When was the last time you met a bright young person who wanted to become a teacher? Ministers and school inspectors now seem to regard teachers as some species of foot soldier or mechanic, fit only to carry out orders handed down from above. The government’s ideology drives ministers to see teachers as the problem, not the solution. Their whole attitude to teachers is punitive, and no number of “golden hellos” for new entrants or promises of payment during their training seem likely to alter this perception. The life and work of the teacher look deeply unappealing. No wonder we have a crisis in teacher recruitment.
It wasn’t always like this. More than 30 years ago, an official report on primary education created nationwide excitement, even exhilaration. Before the report, primary schools were 20,000 teachers short. After its publication, they flocked to the profession in such numbers that one of the leading providers of training, Goldsmiths College in London, expanded the number of places on its postgraduate primary course from 30 to well over 100.
The author of this report celebrates her 90th birthday on 5 May. Her name is Lady Plowden, and that name, in the intervening years, has quite unjustly become a term of abuse, denoting woolly thinking, sloppy standards and rampant indiscipline. Yet even new Labour will find some of its ideas echoed in her report, which was published in 1967:
– Plowden recommended “educational priority areas”, to tackle deprivation and low standards, mainly in inner-city areas. David Blunkett has “edu-cation action zones” for almost precisely the same purposes.
– Plowden recommended the recruitment of “teacher aides” to take some of the burden of routine work and administration away from classroom teachers. In the NS in May 1998, Margaret Hodge, now an education minister, proposed that “teachers should become an elite force backed up by trained assistants”.
– Plowden advocated a working partnership between parents and teachers at a time when schools routinely had notices saying “no parents beyond this point”. New Labour has numerous initiatives to encourage parental involvement.
– Plowden proposed homework for primary-school children. This is now one of Blunkett’s top priorities.
Why has it taken more than 30 years for governments to rediscover so many of the truths contained in the Plowden report, which were supported by numerous school visits, in Britain and overseas, and by extensive research? One reason, no doubt, is that many people (including a few teachers) chose to misunderstand the report as advocating licence for children to do their own thing. But what the politicians of the past 30 years have found most difficult about the Plowden report – because it goes so much against the spirit of the age – is its belief that teachers have to be trusted. Plowden demanded that teaching methods be subjected to “astringent intellectual scrutiny”, but expected each individual teacher to do that in the light of the needs of his or her own pupils. The report also envisaged schools that encouraged teacher innovation and dynamism – places that would, in short, be attractive to bright young graduates. This government, by contrast, stifles schools with rules and regulations; it prefers management to leadership.
The ultimate irony is that Blunkett has now set up a committee on “thinking skills”, which he proposes to incorporate in the national curriculum. The whole point of Plowden was that it enjoined schools to help children to think about what they were doing, particularly in maths and English, rather than rely on rote learning. It was this approach that the critics denounced as trendy and sloppy.
Ian Byatt, a member of the Plowden committee, an economist and now the director-general of Ofwat, recalls that Plowden believed “a good primary education should encourage children to live and work in a rapidly changing environment”. He adds: “A modern economy requires a highly adaptable labour force, which is not only more skilled, but is better able to learn new skills, to tackle new jobs and face new problems. As we argued then, the qualities education should provide include greater curiosity and adaptability – and that comes out of learning by doing.”
British ministers have long admired the results of Asian education systems, whose children consistently top international league tables for maths, language and science tests. Yet Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea are all now looking for ways to improve creativity and thinking skills. They honour the lessons of the Plowden report, which is probably better-known internationally than any other single document on primary education. Is it too much to hope that Lady Plowden will now at last be honoured in her own land?
The writer is the former principal of Bishop Grosseteste College, Lincoln
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