I spent an hour or so reading a thread on the Times Educational Supplement website today concerning the use of Cover Supervisors (CS) to teach students in the absence of their usual teachers. http://www.tes.co.uk/blogs/blog.aspx?path=/Speakers'%20Corner/&post=2576905
It seems - and I have seen it in every school I have so far worked in - that schools are now widely using unqualified teachers to accomodate staff absences in preference to qualified Supply Teachers. The principle seems to be that not only does this reduce the cost to schools but it is also argued that because such CS staff are resident within a school this provides a better relationship between them and students who understand they are not simply passing through and, it is therefore adduced, better at behaviour management.
The discussion however revolved around whether such an expedient harmed not only the profession but the students' education, and given that there is a tacit acceptance of this within the profession, what need of qualified teachers is there? There was some pretty substantial dispute between CS staff and qualified teachers defending both of their positions with many questions asked about the quality of both factions and little understanding of the others perspective but one thing which struck me was that qualified teachers in full-time posts are expected to set cover lessons in their own absence whether through duty or illness. This particular issue is somewhat topical given the imminent day of action by the NUT when members who intend to take part in the planned day of action were immediately confronted with the question 'will you be setting cover lessons if you intend to be absent whilst on strike?'.
A hurried consultation with the Union's HQ revealed the answer 'It would rather defeat the object if we did.' and so it now remains to be seen who will. Members of the staff who do not belong to the NUT, Heads of Departments, or, the cover supervisors themselves? It may well be that there are many capable and experienced unqualified practitioners in schools across the land but given the number of new Academies springing up across the country without union representation how long will it be before a teaching qualification becomes a disadvantage in terms of job applications? And what precisely do Ofsted have to say on this practice?
I include here a link to a story of a CS's own experience with an introduction to how this phenomenon began:-
http://teachinengland.blogspot.com/2007/12/cover-supervisors-teach-with-no.html
In their report Remodelling the Workforce (December 2005) which can be obtained from http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/assets/4115.pdf Ofsted state the following:
'Three schools in the sample inspected have employed cover
supervisors. Other schools are considering their use but most have doubts
about funding or their effect on the quality of learning. Where supervisors
are selected carefully, trained effectively and managed well pupils and
teachers have benefited from better quality cover supervision.
Case study 4: creative use of support staff in a secondary school
One secondary school has imaginatively addressed the issue of providing
cover in a manner that has had a positive impact upon morale without
reducing standards and at minimal cost. Previously, in the school.s view,
poor-quality and expensive supply teachers had been employed,
producing a negative impact upon standards and behaviour. Two new
posts of cover supervisor are held by learning support assistants known
to the pupils. They have received effective school-based and external
training in behaviour management. They have observed teaching in all
subjects as part of their induction. Each supervisor has a clear job
description and operates within well designed guidelines. Planning sheets
for cover are completed by subject teachers when there is a planned
absence and these are monitored by a senior teacher. For emergency
cover the head of the curriculum department completes a lesson plan for
the cover supervisor. There are clear expectations about what cover
supervisors can and cannot do during lessons; for example, they are not
permitted to cover practical lessons in science or DT, or PE lessons. The
cover supervisors are available to give feedback to teachers to allow
more effective follow up from teacher absence. Resources have been
identified from the supply budget to ensure the sustainability of these
posts.'
Small wonder about the ambivalence of SLTs with financial savings to be made when the government's own watchdog advocate employing Cover Supervisors with, in some cases, fewer qualifications than the pupils they are teaching! And we wonder why the standards of educational qualifications are mocked and derided in the media!
If every child matters then why don't they matter enough to employ people with the correct subject knowledge, training and experience, who are paid in accordance with nationally agreed professional rates? Or better still, train and pay cover supervisors so that they can set and deliver lessons according to departmental schemes of work so that they too feel valued and not exploited by this Remodelling of the workforce.
Friday 11 April 2008
Thursday 10 April 2008
No Surrender
I have always been fascinated by the stories I read in my childhood concerning Japanese soldiers who were posted to the lonely outpost of a remote Pacific island during World War II. It seems that many of these were undeterred by news of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and refused any imprecations to surrender to the Americans due to the fact they had sworn an oath of honour to their Emperor to fight to the death. many died resisting the inevitable and it was only when the Yanks agreed to allow the defeated Japanese Army to form a special battalion to bring them in with honour and dignity that the fierce firefights were avoided and as late as the early 60's wisened old veterans were returning to dignified repatriations in the motherland, slightly bemused at the new setup and the realisation that Horohito was in fact a mere mortal.
I cite this extraordinary tale as a metaphor for the institutionalisation that is commonplace in secondary schools, particularly with regard to the conservative attitudes of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) that comprises the high command of the school empire. They are at once suspicious and resistant to any change, in spite of its necessity. Let me give you an example. Chewing Gum. The modern blight of chewing gum waste is something that we take for granted in our world today and generally only react to when we have a personally unpleasant experience of it, such as treading it into our carpet at home, discovering it on our new shoes or clothing, or having to remove it from our children's hair. Otherwise we somehow manage to filter it out of our mind and vision in despite the growing evidence of it all around us.
In an attempt to define a newsworthy subject for year 7's (11-12 year-olds) to report upon I happened to step into some in my classroom, whilst energetically circulating and gesticulating. My eureka moment resulted in a site survey which involved the children counting up the discarded pieces of gum under their individual desks. The staggering total of 619 pieces were revealed in one classroom alone and some simple maths which multiplied this by the number of classrooms revealed that we were hosts to over 35,000 peces of under-desk gum litter alone, a figure that paled into insignificance when compared with the number per square metre in the playground areas, a figure we resisted the urge to mutiply by the acreage of tarmac polluted by this foul product.
I decided to approach the assistant head about the school rules on this and what we might creatively do to raise awareness on this issue. I had a few ideas in mind whereby the kids could do assembly presentations and get involved in drama and music activities to re-educate themselves on the problem. He was certainly interested and suggested that I was "kicking at an open door" a door, which he later described as "not even being on its hinges"! I put forward an idea, proven in cities and schools across the country, that 'gum targets' be provided as a safe place to dispose of the offending article, and that forms of 'gumart' might be a useful magnet for the gum waste, which after all is the problem, not the product itself. This he demurred against citing the school rule that it was actually banned in the school itself. I pointed out that this had in fact been less than successful given the abundance of it underfoot everywhere and I suggested that as a new school was imminently to be built wouldn't now be a unique window of opportunity to try to develop new strategies to avoid its inevitable arrival in the new building.
Clearly the Canute like resistance to the tidal wave of gum litter had been unsuccessful, however, rather like the original approach to the aforementioned Japanese soldiers, no change to school policy was likely. For them, and us, the war may be over, but the same firefights remain inevitable. Publicly humiliating children for responding to advertising of gum confectionery - a market which in the UK alone is worth approximately £500 million per annum and growing - has made no change to its popularity. Indeed, even the last gum free place in the world, Singapore, recently bowed to the might of marketing megabucks and lifted its ban, principally it must be said because it proved harder to enforce than the prohibition of alcohol, and yet a school edict is expected to suffice in spite off its massively obvious failure.
Maybe I should write to the heirs of Hirohito for advice, or start chewing it myself!
I cite this extraordinary tale as a metaphor for the institutionalisation that is commonplace in secondary schools, particularly with regard to the conservative attitudes of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) that comprises the high command of the school empire. They are at once suspicious and resistant to any change, in spite of its necessity. Let me give you an example. Chewing Gum. The modern blight of chewing gum waste is something that we take for granted in our world today and generally only react to when we have a personally unpleasant experience of it, such as treading it into our carpet at home, discovering it on our new shoes or clothing, or having to remove it from our children's hair. Otherwise we somehow manage to filter it out of our mind and vision in despite the growing evidence of it all around us.
In an attempt to define a newsworthy subject for year 7's (11-12 year-olds) to report upon I happened to step into some in my classroom, whilst energetically circulating and gesticulating. My eureka moment resulted in a site survey which involved the children counting up the discarded pieces of gum under their individual desks. The staggering total of 619 pieces were revealed in one classroom alone and some simple maths which multiplied this by the number of classrooms revealed that we were hosts to over 35,000 peces of under-desk gum litter alone, a figure that paled into insignificance when compared with the number per square metre in the playground areas, a figure we resisted the urge to mutiply by the acreage of tarmac polluted by this foul product.
I decided to approach the assistant head about the school rules on this and what we might creatively do to raise awareness on this issue. I had a few ideas in mind whereby the kids could do assembly presentations and get involved in drama and music activities to re-educate themselves on the problem. He was certainly interested and suggested that I was "kicking at an open door" a door, which he later described as "not even being on its hinges"! I put forward an idea, proven in cities and schools across the country, that 'gum targets' be provided as a safe place to dispose of the offending article, and that forms of 'gumart' might be a useful magnet for the gum waste, which after all is the problem, not the product itself. This he demurred against citing the school rule that it was actually banned in the school itself. I pointed out that this had in fact been less than successful given the abundance of it underfoot everywhere and I suggested that as a new school was imminently to be built wouldn't now be a unique window of opportunity to try to develop new strategies to avoid its inevitable arrival in the new building.
Clearly the Canute like resistance to the tidal wave of gum litter had been unsuccessful, however, rather like the original approach to the aforementioned Japanese soldiers, no change to school policy was likely. For them, and us, the war may be over, but the same firefights remain inevitable. Publicly humiliating children for responding to advertising of gum confectionery - a market which in the UK alone is worth approximately £500 million per annum and growing - has made no change to its popularity. Indeed, even the last gum free place in the world, Singapore, recently bowed to the might of marketing megabucks and lifted its ban, principally it must be said because it proved harder to enforce than the prohibition of alcohol, and yet a school edict is expected to suffice in spite off its massively obvious failure.
Maybe I should write to the heirs of Hirohito for advice, or start chewing it myself!
Damn Craig Robinson
Damn Craig Robinson. It's not enough that he's off in South America searching for inspiration via Ayahuasca, Boca Juniors and Brasilian cuisine, he is so busy gloating at the apparent success of Liverpool FC that I have been driven to start a counter thread to set the account straight.
But how, you may well ask, has that driven me to write a blog? Well in order to leave a comment on his beknighted blog I had to register with google and here I am with my own blog and the responsibility of creating content!
Actually I am secretly delighted with him if not for him. I have been intending on finding an outlet for my rantings about the British education system within which I am currently embroiled and employed and rather than simply transferring my angst to my nearest and dearest, with all the associated implications and consequences, carping into cyberspace seems the ideal outlet. So here goes...
'Education, education, education' was I believe the argot of the now departed Prime Minister, the slightly less than honourable Tony Bliar. Yes, he of the 'real and present danger' and 'weapons of mass destruction'. So why did we, and are we still pursuing his educational policies with abandon and teaching our kids from the National Curriculum? Because we're bloody stupid, stupid!
Now, before I respond to my own rhetoric perhaps I should establish my credentials and purpose. I am what is known as a Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) having recently graduated with a BA (Hons) in English Literature and a Post Graduate Certificate in Education (English with Drama) at the age of 49. I have taught before, both as a private music tutor and in Further Education at a music college for post-16 students, and my previous varied and chequered career has certainly been educational. My own experience of education, as a Grammar school scholarship student, left me with a rather poor opinion of Head Teachers, Boards of Governors, and most - but by no means all - secondary schoolteachers. So I guess it is my personal crusade that has led me back through the school gates and into a comprehensive school.
Nothing, however, had prepared me for this the most gruelling year of my life! So here I sit, about to embark on a record of my perceptions and experiences, tales and anecdotes, stories and opinions about the good, the bad and the downright ugly of life in a secondary modern. I will begin at the beginning, so far as I remember it, and change only those details necessary to protect me from litigation and a premature end to a career that in spite of my desire to conclude, will end, somehow, on my terms.
So, damn Craig Robinson, I must now continue this to the bitter end, which is rather appropriate as he is currently writing his blog from Tierra del Fuego, which according to him is bitterly cold and certainly at the end of the world he is currently inhabiting. Damn him to Tierra del Fuego, and back of course.
But how, you may well ask, has that driven me to write a blog? Well in order to leave a comment on his beknighted blog I had to register with google and here I am with my own blog and the responsibility of creating content!
Actually I am secretly delighted with him if not for him. I have been intending on finding an outlet for my rantings about the British education system within which I am currently embroiled and employed and rather than simply transferring my angst to my nearest and dearest, with all the associated implications and consequences, carping into cyberspace seems the ideal outlet. So here goes...
'Education, education, education' was I believe the argot of the now departed Prime Minister, the slightly less than honourable Tony Bliar. Yes, he of the 'real and present danger' and 'weapons of mass destruction'. So why did we, and are we still pursuing his educational policies with abandon and teaching our kids from the National Curriculum? Because we're bloody stupid, stupid!
Now, before I respond to my own rhetoric perhaps I should establish my credentials and purpose. I am what is known as a Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) having recently graduated with a BA (Hons) in English Literature and a Post Graduate Certificate in Education (English with Drama) at the age of 49. I have taught before, both as a private music tutor and in Further Education at a music college for post-16 students, and my previous varied and chequered career has certainly been educational. My own experience of education, as a Grammar school scholarship student, left me with a rather poor opinion of Head Teachers, Boards of Governors, and most - but by no means all - secondary schoolteachers. So I guess it is my personal crusade that has led me back through the school gates and into a comprehensive school.
Nothing, however, had prepared me for this the most gruelling year of my life! So here I sit, about to embark on a record of my perceptions and experiences, tales and anecdotes, stories and opinions about the good, the bad and the downright ugly of life in a secondary modern. I will begin at the beginning, so far as I remember it, and change only those details necessary to protect me from litigation and a premature end to a career that in spite of my desire to conclude, will end, somehow, on my terms.
So, damn Craig Robinson, I must now continue this to the bitter end, which is rather appropriate as he is currently writing his blog from Tierra del Fuego, which according to him is bitterly cold and certainly at the end of the world he is currently inhabiting. Damn him to Tierra del Fuego, and back of course.
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