Call for professional perspective on CfE
Times are hard and they are about to get more difficult due to cuts in public expenditure and these will undoubtedly have a negative impact on education. However, let’s not forget much of what we do is about attitudes and methodology and professionalism.
I am becoming increasingly frustrated when some professionals are using this to mask their ongoing antipathy towards Curriculum for Excellence.
The next time I hear the need for resources and materials I will again be asking the question - are there connections I am unaware of between sections of the education establishment and national couriers and hauliers.
I well remember the implementation of Standard Grade and Higher Still and nothing happened until the vanloads of teaching and learning materials arrived in schools by the tonne.
I cannot be the only one hankering after the day when the arrangements document for the examinations could be fitted into your back pocket. Teachers had professional confidence and skill to use this outline to develop appropriate teaching, learning and assessment materials to suit the needs of their pupils while meeting the requirements of the external examining body.
For decades we have moaned that the “tail wagged the dog” in Scottish education and Curriculum for Excellence gives us the opportunity to regain control of teaching and learning and shape the examination processes and structures. Yes we need the finer points of senior phase ironed out, we need to determine how senior phase will articulate with the broad and general education from 3 – 15 and we need a look very soon at exemplar examinations.
We need to take a professional perspective. We have been talking Curriculum for Excellence since the summer of 2005. We have had years of engagement in which we have already undertaken a great deal of work at school, local and national level in devising a curriculum which enables young people to develop the four capacities. We have made our preparations to promote and adopt the necessary pedagogical changes and clearly define entitlements for children and young people.
This approach might not have been uniform across all schools and local authorities in the country but it is not a vanload of resources and teaching materials that we need. In my local authority and in my school we have worked on curriculum design, we have been proactive in developing the curriculum, planning programmes and courses and improving our already excellent transition programmes. We have devoted resources to improved and refreshed teaching and learning strategies to develop skills; strategies such as active learning, restorative practices, cooperative learning and the development of Teacher Learning Communities.
At school level, staff are confident and were ready to implement our agreed S1 curriculum in August 2010. We have planned, prepared and resourced the development of courses in each of the 8 curricular areas. We have embraced the necessary pedagogical change. We have planned opportunities and accreditation for wider achievement. We have piloted and now embedded approaches to connected, interdisciplinary learning in S1 – S3 and personal support from S1 to S6. We have discussed and agreed our approaches to meet the principles of progression and personalisation and choice from S1 to S3.
Now we are about to shift our focus and devote time, energy and resources to discussion of appropriate assessment and reporting. Our teachers are professional and skilled in taking the key ideas forward. We do now need SQA to give us the details of the requirements of the external examinations but we are confident that we can continue to develop appropriate approaches to suit the needs of our pupils while meeting these requirements by 2014.
So why are there differences in levels of preparedness across the country?
The answer cannot solely be a workload and/or a resourcing issue. Is it a major leadership issue? It is the difference between taking ownership and taking the initiative rather than waiting for the delivery vans. Is it indicative of a struggle between a future with embedded professional autonomy and a past where the external examination body dictates what we teach and how we teach it.
Each year in our school we adopt some words of wisdom from our patron to inspire and support us. The last few sessions we chose the following which now seems apposite.
“Nothing would be done at all if one waited until one could do it so well that no one could find fault with it.”
Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman 1801-1890
Isabelle Boyd, Headteacher, Cardinal Newman High School
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It’s certainly an interesting open letter, stating the obvious in relation to cuts in education and then giving us the ‘stiff upper lip’ speech as well. As far as attitudes, methodology and professionalism go, since when was it unprofessional to develop critical attitudes and analytical methodologies amongst students? As teaching professionals we should apply, and continue to apply, the same ourselves when it comes to CfE.
I would suggest that many teaching staff who actually translate CfE into workable material are becoming ‘increasingly frustrated’ at the high handed approach adopted by many in educational and local authority management. Time and again it is a ‘thought crime’ worthy of ‘1984’ to express criticism of CfE and, like any crime, it brings repercussions ranging from serious work place bullying through to humourless sarcasm and beyond.
I wasn’t working in Scotland when Standard Grade and Higher Still was implemented but I was teaching during the introduction of the National Curriculum for England and Wales, changes to GCSEs, the development of AS & A2 etc. I am certainly not saying these were models of how change can be managed effectively but we could have learnt from the mistakes made when wading through the fog of CfE.
CfE does not ‘give us the opportunity to regain control of teaching and learning and shape the examination processes and structures’ (unless of course you are an independent school, or a quasi-autonomous faith-based school) as authorities across Scotland have imposed their ‘vision’ of how schools will operate eg reduction in choice of subjects, narrower blocking on timetables, staff teaching outside of GTCS recognised areas, lack of parental choice etc. Likewise it is still the SQA that runs the show when it comes to ultimate examination and assessment, and that is an organisation that really needs some managed change and competition in light of its track record.
I think it is wonderful to hear at such length about the preparation and achievements of Cardinal Newman High School under Ms Boyd’s leadership. Unsurprisingly I would suggest that many other schools and teachers are at the same point, and if we all blew our own trumpets so mellifluously there might be a very interesting sound across most of Scotland.
Nonetheless, workload and and/or resourcing ARE a major issue, as are restrictions imposed ‘from above‘. In the sense that effective leaders inspire teachers, parents / guardians and students then yes, there could well be a leadership issue, but not so much in schools, rather at the government (national and local) and HMIE levels. To claim that CfE will provide a ‘future with embedded professional autonomy’ is unrealistic at best and professionally / philosophically myopic at worst whilst schools are not truly autonomous of organisations and institutions that are not transformed themselves.
To conclude with a quote or two that have been apposite ever since the principles of CfE transmuted into what we have now:
"Cowardice asks the question – is it safe?
Expediency asks the question – is it politic?
Vanity asks the question – is it popular?
But conscience asks the question – is it right?
And there comes a time when one must
take a position that is neither safe, nor
politic, nor popular; but one must take
it BECAUSE it is right."
-Dr. Martin Luther King
And on a lighter and happier note:
"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five. "
-Groucho Marx
'Is it a major leadership issue?'
Yes.
My apologies for commenting, because I'm not a Scottish citizen and I don't work within the school system. Thusly, without fully understanding the workings of both schools in Scotland, I offer this.
In the US we have the struggle of teacher participation being limited by unions and school budgets, but personally going above and beyond the call of duty by offering their time or purchasing classroom materials necessary for the curriculum. However, the availability of resources here are dictated by local (community) taxes as well as state and federal funding.
As well, local schools have local oversight. While individuals within the schools aren't elected officials, every school system (schools within a community) have a local school board which is responsible for the performance of that school.
I think the Scottish argument is that the town council oversees the schools, however there are certainly holes in this type of oversight. Headteachers, such as yourself, are given significant leeway into what is or isn't taught in a school. Often to the detriment of the students.
I know several instances of where, in a local community, the school's headteacher simply didn't accommodate a class. In one such instance, in June while the new year was in session the class was offered, by fall it was withdrawn. Not because the teacher was no longer there, but because the previous year students at the advanced higher level did so poorly on the exam.
In another school, in the same community, a student was denied admission because her curriculum would look bad for the school. Apparently, according to the headteacher, having one student taking a limited set of classes and doing well in them looks worse than having a whole bunch of students dropping out. While I find it appalling that a school turns away a student, I understand there are other avenues for that student to take.
These two schools definitely perform differently, despite being within the same community. The former is widely understood as the under-performing school, required an inspection for the headteacher to bring about necessary repairs and improvements, it's web portal to the community being so out of date that it's laughable and unsuable, and the school often receives bad local press. The latter, the better performing school is well run by all accounts. The former is not how you run a school.
I think you're absolutely correct about it being a leadership issue. The question is how do you solve the leadership problem when the problem is the leadership? Not just in the classroom, not just at the school level, but within the community leaders themselves?
Local communities, in my opinion, should have better oversight of their schools. They should have local people to turn to whose responsibility it is to ensure those student are in a clean, safe environment that is conducive to learning. And if time and time again they feel someone within the school, a teacher or administrator, is short-changing their children, then they should have the means to protest and get that person removed.
This is in no way meant as a defense of apathetic teachers, but the reality is when the school leadership itself doesn't care it creates an environment of apathy. Again, in the examples I offered above. The former school had two teachers, both teaching a Higher English class with students in 5th and 6th year, they were trying a new teaching style different from previous years. The department head was interactive and engaging with her class, it eventually did well, though few actually got an A on the exam. In the other class, the teacher did not engage the students in discussion. Some actually hired a tutors and some requested switching teachers. Students were denied the opportunity to switch teachers, and eventually the majority of students in the class, did poorly on the exam.
Sadly, the department head, who actually taught her students, is not currently teaching, while the teacher who was the poorer of the two, is. Her teaching abilities aside, it wasn't the only issue with that teacher in that year. The same teacher would end-up losing school work students handed in for their portfolio. For students who used a computer to write their papers, it wasn't a major issue, but for students whose work was hand written it represented a significant amount of effort in order to try to duplicate what they did previously.
When such incompetence is maintained by the leadership of a school, how can there not be apathy both in the student population, the school staff, and the community. No amount of protest matters and newspaper articles didn't make a difference. Incompetence is rewarded while skill and devotion are ignored.
Local communities need a better means to ensure their schools are run appropriately. A yearly or less visit by the education minister doesn't create oversight. A town council, that has larger matters than the ongoings of a school doesn't create oversight. A school board, elected by popular vote on a biennial basis would provide oversight of school administrators, adaptation to the needs of the community, as well as working with the local schools and ministry to ensure educational goals and strategies are met.
Isabelle Boyd's question, in which she refers to the poles of professional autonomy and the power of examination bodies chimes with my own personal agonising during my own time at school and Uni (the early days of Higher Still) over whether or not I should become a secondary school English teacher. What I perceived to be a lack of professional autonomy and the attending relentless focus on teaching to SQA exam criteria ultimately put me off the professsion: as far as English was concerned, there seemed to be nothing intellectually stimulating about memorising formulas to enable good progress in interpretation papers, or about writing so called 'critical' essay papers on how I 'felt' about literary characters and situations.
At the same time, I am reassured by Mrs Boyd's blog, which shows that there are professionals out there who are prepared to turn a set of principles/values/ideas into something tangible in the classroom. If an interdisiplinary ethos can influence the examination process, then I would be inclined to revise my personal reluctance to join the profession. I have a young relative who has recently started S1, and talking to him, I realise that there are highly professional teachers who don't need recourse to brands such as 'CfE' and '10-point plans'. Having said this, I would hope that one of the lasting legacies of CfE is to make such professionalism the norm rather than the exception, and to promote the profession to talented and innovative thinkers who can shape the lives of the pupils in their care. But if some (head)teachers oppose pedagogical change, I can't help but wonder what future teachers and students will inherit…