An English teacher in a comprehensive school in a deprived area thinks Ofsted frameworks don’t help poorer pupils
"For the last 17 months, I have taught English at a comprehensive school in a deprived area as a participant in the Teach First programme. This programme puts graduates into schools in poor areas for two years. It’s both the best and worst thing I’ve ever done: I greatly enjoy working with my colleagues, but it has been immensely challenging.
We’re trained as teachers as we work, which makes for a heavy workload. I now have a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education, and am studying for an MA in Education and Leadership as part of the programme.
I don’t have a degree in English, but we’re able to teach any subject that we studied at A-level, and the demand is greatest for maths and English teachers.
The aim of Teach First is to break the link between socio-economic background and attainment. There is a much stronger link between parental income and success in the UK than in any other developed country, so we put graduates with leadership potential into schools in poor areas.
The vast majority of the pupils at my school are white and from a very closed community. Many could become the third generation of their family to go into long-term unemployment. There is a complete disassociation of education with life chances, and a disengagement from education that goes back several generations; the majority of the parents are former pupils.
We also have a high number of pupils with what are known as Behavioural, Emotional and Social Disorders. Often this problem is manifested in aggressive outbursts and threatening behaviour to staff. We’re talking about damaged, vulnerable young people who need support. A boy in my form discovered his father’s body after his suicide, and after that he refused to accept our authority. Most of teaching is about creating an illusion of power, and once that goes, it is very difficult.
Teaching in these areas requires a certain educational philosophy. You have to support pupils and be very patient. I also think that the relationship you build with the pupils is incredibly important; for example, I like to make physical contact with them, patting them on the arm when I tell them I am pleased with them or exchanging high-fives. I think they need that, because they lack warmth from other places. However, I have met teachers who say that they would never touch a child because of the potential to be accused of abuse, which saddens me.
The government body that most affects my work is Ofsted, and if I could speak to a senior civil servant, I would criticise the Ofsted framework for our lessons – it’s too constrictive. Our school doesn’t meet the Ofsted target of 35 per cent of pupils achieving 5 A* to C’s, including English and maths, so we are frequently inspected, and when we are inspected there is added pressure.
I like to teach lessons that are different and have the potential to inspire: for example, if it’s a sunny day, I might take the children outside to write poetry. That could be a breakthrough lesson that inspires my pupils, but if an Ofsted inspector were visiting, I couldn’t do that in case it didn’t meet their rigid criteria. If teachers try to be too regimented and don’t adapt to the needs of their pupils, they won’t achieve as much with their classes. Also, if teacher autonomy and creativity is limited, the profession will fail to attract the best and the brightest young people in the country, which it desperately needs.
I also think that the measurement systems used create perverse incentives. Much of the focus is on pupils achieving grade C, but this means that schools focus on this target to the detriment of helping the students with the most potential. As a result, we have never had an A* for English.
The metrics also fail to recognise individual achievements. We sometimes have kids who begin school unable to read and write at all, and while we teach them to do so, the targets don’t pick up that great achievement and the difference it has made to someone’s life. Schools should be measured on an index based on the value added from their junior school performance.
Exams also discriminate against areas of social deprivation; for example, the English syllabus focuses on wider reading, which kids from areas like mine aren’t exposed to. One maths paper last year asked a question about a yacht leaving a harbour – it was a simple distance/ time calculation, but all of our entrants left it because they didn’t understand the terminology.
A great feature of Teach First is the opportunities provided to us in the holidays. I volunteered on a project in Uganda. Others went to work for banks or large corporations, and many have received job offers for when their time on the programme is up. That’s not for me, though – I enjoy education, and want to take up a pastoral role in a school."