Here's to the end of SATs ... for this year at least (aka part two)

You might well ask: Are tests such a bad thing?  It's true that some children quite like an occasional test and a test can give some a great opportunity to show off what they know and what they can do.  Be careful though with the 'Tests never did me any harm!' line.  Bear in mind those other children in your class who dreaded them, under-performed in them, never did as well as their friends in a test and for whom the test only served to emphasise their difficulties.  There was probably someone in your class like the girl in mine whose dyslexia and dyscalculia literally turn tests like this week's into a nightmare, through which she can not sleep, which reduces her to tears and which has required her parents to seek help for her from a mental health worker.

If SATs were just a one-off test administered by teachers at a convenient juncture with the purpose of giving children that chance some of them like to show off the range of their knowledge, skills and understanding, there would be much, much less problem with them; even children like the girl I described above don't mind an occasional test that is balanced with their teacher's understanding of what they can do and isn't the be-all-and-end-all.

The emphasis on SATs in year six though is far too high.  Because the success and therefore a perception of the quality of a school is judged by the results of the SATs and schools are compared by them, headteachers and schools' governing bodies are anxious to ensure their results are at least comparable year-on-year and with other similar schools - ideally improving and better.  Their anxiety can border on paranoia.  Consequently, they can insist on such secondary school sounding things as revision and mocks.  Two or three months prior to the actual tests can be spent re-visiting aspects of English and Maths that might just come up in the tests and doing practice-tests from previous years so that children have a sense of what to expect.  As if the official tests weren't enough, year six children can end up doing several versions of them in each subject.  It's sometimes said that children from England are among the most tested in the world; I doubt that even takes account of these other hidden tests.

I don't think it was ever intended that SATs would be the monster they have become.  The Government Ministers who originally dreamt them up can't have wanted the months of preparation for them that can take place now.  I wonder if today's Secretary of State and his advisers even know what the tests bring about for children.  I suspect they would be careful to emphasise that their only expectation is that the tests be done in May; anything else schools choose to do is down to teachers' professional judgement.  Nonetheless, schools do what they do because of the way the outcomes of the tests are used by Government and its agencies.  Change that - trust teachers more - and the need for all the test-prep to guarantee all-important good results would be eliminated.

Teachers have at least as much to answer for as Government.  When SATs first came along, I wish teachers and headteachers (with the backing of their governing bodies) had administered them as a quick snapshot of what children could do on a given day in May at the end of year six without ever instituting months of preparation.  When the inspectors and the local authority bureaucrats came knocking, I wish they'd sworn by the validity of their longer term, thorough assessments for providing a clear, accurate and full picture of children's attainment and progress and insisted that they be the basis of any judgement of their school.  Instead, sadly, they allowed themselves to be convinced that the results of the tests were more reliable and they created the culture of the test that prevails today.  Frustratingly, it seems they never looked back.  Now we must be careful that this culture does not lead to dependence on tests.  We have a generation of young teachers and young headteachers who have known nothing different to assessment by test and question their own confidence to do assessment in another way.  The tests risk de-skilling teachers and undermining their confidence.

Teachers know children - talk to us and the depth of our knowledge about a child's abilities and the things he or she still needs to do and learn will impress you.  We, the children we teach and parents might like a test to affirm our knowledge, but we don't need it.  Children do not need a number assigned to them at eleven - be it level three, four or five, it makes no difference to them or their prospects.  We know the test results are often not an accurate reflection of a child's abilities - and so do secondary schools; they test children again early in year seven.

Society should trust teachers.  Government should take the lead in showing that trust.  Teachers must work hard to retain that trust.  And we should have the confidence to demand it.

SATs: The Argument Against (Part One)

This week, children the length and breadth of England have taken their SATs - the national tests in English and Maths for eleven year olds (and those who are not quite eleven).

For the benefit of anyone who doesn't know: these tests have all the feel of a GCSE or A' Level exam. Children are isolated at a desk, passers-by are banned, the room is silent, test papers are distributed and must not be opened until the word is given, teachers patrol with footsteps muffled, no help is given. Another teacher once told me that there is nothing more unnatural than a silent classroom in a primary school; the feel of the exam hall in SATs week certainly makes me uncomfortable.

Some people argue that children need to learn about how it feels to sit an exam, strategies for passing a test and to deal with the pressure of an exam-type situation.

At ten years old? Really?! What relevance do those things have to such young children? Can they not wait until secondary school? The counter-argument goes: need they wait? On that basis though, why not bring much more of what happens at secondary school forward to children's formative years at primary school?

At ten years old, every minute of school should be spent finding things out, developing new skills, discovering and honing strengths and having fun in learning. Children love school when they're ten. Any time not spent doing those things that matter most at that age is an opportunity lost.

I'm all for having high expectations of the children I teach; I am always amazed by their capacity to learn and by their achievements. Those expectations, however, have to be balanced with the simple value of childhood and the preservation of it. SATs, I am afraid, run counter to that.

AV? Yes ... please.

Tomorrow I shall vote for AV.

The problems with first-past-the-post are clear to me.  A system that elects Members of Parliament who actually carry the support of less than half of their electorate and permits government on the same basis is not as democratic as it should be.  The complacency of MPs who are elected on that basis is staggering.  It angers me that my vote counts for less than one cast in a more marginal seat elsewhere.  Bournemouth East is a safe seat for our MP, Tobias Ellwood.  Because another party would have to achieve such a massive swing against Mr Ellwood, his is one of those seats that is so unlikely to change hands that it barely features on television coverage at a General Election - unlike those marginal seats that formed the BBC's Downing Street paving-slabs.  It was in those marginals that the election was really fought.  A vote there stood a far better chance of achieving the required swing to unseat its incumbent; effectively it was worth more than mine.  For my vote to fully count toward the outcome of an election, I therefore must move to live in a marginal constituency.  Obviously, a democratic system that requires me to do that is seriously flawed.  Moreover, although Mr Ellwood claims he did fight to hold his seat, he did not really need to.  It was so hard for one of the other major parties to unseat him that they sensibly directed their resources elsewhere - to the battle for more marginal seats - and were barely heard of in Bournemouth.  I felt cheated.  AV will not spell the end of safe seats, but it will at least ensure that an MP like Mr Ellwood has to fight for everyone's vote - even their second and third preferences - rather than being able to simply depend on his substantial core vote.

It might not be AV that is used in elections in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and for our elections to the European Parliament, but there is a proportional element to those elections that helps ensure that the parliaments and assemblies in those places are more representative of the electorate than the UK Parliament is.  I have never understood why proportionality is appropriate for the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish electorate and for elections to Europe, but not for Westminster.  Again, I feel cheated.

The 'No!' campaign for tomorrow's referendum has made much of the cost of changing our electoral system.  That argument is infuriating!  As a country, we supposedly value democracy so highly that we promote it around the world, condemn countries that flaunt it and send our own soldiers to fight for it in other oppressed lands.  We should be proud of that, of course, but we should also make sure our own house is in order.  In Libya and Syria people value democracy so highly they are paying for it with their lives.  Millions of pounds might seem like a lot, especially in a time of financial difficulty, but it is far less than the cost others are footing for democracy.

It is true that AV is not perfect - there are better systems for achieving proportional representation - but it does have the advantage of allowing us to keep our constituency representation at Westminster, and it is the best on offer.  It has the potential to reconnect politicians to their electorate as they would have to take more of an interest in all voters, not only those for whom they might be the first preference.  The problems with our democracy run deeper than that though.  Turnout tends to be shockingly low and has been for too long, especially among certain groups of voters, like the young.  Obviously, there are many reasons - children aren't properly educated in citizenship, some politicians' conduct has been outrageous, often political systems seem complex and unaccessible - but above all, I think, people feel the issues that matter most to them aren't properly addressed by our politics.  Engaging people in our democracy has to begin at the grassroots - in their own neighbourhoods - and feed up from there.  We need to feel that there is a way for us to take control of our own streets and schools and parks and youth centres, without referring to the sprawling bureaucracies local councils have become.  Local democracy needs a shake-up - and not just by having elections for new authorities like for the Tories' planned Police Chiefs; I'm afraid there is such a thing as election-fatigue!  For democracy to work, we need to find simple ways for people to become properly involved beyond just writing numbers next to the names of candidates they have vaguely heard of and never seen, and show them that it is worth it.

To be honest, I'm not overly optimistic for the outcome of tomorrow's poll.  I shall vote nonetheless because doing so is a tribute to those who have gone before and fought and died for the right to do so and is small way for me to stand shoulder to shoulder with those brave souls who still fight and die for their same right.

God Save The Queen!

Friday's royal wedding was the stuff of fairy tale.  Since, I've been wondering: shouldn't I  have outgrown fairy tale?  On the other hand, is it possible to rationalize support for the monarchy and enjoy it unashamedly?

Britain certainly does events like Friday's better than anywhere else - it's hard to imagine a worldwide audience of the size of Friday's for the marriage of a member of the Japanese royal family or the Swedish, and elected presidents don't bring the same dynastic heritage with them to inspire the same level of interest.  We can be rightly proud of being able to stage such a spectacle to rival any on Earth.  It must do wonders for our tourism industry too.  (It also, by the way, bodes well for the great spectacles of 2012 that Britain will stage.)  Without a living monarchy, royal weddings, the State Opening of Parliament, Trooping the Colour, Coronations and Jubilees would all be consigned to history.  Probably because of our royal traditions, Britain doesn't have great annual celebrations like America's Independence Day, France's Bastille Day and the national days of other countries around the globe.  The closest we get must be Guy Fawkes night or our patron Saints' days, but our efforts to mark them are less than half-hearted.  The inspiration to celebrate with gusto those great national days in other countries is born of history - often revolution.  Britain hasn't had a revolution like those other countries and doesn't want one.  Change in our constitution comes quietly, thankfully, through our vote, which seems unlikely to inspire any great, annual celebration, even if it was a vote to become a Republic!  And we do still crave the spectacle of these occasions, an excuse for happiness and celebration, a great coming-together of people, a chance to mark our national identity, and for us Britons, it is still royalty that does it.  It's hard to imagine anything doing as good a job.

So, how can the birth-right of one family to reign over us be justified?  I suppose, it can't; however, as a role model of resilience and duty, our Queen is exceptional - the fact that she and her Father remained in London during the blitz of the second world war still resonates - and it is to be expected that her heirs will follow her example.  There's no doubting too that she and other senior royals work hard, moreso now perhaps than ever, as expectations of them have risen.  She has, at least, earned our respect.

There would certainly be no guarantee that any replacement of our monarch would be a sound role model or would earn respect, at least not judging by some of the leaders that manage to get elected to high office around the world.  Moreover, a President would be elected, but would surely expect and need a political role beyond that of the figurehead-role our monarch fulfills and, should we go to the lengths of electing a leader, we would also expect that election to carry the weight of some power (otherwise, what would be the point?) yet all the power that needs exercising in our country and all the political duties that need fulfilling are already managed perfectly well by the Prime Minister - a different political leader as Head of State in Britain seems unnecessary.  The idea of any of our recent Prime Ministers as Head of State in place of The Queen just doesn't work.  We have a cluttered democracy already anyway, with annual elections to one authority or another, interest in and turnout for which is often poor.  The quality of democracy doesn't improve by adding another tier to it.

There are obvious cost implications of having our monarchy, but the cost of it has been diminished and should continue to be diminished.  Arguably too, we should be careful to condemn the monarchy on the basis of its cost, lest we end up with something less costly but more inferior.

There is, I think, something to be said too for the enduring nature of our monarchy.  William provides a direct link back through hundreds of years of history, to medieval times and through all manner of historic events with which his ancestors were directly involved.  As fascinating as that is, it is the past and we can not be a backward-looking country.  What can be overlooked though, is that William is a link to the future too.  He will be King sometime in the mid-twenty-first century; his grandson or grand-daughter will probably be King or Queen for the turn of the twenty-second.  In our monarchy, we can see our way into the future; it can offer a sense of certainty about it, implies if we want it to that there is much to look forward to and have hope for and gives us a glimpse of its potential.

Finally, I want to note that should Britain one day choose to abolish the monarchy, it will be a decision taken at the ballot-box, not through a bloody revolution such as those that have happened and continue to happen elsewhere.  However I ended up voting and whatever the outcome might be, I am unspeakably thankful to live in a country where I would be accorded the power to peaceably help make the decision.

Yes, I still enjoy the fairy tale!  Is that such a bad thing?!

It's a small world ... but not small enough, yet.

This all started with the Libyan stalemate.  I watch scenes from Misrata with growing horror - the children evacuated this week with appalling injuries and obvious fear in their eyes got to me, and so did the desperation of those so-called 'rebels' (freedom fighters?) darting with their guns through the rubble in the streets of the city.  It quickly brings to mind other catastrophes around the world too, man-made and natural: Yugoslavia, Palestine, Rwanda, Somalia, Haiti, Japan, Ivory Coast ... the more I think, the longer the list becomes.

The very happening of these calamities is bad enough but it seems compounded by the trouble we have in responding to them - to the extent that it often seems we do nothing at all.  Take Libya.  First-off, nobody did anything, except for polite calls for restraint and eventually some slightly harsher words.  That was ineffective, but by that point the situation there was already in free-fall.  (Perhaps time was needed to warm up for the next step, but that seems a pretty damning indictment on the workings of the world.)  Next, the United Nations stepped in, but the politics of the Security Council (a threatened no-vote here, an abstention there) and the precedence of other recent UN-sanctioned actions (Iraq and Afghanistan, obviously) resulted in a diluted resolution, the interpretation of which seems to have been left open to debate ever since.  At last, the world took action 'to protect civilians', but it has hardly been decisive and now the coalition appears divided, the slaughter goes on and no-one seems to know what to do.  Of course, Libya also brings into sharper focus the other places around the world where we actually do nothing, in spite of our equal horror: Bahrain in recent months, Lebanon in 2006 (when Israel invaded), Georgia in 2008 (when Russia invaded) and Gaza in 2009 spring to mind.  Our failure to act makes it seem that we have double standards that are infuriating and embarrassing; I'm not sure if we do, or if sometimes we just don't know what to do.

In terms of communication, our world now is so incredibly small.  The bare fact of happenings from all over  the world scrolls across the bottom of our television screens and flashes onto our mobile telephones as a 140-character tweet, followed quickly by the first photographs and the growing details on news websites and twenty-four hour television news services.  The pace at which the world has shrunk in this regard is startling.  The virtually-instantaneous news coverage we have at our finger tips did not exist when I was a child - just fifteen to twenty years ago - neither did twenty-four-hour news programmes.  We might catch a brief radio news bulletin during the day and we tuned in dutifully for the six-o'clock or the nine-o'clock news to find out what had happened around the world.  It's not so long since the sketchy details of news from far-flung countries arrived a day or two after it had happened nor even really since people in remote parts of Britain would find out an event in another part of their own country days (conceivably even weeks) after it had happened.  I wonder if our politicians sometimes wish we weren't as clued-up today as we are about the goings-on around the world!

The challenge for the politicians, I think, is that they must know from the moment we see something awful happening somewhere in the world (basically, as it happens), we want something done about it.  In the same scenes we watch on television they must hear our questions: What will we do as people's livelihoods and their very lives crumble away in the aftermath of this earthquake or are washed away in that freak storm?  How will we put a stop to genocide on the other side of the world?  How will we ease the suffering of the refugees from conflicts in several different countries at the same time as feed the starving in another famine-struck region?  How will we help end the rule of a corrupt despot?  The problem for us is that for all our world has become a place small enough to see and hear events ten-thousand miles away as they happen, it is still too big for us to do very much about them, certainly not with the speed we wish.

It seems to me that we haven't even started to adapt to our smaller world; the workings of our world are out-of-date, built for different purposes and they can't keep up with the global challenges of the modern world - the way a town's medieval road network is not built to cope with the twenty-first century rush-hour.  Religions can no longer answer our questions as easily or with the same confidence they used to.  With its watered-down and sometimes unenforced resolutions, the U.N. is left wanting.  NATO is constrained by its history and exclusivity.  Collectives of countries like the E.U., the Arab League and the African Union are weakened by their weaker, less-committed members.  Financial mechanisms buckle.  Perhaps even the idea of nationhood is increasingly irrelevant as goods and peoples and monies and ideas and languages flow through old borders with ease - those borders seem restrictive.

The hope I think is in the continued shrinking of the world.  I'm very conscious that I am writing this blog from the perspective of a westerner, living comfortably in a highly-developed country; the world must look different for someone else living in a developing country without a television or mobile telephone or internet access.  Yet we refer to those countries as developing rather than 'stuck' or 'backwards', which says something about our humanity and our optimism and our determination that the world will go on shrinking.  These are countries for which the world is shrinking too.  And as it goes on shrinking, we will, of course, carry on caring and wanting to do more to address the problems of the world.  As the world shrinks and develops therefore, it is inevitable that we will adapt the workings of it to meet our global challenges.  The two go hand in hand.  Perhaps even the pace of change in the workings of the world will speed up soon - to better meet the demands of people living in this small world.

Maybe that will be the global revolution of the twenty-first century, or the twenty-second century.  Either way, there is hope.

Incy-Wincy

He's less than a quarter of the size of my little finger nail.  (And I chew my finger nails!)  His legs are thinner than ... they're as thin as thin can be.  And he's got eight of them!  Eight legs!  From even this distance of just a few feet, he's tiny enough to be just an odd smudge climbing up the wall.  He can walk up walls!  And across the ceiling!  I must look huge to him, through all eight of his eyes.  Microscopic, little eyes; all-seeing.  And when he slips from the wall he can cast his own lifeline; a lifeline that he can weave to become the most intricate masterpiece of art - better than anything I could create with a lifetime's practice.

What an odd world mine must be to him; from his perspective.  I wonder what this room looks like to him, if he even imagines what the other side is like.  Is the outdoors frightening when you're barely bigger than a pinhead?

A huge life - no less than mine, no less than a whale's - all wrapped up in the tiniest, most perfect little body.  How amazing is that?!  How special.

Rare things.

Contemplating whether to write anything today, I came close to concluding that nothing notable had happened and it wasn't even worth firing up the laptop.  A scan through a few websites did nothing to inspire me either.

Yet today, rare things crossed my path - things I am ashamed to have almost dismissed as forgettable.

Firstly, this morning a Cornish chough flew so close over my head as I walked the cliffs at Lizard Point that it seemed I could almost reach out and touch it.  I'm lucky enough to see a chough or two on most of my fairly regular visits to Cornwall, but I am always reminded of the significance of seeing one by all the other visitors here who stand and wait in hope of a sight of one and then share their excitement with each other when one appears.  Then, as dinner was nearing readiness this evening, a hen harrier flew into the field behind the house and landed for a time on a post by the hedge.  I'd never seen one of them before.  At almost the very same time, a barn owl flew across the neighbouring field, turning several times, hunting in the hedgerow, close enough to almost fill the view through the binoculars.  I've caught fleeting glimpses of barn owls before, but nothing like the display today's put on.

I actually hesitate to confess that I know what a chough and a hen harrier look like (everyone knows what a barn owl looks like, don't they?!), much less that I would stand and watch them through binoculars - albeit borrowed binoculars - as if bird-watching like this was akin to train-spotting or stamp-collecting, a bit geeky, something that might attract derision.  In fact though, I still feel a real thrill each time I see a chough or a peregrine; I can't believe other walkers don't even notice them and I want to stop them, hold them still and make them watch!  Thanks to my mum, whose knowledge of the local birdlife is seriously impressive (she can distinguish a whitethroat from a dunnock just by its song), I knew there was a barn owl nesting nearby and that the hen harrier made occasional visits.  Secretly, I hoped to see them as much as I hoped for sunshine, and I would have been bitterly disappointed to have left Cornwall without having seeing them.  The excitement of seeing them was not at all unlike that of opening a brilliant Christmas present.

These things are quite wonderful.  They sing (crow and hoot) about the beauty of the world and the remarkable diversity in it, which is something that is so easy to overlook and take for granted.  I don't know why it should be a secret that I would want to see them and I'm glad I've taken time today to stop and watch and wonder. 

By the way, the swallows are back too.  I love their sleek blackness, their flash of red and the way they dart through the sky with such incredible agility and joy - heralding and celebrating the arrival of summer.  They are my favourites!

In the beginning ...

I've thought of myself as a writer for a long time and then thought so much about writing that it hasn't really happened.  There have been snippets of this and that over the years - attempts at poetry, quickly-aborted diaries  and even the beginnings of children's stories, but nothing shared (not seriously) - certainly nothing published.  (Newspaper articles and pamphlets for work don't really count, no matter how proud I was of them when I wrote them all those years ago!)  Now this blogging-business intrigues me.  People say it's easy and it's been easy so far, assuming I've done everything right.  I want it to get me writing again.  And I'm writing now, so it's working.  I want to express myself - to explore my own ideas by writing about them - and I want to dare to put my ideas out there; to open them up for examination by other people.  I've got things to say.

Now I wonder: am I really that interesting?  Will anything I say be of the slightest interest to anyone else?  Are my thoughts valid, or are they laughable?  Is my style of writing any good?  Will my blog attract any attention whatsoever?

Where to start?!  Perhaps a minor realization from a weekend conversation with my aging grandparents.

Over breakfast on Sunday, conversation turned as it often does with them to the second world war - they'd recently been to a 40s-themed weekend away.  They were pleasantly surprised when I told them that primary school children learn about the home front during the war - about rationing, the blitz, evacuation, the role of women, the land army, etc.  (I'm a teacher, by the way.)  They were eager then to tell me about the hardships of rationing and of their own memories of evacuation.

It never takes long for Grampy to get on a roll and start reeling off his stories from the past and, like all good grandsons, I let him tell them, but it's rare for them to be new or (to be frank) for them to be very interesting.  From time to time though, it happens that they are.  On Sunday, I learnt for the first time about the boy who was evacuated to Devon from London to live with my Grampy - about how he had lived at first with a different, posher family that couldn't get on with him, about how he had been scared of thunder and lightning until Grampy watched it from the bedroom window with him and about how his mother had visited them and had turned out to be 'a proper tart'!

I was already thinking then about blogging - about what I would write - and wondering if anything I could write would really be very interesting.  Grampy's memories of Frank (I think that was his name) brought to life for a moment a person who had been through an experience I can not imagine.  Had Frank listened to the drone of German bombers over London, their bombs exploding and the crackle of anti-aircraft fire before he departed London?  Had he seen the fires and the destruction?  Did he know people who died?  Was he afraid of more than just the thunder and the lightning?  Did he miss his home, his mum?  I'll bet he never forgot his time in Devon.  I wonder if he remembered my Grampy.  I wonder if he is still alive.  I wonder how his war changed his life.  Grampy's memories brought back to mind the experience of all those evacuated children.  I remembered too his other war-stories, and suddenly they carried more meaning, more weight.  I thought (as I think I was supposed to a long time ago) about people in Libya and Ivory Coast and Haiti and Afghanistan and Palestine and about the refugees from all those countries and so many others.

Grampy had things to write.  Frank did too.  Their diaries would be worth a read.  I should look up the blog of someone living in Libya or Palestine or Afghanistan right now.  (So should you!)  I reckon theirs would stir up more than mine can.  I might find it hard to think of something worthwhile to write - something that could appeal to any sort of readership - but I should be glad of that.  My blog can offer a relatively bland commentary on a privileged education system, far-off conflicts, our democracy and my indulgent social life.  Better that though than the fears of an evacuee, the plight of a refugee or the terror of the oppressed and bombed-upon.

My thoughts tonight are with them.