Leadership Focus Nov/Dec 2010

Issue 46 November/December 2010

£5

THE BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR ALL SCHOOL LEADERS

A CLEAN SLATE

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LEADERSHIP FOCUS ● NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010

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ROBERT SANDERS EDITORIAL

Sats: the final frontier?

I’m not as up on my cosmology as I used to be, so I’m not sure how accepted the ‘big bang’ theory is. But I have a feeling it may be the prevailing theory promoted by ‘Gove’rnment at the moment: create a massive explosion of everything education so it expands outwards into an empty universe and then watch hopefully to see whether it crystallises into planets, systems and galaxies – or whether everything becomes disjointed and floats around as cosmic detritus, orbiting aimlessly around and around.

On the face of it, there seems to be little left of the massive edifice of educational bureaucracy created by the previous government. Just five months after the demise of Building Schools for the Future, the dust has yet to completely settle (page 10); the heralded Rose Review has been abandoned with primary education strategy left in disarray (page 32); and the General Teaching Council for England is already crumbling in advance of its official closure even though it will take legislation to remove it entirely (pages 8 and 22).

The writing could be on the wall for a few other institutions too, so it’s difficult to see how things are going to work out after the dramatic blast.

Yet, the overall theme of this issue is that hopefully gravity will out. All across the education universe we are working towards making something coherent and lasting out of the primordial chaos. The Early Years Foundation Stage seems to be progressing in a positive way, although opinions naturally differ on its emphasis (page 18). The self-evaluation form’s demise is heralded as an opportunity for schools to produce

something that better suits their context (page 10). It is even possible that schools might continue to receive the current level of funding (page 6) – though whether that will be enough and how it will be distributed is another question.

Ironically, one of the great monoliths that has not yet been dismantled is arguably the least popular of all – the Sats and league tables regime. But there, too, things are looking more hopeful that some kind of sense will prevail, the ideal being a move to moderated teacher assessment (page 28).

Eventually, the dust will settle and amid the debris there will always be the scintillating motes of inspirational leadership, the many examples of schools that lift the base elements of education into something fine and magical – like the school that made film stars of its most vulnerable pupils (page 36) with an Oscars-style ceremony to round it all off.

And in its own solar system, the NAHT is experiencing a re-alignment as our new General Secretary Russell Hobby sets out his five-year mission (page 13) to provide passion, protection, voice, support and connection – to boldly go where no Association has gone before.

‘All across the education universe we are working towards making something coherent and lasting out of the primordial chaos’

redactive publishing limited EDITORIAL & ASSOCIATION ENQUIRIES NAHT, 1 Heath Square, Boltro Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 1BL www.naht.org.uk Tel: 01444 472 472 Editor: Robert Sanders Editorial board: Russell Hobby, Chris Howard, Mike Welsh, Chris Harrison and Robert Sanders Leadership Focus is published by Redactive Publishing Limited on behalf of the NAHT

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The views herein are not necessarily those of the publisher, the editor or the NAHT.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 ● LEADERSHIP FOCUS

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CONTENTS

COVER STORY PAGE

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GTC: NEXT STEPS

The GTC for England might not have been everyone’s favourite quango, but it filled the valuable role of regulating the profession.

That function needs to remain, but who will take on the responsibility now?

BY CARLY CHYNOWETH

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7 NEWS FOCUS 6 SCHOOLS ESCAPE WORST OF THE CUTS Leadership teams might allow themselves a small sigh of relief that the Comprehensive Spending Review let them off relatively lightly – but there are still challenges ahead.

7 SATS ARE BACK, BUT END IS IN SIGHT The NAHT has decided not to boycott the exams next year after the Government promised an independent review.

8 QUANGOS STILL IN THE FIRING LINE The future of eight education arms-length bodies hangs in the balance. Reducing waste is good, but the important thing is to ensure that their core work continues, said the NAHT.

8 DEPUTY WHO SPOKE OUT LEAVES JOB The deputy head teacher who gave a critical speech on education at the Tory party conference has left her school.

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16 10 SELF-EVALUATION IN THE SPOTLIGHT The SEF is to be scrapped in September 2011, to the delight of head teachers who found the form cumbersome and overly bureaucratic. This is also a chance for schools to work out evaluation models that meet their own needs.

10 AUTHORITIES GO TO COURT OVER BSF Four councils have applied for a judicial review into the Education Secretary’s decision to halt school building projects, after spending millions of pounds on preparatory work.

11 LEADERS HAVE THE CHANCE TO SHINE Get recognised for outstanding leadership: nominations are now being taken for the Education Resources Awards 2011.

11 BEST OF THE BLOGS “Now is the time to show what we really mean by the ‘family of schools’ and ensure that we support colleagues hardest hit by the changes,” says General Secretary Russell Hobby in the wake of the Comprehensive Spending Review.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS ● NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010

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FEATURES

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28 EVERYTHING IN MODERATION Sarah Campbell discovers how schools and Local Authorities have been working together on moderated teacher assessment.

32 NEW DESIGNS ON OLD IDEAS You don’t need to wait for a national review to get creative with your own curriculum. The way you deliver the content is as important as the content itself, finds Rebecca Grant.

36 STARS IN THE MAKING Making a feature film helped vulnerable pupils at a primary school deal with their emotions and gave them confidence.

Rebecca Grant reports from the premiere of Mister Pirelli.

REGULARS

40 WORLDWIDE POSSIBILITIES What makes a great school website? And how do you make sure it stays fresh? Rebecca Grant investigates

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13 RUSSELL HOBBY COLUMN What is the NAHT for? The General Secretary outlines the five main purposes of the Association – and how it will change in the coming months and years.

14 TEN THINGS WE’VE LEARNED Accidents at school prove costly for councils, who paid out more than £2 million to children last year; pocket money hasn’t escaped the effects of the recession; and most teachers have considered quitting because of bad behaviour.

16 HEADS UP Three school leaders take the magazine’s big question challenge by telling us about their favourite biscuits, guilty secrets and the biggest challenge of all... to tell us a joke.

18 BEHIND THE HEADLINES: PRE-SCHOOL EDUCATION Too young to learn? As the review of the EYFS framework continues, Hashi Syedain finds that the debate over the age at which formal teaching should begin rages on.

46 WHAT’S NEW All the latest books and educational resources.

49 RANTLINE What’s making you angry? Is it problem parents, or the burden of teaching on top of headship? Find out here...

50 AND FINALLY: SUSAN YOUNG

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Our columnist takes a wry view of how Inset days will need to change to meet the needs of new Government policy. Session one: discipline, including board-rubber bowling and restraint techniques.

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NEWS FOCUS

Schools escape worst of the cuts Towards the end of his hour at the dispatch box on 20 October – and sounding rather hoarse – George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, finally outlined his plans for education in the Comprehensive Spending Review. “This is a real investment in the future of our children and the future growth of our economy,” he said.

The newspapers that morning had already suggested that education would fare better than other areas, and this was confirmed – at least for schools. The schools budget is to increase in real terms (adjusted for inflation) from £35 billion to £39 billion a year over the next four years. In addition, despite Local Authorities facing a revenue cut of 7.1 per cent, school funds will continue to be ringfenced.

This puts schools in an even greater position of responsibility in their

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...but the Chancellor’s spending review still represents huge challenges ahead for leadership teams

‘This is a real investment in the future of our children and the future growth of our economy’ Chancellor George Osborne communities, said Russell Hobby, General Secretary of the NAHT. “We know that schools have been protected more than other services. With the inevitable cuts to local services, schools will need to do everything they can to support their communities, especially those facing social and economic difficulties,” he said.

The relatively good news for schools was not echoed elsewhere. Other parts of the

education budget are to be cut, prompting concerns about job losses in non-teaching roles.

Capital spending on education will be cut by 60 per cent over the next four years.

Further education was another big loser. The Education Maintenance Allowance, which provides disadvantaged 16- to 19-yearolds with grants of up to £30 a week to help them continue in further education, will be

scrapped, saving £500 million a year. This will be replaced with ‘targeted support for those who face genuine financial barriers to participation’, according to the Department for Education.

Much of the detail of the changes is yet to be worked out. A Schools White Paper later this year will clarify some of the new funding arrangements, such as how the £2.5 billion ‘pupil premium’ is to be divided up among the most disadvantaged pupils.

However, Lesley Gannon, NAHT Assistant Secretary, said some broad conclusions could be drawn from the figures. She said: “They seem to suggest that schools with a pupil base from largely disadvantaged backgrounds may not be badly off because of this extra funding – if it isn’t ringfenced and is simply added to the budget.

But we’re still waiting for the fine detail.”

The changes apply to England only, as Wales and Northern Ireland continue to set their own education budgets.

Read more on the NAHT’s website: tinyurl.com/guidetospendingreview

At a glance: the spending review in numbers 60 per cent The reduction in real terms in the Department for Education’s (DfE) capital spend by 201415. This is partly because of the scrapping of the Building Schools for the Future scheme.

0.1 per cent The increase in real terms of the funding for the schools budget each year for the next four years.

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£2.5 billion The amount to be available to schools in ‘pupil premiums’ for the most disadvantaged children.

It is not certain whether this will come from the budget already announced, or whether it will be an additional payment.

to disadvantaged two-year-olds.

This is already available to all three- and four-year-olds.

15 hours The amount of childcare per week that will become available

£4.2 billion The teaching budget of universities by 2014-15 – from

33 per cent The administrative savings that the DfE intends to make in real terms over the next four years.

£7.1 billion now, a fall of 40 per cent.

25 per cent The cut in the budget of further education for over-18s.

75,000 The number of apprenticeships to be created a year by 201415, a rise of 50 per cent on the previous government’s target.

LEADERSHIP FOCUS ● NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010

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Sats to go ahead – but end is in sight Boycott of 2011 exams is called off as Education Secretary promises a review of the tests following NAHT campaign

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School leaders have pledged not to boycott next year’s Sats after the Government announced an independent review of the KS2 tests.

In a letter to Russell Hobby, the General Secretary of the NAHT, Education Secretary Michael Gove set out his intention to commission a review to examine four areas: schools’ accountability to pupils, parents and taxpayers; how to avoid the risk of ‘perverse incentives’, or teaching to the test; the reliability of assessment; and how results are interpreted and used.

The Education Secretary said: “Your members have reflected and articulated many of the most significant criticisms of how the current tests operate, and I would like to see if we can reform our system of assessment and accountability to take account of those concerns that have been raised by committed professionals.”

The letter arrived a few days before the September meeting of NAHT Council, at which the decision not to boycott was taken. The General Secretary said that this was a political decision not taken lightly. In an interview with LF editor Robert Sanders for the NAHT website, he said: “We’re in the endgame

now for what we’ve been working towards for so many years and the boycott last year got us to this place. But we have to consider what tactics we need to get us to that end point.”

The reasons behind the decision were further outlined in a letter to members signed jointly with NAHT President Mike Welsh. “Participating in Sats again is unpalatable. If Sats were wrong last year, they are wrong this year. The choice before us is which strategy will best achieve a change to the current regime.

We believe that participation in the review is the best way to do this.”

Lesley Gannon, NAHT Assistant Secretary, pointed out that heads can’t continue to take industrial action if they are to play an active role in the review.

“It’s essential we’re in those discussions because we’ve still got a long way to go to persuade the Government of all of our arguments.” She added, however, that she appreciated that it would be a ‘bitter pill to swallow’ for members who had campaigned hard for the boycott last year.

The NAHT will put together a ‘lengthy submission’ to the review, Lesley said, and would be heavily involved in the discussions around who will be on its board. Nominations for the chair of the review are already under way, she said, with initial findings expected in the spring of next year.

Listen to the Russell Hobby interview: tinyurl.com/nahtsatspodcast

Exams are back on the timetable, but the Government is starting to listen to heads’ concerns about Sats

NEWS IN BRIEF 2011 MEMBERSHIP SUBSCRIPTIONS Following ratification at this year’s AGM, the 2011 membership subscription rates have been confirmed. At the end of November members will be sent a letter to their home address confirming the details we currently hold, plus the subscription rate for next year.

Annual UK membership costs for head teachers will be £324, for deputies £264 and for assistant heads and bursars £180. Children’s centre managers will pay £192 and professional associates £162. For part-time members (those who work 0.6 or less of a full-time equivalent teaching post) there is a 40 per cent discount.

Annual overseas rates are £396 for heads, £324 for deputies, £240 for assistant heads and bursars and £198 for professional associates.

From January next year all subscription rates will be frozen for two years, which means there will be no increase in the standard rates until January 2013 at the earliest.

MIXED REACTION TO SEN REVIEW Ofsted’s report into special educational needs (SEN) ‘mixes insight and fallacy’ in equal measure, the NAHT has said. While the Association praised some of the report’s recommendations, General Secretary Russell Hobby said it was wrong for Ofsted to criticise schools for the way in which they have addressed SEN in the past, particularly as they were following government recommendations.

“Schools have struggled to provide these resources, despite their financial and educational implications, only to be criticised for not using a more inclusive pedagogy,” he said.

ACADEMIES’ PROGRESS PRAISED The National Audit Office has concluded that academies are making good progress in improving education standards and raising the achievements of pupils from deprived backgrounds.

The NAHT has welcomed the findings.

NAHT General Secretary Russell Hobby said: “We are pleased to note the educational benefits gained by academy pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and commend school leaders, teachers and support staff working to deliver those benefits.”

However, he added that, as the proportion of disadvantaged children in academies is falling, the ‘attainment gap’ still needs to be addressed.

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NEWS FOCUS

Quangos remain in the firing line

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Heated debate: the quango cull won’t please everyone

TORY CONFERENCE DEPUTY HEAD PARTS COMPANY WITH EMPLOYER A deputy head teacher who gave an impassioned speech to the Conservative party conference in September has left her school, St Michael and All Angels Academy in London.

Katherine Birbalsingh (right), told delegates that the education system was ‘broken’ and that even children knew standards had been ‘dumbed down’.

She was initially asked to work from home after the comments but has now confirmed that she is no longer working at the school. She told the BBC that she had no regrets about speaking out but also that she was not able to comment on why she had stopped working there.

The French teacher expressed surprise at the media interest in her speech, which condemned league tables and suggested that accusations of racism discouraged teachers from disciplining children from ethnic minorities. She has said she intends to publish a book exposing the problems in education.

This is a somewhat more measured approach than that taken by other teacher unions, such as the NUT, which has expressed frustration at the retaining of Ofsted in particular. Christine Blower, NUT General Secretary, said: “Ofsted is a body which presently rides roughshod over schools being able to decide the best practice for themselves and their pupils.”

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The Cabinet Office’s review of public bodies has claimed its first victims in the education sector.Three quangos, including Becta, the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency and the General Teaching Council for England have already been informed of their closure (see feature, page 22, and news, July/August issue), with some of their functions to be taken on by the Department for Education (DfE).

The Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group and the Teachers TV Board of Governors will also go, although Ofsted, Ofqual, the School Teachers’ Review Body and the School Food Trust will be retained.

As LF went to press, the future of eight more bodies still hung in the balance, including the Child and Family Court Advisory Service, the Training and Development Agency for Schools and the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA).

The Education Secretary, Michael Gove, said he believed there were too many such bodies attached to the DfE. “If we are to see a genuine improvement in standards in our schools, it won’t be delivered by people at the centre; it will have to be driven by school leaders and teachers at the front line,” he said. “And where there are functions that need to be done at the national level, they should be properly accountable through ministers – unless there are compelling reasons why they cannot be.”

A cull is all very well, but the focus needs to remain on function, said Lesley Gannon, NAHT Assistant Secretary. “This isn’t just about closing down quangos.We understand that there have got to be efficiencies but we have to look at where the core work is going,” she said.

“If you take the YPLA – if they get rid of it who’s going to manage academies funding and post-16 funding? If it makes things more expensive for schools to do things that currently are done for them by a central body, or if it means the service young people receive is poorly affected, then obviously we would oppose it. But for us it’s all about the key functions.”

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A bonfire of arms-length bodies might save money, but their core functions must be retained, says the NAHT

Ofsted has been far from perfect, said Lesley, but something like it needs to exist.“There are many criticisms of Ofsted but we absolutely know that we need an inspectorate. The questions are what should it look like and how should it work? What we don’t want to see is the closure of one quango just to spend millions of pounds establishing another that does effectively the same job.”

LEADERSHIP FOCUS ● NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010

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NEWS FOCUS

Self-evaluation in the spotlight School leaders have welcomed the end of the labour-intensive SEF. The debate now centres around what its replacement will look like

ISTOCK

The Government is to get rid of the self-evaluation form (SEF), lifting some bureaucratic pressure from school leaders.

The form, which was introduced in 2005, will cease to be used in September next year. Ofsted is due to begin a consultation on what should replace it in the latter part of this year.

School leaders have welcomed its removal.

Amanda Whittingham, assistant head at Wensley Fold School in Blackburn, said: “Just to update the SEF took up two full days of work for the head, deputy and a paid external consultant brought in as an expert on filling it in.”

Kate Dethridge, head of Churchend Primary School in Reading, said: “Removing the SEF will free up huge amounts of time – many

Less bureaucracy, but what will replace the SEF?

heads spend most of their summer holidays updating the SEF. Then you would need at least two or three senior management meetings to discuss it.”

Russell Hobby, General Secretary of the NAHT, also said the end of the SEF was

good news. “It will result in more self-evaluation and more meaningful selfevaluation, a process which is at the heart of school improvement,” he said.

The consultation will be an opportunity for schools to create better self-evaluation

‘It is now up to schools to develop their own models of self-evaluation, which suit their own needs and context’

Four Labour-run councils are taking legal action over the halting of the £55 million Building Schools for the Future scheme.

Nottingham, Luton, Waltham Forest and Sandwell councils have lodged applications for a judicial review into Education Secretary Michael Gove’s decision to axe some schemes that had not been signed off by 1 January 2010. The councils

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claim to have lost millions of pounds spent in preparation for the construction, and say that the education of children has been put at risk as they will be forced to continue using outdated buildings.

A fifth Labour council, Wigan, was considering similar action but has secured a meeting with the Education Secretary and decided not to go ahead.

GETTY

LOCAL AUTHORITIES TO GO TO COURT OVER SCRAPPING OF BUILDING PROJECTS

tools, he added. “It is now up to schools to develop their own models, which suit their own needs and context,” he said.

The SEF is not a statutory document, but schools are requested to prepare it ahead of Ofsted inspections and in practice there are very few schools that do not use it. The Government has lauded its scrapping as proof that it trusts teachers to get on with their jobs, although Lesley Gannon, NAHT Assistant Secretary, said it was more a ‘totemic gesture’.

The principle of the SEF was never the problem, she said – only the bureaucracy of it and its one-size-fits-all nature.

“We would absolutely say that information about progress, equalities, teaching and learning is information that any school would want to have in a user-friendly format to share with inspectors and other people who may be interested in it.”

LEADERSHIP FOCUS ● NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010

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THE BEST OF THE BLOGS A CHANGE OF TACK?

Cause for celebration: winners at the 2010 event

Leaders to have a chance to shine Get your nominations in for next year’s school supplies industry awards

www.naht.org.uk/welcome/resources/blogs/ warwick-mansells-blog

FINDING A NEW VOCATION Commenting on the Education Secretary’s speech to the Edge Foundation in September, Arthur De Caux considers the challenges for the new review of vocational education and the proposals for an English version of a baccalaureate system. www.naht.org.uk/welcome/resources/blogs/arthur-de-caux

FOR THE CHOP Following the economic announcements made by the coalition on ‘Axe Wednesday’, NAHT General Secretary Russell Hobby looks at how the education system has done better than first feared.

“Now is also the time to show what we really mean by the ‘family of schools’ and ensure that we support those colleagues hardest hit by these changes,” he says. www.naht.org.uk/welcome/resources/blogs/ russell-hobby

NOWT SO QUEER AS FOLK What with a flurry of unsubstantiated rumours around William Hague and a male aide, and a Melbourne head teacher adapting song lyrics to remove the word ‘gay’ – is the world getting more homophobic? And what sort of an example is this to set to young people, asks Steve Smethurst. www.naht.org.uk/welcome/resources/ blogs/steve-smethurst

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NAHT members will have the opportunity to be acknowledged for their leadership skills by entering the Education Resources Awards (ERA).

The awards, which have run since 1999, highlight the best in educational products, services, resources and school leadership.

The ‘leadership in education’ and ‘educational establishment of the year’ awards will be of particular interest to school leaders. The former will go to a teacher or education professional for special qualities such as the way they manage the teaching environment.

The ‘educational establishment of the year’ award will go to an establishment that gives something back to the community it serves.

ERA aims mainly to give educational suppliers the chance to showcase their work and be recognised for exceptional products and services, but the event has always included the two leadership awards

supported by the NAHT. Chris Milton, events and publicity director at Brilliant Marketing Solutions, which organises the event with the British Educational Suppliers Association, said: “When we first had the concept for the awards, we thought we’d have both sides represented: teaching and trade.”

An independent panel of 30 education practitioners will judge the entries. They will be looking for a combination of excellence, a well-presented application and plentiful, high-quality evidence. “Winning entries have a combination of all these – but often it’s the testimonials that the judges particularly love,” Chris said.

To enter visit www.besa.org. uk/era11 and download the entry form. Entry is free and the deadline for applications is 25 January.

The shortlist will be announced on 14 February. The awards ceremony will take place in Birmingham on 18 March and anyone – particularly the shortlisted entrants – is welcome to buy tickets for it.

For more information call Chris Milton on 01622 745 766.

After speaking at a conference on assessment, former TES journalist Warwick Mansell ponders whether Labour is changing its stance on accountability and schools reform. The conference chair and former Schools Minister Jim Knight, now Lord Knight of Weymouth, seemed to have no difficulty conceding that high-stakes accountability was a problem in the current testing system.

Warwick goes on to say: “This is the same Lord Knight, you will no doubt recall, who in his former position had to defend the very system many of us have been criticising for years.”

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 ● LEADERSHIP FOCUS

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VIEWPOINT

RUSSELL HOBBY R Columnist C

It’s full speed ahead…

A new, improved NAHT will soon be up and running, says Russell Hobby

PHOTOLIBRARY

T

his is an article about the NAHT itself, rather than education policy.

There is certainly plenty of policy to talk about – the Sats review, pensions, funding, Ofsted, free schools, curriculum, equality – but we’ve addressed some of these via the website or circulars and will return to others here in the future.

Sometimes, we need to talk about ourselves too.

What are we for? I know that actions matter more than words, but it helps to state a clear purpose to make sure your actions add up to a coherent strategy. When I began as General Secretary on 1 September we began to develop a strategy based on: our purpose as an association; our place in the world; and our priorities. In other words – what must we do to achieve our aims, given the environment we face?

You can find more discussion on ‘place’ and ‘priorities’ elsewhere, but I wanted to devote this column to our purpose. This has come from dozens of visits and hundreds of conversations with members, asking ‘Why did you join?’, ‘What do you value?’ and ‘What could we do better?’

I’d suggest five things the NAHT is here for: Passion. The most important working condition for a school leader is the freedom and ability to do what you know is right. On a good day, leading a school is the best job in the world. We need to make sure there are more good days.

(But we’ll campaign on pay and benefits too.)

Protection. When things take a turn for the worse, when our members are under threat, pressure or attack, we should be at their side.

Voice. We know things about how education should be run, and we need to ensure that this wisdom prevails amid the often shallow and politicised debates in the media. Sometimes, we need to defend ourselves from prejudice.

Support. In a world where the traditional sources of support and guidance are slipping away, including the decline of the local authority, it will be up to the NAHT to step in to give members the ideas and information they need.

Connection. If I was feeling militant, I’d call this ‘solidarity’. Leading a school can be a lonely job. You need to know that other people have the same experiences as you. This can be as simple as having a drink together, but it is also about strong branches and regions campaigning locally.

If we are doing our job well, members should say yes when we ask these questions: Are we

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helping keep the passion alive? Are we there when you need us most? Are we saying the things you want said? Do we help you do your job? Do you feel part of something bigger? In fact, we will ask these questions. We’ll start with a survey to find out how well we do now, and then we’ll check progress regularly.

There is much we need to do over the coming months to live up to these purposes.

You’ll see changes at headquarters, new levels of support for branches and regions, faster policy making and greater press coverage. You’ll see a range of services to schools, designed by school leaders and accountable to them.

You’ll see a new tone of positive engagement opening doors in government and building partnerships across the profession. We’ll look at ways to get more members engaged in decision-making and ways to improve communications – from a single helpline to an invigorated website. Some of these changes have already started.

This is potentially a difficult time to be in education, but a great time to be in the NAHT. We face fragmentation and austerity. But if politicians are stepping back then we step forward. We don’t need to wait for permission: we can set our own policy, design our own curriculums, develop our own guidance, support and challenge each other, build new relationships and create our own connections.

This is a difficult time to be in education, but a great time to be in the NAHT. If politicians are stepping back then we step forward

Russell Hobby is NAHT General Secretary

22/10/10 14:58:53

STRANGE BUT TRUE

THINGS WE’VE LEARNED Since our last issue, pupils have received millions in compensation, pocket money is on the wane and – shock! – children don’t like spinach very much Girls ‘need to stop working so hard’ Following the latest GCSE league tables that show girls at single-sex independent schools significantly outperform their male counterparts, the head teacher of a top girls’ school says that female pupils need to be forced to stop working so hard.

Cynthia Hall, head teacher of Wycombe Abbey school for girls, is said to be relieved at the introduction of ‘controlled assessment’ as it will stop girls working on their coursework for too long.

Head teachers are evil…

At least this is how they are presented in modern fiction, according to a study from the University of Nottingham. Professor Pat Thomson dissected the characteristics of 19 head teachers in works by authors such as JK Rowling, Roald Dahl and Gillian Cross. Nine were ‘evil’, ‘sadistic’, ‘messianic’ and ‘child-hating’, while six were ‘remote’. Just one, Professor Dumbledore of Harry Potter, was ‘wise, moral and god-like’.

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School meals tempt fussy eaters In a survey of 1,000 parents, 80 per cent of those with children who ate school meals said their youngsters had tried food at school that they had not tried at home. The poll by the School Food Trust revealed that children’s most popular vegetables were carrots, sweetcorn and peas, but aubergine, spinach and chickpeas were the least favoured foods.

An earlier survey by the website Mumsnet suggested some parents gave their children packed lunches because they were fussy eaters.

Family canines keep children active Households that own dogs are likely to have more physically active children than those without, according to researchers from St George’s, University of London. A study looked at 2,065 children aged nine and 10 in 78 schools in London, Birmingham and Leicester. Around 10 per cent of the participants owned dogs and the results showed that the children with dogs spent 11 minutes less each day sitting around than those without.

25/10/10 14:19:52

Accidents are costly Accident compensation worth £2.25 million was paid out to children injured at school or in the playground last year. At least 400 pupils made successful claims from councils that admitted liability for school accidents. Borough of Poole Council paid £33,500 to settle a claim for a pupil who missed a high jump landing mat; other claims included slipping on ice, burns from hot drinks and from sitting on a radiator and an injury from being hit in the eye by a foam javelin. The details were revealed following a Freedom of Information Act request.

There are trends in high places over admissions Some councils are using the global positioning system to decide on school applications, according to newspaper Metro. The measurements are so accurate that families who live high up in tower blocks may not have as good a chance of winning their preferred place as those who live on the ground floor because they are deemed to live further away from the school.

ISTOCK/EYEVINE/REX FEATURES/GETTY IMAGES

Poor behaviour drives teachers to quit More than 70 per cent of teachers have considered quitting teaching as a result of poor behaviour in schools, according to a survey by the Teacher Support Network, Parentline Plus and the NUT. The 2010 Behaviour Survey also found that 92 per cent of respondents said that pupil behaviour had got worse during their career, making them consider changing their profession. Stress, anxiety or depression as a result of bad behaviour had been experienced by 81 per cent of teachers, while 79 per cent said they felt unable to teach as effectively because of poor behaviour.

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Children are feeling the pinch The recession is still biting and the latest area to be affected is children’s pocket money. Research

by Halifax has uncovered that the average weekly amount fell from £6.24 in 2009 to £5.89 this year, the first time since 2003 that the figure has dropped below £6. The poll of 1,204 eight- to 15-year-olds also revealed that boys receive 38 pence a week more than girls. Some 77 per cent of the children surveyed said they were interested in learning more about savings but only 23 per cent put half of their pocket money aside for a rainy day.

Local dialects not welcome in the classroom, innit Ofsted inspectors served Trosnant Junior School in Havant, Hants, with a notice to improve after they noted two learning assistants using heavy local dialect and inaccurate grammar in the classroom, setting a bad example to pupils. Head teacher Jim Hartley is to draft in a consultant to help them learn to speak the Queen’s English in the classroom, as a lot of the children have a Portsmouth accent or use ‘Pompey’ slang. Mr Hartley commented:“As a head teacher I need to ensure our children can read and write correctly where needs be. That doesn’t mean to say that we don’t enjoy regional accents.” Actress Emma Thompson recently scolded children at her old school in Camden, North London, for using slang.

Hollywood actor leads school mutiny A South London school had some surprise visitors when Johnny Depp, dressed as his alter ego Jack Sparrow from the film series Pirates of the Caribbean, visited with some fellow pirates. The actor, who was filming close by, made the unannounced visit to Meridian Primary School in Greenwich after receiving a letter from a pupil. Nineyear-old Beatrice Delap had written to the star asking him to help lead a mutiny against her teachers.

25/10/10 14:20:04

QUESTION CORNER

DAVID FANN Head teacher, Sherwood Primary School, Preston

WHAT TYPE OF PERSON ARE YOU?

HEADS

UP Three school leaders take up the Leadership Focus challenge to describe their leadership style and then tell us a joke

If you would like to take the LF questionnaire, email us at naht@redactive.co.uk

16

In five words: Driven, noisy, opinionated, positive, committed.

Most prized possessions? My wife Julie and my two beautiful daughters Helen, 23, and Sarah, 21.

Favourite biscuit? Dark chocolate ginger.

Unmissable TV? Any car programme.

Top film? The original Blues Brothers.

Favourite song? Maggie May by Rod Stewart.

Best book? Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl.

Who would play you in the film of your life? Jack Nicholson.

Guilty secret? I had just passed my driving test and was out in my dad’s Dolomite Sprint. I accidentally crashed into a wall but blamed a lorry for damaging it. Sadly my father passed away without my telling him the truth.

COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING SENTENCES I went into teaching because I wanted to be an educational psychologist and needed to teach before completing the training.

However, I loved teaching too much to leave.

My own schooling was generally inspirational. I went to the local primary school, then passed my 11-plus and went to the local grammar school. I was so happy there: high standards and aspirations.

It was a model I would like to emulate at Sherwood Primary School.

My most embarrassing moment as a teacher was when a teaching student taped my lesson and played it back to me. I never realised how much I talked.

My leadership style is democratic, positive and energetic.

At least I hope it is.

If I’ve learned one thing, it’s lead by example and treat people how you would like to be treated yourself.

If I were the PM, I’d give all junior school children free fruit every day. The best initiative the last government introduced was the free daily fruit for all KS1 pupils.

I shouldn’t be telling you this, but being a primary head teacher is a great job and I couldn’t do anything else except restoring and messing with old Golf GTIs. Tell us your best joke Why does he call you ‘donkey’?

He al… , he al… , he always does.

If I were PM, I’d give all junior school children free fruit every day

LEADERSHIP FOCUS ● NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010

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DAVE WALLACE

PHIL SCULL PHI

Deputy head teacher, Mill View Primary School, Chester

Head teacher, Giles Brook Primary School, Milton Keynes

WHAT TYPE OF PERSON ARE YOU? In five words: Energetic, busy, loud, musical, impatient.

Most prized possession? Without a doubt my drum kit.

Favourite biscuit? Chocolate digestive.

Unmissable TV? Match of the Day – if Liverpool have won.

Top film? This is Spinal Tap. Favourite song? You’ll Never Walk Alone, the Gerry and the Pacemakers version.

Best book? Absolutely no idea. I’m an avid reader and couldn’t possibly pick one book above all others.

Who would play you in the film of your life? Clint Eastwood.

Guilty secret? Goading my younger brother into striking a match at home when we were kids and then blabbing on him to my parents. He probably deserved it though.

COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING SENTENCES I went into teaching because... It sounds bad now but I really couldn’t think of anything else that I wanted to do (bar professional football or rockstardom) or could get the qualification for. I was also influenced by my mum, who was a primary school teacher.

My own schooling was pretty boring. I didn’t enjoy secondary school at all. An indication of its failing was that I detested studying Shakespeare and only really started to appreciate it when doing Macbeth with my Year Six. My most embarrassing moment as a teacher was announcing to the parents at the end of sports day over the loud hailer that we were about to ‘get rid of your kids’ before being corrected by the head.

My leadership style is still evolving. We operate our school very much on a distributed leadership basis and I think that’s how I would want to run my own school. Realistically, however, I want to develop a range of leadership styles that I can apply to appropriate situations.

If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that you will never get everything done and so time management is a crucial part of this job.

If I were the PM, I’d ensure that all those involved in making decisions about education had been to a state school, and ideally had a background in education. Next, I’d make sure that the six o’clock news delivered much more positive coverage of education.

Thousands of teachers are doing brilliant work but you don’t often hear about it. Oh yes, and abolish Sats immediately.

I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I’m not a good advert to children for losing gracefully. I’m far too competitive and need to take squash games much less seriously, particularly when getting thrashed by our Year Five teacher.

Tell us your best joke One for my fellow Liverpool fans. What has Manchester United’s ground, on a Saturday afternoon at 4.45pm, got in common with Wormwood Scrubs prison? They are both full of Londoners trying to get out.

WHAT TYPE OF PERSON ARE YOU? In five words: Humane, principled, friendly, determined, resilient.

Most prized possessions? My guitars.

Favourite biscuit? I nearly said chocolate digestive but then I thought, why spoil chocolate by adding biscuit to it?

Unmissable TV? The Prisoner (with Patrick McGoohan).

Top film? Star Wars.

Favourite song? Nightshift by Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Best book? The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe.

Who would play you in the film of your life? Billy Idol.

What is your guilty secret? Come on, I want to keep my job for a bit longer yet … OK then, I am also an additional inspector for Ofsted. Ouch! Stop throwing things.

COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING SENTENCES I went into teaching because it was a lot better than the three years I spent as a milkman or a labourer in my early 20s when I left university. I loved the creativity, being able to use my interest in music and art and the laughter that children generate. I even got paid for enjoying myself.

My own schooling was horrible. I had six different primary schools and detested every one. I have sought ever since to redress the kind of grim experiences I had – being smacked again and again (I was a bit naughty) and the sheer boredom of learning to read with Janet and John.

My most embarrassing moment in a classroom was as an NQT quelling a riot in the room next door due to a failing teacher, getting the ringleader out and giving him a manic telling off, only then to turn round to find the head and LEA adviser waiting behind me.

My leadership style is open, friendly, honest, team-focused, humorous, driving and consistent.

I have great trust in my staff once they have proved themselves but if they don’t make the grade or respond to development I can be very ruthless – I just think of the children. Staff are much happier if they know that everyone in the team is pulling their weight.

If I’ve learned one thing, it’s treat everyone that you meet, whatever their role or station in life, exactly the same, with respect and equanimity. Hierarchical people produce toxic organisations.

If I were the PM, I’d build reservoirs all over the country, utilise the water for fish farms and establish holiday villages on the shores to attract tourists. Then ban all commercial fishing for five years in British waters and build pipelines to Europe ready for when global warming makes water the most precious commodity on the planet.

I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I would much rather be attending a Glastonbury festival or backpacking round Australia than sitting in a damned office trying to pretend that meaningless data is somehow relevant or important in the education of children.

Tell us your best joke What’s green and white and turns red while you eat it? A frog sandwich.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 ● LEADERSHIP FOCUS

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22/10/10 15:00:30

BEHIND THE HEADLINES PRE-SCHOOL EDUCATION

Is early years teaching too prescriptive?

As the review of the EYFS framework continues, Hashi Syedain finds that the debate over the age at which formal learning should begin rages on

T

he care and education of babies and young children is normally excellent headline material. Yet academies, free schools and unwanted quangos have grabbed so much educational limelight in recent months that a review of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework, ordered in July, has completed its evidence-gathering almost unnoticed to the wider world.

The framework covers children from birth to the end of Reception, and the review, led by Dame Clare Tickell, head of children’s charity Action for Children, will examine four aspects of it. These are: the scope of regulation; learning and development; assessment; and welfare. It will report in spring 2011.

The review was prompted primarily by concerns that the so-called ‘nappy curriculum’ is overly bureaucratic and prescriptive, as well as too widely applicable.

Many childminders, in particular, complained bitterly about its requirements to observe and record milestones, while nursery and education providers such as Steiner kindergartens have campaigned against

18

the requirements to introduce formal reading and writing activities to children aged between three and five.

And yet the EYFS framework has also been praised for encouraging higher qualifications among childcare staff and for promoting child-centred and child-led activity, encouraging greater use of outside spaces and taking a rounded view of literacy development. School-based settings in particular, which are often already used to a more formalised approach, have been relatively accepting.

“The framework has been generally well received and practitioners work to its requirements willingly,” says Jeanne Adkins, Assistant Secretary for early years policy at the NAHT. The two main provisos, adds Jeanne, are that the framework does not allow for special needs to be taken into account – and that the paperwork related to assessment is too onerous.

The latter is a common complaint.

Indeed, education campaigner and writer Wendy Ellyat believes that far from professionalising the early years workforce, the system threatens to create a body of highly trained technicians who spend all of their time recording observations about children

rather than building relationships with them. “We’ve eroded the quality of relationships because teachers are distracted by what they are supposed to achieve,” Wendy says.

At the same time, she adds, the fact that many Local Authorities judge schools according to the scores that children achieve in the early years profile skews teachers’ priorities. “When you put outcomes duties on schools, they start to perform to that,” she says.

At the heart of the early years debate are questions about where the balance should lie between care and education – and about whether children ultimately thrive better if formal education starts earlier or later.

Those in favour of a more formalised approach believe this promotes greater accountability and better outcomes – and cite evidence to suggest that children from deprived backgrounds benefit particularly from this approach.

Others insist that too much formality too soon sets many children up for failure and that most ‘outcomes’ take insufficient account of the social and emotional wellbeing and readiness to learn that is vital to future success.

The views of five experts in early years follow...

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CORBIS

The early years consultant MIKE GASPER Independent early years consultant and former nursery and infant school head

The more varied the experiences children have at this age, the more likely it is that they’ll want to find out more

HIS VIEWS

“You can teach a child how to climb a staircase, but you can’t teach them to want to, or to be inquisitive about what’s at the top,” says Mike. A good early years setting would give children the opportunity to find different ways to negotiate a staircase – which might help them understand more about how their bodies work, for example.

The point, says Mike, is that it’s more important for young children to

develop the attitudes and dispositions that will help them learn – curiosity, persistence, resilience and the ability to concentrate, for example – than to achieve particular milestones in literacy or numeracy. “The more varied and interesting the experiences children can have at this age, the more likely it will be that they’ll want to explore and find out more,” he says.

The education system in Britain has tended to be quite formal, observes Mike, and there has been a fear among some early years practitioners that the EYFS framework was too top-down an approach.

But he is cautious about making international comparisons with countries that have more or less directive systems, as it is impossible to divorce them from their own particular social contexts, he believes.

In New Zealand and Scandinavia, for example, the early years concentrate on social and emotional development.

“The theory is that a solid emotional grounding will enable children to cope better when they start formal education,” says Mike. “On the other hand countries like Japan and Singapore have very formal systems all the way through and that’s appropriate for the societies in which the children will grow up.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 20 ➧ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 ● LEADERSHIP FOCUS

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25/10/10 14:21:21

BEHIND THE HEADLINES PRE-SCHOOL EDUCATION

The campaigner MARGARET EDGINGTON Early years consultant and former practitioner and trainer. Margaret is a member of the Open EYE campaign group, which wants a less prescriptive approach to early years education HER VIEWS

“I’m quite happy with the themes and principles that go with the EYFS framework. It’s the number crunching that goes with assessment that needs to change,” says Margaret.

In particular, the early years profile should go, Margaret says, because it is being misused and runs counter to the principle of the ‘unique child’ that the framework is meant to support.

“I hear teachers talking about children as numbers – ‘He’s a five or she’s a four’ – referring to where they sit on the scale,” she says.

The Development Matters grid is unhelpful, she adds, because it suggests that development follows a linear trajectory, whereas in reality children develop in different areas at different rates.

Another pernicious result of a numbers-based profile is that it encourages Local Authorities to set inappropriate targets or forces schools to make meaningless predictions – such as requiring every child to make two points of progression each term or asking for Sats predictions based on children’s profile scores. “If you’re not careful, this kind of thing sets some children up for failure at age five,” Margaret says.

Margaret thinks the Welsh have got the right idea with the foundation phase running from ages three to seven and a more narrative assessment under a small number of headings.

“I would get rid of the literacy and numeracy targets and have no numbers attached to assessment.

If there are no numbers, you can’t number crunch.”

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The children’s centre head CYNTHIA KNIGHT Head of the St Thomas Children’s Centre in Birmingham. Cynthia has many years’ experience as an early years practitioner and trainer and was involved in developing the baseline profile for Reception children HER VIEWS

Cynthia sees much that is good in the current EYFS framework, including the four principles, the rounded approach to literacy and the focus on observational assessment rather than formal testing.

But she does have reservations.The literacy goals are too high, for example,

and there’s not enough emphasis on music, she believes.

But the biggest issue is the way the document is being used. “Some practitioners have become a little obsessed about having to observe every little thing,” she says.This leads to a tick-box mentality that becomes counter-productive and results in reams of ultimately meaningless information being produced.

Cynthia believes that it is important for there to be an assessment that can be moderated with other practitioners but that it should be neither too simple nor too complicated.

The EYFS, in her view, veers towards the latter. On the other hand, a simple test on reading or phonics at the age of six, which has been talked about by the new Government, would be no better. If LAs are then monitored through the reading scores, there will be pressure within schools to ‘teach to the tests’, says Cynthia, and the rounded approach to literacy that

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The researcher

The head teacher

OLI DE BOTTON

PAUL WOODWARD

Senior consultant at CfBT Education Trust.

Oli was previously an assistant head teacher and was one of the earliest graduates of the Teach First programme

Head teacher at St White’s Primary School in Cinderford, Gloucestershire and vicechair of the NAHT’s Primary Committee HIS VIEWS

GETTY

HIS VIEWS

Some practitioners have become obsessed about observing every little thing

exists in the EYFS, which encourages speaking and listening as well as reading, would be eroded.

Cynthia is not in favour of an assessment that is entirely narrative, because that could be too long-winded and unhelpful for arriving at an overview.

“When you’ve got 28 or 29 Reception children in a class you need some way of looking for patterns, to see who’s having problems in which areas and how you can help them.”

CfBT has published research that makes uncomfortable reading for supporters of undirected approaches to early years education. Its findings suggest that, contrary to the trend in Britain, the most effective settings give little prominence to free play. Instead they: • offer intensive support to practitioners to ensure they follow the programme.

• provide a planned curriculum.

• emphasise teacher-led practice with structured, child-chosen activities.

• link programme design and practice to academic research.

• emphasise academic outcomes such as letter and word recognition to prepare children for reading and writing.

These conclusions were reached by visiting six programmes in the US that showed evidence of effectiveness, after a review of international research on the outcomes of early years education done by the Institute of Educational Effectiveness in York.

The review had its limitations – it focused on measurable academic and cognitive outcomes, mainly standardised test results, and did not include social-emotional outcomes because there was insufficient data.

But, as a result of the research, CfBT has made some recommendations, including that programmes focusing on language and the beginnings of literacy should be implemented particularly for children from low-income backgrounds.

Oli says the research has received a mixed reception among early years professionals. “We’re not telling practitioners what to do. We said what we found, and the programmes that I saw were pretty directive and different to what we have now.”

Paul is a big fan of free-flow, introduced in Reception as a result of the EYFS at his school a couple of years ago. “It gives children the choice to initiate their own actitvity or to be directed by a teacher. It encourages independent learning, social awareness and responsibility for their own belongings,” he says.

Free-flow helps with the children’s speaking and listening skills, because they are motivated to chat and ask questions about their chosen activity.

Paul would like to extend freeflow through the school. “If they’re becoming independent learners in Reception and infants, we need to ask how we can facilitate that better as they move up the school.”

Paul sees no problems with the early introduction of literacy and numeracy work. “They are appropriate because of where the children are coming from.

Their speaking and listening skills are low when they arrive here.”

What he’s less happy with is the evidence-gathering that goes with the EYFS profile – and the LA’s attempt to get schools to use the early years profile to come up with predictions of Key Stage levels later on. “I said no,” Paul says.

“There are too many observations and tick boxes – and nowhere to show SEN or English as a second language,” he says of the profile.

“We had a consultant coming in who said: ‘They’ve got to be observing, observing, observing.’ Well, hang on, I thought. I pay my staff to teach.”

Web links: openeyecampaign.wordpress.com cfbt.com tinyurl.com/earlyyearsreview

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QUANGOS

ILLUSTRATION: TOM MESSENGER

Regulatory 22

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Whatever head teachers might have thought of the GTC for England, its imminent demise leaves open the question of who is going to regulate the profession in the future. Carly Chynoweth reports

T

he General Teaching Council for England (GTC) was never going to win ‘most popular quango of the year’ at an awards event. The profession had campaigned for its existence, but problems dogged it from the outset: unhappiness over membership fees, disagreements about the composition of its governing council, and complaints over the time it took to come to decisions. It was also unpopular with classroom unions.

Add to this some strongly negative stories in the media – it was attacked for failing to ban a teacher who was a member of the British National Party, while other articles highlighted that only 13 teachers had been struck off in the organisation’s lifetime – and the Secretary of State’s statement to Parliament in June this year seems almost inevitable.

Michael Gove told the House of Commons: “The GTC does not improve classroom practice, does not help professionals develop, does not help children learn – in short it does not earn its keep – so it must go.

“And for those who argue that we need a body to help police the profession, let me say this: this Government wants to trust professionals, not busybody and patronise them. But when

professionals dishonour the vocation of teaching, action needs to be taken. And when the GTC was recently asked to rule on a BNP teacher who had posted poisonous filth on an extremist website, they concluded that his description of immigrants as ‘animals’ wasn’t racist so he couldn’t be struck off.

“We need new proposals to ensure that extremism has no place in our classrooms and the bodies that have failed to protect us in the past cannot be the answer in the future.”

Commenting on his decision afterwards, he added: “I believe this organisation does little to raise teaching standards or professionalism.

Instead, it simply acts as a further layer of bureaucracy while taking money away from teachers. I want there to be stronger and clearer arrangements in relation to teacher misconduct and I am not convinced the GTC is the right organisation to take these forward.

I intend to seek authority from Parliament to abolish the GTC.” This news came as an enormous shock to Keith Bartley, the GTC’s chief executive. “We were given about three and a half hours’ notice that he was going to make the announcement,” he says. “In fact, the previous week we had been given assurances by senior officials at the Department for Education (DfE) that there were no surprises around the corner.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 25 ➧

reform

‘There was no love for the old GTC among our members, but we need a registry of teachers’ Russell Hobby, General Secretary of the NAHT

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 ● LEADERSHIP FOCUS 23

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LEADERSHIP FOCUS ● NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010

LFO.11.10.024.indd 24

21/10/10 08:47:52

The thing that Keith found most shocking, and disappointing, is that he did not get a chance to tell the new Education Secretary about the organisation’s own plans to reform itself into a nimbler, more streamlined body.

In many areas it agreed with criticisms of its structure, and had come up with a number of ways that it could be improved; Keith and his team had been in ‘detailed discussions’ with DfE officials before the election in an effort to get the legislative changes needed to put the new plans into place. He had also spent the 12 months before the election attempting to arrange a meeting to discuss his proposals with the then Shadow Secretary, but was met with ‘a polite response and no more’ from his advisers.

The issue now is what happens next. The GTC can’t be abolished without agreement from Parliament, so until legislation is passed – something Keith expects no earlier than autumn next year – it has to continue with business as usual. “So, for at least a year people just have to carry on,” he says. “I hope that in a few months the Secretary of State will make an announcement or there will be some indication of which of our functions will continue, and then we will get on with the business of transferring them.”

This question about which functions will continue and which will disappear is now one of the biggest facing the profession.

There seems to be relatively broad agreement that the non-regulatory aspects of its work can safely be dropped. Gussie Andersen, head teacher at Wormholt Park school in London and a GTC council member, says: “The regulation and registration work they do is good… but I don’t think that its work on teaching and pedagogy had much influence on the teaching profession. They were in a difficult situation in that they weren’t a union or an association representing members’ views. They weren’t an education body like the Institute of Education and they

PAUL TOEMAN

QUANGOS

weren’t a leadership development body like the National College, so their remit on that side of their work was quite hard and something of a confused area.”

Indeed, having a remit that required the GTC to be both ‘cheerleader and judge’, as one council member put it, could be one of the things that hastened its demise: many people just didn’t know quite what it was there to do or in whose interests it was supposed to act. “I think it has taken people a while to realise that we are not a trade union and we cannot help with things like pay,” says Christine Green, the GTC vice-chairwoman.

“We serve the public, not the profession.”

Chair Gail Mortimer, who has more than three decades’ experience in the classroom, adds: “That is what an independent regulatory body must do. I never wanted us to be popular. I wanted us to be transparent and fair.”

And that service of the public absolutely must continue, says Russell Hobby, General Secretary of the NAHT. “There was no love

ENGLAND STANDS ALONE, AGAIN If teaching in England again becomes an unregulated profession, or is monitored by civil servants rather than teachers, the country will find itself in something of anomalous position. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all have their own general teaching councils. In Scotland’s case, the GTC for Scotland is being given more power rather than having it taken away. “They are now being given independence from Government,” says Gail Mortimer, chair of the GTC for England. “The Scottish Parliament has recognised the value of having an effective regulatory body for teaching in Scotland, as have Wales and Northern Ireland. Teachers in England will be the only ones without it.”

It would also separate teachers in England from other professions such as accountants, doctors, lawyers and midwives, all of which have to answer to their own professional associations.

‘The GTC does not improve classroom practice, does not help professionals develop, does not help children learn – in short it does not earn its keep – so it must go’ Education Secretary Michael Gove for the old GTC among our members, but most people agree that we need a registry of teachers, that there needs to be accountability for decisions made about it, and that someone will need to operate it,” he says. For a start, someone needs to be able to take a profession-wide view. “There is a difference between us as head teachers deciding that someone is not right for our school, through competency or conduct, and having the right to say that person should never teach again.”

For this reason, teaching requires an independent body that is led by the profession and follows clear-cut processes – at which point we will have, essentially, recreated one aspect of the GTC, he says.

Reinventing the wheel might not be the worst possibility. “There is a danger that it could become a behind-the-scenes star chamber at the DfE,” he says. “But actually the real risk is that there will be no replacement at all.”

The other possibility, he suggests, would be a move to a negative register. In other words, a list of people who are not permitted to teach would replace the current list of those who are permitted to do so.

Eric Gledhill, a retired head teacher from Yorkshire and a GTC council member, fears that abolishing the GTC’s current registration and regulation system could have enormous implications for heads’ workloads. “It took a great deal of stress away from head teachers because they knew that they could pass a case on to the GTC and it would be dealt with effectively. They also knew that they could check up on job applicants on the registry… there were more than 636,000 hits from people doing that last year and we expect more than a million this year.” Without this service, heads will need to put even more time and effort into checking references CONTINUED ON PAGE 26 ➧

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QUANGOS

when hiring. “And we don’t want to go back to the days of trumped-up references to get rid of poor teachers,” Eric adds. “I was dumbfounded by the announcement. Who will carry out regulation and registration in the future? Will it fall back on head teachers and governing bodies? And, if so, do they have the skills needed to do it? Who will put the money into preparing the cases?

It will have a huge impact on school budgets, and they won’t have the experts that the GTC does.”

However, more optimistic commentators believe that we could still see at least the regulation and registration part of the GTC retained. David Lowe, head teacher of Lostock Hall Community High School and Arts College in Preston and a GTC council member, is one of them. “I am not convinced that Michael Gove won’t backtrack,” he says.

“Yes, the research work is duplicated elsewhere, but a slimmed down version of the registration and regulation work could and should remain.The Education Secretary does not want to be seen as lowering standards, and if he got rid of the GTC – particularly those aspects – the media could say that he is doing that. Abolishing it would be bad for schools.They might start to let things slide, to let teachers resign when they should be barred from teaching.Without the GTC what we would be doing is passing poor teachers on to other schools.”

But Russell Hobby doubts that the GTC will be rescued. “I think it would be very hard for Michael Gove to back down now and say ‘we are keeping it’,” he says.

WHO’S CHOPPED AND WHO’S NOT The GTC for England wasn’t the only education quango to be thrown on the bonfire.

In October, the DfE formally announced the closure of the Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group and the Teachers TV Board of Governors.

In addition, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency and the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency will cease to exist, although the DfE has promised to take on ‘some essential functions’ of these two organisations and of the GTC for England. What those functions are remains to be seen.

Nor can the other arms-length organisations rest easy. Eight more are still under review, including the Child and Family Court Advisory Service, the National College and the Training and Development Agency for Schools.

“These organisations have done much valuable work,” said Education Secretary Michael Gove. “But I believe there are too many of them.”

Four bodies will be retained, however: Ofsted, Ofqual, the School Teachers’ Review Body and the School Food Trust.

The Secretary of State’s basic idea – cutting red tape and handing more control to teachers and schools – is a good one, Russell says, but in this case it needed to be more fully thought through. One GTC council member implies that Michael Gove may have listened a little too hard to classroom unions without looking at the bigger picture and the changes could end up proving expensive.

“Cutting back the GTC would have been a far more sensible thing to do than abolishing it,” Russell says. “I am sure the GTC would have collaborated with it, but now they have to create a

new body, along with all the cost and disruption that requires.”

Keith Bartley and his colleagues at the GTC have clear ideas on how the existing system could be streamlined, if that does remain an option. Making the council smaller and more nimble, and clarifying that the GTC is a regulator, not an advocate for the profession, are two of the big changes.

Keith also wants to separate the roles of standard-setting and judging.

David Lowe is confident there are many areas in which improvements could be made to current processes as well as structure. For example, not all cases need to be heard by the full professional competency committee; it should be possible to give out some sanctions, such as a written warning or an instruction to improve, after a shorter process, leaving full hearings to deal with people who face potentially being struck off.

The Secretary of State and the DfE are giving little away about what they see ahead.

Some reports have suggested that the department itself could take on some regulatory responsibilities, although a statement made to LF by a department spokesman may give some hope to those who wish to see parts of the GTC given continued existence. The spokesman says: “Ministers are clear that they wish to retain an efficient and effective regulatory process for teachers and are looking at ways the current system can be streamlined. We will outline where these responsibilities will sit in due course.”

‘Without the GTC we would simply be passing poor teachers on to other schools’ David Lowe, head teacher and GTC council member 26

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 ● LEADERSHIP FOCUS 27

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SATS: LEARNING POINTS

Everything in moderation Sats will go ahead next year, but the May boycott had the effect of moving Local Authorities’ focus to moderated teacher assessment.

Sarah Campbell finds out more

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S

o, no Sats boycott next year. The reasons why the NAHT has decided to press ahead with the exams this time around are dealt with elsewhere in this issue of LF (see news, page 7). But what last year’s boycott did achieve was to give some schools an idea of what life without Sats could be like, with teacher assessment taking prominence as the main method of assessing pupils’ learning at the end of KS2.

Teacher assessment itself is nothing new.

It has been used at the end of KS1, KS2 and KS3 in some form in England and Wales since the National Curriculum assessment reforms that were brought in following the Education Act 1988. And in primary schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland it is the main way that children are assessed – although not children at the end of KS2 in England. They, of course, still take Sats, whose results sit alongside teacher assessment to form an end-of-KS2 report.

Steve Iredale, head teacher at Athersley South Primary School in Barnsley, is vice-chair of the NAHT’s campaign for assessment reform. He is by no means alone in his passionate belief that teacher assessment supported by testing – and not testing alone – gives the most accurate picture of a child’s progress at the end of Year Six. But he also thinks there is one sure way to prove this to the Government:

through moderation of the teacher assessment process to ensure that teachers’ judgments are objectively corroborated.

Steve was at the forefront of a pilot project in partnership with his Local Authority last year to moderate teacher assessment across more than half the schools with KS2 pupils in Barnsley. He says: “We’re trying to show the Government that we took the Sats boycott seriously, that we weren’t just saying: ‘We don’t want to do Sats because we don’t like them’ – we were saying that there’s a better way of assessing children. And we are very happy to be open and to be moderated by someone else.

“It gave us tremendous strength and it probably had the impact of bringing more heads on board for the actual boycott.”

At the beginning of May last year the LA sent a letter to the head teachers of the 79 schools in Barnsley with KS2 pupils, inviting them to take part in a moderation pilot project as participants or to put forward teachers to volunteer as moderators.

Forty-eight of the schools – of which 13 were not part of the Sats boycott – agreed to take part. In addition, 12 Year Six teachers who had been put forward by their head teachers were chosen join 12 LA officers to make a moderation team of 24, who went into schools in pairs for half-day moderation sessions.

On this team was Sheila Bott, Primary School Improvement Partner with

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A school noticeboard highlights learning points – one for Michael Gove is that moderated teacher assessment is a better system than Sats

responsibility for statutory assessment in Barnsley schools. She worked closely with Steve and other head teacher colleagues to design the pilot and to make sure it would be well received by schools. She also says this seemed to be the right time to run it.

“We felt that now we’ve got a lot of work happening on Assessing Pupils’ Progress, the Government’s standardised pupil assessment framework, it would be the right time to offer a pilot to look at the end of KS2 as well.”

schools. And when moderators didn’t feel there was enough evidence to warrant awarding a child a level five for writing, for example, they would challenge the school, asking it to gather further evidence and arrange a second visit. Sheila says: “From our point of view and from the school’s point of view we wanted it to be a rigorous process and not just a case of going in and saying, ‘Yes, we agree with what you’ve got.’”

‘Moderating teacher assessment with the Local Authority gave us tremendous strength and it probably brought more heads on board for the actual boycott’ Sheila and Steve planned to put in place something similar to the KS1 moderation arrangements, under which the local authority appoints moderators to go into schools, talk to heads and teachers and sample children’s work. So it was a model familiar to primary school leadership teams.

Rigour was the watch-word, not only to convince the Government that teacher assessment is the more accurate assessment method, but also so that parents and secondary schools knew that the scores each child was coming out of primary school with were accurate and consistent across

The Barnsley model of moderation visits coordinated by the LA is just one way of standardising teacher assessment, and similar work is being carried out elsewhere in the country. In Bolton, for example, primary schools work in 13 clusters to cross-moderate.

All the teachers of a particular year will meet in one of the schools in the cluster, bringing children’s work as evidence and their assessments with them. Teachers’ judgments are analysed and adjusted so that all the teachers are assessing using the same criteria.

Amanda Hulme is chair of the NAHT’s assessment reform campaign and head teacher of Claypool Primary School in Bolton, which is in the Horwich and Blackrod cluster of eight schools. She says moderated teacher assessment is quite widespread in Bolton in one form or another, within schools and between schools – that’s just good practice.

But last year, for the first time, the Year Six teachers held a cluster meeting with a moderator from the LA and a Year Seven teacher from the local secondary school.

“Because we’ve relied in the past on the Sats and on other people marking them, we haven’t needed to focus all that much on moderation for the Year Six teacher assessment,” she says. “In the boycott, moderation became even more important so that we had rigorous validation of the results.”

The aim in this cluster is now to have half-termly moderations for Year Six (cluster meetings take place outside school hours).

“Even though the Sats will now take place next year we still want teacher assessment to be the data that matters,” Amanda says.

Parents were supportive of Amanda’s actions, she adds, once she had reassured them that their children would not be disadvantaged upon starting secondary school. Involving Year Seven teachers in the moderation process went a long way to sorting this out. “The parents were more CONTINUED ON PAGE 30 ➧

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SATS: LEARNING POINTS

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MODERATION IN ACTION Jane Gilmour, pictured here among artworks produced by Year Six, is head teacher at Birdwell Primary School in Barnsley. She took part in the moderation pilot and says not doing Sats allowed her to refine the process of teacher assessment. “It meant that you weren’t spending all your time revising and drilling children for the tests because you were focusing on moving the children forward,” she says.

The shift of emphasis away from testing encouraged teachers to be more accurate about their assessments, consulting colleagues from other classes, years and schools and increasing the breadth of material used to form judgments. “We looked at ongoing assessment records, guided reading records, pupil-tracking data, we did work scrutiny, we had samples of independent work – so there was a whole range of evidence to decide on a level for a child.”

Some previous years’ Sats papers were included in that evidence, she adds. “We’ve always used Sats papers as part of the ongoing process of monitoring performance and for tracking data. The issue is not at all with testing, it’s just how it’s used.”

The familiarity of the moderation model meant the project didn’t involve much extra work. Jane says: “It was transferring a process from KS1 and the Early Years Foundation Stage, but it was also involving KS2 teachers who hadn’t been part of this process in the past.”

The main effect of participation in the project was developmental, she says. By this she means it made her and her staff analyse how Year Six children are assessed in her school. “It wasn’t just me sitting in with the LA moderator, it was my Year Six teacher too. It made her revise her procedures and think about how she can tighten up her assessment during the year.”

Sheila Bott, Primary School Improvement Partner at Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, echoes this sentiment from the LA’s perspective. “It was always a partnership, it was never intended as a top-down model. It was always intended to be developmental and helpful for schools,” she says.

There were further benefits too. Jane says that in the past the practice was to scrutinise Sats results to inform future teaching.

However, the scrutiny would be based on the previous Year Six cohort, not on the Year Fives progressing through the school.

Teacher assessment moves the focus on to each individual child and therefore makes the school more effective in moving children’s learning forward, she adds.

RICHARD HANSON

than supportive after that. Everybody could fully understand where I was coming from.

This is all about the children, and I think children deserve a broad and balanced curriculum, not just sitting in a classroom preparing for a test.”

In Milton Keynes, meanwhile, the LA has taken a more prescriptive role in moderation. Prompted by the Sats boycott, it called all primary schools – more than 60 – to moderation meetings in May. Water Hall Primary School was one of these schools. Its head teacher, Tony Draper, says the process was the initiative of the council alone, but was well managed. The council asked schools from different parts of the city to attend evening moderation sessions.

Twenty schools were invited to each session.

Year Six teachers and heads or deputies attended, who then split into groups of four or five schools to discuss their assessment evidence with a LA moderator.

It wasn’t done in clusters, says Tony, but that in itself was a good thing. “Schools from different parts of the city were there, so you weren’t just going with your mates,” he says. “You do have a closer relationship with your cluster schools, so to have the meetings with schools from the other end of the city is quite good because you don’t have that close relationship. It’s easier for assessment results to be challenged in that way.”

Tony’s staff were pleased with the outcome of their session, he says, because even under scrutiny from the LA moderator their assessment judgments were deemed to be accurate. “They had taken really good evidence and it was fair evidence of children at different levels,” Tony says. “It reflected truly the picture in the school.”

Back in Barnsley, Sheila Bott says the feedback from head teachers, class teachers and LA staff who took part has been almost unanimously positive. “In quite a few instances it gave schools some helpful pointers for development. We talked about assessment for learning, and quite a lot about marking strategies,” she says. She is planning to offer a similar project to schools next year with a few refinements, the main one being trying to set it up slightly earlier in the school year.

All this adds fuel to the argument for teacher assessment as the main judgment data for Year Six pupils. “Ultimately it’s got to be about trusting teachers,” says Steve Iredale. “There is a growing trust of the profession – at least that’s what Michael Gove keeps saying. But if we have to be moderated to be trusted, then moderation we shall have. That’s the important message here.”

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‘It wasn’t just me sitting in with the LA moderator, it was my Year Six teacher too. It made her revise her procedures and think about how she can tighten up her assessment during the year’

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CREATIVE CURRICULUM

The Rose review of the primary curriculum might have been abandoned, but there are still plenty of ways to get the creative juices flowing, Rebecca Grant discovers

New designs on old ideas W

hen education consultant Liz Greensides (main picture) was a primary school pupil, she experienced first-hand just how inconsistent the pre-National Curriculum education system could be. At her very first school, her days were spent sitting in an old-fashioned room, with wooden desks all in rows, facing the front of the classroom. The school day was very structured, divided into lessons like ‘composition’ and ‘sums’.

Then her family moved home and she enrolled at a modern, open-plan school, where the approach to learning was far less

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regimented. She recalls her first day: “The teacher handed me a blank piece of paper.

She said: ‘We’re working on our topics today, your one is Canada, off you go.’ I didn’t know where to start.”

It was this lack of continuity in the way that education was delivered and regulated in different schools that led to the Education Act of 1988. This saw the Government establish a National Curriculum for the first time. The new curriculum set out several aims and key purposes. Among these were: to provide opportunities for all pupils to learn and to CONTINUED ON PAGE 34 ➧

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SAM KESTEVEN

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CREATIVE CURRICULUM

ALIENS AT COTTINGLEY VILLAGE Back in May, pupils at Cottingley Village Primary School in Bradford set off for what they thought would be another average school day. But when they arrived at the school gates, they immediately noticed that things were slightly unusual. For one thing, a police cordon had been placed around the entrance to the school field.

Despite appearances, the school had not become a crime scene. It was all part of an elaborate plan to introduce children to their latest topic, which was ‘aliens’.

“I bought a marquee, which we put up on the field, and we set up an extraterrestrial world within it,” explains head teacher Nichola Geale. “We had a crashed spacecraft, and all these tunnels and gooey pools to make it look like aliens had crash-landed there.”

Pupils were ushered into the school hall and shown a spoof news report about the he crash landing, then each class was given the chance to go and investigate the site (see pictures). The plan worked, as children from across all age groups in the school were intrigued to find out more. Nichola says: “We got them thinking about what everything could be, like all the goo on the floor. Some children wondered if the pools of goo were from a storage source to keep food supplies cool, and another pupil deduced that the aliens used it as an energy source. They came up with thingss we hadn’t thought of ourselves.”

The theme was then further explored in the weeks following the ‘crash day’.

“We allowed each class teacher to develop it in a way that they wanted,” says Nichola. “Year One did lots of work around space and astronauts, they made their own space rockets, created their own planets. The Reception class created their own aliens, then described what they were like and they drew them, and Year Six children were writing newspaper articles and reports about the crash.”

Despite the project’s success, Nichola says sa the school is not expecting another aalien invasion any time soon. “We’ve got to keep it fresh,” she says. “Otherwise cchildren would be expecting a big ssurprise every year.”

However, the staff at Cottingley have plenty C more ideas up their sleeves. m ““We’re thinking of doing a ‘‘museum of children’ themee next, but it’s very much a n work in progress.

“The staff have come up with some lovely ideas. That’s what’s great about themes. They’re so different, and what you don’t cover in one topic you can pick up on anotherr theme later in the year.”

achieve; to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development; to establish an entitlement and standards; to promote continuity and coherence, and to increase public understanding.

Since its introduction, the National Curriculum has evolved, venturing back and forth between new initiatives and implementation methods. There was the introduction of the QCA – later known as QCDA – which was set up in 1997 to develop and maintain the curriculum.

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The QCA system meant that all the statutory requirements were laid out for teachers to follow, but if they didn’t include them all in their lesson plans, they risked breaking the law.

Then it was announced that a new primary curriculum was to be introduced, based on Sir Jim Rose’s 2008 review. This was due to be implemented in all schools

by September 2011. However, that plan was scrapped immediately after the new Government came into power in May.

The news has left many schools uncertain about what direction to take when planning their curriculum, especially as many had already begun using the Rose principles.

But one thing is certain: the current curriculum will remain as it is until autumn 2011 at the earliest, and whatever replaces it after this time, early indications are showing that the DfE wants it to guide schools on what they should be teaching, but not how they should be teaching it.

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In her role as a consultant, Liz travels around the country to help primary schools design a ‘creative’ curriculum, which enables children to learn creatively and make links to learning. She also runs a course for school leaders, teachers and subject coordinators in partnership with the NAHT, called ‘Creative curriculum design: The National Curriculum in practice’.

Liz says there is a clear need for schools to get more creative with the way they deliver the curriculum. “I go into schools and I see snippets of the curriculum that wake me up, but more often I see teachers and pupils who are bored rigid.”

Teachers are often daunted by the task of delivering everything on the curriculum, but making sure you cover everything doesn’t necessarily mean dividing the timetable up to ensure you get your 20 minutes of numeracy or two hours of PE. Working to such a structured format may mean that some subjects are allocated too much time at the expense of others.

Liz says that you need a minimum of seven and a half hours a week to teach subjects like ICT, science, geography and history. Otherwise you will be able to do no more than ‘pay lip service’ to them.

She suggests that one way to use time more wisely is to divide the day into sessions rather than lessons. This allows the class teacher more freedom to encompass several aspects of the curriculum within one time period, which helps the children become more engaged in what they are learning.

Every session must have a primary focus, although there may be secondary learning; a lesson where children are taught to read a map, for example, may be classed as geography, but children are also learning to use an index.

Sessions also allow for greater flexibility.

For example, although pupils are entitled to a morning break time, there does not have to be a set time period for this to take place.

A teacher can be trained to identify a dip in the pupils’ learning, and choose that time to break for 20 minutes.

This also works in reverse. If a class is engaged in a subject, there’s little point in breaking their train of thought because you need to get in the ‘allocated’ 20 minutes of literacy for that morning.

“We’re restricted to what children want to learn rather than time,” says Liz.

FOOTBALL THEME UNITES FEDERATION Designing a creative curriculum for Hob Moor Federation in York, which combines Hob Moor Primary and neighbouring special school Hob Moor Oaks, presented an exciting but daunting challenge, says federation principal Angela Shaw. “It wasn’t just about one school’s curriculum, it was about making sure that, individually, both schools’ curriculums are right, but at the same time organising the unique inclusion opportunities on the site.”

The federation also wanted to attain an ‘outstanding’ ranking from Ofsted, so Angela invited Liz Greensides in to help them look at how they could work towards this goal.

Staff from both of the federation’s schools attended two training days during the summer term where, with Liz’s help, they formulated a plan to implement a curriculum that would fit in well with each school’s unique needs.

They decided to introduce cross-federation themes where, every term, topics would be chosen, and lessons were planned for each class based on that topic. The first theme, which ran just before the summer holidays, was the World Cup. However, Angela is quick to point out that it was a cross-curricular project. “It wasn’t just about sport,” she says.

“Children were working on a range of different things. Some produced travel brochures for the tournament’s host country, South Africa, for example.”

Having the same theme in both schools helps foster inclusion throughout the federation, but the needs of individual classes and pupils are very much at the forefront of curriculum planning. Angela explains: “Each class has a ‘partner class’ in the other school, so the curriculum has been designed for each class to do their own work, but also to give opportunities to work with their partner on a common theme. It also gives a chance for a child to move from one school to another on an informal basis if they are better suited to what the other class is learning.”

Delivering the curriculum using themes has been a success at the federation, although there are some aspects that still need to be taught separately, such as phonics, guided reading and some aspects of numeracy. But Angela says that the teachers now have more freedom in the way they teach. “Many of the staff say that they welcomed the opportunity to work together, and they feel that the new creative curriculum that we’ve put in place has worked in the pilot, so they are excited about how it’s going to develop further.”

Although there’s a national model to follow, you’d be hard pushed to find two schools in the UK that use exactly the same teaching methods. According to Liz, this isn’t a bad thing. “The curriculum you design has to be for your school, not the school next door,” she says.

When designing the curriculum, there should always be three goals in mind; short, medium and long-term goals. The most important one to focus on in the planning stages is the medium term, says Liz. “Don’t worry too much about the long and the short term. If you start planning for the medium term, others will come.”

She adds: “Long-term planning will change year to year. Gone are the days where you have a massive four-year plan

‘It’s no good pulling out the same lesson plans every year. Each cohort that passes through should be treated differently’

for the school. It should change depending on your children, whether they’re mixed ability, or you’ve got all KS2 in one class.”

Liz also argues that it’s no good pulling out the same lesson plans every year. Each new cohort that passes through should be treated differently, as their own needs could be unique.

However, although schools are already assessing pupils’ individual achievements, the assessments often don’t go far enough. “I see it a lot where children’s abilities in other subjects are indentified by their skills in reading and writing and not because of where they are in their understanding of the subject itself,” she says.

“It’s absolutely vital to get the pitch right for the whole class, but also that we meet the needs of individual pupils.”

“A good curriculum has got to produce good outcomes,” says Liz. “If it doesn’t, we’ve got it wrong somewhere.” gal-education.com www.naht.org.uk

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Stars in the making 36

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OSCARS NIGHT

When the more vulnerable pupils at a primary school made a feature film, even parents were surprised at the confidence they gained.

Rebecca Grant reports from the premiere

ED MAYNARD

I

f the pupils at Holmer Lake Primary School in Telford had been asked to select the classmate who they thought was most likely to become a movie star, timid Oliver Rice (pictured, bottom left) probably w wouldn’t have been their first choice.Yet last J they all looked on in admiration as Oliver July w walked up the red carpet on his way to collect h first acting award. his The award recognised his noteworthy p performance in the title role of Holmer Lake’s f DVD production – a short film called first M Mister Pirelli and his Mind-blowing Corridor of E Emotions.

And while starring in a school DVD may not quite be on the same scale as securing a leading role in a Hollywood blockbuster, head teacher Siân Deane is adamant that Oliver’s achievement is no less remarkable. “He’s always been a quiet, unassuming little boy. He had a lot of time off because of a medical condition, and he found coming back to school difficult, but he’s really grown in confidence since he started working on the DVD, and his aattendance is much better now,” she says.

The film was made for the Raising Aspirations project, which aims to help children improve their emotional wellbeing and is part of the school’s ongoing work as pathfinders for the Targeted Mental Health in Schools project – a Government-funded initiative to transform the way that mental health support is given to children aged between five and 13.

Holmer Lake already offers its more vulnerable pupils – such as those with low CONTINUED ON PAGE 38 ➧

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OSCARS NIGHT

self-esteem, ADHD or a Statement for Behaviour – the chance to improve their emotional and social wellbeing through its nurture group, run by two members of staff, Helena Hogg and Phillippa Carter.Twelve pupils who regularly attend this group were picked to star in the DVD. “We selected them for particular reasons.They were all children who needed a real boost and to be made to feel special,” Siân says.

“The other pupils in the school wouldn’t expect those who we picked to be capable of doing something like act, or speak out in public. That’s why it was really important to do something that proved that these children have got talents and abilities,” Siân explains.

A professional production company, Urban Voice, was brought in to film the DVD. The Urban Voice team also helped pupils come up with a storyline, the theme of which would centre around different types of emotions.

The plot that pupils settled on involved an eccentric character named Mister Pirelli who, acting as narrator, guides the audience on a journey down a corridor. Behind each door in the corridor lies a different emotion

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‘It took a lot of work to get the pupils to believe that they actually could do it’ or feeling – pride, shyness, surprise, loneliness and anger – and each time a door was opened, a sketch representing that emotion was acted out by the pupils.

However, before the group could begin to create a storyboard for their film, they needed to understand the emotions that they were going to portray – a task which proved a challenge to many of them. “Some of the children found it really hard to discuss their feelings to begin with. They didn’t know how to manage their emotions,” Siân says.

“There was quite a lot of fieriness at the first few sessions, where we had children storming out and slamming doors, but they’ve persevered and really taken it on.”

The project began in January and took four months to plan before filming started.

The DVD was shot on location at the school. Even though the pupils had no previous acting experience, let alone ever set foot in front of a camera, they eventually rose to the challenge.

“Filming was such a big thing for them, and it took a lot of work to get them confident enough to believe that they actually could do it, but they went in and it literally took one day to get it all done, without practising,” says Lyn Stepanian, who works for the Raising Aspirations project and oversaw the making of the DVD. Lyn has worked with Urban Voice on similar projects for eight years, although this is the first time she has worked with a primary school.

“Even though a lot of them found it difficult at first, they all learned how to work together, and they learned to manage their emotions under the stress. I’m really proud of them all,” she says.

Lyn decided that the children’s efforts needed to be celebrated, and after speaking to Siân, they decided to throw a Hollywoodstyle party, complete with awards ceremony, to mark the project’s completion.”

“Lyn was very enthusiastic about how well they’d done, and told me she wanted to

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OSCARS NIGHT

MEET TWO OF THE STARS Melissa Lowe: actress in ‘anger’ sketch Melissa took the lead role in the section about anger – an emotion that she admits to having trouble handling in the past. a Her mum Janet explains: “When she was quite little she had glue ear, which wasn’t picked up for a while, so she couldn’t communicate very well. She would get w very frustrated and angry because people would think she was ignoring them when v in i fact she just couldn’t hear them.”

Melissa, although an able pupil, was at risk of losing an important position in the school because of her temper. “She was told that if she didn’t learn to manage her s behaviour better she couldn’t be on the school council,” head teacher Siân says. b But through working on the DVD, Melissa has been able to manage and talk about her feelings, and as a result has been able to keep her place on the council. h In her awards acceptance speech, she thanked everyone who helped her achieve that goal. “I feel very proud of myself that I can speak to people who will listen th and want to help me. I have got more friends now that I’m behaving the way a an 10-year-old should,” she said.

10 Lee Williams: actor in ‘pride’ sketch Le As a relative newcomer to the school, concerns were raised about Lee’s participation A in the project. “He’s got a Statement for Behaviour, and came from a school in Wales where his reports were quite damning, but he’s been an absolute joy,” Siân says. w Lee has speech and language difficulties, so filming proved a testing time as he had to repeat the same scene over and over again, but he persisted and Siân is delighted with the final outcome. “The film crew thought that they may have w tto edit over the top of his voice but they didn’t in the end, it’s all him in the final version. I bet that when his mum heard all the things that he is able to say, she was probably in tears.”

After hearing Lee’s acceptance speech, his mum Julie admitted to feeling very emotional. “I was a bit shocked,” she says. “His speech really surprised me, because he sounded so grown up. He’s a lot more confident now.”

Top left: Melissa walks down the red carpet.

Bottom left: Proud head teacher Siân speaks to parents at the premiere

have a big event when the DVD was finished,” Siân says. “I suggested that we should wear long dresses and have a champagne reception, or more accurately a sparkling soft-drink reception, and that’s what we’ve ended up doing.”

On 20 July, Holmer Lake’s hall was transformed into a movie theatre for the day, ready to host the grand premiere of Mister Pirelli. A red carpet was brought in to give the event some celebrity glamour, and invitations were sent out to distinguished guests, including the Mayor and Mayoress of Telford.

Following the screening, nine of its 12 stars – three of the children had left the school once filming was completed – were invited up to the stage, where they were presented with an award statue and certificate. As they accepted their award, each child delivered their own Oscars-style acceptance speech and, in true awards-ceremony tradition, there was not a dry eye in the house – especially among the parents who attended.

“Many of t parents were the surprised at how confident the children were when they talked about their work on the DVD, which is something many of them wouldn’t have been able to do before,” Siân explains.

She adds: “It was important that we not only helped the children to raise their selfesteem, but also that we raised their selfesteem in their parents’ eyes as well, to make their parents aware of their potential.”

This has certainly been the case for leading man Oliver, who now wants to be an actor when he grows up. In his acceptance speech, he thanked his parents, who are encouraging him to go to acting classes. “When I found out that Mrs Deane had chosen me to do the DVD, I was nervous at first, but then I was absorbed in the work and found it was fun.

I want to thank my mum and dad because they gave me a lot of support with the DVD and made me want to be an actor,” he said.

Following on from the warm reception it received at the premiere, Mister Pirelli has

gone on to achieve further acclaim. It was awarded the West Midlands Safeguarding Award, and it has also been endorsed by the Anti-Bullying Alliance. “I think it would be a great piece to show at events like antibullying special needs conferences,” says Siân.

It’s too early to determine how wide an audience the DVD will reach, but there is one group that Siân hopes will watch it time and time again – the children who took part. “The difference that this project has made is really quite startling and it’s great because the children will have this DVD forever, and if at some point in the future they feel that things aren’t going right for them, then all they need to do is sit down and watch it, and recapture all those wonderful feelings they had while making it.” holmerlake.taw.org.uk urbanvoice.co.uk For more about the Targeted Mental Health in Schools project visit tinyurl.com/tahms To obtain a copy of Mister Pirelli, email Lyn Stepanian at lyn.stepanian@taw.org.uk

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PHOTOLIBRARY

SCHOOLS ONLINE

Worldwide possibilities 40

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What makes a great school website? Is it worth investing the time and money to create it? Rebecca Grant finds out

H

ere’s an interesting IT exercise: type the words ‘British Royal Family’ into Google. The first page of results that comes back will include all the usual websites you’d expect to see, such as Wikipedia, the Royal Family’s official website and a couple of newspaper sites.

But, surprisingly, you’ll also find a Kent primary school among the top 10 results.

Woodlands Junior School’s website (www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk) has become a worldwide phenomenon.

Each day it attracts more than 100,000

visitors from places as far flung as Singapore, Australia and parts of Africa.

But what’s more remarkable is that the site does not cost the school a penny. It is run voluntarily by former teacher Mandy Barrow, who develops and updates the site in her spare time.

Mandy has not only built up the website to cover general information about the school, the latest news and a secure learning zone – sections that are now the norm on most British school websites – but the site is packed with information about virtually every area in the curriculum. Particularly abundant is the section on British customs,

such as Guy Fawkes Night and Mothering Sunday, which is what has attracted so much web traffic from across the world.

Woodlands’ head teacher Mary Priestley says: “Because a lot of other countries study English, if a pupil wants to find out something about the English or English customs it’s usually our site that comes up first on Google, so they click on it.”

The website has also attracted attention closer to home. “It’s been fantastic educationally, but also acts as a kind of marketing tool, which is where schools CONTINUED ON PAGE 42 ➧

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SCHOOLS ONLINE

CASE STUDY: PETERBROOK PRIMARY SCHOOL When Steve McGaw became head teacher at Peterbrook Primary School (www.peterbrookschool.com) in Solihull back in 2001, the school’s web presence was non-existent. However, after working with Primarysite to create its first website in 2004, the way the school communicates has been transformed.

The site now forms an integral part of the school community, receiving around 600 hits a week. It even has it’s own child-friendly mascot, Peter Brook the bear, who features heavily on the homepage.

“We wanted to have something that encapsulated our vision, our values, our ethos, and it became the bear. When we launched the second version of our website in October 2008, we put little animated bears all over the homepage and it’s proved massively popular.”

As well as give the site its own unique identity, the introduction of Peter Brook has also had an impact on pupils’ learning. There is an

need to be now,” Mary says. “When people come to us – new teachers, pupils or parents – they always say: ‘You’re the school with the website.’ That’s been quite important to us in terms of recruitment so it’s worth investing that time.”

Mary knows the importance of an effective website. In previous schools she has tried ‘build your own’ web packages, and says that they are easy to set up but very limited in what you can achieve.

“They give you a basic school website – they just let you display a few pages of information. But if you want to go further than that, you have to invest the time.

I don’t think there’s a shortcut to that.

“We’ve been lucky. The site’s been a labour of love for Mandy, and if it hadn’t been for her goodwill we wouldn’t have a site that was anywhere near as good without a budget. If we had to start from scratch, I would definitely need to employ someone to run it. It takes a lot of time each week to maintain the website,” she says.

Former teacher Geoff Millington knows

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actual Peter Brook teddy bear in the school that pupils can take home with them on weekends and holidays, providing they write an account of their experiences for the website, thus improving their literacy skills.

As technology has evolved, so has the site’s content. It now contains a link to a separate site, Radio Peterbrook (www.radiopeterbrook.com), which contains a selection of educational podcasts covering everything from phonics to music lessons.

But it’s not just the pupils who are benefiting from the website’s content. “The site has had so many benefits that we didn’t anticipate,” says Steve. “For a start, any post that ever comes up at Peterbrook is advertised in the jobs section, and we find that no matter what the post that comes up is, we are swamped with applications. It’s also a great admissions tool. We have a video prospectus on the site, so the website really sells the school for us.”

Parents have also embraced the site, although Steve says some were reluctant at first. “When parents enrol their pupils here, they have to fill in an IT permissions letter. One of the questions asks if they are happy for their child’s work to appear, anonymously, on the website. We used to have 3 or 4 per cent of parents who said no, but now it’s down to less than 1 per cent.”

He adds: “Parents know that our website is safe.

When their children ask if they can go online to play games, they tell them to go onto the games section of the school website, because it’s secure and they can trust it.”

just how much work goes into setting up an in-house school website; his initial attempts at creating a site for his old school, Bowbridge Primary (www. bowbridgeprimary.com) in Nottinghamshire, resulted in failure and frustration. “I was a fairly young teacher at the time, and I could see a lot of potential in making use of the school website so we could communicate with the kids at home, and give them advice on their homework.

So, I approached one of the Governors at the school who had a web design company, and he created a website for us. But the problem was that we couldn’t update it – anything that we wanted to put on there had to go through him, which could take weeks to be uploaded if he was busy. Although the site looked brilliant to start off with, nobody used it after a short amount of time.”

The second attempt also proved fruitless.

“We then got the ICT leader at school to make a site using Microsoft FrontPage, which again looked quite good from the outside, but it wasn’t updatable, and so

after about six months there were still the same news stories that were on there from the beginning.”

It was Geoff ’s wife, Rose, who finally produced a long-term solution. She’d been taking a web-design class and was able to come up with a content management system that met the school’s needs. “What I needed was the ability to update the site myself. I needed something that worked like a Word document, where I could go in and make the changes I needed to – nothing too complicated.”

The new website worked. It quickly attracted attention from other primary schools in the area, also looking for a child-friendly, easy-to-maintain site. This demand led to Geoff and Rose setting up Primarysite (www.primarysite.net), a web design company that specialises in primary school web design. Primarysite has designed websites for more than 1,200 schools.

“Most of the schools that come to us have gone through the process that my

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old school went through, where they are probably on their third or fourth website, and have never really succeeded.

“Our way is simpler, if anything. We’ve stripped out all the things people don’t need.You ought to be able to go on to the

when it redesigned its website two years ago.

“We wanted a site that gave visitors an accurate impression of our school,” says Perryfield’s administrative officer, Christine Tucker, who manages the school site. “What we had before was fine and it was functional, but it was a bit cold and it didn’t really give a full impression of the school. So the head teacher actually asked me to have a look for a company that would be suitable to design a site that was exactly what we wanted.”

According to Christine, it was well worth the investment. “They came up with some great ideas, like the colourful graphics we’ve got on the homepage. We wouldn’t have even been able to create those ourselves.”

The new site has improved the way the school communicates with parents.

“We’ve had some great feedback from parents,” she says. “They use the site to download the latest newsletters and look at the school calendar, and they order the school meals on there. Anything that they need to know about what is going on in school, they look for it on the website.”

However, although the website is fulfilling its intended role at the moment, Christine recognises that it needs to stay fresh. “I don’t think you can stand still on it.

The site that we’ve got at the moment is great and we really like it, but it’s something that will need developing for the future.

We’re already looking at the possibly of updating our online prospectus” Keeping things up to date has been a key element of the New Line Learning Federation’s website (www. newlinelearning.com). The federation, which is made up of two secondary academies in Maidstone, Kent – the New Line Learning Academy and Cornwallis Academy – is about to undergo a name change, to the Future Schools Trust, and the

‘The internet will never replace textbooks because it’s filled with misinformation but a website is a tool for filtering through that’ website, log in, change the thing you want to change, and then log out. It should be as easy as that.”

Primarysite’s success exemplifies the growing trend in the number of schools that are now choosing to outsource their web design to a professional company.

Perryfields Infant School (www. perryfieldsinfantschool.org.uk) in Essex turned to the company School Website (www.schoolwebsite.co.uk)

website is due to be relaunched later this year to coincide with the change.

The federation’s communications manager, Moira Mitchell, says that the website is an important part of the school’s identity. “People were getting a bit confused, as they didn’t understand the distinction between the two academies, but once we gave them their own different identities on the website it became a lot easier to understand the differences.”

DOS AND DON’TS Tips for setting up a brilliant website: DO make sure you can log in and update it when you want DO make it colourful and vibrant.

Try to give it a theme and a bit of character to reflect your school DO use your website and other online communication such as Twitter to make links with the local community DO include games and activities that parents can point their children to and know they will be safe DON’T struggle alone. If you’re getting nowhere with your current website, getting a company to administer one for you could be a worthwhile investment DON’T stand still. Refresh the content frequently, otherwise people will stop visiting your site DON’T forget that the primary purpose of the site is education for children and information for parents, so include things like newsletters, timetables and even dinner menus

Moira is also using the web to promote the federation locally. “We’ve started using Twitter to promote our facilities to local businesses because a lot of them are available for them to hire now, and we also use it to promote events and fundraising activities we’ve got going on,” she says.

But with so many schools now reaping the benefits their attractive, multifunctional websites, Woodlands’ head teacher Mary Priestly is keen to stress that the primary function of any site should always be education. “The internet has grown in such a short space of time, and children have grown up in a world where using it is natural to them,” she says.

“I don’t think the internet will ever replace textbooks, because it’s filled with misinformation, but a school website is such a good tool for filtering through that.

It can allow you to mediate that pathway for children, to bring out the best of the web without getting embroiled in something that’s not safe.”

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MEMBER BENEFITS FROM OUR SELECTED PARTNERS MESSAGE FROM A SCHOOL PARTNER

Partner contacts The NAHT is committed to negotiating a wide range of high-quality, valued-added benefits and services for its members. We do this by working closely with a number of carefully selected companies, known as NAHT affinity partners.

The services our partners provide are monitored and reviewed on a regular basis to ensure they meet the high standards you’d expect. Many offer discounts or packages that represent great value, although unfortunately the NAHT cannot guarantee that they will always represent the best buy.

If you have any comments on the services provided by our affinity partners, please contact John Randall, NAHT’s commercial development manager, by email at johnr@naht.org.uk

SERVICES FOR SCHOOLS ETEACH Online staff recruitment 0845 226 1906 www.eteach.com Email: support@eteach.com SCHOOLS ADVISORY SERVICE Staff absence insurance 01623 643 555 www.schooladvice.co.uk

KIRKLAND ROWELL Self-evaluation surveys 0191 270 8270 www.kirkland-rowell.com SCHOOLQUOTE Online procurement portal 01993 848 748 www.schoolquote.co.uk Email: theteam@ schoolquote.co.uk

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We have enjoyed a very successful year with the launch of Eteach Premium, winning the award for ‘best technical innovation’ at the 2010 Onrec Awards and being the first in the sector to launch targeted school and regional talent pools.

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members at no extra cost and have designed them to make recruitment a simple and straightforward process, while still saving schools money at a time when education recruitment is changing and budgets are being cut.

Eteach offers a range of services to recruiters including: • Use of our intuitive applicant tracking system (ATS); • Unlimited job postings; • School and regional talent pools.

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81% say FILMCLUB improves childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s receptivity to learning 86% say FILMCLUB improves their relationship with students 2010 Ofsted report: â&#x20AC;&#x153;The hugely successful FILMCLUB has had a major impact on helping students to develop and share their beliefs, cultures, and information about their religions and experiences.â&#x20AC;?

7R Ă&#x20AC;QG RXW PRUH DQG VLJQ XS YLVLW www.Ă&#x20AC;lmclub.org register RU FDOO 020 7288 4520 ´%XLOGLQJ FRQĂ&#x20AC;GHQFH VHOI EHOLHI DQG HPRWLRQDO LQWHOOLJHQFH LV DQ LPSRUWDQW SDUW RI WKH VFKRRO¡V SKLORVRSK\ DQG ),/0&/8% LV DQRWKHU WRRO WR WKDW HQG Âľ Headteacher, East Midlands â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think what youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re doing at FILMCLUB is amazing.â&#x20AC;? Steven Spielberg NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 â&#x2014;? LEADERSHIP FOCUS 45

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ROUND-UP

WHAT’S NEW?

The latest products, books and teaching resources How to be an Amazing Teacher Caroline Bentley-Davies Crown House Publishing £16.99 This is an informative, practical and supportive guide that will help new teachers develop their skills but will also provide fresh ideas to those who have been in the profession for a while. Topics covered range from body language and classroom charisma to dealing with underachieving boys and effective marking and lesson planning.

Throughout the book there are ‘thinking points’ and ‘reflection moments’ which offer the reader a chance to consider each chapter in the context of their own skills and teaching practices. Real-life scenarios are examined along with clear instructions on what is good and not so good. This resource shows exactly what outstanding teachers do and how easily others can do the same.

Head over Heels Christopher Martin Moonrise Press £14.99 Head Over Heels is an interesting insight into life at a co-educational boarding school. Christopher Martin, former head teacher of Millfield School in Somerset, gives a first-hand account of his eight years as head and reveals the challenges faced when looking after 1,250 pupils from more than 50 different countries, residing in 28 boarding houses.

The day-to-day episodes and experiences at a far-from-ordinary school have been noted in this honest account. The author relates some amusing anecdotes about parents and pupils that most heads will find familiar – except his are more likely to involve the children of Boris Yeltsin and dealing with being written about in newspapers across the globe.

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BBC B BC Ch C Children hild dren d ren in n Need N eeed sc school chool p packs ack ks Hopin Hoping Ho ng to om match atch la last ast yyear’s earr’s re record-breaking ecorrd d-b breaaking i g ££399 m million illio l on in n money moneey raised, raaiseed, Children Ch hild dren in N Need eeed h has as p produced rod duced d sschool cho ool pac packs ckks ffor or nurseries, nurs seriees, p primary rim maryy an and nd se secondary eco onda dary sschools cho ools tto oh help pw with ith th ffun fundraising nd draaisin s ng ffor orr tthis his i yea year’s ear’s’s event even ent o on n 199 N No November. ovember. v m rT The h hee p pac packs ckks include incl n lude de colouring-in cco olou ouring i g-in i p pag pages gees and n face a masks as of PPudsey d y and d his i best e friend fr n B Blush. h T The B BBC C Children h r in Need N d we website s ccontains n n aan ‘ideas d as and n ttoolkits’ l s section e o with w h lots t of o downloadable o l d b m materials e l for o students t e ts and n teachers. t c r The T sitee also s o offers r iinspiration inspir p ratio t on ffor orr b bake aakee ssa sales ales e with w te teddy ed ddyy be bear ear a biscuit biscu cuitt aand nd d stra strawberry t awberry w r y ssco scone on nee rrec recipes, cipe pes,, aas well e ass aarts rts t and nd crafts ccrrafts f s and a sponsored sp po on nsore o ed events ven nts ssuggestions. ugg ggesttion www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey

A cchance hancce tto o ttrain rain n ffor or ggreatness reeatneess Thee Int International tern natio onal Le Leadership eadeership aand nd Manag Management gement Pro Program ograam ((ILMP) ILM MP) h has as ann announced noun nced datess for its Inte International ernaation nal Lea Leadership aderrship p Tra Training aining ccourse ourse and d the IL ILMP LMPP Mi Middle iddle Le Leaders eaders cou courses. ursees.

Thee International Inttern natio onal Le Leadership eadeership T Training rain ningg spa spans ans onee year yeear and and is designed desiigneed to develop deveelop skilled skilled, d effective effe ective and and inspiring inspirin ng senior senior school scho ool leaders lead derss throughout througho out the the world, wo orld,, providing pro ovid dingg practical praacticcal leadership lead dersship p tra training ainin ng fo for or aany ny school env environment viro onmentt and d all lev levels vels of sen senior nior lead leadership. dersship p. Th The he other oth her ttwo wo o fou four-day ur-d day cou courses urses fo for or m middle idd dle le leaders ead ders will tak take ke p place lace in n Lo London ondo on in M March arch an and nd JJuly ulyy 201 2011 11 an and nd aare re aaimed imed at ccoordinators, oorrdin nato ors, h heads ead ds o off d departments, epaartm ments, ssubject ubjjectt leaders leaaderrs and an nd phase pha ase leaders lead derss of international inteernaatio onal sch schools. hoolls. IL ILMP LMPP is now w accepting acccep pting ap applications pplicatiionss for 20 2011-12.

011-12. www.internationalleadershipandmanagementprogram.com

AntiA nttiiBullying Bu ully lyingg Week W eek The h ttheme m for thee 2010 0 Anti-Bullying A - l n Week W e (15-19 5 9 November) N ve b ) is all a aabout u ‘taking t n aaction o ttogether’ ge e and d aims m to t challenge c l g indivi individuals n v u and d communities o m n e tto ta tackle kl b bullying. y g The h A Anti-Bullying - l n Alliance A an e has as created re e resources r o c to t help h p teachers, a e sschool o leaders, d s governors o r r an and p parents e s to o recognise c n e thee signs g of b bullying. l g Y You w willl find d a variety a t of o assembly s m y and n lesson e o plans p ns on n itss website e i – and n you y can n even ve buy b y themed e e sstationery sta ati tio oner ery to o ssu support upp ppo orrt your you our own ow wn w n anti-bullying ant nti-bu bullyi lyingg ccampaign. aam mp paiign. n www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/get_involved/anti-bullying_week/resources.aspx

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Designs D eessiignss on o yyou ou Gett cre creative eatiive aatt the V V&A &A Am museum useeum in LLondon on ndon n with h Saturday Sat turday workshops, worrkshopss, co courses oursses aand nd ffree ev events vents for 133 to 19-y 19-year-olds.

9 yearr-old ds. ‘‘Interactive Inteeracctive i ed de design’ esign’ i ’ aand nd d ‘menswear ‘me ensw weaar d de design’ esign’ i ’ aare re ttwo wo of the he wo workshops orkshop k ps running run nning i in nN No November. ovem mb beer. FFree ree artt and d design deesiggn activities act tivitiies are are also l ob be being eingg put on n ffo for or fa families amillies and nd yo young oungg cch children hildr ldren n eve every ery w weekend eeeeken end aand nd d school c o holidays hol oliday d ys w with ith th a B Beatrix ea eattrixx Pot Potter otter e the theme hem mee o of act activities ctivities v es taking tak aking n pl plac place ce o over vverr tthe C Christmas hris r stma mas h holiday. o olid daay. Var V Various riou o interactive n ra i p plays y run u o on SSaturdays u ay aand include c e subjects u e s such c as a the h medieval m d va monastery, m n e puppeteering pu p e n aand Victorian c ri dress. es www.vam.ac.uk/activ_events

The Th T he EEnterprise nteerpriise Z Zone one The Th T he EEnterprise nteerpri p ise Z Zone on ne w website ebssite is a ggre great eat reso resource ourcce for te fo teachers each hers and d st students tudeentss to kee keep ep u up p tto o date with w ith new news ws aand nd feat features turees abou about ut enterprise p aand nd business busin b nesss innovation. inn novaatio on. Itt contains co ontaains 16 downloadable dow wnlo oadaable lesson lle esso on planss wh which hich h co cover over var various rious to topics op piccs fr from rom recruitment re ecru uitm mentt an and nd ccustomer usto omeer ccare are to new wp pr product rodu uct development d eveelop pmeent aand nd exp expanding pand dingg a busines business. ss. Notes Notes ffor or tteachers, eaccherrs, w which hicch in include nclu ude worksh worksheets heetts aand nd ffurther urther ideas ideeas for for lessons, lesssonss, aree av available, vailaablee, as we well ell aass a too toolkit olkitt to o aid d with cclassroom, lasssroo om, gro group oup and d individual in indiv ndiv ividuaal w work. orkk. A sele selection ection of case casee stu studies udiees o off m major ajor businesses bus sineessess inc including clud dingg BP BP, P, Go Google ooggle aand nd RBSS pr provide rovid de aan no opportunity ppo ortu unitty to o look lo ook at at real reeal challenges chaallen ngess they the ey havee fac faced ced and d asks ffor or eenterprising nteerprrisin ng so solutions oluttion ns to o their problem problems. ms.

On O n a similar sim milaar theme, th hem me, Global Global Ent Entrepreneurship trepreneursship pW Week eekk is ttaking aking p place lacce 15 15-21 5-21 No November ovem mbeer th this his year. yea ar. V Visit isit thee we website ebsiite ffor or eevents vents going o on n llocally ocaally and d for ide ideas eas on hos hosting sting yo your our own. www.enterprise-zone.co.uk www.gew.org.uk

Road Ro R oad SSafety afetty W Week eekk ‘Kids d sayy slo slow ow d down!’ ow wn!’ acc according cord ding tto this h s ye year’s ear’s road roaad saafet afety f ty campaign campaig m a gn run run n byy tthe h he cha charity harity i y Brake.

B k FFin Find nd o out u ut more mor m ore ab about bo ou ut th the he 22010 01 010 0 init initiative n tiative a e (22(22-28 2 -28 8N Nov November) vem emb be ) aatt thee Road o Safety f y Week e website, eb t where w e yyou ccan a download d w oa rresources o c aand d quick u ttips. s The h Brake B r e website e i o offers e eextra, r m moree generic gge e resources o c including l i downloadable d w o a e handouts, n o s tteaching c n guides, u e le lesson o p plans, n rrecipes i s and dm more. e www.roadsafetyweek.org.uk www.brake.org.uk

Learning to Lead Graham Tyrer Continuum £24.99 Head teacher Graham Tyrer has created this book to help teach students leadership skills and it is for ‘anyone with an interest in improving young people’s motivation and inclusion’.

It consists of 50 tried and tested activities aimed at building students’ confidence and skills to lead themselves, others and communities. Online resources with details of workshops related to the activities in the book are featured throughout, along with comments from students who have taken part. Examples of how to set out personal and group challenges are included and provide a chance for students to put the skills they have learned into practice.

Stop p Bullying y g Pocketbook (second edition) Michele Elliott Teachers’ Pocketbooks £7.99 Michele Elliott is the founder and director of the anti-bullying charity Kidscape. She fills this compact guide with useful strategies for those defending themselves against bullies, but it’s also useful for parents and teachers who have to deal with them too. This updated second edition looks further into online bullying, the fastest-growing type of bullying.

There are tips for consequences, plans of action and a bullying questionnaire. It is an addition to the bookshelf that all schools should find useful.

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HAVE YOUR SAY

RANTLINE What’s driving you mad? Is it a lack of finances, problem parents, or the burden of teaching on top of headship?

AREA: Merseyside SUBJECT: Budget cuts

AREA: Devon SUBJECT: Reality TV

Dear editor I know I won’t be alone in this situation, but my school is facing an uphill struggle to balance its books.

Teaching assistants haven’t been replaced when they’ve left and even some teaching posts are being left unfilled. There simply isn’t the money to do anything else. Any continuing professional development (CPD) that doesn’t come with funding has been ditched as well, although as a large school we do at least run a lot of CPD in-house. I’m the deputy head and happened to mention to the head that I wanted to do NPQH next year and cracked a joke that I’d probably have to get an evening job pulling pints to pay for it. The head, who is under a huge amount of stress, actually said that it would be difficult to justify me doing it with the budget like it is. What am I supposed to do?

Dear editor Has anyone seen the new BBC3 programme about problem behaviour, Wait Till Your Teacher gets Home!? The premise is that teachers are sent to live with a pupil and their family to see if their presence improves the child’s behaviour. It will make good television but I learned a long time ago that you can’t do everything – just do what you can in school.

Is anyone else bewildered by Mr Gove wanting us to be responsible for pupils outside school hours?

AREA: South Wales SUBJECT: Problem parents Dear editor Aaaaghh. I need to let off steam!

A parent is driving me insane. She seems to be on a mission to drive me up the wall and is doing everything she can to make my life a misery. It’s absolutely draining. She has been rude and aggressive to me and several of my staff members. She telephones the school at least once day in an absolute fury about something or other. And her most recent rant resulted in her taking her complaint to the Local Authority. It’s starting to get to me.

Her bullying is getting beyond a joke.

AREA: Tyneside SUBJECT: Teaching burden Dear editor I’m the head teacher at a secondary school (albeit a small one) and teach a full load. However, I am very much aware that I’m not pulling my weight in terms of leadership.

I just don’t have the time. There’s all the admin, dealing with the issues that parents bring to me, not to mention the ever more complicated finances and the need to complete

a curriculum review. In previous schools, when not teaching full-time or at all, I was able to visit classrooms, not just to keep an eye on behaviour, but also to support my teachers. How I miss those days...

AREA: Birmingham SUBJECT: 24/7 responsibility Dear editor Is anyone else bewildered by the fact that Mr Gove would like us to be responsible for our pupils outside school hours? I don’t want to be on duty for 24 hours a day and be held accountable for whatever my pupils get up to in their own time. I just run their school, I’m not their parent. I have my own family and while I’m willing to take responsibility for my own offsprings’ misdemeanours once the sun goes down, it seems a bit harsh to give me a family of 400 all of a sudden. Of course, it doesn’t help that my school is sited in one of the more challenging housing estates this country has to offer, where an Asbo is almost a badge of honour and drug use is widespread. I know I have a role to play in terms of behaviour and the teaching of right and wrong. And my pupils are well aware that if they get up to no good the chances are that I will find out about it. But surely their behaviour out of school is their parents’ responsibility, not mine?

A PROBLEM SHARED… Angered or annoyed by something at work? Get in touch and we’ll air your grievance. You can email naht@ redactive.co.uk or leave a message on our dedicated rantline: 020 7880 7663.

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AND FINALLY SUSAN YOUNG

Bring back the glory days Don’t be surprised to see these Inset days appearing at a school near you Inset session one

Airport security will not allow us to divulge the name of this instructor.

And finally we’ve got half an hour with Mr Dave Bloke from the Sea Scouts on knot-tying for when you need to restrain a pupil to press on with the lesson.

Inset session two ‘History: how to glorify the marvellous heritage of our islands’ This will be run with our local primary school as the staff will have to be able to put all lessons and projects in the context of the entire history of our islands. Male history staff should attend in a corduroy or tweed jacket (elbow patches optional).

Every participant will be given a kings and queens ruler. Using these as a resource, our facilitators will run through the major events occurring under each monarch.

There will be much that is familiar.

Henry VIII will still be a major part of the curriculum with a related PSHE topic on family values. Adolf Hitler will be covered, but as the motivation for the brave leadership, in the national interest, of Sir Winston Churchill. We will be exploring cross-curricular themes of brickwork and safe drinking, at least with the bottom sets, as history must be relevant to every child.

Inset session three ‘English: ensuring Dryden isn’t dry and Hardy is a perennial’ All staff will need to be able to answer

pupils’ queries about Dryden and Pope, Dickens and Hardy, and give positive responses to queries about their relevance.

The first session will begin with a look at the requirements of the new curriculum and exam syllabus. We have booked the local university’s English department to give us a quick overview of each author, including most famous works and useful facts. For example, Dryden was the first English writer to assert that sentences should not end with prepositions. There will be a separate session for those who do not know what a preposition is.

Inset sessions four and five We are keeping our options open on these in case the school suddenly decides to become an academy once the details of the financial settlement have been digested.

Otherwise, we anticipate exploring ways to save and make money. Options include a skirt tax on the girls (a fine of 10p for each centimetre above the knee, per day) and a tie tax (a similar fine for each millimetre the knot is dropped below the neck). A working group is exploring issuing pupil licences to use phones and MP3 players on site, and how this would need to be offset against the new discipline guidelines from the Government.

If anyone has any other money-saving wheezes, please address them to the senior management team. Anything legal considered.

RICHARD LEVESLEY

‘Discipline: meeting the needs of the new Government policy’ All teachers and teaching assistants are to report to the school gym at 8.30am in tracksuits. We will warm up with the traditional pedagogic art of board-rubber bowling, and have brought Mr ‘Chalky’ Smith out of retirement to take us through various techniques. Heavyweight whiteboard erasers will be available in every classroom from the start of term.

The next session will be facilitated by Mr Ryan Thugge, self-defence expert, and Mr Jim Matte, a black belt in judo. We will be learning holds, throws and restraints.

During the last hour you will be asked to change into your usual working clothes to get a more realistic experience. Mr Thugge tells us that stiletto heels and ties can be surprisingly useful.

During the final morning session, which will be held on the field, we will meet Mr Geoff ‘The Head’ Locke, who will demonstrate giving chase and the rugby tackle. Sports drinks and showers will be available during the lunch break.

The afternoon will begin with a legal session with Mr Tarquin Suit, behaviour consultant. He’ll be able to answer all your questions, including the point at which restraint becomes assault.

Two short practical sessions will end the day. During the first, you will learn how to pat down pupils for contraband phones.

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Your route to leading the learning-focused school Personal professional development for Senior and Middle Leaders in education Three hugely experienced organisations – National Association of Head Teachers, Fieldwork Education and ECIS (European Council of International Schools) have worked together to bring a fresh, blended-learning approach to the professional development of all those working in leadership positions in international or internationally minded schools.

The International Leadership and Management Program is a unique, quality, relevant learning experience that benefits both you and your school.

For Senior Leaders, you are invited to register on the International Leadership and Management Program which spans a one year study and reflection period (equivalent of 20 days), the next cohort begins in February 2011. For Middle Leaders, two separate four-day courses are offered, which take place in March and July 2011.

For further information, and to register, please contact Clare Marshall (clare@greatlearning.com) or visit the ILMP Website at www.internationalleadershipandmanagementprogram.com

“The ILMP was the first formal leadership training that I’ve had that was so well thought through and attuned to my needs as a leader.

I have never experienced any leadership training as all encompassing as the ILMP.” Beatrice Caston, ILMP cohort 5

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 ● LEADERSHIP FOCUS 51

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