Schools North East reacts to three major education announcements
The government has announced a return to school for all students, a new educational recovery package, and the 2021 assessment arrangements for GCSE and A Level. It is crucial that the Education Secretary and Department for Education stands by the profession and gives schools the support they need to implement a successful return, as well as in the assessment process.
The Return to School
Despite calls from Head Teachers and Unions, including Schools North East’s own ‘Roadmap to reopening’ for a phased and flexible reopening, on Monday the Prime Minister announced that all students would be returning from 8th March.
While Schools North East firmly believes that it is a top priority to get all children back to school, this must be done in a safe, and sustainable manner. The decision to return all children to the classroom from 8th March, without any additional precautions of a phased return or rota system, is a very big step to take at this stage and has the potential to lead to further serious disruption for schools and our students. When all children returned to the classroom in the autumn term, we saw widespread disruption from individuals, bubbles and even whole year groups being required to isolate, with some missing several weeks of in-person teaching. The evidence for school transmissions has been widely disputed and debated, and the roles that schools play in transmission rates is still unclear.
This ‘big bang’ approach, as it has been termed, is very different to that of the other UK devolved governments, which has seen the announcement of phased returns of primary and secondary students. Furthermore, the decision to return without offering a vaccine to all teaching staff puts the health and wellbeing of frontline staff at risk, and will cause even more disruption to schools. Our staff have worked ceaselessly, going above and beyond throughout the pandemic, at huge risk to their own personal health and safety. Not being prioritised for a vaccine prior to the full return is incredibly disappointing and fails to recognise the hard work of our staff and the risks they will continue to face in the classroom.
Teacher Assessed Grades
The decision over how to assess 2021 exams has been long overdue. This week’s announcement that grades will be teacher assessed will be a relief to staff and students who have spent the year in uncertainty, particularly after the chaos around the algorithm for 2020 exams.
This decision has come incredibly late in the year with only a few months left for students and teachers to prepare and work towards these assessments. Schools North East and school leaders have been calling for a decision on a contingency examination system since June of last year. While the announcement does cut down on the uncertainty schools face, staff must wait until the end of the Spring term for further guidance, further impacting the amount of time schools have to prepare. The decision to implement time for an appeals process also potentially adds a significant additional burden on schools over the, much needed, summer break. The appeals process itself appears to prioritise those students who need grades for university, potentially disadvantaging those students who need grades to enter employment or apprenticeships. This is particularly significant in areas like the North East which have more students who progress directly to employment or non-university destinations.
However, while teacher assessed grades are not a perfect solution to the problem, at this incredibly late stage, and given the significant disruptions students have faced this year, we believe that this is the most practical course of action left to ensure that students are fairly assessed and that disadvantaged students are not unfairly penalised by assumptions about prior or geographical performance.
The decision to place trust in the professional judgement of teachers is long overdue and provides an opportunity to think about how we approach assessing all our students, at both primary and secondary, in the long term. It is imperative though that the Secretary of State for Education, the wider government, and the DfE stand squarely behind our schools when exam results are announced in the summer and the inevitable criticism of teacher assessed grades will no doubt reach a peak. As we have seen throughout the pandemic, schools are strategic national infrastructure that have a crucial role to play in society and the economy, and as such we need to protect them proactively and ensure that they are supported by timely, effective, clear decision-making, and guidance to be able to ensure the fairest outcomes for our children and young people.
We would love to know your thoughts on this announcement. Please complete our short survey to help us understand how this impacts your school.
New educational recovery package
As well as two major education announcements, the Government also released details of a new educational recovery package. The announcement of more funding to aid the recovery of our students, who have now seen two academic years of their education significantly disrupted, is very welcome. This is important particularly for our most disadvantaged students who have suffered the most learning loss throughout the pandemic. However, schools should have far greater discretion over how they support their students through ‘catch up’ and recovery. As the National Tutoring Programme has seen low engagement in the region, more funding for this does not seem to be the solution.
In a Schools North East survey earlier this year, fewer than 20% of school leaders surveyed were engaging with the programme, and of those, one third were unsure if they would continue. School leaders have commented on the lack of available mentors, as well as a lack of engagement from students, with many also feeling that external tutors are not best placed to support their students.
Coupled with this, there are significant concerns around proposals to run ‘catch up’ programmes over the summer break likely to exacerbate low morale, staff mental health and wellbeing, after 12 months of massively increased workloads and facilitating both in class teaching and remote learning. School staff are already exhausted and have lost out on many school holidays in the past year dealing with crisis, positive Covid tests, and last minute government announcements. Continuing to place extra burdens on staff who are already overwhelmed may have serious long term effects on teacher retention.
Summer programmes focusing on academic catch up are unlikely to receive positive engagement from students. NE school leaders have consistently spoken of the need to focus on physical wellbeing and social and emotional development, which have also been severely impacted due to Covid. Most importantly, we don’t yet know the full extent of the ‘learning loss’ students have suffered, and before implementing any plans to combat this, policymakers should be working with school leaders to discover exactly what has been ‘lost’ and then develop long term, effective solutions.
Going forwards
Schools North East will continue to lobby on behalf of North East schools, representing your voice to policymakers. We have more MP Roundtables coming up ahead of the return to school, and will be continuing with these in the future. We are also working towards a recovery plan for the region. If you have any thoughts on this please get in touch.