Education

Most teachers in Guernsey are very keen to do a good job and lots do just that. Some do a very good job indeed. It’s just worth remembering that.
 
Now an easy question. What do we want from our schools?
 
What does the end “product” look like?
 
When you send off your pride and joy to the local primary school, what do you expect from them?
 
Well, you’d like your child to be taught to read, write, and use numbers. Teach them what’s right and wrong. That sort of thing.
 
The trouble is that everyone else wants schools to do part of their job as well.
 
Health issues? Get into the schools.
 
Anti-social behaviour? Teach the kids what they should be doing.
 
Debt problems? Teach basic economics.
 
Poor diet? Teach cooking and home skills.
 
Island going to the dogs? Give them a sense of pride in their Island and teach local history.
 
Teenaged pregnancies? Sex education.
 
Oh, and don’t forget that this is a religious Island so a dose of Christianity is called for in the mix as well.
 
And you wonder why Education seems to have lost something.
 
The real problem is that we can’t all agree on what constitutes a good education so we just keep moving the goalposts. Even when something is agreed, there is then disagreement on how best to measure it.
 
So we end up with “teaching to the test” to get as many kids through the 11+ as possible. Then at GCSE time we concentrate on the C and D predicted grade kids so as to get the most pupils passing within the A-C band - the all important measurement for the league tables.
 
Let’s just step back a bit and have a think.
 
Most children come into school aged 4+ and bursting full of questions. How many come out of the other end in the same state and what happens in between to change them?
 
What we need is a system which encourages learning regardless of curriculum or age.
 
A system which teaches children how to think and how to learn. 

How to become a useful team player and how to be a good member of society.
 
A system which shows them what is available rather than giving them what’s on offer.
 
See? Now I’m doing it.
 
It’s easy to start putting your own ideas into schools.
 
But let’s not just pitch in with our ideas, lets look at what works.
 
We have always dragged behind the UK hoping to learn from their mistakes but we generally follow their lead. We have the whole of the world to chose from but we follow something which we know isn’t the best. Why is that?
 
On 2010 OECD ratings, the UK ranks behind 19 other countries in reading, and behind 21 countries in Maths. Five of those countries above the UK are English speaking so why aren’t we looking at what they are doing if we want a nearest comparison free of linguistic problems.
 
Look to Australia.
 
Look to New Zealand.
 
Look for success.
 
Then look for effective ways to measure performance.
 
Share this data with the teacher, the child, and with the parents.
 
Look at trends.
 
What value are individual teachers adding to the children’s education? This should be a good indicator of effective performance.
 
Share best practise and allow less effective teachers to learn to improve their performance within a set period. If that doesn’t work then teaching is probably the wrong career for them and they should move out of it as soon as possible.
 
It may seem harsh but we cannot allow the Peter Principle to apply in schools. If someone becomes ineffective then they cannot be allowed to adversely affect the education of groups of children year after year. The job is too important and the cost of failure is too high.
 
To be fair, a lot of good work is already going on; we just don’t know about it.
 
Most Guernsey teachers are keen to get the best out of their pupils. They want to do a good job and they want to improve their own performance.
 
So, let’s agree on what we want from them and how it’s going to be measured. Then, step back and let these professionals do what they are trained for.
 
Then let’s give them some respect. Teaching is one of the most important jobs in our society and it isn’t easy. We need to value our teachers and give them what they need to do the job we ask of them.
 
It is not the teachers who have been failing, but those who were supposed to be directing and supporting them. Remember that.