Diary of an NQT

It’s not patronising, it’s helpful

I FIND the Easter break is just long enough to forget about school entirely, and with an imminent trip to Madrid for a well earned holiday, my focus has drifted to rest and relaxation and away from school. It’s a nice feeling but strange – like I’ve forgotten something, as I am not running around at 200mph trying to remember everything I’m meant to be doing today. A definite perk of the job will

be arriving at the pub tonight, having spent the day doing next to nothing – to the jealous remarks of my friends no doubt. The last week of term went

quickly and was closed nicely with my NQT review meeting. Following the previous

week’s observations, I was on a bit of a high and had plenty to say to steel my case for passing this NQT checkpoint. It would appear that I have learnt

an awful lot since September and could explain that I am beginning to come to terms with the different ways that I must approach my classes. However, having found ways

to overcome the initial hurdles of teaching, such as behaviour management, time-management and Assessment for Learning, I am finding a host of new issues and problems to address. Gaining a little experience has enabled

me to pinpoint areas in which I need to develop and one example is my teaching of lower ability classes. I have been able to tailor my behaviour management and even the language I use when speaking to lower ability groups quite well and I think I can develop a good working relationship with these groups now.

Teach it like Torno!

It’s party time again

“A boss can tell you what he expects of you. A teacher, though, awakens your own expectations.”

Patricia Neal. Here we are again. The time is approaching when

the politicians will be after your votes and promising you the earth. Both Mr Cameron and Mr Brown admit that the public sector will have to “tighten its belt” and account for much of the anticipated savings. What we do not know yet is precisely where these savings will come from. One thing we do know is that

the teaching profession will be under the spotlight. As early as January the Tories were promising a brazenly elitist approach to teaching standards and telling us that they aimed to make teaching “a noble profession again”. What an absolute cheek. These jumped up, pompous, public school prima donnas have enjoyed nothing but privilege throughout their lives. While Mr Cameron attended

Eton, thousands of his contemporaries attended state schools. Many of these are the ones that are now teachers and are hugely committed to changing the lives of the students they meet. One of the key pledges that

Cameron makes is to fast- track and offer new financial incentives to individuals who switch careers. He means city workers. This, he says, will raise the status of teaching. Isn’t it funny that while bankers have ruined economies across the world, they are still being rewarded with unspeakable bonuses and those that have lost their jobs are being enticed into teaching. Where were these people in 1997

when Tony Blair made his pledge of “Education, Education, Education”? In the boom years they showed absolutely no interest in inspiring youngsters and now they want to replace those who have wanted to teach from an early age. In 1997 the profession was demoralised after 18

years of Conservative rule. If you were on point 9 at the top of the pay scale there was no hope of a pay rise. There was no such thing as career progression. Whatever you think of the current administration,

there is now a clear structure for progression. There are now classrooms up and down the country with technology. There are teaching assistants and more people from working class backgrounds are attending

university than ever before. There is obviously much more to be done, but there is hope. In 2007, Ofsted published a report called Twelve

Outstanding Schools. It looked at 12 schools in disadvantaged areas who have dragged themselves from the brink of special measures to become “outstanding”. These are schools led by visionary headteachers who have an absolute passion for equality in society. They have devoted their lives to education. They are not people who made their money in industry and then, when the going got tough, jumped ship. These are the people I want to attract into the profession, not those who put business first. As a professional tutor,

I work with individuals who come into teaching via the GTP (Graduate Teacher Programme). We are privileged in our school in that the current GTP students have connections in some way or another with the school. Some are ex-students, some are parents. These are people who are passionate about

education. The school belongs to those it

serves and this is the way forward for schools. Look to the talent in front of

you and make them the future. Over the past few months, I have received applications for the GTP from ex-

city workers. Some of them tell me that they have always wanted to teach and they have

never had the opportunity. My main question is: why now? Is it because they have paid off their mortgages and received huge redundancy payments? Let

me ask you again – where have they been up until now? Mr Cameron – teaching is already the most

noble profession there is and while I support your call for ever-higher standards, I resent the pandering to the business world who have ruined our economy. I tell you what Mr Cameron, let’s do a swap. You

take the failed teachers and give them top jobs in the city. What do you say?

• David Torn is professional tutor and an advanced skills teacher at St Edward’s Comprehensive School in Essex. He is the London Secondary School Teacher of the Year 2007 and is passionate that the purpose of education is to change lives. He returns in two weeks.

However, I seem to keep presenting them with

tasks that are too difficult, or that will not be of a nature that allows them to show off their ability to the maximum. It’s something I’m struggling to get my head around. I must try to acknowledge that low-ability groups will just write one- sentence answers and need to literally be led to that water in order to drink. I fail to understand why, after a term of

teaching persuasive language techniques, students will not write about a single one in the end of term test! “I am persuaded by the language used in the article.” Yes I know, that’s why I chose it, so tell me how! My key target for next term will

be to signpost exactly what I am after in written responses and to concede that I am not being patronising, they

need it! It’s amazing to think that I am now two-thirds of my way through this year and my classes for next year are already

being put together. It’s a strange paradox where it seems to have passed so quickly, yet so much has happened along the way. I look forward to, as I’m told most

NQTs do, starting afresh with new classes with that little bit of experience under your belt. I am looking forward to making changes to my teaching with the hindsight of year one. But for now I am enjoying my Easter gorge of marking (adequately fuelled by an unrelenting mountain of chocolate!) and am packing my bags to escape to the Madrid

sunshine, although as you read this I will be back and gearing up for the final term! Good luck!

• Matt Connett is a newly qualified teacher of English at Shenfield High, a training school in Brentwood in Essex. He returns next week.

On May 6, the UK heads to the polls in what promises to be the closest General Election in years. Education is set to play a huge role during the campaign. As such, SecEd

this week has taken your questions to the would-be education ministers from the three main political parties. All of these are real questions, asked by real teachers and leaders. Chris Parr summarises what Messrs Ed Balls, Michael Gove, and David Laws had to say

Is it right that current legislation prevents parents from articulating their child’s needs when applying for a particular school place, unless the child has a statement of SEN? (Mike Griffiths, headteacher, Northampton School for Boys)

Ed Balls MP, Labour: “All children should have a fair and equal chance of getting into a school of their and their parents’ choice, regardless of their background, their parents’ income or their individual needs. The Schools Adjudicator tells me that this is the case in the vast majority of schools and that parents are choosing schools, rather than schools choosing parents. The School Admissions Code makes a special allowance for SEN children and also children in care because these groups face additional barriers. It’s not that I want to deny these rights to other children. My ambition is that every school is a good school that can stretch the most able pupils, help those who need extra support to catch up and meet their needs if they’re sporty, musical or arty too.”

Michael Gove MP, Conservative: “In this year’s

application round, one in six parents did not get their first choice of school, rising to one in three in London and Birmingham. I think it is scandalous that in this country the only parents who get to choose a good school for their child are those who can afford to pay fees or buy a house in the right catchment area. Parents should be choosing their child’s school based on their child’s needs. We will facilitate this by giving all schools greater autonomy over their budgets, staffing and curriculum. We will also create a new generation of small schools run by teachers, not politicians, capable of giving parents the type of education they want for their child.”

David Laws MP, Liberal Democrats: “We want

parents to have the choice of schools, and not the other way around. We agree that parents should be able to discuss their children’s needs with schools but this must be done in a way that does not include a huge bureaucratic burden on schools.”

Schools are already attempting to plan for next year with a 2.3 per cent pay increase for teachers and the expectation that the increase in their budget will fall significantly short of that. I also wonder about the amount of money that is in education, but not in schools. (Ben Greene, deputy headteacher, Newstead Wood School for Girls, Kent)

David Laws: “You make a very good point. That’s why the Liberal Democrats are committed to redirecting around £1 billion of money in the wider Children, Schools and Families departmental budget, currently being spent on quangos, bureaucracy and top-down government initiatives. Our plans to create a Pupil Premium will channel an additional £2.5 billion to schools, allowing them to cut class sizes or provide more individual tuition to those children who are struggling. The Liberal Democrats are the only party arguing for a bigger budget for schools.”

Michael Gove: “The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has spent huge amounts of taxpayers’ money on declining numbers of children, and every year parents are less satisfied. Billions have

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ELECTION 2010

been wasted. We would take immediate steps to give greater control and autonomy to heads and teachers. In particular, we would give schools more control of their own budgets and end the “clawback”, whereby the DCSF suddenly seizes schools’ surpluses, thus encouraging schools to spend money rather than save it. We would give all headteachers the power to pay good teachers more. We would take steps to tackle waste and excess

bureaucracy, spending less on vast centralised IT databases and reducing the number of staff at the DCSF, and the number of things they regulate and monitor. We believe that the DCSF can delegate more control to the frontline and slim down its central offices. As well as the DCSF, we would examine the bodies

which spend its money, like the quango Partnerships for Schools. We would reduce the number of quangos and the number of staff employed by quangos.”

Ed Balls: “We know that we are moving into a tougher spending period and I agree that we have to be clear with you about what our priorities are. In the Pre- Budget Report in December, the chancellor said that we would protect spending on vital frontline services and he set out real-terms increases this year, next year and the year after for schools and 16 to 19 education. School funding will increase by 0.7 per cent in real

terms, which at current inflation levels will mean a cash increase of 2.7 per cent. Once a projected further 80,000 pupils are taken into account, this means an annual average increase in per-pupil funding of 2.1 per cent in cash terms in 2011 to 2013. This is on top of the 4.3 per cent per-pupil increase in 2010/11. We expect average cost pressures – including

teachers’ pay – of 1.6 per cent per pupil in 2011 to 2013. Combined with the 0.9 per cent efficiency savings, which we are helping schools to make through better procurement, reducing back-office costs and being more energy efficient, I believe our settlement is more than enough to meet cost pressures.”

In view of the many changes that current and past governments have brought into education, what would success look like if they took the decision to allow some of the good ideas to really embed before moving on to the next big idea? (Terry Molloy, headteacher, Claremont High School, London)

Michael Gove: “The one idea that successive governments, starting with the Conservative administrations of the late 1980s and early 1990s, have built on is greater independence for state schools. We would not only continue the academies programme but accelerate it so that the freedoms academies enjoy become the norm for state schools.”

Ed Balls: “In 1997, there were too many underper- forming schools, there wasn’t a critical mass of great

As for league tables, the current system certainly needs reform. People expect to be able to make choices, based on robust information about the quality on offer

Michael Gove

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