Malaise in Education

By Tom Packer. Former Ofsted Inspector and Independent Schools Portal Associate.

I reckon it was the ERA of 1998 that was responsible. Before the ERA, teachers and educators spoke in a language which was more or less accessible to all. It was easily understood by parents, employers, student sand laymen. But the ERA (Education Reform Act 1998) changed all that, whether intentionally or not. Post ERA we must speak in jargon at all times.

Hear Tom speak at the Aspects of Leadership meeting, Trent College, on the 3rd March 2020. Click the link to find out more.

Thus we have key stages and foundation subjects (nothing to do with the Foundation Stage, by the way). Differentiation, which I’d understood as now means doing different things with children of differing abilities - we’d been doing this for centuries but of course it was quite worthless in an environment devoid of jargon. This jargon is then compounded by the use of a plethora of abbreviations: EYFS, KS1 (we used to say the first few years of schooling), NC and so on.

PSE was introduced which became PSHE and PSHMVE. To make matters even more confusing, every opportunity is taken to use Crass, Ridiculous, Asinine and Perplexing acronyms. For example, in the old era, the University of Cambridge Local  Examination Syndicate was known in conversation as “the Cambridge exam board”. Now its youclez or uccles. We talk about cats and sats. The secondary head-teachers’ union became shar and later askill (this must be pronounced with a north-English accent). One of the teaching unions became ammer, although strangely I don’t think the National Union of Teachers has ever been called nuts. Lessons must begin with 'ellos and of course don’t forget to affle (ask questions as you go along – again something we’ve been doing for hundreds of years). This leads one to suppose that a lesson without AfL is a waffle lesson. The worst offender is oft-stead. Oft-stead insist on peppering every conversation and report with as much jargon and as many abbreviations and acronyms as possible. I remember my first day as an HMI, when learning how to use the secure computer system, the trainer talking about isps. When I plucked up enough confidence to ask about this I was told pityingly that it meant Internet Service Provider. That same afternoon a different trainer was explaining the various inspection processes. Once again these isps featured a good deal; I couldn’t for the life of me see what the internet providers had to do with the inspections themselves. On inquiring I was told “Inspection Service Provider, you oaf” (Oft-stead Acronym for Fathead). My boss was known as a shimmy, although I was never too sure whether this was an acronym for Senior HMI or simply a reference to his greasy pole.

Then I came across the puzzling sentence “... the training for LAs provided by the LA has made a significant difference to the attainment of the LA ...” (LA = Learning Assistant, Less Able, Local Authority, Low Ability). We talked about sends and sefs and sips. I learnt that an isp after all is an Independent School Partnership. We were introduced to TIs, RIs and AIs. LIs, SIs, SCCIs and JIs.
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We looked at PANDA; an endangered species, unlike Oft-stead. Given Oft- stead's clairvoyant ability to make judgements about a school before setting foot across the threshold one can only assume it stands for
Pedantic Adherence to Negative Data Alone. And then there was the eff. An eff (EF = Evidence Form) is a carbonized form used to note down observations made during an inspection. Not content with eff as a noun, oft-stead has invented a related verb: to eff. This means noting down observations on an EF. So during an inspection the school is full of effing inspectors! The astute reader will have realised that the post-ERA malaise is the rise of MLAs in education (Multiple Letter Abbreviations). We urgently need a Credible, Respected Education and Teaching INnovation from the DfE to sort this out: Dispel Acronyms Forever in Teaching.

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Tom has been a School Leader for 20 years and his last post was
Founding Headmaster of the West London Free School, the first Free School, to sign a funding agreement with the Secretary of State. He had just 92 days to open the school in the spotlight of intense Media debate.
 
Tom also has experience of School Governance, having served on five Boards over a period of 25 years; for seven years he was Clerk to the Governors and Company Secretary. Tom has also served as one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Education, specialising in
Science, Mathematics and Leadership & Governance.
 
Publications include "Managing Schools in the 21st Century", [John Catt, London, 2008] and (as
contributor) "Establishing and Leading New Types of School: challenges and opportunities for leaders and leadership", [National College for School Leadership, 2013].

This article is taken from Autumn 2019 issue of innovatED magazine. You can read the electronic version or download the App FREE of Charge. Staffroom print subscriptions are also available. Click this link to find out more.