Teacher Workforce Reform

Proposals for the Remodelling Of Teacher Workload through Greater Use of E-Working.

What skills will future students need and how can the agreement better deliver these?

(Published in 'Leadership Focus' March 2004)

The teacher’s workload agreement recognises the need to “Ensure the nation is competitive in a rapidly changing world” Although this agreement is primarily related to the retention and recruitment of quality teaching staff within budgetary constraints, there is a moral imperative that we begin from the premise of transforming the experience for students and ensure that we deliver education and training of the highest quality thus achieving maximum educational benefit from the funds being used. Remodeling the workforce without remodeling the way we work would be a wasted opportunity with limited benefits to students. The remodeled profession needs to recognize the implications of personalized learning, variety of learning styles and rates and the fact that even before the 14 to 19 phase, students will be engaged in a variety of qualifications in a variety of institutions that together with their experiences outside of school, must form into a cohesive learning pathway Concentrating on capabilities in contexts that allow knowledge to be gained, ensures that greater linkage between industry, secondary and primary schools is possible since individuals are truly engaged in a lifelong continuum of skill development rather than a specific knowledge based pursuit (e.g. a course in the interrogation and verification of sources rather than a course in world war 2 history). Such universal capability structures which would encompass creativity, empathy and team working, would create huge economies of scale and allow joint development between primary, secondary, adult education and corporate training. These capability continuums would therefore produce the assessment backbone which can deliver the coherence between home, school, work place and providers. Any agreement claiming to ensure the UK’s competitive edge must not only commit to promoting greater emphasis on skills development and the recognition of Kinaesthetic, Auditory and Visual forms of learning and assessment but also commit the resources necessary to achieve this. It must create the climate of collaboration that will support the coherent experience for the student. Teachers are currently the authorisers of assessment. A teaching profession that wishes to include numerous networks of adults in a meaningful way must begin by establishing very well defined skill frameworks so that pupils, parents, employers, HLTA’s and teachers can all be involved in setting challenging targets for learners. Secondly, the ephemeral evidence generated by all of these sources must be meaningfully recorded centrally with easy analysis and targeting

Providing higher quality resources.

Paragraphs 4 and 35 of the paper appear to be conflicting in that staff will be guaranteed preparation time but expected to produce better resources with a higher degree of differentiation. With the call for personalised learning should come the recognition that the resources employed will encompass not only different learning styles and different rates of learning but will also be accessed differently and in a range of settings. If, for example, as Tomlinson is suggesting, we have maths delivered to students through a variety of their 14-19 courses and whilst at work experience location, local colleges, home and at school the models of individual teachers trying to co-ordinate the materials available or just producing their own regardless will both confuse the student at the centre and overwork the teacher. The only workable model here is one in which the student selects their preferred material from the range available on the internet. The teacher in this scenario sets challenges and mentors progression but does not produce the resources unless they enjoy doing so and see a potential gap. Their contribution could then be used by others with either monetary or virtual royalties fed back to either their pocket or their professional development portfolio.

Removal of administrative tasks

If you simply gather together examples of applications of ICT already in use in schools across the country and attach them to each of ‘tasks’ it quickly becomes clear how important ICT is to this debate.

1. a) Collecting money; Website credit card payment, smart cards.
2. b) Chasing absences; Fingerprint, Iris or smartcard scanners linked to absence alerter systems e.g. automated text to parents.
3. c) Bulk photocopying;1:1 student access to ICT could remove this entirely but email facility for all staff linked to networked copiers would reduce it in the short term .
4. d) Copy typing;See ‘providing higher quality resources’
5. e) Producing standard letters;email templates, mail merge, e-portal
6. f) Producing class lists;Online assessment and attendance systems result in shared and immediately updated lists
7. g) Record keeping and filing; Shared folders, e-portal and electronic reporting systems.
8. h) Classroom display; Plasma screens and tagging of electronic work for display enhance this essential support staff role.
9. i) Analysing attendance figures;See b)
10. j) Processing exam results; Online assessment can be analysed live. Teachers can access live via a PDA or laptop
11. k) Collating pupil reports; I would argue that the cost of connecting up those homes still without internet access would be less than the total amount spent on printing school reports each year. If a national e-portal for parents was set up, schools could post to this, thus removing the need for continually updating email addresses.In the shorter term, a growing number of schools construct all their reports electronically. Networked photocopiers then collate, print and bind reports
12. l) Administering work experience; If skill frameworks were shared between schools and companies then greater use would be made of workplaces as contexts for skill delivery. This also provides a rationale for mentoring. Such support networks for students have already been shown to be effective even at primary school level (see NFER ICT report in January). Although still requiring administrative support, work experience moves progressively away from a labour intensive bolt on.
13. m) Administering examinations;
14. n) Invigilating examinations;logically we would scrap the current, huge burden of examinations for a mixture of online assessment, key skill continuous assessment and online portfolio. This would remove much of the current need for administration and invigilation of examinations. With the money saved we could employ ten full time teaching assistants. If we keep the current paper based system then, ensuring that all databases were of a common format would mean that we would only need to identify those students not entered for an exam, all other data would be effectively assimilated from our database by the examination boards. If this database contained student email addresses and/or home/ portal addresses then confirmation of examination entries could be sent direct from the board. Such sourcing would allow exam boards to automatically flag up clashes of examinations and provide schools with alternatives.
15. o) Administering teacher cover;Already an ICT rich support staff role in many schools.
16. p) ICT trouble shooting and minor repairs;Specialist teams should operate at LEA or area level
17. q) Commissioning new ICT equipment;On eBay and Amazon I can read reviews of what is available why can’t parents, students and staff contribute to such a central pooling of expertise that can inform central, bulk purchase procurement?
18. r) Ordering supplies and equipment;
19. s) Stocktaking;
20. t) maintaining equipment All need some element of administrative support but ICT can reduce this with, for example, automated re-ordering, barcode monitoring even electronic tags as some supermarkets are using.
21. u) Minuting meetings ;We await better voice recognition!
22. v) Co-ordinating and submitting bids;If we go back to basic principles, bids arise because agencies wish to fund good ideas that they feel will advance their own cause and provide them with case studies. In between the good idea and the agency are bid writers who have developed persuasive methods of convincing people that their idea is worth funding. Agencies have begun to request further evidence because of the amount of spin thus generated and so the spiral of paperwork and time continues. If all bidding went through a national best practice online database then, I enter the basis of the idea and am credited. Because I am asked to categorise my idea, I am linked to similar ideas across the country and they are linked to me. My idea can receive responses from others and, if popular, can be picked up by a funding agency. If not picked up, I have still added to my own portfolio and possibly received some good feedback. If funded then the students or recipients of the project can enter feedback as part of the evaluation as can parents etc. DfES can bring together champions in any area simply by selectively searching the database. The ramifications of such a system are enormous and really need a separate paper of their own.
23. w) Seeking and giving personnel advice;Web access continues to improve this and greater collaboration and communication creates networks of support.
24. x) Managing pupil data;
25. y) Inputting pupil data;Providing every teacher with an electronic, wireless linked markbook to replace the paper one would enable the use of a vast amount of ephemeral evidence which is currently held but which cannot be brought together to form a coherent picture of a child. Conclusions By remodelling the exams structure, breaking down the knowledge boxes that prevent cross phase collaboration and lifelong progression we can reduce the need for resource production whilst extending schools and personalising education. If we couple this with ICT solutions that underpin the varied assessment in class and provide solutions to over half the listed tasks, then workload can be effectively remodelled rather than just moved Without national standards and a co-ordinated, holistic approach to the remodelling of workload we will end up with a whole series of copies of expensive experiments which increase stress and workload in schools. Proposals Set the minimum standard for teaching of.. All classrooms fitted with a projector with internet connection so that staff can make use of the increasingly excellent choice of materials on the net. Wireless devise either laptop or PDA with a comprehensive assessment recording and analysis system at staff fingertips at all times. Home connectivity to school resources for students, parents and staff Move towards 1:1 access for students so that the need to produce multiple copies of printed materials disappears. Such a drive towards electronic teaching materials also makes sharing between staff and distribution easier. By identifying key skills continuums as the backbone of the system, the combined efforts of training agencies for all sectors can be brought to bear on the production of resources. Include ‘The ability to teach’ as a lifetime skill that incorporates teachers and HLTA’s as different points on the same skill continuum Parent’s free portal set up so that schools can automatically allocate email addresses and parents can redirect if they wish Gradual replacement of the current examinations structure with a mixture of online assessment and randomly sampled continuous assessment. Set up a national portfolio system into which students and teachers can submit work of any medium and from which, moderators can sample.