How did we end up here?

If you drop a frog into a pan of boiling water, it will yelp and struggle until it eventually dies.

However, if you drop a frog into a pan of cold water and then gradually heat the water until boiling point, it won’t stir.

It won’t notice the temperature gradually increasing around it until it is too late…

In my, now over 25 year, career, I have seen the teaching profession change beyond recognition.

For the most part this has been for the better. I am a natural optimist and generally assume that tomorrow will be sunnier than today. Which, despite the perpetual gloom in the press, has usually proved to be the case in terms of our profession, and indeed the World.

And yet, my sunny optimism has been tested of late.

Whilst I still believe that teaching is continuing to improve at a local level, nationally our leaders seem to have at best lost their way, and at worst lost interest in educational betterment altogether.

So of late I have been asking my self – how did we get here?

And so with the perspective of some time in the profession, this is how…

1992-1996: The dying days of a worn out government

I trained, and then began my career, in the death throws of the John Major Government.

School buildings were tired and often in a poor state of repair, with little or no money and no hope or expectation of having any. The British economy had been battered and bruised by a series of economy shocks which resulted in the UK crashing out of the ERM on 16th September 1992, followed by a recession.

Sound familiar?

Looking around schools seeking my first ECT job, Headteachers would proudly show prospective candidates each and every crap Nimbus Computer they’d manage to buy with Tesco’s ‘Computers for Schools’ vouchers.

The really swanky ones would take you to the school’s only ‘Multi-media CD ROM’ PC (bought with donations from the PTA) and seduce you by showing you articles (some including digital images) from the wonder that was ‘Encarta 96’.

Whilst there was a national curriculum, there was no pressure (internally or externally) to teach maths or English every day. 50% of children achieving the, then, expected standard, barely raised an eyebrow. Most teaching of the 3 R’s was from workbooks or textbooks, with little direct instruction. I have no doubt a great many talented and experienced teachers made sure that their students learnt a great deal in this period, exploiting these freedoms to create a rich and ambitious curriculum. However, during my training, I also came across as many weaker or inexperienced teachers (as I was at the time) who were given little guidance or supervision.

So let us not paint this period before oversight as a sunny upland where all succeeded. It wasn’t. And whilst I’m sure much teaching was good… some of it wasn’t.

It was in the Autumn of 1996 that I had my first experience of OFSTED.

The school had three months (?!) notice, and a team of 5 inspectors descended on the school for a week. Whilst it was certainly something we noticed, I don’t remember anyone being particularly perturbed by their visit. As a young ECT, the lead HMI took the time to give me both feedback and encouragement. His words would drive me on for the next five or so years until my next encounter.

1997: the big bang.

On a warm Spring night, knowing I had 38 Year 6 children to teach the following day (there was no cap on class sizes in 1996), I sat up up until 4am and watched a tsunami of hope and optimism overwhelm the old guard. By the time I went to bed (just after Michael Portillo had been routed), it was clear we’d wake up to a new England.

What followed was the most ambitious, most exciting, and often most autocratic period in education which I’ve ever experienced.

As Laura McInerney, recently wrote about so eloquently on Twitter, the 1998 Education White paper marked a once-in-a-generation shift in governmental ambition in terms of schooling.

Money poured into our poor Kingswood Primary, in a white working class district of Bristol, in a way that no teacher or leader could remember. We no longer showed parents the crap single classroom PC’s bought with Tesco vouchers, but instead the 15 gleaming PC’s within the new computer suite, which had been paid for by a £10,000 universal grant from the New Labour government. And what’s more, for first time every school had this thing called the Internet – although, if I’m honest, we didn’t really know what to do with it.

Literacy was the first priority – and every school was instructed to teach an hour of English every day for the first time. This led to most teachers receiving their first ever, nationally-organised, continuous and sustained professional development. We went from ‘tinkering under the bonnet’ of learning, to being proper mechanics. Every teacher was taught how to teach English: Grammar, reading, writing, spelling – the works. Big boxes of VHS video tapes and instruction manuals guided the INSET in schools for several years.

Again, let’s not pretend this was all some kind of socialist utopia. The Literacy Strategy was bold, but also inflexible. The horrendous ‘Literacy hour clock’ gas-lighted an older generation of teachers, who had learned what worked in literacy teaching over many years, only to find that a more trendy (but not always a universally more effective) methodology had taken its place. It also indoctrinated the trendy young teachers (in novelty ties) like myself – who followed it unquestioningly, without engaging in any pedagogical research of our own… sometimes sacrificing children’s learning on the alter of orthodoxy.

1997 – 2005: Mother Russia Provides

And so it continued.

Next was the Numeracy Strategy; another bold and all-conquering national approach to the teaching of Mathematics.

Again, for most of us it was the first ‘proper’ mathematics CPD we’d had and was the first attempt to codify good teaching. Again, this was entirely controlled by central government. There was no room for interpretation.

And whilst this did uplift teaching to a good minimum standard, it also stifled any divergence from the orthodoxy of the period.

My next brush with OFSTED came in 1998. This time the school had just two months notice (?!), and again, it was largely supportive (again – a team of five inspectors looking at every subject over the course of a week).

But there was a subtle shift, as in 1998 the government introduced performance targets for the first time.

And data became a thing.

And yet, when quizzed by inspectors, the line ‘that child is Free School Meals’ basically gave you a ‘get out of jail free card’ for any under achievement. Again – this was no utopia.

But by now this was also the epoch of the All Powerful LA.

During this period, the LA reigned supreme. Huge sums of central government money travelled through these local bodies and they were the DfE’s high priests and most devote inquisitors. A small 100 school authority like my own had over 20 curriculum consultants; a job which we all aspired to do. I even carved out a fun role as a part-time Maths, and then Computing advisor for the LA – an interesting and rewarding role, backed by more ring-fenced cash than we’d ever seen before.

I was a teacher of the revolution. Schooled in the orthodoxy of the National Strategy, intoxicated by visions of a brave new world.

But with the money.

Came the targets.

And with the targets, came MUCH higher expectations (and rightly so).

And a shift in accountability from the inspectorate.

And a new culture.

2005 – 2010: Bold Ideas and Big Brother

By 2005 I was a Deputy Headteacher.

I had risen quickly through the ranks of the New Labour Educational World: ‘star’ of ‘Teachers TV’ (it was a New Labour thing!).

Expectations on teachers had continued to rise and with them the pressure to succeed. As did children’s attainment – rising year on year as an increasing accountability culture drove up standards.

In 2006, the school where I was DHT was judged ‘satisfactory’. For the first time, data had driven the outcome of an inspection. There was now an edge to the inspection process, which hadn’t previously existed. Poor inspections now had consequences for the school… and particularly the headteacher.

It was around this time that Headteachers would ‘go for tea’ with the chief LA education officer after a poor inspection… and then disappear over a weekend.

Like football managers or failed administrators in dictatorships, Headteachers became expendable. A bad inspection marked an end to your career. And whilst it certainly continued to drive up standards, once again the culture shifted…

In 2007 I bet the farm on a failing school.

Becoming a Headteacher in such circumstances, in hindsight, was career madness. I knew the fate of failing Heads, and (with a young family) decided to ‘have a go anyway’.

In 2009 I met OFSTED again, this time as Headteacher. It was a meeting which would either make or break my career as a school leader. By now there was only one option (resignation) if your school failed. Thankfully it didn’t.

A month or so later, now judged by the all-powerful LA as ‘a winner’, I was asked to speak to a group of new Headteachers. To this day I remember the panic on the advisor’s face upon seeing my first slide entitled ‘Always remember that you are expendable’.

I was not invited to speak to new Headteachers again.

In 2008 the banks crashed, and soon New Labour were themselves washed away. Not so much by a popular wave of pro-Tory jubilation, more by a tired nation casting around for a change.

And so begun a decade or more of austerity.

2010 – 2013: Attack the blob

In 2011 I bet the farm again on another failing school.

This time I had leadership cash in the LA bank (and a very capable acting headteacher).

And this is where folk-lore and reality diverge.

It is true to say that school’s have been underfunded for a decade or more. It is also true to say that school’s between 2010 and now saw an expansion in both their role and funding. Before this period we didn’t have Family Link Workers, or HLTAs, or any number of additional staff which we have just convinced ourselves were always there.

Michael Gove became the bogey-man for his outspoken views about the educational elite. He deliberately antagonised a profession used to good working relations with government. His attacks were immediately followed by the appointment of Michael Wilshaw as the Chief Inspector of Schools, who immediately created the ‘Requires Improvement’ grade – and who took much relish in goading the profession. At one event he declared that ‘if somebody comes and tells you that morale is at an all time low, you’re probably doing something right’.

Again, whilst neither of these protagonists were my cup of tea, I try to look objectively on their periods in office. Whilst both held views with which I disagree, at least they held views and had some determination to transform education. They genuinely believed in competition and ‘free-markets’, coupled with harsh punitive inspections.

The water continued to warm.

And whilst outcomes rose, the relationship between the DfE and the profession deteriorated. What’s more, the DfE seemed to like this hostility, dubbing teachers who disagreed with them ‘the enemies of promise’…

2013 – 2019: Austerity, MATs and free-market teaching

Whilst the introduction of MATs and the stripping of LA power (and funding) in this period was a major change, for me it was no ‘big bang’.

Schools had less money – but still more than when I was an ECT.

The biggest shift was in how the government chose to influence schools. A new National Curriculum did some things, but this period was predominantly an assault the dominant paradigm. Centralised structures were blown away and replaced with a ‘wild west’ of CEO-led MAT chiefdoms.

Again, I will not be universally critical of this. It freed schools from the dependence on the DfE to provide us with all the answers and made us think for ourselves – something I think any incoming Labour government will have surely noticed.

But the harshness of OFSTED inspections increased, to the point where your data determined your outcome to the point that they may as well have looked at your outcomes online and then post you your report. For me this was the high water mark of OFSTED’s expression of force.

I responded to this by training to be an OFSTED inspector. They can’t get you if you know their game!

I think it was also around this time when Deputy Headteachers (now often non-class-based) decided Headteachering was simply too dangerous a career choice. A HT recruitment crisis followed.

I had my next two encounters with OFSTED in this period, firstly a full inspection in 2015, then a ‘short’ inspection in 2018.

The 2015 inspectors were great. They listened to the school’s story and gave us the benefit of the doubt. That said, the school stood ‘behind high walls of excellent SATs data’ so we went into the inspection knowing we were untouchable.

The 2018 inspection was a very difference experience. The lone inspector announced the outcome of the inspection within 5 minutes of meeting me and was irritable and cold when her initial judgement looked flimsy – expressing personal opinions and making personal judgements which weren’t in the Inspection Handbook. Following a complaint by myself (mid inspection), it took an intervention from Sean Harford (then the national deputy director) – who’d I’d messaged on Twitter – to get things back on track. The Inspector was made to apologise to me during the inspection. But this did little for our relationship. We fought each other into a stalemate.

The school remained Good (which was less than we’d hoped). But we felt utterly deflated and exhausted by the experience.

More concerning was what could have happened had I not been an experienced Head with a direct line to the second in command in OFSTED…

2020 – 2023: Fear.

‘I have written about this elsewhere, but by 2020 we no longer stood behind ‘high walls of excellent data’ (in KS2 at least).

With another inspection imminent, this played constantly on my mind. For the first time I couldn’t guarantee that an Inspector wouldn’t turn up with another pre-judgement, damning the school to RI.

All the external reviews we commissioned concluded this was unlikely. But the thought of having a 20 year career ended at the whim of a stranger terrified me.

More than once I Googled ‘Jobs for failed Headteachers’.

2023: Tragedy

Then at the start of the year a dedicated Headteacher died.

Twenty years after being placed on the stove, the water had finally reached boiling point.

To be honest, I’m surprised it took as long as this for a system built on ruthless personal accountability to claim a life.

The Inspection report, briefly published and then swiftly deleted, noted that ‘there had been a change of leadership following the death of the Headteacher’. The next bullet point explained that the school had child-care provision.

Tragedy had been followed by callousness.

This week a coroner judged that OFSTED had contributed to Ruth Perry’s death. It noted the inspection “lacked fairness, respect and sensitivity” and was at times “rude and intimidating”.

A fortnight earlier Amanda Spielman spoke to the media about how unfair it was that the death of a Headteacher was allowing people to criticise OFSTED.

Callousness followed by haughty contempt.

After the verdict, OFSTED offered to provide a day’s training to inspectors on managing well-being during an inspection.

It appears it will actually be a 90 minute Zoom call…

So this is where we now stand.

Did we see it coming? Possibly.

Were we complicit? Almost certainly. The thrill of chasing data targets. The ecstasy of a successful inspection (cue banners and an over-subscribed school).

All the while, two tribes (‘progs’ and ‘trads’) formed. Each with zealous certainty in the efficacy of their orthodoxy. We allowed our profession to become partisan. It became okay for high profile, sometimes government-endorsed, educational leaders to troll others, often less powerful, on social media.

As long as your gang was winning – the ends justified the means.

And so here is where we now stand.

2024…

We head into 2024 with the education sector weak, attacked by the government which is supposed to be its champion, and riven with factionalism.

And yet, I for one am endlessly optimistic.

Whilst I think the nature of professional debate teaching is horrid, I think the quality of teaching is the best I’ve seen in the 25 years of my career.

Whilst funding (especially SEND funding) has fallen in real terms, we still have more than we did in 1996 – and, as one of the richest nations on the planet, could spend more if the will was there.

Whilst OFSTED have behaved terribly, school leaders are saying that enough is enough. A watershed is coming and the centre cannot hold.

And whilst the Secretary of State attacks the profession on a daily basis, mainly to chase right-wing headlines, she (and the government) will soon be washed away – just as they were in 1996.

What any new government does will have huge significance.

I hope they have the same bravery to transform the sector as the 1998 White Paper did.

I hope they let the sector find its own way, just as Gove espoused.

And I hope a woman’s death makes us all: the profession, the politicians and the inspectorate, reflect on the landscape we all had a hand in shaping.

And then let us build a new future for our children.