One thing I am passionate about is good writing. I also believe in respecting professionals. As a British copywriter, who has gone through the state education system and taught English for over 15 years, it amazes me how our politicians still struggle to get it right.
Having a decent education system should be one of the most important priorities for any country. It should be about ensuring young people leave school with real skills so they can contribute to society. Teachers should also be trusted to do their job. This is sadly not the case…
Instead, a succession of government initiatives over the years has resulted in a complete education melt-down. Results are not improving, teachers are leaving the profession and many youngsters start their adult lives without adequate qualifications. What is the answer?
The end of government literacy strategies
A significant shift in education policy is set to make a huge impact on the way schools test their students. National literacy and numeracy policies have finally been scrapped, after 10 long years. The government had no choice but to admit these policies were not significantly improving standards. Of course, the government spin machine played on this move as a positive one for schools, stressing they would have wider freedoms to decide how to spend their curriculum budget.
With the recent decision to end SATs exams for 14 year olds, in favour of 100% teacher assessment, many teachers started to feel positive about the prospect of their professional judgement being recognised at last.
As an English teacher, I had no choice to adopt a teaching style which stifled creativity and unwittingly bored a generation. Under the government guidelines, I had to teach the same as everyone else, in the same way as everyone else. Spontaneity was out … uniformity was in.
Over 15 years, I witnessed a wonderful subject being decimated… Every two years a new initiative would become law, negating all the superb schemes colleagues had built up in that time. There’s little doubt, if government allowed teachers to use their professional judgement, more students would leave school able to read, write and communicate effectively.
Introducing the new ‘Licence to teach’
Recently the aptly named Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, announced teachers need to pass an MOT ‘test’ every 5 years, to prove they are ‘fit to teach.’ For teachers, it is yet another attempt to dumb down their professionalism. For the politicians, it’s a ploy to ‘weed out’ bad teachers and hold teachers accountable for pupils’ failings. While accountability is important, the reality is it will heap even more pressure on teachers and cost a fortune to implement. Regulation, red-tape and endless hair-brained schemes have ruined the careers of many fine teachers. Bureaucratic decisions, placing unnecessary restrictions on an already overloaded profession, are killing off everything that’s good about education today.
Nowadays, it’s all about targets, statistics, league tables… Children, teachers and schools are literally being set up to fail… Data is used as a weapon to determine whether pupils and teachers are performing. And, this new ‘licence to teach’ will demoralise teachers even further.
Hoop-jumping added to the curriculum
Professional development must play a positive role in every profession. But, it seems teachers have to constantly jump through ever-decreasing hoops to ‘prove’ they can do the job. With Ofsted, Performance Management and the Threshold ‘payment-by-results system,’ teachers are constantly assessed as it is.
In the first place, teachers go through a stringent teacher training course, followed by a one year probationary year and then have annual targets to meet. Should a teacher’s performance be deemed ‘unsatisfactory,’ a competency procedure is put in place.
If teachers have to keep earning their ‘licence to teach,’ shouldn’t MPs undergo similar tests, to check whether they can do the job or not? Will this new system apply to head teachers, inspectors and parents? When is it going to end?
Reaching out to a troubled generation
During the last 5 years of my teaching career, there was a noticeable shift away from students seeing the relevance of learning writing and reading skills. Many youngsters in this 21st century generation simply don’t value their education. For any nation, this is a horrifying notion.
With the upsurge of violence and disruption in British classrooms, it’s hard to see how this situation can be resolved. Head teachers exclude violent pupils less, in a bid to meet exclusion targets. And, many teachers at the front line of education have to try and ‘perform’ miracles in this battle ground.
There are, of course, some superb schools in Britain … and countless teachers committed to learning. Equally, many young people are an inspiration and truly value the opportunities education gives them. As a former teacher, I can only hope the government work harder at making education relevant to young people. With the introduction of more ‘vocational’ subjects, there is a chance non-academic British youngsters will come to see school as a positive influence in their lives.
It is shame many teachers won’t stay in the profession long enough to witness future changes… With teacher MOTs adding to an already over-burdened system, the road ahead for British education remains a shaky one.
Nikki Cooke is founder of The Word Well, a freelance copywriting service based in Oxfordshire. Along with her technical director Jean, she provides first-class on and offline marketing solutions to small and medium sized businesses.