Education: Something to Celebrate at Last?

My educational spirits have been lifted after reading two brilliant blogs.

Firstly from @oldandrewuk, a transcript of Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw talking about what makes good teaching and what Ofsted are looking for:
  

https://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/2012/10/13/what-ofsted-say-they-want/#comment-5276

You can listen to the speech here: 

http://www.thersa.org/__data/assets/file/0009/582606/20120430SirMichaelWilshaw.mp3

There is so much to celebrate with what Sir Michael says and I really hope that this message spreads to leadership teams all around the country, not least my last Headteacher who, coming from 'National Strategies' couldn't see the wood through the bullshit and demanded a prescribed three-part lesson with fixed timings for starters as well as demanding every teacher have a written-up 3 page learning (old school-lesson) plan for EVERY lesson. Oh, and a seating plan and assessment data.

Apparently she still does but I didn't hang around to find out. This doctrine, along with many other issues (what's wrong with a SLT jumping on a trampoline?) meant I needed to resign or alternatively allow my soul to die. While I cited my ambition to "do something else within education" in my resignation letter, what I really meant was: 

"I cannot work another day in a school with such excessive demands on my time to do such trivial tasks such as writing up every lesson before I deliver it. Also, I refuse to fail teachers if they do not manage to give me a lesson plan when I observe them on the daily rota. I cannot work for someone who in my opinion has little idea about what good teaching is and cannot see that the key to teaching is positive relationships between students and teachers. So there."

Actually I probably wouldn't have included so there.

Superhero?

So, after all, it appears that Sir Michael Wilshaw is not a super villain - he is a super hero! 

I've been saying for a while after reading the transcript to his appearance before the commons education committee where he addressed the rumours that he'd once said:  "Staff morale is low? Good! We must be doing something right" 

Here is part of that transcript in February 2012.

Full version here: 

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmeduc/uc1819-i/uc181901.htm


"Q20 Lisa Nandy: One of the things that you said that prompted a great deal of comment, including in a recent session that we held with the Secretary of State, where we asked the public to tweet questions to us to ask Michael Gove, was that if anyone says to you that staff morale is at an all-time low, you will know you are doing something right. We had a great deal of commentary from the public, as I have said, about that. Do you regret those comments?

Sir Michael Wilshaw: A lot of the things I have said have been misconstrued. I have learnt in the short time that I have been here that the press will pick up on particular issues and run with them. I was speaking about school improvement in the most challenging and the most difficult circumstances, and I have been in a number of failing schools, special measures schools, to improve them. I read out a letter at one of these sessions on school improvement written to me by a member of staff I had tackled for underperformance-all the usual issues: he was not teaching well, he was not marking books, etc. This was way back in the eighties. He wrote a fourpage letter that said what an awful person I was and that staff morale was that an alltime low, which is a tactic people use. Actually, it was not low. There were a few people that I was challenging about their performance who were moaning about me, and he used this as a way of trying to intimidate me. I read it out specifically because I was speaking to people in the same position, who have to go in and tackle very difficult circumstances, and it was taken completely out of context. High morale is very important. I would be silly not to say that.

Q21 Lisa Nandy: Have there been any lessons for you from that experience?

Sir Michael Wilshaw: Lessons on how to deal with the press, yes.

Q22 Lisa Nandy: One of the really striking things when we had a public response was that obviously it is incredibly important to take the teaching profession with you if the mission is to raise standards, and what concerns me about those comments is that it can cause you to lose sections of the teaching profession. Do you recognise that?

Sir Michael Wilshaw: I tried to put it right and make sure that the true meaning of those words was understood. I have been a teacher for 43 years, as I said, in very difficult schools in the inner city. I would not have been a successful teacher, deputy head or head unless I worked with people from a range of backgrounds. Teaching is a noble profession, and everyone who has worked with me knows how I feel about the teaching profession, but it is also important to say that we need to tackle underperformance when it occurs."


Now I would like to guide you to another brilliant blog, this time from @tombennett71 :

http://behaviourguru.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/michael-wilshaw-needs-you-how-we-can.html

At last we may have seen some sanity return to the profession.