Draft #2 A middle man is a middle man is a middle man...

Academies. Built on promises, promises which ultimately concluded with: promises of a better education system for the UK. Promises of better schools. Promises of “No more failing schools”! No more mediocre!  But what is really happening behind the closed doors of our local ‘Academised’ Community Colleges and Schools? 

Since 2000 and the coalition government, the goal was to replace underperforming and ‘failing’ schools by giving them more autonomy. What this meant was that school leaders were given a wad of cash to distribute how they saw fit... however, unlike the previously LA supported schools, they would have to generate income year on year, much like a business.

Parents were invited to welcome in the new age of academies. In deprived and desperate areas of the UK, the Government gave a golden carrot to Head teachers and gave them the power to be free from the Local Authority's (LA) ball and chain.  Some official lines were: “Academies, operating in England, are publicly funded independent schools... Academies benefit from greater freedoms to help innovate and raise standards" and "These include freedom from local authority control, the ability to set their own pay and conditions for staff, freedom around the delivery of the curriculum and the ability to change the lengths of terms and school days” (1). 

Freedom equals innovation. 

Freedom equals greater success.

The LAs, it was implied, are failing the school system, letting down our children by inadequate support and by wasting tax payers money. It was stressed that by giving Headteachers of Academies more power, over pay, conditions and curriculum, children would do better in school. Quite how this would work - the mechanics of the scheme - were (and still are) a grey area.

However, freedom also equals responsibility.

Freedom from Government support.

Freedom from local authority support.

And so, LA support teams were at risk of losing their jobs. And they did. Subsequently, the LA ‘businesses’ became privatized and some staff saved their jobs. Others moved onto pastures new.

This left Academies having to pay separately, from their wad of cash, for the ‘newly privatized’ support systems. This included important external provisions like educational psychologists, educational welfare officers, caterers and so on. 

Hang on. Companies bought and privatized LA provisions? Yes. Those local authority provisions that were judged 'inadequate' and failures to schools were bought up by private firms. Who saw that coming? Not me. 

But Babcock, for example, did. Babcock is a private firm which as well as education services also specialises in Nuclear warfare, with a finger in the pie of NHS privatization and the privatization of National Rail. According to their own website, babcockinternational.com, “Babcock International is a multinational corporation headquartered in the United Kingdom. It specialises in managing complex assets and infrastructure. Although the company has civil contracts, its main business is with public bodies, particularly the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence and Network Rail.”

The company invested in ‘buying up’ LA services (which were deemed corrupt and failing) and then charge schools for a private service. These services, which would have previously fallen under the LA remit and would not have cost the schools more than an annual subscription, suddenly became expensive extras they can’t always stretch to. 

It’s kind of like paying your taxes and having access to an annual subscription to a medicine you need and then being told that they’ve stopped that deal. That your taxes no longer include that medicine. Then they say they’re going to give you a lump sum of money, to help (which by the way also has to be used for other people’s medicine). But that each month’s subscription is going to cost you three times as much... it doesn’t take a maths specialist to work out that the lump sum is quickly going to run out and that you’re going to have to make difficult decisions about whether to buy the medicine (which you need) and/or who to buy it for. So it’s kind of like that but also not at all like that. Because I could also just be describing what is happening in the NHS, couldn’t I?

Anyway, after underperforming Academies were not improving in this scheme, in 2010 the Government encouraged schools that had been rated Outstanding to become academies themselves. Then they could ‘buddy up’ with local underperforming academies to form Mutli-Academy Trusts (MATs). Suddenly the status of Academies rose - there were, for once, Outstanding Academies... not achieved quite the way we were sold it, but achieved by signing up more schools that already held an Outstanding OFSTED rosette.

Under the MAT (multi-acadmy trust) initiative, a group of schools - or rather their governors - appoints a CEO (usually a previous Headteacher) who oversees all the schools, as well as all of the Head teachers and subsequent staff and students. What they actually do is beside the point. And what they actually earn, according to Sir David Carter (ex-south was regional CEO) is “good value for money”.

Suddenly that wad of cash provided to the Academy, by the Government, has been used up by paying for another level of management, putting schools into a deeper deficit - which is further exacerbated by cuts to Government spending in schools (in real terms). I won’t go into this right now - I am sure you’ve seen the headlines?

What about those promises? To “innovate and raise standards”? 

The truth is, despite the introduction of CEOs, MAT coordination between schools (which actually already happened and was managed by the LAs) and pie in the sky aim to reduce poorly performing schools, the education system is struggling. Really struggling.

 

You may have seen the BBC program ‘School’? If you didn’t, I’d recommend you watch some of it for a flavor of the system as it stands today. Maybe you read the recent Guardian article (other newspapers are available) about a Stockport school's Headteacher and Governors finding no other choice but to close early every Friday? This is as well making HUGE cuts to vital school services. (2)

These highly paid CEOs are not radicalizing education or driving up results and performance. Head teachers are forced to make cuts, but where? From experience and anecdotes and reports like the one above, it is the lower end, the ‘under achievers’ and the special education sector, post-16 and extra-curricular that are hardest hit. A national attempt to keep schools at the top of the league tables mean Headteachers are unwilling to let their results slip and so high performers, higher previous attainers and in particular, closing the gap between girls and boys, are the main foci.

This is not the reality of the Academy dream, I am certain. Or at least I am hopeful.

 

When the coalition Government chose this course for our community colleges and schools I am sure they didn’t imagine that Academies would fail. The really shocking thing, for me at least and I am sure for others, is that they are lying about the value and progress of Academies. Through the freedom of information act you can access the results of academies. You can also read some concerns about it in a bbc article from 2016 here: https://www.bbc.com/news/education-36014563.

The findings from a recent report by the Education Policy Institute are very interesting and are based on evidence. It was led by independent investigators and experienced educators - see page 2 for their impressive roles and responsibilities (3). “Our evidence points to an initial (and significant) improvement in GCSE scores in the year prior to and after becoming a sponsored academy. However, we cannot attribute this trend to anything that may have been implemented by the academy sponsor – as it, in part, occurred before academisation. It may however be a result of the incentives generated by the academisation policy, which the government may well argue is a success in itself. Alternatively, it could be that these schools were improving in any case (perhaps as a result of competitive pressures or other interventions targeting schools likely to be subject to ‘forced’ sponsored academy conversion), and so the fact that they became academies is not relevant. Further analysis is required to try and establish whether there is a direct, causal impact of a school becoming a sponsored academy on attainment.“

A new White Paper proposal, laid out in 29th April 2016 version, read: “The White Paper proposes that local authorities would no longer maintain schools, and an all academy system would be created. The proposed system would include:

• Most schools becoming part of multi-academy trusts (MATs);
• A reformed role for local authorities, focusing on duties such as ensuring sufficiency of school places, supporting vulnerable pupils, and acting as a champion for parents;
• A new legal framework for an all academy system.”

When under discussion in the House of Commons, Government officials raised their concerns that seem to have been silenced over the years: “The proposals have proved highly controversial.  In particular, questions have been raised about the desirability of such large-scale reforms in the context of other challenges, the impact on local democracy and teachers’ pay and condition of an all academy system, and whether sufficient MAT capacity can be created to provide a high quality academised system.  The question of whether academy status is in itself a boost to school standards has also been a key focus of the debate.”

 

One more thing to consider. If Academies are the education system for the future - to bring UK education in line with the most successful in the world: essentially the use of MATs has been awarded the golden globe of education (despite no evidence of a positive impact) - then why have the Government needed to set up the The Regional School Commissioners?

What’s The RSC? I’ll let https://schoolsweek.co.uk/regional-school-commissioner-pay-revealed/ explain: “the commissioners are part of the government’s middle tier of accountability for academies, brought in last September and tasked with tackling underperformance and boosting the number of academy sponsors... In December, in a written answer to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, the DfE’s permanent secretary Chris Wormald gave the estimated running costs for the RSCs and their offices for the first year as £4.5 million.”

A middle man is a middle man is a middle man is a middle man.

Goodbye education funding.

Goodbye promises.

 

References:

1. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/219167/v01-2012ukes.pdf

2. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/feb/28/school-stockport-close-early-fridays-lack-funding?CMP=fb_gu&fbclid=IwAR3DPKe33D53V2fnkzUaTk4j8K-p87MvHvvoxrioKt6NaJ17rtQNW1LcrpM

3. https://epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/EPI_-Impact_of_Academies_Consolidated_Report-.pdf.

The Digital Age in the Anthropozoic era

The Digital Age in the Anthropozoic era

Through our TV screens, cinema, magazines and newspapers, in Science, environmental news and photographs from space, or even just walking along the main road of a city or town you know well, there is proof enough that we are - and that humans have and always will be - having a huge and often detrimental effect on the natural world.

In the late 1800s a phrase was born: Anthropocene. Italian geologist Stoppani reportedly coined it in an acknowledgement that humans were increasingly having an influence on the ‘Earth’s systems’. This is called the Anthropozoic era: ‘the current geological age defined by human activity having the greatest impact on the climate and environment.’ What can we define as the greatest impact?

In 2014 The Guardian published an article showing satellite images of a dried up Aral Sea Basin as a side effect of over production of cotton due to demand. In the article, Transy Hoskins blames “The fashion industry” as being “linked to the environmental devastation in the Central Asian inland sea” (https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/sustainable-fashion-blog/2014/oct/01/cotton-production-linked-to-images-of-the-dried-up-aral-sea-basin). But there’s no smoke without fire - consumers as well as producers all need to take a long hard look in the mirror and accept responsibility for the damaging effects fashion greed is having on our world. Much of this I have discussed in a previous blog post (https://www.wellbeingwithrosie.org/2018/10/sustainable-fashion-making-better.html). Fortunately, there are people and movements making a change: opting for up-cycled fashion, second hand fashion and reusing material rather than producing new.

David Attenborough has taken to the stage to hammer home the message about protecting the natural world - ok, rather than hammer he sort of gently serenades us with a soft, sad soliloquy. The serene but serious tone of Attenborough is being relied on. As the token spokesman he has been called in to relay to the general and generally adoring public (who doesn’t love and respect Attenborough?) that humankind is destroying the earth and it’s ecosystems. Wiping out entire ecosystems without even noticing, he once stated matter-of-factly in an interview with Prince William. The most pertinent message was delivered in Blue Planet II, watched by millions; it was credited with highlighting the issue of plastic pollution and pushing it up the political agenda. 

Conversely, critics of Attenborough claim that those documentaries dodge the more fundamental problems, like industrial fishing and overconsumption. One such critic, George Monbiot - a commentator who is also admired and whose work is acclaimed by many - states, “By downplaying our environmental crisis, the presenter’s BBC films have generated complacency, confusion and ignorance.” He even goes so far as accusing “Attenborough’s environmentalism [of having a] coherent theme, it is shifting the blame” (David Attenborough has betrayed the living world he loves, The Guardian online 7 Nov 2018).

Can you blame a person for trying? According to Monbiot (who was, since 1985, working in the department that has made most of Attenborough’s programmes), you can. By shifting the blame.

Attenborough, scientists abundant and activists are all reaching out to the public and politicians to listen and act. They reach out through TV programs, the internet, social media. But how does the digital world and the new digital age play a part in this Anthropocene? 

Marshall McLuhan famously cited that all media are now ‘bodily extensions’ due to the increasing use of media as central to human life. Media theory has taken a ‘mediality’: it now exists as the place in the middle of or in between all things. When you consider this in a practical sense, about where and when you rely on media, it’s hard to disprove this theory. The innovation, interaction and immersive world that the digital age has to offer its users promises of a future of development, rapid change and virtual reality. There is an illusion of control, power and progress. But what does this all mean, in Attenborough’s reality?

At the cost of rainforests, poisoning water ways and plastic waste, we can now celebrate Healthcare which has improved dramatically.  As a direct result of digital developments, it promises up to 75% of developed nations having digitalized records and more autonomy over heir health care and access to treatment in the near future. However, according to weforum.org, “Reaching the most disadvantaged and truly transforming their circumstances requires a significant shift in mindset.” In terms of business, technology is seen to be advancing not only corporate purpose, but smart-automation (as well as killing jobs, its creating them and changing the skill sets employers are looking for) and “Global wealth”, which “has increased since the beginning of industrialization in the early 19th century” (pwc.nl). 

Consider the use of the internet - the old, beep beep beep routers and modems are gathering dust, relics of a not-to-distant past. You can now access infinite possibilities from the flick of a finger, a tap of a tablet and from the comfort of your phone, which conveniently fits in your pocket. Who’d have imagined that in post-World War 1946? The first computer - catchily named ENIAC and measuring a humble 1800 square feet - is a far cry from the adept, sleek and shiny handsets we have today. For a more comprehensive list of the changes in IT development I recommend you read this: https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/articles/internet-changed-everyday-life/

With most people having access to the internet and immeasurable mounds of information, are we able to deal with this information correctly? Are we ready for having the world at our finger tips? And what does it mean for the world?

Proust explored the idea of reading. We are not predetermined, genetically, to read. We are predisposed to have and acquire language. We are genetically programmed to be able to and to want to communicate, orally or otherwise. But to read we have to be taught. Maryanne Wolf, in her book ‘Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain’ (2008) offers an idea about how and why the brain works or doesn’t work when we try to learn to read. 

In chapter one, she describes her thoughts about the “Google universe” that her children, and increasingly all of humanity’s children, are growing up in: “Will the constructive component at the heart of reading begin to change and potentially atrophy as we shift to computer-presented text, in which massive amounts of information appear instantaneously?” She also wonders whether the old and the new can exist harmoniously side by side, “can we preserve the constructive dimension of reading in our children alongside their growing abilities to perform multiple tasks and to integrate ever expanding amounts of information?”  Interestingly, she poses ideas about why the dyslexic brain may be better suited to a futuristic world of technology - as designers, creative thinkers and visually strong people, they could flourish in a computerized multi-modal world.

So what does the technological future hold for humanity? We can read widely and delve into the ether as much as we want and as far as we like, or dare to go... but the only way we will truly know the answer to this is to live the life we choose and the life that has been chosen for use by our predecessors - the inventors and the surrealists, the artists and scientists, the teachers and students. And if, in the meantime, we can use our technological advancements to reduce the impact of humanity on the climate and environment, I am all for it. Otherwise we’ll need to coin a name for a post-geological world defined by humanity’s destruction of the Earth’s systems.

Draft #1: A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose... but this ain’t no rose!

Academies. Built on promises, promises which ultimately concluded with: promises of a better education system for the UK. Promises of better schools. Promises of “No more failing schools”! No more mediocre!  But what is really happening behind the closed doors of our local ‘Academised’ Community Colleges and Schools? 

Since 2000, and the coalition government, the goal was to replace underperforming and ‘failing’ schools by giving them more autonomy. What this meant was that school leaders were given a wad of cash to distribute how they saw fit... however, unlike previously LA supported schools, they would not receive any further cash support and would have to generate income year on year, much like a business.

Parents were invited to welcome in the new age of academies. In deprived and desperate areas of the UK, the Government gave a golden carrot to Head teachers and gave them the power to be free from the Local Authority (LA) ball and chain.  Some of the official lines were: “Academies, operating in England, are publicly funded independent schools... Academies benefit from greater freedoms to help innovate and raise standards. These include freedom from local authority control, the ability to set their own pay and conditions for staff, freedom around the delivery of the curriculum and the ability to change the lengths of terms and school days” (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/219167/v01-2012ukes.pdf). 

Freedom equals innovation. 

Freedom equals greater success.

The LAs, they implied, are failing the school system, letting down our children by inadequate support and by wasting tax payers money. They stressed that by giving Headteachers of Academies more power, over pay, conditions and curriculum, children would do better in school. Quite how this would work - the mechanics of the scheme, were (and still are) a grey area.

However, freedom also equals responsibility.

Freedom ffrom Government support.

Freedom from local authority support.

And so, LA support teams were at risk of losing their jobs. Subsequently, the LA ‘businesses’ became privatized and some staff saved their jobs. Others moved onto pastures new.

This left Academies having to pay separately, from their wad of cash, for the ‘newly privatized’ support systems. This included important external provisions like educational psychologists, educational welfare officers, caterers and so on. 

Hang on. They privatized LA provisions? Yes. Those local authority provisions that were judged inadequate and a burden to the schools systems were bought up by private firms. Who saw that coming? Not me. 

But Babcock, for example, did: a private firm, also specializing in Nuclear warfare, with a finger in the pie of NHS privatization and the privatization on National Rail... hmmm. According to their own website, babcockinternational.com, “Babcock International is a multinational corporation headquartered in the United Kingdom. It specialises in managing complex assets and infrastructure. Although the company has civil contracts, its main business is with public bodies, particularly the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence and Network Rail.”

It feels to me like they had almost had a ‘heads up’, as they say: the company invested in ‘buying up’ LA services (which were deemed corrupt and failing) and then charge schools for a private service. These services, which would have previously fallen under the LA remit and would not have cost the schools more than an annual subscription, suddenly became expensive extras they can’t always stretch to. 

It’s kind of like paying your taxes and having access to an annual subscription to a medicine you need and then being told that they’ve stopped that deal. That your taxes no longer include that medicine. Then they say they’re going to give you a lump sum of money, to help (which by the way also has to be used for other people’s medicine). But that each month’s subscription is going to cost you three times as much... it doesn’t take a maths specialist to work out that the lump sum is quickly going to run out and that you’re going to have to make difficult decisions about whether to buy the medicine (which you need) and/or who to buy it for. So it’s kind of like that but also not at all like that. Because I could also just be describing what is happening in the NHS, couldn’t I?

Anyway, after underperforming Academies were not improving in this scheme, in 2010 the Government encouraged schools that had been rated Outstanding to become academies themselves. Then they could ‘buddy up’ with local underperforming academies to form Mutli-Academy Trusts (MATs). Suddenly the status of Academies rose - there were, for once, Outstanding Academies... not achieved quite the way we were sold it, but achieved by signing up more schools that already held an Outstanding OFSTED rosette.

Under the MAT initiative, a group of schools - or rather their governors - appoints a CEO (usually a previous Headteacher) who oversees all the schools, as well as all of the Head teachers and subsequent staff and students. What they actually do is beside the point. And what they actually earn, according to Sir David Carter (ex-south was regional CEO) is “good value for money”.

Suddenly that wad of cash provided to the Academy, by the Government, has been used up paying for another level of management, putting schools into a deeper deficit - which is further exacerbated by cuts to Government spending in schools (in real terms). I won’t go into this right now - I am sure you’ve seen the headlines?

What about those promises? To “innovate and raise standards”? 

The truth is, despite the introduction of CEOs, MAT coordination between schools (which actually already happened and was managed by the LAs) and pie in the sky aim to reduce poorly performing schools, the education system is struggling. Really struggling. You may have seen the BBC program ‘School’? If you didn’t, I’d recommend you watch some of it for a flavor of the system as it stands today.

These highly paid CEOs are not radicalizing education or driving up results and performance. Head teachers are forced to make cuts, but where? From experience and anecdotes, it is the lower end, the ‘under achievers’ and the special education sector, and post-16 that are hardest hit. A national attempt to keep schools at the top of the league tables mean Headteachers are unwilling to let their results slip and so high performers, higher previous attainers and in particular, closing the gap between girls and boys, are the main foci.

This is not the reality of the Academy dream, I am certain. Or at least I am hopeful. When the coalition government chose this course for our community colleges and schools I am sure they didn’t imagine that Academies would fail. The really shocking thing, for me at least and I am sure for others, is that they are lying about the value and progress of Academies. Through the freedom of information act you can access the results of academies. Or you can look up schools and academies results here through the gov.uk website and do the sums yourself: https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/schools-by-type?step=phase&geographic=all&region=0&phase=secondary&orderby=MINORGROUP&orderdir=asc&datatype=freetext&sortpolicy= . You can also read some concerns about it in a bbc article from 2016 here: https://www.bbc.com/news/education-36014563.

The findings from a recent report by the Education Policy Institute are very interesting and are based on evidence (also it was led by independent investigators and experienced educators - see page 2 for their impressive roles and responsibilities), and it can be found here: https://epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/EPI_-Impact_of_Academies_Consolidated_Report-.pdf.

“Our evidence points to an initial (and significant) improvement in GCSE scores in the year prior to and after becoming a sponsored academy. However, we cannot attribute this trend to anything that may have been implemented by the academy sponsor – as it, in part, occurred before academisation. It may however be a result of the incentives generated by the academisation policy, which the government may well argue is a success in itself. Alternatively, it could be that these schools were improving in any case (perhaps as a result of competitive pressures or other interventions targeting schools likely to be subject to ‘forced’ sponsored academy conversion), and so the fact that they became academies is not relevant. Further analysis is required to try and establish whether there is a direct, causal impact of a school becoming a sponsored academy on attainment.“

Why is this happening? A new White Paper proposal, laid out in 29th April 2016 version, read: “The White Paper proposes that local authorities would no longer maintain schools, and an all academy system would be created. The proposed system would include:

• Most schools becoming part of multi-academy trusts (MATs);
• A reformed role for local authorities, focusing on duties such as ensuring sufficiency of school places, supporting vulnerable pupils, and acting as a champion for parents;
• A new legal framework for an all academy system.”

When under discussion in the House of Commons, Government officials raised their concerns, concerns that seem to have been silenced over the years: “The proposals have proved highly controversial.  In particular, questions have been raised about the desirability of such large-scale reforms in the context of other challenges, the impact on local democracy and teachers’ pay and condition of an all academy system, and whether sufficient MAT capacity can be created to provide a high quality academised system.  The question of whether academy status is in itself a boost to school standards has also been a key focus of the debate.”

One more thing to consider before I go. If Academies are the education system for the future - to bring UK education in line with the most successful in the world: essentially the use of MATs has been awarded the golden globe of education (despite no evidence of a positive impact) - then why have the government needed to set up the The Regional School Commissioners?

What’s that? I hear you ask. I had to ask it too. I’ll let https://schoolsweek.co.uk/regional-school-commissioner-pay-revealed/ explain: “the commissioners are part of the government’s middle tier of accountability for academies, brought in last September and tasked with tackling underperformance and boosting the number of academy sponsors... In December, in a written answer to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, the DfE’s permanent secretary Chris Wormald gave the estimated running costs for the RSCs and their offices for the first year as £4.5 million.”

A middle man is a middle man is a middle man is a middle man.

Goodbye education funding.

Goodbye promises.

Finish this sentence: “The future is...”

The future is not orange (a clever commercial campaign that has longevity, humor, something of the ridiculous about it). The future to me seems grey, smothered in a thick, shocking and blinding fog.

The future is... 

What would you say the future is? For you, for the elderly, children, those who require special assistance? It’s important we stop to think.

For some young people currently going through the education system, they don't see a bright future. An inspiring young man, Michael, spoke at an NEU rally on November 20th. He joined thousands of teachers, parents and MPs marching to the Department of Education (DfE) to raise awareness and promote growing feelings of outrage, shock and disappointment towards real-term funding cuts to special needs, post-16 and early years education facilities in the UK. 

At 11 years old, he stated confidently and clearly that he felt he had “missed his chance” at an education. He spoke eloquently about his experience of being abandoned by his school which was unable to provide for his needs. Michael, like 700,000 people in the UK (that’s roughly 1 in 100), has autism (autism.org.uk). His closing line was what hit home the most: “we are the ones who will be looking after you when you’re old, so look after us now.” How can anyone deny the truth in that?

So what is making Michael feel this way and what can we do to alleviate this sad, sorry state of affairs?

The NEU, the largest teaching union body with over 500,000 members, called for a rally to the DfE as part of a wider initiative and series of events to raise public awareness of the real terms effects of budget cuts and belt tightening required by schools leaders. In addition, they are balloting members and calling for #handsup support through social media to force the Government to amend their failing promises, which amounts to 12% of public spending UK (that’s about £34bn). There are serious concerns about the impact of the 2018 budget announcements by The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond on schools, early learning centers and sixth forms across the country, particularly in low economic areas and in low income families, who are already feeling damaging and demoralizing effects of the new Universal Credit system.

A short scan of the new UK TV series ‘School’ is enough to provide a behind-the-scenes honest account of the real lives and everyday challenges of students, teachers, parents and the expectations of leadership in school - whose success varies greatly across the UK. This seems like a great and accessible way to reach the greater public. Unfortunately, it might not reach the eyes and ears of those in power unless the public take action and speak out, write to their MPs and support their local schools.

So on behalf of all children, all parents, all teachers and leaders who are trying to look after every child in their care, I appeal to the Government to look carefully at their budgets and spending, to look carefully at what they invest their money in: are Academies really making the difference they promised? And how much did it cost the UK taxpayer to bail out Carillion, the firm hired by the Government to complete school building developments?).
Dear Government - think carefully about who the money is for? Because it certainly sounds like, at the moment, it’s not for Michael.

A Letter of Application...

When ever you are applying for jobs, after filling out the personalized, bespoke to each company/school/Organisation (pain in the ass) form - which basically asks for your CV different format that can’t be copied and/or pasted into, you quite often have to also write a motivational letter. I was once asked to write it as an educational philosophy...

I really loved this. I got into it and worked on it for hours... it was the first time someone has asked me - why do you do it? Why are you a teacher, really? What’s in it for you? And it was the first time I had to use my values and beliefs to justify getting a job. Not just over a pint with a friend or in the staff room with like-minded people.

Here was my first attempt:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I have been teaching for 11 years, completing my PGCE Secondary teaching qualification twelve years ago in 2006-7. However, I still feel that there is still an incredible amount to learn and to discover about teaching, learning and about myself, as a teacher. That is one of the joys of this career. Every day is a new challenge, an exciting journey, for everyone.

As a lover of learning I instill in my students a joy for discovery, an understanding that it is ok to make a mistake and to use these errors as a way of finding humor, finding something else and maybe more than you planned, to be adaptable and to be a conscious, awake person in this ever  changing, fast paced and exciting society that we are a part of.  Working collaboratively is very important to learning - whether it is group work, discussion, debate, problem solving or research, children need to learn the social skills and communication skills required to exist in the ‘real world’.  Equally, I understand and promote the benefits of working alone - finding space and quiet with yourself is a very important skill that we all, but particularly young people, need to be trained to do. 

As such, I see school as an opportunity to not only acquire knowledge and understanding, and a place where learning is facilitated by passionate, educated, inspiring staff and peers, but - as well as this - school is a community: it is a place where every student should be able to find a sense of place, a sense of who they are, who they want to be and have the guidance and support to work out how they can achieve this.  As well as an acceptance that this can change and evolve as they grow as an individual. Because they are all individual and unique.

I have a record of success with my classes - this year I achieved a 100% grade 5-9 pass rate; of a class of 32 they achieved 11 grade 9s (to put this into perspective, there were only 14 grade 9s in the whole of the Year 11 cohort (250students), in the English department). In previous years I have also helped my students achieve 96% and 100% grades A*-C.  Last year, one of my A level English Language and Literature student achieved A** which I am very proud of: he worked hard and was over the moon with his achievements. This I hope shows my consistency and my commitment - two elements of my professional attitude that help me to achieve ongoing successes. That and an ability to reflect, share and grow.

In addition to my commitments to the students I teach, I have spent the last two years as Deputy Team Leader for KS5: my role has been to coordinate the A level English Language an Literature and the English Literature courses across the whole school. This year we achieved outstanding results as a team. As well as this, I organized extra-curricular opportunities for all of the A level students, such as: The Big Debate (with a panel of six guests - six members of the public from different careers - debating hot topics and challenging issues put forward students from my school and other schools, who were invited to attend), theatre trips, University seminars, visiting authors, careers meetings and 1:1 mentoring. These extra opportunities are something I feel very passionate about.

Yours Sincerely,

The Gender Gap - is it real or is it fantasy?

Why is it that males, compared to females, underperform at school and yet outperform women post-school?

The conundrum of The Education System vs. The Corporate World...

As a committed teacher, working in the UK state school system for several (11) years, the annual start-of-term, post-summer holiday, meeting would always include a section on the Summer Exam Results; as well as the headlines, and department achievements (putting backs up and creating a culture of competition between staff before term starts - thanks!), the most significant discussion would be about the gender gap in education. Not just in our school but nationally.  

There are many reports available to show this is a ‘problem’ for children who attend school (not including the “263 million children, adolescents and youth [who] were out of school, representing nearly one-fifth of the global population of this age group” uis.unesco.org reports, 2016). The gendertrrust.org.uk reports that, in the UK, “data analysis suggests that boys are struggling to keep up with girls at key curriculum milestones. By Key Stage 2 (7 to 11 year olds) girls are already moving ahead of boys in their test scores. In the 2015 test scores, around 83% of girls achieved a level 4 or higher score, whereas only 77% of boys in the same age group were able to attain level 4 or higher. These trends continued up to GCSE level, with around 10% more girls earning 5 or more A* – C grades than boys who were achieving the same standard.” From experience, year-on-year, the gap keeps widening, despite strategies, endless meetings and the ritual bollocking of teachers who don’t know what else to do...

Head teachers would herd their sun bleached, bleary eyed staff: teachers, support staff, office staff and caretakers, together in the dreary main hall, sitting them like a naughty class on hard plastic chairs facing the front, and ask them: “looking at the results for this year groups, it would seem that females have outperformed makes by ...%. That’s an increase on last year. What do we need to do to ‘close the gap’ on gender?” They never offered an answer and I never felt that I had the right one (unless, of course, they accepted the utopian vision shared by the hopeful among us that if we tore up the Tory funded National Curriculum (looking everywhere, I could not uncover the cost of this... but I did find out that the new SATs cost £44millions for schools in their first year!) and created an exciting and engaging learning environment focused on and designed for our learners and their needs, preparing them for the ‘real world’ and including a range of practical and literature cross-curricular based study, with a focus on health and wellbeing, employment experience and effective careers advice... you know, like the successful Finnish do it. Other than that, I never found out the answer to this question).  

Around the world, Head teachers are singing to the same tune as they share a duty: to provide a successful learning experience for all. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS - the official and trusted source of internationally-comparable data on education, science, culture and communication) has a duty too. As part of the International Observatory on Equity and Inclusion in Education, their mission is for the achievement of: “Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with Target 4.5 specifically aiming to “eliminate gender disparities and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations” (uis.unesco.org). So with all this hot air and policy making, why are males continuing to be thwarted by our educational establishments whilst reveling in the real world?

I don’t know, is my answer.

Perhaps the questions leaders should be asking are not only why is there this ‘gender attainment gap’ in school but how is it that these very same ‘underachieving’ males go on to have the most lucrative, successful careers compared to their female counterparts - which leads us onto the next highly contested phenomenon: the ‘gender pay gap’?

One of the issues might be the deeply embedded popularity, in many cultures, to focus on RESULTS as a measure of schooling success.  Results are religiously and rigorously compared against peer groups and year groups this creating a system which ignores the individual differences between students and removes their autonomy.  In other words, maybe male students are not performing after all! Schools might be using the wrong measurements for success...?

Secondly, the school environment. How well are modern schools adapted to the learners - learners who now own a computerized phone from the age of 4 or 5, can coherently communicate electronically from a similar age and has a network of friends and followers by the time they are starting secondary school? Have you seen the popularity of the YouTube channels these youngsters are setting up?  Yet when they enter a school they are forced to sit, faceless, complacently, in plastic chairs listening, writing, reading from white boards and papers, demanded to remember up to eleven different subjects (whose content are dictated by the ‘new’ 2016 National Curriculum, which is in fact backwardly set in a ‘slimmed down’ archaic model selected by ex-education minister Michael Gove and written by civil servants, with no teaching experience)  - not because it’s that young person’s passion or strength - but because the Government has decided it is so. And what for? Each student has to pass up to twenty exams in the summer. Is it any wonder that there are reports of a rise in poor mental health, stress, anxiety and battles with identity? And I’m sorry school leaders, adding ‘mental health and wellbeing’ to ten minutes of tutor time once a day isn’t even scratching the surface or contesting this complication. 

This autocratic style schooling system doesn’t seem to suit our male learners, yet they still go onto to be managers, bosses and leaders in many companies and corporations. Despite this, school seems to nurture many females into achieving outstanding results year on year, yet in later life they fall off the band wagon. Is it fortuitous? Or do schools need to adopt a business model system to strive for and possibly achieve more equal gender attainment, or to ‘close the gap’?

School: a controlled environment, offering lack of choices, of free movement, of opportunities to explore and express independence or identity. All concluding in a few momentous months of examinations, back to back, followed by a long wait and then a brief arrival of the envelope with your results: success or failure, future or no future, joy or shame...

Work place: a controlled environment, offering an abundance of more autonomous choices that demand self motivation and self reflection: what do I want to do, what tasks do I want to take and how will I undertake them, what are my strengths and where do I need more support or training; offering chances to specialize, to have successes and receive rewards, bonuses and social recognition (and not only once at the end of your career!). And of course, there are more serious consequences if the work isn’t done: you could lose your job, lose your wages, lose face amongst your peers and more.

So females lead in schools and males overtake them post-school.  

But the UN and UNSECO, as well as other organizations, want themto be going head to head in school exams for the top grades  and in the board room for the top jobs. What is the future of this gender inequality battle?

The introduction of a ‘gender equality quota’ has been issued in many countries to level out the playing field. Governments are promoting the use of quotas to curb ‘inequality’ in employment and provide a preference for the minority group in question, or reduce common cases of “preferential treatment” - for instance, when candidates are equally qualified, a man is almost always appointed for the job. Is this the best way of striving for equality in the (corporate) world? And, how powerful is an equality employment quota: is it not discriminating in itself?  In a statement by Linda Senden, Professor of European Law, an expert in the field of European equality of the sexes and a member of the Utrecht University hub of a Gender and a Diversity, she aims to settle these concerns: “A quota arrangement is not discriminating in and of itself, but merely aims to prescribe a certain result.” The results are often without sanction but some are, such as a fine. 

In California they seem to be making history with the introduction of SB 826: this is a new bill that “requires California-based public companies to have at least one woman on their boards of directors by the end of calendar year 2019.” According to www.lexology.com, “Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill into law on Sept. 30 that requires publicly held companies headquartered in California to include women directors on their board of directors.” Sounds like a pioneering move by the US state. Sadly, however, this newly born bill has already faced fault finding as there seem to be a number of loop holes that could affect how the bill is applied.

 In the Netherlands, gender inequality is acknowledged yet the Government moved the goalposts: the 2016 30% target was changed to 2020 because it wasn’t being met. “There is a women's quota in the form of a target figure: on 1 January 2020, 30 % of the seats in big companies must be occupied by women. A good ambition, but as long as this isn't tied to strict sanctions, it's mostly a symbolic arrangement,” commented Sinden. Doesn’t moving the date make a mockery, somewhat, of the whole proceedings?

The Australian Workplace Gender Equality Agency report that: “Australia, along with many countries worldwide, has made significant progress towards gender equality in recent decades, particularly in education, health and female workforce participation. However, the gender gap in theAustralian workforce is still prevalent; women continue to earn less than men, are less likely to advance their careers as far as men, and accumulate less retirement or superannuation savings. At the same time, men have less access to family-friendly policies such as parental leave or flexible working arrangements than women.” With the rise in stay-at-home dads and bread winning women isn’t it time country policies caught up?

The UN has been a driving force for change; they recognize the benefits of a world of equality, evenness and equanimity. Gender equality is defined as, “not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.”  It is evident that change is happening: for instance, compared to 18% in 2007, in 2017 in “46 countries, women now hold more than 30 per cent of seats in national parliament in at least one chamber.” Positive progress.

Thankfully, talking about ‘gender equality’ has moved the debate quite far in a few years: its no longer the stale conversation about men vs. women, or Mars vs. Venus. From now on, there is a need to engage in exchanges that mean ‘gender’ encompasses all people and all identities - cross-gender, trans-gender, non-binary individuals, the whole of society! Perhaps we need to stop talking about ‘gender’ altogether and start to focus on ‘individuals’ as learner, member of society, employee. Subsequently, don’t we need school, societal and employment systems and laws which give equal weighting to ANYONE, irrelevant of their gender, sexuality, race, class status? So we can stop talking about the ‘gender gap’ and start finding ways of helping everyone to be their best, whoever they are.