“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair” - Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Election fever has set in: cue everyone talking about education like parents squabbling with no thought of the consequences for the child in the middle.
Education is currently in the middle of great reform; the middle of such change is often chaotic. It certainly feels chaotic, being in the moment in the world of education just now.
There are so many things that need sorting out: disruptive changes to schools’ governance due to a stuttering academisation programme; a funding crisis confused by the dual issues of overall funding and a consultation on the national funding formula; and primary and secondary assessment systems in the murkiest depths of the change curve to name just a few. These are big issues that need working through both coherently and with urgency by the government.
It was in this context that I found myself disheartened and frustrated when a notification on my phone interrupted a perfectly good staff meeting with the announcement of a general election.
An inconvenient distraction…
Another summer, another election and more challenge for schools as policymakers are now duly focused on the latest campaign trail, neglecting key educational issues as the political classes spend another summer having a beauty contest trying to work out who’s got a mandate to do what. The status quo in education has been dismantled on many fronts in recent years and everyone’s focus should now be on laying new foundations of reform carefully and considerately without the distractions that this summer will bring.
After what feels like the now annual announcement of purdah a fortnight ago, critical decisions and announcements from the Departement for Education are now all on hold until after the general election. Purdah, for those who are not familiar, is the period where government departments operate in a very limited “politically neutral” capacity and therefore are unable able to make any key decisions or announcements until the next government is announced. This is frustrating as it slows progress on many critical projects such as new free schools which will be opening next year. Trusts opening schools in September 2017, for example, are now having to wait until after a new government is formed before they can access any more details on funding or processes. Purdah is also stopping schools from moving forward with academy conversions and entering into funding agreements with their regional schools commissioners, bringing protracted periods of uncertainty for many of our most vulnerable settings.
For thousands of schools, it also means another day of closure as the polling stations take over the school halls again; two days this term for many, with local elections having taken place last week. With visits to the ballot box becoming a seemingly annual event, this makes for an uncomfortable conversation between parents and schools around unauthorised pupil leave of absence and undermines the uncompromising stance that every day matters.
An inconvenience for schools and parents certainly but perhaps more of a “Get Out of Jail Free” card for the government, which can now attempt to bury the truth of the grammar school consultation and instead add this controversial policy to a manifesto and then declare a mandate for selective schools when it inevitably retains power.
But while the political classes have their heads turned to engage in enthusiastic speculation about polls and rehearse soundbites around gammar schools, real people in real schools will continue to work with real children with these unresolved and very real issues making life more difficult.
Education is too fragile to attack
Unfortunately, it is not just neglect that I fear for education this summer but more damage to the profession and morale of school staff as the rhetoric gets louder and louder.
Education has already become part of the shouting match as Theresa and Jeremy trade public insults with each other like an ill-matched couple in the throes of argument. In schools, we often see the damaging effects of domestic conflict as the reckless words of parents impact harmfully on their children’s wellbeing. Similarly, the health of an already fragile profession is negatively affected by politicians and newspapers picking holes in our work.
Like the children who find themselves pawns in their parents’ manipulative games and retreat to the sanctuary of their bedrooms to avoid the conflict, teachers will do well to ignore this pointless rhetoric and try to put the headphones on for the next few months.
In the weeks ahead we will hear anecdotes and soundbites that are so far removed from reality and yet these become the truths that affect the moods, conversations and motivation of staff in our schools. After last year’s tumultuous Sats week, this year promises to offer us a further din; I will recommend that my staff read a good book rather than social media this week.
In hope, we travel forward?
I believe in education and in the many good people in the system at different levels who have the vision and pragmatism to take us through the current challenges. We will never have consensus on some issues and there will always be strong debates with loud, polarised and uncompromising views. I do believe, however, that we can reform our school structures and systems with coherence so that schools can move forward with more clarity of direction in the future.
My hope is that politicians and newspapers look beyond the poll ratings and paper sales and recognise their responsibility to be constructive rather than damaging as these debates continue.
Tom Rees is headteacher of Simon de Senlis Primary School, in Northampton, and director of Northampton Primary Academy Trust. He tweets as @TomRees_77.
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