Jonathan Savage

If you haven’t had the chance to read it yet, I would strongly recommend that you have a look at this week’s front page in the TES. You can view it here. I won’t comment extensively on this today, but I don’t think this article is too far off the mark. There is a rough time ahead for ‘small’ subjects in the school curriculum. For many, the UK leads the world in music education. This may not be the case for much longer. Be prepared for a fight.

If you are free on the 18th September, why not try and attend the Sempre Researching Music, Technology & Education conference at the Scarborough Campus of the University of Hull. You can get further information here and the line up of speakers and sessions looks excellent.

Today sees the start of a new academic year. Within two weeks a new group of students will be arriving at MMU to study for their PGCE (welcome to you all). Alongside my teaching, I have a number of writing projects, including working as a series editor for Routledge on 7 books about cross curricularity, authoring a new book on new approaches to technology and education with Clive McGoun, and editing a new book on music education (with Jayne Price). Oh, of course I almost forgot, I’ll be writing the obligatory academic articles that keep the virtuous circle of educational research turning too.

Over the years I’ve used a number of pieces of software to help the writing process. Most of these have been the standard word processor (Open Office is a favourite) together with a storage system of folders and sub-folders within my computer to keep track of interesting resources. But recently, I’ve tried a new piece of software – Scrivener – to help me write. At the close of the last academic year, I downloaded the trial version and used it to write some short papers and newspaper articles. It was great.

So, today I’ve purchased the full version (around £20 for the educational license) and committed myself to using it for all writing projects this year (and, I suspect, for several years to come). Why? Read the rest of this entry »

I found it hard to believe what Michael Gove was saying in his interview with BBC London radio today (click here to hear it). In summary, at one point in the interview his response goes like this: if you are ‘really wealthy’, you can buy your children an education at some of the best private schools; if you have ‘resources’ you can move into a new catchment area and get your children into a ‘good’ comprehensive; if you ‘don’t have money or connections’ then you have to ‘put up with a local school that simply isn’t good enough’.

What an indictment on the huge number of schools across our country that are doing a fantastic job. My children, and those of many of my colleagues and friends, attend their local comprehensive school. We don’t have the money for a private education for children (and wouldn’t want that anyway); we haven’t had to move to play the system of catchment areas and admissions. This seems to me to be another example of attributing the problems of a small, mainly urban, part of the educational system to the whole and, in the process, seeking to frighten many parents unduly. For many of us, our local schools are doing a fantastic job and we should get behind and support them against some of this coalition’s damaging, rushed and poorly constructed educational policies.

I’m giving a short talk at Middleton CLC tomorrow for The Guardian as part of their Going Digital series. I was asked to discuss some of the recent research surrounding approaches to digital literacy in education. I’ve also taken the opportunity to extend the notion to consider what might be meant by ‘digital fluency’ as well. For those of you who were there (and any others who are interested), here is a zip file containing the presentation ppt, a pdf of notes and some of the articles that I cited from.

Good question – you might ask? One key thinker behind this Government’s education policy is Anthony Seldon – Master (that’s Headteacher to the rest of us) at Wellington College. His report for the Centre for Policy Studies (An End to Factory Schools), lists twenty recommendations for education policy for the next ten years. Here they are and, as we go through them, I’ll try to work out how many have been implemented (or in the process of implementation) by this Government already:

1. Genuinely independent state schools. Done – Academies Bill on its way through Parliament.
2. Curriculum autonomy. Schools should be free to decide their own curriculum, and the way that it is taught. Done – key plank of academies and free school reform.
3. Intellectual rigour. Not sure – Seldon thinks that ‘intellectual depth is lacking in too many schools’. I disagree.
4. Active learning not rote learning. Not sure – again, Seldon states that ‘in too many schools there are insufficient opportunities for students to think and learn independently’. This is not my experience.
5. Holistic development. Not sure – Seldon believes that ‘few state schools offer the same opportunities for holistic education as independent schools’. Not sure where he’s been recently.
6. Behaviour and wellbeing. Fine – difficult to argue that this is not important for all schools.
7. Service. Not sure – is the provision of ‘combined cadet forces’ really the answer? Other outdoor challenges, adventures, expditions would be great though.
8. Pupil responsibility. Fine – but many schools give students position of responsibility and leadership already.
9. Diversify public examinations. Being done – QCDA to be abolished; OfQual will be wondering; lots of encouragement for schools to diversify here but little thought about consequences on a National Curriculum and what we might loose in the process.
10. League Tables. Seldon’s key message here is to simplify. In the case of academies, it will be simplification to the point of not having to publish data. So – done!
11. Inspection. Done – several of Seldon’s points here are adopted in the revised role of OfSTED and the targeting of schools that are, apparently, not doing well.
12. Facilitating teacher recruitment. Seldon states that ‘pathways into teaching must be made easier for able and highly committed graduates. There should be less emphasis on theory for postgraduates, and easier entry into teaching for those who have already built careers outside the profession’. Done – very worried about developments in this area.
13. Make schools more congenial for teachers. Not many teachers would argue that bureaucracy should be slashed, etc.
14. Discipline. Who is going to argue that all schools shouldn’t be safe and secure for all pupils?
15. Teaching professionalism. Seldon wants the General Teaching Council (GTC) abolished. Done. What will replace it? Seldon has some ideas here about what he calls a more ‘rigorous, self-funded professional body’.
16. More leadership by heads. Will quote at length here. Seldon says ‘Heads should have more freedom to run their schools without constant oversight and reference back to governors and local authorities. But when heads show themselves to be unworthy of this autonomy because they are failing to give clear and visible leadership, governing bodies need to intervene, and either help the
heads stand on their own feet, or promptly replace them if they are not going to make the grade. The aim of a good governing body is to appoint the head and to oversee the finances efficiently’. In respect of headteachers – done. I am very worried about Seldon’s views about school governors who remain the only group with the power to challenge headteachers.
17. School size. Seldon believes that schools over 600 should be broken down into houses. Not done. His general points about every pupil needing to feel valued are important for all schools.
18. Active parents and the community. This includes schools being more proactive about their community involvement and open for longer hours. Extended schools? Partially done.
19. ICT. Seldon argues for greater use, but ‘schools should be free to choose to use IT’. BECTA – abolished. Harnessing Technology Fund – cut significantly to fund free school agenda. The jury is out on this Government’s commitment (or lack of commitment) to ICT within education.
20. The education ‘establishment’. Again, worth an extended quote. Seldon writes that ‘the DCSF, QCDA, Ofqual, Ofsted, the TDA, SSAT, GTC and ISC should all undergo radical restructuring before 2015. They need to decentralise power, to facilitate rather than drive change and to work collaboratively rather than dictatorially. They should be far slimmer. They need to trust schools more and let creativity and individuality blossom, rather than be stifled by central blueprint’. Done – and watch out for further cuts in the autumn.

So, by my reckoning Seldon scores 9/20 in terms of his recommendations that have been adopted already by this coalition (either completely or partially). Of the remainder, it seems that at least 7 or 8 are aspirations that the majority of schools would either aspire to anyway or are, in my experience at least, doing. There are a few aspects of his recommendations (e.g. the role of school governors) which haven’t been take up yet. But who knows that the future holds!

On that basis, I’d recommend that you read his study. It may wind you up but you’ll probably end up better informed about what, to my mind, seems like the sheer lunacy of some of these educational polices.

Back to the world of music education for a post (at last – I hear some of you say), it was great to read Tom’s article on The Guardian blog today. I have no particular strong views about the work of El Sistema and related projects in the United Kingdom. But what really annoys me is when people who ought to know better (in this case Richard Holloway) make overly positive comments about their own work whilst misrepresenting the quality of music education everywhere else. This misrepresentation of so much good quality music education around the United Kingdom within our schools and music services on this Radio 4 programme was shocking. It leads me to agree with Tom that whilst Richard Holloway is a powerful advocate of El Sistema …

… he could be even more effective in his advocacy of music education in general if he understood the work that has been happening in Scotland and the rest of Britain for decades – so much of it unheralded, unpromoted, unpublicised – and if he put his weight behind promoting the whole sector, not just one tiny part of it.

The ongoing development of educational policy by Gove et al has caused me to wonder about who the winners and losers might be. The key winner, it seems to me, is the Headteacher of your local school. They will be left in a position of unchallengeable power in relationship to their school. Let me illustrate this by considering some of the key things that we know already about the education policy of this coalition:

1. QCDA gone – no challenge regarding choice and composition of the curriculum (beyond a basic nod to a slimmed down National Curriculum);
2. BECTA gone – no challenge to poor ICT procurement or usage by schools;
3. OFSTED – their role is waning. There will be no challenge to many school’s approaches to management, teaching and learning (and probably no visits to schools that are ‘oustanding’ anyway, despite the part that OFSTED might have played in raising their attainment and achievement perhaps?);
4. GTCE gone – no challenge regarding teachers’ pay, terms, conditions (and, as we all know, the power of the teaching unions are also waning); if your school becomes an academy, then democratically elected bodies have no voice and provide no challenge, instead you get Trustees (unelected and who knows what level of challenge they’ll provide);
5. The role of HE institutions in initial teacher education – going, and likely to be significantly reduced given Gove’s comments this morning. Headteachers will have a much more active role in teacher education, with larger numbers of trainees and less ‘interference’ from outside agencies. So, no challenge to what might be poor and incestuous teaching practices.

All in all, these reforms seem to suggest one thing: Headteachers know best and will not be challenged. This is not a healthy situation in my view. What do you think? Please tell me that I’m wrong.

Following on from the previous post, here’s the quote from Michael Gove’s speech about the slimming down of the National Curriculum:

I want to ensure our national curriculum is a properly international curriculum – that it reflects the best collective wisdom we have about how children learn, what they should know and how quickly they can grow in knowledge. I want to use the evidence from those jurisdictions with the best-structured and most successful curricula – from Massachusetts to the Pacific Rim – to inform our curriculum development here. I want to remove everything unnecessary from a curriculum that has been bent out of shape by the weight of material dumped there for political purposes. I want to prune the curriculum of over-prescriptive notions of how to teach and how to timetable. Instead I want to arrive at a simple core, informed by the best international practice, which can act as a benchmark against which schools can measure themselves and parents ask meaningful and informed questions about progress.

There was also a lot of stuff about academies and accountability, etc, which I’m just too depressed to write about again.