excellence and enjoyment states: “Every teacher knows that truly effective learning and teaching focuses on individual children, their strengths, their needs, and the approaches which engage, motivate and inspire them” (DfES, 2003a, p.39). If, as the government now calls it, “personalised learning” appears to be another aspect of the strategy that resonates with the childcentredness of primary progressivism, this is forcefully denied (Miliband, 2004).

In Excellence and enjoyment personalised learning is based on assessment knowledge about individual children’s progress and pupil self-assessment according to individual improvement targets. It underpins the inclusion agenda as “it will be the single most important force in mainstreaming (without diluting) the support that is given to pupils with special educational needs” (p.40) to try to tackle the resistant lengthy tail of underachievement, especially of pupils from areas of disadvantage. It is also intended to inform provision for gifted and talented children and those from ethnic minorities.

Since the ‘60s trying to cater for the diverse learning needs of individual children has been an ongoing concern for primary teachers, who have always found it extremely difficult (see Bennett et al., 1984). A decade ago teachers in our 50 schools, while mainly differentiating work by outcome in terms of the speed of task completion, quality and quantity of work produced and the amount of help required, were using the national curriculum with its 10-level

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framework of Statements of Attainment to set different tasks for small groups and individual pupils. As the complexity of differentiation grew, it was recognised as unachievable. The manageability of differentiating the curriculum to such an extent became increasingly questioned, with examples of practice in the Pacific Rim countries being cited to argue that delivering the same teaching to all pupils was both more effective and equitable (Reynolds and Farrell, 1996). Increasingly, setting was recommended as the way forward for catering for individual difference (Ofsted, 1998). While a decade ago only a few of the 50 schools were making limited use of setting, in the follow-up study in all but small schools it was commonplace for literacy and numeracy. Within sets further differentiation was achieved by the way in which the material was presented to pupils and the use of questioning. However, the challenge for teachers was undiminished: You still have them all sitting there listening to you but almost invariably you have a teaching assistant who is there to help interpret what you are saying for the less able — but you are also meant to make sure they are all involved. So you would be asking an able child a very difficult question because you know she's very bright, and you'd be asking that child over there an easy question because you want to make sure they are on board and they understand what's going on. If you asked them the same question you've asked her, they will get lost. You are stretching her learning…while somebody over here is helping interpret what's going on for the less able. So you've got the differentiation. It's really sophisticated and complicated, what is expected to happen by one poor teacher who's doing this for an hour followed immediately by another hour on a completely different subject. So the primary strategy, if it introduces for us easier techniques for doing this, or easier ways of thinking this through, or training people so it becomes embedded in your consciousness, would be very helpful. (Headteacher, 249, July 2004)

The importance of addressing the needs of gifted and talented children accorded with the concerns of many teachers, who felt that the dominance of the NLS and NNS geared to the ability of the majority was detrimental to their learning: I think a lot is lost on the very, very bright children. I think those are the children that lost out. We killed their creativity and their interest and their will to learn. But I think it's gone the full circle now and it's coming back, and there's more recognition for children to work individually. A lot of the homework now and a lot of the secondary work that I see them bringing back to me — some of the younger ones — it's encouraging that freedom to learn, that enquiring mind and the enquiring mind went out when everything…but I think we're coming out of that now and I can see that children are blossoming again. (Headteacher, 43, June 2004)

Tasks to promote independence, investigation and problem solving of the kind developed in the early years of national curriculum science were viewed as once again being valued by government.

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schools concentrated on one or two of these approaches. However, the following extract from a headteacher’s interview describes how her staff had explored, implemented and integrated those approaches that had proved to be the most popular among the 50 schools: The first year we did one [whole-school staff away day conference] entirely about accelerated learning and introduced accelerated learning throughout the school, so we are looking at visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learning…. Last year (2003), we had a conference about thinking skills so we have started to introduce thinking skills throughout the school, trying to make lessons more interactive so the children aren't actually fed information but use information for a purpose. To start off what we did was to have individual thinking skills lessons, so for the last year we've had an hour a week of thinking skills lessons. It got to the stage where we had run out of ideas, so we're now going to take some of the thoughts we've had about how to do thinking skills to encourage children to think within other lessons. And we're going to particularly extend it by thinking about philosophy: next week we're going to have another training day when we'll be looking at philosophy and how we can actually encourage children to ask questions in a more directive thoughtful way.

We’ve also in the last year been involved in a creativity project led by the LEA so the children have been involved in drama, problem solving and writing creatively within history, geography, science and RE lessons. It fitted in beautifully with our looking at visual, auditory, kinaesthetic learning because that seemed to be the key to the whole thing — trying to find lots of different ways of teaching the same subject or the same topic to children in order to reach them because they aren't all reached the same way … I'm fascinated by looking at the primary strategy, which we've just been shown in [the LEA] in the last term... it pulls together all these different initiatives because it is talking about different types of intelligence; it is talking about different types of learning. (Headteacher, 249, June 2004)

As the above illustrates, headteachers felt the primary strategy legitimised the increased use of such approaches as a way of personalising learning.

Excellence or enjoyment: an irresolvable contradiction?

For headteachers there was a tension between the government’s drive for excellence through the standards agenda and the desire for schools to be creative and foster enjoyment: I am not quite sure how all the recent government initiatives sit together. I think the target-setting agenda and the league table pressure don't sit comfortably with some of the ideas of bringing in enjoyment and flexibility and so on. Even though we have heard Mr Clarke say that schools can set their targets and local authorities will take those targets and aggregate them, and that will be the local authority's target. It doesn't fit with what I have seen in practice. The pressure this year was perhaps greater from the local authority than it has been in past years. (Headteacher, 580, Jan 2004)

The fixation on targets pressurised schools into concentrating on literacy and numeracy rather than reintroducing a broader curriculum with initiatives to promote creativity. But relaxing the emphasis on the basics and the achievement of targets was viewed by high achieving schools as a potential, and perhaps unwarranted, risk to their position in the performance tables: A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S 105

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It is a conflict between the two things. As soon as you start focusing on enrichment and enjoyment in the curriculum then to a certain extent in the short term the focus on adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, phonemes, word building, etc goes out the window a little bit. … This school is very good at getting our children to do very well in tests and I think that it is a shame that is seen as important, but it is a judgement that is being made by Ofsted. We actually have to do some risk taking. We can move away from that and say, “well, we believe this is a better way” and the results may or may not go down. But, if they do go down, there is a consequence. So it is whether or not you can actually afford to take that risk and I don't think that many people want to take that risk. It is just, let's keep those standards up. Certainly the inspectorate is very, very keen to keep those standards high. We are quite a flagship school in some respects, I would say, and it is important that we keep results high year on and year out. I am not altogether sure that we can do that if we are addressing other more fundamental rights of children in terms of enjoying education. (Headteacher, 526, May 2005)

As claimed above, the judgements of Ofsted, whether perceived or actual, were crucial in schools deciding whether or not to make changes to the curriculum. Two schools inspected within the fieldwork period found that Ofsted showed less interest in the teaching of the NLS and NNS, and more interest in curriculum breadth and the foundation subjects than they had anticipated. Somewhat to the surprise of staff, the Ofsted inspectors also specified the need for those schools to incorporate more cross-curricular work into their planning. As one head stressed: There has always been this phrase “what goes around comes around” and in educational terms everything goes in and out of fashion. You know the emphasis on concrete experience, on doing rather than learning, whole-class teaching … in 30 something years you do see it coming and going around. I said [to Ofsted] what seems to be happening now in the primary curriculum — within five years you were told “concentrate on these things to the expense of the others” and now they are saying “concentrate on the others, but don't lose what you have learnt here”. It seems as if the curriculum circle is only five years now. (Headteacher, 280, Feb 2004)

Certainly Ofsted (2002a) argues that schools which are successful in achieving high standards in literacy and numeracy can also provide a rich and varied curriculum that does full justice to the foundation subjects. Ofsted does not acknowledge that there is an irresolvable contradiction between achieving excellence and enjoyment. While at the level of rhetoric these two aspirations are complementary — and the 50 schools provided many examples of both excellence and enjoyment in their classroom practice — there was evidence of the daily tension experienced between the two. The interview and observation data showed the toll taken on pupil enjoyment and the primary curriculum by the government’s narrowly focused, target-obsessed standards agenda.

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Conclusion The government denies that an emphasis on the basics is in conflict with promoting creativity and argues that they are mutually reinforcing. In the immediate future the emphasis on performance described in chapter 3 looks set to continue. As Alexander (2004) argues, the mixed messages coming from the DfES on the purpose of the strategy and the “doublespeak on professional autonomy” within the document reflect “a desire to be seen to be offering freedom while in reality maintaining control” (p.15). However, the perception by teachers that the primary strategy was giving them some freedom from government prescription and legitimating past and/or new ideas and practices that they value, appears to be playing an important role in boosting teacher confidence and self-belief, and restoring hope that in the not too distant future the government may put more trust in teachers’ professional judgement.

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CHANGING CLASSROOM PRACTICE Based upon fieldwork conducted in 1996, Galton et al. (1999) asked whether classroom practice had changed in English primary schools over the previous two decades and if so to what extent. The book outlined the results of a replication of the previously very influential ORACLE research study conducted in the late ‘70s. Based mainly on a combination of systematic observation schedules (with 58 classrooms observed in the ‘70s study and 28 in the 1996 one) and measures of pupils’ academic progress using standardised tests of reading, language and mathematics, the research team re-visited many of the same schools they had researched in the ‘70s. They found that: “Two decades of classroom research, curriculum reform on an unprecedented scale, and a shift in educational thinking which has produced calls for a return to whole class teaching and more subject specialisation has had almost no impact on the way in which teachers organise the pupils” (pp.41-42).

The layout of classrooms with children sat together in groups remained remarkably similar over the two decades. The introduction of computers to the classroom — clearly a potentially major change between the ‘70s and the ‘90s — had had very little effect by 1996 on the organisation of teaching and learning (p.46). Writing and listening to the teacher still dominated most lessons and the patterns of teacher-pupil interaction were remarkably similar over the previous two decades (p.174). In speculating on why there should have been so little change to classroom practice, they suggest that: The National Curriculum was, in effect, a technical innovation that was imposed on teachers, with little or no guidance as to how to implement it. In this situation, it is hardly surprising that teachers draw upon familiar, tried-and-tested practice. (p.52)

Galton et al. adopted a very different methodology from our own research.

The 1996 study was based on the quantitative analysis of 6663 observations of 29 teachers and 8562 observations of around 600 pupils from 28 classes in 14 primary schools, where observations were carried out every 25 seconds in a pre-determined sequence (p.33). However, the picture of primary classroom practice they convey is remarkably similar to that portrayed by our qualitative methodology in the original ATL research conducted in 1992-94 (Webb and Vulliamy, 1996). Moreover, later qualitative case-study research we carried out between 1994 and 1996 for the York-Finnish Project, involving extended periods of fieldwork in six English primary schools, continued to portray the manner in which teachers were mediating the curriculum reforms by accommodating them as far as possible within their traditional approaches to teaching and classroom organisation (see, eg Webb and Vulliamy, 1999a; Vulliamy et al., 1997).

A similar picture emerges from the findings of the PACE research, a large-scale study combining quantitative and qualitative data (collected between 1989 and 1997) into the impact of the Education Reform Act on primary schooling (Osborn et al., 2000). All these studies suggest that, despite massive changes to the work of primary school teachers brought about by the demands of the “new managerialism” and the strictures of an audit society with its consequent 108 A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S

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“performativity” culture, primary teachers had up until 1996 not made any fundamental changes to their classroom practice nor to their values concerning what “good practice” was. The main change had been a gradual shift in curriculum planning from the pre-national curriculum use of topic webs, through subject-focused topic work (the early stages of the national curriculum) to, by the mid-‘90s, separate subject teaching with fewer attempts to maintain an integrating link between them (Vulliamy et al., 1997; Osborn et al., 2000).

In this chapter we argue that the decade intervening between our two ATL research studies, unlike the previous two decades intervening between the Galton et al. studies, has seen profound changes, not only in primary teachers’ classroom practices but also in their values concerning desirable practice.

Three recent innovations, discussed in earlier chapters, have come together to help solidify such profound changes: guidance on teaching provided by the NLS and NNS; the growth in the use of ICT (and particularly interactive whiteboards); and the dramatic increase in the use of teaching assistants. We begin by comparing the 54 lessons we observed in the 50 schools in 1992-94 with the 51 observed in 2003-05. This suggests that those features of primary classroom teaching, such as classroom and organisational strategies (including pupil seating), which had remained so constant between 1976 and 1996 have subsequently undergone major changes. We then examine how changes in teaching approaches initiated by the NLS and NNS have permeated teaching in subjects other than English and maths, using the field notes from one of our observed history lessons to illustrate the significance of these changes for general patterns of teaching and learning. This is followed by a section investigating the extent to which the teachers in our 188-interview sample themselves view the changes in their practice as significant and, if so, giving their evaluations of the gains and losses.

Classroom and curriculum organisation In the 1992-94 study, field notes were made of the 54 lesson observations in order to describe in detail the range of experiences offered to pupils in KS2 and to look for common patterns. These were classified into different lesson patterns based on organisational strategies combined with approaches to curriculum organisation (see Table 7a). Details of the manner in which such a classification was made can be found in Webb and Vulliamy (1996, ch.2).

In the 2003-05 study, 51 lessons were observed (in 5 of the schools it was not possible to do any classroom observations whilst in a few schools more than one lesson was observed). The lessons encompassed all areas of the curriculum, with the exception of music but with a bias towards literacy (16 lessons) and numeracy (10 lessons). Using the same classification system, our observations indicated a dramatic increase (from 50% to 94%) in the pattern of lessons defined as “whole class” and the total disappearance of patterns such as the use of carousel and menu systems that had been particularly identified with the “integrated day” approach to primary school teaching (see Table 7b).

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Table 7a Per cent of lessons with different class and curriculum organisational strategies in 1992-94 study (N=54)

Whole-class teaching Two groups Carousel within subject/topic Carousel across subjects and topic Cooperative group work Menu Individual work

50% 6% 9% 15% 7% 9% 4%

Table 7b Per cent of lessons with different class and curriculum organisational strategies in 2003-05 study (N=51)

Whole-class teaching Two groups Carousel within subject/topic Carousel across subjects and topic Cooperative group work Menu Individual work

94% 0% 0% 0% 2% 0% 4%

It should be noted that our definition of a lesson with a whole-class pattern (derived from the 1992-94 study) included both lessons involving teacher-pupil interaction throughout and lessons where, following a teacher’s introductory input of around 15-20 minutes, a considerable amount of time within the central part of the lesson might be devoted to pupil activities carried out either individually, in pairs or in groups. A further classification indicated that in 23 of the 48 whole-class lessons, over half of the lesson time was devoted to such pupil activities, with the teacher going around helping individuals or groups. At the other extreme, 6 of the 48 whole-class lessons involved the teacher teaching or asking questions of the whole class for more than three-quarters of the lesson.

A comparison of the lesson observations shows how aspects of previous patterns of classroom and curriculum organisation have been subsumed within the dominance of the whole-class pattern derived from the NLS and NNS. For example, in the central part of one whole-class history lesson on Tudor houses, a carousel system was utilised so that, in turn, three groups of pupils moved around three activities: making Tudor houses out of card, making model furniture and working in a small computer room adjacent to the classroom searching the internet for information under the supervision of a classroom assistant.

In one of the small schools, a mixed age KS2 class was divided into two separate groups of Year 3/4s on the one hand and Year 5/6s on the other. In the 1992-94 study, where a single class teacher managed such a KS2 class by teaching each group in turn, this was classified as an example of a “two groups” pattern. However, in the 2003-05 research (and reflecting the rapid recent rise of support staff within schools), a teaching assistant taught the Year 3/4 group a science lesson throughout, at one end of the classroom. At the 110 A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S

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other end of the classroom, the teacher taught the Year 5/6 group a literacy lesson on using the internet (via wireless-based laptops), to research information to help write “an information text in the form of an attractive wall poster about a particular aspect of the Romans” (excerpt from pupil worksheet). Thus, with the help of the teaching assistant, two different “whole-class” lessons could be taught simultaneously within the same large classroom.

In our 1992-94 fieldwork all the classrooms observed had pupil seating patterns whereby mixed-sex groups of pupils were seated together around separate tables. This same pattern of seating was found both in Galton et al.’s late ‘70s fieldwork and in 27 of the 28 classrooms in their 1996 study. This is despite (as they note) a number of research studies summarised in Hastings et al. (1996) suggesting that such seating arrangements lead to the highest levels of off-task behaviour (Galton et al., 1999, p.172). We found the same prevalence of such seating arrangements in our 1994-96 fieldwork for the York-Finnish Project (Webb and Vulliamy, 1999a).

However, our 2003-05 fieldwork indicated a widespread change in classroom seating arrangements. Of the 45 classroom-based lessons observed (5 of the 51 lessons were in an ICT suite and one was a PE lesson in the main hall), only 26 (58%) used the established seating arrangement with pupils doing individual work but seated in groups around tables. In 18 classes the tables had been re-arranged so that pupils were seated in rows, and in one classroom the horseshoe formation of seating that has been recommended by some researchers (eg McNamara and Waugh, 1993) had been adopted.

Interviews with the teachers suggested two reasons for such changes.

Firstly, they felt that with more whole-class teaching with the teacher at the front, including the use of an interactive whiteboard at the front of the classroom, no pupils should have their sides or back to the front. Secondly, they thought that pupils concentrated more and behaved better when seated in rows than when grouped around tables.

The Hastings et al. (1996) literature review on primary classroom seating arrangements concludes that “changing the seating arrangement to rows improves time on-task and reduces levels of distraction, with most pronounced benefits for those who normally spend least time engaged with their work” (p.41). They are careful to add, however, that: To replace groups with rows as the standard form of classroom organisation would, of course, be to miss the point entirely. Rows are as unsatisfactory for collaborative group work as group seating is for individual task work: children should engage in work of both types. (p.41)

Our isolated observation of one lesson in each school does not permit us to say the extent to which those classrooms that had moved to seating in rows also used this flexibly for other lessons where collaborative group work was involved. It seems doubtful that the classroom furniture was regularly moved around for different activities. However, our observations showed that when group work (and especially group discussion activities) was required within a A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S 111

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row-seating classroom, this was achieved by asking the pupils in one row to turn their chairs around and face the row behind them.

During the late ‘60s and ‘70s many new schools were built on open-plan principles that were felt to be more appropriate for team teaching and an integrated day approach to curriculum planning (Bennett et al., 1980). Of our original sample of 50 schools, 7 were seen to have open-plan classrooms when we observed them in 1992-94. However, each of these schools had been modified to provide separate classrooms by the time of our 2003-05 fieldwork. Headteacher interviews suggested that the move towards more whole-class teaching, especially following the introduction of the NLS and NNS, meant that open-plan classrooms were no longer appropriate.

Changing teaching methods across the curriculum For teachers trained since the implementation of the NLS and the NNS the teaching approaches advocated through the strategies were second nature.

As one young teacher explained: “I don’t know any different because I’ve been trained to do it that way and I think you become comfortable towards it — standing up and giving input, then the task, then the plenary at the end of it for any lesson.” However, most teachers trained before the strategies’ implementation felt their practice had been changed and improved by implementing them. Across the curriculum, as in literacy and numeracy lessons, teachers specified lesson objectives, made use of instructional introductory sessions and plenaries, did more whole-class teaching and had greater interaction with pupils, particularly through teacher questioning. Consequently, teachers maintained much tighter control over the direction and pace of lessons than previously. These changes were viewed as helping teachers focus on pupils’ learning: I think there is an increase in whole-class teaching. I actually think it has helped teachers to focus and think about how they teach and, certainly I think over the last two years, there has been this emphasis on thinking about how children learn.

(Headteacher, 250, July 2004) I would think certainly now we have to say what the lesson objective is about, what you are looking for and the plenary… before you perhaps did it but maybe didn't do it as well, whereas now it is a lot more focused so I would say that I do that now in all my lessons regardless of what it is. Having that objective on the board at the front has been very useful and I think as a teacher it makes you a lot more focused.

So that certainly goes across other subjects. (Year 4 teacher, 190, June 2005)

The literacy skills of acquiring, evaluating and reporting information were also drawn on in the teaching of other subjects: Say in history we might share some text as well. Whereas before it might have just been the books open and looking at information so some of the ideas from the literacy hour are definitely used in other subjects. The things that we do in the literacy hour, so it might be report writing or instructions — a lot of those ideas are

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used within other curriculum areas. So in technology the evaluations of products that they have made — a lot of those things we have also covered in the literacy hour. (Teacher, 580, Jan 2004)

However, while utilising these skills in context demonstrated their purpose to pupils, an overemphasis on them in other subjects could deter from adequate concentration on subject-specific content.

Box 7a contains a description based on observation of a Year 6 history lesson.

This lesson illustrates the transfer of teaching methods advocated by the strategies to other subjects. It also shares the structure of the Year 4 numeracy lesson presented in Box 2a in that it is comprised of a focused series of linked tasks with the teacher directing the pupils’ activity throughout. However, owing to the objectives and content of the lesson, it contains more open-ended questions and opportunities for discursive pupil responses, encourages them to ask questions and contains greater diversity of tasks for pupils. The teacher was using a Smart Board that had only been fitted the previous day and so the teacher and class were becoming familiar with its possibilities, although they were already accustomed to using a data projector. This reflects the increased use of ICT, particularly interactive whiteboards, described in chapter 4. The lesson demonstrates how resources downloaded from the internet can make lessons more informative, experiential and exciting. The photographs of evacuees and examples of their writing built on knowledge from previous lessons and helped pupils to empathise with the evacuees. As was often the case in the lessons observed, a TA was present and she occasionally interacted with the teacher to emphasise points in addition to supporting a group within the class.

Box 7a Year 6 history lesson on evacuees during World War II

The class history topic for the summer term was Britain since 1930 and the class had been concentrating particularly on World War II. In their literacy lessons they first carried out research in the library and on the internet to get newspaper articles on the home front. Secondly, they had just finished looking at World War II personification poems in a literacy lesson, which were displayed at the back of the class. These poems described the sounds, sights and smells associated with the blitz in London and the feelings of those under attack. In mathematics the class was tackling code breaking within the problem-solving strand of the NNS. In music they had been learning the songs of the time and in art they had been looking at propaganda posters and producing paintings expressing their views of war. They were reading Goodnight Mr Tom as a class novel and this has introduced them to the notion of evacuees.

There were 28 children sat around five tables positioned so they could see the whiteboard. A TA was sat with five pupils of lower ability in order to aid their understanding of the lesson content, help them to participate in the activities and discussion, and to support them in the writing task.

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11.00 am The objectives for the lesson were shared with the children at the outset. These were that they would: ■

use a range of information sources to identify and describe the likely feelings and experiences of a child evacuated during World War II

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identify and explore the social and cultural issues in a character’s (evacuee’s) story, discuss the feelings of the character and their reactions to these issues

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write a letter home as if written by an evacuee.

11.05 am The teacher introduced the lesson by asking the children questions about their previous work and the class novel to establish that they are clear about what is meant by the term evacuee and why, during September 1939, nearly 800,000 children were evacuated from cities to the countryside. She then went on to tell them how the evacuated children were parted from their parents, journeyed to the countryside and were allocated to their new wartime homes. She gave examples of how some were ill-treated while others enjoyed their time in the countryside. The children made comments based on the novel such as how Mr Tom gave the evacuee so much food that he was sick.

11.14 am The teacher then brought up a photograph of two evacuated children on the whiteboard and handed out individual copies of it. She asked the class to look at the photograph in pairs for a few minutes and pick out “what it tells us about what it was like to be an evacuee”.

11.18 am The teacher asked them what they had learned. The children’s comments on the photograph generated discussion about why the evacuees had name tags and gas masks on, what they might have packed in their luggage and what their expressions suggested about how they were feeling.

Feelings of loneliness and anxiety about where they were going were then explored through an extract of an evacuee’s letter brought up on the whiteboard (from the Imperial War Museum’s letters and documents web page). The TA joined in the discussion.

11.28 am The teacher gave out another photograph of a group of evacuees, mainly boys, getting on a bus. She asked the class to look at the evacuees’ expressions and to suggest a name for one (reminding them to think of a name that was popular then) and a word to describe how that evacuee appears to be feeling. Volunteers then went up and wrote their suggestions on the whiteboard, eg “Ivor confused”, “Lucy anxious”, “Oliver distressed”, “Bob nervous”. The teacher showed them how to write on the board with the special pen but without their hands touching it. While they experimented, the TA and the teacher discussed in front of the class the difficulties of trying to write in this manner.

11.35 am Next the teacher asked the children to imagine they were on the bus and to think about the questions they might have asked the child sitting next to them and to write these on their whiteboards. She said they could have three minutes to do it. After just over three minutes she asked one of the boys to read his out: “What is your name?”; “Where do you live?”; “What did your mummy pack for you?”. “Could you build in some questions about feelings?” asked the teacher. “But if you didn’t know them you’d want to find out who they are first” the boy replied. The teacher agreed and then asked for

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other questions. Responses from the class included: “What is your dad’s job?” and “Is anyone in your family fighting in the war?” Only one child asked about feelings: “How do you feel about being evacuated?” The teacher explained how some of their factual questions could be turned into questions for opinions and feelings such as: “Is your dad fighting in the war? How do you feel about it?” She suggested that they work in pairs to come up with more questions on feelings. Three minutes later the class volunteered more ideas: “Does the war frighten you?”; “Are you scared of being evacuated?”; “Would you rather be put with a family on your own or with someone else?”

11.45 am Next the teacher placed two chairs facing the class and explained that they were seats in a train taking evacuees to the countryside. She produced a suitcase, labels and a gas mask and further explained: “We are going to do some role play to help to give you some ideas of what to put in your letters.” She asked for volunteers. Four pairs of children in turn took on the role of evacuees, with the teacher helping two pairs by joining in and asking more questions such as “How did you feel when you left home this morning?”

The TA drew the teacher’s attention to the fact that one of the boys on her table had told her he would like to participate in the role play and he was one of the final pair of children. The children were asked for their comments on the role play and agreed that two boys, where one pretended to be very young and answered in a timid nervous voice, were particularly realistic.

12.00 am The teacher brought up another letter extract on the whiteboard and read how some evacuees felt as they huddled together in the local school waiting to be chosen and taken away by their host families.

12.04 am The TA gave out the paper while the teacher explained that they were to write a letter home to their parents describing their train journey, where they were staying and who with, and their experiences and feelings during the first day. She stressed to use the terms that they had learned such as evacuation, host family and billeting officer. She reminded them of the conventions for setting out a letter and told them to invent a home address. One of the children asked whether they had postcodes during the war. The TA asked her group whether they had any thoughts on this. They were uncertain and so she explained her recollections of the introduction of postcodes. The teacher asked the class if they were clear about what they had to do. She told them they had 10 minutes to begin their letters but that they could finish them after lunch.

12.14 am The teacher asked for two volunteers to read out the beginning of their letters before they tidied away for the lunch break.

As in the Year 4 numeracy lesson (see Box 2a), the plenary in the above lesson was rushed and reflects the criticism of plenaries made by a literacy coordinator: The plenaries were sort of “read out what you have done”. No, that is being very general and very damning but, as a sort of generalisation, that is what it was like.

So I asked [the head] if I could have half a staff meeting and we could just go through how to use the objectives to plan a sort of coherent lesson and we just all sat down and brainstormed ideas for plenaries. (Literacy coordinator, 185, June 2003)

Her view of plenaries in lessons across the curriculum reflects those concerns about plenaries expressed by teachers in chapter 2.

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Interestingly, a pilot study (Jeffrey, 2003) focusing on four teachers in Year 5 and 6 classes found evidence from pupils for teachers’ beliefs that changes in practice, such as those illustrated in Boxes 2a and 7a, were beneficial for pupils. Jeffrey identifies the explanation of teacher intentions to pupils as a major development for pupil learning that is a direct result of the strategies.

He found three significant factors contributed to the clarification of those intentions: “These were clear teaching and learning objectives, the incorporation of a significant amount of direct teaching as opposed to independent learning, and the highlighting of specific technical vocabulary and concepts attached to each subject” (p.492). In particular, “making learning objectives explicit, albeit an initiative of the reforms, opened the door to learners’ awareness of teacher intentions” (p.492).

This contrasts with findings on pupils’ experiences prior to the strategies where pupils “had a relatively limited conception of these intentions, based on inference rather than confident knowledge” (Pollard et al., 2000, p.178). Consequently, “a concern for children was to find out as precisely as possible ‘what she wants’ and to respond to well-known idiosyncracies” (p.178). Pollard et al. also found that pupils “had little or no language that helped them to discuss learning processes” (p.178) whereas Jeffrey (2003) observed the technical language to which pupils had been introduced within lessons being “re-incorporated in evaluations by learners and in some cases creatively” (p.493). However, he cautions that while the pilot project showed “learners to be aware and articulate, we did not find much evidence of teachers incorporating learners’ perspectives in an evaluation of their teaching and learning practices” (p.502).

A minority of teachers were adamant that their teaching outside the literacy and numeracy hour had not changed as a result of the strategies. They stressed the importance of maintaining a more flexible approach and a practical emphasis to these lessons in order to provide children with contrasting experiences. Also, two headteachers expressed concern that the spread of approaches to teaching advocated by the strategies was having a detrimental effect on children’s learning by reducing attention to the differing learning styles of pupils: If we do too much of the standing in front presentation, or the literacy and numeracy pattern of introduction, teach a bit of the lesson, work in groups, plenary, which is common to everything now, the trouble with that is it becomes too much of a crutch and a routine and children get turned off and bored by it. Also, it doesn't reach all children. Some children need more support through the lesson, some children need more involvement with whatever they are doing. They don't learn by somebody telling them things and they do learn by writing, so we're just trying to find ways in which we can encourage children to learn. (Headteacher, 249, July 2004)

One head reported that, as a consequence of staff believing “that is the format for all lessons”, she had focused staff professional development sessions within her school on identifying what the children need, how they are learning and “getting them [staff] back to learning by doing”.

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Teachers’ evaluations of the changes The evidence presented above and earlier in this report suggests that primary classroom practice has undergone fundamental changes since the New Labour government came to power in 1997. These changes include: ■

a move from an activity-based, topic-centred curriculum to an objectives-led, subject-centred one

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a dramatic increase in whole-class teaching

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the virtual eradication in our sample of certain practices, such as the integrated day and open-plan classrooms, often associated with the “progressive” era following the Plowden report (Central Advisory Council for Education, 1967)

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changes in classroom seating patterns, with much more use of pupils seated in rows rather than grouped around tables

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a massive increase in the use of ICT facilities to teach the whole class as well as smaller groups or individuals within it

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the dramatic increase in the use of TAs within the classroom.

Almost without exception those of our interviewees who had been teaching since the early ‘90s talked of such changes over this time period as being “massive”. Although we did not explicitly ask teachers to evaluate current practice against that of a decade or more ago, some of them did so and in this section we present the dominant themes. There were three broad areas of practice that elicited such evaluations. These relate to the curriculum (both its content and its mode of organisation in the classroom), teaching methods, and planning and recording.

Curriculum Many teachers who had been trained in the ‘70s or ‘80s were critical of the fact that, when they had begun teaching, they had been given no guidance or help as to what they should be teaching. They viewed the subsequent introduction of the national curriculum in very positive terms: When I first came there was no guidance as to the curriculum and so I was given a Year 2 class and I am going “well, what do I teach them”? There was nothing because it was pre-national curriculum; we didn't have any schemes of work; nothing at all and I was literally just making it up as I went along. Since then obviously the national curriculum came in and that helped an awful lot because it gave a framework. (Literacy coordinator, 185, June 2003) When I first started teaching there wasn't a great lot of direction. … It was very much up to the headteacher and the classroom teacher, so as an inexperienced teacher you were left more or less to your own devices in all sorts of ways. I think it's good now that there's direction and help for new teachers coming into schools.

(Deputy head, 131, March 2004)

Allied to this was a widespread view that a move from “teaching what you like” (which often meant teachers avoiding those subjects they found difficult or less interesting) to covering a pre-set curriculum was a marked improvement in potentially covering a broad and balanced curriculum for children: A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S 117

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I suppose the actual balance of the curriculum that I teach is probably better.

Before national curriculum I used to teach my maths, my English and then I would do as I wanted really [laughter]. I can remember saying to somebody in my second year of teaching, “what about science, I don't feel that I have done any science?” and I think that is mad now. She said, “oh well we did air and balloons last year” and I thought “well what is that?!” So I think the structure of what I teach is probably better. (Lower KS2 coordinator, 280, Feb 2004) I suppose you do have a certain amount of swotting up to do, for Hinduism, but I didn't have to do that in the old days because I just did things that I knew about and hoped that that transferred to the children. … My topics were something like: heat, transport, knights and castles. I can't remember the others but I suppose somebody looking at that list would think, “You're delivering a very restricted diet to these children.” But you don't nowadays because somebody's thought about it and you're offering “broad and balanced”. (Year 6 teacher, 279, May 2005)

The apparent lack of framework for the curriculum prior to the Education Reform Act was also commented on by later entrants to the teaching profession, who compared their own training with the teaching they had received as primary pupils: Thinking back to people who taught me when I was at primary school, they could basically do whatever they wanted. You could be taught anything. I think we have got a structure, a framework, to teach to and I think that is a bonus.

(PE coordinator, 580, Jan 2004)

Interestingly, similar sentiments were expressed by a teacher who had trained in the ‘70s in Scotland but who had moved to England in the ’80s — a useful reminder that striking differences between the teaching cultures of Scotland and England (eg Menter et al., 2004) are nothing new: Now I have got a different experience having taught in Scotland initially. In Scotland it was very structured and so I was used to that kind of system. Now when I moved to England … there was no structure, no planning given, there was nothing, but fortunately I was experienced. I would hate to have thought of someone going in there who wasn't experienced. (KS2 teacher, 33, Feb 2005)

The provision of a framework for the curriculum, firstly with the introduction of the national curriculum and then with the NLS and the NNS, was generally contrasted favourably with aspects of the previous tradition of topic work: I mean in days gone by I think you would look at a topic web and some of the links to some of the subjects were so tenuous it was ridiculous. You were really forcing the issue and not really doing the subject great justice. (Deputy head, 580, Jan 2004) Ten years ago, prior to that, you looked at a topic, say like toys, and then you had to look for something from every aspect of the curriculum and all those tenuous little things, that you were like “oh I will cover that because it fits in…” and I have done my maths because it fits in with that. Do you know what I mean? Whereas it was a waste of time basically. (Deputy head, 315, Feb 2005)

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Whilst teachers’ evaluations of curricular changes over the decade were broadly positive, there was one major exception to this. Some teachers complained that the volume of work laid down in the national curriculum, coupled with the high degree of detail in the pre-specified learning objectives — especially in the NLS and NNS — meant that teachers no longer had the time or flexibility to pursue more spontaneous topics initiated from either teachers’ or pupils’ interests: I can remember being very excited about teaching and I don't feel as excited about teaching now. … I can remember coming into lessons and really very often 10 or 15 minutes before the lesson deciding what I was going to do. I would think I have this really good idea… and we did it and it was excellent or a child would have come in and brought something in and say “can we do this today?” and it was “oh yeah, let's do that then”, and they were all really interested and we went off and did it.

Now I still find myself looking at my plans and I am sitting there talking to the children and say “we are going to do such and such…” then “oh hang on I have got to look at my plan”. I feel awful, but I still do it. I look at my plan … it is so tightly planned and you feel that if something is going wrong you carry on with it because it is on your plan and that is a negative thing. (Literacy coordinator, 185, June 2003)

In addition, teachers regretted the fact that extra-curricular activities were also constrained: I think some classes have lost a little bit of that spontaneity and that lively interest that you could put onto something. You know, even leaving out Christmas concerts and things, you feel under pressure. How can we fit it in? When can we practice it?

When can we do it? Because you know that if you do a rehearsal then, when are we going to do the literacy and when are we going to do the numeracy? It's hard.

(Headteacher, 220, Oct 2004)

A tension between the benefits of a structured framework for the curriculum and the disadvantages of losing spontaneity in their teaching was explicitly recognised by some: What has changed is that children are guaranteed an all round curriculum these days because, when I first started teaching, if there was something that you didn't like you could avoid doing it. Whereas you can't now … the national curriculum I think is a good thing because it gives you a framework and then we know that everybody across the country is doing the same objectives and they are covering the same work. What it has changed though is the spontaneity, like if it is snowing outside we are going to do a snow day and those things don't happen like they used to, which is a shame. (Assistant head, 470, Oct 2003)

Viewed as a continuum with curricular prescription at one end and curricular flexibility/spontaneity at the other, as argued in chapter 6, many teachers viewed the primary strategy as a welcome vehicle for attempting to get the best of both worlds: I think that what we must be careful not to lose is the creativity and the freedom of the old system. When I say that, I don't mean that we should go back to… “oh it is

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a topic, what topic shall I have… ooh yes, yes” [laughter]! I think what you have got to try and do is keep the rigour and the structure that these new things give, but also to keep the best of what we had before. So there is a little bit of flexibility, and okay if it snows one day well then you make the most of it, or a happening that you need to cash in on, that you don't feel… I can't do that, I am supposed to be doing whatever it is that you are supposed to be doing. (SENCO, 196, March 2004)

Teaching methods As argued earlier in this chapter, the introduction of the NLS and NNS has had a marked impact on teaching methods, not only in English and Maths but in other subjects as well. In teachers’ reflection on changes to teaching methods over the decade, a central issue to emerge is the desirability of having clear objectives and of sharing these with pupils: What I feel used to be a failing was that going back a few years I didn't know what I was teaching, the kids didn't know what they were learning and at the end of the lesson we didn't know whether we'd learnt it and nobody bothered to find out whether we'd learnt it. Now I know what I'm teaching, they know what they're learning and at the end of the lesson I'm going to know whether they've learnt it and, what's more important, they're going to know whether they've learnt it. And that's what's improved teaching. (Year 3 teacher, 647, July 2005)

Whilst this viewpoint was widely shared, as evidenced also in teachers’ comments about the strategies in chapter 2, it is worth noting that there were examples in our data of some teachers’ antagonism at being told how to teach, one of which was explicitly about the sharing of lesson objectives with pupils: I don't like the constant assumption that you can be told what works best. One moment you'll be told that if you share your objectives with a class they'll do much better, and I don't think that sort of thing has had enough analysis. Someone's had a good idea and it's become gospel. I'm not one for sharing objectives with a class.

I think it's a waste of time. It's just an example — I don't for a second believe that they walk out of the classroom having learnt an ounce more because you've done that. (Science coordinator, 300, March 2004)

One consequence of the strategies is that, as already noted, patterns of curriculum organisation associated with the integrated day (whereby different groups of children within a class study different subjects or topics at the same time) had completely disappeared from our sample. The theme of the integrated day was raised by interviewees in only 11 of the 188 interviews, but only three of these were explicitly evaluative (two suggesting that it did not really work and one that, on the contrary, it was more enjoyable for children). In discussing it there was, however, general agreement that it had been more difficult for the teacher to manage a diverse range of subjects and activities within a single lesson.

If the integrated day is associated with the “progressive teaching” of the Plowden era, so also is the use of open-plan classrooms and this was raised by interviewees in 8 of our 188 interviews. The general response was that they 120 A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S

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were incompatible with the move to more whole-class teaching associated with the NLS and the NNS. In addition, teachers welcomed the end of distracting noise from neighbouring classrooms and the fact that they could decide to involve their class in noisier practical activities when they wished, rather than having to arrange such activities at the same time as all other classes in a previously open-plan area.

The Year 3 teacher quoted above on the importance of sharing learning objectives with pupils summarises both the benefits and the limitations of the strategies’ legacy. She fully acknowledged the benefits of a clearer focus and greater structure to lessons, including lesson objectives. However, she strongly expressed her view that, while these may improve teaching, they are certainly not the essence of memorable, motivating and exciting lessons: I think the strategies gave us the focus because before the national curriculum, before the strategies, there wasn't a focus. All this “Let's do some geography about water” —we'll teach them what a lake is, draw a picture of a lake. The strategies broke it down, the national curriculum broke it down. … We were told what these little things were that we were supposed to be teaching them. The strategies told us how you teach it and then Ofsted came and said “This is what I want to see”, so then you start to do it and then you actually start to see the value of it. I think sometimes it's too prescriptive. As I've often said, when I look back at the teachers who really influenced me, turned my life around, I can't actually remember one of them sharing a learning objective with me: “Why did that teacher turn your life around? Oh I know, it's because she put the learning objective on the board!”

We've gone a little bit too much, if you forget to write the learning objective on the board does it really bloody matter? No it doesn't. (Year 3 teacher, 647, July 2005)

Planning and recording A final theme to emerge in teachers’ evaluative comparisons between past and present was the massive increase in the time they now spent on paperwork, associated with planning and recording pupils’ progress. Some older teachers, looking back at their early teaching, were surprised at the lack of any such checking measures in the past. For example, the teacher whose summary of the benefits and limitations of the strategies has just been quoted, began her teaching in the late ‘60s: When I first started teaching … nobody checked up on me. I went into that classroom, I did a bit of maths, I did a bit of writing. If I felt like painting a picture I did. If I felt fed up I'd go and play in the yard. I remember feeling horrified once when the head said: “Could you just jot down in a notebook what you've taught this week.” “What! I've not got time to be doing that. I'm going out this weekend.” No planning, no written planning. (Year 3 teacher, 647, July 2005)

This said, there was universal agreement amongst those teachers who commented that the demands of the audit society had become so great and, in teachers’ views, so unnecessary that they impacted very negatively both on the practice of teaching and on teachers’ morale:

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I think there's too much gathering of evidence because you're constantly having to prove that you're doing things that you know you're doing, the head knows you're doing, but outside agencies don't know you're doing it without seeing a piece of paper to say you're doing it and there's still a certain amount of that. It's feeling the need to have to prove yourself all the time which is still quite demoralising and disheartening. (Year 5 teacher, 279, May 2005) I have to verify the same information on quite a few different pieces of documentation and it doesn't make my teaching any tighter. I am the same thorough teacher that I set out to be. However, more time, a ridiculous amount of time, is spent on filling in forms to verify what I was doing in the first place. (Year 5 teacher, 180, Dec 2004) You are having to evaluate everything and I just feel that it is almost like they don't trust teachers' own judgement. It is like you have got to account on paper for everything and it is just so time-consuming. (Year 6 teacher, 275, Oct 2003) Not only do you have to do a job now, you have to prove that you have done it. So you are spending your time getting evidence and back up to prove that you had a good lesson. You can't just have good lessons now as you have to prove it all the time. So that is ridiculous — it is like Big Brother watching and it has gone over the top now, and the people who are conscientious are worn out. I am thinking of retiring early now. I am 55 and I think that is it, I want a life outside school as it can't all be work. (Science coordinator, 566, June 2003)

Summary This section has considered the views of teachers on the extent of change in their practice over the last decade and their evaluative comments concerning such change. As a broad generalisation, the changes in curriculum and pedagogy were viewed positively. In many cases (see also chapter 2) interviewees freely admitted that what they now perceived as deficiencies in their prior teaching had been remedied by the guidance associated with QCA and the strategies. The increase in paperwork associated with planning and recording was, however, viewed as very negative with detrimental consequences for both pupils and teachers.

It should be noted, of course, that this has been a summary of the views of those teachers who have remained in the profession throughout these changes. In our 2003-05 fieldwork, it was clear from accounts of the prior history of the schools in our sample over the previous decade that some teachers, and especially headteachers, had changed careers, retired early or been forced to leave from sickness or stress. A final point worthy of note is that a few teachers, whilst commenting on the cyclical nature of policy changes where “you find that you are doing the very things that when you started teaching we were told were wrong”, argued that they themselves had remained fairly constant through such externally imposed changes: I have actually been in and out of fashion so many times [laughter] I can't tell you! I haven't changed a great deal since I started teaching in '71 … whilst I understood

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the Plowden theory, I didn't actually go full pelt into it because I felt it was important to stand and talk to the children. To teach them things and not just tickle around being a facilitator. So, yes, I did love all of that buzz of the primary classroom when I first started teaching and there was a lot of what we called topic work then which has been sneered at, hasn't it over the years? … But I have never actually favoured any one type of teaching. I think there is a place for everything. There is a place to stand up and talk to children and be more direct in your approach and the numeracy strategy hasn't invented that. It is just part and parcel of what I think most teachers are doing anyway. I don't think that there are teachers who spend all their time teaching in groups and never ever face the whole class. There has been a turnaround and more of an emphasis on that. It has kind of made it okay now to be a bit more didactic but I have never favoured one approach in particular. So I have felt it is appropriate to teach in many different ways. (Deputy head, 391, May 2005)

A similar point was made by a few headteachers in relation to the cyclical nature of imposed whole-school policy changes: You're a bit of a target when you first become head. Everybody comes in and sort of tries to influence you; the agents for change arrive — in the guise of advisors with a career bent of their own — so they're coming and saying, “Oh you want to throw all the reading books out and do real books”. “But reading books work, we've got a very good standard of reading and we're quite happy with them.” “Oh, but old fashioned, throw them all out.” “Well they may be old fashioned, but they work.” So we didn't and we continued with that and I came under quite a lot of pressure for that. I remember at one point saying to one of the advisors, “Well you're talking about books, these are real books, they look real enough to me, they've got print on the pages and pictures and the kids actually enjoy them.” … Phonics is another thing. You tend to find if you hold fast to what you believe in, and you maybe sustain a bit of pressure at times from the fashion of the day, eventually it comes back round in cycles. Now we're at the forefront of phonics teaching because we've always done it and I think secretly probably most of the schools in the country are as well, because a lot of these initiatives, unless they are policed very effectively, really are surface. (Headteacher, 328, July 2005)

Conclusion We have argued in this chapter that a combination of factors, but especially the influence of the strategies, has significantly changed primary classroom practice in the last few years. Comparison with major longitudinal research projects in primary schools in previous decades, such as the ORACLE studies (Galton et al., 1980, 1999) and the PACE research between 1989 and 1997 (Osborn et al., 2000), suggests that patterns of primary classroom practice which survived the impact of the Education Reform Act 1988 and the introduction of the national curriculum have been transformed within a very short period of time. Some implications of this for theories of educational change will be considered in chapter 8. However, before concluding this chapter we need to consider the argument arising from some published research studies on the strategies’ impact that the ensuing changes in classroom practice remain at a relatively superficial level rather than effecting deeper changes in pedagogy.

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Hargreaves et al.’s (2003) research into 30 primary teachers’ approaches to the NLS found a massive increase in the number of questions teachers asked children and in the ratio of teachers’ questions to statements by comparison with either the ‘70s or the 1996 ORACLE studies (Galton et al., 1980, 1999).

They also found that, whilst there was a very high frequency of lower order factual questions in KS1, at KS2 in contrast “when compared with Galton et al.’s (1999) ORACLE made just before the introduction of the NLS, there was an unexpectedly high percentage of more demanding questions, i.e. those which a child answered with some explanation, reasoning, prediction or ideas” (p.229). However, they found that KS2 teachers’ greater use of higher order questions did not extend beyond their NLS teaching to their teaching of other subjects such as history or science. Moreover, “even where more challenging questions were dominant in the Key Stage 2 classes, responses were rarely ‘extended’ in either Key Stage” (p.234). Consequently, they conclude that “teaching in the Literacy Hour, having become ‘interactive’ in a ‘surface’ sense, has remained heavily teacher-dominated” (p.234). A similar point is made in Brown et al.’s (2003) research into the NNS. They argue that: While teachers in interviews are overwhelmingly positive about the NNS, and feel that it has given them more knowledge about the curriculum and ways of teaching it, more control over learning, and much more confidence, their teaching in the classroom seems to have changed mainly in superficial ways, e.g. organisation of lessons and resources used. When the beliefs of the teachers about how children should learn and be taught numeracy (as characterised by Askew et al., 1997) and the way that teachers interact with children, are examined, it appears that in almost no cases have ‘deep’ changes taken place. (p.668)

In addition, Smith, F. et al.’s (2004) research into the NLS and NNS used systematic classroom observation and discourse analysis to investigate the patterns of teacher-pupil interaction with a national sample of 72 primary teachers. They conclude that “traditional patterns of whole class interaction persist, with teacher questioning only rarely being used to assist pupils to articulate more complete or elaborated ideas as recommended by the strategies” (p.409).

Perhaps it should not be surprising that the ambitious aims for the use of “interactive whole-class teaching” in the strategies to promote higher quality teacher-pupil dialogue and higher levels of pupils’ thinking and understanding show little evidence of having been achieved. However, this should not blind us to the evidence of the very real changes in classroom practice that we have documented in this report. Moreover, these research studies were conducted within the first few years of the implementation of the strategies. As illustrated in chapter 2, teachers have since then become more confident in their approaches and blended the strategies with other aspects of effective practice in their teaching. In addition, our analyses of the impact of ICT in chapter 4 and of the use of TAs in chapter 5 suggest that, in combination with the strategies, there may be a greater potential for higher quality levels of teacher-pupil interaction (as witnessed in some of the observed lessons, for example, Box 7a).

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COMING FULL CIRCLE?

CHAPTER 8

In this concluding chapter we provide an overview of our central findings on changes in primary classroom practice over the last decade. We then go on to consider these findings in relation to current debates on teacher professionalism and policy makers’ approaches to educational change.

Classroom practice The phrase “coming full circle” was used a total of 20 times in our interviews by 15 different teachers, despite the fact that it was only twice mentioned by an interviewer (in response to teachers talking about the cyclical nature of change).

Similar phrases such as “coming full cycle” and “reinventing the wheel” were also used by teachers, suggesting that this was quite a common theme in teachers’ perspectives. Most such responses were expressed in a cynical manner and were sometimes accompanied by explicit criticism of government policy: It means phenomenal extra work for staff and when you are just reinventing the wheel and you look at Excellence and enjoyment and you think “we've come in a full circle” and you think “is it time I retired?” (Headteacher, 408, Nov 2003) The Excellence and enjoyment thing — it seems to me it's telling teachers to start putting back into teaching what they had taken off them in the first place. … It's quite insulting that…the politicians will never put their hands up and say, “Well we were wrong, we overdid this”. They will say, “Look, you're not putting enough enjoyment and excellence in your lessons” and it's constant beating…whichever colour government, it is any government. (Science coordinator, 300, March 2004)

The irony of the “full circle” perception of the primary strategy’s Excellence and enjoyment (DfES, 2003a) was forcibly brought home to us in relation to curriculum planning by the gap of a decade between fieldwork visits to some of our schools.

For example, there were schools where teachers in 1992-94 were attempting to build subject knowledge and skills from the newly introduced national curriculum into their pre-existing topic themes (eg Webb and Vulliamy, 1996, ch.3; Vulliamy et al., 1997). On returning to these same schools in 2003-05, we found that some of them, having moved entirely to separate subject teaching in the late ‘90s, were trying to think of possible integrating topics whereby they could link together relevant parts of their separate subject teaching.

However, as argued in chapter 6, whilst a return to topics might superficially suggest a process of coming full circle, most teachers were at pains to argue that this was far from being the case. Instead, they suggested that any return to aspects of an integrated curriculum would be on the basis, not of the ‘80s topic-web approach, but on a foundation of incorporating relevant structured learning objectives from different subjects within a topic. This is in accord with the analysis from both our observations and the interview data — namely that the last five years or so have witnessed such extensive changes in KS2 classrooms that any notion of a wholesale return to earlier practices is out of the question. These changes relate to teaching approaches (such as the sharing of learning objectives with children and the use of more whole-class teaching), curricular organisation (such as the elimination of the integrated day) A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S 125

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and seating patterns (moves towards seating in rows), as well as to the greatly increased use of ICT, especially whiteboards, and of classroom assistants.

Primary teacher professionalism As suggested in chapter 1, the New Labour government is attempting to modernise teaching by promoting a “new professionalism”. The mechanisms for this transition are laid out in the policy document Teachers: meeting the challenge of change (DfEE, 1998b) and in a subsequent paper Professionalism and trust: the future of teachers and teaching (DfES, 2001). This new professionalism is based upon a discourse of instructional leadership, schoolbased accountability, new public management and the measurement of performance indicators in an attempt to raise quality in ways that have already been witnessed in other countries such as the US (Apple, 1996) and Australia (Smyth et al., 2000). Many educationalists have looked critically at the effects of this government-imposed conception of teacher professionalism (eg Richards, 1999; Dadds, 2001; Hayes, 2002). It has been argued that the associated intensification of teachers’ work, together with increased prescription in both curriculum and pedagogy, is resulting in the deskilling of the teacher profession and a loss of professional autonomy. This in turn is having detrimental consequences on teacher morale, teacher retention and teacher recruitment.

Day (2000) has suggested that “teachers’ voices are an important and underrepresented part of the macro debate which focuses on whether educational reforms in England and elsewhere are resulting in the ‘deprofessionalization’ or ‘technicization’ of teachers’ work or whether they result in ‘reprofessionalization’” (pp.110-111). With this in mind, one of the aims of our research was to give primacy to teachers’ perspectives on the New Labour reforms in order to supplement earlier research in the PACE project (Osborn et al., 2000) on the impact of the Conservative government’s reforms on primary teacher professionalism in the early ‘90s.

A persistent theme of our interview data was how teachers viewed the core of their professionalism as their ability to motivate and develop children’s learning, and to boost their confidence and self-image. As one deputy head put it: “Teachers have a definite sense of being a professional and a caring professional because at the heart of it all is the child and doing the best for the child and moving that child on.” However, such a concern for the child exhibited tensions that reflected profound shifts in the discourses of teacher professionalism as a result of New Labour’s policy reforms. Thus, for example, a holistic childcentred concern to benefit children’s lives shifts in the “new professionalism” discourse to “making a difference” that is viewed more narrowly in terms of raising standards, measured by test results, of all children and closing the gap between high and low achievers (see, for example, Hopkins, 2003, p.60).

Other examples of such discursive shifts in the meaning of key terms pertaining to the concept of teacher professionalism can be found in Locke et al. (2005).

Such a tension can be seen in teachers’ varied reactions to the imposition of a new prescribed curriculum. On the one hand, a common response was to

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regret the loss of teachers’ flexibility and creativity with, for example, a head commenting: “The reason why most people come into primary teaching is because they want to make a difference to children’s lives and they are creative about the way they want to do it and I do think that most of the initiatives have stifled creativity.” On the other hand, as illustrated in chapter 7, there was a very widespread perception that the introduction of a prescribed curriculum, backed by QCA-provided resources, had led to a more professional approach to teaching and to improvements in children’s learning. The introduction of the government’s primary strategy (DfES, 2003a) was viewed by many as a welcome return to a middle path between too much teacher freedom on the one hand and too much prescription on the other. It was seen as giving teachers the opportunity to take a more flexible approach and put back elements such as cross-curricular work and creative arts subjects that had been lost in the focus on the “effective” at the expense of the “affective” (McNess et al., 2003); for one head this explicitly meant “allowing us our professionalism back!”

Contrary to the expressed fears of many educationalists (eg Davies and Edwards, 2001; Dadds, 2001; Hayes, 2002) that centralised prescription of pedagogy would result in “deprofessionalisation” and deskilling, this is not generally the way in which teachers perceived it. As illustrated in both chapters 2 and 7, teachers saw the strategies as contributing to their professionalism by increasing their effectiveness and giving them the confidence and awareness to explain precisely what they were doing and why. Interestingly, Silcock (2002) in his survey of members of the Association for the Study of Primary Education into the effects of legislated changes on teacher professionalism found that central prescription of literacy and numeracy was the item with the most conflicting responses, with academics in higher education being overwhelmingly negative and practitioners (teachers and LEA advisors) being very positive. He also found that practitioners’ perspectives on professionalism were strongly filtered through the core values of putting the child first. This was by contrast with the academics from higher education in his sample who typically explained their views “by reference to abstract principle (the nature of teaching and professionalism, historical trends etc)” where “legislation is judged in a somewhat sceptical manner, with legislators blamed for a decline in teacher professionalism” (p.144).

Research suggests that secondary teachers’ perspectives on the curriculum and pedagogic reforms are much more critical than those of primary teachers (Helsby and McCulloch, 1996). A key difference is that secondary teachers have a strong subject identity derived from their degree, and in postgraduate teacher training “pedagogical content knowledge” (Shulman, 1986) is welded to this to give an inter-related pedagogical identity. As argued by Locke (2001), this strong pre-existing body of professional knowledge “may well sit awkwardly or in conflict with the curriculum they are expected to teach” (p.8).

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based national curriculum, they lacked confidence in their knowledge of and ability to teach many of the subjects embodied within the curriculum (Bennett et al., 1994). Moreover, prior to the curriculum and pedagogy reforms, there was little attempt in teacher training to give specific guidance on primary teaching pedagogy. A consequence of this is that, as illustrated in chapter 7, many older teachers’ reflections on changes in their teaching resonate with the experience of Strong, whom Earl et al. (2003, p.26) quote as an illustration of what has been called an era of “uninformed professionalism”: I started teaching [in England] in 1972. There was no curriculum. You could do what you liked … I hadn’t the faintest idea of what I was doing but I went out there and did what I could. … Nobody should have been expected to do what I was expected to do.

Given this context, most of our interviewees thought that the curriculum and pedagogic guidance they had received had made them better teachers and improved their children’s learning. Many also freely admitted that major deficiencies in their prior teaching had been remedied by such guidance.

As argued in chapter 4, the dramatic increase in whole-class teaching in recent years was a consequence not only of government prescription in the strategies but also of the increase in the use of ICT and particularly of interactive whiteboards. The government’s large investment in ICT in primary schools has proved a major challenge for teachers and our evidence indicates widespread uptake of its use. However, when commenting on such changes in relation to teachers’ perceptions of their professionalism, there was general agreement that, despite the difficulties some teachers are experiencing with such ICT innovations, the new skills required by them together with their potential for improving children’s motivation and learning experiences, were contributing to an enhancement of teachers’ professionalism.

In relation to assessment, we found a lot of evidence that teachers had developed more confidence and increased skills in how they assessed pupils.

Teachers felt that the greater knowledge of individual children’s attainment derived from more formal teacher assessment contributed to better planning and helped children’s learning. However, such potential benefits were more than offset by teachers’ very negative view of the impact of national testing and the associated performance tables. The latter were felt seriously to distort both the balance of the curriculum and the process of teaching, especially in Year 6 classes, and to cause many children considerable stress and anxiety. Teaching to the tests went against teachers’ sense of professionalism. Nevertheless it was deemed necessary in order to prepare the children thoroughly and therefore reduce their stress and enable them to do as well as possible.

The emphasis upon testing and performance tables is related to the intensifying pressures for external accountability that have increasingly impacted on primary teachers’ lives over the last decade. Our interview data suggest that there are several ways in which the surveillance culture of “low-trust” schooling (Troman, 2000) and consequent “audit explosion” (Jeffrey, 2002) impact negatively on teachers’ conceptions of their professionalism in relation to 128 A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S

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classroom practice. Teachers’ energies are directed away from their core role of teaching children towards the escalating paperwork required to provide evidence of effective teaching to external bodies: policies and plans for Ofsted, analysis of target-setting for LEAs, a continual demand for written responses to national and LEA initiatives, and reports to parents and governors. The surveillance culture is also perceived by teachers as symptomatic of the low regard in which they are held by the government, the media and the public.

In addition to government reforms in relation to curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, the expansion in numbers and responsibilities of TAs as part of New Labour’s workforce remodelling clearly has potential implications for teacher professionalism. The large increase in the number of TAs was strongly welcomed by almost all our interviewees. The reasons for this were not so much that it reduced teacher workload (planning for and sharing plans with TAs could in some cases increase teachers’ workload), but that having an extra adult to help with group and individual work markedly improved the quality of teaching and learning. This accords with the findings of other research studies into the use of TAs in schools (eg Smith, P., et al., 2004) and also with Ofsted’s (2002b) evaluation of their role based on inspection evidence.

Brehony and Deem (2005) suggest that this aspect of workforce remodelling has similarities with the restructuring of the National Health Service workforce where “the periphery is now composed of healthcare assistants and ‘associate professionals’”, with such remodelling in schools further “enhancing the trend to transform teachers into managers of teams of support staff” (p.402). There is some suggestion of this in our research: one fast-track teacher we interviewed said that “teachers are going to become less and less of teachers and more and more of managers, but not managers of children”. Despite this, class teachers did not generally view the increased use of TAs as in any way detracting from their teaching or their contact with children. However, as illustrated in chapter 5 and with only a few exceptions, teachers generally drew upon their conceptions of teacher professionalism to strongly resist the notion that TAs should teach whole classes to release PPA time.

In response to the New Labour government’s agenda, notions of primary teacher professionalism are undergoing review and reconstruction by primary teachers (see also Woods and Jeffrey, 2002). Traditional hallmarks of a profession, such as autonomy, become severely constrained when teachers are increasingly accountable to mandatory change from the government.

However, the view that such government reforms “instantly took autonomy away from teachers, together with the right to call oneself a ‘professional’ in terms of autonomous practice” (Bryan, 2004, p.142) was not one shared by the teachers in our sample. Of course it must be recognised that our sample did not include teachers who had left teaching: prior research for the YorkJyväskylä Teacher Professionalism project suggested this view was held by some teachers who had chosen, or had been forced, to leave the profession – see, for example, Webb et al., 2004 and Webb, 2005.

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Policy makers’ approaches to educational change In our discussion of the introduction of the national curriculum, we used Doyle and Ponder’s (1977-78) article on teachers’ “practicality ethic” to illustrate how “teachers take on only those new ideas which are consonant with their existing practices” (Vulliamy and Webb, 1993, p.39) — in this case by using the “processes” rather than the “content” component of national curriculum guidance to preserve progressive teaching practices such as group work and investigative work. Similarly, Galton et al. (1999) use Doyle and Ponder’s work to explain why a comparison of primary practice in 1996 with that two decades earlier revealed little change; instead, teachers had ‘‘bolted” the new curriculum onto existing practices (p.180). What an accumulation of research throughout the ‘90s demonstrated was that teachers’ self-identities and educational ideologies are powerful mediators in terms of their interpretations of and responses to imposed changes. Allied to this was an argument that teachers’ practices could not be changed by government diktat, except in a very superficial sense. Instead a sense of teacher ownership of the change was required, implying an acceptance of it within their prior values and educational ideologies before a more deep-seated change in their practices could ensue.

Thus, Osborn et al. (1992) conclude, following the early stages of the PACE research: Educational change cannot be brought about simply by manipulating institutional structures or by issuing policy directives. To be successful it must involve teachers from the outset and take into account the real influences on teachers’ professional motivation and practice. (p.150)

Our own research for the York-Finnish Project concurs with this, suggesting that English teachers’ responses to the pre-New Labour reforms of the ‘90s resulted either in a process of mediation and adaptation to preserve existing practices (Vulliamy et al., 1997) or in a process of “change without commitment” (Webb and Vulliamy, 1999b). With the latter, external agendas were being met out of fear or a perceived necessity for the image of the school, but without teachers themselves wanting to change or believing that the changes represented an improvement. We argued that such change without commitment was likely to increase, given further measures at national and local level to prescribe, manipulate and police teachers’ work. It could be viewed as a survival strategy at a time of intensification in teachers’ work, especially at the whole-school level. Such a strategy was employed to reduce stress and to try to conserve time and personal resources for those aspects of teaching, such as building relationships with children, which were priorities for most teachers but were increasingly being eroded by time pressures.

The research reported here suggests that the New Labour reforms have ushered in a new era in terms of both policy implementation and teacher response, which in turn requires some reassessment of previously accepted analyses (including our own) of educational change. New Labour’s approach to change is encapsulated in the “high challenge, high support” vision 130 A S S O C I AT I O N O F T E A C H E R S A N D L E C T U R E R S

Coming full circle?

described by Michael Barber (Barber, 2001, p.191), who directed the DfES’s Standards and Effectiveness Unit before moving on to be Head of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit. This vision is fuelled by a belief that public services need to be radically reformed in the context of the new low-tax economies associated with global economic pressures. They believe that, without such reforms, the continuation of support for such services by the public will be threatened and a consequent flight to private education will result in a further intensification of social and economic inequalities in access to schooling. The starting point for such a reform was a belief that “the education system will never be world class unless virtually all children learn to read, write and calculate to high standards before they leave primary school”, and that “at the time of the 1997 election the national data showed how far we were from achieving this goal” (Barber, 2001, p.23). Consequently New Labour’s first major educational policy was the introduction of the NLS and NNS, which have been described as the “most ambitious large-scale educational reform initiative in the world” (Earl et al., 2003, p. 11).

As discussed in chapter 3, we are sceptical of the government’s claim that the strategies have been responsible for a dramatic increase in literacy and numeracy standards in primary schools. However, whilst recognising that the impact of the strategies on test results is unknown (and in our view is likely to remain so, given the methodological challenges of assessing this), the evidence presented in this report demonstrates the profound impact of the strategies on teachers’ classroom practices, not only in literacy and numeracy teaching but throughout the curriculum. Moreover, their implementation has led many teachers to reassess their values in relation to effective practice. Consequently we have witnessed far more changes in teaching approaches since the introduction of the strategies than in the previous two decades. That such changes should ensue despite the fact that, as argued in chapter 2, teachers strongly resented the strategies’ implementation initially and felt they had absolutely no ownership of them, suggests the need for some modification to prior theorising on school change.

Barber (2001) argues that “all evidence suggests that successful reform requires a combination of top down and bottom up change” (p.37). However, he also suggests that the initial stages of such government-imposed top-down change might need to eschew the need for teacher ownership: Winning hearts and minds is not the best first step in any process of urgent change … Sometimes it is necessary to mandate the change, implement it well, consciously challenge the prevailing culture and have the courage to sustain it until beliefs shift.

The driving force at this critical juncture is leadership … it is the vocation of leaders to take people where they have never been before and to show them a new world from which they do not want to return. (quoted in Mahony et al., 2004, p.452)

Educationalists have generally been highly critical of such government control and the limitations on teacher autonomy that it implies. In the case of the strategies, critics have argued that such pedagogical prescription will result in

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Coming full circle?

teachers becoming “little more than ‘operatives’ whose professional expertise is reduced to a command of the technical aspects of teaching and classroom management necessary to the pursuance of state-sanctioned standards” and that “the literacy and numeracy hours and the exemplar schemes of work could be seen as the pedagogical equivalent of painting by numbers” (Davies and Edwards, 2001, p.100).

As illustrated in chapter 2, the evidence suggests that teachers complained about having to follow a prescribed formula, even down to the timings of particular parts of lessons, in the early implementation of the strategies (especially of the NLS). However, we have shown how, over time, teachers not only modified their teaching approaches to the NLS and NNS but they also came to reassess the worth of aspects of the strategies they had initially implemented begrudgingly. This could be viewed as yet another example of teachers mediating policy change; for example, Woods et al. (2001) have suggested that teachers “have managed to appropriate the literacy hour as they have the national curriculum” (p.85). However, our evidence suggests that it is very different from previous such appropriations because it appears to have led many of our teachers to a change in what they think benefits children’s learning. After initially being forced to change their practice, they have come to recognise the limitations of their prior commitment to activity-led, broad-based topics and some of the benefits of a more structured and focused approach to their teaching, where objectives are shared with their pupils.

Far from acting as “operatives”, the manner in which teachers adapted the strategies and then applied key lessons from them to their general teaching across the whole curriculum (see chapter 7) suggests the approach of a professional rather than that of a technician. Teachers themselves generally saw it that way, arguing that the enhanced skills they were gaining through the strategies and other innovations, such as ICT, were making them more professional rather than less so. At the same time, many argued that they were not being perceived by the general public as more professional. As one teacher put it: “I have to be far more professional [now] … however, I don’t feel that I am recognised and treated as a professional.” This, as Barber (2001) admits, is a direct consequence of the fact that “in order to promote radical change the government has to spell out a compelling critique of the present but, in doing so, too often portrays schools and teachers negatively” (p.37). This negative portrayal undermined teacher confidence. According to one teacher: “teachers’ confidence levels have plummeted” even though “we do feel that we are doing a better job now”. This comment was made very early in our fieldwork (June 2003). Our subsequent observations and interviews suggested that, since then, teachers’ confidence levels have continued to rise as they become more secure in their new teaching approaches.

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Coming full circle?

Conclusion The decade between our first ATL study and its follow-up in 2003-05 has been an extremely eventful one for KS2 classroom practice in English primary schools. The New Labour government has embarked on radical changes intended to raise standards, especially in literacy and numeracy, and to embrace a new professionalism. This has involved both challenge, in the form of prescribed methods of teaching and the setting of ambitious targets, and support in the form of increased government resources for schools. The latter was very evident to us on returning to the 50 schools after a decade, since most of them had undergone extensive building programmes and showed evidence of greatly increased teaching resources, especially in relation to ICT. We have found evidence of major changes in classroom practices and of a teaching profession whose confidence levels, whilst severely dented through the earlier stages of change, show signs of recovering. However, the prognosis for the future is a mixed one. On the one hand, as suggested in chapter 6, the primary strategy might enable teachers to blend the best of their previous approaches, including greater flexibility to preserve creative styles of teaching and learning, with the best aspects of newer approaches introduced in the NLS and NNS. On the other hand, if the pressures of testing and performance tables are maintained, together with the pressures of other external accountability audit mechanisms, these seem likely to continue to have detrimental consequences for the processes of teaching and learning, and for the well-being of teachers and their pupils.

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APPENDIX A

SCHOOL DATA SHEET Name of school: LEA: Age range: No. of pupils: Is there a nursery unit?

Is there a unit with any other specific function?

Nature of catchment area served: Name of headteacher: Length of time in post: No. of classes: No. of teachers (apart from head): No. of teaching assistants: No. of pupils with statements: Class observed: Type of lesson observed: Buildings (comment on approximate age and type and any ongoing new building work):

Any other general information (eg if the school has beacon status or been in special measures):

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EXAMPLES OF INTERVIEW GUIDES

APPENDIX B

Here are two examples of our interview guides: one for headteachers and one for class teachers. In addition, we had a further adaptation of these for deputy heads and subject coordinators; these shared many of the same questions but added a specific focus on the role of deputy and subject coordinator respectively.

The interviews had a semi-structured format that was adopted in a very flexible manner. As discussed in chapter 1, depending on both the time available to us for a specific interview and a school’s special circumstances, not all the themes in the interview guide were covered in each interview. The emphasis was on depth rather than breadth since we felt that, given the large number of interviews undertaken, sufficient breadth of response over the entire sample would be assured. The interview guide also changed slightly over the threeyear period of fieldwork (2003-05) to reflect any specifically topical issue. Those given below were used in 2005.

Interview guide for headteachers Background information How long have you been headteacher at this school (any other role in the school prior to headship)?

What can you tell me about the most important ways in which the school has changed since we carried out the original research project a decade ago (the nature of the pupil intake/the surrounding community, buildings, ethos, realising head’s vision)?

Has your role as headteacher changed in any major ways during the time you have been head here (or a head elsewhere)? If yes, why and in what ways?

At the start of this research much was made in the media of the inadequacy of school funding. How adequate is your funding? Explore implications of any funding issues for staffing (teachers and classroom assistants).

What secretarial/bursar support have you/do you need? Do you intend to/would you like to increase it?

Do you still have a regular/occasional teaching commitment? How important/feasible is it that heads should teach?

Curriculum/pedagogy/classroom practice What are the current priorities in your school development plan/school improvement plan that directly relate to teaching and learning? Why are these priorities? What are you and your staff working on this term?

Are you implementing the NLS and the NNS and if so in what ways? What do you perceive as the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy for this school?

Have the approaches to teaching advocated by the strategies affected teaching across the curriculum and if so in what ways?

What is your experience of trying to keep a balance between achieving literacy and numeracy targets and providing a broad and balanced curriculum?

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Examples of interview guides

What do you think of the primary strategy? Is the LEA providing primary strategy training? Is the primary strategy having an effect in this school and if so, how? If not, why not?

Is the school involved in any teaching and learning initiatives at the moment (thinking skills, brain gym, visual/aural/kinaesthetic learning)?

What kind of ICT provision do you have in this school? And what are its strengths and weaknesses?

Changes have been made to KS1 assessment with more emphasis on teacher assessment. Would you like to see changes at KS2 or not?

What role do teaching assistants play in classes? Is there a difference in time allocated and the nature of in-class support provided in KS1 and KS2? Are your teaching assistants on different grades/pay scales? Has this changed over the last year or two?

Has the government’s inclusion agenda affected this school? Any SEN and/or behaviour/exclusion issues?

Management Is your deputy head able to share the management demands? What is his or her role?

Has the school an SMT? Who belongs to it? What is its role in the management structure?

How are you carrying out performance management of staff? What is involved?

(Is there performance management for classroom assistants?) What are the benefits/disadvantages of performance management for the school/the individual teachers?

How is your own performance management conducted? What do you think about the process (benefits/limitations)?

How do you manage teachers’ in-service training and their professional development?

What do you think of the government’s proposals to reduce teacher workloads/ the national agreement? Have you made any changes to cut workloads? Are you using teaching assistants to reduce teachers’ tasks and, if so, in what ways?

How are you going to create PPA time? Do you already deploy/intend to deploy classroom assistants to provide non-contact time for teachers or to cover for absent teachers?

What do you think of the new payment system to replace management allowances with teaching and learning responsibility payments? (Schools are supposed to have reviewed their staffing structures and made plans by the end of the year and to implement these plans by 2008.)

To what extent is the school involved in the community? Do you have any plans to extend this (eg extended schools activities such as breakfast clubs, parenting classes, homework clubs, etc)?

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Examples of interview guides

General In your view have any of the various changes we have talked about enhanced teaching as a profession? (Obtain examples of aspects of reforms viewed as having positive effects on teachers’ work/professionalism and reasons why.)

Do you think that any of these changes have diminished teaching as a profession? (Obtain examples of aspects of reforms viewed as having negative effects on teacher professionalism and reasons why.)

How do you feel about your own working conditions (salary, working hours, environment, coping strategies)?

What keeps you in your post?

Interview guide for class teachers Background How long have you been at this school?

When did you start teaching?

Have you found that your work as a primary teacher has changed much since then? If so, during your time in teaching which changes have had the greatest impact on you?

Classroom practice Tell me about your present class (no. of boys/girls, ability range, pupils with SEN/behaviour problems).

How do you group the children in your class (literacy, numeracy, other subjects — use of ability grouping and setting)? Is this affected by the support of classroom assistant/s?

Do you receive support in the classroom from classroom assistants (nature and extent of that support and from how many different assistants)? What are the advantages and disadvantages of teaching with the help of classroom assistants? What kinds of things do the classroom assistants do for you (in and out of lessons)?

What is required in this school in terms of short-term lesson plans? How do you plan (individually/cooperatively)? Does it vary according to different subjects? Do you teach mainly specific subject lessons or do you combine subjects? Which subjects and in what ways? Do you use external resources as a basis for planning (QCA’s Managing the primary curriculum, websites etc)?

Where does the lesson observed fit in with this term’s plans?

How do you monitor pupil progress? How is this recorded? (If a Year 6 teacher what does he/she think of SATs – effect on pupils and whether they would like to see changes in the testing regime.)

Has the ICT provision in the school had an effect on your teaching? If so, how does this affect pupils?

What do you think of the NLS? Have you implemented the NLS (to what

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Examples of interview guides

extent, nature of school adaptation)? What is your approach to it (adaptation to own preferences, school policy, pupils’ needs)? What do you consider its advantages/disadvantages? How has it changed your literacy teaching? How will you continue with it?

What do you think of the NNS? Have you implemented the NNS (to what extent, nature of school adaptation)? What is your approach to it (adaptation to own preferences, school policy, pupils’ needs)? What do you consider its advantages/disadvantages? How has it changed your maths teaching? How will you continue with it?

Has the structure of the NLS/NNS hours and the advocated approaches to teaching affected the way in which you teach other subjects?

What do you think of the new primary strategy? Is it having an impact in this school?

Are you involved/have you been involved in any recent initiatives relating to teaching and learning (includes any programmes, eg thinking skills, special school events, awards like Art Mark)? Has the class had any visitors, outside visits, special days recently?

As part of your performance management do you have targets relating to classroom practice? What are they? What are your other targets? How are you working towards achieving them?

How are you finding performance management — its advantages/disadvantages for you?

General In your view, from a teacher's perspective, have any of the changes to primary teaching during your career enhanced teaching as a profession? (Obtain examples of aspects of reforms viewed as having positive effects on teachers’ work/professionalism and reasons why.)

Do you think that any of these changes have diminished teaching as a profession? (Obtain examples of aspects of reforms viewed as having negative effects on teachers’ work/professionalism and reasons why.)

How do you feel about your working conditions (salary, training, environment)?

What do you think about the possible changes in your working conditions in the light of the national agreement (removal of tasks, progressive reductions in hours, guaranteed PPA time during teaching day)?

What keeps you in teaching?

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This ATL-commissioned research, which revisited 50 primary schools that were previously studied in the early ’90s, provides detailed insights into the impact of New Labour’s education policies on Key Stage 2. Giving teachers the opportunity to speak out about their experiences of government initiatives, it illustrates that there have been more changes in teachers’ attitudes and practices in the last 5 years than in the previous 20 years. Despite criticisms of over-prescription, Coming full circle? demonstrates widespread endorsement by teachers and headteachers of the changes in teaching methods developed through the national literacy and numeracy strategies. Teaching methods have also been enhanced by ICT and the role of teaching assistants. Teachers perceive that the way in which they have responded to the reforms has contributed to their professionalism. The primary national strategy is welcomed as acknowledging teachers’ professional judgement by enabling them not only to innovate but also to put back into the primary curriculum that which had been lost. A recurrent theme in the research was the perception that education policy is “coming full circle”. Nevertheless, teachers critical of past practice and supportive of recent gains stress that teaching cannot and should not return to how it used to be. Coming full circle? also provides a timely warning. If the pressures of testing and performance tables are maintained, these will continue to constrain creativity in primary classroom practice and prevent the development of a confident new professionalism by primary teachers.

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