The key basics that all teachers call for are continuity, stability and an end to constant change, yet we’ve had five Secretaries of State in the past year and nine since 2010. The recent swapping of seals of office makes six Ofsted inspection frameworks in ten years, or the six different names for the DfE in 30 years, seem measured and thoughtfully deliberated.
Kit Malthouse has become Education Secretary at an unenviable time – the unions are talking seriously about strikes and an Education Bill is being mauled in the Lords because it is seen as an attack on academy freedoms and an attempt to restore the power of the bureaucrats in the Department for Education (DfE).
At least the recent decline in A Level and GCSE results suggests a gradual return to normality. For the past two years exams have been replaced by teacher assessments which have led – as should have been plainly foreseeable – to grade inflation. This year’s results were, therefore, lower than in the past two years, but higher than 2019. To compensate for the disruption of Covid, grade boundaries have been lower and pass rates higher than when exams last took place. With the exception of the delay in publishing some vocational course results (totally unacceptable considering the amount of money schools have to pay in course entry fees) this year’s exam season has worked well. Time will tell whether similar adjustments to grade boundaries have to be made again next year.
But as Malthouse works to get on top of his new brief, there’s much more in the in-tray than just getting exams back on track. Here are a few items that should be top of his agenda.
Retention
According to Mary Bousted of the NEU, teachers’ pay has dropped by 20% in real terms since 2010. Although this figure is disputed, it’s easy to understand why tempers are beginning to fray. Coupled with declining pay are longstanding workload issues. Teachers face some of the highest unpaid overtime of any profession – most sport, music, drama, trips – all the things that give a school a soul and do so much to engage and to broaden young people’s horizons – are primarily, and willingly, done after school hours and for no remuneration, and on top of all the planning, assessing and marking that’s essential before actually teaching in the classroom.
In May (the key time for recruitment), for example, one well-known south London academy was advertising 14 different posts – seven class teachers and seven Heads of Department. Such turnover is unsustainable, not to say damaging to a pupil’s education.
On average, some 30% of qualified teachers leave the profession within four years of joining, whilst the large number of staff in their fifties and facing retirement means that the demand for teachers is growing significantly. The really depressing point is that we probably have more than enough trained teachers in this country, but not enough stay in the profession.
Salaries are clearly an important factor, and it’s notable that one of Nadhim Zahawi’s last acts as Education Secretary was to ask the Treasury for a 5% pay rise for teachers (above the slated 3%). But there are other ways of retaining teachers other than just paying them more. Reducing workload, reducing class size, offering staff proper support when dealing with badly behaved pupils (and often parents) and giving staff autonomy rather than simply dictating from above – much can be done to make teachers feel valued and supported both at individual school level and nationally.
Recruitment
The Times Educational Supplement recently reported that applications for secondary ITT [Initial Teacher Training] places were down 7% on two years ago. The National Foundation for Educational research has estimated that only 17% of ITT positions in physics have been filled. Such statistics are frightening, especially when coupled with the retention problems. As with retainment, starting salaries are a factor, but raising the status and profile of teachers is also vital.
Some commentary on education issues seems to totally ignore the staffing issues plaguing the profession. For example, a recent paper by Tony Blair’s Institute for Global Change – ‘Ending the Big Squeeze on Skills: How to Futureproof Education in England’ – makes absolutely no reference to the current recruitment and retention crisis. At the moment, the real ‘big squeeze’ is on finding enough qualified, motivated and talented teachers – the first and absolute prerequisite for any ‘futureproofing’.
The White Paper
After the pressures and difficulties of the past couple of years, combined the current low morale amongst teachers and the recruitment and retention crisis, the last thing schools need is more change to structures or accountability measures. The role of the DfE should be to support, encourage and to empower schools to flourish. Of course, there needs to be inspection and quality assurance, there need to be prescribed national standards, but the whole premise of the Govian revolution was to unleash the potential of schools by freeing them from the centralising shackles of ‘the Blob’. We still do not seem to have got the balance right between direction and support, between top-down diktat and individual initiative. What better way of recognising the professionalism of Heads and teachers than by setting national parameters and then trusting them with the freedom to do their jobs properly?
Levelling Up
If ‘Levelling Up’ is to be more than a buzzphrase, narrowing the gaps in educational attainment across the country must be at its core. As Boris Johnson rightly said, ‘The best way to level up… is to give every child in the country a superb education’. Sadly, however, many talented youngsters are not able to get a great education because either they do not have access to an excellent local school or because their parents cannot afford to pay private school fees.
As it stands, some 200,000 children are not able to access a ‘good’ primary school; more than 50% of underperforming schools are to be found in deprived areas and the disparity in exam results between many (but, tellingly, not all) deprived and affluent schools is stark. What makes this worse is that, as I’ve argued in a piece for Conservative Friends of Education, there are so many cost-free ways to dramatically improve struggling schools – strong behaviour policies, an appropriate curriculum, and an ethos of high expectations and achievement.
The watchword of Liz Truss’ premiership so far has been ‘delivery’. As a former Education Minister herself, let’s hope she turns her reforming zeal to solving the urgent problems in our schools.
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