Andrew Pollard takes stock and looks to the future

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

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

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”.

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. 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. 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

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. 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. 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.

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