What works in one place won’t necessarily work somewhere else, but we do need a range of voices

I commented recently on a proposal to pay teachers from outstanding schools £10000 to work in schools which are struggling (See link below)

https://t.co/JPNylya9ej?amp=1.

Even if it were possible to identify outstanding teachers, has any one stopped to think that they might be so because the culture of the schools they currently work in has enabled them to flourish? And that in another school with a different culture, they might struggle?

This comment received more likes than anything I have posted on Twitter. After all, how do we recognise outstanding teachers? Their relationships with pupils? Their results? Teachers who are successful in one institution are not necessarily going to be successful in another. And what does successful mean? I had good results in some years and less good results in others. Some teachers who responded to my tweet pointed out that their results went from good in one school to mediocre in another, to good in another. There are all kinds of factors influencing results – school culture, behaviour, curriculum content, curriculum time are just as influential as pedagogy. And there are lies, damned lies and statistics and we are no doubt all aware of stories about gaming the system.

Personally, I don’t think you can easily identify outstanding teachers and even if you could identify them, there is no guarantee they would continue to be outstanding in another institution.

Unfortunately, among the responses to my tweet were some which I felt went to the other extreme. In their view, the most outstanding teachers were already working in the worst performing schools. I don’t know what evidence they had for that, other than the fact that if a school has problems with one or more of the following: disadvantage, poverty, lack of resources, behaviour, poor management, high staff and pupil turnover etc., then it seems obvious that the challenges will be greater.

I believe that all teachers should be free to share views and give their thoughts on teaching, pedagogy, resources etc. Many do. However (and this is the controversial bit) I do think we need to hear more from teachers teaching in schools which, at least statistically, appear to be outstanding. For example, in my subject , MFL, I would like to hear more from teachers who enter large numbers for GCSE (70% or more) and still manage to achieve a positive subject value added score, consistently.

My department managed both of these in 2018 and I basked in a smug feeling of success. In 2019 I was brought down to earth when results showed a dip, both raw results and value added. The teaching was the same but the cohort was different. And in general that’s what my experience was. when I was teaching, in a career of over 30 years. Up one year, down the next. Not consistent.

As I said earlier, there are lies, damned lies and statistics and I would be the last person to say that someone who consistently a) gets good results and b) enters large numbers is automatically a good teacher, but something must be going right surely? So we do need their voices. Not because their ideas would necessarily transfer to another context. Not because they are the only people worth listening to. But because in our evaluation of success, outcomes are a factor. Not necessarily the be all and end all, but a factor. So while I disagree with the idea that you can turn round schools simply by shipping supposedly “outstanding” teachers from other institutions to those places and paying them a lot of money, I also disagree with those who argue that the teachers in struggling schools are by default outstanding because of the challenges they face. What we all need to do is share our thoughts, in blogs, on Twitter, but most of all, by visiting each other in our different schools.