Parents explain why their children are not in school today

In this post, local parents explain why their children are being withdrawn from school as part of the 'Let Kids be Kids' national protest against testing:

"Our son Wilfred, 5, is on strike today because we feel strongly that kids are being pushed too hard too soon. Wilfred attends a school that does all it can to shelter him from the worst of the Conservative government’s approach to education, but there is only so much they can do. Taking part in the Kids’ Strike is a positive way we can express our disagreement with government policy. This day of fun learning is the antithesis of the prescriptive, pressured environment being created for our children by SATs and the acceleration of the National Curriculum. The agenda of forced academisation puts good local community schools, like Wilfred’s, at risk.  We stand together with teachers and other parents to say enough is enough, let our kids be kids." 

Elaine and Matthew Londesborough-van Rooyen, Parents 


"I love language. I’m a journalist, worked for five years as a TEFL teacher, did Latin and English at A level and learnt Spanish as an adult. The best way to learn a language is through exposure and immersion, not through the naming of parts. Being able to identify a subjunctive will not help my child write a better sentence or encourage her love of learning. Testing her repeatedly from a young age will not make her want to go to school. I’m taking part in Tuesday’s protest because I’m strongly opposed to the direction that education in this country is taking. The pressure that is being put on both teachers and children by SATs is unnecessary and unacceptable." 

Courtney Daniel, Journalist and parent


"This government is wrong. It's wrong about standardised testing for primary age children, it's wrong about forcing schools to become academies.  It's wrong about academies full stop. We have 4 primary school aged children and we are lucky, our local primary school is a wonderful place, navigating the choppy seas of education policy whilst still being child-centred and engendering a genuine love of learning in our children. It may then, come as a surprise that we will be taking part in today's strike action by removing our children from school. We are doing so in support if primaries and teachers across the country who find themselves undermined by a government bent on constant testing, grading and guidelines, who wish to push it's own idealistic, non-evidenced based agenda and in doing so are de-professionalising and de-moralising teachers,  who we, as parents, trust to nurture, guide and educate our children. As a parent, and a GP I find myself at critically at odds with the government over education policy and the future of the NHS. Like junior doctors, and the head teachers union, parents need to take a stand to protect our children."

Lynette Mason, GP and Parent 

"As a parent of a child in year one of primary school and a child in nursery, I fear for the future of my children’s education. The current government’s policy of repeated testing of our children at an increasingly young age is destroying this country’s education system and bringing the nation’s amazing teachers to their knees. The new curriculum, the new primary assessment framework and the tougher year two and year six tests are not what our children need to become lifelong learners. This testing is done in the name of educational attainment and of course I want my children to do well in life, but I also want them to be allowed to develop at their own pace. Our two children are enthused, challenged and nurtured on a daily basis by wonderful teachers and teaching assistants who know where they are in terms of their progress. I trust my children’s teachers to recognise when they are struggling and to support them to achieve the best they can. I want my children’s school to have the freedom to teach a broad range of skills and develop creativity, utilising all the teachers’ knowledge of education. I don’t want my children or their school continually judged on meaningless tests at the expense of all else. I trust my children’s school with their education, but I do not trust this government with our education system." 

Heddy Korachi-alaoui – Teaching assistant and parent
Kirsten Brown – GP and parent

"I can only imagine how challenging it is to be a teacher in this age.  It is one of the reasons I have held off applying to become a teacher myself.  As someone who studied teaching and learning (as part of my PG Cert in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education) I am only too aware of the challenges facing those wishing to enable learning in others.  It is such a shame that instead of using their hard learnt understanding of pedagogy, teachers instead are having to narrow their teaching to make pupils, children, test ready.  It is a waste that instead of using formative assessments as a learning tool, they are having to carry out summative assessments to feed back statistics to a government that seems to know nothing about pedagogy.  They lack any clear understanding of the philosophies of teaching and learning, or the multitude of ways in which individuals can learn and flourish.  So Elspeth is not at school today because I want to challenge the government.  I want to protect her future, and that of her two brothers currently in reception.  I want to stand up for all the other children who are struggling right now, who are stressed out and unhappy at school thanks to these bizarre tests." 

Laura Lea Milling – Parent


"Taking our daughter out of her brilliant school has been an excruciatingly difficult decision to make. Particularly as I am a Parent Governor there. In fact the school navigates the testing landscape so well that students in Yr 2 don’t even know they are doing a test. How ridiculous that her fantastic teachers have to jump through these hoops. We’ve explained to her that although we all love her school, the people in charge of all of the schools in the country are making some very bad choices, and we have to send a message to them. We’ve spoken about how hard it is to make a stand and speak out when we think something is wrong.  If the same trajectory continues, Polly will be going to a secondary school run like a business, populated by unqualified teachers, and attended by increasing numbers of students with mental health issues due to an unforgiving exam-centred culture. The systematic dismantling of the Education system and every other public service by this government is nothing short of terrifying." 

Michelle Hendry – Parent

"We feel strongly that initiatives such as constant and early testing and forced academisation are being implemented without due consideration for the implications, and that as a result our children face unnecessary testing and a curriculum that limits enjoyment and real understanding. We want our protest to demonstrate the trust we have in the teaching profession, and our desire that teachers be allowed to teach effectively and without constant constraint in order to embed a life-long love of learning in our children."

Sear Orr – Art Teacher and Parent
Agata Baranowska – Orr – Interpreter and parent

OCOS statement on the 3 May day of protest against SAT tests

We are aware that many parents are discussing the forthcoming protest on Tuesday 3 May against the Key Stage 1 and 2 SAT tests and seeking more information or guidance over what they should do.

Who is coordinating the protest?

The protest on 3 May has been coordinated by parents groups, most notably the campaign group Let Kids Be Kids.

What is the protest about?

The action on 3 May is in response to the government’ growing obsession with early and harder testing. OCOS supporters have written on this blog about their anger at the Year 2 SATs, and the new, harder Year 6 SAT tests. Many of these tests will take place during the week beginning 3 May.

What is actually happening on 3 May?

Let Kids Be Kids are encouraging parents to withdraw their children from school on Tuesday 3 May for a day of ‘fun learning’ as a national protest against the SATs. They are quite clear that this is not a boycott as the tests do not all take place on the same day. It is instead a practical protest action that can be taken by parents to register their dissent from the test-driven education being forced on schools and teachers by the government.

Is it just parents of Y2 or Y6 kids who are participating?

The day of action is not confined to just those with children sitting year 2 or Year 6 SATs, it is a day on which parents can use withdrawal from school to show solidarity and register their anger, not at schools or teachers but at the government.

Won’t this hurt the schools?

These protests are intended to support schools and teachers and are supported by teaching unions. The aim is to put pressure on government to stop piling more demands on our children, teachers and schools.

What is the OCOS position on the protest?

OCOS supports this day of action.

We are also aware that this is a campaign at an early stage. As a consequence, many parents are only just becoming aware of it now and many more may not know about the day of action. Working parents may not be able to take the time off work. Some may not yet feel confident to take this action and may have unanswered questions about how their school will respond and whether they will be fined for an unauthorised absence.

In this case, we would ask that those of you who support the aims of the campaign send in a letter of support for the day of action. We have set out suggested text below:

TEMPLATE LETTER

Dear [Headteacher]

I am/We are writing to express support for the national day of protest against the Key Stage 1 and 2 SAT tests. This day of action is not aimed at schools or teachers. We know how hard you work for our children every day. Instead this action is intended to send a message to the government that parents do not support their policy of early and harder testing for children in primary schools.

I am/we are unable to withdraw my child for this day of action so they will be attending today / My child will be attending school today.

However, I/we support the aims of the day of action and reserve the right to withdraw my/our child from school in support of future days of action.

I would request that a copy of this letter is forwarded to the Board of Governors of the school and reported it its next meeting.

Yours sincerely,

I want to support the action by taking my child out of school for the day. How should I notify the school?

Any parents who wish to withdraw their children on that day can find a series of template letters they can use here.

https://letthekidsbekids.wordpress.com/what-you-can-do/

 

 

Year 6 SAT tests: Pity our children – and our schools…

The Department of Education has issued new instructions for the implementation and assessment of Y6 SATs but teachers and schools are struggling to make sense of them. Alice McIntosh, parent of a Year 6 child, shares their alarm.

I've just got home from the briefing on SATS for Y6 parents organised by my daughter's primary school. It wasn't a very reassuring experience. To be fair the staff did as good a job as they could in explaining the new SATS to parents, and tried to answer our questions, but the deputy head used the phrases 'it has been a bit chaotic' and 'I know this sounds completely bonkers' quite a lot.

First thing, our Y6 children are the first to go through the new tougher curriculum, and it was only brought in as they started  Y5, so they haven't had much time to cover material that used to be covered in secondary school like adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions and the notorious use of exclamation marks and fronted adverbials.

Poor kids…

But not to worry, the school is 'playing catch' up, running booster maths classes, sending maths homework every week, and doing extra SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar). Yes I know about that, I spent so long persuading my daughter to finish pages of fractions she didn't want to do that we didn't have time for the next chapter of her bedtime story. The rest of the curriculum has been a bit squeezed, but, don't worry, the kids are still getting PE and doing history, and when the SATS are out of the way they can go back to all those things the children enjoy.

Last year, high achieving children took SATS for their expected level, and extra hard SATS for the higher levels. We learn this year, in what just seems to be wanton cruelty to 10 year olds, that everyone will take the same paper, and it will include the higher level work. So the children are not expected to get this higher level work right, may not even have been taught it, but they will have to struggle with it in exam conditions and feel like a failure when they can't do it.

And they are doing lots of practice tests. ‘But how can they if these are the first tests?’, asks one parent reasonably enough. Ah well, the Department for Education has helpfully published sample maths tests on their web pages, and now commercial publishers are developing practice tests to sell to schools. Of course they are, very entrepreneurial.

What about children with Special Needs? Well, if they have a Statement of Special Educational Needs they can get help in the tests, like help reading instructions in the maths test, but not help with reading the reading test obviously. What about all the children with SEN who don't have a statement? I've read the open letter from the British Dyslexia Association, and it seems like no child with dyslexia is going to meet the expected standard for spelling.

It is vital your child gets an early night and eats a good breakfast during SATs week, and if your child is poorly on the day bring them in to school anyway and they can go home after they have taken the test. If they are so sick they really can't come in then there is an all-new policy that children can take the tests on another day. Did you know all the Y6 children in England take the same tests on the same day? The child will have to be kept in isolation from all the other children when they come back to school, in case they tell them what is on the test, but once they have taken the test they missed while they are sick they can go back to class as normal.

On to reporting SATS results, and, 'levels' familiar to us from Y2 SATS (and every parents evening and report since) are now out, clearly leaving the staff a bit nostalgic. Well, I never found them very useful, so what is replacing them?

Scaled scores apparently, where 100 is the expected standard, above 100 is above the expected standard, below 100 is below the expected standard. Sounds a bit like IQ scores to me, where in any cohort the mean score is always 100, 115 is a standard deviation above the mean, 130 two standard deviations above the mean, 85 a standard deviation below the mean etc. So, will they 'norm reference' or adjust the 'scaled scores' so that 100 is the mean and 50% of children get over a hundred, and 50% get less than 100? Or is it an inflexible 'expected standard' and if 90% of UK children in Y6 fail to meet the expected standard then 90% will get less than 100?

Well, the staff said they actually don't know as the Department for Education haven't told them yet, and they don't know if or when the Department for Education will tell schools, let alone parents. OK, so we will get a raw score and a scaled score for our child, but we won't get any sense of what they mean either in relation to their peers or in relation to concrete statements about what they can and can't do. It really brings it home that this farce is not for the benefit of children or parents, or new teachers in secondary school. This is all about generating data that can be used to produce league tables of schools, so the schools can compete against each other in a fake market in education. I can think of other things to spend the £40.1 million per year on.

I wanted to ask how the SATS results will affect the performance related pay for my daughter's teachers, but I felt too sorry for them.

Alice McIntosh is a pseudonym.

Sucking the life out of learning

The Government has just issued new advice on testing for 7 and 11 year olds which is causing serious concern amongst teachers and Headteachers. 

 

The NUT has called the demands " unachievable" and "chaotic" and is demanding this year's SATs are withdrawn. Several education unions are meeting today to discuss a collective response. 

 

Jennie Jones, a Year 2 teacher at a London primary school, explains why the government's plans are such a disaster for educators and children alike.

***
 

Picture the scene: I am standing in front of my class teaching them how to write a letter. They are being Jack’s mum, from Jack and the Beanstalk, and are rightly getting in the mood. Then comes the reminder; “And please remember to put a red dot in front of your statements, blue in front of your questions, green for commands and orange for exclamations. Oh, and I need to see those conjunctions…..and those expanded noun phrases with plenty of adverbials. And please try to use some of these common exception words!”  I used to just say make it so interesting I fall off my chair, and the quality writing used to appear. 

It is half term and I have brought all my writing books home along with my writing assessment folder. I had the joy of receiving the exemplification materials for writing a few days before half term. Now I have to reassess all of my writing samples using the interim assessment standards which we were told not to use to assess the children until the end of the year. The thing is, my data has to be submitted in June so I can’t wait until then to use these standards, especially as a child has to achieve ALL of the standards in one section and I need evidence to prove it. Best fit is out the window. We are now planning special spelling tests to get evidence for the standards on common exception words and suffixes, extra daily SPaG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) test practice, and timing our children reading to provide evidence for the 90 words per minute standard. Not a fun and exciting curriculum but we will try to make it fun if we possibly can. 

No one knows what the heck we are doing. We wait for the next missive to arrive from the Department for Education and read it to see what we have to change next. My personal favourite one was the one which said even though the curriculum asks that the children in year 2 learn their 2, 5 and 10 times tables, there will be questions on the 3 times tables in the test to ensure the children are being stretched. Does this mean I need to teach the entire year 3 curriculum on top of the year 2 just to be sure? 

I attended a moderation/standardisation session run by my local authority which made it clear that they don’t have much of a clue either. One told us that we should use the interim assessments at the end of the year, the other said stick them in books and highlight them as they achieve them. Everyone is confused and reacting with panic to every change.   

The sad thing is I work in a great school with an incredibly supportive head teacher. He says he will support us whatever our results this year but we all know what will happen if our results plummet, which they will. I know most of my class may scrape through to the expected standards but I don’t think many will get into what is called “deepening”, which is not a true reflection of their sparky characters and intelligence. I suspect that many teachers will leave years 2 and 6 after this year. We know the interim assessments are only in place for this year but the stress levels are so high many teachers will not want to repeat this experience next year with new materials and pressures. 

My class are being used as guinea pigs. As much as I want to say “stuff it lets just have fun and learn interesting things and grow as learners!”, I can’t as they need to learn enough of the curriculum to cope with the tests and survive in year 3. If we manage to get the unions to agree to a boycott when the Government does not agree to a suspension, I will be the first one to light a bonfire of all the out of date Department for Education missives, SATS papers, SPaG tests and all the rest of the assessment materials that are filling up two shelves of my cupboard. I will then spend the rest of the year having fun teaching and celebrating the achievements of my amazing class.  

What sort of person do you want teaching your child?

Why I’m supporting the OCOS charter, by Michelle Hendry 

What sort of person do you want teaching your child? I want my child’s teacher to be happy, motivated and feel valued. That’s because I want my child to be happy, motivated and feel valued.  All the teachers and support staff I’ve come across went into the profession with commitment, passion and enthusiasm.  I know this to be true because I have 10 years of experience of working in inner city London secondary schools.  As a parent, I feel so grateful for this insight because of the faith it has given me that my fellow professionals fully intend to do the absolute best for my child; to instil her with a thirst for learning and support her both emotionally and socially, during the sometimes difficult school years.  

The flip-side of this is that I know many - too many - wonderful teachers who are battered and demoralised by a system that is failing to support them in achieving this. 

Our children learn the importance of ‘group work’ from an early age; that through co-operation and having positive discussions from lots of different viewpoints, all members of the group feel valued and able to share their ideas.  By creating a collaborative environment, all members of the group feel supported and empowered, and so able to bring their own strengths, cultural experiences and differences to the table; and to do this without fear of judgment, criticism and being put down.  Should the same model not apply to teachers then?  Should they not be working together to share good practice and make learning exciting and invigorating for our children? This seemingly simple task is becoming increasingly impossible against an overwhelming backdrop of constant monitoring, assessment and testing.  The balance is all wrong. Teachers now spend so much time documenting evidence for the work done in lessons, and inputting countless data into spreadsheets, that they have precious little time to prioritise the most important part of their job: giving worthwhile feedback and planning high quality lessons.  Yes, I want my child to get good qualifications, but I also want her to have the space to be creative, the ability to socialise and above all else, to have an enjoyment of learning. 

40% of teachers leave within the first five years.  The chief inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw has famously said, ‘if anyone says to you that staff morale is at an all-time low you know you are doing something right’.  An ethos that condones low staff morale is not a supportive one. If a member of staff challenges a procedure in their workplace, they should feel free to do so not only without fear of recrimination, but because their voice is valued and will be listened to. After all, we know that students learn the most when asking questions, when curiosity is encouraged, and where they are challenged to look at different perspectives. How can we expect teachers to make that vital connection with our children, to encourage higher levels of thinking when their own levels of stress, tension and exhaustion are so overwhelming? 

For many teaching is a vocation; for all it is a profession.  By definition, professionals should be accountable. Of course I want to know that all teachers follow a professional code and I certainly want to know that my child’s teacher is fully qualified.  But the problem comes when professionals are accountable to a system that undermines and contradicts the very values we want instilled in our children.  I don’t want the people who spend more time with my child than I do, spending more time proving they’re doing the job than doing the job itself. 
I support the OCOS charter because like our children, teachers and support staff need space for reflection; to try out new ideas that will make the next lesson better than the last; to be nurtured and supported so that they can grow and perform to the best of their ability. Like our children, teachers and support staff need to be respected, valued and listened to and have working conditions that are conducive to a positive learning environment. Like our children, teachers and support staff need to be treated equally regardless of gender, age, race or religion.  Because like our children, we want our teachers and support staff to represent our vibrant and diverse community where everyone has a voice that is equally valued.

 

 

Download and share our latest leaflet

We've had a tremendous response to our call for help in distributing leaflets and building our campaign. We've leafleted in the market square alongside colleagues in the NUT for the last two Saturdays, handed out hundreds of leaflets and got more signatures for our petition. But most overwhelming has been the steady stream of people volunteering to put our leaflet through their doors or hand them to parents at their school gates. We're working hard to make sure that everyone who has volunteered gets a batch of leaflets but bear with us if it takes a few days!

If you can help us by downloading or sharing our leaflet via email networks of social media, please do so. You can find our latest leaflet here.

Why is this so important?

We've achieved a massive amount in a short space of time and become a major progressive voice for education in our borough.

We've raised the profile of the issues of Free Schools, academies and of the government's wider attacks on our education system - and on teachers.

We've also worked hard to support our community schools and counter some of the misconceptions and myths that circulate around them, thanks in part to government propaganda. But to support and encourage our community schools we need to become bigger and extend our reach.

Everything we do is down to volunteers giving up time, however small, to support our schools.

Please help us by making sure this leaflet gets out as far as possible.

If you know anyone who hasn't yet signed our petition, ask them to sign online here.

Why should parents support the teachers’ strike?

This blog post was written by Kiri Tunks, local parent in Waltham Forest and teacher in Tower Hamlets:

***

Teachers know that any strike by teachers is a major headache for parents. We realise that many parents will have to work at home, find emergency childcare, or take a day’s leave. Believe me when I tell you that no teacher takes this strike lightly, and it is precisely because of the concerns we have for education and young people that we do it.

Officially, the strike has been called over excessive workload and bureaucracy, the introduction of Performance related pay and the raising of the retirement age to 68. These are the kind of industrial questions that we are allowed to take action on by law and, if they are imposed, will cause a crisis in our schools.

But I can tell you that what is also motivating teachers to walk out is that they are sick of their professionalism and expertise being undermined; sick of being ignored and dismissed by an arrogant Department of Education; and deeply concerned about what this government’s changes are doing to education and to young people.

Here are a few things we think are wrong:

- This government is handing community schools, land and resources to private companies, including closing down LA schools against the wishes of the parents.

- This government thinks your child doesn’t need a qualified teacher.

- This government thinks that if your teacher’s morale is low that that is good for your child’s education.

- The government thinks it’s more important to invite the free market into education than provide school places for children where they are needed.

We think this is madness, which is why we have been engaged in a community campaign to ‘Stand Up For Education’. We don’t think this government wants to discuss these changes publically because we think parents will share our alarm.

- We think schools are run best by local authorities in the local communities they serve.

- We think every child deserves a qualified teacher.

- We think any changes to exams, curricula and policy should be thought out and properly consulted on in a realistic timescale.

- We think it is immoral to hand over public funds to private individuals & companies without any public redress or accountability.

We can’t strike on these questions but they matter every bit as much to us and we will campaign just as hard on them.

So why should you care about teachers’ workload, pay and pension rights?

Workload & Bureaucracy

Despite what you hear, teachers do not roll into school at 9am and swagger home at 3pm. A teacher’s working day will typically start much, much earlier and continue into the evenings, over the weekend and through the much-lauded holidays.  The Department of Education was recently forced by an NUT campaign to publish its much overdue workload survey which showed how workload has risen under Gove.

The workload survey disclosed that primary teachers are routinely working nearly 60 hours a week; secondary teachers are working 55 hours a week.  This kind of workload is ridiculous in any job, but in one that is so physically & emotionally draining it is utterly stupid. It is bad for teachers but it is bad for children too.

Worse, much of the work teachers are being asked to do is not directly associated with teaching and learning: far too much of the work is unnecessary bureaucracy that actively prevents us spending time on the more important job of planning resources and lessons, doing research or giving feedback to our students. Perhaps this is why 40% of teachers leave within the first 5 years of teaching.

Quite simply, this workload is making qualified teachers leave, exhausting those who stay and putting off those who might once have considered teaching as a career.

Performance Related Pay

It doesn’t work in teaching. Every study, every piece of research, has failed to show that judging individuals in a competitive systems simply doesn’t work in a school or college context which relies on collaboration and co-operation between staff and students. It assumes that children learn in neat little percentiles and that it is possible to apportion every little bit of progress made to a particular individual.

But it just doesn’t work like that. Children make progress for a number of reasons, and because of a range of people who have helped them. Bringing competition between teachers into the education of your child won’t benefit them. It will simply narrow what they are taught, because when you are being judged on what a child’s progress is, you will only want to teach what can be measured.

Unfair Pension Changes

Our pension fund is self-funded: all the money in the teachers’ fund was paid in by teachers. In fact, we have paid in £46 billion more than we have taken out.

Where is it?

We have asked the government to do a valuation of the pension scheme and prove that changes are necessary. They have refused.

Over the years, teachers have accepted a lower salary in lieu of a decent pension. We are now paying more in, and getting less, at the same time as working longer hours. Now the government wants us to work these crazy hours until we are 68.

Ask any teacher if they think they can work full time in a classroom (on a 55+hour week) until they are 68 and they will laugh in your face.

We want a teaching profession which has teachers with the energy & enthusiasm to help all children develop and progress in creative and dynamic ways.

This government’s policies are having the opposite effect.

This is why we strike.

Why we support our teachers

Tomorrow morning, most of the schools in our community in Waltham Forest will be closed due to the strike action being taken by members of the NUT and the NASUWT unions. For many of us, that’s something of a pain. Nonetheless, we would ask our supporters to show their support for the teachers tomorrow, and this is why.

Our Community, Our Schools is a campaign group that brings together parents, teachers and local residents in supporting our community schools and raising awareness of the threat posed by the proposed ‘Free Schools’. One of the really inspirational things to come out of our mass meeting on 8th October was to hear how proud people in Waltham Forest are of our community schools and how angry they are about the way they are endlessly denigrated in rumours stoked up by the mass media and, most disgracefully of all, by the government. As Zoe Williams wrote so powerfully in the Guardian following the meeting, the Education Secretary Michael Gove is engaged in a sustained drive to tell a disaster narrative about our schools, very similar to the one being waged against the NHS in the right wing newspapers. This creates a climate of fear that provides him with the justification for pumping money and resources into driving forward his forced academisation and his Free Schools project. It is also this which prompts anxious parents to contemplate Free Schools as a solution.

He is doing exactly the same thing to the people who teach our children. Teachers have been subjected to a shameful propaganda war designed to try to drive a wedge between us and them, as though many teachers are not parents and as though we don’t talk to each other in our communities. Michael Gove even stooped to describing teachers who opposed him as ‘enemies of promise’. We think that the Education Secretary’s undoubted gift for headline grabbing nonsense like this has led him to overreach himself, badly. Is this really the experience of any parent in our community schools? Are the teachers who teach our children day in day out really enemies of promise, working to stifle our children’s ambitions?

No. As parents, we think it is despicable to subject the people who teach our children to such vicious public attacks. We’re also really uncomfortable at the attacks on their daily working lives. Many teachers are already having to work longer and pay more into their pension schemes, in return for less at the end of it. Now they are being told that the way they are paid has to be changed so that they have ‘performance –related pay’ because that will apparently incentivise them to be better teachers. No one enters teaching because they want to make a fast and big buck. It’s a vocation and a profession. Yet government ministers appear to think that they need to import into teaching the morality of the FTSE listed companies in the City of London where, apparently, senior CEOs can’t get out of bed unless they have the prospect of a six figure bonus dangling before them. Teachers are also facing the threat of changes to the hours they work and increases to their workloads. You can read more about why exactly they are striking here. But the key point is a really basic one. Teachers are not the enemy. They are not failing in their work. In fact, they achieve amazing things every day, in the face of malicious public slurs, attacks on their working conditions and a punitive Ofsted regime that seems to be geared entirely to promoting Michael Gove’s failure narrative and helping him to smash up our school system. We stand with our teachers just as we stand with our community schools. And we know who are the real enemies of promise.