The more I look at things the more I am becoming convinced that many schools are causing the workload problems of staff.
Now that’s a pretty big statement to make so let me try to outline the evidence I have that’s influenced my thinking!
The new National Curriculum is completely different from N.C’s in the past, not just in the content but also in the layout. Ok it has its flaws and some are pretty major one’s, but it’s a pretty open ended document which is flexible in its possible interpretation.
It also does not have a linked assessment package that runs in conjunction, as has been in the past with attainment target statements – these quickly became an assessment nightmare and caused workload problems overnight!
If we look at the new N.C; it is 198 pages in length with 176 taken up with maths, Literacy and Science. The foundation subjects are generally 2 pages in length each. It’s laid out as a list of requirements to be taught with a few examples and some notes and guidance.
Alongside the new curriculum was the decision to remove the assessment system that was previously in place and leave this element to schools.
In my opinion (irrespective of some questionable content) the format of the document presented is not confusing and presents schools with the required curriculum that needs to be taught. Couple this with the now “open assessment” situation and schools pretty much have control of how things are approached.
It is at this point that the situation starts to unravel and problems become apparent.
So why do I say this?
Because, in effect, what has happened is this: The Government has produced a document that lists what needs to be taught – it does not prescribe how or in what way. The Government has also said “we will leave it up to schools to decide how to assess things.”
The onus and responsibility has been transferred to schools who are now required to decide how they wish to approach both the teaching and the assessment of the curriculum.
Implementation of the Curriculum in schools:
So if the onus has been passed to schools (without guidance) surely then the success or failure of the implementation lies directly with the schools themselves?
Last week in one of my articles we looked at ways in which teachers could make changes to what they did in school with regard to marking and planning in order to regain some “home/life time” – so vital to everyone.
I received many comments from colleagues in regard to the article which could be split into 3 broad types….
- This is something we strive for in our school, we have a supportive SLT that ensures we can structure things positively.
- I never realised that I could look at things this way and actively work to regain a work / life balance.
- We could never do this in our school.
On looking at the comments the question would be
“why are there different responses to the same “curricular situation?”
The curriculum is identical for every school – the lack of / open approach to assessment is just the same….yet, obviously, the way each school is approaching this is yielding vastly different results!
One of the things I used to enjoy about Headship was to deal with all the “stuff” sent down the line from the government. Now mostly it was superfluous junk but at different points an initiative would appear that would have to be implemented. Each of these without exception had the capability to be an “add on” to what schools were already doing – in other words to increase the workload for the school as a whole and the staff in particular.
In my opinion, it is part of the role of HT to both sift through these requirements and decide which are necessary to implement and just how these new elements are to be successfully integrated with minimal disruption to current systems and staff workload.
Sometimes this is easier to do and the solutions are quickly apparent – but at other times it takes quite a bit of sorting out and rearranging to get the desired results. I always found it an enjoyable challenge!
However this is a process that HT’s and SLT must go through, in order to keep the systems in school simple, clear, easily operable and manageable.
If this is not done then things have “the potential” to spiral out of control and everything and everyone suffers.
Is it possible to extrapolate this and therefore say that those HT’s and SLT that have actively looked at the areas of curriculum delivery and assessment and have put in place efficient and effective systems in their schools have done this with workload for staff being an important consideration?
By default is it then possible to say that schools that have huge workload expectations of staff have not, for whatever reason, been able to implement efficient and effective systems and as such workload for staff is now at almost unmanageable levels?
In the next article on this I will look at just where the overload occurs and why it happens in some schools and not in others?
We can also consider some ways in which the situation can be rectified.
Charles