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| Thanks to @selm4s for image |
Provocation SELMAS
I was asked to provoke a gathering of around 140 School leaders
from Scotland. I thought I would share my points here and add some web-links. There wasn’t a fight.
If you are given the opportunity and privilege to talk at a SELMAS event grab it with both hands. I was humbled by the aspiration and experiences of the other speakers and by the commitment of all the education leaders present to improving the life chances of Scotland's young people.
Thanks to all at SELMAS for the kind invitation.
Provocation -
I wonder how hard it is to provoke school leaders
If I said that for almost half of my 30 year career I left the classroom and I worked for SQA and that I’ve worked with HMIE, Education Scotland and SFC, the Scottish Funding
Council and many of the agencies that work around schools.
– that is often provocation enough in the kitchen of a party with
any teachers present.
But the truth is and like me – many of the staff who work in these
organisations come from the classroom – and you can change them and get
involved with them. The choice to engage and make changes for the better is yours.
But I appreciate how busy landscape is.
For school leaders it is often about squeezing in another change on
top of changes that are already in train
CfE
Wider Achievement
Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce
Closing the Attainment Gap
Getting it Right for Every Child
The named person scheme
The next school inspection
While managing all the challenges of running a complex organisation
with competing demands – and being a role model at the same time.
Currently in the senior
phase of CfE you are getting heads around new national qualifications at
SCQF 4 and 5 and looking at a re-aligned curriculum in Highers and Advanced
Highers, while taking a look at the ways schools can work more closely with industry
on one hand and with the wider community on the other.
There is always a raft of policy changes and never enough people or
re-sources to get everything moving forward – but it is achieved – and thanks to the dedication of you as leaders and your teams.
And we are in a much better place that we were 30 years ago.
I taught in schools in and around Glasgow, in many there was a
larger cohort of non-certificated classes finishing their school career in 4th
year than there were classes preparing for their O’grades .
In 1986 the system had decided that it was ok to allow large
cohorts of learners to leave school with no certification and with precious
little engagement. As a trainee English
and History teacher I was asked to show
them videos but not to try and teach them English as they would rebel.
On another occasion, in another school armed with lots of inspiring
ideas – I was advised to lower my expectations of learners - as they were from around here . The Head of Department hadn’t picked up I was
from around the same area and this led to an interesting conversation.
Expectations were too low at all levels in the
system.
There was never a golden age. There is now and the future.
We are in a better place and we can make it better still for learners.
I met the same learners in the local college, now on first name
terms and doing courses they were interested in – they performed and were model
learners and citizens.
Schools are more like this now or should be.
Often too in those darker days I was more concerned about bullying
in the staff room than bullying in the playground. I think we have more
professional respect for our peers now and we make decisions based on evidence.
Not on who is shouting the loudest.
Things have moved on – expectations at all levels are now in a
different place and learners have responded– though the challenges of poverty and
in some cases chaotic lifestyles remain in many of our communities and the
chasm in achievement among learners from different social economic groups – remains
Scotland’s shame.
But the bill of fare in our schools should now be much more
appropriate for all of our learners
Now, there should be appropriate choices for all learners and not
just more of the same academic fare.
In Colleges we spend a lot of time
listening to what learners want and measuring not just their achievements but
their satisfaction with the choice available to them and the standard and
quality of their learning experience. Do schools really listen to the learners
voice ? And do you adjust your provision
in response to this ?
How many school are really using – Saltire Awards , John Muir
Awards , SQA Leadership Awards , Duke of Edinburgh Awards and all the other options that are available across
the School
With less funding it will be that route where young people get
their first international experience , their first experience of planning an
expedition or community project, out with formal education, their first position
of responsibility. There are still different sources of funding in the
community for these activities and youth groups work hard at raising funds to
be inclusive.
How tuned in is your school to the amazing opportunities , commitments
and achievements young people have
through youth work, volunteering out with normal school and do you
give it adequate recognition ?
Scout story – My volunteers were told – school does offer awards
there – but these are only for the thick kids. Their words and perception
rather than what they were probably told. But message was clear school still
not really valuing wider achievement.
How hard is it for a community group to get notices up inside a
school ?
How aware is the school of opportunities for learners in the
immediate community ?
If schools are to be judged as part of a community learning
experience how good are you at reaching out and how far are you confident in
letting the community reach in to your school ?
If you or someone in the community is doing something good and innovative
how aware are you that it can be SCQF credit and levelled and put on Insight
Tool and given formal recognition.
I want to talk too about school and employer links :
Things are moving on at pace – Skills for Work programmes give
learners an important taste of an occupational area, there are new standards
for work experience and many learners embark on Employability awards ( shouldn’t
all school leavers do this ?)
School College partnerships should be seen as more than a
convenient place to park learners who for one reason or another are not coping
with school
A College is a really useful gateway to develop relationships with
multiple employers – How good is your relationship with your local College? I couldn't make the whole talk an advert for how College changes peoples lives and plays a major part in closing the inclusion and attainment gap. - but they do.
Have your teaching staff spent any time in your local College.
It would
be a great venue for the next in-service day !
There are new and more complex offerings on the horizon -
- Children and Young People
- Construction
- Engineering (energy)
- Engineering
- Financial Services
- Social Services and Healthcare
- Business
- Software Development
- Hardware and System Support
These are very different
programmes at SCQF 6 – same as higher as exit point . My concern is that this
may be too high and that you will struggle to persuade your peers that learners
would be better doing this programme, rather than re-sitting your normal
academic fare. These are 2 year programmes – aimed to fit in alongside other
school classes – that lead directly into work or can be used as a bridge to
College or Higher Education.
Aimed too at a different
cohort – the learners who may already be on their way to College or may just
get the qualifications they need to get into University. The message has to be
clear – as it stands this is not a programme for those you may have
traditionally sent along to the College.
This is for learners who you might have traditionally
offered another academic course or encouraged them to re-sit something in 5th
and 6th year .
Foundation Apprenticeships –
open up new opportunities delivered in College with an extended workplace
component in many cases they cover the main elements of a full apprenticeship.
Schools too can offer too PDA
awards that link to industry competencies and in some parts of Scotland schools
are now offering HNC qualifications. Have
you a rich and varied enough offering across your local authority for senior
phase learners and are you making enough of learning technology to deliver
these. Rather than busing or taxiing everyone around at great expense.
I could speak at length on how
the learners in the know are now accessing massive open on-line courses and
open educational re-sources. Schools still have some way to go to both embed
the on-line offerings that are already available or to make similar on-line
offerings available.
I am still amazed that there
is not a national offering in the Higher Computing space that is largely
delivered on-line . It would in one step make computing available to many
schools where there is no computing teacher and be a cost effective national
solution. For minority languages too or indeed anything that learners could cope with on-line when you can't create a viable class size in your own institution.
Striking too that the global
teacher of the year from England – is a maths teacher – simply up-loading
useful lessons on to YouTube as revision aids for his learners – the world
started using this re-source – we need more of this ambition in Scottish
classrooms.
Are you encouraging your
teachers to be content creators and to publish their learning materials openly
on the internet with an appropriate creative commons licence ? If this is all
in a different language. Find out about Open Scotland and Creative Commons licensing.
Every teacher should be an open practitioner.
I asked my first year daughter what one piece of advice I could
give you and unprompted ‘ it was find a way to let us use the internet in class
– I know everyone does not have phones and the teachers don’t want to embarrass
anyone – but we are allowed to use the
school wifi when not in class – but
hardly ever in class. Why doesn’t the school find a way to give everyone a browser’
Me : A kindle fire is about £49 , a tablet – we need to stop
teaching a letter box view of the world and give learners tools to explore the
world of knowledge.
How are you closing the growing digital divide – ignoring it is not
the answer .
The attainment gap will just grow wider ! and Scotland’s shame grow
deeper.
But more change is on the way -
There is a seismic change coming from Whitehall – the industry training levy will impact on every employer with more than a £3million pound
pay bill – that includes public sector employers like local authorities and
even Colleges . From April 2017 they will pay a 0.5% annual levy effectively a
tax.
I’ll say this again – as it seems very surprising.
The UK Government is raising taxes to pay for an improved
investment in learning.
Raising Taxes to pay for education !
I'll say that again as it seems in current times a strange concept - the Westminster Government is raising taxes to pay for training from the largest employers to re-distribute to smaller employers to pay for more employee training.
This will raise 3 Billion pounds across the UK and will in England
fundamentally change the relationship that employers have with work based training.
Employers will have training accounts and will get money back based
on the training they give their staff .
Small employers will make a contribution and get more back from the pot
than they put in. Employers will choose who they contract with to provide the training
Large and small employers will want to either get their money back
or in the case of small employers tap in to this funding resource.
The CBI in Scotland finally raised this challenge in today's Herald and I expect new administration will start responding -
I expect next year will be the year when employers start beating on
the doors of schools and colleges for learners that are ready to start an
apprenticeship so they can benefit from payments from the training levy.
I hope rather than to have provoked you I have given you some some food
for thought ! and you don’t get indigestion.
