It should go without saying that the government needs to listen to what teachers actually want. And yet, once again, the government risks pursuing recycled policies that ignore what teachers are telling them.
We commissioned a survey from YouGov, and put the question to teachers: what do you think the government could do to offer better outcomes for children?
350 teachers in the UK replied via YouGov’s online panel and, of the five aspects asked about, overwhelmingly, funding schools so they can invest in the learning materials that work best for them (43 per cent) and reduce class sizes across the country (36 per cent) were seen to be the most important things the government could do to offer better outcomes for children.
Centralising curriculum design and the provision of learning materials across core subjects came out lowest at 4 per cent.
Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi recently revealed that Oak National Academy will be converted into “an entirely new arm’s-length body to the Department for Education”. This announcement seems predominantly driven by an understandable desire to find a longer-term home for Oak, but the government appears to have fundamentally misunderstood what teachers want from the platform and has misplaced aspirations on how to unnecessarily expand its remit.
Sharing best practice and exemplification in order to save teachers’ time is an admirable and appropriate goal. However, there is no indication as to how the creation of government-made curriculum maps and “thousands of downloadable lessons and resources” will meaningfully support schools.
No desire for state-sponsored resources
Indeed, our polling shows that teachers don’t trust the idea of resources created by a state-sponsored publisher masquerading as an arm’s-length body. There is no desire in schools to replace existing curriculum design with a catalogue of pick-and-mix resources or free curriculum maps that compete with the national curriculum, exam specifications and other high-quality education materials.
In fact, an overwhelming majority of polled teachers (83 per cent) anticipated that centralised curriculum planning and resources would make no difference to high-quality curriculum planning in their school - or would even make it worse.
In short, the government have landed on the wrong solution to a very real and important problem.
What do teachers want?
Our new polling asked teachers directly what they wanted. 43 per cent of the teachers surveyed felt that funding schools so they can invest in the learning materials that work best for them was the more helpful thing the government could do to offer better outcomes for children.
Smaller class sizes followed closely behind as a genuinely helpful measure.
In contrast, only 4 per cent of teachers polled thought that centralising curriculum design and the provision of learning materials across core subjects was the way to achieve this.
The message here is very clear: teachers want to be able to curate the resources that work best for their students. They are the experts in what their classes need and the government should be supporting them, not wasting time, energy and money on something teachers don’t want to use.
In some ways, this feels like Groundhog Day for the education resources market. Just under a year ago, we explained how a very similar proposal from the DfE would undermine teacher choice. The scheme was quietly dropped following a backlash from the education community.
Yet here we are again: having to explain to the government that teachers won’t benefit from government-published resources.
One-size-fits-all education materials are not the solution to learning loss or improving curriculum design. Instead, teachers need to be empowered to make decisions on what works for them and their classrooms.
The UK has a world-leading education publishing sector. Our publishers are experts in working with teachers to develop resources for schools that tie in with the national curriculum. The DfE’s investment in expanding Oak National Academy is doubling up on work and diverting investment away from schools themselves.
Redefine the initiative
We have had some really positive engagement with ministers and officials, and we made it clear that education publishers are keen to partner with Oak National Academy and government officials to find the best means of supporting learning.
The new arm’s-length body really could be an exciting opportunity to do something useful for the teaching community. We hope this polling data will help to inform the conversation, and we encourage the DfE to redefine this initiative in a new and ambitious way.
There is a real chance here to devise a curriculum body that meets the DfE’s aims and allows the commercial market to deliver on what teachers and learners want. We remain hopeful that ongoing engagement can achieve that outcome.
Stephen Lotinga is chief executive of the Publishers Association
