The schools’ inspectorate are upset: it seems that secondary schools here are not cutting the mustard. Far from having a world-class education system ( a bone-brained boast based on ‘A’ Level results), secondary schools here are letting a lot of pupils down. According to the inspectorate, 21,000 children attend schools that need to be improved. Fifteen per cent of secondary schools are judged to be less than satisfactory. Only 17% of boys entitled to free school attending controlled non-grammar schools achieved good GCSEs last year.
There are pluses, the inspectorate say. Eight years ago, there was a gap of more than 50% between grammar and non-grammar secondary schools in terms of children achieving good GCSEs. Now it’s less than one-third. But the inspectorate says it’s just not good enough that over 60% of pupils in non-grammar schools are failing to get 5 or more GCSEs at A*-C. Oh, and 40% of school English departments are deemed not good enough.
Grim reading, eh? And we should thank the inspectorate for their diligent work, shouldn’t we? Or maybe not.
If there are 60% of non-grammar schools failing to deliver pupils with 5 or more A*-C grades, and if there’s a gap in exam achievement of just under one-third between non-grammar schools and grammar schools, you don’t need to be a schools inspector to figure that maybe this dividing of youngsters into grammar and non-grammar schools might have something to do with it. But the inspectorate, apparently, have nothing to say on that subject.
The ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ schools are determined by examining their marks in GCSEs. Do GCSEs measure ability? Well yes – they measure ability to get good marks in GCSEs. They don’t measure a range of other qualities which go to making a rounded human being who can find fulfilment in his/her personal life and contribute in worthwhile ways to the society. But that doesn’t matter: we’d rather round them up, year after year, and shepherd them into a big hall and see how successfully they can scribble answers to questions inside 90 minutes or whatever. Will they be called on to sit in a big hall and scribble over 90 minutes during their working lives? Very likely not. Yet that’s what we measure their success by and that of the schools.
There are a lot of other things I’d be tempted to say but life is short so let me deal with a top inspector woman who was on Raidio Uladh/Radio Ulster this morning. She was asked if the inspections and follow-up inspections were a good idea. She replied why yes, they certainly were: schools that were found unsatisfactory in their first visit, by the follow-up visit in 80% of cases were improved.
Have you ever talked to a teacher about visitations by the inspectorate? I have. To lots of them. And I can’t remember a single one having said that s/he found it a helpful experience. What the visitation encouraged was pretence, dolling up of classrooms, warning children not to step out of line when the inspector appeared, producing schemes of work and written documentation as standard when in fact they were anything but, pretending, if necessary lying – that was the kind of thing that visits from the inspectorate encouraged among teachers. Virtually all of the teachers told me it was a seriously stressful experience. Some told stories of teachers suffering health problems, occasional nervous break-downs in the face of visitation. And did the inspectorate point out weaknesses and suggest how they could be remedied? Yes and no. They pointed out weaknesses all right but they didn’t see it as part of their remit to suggest remedies. Figure it out for yourselves, was the message.
The way we measure ability of young people, the way we organise our schools in terms of academic ability, the way we judge ‘good’ schools and ‘poor’ schools, the way visitations by inspectorate are organised and conducted – all of these act against the possibility that we’ll produce young people who are confident, able, thoughtful and valuable contributors to society.
No, I haven’t seen what they pay school inspectors, Virginia. And I’d rather not think about it.
Good Friday10 April 1998
The Good Friday Agreement represented an international agreement between the Irish Government and the British Government endorsed by most of the political representatives in the north of Ireland. The “new” dispensation was designed to establish a stable system of government based on equality and impartial administration of the law. The architects of the agreement also sought to promote effective political and diplomatic structures with the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.
6 November 2014
On this date we have a dysfunctional political administration characterised by some behaviour that would make philistines look good, a health service that is being deliberately underfunded and “schools that stink.” In your comments about schools, you address real challenges faced by teachers on a daily basis and the fact that Inspectors noted significant improvements on follow-up inspections. Perhaps some of those Inspectors might visit Mr Kennedy’s Department for Regional Development? We regularly hear about the huge sums of money paid to consultants and grant aid for a range of “white elephants”, now very late in the day the Minister finally gets round to tell us that someone is not so good at mathematics. Someone, somewhere, arrived at the wrong answer on the railway question. Children and young people fail exams if they do not answer questions correctly. Imagine what would happen to a school principal, if he or she underestimated the school budget?
While rehearsals for the Christmas pantomime continue in the Assembly, there is a steady brain drain from this country. Children and young people need to be exposed to an integrated system of education that will contribute to the eradication of discrimination, sectarianism and racism, in centres of excellence, not schools that stink.
Not having had the privilege of being schooled in the Norneverland, it came as something of an I-opener for Perkie to read this armour-propre piercing bulletin on the state of play north of the Black Pig’s Dyke.
For some reason, difficult to discern, it reminded him of ‘An Inspector Calls’ by J.B. Priestley. That grim play features a suicide by the drinking of a strong disinfectant by a young woman which led to the following curious exchange:
-Was she pretty?
To which Inspector Goole (pronounced ‘ghoul’) replied:
-She wasn’t very pretty when I saw her last in the infirmary.
Being a typical product of the Murder Machine south of the BPD, it goes without saying that Perkie is illiterate in not one but in two languages (as is obvious from his inability to spell ‘eye-opener’ correctly in his opening sentence, see above). At least schoolchildren north of the BPD were/are not saddled or, dare one say it, straddled with Compulsory Leprechaun.
Countless crocks of gold have been squandered on this crackpot project. Indeed, it wasn’t till the Rainbow Coalition came into office in the Socialist Seventies that this blagguardism of the bog-oak monolith was finally challenged. Congo Crisis O’Brain was the guiding light of this Vowel Movement as it was universally acknowledged on all sides of the political picket fence that CCO’B was the only person, west of the Kish lighthouse, what could talk the Q’s English proper, like.
As a shaven-headed inmate in striped pajamas of a C.B. School, for the Boy Warbeck, every day was the day The Inspector Called. Many a time and – indeed – oft he was tempted to take a slug of a strong disinfectant if he had but only access to a container of same lethal liquid. Little wonder that Christian Brothers and Camp Birkenau share a common initialdom.
And the saddest aspect of the whole sorry affair was that he – along with his fellow inmates, with the exception of one, perhaps – were so brain-addled and backside-paddled that it wasn’t till many, many years later in a long postponed adulthood that we came to the realisation that what we had received was not, in fact a rattling good rounded education as we had been naively led to believe but rather the polar opposite, a spell in brain-washing Belsen.
That, in a word, concentrated what was left of Perkie’s power-washed brain.
This realisation coincided with the coming to power of the Dworkin Class. Now, while none of the Southern Sisterhood of the Black Pig’s Dyke had ever actually attended a C.B. School/camp which were all exclusively a Boyzone before the word had even been a glimmer in some Banal-Retentive Impressario’s ‘mind’, this did not prove a hindrance to their Boy-centred Dialectic.
They had, after all, their honorary dworks who were co-opted in such outlets as TUT and its broadcasting wing, RTE, to explain the pain of the cane-mark of Cain, dilatory semen-stains and other draining aspects of an arcane brain-washing regime, the sustained reign of terror designed specifically to produce further generations of t’s. (No names, no pack drills, no tool boxes).
One instance will do: every morning in Camp Birkenau classes began with a rousing rendition of ‘Sweet Vale of Avoca’ and other gleanings from ‘Moore’s Maladies’ which was actually decoded years later by the finest of fine gaelic minds – too late ! too late, alas ! – as : AVOCA.
A Victim of Child Abuse.
As a recovering AVOCA himself, Perkie can still only pitifully mutter: so THAT’s what it was all about !
No wonder he perpetually gets things muddled. Like, f’instance, saddling Gregory Campell with the sobriquet MEP. It’s obvious that PW, this damaged product of a CB School/Camp cannot tell his MLA from his MEP. In fairness (Roy-speak), he was not consciously trying to promote GC above his abilities (heaven forfend !) or even, as that sassy Scottish girl band, are infamous for (allegedly) doing, attempting ‘to win him with honest trifles to betray him in deepest consequence’.
That would be the group ‘Bewitched’ whose mega-hit was a cacophanous, diaphonous paen to their pet, shaggy sheep dog/ border collie: ‘Will ye go, Lassie, go’.
A penitent Perkie would like now to conclude, with your permission, Esteemed Blogmeister, by making amends/ currying favour with the Humphrey Yogurt of the Higher Truthiness, by passing on this little morsel of linguistic assistance. For the day this MEP from the Maiden City makes his maiden speech (in MEPrechaun, perchance) on the floor of the European Parliament. For such a colossal comedic talent deserves no less a platform.
As there are 27 (give or take so long as there as not 26) member states of the EP perhaps it is best to start with the A-list of the member states. A, say, for Albania.
The Albanian for ‘Curry my yoghurt’ is ‘Faleminderit’. And Perkie’s inner speech therapist advises GC that it is best pronounced with a sneeze to sound like: ‘Fal F’s sake, will ye be careful and mind the dresser !’
Mind you, it ought be uttered with the utmost caution, and perferably to a near empty chamber, or at least empty of Albanian MEPs. They might not turn out to be quite so meek and accomodating as the the MLA’s on the Shinner benches in Stormont.
In fact, they can be a little on the roughish side, this lot can, as a sadder but w. PW knows from his days in the Laser Hair Removal business. They are known, f’instance, to dress in string vests, the better to highlight the heather-like hairiness of their Slieve Gullion-sized shoulders.
And that’s only their female MEPs.
So beware, Gregsie, and take heed of Perkie’s well-intentioned warning: they are not all cut from the same habit as their fellow-countrywoman, Mother T aka The Model T in all-black.
Miredita !
Hi Jude,
The Department Inspectorate is totally out of touch with reality.
We have a two-tiered education system in the North. We have self-preserving institutions known as the Grammar Schools which cater largely for the middle and upper classes and then we have the expendable schools catering for the vast majority of working class children.
The numbers of children being taught in Grammar schools who are eligible for free school meals is shockingly low and is getting lower.
To examine the inspectorate would be quite an eye opener! Firstly is it representative of the communities whose children are being taught?
I think you will find the inspectorate largely staffed by the crème de la crème of middle class educationalists and academics. Most if not all inspectors are the product of a Grammar School Education system. There are more than one or two past-principals bolstering their principal’s pensions on the inspection trail.
And would you expect such an organisation to speak out about the disparity caused by Grammar schools! I think not!
Our society is run by those who came from Grammar schools and let’s be honest they do not really care about those that “didn’t make the cut”!
Not only do our secondary schools cater for the vast bulk of our children with Special Educational Needs and those with Emotional and Behavioural difficulties but they are also dealing with the repercussions of social deprivation and those dejected and disillusioned by society.
They are dealing with those who don’t want to be in school, those who don’t have a typical family life with role models and a mum and dad to cuddle them and ask them how they got on at school today.
Significant numbers of those children have been the object of neglect, abuse or domestic violence and have been exposed to the worst aspects of drug and alcohol abuse. No wonder they would have low self-esteem and feel they have little stake in our society.
Every one can’t be an Albert Einstein or even attain 5 GCSEs at A-C grade! Let’s just take time to remember that it is not a level playing field and this fact will not be emphasised in the DEPARTMENT PRESS RELEASES.
Success for those schools is not always measured in grades. When these inspectors’ sign off on their report go home to their leafy suburbs, our Secondary Schools have to get on with dealing with the everyday tasks of doing the very best for the children in their care considering their very limited resources.
In my first year teaching, I had a couple of visits from different subject inspectors. The CDT chap was an Englishman called Blackburn. He came to see me during a double period of TD (Technical Drawing); I had an A Level in it so I was timetabled for it. About halfway through the session he asked could he take over. The class was year 12 non exam, from Andytown and surrrounding republican areas, many of whom’s homes had been regularly searched and wrecked. These boys could be ‘lively’, my brother had them when an inspector with red hair and beard came into his class and one said to my brother, “Who’s the ginger **** with the beard?”.
Expecting the worst, I was surprised that the first thing he did was distract them with taking a £1 note out and challenging them to give him some answers about what they were doing and the first to answer correctly would be given the dosh. Cue instant attention and enthusiasm.
Later, during a general inspection, I was teaching Geog in a room that was a general purpose room without equipment, I was asked when I hadn’t used an overhead projector for the lesson.
I presume these guys look at the timetables of teachers they visit; had he looked at mine he would have seen that I had no permanent room and on the day of his visit i had to travel from one side of the school to the other and that I had no ‘frees’ on that day to try and get equipment to the room beforehand; my free hand (not carrying my briefcase) was carrying a set of 30 textbooks.
I think there was a culture change in the inspectorate in the Thatcher/Baker years, they ceased being “teachers and helpers” and became “school police”. The teaching profession is the worse for that change.
It might also be useful to mention that in the last 10 years thee has been a large influx of Classroom assistants into schools. In a school I know, classroom assistants are used as surrogate teachers. Many do not have a 3rd level qualification. They do, however, cost considerably less than a substitute teacher. A friend of mine approached that guardian of good teaching, GTCNI, and complained about this practice, gave the school and the subject areas. This was 4/5 years ago; they never even sent anyone to investigate the complaint. And the Chief HMI wonders what can be done…………..
Perkin’s incredibly erudite and amusing – as usual!!
With regard to some of the things in the original post “teachers told me it was a seriously stressful experience”.
My sister is a teacher and went through an inspection a couple of years ago Totally agree with what you wrote.
“The Inspectors pointed out weaknesses all right but they didn’t see it as part of their remit to suggest remedies. Figure it out for yourselves, was the message”.
And rightly so. Teachers are graduates. They should be able to figure out solutions once the problems have been identified.
Are critical thinking and problem solving off degree courses?
Interestingly this onslaught on NI schools coincides with an attack on Scottish schools under the remit of the SNP and Alex Salmond http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11213867/Alex-Salmond-challenged-over-shameful-education-record.html
General election looming, anyone?
Presumably the inspectorate is ultimately under the control of John O ‘Dowd.He is not normally a man to shirk challenges if reform of that body is needed.
You could well be right. If he is, he should. (Once MORE we agree, Argenta. Clearly a rot is setting in.)
Many years ago in South Derry there was a primary school principal who was right and fond of the gargle.He would often send pupils “over the moss” with a note for the local poteen maker who would dispatch the firewater suitably parcelled up to the headmaster.The result was that on occasions the increasingly inebriated “sir” would send his pupils home early as he slept the effects of the “still” off.On one such occasion the school inspector arrived and duly reported “school empty teacher full !”
I like it, Michael. So now was it Swatragh or Bellaghy??
It’s all true and much more Jude.I dont want to identify the exact area publically but if you contact me by e- mail I will reply with the whole story which was like something like a John B Keane novel !