Department for Education: Teachers’ Standards

In this latest post Phil Waters is going to introduce a series of articles on changes being made by the Department for Education to Teachers’ Standards and the knock on effect they will have for our working lives and salaries.  My earlier post on Thursday 17^th May highlighted Michael Goves’ intentions to radically alter Teachers’ Pay and Conditions; particularly the national pay deal.  Michael Gove wants to introduce regional pay deals and if possible, it appears, he would like to go further by having schools determine their own conditions of pay. 

How does this link to Teacher’s Standards?  In short; I think the intention is to link pay to standards.  Instead of teachers moving up through the pay scale from M1 to M6 based on years of service, teachers would move up the scale by meeting their career stage expectations.  Therefore it is important that we know what is being planned and that we engage with the implementation of this so we can have some ownership of the process.

What is happening to…..?      Teachers’ Standards 2012

By Phil Waters

In this mini series of articles, I intend to write brief accounts about our current thinking on the latest policies that will affect the way we work.

Teachers’ Standards, published February 2012, come into effect in September 2012.  They are statutory and will provide a benchmark against which we are all judged.

There are just 10 standards and a preamble which replace 33 QTS, 41 Core (C) 10 Post Threshold  (P) 15 Excellent (E) and  3 AST(A) standards.  Each new standard is subdivided into several parts, and is considered as being the sum of its parts.  In other words, to meet a standard we have to fulfil all of its parts.

The standards comprise 3 areas – an all encompassing Preamble, Part One -eight standards dealing with our capacity as teachers, and Part Two- standards that focus on our professional conduct.  Not yet published, but on the horizon are “Master Teacher” standards.  These describe an extraordinary level of ability and will subsume all colleagues who would under the present system move beyond M6.

The Headteacher (or appraiser) will assess our performance against the standards.  For those in training, the judgement is based upon a level that can be “reasonably be expected”.  For all other teachers, the standards define a minimum level of practice that can be expected at the relevant stage of their career. (para 6)

It is the phrase “expected at the relevant stage of their career” which is the core of the standards.  What does it mean?  How does the Headteacher, or their appointed appraiser interpret what is expected from a colleague on M4, and differentiate that from someone at M6?  There is no national definition or interpretation, and guidance varies across the country. For example, Oxfordshire LA has not published any guidance, yet all 600 Hertfordshire schools have already agreed upon what are now regarded as “Career Stage Expectations”.

In the scramble to define our career stage expectations, and align Performance Management to the standards, leadership teams have been attending consultancy -run workshops.  It is the consultants at these briefings who are leading schools and determining our interpretation of the teacher’s Career Stage Expectations as well helping us to interpret the Performance Management process by which teachers will be appraised against the standards.

Cheney School teachers will be asked to determine for themselves the career stage expectations against which they will be appraised.  This process is being repeated across the country in readiness for the start of the new academic year and implementation of the standards in September 2012.

Teachers Dancing Behind Students

Are we about the see the end of the National Pay Agreement?

A report is due to be pulished this autumn on teachers' salaries by the independent pay review board.  It is likely to suggest an end to the National Pay deal and propose that teachers salaries are to be determined regionally or even at individual school level.  It will also look at proposals to futher develop performance related pay.  For more information please click on the following links.  I have tried to give four different media sources to give a balanced perspective.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/16/michael-gove-schools-teachers-pay

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9270202/Teachers-pay-to-be-overhauled-to-reward-top-performers.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/teachers-in-regions-may-be-paid-less-7758135.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18089505

Let’s do something difficult!

I would like to thank Frank Havemann for his experiences on the difficulties, challenges and joys of taking on a challenge.  Frank encapsulates the importance of continuing to learn and how it helps us to develop as teachers and people. 

Let’s do something difficult! By Frank Havemann

One of the bits of advice that really stuck with me from my not-so-distant PGCE was the suggestion to try something genuinely challenging every once in a while. “Thank you very much”, you might respond, “my Year 10 are challenging enough on a warm Friday afternoon.”

Fair enough. What I really mean is attempting to learn something you find difficult, to empathise with the sheer frustration of “not getting it”, of the struggle with learning that some of our students encounter in our lessons. What does that mean in practice? Here are a few examples that have taken me out of my comfort zone over the last year and a bit.

Learning a new instrument:

I have always wanted to play the drums, so I finally started practicing. And it’s frustrating, because my ears are trained well enough to tell me how off-beat I really am. I want results immediately, and I want to play the exciting stuff, but instead it’s just lots of patient practice to get better slowly.

Planning a maths masterclass:

Planning and resourcing are my teaching nemeses, so taking on extra planning for a group of 40 G&T kids for a 3 hour session made me very nervous. Instead the process forced me to confront my process head-on, and to push through some of the blocks I had set myself. It was a lot of work, but it felt good to accomplish something genuinely challenging.

Learning a new subject:

I took a class in economics at university, and though interesting, it didn’t really make sense to me. Recently, the imminent collapse of western civilization(hyperbole alert!) suggested it might matter after all, so I started studying from the beginning, just to find out what parts of whose claim were nonsense, wrong, inflammatory or otherwise misguided. I’m still working on that one. It turns out some of the materials on economics are drier than, well, let’s just say they are quite dry. But I am trying to stick to it, and do a bit of revision (as it were) every week.  

So what have I learned ?

My students aren’t the only ones who want results immediately.

It is difficult to read something that is technical, even if you are interested.

It is really difficult to motivate yourself to do something if you are not interested.

None of these are surprising, but all of them feel quite different when you experience them for yourself. It is good to be reminded how it feels to struggle to

learn something.

Do you have examples of things you tried and struggled with? How has it helped your teaching?

Why we need a little fun in our learning! - Stairs Volkswagen Commercial.

It is easy to be very earnest about learning and teaching.  We all take it very seriously, sometimes too seriously.  We are all, (in schools, in Local Authorities, at Ofsted and in Government) very aware of the pressure to get the best examination results for students.  However, we must guard against the drive for effectiveness and efficiency actually having a damaging effect and turning our students away from learning. 


Why do I suggest this?


Well, we do not always look forward to or do what is best or good for us, do we?  How many of us eat foods high in salt and saturated fat, knowing what harm it can do?  How many people smoke, knowing full well of the dangers this entails?  Why do we do these things? Simply becasue they are pleasurable. 

So what has this to do with learning and teaching?  In fact what does it have to do with any type of leadership? 

Well if we want to get people to do things differently or get people to change their behaviours; it is not enough to explain to them why it would be better for them to change - we have to make this change more attractive or more fun.  So within the classroom, and in particular as we prepare for revision, we have to try to motivate our students to work hard and give up time that they might otherwise be spending playing in their X-Boxes or Playstations. So if we plan a little fun into our lessons by using games and competitions to learn; or by doing other mad -cap things that put a smile on our students' faces then we have a fighting chance of getting them to do that extra bit that might lead to success. 

I know it is not easy to always keep things fun but it is worth trying our best to get some fun in where we can.