Predictable, Dishonest and Insulting, Yada, Yada, The English Way

Posted Saturday 27th April 2013

There’s a scene in “The Wild Bunch” when the Marlon Brando biker leader is asked what he’s rebelling against. Succinctly he replied, “What’ve you got?” I thought I might have enough for two or three blogs; now I can hardly keep up with the government led insults to teachers, students and their parents.

BBC Question Time aspires to seriously political debate. In January, Our Secretary of State for Education, Mr Gove, replied to one astute contribution with, “Yada, yada,” displaying an arrogant refusal to listen to any deviation from his own omnipotence. His experience in parliament has shown him that one does not answer a question when asked. Listen to Prime Minister’s Questions as members bay and jeer and guffaw. Questions are asked and rarely answered and the Prime Minister’s response is often,“I’m not going to take any lessons/advice/nonsense from (the questioner.)” Our political leaders lack the basic conversational and presentational skills that aid dialogue and communication but they do speak at length. Our students are taught to do better than this, which is maybe why so few listen to parliamentary debates, vote in elections, see politics as a potential career and why most say they don’t trust politicians.

9% of parents in a UGOV poll in January said they trust the government on education; 59% said they trusted headteachers. Yada, yada, more on this later.

This week's Get Gove into the news announcement is to remove spoken English from the student's English Language exam, thus ensuring it will be devalued, downgraded and rarely taught. As National Association of Headteachers leader Russell Hobby said, "If they are not counted for the league tables they wont count."

There are reasons why we examine speaking and listening skills as part of an English Language GCSE. Language acquisition and development is seen as massively vital by all thinking adults, from the first time, ironically, that a child speaks. Mastery of a language involves reading, writing, speaking and listening. But now, speaking and listening are not to be valued skills in English Language qualifications at 16. I guess language acquisition and development is now to be solely about reading and writing. So let’s drop the speaking element from all language exams: French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic etc. And with a government education debacle (a new collective noun) that clearly devalues listening, to the extent that they are incapable, unpractised and unwilling listeners, let’s drop the listening bit. Learn a foreign language the English way – by correspondence course. When in Rome, read the signs.

At job interviews drop the face to face stuff and just do psychometric tests and check the handwriting. When employers are asked about school leavers they often chant, “They don’t have the communication skills required.” Whist British manufacturing and construction continue to decline the cunning new announcement demoting oracy reflects a diminished need for workers who can communicate. I recall vividly the sadistic English teaching John Harman with his sneering scalded face publicly humiliating me for my Irish pronunciation of the word, “thick.” He told me, at age 12 that I was indeed “tick” and to get out on the building sites with the “rest of the paddies.” A cynic might add that rising unemployment creates a Brave New World where our self-appointed betters wish they could give working class embryos a quick blast of stultifying thickening oxygen rather than having to teach them blind, dull acceptance of their rightful lowly lot.

Exam regulators, Ofqual, - have said that sometimes students do better at speaking and listening than the reading and writing part. Well, blow me down with a tepid whimper, I thought that’s why we examine different skills separately and then sort of add them together to form a view on overall expertise in use of language. Oh no, please don’t say they have to be above average in all areas.

Get me a quill quick, I feel a handwriting test coming on.

If overseas readers have watched The UK’s shameful demonization of our poor and dreadful treatment of the disabled (with being able to walk 25 yards now sufficient evidence of fit for work status) whilst the anti-foreigner clamour spreads, you will see that this is not just in education. We are reactionary conservative led and we have an anonymity of opposition in parliament.

Ofqual lied about last year's exam results.  Now they say that their theft of our borderline students' hard earned grades in English was due to, "over-generous marking of speaking and listening tests by teachers." That is not what they said at the time; that is not what they said in the prolonged court case; and now they are calling English teachers cheats.

Last year Ofqual actually blamed it on their own markers giving too many high grades in January. Do they think we've forgotten? Are Ofqual late converts to Orwell’s 1984 doublespeak. Your truth is lies, Mr Gove and Yada yada is not good enough.

Ofqual say teachers cannot accurately mark speaking and listening. Oh yes we can. What do you think languages teachers do all the time –doodle an artist’s impression of their students’abilities in oracy? I examined English Oral Examinations for many years. An external moderator used to come and listen to my students in their oral exams and he used to check my marking. It’s what exam boards charge us money for. Languages teachers record students oracy using a recording device and samples are moderated – that’s what exam boards are for.

Last year, Ofqual's chief regulator the no-doubt soon to be honoured Gelnys Stacey, said that she understood why teachers were too generous with their marking, because of, "the pressures of the accountability measures for schools." This inflamatory insult barely masks a mistrust of what teachers do, a mistrust not shared by students and parents. However get below 50% GCSEs and Mr Gove will threaten to close your school, ignorantly claiming that all schools must get above average results.

It is true that the exam boards are now recruiting 18 year olds to mark exam scripts and boy, are they messing up. A recent remark of a Psychology A Level paper at my school showed numerous errors explained by the board as “training weaknesses.” That’s the training they are meant to do with their markers at our expense.

Shout out (whilst you have the skills) and try to get someone to listen. Without justification for hope or trust I filled in Ofqual’s pretend consultation (http://surveys.ofqual.gov.uk/s3/questions-for-the-speaking-and-listening-consultation)

Who opens a consultation with a predetermined ruling on the outcome? The decision has not only been made, it has been backdated so that it applies to courses our students started last June and are half over. Mismanager Stacey has stated, "We want to hear what people think before we make our final decision." Do you remember how you trusted the snake in "Jungle Book?"   

Brian Lightman of the Association of School and College Leaders, delicately offered, "As a matter of principle, changes to assessment should never be introduced after students have started a course." 

Ms Stacey, with absolute government direction, doubts teachers' assessment skills; you know, the stuff we do every teaching minute of every day. And if we can't examine spoken skills properly what chance for Drama? And if moderators can only examine writing done at speed what chance Music, Technology, Dance, Texties, Art, ceramics, Photography, PE? Oh dear me, I forgot, these subjects don't feature at all in Mr Gove's curriculum plans. He only wants us to teach those submissive, silent skills required by 1960s car makers, dock, mine and steel mill owners and the shipbuilding monoliths.

Dennis O'Sullivan

This is not education. This is like potty training and we do it because we can’t face the mess.

Posted 13th April 2013

This is not education. This is like potty training and we do it because we can’t face the mess.

If you google, "yid army schoolboys" you will find my ability to say too much can have me living in interesting times. This particular incident cost our school a chair of governors and ended with me signing an agreement which, uniquely, I was not allowed to see. This was less than jolly for many people but our local newspaper loved it. Indeed, one of The Hertfordshire Mercury’s reporters sold the story to the nationals and “The Sun” paid him well.

Last autumn the paper asked me to write a blog; they said I courted controversy and spouted forthright views.

Last week the editor banned me from blogging saying, “I can no longer justify giving you a platform for your views when you demonstrate negativity and animosity towards The Mercury.” Having dedicated all 7 blogs to attacking  government education thinking I am pleased to announce that the government has given my school £795,000 to build a new Maths Block. It seems it’s just my local paper that doesn’t believe in free speech.

So here’s Blog 8 via Google, my brave new world of limitless speech – unless you live in one of those countries where internet searches are scrutinized and censored.

In England we are sinking into a massive education hole. Government policy and teacher collusion is driving us ever deeper into whatever lies way down there. Everyone has signed the deal and each of us will bear the guilt, unbridled and verbal acts of contrition will not protect us from blame.

It has taken me many years in education to see the murky light. By equating “good” in school with children, students and young people scoring highly in SATs at age 11, GCSEs at age 16 and A Levels at 18 governments are doing the obvious. Who can argue with better results? Put the results in league tables and parents can see which school has the best results. Surely a good thing.
Our school inspectorate, Ofsted, rule that a school is outstanding if children make 3 levels of progress 11 -16. Surely that's good too; we all want to see students progress.

I recently organised an art exhibition of younger children’s artwork in their junior schools (see their tremendous art at http://www.thechauncyschool.co.uk/art-gallery.html ) One experienced, friendly and humane headteacher asked me if we could run the exhibition after the SATs test in May... and this was in November a full four months before the display. His kids would be working on their tests: practice paper after practice paper and no room for art or much else. This is not right.

Just before Easter, so now we are in March, another local school spent three days doing practice tests six weeks before the SATs. They are nice people and gave the kids a treat on the final day as a reward for their patience. This is not right. This is not childhood.

We have selective schools in Hertfordshire, always next to the most expensive housing. One headteacher claims that every attempt at creativity with her 10 year olds is greeted by parents complaining, “We want none of that. Teach them to the DAO test.”

This is not right. This is not childhood. This is not education.

Every day this week – we are on holiday – I have watched teachers and students in school, revising for various exams to take place in May and June. Their commitment is amazing. If the students do less well than they should (according to a rigour of data) these teachers know that I will probably talk to them in a way that justifies their feeling threatened for their jobs. It’s a tough world. Young people get one chance at doing well at school and teachers need to be able to do it all: prepare, inspire, explain, cajole, demand, evaluate and reward.

I have no problem with the difficult conversations. Students were generally betrayed in my first school by poor teaching. 10 teachers had around 50 days off each year and no school leader/manager seemed to say a word. Having just completed another year as a 7 day a week milkman, I did speak to my so-called colleagues about their commitment. To the horror of the socialist revolutionaries nursing their headaches and backpain, I even refused to drink with one hero miscreant more than once discovered in the pub whilst his students watched a film in his classroom. But that was 1987; I think it was a Wednesday.

Last year the exam boards stole our 16 year olds’ GCSEs English qualifications in a drive for rigour (another word for flawed statistics.) The exam boards dumped 21 of our young people (around 10,000 nationally) who had done the necessary work to earn a place at college, a pass on the minimum CV for a job interview and the knowledge that their hard work would bring them just reward. A dangerous precedent even with our famously non violent britishness.

So what did our teachers do in response to the amoral, cold blooded dismissal of their work? Go to the pub? Bunk school? Claim everything would be alright after the revolution?

They taught less risqué poetry. No-one’s got the time for stories that provoke, inspire, amaze, amuse or annoy. They held fewer off piste discussions and taught to the GCSE exam earlier than ever and over and over and over again. They called upon the students’ trust to grind through revision, repetition, rote learning and formulaic writing frames – most of which will be relegated to vague memory within days of the single terminal exam. They rigorously identified borderline students, labelled them C3 and D1, wrote to their mums, bribed them with sweets and implored them to repeat tasks, for one more mark.

Our middle ability boys have entered the English exam in March and will enter two different English exams in June. They are having three shots at the one qualification and they are working very hard at lunchtimes, after school and in their holidays. On hearing of this the education secretary copied Father Ted and shouted, “Enough of this sort of thing!” He accused us of cynicism. Well, Mr Gove, you started it!

But I agree: This is not right. This is not childhood. This is not education. This is like potty training and we will do it because we can’t face the mess.

Our English teachers have worked so hard and worried so much that I am fearful for their mental health. If they get the borderline students a “C” grade rather than a “D” the school will be a better school in the eyes of the government, parents and teachers – until next year when we play the same game again. We are all on the road to education hell where we only teach to the test by which our school lives are measured. After 35 years in coed, comprehensive schools with amazing children, young  people and adults I will never forget the 14 year old Robina Kashmiri’s post apocalypse  poem (20 out of 20 in her coursework) or the beautiful story by a 50 year old Bunty Faye about her grandfather’s death.

But now, in the words of the near immortal Leonard Cohen, “It's come to this, yes it’s come to this, and wasn't it a long way down.”

Dennis O'Sullivan

Let's teach them a lesson they'll never forget

Posted on 18th March 2013

I am rushing to write this before the self- imploding party of government loses its leader – the U turn specialist Cameron, in favour of the literally well- heeled Teresa May. Mrs May's unmoving hostility to the gathered mass of the Police Federation won her the sort of drooling applause normally reserved for some winking innuendo in the hanging and immigration debates at party conference.

Eastleigh is not my favourite town : I once reversed a lorry into a ditch there and had to be removed by a crane late on a Friday night, in the days when Friday nights were very important to me.

The Tories lost the recent Eastleigh by election –the one caused by the sudden realisation of the, “I am totally innocent of these charges” Lib Dem MP Huhne, that he did break the law, did pervert the course of justice and is now in prison. Their vote went down by 14% whilst the Lib Dems’ went down by 14.5%. The former was “disappointing” (Cameron) and the latter was “a stunning Victory” (Clegg). Such stunning Maths! Which brings me, again I’m afraid, to Michael Gove.

Having told the parliamentary select committee to find something useful to do, rather than waste his time with their tiresome questions - and this is the sort of accuracy in paraphrase that protects me from his spin doctors’ assaults – Mr Gove showed his mastery of stalinist mathematics. He was asked to explain his proclamation that each individual school’s results need to be above average for them to be classed as “Good.” Gove insists all schools must be at least “Good” How can all schools achieve above average anything? He stared with that look of contempt designed to tell critics that when Michael Gove is in charge of his dream (North Korea in Westminster) they will know what it is to waste a dictator’s time.

This is the man who has claimed the authority to decide on all curriculum matters from birth to 19 for all children. Well, not quite all, of course, the no league tables, No-Ofsted private schools can teach whatever parents pay them to do.

But, follow closely and suspend disbelief: my senior sources in the Department for Education have informed me that Michael Gove has no interest in education and does not want his present job. On the way to being crowned primus inter pares of the Conservative Party his burning desire is to be Home Secretary where he can push home his 100% unwavering support for a class society. The DfE advisors on education all ran away from Mr Gove some time ago, leaving him with a couple of “Special Advisors” who spend their time defending accusations of bullying and definitely not being the authors of the scalding twitter account (“@education)at which Mr Gove’s previous employer, also Mrs Gove’s current employer, Rupert Murdoch, might have giggled. Oh and “primus inter pares” is the title, when translated from the latin, of a novel by the autobiographically confused, disgraced and imprisoned sometime Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party , Lord Archer, “First Amongst Equals.”

On his way to Home Secretaryship Gove has competition from Justice Secretary Chris Grayling. You can tell much about a man from his nickname The man who, "stood six foot six, weighed 245 pounds and sent a Lousiana fella to the Promised Land"  in a dispute over  a Cajun Queen was of course, Big John, (Big Bad John if he was outside of hearing range). The new pope has adopted the name of a man who was kind to poor people and animals and created the nativity scene so frequently part of the primary school curriculum. They called him Saint Francis. So when you hear that Grayling is known as Attack Dog you just know you are not in for a move to the liberal left.

Thing is, I agree with Grayling on his recent policy suggestion. I call it a suggestion; it’s more a “vote for me, nod and a wink.” Here’s the thinking of the attack dog: £245 million is spent on incarcerating 1,600 young criminals in England and Wales each year. 70% re-offend. Everyone knows, and it really is everyone, that most of these kids have lousy literacy skills. Grayling told BBC Radio that he wants youth detention centres to, "focus much more on education.” He says he is considering proposals to turn some centres into, "secure colleges," to improve re-offending rates.

He wants, “better value and better outcomes,” and,” People with skills in education will be called upon to contribute solutions.” Can you see where this is going? Grayling has done the maths, although wildly confusing the figures, and he says,” Young offenders cost three times what top private schools charge.” Top Tories always say they want more children to benefit from the top private schools; extending privilege it’s called. The best schools should be encouraged to expand. Private schools build character. Cameron (Eton()Gove (Gordons) Osborne (St Pauls) Clegg (Winchester )and others in power certainly can’t be accused of being out of touch on this matter. How wonderful for a young offender to benefit from elite education and to have a top politician as mentor!
Those of you harping back to Huhne now in prison for at least a couple of weeks more, Archer, the 600 or so MPs caught up in the expenses “scandal” the election fraudsters, those taking their bestest buddies on foreign office jaunts, or the MP in post karaoke punch up last week, shame on you. They have all reformed and will not re-offend. But having been to the darkside of criminality who better to empathise and mentor young offenders?

Grayling said he, “was not necessarily thinking of Eton,” but,he was. He is giving them a hint that they could step into the forefront of the Big Society, take on responsibility for the misguided, teach them away from Ofsted, exam stats and league tables and show them how to use their old school tie to turn away from crime, or at least avoid prison.

You get Eton for a bit over £32,000 a year and it’s not as if you need any particular skills which you would need for The Royal Ballet School at £38,500 . I am sure the private schools will want the chance to show us the way. Big Society Rules OK; Go for it AD; Go Dave’s, or Teresa’s, doggies.

Dennis O'Sullivan

Support grows for The Blazers and Digging Free School

Posted 11th February 2013

I wish to formally apply to open my own free school and I need some signatures. No commitment required, a flighty interest in the concept will suffice. I will receive up to £333,000 to set up a secondary free school.

Mr Gove  has abolished the restriction on schools having to be housed in buildings appropriate for education. Abolish the red tape so that we can get on with the business of raising standards, he said. We can open in shops, factories and other places.

My free school will bring us close to the 1950s style of living so missed by our nostalgic government education secretary. I am in advanced talks with a local Allotment Keepers Association to open a new school in their sheds. The government says you aren't entitled to ask where this may be. However, these allotment sheds are used mainly at weekends so it will be incredibly cost effective for us to use them as classrooms during daylight hours Monday to Friday. Clear blue, outside the box, entrepreneurial, innovative thinking, innit?

I met this strange old man on the allotments and he is happy to be our Earth Sciences teacher in my free school Kids will grow things, and, of course, save the planet from environmental oblivion. I understand Rosie, Jenny and Derek are also available.

We will not select children by ability but they will need to know Latin as we will be using up to date 1950s friendly Latin for all plants: Solanum tuberosum , exempli gratia, will be grown.  Children will wear expensive striped blazers and “teachers” will wear gowns. This has worked for Toby Young – a lordly free school flagship all on his own – whose free school manages to attract very, very few low income families in South London.

We will return to 1950s schoolroom discipline minus the random beatings. The masters will shout a lot. This will, ipso facto, create the notion of obedience to rules, and end Mr Cameron’s broken society.

1950s rationing taught Mr Gove, many things about self-reliance and root vegetables and I know he will value an education based largely on this. Toilet facilities were outside in the 50s and we will return to that. And if you are wondering about showers, have you been outside this week?

Using my demagogic rights as self-selected school owner and Master of the Blazers and Digging Free School I will harangue the council to ensure that our earthy produce can be sold in the old Clintons Cards shop in Ware High Street – obliterating high street blight. We will promote capitalism in an eco-friendly manner.

Mr Gove will no doubt salivate at such inculcation of business sense. Students will not be paid but will consider Saturday opening of the shop as community service, voluntary work and work experience. Naturally we will support family life by closing on Sundays. Children will be allowed to grow some flowers to give to their mums on Mothers’ Day ending, obviously, family breakup.

Students will walk between the two sites and this exercise will be known as “PE lessons.” I have asked a retired colleague, Bertie, to get on his bike and  design a cross country route to toughen them up.

The man responsible for the efficient delivery of education  says free school sponsors can make a profit and I intend to do so. He says we can learn from private enterprise and I have done so – as you will see in the price of our turnips (Brassica rapa to our students)

Of course, there is a surplus of secondary places in Hertford & Ware and  my proposal will merely make  uneconomic sense and take resources away from the children in the five local schools. Serves them right, they don't sell potatoes, do they? Same for farmers undercut by my unpaid child labour; be more economic and compete, farmers!  A recent survey showed we were lagging behind in international league tables of turnip production, behind even Russia, and it is on such tables that Mr Gove’s primeministerial aspirations depend.

Mr Gove set up the free school initiative appointing, without the mandatory advert or interview or any of that other left wing transparency ideology, the person most qualified: the 25 year old assistant to himself, Rachel Wolfe. Her one year old organization, The New Schools Network, was given £500,000 per year to support the creation of free schools. I will appoint staff in the same way.

Obviously I will be looking for staff to teach things but remember, Mr Gove wants the free school movement to utilize the best non-trained teachers (and squaddies) . If you can recite the Royal Line of Succession you could be my man. I may pay staff very little; the minimum wage appeals and will stop the lazy beggars from watching daytime TV. They will receive some food as well, especially turnips.

School, dinners? You need to ask?

When asked, Mr Gove, like that blonde woman, Chantelle Houghton (don’t ask how I remember, please) who won Big Brother a few years ago, said that he was , “Living the dream.” When asked how many kids attend free schools, his department declined to answer. When asked how much this programme is costing, his department declined to answer. Many, many millions so far and if you add the academy bribes to the free school nonsense you get around £10,000,000,000 (ten billion and counting.)

I’d love a chance to live my dream of how we could use £10,000,000,000 to educate our children, restart the economy, save the NHS, end child poverty and still have enough for a new striker at Tottenham.

PS The Free School concept is based on Miss Wolfe and Mr Gove’s reading of the Charter Schools in Sweden. An old season carrot to the first person to correctly guess which Scandinavian government says Charter Schools don’t work.

PPS I'd like to open a primary school as well; anyone know of a disused factory with chimneys kids could fit in?

Dennis O'Sullivan

Beware the carpetbaggers!

Posted 15th January 2013

There has been an incredible increase in the number of secondary schools converting to academies: from 203 academies in 2010 to an incredible 2619 this week.

When asked by journalists headteachers wax on about the greater freedoms schools have as academies and how we can design our curriculum to suit the individual character and ethos of the school. This is nonsense: it was the money that did it!

The average secondary school picked up over £250,000 to become an academy and none of us could refuse our students that resource. In case legal costs frightened us, we were given £25,000 to soften the blow. Lawyers have done very nicely thank you out of academy conversion.

The government used to pay Hertfordshire Local Authority (LA) all the money to run education in Herts. The LA top sliced for their salaries, support for small schools, music and library support, curriculum advisers and the like and then each school got a formula-devised share. Whether my school used them or not we contributed in advance for all these services. So now we don’t pay for things we don’t want.

Academies get the money direct from central government. We can buy back the services we want and do this in a competitive market. We like Herts Human Resources but other private companies have signed up Hertfordshire schools to their HR service. LA’s are declining and the services they can now offer have become “traded”, which means a small school can pay £480 for a single day’s support.

The cost to the government of the academy drive is an unbelievable £8,300,000,000. That’s £8.3 billion – enough to build at least 900 brand new secondary schools.

£8.3 billion was £1,000,000,000 over budget, and that is what we call a government success story? Well, it is if your intention was to destroy LA’s and ideology is more important than the deficit reduction mantra that has justified wage freezes and reduced living standards for most working families. I guess we can be pleased we haven’t found a new war at which to throw money. (Oops! Mali begins)

Over half of secondaries are academies but only 5 per cent of primaries. The government agenda is to extend academies, creating independent schools in the state sector. With LA’s in decline,  Mr Cameron announced  that more than 400 of the weakest primary schools will have their leadership replaced, turning them into so-called “sponsor academies” run by private groups. To speed up the process Cameron also offered a £10 million sweetener to “big organisations” such as the Harris Group (whose owner is a personal friend of Mr Cameron, a major financier of the Conservative Party and the Labour Party nominated Baron of Peckham).

The Ofsted endorsed future is for Academy Chains to run schools and our Education Secretary of State, Mr Gove, has encouraged academy chains to grow "at the fastest sustainable rate", with sponsors granted freedom to manage curriculum, budgets and staffing. In 2012, sponsor E-ACT announced its plan to run 250 schools within the next five years. The state will withdraw from a unified education system and give the schools to private companies. Gove said in 2010: “I have no problem if any of my proposed academies make a profit,” well, why else would you take on 250 schools?

The accountancy costs of academy status are beyond the budget of an individual primary school so unless these schools get together to buy accountancy services they will be sitting targets for the chains who will do it all for them. Primaries beware and take care. Accountants are doing very nicely out of this.

By the way, academies do not necessarily provide a better education for children nor are academy chains cost effective providers and here’s the evidence.

The well-respected Sutton Trust warned against academy sponsors contracting services out to one of their own companies. In 2010, The National Audit Office, said: “Some academies felt they were being pressurised into buying central services from their sponsors” with 25 per cent of these schools reporting that sponsors did provide paid services.

The National Audit Office described this as “a conflict of interest,” and worried that academies in chains could lose significant control over their budgets which could result in schools receiving services which they did not want and did not represent good value. At present, there appears no restriction upon those Federations imposing services of their own choosing and paying for them from the unilateral top-slicing of their schools’ funds

A 2012 study, led by Ofsted's former chief inspector Christine Gilbert, warns that the government's push to boost the number of academies is not leading to a consistent rise in standards. A number of academy chains are seemingly more focused on expanding their empires than improving their existing schools, her report concludes.

The Academies Commission, led by some of Gove’s favourite people, found  that some academies seem to be taking advantage of the ability to set their own admissions criteria by cherry picking more able pupils. This, says the report, has "attracted controversy and fuelled concerns that the growth of academies may entrench rather than mitigate social inequalities".

The Academies Commission concluded that “overall, research provides that there is no academy effect but considerable variability, and that disadvantaged young people generally do no better in academies than in other schools”.

Whenever they talk about bridging the gap between rich and poor the rhetoric gets shafted by the thirst for private profit.

Dennis O'Sullivan

"You want the truth; you can't handle the truth"

Posted 11th December 2012

Morale amongst troops is “fragile” admitted the Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond,  as he announced cuts in the armed forces this summer. 20,000 will lose their jobs in the next few years, reducing the numbers by 20 per cent by 2020. Nice easy numbers, real people’s jobs.

In yet another disingenuous soundbite the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, wants schools to fast track ex-army people into teaching jobs even though it’s a graduate only profession. Most army personnel do not have degrees. So the 132 successful army applicants accepted onto PGCE courses this year are all from the officer class. That’ll be the answer, then.

The teaching profession will happily welcome qualified, trained teachers with experience of other jobs. I found my own five years in manual jobs a definite advantage when becoming a teacher but we don’t need keen milkmen, barmen, labourers or lorry drivers in our classrooms until they are trained  teachers. So fee-free university places for redundant squaddies? And cake too, no doubt.

Gove loves OECD league tables. Well, the advance western democratic, industrialised financial centre of the world – the UK - is now the 23rd  best, out of 33, on youth unemployment. With 1,001,000 young people out of work and grouped statistically as the NEET category of young hopelessness, both Labour and Conservative politicians are running to ex-armed services personnel to change the face of education. The present government has supported four schemes already in areas of high unemployment where ex- soldiers can try to instil “the spirit of service…exemplifying the big society.” Labour party policy, led by the anonymous Stephen Twigg whose main job seems to be to make Gove seem charismatic, want Military-style schools, particularly in socially deprived areas.

The ex-military men and women are meant to teach disaffected working class youth in high unemployment areas what exactly? Fearlessly following orders, how to use guns, the majesty of route marches, army rations and acceptance of low wages, rigid hierarchical organisation, class divisions and sub standard accommodation for their families?

Or is it that they will teach our young people about the harsher aspects of life in the army? Major General John Lorimer in his November 2012 letter to the Parliamentary Select Committee has declared that having interviewed 400 women in the armed services, ”every one of them had been the subject of unwanted sexual attention.” Or that, according to a Channel 4 investigation last month, “bullying in all its manifestations is perceived as acceptable.”

I have known dozens of youngsters who have joined the army, loved the life and fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, The Falklands or Ireland. I  know men who built good working lives for themselves after completing their army careers. I am sure many make superb role models for our students and I regularly take advantage of excellent army careers services for schools. However, the army is no longer signing up our unskilled 16-year-olds in any numbers and is making its own soldiers redundant. It is false to promise ex-military people  employment in education in anything but the lower paid non teaching jobs where wages have been frozen for three years. And it is wrong to expect them to instil obedience to army discipline into young people in deprived areas who want a job, a home and hope of a future.

What we need in education, for everyone in our schools: including the privileged and the disadvantaged, the sons and daughters of unemployed soldiers, NCOs and officers, is an education that develops social skills, independence of thought, opposition to bullying and stereotyping; a sense of democracy, fairness and social justice, an education which convincingly says to each child, “You are valued and will be nurtured, because you really are the future hope for a decent society.”

Gove and Twigg, Hammond and the others: “You want the truth; you can’t handle the truth.”

Dennis O'Sullivan

"He had a mind like a steel trap; only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut"

Posted 7th November 2012

As a lover of language that scythes through doublespeak and rhetoric I have been driven to look at our education policy makers’ use of comparisons to assess school performance. 

Most will recognize the metaphors I used in the sentence above and it is up to you whether you think they are well employed. Robbie Burns, the famously successful pursuer of young ladies wrote vividly and so simply.

“My love is like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June :

My love is like the melody

That’s sweetly played in tune.”

Burns was hoping we visualised the beauty of the flower rather than the hurtful thorns attached. Comparisons must be between objects, places or ideas that clearly have similar features. If you were trying to describe a beautiful beach somewhere you might choose another beautiful beach so Malibu might be like Bali. Comparing Tottenham High Street to the Champs-Elysées stretches our imaginative powers too far for successful communication.

Mr Gove compares us to Finland. Here’s education in Finland – guess which bits he likes:

• School starts at age 7           
• Everyone gets free school meals 
• No uniform
• Less time spent in the classroom than in any other European country              
• Exams at 18 only   
• Mixed ability schools
• No league tables  
• No inspections
• No grammar schools  
• No private schools 
• No university fees

Well, the bit he likes is that they are doing well in international league tables. Could it be the government wants to create an education system like Finland’s? Every word from central government howls against this heresy.

In Finland there is, an emphasis on active and experiential learning, clear vocational and academic routes at post 16, and high status teachers trained and trusted to educate young people without continuous meddling from government ministers set upon making a name for themselves.

Last week Ofqual completed its investigation into its own disgraceful behaviour over the students’ English GCSE grades and decided to blame the teachers. Some schools, local authorities, unions and professional organisations are taking legal action against this anti-education, immoral act. We know we will be soft-soaped, led up the garden path, taken down a blind alley, treated to filibusters and red herrings; but I just hope Ofqual and Gove get to wear the barbed wire underpants; how I wish that was not just another comparison.

Dennis O'Sullivan

How to choose a secondary school

Posted 10th October 2012

During the next two weeks thousands of families will be trying to choose the best secondary school for their children. In Hertfordshire this may involve choosing from a group of good schools but for some the choice is still daunting.

For some parents the uniform rules can be a tremendous signal of a school’s worth: if it is unfashionable and expensive and can only be bought in one shop there’s your good school. They may be acting illegally but who’s going to tell?  If the school has a test – usually looking for musical or linguistic ability or serves a catchment area of very expensive houses, that’s your good school. If the school, “tries hard with kids with special needs but is not very good at it,” that’s surely a sign of excellence. We can’t be having schools which admit children of all abilities, children who may need stretching or supporting, boys and girls who live side by side in the same streets but are selected out of the “good” schools by the schools themselves. Hide the SENCO is a popular Open Evening game amongst some of the “best” schools who find educating children who need a bit of help to catch up the equivalent of climbing mountains in ankle length skirts.

As I approach my 13th Open Evening as a headteacher I am aware that these events are proof that every science lesson contains explosions or volcanic actions and that PE teachers wear suits. The “How to be a Headteacher” course tutors us in how to describe our schools. On Open Evenings we are all unique , have a special ethos where moral values are important and teaching and learning are at the heart of what we do. Miss out the “we teach a traditional academic curriculum,” “we have many gifted and talented students,” or “our standards are high,” and a headteacher may be condemned to being considered odd, laid back or just plain useless. Our facilities may well be very good but say, “state of the art,” “the envy of others” or even “the finest in the country,” and pray that no-one asks for the evidence.

So….. talk to your neighbour’s children about their school, have a look through the literature on the school’s website, ask about extra curricular activities, try to see exam results in relation to your own child’s abilities and, most importantly, ask to visit the school on a normal day. If we will not let you visit then we may be embarrassed, very very busy people, aloof or unwelcoming.

Google an excellent 2008 article by Francis Gilbert, “How to Choose a Secondary School” for some common sense advice or, if in doubt, tell schools your Level 6, gifted daughter plays violin for England and watch them fall over themselves to form a disorderly queue for her admission.

Dennis O’Sullivan

Bring back O Levels? Don't be silly!

Posted 12th September 2012

When I took my O-level in English in 1968 they might have asked: What do you call someone who believes that everything was better when they were a boy? Of course we had multiple choice questions – a sort of pin the tail on the donkey/the answer is already given/don’t worry about spelling etc. 

So choices might have included:

1.) A recidivist fantasist who failed his driving test 6 times.

2.) A nostalgia- tinted obsessive who wore a kilt at his English university

3.) A self- inflated person somehow made secretary of state for education

The trick was in knowing which of the three correct answers was the one the examiner wanted. However, in what was largely a fact and date learning curriculum,  we spent many, many lessons doing past papers to learn how to second guess the examiners and the teachers all targeted their lessons on the questions most likely to be on the exam papers. Whole periods in history were omitted in favour of likely exam questions – my grammar school didn't much like studying The English Civil War, The rise of Trade Unions or anything suggesting Catholic clergy did anything untoward.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the spontaneous utterance of one’s thoughts (How many MPs fiddled their expenses ?

a) virtually all of them including ministers in all major political parties

b) very few and they went to prison for theft

c) these people are in charge of our country – they wouldn't be so immoral)

The problem comes when the utterer has power over young people’s lives, their futures, their careers, their self respect and their contribution to society. Even more so when their agenda seems to consist of saying,”You’re rubbish.”

20 per cent of children sat O-levels, so 80 per cent didn't get qualifications. Will we be happy with massive failure? In America, where the universities rank very highly on international scales, 71 per cent graduate High School and use this as a passport to further education or jobs. Why, on earth should we be looking instead to Singapore for a way forward.

The population of Sigapore is

a) about the same as USA

b) just like the UK’s

c) 5 million and 63 per cent of adults had no secondary education at all.

By the way in 1968 it was cold and we had no central heating, 2 TV channels, no computers, no mobile phones, few motor cars, many biased newspapers and very few ever took foreign holidays. Teachers did not need to be qualified and schools were crumbling Victorian celebrations of outdoor toilets. But, we had millions of manual jobs in coal mines, shipyards and docks and working mothers did some cleaning, office  or some shop work and generally stayed at home.

We can no longer dismiss 80 per cent of our population to educational failure in an unskilled economy. Yes, there are simple changes necessary to stabilise GCSEs: one exam board would be a start, an end to multiple qualifications for a single study would help, making A* grades exceptional might be useful. And no-one is doubting the importance of literacy, numeracy, communication and ICT skills. Oops, I forgot: Mr Gove has just removed ICT from the curriculum.

Dennis O'Sullivan