REFLECTIONS ON THE PROFESSION:

From ‘67 to ‘22     

Now that I have reached the twilight of my career in education. I find myself reminiscing more and more about the journey I have taken - it all began in 1967 at Goldsmiths’ College with the initial excitement of entering the profession as the Plowden Report was about to be published and a sense of being part of a new enlightened world, with the values of child-centredness breathing fresh life into the sector. The reality which has emerged over the years has been very different from what many of us anticipated with a tightly centralist system with high stakes assessment procedures and a multi-level framework for accountability. And yet I still have to ask the question – what are the elements which have  changed for the better? In what respects is this a more enriching and supportive profession to enter?

The principle of a National Curriculum has been a critical step forward because of its articulation of children’s entitlement and although the way in which the articulation has been managed over the years has left a lot to be desired with over-prescription, especially in the core areas, on grounds of coherence and equity the case for a National Curriculum far outweighs its drawbacks. The profession now has a much clearer vision of what counts as progression in learning than was the case when I became a classroom teacher and a much more considered view of the role of formative assessment in shaping pedagogy. Inclusivity looms much larger as a key dimension informing one’s approach to both the special needs agenda and the challenge of catering for a multi-cultural society: all of this has enhanced the quality of pupil experience.

Schools have taken on board a deeper sense of responsibility for INSET and this is an especially welcome feature of the induction programme for early career teachers, which now has to be addressed by all schools and meet certain basic criteria. We have moved a long way since the laissez-faire days of the profession I entered where the nature of one’s induction was very much at the discretion of the individual headteacher and while some will have had constructive support, many will have missed out on a supportive professional environment.

Schools are much more collegial in approach than was the case insofar as teachers work much more collaboratively as members of a planning team, either for a specific age phase or with certain areas of the curriculum in mind or under the umbrella of a key area of educational provision, such as special needs. The potentialities inherent in collaboration between class-teachers, teaching assistants and learning mentors are realised now in the  contemporary classroom, to an extent which would have been inconceivable in the profession I joined as an NQT. As a school governor, I am also well aware of the increasing role played by governors in the shaping of policy and the monitoring of school performance and I see this as a positive step forward in the interplay between the school and the wider community it serves, especially the parent community. If one is committed to democratic values in education, then one must applaud the more prominent role played by school governors today, despite the government pressure towards a slimmed down version of governance, which is more akin to the world of business executives.

Advances in educational technology have transformed the level of sophistication that can be achieved in the process of enriching teacher-pupil communication with the degree of options available for the teacher today far exceeding the situation 50 years ago. Computerisation, in particular, has opened up the classroom to new forms of exemplification and challenge and can play a critical role in differentiation across the ability spectrum.

If these are some of the changes to the profession which are to be welcomed, what then are the features to be regretted? While recognising the significance of the relationship between assessment and learning, the stifling impact which has been exerted by our high-stakes assessment system, dominated by SATs, is to be regretted. The fact that they are focussed exclusively on the core subjects has had a narrowing impact on the breadth of the curriculum on offer to the extent that even OfSTED has expressed its concerns over their impact. The recent addition of the test procedures for checking knowledge of multiplication tables in year 4 is yet another example of valuable funds being squandered in order to satisfy political prejudice. Another layer of assessment and pressure is being added to test an aspect of knowledge which is so narrowly defined that the procedures do not allow for any kind of thought. Multiplication as a conceptual operation might have had some validity behind it as an area worth highlighting, but this is not the key agenda for the government.

Political interference has also manifested itself in the dogmatism of the government’s approach to the teaching of reading with its official advocacy of the phonics approach, the phonics testing at KS1 and the pressures being brought to bear on the teaching of reading in initial teacher education. One does not question the significance of the phonics dimension in the teaching of reading, but as research illustrates, it does need to be seen alongside a range of other strategies which need to be nurtured. In any case, this should be a matter for professional autonomy and not a football to be kicked around by politicians.

The profession I joined placed a great deal of confidence in the capacity and expertise of the practitioner to make the best judgements about pedagogy in action. That degree of confidence needs to be restored and it is a matter for politicians to address. The principle of accountability may be central to practice in any profession, but it is highly questionable whether the systems in place currently, in particular the OfSTED set-up, are promoting either a sense of professional well-being or a sense of ownership of curriculum design. The fact that there continues to be a significant fall-out from the teaching profession in the first few years following qualification is symptomatic of a malaise which deserves critical attention.

Finally, one would like to think that the time is ripe for a radical re-appraisal of the National Curriculum in the primary years, so that the hiatus between the pre-school Foundation curriculum and Key Stage one is replaced by a more nuanced, research-based approach which does justice to the roots of learning in play and emphasizes the continuities in learning from the informal contexts through to the more structured settings of the infant classroom. This more developmental approach should be supplemented by a re-consideration of what is core in primary education and its inter-relationship with the wider curriculum from the early years through to the end of KS2. The Final Report of the Cambridge Primary Review (2010) made a strong case for such a re-consideration, but regrettably there has been no appetite from central government for a critical overhaul, despite the clamour for educational recovery in the post-Covid era.

The fact that some schools are embarking on their own re-appraisals, within the constraints imposed centrally, is immensely encouraging and one welcomes the support provided by organisations like the Chartered College for Teaching and the Values Based Education movement in promoting a re-conceptualisation of what is to be cherished in the primary years.

I came into the profession at a time when there was a strong emphasis on the constructivist model of pupil learning with a commitment to supporting children’s own construction of understanding and ownership of the processes making for cognitive independence. Best practice in the primary years is still based on such assumptions and I am impressed by the quality of communication which I witness regularly in the classrooms I have the privilege to visit as a school governor. I am also heartened by the strength of the leadership on offer in meeting fresh challenges, most recently in the very demanding context of Covid. Teachers’ resilience in coping with and making the best of trying circumstances is evident on a regular basis. They deserve to be supported by educational systems in place which facilitate rather than impede, which enhance the status of the profession rather than limit it, which take educational research seriously rather than draw on it selectively and which respect the voice of the child rather than pander to political whims of the day.

 

 

Robert Young

13 August 2022