Rather than focusing on “catch-up”, should we be taking the opportunity to rethink schools more radically? Professor Michael Jopling and Dr Oliver Harness look at what school leaders in the North East say
At the end of the first week of schools reopening and as we approach the anniversary of the initial lockdown, schools and school leaders are unlikely to have time to stop and take stock of what they have been through. The emphasis on “catching-up” to avoid the consequences of alarmist and largely unevidenced estimates of learning and earning loss does little to help. Here we want to share some of the findings from a paper we published recently (Jopling & Harness, 2021) which was based on two online surveys we undertook of school leaders in June 2020. We focus in this summary on the results of the survey of 124 primary, secondary and special school leaders in the North East. The survey, which used the school barometer surveys undertaken in Germany, Austria and Switzerland as a reference point, addressed a number of issues. Here we highlight some of the effects of the pandemic on leaders and their views about how schools might be rethought.
Job satisfaction
We asked leaders how satisfied they felt in their job. Almost one-third (32%) responded that they were unlikely or very unlikely to choose to become a school leader if they had to make the choice today. Almost the same proportion (31%) would be unlikely or very unlikely to choose to become teachers. Less than half of those who would not choose to be leaders (40%) were satisfied or extremely satisfied in their job, compared with almost three-quarters (72%) of the survey respondents as a whole. As the overwhelming majority of leaders also felt that pressure on them had increased since the pandemic, this alone suggests that radical change is necessary to prevent a leadership capacity crisis in North East schools.
Focus areas for change
When they were asked how leaders would rethink schools following Covid-19, almost 9 in 10 (87%) saw reducing accountability pressures and having more trust in schools as most important. Their next priorities were focusing more on the mental health and wellbeing of both children and young people (67%) and adults in schools (62%). Primary school leaders were a little more likely to prioritise these issues than secondary leaders. Structural changes, such as changing the school day or term or increasing online teaching or training, were less popular. These views were also reflected in the more detailed survey responses that leaders made. Our analysis has highlighted four ways leaders in North East schools would like to rethink schools.
Four ways to rethink schools and reduce the pressure on leaders
The first priority is to increase trust in schools. The survey indicated that almost 90% of leaders believed that trust in schools and their leaders needs to be rebuilt. They were clear that it would be counterproductive to return to inflexible accountability measures which reinstate pressures on children, young people and adults in schools after the pandemic, particularly since schools’ fitness to take on responsibility for looking after vulnerable children and the children of keyworkers during the pandemic has not been questioned during the past year.
The second relates to rebalancing learning and teaching to focus on supporting the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people. Some leaders suggest that the pandemic has increased anxiety in some young people, adding to longstanding concerns about their mental health, while others have benefitted from the reduced pressures which followed the cancellation of examinations. This suggests that much more intensive and responsive pastoral support structures are necessary to identify pressure points early and support young people more effectively in school in collaboration with early help and social services. The third way extends this to include the mental health of leaders and adults in general in schools, which the pandemic has also undermined. The responses about job satisfaction and career choice in the survey reflect calls to strengthen support systems for leaders and other adults in schools to focus on reducing stress and workload in particular.
Finally, leaders want to build more space in the curriculum for more local and community-focused approaches to learning in schools. As one primary Head Teacher emphasised, “I would like to see more local freedom for schools to develop their own curriculum relevant to their setting and pupils, with only a very small core national curriculum.” This would build on schools’ increasingly central place in many communities throughout the lockdowns. Although much more research is needed into the longer term effects of COVID-19 on children and young people, teachers and school leaders, our survey research, and work we have undertaken subsequently, is clear that the pandemic offers an opportunity to refocus and reimagine schools, reducing high stakes accountability to focus more on improving the wellbeing of everyone in schools in the North East and elsewhere. The question is whether there is an appetite for such radical change.
