This Week In Education
By Adi Bloom
Sometimes we are all too hard on Nick Gibb. No, really. Bear with me on this one.
The on-again-off-again schools minister is renowned for his – shall we say – traditional approach to education. Roughly, his guiding philosophy can be summarised as: “Was it good enough for a public schoolboy in 1899? Then it’s good enough for us.”
If the Gibb approach were to be reduced to a handy hashtagable slogan (which seems unlikely, given that hashtags were not around in 1899), it would be this: “If it moves, #TestIt.” It is thanks to Nick Gibb that we have testing regimes at ever-younger ages: the Reception baseline assessment, the Year 1 phonics check. And now the Year 4 multiplication tables check.
The times-tables check became statutory in all state schools last year. It tests whether pupils are able to recall their times tables up to 12 quickly and easily.
This week, the Department for Education published the first set of results, in which it was revealed that 27 per cent of pupils scored full marks. Children from deprived backgrounds were an average of two points behind their peers.
Gibb, reinstated as schools minister last month, hailed the high success rate, adding that times tables are “vital for doing essential calculations, like how a higher base rate will affect your mortgage, or working out the best multipack bargains in a supermarket”.
This statement suggests two things. Firstly, if the goal of the test is preparation for reading mortgage interest statements, then the kids who took one look at their times tables and responded with: “Holy crap, how am I going to deal with this?” should be awarded an instant pass.
Secondly, whoever does the shopping in the Gibb household, it isn’t Nick: supermarkets work out relative price per unit, so you don’t have to.
But this is where we’re all a bit hard on poor Nick. Because, behind the slightly gauche comments is a calculating (in all senses) genius, worthy of an underground lair and a Persian cat. The real purpose of the times-tables check isn’t to prepare pupils for adult life; it’s to prepare them for a career in the DfE.
TeachVac, the national teaching-vacancy service, has reported that the number of vacancies being posted by schools has reached a record annual high. So far this year, it has recorded 100,000 adverts for teaching posts, compared with 60,000 at this stage in a normal year.
There, then, is a question worthy of a traditionally educated nine year old: if there are 32,226 schools in the UK, and 100,000 staffing vacancies, how many teachers are missing in every school?
Top marks to Willow in Year 4, for getting that one right. A corner office in Sanctuary Buildings is now yours. When you’ve finished playing on the swivel chair, your first briefing is on your desk.
New school workforce data from the DfE shows that the gender pay gap for secondary leaders grew by more than a third in the last year. On average, male leaders earned £3,698 more than their female counterparts in the 2021-22 academic year. And male headteachers earned an average of £2,702 a year more than female heads.
As you are aware, Willow, budgets are increasingly tight for academy trusts. If they were to fire all their male leaders, how many female leaders would they be able to hire in their place for the same amount of cash?
While Willow ponders this, nine-year-old Jack in the office next door is trying to work out whether he can play Minecraft on the DfE network. He can’t, so instead he looks at the question he’s been given to tackle.
“Ofsted data published this week shows that more than four out of five schools rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted lost their top rating after being inspected again last year. Of the 371 ‘outstanding’ schools given full inspections in 2021-22, 83 per cent were downgraded. Primary schools were almost twice as likely to be downgraded as secondaries. Calculate what this means for house prices in the relevant areas.”
Instantly, Jack is out of his seat and banging on the door of the education secretary, Gillian Keegan. “Miss! Miss! I think this one is division. We haven’t done division yet.”
Keegan, who has been busy wondering whether it would be too try-hard if she were to acquire a Persian cat, too, tosses a couple of new reports to Jack.
He glances at the first. Government data has revealed that the proportion of Reception pupils who have reached expected levels of learning by the end of the year has dropped significantly since the Covid pandemic. Fewer than two-thirds of pupils achieved the expected level across all 17 early-years learning goals in 2021-22, compared with 70.7 per cent in 2019.
The second report, published by the Education Endowment Foundation, shows that the number of Year 2 pupils attaining only very low levels in reading has more than tripled since before the pandemic. The proportion of very low attainers in the year group has risen from 2.6 per cent in 2017 to 9.1 per cent in spring 2022.
Jack is baffled: the multiplication has already been done here. “What do you want me to do with this?” he asks.
“Exactly what I say,” says Keegan. “That’s exactly what I say.”
There are shouts and yowls from down the corridor; one of the nine year olds is spinning the Persian cat in a swivel chair. Nick Gibb is beginning to wish he’d stayed on the backbenches.
Then, suddenly, Willow bursts in, waving a report above her head. “Look!” she says, and holds it out for everyone to read.
Almost half of secondary schools are using non-specialist teachers for Maths lessons, according to a study from the National Foundation for Educational Research. The study suggests that this is likely to have a negative impact on skill development, particularly in Science, Technology, Engineering and other maths-related subjects, and therefore on long-term economic growth.
Gibb looks at Willow. She nods. It is the perfect solution: what better way to use hundreds of times-table-reciting nine year olds? Send them into schools to work as Maths teachers! That’ll bring down those numbers of job adverts. It’s win-win, surely.
Like I said, sometimes we’re all too hard on Nick Gibb. They couldn’t have done it better in 1899.
Click here to read Adi Bloom’s This Week In Education column every week.
