Dreadful assumptions
June Stevenson’s article was a useful reminder that schools and parents are not as divided as sensationalised headlines about ‘dreadful parents’ make out. (‘Dreadful parents’: What do teachers really think?, 30 September)
Such headlines do highlight a problem though: our false association of ‘bad parents’ with ‘bad people’.
Modern economic realities mean that few people have the knowledge and time required to do the vital job of raising children.
And like anyone doing their job under too much pressure, parents are less likely to acknowledge they need support and more likely to become defensive at the idea that they do.
But the truth is that no one has parenting skills magically bestowed upon them. As a society, we assume they will be passed on from generation to generation, and we are constantly surprised when they aren’t.
In the meantime, the problem grows and schools are increasingly picking up the pieces. Success is patchy, because children’s personalities have largely been formed by the time they start.
The government is right to focus on the early years, but its success will also be patchy if it’s not willing to have a difficult conversation with and about parents.
Providing support for them won’t be enough. We also have to ensure they are open to receiving it.
Karl Janos,
Headteacher, West Midlands
RISE in standards
Recent reporting in Schools Week has raised concerns about the transparency and integrity of advisory work within the government’s RISE programme. (RISE advisers call on their own to support schools, 3 October)
It’s not for me to pass judgment; the most important feedback will come from schools and leaders who experience the support firsthand. Their voices will ultimately reveal whether RISE advice is credible, fair and genuinely focused on improvement.
What I can say for certain is that trust is not an optional extra in school improvement. It is the invisible infrastructure that allows them to open themselves to scrutiny, challenge and learning.
Advisory work thrives only when grounded in integrity and ethical conduct. Ethical advisers act as exemplars, shaping a culture of professionalism that strengthens schools and the wider system.
Key principles include: consistency and credibility through evidence-informed guidance; professional confidence via confidentiality, impartiality and transparency; reflective practice for sustainable impact; collaboration and shared learning; and building capacity for self-improvement.
Frameworks such as the International Quality Standard for Education Advisers (IQSEA) provide guidance to ensure ethical consistency and professional credibility for advisory work.
Perhaps ministers should recommend them to their improvement teams.
Les Walton,
Chair, Association of Education Advisers
More than words
Professors Coe and Kime are right: the new Ofsted toolkit offers a welcome shift in language around CPD. But language alone won’t deliver the change our profession deserves. (Goodbye CPD: Ofsted is ushering in a new era of growth, 1 October)
Talk of “professional growth and expertise” does signal a move away from a tick-box CPD culture we’ve long outgrown. But fear, compliance and inspection pressure are not the conditions in which growth flourishes.
Across our trust-wide CPD Leaders Forum, we’ve explored what it takes to build genuine professional learning rooted in context-specific, strategic implementation.
What we’ve learned is that professional learning thrives when schools learn with and from one another. Growth comes from sustained, locally-owned improvement, not uniform programmes or quick fixes.
The new framework could become a catalyst for such cultures, but only if it shifts accountability towards capacity-building: leaders showing how they create time and trust for staff to think together, inquire and improve – not simply how they evidence that “CPD is in place”.
Growth can’t be ‘inspected in’. It has to be cultivated, actively, collectively, day by day, through trust, curiosity and generosity. That’s the real era of growth our system needs.
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