h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

WARNING: EXTENSIVE RANT AHEAD

Right. I've had enough. Seven years of teaching draws to a close here. Let's review why, shall we?

Holistic Expectation.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the expectation of education is that it prepares children to gain life skills and a job, right?

That's interesting. Nothing I've seen over the last seven years has convinced me of anything other than the fact that children are there to be manipulated to the end of achieving suitable exam results. If they can't achieve their results with GCSEs, apparently that is what NVQ and BTEC courses are there for.

Now please don't get me wrong. I think vocational courses are outstanding and progressive courses for pupils who can show enthusiasm in a subject, and possibly build their way to a future career, while lacking a bit of self-confidence or literacy. What they are emphatically are not is a place for schools to dump all students who have no interest in a compulsory subject in order to get those students a passing grade nevertheless.

Until schools rectify the position of expecting all pupils to achieve grades on their (the school's) behalf, the entire education system is flawed. All students should be striving to achieve results on their personal behalf, not their teacher's, nor their school's. And those that fail to do so need to face the consequences.

School Expectations.

The absurdity that is OFSTED cannot be over-cited. How many other jobs require you to be accountable for your working day in five minute intervals?

And let's not get started on the pressures. All members of senior management feel directly responsible for the results of an inspection, and thus all teaching staff will be the natural targets upon which to shift the blame.

The school's checklist consisted of 27 separate items, at least three of which had been negotiated as beyond a teacher's responsibilities. But the unions hold little sway, and most teachers will be found on the day before OFSTED filling in pupil prediction statistics and putting up displays, rather than actually fulfilling useful tasks such as marking books and planning pupils' learning. And the school always wondered why it achieved poor marks for teaching on the first day of the inspection. Eventually, they even gave up that aspect and just made sure they achieved good marks for management, and hang the rest.

Schools, unfortunately, are tied in with their leaders, rather than the things that actually matter.

Subject Expectations.

Oh. My. God. Anyone over the age of thirty and uninvolved in education would not believe what has happened to science education in the last five years. I have watched my subject being literally debased and pulled out from underneath my feet.

Let's start at Key Stage 3(1988) (years 7-9, age 11-14). The National Curriculum actually made a pretty good fist of KS3, laying down an ordered set of learning outcomes and objectives. Even despite the fact that my school had chosen to buy up the worst available KS3 course, there was a certain amount of pleasure in planning interesting and relevant investigations for the lower half of the school.

Not so much lately. Three years ago, the Government dictated that pupils should be learning skills and not knowledge, and that the vast majority of lessons should be geared around being able to interpret scientific texts and the motivations of scientific professionals. Let us, for the minute, put apart the fact that I personally have no capacity to determine the motivations of scientific professionals, and certainly have no ability to pass it on to the youngsters of today.

The short story of the knowledge->skills transition was that we bought in a new set of textbooks, which I felt was lacking in any actual educative value (and, in quite a few cases, contrary to received scientific fact). When I digressed from the schemes of work dictated by these books (which had been laughably 'adapated' by members of my department), I was reprimanded by a senior member of the department.

And don't get me started on Key Stage 4. That's GCSE, or O-Level. You know, the proper, actual exams that pupils take in order to gain credibility in the working world?

Eight years ago, a GCSE meant something. Approximately half our pupils took double science GCSE, which meant two GCSEs, and the other half took single science, which was approximately half the work, funnily enough. Let's first establish the potential of my school by first observing other schools and seeing that they enter perhaps 70-75% of their pupils into double science. So, we were pretty poor to start off with.

Our single science results were - frankly - piss-poor. Any pupils with no interest in the subject were forced to learn some basics and attempt to pass an exam, because it was a difficult subject

Obviously, this wasn't good enough in the eyes of the Government, and the whole syllabus was revised.

As might be expected, the old 'Single Science' syllabus consisted of about 50% of the Double Science syllabus (when I say 'old', please remember I mean 2006). The new 'Single Science' syllabus, by my estimation consisted of less than 15% of that same syllabus. And this is NOT an exaggeration.

What was expected in place of the remaining 85%? The ability to interpret graphs and trend lines; the ability to apply vague ideas like ALARA and the Precautionary Principle to scientific jobs; an understanding of how to write a Risk Assessment to be a lab technician; and an understanding of how to identify flaws in published scientific studies.

I don't claim that any of the above is unimportant, but it is a long, long way from what I was signed up to teach, and more importantly it seems to have given the exam boards license to ask obtuse questions. Pre-2006, I could predict, with reasonably accuracy, the relevant content and answers of 90% of questions on a GCSE paper. Recently, I haven't been able to do that with any assuredness, and frankly there have been a number of questions to which I'm not even sure I know the right answer, let alone the pupils. Let me give you a recent (real, if paraphrased) multiple-choice example from a recent exam paper:

- A dentist takes an X-ray of a patient and stands behind a screen. Which of these is the dentist using?

a) (Obviously wrong answer)
b) (Obviously wrong answer)
c) ALARA
d) Precautionary principle

I'm sorry, but that's not a science question.

In any event, if I have no confidence and enthusiasm in the subject, I can't see how my pupils can have any.

Teacher Expectations.

Wow. Did I ever get this one wrong. When I signed up, I believed my role as a 'Teacher of Science' was be to teach science.

(Let's ignore the fact that I was qualified in Chemistry, so the teaching of Biology and Physics to GCSE would count as 'additional skills' in any other role).

Do I teach science? Perhaps one hour out of the forty I'm contracted for every week. And that's no exaggeration. It seems to be the view of secondary schools in this country that I'm little more than a social worker and a nanny. In short, if I can make them behave and want to learn, then I've been a success. If not, then I've been a failure.

Let's examine for a minute the disparity between 'teaching science' and 'making young people behave and want to learn'. I'm not blinkered and I appreciate that the two will necessarily require some overlap. Teaching and learning is necessarily a two-way process, and even the best teachers will fail to get the best out of resilient learners (and vice versa). My success or failure over my entire teaching career has been judged solely on the way pupils are learning and not the provision I have made. OFSTED and SMT are entirely focussed on the quality of learning, not the quality of teaching, and if pupils are failing to learn, it is deemed my fault. The only exception has been from my head of department, who has recognised subject knowledge and creativity, and frankly been over-generous in that department.

Let's talk more about teacher expectations. Let's talk about the situation I've found myself in for the last two years:

My school recently found themselves in the position of introducing BTEC science. Let's marginalise the idea I took forward, two years ago, of introducing it for a single class of low-confidence pupils, and let's introduce it for all pupils who won't pass GCSE - yeah, that's the way to improve our league table standings. I notified SMT that this wouldn't work without further improvements in the meagre ICT that was provided to our pupils.

Regardless of this, suddenly I have 160 pupils who are not particularly willing to produce work and are now inducted onto BTEC science, despite the fact that I had notified SMT of their unwillingness to learn. I drew out the set lists because it was too difficult for my head of department. I also took on the difficult mix-and-match 'leftover' class because the set lists were my doing and therefore the reasonable option, notifying SMT that this was a particularly difficult task). BTEC science being 100% coursework, I suddenly had 100 students, each of whom had 15 pieces of coursework due. This meant co-ordination of 1,500 pieces of coursework - a fair old administrative task. Eventually, some pupils began to get behind with their coursework. I phoned their parents and wrote letters home. I notified SMT that that these pupils were behind schedule.

You might note that I'd done a lot of notifying SMT in the last couple of paragraphs. Well, of course, that all went to hang. I was eventually told by the senior management that pupils were refusing to do as I asked in lessons. I replied that I knew this and had already told them (see above). The response was that the pupils were refusing to learn because I 'had failed to form good relationships with them'.

I'll leave you to form your own opinions of that conclusion.

(Is this the best time to bring up the fact that everyone - myself, students, Subject Leaders and SMT - agrees that my real strengths are as a teacher to more senior and enthusiastic pupils? No. I haven't taught a top set for six years. I haven't even taught double GCSE science for five years.)

The practical upshot was that I was asked (I say 'asked'; I mean 'required') to give up my own lunchtimes and preparation times in order to make sure that pupils learned. Pupils, I emphasise, who had refused to learn in their timetabled lessons. Presumably, if I was seen to be unsatisfactory as a teacher, then I wouldn't have been asked to teach out of hours. The only logical conclusion was that the school was unhappy with their pupils' efforts and were trying to mandate me to achieve their results for them. This was justified when I was asked to falsify a relatively high-achieving pupil's coursework to make sure she achieved a Merit grade.

Which brings me to the most absurd of all:

Pupil Expectations

This is the most sadly absurd of all.

I have extensive experience of pupils who underachieve. As far as I can see, and this doesn't just apply to my subject, this is because they are being overwhelmed with ridiculous, Bloom's-taxonomy laden objectives, meta-learning and SEAL objectives, without a blinding clue of what they're actually required to do to leave school with any sort of credit.

It's a sad fact of life that many pupils we see come from deprived and abusive backgrounds, and it's a sad truth that the vast majority of 'in care' pupils I've met are engaging, interested and pleasant. Unfortunately the laws that well provide for them also appear to be applicable to pupils who refuse point blank, and are abusive and offensive. Outside of direct and unopposed assault (and, if you like, I invite you to consider how wide those terms might extend), there is nothing that some pupils can do to be removed from a school, thanks to the well-meaning but clearly short-sighted 'Every Child Matters' policy.

It won't be overlooked at this point that many of the children you spring to mind deserve a second chance or a place where they can recover without disturbing others. This indeed used to be the case, where pupil referral centres could accommodate those not capable of the most elementary of skills. However, the inclusiveness policies now mandate that all pupils, whether they are hard of hearing, polio-sufferers, or instinctively poorly behaving, can not be excluded in any activity.

Let's be straight here, I believe in the PRINCIPLE of inclusiveness; unfortunately, it seems to be adopted to absurd ends, forcing unwilling hard-of-hearing pupils to participate in music lessons; dystrophy sufferers in PE, and the like. The system has actually wound up with less sensitivity than it aimed to foster.

Regardless of any of this, it's mandated that every child, regardless of their performance, background or attitude, must study science to Key Stage 4. The majority of them get pushed into BTEC courses against their will, where the likes of me are destined to chase them for coursework for the rest of their school careers.

Pupil expectation is so confused amid the layers of skills-learning and Government-dictated blandness that basics such as literacy, numeracy, functional ICT and (increasingly) social interactiveness are being overlooked. High-achieving pupils are losing the ability to play to their strengths due to a Government-dictated all-encompassing curriculum, and lower achievers are denied the ability to involve themselves in education branches because all their time is focussed on basic literacy and numeracy. It's not that these skills are unimportant, but in nearly all subject there is an insistence on ranked comparison; one which will only harm the majority in the long run.

Overall conclusion: many pupils are forced to do a course about which they have no interest or willingness to succeed.

In short - schools are expected to teach courses purely on the expectation of grades; teachers are expected to produce those grades, regardless of the pupils in front of them, and pupils are expected to meet a homogenised ideal which makes them unsuited for many of the careers where they could take an interest.

The system sucks. And I'm glad to be out of it.

Out of it? What are you going to do instead?

You make me glad I took J out of mainstream and into special needs. He has no learning disability so we had to give up any chance of a proper set of GCSEs so that he could at least learn to learn at a school less interested in result.

You know, it's no wonder teachers always seem as disenchanted with the subjects they teach as the students they're teaching. I felt like that all the way through school and even into university.

Have you ever heard of Ken Robinson? I'm reading his book, The Element, at the moment and have heard his talks for a few years. His area of research is the educational system and creativity, and his argument is that we are basically educated out of creativity and finding our natural groove by the fact that we're expected to get particular exam results and have to achieve greatness in the traditional hierarchy of subjects.

What I find particularly interesting about this book is the case studies, with people such as Gillian Lynne (choreographer of Cats), Matt Groening, Mick Fleetwood, Meg Ryan and a whole host of well and not so well known people who have found their 'Element'.

Anyway, I think your rant was perfectly justified given school seems to have just turned into a bunch of miserable faces ticking boxes.

Hope you find something which makes you feel more fulfilled and less rant worthy Though, excellent ranting!

Is been instilled with Ken Robinson's brand of wisdom, yes. While utterly appealing and convincing, it is completely inapplicable to the way schools are run.

Sorry to read this Ben. As a governor of a school that was in special needs when I started and has now dropped out of council led initiativess to become an academy I recognise a great deal of what you say.

Alas the school nowadays is a business, and judged on its results, which means that a good headmaster is first of all an administrator, and next a leader. Often these skills are not available in the classroom, where do teachers develop them ?

I agree with you about Science, double science was one of my bugbears, because double science actually means a melding of physics and chemistry and throw in some biology, move forward to A Level chemistry and it bears no relevence to the work they've covered previously.

We need good teachers who are sensitive to children's backgrounds and needs, and programs like evey child matters need to be interpreted sensitively and with regard to the child's personal background. We have quite a lot of child carers for example.

Then it comes to issues like nutritional standards, we have many kids whose only hot meal is what they get at school, and frankly we consider getting them something filling to be a bit more important that giving them broccolli.

Still I'll back out of your disappointment, because you don't need it, but I do know schools need good science teachers - so don't let this one school spoil every expectation you had.

And people wonder why I don't want to go in to teaching.

Good luck in your next step, whatever that next step is.

From what I've heard from other teachers I know, this post hasn't surprised me in the slightest.

Well done for sticking with it as long as you did. Now write a book slagging the system off and make a few bob

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Its-Your-Time-Youre-Wasting/dp/0955285402

Sorry to read all that. So you've actually resigned? I hope you have something else lined up to pay the mortgage/rent if so.

We have increasing infection of some of things you spoke about at university but we are free from many also and I thank bod for that.


Very best of luck in what you decide to do from now.

D'you know, I was discussing the state of the education system yesterday - my best friend's brother is off with depression at the minute as a result of the pressures of teaching. How appalling is it that our education system does that to intelligent, motivated, dedicated people?

I wish you all the best for whatever direction your future takes.

Don't know much about education - too old to remember I guess! But, didn't detect much about a seven year attempt to change the system of which you were a participant. Holidays and pay not mentioned either.

Maybe now you can spend a bit of time improving the system from the outside. Look forward to your nexxt seven year rant. By the look of it you'll have much to complain about!