NEARLY a year since he retired as head teacher of York High in Acomb, David

Ellis, voices his

concerns for the

future of schools

ALMOST twelve months after leaving my school for the last time I have reached a point where I am ready to express my real concerns for the future of our schools, the well-being of those passionate and committed colleagues who work in them and the young people who study in them. I have been drawn to my keyboard by a recent headline on the BBC newsfeed: “League table changes are toxic for poor white schools”.

Well I never! At last I feel that I am not the only person who has noticed this phenomenon. The article went on to include the following quote from Professor Becky Allen , Director of the Centre for Educational Improvement Service at University College, London.

“The problem with school performance tables is that they assume that the schooling system is solely responsible for everything a child learns in their childhood.”

If I could paraphrase Professor Allen. “Schools can’t do it by themselves and the more deprived their catchment the more difficult their job is.”

A few years ago the accountability measure for secondary schools was changed to Progress 8 which as the name implies rates the performance of a secondary school by the progress its pupils make between entry in Year 7 and the GCSE exams at the end of Year 11. What could be fairer than that?

Firstly, it assumes that all young people have the capacity to progress through secondary school at the same rate. Secondly progress is only measured against a list of academic subjects ‘approved’ by the Secretary of State.

The danger of me progressing any further with this piece is that I leave myself open to being accused of making excuses for my own shortcomings, having low expectations, being bitter and twisted or just simply an out of touch ‘has been’. I will however take my chance as I believe it is important for me to say what many others may feel restricted in being able to articulate. So here we go…

My journey into headship was driven by a desire to make a difference to the lives of all the young people I encountered but in particular those who hadn’t been given the best start in their lives. As a consequence many of my students were not from middle class, professional backgrounds. The catchment area of my school covered wards in the city that were amongst the most deprived in the North of England and had some of the lowest proportion of University educated adults. Many of my students had made below average progress in in Primary School and most were ‘white working class’. Very few students had English as a second language. This is significant because it is well documented that EAL students make rapid progress in secondary school as they acquire better English Language skills. Many of my students had limited or no experience of travelling abroad, visiting an art gallery or going to the theatre. As a result they were behind their peers nationally in ‘cultural capital’ that underpins much of what goes on in the classroom and many lack the motivation to study a foreign language. None of this is of course the fault of the student but neither is it the fault of the school they attend.

In choosing to take on a headship in a school serving a community of this make up my vision was to do my very best to ensure that our school tried to fill some of those gaps in a young person’s experience. I was driven to help every one of my students to become the best person they could be, a vision shared by the many wonderful colleagues I was able to appoint to be part of my staff team. In the first few years of being a head teacher we were able to improve year on year the standards being achieved by our students when compared to their predecessors and the whole community was proud of our success. In addition to this we had an equally important vision to enrich the broader education and experience of our young people. These included:

Educational visits to a range of countries including Tanzania, Uganda, France, Spain, Germany, Holland and Italy. Often the first time a young person had left the United Kingdom

A strong partnership with Royal Shakespeare Company including work experience in Stratford

As a sports college, a huge emphasis on London 2012 with our students being part of the opening ceremony

Inspirational visits from Sir Steve Redgrave, Darren Campbell, Paralympians Tim Prendegast and Craig Heaps, Women’s Rugby international Katy Storie and The man who started most of Usain Bolt’s world and Olympic record races, Alan Bell.

Groundbreaking work on LGBT issues resulting in a personal visit from Sir Ian McKellan.

These kinds of opportunities and our academic improvements were recognized by two good Ofsted inspections in 2009 and 2012 and the ethos, leadership and teaching in the school were strongly praised. Over the next few years we continued to work as hard as we had always done to provide our young people with as wide a range of inspirational and life changing experiences as we could.

What came next however was a change to the accountability system and the move to a more restricted academic curriculum following the 2010 general election. As a consequence we lost many of the vocational programmes which our students both enjoyed and were able to succeed in as they didn’t ‘count’ in the new accountability measures and our students were faced with increasingly challenging terminal examinations. We, of course, did our very best to change our practice to prepare our students for the new curriculum but for all of the reasons already described the resulting poor Progress 8 score meant that our school found itself in special measures and the inspection report described almost everything about us, including the leadership as inadequate. Forced academisation followed.

As I reflect on that experience I remain deeply disappointed but fundamentally angry. I am not angry for myself, although being described as inadequate is hard to stomach, but for my colleagues and most importantly for my students and their community. We had stuck to the same values and principles that had brought us success and a real sense of pride in our school but now as a result of the change to the accountability system, which is now accepted as unfair, we were failures.

Sadly my experience is not unique. I too regularly read and hear about committed, passionate and hardworking teachers and leaders who are being pushed over the edge, or who are choosing to walk away from school and communities who need them most. It doesn’t need to be like this. Of course school should be held to account for the whole of the work they do but this must be done in a fair way which recognizes the outcomes in terms of the young people becoming well educated, healthy, caring and compassionate adults who can make a contribution to society in a wide range of ways. The present climate in our schools is damning dedicated professionals and labelling young people as failures with all of the consequences that that brings.

Enough is enough. It is time to stand up and speak out. It is out moral duty whatever the targets might be.