May 06

Social and global mobility: Five practical ways in which schools can engage with local businesses

Schools are tremendous powerhouses. In and amongst everything else they do, they are also – and powerfully – socially mandated to make a positive difference in the lives of young people. Fundamentally, this is about social and global mobility, and it lies at the core of a school’s activity. Schools are not in this alone, however – they have several wider communities with which they can interact, and multiple stakeholders. Engaging these stakeholders in the task of developing social and global mobility in young people falls naturally to schools – and schools can lead the way in this respect.

If we look more closely at one of these stakeholder groups, local businesses, then schools have a number of different approaches they can take to get local businesses involved. All businesses have a social obligation – which many recognise at some level – to contribute to the general development of young people, and they certainly have a wider economic motivation to protect the future of their businesses (and the economy more generally) by ensuring that young people are flexible and ready to make choices in the workplace. They are natural partners for schools in a drive towards creating opportunities that lead to greater social and global mobility for young people.

1.  Research who your local businesses are

Start by defining what you mean by local – what kind of geographical area, for instance – and then ask yourselves these questions about local businesses: How many are there? Who are they? What do they do? What is their reach? Are they grouped in networks? How are some of our more immediate stakeholders in the school community (eg teachers and parents) connected with these businesses? Are we aware of any particular interests that local businesses already have in developing social and global mobility? The answers to these questions will help paint a picture of local businesses and will start to suggest and prompt specific ideas for engaging them in the school’s vision for leading social and global mobility.

2.  Reach out to let them hear why they have a role in social and global mobility

Focus some of the school’s digital and media communication about what is happening in school in places which local businesses will access. Use these channels to give insights into what the school believes about social and global mobility, and how local businesses can be involved. This might include preparing short articles for local business magazines or the local newspaper, or even putting up notices on local community noticeboards (physical or digital). Research which newsfeeds and online sources of local news are popular amongst local businesses and make sure that the school is connected to them and generates content for them.

3.  Sign them up for work experience and work-readiness programmes

Almost all secondary schools already have work experience programmes, where students can spend a week or two at least in Year 10 or Year 11, usually, in a local work environment. There is nothing to stop all schools creating their own programmes, however – the curiosity and knowledge of Year 3 students, for instance, can be hugely stimulated by a morning spent in a different work environment. The more businesses you can sign up; the more opportunities the students will have. Involve the local businesses in helping to design the structure of the week, and the kind of tasks that the students should experience – and report back on – during this spell in the workplace.

4.  Enrol business leaders as mentors

If your school does not yet have a comprehensive business mentoring programme for students throughout the school, to introduce them to life in local business, then consider setting one up. Students could be grouped into small numbers and meet regularly with their mentor to discuss issues that affect working life, eg money, the regulations that businesses have to follow, marketing and brand development, managing staff etc. Entrepreneurship is an invaluable 21st century skill – bring in people who have worked in and with start-ups, too.

5.  Don’t underestimate their global reach

Local businesses often engage directly with national and international communities via the internet, media and social media. A small technology company, based locally, may be writing software for use on another continent; a local shop may have a mail order offshoot which sends its products across the country. Large companies, based locally or with some representation locally, may have satellite offices across the world, but a business does not now have to be large to be globally connected. When schools embrace this, and start to ask how they can partner with businesses to create international opportunities for their students, the world really does start to open up – international work experience, talks and seminars about cultural challenges, digital engagement and opportunities to work on projects across the world. Let your imagination soar – and pursue the ideas that emerge.

***

Schools are really, really busy places. In fact, people who have never been deeply involved in education on a daily basis often do not realise just how complex and active schools are. Many schools already do a tremendous amount that contributes to the social and global mobility of their students, and they deserve real recognition for this. For some schools, the thought of adding more tasks to their daily agenda is overwhelming.

And yet wherever schools sit on this spectrum, they know – deep down – that there is more that they can do to improve the life chances of the young people with whom they come into contact on a daily basis. They can’t do it by themselves, and nor should they be expected to: they can, however, be relentless in establishing relationships with external stakeholders, and reasons for them to engage. And if they do just one thing that gives just one extra student just a single extra opportunity that can lead to a greater sense in that student of his or her potential to choose where, when and how to work and live later in life, they will have taken a further step along the path towards becoming a truly Powerful School.

Powerful Schools: How schools can be drivers of social and global mobility, by Dr Helen Wright, is published by John Catt Educational Ltd and is also available on Amazon.

May 02

What is work, anyway?

A fascinating recent Australian study about the effects of working beyond the age of 40 achieved some press coverage last week, and it prompted me to reflect carefully on what work actually means in our society.

The study analysed cognitive test results for 3,000 men and 3,500 women above the age of 40 in Australia, and compared these to how long they were employed per week, and found that people who were employed about 25 hours a week tended to get the highest scores. Those who did not work at all scored about 18 per cent lower on the reading test, 20 per cent lower on the backwards numbers and 15 per cent lower on matching numbers and letters, while working 40 hours a week was linked to a slightly smaller cognitive deficit, and working 55 hours or more seemed to be worse than being retired or unemployed.

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The conclusion of the professor leading the study, Professor Colin McKenzie, was that “Work can be a double-edged sword, in that it can stimulate brain activity, but at the same time long working hours can cause fatigue and stress, which potentially damage cognitive functions”.

Of course, what the study did not do was to look at all the other aspects of work in a person’s life. We have grown so used to thinking that ‘work’ is only something for which people get paid, that we tend to overlook – and certainly undervalue – all the other types of work that human beings tend to do, from maintaining their household or organising their children, to volunteering in other organisations. This definition of work outside ‘employed work’ is still something which seems to apply more to women than to men, and even more so to those who are carers and parents; the wry observations in Ladybird’s spoof book, ‘How it works: the Mum’, are rather close to the bone for many.

(If you haven’t read this book, by the way, it will almost certainly make you laugh, especially if you are a mother. My children’s favourite extract: A Mum has just two jobs. One is to look after her children. The other is to do everything else as well.”)

Parenting is only one of the – essential – jobs in life which do not qualify as ‘work’ in the definition used in the Australian study, and it is interesting to consider what the results might look like if it took into account the hours spent by people on bringing up children, helping out neighbours, contributing to neighbourhood associations, collaborating on social projects, volunteering on boards of charities or other organisations, and the like. Fundamentally, in not exploring these elements, the study both fails to grasp the reality of people’s lives, and reinforces the widely-held – and arguably deeply unhealthy – perspective that valuable activity in society equates with money.

We know, deep down, that this is not true. Who we are is often as important (if not more so) as what we do; being a kind and tolerant person, for example, can have a hugely positive effect on the world, regardless of what ‘job’ that person does. More money does not necessarily mean more value to the world; so why do we persist in thinking that it does? Is it an embedded greed? Or the lack of strong enough, balanced, moral framework in our society?

While we ponder these thoughts, there is one lesson, that we might all take on board: “too much work can have adverse effects on cognitive functioning”. Worth at least bearing in mind, whether or not we can actually do anything about it …

 

Apr 16

Challenging our unconscious bias

Speaking at Thursday night’s ‘Leading by Example: Diversity Panel’ event in Edinburgh, co-hosted by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and Morton Fraser’s Women’s Network, Tanya Castell – CEO and Chair of Changing the Chemistry, a peer-to-peer network which aims to increase diversity on boards – reminded the audience how we cannot underestimate the importance of our unconscious bias in the decisions we make about people, especially (but not exclusively) in recruitment. Unconscious bias is by its very nature difficult to identify, but strides forward are being made in this respect, and for an insight into your own unconscious bias, do take a look at the Harvard-based Project Implicit.

Project Implicit, as you will see when you visit their site, is an international collaboration between researchers who have a deep interest in implicit social cognition, which they describe as “thoughts and feelings outside of conscious awareness and control”. As the UK Equality Challenge Unit explains, “implicit or unconscious bias happens by our brains making incredibly quick judgments and assessments of people and situations without us realising. Our biases are influenced by our background, cultural environment and personal experiences. We may not even be aware of these views and opinions, or be aware of their full impact and implications.” Project Implicit has a clear goal – to educate the public about hidden biases and, through encouraging visitors to the site to participate in challenges, to provide what is effectively a “virtual laboratory” for collecting data on the internet – data which can be used to develop further understandings about unconscious bias, and, by doing so, to help address it.

This latter point, of course, is key – the first step in any move towards change must always be to recognise that change is needed. In the case of unconscious bias, the very act of recognising that change is required demands, in many cases, a leap of the imagination and a swallowing of pride – very few of us, after all, like to admit that we are indeed biased in our engagement with others. Initiatives like Project Implicit help us – in a non-threatening and actually a very safe way – to understand ourselves better, and to see that by appreciating our own biases, we are in a better position to be able both to change ourselves and to highlight the need for change to others.

In our quest for a fairer, more balanced, less biased world, this is an obvious step to take. And we have not a moment to lose!

 

Apr 11

BOOK REVIEW You want to send your child to a UK independent school. Where do you go for the best advice?

I was recently sent a copy of Independent School Entrance by Victoria Barker, the latest in the series of ‘Parent Brief’ books published by Gresham Books, and I was impressed. The author – who has two children of her own, one of whom has passed through the UK independent school system and the other of whom is still working her way through it – was inspired to write the book because of her own experience: when she relocated from Australia 8 years ago, she found the system complex and in parts hard to grasp; in learning – the hard way – to navigate through the processes associated with applying to independent schools, she has gathered a wealth of information which she is now able to share, for the distinct benefit of prospective parents.

Down-to-earth advice for parents lies at the heart of the book, and this is probably what makes it so distinctive and such an appealing read. Heads of schools will, too, find themselves nodding in agreement with the very straightforward approach that the book adopts to preparing children for interview, for instance – ‘give your child control’, ‘encourage your child to think critically’, ‘keep anxieties to yourself’, and – crucially – ‘just be there’. Eternal truths such as these sit alongside very up-to-date information about the range of examinations and the availability of bursaries and scholarships, together with a range of well-tested and recommended resources.

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As Clarissa Farr, High Mistress of St Paul’s Girls’ School, comments in her introduction, this is a “practical, no-nonsense guide”. It is eminently readable, and manages to be both highly informative and immensely reassuring to parents, leaving practically no angle of the application process untouched. From insights into costs and what to expect in applying, to balanced commentary on tutoring and how to work out what kind of school will suit your child, this is a book which has been cleverly put together – with, as a pleasant bonus, some stunning and uplifting photography – to demystify the independent schools’ sector and to encourage parents to think seriously about how to apply successfully for a place for their child at one of the many hundreds of great independent schools for which the UK is renowned. It is little surprise, therefore, that it is fully endorsed by the Good Schools Guide.

If you are a parent who is considering applying for a place in the independent sector, this book will hold your hand. Well worth a read.

Mar 29

Computers in schools: a scandalous waste?

Nothing replaces a great teacher: this is the premise which stands behind the recent comments by Dr John Vallance, Head of Sydney Grammar School, that computers in schools are a waste of money and have done nothing to improve grades. Teaching, he says, is about “interaction ­between people, about discussion, about conversation … If you’re lucky enough to have a good teacher and a motivating group of classmates, it would seem a waste to introduce anything that’s going to be a distraction from the benefits that kind of social context will give you.”

He is right – the power of human relationships lies at the heart of successful learning. Children learn from the experience and knowledge of wise teachers, but – perhaps more importantly – children are inspired and guided by their teachers so that they can develop fresh understandings and create new knowledge, so that they in time will surpass their teachers. Teaching is highly complex, nuanced and deeply responsive to the individual needs of the students – so much so that teaching is not readily reduced to a series of actions, but rather is better seen holistically in terms of what it actually achieves: broadly, ‘outcomes’ – although this term often fails to communicate the true breadth and long-lasting, empowering effects of teaching. Teachers teach by using every fibre of their being, and successful students will concentrate on absorbing the messages that their teachers communicate – verbal, non-verbal, intellectual, emotional, philosophical … with calls to action and calls to reflection. When a great teacher is at work, and where the school and class environment supports space for thought, learning and growth, then the draw of an open computer screen, taking attention away from the human interaction taking place, is more than just a distraction – it is a positive hindrance.

Ah, but what of the importance of technology in the wider world? Surely schools should be ensuring that young people are able to work fluently with all sorts of technology, so that they are not disadvantaged when they leave school? Indeed, young people do need to develop technological fluency – research skills, communication skills and a deep conceptual understanding of how computers function, so that they are not limited to using applications which go out of date every couple of years, but rather can see – and use – the potential of technology to invent answers to problems that face our world. This kind of technological fluency demands an experiential approach to learning – hours spent playing with technology, and finding out what it can and can’t do. Guidance is important, and schools can certainly provide this, but not all learning can and should take place in schools – there simply aren’t the hours in the day. Partnerships between school, home and wider social networks are often under-utilised in ensuring that all young people have the means and support to access this kind of wider learning. Sydney Grammar expects all of its pupils to use computers at home, for instance: schools can be enablers of learning about and through technology without requiring its use in the classroom.

Dr Vallance notes that the (expensive) drive in schools and education departments to bring computers into every classroom has contributed significantly to lining the pockets of tech-giants such as Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Apple, and he is ascerbic in his observations on this: “I think when people come to write the history of this period in education … this investment in classroom technology is going to be seen as a huge fraud.” Whether it is fraud or misplaced enthusiasm, it is certainly the case that technology is often perceived as a panacea to the ills of education; and panaceas, of course, are usually illusory. Successful education needs – and always will need – successful teachers and educational leaders who are able to work with young people to give them what they need at that moment in time to help them grow and develop. It is an interesting thought – if the money that was currently spent on computers in schools was diverted to recruiting, educating and supporting teachers, what might we be able to achieve in our schools?

We are where we are: we cannot go backwards, but only forwards. We cannot change past education policies. This does not mean, however, that we have to remain committed to programmes which drain resources to little effect. Technology is unquestionably a potentially amazing tool: a strong and robust technological infrastructure in schools can help facilitate learning through effective administration, intelligent tracking of students, and opens the school to global communication, with all that this can bring for students and the whole school community. Any technology used at any time in any school must, however, be shown to be of real value – not simply because it is the latest technology, but because – demonstrably – it enables greater, deeper learning. We are wise if we challenge our current assumptions in this regard.

And we are wise, too, if we remember that nothing – nothing – replaces a great teacher.

Decoding Your 21st Century Daughter: Available here.

Feb 19

Grit and grades – what are schools actually for?

One of my treasured childhood memories is staying with my grandfather at his house in Colchester, in England. I can still recall the pipe he used to smoke and the books he used to read; most special of all, though, was the fact that I was there by myself, and I could do things that I wasn’t normally allowed to do at home – the prerogative of grandparents, of course. This is why the night-time chocolate biscuit tasted especially delicious, and why the films that I watched with him have stayed with me.

I say ‘stayed with me’ – but, as memories have a tendency to do, these films (for the most part Westerns) have all coalesced into one single film, which I seem to recall quite vividly – ‘True Grit’, starring the great John Wayne. The film won an Oscar for John Wayne – his only Oscar, in fact – and I guess on reflection that the screen shots of him as US Marshal Rooster Cogburn, posing brooding on a horse, as he set off to confound our expectations of his character, had something to do with this. Not, of course, that I had any clue at the age of 7 or 8 what an Oscar was – but there was obviously something powerful in the film to make it stick in my memory, and some of that undoubtedly came down to the ‘true grit’ which all the main characters exhibited in one way or another, facing up to adversity and pursuing justice in spite of all the dangers and difficulties that stood in their way.

‘Grit’ is a concept used increasingly frequently in education, as we challenge ourselves to redefine what schools are actually for. Grit has (perhaps not surprisingly) been identified as a significant factor in achieving long term goals and life outcomes, and attention is turning to how schools can best encourage the development of grit in young people. As a new study of 4,500 16 year-olds in the UK shows, however, we should beware trying to make academic success – ie better exam grades – one of the desired outcomes to which grit contributes.

Writing in the American Psychological Association Journal of Personality and Social Psychology the authors of this study – entitled ‘True Grit and Genetics: Predicting Academic Achievement From Personality’ – conclude that grit adds little to school grades. In an article in The Conversation reflecting on their study, they write: “It’s clear from our study that more research must be done before concluding that a certain type of teaching or classroom intervention are beneficial for academic achievement or other life outcomes.”

This seems eminently sensible – wise educators in any case rarely rush to conclusions about ‘what works’ in the classroom: children, after all, are complex beings with differing backgrounds and previous experiences, which means that they respond to different approaches and different relationships with their teachers. If this study shows – as the authors conclude – that “grit is not a good way of predicting whether a child will get good grades”, then this is interesting for educators to know, but it does not mean that grit is not a good thing, especially as the authors of the study refer specifically to the “long-term benefits for children” which increasing grit or perseverance could have.

What is disheartening in an otherwise well-balanced and informative piece is the statement in their article in The Conversation that “These results should warrant concern given education policy directives in the US and in the UK, which emphasise the importance of grit and character education.” This statement is underpinned by an enormous and – so many, many educators would argue – erroneous assumption that schooling is all about the grades. Without rehearsing the argument at length, quite simply – it can’t be the case. If success at school is predicated on achieving an A grade in every examination, then thousands of children are destined to fail, and as educators we cannot accept this. School is such a large part of a child’s life, and so formative in it, that it is inconceivable to educators that its sole purpose is to develop a sense of inadequacy. On the contrary – we believe that school has the power to help young people become amazing adults, and phenomenal contributors in the world.

School is about preparing young people for success in life – all sorts of different types of success. We know that academic success is not the only type of success in life. This is the kind of knowing that comes from years of working with children, preparing them for the future, helping them discover who they are and enabling them to learn who they might be. Research contributes hugely to this understanding and knowledge, and is to be welcomed. It must in turn be analysed carefully, and not allowed to turn into knee-jerk reactions. The current focus on greater character education in schools is a move in the right direction and should not be put off course.

Now we just need to work on the perception that academic grades are all that matter.

 

   

Feb 10

The value of teaching overseas: an oversupply of teachers in Australia? Teach in the UK!

Statistics released in a UK Government National Audit Office today reveal that in 2014, the recorded rate of vacancies and temporarily filled vacancies in schools in England and Wales rose to 1.2% – that means over 5,000 unfilled posts in England alone. This is because the birth rate is rising – the school population is estimated to go up by 10% to 10.4 million by 2025 – and because not enough teachers are being trained, especially in Maths, Science and Languages. Teaching is naturally a demanding job, too, as well as being a great job, and there is a high turnover of teachers. All this means that headteachers of UK schools report increasing difficulty in recruiting staff, and figures published before Christmas showed that almost two thirds of UK schools had struggled to get the right teachers to fill their posts in the previous year.

At the same time, the number of Australian teachers on the waiting list for a permanent post in NSW has reached an all-time high of around 45,000. It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that the UK is a great destination for Australian teachers, especially as Australian teaching qualifications are usually transferable to the UK with no extra study needed, and because there are a number of different visa options. It can be very straightforward to get a visa in the shortage subjects of Maths, Physics and Chemistry, too.

This was the topic of the Courses and Careers Show with Steve Price and Danny Bielik on 2GB Radio today, and it was a pleasure to contribute to it. Teaching is an incredibly important profession, and it needs good people – the last thing anyone in education wants is for well-trained teachers to be underemployed when there is a huge job to be done to educate the global generation of tomorrow. If there is an oversupply of teachers in one part of the world, why shouldn’t these teachers consider teaching somewhere else for a time?

The starting salary for teachers in the UK is £22,244 per annum, or £27,819 in inner London – accommodation costs are very high in London, of course, but drop dramatically in other parts of the country. Overall – especially with the weak Australian dollar – the average UK teacher salary of £37,400 is attractive for teachers in their first decade of teaching.  UK schools have a reputation as being very innovative places, with leading edge pedagogy and research-driven initiatives. Some schools are very challenging – where in the world is this not the case? – but this challenge can be exciting too.

International teaching experience brings a wealth of opportunities: living and working abroad enables people to learn a huge amount about themselves, and they develop their personal resilience; they learn too a huge amount about other cultures and other ways of life. All of this sticks with them when they return home, and it makes them better teachers to young people who themselves need to become globally mobile if they are to make the most of what the 21st century has to offer them. International experience calls … why not make the most of the opportunities now?

 

Useful websites for teachers looking to work in the UK:

UK Department for Education

https://getintoteaching.education.gov.uk/explore-my-options/overseas-applicants

Job sites

www.tes.co.uk

http://www.eteach.com/

UK Visa information

https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa

 

Jan 19

The upsides of homeschooling

Today’s Daily Mail contains an upbeat and encouraging article about the TV presenter Nadia Sawalha and her decision to home-school her two daughters: “My two girls are home schooled and it’s brilliant, says TV’s Nadia”. In a refreshingly positive story about education – albeit with some editorial sniping at private schools – Ms Sawalha describes how she and her husband came to the decision that a standard, one-size-fits-all school was not right for their daughters’ specific needs, and so took the step into home schooling.

It is estimated that over 50,000 children are home-educated in the UK, and while the article suggests that this is down in part to the squeeze on school places as the population rises, one of the major reasons is that many parents realise that the schools to which they have access do not suit their children, and they recognise that they need to forge another educational path if their children are to be able to make the most of their potential. Home schooling does not require children to follow a specific curriculum, and nor does it have regulated hours or approaches; the downsides are the potential lack of social contact and the potential lack of contact with a variety of highly trained teachers, but the upsides are its flexibility and responsiveness to the child’s needs, and the freeing and empowering effect it can have on children’s creativity, their ability to think, and their happiness.

There is much to be said for home schooling. It is hard work for parents, and it does not suit everyone, but its real value lies in its fundamental belief that children are individuals and that they learn in different ways, and that a programme of education designed for children should accommodate to them, and not the other way around. The best schools recognise this too, and ensure that they understand and respond to the needs and uniqueness of their students; it is very easy, however, for even the best school to slip into patterns of teaching and assessing that – while effective for most – do not always work for everyone. If schools seek to be truly excellent, then from time to time they should take just a few minutes to reflect, genuinely, on what they can learn from alternative approaches to education.

The question for the day, then: how can schools incorporate the best of home schooling into their programmes? The answer: really know your children, spend time thinking about what would work for them, and don’t be afraid to experiment. Every moment we spend reflecting on what we could do better in education contributes to the growth and development of our young people. What better way to spend our energy?

 

Jan 12

Tiger or Dolphin – the politics of parenting

Prime Minister David Cameron makes the front page of The Times in the UK today with a headline that throws down the gauntlet in the battle to conquer disadvantage and inequality, beginning with social mobility – specifically, children’s potential in life, as determined by the start they get. Setting out his ‘bucket list’ of what he wants to change before he leaves office, he emphasised in a speech yesterday the importance of parenting in giving all children the very best start, and he focused in on the desirability of improving parenting, so that every child can benefit from the high expectations that will be their passport to a better future. His answer: tiger parenting; the headline reads: “All children should have ‘tiger mums’ – Cameron”, and he is quoted as saying “It is, in fact, what the tiger mothers’ battle hymn is all about: work, try hard, believe you can succeed, get up and try again”.

In many respects, he is absolutely right. Children thrive on boundaries, and they also rise to high expectations. This is not an easy ask of parents – challenging children to work hard and do their best can be very tough. If at first children don’t succeed – and they often won’t – then it can be hard to coax them to try, try, try again. It requires time, effort, a belief that this kind of tough love has an end goal that is worth more than the discomfort of the moment, and, sometimes, tears and meltdowns. It is extraordinarily painful for a parent to watch his or her child suffering (however temporarily), and it is so, so much easier (in the short term, at least) to alleviate the demands on them, to weaken the structures and boundaries, and to let them relax – apparently more comfortably – into the moment. Part of the wisdom of parenting is to know that this is not always the right thing to do, and this is where the Tiger Mother philosophy comes into its own.

Part of the art of parenting, however, is to know the limits of this philosophy. Tiger parenting has been associated with increased levels of childhood anxiety, depression and stress, as well as developing deep-rooted feelings of inadequacy, and it is easy to see why. If a child is constantly being told that he or she is not good enough, and has to do better, then instead of developing a resilience and robust desire in the child to succeed, this approach be entirely counter-productive, and the child can, quite simply, withdraw and give up. Although most children, much of the time, will benefit from tiger parenting, it is not always the answer.

This is where Shimi Kang’s Dolphin parenting comes into its own. Published in 2014, her book ‘The Dolphin Way’ (an interesting and insightful read) has struck a chord with parents and educationalists who know that there is more to parenting than constant pressure. Tigers are fierce, unrelenting and single-minded; dolphins, meanwhile, are social creatures with a collective mindset and a gentler approach to life, Tiger parenting, Shimi points out, is all about instruction which leads to mastery; dolphin parenting is all about role-modelling, play, exploration. and guidance. It is a useful antidote to the intensity of the tiger approach, but it is no less demanding – it requires parents to learn who their children are, and to understand when they need to be left alone, as well as when they need nudging.

And therein lies the rub – even gentle parenting is still tough on parents. Tiger, Dolphin or mixture of the two … no matter what style or styles parents adopt with their children, there is no let-up: parenting is for life, not just for the first few days or months of a child’s life, and in an increasingly complex world, it is an increasingly complex process. Parents are not born, they are made – through their own experiences as children, through their observation of others, and, if they are lucky, through access to the accumulated wisdom of society, which is (encouragingly) constantly developing fresh insights while rediscovering old ones). The more we can talk about parenting and support, value and empower parents, the more likely it is that parents will learn to parent in the very best interests of each unique child.

In a liberal society, it be rather disconcerting and unsettling to witness politicians entering into the private life of the family with frameworks and targets for what should go on inside the home, but it is not hard to argue for a greater good in this respect: well-parented children make for better rounded, more well-rounded, happier people, and, undoubtedly, better citizens. Perhaps there is something to be said for qualifications in parenting after all …

 

Jan 05

The times (tables), they are a-changing … or not, as the case may be

It is curious how emotive discussions can become when the subject is that of teaching multiplication tables in schools. Nicky Morgan, the UK Secretary of State for Education, recently announced that new online tests of children’s ability to recount their times tables up to and including 12 x 12, would be piloted this year for 3,000 11 year olds in England, with a view to rolling out the tests to all 11 year olds across the country in 2017. Predictably, perhaps, this has resulted in a flurry of polarised responses from commentators on education (note – commentators are not usually current or previous teachers), from the vehemently expressed ‘yes – traditional rote learning is an essential part of good education’ to the equally vehemently expressed ‘no – learning times tables is obsolete in a digitally connected world. For those of us who have been in education long enough to see the wheels turning several times, each time seeking to balance out or compensate for a perceived failing in the last cycle, there is nothing new in this, and the politicking and posturing can be somewhat tiresome. Is it time (no pun intended) to move beyond this?

Education is not a simple matter. No matter how attractive the concept might be to policy-makers, teaching children can never realistically be a case of inputting certain data and guaranteeing specific outcomes. Children and their circumstances are too complex, their relationships with teachers and their peers are too intricate, and nothing is absolutely for certain in every case – statistics, after all, about what works and what doesn’t in education are by their very nature generalised. In a society which values difference and individuality, we should not be surprised or irritated by the fact that people learn in many different ways, with different motivations and with different outcomes. Rather, we should embrace this uncertainty as a welcome sign of variety – and that the system has worked.

That said, we have accumulated significant amounts of wisdom about the building blocks that lead to a good basic understanding of the world, and, equally, we have learned enormous amounts – held, it must be said, largely in the form of teachers’ practical experience – about how individuals can be coaxed to understand, learn, develop and grow. Teachers help children to learn and this, fundamentally, is why teachers are so important in schools – they are the people who can respond to the needs of individuals, and they have an enormous influence on what children do and achieve. It follows that their views about the importance or otherwise of elements of the education programmes they follow really do matter, because these opinions, translated into action in the classroom, directly affect whether or not children learn them.

So – what do teachers think about learning times tables? Are times tables useful? Is learning these times tables useful? Is testing the learning of these times tables useful? For school leaders and teachers, in practice, the question of times tables is actually a non-story, because for the most part they have been quietly just getting on with doing them in schools for years. Yes, times tables are as useful now as in the past as a basic mathematical concept and part of how we perceive the world. Yes, learning them is useful – and teachers are always looking for ways to help children learn them more effectively and so that they are more meaningful for them. Yes, testing them is useful too, at least to a degree – it certainly proves that children can reproduce the times tables (although not necessarily that they have absorbed an understanding of their significance); and the rigour of learning does also focus children.

Moreover, there is an equality of access argument in the teaching, learning and testing of times tables – children in all schools, from all walks of life, should be able to have the same access to the same quality of teaching, ie teaching that will help them develop the same quality of learning. Does testing have potentially negative outcomes? Yes, it does – the time and resources spent on testing can detract from time and resources spent on learning, results can be (usually are) used for short-term political gain rather than genuinely enhancing the life chances of individual students, league tables promote competition between schools rather than collaboration … the list goes on.

But what is really important in this debate is that no-one is really listening to teachers in a systematic, comprehensive way. No-one is really listening to schools just explaining what they are doing – no-one is asking and listening with an open, non-judgemental, curious mind, free of the desire to criticise or give anecdotally-based opinions on what schools should be doing. The lack of a united teacher voice on curriculum matters is not surprising – teachers, as students, are individuals with varied experiences, and this is to be welcomed in a system which seeks to develop such individuality. The lack of any strong representative teacher voices is much more concerning. Where are the voices saying, for example, ‘we, ie your local school, does this, because we believe …and we know that it works because …’?

School leaders generally don’t speak out about what they do and why, either because they are wary about how their words and ideas will be communicated by the media, and how their constituencies will react to this (what will be the scandalous spin? what will people think?) or because they actually have no official remit to say anything, because most of what they do is prescribed from a centralised office, and if they choose to do follow their own path because it works well for the students in their school, they prefer to keep quiet about it.  Schools have grown silent because they have gradually become disempowered or fearful of reaction. When you are expected to be all things to all people, all of the time – a panacea for society’s ills, and yet the focus of its ire – it is easy to see why you would remain circumspect.

And yet we need schools to speak out, to re-establish themselves as the voices of education – schools working within wider education systems but responsive too to the needs of the individual children in their care. A nagging suspicion vexes those following the debate on times tables … a suspicion that schools are not really being trusted to do what is right – perhaps because we have left the age of authority behind, and perhaps because people don’t really understand that schools are always, always seeking to improve, and that this is not a sign of inadequacy but rather a very grown-up sign of strength. Schools are amazingly complex places, as the debate about times tables serves to illustrate: what fills national newspaper columns for a few days is a microscopic element in the daily life of a school.

Perhaps the time has come to give schools credit for this, and just allow them to get on with it.