This is the 7th in our series of posts about the review of the national curriculum – the Francis Review. Previous posts can be found here. As ever with NAEE blogs, the views expressed are not necessarily those of the Association.
I trained to be a Middle School teacher (for 9-13 year olds) in the late 1970s. My cohort was the last to be able to get a teaching certificate without the need for a degree, although I was one who opted to take the B.Ed. course. I attended Ilkley College in West Yorkshire which at the time was renowned for producing ‘Domestic Science’ teachers (all female) and I was one of a small minority of students who had gone there to learn about Environmental Education. I also took modules in subsidiary subjects of English and Social Studies. The Social Studies department was mainly geared to train social workers, but their course overlapped nicely with aspects of teacher training and I immediately picked up links with Environmental Education which gave me an early insight into the notion that sustainability isn’t just a ‘Green Issue’ (this is worthy of another blog).
But why the need for a potted biography as an introduction to a discussion on the Francis review of England’s current curriculum and assessment arrangements? Just bear with me and hopefully all will be revealed.
In my ‘Good Old Days’ as a trainee teacher on a three year B.Ed course, Ilkley College didn’t let us anywhere near a school or children in the first year. Firstly, the lecturers made sure that we had the requisite skills in English, Maths and Science. Secondly, throughout the various modules we chose, they were also keen to expose us to different types of Arts. Thirdly, and most importantly of all, they wanted us to investigate what a meaningful education looked like in the first place. This meant examining philosophical perspectives on the ‘Aims of Education’, discussing their various merits and short-falls and how these might influence our eventual teaching practices. They also taught us how to construct our own subject syllabuses (including cross-curricula links), rather than just how to deliver pre-ordained lesson plans (this was of course pre-National Curriculum Land). The way we were taught by the lecturers modelled how we would be expected to teach our eventual pupils i.e. to embrace Awe and Wonder, make learning meaningful and fun through real-life experiences, develop a strong sense of self and what this means in the context of being a valuable citizen and to actively teach the skills needed to encourage critical and joined up thinking. This included learning study skills so that information could be obtained from a wide variety of sources and then scrutinised and synthesised, sometimes with a view to creating new knowledge and insights. Of course. this was well before internet searches with all the associated fake news and social media hazards, but the processes I was taught and encouraged to pass on have stood me in good stead ever since (and hopefully the students I’ve subsequently taught). All this was in tandem with learning other practical skills needed for field trips and even down to how to write legibly on a chalk-board. We were also taught in practical ways how skills needed to have a progression and that each subject or area of knowledge needed to be dealt with differently in this respect. For example, maths has a very clear progressive path, whilst painting landscapes less so. Creativity was also to be encouraged, through teachers being a ‘Guide from the side’, rather than a ‘Sage on the stage.’ Incidentally, our environmental education lecturers were ahead of their time in term of highlighting accelerating climate change and biodiversity loss, how we tamper with ecosystems at our peril and that power relationships in society and the progress narrative need to be treated with scepticism. Looking back, they were left wing greenies with ‘Nuclear Power No Thanks’ stickers on their cars. However, if nothing else they made us think out of many boxes. This certainly consolidated in my mind the need to embed environmental education into education as an existential imperative.
You can see from all this that my ‘training’ was multi-faceted and in effect future proofed me for change as my decades in the profession unfolded. It allowed me to develop maverick tendencies which helped me to instigate innovation at the classroom and whole school levels based on a well-defined system of values. The only significant shortfall of my initial training was in behaviour
management where I think we had one lecture (I’ve met young teachers who had a similar experience). I suppose the assumption was that if you had a class of motivated learners whose individual and collective needs were catered for, there would be few discipline problems. Experience taught me that although this is ok in principle, it can be at odds with reality according to what baggage children bring with them into the school from home.
With all the above in mind, it bothers me that many trainee teachers are plunged into classrooms very early and aren’t given sufficient time and space to develop personally or to explore what the aims of education might be and their part in delivering them as free-thinking professionals. They remain unskilled in creating resources and lessons due to spoon feeding. People generally enter teaching to make a positive difference to the lives of those in their care. However, much of this can be beaten out of them by the prevailing system, causing them to be diverted from their original intentions or in the worst-case scenario to flee disillusioned from the profession.
It also bothers me that schools have become more transactional. By this I mean that school leaders seem to think that children need constant rewards for behaving well and working hard and this is becoming ever more prevalent in the wake of complex online packages which can add or deduct merit points and track children’s performance from lesson to lesson, with the data being shared with parents. Transactionalism is also present in the Performance Management (PM)system for teachers. Towards the end of my final headship I noticed that newer teachers were more measured about what they would and would not do above and beyond contractual and PM parameters. This is understandable given the way teachers are generally treated by the system, in particular with general workload, restrictions on their professional judgement and the looming presence of external accountability administered by Ofsted and School Improvement Partners.
All this detracts from the educative process being a ‘Good Thing’ in itself and that virtue bringing its own reward i,e. being educated (as distinct from being trained) is a reward in itself. See Alfie Kohn’s excellent book ‘Punished By Rewards’ for more discussion on this. It also divorces large parts of education from the Inconvenient Truth that our ‘modern’ society is simply not sustainable and that planetary limits have been reached, triggering social unrest and forced migration at alarming levels. Our present education system is still largely a version of the Victorian model designed to serve the utilitarian needs of industry and commerce, albeit an increasingly digital and AI orientated version of these.
So, this brings me (at last I hear you say) to the Francis Review. The language it uses in the description of its remit is quite revealing. There is an emphasis on ‘attainment’, ‘standards’, ‘barriers to opportunity’, ‘knowledge rich teaching’ ‘importance of examinations’ and a desire for ‘evolution not revolution’. What’s not to like then, particularly as it also advocates ‘greater access to cultural learning’ and the need to ‘build a cutting-edge curriculum’?
The general tone of the remit seems to focus on the employability of young people when they leave the education system i.e. it criticises ‘a curriculum and assessment system that fails to prepare enough of our children for work and for life.’ This reflects some of the paranoia of past reviews dating back to the Victorian era which were afraid that Britain’s dominance of the industrial world was being overtaken by the likes of Germany because of its superior technical education. Although it states that it wishes the new system to respond to a ‘changing world’ and two paragraphs further on ‘a changing workplace’, nowhere is there mention of the existential threats we face due to the lack of social, economic and environmental sustainability embedded in our current culture and society. Does this mean that the new curriculum will aim to ‘green up’ the present linear economy rather than looking to build a circular one which allows people to thrive and not just survive through earning as much as possible and then buying their happiness with stuff and carbon hungry experiences?
The review will be open to views from ‘experts, parents, teachers and leaders [who] will be pivotal to the recommendations.’ Let’s hope that the ‘experts’ at least will be drawn from a wide range of people with interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary knowledge and perspectives. Without this I fear that we will end up with more of the same repackaged as ‘rich and fulfilling’. Also, without a radical rethink of teacher and leadership training and a radical revamp or abolition of Ofsted, schools will still be on a treadmill of doom.
If there was a new version of the type of training I had perhaps we wouldn’t even need Ofsted because we could trust the professionals to be, well, professional. In Finland there are no school inspections, league tables and constant testing of children. Teachers and headteachers are trusted to manage their own standards and to work closely with peers to help this process. Just think how much money would be saved if Ofsted was no more (about £160 million) and there was a drastic reduction in national testing (about £50 million on SATs alone). This would be contingent on spending more on teacher training so that teachers could be truly on a professional par with doctors (incidentally teachers in some US states are classed as ‘semi-professionals’ and I get the feeling that some in authority here think the same). Within this training I would advocate a strong strand of environmental and sustainability education which would also need to be embedded in the revamped National Curriculum. Without this we will continue to have our heads in the sand and Business As Usual will continue albeit in a Green Tech form. I would argue that getting the tech right is crucial, but is less than half the battle for our survival. We need the culture to be one that allows us to live harmoniously with the eco-systems of the planet within a framework of social justice, rather than seeing it and many of its people as assets to be exploited. Education can encourage this gentler way of living, rather than being seen as merely an engine for economic growth. If nothing else it can produce free-thinking individuals who are equipped to ask the pertinent questions about what it takes to create a sustainable future.
I really hope that such questions are also raised in the Francis Review and that they form the basis for a National Curriculum and accompanying teacher delivery that is truly fit for purpose. This brings us back to the philosophical question of what that purpose needs to be and perhaps why the Review is really the cart before the horse.
………………………………………………..
David Dixon was a primary school teacher for 16 years, and then a primary headteacher for 20 years at two schools in Nottinghamshire and London. He published Leadership for Sustainability: Saving the Planet One School at a Time in 2022. He currently works with groups of schools in Lancashire and the North East Combined Authority to embed sustainability in schools linked to school improvement using a toolkit based on one featured in his book. He can be contacted at daviddixon649@gmail.com