Osted - in need of special measures

When I was a teacher (which was a long time ago), I only once had an Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) inspector observing one of my lessons. Mr C was, in my memory, a large man. He had taught modern languages in a grammar school. My class was what was once known as a ROSLA year (students compelled by government dictat to stay on a year longer than before). They were students who had not done well enough at GCSEs to take A levels, and so we had to devise a curriculum for them, which would give them decent qualifications when they left. 

As head of English, my part was steering through the innovative vocational Royal Society of Arts 'Basic Clerical Skills' module (at a similar level to NVQs). It was one of these lessons that Mr C came to witness. My students were a bunch of Oxford east enders. They were rough diamonds whom I liked. The lesson, I seem to recall, was quite mundane but very orderly. No one left their seat. No one kicked up a rumpus. I was able to go round the room with appropriately encouraging and helpful advice. With that group, it was a triumph. Not as exciting as our trips down the canal or to local historic buildings, but a triumph of self-restraint on the part of the students. Well, that was my view at least!

However Mr C didn't see it that way apparently, as the headteacher told me after. Mrs Storrar was a remarkable woman who had returned to teaching following a time in industry. And she had more faith in most of her staff, including me, than in the inspector. I can't remember what status this inspection had, but it was certainly not a whole-school inspection. As the head and I observed, Mr C had (or appeared to have) no experience of teaching our kind of students. I assume his verdict had been that my lesson had been inadequate. Since then I have been governor of a number of schools and have witnessed the more recent Ofsted régime in education - and at second-hand in social work.

I've long relished what Anton Chekhov, the Russian playwright, said about critics: "Critics are like horse-flies which hinder the horses in their ploughing of the soil. The horse works, all its muscles drawn tight like the strings on a double-bass, and a fly settles on his flanks and tickles and buzzes. And what does the fly buzz about? It scarcely knows itself; simply because it is restless and wants to proclaim: 'Look, I too am living on the earth. See, I can buzz, too, buzz about anything.'" A word of comfort to teachers when irritated by inspectors, who criticise them.... 

But the truth is that Ofsted is far worse than an irritation. Schools were once given a week or more's notice of an inspection. I believe notice now is the day before. I suppose the idea is to prevent schools rustling up paperwork to impress the inspectors arriving seven days later. "Keep them up to the mark!" In my experience in the areas of public service with which I'm familiar, there is little more than a scintilla of evidence for lack of dedication. It's true that Baroness Casey's year-long review of the Met Police revealed enough going wrong for her to describe it as institutionally sexist, racist, and homophobic, but it is a huge unwieldy institution which is asked to do too much.

But why am I writing about Ofsted now? You'll notice that I began to comment about it at the beginning of this week - this was because of the delayed local news concerning the suicide in January of Ruth Perry, headteacher of Caversham Primary School, in anticipation of a negative Ofsted one-word verdict of her respected school: "inadequate". A single word gets repeated on estate agents' details. The reaction from local heads was to take Ofsted rankings off their websites and to threaten to keep inspectors out of their schools. and to demand Ofsted suspended inspections out of respect for a good headteacher. Since then it has hit the national news, first with the head of Ofsted, the upper-crust, Amanda Spielman, whilst expressing her sympathy with Mrs Perry's family, refusing to pause inspections, and then the eye-wateringly wealthy, privately educated Rishi Sunak backing Ofsted as giving parents the information they need. I wonder whether his parents would have been satisfied with a single-word summary of his years at Stroud School. Even if it had been "Outstanding" or "Requires improvement", they would have deserved more. And that is the problem with Ofsted. "Ofsted inspections 'provide independent, up-to-date evaluations on the quality of education, safeguarding and leadership, which parents greatly rely on to give them confidence in choosing the right school for their child,' a Department of Education spokesperson said." Maybe... However, it does not really give parents a true picture of a school or organisation - because although the report is many pages long, that's not what parents look at and neither is it what teachers hear. They see and hear only the headline. 

Ruth Perry's sister, Professor Julia Waters of Reading University, had no doubt why her sister took her own life. The Caversham report was sensationalist and drawn from scant evidence. “In our (family's) opinion, the findings of Ofsted were disproportionate, unfair and, as has tragically been proven, deeply harmful in their (implied) focus on one individual.” I suppose the theory behind Ofsted inspections was a good one; indeed school inspectors have a long history. But the idea of publishing grades in order to "push up standards" dates, I think, only to 1992. It is just one example of governmental obsession with targets, like SATs, instead of education. The only competent Secretary of State I've known was Estelle Morris (now Baroness) whose term in office was far too short (2001-2). Her virtues were honesty, humility and that she had been a state school teacher. She was a breath of fresh air. Here at last was someone who knew what they were talking about. Others tend to use the position as a step up the political ladder. There seems to be an idée fixe among others to set out to oppose those they should be championing - as was revealed in the disgraceful WhatsApp exchange between the Secretaries of State for Health and for Education and during lockdown. As the BBC reported, "In other WhatsApp messages released by the paper, Mr Hancock described teaching unions as 'absolute arses'.                                                 "Sir Gavin replied that they hated work"

One feels that Estelle Morris would have been on the side of teachers - which is, as every teacher knows, is the best form of pedagogy. And it is without doubt the best form of inspection. Collaboration and encouragement would be a far better way to raise educational standards than the present emotionally draining regime, which drives conscientious teachers to mental ill health and even to despair (as I have witnessed). Ofsted needs to look at itself if it really seeks to be a force for good. If its effect is drive teachers out of the profession, it is clearly of no help to children and is failing. Otherwise it should be replaced. Maybe, like the Met, it needs to be reconstituted. 

A good article on this subject can be found in the Guardian here. 

Devaluing unpaid care

 Seldom do I wander into the field of politics..., but sometimes something provokes me to put pen to paper (as we used quaintly to say). And two things have recently done that. One was the budget, and the other has been Ofsted. 

HMG profile

The urbane Jeremy Hunt's first budget contained some favourable news for me and some news which I welcomed for my family (until I learned the date of implementation for one particular measure). I suppose I should welcome the confirmation of the triple-lock on pensions, but that doesn't seem to me a priority (except as a vote catcher), but the section of the population that is really suffering from the cost of living crisis at the moment are young families - two of whom are represented in my family. So when the extension of childcare funding was trailed before the budget, I was pleased. However in the event it won't fully come into effect until September 2025 - which will not be of much use even to my youngest grandchildren. Of course the extension of the energy price cap for another three months, by when we all hope the price of energy will have come down, will help them and us. 

However my principle objection to the budget is its back-to-work agenda. It seems to me to be a move away from the family - which is the best basis for a society. We really did shoot ourselves in the foot with Brexit, didn't we? Our nurseries and hospitals, to say nothing of the farming and food industries, were dependent on EU citizens, for whom Brexit has created a hostile environment. Unsurprisingly they are reluctant to push through the barriers we've erected to keep them out. Now we desperately plead for workers from further afield to come, usually depriving domestic service sectors where their local needs are far more severe than our own. And so, while patting itself on its low unemployment level, the government is equally deperately seeking to suck every adult into the paid workforce. 

And what's the consequence? In due course every single child from the year dot will be entitled to funded care away from a parent for 30 hours a week. That will mean that, along with four others, they will have care from one adult. 

Now I have nothing against parents pursuing their own careers and fulfilling their own talents. Quite the contrary. But I do object to my government failing to reward parents caring for their own children. Had Mr Hunt included a provision to pay stay-at-home parents, acknowledging home care is quite as valid a contribution to the nation's good as nursery provision, I should have applauded him. And while he was about it, he could have properly funded baby and toddler groups and sure-start groups, instead of falsely "economising" on yet another social benefit. There's no doubt that this was an improvement on the autumn's kamikaze financial event. But, with its pension reward for the richest, who can afford to pay £60,000 (!) every year into their tax-free pension pot, it remains a monument to right-wing dogma. 

A very important article related to the Budget proposals has appeared today. 'Charities and academics criticised the move as “unconscionable”, saying it “devalues unpaid care” and would disproportionately impact single mothers, driving families into debt and vulnerable children into poverty.'

Ofsted must wait until my next post.

Fear and trembling (part 2)

Max Colson/Church of England

And so, now that I've had time to reflect, what are my conclusions? Have my views shifted at all?

I suppose to be truthful they have moved. With 28 amendments, nearly all of them debated, as you can imagine, there were a lot of speeches. Sadly there's no Hansard for General Synod and so these are my aging recollections. The one speech which might have reversed my view came from a chap called Ed Shaw, a "pastor" from Bristol, who seemed to me to demonstrate the most loving approach from an opponent to the Bishops' motion. He talked about seeking to find common ground between those who want to bless same-sex couples and those who decry it on the grounds that it goes against the Bible's and the Church's historic teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman. He seemed to me to have a more positive tone than the more anecdotal or aggressive speeches of others in the debate. Unlike others whose hidden agenda seemed to be itching for a church in their own image he appeared to want a practical way to keep the Church together - which was what Jesus Christ prayed for before his crucifixion. That must surely be the priority for any who claim to follow him.

A speech which educated me came from an historian turned vicar called Miranda Threlfall-Holmes on the Thursday who effectively questioned the received wisdom that the church has always had one fixed idea of marriage. She outlined how the doctrine of marriage had developed over the years, for example the idea of consent ("I will", "I do") was a reform introduced to counter the practice of political alliances (including child-marriages). The Church, I learned, has not consistently taught for 2000 years that sex outside of marriage is a sin, and discussions about marriage have largely not been about sex, but about power. She suggested that the development of doctrine was a work of the truth-revealing Holy Spirit - which seemed to me to make sense. 

However the speech which moved and impressed me most came from Anderson Jeremiah, who describes himself as a Dalit Christian, who was ordained in the Church of South India and now lectures in Lancaster University. He was answering an amendment asking the Bishops to show more of their theological rationale before any decision was taken. If Ed Shaw's speech was a plea to be heard, and Miranda Threlfall-Holmes' a setting of the historical record straight, Dr Jeremiah's was a theological sermon. I looked it up on YouTube to see how it began and once again I was struck by its prophetic perspective: "Last Sunday I stood in the pulpit and preached a sermon on Isaiah 58. What is the meaning of true fasting, if not to address the yokes and systems of oppression right before our lives? Isaiah reminded his listeners then, and now, that we are people of exodus and that there is an ethical demand that we practise liberation and justice. I didn't tell my congregation, 'I haven't made up my theological mind yet, so please wait. I'll go and prepare a theological statement and I'll come back and preach a sermon on Isaiah 58.' Personal piety has a necessary public liberatory impulse. We as Christians, living in that prophetic tradition, are called to inhabit that intersection, to proclaim new life rooted in love, mercy and justice; to repair the breach and restore life. People in the journey, in Exodus, didn't wait for a theological rationale; they encountered God where they were. Now I readily agree with Dr Paul,... that yes, of course there needs to be a lot more theological rationale. For instance, in the entire document, the word 'justice' is missing. Somehow the fundamental Christian commitment to pursue equity, righteousness and mercy was missing. I understand that. 

"But I appreciate the desire of the House of Bishops to actually get into action what's required right now. And that's why that commitment which has come from the House of Bishops to act now will be delayed if we go back again to thousands and thousands of years of theological writing on this matter. We all know from this discussion surrounding this process, it has been divisive; it has not been convivial. This brings me back to our focus: of justice. For too long, in the name of doing theology, we have allowed misogyny, racism, slavery, patriarchy, because there was not enough of a settled theological understanding, while people suffered. We can't do that. And that is why I resist this amendment, because we do need to act now - and do theology as we pursue justice in our lives. We can't separate pursuit of justice here and now, and do theology later. The God who meets us in Jesus said, 'The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.' Jesus standing in that prophetic tradition calls us to act now, not wait for a theological rationale. Therefore I resist this amendment and accept the steps that are taken by the House of Bishops and move towards pursuing justice while doing theology - because as a theological educator there are different ways of doing theology; there's a practical theology and a political theology, and you can do theology while doing what's required. Thank you." 

Put simply, you don't put off pursuing justice on the grounds that you're still discussing the theory. Is slavery ever just? Is discriminating against people of other races ever right? Is it ever just to disadvantage disabled people like me? Is it just or equitable to refuse to bless committed couples whatever their sex? These are all historical yokes of oppression which we are clearly bound to lift and break.

Dr Jeremiah, appropriately and significantly a voice from the global south, was the most prophetic voice for me. And so after eight hours of listening and thinking, my admiration for the Bishops was augmented and my view that blessing same-sex marriage is something that the Church must countenance was strengthened, although as Justin Welby humbly said in his speech, "Each of us will answer to God at the judgement for our decisions on this matter. We are personally responsible. I am supporting these resources, not, I think, because I am controlled by culture but because of scripture, tradition and reason evidenced in the vast work done over the last six years so ably by so many. I may be wrong, of course I may, but I cannot duck the issue...". Amen to that.

 

Fear and trembling (part 1)

It was with a certain amount of trepidation that I started to watch the Wednesday afternoon's debate on prayers of blessing for same-sex partners in the Church of England's General Synod. What an arcane process! One wonders what mind devised such a weird institution to decide church affairs. What a depressing watch! So much distrust in a Christian community.

Apparently the Synod has powers to legislate in church matters devolved by Parliament - which might explain the convolutions and the politicking of speakers. It seemed an unholy spectacle of power-playing. Occasionally I had glimpses of what resonated to me as good theology. Mostly there were unsubstantiated assumptions, stated as unquestionable truths, for example that marriage always has been exclusively between one man and woman, that sex before marriage has always been regarded as wrong.

It turned out that my trepidation was justified. The members got tired and the debate extended to Thursday morning, and after 28 amendments and eight hours' discussion a vote on the motion (amended) was taken and narrowly won. The star of the show was undoubtedly Geoffrey Tattersall KC who gracefully chaired the whole thing and stuck to the standing orders much to the irritation of those who wanted to gun for the Bishops. Second to him was the Bishop of London, and formerly Chief Nursing Officer of England, Sarah Mullally. It was her job to answer every amendment which she did with reason and calmness. I was saddened by the refusal of many to trust her integrity and that of others.

There was, it seemed to me, a concerted effort by the procedural device of amendments to delay or thwart the Bishops' proposals. I had the sense of a flexing of muscles by some influential and well-endowed parts of the Church to have their own way. Well, I suppose that's the nature of democracy, but I'm not sure it's the way of Christ. There was talk of the sanctity of truth. However, I'm not sure whether it wasn't the old Hellenistic and Enlightenment view of truth, i.e. propositional reason, rather than the Christian view, that truth is relational. Hence faith and love are relational, not credal. 

Whether the Bishops will be given the grace to find what a friend describes as the way of "reconciliation – how to live with people one can’t bear – starting from oneself sometimes" remains to be seen. People of goodwill will pray so.

Smothered by security blankets

Yesterday I listened to Sunday Worship on BBC Radio 4. It was marking Holocaust Memorial weekend and came from the West London Synagogue. The service remembered not only the Nazi genocide of Jews in the 1940s, but also the genocide of Armenians early in the century, of Rwandans in the 1990s, of Bosnian Muslims in Sebrenica, the repression of Uyghur Muslims in China today. The final reading was what most struck me. It was from Heinz Heger’s book – The Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps. I had known about the Nazis making Jews wear yellow stars. I'd not known about how they used triangles in concentration camps: with yellow triangles for Jews, brown for Roma, and pink for homosexual men (see Wikipedia) "Jews, gypsies and homosexuals were the prisoners who suffered most frequently and severely the tortures and blows of the SS and the Kapos. They were described as the scum of humanity who had no right to live on German soil and should be exterminated. But the lowest of the low in this scum were we, the men with the pink triangle. May they never be forgotten, these multitude of dead, our anonymous immortal martyrs" (based on the account of Josef Kohout, a Holocaust survivor).

Today I'm remembering my best friend from university. He was gay. He died a few weeks ago. He was a lovely and talented man, and a man of faith. He was never allowed to be married to the man he loved by the Church he served. And he still wouldn't have been - in spite of there recently having been a much trumpeted report from our bishops and archbishops. It was seen as a step forward - as indeed it was in that it proposed prayers of blessing for all committed partnerships including after same-sex civil marriages. It also was accompanied by a forthright apology: "“We have not loved you as God loves you, and that is profoundly wrong. We affirm, publicly and unequivocally, that LGBTQI+ people are welcome and valued: we are all children of God.” 

Linus, www.peanuts.com

Personally I was disappointed by the compromise, although I of course understand the awkward place in which the bishops found themselves, on the tightrope between literalists and liberals, and between the global north and south. I seem to remember Pope Francis once talking about how important it was for churches to be appropriate to their local societies. I can't find the quote but I think he wasn't arguing for moral relativism, just stating the obvious that science alters our understanding of the world. However it takes time for that understanding to spread. Yet in my search I came upon this resonant quotation: "I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security." It seems to me that the Church of England is too anxious to cling to its own security. It's common for a child to have a crisis when her/his security blanket has worn out to a mere scrap of a rag.

The House of Bishops (their collective title) were between a rock and a hard place. I'm not sure whether their collective response isn't a fudge. If so, it's par for the course for the CofE. "There are some among us who will be perturbed because they believe that these developments do not reflect the way of Christ as they understand it. Some will see these developments as steps along a continuing journey. Some will feel we have gone too far. Some will feel we have not gone far enough." A fair summing up, but the trouble with fudge is that it's not sustaining in the long term. And someone pointed out that an apology only rings true when you stop the hurt you're inflicting. It's time we repented fully of our part in anti-Gayism, which found its ugly flowering in the concentration camps. So I hope our church resumes the journey towards equal marriage pretty quick before we get bogged down in the mud for another six years.  

Reaping the whirlwind

During Liz Truss’s ill-fated premiership, anxious to build on Boris Johnson’s Ukraine-bolstered popularity, Ben Wallace, the UK Defence Secretary, was sent to the United States to discuss with his American counterpart. We were told this was because of the villainous Vladimir Putin and the "very real" threat of his launching a dirty bomb attack on Ukraine. Of course Mr Putin denied this - but then, as we have been discovering here, politicians have a habit of lying in order to save their skins. Well, no doubt, our intelligence services know what they’re talking about - inasmuch as we’re allowed to hear.

Of course, we won’t learn the truth for many years. However there is an irony here. And that is that these foul weapons, which combine conventional and atomic elements, had their origins in our own country. I’m listening to the BBC Radio 4 series “Fallout: Living in the Shadow of the Bomb” at the moment. What a disastrous story! It’s an account of the British nuclear bomb testing after 1952, in Australia and the Pacific Ocean. I learned what I didn’t know before: that it was two scientists in Birmingham University (which even has a blue plaque to commemorate the event) who first wrote about the possibility of airborne nuclear fission and it was Winston Churchill and the UK wartime government who started an atomic weapons project, codenamed Tube Alloys, before the Manhattan Project in the USA. In fact it was we who shared the technology with them, and German and Soviet spies who disseminated it to their respective powers. Talk about reaping the whirlwind!

But then it has always been thus. We discover a new super-weapon, such as the rifle, and we destroy indigenous nations and take their ancestral lands; or chemical and biological weapons and are appalled when they’re employed by dictators. We develop sophisticated landmines and then weep crocodile tears when thousands of children have limbs blown off. Drones were developed in the UK and the USA and used by Germany in the war, and now they are devastating our ally, Ukraine.

As we approach Remembrance Day, in my view it’s vital that we recognise our complicity in this horrific trade and how central the military-industrial complex is in our economy. In his two-part essay, Re-remembering War Alan Storkey writes: “The Military-Industrial Complexes of the World need wars and generate wars. Accumulating arms causes wars and did in 1914. Most modern wars do not have a big disputed reason, but start because the military and the arms sellers need wars for their business. The military-industrial complex, allied to its politicians, cause wars and rumours of wars.” And he quotes Lord Grey: “The person who knew the build up to World War One most thoroughly was Lord Grey, British Foreign Secretary for the preceding decade. He said: ‘The moral is obvious; it is that great armaments lead inevitably to war. If there are armaments on one side, there must be armaments on other sides.. The increase in armaments that in each nation is intended to produce consciousness of strength and a sense of security, do not produce these effects. On the contrary, it produces a consciousness of the strength of other nations and a sense of fear. Fear begets suspicion and distrust and evil imaginings of all sorts…The enormous growth of armaments in Europe, the sense of insecurity and fear caused by them – it was these that made war inevitable. This, it seems to me, is the truest reading of history, and the lesson that the present should be learning from the past in the interests of future peace, the warning to be handed on to those who come after us.’"

As Storkey comments, "There were many other witnesses to the same truth, as we shall see. ARMS CAUSE WARS.” Both developing weaponry and deploying it are pernicious human activities, and we should be more than sad as this weekend we contemplate their effects. Surely we should pressure our politicians actively to resist the siren calls of the arms industry with their well-paid lobbyists and a light grasp of morality? And pledge ourselves actively to seek peace? Or as the Peace Pledge Union has it, "Remember and disarm".

There's a prayer for Remembrance Sunday which goes: "God, our refuge and strength, bring near the day when wars shall cease and poverty and pain shall end, that the earth may know the peace of heaven, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." With due respect to the writer of the prayer, I reckon it isn't just the Almighty's job to work for peace.

Channel 4 and Cadbury's

 On Monday Channel 4's Dispatches programme focused on the operations of Mondelez in Ghana. You might be forgiven for asking, 'And who or what is Mondelez?' It's Mondelez International, one of the two foreign companies which eventually gobbled up our pioneering ethically inspired chocolate industry - consisting of the three Quaker founded firms of Fry's from Bristol, Cadbury's from Birmingham and Rowntree's from York. The first two are now part of Mondelez (annual profits £3.3bn), and Rowntree's part of Nestlés (annual profits £13.8bn). 

From Channel 4 programme

 In the programme, 'Cadbury Exposed', Antony Barnett visited the farms which supply Mondelez, i.e. Cadbury, with the cocoa, some of which goes into Cadbury's Creme Eggs and Dairy Milk bars. Mondelez claims to be an ethical producer. 'Mondelēz, which made global profits last year of more than £3.3bn, has a sustainability programme, Cocoa Life. Its logo is marked on its products, including Cadbury Dairy Milk, and its website states: “No amount of child labour in the cocoa supply chain should be acceptable”' (Observer, 2nd April 2022).

From Channel 4 programme

In fact the cocoa farmers are forced to use child workers as young as ten, as they themselves are paid only £2 a day and therefore cannot afford to hire adult workers. And this by a company that makes a profit of £3.3,000,000,000 a year. I think the most effective way to make Cadbury's (aka Mondelez) live up to their Cocoa Life claim by paying their farmers a fair rate would be to boycott their products and buy truly fairly traded chocolates - which can bought on the high street from the cheapest to the poshest shops. See https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/media-centre/blog/15-fairtrade-chocolate-choices-you-can-find-on-the-high-street/. My favourite local coffee shop also supplies The Real Easter Egg products. I gather commercial firms mind a bit when their custom drops.

On the same day as the programme the government announced its plans to sell off the admirable Channel 4. The reason it wants to is opaque. Although publicly owned, it costs us and the government nothing as it's financed by advertising. The Secretary of State says it needs to compete with the 'new online platforms' like Netflix. That it can't is far from obvious. It seems to have very creative staff, producing programmes of variety and independence. I wonder if I'm alone in wondering whether the latter is the real motive for privatization - as well as the cash it would contribute a welcome boost to the stressed coffers of the Exchequer. I for one can't see a commercial tv company wanting to commission such investigative programmes or encouraging the probing interviews which are the hallmark of Channel 4 news. Perhaps the real reason for the government's vendetta against Channel 4 is the discomfort that ministers often experience at the hands of interviewers - or avoid.