Keep Fighting The Good Fight? — a Reaction to the Schools White Paper 2022
OPINION PIECE — ‘Keep fighting the good fight?” — a reaction to the Schools White Paper 2022
Author: Kirsty Corbitt
Kirsty is a teacher in a rural Lincolnshire state secondary school and a part-time PhD in Education student. She was formerly a Head of Department and Pastoral Lead in a medium/large Multi-academy Trust (MAT).
The 32.5hr week
The Schools White Paper pledges to ensure all schools provide a 32.5 hour week from September 2023, it is my understanding that 88% of schools do this already and those that don’t do so because they have a shorter break and/or lunchtime. Consequently, this will merely cost those schools more money as they will have extra costs in terms of support staff such as midday supervisors and have little or no impact on teaching time or student outcomes. I worked in a school that was open for 30 hours (excluding optional afterschool clubs that were available for an hour after school every day), it served its area well because many of the students had to collect younger siblings from primary school. This meant parents didn’t have to pay for costly wrap-around child care, for those parents increasing the school day will cause further economic hardship at a time they can least afford it with the cost of living being so high. It will also cause greater resentment towards schools in an area where engagement with education is already low — not a great way to increase standards…. The other thing this does is reinforce the message that schools are glorified childminders, as it seems the quantity of time in school has become more important than the quality of teaching.
Improving the standards of maths and English for all children
It also pledges to focus on improving the standards of maths and English for all children. Great, no one would argue that children having strong literacy and numeracy skills was important, of course, it is. However, with the way this has been put forward what will actually happen is that those children who are currently behind the curve will spend lots of time in catch up sessions and so miss out on the areas of the curriculum that are not tested by SATS, such as Art, PE, History etc. Is this the way to inspire children to love learning? Or as is more likely, is it going to make them feel like a failure and like education and school is not for them from an increasingly young age.
I thought Conservatives believed in levelling up, in helping people be positive contributors to a society where they felt their input was valued, by narrowing education so greatly this paper is doing the exact opposite. There are lots of ways to help children and especially young primary aged children improve literacy and numeracy that do not involve spending hours missing out on the things they enjoy because they are not good enough at something else.
Multi-Academy Trusts
The White Paper states ‘every school to be in or joining a strong multi-academy trust by 2030’. This statement is the one that makes me really consider if I should leave teaching. Having worked for a relatively large MAT and now being lucky enough to work in a school that is a trust of just two schools (the secondary I work in and a primary) I can tell you which meets the students and staff needs best and it is not the MAT.
Staff turnover in larger MATs is higher than in small MATs and single academies, this is bad not only for teacher retention, the profession as a whole, but children in particular. Children need experienced staff in schools to provide mentorship, experience and guidance to newer younger staff. They are the ones who have seen the wheel be reinvented many times and found the way to work that best suits the children in that school, but they are the ones who leave when large academy trusts are formed, leaving those behind much the poorer for it. Multi-academy trusts tend to be run as businesses and so cost-cutting and consistency are words used all too often. The school I left was part of a medium/large academy trust and continues to grow. Consistency was the byword, all lessons had to have certain features, even if those features were not relevant to all lessons and all subjects. You need only to go on social media accounts such as The secret Headteacher and Fake Headteacher to see multiple other examples.
A good example I know of (from another large MAT) would be that all keywords must be on every PowerPoint slide in every lesson. On the face of it, not a bad idea, but not remotely practical for languages for whom every word is a keyword. The school where I am now, values staff as individuals and as professionals, they work incredibly hard to meet their student’s needs, treating them very much as individuals too. I am proud to work there and be part of an ethos that wants to do what is right, but I fear if we were forced to become part of a larger chain that would all be lost and the school, staff and most importantly the children would be much the poorer for it.
Forcing all schools to become part of a multi-academy trust is the opposite of what I think a Conservative government that claims to be pro-choice should be doing.
Fight the good fight
I met Nadhim Zahawi a few months ago, he asked me to:
“Keep fighting the good fight”
I want him to know he has just made it that much harder.
There is so much this government could do to help the teacher retention crisis, improve standards in schools, outcomes for children and so help everyone to level up, but I am afraid this White Paper is not it and is in fact going to only add to the problem.
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the CFoE or its members.