Tangled up in blue - The ripple effect of policy change

It’s an exciting but unknown future for primary schools at the moment. There’s still so much change under way, to pick just a few: we’ve the renewed curriculum focus, reception baseline and multiplication checks starting, and KS1 assessments disappearing.

I’ve been to a lot of meetings and conferences and BrewEds around the country, as well as those in my own trust and local area, and I have been asking leaders and teachers about their view on the effects that these changes will have. Ultimately, we won’t feel the full effect of these immediately, but the ripples have definitely cast a wider net than first anticipated.

Apologies in advance: I don’t have any definitive answers to these! I definitely can’t finish this blog with some rounded conclusion - believe me, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it - but I felt the need to address some of the discussions, concerns, reflections and benefits at this point in time.

I first wanted to compare my own career from 13 years ago to now in 2020. I didn’t choose to take computing at GCSE (despite the hundreds of hours playing Nintendo consoles for far too many years.) I didn’t choose it for A Levels, my degree, or PGCE specialism. Yet in my RQT year, I was gifted the leadership of ‘Computing’ at my school.

Don’t get me wrong, I took it on with gusto. I learnt how to unjam a printer  as well as becoming a pro at suggesting ‘is it plugged in?’ and ‘have you turned it off and back on again?’. I also shadowed the previous lead and introduced Clicker 6, Education City, and ensured that we had a progression document.

Did I enjoy it? Not really. Did I learn about leadership?  A bit. Would I have chosen to sit in an Ofsted meeting and be grilled about schema and intent.  Probably not.  But would I have done it if that was what was required to support my school and pupils - absolutely!

Primary teachers are adaptable creatures. Generally they teach about 10-12 subjects, and get good at drawing upon a vast resource base to pick up information and knowledge as they go for these. They invest hours and hours with the same class, getting to know, nurture, and support them, and know where to take them next to ensure they flourish.

With the focus on wider curriculum and a deeper grasp of subject knowledge from Reception to Year 6 will this structure need to change?  Within my school we have decided, at the moment, to play to our teachers’ strengths alongside upskilling them in other areas.

We will have to really take a deeper look at the moral purpose and the elements that make primary, primary. In a small school, which brings its own strengths and difficulties under these changes, we decided to get our music and computing lead to teach their subject across the school.

This works well for a few reasons: 

• It gives those leaders experience outside of their year group or key stage.
•  It ensures that our behaviour expectations are not personality driven, and the whole school has to take on responsibility for consistency and expectations regardless of which adult is front of them. 
• It gives the leaders a deeper understanding of what their subject looks like with each different age group.
•  It builds a relationship ready for transition and stops the 'big scary KS2 teacher' effect for our more vulnerable and anxious pupils.
•  It allows time for other teachers to see lessons taught by the subject lead for CPD opportunities.

I’m unsure that moving forward this is a permanent arrangement due to staff changes, development of staff in other areas, and other timetable commitments. There is also a danger that we could head towards is a ‘mini secondary’ school style of working.

School leaders would love to be more specific in the recruitment process. Of course, we want to recruit a person with a degree in a core subject, with a specialism in a wider curriculum subject, with an interest in SEN, with a talent for juggling multiple tasks while standing on their head and singing the national anthem?  Of course we do.  But, actually, the reality is that we want someone that can work in a team, works damn hard and can teach really well.  The talent, the subject and the development as a practitioner has to come from the CPD package you provide as a school.

What happens to those students that have specifically chosen to only cover the 3-7 or 7-11 age ranges? Does the recruitment crisis take a new hit for those trainees that don’t want to lead a subject for an age range they have no investment in or is there another structure that school leaders have yet to consider?

But, what can/could ITT Providers do to ready these eager newbies for this change?  I would argue that they are already the gatekeepers to pass on good teachers, for schools to then mould and create colleagues in their own image, not necessarily nurture the subject leader of the future.  

So what now? 

Are we really in a tangle? With these multiple strands of education all colliding together, it’s possible that there is a danger we are catastrophizing some really positive changes that already interweave successfully.  There has been a focus on collaboration which MATS and local cluster groups have been working towards for a while. In areas where Primary to Secondary transition projects have been taking place those lines of communication are beginning to be established to strengthen links and peer-to-peer support which is a great stepping stone to a then reciprocal partnership to support with progression of wider curriculum subjects.

School leaders really need to push for this across their local areas, and give time to subject leaders for this very reason. There are some seriously strong subject leaders across our schools; there is a real opportunity to share this practice, learn from each other and in turn translate this back into our own schools. The silos need to be removed.

There continues to be a need for openness and sharing of strengths and also an honesty about areas within a curriculum that schools may need support or guidance from their colleagues outside of their schools, trusts or local authority.  We really need to grasp these positives and take a longer look at the richer and broader education that we could offer our pupils. Primary colleagues are flexible and forward thinking, and we definitely provide strength in numbers.