If I ruled the world

A state of constant uncertainty ensures the teaching profession remains submissive, says Megan Stockley

When the National Curriculum was introduced into primary schools it aimed to provide an entitlement for pupils to a broad and balanced curriculum, set standards for pupil attainment, support school accountability and improve continuity and coherence within the curriculum. The rationale was sound, but there was a fatal flaw in the process: the programmes of study were developed by a different specialist group for each subject, with each group wanting to ensure their subject retained a high profile within the new curriculum. The result of this was that primary school teachers were overwhelmed with the amount of knowledge they were required to pour into the empty vessels that they taught.

A number of revisions to the National Curriculum over the following years resulted in it being re-shaped and more non-statutory guidance being issued. The result of a decade of requirements and guidance that were continually reviewed was that teachers lost confidence in their own ability to ascertain what children know and what they need to learn next.

The answer to that was the introduction of more guidance which told teachers how to teach: enter the National Strategies, along with an army of consultants who were recruited to promote the message that, whilst they were not statutory, headteachers needed to prove that their school’s current practice resulted in better outcomes than could be achieved by following the strategies. That was the time when, in primary schools all over the country, the baby was thrown out with the bath water.

There were aspects of the strategies that were useful, if only consultants had been encouraged to collaborate with teachers to identify how current practice could be enhanced. However, the assumption was made that teachers no longer knew how to teach and therefore, they had to be told how to instruct pupils, right down to how many minutes needed to be spent on each part of a lesson (remember the Literacy Hour clock?).

The current government is saying that creative decisions in schools can and should be in the hands of the professionals but the sub-text, seen in strategies such as the statutory phonics reading test, is that professionals cannot be entirely trusted – they need to be told how to teach children to read, or at least how to de-code text.

Too many schools find themselves caught in a cycle of concern about policy change: the Ofsted framework, the EYFS curriculum and assessment procedures, the National Curriculum, to name a few current examples. The constant worry about what is happening in the immediate future makes it difficult to take a long term view. This makes it harder to properly analyse the value of external changes and to implement internally those changes which teachers and school leaders know will impact positively on their pupils. Being in a state of constant uncertainty ensures that the teaching profession remains submissive.

So how can we break this cycle? For the foreseeable future we will continue to be told what to teach. However, we are regaining control over how to teach it. Collaboration is the key to rediscovering a passion for teaching and finding the right way forward for our pupils. The time has come for the profession to lead the way by promoting and supporting collaboration throughout and across schools. There are already opportunities available for sharing best practice between schools, for example through networks and federations. The question is, who has the capacity to organise opportunities for collaboration when the day job is all consuming?

In my role as achievement adviser, I have the privilege of creating opportunities for partner schools across the country to collaborate in local groups and to provide them with systems and tools to explore, re-mould and make their own. These groups meet regularly to share successes in areas such as the impact of their curriculum on pupil progress, SMSC and readiness for the next stage of education. This work is set in the context of the current political climate but the values underpinning it and the aim of improving outcomes for all pupils do not change.

One outcome of this long-term partnership work is that headteachers start to regain their confidence. They develop a resilience, which echoes through their school, that they will not be knocked off course by the next set of changes to be introduced. They frequently re-evaluate the impact of their actions and are confident that their pupils are receiving a great education.

In the words of one headteacher: “We are now clear about what will have an impact on the school and what won’t and we have the ability to say no to those things we know won’t make a difference.”