NEWS FOCUS


Bac to the future SecEd: On Your Side


WE WOULD all be in favour of raising standards in education. But why does it government seem intent on making it harder to appear to do well? Apparently Michael Gove, education minister, now


Hilary


Moriarty Guest


editorial


intends to tag five of the GCSE (or equivalent) subjects – English, mathematics, a modern foreign language and a humanity – and declare that A* to C grades in these subjects will constitute The English Baccalaureate. This mini-collection will then distinguish its holders from the riff-raff with great grades in the wrong subjects. Who invented those? How dare they? You may be old enough to recognise the new Bac. It


used to be known as GCE, and pupils of less academic ability took the CSE. Old grammar schools, which used to whittle their


intake – the academic top 30 per cent at 11 – down to the six per cent likely to go to university by streaming them into GCE and CSE classes at 14, did so because universities then demanded certain things, which teacher training college, for instance, and polytechnics, did not: English and maths, a modern foreign language, a science – familiar? But all of that was university-led. Now it appears you


need the elite list for life itself. Getting all pupils in all schools up to this particular scratch may prove difficult, and is it fair anyway? The problem now, surely, is that schools are judged on


the performance of all pupils as if all of them were equally academic. And, let us add, interested – being a bright mathematician does not mean you’ll care for French, and vice versa. Had there been league tables in my school days, cohorts


of differently equipped pupils would not have been judged by exactly the same yardstick. One of the great myths which politicians seem to believe


is that every child is simple raw material, capable of doing well in every subject, if taught well enough. There is no doubt that teaching has improved. Schools


now have higher expectations of all their pupils, and a will to find what a child does really well and build on that so that confidence increases and esteem rises and suddenly a pupil can do that which you both thought was impossible. But judging all schools by the number of all of their


pupils who can excel in an arbitrarily selected list of academic subjects which takes us back about 50 years surely cannot be the way forward. Does not government have an obligation to provide an


education for children which recognises their differences and provides well for them all to reach a fulfilling adult life without presuming it must be an academic life? It is possible Jamie Oliver would be a happier millionaire cook, entrepreneur and changer of the world if he had the English Bac, but I have my doubts. In an ideal world, we would all shine in English and


maths and French and physics (actually, wait for the day when Russian and physics score more points than French and biology). But that ideal world would also have everyone able to run 100 metres in 10 seconds, or clear a metre and a half high jump. And that isn’t going to happen. You might train to run faster, but some things really are beyond your control. And unless you want a completely disenfranchised


under-class of young people for whom school offers entirely the wrong diet, branding them failures when they are simply not academic enough for geometry or Russian, then surely the bright and shiny Bac is not the way to go. In the end, every smart lawyer needs a plumber, and


the woman CEO would kill for a really good hairdresser, neither of whom will be clutching a Bac. And there are worse ambitions than to become a WAG. The Premier League surely demonstrates that some talents are worth more than academic aptitude.


Getting the most from libraries


With last week’s School Library Commission report still hot of the press, this week we look at the findings of another study into this vital resource, this one from the CILIP School Libraries Group. Report authors Sue Shaper and David Streatfield discuss their conclusions


SCHOOL LIBRARIES can make a big difference to student learning and development – if they are taken seriously. This is the key message from the UK-wide national survey of school libraries completed with support from the School Libraries Group of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). Two online surveys were


conducted, one collecting baseline data and another for those willing to share information about their activities. By April this year, 1,542 schools had responded to the first and 1,044 also completed the activities survey.


School libraries now


School librarians can have a direct impact on teaching and learning through the promotion of wider reading, development of information literacy skills and by exploiting resources, including electronic resources. As schools increasingly use ICT


to support teaching and learning, more librarians are getting actively involved in exploiting school websites and virtual learning environments (in some cases helping to manage these), as well as locating and selecting appropriate e-resources. They are also in a unique


position from which to help in the pastoral care of students. One librarian described recommending Holes by Louis Sachar to a disaffected student who was internally excluded. “The next day he came back in


with his mate to tell me that he had finished the book. His friend was


amazed that he had read anything, let alone come to see me to tell me what he thought of it. “A rapport was struck with me


and he used to come in and ask me what else to read. A door had opened and I was able to support him and play a part in keeping him reading and improving his literacy skills.” The best librarians bring to


their roles an extensive, up-to- date knowledge of contemporary fiction for young people that few teachers have time to equal, a wide experience of matching books to readers, and they are specialists in information-handling skills. However, the survey found a


growing difference between the best and the rest – and where their potential value is not recognised librarians can become isolated and demotivated.


Working with teachers


Library staff are most likely to be effective in developing reading for pleasure, supporting literacy work and helping students to strengthen their information skills if they collaborate with teachers, because otherwise the ratio of library staff to students is very much against them. Collaboration also helps librarians to understand teaching issues and priorities and consequently improve their practice. The extent and forms of


collaboration vary widely: professionally qualified librarians tend to engage more in joint planning and joint delivery of lessons; other library staff tend to either focus more on assembling appropriate resources for teachers


IN RESPONSE… SecEd


• Hilary Moriarty is national director of the Boarding Schools’ Association and this guest editorial is written in a personal capacity. Pete Henshaw is publisher and editor of SecEd. Email editor@sec-ed.co.uk, visit www.sec-ed.co.uk and follow us at www.twitter.com/SecEd_Education. SecEd also produces Delivering Diplomas magazine. For more information on this, visit www.deliveringdiplomas.co.uk


Neil Mercer, Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge, argued the case for more group discussion in the classroom when he addressed the University of Cambridge International Examinations' International Teachers Conference on Monday (September 27).


“Teachers can have an enormously positive impact on the quality of a child’s education. As a teacher, you’re not only responsible for imparting


knowledge around a subject but for helping your pupils to find new ways to make sense of the world. But our education system


needs to recognise this, teachers need to be trained appropriately, and educational policy needs to reflect the importance that group discussion has on learning. And, as educators, we cannot assume that pupils will automatically know how to hold a group discussion. This is a valuable soft skill which teachers can support their students in acquiring."


to use in their subject teaching or do not get involved. Whether or not they collaborate


‘


actively with teachers, many librarians select resources for teachers to use with classes; some try to gauge curriculum needs by obtaining schemes of work from teachers or their departments; and a smaller number go further in providing systematic, proactive support by engaging in curriculum planning activities alongside


Librarians can have a


direct impact on teaching


and learning through the


promotion of wider reading


Line management


teachers, conducting curriculum mapping, delivering lessons, team- teaching, and running CPD sessions for teachers on available resources.


a librarian was “omitted from initial training on the virtual learning environment because the academic IT co-ordinator did not see how we would use the resource”. They continued: “I am teaching


myself how to use it. Our pages are currently the most developed and most accessed of any within the school. The school ostensibly supports the library but the reality is that many teaching staff don’t understand the library’s potential and underestimate our skills as librarians.” A few librarians said that they


had no formal line-management structure at all and 29 per cent felt largely ignored by senior management, even though many of them are educated to degree level or equivalent.


Summary ’


At best, school librarians are well supported by senior management. They are frequently line-managed by the head or a deputy (39 per cent), an assistant head (21 per cent), or other member of the senior leadership team, giving the librarian access to insight and advice on curriculum matters and support to develop the library service. However, a quarter of librarians


are supervised by someone else or are largely ignored. Teachers frequently view librarians as professional colleagues and this may (or may not) be reflected in the organisational structure, but the librarian’s position is frequently ambiguous. One qualified librarian described


herself as “caught between two stools – something like the governess in Victorian times – neither quite one of the family nor one of the servants.” Where librarians are seen as


administrative support staff this can undermine their role. For instance,


6


Regardless of budget cuts to come, it makes sense for schools to use to the full the resources they do have and currently too many experienced librarians are being deskilled and demotivated because line managers do not know how to get the best out of them. Meanwhile, librarians should


accept that they must concentrate on forging links within the curriculum to support teaching and learning. Together the line manager and the librarian should establish a shared vision for their school library – and make it happen.


SecEd


• Sue Shaper is a member of the CILIP School Libraries Group’s national committee and a librarian at The Broxbourne School in Hertfordshire. David Streatfield is principal of Information Management Associates. Together they are the authors of the report School Libraries in the UK: a worthwhile past, a difficult present – and a transformed future.


Further information


For more information on the CILIP School Libraries Group or to access the full report, visit www.cilip.org.uk/slg SecEd covered the report of the


School Library Commission last week (Essential for Success, issue 259, September 23, 2010). To read this article online or download the digital edition containing the piece, visit www.sec-ed.co.uk. The report itself, entitled School Libraries: A Plan for Improvement, can be downloaded in full from www.mla.gov.uk


SecEd • September 30 2010


www.sec-ed.com


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