Education, education, education
We now know our new ministerial team, the seventh in six years, and responding to that has dominated the online staffroom conversations this week. But even before the announcement, rumours and leaks about Liz Truss’s likely appointments were causing teachers to show their more cynical side. A nice warm-up before the start of term.
On Saturday, The Times’ Tim Shipman published a list of the names of who he’d learned would most likely form the new PM’s cabinet. Only, something was missing. Can you spot it?
Quickest off the mark was tweeter, Alex Weatherall, who perhaps best summed up the profession’s response.
For all the pressing priorities our contributors this week have put forward for the new DfE leadership, Weatherall’s quick take should perhaps be of most concern. With a maximum of two years until the next election, even with a stable pair of hands school leaders will be looking back on nearly a decade of uncertainty, shifting priorities and a dysfunctional legislative agenda.
Perhaps there’s something to be learned from this sardonic reply, echoed by so many. Rather than to counter these problems with a strong agenda, definite priorities and a parliamentary blitz, now may be the best time to start a genuine listening exercise and to commit resources to supporting schools beleaguered by Covid and inflation.
Bills, bills, bills
But if anything is concerning school leaders and their teams this week, it is surely the start of an autumn term in the shadow of a growing cost-of-living crisis. A regular contributor to these pages, Passmores co-headteacher, Vic Goddard has been drawing attention to the looming bills crisis facing schools all summer.
Revealing increased energy costs of £320,000 for the year for his school alone, Goddard has been trying to draw national attention to the problem all summer. This week, he’s had to write to parents, and doesn’t hesitate to share his assessment of what it all means.
Whether the uncapped energy market schools operate in can be brought under control by Truss’s team remains to be seen. But schools’ bills are only part of the concern as principal, Mr Teece explained.
Schools performed heroically for their students and communities during the pandemic, as was widely demonstrated in these pages. As they reopen after the summer break to more absence calls because of the ongoing impact of the pandemic, it’s clear they will be asked to do so again – with fewer resources, rationed power, and perhaps less energy for the fight.
Falling on deaf ears
Amid the political upheaval, it’s unclear Amanda Spielman’s bid to make literacy the focus of staffroom conversations at the start of term is getting any traction. Quoted last weekend in the Daily Mail, the Ofsted chief inspector inferred from this year’s SATs results that 175,000 11-year-olds – or about a quarter of this September’s year 7 intake – have left primary without the requisite literacy levels to access the secondary curriculum.
Twenty-four hours after tweeting out the article, Ofsted’s chief of strategy and engagement had received no likes, replies or retweets for it. Perhaps the strategy of publishing such claims with few solutions, in a paper teachers widely disapprove of – and whose editorial line is broadly dismissive of them – is a strategy that needs a rethink.
Ms Spielman blames the pandemic’s impact for the recent slump. She does note signs of a post-Covid recovery, but suggests the lack of phonics training for secondary teachers may present a new barrier for this year group.
And that could be an important contribution – if only we had the political focus and the profession’s engagement to do something about it.
But following hot off the heels of the inspectorate’s announcement that Covid would no longer serve as an adequate reason to defer inspection, there is likely to be little goodwill for the organisation, even if there were the time and resources to act on its suggestions.
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