Should People In Ivory Towers Throw So Many Stones?

On Friday night David Didau, the esteemed and highly regarded teacher, blogger and author of The Perfect Ofsted English Lesson, became embroiled in a contretemps with Rob Ward, a newly qualified teacher of little repute. The flare-up occurred as a result of the tweet below, rumbled on for hours and involved many educationalists with influential online presences.

The tweet was posted after Rob had spent approximately three hours listlessly flicking through the collection of class texts in his school’s KS3 cupboard. He had already dismissed Room 13 by Robert Swindells (on account of it being shit) and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (because the few copies available were unavailable). He had toyed with spending his own money on copies of Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English (but is skint because it’s Christmas), but then discovered a box stuffed to the gills with JK Rowling’s tale of a wannabe wizard. Hence the tweet – and the row which ensued.

Feeling more than a little aggrieved at the way his innocent request for input was interpreted and the way he was personally attacked, Rob wrote a letter to the Right Honourable David Didau. Sadly, Rob did not know to which ivory tower he should address his missive – hence its online publication…

Dear David,

               I wonder whether you might think more carefully in future about how you choose the targets for your opprobrium? You’ve been following me on Twitter for a while now and have communicated amicably with me in the past, so I’m sure you are aware that I am newly qualified. If you were unaware, maybe you might have noticed my username; I was inordinately proud of dreaming up ‘EngQT’ to signal my status and would be distraught to think that others were not marvelling at my clever wordplay. Regardless, I did make it abundantly plain in my communication with you last night that I had been teaching for just three months. That your vitriolic messages were not tempered by this knowledge speaks ill of you.

Worse, however, was the dogmatic, inflexible and stubborn manner in which you chose to make your point.

You clearly don’t believe that Harry Potter will assume a prominent place in our literary heritage. You don’t believe it is ‘exceptional’. You wouldn’t add JK Rowling to the pantheon of great British authors. You don’t believe I, or anyone else, should be teaching it. All valid points of view, all of which I fully understand – and some of which I totally agree with.

But here’s the rub, David. You didn’t ask me to what end I was selecting my class reader. You made no effort to find out what the objectives of my teaching would be. You don’t have the faintest idea who is in my class. And you attacked me without making any attempt to discover these salient and relevant points.

Let me enlighten you. My class are adorable, and I love teaching them. They are very, very weak – working below L3 in reading and writing. Of the thirteen children in my class, three attend fewer than half of my lessons thanks to their ill-discipline and poor attendance. I have no support in these lessons whatsoever. I have formed a great attachment to them and them to me. I am absolutely determined to secure L4 for all of them before they leave my class. And I will.

I am completely convinced that they would read the texts you advocated. They would launch themselves into Dickens (and would probably be familiar with the story of Oliver Twist already). They would have a good stab at Oedipus the King. But both of these texts would be too hard for them.

I tweeted you last night with the first paragraph from both Harry Potter and Oliver Twist. Here they are again.

Potter’s a bit prosaic, eh? Perhaps a little dull. Certainly it can’t hold a candle to Twist. You are correct – we can learn an awful lot from Dickens.

But you don’t know what I want my Y7s to learn, do you? At the moment, my number one aim is to get them to write coherent sentences which start with a capital letter and end in a full stop. If I want to use a class text as a model for this, The Philosopher’s Stone provides clear examples of how to do so. Rowling might not be the greatest author the world has ever seen, but she provides sentences which my Y7s might genuinely be able to emulate.

Do you believe they could write sentences like the one Dickens opens Oliver Twist with? That paragraph is just one long sentence. It’s one which I would LOVE them to write. But it is beyond them right now. What use is it providing them with examples such as these? How confusing it would be. How alienated they would feel.

You made a massive assumption last night. A false one. You assumed that when I said I wanted ‘accessible’ texts, you thought I was referring to ‘easy’ ones. I was not. I was speaking of texts which were difficult enough to stretch them.  And because I know my class, I know that Harry Potter would be a less difficult gap to bridge than that between their current reading level and Charles Dickens.

Your snobbishness also irked me here. You airily dismissed the teaching of texts which pupils could access at home, believing that we should only teach them what they cannot otherwise access. For better or worse, we use the Accelerated Reader programme at school. On average, my pupils are reading books at level four on the AR scale. They read these for thirty minutes at home each day (if they are good little boys and girls). Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is a level six on the AR scale; this is a title which will stretch them. Oliver Twist is a level eleven.

I am sure you can deconstruct/dismiss my understanding of Vygotsky and ZPD, but my impression was that pupils learning best occurred when children are called upon to perform at the very edge of what they are already capable of? My professional judgement is that Harry Potter and the work I set them to do on the novel would be more likely to achieve this than Oliver Twist.

This is where you became particularly sneering and dismissive of me. Your constant assertion that learning is supposed to be ‘hard’ was not particularly troubling – although you failed to take into account that there is a difference between being ‘hard’ and ‘too hard’. Perhaps I’m being naïve, but if work is ‘too hard’ will learners not become disenchanted? Evolution is an incremental process, and I am trying to ‘evolve’ these youngsters into confident writers and readers. Throwing them in at the deep end (apologies for the mixed metaphor) is likely to see the majority sink rather than swim.

As for your assertion that “being satisfied with what they can do isn’t really teaching”: thanks. Thanks for being so condescending, insulting and obnoxious. I am not an idiot, David. I know what teaching is; I am a teacher.

I am also self-aware enough to know that I am not a fully-formed educator. I am learning. For that reason, I often seek advice on Twitter from more experienced colleagues. I am happy to take advice on board and was delighted that many people offered excellent advice and tips on alternative texts or approaches to making the literary cannon more ‘accessible/easy’ (delete to suit your bias).

What upset me most of all was your flagrant disregard for my circumstances. I’m not entirely sure whether it was ignorance, lack or empathy or just a personal agenda, but the below tweet was a real low in a succession of dismissive tweets:

There are a number of reasons why I take particular issue with this tweet. Firstly, and forgive me for repeating myself, I am new to teaching. I have never taught a full novel to anyone. I freely and publicly admitted that I would find teaching Dickens to this class very difficult. And I stand by that. It’s a massive book and, at present, I genuinely would not know where to start. Nobody has ever told me how to condense such a weighty tome into manageable chunks. Nobody has ever advised me on how to make some of the language more understandable. Differentiation is the part of the job I find most difficult. I am shocked that you find that shocking.

Secondly, I didn’t say Dickens is “too challenging to attempt”. That makes me sound like some kind of moronic fraudster. I’d gladly teach Dickens to different classes. In fact, I really want to teach his work. Great Expectations is high on my ‘to do’ list – when the time is right. For me and for my pupils.

You’re in a position to offer advice. If you truly believe I should be teaching something with ‘cultural capital’ (a wholly subjective qualification), please provide some advice on how to do this. Many others did, whilst you seemed to relish the opportunity to pursue an agenda at the expense of making me look foolish.

Hectoring (bullying?) me the way you did was a thoughtless and unnecessary abuse of your status. You demonstrated a total lack of empathy and no understanding whatsoever. Your inflexible dogmatism spoke of someone with an agenda to pursue – one which you unfairly pursued at my expense.

I hope this letter causes you to carefully consider the way you communicate your ideas. You might have been nominated for a prestigious bauble, but other opinions are always available.

Yours sincerely.

Rob Ward

PS: I don’t think I was ever likely to teach Harry Potter. I was asking out of curiosity and in the hope that someone would offer a credible alternative.

PPS: I found a middle ground: Animal Farm. I don’t care if you approve or not.

Why It Matters To Me

My face is drawn and sallow. Wiry white hairs protrude from my beard. My eyes hide in darkly cavernous recesses. My gym-hardened body has become softer, doughier. I have had backache for weeks. I've been a teacher for less than two months.

I rise at 5:15am for the double-bus commute to school. A strong coffee is slurped on arrival as I gather resources and double check my lesson plans for the day. I deal with yesterday’s emails, admin and endless requests for data as efficiently as possible, then close down this potential distraction until I feel ready to deal with another barrage of demands on my time.

I deal with the reprobates in my form who simply cannot control themselves despite exhortations from me, their parents and senior leaders. I sign and stamp my Y7 form’s planners, trying my utmost to shower deserved praise on those who are performing so admirably in their first term at big school. Often time constraints prevent this, which saddens me.

I teach. I teach to the very best of my ability and, modesty aside, sometimes I am marvellous. Momentarily I feel I have finally cracked it; broken through and become the brilliant practitioner I aspire to be. My pupils amaze me with their insight, empathy and ability. Behaviour is spectacularly good, they learn loads, they love me – and I love them in return.

More often than I’d like, I am awful. I am thrown early on by a room change, an incident, a distraction. I never wrestle the lesson back from its shaky start. Or they don’t get it. Occasionally they are bored. Often, I doubt myself. Sometimes I sulk. Always, I punish myself.

Maybe I care too much. Maybe I should relax a little more. I should definitely stop being so hard on myself. But I really, really fucking care.

I rarely leave school before five. I almost always work when I get home. My weekend lasts just one day: on Sundays I plan. I have 20% PPA time and it isn’t enough. I have 24 lessons to prepare. Six class’ worth of marking to do. Three subjects to teach. I have numerous shortcuts to help me in all these areas and I am getting faster, but the fundamental problem remains: I am inexperienced and everything is new to me. Things take me longer. I recycle, I borrow, and occasionally I improvise. But sometimes I need to learn something myself before I can teach it to someone else. I don’t know the mark scheme by heart. I can’t level a piece of work by looking at it. Not yet. 

I am seen as competent and confident by my peers and superiors. They trust me and my ability. I’m heartened by this. I take pride in it. The pupils speak highly of me. But I’m like a swan, gliding serenely over the water’s surface, my legs pedalling and kicking furiously, hidden beneath the calm exterior.

I am not unique. I am not a martyr. I am not special in any way. There are thousands like me.

I do this job because it is worthwhile. It’s essential. It matters. I do it for all the selfless reasons you do it. And I know you do it because only a committed, caring, conscientious teacher would spend their leisure time reading an article written by a colleague.

But I also do it for selfish reasons. It validates me. It makes me feel valued and valuable. I came to teaching in my thirties, having earned better money in mind-numbing, spirit-crushing jobs which ended when they ended - and asked nothing of me but my minimum.

So when the DfE, Michael Gove, Dominic Cummings or anyone else suggests that PRP will improve my performance, that an unqualified teacher might be better than me, that my students’ genetic make-up determines their fate, that there are very few talented teachers, that I am ‘gaming’ the system, that my PPA time might be threatened, that I leave work at 3pm or any number of the many  insulting, insidious and pejoratively poisonous statements they make, my blood boils and I ask myself this simple question:

Why don’t they come and watch us work?

Chumming The Waters

Attainment in my placement school is significantly below the national average. Behaviour is generally abysmal. An overwhelming sense of apathy pervades the student populace - despite the best efforts of a committed, passionate and enthusiastic English department. Sadly, the efforts of these wonderful teachers see them swimming futilely against a tide of myopic management and poorly applied policies which undermine them at every stroke.

I have been thrown into this sea of mediocrity like chum for sharks - those rapacious pupils fully aware that I am fresh meat for them to chew up and spit out. It's a hugely difficult position to be in, and one in which I have oscillated wildly between flourishing and floundering.

In the main, I have stringently adhered to the school's behavioural code of conduct. This sees a verbal warning for pupils who warrant one, followed by a pair of written comments in their planners for subsequent misdemeanours - and a ten minute detention. A third comment is accompanied by a room-removal and an hour after school. Further (or more serious) crimes result in time spent on Miss Trunchbull's chokey (aka inclusion). Pretty standard stuff.

Unfortunately, this policy is not worth the paper it's written on. There are numerous reasons for this which can be easily summarised:

1. The school day finishes at 14:45pm to accommodate ten minute detentions before school buses take the pupils home - meaning it's not really a detention at all.
2. There is no cumulative process for totting up 'comments' other than a detention if you garner twelve documented instances of bad behaviour in a week.
3. Pupils do not give a shiny shite if they are given an hour's detention, often bragging or boasting about them to their peers - before failing to turn up and serve their punishment.
4. Behaviour on corridors goes largely unregulated, with phones and fights to the fore.
5. SLT's selective vision leads them to describe behaviour as 'outstanding'.
6. SLT's wilful blindness/self-delusion annoys staff and leaves them feeling abandoned and powerless.
7. Abandoned and powerless staff are easily identified by students who subsequently take advantage wherever possible.

I'm sure this scenario is familiar to many of you. But for a student teacher, these problems are magnified tenfold. We are seen as a weak link. An adult figure they can toy with and test. And they are absolutely right - we are virgins waiting to be defiled.

So, despite my misgivings about the policy's shortcomings, I have soldiered on. Behaviour in my classes is now significantly better than it was. In some cases my pupils behave better for more than for their own teachers. But at what cost to me? I have a few weeks left in this placement school and feel that my teaching has suffered significantly - i haven't had the opportunity to sharpen and hone my pedagogical skills in the way I'd have liked, thanks largely to the constant demands of behaviour management and the time it has stolen from actual teaching.

I know that managing my classroom is a huge part of the job. But I also know that my placement would have proved a far more valuable experience were I (and my colleagues) not constantly undermined by a horrendous culture of poor behaviour which is tolerated, ignored and, dare I say it, encouraged by appalling mismanagement from those who profess to be the shining beacns of excellence and good practice.

Want An AfL Essay?

Unlike the majority of fresh-from-university PGCE students on my course, my greatest fear has not been teaching, lesson-planning or workload. It has been 'academia' and the horrors of essay writing: I was never the most assiduous of students and left university more than ten years ago. My dissertation on digital music technologies seems like a vision of the future now (it made various salient predictions about file-sharing which have come true) but in academic terms it was a bit shit. So imagine my surprise when my 6000-word masters-level essay was returned to me with a score of 85/90.

The essay is about AfL and is centred on a critique of three lessons I taught on reviewing The Woman In Black. The lesson plans and anonymised samples of pupils' work are included in the appendices. I received particular praise for my varied references which include the obvious Ofsted and Dylan William quotes, but also more up-to-date references from the likes of Ross McGill (@TeacherToolkit, Claire Gadsby and Ian Gilbert (@ThatIanGilbert).

If you have a similar essay to write, a particular interest in AfL, wanna read it for your own CPD or just want to be nosy, the essay can be read by clicking the below link. I hope it's of use to someone.

A Critique Of Assessment For Learning: A Case Study

Blissful/Wilful Ignorance

On the first day in my current placement school, the ITT co-ordinator made it abundantly clear that behaviour in his school was 'not a problem' despite the deprived inner-city catchment area from which his school draws its pupils. Barely ten minutes later he was shakily trying to convince me that the child threatening to break a member of staff's nose and calling him a 'fucking cunt' was an anomaly rather than the norm. I smelt a rat.

Of course, the abominable behaviour I had just witnessed might well have been exceptional rather than typical. But supposing it wasn't (and subsequent experience has confirmed this), what could possibly explain the reason for my being so badly misinformed. It seems that there are two possibilities:

1. I was being lied to.
2. The ITT co-ordinator was lying to himself.

Perversely, I wish I could believe I was being spun a yarn. At least if I was being lied to it would indicate that the school knew it had a problem and was ashamed or embarrassed by it. Sadly, I genuinely believe that SLT are unaware quite how appalling the conduct of their students really is.

In the last few weeks a member of staff has been assaulted, a school trip saw a pupil spray a member of museum staff in the face with hairspray and numerous fights and scuffles have broken out in classrooms and corridors. Every lesson is a battle of wills between teacher and students, and the atmosphere among the staff is one of resignation.

But apparently behaviour is fine.

The leadership team in this school either have selective myopia or are fucking stupid. And given that they've managed to rise through the ranks to assume senior positions, I think it's safe to assume that they are not idiots. So what are the reasons for their myriad blindspots?

Perhaps I'm being a presumptuous young pup in thinking I can diagnose their problems. I probably am. But I have a fresh set of eyes and recent experience of working in two very different schools. I am not jaded and have not become acclimatised to the atmosphere and culture of the school - so maybe my observations are valid?

Firstly, I'd suggest that in order to see what's going on in their school, leaders ought to put their iPads down and look around them. Having an Apple product does not make you impressive in the eyes of anyone: they're tablet computers, not the tablets of stone God gave Moses. Talk to people instead of messaging them. Look your staff in the eye rather than taking notes on your little computer. Cast your eyes around your corridors and classrooms instead of staring into your 7" screens.

Of course, in order to cast your eyes around the corridors, you must first set foot on them. Get out of your offices and get into your school. Be a visible presence. Back up your staff. And don't bullshit us that behaviour on corridors is not a problem when there is no way you can know this thanks to your absolute absence from them.

And who told you that behaviour in classrooms was good? It isn't. It's awful. Your presence in observed lessons is not an accurate reflection of anything: your attendance in those lessons is hugely influential. Why not try wandering into some lessons randomly? Or being on the corridors during lesson time to back-up your staff when they might need some assistance. Cowardly cowering in the safety of your offices might make your life easier, but it makes everyone else's harder. Man the fuck up.

And while i'm on the subject, here's some practical advice you might consider: observe your school's behaviour policy. I'm sure you're aware of it - you devised it. Apply it rigidly and consistently or don't bother at all. Don't make exceptions. Don't renege on your agreements. Don't contradict the staff who have correctly applied it.

I understand that you want to be an 'inclusive' school and you want to keep your pupils on site. But if they don't obey the rules, pupils must be punished fairly and consistently. They will respect you for it. Rather, they have no fear of your sanctions and consequences as they are negotiable. As is stands, you pupils couldn't give a shit about your rules - they openly laugh at the poxy ten minute detentions they face for consistent bad behaviour and know that a spell in inclusion will be over before it begins.

Even a green-behind-the-girls, wet-behind-the-ears PGCE student knows that pupils respect consistency and fairness. Set the rules, enforce the rules, reinforce the teachers at the coal face who are enforcing your rules and do not bend or break. Your school will be better for it. Your pupils will appreciate it. It might make life harder for you at first, but that's why you get paid the big bucks.

And given that i'm on an unpaid work placement, you can have that advice for free.

Cathartic Non-Constructive Crankiness

My hand is broken. My fourth and fifth metacarpal have been snapped and dislocated, leaving me one-handed over Christmas. I can barely type, cannot write and struggle to wipe. On the plus side, I'm not allowed to wash up. Hopefully the metalwork holding my paw together will be removed in mid-January and I can begin functioning like a proper human being again.

My busted hand has not been my only frustration recently. I am seething with rage at just how useless my university has been during my PGCE. My anger at this educational institution grows daily and any success I have achieved so far has been in spite of them, not because of them.

The course has, thus far, been divided into the following components: a two week placement in a primary school; a series of 'theory' lectures on Monday mornings; subject specific lectures, workshops and tutorials on Fridays; a placement in a secondary school. All of these elements must be documented and uploaded onto an online tool which logs our work and progress. Seems reasonable, eh?

The primary placement was perfectly fine. I arranged it myself, picked a lovely local school and enjoyed acting as a TA to a Y6 class. I'm not entirely sure what the point was - we were told it was to give us an idea what pupils were capable of when they joined secondary schools as Y7s - but given that these adorable rugrats were a full year younger than Y7 pupils at a time of huge growth and development, i'm not sure there was much value in this.

Lectures have been even less useful. Sold to us as 'a series of provocations' designed to encourage our own thoughts and studies, these have been nothing short of appalling. It seems the only qualification to present these lectures is that you must be a former student of the course who enjoys drinking with the course leader. I'm not actually sure what the majority of these lectures were for. Some were so woeful that, despite attending and taking notes, I hadn't realised the topic had been covered. When it dawned on me that I had to write a 6000 word essay on AfL I complained that this subject hadn't been covered. It had. I rest my case.

Subject specific sessions have been little better. The course leader has apparently been trotting out the same sessions for years, is a patronising twerp and makes some of the most absurd and unreasonable demands you could imagine. He clearly has no sense of decency whatsoever - confirmation of which arrived at around 3pm on December 21st. While everyone else in the world of education packed up and pissed off to the pub, this man was emailing the PGCE English cohort asking them to write a short SoW based on two stories from the Sunlight on Grass anthology. These are to be presented in the first session back after New Year. The timing sucked and, at the end of a long and demanding term, this put people's backs up. Worse still, getting hold of said anthology (not commercially available) or the stories it contains (impossible to find online) during the holidays is like plaiting fog.

Much of this section of the course has involved micro-teaching. Usually, this involves a group of twentysomethings acting like petulant children in an immature attempt to replicate the behaviour of a 'typical' class of children whilst being 'taught' by other group members. It is bullshit of the highest order.

Thankfully, the tutors in these sessions are thoroughly lovely and charming: old-fashioned teachers from the old school. Unfortunately, this causes misunderstandings and leads to mixed messages. While they are happy to trust our judgements and abilities, their laissez-faire attititude to documentation and 'Offsod box-ticking' leads to confusion and panic - not least when compared to the course leader's anal approach (this may or may not be a euphemism).

The key to this confusion lies in the very software designed to combat grey areas. This piece of software (which shall henceforth be known as The Twat) is meant to keep an electronic copy of all our documentation and evidence. Each file uploaded can be linked  to the Teaching Standards, thus creating a wonderful and convenient compendium of evidence which can be accessed by anyone who needs to, whenever they need it. Hallelujah.

In practice, The Twat is an absolute twat. It's like comparing the internet to Ceefax - badly designed, cumbersome, confusing and (already) embarrassingly outdated. Rather than saving time, it creates far more additional work. Written observations must be scanned and uploaded, every single resource and lesson plan must be uploaded (one at a time), items cannot be dragged/dropped like you'd expect, many documents must be uploaded twice (once in one folder, then again as evidence against the standards), every lesson must be evaluated and a reflective journal produced (in which you repeat work by replicating your evaluations), ad infinitum.

As well as creating absurd amounts of admin and being enormously time consuming, this piece-of-shit software is managed inconsistently. Messages are sent from the various disparate departments of the university updating instructions on its use (the record is eight contradictory emails in less than an hour) meaning that school-based mentors, university tutors, course leaders and office staff cannot agree on a uniform approach to The Twat's use - what the blue-blazes are us poor students supposed to think? I don't know anyone on the course who wouldn't prefer having a folder filled with evidence which could be presented as required. What luddites we are.

Luckily, I spent two years working as a Teaching Assistant in an English department prior to my PGCE. As such, I had hundreds of hours of practical experience, had taught plenty of lessons and had a bank of useful knowledge ready and waiting to be used on my first placement. I hit the ground running, made 'outstanding progress' and have been offered (and have accepted) a job. Bully for me. But many of those without my experience have struggled, with four falling by the wayside already. This infuriates me.

There has been much talk of 'setting pupils up to succeed'. Unfortunately, these words do not seem to apply to PGCE students. We are encouraged to make success as easy to achieve as possible for our young charges. The same words feel empty when applied to us. The way our course is structured means it's perfectly possible to teach English having only ever seen around ten lessons of that subject taught. How can that be acceptable?

There are PGCE students in my school who are fresh from university. They have no school experience. They don't know what activities work in the classroom. They don't know how much can be squeezed into an hour. They don't know how to assess formatively. They don't know how to plan for progress. They haven't been taught these skills. They haven't seen these things done. And it's not their fault.


My university has taught me nothing. And have charged me £9000 for the privilege. Despite telling me they'd make life as easy as possible for me, my second placement school will see me spend three hours a day travelling. And then at least an hour fiddling around with admin. What I want to do is plan brilliant lessons and teach them. But when will I find the time?

Inactive Listening

The last thing you should do for your students is spoon-feed them. And hopefully you'll never be called to wipe their arses. So praise the Lord that our PGCE course leader made a stand today against the dunderheaded dipsticks who waste his time with inane questions which he's either answered or which are addressed in the course literature.

It is slightly worrying that such a high percentage of our future educators seem so unwilling to engage their brains before they engage their mouths, listen so inattentively and are incapable of independent thought. With his affably amiable demeanour visibly dissolving, our fraying lecturer taught them the 'three before me' rule. If nothing else, his stance should at least teach them not to mollycoddle their own pupils. It might have been the only thing they learned today.