What do teachers in Britain today have in common with the miners of the 1980’s? Both, in their respective times, represented an organised political bloc that did its utmost to resist Conservative policies. At the 2010 annual party conference, Michael Gove said that “the Conservative party is now the party of the teacher” and that he had no desire to “go back and re-fight the old battles of the 1970s”. And yet the current changes to Ofsted inspections are evidence of both a lack of confidence in already embattled educators, as well a desire to break them as a political force.
In what other profession are workers as rigidly observed and criticised whilst receiving so little support as those who chose to “do something amazing” and teach. No one challenges the need to inspect schools. However, the current system places unreasonable demands on professionals who are already stretched to their limits. During an inspection, a teacher must be able to give evidence of constant learning occurring for every pupil in said class for the duration of the hour long lesson. Sound difficult? More like impossible. With such difficult and poorly defined goals, it is often left to the whim of the inspector to decide on a pass or fail.
The actual labels given by an Ofsted inspector have also been re-engineered to meet political ends. This January the term “satisfactory” was dropped in the favour of “requires improvement”. In isolation the change appears acceptable, as Michael Gove commented; we should strive to push our schools to be more than satisfactory in a world that places ever greater demands on our students. However, this change is more a case of political expediency than idealism. It all ties back to the government’s desire to push as much of state sector education as it can into the private sphere. By moving the goal posts, the Gove has pushed more schools into the ‘failing’ category and as a consequence, this has encouraged many into becoming academies. In addition to this, no notice is taken of the fact that a bad rating, rather than encouraging improvement, will often do just the opposite. A failing school will often fall into the trap of the self-fulfilling prophecy of failure, as it may no longer be able to attract pupils who are successful or from a background that is conducive to success.
This is to say nothing of the additional stress placed upon teachers, who in schools undergoing special measures face twice-termly inspections. The disruption to the schools daily routine does little but damage the education of its pupils. Morale is important to any workforce and constant inspection gives the impression that one’s skills are not trusted and a feeling of being undervalued. This is breaking the will of many educators and driving them from their profession.
Professions that still retain a degree of political conscience and awareness are a dying breed. Aside from being a convenient way to push forward its education reforms, targeting teachers and by extension the state sector in this way offers it the chance to break the will of one of the last few organisations with the numbers and the power to stand against government policy. In this way teachers today are just as much victims of government agenda as the miners and northern communities were under Thatcher. Some say they are a vested interest, some argue that they are unreasonably resistant to change. But ultimately they are civil servants concerned who refuse to see the well-being of their students as a card to play in the game of politics.
