Martin Barker addressed parents and pupils at the 2018 Prize Giving. He busted the myths around pre-testing, acknowledged the shortage of and value of excellent teachers and discussed how we are preparing our children for the skills they will need in the future.
Two themes have dominated for me this year. Firstly, the subject of pre-testing, the second, that simply of, teachers.
If we get the not so good out of the way first – pre-testing. For the uninitiated, this is the form of assessment being used by the majority of senior schools now for the children in Year 6, which requires an online test to be taken here at Westbourne, normally followed by a visit to the senior school with possibly an interview and further testing at that time.
The reason that these tests have been brought some two and half years earlier than was once the case comes down to one word – competition. I won’t name names here, but one or two key players decided a few years ago that to ‘get in first’ was a smart move, not recognising that everyone else may follow suit soon enough. It is an issue for the independent sector that while in a sense it operates as a sector with shared values, the majority of schools are in fact in competition with each other.
It has created a situation where many children are being assessed at a very early stage in their educational journey, perhaps before they or their parents know which school might be the right one for them. My advice, and really the only option available to those who are less certain of their school choice, is to play the system and keep your options open until it becomes clear which is the right one.
The only problem is, everybody else is doing the same thing! So, we end up with a system where most people sit for three or four or more schools, with many receiving offers to several. The interesting part here is that while it is a nightmare for us as a school, and you as parents, not forgetting the children, it is also an equal nightmare for the schools, who are offering places that they only have a one in three or four chance of being taken up.
Be assured, as parents, that there are not more people coming into the independent sector as a whole, and that possibly the crankiest system of all time will shake out, and provide places for all of your children in time, the vast majority at schools that are entirely suitable for your child. We have a fantastic record of gaining places at senior schools, largely because the schools trust our product and hopefully trust me when I tell them that a child is right for their school.
I feel that change will come about soon enough, but in the meantime bear with us – I must emphasise that there will be a place at a good school for your child, even if it doesn’t appear instantly.
I come next to the school’s greatest asset – its teachers. You will be familiar, I am sure, with the notion that a school is only as good as its teachers. Hence a school with terrific facilities but poor teachers and teaching, would not be a place where you would want to send your child to school.
I will come later to our amazing scholarship award total this year of 46, but surely there can be no greater testament to the quality of our teaching here than such an amazing number. As a non-selective school, children are obviously making fantastic progress throughout their time here, as judged by the wide variety of senior schools that we feed.
I do have worries for the future however, as I am concerned about the number of teachers coming through the system nowadays, particularly in shortage subjects such as maths and science. At a conference last year, attended by those from state and independent sector alike, I was shocked to hear that approaching 40% of state school teachers are not actually qualified to teach the subject that they actually teach. If you think which the shortage subjects are, it is frightening, and little seems to be done about it at government level, bar the odd token initiative.
My worst fears were confirmed when interviewing a Head of Department in a large state senior school, who said that very few of his students had done any practical science for the last two years, as there was no-one qualified to teach the subject, so it was textbook teaching.
I came across an interesting parallel in the sporting world in an article by Matthew Syed in The Times in early May. You may know him as the ex-table tennis star and author of the book ‘Bounce’ largely about growth mindset. He quoted the likes of John Major, Tony Blair and Nelson Mandela with pronouncements such as, ‘Sport speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair.’
Syed goes on to argue very strongly, however, that it is not sport for sport’s sake that will bring about change and engage young people. One of his colleagues at the Greenhouse Charity in London, who focus on providing sporting opportunity for underprivileged communities, stated ‘Sport doesn’t change the world, people change the world. It is not the bats and balls, it is the coaches and mentors.’
Further to this, one of the pre-eminent educational researchers globally, a New Zealander by the name of John Hattie, cites teacher quality above any other factor in the progress of children.
The strange thing to me is that teaching is a profession that is being made less and less attractive by a wide variety of factors, and clearly there are less people entering the profession, and yet no one seems to think that it is an issue. Perhaps it is just one of those negative news stories that people tire of seeing - more of that later. To my mind, something will need to be done about it, and quite soon, or we may find that there will be very few of them left to teach our grandchildren.
Teachers come in all shapes and sizes: some are methodical, steady and sure, some are charismatic, if a little less steady, some are sticklers for spelling and punctuation and good manners, others less so. That is because teaching is a human profession that relies on personality and a basic desire to see children develop and be the best version of themselves, rather than simply be someone who facilitates this level or that in the latest Maths assessment. It is a vocation, and I think we would all do well to remember that.
I fear that Ofsted, and their obsession with only valuing what can be measured, as opposed to measuring what should be valued, will have much to answer for. Teaching relies on a great deal of discretionary effort, but their approach is squeezing countless teachers out of the profession, and surely a correction in some way is inevitable.
The recruitment of excellent teachers will continue to be a priority at this school, and it will be ever more important that they are respected and given the conditions to achieve the best possible outcomes for our children – what, after all, could be more important?
To bring a slightly more optimistic tone to proceedings, I thought I would introduce you to some of my reading recently in the shape of the late Swedish academic, Hans Rosling. As well as many appearances on Ted Talks, a book was published containing his work by his son and daughter in law recently that you may have heard of by the name of ‘Factfulness’, which gives a very much more optimistic view of the world than perhaps many of us have.
His extensive online polling over a number of years has shown that our view of the world, even from the most educated, is really quite distorted. A simple question, such as, how many of the world’s children are in extreme poverty now compared to twenty years ago, found the number of correct respondents to be…. 10%. Rosling found time and again very similar responses to his stock dozen questions about the state of the world. Some US academics have begun to call this ‘The Age of Pessimism’ given the results of this and other online questionnaires to examine people’s attitudes. Given that respondents have three multiple choice answers to go at, Rosling reckoned that chimps would actually give a more accurate picture, as they are more likely to get one in three correct by the law of averages and therefore a 30% success rate.
The number of children in extreme poverty has actually halved in the last 20 years, but the media would have us believe, evidently, that the number was a great deal higher. A few further examples, very few of which I suspect many of us have given thought to: medical advancements continue unabated, such that life expectancy across the world is 70 years, compared to 31 back in 1900. Technology is creating some unbelievable possibilities in the next 5-10 years through artificial intelligence, 65% of the world’s
population now owns a mobile phone, 56% of the world’s population live in a democracy - in 1816 it was only 1%. In the 1930’s just short of one million people were killed in natural disasters, today the number, despite a bigger population, is 72,000. Terrorism is in fact much less common than in the past, but the media reports it at high speed and in such graphic detail nowadays.
Rosling explains a lot this away by referring to some of the ‘hunter, gatherer’ instincts of our ancestors. Naturally, we are hardwired to crave salt and fat, something which now creates one of the most significant health problems, that of obesity. Further, with our interest in gossip and dramatic stories going back many centuries, as it used to be the only way to find things out, is it a huge surprise that we crave the same things now? The media are of course all too happy to feed our insatiable appetite.
It is important that our children, and of course us adults, are increasingly aware of the good in the world, and how human kind is developing in all kinds of largely positive ways, but the fact that development is at a steady pace rather than spectacular, does not make it particularly newsworthy.
We should try to recognise more of these successes and advancements, rather than always focus on the dramatic and negative. We do, naturally, feed off the dramatic, but need to limit our intake and not succumb to such a negative worldview, which isn’t to say that the world does not have its challenges.
Speaking of those challenges, I suspect that the children sat in front of me will be heading into a workplace that is very different from what we know now. Many of the jobs that they will do have not even been thought of yet - I have seen figures quoted saying that as high as 85% of the jobs available in 2030 do not even exist as yet. I have also heard many learned people who are convinced that two key skills will be required of this generation as they grow up: the ability to work collaboratively (in other word with others) and the ability to problem solve.
I believe strongly that the holistic education offered here develops collaborative working in spades, such is the variety of activity on offer. Further to this, the pastoral team have developed a range of opportunities for the children with this in mind: Year 8s act as peer counselling ‘Friends’, as well as taking part in a ‘Leading by Reading’ initiative to help Year 3 children read. Year 7s work as ‘Happy Helpers’ in the Pre-prep, Year 6s as ‘Buddies’ in the playground at break times. All Year 8s have had ‘Great Play Dates’ with the Year 4s, creating educational workshops for them, while the Year 7s entered into a Dragon’s Den style experience, designing inventions which would help benefit the community, while training none other than the Year 2 children to help them pitch to an audience.
We will be looking further over the coming twelve months how we can further modify our curriculum to develop these types of life skills still further, while of course maintaining a strong core of basic skills. In this context I must make mention of boarding, and how the benefits of spending some time boarding fit easily with the need for children to be able to work with others in a community. To be able to problem solve relationships and show tolerance to one another. As many of you well know, the requirement for boarding in Year 8 has relaxed from five nights to three for those who wish to board, and I would simply say that if you are to give your child the best of what we have to offer in developing them as people, boarding should be a serious consideration at some point in their journey here.
Collaborative working was much in evidence at this year’s Gatsby themed Summer Ball, which was an enormous success. Our fundraising has been over a two year cycle, to the benefit of six charities: Winston’s Wish, Mary’s Meals, The Royal British Legion 14-18 legacy, The Sussex Snowdrop Trust, Dementia Support and the Westbourne House Bursary Fund. The grand total over the two year period, which will be shared between those charities is well in excess of a £100k. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the hard working members of the charity committee, and indeed all others who have contributed in whatever way to our fundraising, but not least Helen, who while she will not be thanking me for raising her name, puts enormous hours into making all of this happen - it is something for the community to be very proud of, so thank you.
I would like to comment that we have had an exceptional Year 8 this year, who gelled well as a group and put in the necessary work to produce some really fantastic results – one statistic that stands out is of 45% of the grades achieved at Common Entrance being A or A*. We are very confident in our preparation for Common Entrance and scholarship exams, but it is not an automatic right of passage – the children must work hard for success in ever more competitive exams.
A record total of awards, 46, surpassing the previous best of 34, were made to Westbourne House children by senior schools this year.
