[The decline in educational standards] is not the fault of the teachers – they work only too hard already. The combined folly of a civilisation that has forgotten its own roots is forcing them to shore up the tottering weight of an educational structure that is built on sand. They are doing for their pupils the work which the pupils themselves ought to do.”
Dorothy Sayers, 1947 (quoted in Martin Robinson’s Trivium 21C)
My students’ folders have check sheets, documenting their state and (usually) academic targets). With Sayers’ words in mind, I invite readers to examine this one:
What should I do? The crosses, and the ‘R’s (Recheck) suggest this student can’t or won’t organise the folder. I’m certain it’s the latter: he’s competent; he has a contents list; most students’ folders are fine. I could fix the problems in five minutes. If anyone (Ofsted or colleagues) sees this, I’ll get it in the neck, perhaps fairly so – it’s detective work identifying progress if you can’t tell the order of students’ work. Reorganising the folder would keep my neck clean – but would it be right?
School – where students come to watch teachers work
There’s a lot of truth in this line, which I first heard from Dylan Wiliam: not only are teachers working too hard, they are often doing things students should be doing themselves. Most teachers I know have stuck things into students’ exercise books on occasion; many make a habit of it. But long-term, implicit messages matter too: offering too much help or doing a student’s job for them tells them: ‘You can’t do this well enough’ or ‘ You don’t need to do this.’
So I’ve tended towards ruthlessness in helping students as little as possible. Everything that happens in a school should be for students’ benefit so I want to support them to work independently, and hold them responsible for doing so well. Academically too,”the balance of cognitive effort” should ensure “teachers are doing less and students are doing progressively more and more of the speaking, thinking, writing, and analyzing, as soon as they are ready for it,” to quote Doug Lemov.
My students have found this frustrating – I was once asked “Can I have some paper – or do I have to make it myself?” But, in time, students adapt, learn to work independently and appreciate doing so. If I’m asked how I’m going to solve some underachievement or other, I start by considering what students need to do differently (rather than how I should work harder). And as such, I abhor ‘interventions,’ which lay last-minute burdens on teachers to close gaps which students have often allowed to open. In sum, let the students do the work!
Self-assurance precedes a humbling reconsideration
I saw this approach taken to its logical conclusions at a Swedish free school a few years ago however, where I played chess with some students skipping lessons. No one chased them, they said: if they failed, the school would be paid to teach them again. This can’t be right.
Or, conversely, the awe-inspiring Jo Facer described her Saturday interventions to me, designed to help the last dozen or so students in the cohort get a C in English. I said I didn’t believe in interventions, but she replied that, knowing they were capable of a C, and the effect it would have on their life chances, intervention was right.
So when should teachers be pushing themselves – perhaps harder than students? How can we help students secure the best possible outcomes without incapacitating them?
Who should sort my student’s folder out?
In principle, I believe teachers should always aim to do the minimum possible while helping students to succeed, and should be looking to progressively reduce and remove support.
In the long run, I’d like to see more room to allow students to fail – and receive second chances. Much of the pressure on teachers and students is caused by the fear that this may be their only chance. But I’ve seen ‘failed’ students return to school as exemplary students, having learned from the experience: unearned success robs them of this opportunity to learn. To avoid failed students slipping through the cracks, how about a ‘failure premium’ (not under that name) which would provide schools an extra 20% per ‘failed’ pupil, making them more desirable recruits and helping fund additional support?
In the interim…? While I put hours into persuading students that hard work and success are in their best interests and I’ll help anyone I believe genuinely can’t do what I’m asking them, I draw the line at ensuring their success without sincere effort. Irrespective of accountability measures, I feel we have to let students learn responsibility first – I’d honestly rather they failed but learned this lesson.
All very well, but…
It would take an exceptionally bold (one might say foolhardy) school leader to promise, not rapid and continual improvement, but allowing students who aren’t working hard enough to fail. Nor am I clear how one could differentiate between a teacher skilfully challenging students to do as much as possible for themselves, and one who is too lazy to meet their needs.
Post Script
The school has moved to exercise books, to make progress demonstrable.
Further reading
Lucy Crehan’s fascinating take on this question from a Japanese perspective.
Blistering condemnations of interventions from John Tomsett and Deputy John.
Jo Facer’s inspirational account of what she achieved through interventions.
Great stuff as ever. However, you say ‘Irrespective of accountability measures….’ But I think these are exactly what has encouraged this dependency culture where students aren’t allowed to fail. In schools where you have to ‘show progress’ over short periods of time like a half term, and where students aren’t ‘allowed’ to have patchy progress, it is much harder to concentrate on teaching them to work independently. I have been in schools in the past who have had intervention after intervention with the C/D borderline students, partly obviously because the school believes in enhancing their life chances, but mainly because they have been identified as the ones who will make a difference to the school’s league table position. And the league tables aren’t going anywhere. Also, as teachers pay will be determined more student ‘progress’ there could be pressure to do more for them, especially if the performance measures are clumsily/poorly put together.
I’ve not written clearly enough there – I’m trying to say that I’m willing to ignore accountability measures and attempt to teach students responsibility. The perverse pressures you describe have been a significant influence on getting us into this situation in the first place – and the incentive with PRP will only grow.
I am also willing to do this, so I’m glad I’m not the only one. Having come into the profession with a sense that I’ve pulled myself up by my bootstraps, perhaps unfairly, I expect others to put in some effort. I am very happy to put the structures into place to support students but if they do not make any movement, I am not either. Some things my team & I employ:
1) We share your attitude to disposing of work left behind on desks. If they do not care for it, nor do I.
2) Untidy books are not marked.
3) Missing work is not chased. A big deal is not made of it either. Instead they are immediately placed into a “humanities detention” whether this be for matters of organisation, incomplete work or missing work. Our humanities detention takes place every Friday lunchtime and works on a rota basis (with 8 in the team, I only have to run a detention once every eight weeks). We have an excel document on our shared area to track names of expected attendees & work they should be completing. Failure to attend is noted by senior staff who arrange after school detentions.
4) In the sixth form we make use of tutorial lessons. Once a fortnight (once every five lessons) a tutorial is held where students get on with independent work. A PPT slide is put up with the expected contents of a folder. One by one they come up and present their folders to you & you can rifle through. A sticker is placed at the front of the folder to denote what is present, quality of organisation & what is missing. The onus is on them to show you at the next tutorial that they have filled in the missing/incomplete work.
I am considering expanding this to KS4 but I’m not sure whether the approach fits as well with the time constraints & numbers in the class.
My resolve is however being tested by a few of my year eleven students. All capable of making C grades. Neither are on course to do so. They started the year by seeing me weekly on Friday lunchtimes for support. This has since stopped, after the school allowed our year eleven students to have lunch off the premises. I am minded to mention that I’m still around Friday lunchtimes & leave it at that. Should I either change my day, get their passes withdrawn or do more to chase them? My moral compass says stick with my approach of making my offer & leave it to them to take or leave it but it takes a brave man to keep that up over time & be willing to hang for it!
I completely agree that students should be allowed to fail, after all, that is what will happen to those who do not take charge of their own learning when they go on to HE or employment. But it is not always easy in practice. It is, however, one good outcome of the lessening of coursework. One reason vocational qualifications became devalued is because students were coming out with grades that did not reflect their ability, knowledge & hard work, but how much the teacher was willing to “help” them.
Regarding students’ folders, the more they do for themselves, the better for everyone but this is (I believe) genuinely a skill which needs to be taught. I also think, in this case, it is transferable. I explicitly taught students how to organise their work, since this was a major part of their qualification. I provided checklists (in varied formats to suit the kind of work & the preference of the student) and a sheet with a diagram showing how the work should be presented.
I often ran a specific lesson on how to organise their work though sadly, when I did this for an observation I was marked down because I was apparently not teaching them anything.
If we ignore this type of skill we are, in effect, handicapping students with regard to future progress.
Expecting students just to know how to organise a folder is certainly unreasonable, so I agree that it’s something that needs to be taught.
It’s certainly much harder to allow students to fail in practice – or, as Jo Facer tweeted yesterday – she agrees on as much student responsibility as possible – until Year 11!
I have exactly the same problem with teaching students responsibility. A lot have learned now that it’s not what they’re asking for, but how to ask for it, which I openly point out. It can seem harsh at first, but they learn and work better. ” My pen has run out” is met with a comment, not an offer to lend one, which then leads them to figure out to ask if they can borrow one. In a more similar case I simply refuse to mark coursework that’s not in order. I tell them this, I give them a checklist and its a simple task. Work not in order, due to lack of effort or rushing is returned with a 10 minute time limit to resubmit. Often followed with a conversation which discusses how much of my time it takes up. Something else, which requires guts and a good bit of pantomime acting, is the simple rule I have of work left on desks goes in the bin, and work left lying around in the book box also goes in the bin. ” Oh look!” “X has left their essay in the box,” take a long slow walk to the bin “it’s a shame they’ve not asked for it before it goes in the bin” I scrumple the first few which makes them saveable, but I rip up the rest after the students are used to it. It sounds extreme, but it’s not done with malice, the students are aware of this. I get coursework which is looked after and a tidy classroom!
Likewise, I recycle work left lying around or unnamed – I tend to assume that anything in that state the student isn’t too worried about, but it also avoids piling up loads of things in the vain hope I’ll remember to return it or that students will come back for it.
Trying to explain to students why it’s a problem is important and often overlooked. Overall, I think what you’re doing is taking tough love to a forceful but effective conclusion – what you describe definitely promotes student responsibility.
Reblogged this on RGS Learning and commented:
Blog of the Week!
I am guilty of sticking stuff in to Y7/Y8 books. I find the ruthless approach results in complete chaos for some students and/or valuable lesson time wasted sticking in if time is set aside (if it isn’t real problems start…!)