Give Us The Money and Leave Us Alone

     

        Give Us The Money and Leave Us Alone

My title is a cleaned up version of the words I use when helpful people get me to my feet after one of my occasional running accidents: “Thanks very much now…..”  Just to remain obscure it is also a paraphrase of the 1970s German band, Can, singing  a twisted love song, “If you really love me, don’t turn on the light, and leave me alone.

The government’s contempt for education has suddenly shifted our way. Suddenly,  there is a teacher recruitment crisis; suddenly, a pay rise is advisable.  Amusingly, the reinstated despicable Gove argues that ministers should listen to experts. When you are again vying with Johnson and Davies to depose the leader to whom you pledged loyalty your stated views count for nothing. Gove said, on education reform, “We have had enough of experts” and smashed the wrecking ball through rational thought.  

Even I I have been surprised that there is no depth of backstabbing deceit and contradiction that politicians  will not wallow in. Ex PM John Major, lightened my mood when he said, of the Tory-DUP pact, “Be careful who you get into bed with.” and then, moments later I was listening to Edwina Curry on Radio 5 dismissing the election result. We have to find amusement where we can.

It looks like we are returning to the dark days of Irish politics, banging a lambeg drum for the Democratic Unionist Party and their paramilitary allies in a doomed attempt to shore up a troubled British government writhing in weakness and confused chaos. The road to power is paved with hypocrisy and littered with discarded principles and manifestos. The DUP would build a society on superstition, prejudice and bigotry.

 

I am saddened to see that the peace-broking British government, which did so much to end the “Troubles,” should be risking Irish lives for a few more months in declining political power. As a teacher I worry about the DUP’s intolerance of homosexuality, promotion of single faith only teacher training and their pro death penalty and anti-abortion stance. And the world is only 6,000 years old; there were no dinosaurs. The tourist attracting Giants Causeway is not 50 million years old at all: God made it just before King Billy appeared on murals – that’s round about mid July 1690.

 

We now have the least strong and stable structure since my mate Dave tried to dance a jig on a bannister. We have to accept creationism in return for the politicians vying to replace the ruined May. On carrion they swoop: Davies, both Johnsons, Greening, Hammond and the chameleon Gove, all prepared to abandon their manifesto, contradict their previous statements, suddenly end austerity and embrace anything that offers them power. How much for a principle?

 

Tories now want to give some public sector workers a pay rise. Why? Nothing has changed, except that the firefighters are now deemed necessary and anti-terrorist work was compromised by under-funding of the police. The Education Secretary, Greening, clamours for £1.5 billion for education. Why now? Co-incidentally, she was not consulted on her own party’s election manifesto.

Most parents know that there is an immediate funding crisis in schools.. We have a 7.5% increase in staffing costs and those costs are around 80% of a typical £5million secondary schoolbudget. That make the cost increase around £300,000.  Each year. Funding  per pupil is to fall by 6.5% by 2021(Institute for Fiscal Studies 2017)

All state schools are, or soon will be, facing damaging choices: fewer teachers, less support for children, fewer subject choices and bigger class sizes. But many will just go bust.

Headteachers, unions and parents have paused for breath in the lobbying for decent funding for our children’s education. This crashing, fading wreck of a government must now give schools the money and leave us alone to get on with educating young people in an inspiring and exciting manner.

Stop  meddling.

Here are the Tory disasters;  careless, ideological games they have been foisting on parents, children and teachers, at a cost of billions and billions.

 

Grammar Schools do not meet any educationally sound, evidence-based agenda.  Selective and notoriously biased against poorer children, grammar schools popped back into Theresa May’s now confused mind  to woo UKIP. Sadly, it is unlikely that UKIP voters’ children would have featured greatly in grammar schools.

 

Selecting the brightest  pupils at 11, stick them all in a couple of schools, use raw exam results as the success measure and then claim grammar schools are good. We might as well argue that sticking all the brightest kids in purple rooms shows that purple is best.

 

Hundreds of millions of pounds earmarked for more of these schools, rather than properly funding existing good schools to get even better outcomes for all our children.

What we need is to improve standards in all schools not relegate 80% of them to secondary modern status and all those children to the shared expectation of failure and knowing their place in some 1950s throwback to an industrial age.

 

Free Schools Free schools are a fop to middle class luvvies bribed to propagate the Govian idea that any idiot can teach kids.

 

Free schools are experimenting with our children, situated in areas that don’t need them and are massively costly. Originally allocated £450m in 2011 Michael Gove, he Free School building programme  will cost £9.7bn by 2021. Taxpayers must meet a bill of£2.5billion just to purchase the building land in estate agent heaven.

Meanwhile established good schools fall into disrepair.

 

The Department for Education has given the National Audit Office the figures for school funding:

A place at a secondary free school costs an average £24,600.

It’s £21,100 for each place in a primary free school.

A place at a state school costs just under £4,800 (DfE figures 2017)

 

Give state schools 5 times the current funding and watch our children reach the stars.

 

The government spent £19 million in setting up University Technology Colleges (UTCs) and Studio Schools to take students from existing schools at age 14. The NFER report that UTC students are performing worse than their peers in their previous schools.(NFER 2017)

 

37 of the 48 UTCs are less than half full   and  7 have closed since their inception in 2011.Without trying to condemn UTCs why would a bright 14 year old move from a school to a UTC?

 

15 of the 35 Studio Schools have closed. Designed as an alternative to mainstream education for 14 to 19-year-olds. They provide a work-related curriculum. However, set up without consultation with established schools and FE colleges and in areas where they were not wanted, UTCs and Studio schools have wasted tens of millions of pounds and failed young people.

Behold, said the conservatives,  in times of racial and religious intolerance, let’s segregate more of our children as early as possible, hide them away from other faiths and make them believe in  intolerant archaic prejudice more appropriate to The Daily Mail Sidebar of Shame than a democratic inclusive country.

At the start of January 2017 there were 6,813 state funded Faith Schools in England. The majority were primary schools: 37% of all state funded primaries. The chools were the most common type among primary schools (26% of all primaries); Roman Catholic schools the most numerous type of faith school at secondary level (9%). Non-Christian schools were very much in the minority; there were 48 Jewish (up by 6 in six years) 27 Muslim (up15 in 6 years) 11 Sikh (up by 8) and 5 Hindu schools (up by 4)  All stats are from the DfE 2017)

Are we really surprised that Muslims do some Islam related teaching, that their ethos may be a bit different to the mass-in-school-time Catholic faith schools ? Do boys in Jewish faith schools wear the kippah, Sikhs turbans and Muslim girls the niqab? Surely the refusal to insist on secular state schools means we tolerate faith schools praising and proclaiming their own religion just a bit. Do we doubt that the Methodists, Greek Orthodox and United Reformed Church who all have state funding for their schools, sometimes go on a bit about what they consider the best bits of their faiths? Allow and encourage faith schools and we must accept that elements of separatism will pervade. The Quaker school might mention pacifism when talking of war, much to the distaste of those who glorify British wars. And as for the new Hindu Free schools with a ban on sausages…

If we segregate children by religion are we surprised they become segregated socially. Why would the Tories want to expand faith school provision?

 

What else am I against? (In Marlon Brando’s words in The Wild Bunch: “What ‘ve you got?”)

 

Schools Commissioners are all powerful, undemocratic and unaccountable. They replace Local Education Authorities and act pretty much as they choose. They can, and do, pick up the phone and close schools. Strangely, don’t seem as committed as one might expect. All it takes is for a Multi Academy Trust to come waving a £200,000 cheque, and there you go.

 

There are 8 regions each with 1 commissioner and the programme has run since 2014.  In that 3 year period 7 schools commissioners have resigned.  Nobody wanted them in the first place and they ran for more money as soon as it was dangled.

 

It seems to me that Multi Academy Trusts have been an opportunity for headteachers to become Executive Heads on high salaries. What on earth does an Executive Headteacher do? ARE THERE Executive bakers? Will an Executive Head Barman sell me beer?

 

What a surprise last night.; One year after almost half our 11 year olds were told they were failures, after a whole 12 months, all the results improved by around 5%. .Bruiser Nick  Gibb say,s "Thanks to their commitment and our new knowledge-rich curriculum, thousands more children will arrive at secondary school having mastered the fundamentals of reading, writing and maths, giving them the best start in life."

 

Oh thank you Nick, you were right you havre performed miracles. Or might Gibb and his cronies have been fiddling around?

 

I see and hear of worried, unhappy 10 year olds endlessly practising for SATs that serve to protect schools from Ofsted and headteachers from the sack.

 

Let the kids enjoy learning for as long as humanly possible. Give our teachers the opportunity to explore the joy of learning.

And. to paraphrase Bob Geldoff, Give us the bloody money!”

Awesome Teachers and Excessive Britishness

           AWESOME TEACHERS AND EXCESSIVE  BRITISHNESS

One of the most trusted professions being told what to do by one of the least trusted.

The author, John Connolly, has me pondering my place in his four   stages of adulthood: confusion, anger, complacency and grumpiness Unsure where to stick, I have come across a general election. Although an act of parliament stated that we can't have one for another 3 years and the incumbent prime minister repeatedly said that there wouldn't be one, here we jolly well go.

I intend to write in praise and awe of the teachers I meet every day in my state comprehensive school in Ware. I am hopeful that they are typical of the wonders teachers do around the country, although, perhaps,  my lot are particularly talented, committed and worthy.

Whatever successive, careerist secretaries of state throw at us, many, many teachers will combat government indifference to helping children be safe, happy and successful. The teachers will continue to inspire excitement in learning, inquisitiveness and a love of books and music, engender friendships that will last a lifetime, help plant ambition and nurture greatness. Our teachers will be remembered long after hedge fund managers, lawyers and newspaper editors.

I have no need to re-tread the funding crisis in schools, the perilous state of teacher recruitment, the mad impulsive curriculum, 10 year olds with exam stress or any other educational issues. No-one mentions these in May 2017.

Most football clubs now have a chant that, at Spurs goes, “We’ve got Ali, Dele Alli. I just don’t think you understand…” Well, as a nation, we’ve got Teresa May and I could make it scan if there weren’t more important considerations.

It’s Tuesday evening. I'm not sure but I think our PM just declared war. In Churchillian tones, she broadcast to the nation. Foreign politicians are out to destroy the livelihoods of ordinary British working families. If we don't vote for her in the general election the foreign governments will act as if there are 27 of them and one of us. If we do vote for her then her strong and stable leadership will force the 27 into some sort of cowardly retreat and we will be safe. I wonder if she hummed The Damnbusters theme when the microphone turned off.

Its only right than in times of attack by foreign powers that we stop objecting to the £3billion of cuts in state education over the next 5 years and the parliamentary, Cross Party Education Committee should rescind its statement that government thinking on school finances is “delusional.” Now is the time for increased hate attacks and excessive britishness.

Parliament has been suspended so that we can vote for strong and stable leadership, also giving us the opportunity to address  the teacher shortage.

Gideon Oliver Osborne, heir to his family's Baronetry of Ballentaylor and Ballylemon, better known as Former Chancellor George Osborne is to be paid £650,000 a year to advise the US fund manager, Blackrock. In the Commons register of interests, he disclosed that he would work 48 days a year, whilst being an elected MP.

He has already earned close to £800,000 for speeches made to banks and other firms since leaving office in July, but still serving as an MP

He has now taken on the job as part time editor of the London Evening Standard on a secret salary “up to £400,000” according to The Daily Mail on 6^th May, still taking his MP’s £70,000.

Can he fit in a bit of teaching?

As our government acts on “The British people have spoken!” and possibly, “Two world wars and one World Cup!” it fell to a Finnish  Finance Minister to speak britishness and sense. Alec Stubb quoted Millwall FC supporters, “Everyone hates us and we don’t care,” as a poor opening salvo for Theresa May to use in EU exit negotiations.

Conservative estimates are that the UK will pay a divorce settlement of at least  £50 billion.  However Boris and Nigel promised we will be saving £350 million a week when we leave. I know this is all on its way to the NHS because I saw Boris standing alongside the sloganized bus. When George gets his job teaching Maths to 12 year olds he can do the real life sums. We could use the weekly saving to pay off the settlement by Thursday afternoon of the 142^nd week.

Forget the NHS for a bit longer.

Back to admiring teaches with an attack of the memories, courtesy of ASCL General Secretary, Geoff Barton and his former school.

                                                King Edward VI School

Rules for staff in 1550

• They shall abstain from dicing, gaming and tippling. They must not keep their family on the premises. Women like deadly plagues shall be kept at a distance. The masters shall not be excessively harsh or severe or weakly prone to indulgence.
• They shall teach a little at a time, with plenty of examples. They shall never advance to fresh subjects ... until the earlier ones are thoroughly understood.
• The teachers shall appoint two boys called censors to note offences. The teachers shall secretly appoint a third boy to watch the other two and report to the master any offences overlooked or not noticed.

School rules for the boys in 1550

• Those who cannot read and write shall be excluded. They must learn elsewhere the arts of reading and writing.
• No boy shall come to school with unkempt hair, unwashed hands or dirty shoes or boots, torn or untidy clothes. Any boy misbehaving himself either in Church or any other public place shall be flogged.
• They shall speak Latin in school. Truants, idlers and dullards shall be expelled by the High Master after a year's trial. Every boy shall have at hand, ink, paper, knife (used to sharpen a quill pen), pens and books. When they have need to write the boys shall use their knees as a table.
• The whole of the scholars (100) shall be assembled in the morning at 6 o'clock and at 1 o'clock. They shall go home to dinner at eleven and to supper at five. There shall be five classes, under two masters in two rooms, the older boys looking after classes when the masters were not teaching them. School shall finish at 3pm on Saturdays and half holydays.

Some walk among us who would celebrate such a forward to the past scenario.

An OECD annual report has revealed that teachers in England and Scotland typically work longer hours teaching more pupils than teachers in most other developed countries and have experienced an above-average decline in pay since 2005.

The report also revealed that teachers' pay in England has experienced an above average decline since 2005 while teachers in other OECD countries who also witnessed a recession (Poland, Germany, the United States and Australia) saw their pay increase.

Teachers' unions have complained that an excessive workload is deterring people from staying in teaching – while uncompetitive salaries make recruitment to the profession a challenge.

A spokesman for the DfE commented: "Great teachers are at the heart of this government's commitment to delivering educational excellence everywhere.

"This is why we are not only tackling excessive teacher workload but have also given head teachers the freedom to pay good teachers more, meaning the best teachers can access greater rewards earlier in their careers."

It’s my fault, then.y don't worry about impartiality when reporting on Nationalist's demo's twnright hostile to patriots and the true Brit's.
Except when the awful Katy Hopkins is provoking outrage, I quite like LBC. Whenever teacher pay is mentioned someone always phones to claim that they are self- employed, work 18 hour days, 7 days a week, have no holidays and no pension…..

And seem to suggest that teachers should aspire to such conditions.

Teachers either do badly or well in pay comparisons depending on your admiration of crane drivers.

42. Rail construction and maintenance operatives - £35,781

43. Business, research and administrative professionals - £35,545

44. Crane drivers - £35,458

45. Journalists, newspaper and periodical editors - £34,639

46. Engineering technicians - £34,355

47. Chartered architectural technologists - £33,651

48. Business sales executives- £33,432

49. Secondary education teaching professionals - £32,524

(Cosmopolitan 16^th March 2017)

Teachers do have a contributory pension scheme. Their contributions have been increased, benefits reduced.

The Retail Price Index is the measure of cost-of-living and I hope the table shows that it has risen by 9.6% between 2011 and 2016

Year	Annual %	Index
2016	2.5	260.6
2014	1.6	257.5
2013	2.7	253.5
2012	3.1	246.8
2011	4.8	239.4

 

JC has been a Head of Department for 15 years.  Here are her pay details.

	August 2011	August 2016
Gross pay	£3392.50	£3507.50
Deductions
NI	£288.54	£340.26
Tax	£510.40	£446.40
Pension	£217.12	£357.76
Deductions        1016.06	£1016.06	£1144.42
Net Pay	£2376.44	£2363.08

 

Whilst the rpi shows a 9.6% increase in prices JC’s take home pay has gone down.

So, to be sorrowful, anguished  or agonised as we stumble into a politically backward, anglocentric isolationism of excessive britishness?  Searching for the soul of our peoples, I look at our teachers and their work with our future and I am comforted and inspired.

Thanks

Dennis O’Sullivan

6^th May 2017

 

A LETTER TO PARENTS & CARERS FROM LOCAL HEADTEACHERS CONCERNING FUNDING IN EDUCATION

Dear Parents \ Carers

As you will have heard in the news, schools across the country are facing financial crisis. We are writing to ask you to support your child’s education by emailing your MP about this.

The government says that education funding has been protected from the austerity cuts and that there is more money being spent than ever before. However, the reality is that while there is more funding set aside for education, this is because there are far more school aged children nationally. This hides the fact that the amount schools have to spend on each student has fallen dramatically.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies warns that by 2020 funding per student will have been cut in real terms by 6.5% for schools.

The funding we receive for each student is being reduced in real terms because the costs schools have to meet have risen. The increased costs are government imposed and beyond schools’ control. For example, there has been an annual 1% pay rise for teachers each year and employer contributions to staff pensions and national insurance have gone up significantly. There has been no extra funding to help schools meet these extra costs.

State schools cannot raise their fees to meet the rising costs, as independent schools would do. Our only option is to make efficiencies. However, staffing costs are typically around 80% of our total expenditure. So the only way we can make savings of the size we need to is by cutting jobs and increasing class sizes.

At a time when the curriculum and qualifications are changing radically, schools cannot afford to buy the new textbooks and resources they need. Many schools have slashed their budgets for repairs and maintenance and this will lead to our school buildings deteriorating. There will be less money to support students with mental health problems at a time when this is an increasing problem.

If introduced, a proposed new National Funding Formula will make things even worse for Hertfordshire schools, giving them an even smaller share of the national allocation of money for education.

Headteachers are not a militant group but even in affluent areas such as Sussex, Surrey, Essex and Hertfordshire, we are warning of an education system that will implode. Across the country Headteachers are united in saying that we cannot run our schools on this level of funding. Headteachers are usually publicly optimistic; we quietly get on with making the best of whatever situation we are given. However, none of us can make the cuts we are going to have to make without serious consequences for our students. Many secondary schools will have to cut £200,000 - £300,000 from the budgets – the equivalent of losing 6 or more teachers.

Now we are raising the alarm and asking you to explain to your MPs how desperate the situation is. Please support us in trying to protect your children’s education by emailing your MP at the relevant email address below* stating that you are a constituent and giving your address and telephone number, as this is required in order for the MP to reply. We suggest you ask them the following question.

‘I am one of your constituents and my address is:

My telephone number is:

Why won’t the government give schools the money they need to cover the substantially increased costs that have been imposed on them?’

Yours sincerely

*Hertford and Stortford: Mark Prisk MP. mark.prisk.mp@parliament.uk

North East Hertfordshire: Sir Oliver Heald MP. oliver.heald.mp@parliament.uk

Stevenage: Stephen McPartland MP. stephen.mcpartland.mp@parliament.uk

Wouldn’t it be funny if headteachers marched on parliament

Wouldn’t it be funny if headteachers marched on parliament. 

Perhaps carrying Father Ted’s placards demanding, “Down with this sort of thing.” 

In the UK I voted Remain but backed Brexit to win. In the USA I would have voted for just about anyone rather than Donald Trump but I took “new customer” odds of 16-1 on his victory. I was convinced that white working class people in Europe and America feel abandoned by politicians. The system has failed them, they’re not, “Just About Managing.” They are increasingly disenfranchised and angry. 

The good news about Brexit is that politics is in such a mess that schools have been recently spared the constant meddlings of the latest career building Education Secretary. The bad news is that the government is patronising us with “Brexit means Brexit” doublespeak whilst our public services are crumbling. 

Am I alone in finding it rather unnerving that Jeremy Hunt has said it is bad that A&E waiting times are lengthening? He is after all, Secretary of State for Health since 2012. 

I suggest that headteachers are voting Trump-like and Brexit -like whilst maintaining our middle class educated status – and comfortable lifestyles . We have elected Geoff Barton as our general secretary, against our union leadership’s advice. 

There is a recruitment crisis (There are more teachers than ever before – DfE) as pupil numbers soar: “The pupil population is currently expected to rise by 450,000 from 6.45 million in 2016 to 6.9 million in 2020” (Institute for Fiscal Studies 21-10-15) 

Teachers take-home pay has been reduced year on year for the last 7 years (Schools are free to pay teachers more says the DfE.) With cuts in school budgets how can schools cover any pay rise? 

4 out of 10 academies are in deficit and the rest are heading there (We have maintained real terms money to schools - DfE ) whilst grants have been cut and government- determined cost rises leave a school like mine with an extra £300,000 to find this year. And I can’t put prices up. 

Are we really to be abused by government language? Guess the single one word they removed from the “National Fair Funding Formula.” 

The curriculum is a Gove-inspired return to Victorian times. A doublespeak notion that kids learn more if the content is too difficult and telling 47% of 11 year olds they have failed is somehow a good thing. 

But we all know all this: the many headteachers who left their jobs this year knew it. A colleague who has his stopwatch counting the seconds to retirement knows it. In this – the Armageddon Year of state education – a “good” North London school had three applicants for their vacant headship, and only two turned up on the day. 

The ASCL – the secondary heads’ union of choice usually chooses its new General Secretary according to an etiquette ensuring unopposed candidates. ASCL has now had its leadership’s chosen candidate opposed for the first time. And beaten. 

The new man is no raging leftie. He is a midlands comprehensive school headteacher, sometime “advisor” to the government and a writer on literacy. 

I hope it was Max Weber who wrote that the central task of a bureaucracy is to protect itself. 

I think myunion’s bureaucracy has suffered from the broadening of its membership. Including Independent schools, free schools, multi academy trusts and business managers in an already conservative school leaders’ association has led to a frustrating and destructive inertia. The ASCL “call to action” email this week suggested we write to MPs about the dire state of school finances. 

As if our MPs care. 

Personally. I think they have been bored by my airing concerns about an inappropriate school curriculum, politely waiting for me to shut up. 

Two years ago 31 Hertfordshire heads lobbied our 5 Tory MPs in the House of Commons. We gave them our financial facts and they said “Secretary of State Morgan says you have plenty of money.” 

This was before Trump’s “alternative facts.” 

Everyone agrees that our costs have risen by around 7.5%. That’s close to £10 million across those 31 schools. 

DfE advice seems to be that we can save that by bulk buying toilet paper. Not by sacking teachers, employing unqualified (cheap) staff, cutting subjects like music, drama and geology, closing school libraries and ending support for children with special needs. The Institute for Fiscal Studies: “ … we forecast that school spending per pupil is likely to fall by around 8% in real terms.” (IFS October 2015) 

In West Sussex, Oxfordshire, North Somerset and no doubt an increasing number of areas around England, headteacher groups are vocally opposing government cuts to education, the decimation of SEN provision and increasing grammar school selection. 

We were assured that Mrs May’s sop to UKIP voters would address the tiny numbers of “disadvantaged” children in existing grammar schools and was about offering all parents a choice of good schools. 

In a search for elegant language to describe how we are once again being disrespected and misled I came up with this: 

Lies are Lies. 

It was revealed on Wednesday that ministers had invited grammar school leaders to apply for £150m for new selective school places. Existing grammar schools left their meeting with education ministers Justine Greening and Nick Gibb smugly briefing that new grammars will not need to worry about kids on free school meals and will be able to select the top 10%. 

Out of touch, conceited politicians in awe of outdated and failed old tory ideas divert money from children’s needs. Frightened civil servants in the DfE collude to lead us back to the 1950s. 

The heads in West Sussex have warned that schools will have to cut hours, increase class sizes or stop teaching some subjects. 

They have told MPs that "throughout our campaign school leaders have sought to be 'relentlessly reasonable'; now we are simply furious". 

I see the vote for a new General Secretary of the ASCL as a Network (the film featuring Faye Dunaway and Peter Finch ) parallel. Open your windows and shout into the night – “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.” By the way, watch Finch’s stunning 101 second performance on Youtube. 

Good luck, Geoff Barton. I hope you can lead us into more meaningful opposition to the deliberate destruction of our children’s education. I hope the ASCL council realise why we voted. 

I’ve got my marching boots ready. 

Time For A Change

After 41 blogs where I have ranted about the government drive to show ordinary kids that they are as good as worthless; 80,000 words suggesting, demanding and crying out for headteachers and political opposition parties to stand up for comprehensive education, I stopped writing.

I have nothing left to add.

A friend of our comprehensive secondary school said I should say it all again.

We have a staffing shortage across the system – Oh no we don’t (DfE)

We have seen our budgets cut and many of us are heading towards redundancies, larger classes, fewer subject choices and deficit budgets (MPs and DfE: There’s lots of money)

Close your eyes and ears and pretend we will not see a mass exodus of school leaders in 2017.

Under AOB at my union’s information conference in 2015 I said that the new curriculum, including tougher exams, end of coursework and bigger subject content will fail the majority of the young people in my school. I was met with polite silence from the leadership.

When I said that junior school kids are being driven away from creativity, teamwork, problem solving and personal resilience by the obsession with SATs and that this is a bad thing, some people waited for me to shut up.

I have been an ASCL member for 19 years. Our previous General Secretary, Brian Lightman, was kind enough to engage in debate with me – in person and by email. I respected Brian as he kept telling me that the politicians were listening to the ASCL, even though we have watched their attacks on state education. They did not listen, Brian, but a million thanks for your work.

My local ASCL rep has written to us explaining why we should consider voting for a sitting ASCL Council member. I propose doing nothing of the sort.

If there is to be a change in policy to secure a brilliant education for our children, one where they are individuals with their own talents to be developed, a system where state schools are recognised for the amazing successes already achieved and the opportunity to achieve even more, where teachers are esteemed and admired for the fantastic commitment to learning, achievement and fairness, if we are to be optimistic about our children’s future, it is time for a change. It is time for courageous union leadership. The ASCL Council nomination for General Secretary has never been a headteacher, has been a civil servant and is a consultant. He has experience of for-profit education provision, is now with an academy chain and probably ideally placed to understand the government’s priorities.

I have just discovered that Geoff Barton is standing for the position of ASCL General Secretary. I have watched his work for many years, I have borrowed from his school’s website, I have read his stuff on literacy and I have listened to him speak at PIXL conferences. I am sure he is not as oppositional or militant as me and he may not thank me for my support. However, I think we should all look at what he stands for (Google is a start) and hope he is the sort of leader that will commit to the membership and times changing for the better.

Dennis O’Sullivan (Headteacher)

Grammar Schools Promote Inequality and Injustice

Post 1945, working class children left school at 14 and went into unskilled jobs and apprenticeships . In the new secondary modern schools working class children were destined for working class jobs. They sat few if any exams and school expectations were low. Grammar schools educated a quarter of our 12 year olds – depending on availability - and these children were destined for jobs in offices. The privately educated were our MPs, doctors, lawyers and senior civil servants. Everyone knew their place.

Unless we reopen the factories, shipyards and mines secondary modern schooling will not provide the skilled workforce we require, unless Sports Direct and McDonalds take over more workplaces.

Apparently (they got consultants in for this) if you select the kids doing best at tests at age 11 and put them in one school, that school will have the highest achievers in GCSE tables five years later. Stunning. Apparently, it is also hotter near the Equator.

All schools should be good schools. We have the best teachers ever and more parents are happy with their child’s school than ever before. Government claim “parent choice” as their goal – well you can’t have selection and parent choice.

Here’s an email I received on Wednesday: ”Do you only accept children who live in your area? I live in X and there is one school I like but both my children are below average and worried they will fail the entry test.”

From the parents of her friends to my Year 6 granddaughter, “You should go to school P rather than the excellent local school S because you’re academic.”

Meanwhile 12 miles away, “We wanted her to go to school H but it is too academic for her,”

Half way between the two, “The Headteacher told me that if my daughter’s reading age was one iota below her chronological age she cannot come here, it is not fair on my staff.”

We have schools, Ofsted “outstanding” schools, which claim they are, “not good with special educational needs.” School M made its TAs redundant and then claimed to be unable to admit kids with SEN due to lack of staff.

In a colleague’s primary school one parent confronted the head with, “I do not want him doing these art things. Just make sure he can pass the entry test to school D.”

Welcome to Hertfordshire, where each year the county proclaims Watford Girls Grammar School as a top comprehensive, alongside Watford Boys Grammar . They must be great schools: the head of one was made a dame and the other is a schools commissioner…..fancy that.

Mrs May is keen for Faith Schools to select all their kids on the basis of religion. Has she tried getting a non-believing family into a Jewish or Catholic school where the admission criteria starts with attendance at a particular place of worship and then to siblings? In encouraging division amongst the population and in promoting isolation amongst our minorities Mrs May is an ideal candidate for a visit from the Prevent people.

She is keen on new parent-sponsored single faith grammar free schools. Well, seeing as parents are not opening free schools but faith organisations predominate, she knows this is not going to happen. Perhaps somewhere like Leeds can have a Muslim Grammar School, a Jewish Grammar School, Hindu, CoE and Catholic grammar schools alongside a non denominational boys grammar, and a girls grammar nearby. Imagine the school run in Leeds.

Mrs May wants all schools to have, “an element of selection.” If grammar schools select the brightest are other schools to select the dimmest?

Her supporters say introducing more selective grammar schools is not going back to the days of selective grammar schools. Oh,my!

They say that the selection of the most academic 11 year olds will not create secondary modern schools and certainly not “sink schools” where expectations of exam success are non existent. Yes it will.

Grammar schools must be good because their students do well in exams, therefore we need loads of grammar schools. In fact, if these are the best schools let’s make all schools grammar schools.

What we could do is select all the academically able kids and put them in schools with thatched roofs. Then, when they achieve their good GCSEs we can call for the impositioin of thatched roofs throughout the country.

May pretends that children will move between the selective schools according to individual student progress, as if there is no limit on how many kids you can fit in a classroom.

Apparently, lots of parents who are in select, expensive catchment areas fear the imposition of grammar schools. But, Mrs May says, new grammar schools will not be forced on areas that don’t want them. Can we do the same with capital punishment ? Maybe impose it in Scotland only?

The chief inspector of schools says the pro grammar school argument is “Tosh and nonsense” and just about all the evidence points to grammar schools increasing social inequality. But what did we expect from a government which has introduced tests at 11, 16 and 18 designed to fail more students. 47% of English 12 year olds are classed as failures by their performance in tests -perhaps we could stamp this on an appropriate part of their anatomy, so they don’t forget their failings.

Each day I watch the girls come off the train from outside the catchment area of the oversubscribed selective/non selective school P and I wonder how they got places.

We don’t have to worry about the 11+, in Bishops Stortford 3 of the 4 secondary schools have Saturday morning entry tests and all claim to be comprehensives. I know of five schools that select up to 10% of their intake on aptitude for music or languages. Howzat!

Theresa May is right about selection by house price – you can get a 3 bedroomed semi for £500,000 in the catchment area of one of our highly praised schools. The children of educated, midlle class parents score highly on their primary school tests, usually with private tutor support. Of course, Ofsted say they are outstanding. Ofsted claimed my nephew’s white, middle class, catholic school with lower than average frees school meals, EAL students and SEN kids was, “highly inclusive,” and “outstanding.”

One of my part time staff coaches 18 boys from one school; money helps.

Of three agreed housing projects: School A is in an area of architectural splendour and the project had “no affordable housing.” School B has 145 houses planned and “no affordable housing.” Hertfordshire – one of the biggest in the country makes sure that its entirely Conservative MPs are not troubled by social integration.

Disgraceful Gove started the drive to put working class kids back in their place. Mindlessly, vacuous Morgan continued the slide and now the unsuspecting puppet Greening will be charged with driving even more teachers into other jobs, more children ringing Helpline in despair over their grades and more families accepting that education and British society is not for the likes of them.

Mrs May says that new grammar schools will have to accept poorer children. Does this mean that the 163 existing grammar schools don’t already pursue this sort of social justice? According to the Sutton Trust, in selective school areas 3% of the children in grammar schools were on free school meals. In the same locality18% of non grammar school children received free school meals.

The education system can encourage social equality. Rather than taking a small proportion of bright poor kids and sticking them in grudgingly benevolent grammar schools lets put massive resourcing into the schools in poorer areas. Get the best teachers with higher salaries and subsidised housing and create the infrastructure and local economy to employ the high achieving youngsters.

Watch them shine.