Diary of an NQT The storm clouds gather...


I STILL remember exams from when I was a student; they loomed like a dark cloud about to ruin a sunny day. They only had two states of being – miles away or terrifyingly close. And much like the dark


cloud, when it rains it pours. My students think they have sole ownership of stress. I am not sure they realise quite what it is like on this side of the court. This year I have been stupid


enough to take on year 10, 11, 12 and 13 exam classes. I have always been the sort of person to take on more than I could chew. I worked verging on full-time through university (I shouldn’t have), I ran a small business at 21 (I never slept), and I had three exam classes in my training year. But this year I have six class-


es of results coming in, four take place in the next couple of months. I have spent the whole year whizzing through content, hammering exam technique and skills, and marking when I should have been out having some kind of social life. Now is the crunch time. Have I been


doing the right things? Am I good enough to have A level results and futures in my hands? I have worked it out to be roughly 115 students this year for whom I have a direct, responsible influence on their grades – and the state of their CVs for years to come. When I was young I had one passion and one job


aim – football manager. I played computer games where I could design tactical formations, buy play- ers and organise training. Then, once I had the team set up, I let them go. However, once you’re into the match, your power is largely gone. This is the closest experience I have to compare to that with which I am currently confronted. Although


Teach it like Torno! A listening game


“In teaching, you cannot see the fruits of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for 20 years.” Jacques Barzun.


YOU COULD tell it was Easter recently because the usual teachers’ union conferences were taking place – only this time things seem to be more serious than in previous years. The message is clear that the profession


is under threat in a way it has not been before. Clearly, the most pressing issue is that of our pensions and the now seeming reality that teachers will not realistically be able to retire until the age of 68. However, that is not the only


concern teachers have. There is a genuine feeling that Michael Gove is not an education minister that listens to the profession. Instead there is the growing perception that he is arrogant and aloof from those who teach day-in, day-out in the classroom. The feeling is so strong that one of


the broadsheets over the Easter period ran a story which began: “Michael Gove is the most hated education secretary ever. Discuss.” Certainly Mr Gove seems to


have stirred up real animosity in such a short time. Personally I think it is very sad that the education minister and the teaching profession are at such serious loggerheads and part of me cannot help feeling that Mr Gove needs to listen more to those on the frontline – not just pay lip-service, but really listen. Teachers seem to be being blamed


for all of society’s ills, and though this is not particularly new it has taken on a more sinister spin since the Tories were elected. What appears to have added to this is the appointment of Sir Michael Wilshaw as the new Ofsted chief inspector. While he is undoubtedly a talented man with


much to be admired for, he has helped to create a sense of paranoia within a very brief space of time. Rather than celebrate the excellent things that teachers do, a blame culture has developed which can only result in headteachers panicking and pointing the finger at others, rather than building an ethos based on teamwork and mutual respect. Perhaps this is what Sir Michael wants.


For some time now there has been this belief that


the purpose of schools is to advance the economy, and while I agree to some extent, I cannot emphasise enough that to me the main purpose of education is to develop hard-working, considerate human beings who are going to contribute to society in a way which goes beyond making money. Perhaps I am naïve to still hold onto this old- fashioned way of thinking, but I sincerely hope I am not alone in doing so. The week before Easter I was


working supervising my upper 6th group while they were working on their coursework. Halfway through the lesson a student who left five years ago entered the room and returned a book on the Emperor Charlemagne that I had lent to him. He also came to


share with me and my 6th-formers the news that he had now become a fully qualified lawyer, but before he began his journey into the workplace he was about to embark on a six-month trek


across South America. I was thrilled to see him, but more so because of the way in which he communicated his passion for learning to my students. He reflected back at his time at St Edward’s and stated that part of his success lay in the passion of the teachers


and how they had wanted him to make the most of the opportunities. The fact is that Mr Gove and Sir Michael will not know about students like him, nor do


they seem to care. The reality is that educational change takes time and does not happen overnight. More


importantly, teachers want to be led by leaders who believe in them and in whom they can believe as well. So perhaps the time has come for messrs Gove and


Wilshaw to consider listening to teachers instead of constantly attacking them. And will the two of them still be in their jobs at 68? One hardly thinks so!


• David Torn is a professional tutor at St Edward’s School in Essex. He is a former Teacher of the Year for London and co-author of Brilliant Secondary School Teacher. He returns in two weeks.


back then, at least I could turn off the computer when I was losing – now it is for real. I ask the question “are you revising?” and I get a lot of enthusiastic nods. I then ask about the content they have suppos- edly revised. The nods stop. Nothing. I tell them how important it is to


do at least an hour a night. They look confused as to how that will fit in with their crucial and extensive Call of Duty and Facebook schedules. As a history teacher, the strangest complaint, especially about GCSE, is the one about how much there is


to remember. I remember being 16 and seeing a content list like an intellectual Everest, as an adult the content looks more like a shopping list. I am constantly telling them it


isn’t what you know, it is how you use it – but they still have panic attacks about not knowing the year


Stalin died. This is the bit where I should go on to say that exams ruin education, that we are intellectually suffocated by the requirements of assessment, and the joy of teaching is repressed by


the need for results. I know these arguments and sympathise with them. What a wonderful concept a school would be if it were driven solely by the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake.


But exams are a necessary evil and I think they


add the pressure which students need. I can honestly say I don’t work well without pressure, nor do I think could most of the students. Perhaps you need the threat of the dark clouds to make you bring the washing in.


• Tomas Duckling is a history NQT at Queens’ School in Hertfordshire. He returns next week.


With the statutory requirement for schools to provide clear work-related learning at key stage 4 being axed,Dr Anthony Mann and Carol Glover look at new evidence showing the value of work experience to educational progression


undertook a placement within their schooling. Such commonplace activity has, however, been


O 8


subject to remarkably little enquiry. And it is timely to consider what impact work experience has on young people. Schools, in England at least, are thinking afresh


about how, or even whether, they make a two-week placement at a place of employment a key part of their educational offers. Within the English educational environment,


following the 2011 Wolf Report, the Department for Education is committed to repealing the statutory requirement to work-related learning at key stage 4. While never requiring schools to offer work experience, placements became one of the most popular means of fulfilling the requirement. The Department for Education has already


removed central subsidies which reduced placement costs to schools. With the real, full costs of work experience not being charged, there is a wide interest in understanding better the benefits of work experience and how they can be optimised. To that end, the Education and Employers


Taskforce has this week published a new study Work Experience: Impact and delivery – insights from the evidence. The work explores research into the influence of placements on pupil progression into employment, academic attainment, accessing university courses and clarifying career aspirations. Of these, perhaps the most compelling questions relate to exam achievement.


Work experience and exam success


Focus group research with teachers highlights two primary means by which work experience can influence improved attainment. First, there is a sense that work experience can


ver the last generation, work experience has become a familiar element of the British educational experience. Typically, undertaken by pupils over two weeks towards the end of year 10, more than 80 per cent of young British adults


provide an environment which helps to contextualise classroom learning. Second, and more importantly, work experience is seen as a “wake up call” providing young people with powerful evidence of the value of education and qualifications in the labour market. In this way, work experience can be seen as a means of motivating young people to apply themselves more assiduously to their studies. As a Devon secondary school teacher said in


a 2011 Education and Employers Taskforce focus group: “It’s all to do with raising aspirations. Giving them information they wouldn’t otherwise have on how everything fits together. How what they do at school relates to work. What they need to do. It’s showing them that people ‘like them’ do go into jobs like that.” Survey evidence suggests that many teachers


would agree. A new poll of teachers with experience at key stages 4 and 5 undertaken by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) showed some two-thirds agreed that young people returned from work experience better motivated to do well at school. And young people agree. In 2008, some


15,000 young people aged 15 and 16 completed a questionnaire after returning from placements. An overwhelming majority felt that the experience had led to a change in their attitudes towards schooling. When asked to respond to the statement “I


understand better why it is important to do well at school”, 90 per cent of pupils agreed with half agreeing strongly. Then asked how they felt about the statement “I am more prepared to work hard in lessons and my coursework”, 89 per cent responded positively with 42 per cent agreeing strongly.


Who benefits most?


Focus groups with teachers undertaken by the Education and Employers Taskforce have found a consistent view that highest achieving pupils rarely return from work experience significantly more motivated than they were prior to the placement. This is explained by the fact that these young


people already have a clear sense of the connection between educational success and progression whether to university or ultimately into the workplace. That said, they can often benefit a lot from work experience in clarifying career aspirations and gaining entry to university courses of choice. The impact on the lowest performing cohort of


pupils was often seen as profound in focus groups as these are often young people facing multiple causes of disadvantage and educational challenges. As one teacher at a specialist educational unit


serving pupils excluded from mainstream education argued: “Ninety to 95 per cent of my students would not have got a qualification without employer engagement. They come to us after being kicked out of five different schools. We’re the last stop before the pupil referral unit. We do extended placements linked to qualifications. They won’t get five GCSEs, but this is the difference between them achieving nothing and beginning to achieve. “They’ve spent all their lives fighting with


teachers. The thing about employers is that they are not teachers and the workplace isn’t school.


SecEd • April 26 2012


WORK EXPERIENCE The value of


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