On the one hand, the news that British schools have
not improved their position in the Pisa league tables will come as no surprise
at all to anyone who has read Fiona Miller`s article on the people who advise
political parties in their education policies.(Who has all the big
ideas?03/12/13) As the majority of advisers, and members of think-tanks, are
privately educated with Oxbridge degrees, they are hardly likely to have the
knowledge and expertise necessary to come up with ideas to improve the quality
of education in our primary and secondary state schools.
On the other hand, the Pisa results are surprising
in view of the dramatic improvements in teaching, the increased enthusiasm of
the teachers and the huge increase in pupil effort I have witnessed in over
forty years of teaching. Perhaps the constant changes to curriculum, the ever
changing "best practice" and the importance attached to Ofsted and their
criteria for judging schools and teachers, also changing from one year to the
next, might have something to do with it? Not to mention, of course, governments
which put the blame for just about everything that goes wrong on their watch on
the teaching profession, and Secretaries of State who mis-use data to suit their
own political ideologies and to advance their political ambitions!
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