Giving Students the Results They Deserve...

Failure is always possible, if you work hard enough to achieve it!

I think we’ve all been there. Data has just be uploaded, the numbers have been crunched, and there’s a staff meeting about Year Eleven progress. The headmaster will make positive comments about how good it looks, and remind us that we should be planning interventions to make sure these figures become a reality. Then there’s always that statement, isn’t there?:

“Failure is not an option. We have to do everything we can to get our students the grades they deserve.”

The staff all then nod, but the grinding of teeth is deafening. Because we ARE doing everything we can for them. It’s the pupils who won’t put the effort in.

Good teaching is absolutely essential to create the environment in which students do their best work. That breaks down into clear explanations of appropriate tasks, good feedback, and proper behaviour management so that lesson time is not lost. That’s really where a teacher’s responsibility ends—we give them the tools and they have to finish the job.

Yes, there’s more to it than that. Those subtle nudges that make a difference. Forming a real connection with that disaffected student so that they want to work for you, not argue with you all the time. Explaining to students that if they study hard, they can open a whole world of opportunities. Ambition can take them anywhere because—as I once told a very beaten down career's class—someone has to live in Bali and teach scuba diving. Someone has to photograph those models for Vogue. These are jobs that need doing, so why shouldn’t it be you?

The teacher as role model. Is there anything more important?

According to schools, yes. Endless marking. Revision lessons before school. Revision lessons after school. Revision lessons during the holidays. Total focus on "what they need for the exam," but to the exclusion of anything that cannot be directly linked to that exam. So no trips, no "fun" lessons, not much time for kinaesthetic teaching.

Schools put a lot of effort into getting students to go along with this. Teachers spend free time on forums like the TES discussing what type of bribery works best. I know one school that spent around £2,000 on chocolates for those students who went (although most showed up just long enough to get the chocolates and then made excuses to leave.) The pressure teachers are under to get students to these sessions is immense.

It’s time we stopped and put this into perspective.

None of this is getting children the result they deserve. It’s getting the one we can grind out of them. And what sort of message is that? That doing the work other people force you to is what gets results? That work is something to cunningly avoid, rather than the engine for your ambition?

And what sort of role model is the average teacher? We paint on a brave face, but so many of us absolutely hate our jobs. Why does that happen? Shouldn’t teaching be just as happy as in all those government-backed "get into teaching" adverts? Why do we have a profession with such a high rate of divorce, mental breakdown, and even suicide?

Because we are the ones doing all the work, and everyone knows it.

Worse than that—what sort of role model do we create for our students? "Work really hard, go to university, then you can land a foul job like this and be thoroughly miserable until you drop down dead." We aren’t selling this model of hard work and achievement to our students, are we?

What do we really need? Students who work hard because they feel motivated to. For themselves. For their futures. Not because we pay them in chocolates or threaten them with exclusion.

Is there a way of getting students to think in this manner? Yes.

Imagine if your head teacher started the term with a speech like this:

“Look at the spreadsheet, folks. This is how the data stands at the moment. It’s pretty good. What we have to do now is help these students get the results they are capable of. I understand that as experienced professionals you will probably want to run revision classes for students who would like the extra input, that’s fine. But set them plenty of well-planned revision tasks and let the parents know what the children are doing.

Try to keep their motivation up, and remember that they are working hard. So do what you can to break up the misery a bit. Don’t be afraid to take them to work outside on a sunny day, that sort of thing. I’m spending a lot of our PP budget hiring revision tutors for our disadvantaged students, young carers, etc., because they do need more help, and you have your hands full. Otherwise, I’ve spent £2,000 on revision planners, flash cards, that sort of thing—I want to make sure that the students who plan to work are supported as much as possible.

Obviously, we have plenty who won’t work, so just make sure you let the office know and we’ll send out warning letters. It's important that parents know and if the students do under-perform—well, we did what we could.

And above all else—don’t put so much time into this year’s exam students that you completely neglect the lower years. Success in year Eleven really comes from the good habits which are formed at KS3.

Failure is always an option. Let’s just hope we can inspire, encourage, and motivate our students not to opt for it.”

This is obviously not going to happen. The Academy system works on results and it would take a very brave head teacher to make a speech like this, one prepared to announce "it's going to take three years to get this system working, so back me or sack me." Few heads are made of such stuff. But any school which ran that way would have no problem with staff retention, and would be run by motivated teachers who would be excellent role models, not the embittered peons so many of us become.

And above all, they would really be producing students who "got the result that they deserved."