When a well-known journalist surmised a recent report on public sector productivity by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) as indicating “much of the so-called inflation was (eg) the phenomenon of the government paying teachers for not very much”, the Twitterstorm was inevitable.

The other important way of looking at this is that output was surprisingly robust in the first three months of the year - since much of the so-called inflation was (eg) the phenomenon of the government paying teachers for not very much teaching, when lockdown closed schools

- Robert Peston (@Peston) May 12, 2021

Some teachers took time out from their relaxing teacher assessed grades marking schedule to help Robert Peston understand what had really been going on, while others extended the invitation for a school visit.

Two weeks on (a lifetime in social media), the dust has settled and Twitter has moved on. 

But I’m left reeling by the dissonance between the extraordinarily high number of hours staff are putting in to keep the education system functioning and the public messaging that seems stuck in the narrative of lazy, unproductive teachers.

Sadly, it’s easy to see where journalists get their ideas from when looking at the ONS description of how the productivity between September and the end of March has been calculated.

Productivity in ‘normal’ years

Even in normal times, the measures used are quite crude, with the ONS stating that it measures teacher output as follows: “Output in primary and secondary schools is adjusted using the average point score (APS) per student in GCSE-level examinations, which are normally taken during the student’s 11th year of schooling.”

The limitations of using progress between key stage 2 and GCSE results are obvious. GCSE exam papers may be marked according to criteria but Ofqual ensures a normal distribution curve is maintained via “comparable outcomes” approach to avoid grade inflation.

This means the profession has almost no chance of achieving a higher value-added result as schools compete for a fixed number of slices of the qualifications cake: one school’s gain is another school’s loss, and productivity gains are therefore apparently “absent”.

Productivity during the pandemic

However, because the examination season has again been cancelled, the statisticians have had to find other means of measurement. These are almost as lacking in nuance as the usual system.

The thinking is dominated by the quantity of hours online or in the classroom, modified by the perceived effect of parent input: “The fraction of learning dependent on parents and guardians should count towards household production rather than as education output, as set out in international guidance.”

Of course, what is not measured here is the sometimes negative effect of parental engagement. Teacher time has been consumed by having to deal with new phenomena, such as “parent-bombing”, where parents intervene in lessons, resulting in a lot of work to get the lesson back on track and a mountain of email traffic afterwards.

All of this takes much longer than the normal response time in class. The contribution of Gavin Williamson inviting parental criticism was also a definite drag on productivity.

Online (or on paper) or in class

The ONS report also asserts that “the materials provided to remote learning primary (secondary) school students enabled them to cover around 56 per cent (72 per cent for secondary) of the material covered by in-person attendees over this period”.

The problem with this figure is it doesn’t distinguish between those who joined the lessons virtually and those who were dependent on paper-based materials because the government’s promise of laptops never materialised or patchy internet kept them offline.

The ONS has also depended on one organisation, Teacher Tapp, for the data from which to draw a national picture in terms of the hours teachers worked.

To those living the reality, especially in the first six months of 2021, the workload has been far higher and far more stressful during the pandemic than is reflected in the official statistics.

The ONS reports so far don’t cover the whole picture and reflect only a sample, based on self-reporting from participants who choose to input their data in response to three quick multiple-choice questions each day. 

This is not a criticism of how Teacher Tapp carries out its work and compiles its perspectives; no doubt it is a valuable resource. But it is limited.

What should be included in the productivity figures?

Perhaps what is most significant is what is left out of the calculations.

During the period (March 2020 to February 2021) covered by the ONS report, teachers have been remarkably productive in terms of teaching materials.

Legally, their work is the intellectual property of their school and has a price tag, especially when it can be badged and branded or uploaded on to YouTube.

Some academy chains have been accumulating materials that can be re-used by their own teachers or more commercially, while numerous schools and academies have been putting their lessons online as full programmes for others to access.

Some teachers contributed to a website containing short courses for GCSE students post-exam, including recorded lectures. The shelf-life of these products will extend beyond the present pandemic conditions.

Furthermore, teachers’ contribution to the 2021 examination series will no doubt be masked by the pathetically small rebate schools might receive from the awarding organisations. However, statisticians should accord a realistic value to their work.

How many millions of pounds in value have teachers contributed in their unremunerated roles as external assessors to the (highly lucrative) assessment system? A basic calculation of the pay normally awarded to the 300,000-odd examiners should be possible.

Measuring the unmeasurable 

What’s more, huge efforts have gone into keeping schools open throughout the lockdowns for selected groups of children; not to mention Covid testing of whole cohorts within schools - something that was undoubtedly very labour intensive. Schools in some areas operated foodbanks - and are still doing so.

But there are no measurements for the value of these inputs, so they are left out of any “official” data on how “efficient” teachers have been.

This means that so much of the government, the press and the nation take teachers for granted - as Mr Peston’s post on Twitter demonstrates. It’s a sad state of affairs.

Yvonne Williams has spent nearly 34 years in the classroom and 22 years as a head of English. She has contributed chapters on workload and wellbeing to Mentoring English Teachers in the Secondary School, edited by Debbie Hickman (Routledge)