Primary First Issue 26

PrimaryFirst The journal for primary schools Issue 26 £5.00

“A child’s mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled” Plutarch

National Association for Primary Education

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PRIMARY EDUCATION

Rosemary Evans

Bequest Award

Are you a recently qualified early years / primary teacher (QTS gained since June 2016)?

Are you keen to reflect on your professional development as a classroom practitioner?

If so, we hope you will be interested in the Rosemary Evans Bequest Award to be given on an annual basis to the best article received for publication in Primary First from a recently qualified teacher. The award is for £250 and either the theme can be selected from one of the following: • The highlights and challenges of taking on your own class • What do you see as the key principles and/or values which inform your approach to learning and teaching?

• How can teacher retention be improved?

• The global teacher for the 21st century.

Or you can identify your own issue for exploration which draws directly on your experience of teaching in the classroom and your developing professional awareness as a primary practitioner.

This could, for example, relate to an area of responsibility you are taking on or might be linked to a masters level unit or might simply be an issue about which you feel passionate.

Are you keen to get something published in an educational journal and add it to your CV?

The article should be between 1500 and 2000 words and you are encouraged to select your own focus and title, irrespective of whether you select one of the above themes or opt for something different.

The article should both critically explore aspects of your own experience and identity as a recently qualified teacher and be informed, where appropriate, by relevant literature.

The final date for submission for this academic year is 1 May 2020. It is to be submitted electronically in Word or PDF format to Robert Young, NAPE General Secretary at rmyoung1942@yahoo.co.uk.

The Primary First Editorial Board will judge the submissions and it is anticipated that more than one submission will be considered for inclusion in the journal, although not in receipt of the Award itself. Further details about the Award can be requested from Robert Young.

Editorial It was in the August of 1975 that Christian Schiller ended a Plowden conference with the words which have resonated so strongly for all of the teachers who work with young children in their primary schools. He said “It is very difficult to see ahead. It will be difficult without any doubt. We’ve got a long way to go - a very long way to go. All sorts of new problems will come.

Five years later we founded the National Association for Primary Education and began the work which continues to this day. Farsighted as Schiller’s words were in cautioning us about the problems to be confronted in the future even he could not have anticipated the magnitude of the challenges which our association has faced over the years. Children’s lives and learning have become the subject of business appraisal, units in an industry in which productive success is to be measured time and time again. This has led inevitably to the current position in which the measurable has become overwhelmingly important because the measured outcomes are reinforced by punitive sanctions if relative failure is the result. Yet the human condition is infinitely complex children’s skills are only part of their growth and all of their nature and upbringing shapes how accurately they answer the test paper.

For some time now we have thought that the nadir of the move away from child centred knowledge and practice must have been reached but have been disappointed even angered to find that the commercial ethic has prevailed and yet more testing has been inflicted on our schools. Ofsted’s recent move away from reliance upon test data towards a greater attention to the reality of the curriculum as it is planned and ‘delivered’ has already been shown by recent reports to be little enough of an improvement.

Performance in tests still underpins the judgements which are made.

The damaging outcome of two decades of political intervention in the classroom has been the narrowing of children’s experience as they learn: curiosity, creativity, independence, expressiveness, understanding and happiness have been the casualties as children have found their days crammed with preparation for tests.

No doubt we should forgive the teachers who, however unwilling, are driven to distort teaching and learning in such harmful ways. But can we forgive those who drill their four year old pupils with synthetic phonics or those who, within weeks of children reaching their secondary school, begin preparation for GCSE five years later?

Time limited tests are merely snapshots of attainment and must never be confused with the learning which becomes part of a child’s being and which will remain with them as adults. Testing can never sum up a child’s learning and sitting a test is not an opportunity to learn.

It is wholly wrong that successive governments have twisted education until our work is so far from the ideals and commitment which prompted us to become teachers.

We must go on and never forget the ideals so soundly rooted in the history of successful primary practice. We must continue to work for the political changes needed if children are once again to be given true educational opportunity and teachers are once again free to put children, not ephemeral testing, first, last and always.

About us

Editorial Editorial Board Photo Credit

John Coe Peter Cansell, Stuart Swann, Robert Young, Robert Morgan Sam Carpenter

Primary First journal is published three times per year by the National Association for Primary Education.

Primary First, 57 Britannia Way, Lichfield, Staffordshire, WS14 9UY Tel. 01543 257257 Email: nape@onetel.com ©Primary First 2019 Autumn Issue No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written permission of the publisher. Whilst every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the editorial content the publisher cannot be held responsible for errors or omissions. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the publisher.

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Editorial

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The Book Pages by Carey Fluker Hunt

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All About Us

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Robert Morgan researches the working relationship between teachers and assistants

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Andrew Pollard takes stock and looks to the future

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Phonics. English has 100 phonemes

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Outdoor learning - Kirstin Whitney reports on current practice

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Colin Richards discusses the new-style Ofsted reports

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A NAPE position paper

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Is our curriculum fit for the future?

Mervyn Benford appraises the impact of A1 and robots

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Personal Troubles and Public Issues in Primary Education.

What is to be done?

by Andrew Pollard The pressures and challenges facing primary schools have grown and grown in recent years.

Quality is maintained and children’s needs are met day after day in most schools - but only because of enormous teacher commitment and professionalism.

Signs of systemic stress in England include very high levels of teacher workload and deep erosion of job satisfaction. This is leading to career reappraisal for many, mental health problems for some, and thus to early job changes and retirements. Is the pleasure which comes from responding to young children’s needs and from enabling their learning now being completely overwhelmed? There are also growing levels of pupil disengagement and anxiety as significant numbers of children struggle with the tightly specified core curriculum of English and Mathematics. Demand for special needs provision is rising and so too, when all else fails, are rates of exclusion in both temporary and permanent forms. Further, the pressures of formal assessment never seem to be far away. Headteachers are in the front line in terms of overall responsibility, with inspection being a particularly high-stakes concern.

Most headteachers act to ameliorate external pressures when they can, and thus protect both teachers and children – but it is also commonplace to hear of schools within which managerialism appears to have taken over.

Everyone, in one way or another, is struggling to cope with the situation.

However, children, teachers and headteachers are not responsible for the circumstances that they now face.

In part, the challenges reflect the decisions of particular governments. Indeed, in England we have had a decade in which ‘austerity’ has been imposed as an act of policy, with dire consequence for levels of poverty, inequality and public services. As if this were not bad enough, we have also had the introduction of a new national curriculum with all sorts of problems.

I contemplate the impact of this new curriculum with concern and regret, particularly because of the failure of my 2011 attempts, with Mary James, to promote curricular innovations inside the Department of Education which were evidence-informed and educationally principled. In fact, we were unable to change the thinking of Michael Gove and Nick Gibb who insisted on a highly specified, narrow, knowledge-based core curriculum. Whilst the Ministers claimed that this would enhance attainment for all, others advised that the levels at which the subject matter was pitched was likely to generate failure for many. Some readers may recall that whilst Mary James and I, by resigning at one point, forced a reappraisal and further period of consultation, the eventual outcome was that most of the available professional advice was ignored. I decried this in a blog which received considerable media coverage (note 1) and we published our entire correspondence with Michael Gove (note 2). One hundred academics wrote a letter, published in The Telegraph (note 3) warning of ‘the dangers of the new National Curriculum proposals’.

Why were the Secretary of State and Minister for Schools so intransigent? They claimed to want to reduce teacher workload, to increase teacher autonomy and, above all, to provide better opportunities for all pupils. But the imposed result seems very different.

The educational thinking of Ministers has, at times, seemed ‘ideological’ – in other words, it has appeared to be based on beliefs which are impervious to reason.

Simplistic and selective use of reinforcing evidence is favoured over balanced, evidence-informed judgement of multiple experts and representative professional

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bodies. In retrospect, it seems that much of the work of the Department of Education in 2011 was devoted to ‘managing dissent’ whilst another team of political advisers and Ministerial allies worked to codify and drive through a narrow, hierarchical curriculum.

In contemplating the curriculum, it is certainly not the case that an emphasis on subject knowledge is wrong in itself. Indeed, that would be a considerable error.

However, that priority needs to take its place in an overall understanding of educational aims and objectives, and it needs to be balanced by an appreciation of how young children actually learn.

Education is inevitably concerned with values and aspirations. Our young children are born into the world as it is, but they also carry our hopes for the future.

Their particular experiences of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment shape the people they become and, in our highly differentiated school system, this has a direct impact on long-term life-chances. The pattern, of course, is that social and economic advantages are reproduced from one generation to another.

For many decades following the Second World War, most educationalists aspired to broaden opportunities.

Appropriate provision for young children was established through reports such as Plowden, whilst comprehensive schools flourished and universities expanded. Fascinating recent work by Catherine Burke (note 3) shows how influential primary school architecture of the time was designed to ‘fit the child’ and to provide spaces for child autonomy. And of course, local education authorities proudly worked to support and collaboratively develop ‘their’ schools. The provision was of its time and there were certainly many weaknesses in it, but the explicit intention was clear in relation to an expansion of opportunities.

Today, similar rhetoric about opportunities is often heard, but the actions which follow do not seem consistent. As with the present national curriculum and introduction of academies and free schools in England, Michael Gove’s rhetoric prior to introduction could not be faulted, but the result appears to entrench, rather than moderate, inequality.

According to some, this discrepancy is because post-war, collaborative assumptions have been replaced by a new, ‘neo-liberal’ commitment to competition as a means of improvement. There must therefore be more school differentiation and hierarchy, more local markets enabling parental choice, more outcomes which are explicit and

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measurable, and more audit and inspection procedures to underpin categorisation of schools.

This systemic model has been influential across the world. It has been promoted by OECD and is to be found in many countries. The approach is well aligned with economic objectives, for it delivers a steady flow of leavers who are certificated for higher education or appropriate roles in a range of workplaces. However, in terms of social objectives, of enabling greater equality of outcomes or building social cohesion, the model disappoints by reinforcing hierarchy. It is also partial in terms of personal development, because it rewards some but fails to identify and build on the strengths of others.

In societies across the world, there are tussles about these issues. Which is most important for the future – economic growth, social cohesion, personal development? Or, to put it more realistically, how can education systems, reflecting our history, geography and other circumstances, be developed to appropriately balance economic, social and personal drivers?

This is the ‘public issue’ of principle in education which has been neglected in recent years. As records of good practice and research accumulate, we know a lot about effective system and school organisation, and about both generic and subject-focused teaching and learning. What we don’t have though, is stability and balance in relation to educational aims.

And so, back in primary schools we find increasing levels of stress as children, teachers and headteachers do their best in a complex maze of pressure and uncertainty.

These are the ‘personal troubles’ of daily life in which juggling to satisfy competing priorities takes place.

What can primary teachers do?

The first priority must be to survive oneself. There are obviously many dimensions of this, but the one to which this article draws attention is that of having a sense of history and circumstance. Biographies are, inevitably, bound up in broader histories and to recognise this makes resilience more possible.

A second priority is associated with agency, for to form judgements and take initiatives is healthy and rewarding in itself. And it is better still if such agency can be deployed in alliance with others – teaching colleagues, parents, children, headteachers, governors, etc. This both affirms that one is not alone and is also likely to improve effectiveness.

“The first priority must be to survive oneself�.

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The most fulfilling alliance, as ever, is likely to be with the children in one’s class and for many, this will provide a particular source of pleasure and renewal.

Indeed, a primary classroom provides a mini-society in which a teacher can orchestrate activities with tailored awareness of educational priorities – effective learning, social cohesion and personal development. At the end of the year, the children embody their learning (and your achievement) for the rest of their lives.

NAPE, ASPE and other professional associations, need to maintain engagement on these issues. The most important, foundational goals are; first, to grow more public and inter-party consensus on educational aims, so that there can be more stability in the system; and second, to grow greater recognition of the expertise of teachers and of the ways in which they combine knowledge, understanding and skills in forming evidenceinformed practical judgements.

Preserving ways of working towards the provision of a balanced education for all is tremendously important.

Such examples of good practice keep a candle burning.

They shine out to demonstrate that education does not have to be reductive, does not have to be narrow, does not have to be instrumental.

Because education is about the future, and is thus potentially contentious, it is right that politicians should decide on educational goals, levels of resource and other key, structural features of provision. However, implementation should be the responsibility of professional educationalists. Much of the stress of recent years has arisen because successive governments have chosen to cross these boundaries. They have asserted policy, imposed priorities, re-engineered school provision and insisted on particular practices. It is increasingly obvious that this approach undermines both professionalism and quality of provision. Together, and as constructively as possible, we need to try to arrive at a new understanding of the complementary roles of governments and the profession.

One day, history will move on again and commitments will be made to new ways forward.

There are some small signs that this is beginning to happen. For example, in England, the Ofsted framework from September 2019 is presented as ‘a force for improvement’ and claims to be underpinned by research (though more could be said about selections and omissions). Most significantly, it introduces a new, holistic judgement of the ‘quality of education’ – focused on the ‘connectedness’ of curriculum, teaching, assessment and standards achieved. Conceptually, this is an important step forward because it begins to recognise the integrated complexity of school provision and teacher expertise. A second example can be found in the range of education policies which are now promoted by political parties and, in some cases, being implemented in the different countries of the UK. This speaks to a dissatisfaction with the approach with has dominated in England in recent years, and to a desire to innovate.

Comparisons between such close neighbours should, over time, enable us all to improve provision.

There is little merit in sentimentally harking back to the past, but it is certainly valuable to openly evaluate and take stock of what might be learned from prior experience. My own view is that competition between, and ideologies within, political parties tend to produce polarised positions on crucial educational issues. The complexity of teaching and learning is not appreciated, and the expertise of teachers in resolving the inevitable dilemmas which they face in their daily decision-making is not acknowledged. As a result, much policy misses the point. Primary teachers, through organisations like

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It would then be much more likely that teachers’ work would be both enjoyable and effective.

Andrew Pollard is Professor of Policy and Practice at the UCL Institute of Education. His many publications have made a major impact upon primary education and his editorship of Reflective Teaching in Schools now in its 5th edition is a particularly important contribution.

References 1. https://ioelondonblog.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/ proposed-primary-curriculum-what-about-the-pupils/ 2. https://www.bera.ac.uk/bera-in-the-news/background-tomichael-goves-response-to-the-report-of-the-expert-panel-forthe-national-curriculum-review-in-england 3. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/9940846/ The-dangers-of-the-new-National-Curriculum-proposals.html 4. Burke, C. (2013) A Life in Education and Architecture: Mary Beaumont Medd. London: Ashgate.

National Association for Primary Education

NAPE promotes the very best opportunities for children's learning through: • sharing exemplary teaching approaches • bringing together groups of colleagues for support • developing a strong professionalism • providing conferences with speakers of national reputation • publishing Primary First, a reflective and informative journal • enabling debate about innovative teaching

NAPE is an important national voice for early and primary education.

We influence government and its agencies through: • engaging with consultations and formulating responses • participating in discussions at the highest level with other organisations • Issuing media releases and influencing public opinion • responding to media enquiries • participating in radio and TV interviews

Members are kept up to date and fully involved through the NAPE website www.nape.org.uk By joining NAPE you become part of a nationwide movement to improve the status and resourcing of early years and primary education. You will gain not only from a fellowship of shared aims and expertise but also from an increasing range of benefits available to members and school communities.

Join us now through our website or by emailing to nationaloffice@nape.org.uk The office administrator at 01604 647646 will be happy to answer any queries. Payment can be made through BACS, Paypal or cheque.

• Individual membership £30 • School Community membership, Group 1 £40, Group 2 and above £55 • No fee is due from student teachers.

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Outdoor Learning

By Kirstin Whitney My initial brief was to setup and run ‘Forest School’ sessions in the grounds of Kingswood primary school.

To me this was an exciting opportunity to combine my passion for the outdoors with my passion for teaching.

I was lucky enough to train one day a week for 6 weeks with the Forest School Learning Initiative which was brilliant – after a day’s training I went home inspired to tackle the next essay with enthusiasm and interest. In school I practised what I could with the children in my class and enjoyed their enthusiastic response.

Time well spent I love the outdoors and feel well rewarded when I can share this passion with others whether through gardening, hikes, bike rides, climbing, camping or canoeing trips. I was sure that I could use the forest school sessions to inspire, interest and enthuse school children too. My only problem was that first we didn’t have a forest and second, I had spent the best part of the last eight years in a classroom constantly working towards the next SAT test! How could we integrate the principles of Forest School with the National Curriculum and make it ‘time well spent’?

First, we do have quite large school grounds with some trees and a number of grassed areas. Second, we already had an outdoor classroom built a few years earlier. And last we have a local park only a short walk away. I did, however, need to put some thought into how this land was used.

Land sustainability was one of the most important topics in our Forest School training. In our case if all 600 pupils were able/allowed to stomp around the few wild areas that we had on the grounds daily for just six months there would be little vegetation left and nowhere to continue with the lessons.

Complementing the children’s classroom learning I made both a short-term (one year) and long-term (three year) plan which included dreams for the outdoor areas with my very modest budget.

In the winter I still planned to be outside but doing activities that could take place predominately on drier ground such as the playground or paths around the school. In summer we would use the grassed areas and also take the classes to the park (to protect our grass). We also converted a disused area at the school to do some growing.

I researched online and signed up to all the free information and resources that are out there, I joined Twitter @wildurbans and began my own website www.wildurban.org to record the children’s work. The website also gave me a source from which to reflect and develop my ideas. It would have been all too easy to take children outside and carry out a weekly activity from the Woodland Trust website (which is wonderful) but I needed the lessons to be curriculum led rather than activity led. With all the resources that I had been collecting I now began to work through the curriculum to see where I was best placed to complement the children’s classroom learning.

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12 I was amazed to find opportunities everywhere! History, geography, art, DT, English, mathematics, religious education were all readily teachable outside.

Science, however, seemed to stand out as a subject which belonged outside and would need resources that perhaps were beyond the classroom. Science began with studying the natural world and still continues to solve its mysteries.

Let the science come alive Many great scientists such as Newton, Darwin and Mary Anning worked outside collecting information and studying the world around them. Perhaps the best way for young people to learn about science is to investigate outside and let the science come alive in front of them?

The education advisor Ken Robinson points to “the 8 Cs” ‘curiosity, creativity, criticism, communication, collaboration, compassion, composure and citizenship’ as being the foundations of education. Learning outside promotes all of these goals. As an alternative to doing a worksheet, looking at a flip chart or a computer simulation in the classroom you can find a beetle habitat; test the air resistance of a self-crafted arrow; trial den materials; feel the vibrations of a homemade wind chime; cook apples that you have grown; heat chocolate; water; dough; popcorn over a fire; record the wind speed; and use a compass to navigate around the grounds.

I decided to start here – using the Science curriculum to inspire children in lessons outside which I could make appropriate. Near the end of the first year I was extremely happy when a Year 4 child said “Oh good we have you this afternoon, your lessons are the only ones that we really learn anything in”. I tried to expand on my Forest School training to design lessons that taught the children through activities and play, e.g. creating their own fire with strikers (friction); practising knots and whittling to make bows and arrows (air resistance); mini beast hunting (habitats); practising Hapa Zome (flower parts); and building dens (materials).

Children not only learn the core knowledge suggested in the curriculum but they gain broader experience – they communicate and collaborate in teams when

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carrying out the investigations. They are often spread all over the school grounds so they have to show composure and citizenship as they charge around the orienteering course out of the sight of any teacher.

Working usually in teams they have to work with compassion as they accommodate each other’s idiosyncrasies. The children have become guardians of the school grounds and they have planted Woodland Trust saplings, daffodil bulbs, willow igloos and wildflower areas as well as built benches, bug hotels and sand pits.

Being the Eco-School leader I have been able to integrate the eco-work that has led to our receiving our Green Flag₅ in 2018. The children built a plastic bottle greenhouse (which cost approximately £40) in timber and bamboo canes in the first year. The next year they built a cob pizza oven for cooking their garden produce. Since then we have developed the pond/ wildlife garden, introduced chickens and developed a fire pit area. There is a wealth of ideas and resources on websites such as ThePod, RHS Schools and the RSPB, you can get free seeds, potatoes, litter pickers, small grants and workshops.

The impact of Outdoor Learning So what impact has Outdoor Learning had on the children’s lives at The Park Primary? The children’s understanding of the natural world builds year on year as terms such as habitat, friction, pollination, pitch and prey can be used fluently and encourages them to develop their own understanding. They are keen to maintain the school grounds by doing litter picking, moving worms, pruning, maintaining the pond, fetching and feeding the chickens and even building compost bins through this work they have developed a respect of nature, wildlife and animals. Luckily for me their enthusiasm never wanes for their ‘Outdoor Learning Lesson’ as I enter the classroom, rain or shine the children are smiling and excited. They are learning that getting cold and wet is not the end of the world and their resilience is increasing.

So if you haven’t already; then get started. Apply for Potato Council potatoes find a free spot of soil or a protected spot in the playground and get growing. Print out a google maps aerial view and start orienteering – find maths questions, Christmas clues or just traditional markers. If you have a concrete landscape use the Olympics resources to test your heart and jumping skills or better still find your local park and see if your local police supply free hi viz jackets. Track the seasons, weather, wildlife and plants across the year and your confidence will grow term on term, good luck.

The most significant thing that I find is how much more engaged they are in my outdoor lessons compared to my previous classroom lessons. Undoubtedly for the children who struggle in class bringing the learning to life helps no end but that does not diminish the effect that the lessons have on all types of children in the school – they love it and what you love you invest time and thought in. With a more global view in mind David Attenborough says “If children don’t grow up knowing about nature and appreciating it they will not understand it and if they don’t understand it they won’t protect it. And if they don’t protect it, who will?”

Over the last few wonderful years we have won over the parents’ aversion to mud, and engaged their interest in the garden and chickens. We have developed the grounds with four outdoor learning classrooms and teachers also take their classes out for lessons – fuelled by the children’s requests. We have links with the local park association and get involved with Christmas and Summer events. The grounds have hosted Sustainable Learning’s ‘Outdoor Learning’ conference and I run Twilight training sessions for local education professionals every other term. The next training will be in celebration of receiving our RHS Level 5 Award and we will be talking about how schools can get started and develop school gardening.

Kirstin Whitney is a Primary School Teacher working in Kingswood, South Gloucestershire on the outskirts of Bristol.She has taught ‘Outdoor Learning’ for the past 5 years across all ages and developed the school grounds to accommodate the outdoor lessons.

Read more from Kirstin on Twitter at @wildurbans and on her website: www.wildurban.org

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A Nape position paper January, 2019

The Impact of a Child’s Age on Measured Attainment The disadvantage of summer born children relative to those born earlier in the academic year has been decisively confirmed by research and well publicised.

This is far from being short term but extends as far as the likelihood of gaining five GCSE A* to C results and to entering university. The focus of public disquiet has been on children born in August and parental concern has led to pressure which in September 2015 prompted the Schools’ Minister to promise an amendment to the Admissions Code to ensure later entry to the admission class if this is the parents’ wish.

There should be a closer matching of the children to the admission class which is an important transition to the more formal teaching of key stage 1. The single date of entry into the admission class should be abandoned in favour of entry at the beginning of the term during which the child becomes five. Learning is largely through play at this early stage and there would be no problems in assimilating the new entries during the year. Indeed coming into the class would be facilitated by the new entrant joining children who are already familiar with school routines.

But the issue is far more deep-seated than is revealed by the current debate. Relative disadvantage is not confined simply to the August born. Research has also shown that taking children born in the preceding autumn quartile (September, October, November) as the baseline, there is disadvantage for the subsequent winter quartile increasing progressively until the following summer quartile. The most disadvantaged are indeed the August born but the disadvantage graph is a straight line and there is no cliff edge over which they fall.

One of the roots of the problem lies in the Government’s recommendation of a single date for the admission of all rising fives into the admission class at the beginning of the academic year. The oldest children may already be five years old when school starts in September whereas the youngest may not reach their fifth birthday until the following August. The differences in age and maturity are very great and are a severe test of the perception and skills of the admission teacher as they face the challenge of meeting individual needs.

There is a considerable risk that insufficient recognition of the earlier stage of development of the younger four year olds can lead to stereotyping and even premature assessment of special educational needs.

The government eases away, all too slowly, from the crude assumption that all children can be expected to reach the same level of achievement at any one time and moves towards a concern for individual progress.

It is time for every primary specialist to make a similar shift in focus. Each child’s chronological age and level of maturity matters enormously and this should be the first consideration as we plan learning. Not for the first time we will be ahead of slow moving government.

Perhaps it may help to persuade them if we draw attention to the results of the phonic screening check in 2018. In an old fashioned way it is expected that all children, irrespective of their age when the screening takes place, will reach a predetermined level but an analysis of the results tells a different story. 75% of the youngest children born in August met the expected level but 89% of the oldest born in September did so.

The attainment gap narrowed a year later but was still evident at 6%. The impact of age upon teacher and parental assessments of children’s progress and potential is significant. Government advice is that children who do not reach the phonic pass mark should be notified as failures. Failure is a highly inappropriate description of children who are simply too young for the test.

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The Book Pages

by Carey Fluker Hunt

Four new picturebooks for KS1 exploring friendship Learning how to be a good friend can bring challenges. These picturebooks will help children recognize and value good communication, empathy and many other things that help us make (and keep) our friends.

The Visitor by Antje Damm A story about bravery and small beginnings (Gecko Press, 2018) Black-and-white photos of 3D models depicting a domestic interior are used to tell the story of Elise, a lonely woman who is too scared to leave her house. One day a paper aeroplane flies in through an open window. Elise burns it, but that night more aeroplanes appear. The next morning a boy called Emil knocks at the door. He wants his plane back. He also wants to use the bathroom, have a chat, listen to a story, play some games and eat a slice of buttered bread…

Colour seeps into the black-and-white artwork as the story progresses, visually dispelling Elise’s loneliness and evoking the power of human connection. Spending cross-generational time with Elise and Emil is a joyful experience, and one that’s well worth sharing.

Can Cat and Bird be Friends? by Coll Muir A story about valuing differences and the power of good communication (HarperCollins, 2019) When Cat meets Bird they can’t be friends, because cats eat birds. That’s how it is. But Bird won’t take no for an answer. He knows all sorts of places that appeal to cats and is keen to share them. And Cat, in turn, is full of ideas that appeal to birds. The trouble is that cats don’t like eating worms and birds don’t like playing in boxes, and the pair struggle to find common ground until Bird gives up and heads for home. “I’ve got a painting to finish,” he announces, in a twist that frames a satisfying ending for all concerned. “PAINTING?! I love painting!” says Cat. “We can be friends….”

Muir brings a warm and quirky eye to this tale of unexpected friendship.

Rather than making assumptions or following the herd, Cat and Bird take time to ask the right questions and listen carefully to the answers. Muir’s deadpan text isn’t just funny, it respects young readers and encourages them to have a go. Accompanied by expressive two-tone illustrations that play with comic tropes, this beautifully-designed book will have a wide appeal.

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Flock by Gemma Koomen A story about being brave and taking the first step (Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 2019) In a huge tree at the edge of the forest live the tiny Treekeepers.

It’s their job to polish the nuts and gather the berries, and they love working and playing together - all except Sylvia, who prefers her own company. One day a dishevelled baby bird invades Sylvia’s solitary hollow. Slowly he chirps his way into her heart until Sylvia and Scruff are doing everything together. But if you really care for someone, sooner or later you must let them spread their wings. And where will Sylvia find friendship once Scruff has flown the nest?

Ideas around community and friendship are explored in an appealing and accessible way, with detailed illustrations that invite observation, imagination and discussion. Koomen’s earthy palette and mid-century aesthetic extend the book’s appeal, and used as a starting-point for environmental and storytelling activities Flock will inspire older as well as younger children.

The Mist Monster by Kirsti Beautyman A story about accepting change and finding new friends (Alison Green Books, 2019) Penny isn’t sure about the new house. Dad suggests exploring, but the dog steals Mum’s old hat and Penny can’t manage without it. Dashing after Peanut into a strange, white, misty garden-world, Penny notices two yellow eyes. It’s Morris, the mist monster, and the pair set off in hot pursuit of dog and hat. “It was my mum’s… she was a brilliant explorer,” explains Penny, and Morris gives her the kind of look that says he’s heard something significant.

Penny and Morris never find the dog, but they have lots of fun. That night, Penny dreams about more adventures but when she wakes it’s sunny.

There’s no mist and no sign of Morris. But there is a boy next door who’s looking for a brand-new friend…

Gently constructed around themes of loss and change, this optimistic story weaves links between imaginative worlds and daily reality. It takes time for feelings to pass, but new connections will blossom when you least expect.

Carey Fluker Hunt is a freelance writer, creative learning consultant and founder of Cast of Thousands, a website featuring a selection of the best children’s books and related cross-curricular activities.

Find her at www.castofthousands.co.uk 17

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The practice of the deployment of teaching assistants by trainee teachers during classroom teaching experiences: an issue of negotiation.

by Robert Morgan Key words: deployment, habitus, trainee teachers, teaching assistants, hierarchy, localised familiarisation Abstract: This doctoral study explores how teaching assistants, mentors and trainee teachers perceive the practice of the deployment of teaching assistants during a school experience on an Initial Teacher Training programme in southeast London. It arose from an assumption that some trainee teachers found the deployment of teaching assistants a difficult process.

A qualitative research approach based on an interpretivist paradigm was used through the lens of Bourdieu’s theory of habitus, capital and field. This was utilized to determine whether trainee teachers found the nature of deployment of teaching assistants difficult owing to a struggle for power within the classroom.

Data were collected through questionnaires and semistructured interviews.

Analysis revealed that trainee teachers recognize the right to deploy their teaching assistants but appear not to wish to engage in an overt struggle for power – but rather do it subtly, by preferring to adopt a process of localised familiarisation.

Aims & Objectives The present training of primary school teachers does not give enough attention to the preparation of trainee primary teachers to manage teaching assistants in their classrooms. The basis of my research, as a teacher trainer in a higher educational institution, is the consideration that the deployment of a teaching assistant effectively is a professional standard but one which qualified teachers, let alone trainee teachers, are often not adequately prepared for (Sharples, Webster and Blatchford, 2015 and Bignold and Barbera, 2011).

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The main research concerned three groups of people who work within the process of an assessed placement of school experience in Initial Teacher Training: trainee primary teachers, teaching assistants and school-based mentors in primary schools in south east London. The deployment of teaching assistants is a key part of the trainee primary teacher’s responsibility but there is little, if any, existing literature that concerns the deployment or the relationship between a primary trainee teacher and a teaching assistant in United Kingdom state schools.

The argument is that the establishing of a professional relationship during the deployment of a teaching assistant by a trainee teacher in primary schools, in and around southeast London, opens the curtain to a scene where the complexities of the teaching profession are exposed. In my study, the trainee teacher recognizes the powerlessness of her situation in an environment and she adopts a measure to work with her teaching assistant by negotiation: one that I call a process of localised familiarisation within the primary classroom setting.

Theoretical framework Bourdieu’s theory of habitus, capital and field (Bourdieu, 1984) was the lens chosen to conduct the study to discern the perceptions of how power was recognized and used within an environment that comprised a social world. Being an ‘insider researcher’ influenced the method of data collection. A qualitative research approach based on an interpretivist paradigm was used to analyse the data.

Bourdieu’s writing was concerned with analysing concepts of power and social class. The accumulation of

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capital is central to Bourdieu’s theoretical model. Capital is the recognition of worth, through the accumulation of capital by one individual to another.

Capital exists within the actions of individuals demonstrated in economic capital or cultural capital.

The ability of an individual to accumulate capital is linked to the notion of investing in life by acquiring opportunities, an improved social gravity. Capital is therefore in the eye of the beholder and only important within a relationship.

Method My research study was influenced by methodological literature that explored small scale research with an appeal to the voice of the subject in their environment.

This meant finding the opinion of the research subjects: listening to the opinions of trainee teachers, teaching assistants and mentors.

Data were collected through questionnaires and semistructured interviews within the ‘small-scale qualitative research study’ “How trainee teachers method. Fourteen trainee teachers obtain knowledge and were selected to negotiate the cultural be interviewed, field of the school another 21 returned experience environment questionnaires, six primary schools is as a result of their were visited, and six ‘practical sense’ teaching assistants which is their ability and five mentors to understand and interviewed. I negotiate that field.” selected the 201213 BA Primary Education with QTS year three cohort from which to select as potential research participants.

The schools were located primarily in southeast London, east London, west Kent and southwest Essex. I selected schools that were in different geographical areas; which had different socio-economic catchment areas and in which I knew someone could act as a gatekeeper. I wrote to each school to seek permission to conduct my study. It must be noted that these primary schools were not the ones in which the interviewed trainee teachers attended for their school experience placement.

Findings Here, I have interpreted the data as revealed to me by the trainee teachers, mentors and teaching assistants.

Data revealed the perceptions of trainee teachers in their deployment of teaching assistants moved beyond that relationship and exposed something more wide reaching and potentially alarming. This was also supported through interpreting the perceptions of the teaching assistants and mentors.

The habitus of the school environment in which a trainee teacher finds herself for a placement cannot be challenged and only in a few instances can any trainee be given some degree of leeway in decision making.

Trainees quickly realize they must adapt, accept their place as they conform to policy and practice. For some trainees this is an easier process according to their work-based history and experience: Trainee eleven ‘…generally no, little things that you could change but if it was different things there was quite a lot of resistance from the teacher and the TA was like “I wouldn’t do that if I was you” Trainee fourteen ‘…because they had a system where it goes through the headteacher…and when you’re on placement and you have to run everything by your class teacher as well…it’s almost like you don’t have that kind of power’ How trainee teachers obtain knowledge and negotiate the cultural field of the school experience environment is as a result of their ‘practical sense’ which is their ability to understand and negotiate that field.

There is some ability to make change, to exercise power, within deployment. The trainees recognize from their teacher training course the necessity to deploy teaching assistants but are not easily prepared to accept the position this endows. In other words, guidance from the DfE (2011) in the form of the Teachers’ Standards, allows them to assume a superior position in the relationship with the teaching assistant. The trainee teacher, during a school experience, should be able to deploy an assistant but they choose not always to be willing in accepting their position: Trainee nine – ‘so it’s like the pecking order in the classroom it is student teacher is like at the bottom of the pecking order…but my first placement we were

definitely, if there was a pecking order we would have been at the bottom of that.’

have to stop the class and sometimes I just feel like I’m taking away from the teacher.’

Trainee three – ‘I think there naturally is a hierarchy in schools, perhaps maybe because of the level of qualifications you need for a certain role but it doesn’t necessarily constitute that if you have a teaching degree that you’re any better equipped than a teaching assistant…but unless maybe perhaps you were in the role of management before university you had to maybe deploy other members of staff but I think that’s where the hierarchy comes in, it’s viewed as a level of management.

Teaching Assistant one maintained a watch over the class but wants to be seen as ‘approachable and that they could ask for help’. Her perception suggests that the role of a teaching assistant is to be utilized before any problems would occur but that she would also intervene on behalf of the trainee teacher, in other words, take an initiative. Therefore, the role of being deployed comes with caveats. There is an expectation to conform to the principles of the school, an expectation to allow learning not to be hindered by, for example, poor management of behaviour and, as expressed by Mentor two, to actively demonstrate the values of the school to the observer:

This is, for some, determined by their accrued capital and for others, to renegotiate their teaching identity.

This is achieved by the attempts at familiarisation (a degree of socialising/ or being friendly) with assistants, although this is welcomed by some assistants as part of an accepted professional attitude.

Trainee two – ‘I put so much importance on just chatting to them as people like trying to build up a relationship with them, being able to sit in the staffroom and chat with them at lunchtime…because… in life in general if you feel valued as a person… everything improves…so… yeah in a classroom that’s really, really crucial.’

Trainee eight – ‘The respect between the two… the friendliness, the fact that I knew that I was the one that should be doing it and that if they didn’t get it from me they weren’t going to be getting it from anyone else and it would be picked up on by observers and obviously as that goes up it gets more serious than maybe not doing it as much in year one. And it kind of just got to the stage where I then was a team rather than two people.’

Bearing in mind the perception of the role of deployment, the data reveal that there is, from the teaching assistants’ view, a guarded approach if this example from Teaching Assistant one is used: ‘…I don’t feel like to do their job like, I feel like I’m there to impose the rules, you know, like to make sure the rules are being followed or to make sure that the class are learning because sometimes I’m here to say “Be Quiet!” and stop them from talking or you know calm them down on the carpet or if there’s no control I

‘…to be really proactive and be willing to just get involved, hands on start like chatting to the kids, asking them questions, helping with like sticking in and resources and stuff, just that’s what a real school is like, to give them experience of what a real school is like…and for them to be really positive and to have a positive approach to the placement and to the behaviour management and everything in the classroom.’

The perception of the role is not straightforward.

Both trainee teachers and teaching assistants recognised that deployment must occur, with no teaching assistants in my study providing objections to this. Bourdieu (1984) would argue that it is not an acceptance of the role that occurs unless a struggle has occurred, with the struggle being dictated according to power. For the trainee teacher, this means presenting a persona that is accepted by the teaching assistant whereby the skills and attributes deemed necessary to be seen as a qualified teacher are recognized by the teaching assistant, in this example, Teaching Assistant six, who willingly assented to deployment: Teaching assistant six – ‘…it’s my job if I wanted to be teaching I would be teaching but I don’t. I choose to do what I do. But I’m here [for you] to give me anything you want me to do and if you need help or [need] policies, [or you] can’t find anything… And I think if I always say that right at the beginning it sort of takes all that away and nine times out of ten they’re lovely and, you know, they’re in like a fish out of water sometimes 21

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aren’t they? They don’t know what they’re doing - they know on paper what they’re doing but they don’t really know until they come into a classroom situation.’

The question of how teaching assistants perceive the role of trainee teachers in the classroom can be answered in a straight-forward way. The teaching assistants within the selected schools agreed that they accepted the fact that they were to be deployed by a trainee teacher and that they were comfortable with this. It did not present an issue, or any degree of resentment, despite the fact on many occasions the class teacher would withdraw from the classroom leaving a new combination of trainee teacher and teaching assistant to teach the children. Some teaching assistants recognized that the trainee teachers were in fact teachers (in all but name and approved qualification). Teaching assistant six, for instance was very clear in her assessment of the capital possessed by the incoming trainee teacher: Teaching assistant six – ‘But I’m here [for you] to give me anything you want me to do and if you need help or [need] policies, [or you] can’t find anything… And I think if I always say that right at the beginning it sort of takes all that away and nine times out of ten they’re lovely and, you know, they’re in like a fish out of water sometimes aren’t they? They don’t know what they’re doing - they know on paper what they’re doing but they don’t really know until they come into a classroom situation.’

The recognition of the symbolic capital of the trainee teachers (the skills gained from the ITT courses and subsequent knowledge and experience) allowed the teaching assistants to recognize the position of the trainee teacher in the classroom, providing the trainee teacher could then use the capital in the new relationship. In other words, the trainee teacher has been accepted as the leading practitioner in the classroom. There is no struggle here; there is a recognition of the capital of the trainee teacher by the teaching assistant – the symbolic capital of being the leading practitioner who is to be responsible for deployment. This would suggest that a struggle is manifesting itself in a different form. The teaching assistant acquiesces to the role of the trainee teacher, whereas the trainee teacher prefers the hierarchy to be flattened.

The teaching assistants did recognize the apprehension of the trainee teachers in the act of deployment but not necessarily that the trainees were afraid not to deploy them. This apprehension was considered to originate from the age of the trainee (where most of them would be younger than the assistant); and the confidence of asking another adult to perform a task owing to a lack of previous work-based/life experience in delegation or working with older colleagues. This is, however, the key feature which will enable trainee teachers to have the confidence to deploy teaching assistants and to manage that easily – if the teaching assistant recognizes the trainee as someone who can deploy them, then that association becomes powerful and useful.

Outside of the perceived socially constructed relationship between the trainee teacher and the teaching assistant, I argue that the trainees’ role is determined by the habitus they encounter within the school. The trainee teacher is expected to conform to the values of the field, which are monitored as such by the teaching assistant and the mentor. The act of deployment is undertaken according to the norms and accepted practice within the school.

The analysis shows that the issue of the role of teacher identity arises which becomes conditioned by the habitus within the school experience placement. It may appear that trainee teachers can legitimately deploy a teaching assistant, but this is still a guarded process.

The teaching assistant is still wary of the perceived capability of the trainee teacher during this process; the compromise is a measured one.

Teaching Assistant one - ‘…I feel like I’m there to impose the rules, you know, like to make sure the rules are being followed or to make sure that the class are learning because sometimes I’m here to say “Be Quiet!” and stop them from talking or you know calm them down on the carpet or if there’s no control I have to stop the class and sometimes I just feel like I’m taking away from the teacher.’

Within this scenario, both the teaching assistant and trainee teacher are pitched into a situation where, certainly for the trainee teacher, they have little power elsewhere during the practice. The ability to effect change is either recognized to be insurmountable or to

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Significance This study has realized not only the place of trainee teachers within the school habitus but the power that assistants have in relation to the trainees who are meant to be deploying them.

Any power the trainee feels she has is negotiated through the class teacher but only small changes to existing practices are permitted and the dominant practice, status quo or habitus is not challenged or affected. There were many examples of teaching assistants discussing the need for trainees to ‘fit in’ and of this being likened to ‘monitors of the habitus’. The trainee teachers were discovering that the way children learned and how teachers taught was a pedagogy to aspire to.

I move to discuss the nature of the relationship that does occur between the trainee teacher and the teaching assistant during the act of deployment.

Who deploys whom?

For the trainee teachers in my research study, their relative position remains according to the recognition afforded by the habitus; this applies to the monitoring of the trainee teacher. Trainee teachers valued the qualities of team-work and mutual respect in the deployment of the teaching assistant. This relied on basic components of good communication and the skill set, or expertise, of the teaching assistant to assist with managing the children’s learning. The issue for trainee teachers is the need to reject the hierarchy and to quickly assume the authority to deploy because teaching assistants do recognize that they are to be deployed: Trainee three – ‘…and I think she [the TA] saw me as teacher as well…she saw me as someone in the classroom there to help, help support children to learn yeah I’d say she saw me as a teacher.’

Trainee four – ‘I mean on the three lessons that they [the TAs] came in to um…they saw me as very much in control of the lesson and they would look to me for guidance as to what was required of them…’

A hierarchy exists and that is realized by both parties – this corresponds to the way that agents conserve or transform relations; the rules are embraced more willingly by the teaching assistant rather than the trainee teacher. Trainee teachers with prior experience of deployment in the workplace may be better able, and more confident, to deploy an assistant. This is because they are better placed to construct a working relationship more efficiently and not be held back by negative thoughts or doubts.

There is an interesting relationship with the teaching assistant; both parties acknowledge a scrutiny of each other; this is clear from the data. Trainee teachers perceive their role to be that of the leading teacher within a classroom. All the trainee teachers interviewed had no problem with identifying the necessity and rationale for teaching assistants’ deployment; they saw it as part of their pedagogical repertoire and as fulfilling Teachers’ Standard 8. The role is understood but it is the execution of this in practice to which belies the dominant social position afforded the trainee teacher. It is this initial struggle that enabled me to see the teaching assistant as having the role of a monitor and guide; drawing the trainee into the habitus of the classroom; showing her how and where things happen; judging the capability of her practice before agreeing to be deployed. For a short time in the practice, the trainee teacher is not the one who deploys the teaching assistant, but ironically, it could be argued the teaching assistant plays an important role in deploying the trainee.

Localised familiarisation and identity One way trainee teachers seek to secure their teaching identity is by their attempts at familiarisation with assistants; this is welcomed by some assistants as part of an accepted professional attitude. This process is an interesting finding from the analysis. The perception of the experience and practice of the deployment of teaching assistants by trainee teachers during classroom teaching experiences is multifaceted. Trainee teachers recognize the right to deploy but appear not to wish to engage in an overt struggle for power – but rather do it subtly, by preferring to adopt a process of ‘localised familiarisation’. This, in their perception, enables them

to work towards ‘equality’ in the classroom through negotiation and discussion. Trainee teachers are also aware of the habitus of their environment in which they recognize aspects of having little control and of having their teaching skills judged. Mentors will permit some leeway which allows a perception of some practice replicating existing pedagogy. Therefore, the experience of deployment is played out in an arena where power is limited. The ‘localised familiarisation’ draws on whatever capital the trainee teacher can find in order to negotiate their way within the field – and in addition is used to promote their identity as a trainee teacher in a complex place.

Conclusion The habitus, the values of the field, are dominant, and the recognition of the capital of trainee teachers is low; they must negotiate a place within the field with the teaching assistants who, the study has revealed, do wield unexpected power. The strategy of the localised familiarisation is employed by the trainees as a coping mechanism but is limited because the habitus still influences the decision making of the trainee teacher.

I would recommend trainee teachers to be given a staged welcome when entering school experience.

These stages are: Reception – The teaching assistant would assist the trainee with her orientation with the pragmatic matters including familiarity with the daily routine and procedure of the primary school and classroom: matters ranging from having a space to work; access to computer login and Wi-Fi; a name ID badge that is not simply ‘visitor’; how to pay for the staff room drinks and inclusion onto staff social events.

Obligation - make it apparent to the trainee that their presence, their input and their ideas concerning pedagogy are a welcome addition to the school’s habitus. In other words, the trainee teacher will be able to recognize that her agency is not only welcomed but will have an impact into the school’s whole community of learning (she is obliged to make a difference), and will result in her individualized learning journey and progress in her achieving a successful school experience outcome. The trainee teacher will realize that it is

a two-way process and that her learning will come from the school environment. This environment is to be regarded as one of experimentation, freedom and innovation as part of wider pedagogical practice, of which deployment of the teaching assistant is a part.

If the trainee teacher feels included, and this is shared with her, it will enable her to accept that she can deploy her teaching assistant without the feelings of apprehension. From the perspective of the teaching assistant, the mentor and the head teacher, this is going to be a slow process of change.

Utilization – The trainee teachers revealed in their interviews how they utilized the skills and expertise of the teaching assistants in the deployment of them during classroom lessons. During the induction period, appropriate time needs to be given to an auditing and sharing of skills of the teaching assistant.

The main feature within this third aspect of the induction process of sharing skills, is pedagogy. The knowledge of the skills available to the trainee teacher from the teaching assistant is valuable but needs to fit into a wider pedagogical understanding of how teaching and learning will be effected in the classroom. The trainee teacher is the lead practitioner, and this means that she is imposing the pedagogy in the classroom.

Dr. Robert Morgan is Senior Lecturer in Education and Professional Studies at the University of Greenwich.

References: Bignold, W. and Barbera, J. (2011) ‘Teaching assistants and teacher education in England: meeting their continuing professional development needs’, Professional Development in Education, vol. 38, issue 3, pp. 365-375, [Online]. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1941525 7.2011.621967 Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Department for Education (DfE) (2011) Teachers’ Standards.

Guidance for school leaders, school staff and governing bodies [Online]. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/ uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/301107/ Teachers__Standards.pdf Sharples, J., Webster, R. and Blatchford, P. (2015) Making best use of teaching assistants / Education Endowment Foundation [Online]. Available at: http://maximisingtas.co.uk/assets/ content/ta-guidance-reportprint.pdf

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The literacy pages

English has 100 phonemes: Some errors and confusions in contemporary commercial phonics schemes.

The conclusions and recommendations of a research project

By Greg Brookes, Roger Beard and Jaz Ampaw-Farr About half the commercially published phonics schemes available in England in 2007-2013 exhibited one or a number of errors. The present authors were startled to discover the number and range of errors (some quite bizarre). Comparable findings of besetting flaws in teaching materials would not, we suspect, be tolerated elsewhere in education where the knowledge base is more established and the pool of expertise is greater.

Many of the errors could be attributed to inadequate knowledge of phonetics, or lack of phonic accuracy.

These two categories of errors included: stating wrong numbers of phonemes; not covering various phonemes; misstating the relationships between /kw/ and >qu> and between /ks/ and >x>; misanalysing the correspondences between phonemes and graphemes; confusing diphthongs, digraphs and consonant clusters; and misstating the frequency of some correspondences.

The third major category of errors was misapplied teaching approaches. These included: expecting children to know or infer things they had not yet been taught; not focusing consistently on phonemes; confusions over ‘irregular’ words and word parts; unhelpful mnemonics; and a gallimaufry of misguided pedagogical practices such as (e.g.) ‘pointing at phonemes’.

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Some of the schemes reviewed may no longer be available, and others may have been revised in recent years; but we nevertheless recommend tht all publishers of currently available phonics schemes scrutinise their offerings carefully to ensure tht errors of the kinds we have highlighted are removed.

Checklist The following list of criteria for judging that a scheme is phonetically and phonically accurate can and should be used by professionals in the field to ensure that only reliably accurate materials are used. ° the number of phonemes in English is stated to be 44 or thereabouts ° phonemes (including short and long pure vowel and diphthongs) are carefully distinguished ° all the phonemes are exemplified in manuals for teachers, together with a rational and justified sequence for introducing them ° as that implies, initial teaching should work from phonemes to graphemes and not vice versa: ‘... it makes more sense to talk about how sounds are represented by symbols in the writing system than to say how letters are pronounced because the latter approach is sure to create endless confusion.’ (Wardhaugh 1969, 105) ° the principal graphemes (including not only single letters but also digraphs, split digraphs, trigraphs and 4-letter graphemes) are exemplified

° the principal phoneme-grapheme and graphemephoneme correspondences are listed. A plethora of information about the frequencies of phoneme - grapheme correspondences in particular has been available since the publication of Carney (1994) and should have ensured that errors about such frequencies should not occur ° the main graphemes representing 2-phoneme sequences are identified and they are accurately described as representing two sounds, even though teachers may well need to describe them to children as (single) ‘sounds’.

Teachers of literacy would be much better equipped to follow these technicalities and therefore to spot errors, in our opinion, if they were to become familiar with the International Alphabetic Alphabet (IPA) and a modicum of associated technical terminology. Literacy is based on phonetics and linguistics, and teachers therefore need the necessary specialist knowledge.

The article from which the above extract is taken is published by Routledge, Research Papers in Education. To link to the article: https://doi.org/10.1 080/02671522.2019.1646795

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SOUNDING OFF!

Ofsted is delivering... but what?

by Colin Richards

Judging from my reading of a sample of newstyle reports on primary schools Ofsted is delivering on its promises/threats. The much contested grades are foremost. The reports are much shorter. Their judgments are more sharply expressed. Curriculum is placed left, right and centre. Knowledge (teachers as well as children’s) is of overriding importance as is memory. Teaching quality is scarcely mentioned. Other shibboleths are re-iterated in report after report: phonics (inevitably) sequencing, coherence, structure, ambition, cultural capital etc. Test results do not feature explicitly as in the past but are very much there in the sub-text.

In what appears to be a deliberate provocation to those critical of crude simplistic grades the six grade descriptors are more prominent than ever. They dominate the opening pages of the report; they imply that the essence of a school can be summed up in just a few hackneyed words.

Ofsted is doubly down on the issue rather than moderating its stance. This does not bode well for the already fraught relationship between schools and the inspection body. It disrespects parents too – assuming that what they want from reports are headlines apparently simple to understand.

Compared with their predecessors the new stylereports are certainly (and mercifully?) more concise.

Gone are page after page of hackneyed civil service

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prose; in their place there are just two three pages of a slightly different but still hackneyed prose.

The judgments rendered are certainly sharper than in previous reports - partly due to the use of very short sentences fired staccato-like across the page. Brevity and sharpness come at a price.

That price is the absence of nuance, the absence of qualification, the absence of a sense of what is unique or particular to the school being reported on. Sharpness also conveys a sense of authority and certainty - far from the tentativeness that should properly characterise complex educational judgments. Certainly it is true that Ofsted is not pulling its punches, but punches they often seem, especially to those who do not share all of the institution’s basic assumptions about the nature of knowledge and skills, about how children learn and about the nature of teaching in the primary phase.

A famous architect once said that “A house is a machine for living in”. In these reports a school appears as “a machine for delivering the curriculum”. The previous neglect of the curriculum

by Ofsted has been replaced by its opposite – an undue concentration which makes other aspects of school life appear far less important and subservient to curriculum delivery. Subjects feature to the exclusion of other ways of transacting the curriculum, whether in terms of topics or broad areas such as the arts or the humanities. Not one of the reports mentions or evaluates a school’s projects or topics. Mathematics and aspect of English continue to be the prime focus. Despite

so-called “deep dives” into foundation subjects the latter are still marginalised and comment about them is scanty and uninformative.

References to “broad” and “balanced” are noticeable by their absence.

The reports focus on curriculum managementhow schools plan, organise and “deliver” the curriculum. Those judgments are important but fail to address the fundamental issue of whether the curriculum itself is worthwhile, challenging enough, age/stage appropriate or motivating enough. Ofsted’s default position is that the national curriculum has all of those qualities. Thus despite its protestations Ofsted is not inspecting the quality of the curriculum itself.

With Ofsted’s preoccupation with teachers’ and children’s sequential subject knowledge and with the emphasis on children knowing more and remembering more, report after report proclaims the same mantra encapsulated in this recommendation that “Leaders need to ensure that teachers develop a deeper understanding of the way in which learning can be sequenced, both within the foundation subjects and between subjects, so that pupils know more and can remember more.” How many times will that be repeated report after report in the years ahead, I wonder? It will be a small minority pf primary schools that will escape a judgment along those lines. Which raises the issue of how realistic is Ofsted’s expectation in the short-to medium-term.

what many would see as an invaluable childcentred ethos is being challenged. Rightly or wrongly many primary schools are going to be discomforted and demoralised by the kind of inspection delivered in these reports. Rightly or wrongly there will be a large rise in the number of primary schools deemed to require improvement under the new framework and a decrease in those accorded “outstanding” status – with predictable consequences for teacher morale and retention.

Let me put it even more sharply. Rightly or wrongly the reports presage an attempt to “secondaryise” primary education as we have come to know, respect, love or deplore it - a project fraught with difficulty without fundamental changes that inspection alone cannot bring about. It is that important and that contentious.

A former primary school teacher Colin Richards was Staff Inspector for the School Curriculum for HM Inspectorate before its replacement by Ofsted.

Ofsted’s previous preoccupation with reporting performance data has been replaced by indirect reporting of that data. References to improvement or deterioration over time reflect inspectors’ use of such data. In some reports reference to changing standards in reading and mathematics are clearly, though not explicitly, based on data analysis. In this new dispensation data may not be “king” but it is still mightily(?) influential in overall judgments of school effectiveness.

Ofsted’s new framework represents more than the “evolution“ of policy and practice that the chief inspector has suggested. Rightly or wrongly 29

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“The End of Humanity”- Hawking’s Curriculum Challenge! by Mervyn Benford

“If Artificial Intelligence and robotisation reach levels predicted possible, it will be the end of humanity!”

In 2017 so said no less than Stephen Hawking - a man of significant ability who had a lot of time to sit and reflect.

This journal has powerfully portrayed Neil Hawkes’ Values based Education (VbE) while also exposing Burt’s fraudulent conclusions on intelligence as entirely inherited (the claim later justifying 11+ selection.) Such worthy NAPE contributions come when human intellect itself is under attack from AI. In 2017 The Financial Times ran an article - “Technology toils to make our intellect obsolete.” The educational implications of that very reasonable observation need attention beyond the financial media!

Perhaps we are too focussed on short-term issues but this threat is coming faster than we think. Teachers today face radical and rapid changes not only in their tools of trade but also in some fundamental values as to their purpose.

In my critique (2015) of half a century of national practice, provision and principles(“What they don’t tell you about Education”mervynbenford@gmail.com) I detailed the then growing threat of technology to human survival. I cited predictions of electronic brain enhancement as ultimately necessary to cope with the sheer speed and power of mid-century computers and related machines. I reported some office workers in Sweden having ricesized implants in their arms to switch lights and machines on while still on the way to work.

I reported a BT consultant in 1988 predicting we would talk to our fridges. Today smart technology can tell us recipes available for what it knows is in the fridge.

2019 has seen an intense description from the personal security company Malwarebytes of what is now called Brain/Machine Interface (BMI) including the news that Elon Musk’s company, Neurolink’expects to be testing a system feeding thousands of electrical probes into the human brain in 2020. At a basic level the concept has already been tested on animals.

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The author, Pieter Arntz, devotes considerable time to discussing the ethics of the concept - not least the potential for a brain fused into the Internet and the Cloud to be hacked! The notion of electronically enhanced humanity is taken seriously by academics and other highly qualified professional observers.

How easy to persuade excited young minds and their ambitious parents that this is the future into which they are born! In 2009 New Scientist reported an international conference in Norway concluded that by 2045 computers would be so fast we would need to be electronically fused into them to Technology, which use them. includes AI and robots,

advance exponentially.

Robots have long replaced thousands of workers in car assembly lines. Sensors implanted in the brain support paralysed limbs or ease deafness. A sensor in a blind man’s tongue enabled him to see.

In 2011 a new Phantom v1610 Camera could shoot a staggering 1,000,000 frames per second. The US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has unveiled a computer capable of handling 200,000 trillion calculations per second (200 petaflops).

Laying claim to the title of the world’s most powerful supercomputer, Summit is eight times more powerful than ORNL’s previous supercomputer, Titan, which came online in 2012 with a capacity of 27 petaflops.

How relevant are today’s patterns of teaching and learning?

In 2015 The Observer reported a European study arguing that by 2035 homo sapiens would be led by a narrow cadre at the top and the rest put out to grass to fend for themselves. In 2018 major companies such as PWC and DeLoitte disowned conventional academic outcomes when recruiting.

They would use their own methods. Of course, they knew that in the future they would need only that few at the top - the very best - to create the algorithms to maintain such superior machine power. No-one would run a business today without calculating how much could be done without people.

Technology, which includes AI and robots, advances exponentially. Robots have long replaced thousands of workers in car assembly lines. Sensors implanted in the brain support paralysed limbs or ease deafness.

A sensor in a blind man’s tongue enabled him to see.

But BMI is a huge leap forward in which the brain almost becomes a computer integrated into anyone’s power systems.

Surgeons already use robots for very intricate medical operations guaranteeing steady hands and accurate work. I endured key-hole surgery on an eye and the six-year, medical-trained anaesthetist told me what the modern drugs were- but that a computer would decide when and what I was given. Specialist nurses were being trained to provide the oversight that was all he now did- a professional career lost to smart algorithms for programmes to be used in any operating theatre in the world.

Ironically the CBI and other employers have long said that, despite escalating exam grades, schools still do not produce enough people who can think for themselves, make decisions, take responsibility, work together to solve problems. Technology’s mantra, already well exposed in Sat Nav and driver-less car concepts, in effect tells us we no longer need such brain skills. It can do it all- easier and better!

Dr. James Martin, highly successful businessman and entrepreneur, recently deceased, who gave Oxford University’s Somerville College two science laboratories, also founded the Oxford Martin School in 2005 with the largest benefaction to the University of Oxford in its more than 900-year history. He has been described as “the man who predicted the future.” His Pulitzer Prize-nominated 1978 book “The Wired Society: A Challenge for Tomorrow” contained remarkably accurate descriptions of how computerisation, telecommunications and the rise of the internet would change the world.

He wrote in the University summer journal about what scientists call “SINGULARITIES”- points of absolutely no return- an example being when black holes consume the last light cell in the universe. He spoke of quantum computers, and electronically enhanced human beings leading to a moment when, despite denial by experts, technology would finally take us over- believed around 2050! BMI takes us into that process already.

Yet he believed that “we can make any kind of world we want.” Current director of the Oxford Martin School, Professor Sir Charles Godfray, speaks of Martin’s essentially optimistic vision of the future but also of the importance of solution-oriented research in making it happen. Education and teachers have to be central to what is decided.

A cosmologist, denying time as Einstein has exposed it, felt obliged to explain conventional scientific beliefs, including the five predicted levels of intelligence in the universe. Five were predicted. We were around three. Space visitors would be nearer four. The most advanced would reflect entirely robotic civilisations - already believed to exist!

In 2018 Boeing revealed a plane whose technology - designed and tested by expert human intelligence - decided to exercise a will of its own, defying skilled human intervention and killing hundreds in the resulting crashes. A company in southern England in summer 2019 had to switch off all its machines as they had started, almost anarchically, “doing their own thing!”

Human Intelligence under Threat

Not a day passes without evidence of what robots and algorithms can achieve. We seem to have little we can do about it but ultimately surrender. We will then become as vulnerable to the alleged infallible machine developing technical malfunctions.

In a BBC Horizon programme, viewers saw a robot watching another robot and copying its movements, learning as children do, adapting its memory accordingly - i.e. adapting its programme. Computers beat experts in international chess or international quizzes. They have been programmed with so many moves or facts they have just have more answers for even the most talented humans. Yet in 2018, another sophisticated international game, ‘GO,’ was won by a computer with a move never seen before by any experts - i.e. not programmed in, but thought for itself!

Might the machines one day draw conclusions to evidence they own and understand their own workings enough to devise a way to prevent being switched off? Today’s technology has the impressive ability for what we call ‘intuitive’ thought - like predicting the next word we are likely to need in a text message by understanding the context. Such intuitive behaviour already occurs in other ‘smart’ applications.

We need change in education urgently to avoid worstcase scenarios. Our children should not be left to chance but understand the very strange and fearsome nature of the world in which they are forecast, through technology’s benefits, to reach the 22nd. Century and beyond. The children are already born.

My daughter has had four children. She read many ante-natal books. On a visit one was open at an article explaining nature would like the brain to be even bigger but, recognising the physical problem, arrests development in the last weeks of pregnancy! On birth the head is still proportionately bigger than the rest. Nature is screaming at us, “Now! Feed it!” We feed the body, give love and care, but the brain? We rightly recognise intelligence is not 100% inherited.

It continues to learn from experience but confined to what it has built from day one!

“Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man!” is as true today as when the Jesuit priest reiterated earlier observations! It is sometimes scorned under the heavy priority in practice and provision given - with disproportionate resourcing, to later years. As long ago as 1931 the Hadow Report on primary education, stated categorically, “Recent experiments show clearly, contrary to earlier views, all the elementary mechanisms required for formal reasoning are present before the child is seven.

Development consists primarily in an increase in the extent and variety of the subject matter to which these mental mechanisms can be applied, and in a development of the precision and elaboration with which they can operate.”

Hadow was describing what decades later we would hear as Gardner’s multiple-intelligences. Each individual has a unique blend of all the intelligences that empowers but does not restrict them. Gardner offers the same hope that James Martin saw in the face of technology. Multiple Intelligence Theory first presented in his book, “Frames of Mind” (1983), quickly became a classical model by which to understand and teach many aspects of human intelligence, learning style, personality and behaviour - in education and in industry. He initially developed

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his ideas as a contribution to psychology, but they were soon embraced by education, teaching and training communities, for whom the appeal was immediate and irresistible. Values education has a vital place in such concepts of life and learning.

Human intellect is becoming the battleground for today’s society. The consistent argument for the absolute priority of early years of education has been the clear benefits in terms of conventional learning outcomes but it is now becoming vital to the very nature and purpose of the brain and the nature of society. Education is acutely significant in resolving the contest in favour of human freedom of thought. We feared Orwell’s police state taking over our liberties and technology is on that wavelength already. There is hope, nevertheless!

In 2019 a BBC programme about a major philanthropist using practical construction to aid individuals and communities in need of betterment in their lives reported a child who in 2014 had been born with just 2% of a brain. “We placed him in the tiniest wheelchair that you’ve ever seen and I couldn’t believe that Noah, with two per cent of his brain, was rotating himself backwards!”The remarkable volunteer DIY/SOS team, with every project attracting dozens of local volunteers, constructed a new sensory playroom for him. Five years later his brain had developed from two per cent to 80 per cent.

At college over fifty years ago I was told not even Einstein used more than 45% of the brain we all have evolved. “Readers, you could all be twice as clever as Einstein!” And likewise, every baby born today!

We need not surrender to artificial intellect and BMI. Arntz’ article concedes that the brain still currently relays information through neuron communication more powerfully than the fastest machines. In 2012 IBM began work on ‘man-chips’ designed to replicate the behaviour of human synapses- in other words thought and learning. They are not entirely there…. yet! The human brain, though, also has fallibilities.

IBM supposes its eventual versions of the same neurons will be infallible. Infallible? We must still aspire to think for ourselves, make our own decisions, take proper responsibility.

The brain has five channels of learning- or senses-

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open to stimulus in the real world, and some before birth. For months the brain in the womb has used touch and hearing. Words and sounds shape the technology we are still born with - language!

Differential experience of language shapes early intellectual clout. Chief Ofsted inspector, Amanda Spielman, has reported increasing numbers of youngsters lacking basic hygiene and language skills by the age of four. She warned nursery staff about disadvantaged children. “These children arrive at school without the words they need to communicate properly. Just imagine the disadvantage they face, right from the start.” Related media reports note how screens are increasingly replacing everyday interactive conversation - and five-year-old brains can be very adept in screen skills. What have they lost meanwhile for want of use?

Until three or later, brain power is a literal lottery where the failure, disadvantage, impoverishment bite that permanently divide society unless exceptional opportunity comes and is taken. We are each born with the phonic power to tune into wherever we are born. Within three years we have surrendered over half in attuning to where we were actually born. This is a well-documented example of the wisdom of ages at work- “Use it or Lose it!” These early years are vital for building evolved intellectual power and then not surrendering it by failing to use it.

In December 1998 a Birmingham research group asked parents to read just five minutes every day to their children from nine months old. At that age they could have read the telephone directory! The effort to understand was believed the driver of the learning. It would bring a language increment on entry to school over and above general expectations and indeed this they found. However, these children were better at every kind of school activity. General gain across the entire field of cognition was being demonstrated - an increment in brain power itself.

As Head of a village primary school I developed a working relationship with the editor of the Oxford Times. One day he gave me a book called “The Prodigy” and asked me to review it. William Sidis was born in 1898 to parents of Russian background, both academics, who emigrated to America. They were

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determined to make a genius of him. They did - but he led an ultimately sad life and I would wish more sensitive stimulus than giving a baby Greek myths to digest! Yet at three he could read them in the original Greek! He invented three new languages, a new system of mathematics and passed tests including university entrance far earlier than normal.

At 11 years old when he entered Harvard - he wrote: “It is possible to construct figures of the 4th dimension with 120 sides called hecatonicosihedrigons or with 600 sides called hexacosihedrigons.” He was indeed a product of parental genetic intelligence and, with an IQ rated over 300 almost twice that of Hawking and Einstein whose MENSA IQ scores were 160 (regarded as the level of genius).

His father had justified We have far more the heavy stimulus brain power already input by age 11 citing evolved and surely an old saying “As the twig is bent the tree’s more than capable of inclined.” keeping up with the

machines. Born with it we must not lose it through inaction.

Thus was innate ability hugely augmented within his everyday life experience by his environment. Today we hear of children as young as 12 reaching levels comparable with Einstein and Hawking. They are telling us my college tutors were right. We have far more brain power already evolved and surely more than capable of keeping up with the machines. Born with it we must not lose it through inaction.

Yehudi Menuhin, world violin maestro, argued three as the time to start if the essential vibrato technique were ever to be thoroughly mastered. The Jesuits sensed the power of the new brain - the Israeli Kibbutz system likewise. Child soldiers in Africa serve local dictators well since they develop the physical and technical skills without the handicap of mature moral and social values.

Curriculum for such a Future The 1977 Green Paper “Education in Schools.” Section 1:19 set some aims for “curriculum: In 1985 Sir Keith Joseph, Secretary of State for Education, told the Council of Local Education Authorities that primary

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education was too narrowly concentrated on what we now call core subjects. It needed greater breadth and balance. That the same demands have to be made by today’s teachers is shameful.

Green Paper aims: a To help children develop lively, enquiring minds, able to question and argue rationally, and apply themselves to tasks; b To instil in children respect for moral values, other people and oneself, with tolerance of other races, religions and ways of life; c To help them understand the world in which they live and the inter-dependence of nations; d To help them use language effectively and imaginatively - reading, writing and speaking; e To help them appreciate how the nation earns and maintains its standard of living and properly esteem the essential role of industry and commerce in this process; f To provide a basis of mathematical, scientific and technical knowledge enabling boys and girls to acquire the essential skills needed in a fastchanging world of work; g To teach children about human achievement and aspirations in the arts and sciences, in religion and in the search for a more just social order; h To encourage and foster the development of children whose social and environmental disadvantages cripple their capacity to learn, if needed, with additional resources available.

Values education encompassing attitude and skills embraces all those aims. George Bernard Shaw had some challenging things to say about children, their rights and their education. His prescription reflects curriculum tied to appropriate life and living.

Detached judgement would report that we are seriously failing most of these worthy ambitions as democracy flounders, jobs reduce, education narrows and social parameters broaden detrimentally to society well-being.

Shaw’s “Dramatic Works XX1- Misalliance,” (1924) speaks of ‘Parents and Children’ that includes:

“Now let us ask what are a child’s rights and the rights of society over the child. The latter clearly extend to requiring itself to qualify to live in society without wasting other people’s time; that is, it must know the rules of the road, be able to read placards and proclamations, fill voting papers, compose and send letters and telegrams, purchase food, clothing and railway tickets for itself, count money and give and take change, and, generally, know how many beans make five.

It must know some law, were it only a simple set of commandments, some political economics, agriculture enough to shut the gates of fields with cattle in them and not to trample on growing crops, sanitation enough not to defile its haunts, and religion enough to know why it is allowed its rights and why it must respect the rights of others. And the rest of its education must consist of anything else it can pick up; for beyond this society cannot go with any certainty, and indeed can only do this far apologetically and provisionally, as doing the best it can in very uncertain ground.”

Not actually too different from the Green Paper and in 2019 matters are becoming just so uncertain. We need urgent change in preparing children for future life and living. Ofsted’s concern for a broader curriculum is that opportunity to examine and prepare cogently and coherently and it will need more Hawkes VbE than DfE. Initially inspectors reported on something called Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Education but the more narrow concentration on STEM subjects argues less time and priority being spent on such values surely central to best prospects for life and living. Few signs have yet emerged of that broad, balanced and relevant curriculum inspectors were initially expected to evaluate.

Opportunities from technology Technology can be so frightening in its embrace we should suppose the aim ultimately is to make human intellect redundant. By changing patterns and obligations historically associated with the need to work to survive, technology has the potential, controlled by the very few corporate companies and individuals with the means to generate the power, to enslave humanity as Hawking feared.

Neil Hawkes’s values - standards of personal attitude and behaviour, of conscience and morality, culture, social awareness, integrity have long in principle been part of required learning. They were once related to religious education but modern society has disowned the concept of Faith as hitherto presented. VbE values are far more than now neglected inspection judgements. They are survival tools for humanity rooted in intellectual independence in a future in which profession, career, job will be very different from hitherto.

The VbE curriculum can unleash immense human enterprise and creativity suppressed by that need to work. A man might have worked long days in a mine or a shipyard, of course today in an office or supermarket, and then gone home, where, after a meal he retired to attend to his racing pigeons, weed the vegetable plot or continue constructing a ship in a bottle.

Human beings have shown immense, innate enterprise across the centuries. In a Swabian Jura region, archaeology has found carved mammoth bone figurines from Ice Age populations clearly showing imagination at work as they pondered what may lie beyond their known world. Professor Alice Roberts, in TV programmes tracing the history of humanity, has shown how we reached out our intellectual grasp to power beyond our everyday world.

This is the opportunity of the increasingly workless society- a society wherein already ‘living income’ is replacing the concept of ‘living wage’ as pressure on job supply continues beyond present short-term circumstances. No-one starting a business today would not first determine how much could be done without people. Self-sustaining families, self-sustaining communities and human-scale public services will best rationalise future everyday lives. Who will be paying to support this new society?

There have long been political arguments and evidence claiming that those creating personal and national wealth serve their own interests by responsible concern for human well-being - if only to provide customers! Those intellectual values employers argue schools have neglected remain drivers of human survival- not least as so much of everyday existence will be heavily programmed.

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38 Future generations need that brain power to recognise the risks, develop an accurate critique of what is going on around them and manage their lives accordingly. They need to find newly creative ways to exist - in those essentially caring, empathetic ways best prescription, religious or otherwise, has always envisaged. The model of self-sustaining families and communities already exists- inspectors reporting on small schools, currently mainly in rural areas, consistently praise just such virtues. They have excellent credibility for academic stimulation. They can be still more significantly enhanced.

It is his only claim that has ever left me uneasy. He lived in a time when life was relatively unchanging.

Change came but at a very comfortable speed.

Expectations were very similar across the generations.

Yet even in the late 1970s the pace had begun to quicken - notably through technology and not least encouraging ease and pleasure.

Today, 2019, I am sure Schiller would recognise the awesome speed of technology reaching our children and the radical changes in their prospects for everyday life and living. I believe he would welcome urgent review of how we best integrate and conserve the very wise observations he had to make about educating children. Neil Hawkes’ values-basededucation would well encompass most.

In Sweden pre-school education in large urban estates is often organised in just such small centres local to where the children live. Parents and teachers know each other - even on Christian name terms. They are aware of overall aims and able to support - exactly the UK rural school model. Management and leadership, however, extend over several such sites - much as rural clusters and federations here have worked.

Sweden has an international reputation for being a caring society, willing to pay taxes to secure effective, quality public services. Such commitment starts early.

Swedish pre-school children almost always have well differentiated systems for managing waste.

Mervyn Benford is the former head of a rural primary school in Oxfordshire. He moved from the headship to be adviser to small schools and now he is a writer and education consultant.

For over a century the human educational challenge has gathered pace tied to securing work. We need to return to some of the deeper concepts of humanity living together equitably in common purpose. As technology does make much in life easier and better we need to anticipate the drift to addiction now much seen in eyes on screens. Ease is a similarly attractive thing and challenges the notion of discipline that has been essential to good human organisation since the earliest times. Teachers, parents, communities today need to avoid such surrender to the appeal of modernity and work to re-shape old qualities of life and living for continued survival.

A New Editor

NAPE has proudly and purposefully promoted the life and work of a founding father of effective education, former Her Majesty’s Inspector, Christian Schiller. The annual Schiller Lecture is always a compelling event and worth attending whenever possible.

At a conference in North Aston in Oxfordshire in the late 1970s Schiller spoke of the centrality for children of today. Each day was its own challenge. Tomorrow and the future were less important.

After 26 issues as editor it’s time for me say goodbye, this is my final issue.

I welcome my successor, Robert Morgan, most warmly and wish him and the journal every success in the future.

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