Q
21Alison
Seabeck: I hear what you are saying and appreciate that
there is some flexibility in the system. What I do not want to see as a
result of this is partnerships that work quite well now, but are
perhaps beyond an optimum size, having to change the way that they
work. There has to be some sort of
flexibility. Sir
Alan Steer: I agree that that would be ludicrous. We
want to build on what is working well and not impede it in any way. As
I said earlier, a problem with writing reports and making
recommendations is that you can find somebody who is many miles beyond
you before your pen even hits the paper. One has to accept that degree
of humility as
well.
Q
22Alison
Seabeck: Finally, may I go back to the issue of PRUs? I am
sure that we have all visited our local PRUs, but I had not picked up
on the issue of blocking—it is a bit like bed blocking in the
NHS—where young people are kept in a PRU because there is
nowhere else for them to go. Of the children covered by your research,
can you put a percentage on those with mental health
problems?
Sir
Alan Steer: No I cannot, and it would be misleading
for me to suggest that I could. All I can give you is my judgment that
there are far more significant mental health problems among children
with behavioural difficulties than we recognised in the past. Some of
that has been cultural; as a head teacher 15 to 20 years ago, it was
extremely difficult to get the medical profession even to recognise
mental health issues among the young. I understood why—they did
not want to label the child
too early, but the other side of that coin is that needs were not met.
The issue that receives the most vociferous reaction from head teachers
up and down the country is their disappointment at the interaction
between schools and children’s and adolescents’ mental
health services, particularly the length of time before a child is
seen. It can take nine or 12 months to get an
appointment.
Q
23Alison
Seabeck: I actually think that this is a serious
issue. Sir
Alan Steer: It is an extremely serious
issue.
Q
24Alison
Seabeck: There are a number of young people with
borderline mental health issues, which, if they are not identified and
supported, become much more serious as they go through the school
system. Again, in my own locality, I have had real difficulty trying to
find out why the percentage referred to experts by schools is so low
compared with voluntary drop-in places, which are much more willing to
identify mental health problems in young people. I got the answer that
you have just given, namely that they were worried about stigmatising
people. There is an issue here,
however. Sir
Alan Steer: I think that there may be another
issue—this is pure speculation so it need not be given any added
value: if a service is unresponsive and you do not get a reaction for
nine months or a year, it does not encourage a school to make
recommendations. Another point, which links to a key element of the
2005 recommendations, is that these children need—I always use
this term—champions, somebody who will help them through the
system. As a head teacher, it was often extremely depressing to see
coming across my desk papers relating to a child for whom an
appointment with CAMHS had not been kept by the family. The child
therefore got struck off the list and you were back at the ludicrous
mad hatter’s tea party for another 12 months. The
role of people such as parent support advisers is really important in
schools. Those people have the capacity to assist the family and the
child through what is often a complicated and hostile world. I want to
avoid typecasting, but we are talking about families and children who
find life difficult and need that bit of extra support, which can often
come from schools if they have the
capacity.
Q
25Mr.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con): How strong
is the link between poor teaching and poor
behaviour? Sir
Alan Steer: There clearly is a link between poor
teaching and poor behaviour. That can be taken as a given, in a sense.
The Ofsted chief inspector, Christine Gilbert, said that in January, I
think. My view is that standards of teaching are generally good.
However, I do not think that we get the benefits of the sum of our
parts and there are major development possibilities there. The culture
in English education is too disparate. I am not preaching a Stalinist
policy, but it is really important in a school that a group of
professionals get together and identify their common practices so that
they can support each other and make much more of an impact through
their individual efforts. That is of huge benefit to teachers and
children. I told you that I go on and on about consistency, and at the
press of the button I will come back to
that.
So, there has
to be a link between poor teaching and bad behaviour. However, it needs
to be said—I want to say it loud and clear—that schools
are rarely the cause of problems. They are pickers-up of problems and
they generally do that well. I am a bit defensive of schools. You might
think that I would be because of my background and I accept that, as I
accept that I am defensive of young people. The outside world has a
very harsh and sometimes unkind attitude towards schools. You can find
schools that are the author of their
problems—absolutely—but that is not common. Generally
schools pick up problems in society and they usually do that well. We
need to ensure that that message goes
out.
Q
26Mr.
Stuart: I am not sure whether you entirely answered my
question, interesting though your answer was. I asked how strong the
link was. You said that it is a truism that there is a link, and also
that the problems contribute to bad behaviour. But is it a strong link
or a relatively weak
one? Sir
Alan Steer: I think that it is a strong link if
teaching is substandard. That was as true for me 40 years
ago—my wife tells me it is 45 years ago—in my grammar
school in Oxford as it is now. If a teacher is not capable of teaching
to a reasonably high level, children will
misbehave.
Q
27Mr.
Stuart: That is where I wanted to get you to, because it
then becomes a clear question of whether too few poor teachers are
removed from the profession. The tendency is for them to move from one
institution to another and, as one head teacher said to me, “The
further away the bad teacher is going the better their
reference”. If there is a strong link, as you say, between poor
teaching and poor behaviour and you are trying to increase consistency,
surely one of the central things that we should do is separate teachers
into those who already do a good job and those who do not, and divide
the latter group into two categories of those who can be brought up to
a consistent, good standard and those who cannot. Those who cannot
should be removed. Are you ducking that issue in some
way? Sir
Alan Steer: I will try not to duck anything. Tell me
if I have and I will come back to you on
it. There
is clearly a link between poor behaviour and poor teaching. That is not
the same as saying that the cause of poor behaviour is poor teaching.
As I said earlier, in the large majority of cases, schools
are less the authors of the problem and more the people dealing
with it. I have absolutely no problem with removing poor
teachers—none whatsoever. If people are not doing the job, they
need to be moved out or, and—I think that one has to accept this
before one gets too knee-jerk—helped to become better, which has
to be a possibility. If we are talking about children being helped to
improve their performance, we must say the same about
teachers. I
would say, and I hope that I put it correctly, that we must be
extraordinarily careful about seizing on poor teachers as a big
headline solution. If we want to improve and transform our system,
helping the average to become good is far more significant. We do not
have that debate. I suggest, though I have no experience in a company
or any other organisation, that, sure, you want to deal with the few
who are not very good—and
it is very few—but to transform your school, organisation or
company you need to take the people who are okay and make them good. I
hope that I have answered the
question. Q
28Mr.
Stuart: I do not feel that you have. The question is: are
we doing enough? You have said that it is not the whole picture and,
obviously, the big picture is to attract higher-quality people into
teaching, to motivate and to retain them. The number one aim is to have
the best possible people teaching and a culture that supports them and
gives them high status. The corollary of that is that we must be brave
enough to tackle those teachers who are not up to scratch. I think that
it is unfair to the Government to suggest that there are no programmes
to raise the general standard of those who could do better; there is an
effort to do that. However, there is a question about failures that you
do not seem to have answered: should more effort be made to remove
those teachers who cannot be improved? Would that help with
consistency?
Sir
Alan Steer: I will do my best, but to pick up on your
point, I was not criticising the Government; if I was criticising
anybody, it was schools. Where you develop people is in the workplace.
Government can do huge things, but they cannot walk on water. It is for
the schools and organisations to do that and to accept responsibility
for it.
Are we doing
enough to get rid of incompetent teachers? That is a difficult question
to answer. So much of it is not in the power of central control; it is
in the power of the local organisations and how they think about it. In
other words, you may find that the procedures are there, but, as in
many other cases, the question is whether they are being operated. I
have touched on that a little before.
Sir
Alan Steer: I have said to people at the National
College for School Leadership that they need to look at their
leadership training to see why we have so much variation inside our
schools, and I think that they are open to doing that. It is a huge
leadership issue. If performance in your school varies hugely, you have
to ask yourself, “Why is that. What does that say about the
leadership? What does it say about my leadership?” I find it
difficult to answer your question specifically because it is a
difficult area. There is work to be done on creating awareness in
schools that they have powers to deal with poor-quality teaching, when
it occurs. I do not think that can be done on high from central
Government; it has to be about getting the climate right in our
schools.
We have more
rigour and accountability than we have ever had. I will not waste your
time with anecdotes, but when I started in 1985 there was absolutely
nothing about accountability and there was no interest in results.
There was none of that in the mid-‘80s. We have a very
accountable system now, If we have incompetents, we want to get rid of
them, but we also want to ask ourselves: when will we be satisfied?
What accountability system will ever make us relaxed and happy? You
could go on ratcheting up the accountability and never reach the point
where you are happy.
Q
29Mr.
Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con): You are a very
successful former head teacher, so what about leadership? It seems
surprising that you can have a school that is failing or in deep
trouble, bring in a different head teacher and that head can turn that
school around in three or four years—sometimes more, sometimes
less. There seems to be variation in the quality of head teachers. That
is not surprising—there is variation in the quality of Members
of Parliament, for example. But what about head teachers who are
reaching their sell-by date, or those who, it transpires, are not
equipped intellectually or do not have the managerial ability needed?
Is enough being done to manage those circumstances and the people who
find themselves in such
situations? Sir
Alan Steer: You are getting into areas of opinion. I
would not claim expertise in answering that question. There are
problems. I shall probably be drummed out of my professional
associations for giving you this answer, but it struck me as a nonsense
that I could become a head teacher at the age of 30 and that there was
no requirement for me to undergo any further professional training
until the day I retired at the age of 65. That seems a very odd way to
run a professional service. If I were writing a report on that area, I
would probably include recommendation on the
subject. We
are infinitely better than we have ever been at preparing people for
headship, but there is still work to be done in schools on the
continuing development of teachers at the senior and middle-ranking
levels. Leadership is not only at the top, but in the middle, as well.
When talking about teacher training, we all have a tendency to head
instantly to initial teacher training. That is a mistake. My judgment
is that, although one or two tweaks might help, initial teacher
training is pretty good, as is the standard of teachers coming into
schools. What worries me is the training for people who are four, five,
10 or 15 years in. I hope that that touches on your
question. More
head teachers are removed from post than ever were before. Whether that
is enough is a matter of judgment. You are right that sometimes what is
needed in a school is not a magic wand, but the ability to see things
differently. It is possible in any organisation for the leadership to
be overwhelmed by the circumstances and to become unable to step back
and see what needs to be
done.
Q
30Mr.
Walker: A head teacher who is exceptionally good at
injecting discipline into a school in the first two or three years
might not have the skill set required to drive up academic standards.
Do you see what I am saying? We expect head teachers to be good across
the piece. Perhaps, when we are turning schools around, we should bring
in for shorter periods head teachers who have a specific skill set in
an area, but we should not expect them to stay there indefinitely as
their skill set begins to lack relevance to the challenges that they
face. Sir
Alan Steer: That is an interesting point. I draw a
slight distinction in that that is perhaps more applicable to primary
schools than to secondary schools. A good secondary leader would
conduct an audit of skills and, if they had any sense, they would
appoint other staff to the leadership team who had expertise in the
areas that they lacked. That is standard practice in any leadership
team. That is rather more difficult in a small organisation
such as a primary school because the leadership team is so much smaller.
Primary schools are therefore more
vulnerable. The
school improvement partner is a relatively recent development—it
must have been brought in about five, six or seven years ago. That
provides support. My view is that there is still a place for head
teachers to have the support of somebody outside the inspectorial
world, such as a peer professional. There is a lot of research to show
that if you want to change people’s habits, you should put them
together with a peer professional whom they
respect. For
failing heads, you cannot have a poor head teacher in an organisation
and they have to be removed. Nobody would deny that. However, the
immediate response to a bad set of results should not be, “Out
you go.” The same goes for children. Football management gives
us lessons to avoid rather than to
copy.
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