Lesson observations are good, in theory.

Lesson observations are good, in theory. The problem is that leadership teams don't necessarily give much thought to theory.

If delivered sensitively and formatively, only the paranoid and the brazenly unprofessional teacher need fear observation. The issue is that all too often, schools do not operate in the 'community of practice' mindset whereby colleagues co-operate and support one another - schools have whispering walls and as the salary gap between classroom teachers and school leaders has expanded, so to has the professional and emotional distance. Rather than being seen as an opportunity to support good practice, 'learning walks' are often perceived as intrusive snooping. Sometimes the suspicions are correct.

There is no wonder that teachers and their unions are touching cloth over the abandonment of the three-hour annual cap on lesson observations - too many schools are run through a culture of fear which is wholly incompatible with the reflective practice that observations should promote. The perfect outcome from a lesson observation could be that a struggling teacher identifies and discusses the areas of weakness in their teaching. From this point, plans can pieced together and constructive targets can be set. It's a shame then that so many teachers work in schools where admission of imperfection is tantamount to putting the noose on yourself to save the executioner's time.

Here's my confession. I love a good observation. I even love a bad one. Maybe it is the luxury of being a trainee, but I feel quite able to highlight my weaknesses and I think my teaching has become stronger as a result. I've known what needs to improve and I've worked on it.

Observations are potentially one of the cheapest and most effective forms of CPD could offer, and all teachers would benefit, but so long as Wilshaw is telling headteachers that good leadership is all about eccentric fear-mongering bastardry, teachers will be understandably and justifiably hostile to observations.

The culture of schools needs to change before any genuine benefits can be experienced by teachers.

Teacher's heartfelt apology to the government

Dear Cameron, Clegg, Gove and ilk

I didn't want to write this letter to you but I've had one too many restless nights and I hope this little letter, sealed with good intentions, will serve both as atonement and catharsis.

Let me contextualise.

I've been in a muddle. I'm not saying life was ever enormously rosy, and I can't isolate one day when things started to change, but all I know is this: I've been riddled by this heavy sense of confusion for the last few months. Like an invisible leaden saddlebag , I felt as though I was carrying something around with me - on the Tube, to the library, to the school - some great unknown was dragging me down.

I agonised.

The children looked at me differently. Was it me, I thought. Was this ethereal shackle that groped at my leg beginning to show its effects on my once youthful face?

And it was then, looking into the sullen eyes of the questioning child that I realised exactly what it was, which demon I had been shouldering as I hobbled to the staffroom for my fifth coffee before the morning bell sounded.

Cameron, Clegg, Gove and ilk, it was guilt.

The newspapers said so forever and all the warning signals were there. I should have read those withering editorials and should have lapped up the sound-minded wisdom seeping out of Wilshaw's every pore.

Let me say it in bold capslock, so nobody can doubt the sincerity of my penance.

I'M SORRY THAT I, AS A STATE PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER, AM THE ROOT CAUSE OF EVERY SINGLE SOCIAL PROBLEM.

 It feels good to say it, thanks. Let my remorse gush on.

I'm sorry that my unwaveringly low aspirations for my pupils is putting them on a production line to prison.


I'm sorry that my lax discipline and the fact that I have my top button unbuttoned caused the London riots.

I'm sorry that by virtue of the fact I am employed by you, rather than some fusty old good school that children pay to get into, I am genetically a Marxist terrorist.

I'm sorry that I am a feckless workshy scrounger and, but for my magnetism towards the long holidays that constitute 'teaching', that I would rather find some other non-commital job for lazy feckless moaners, like nursing or social work.

This is really invigorating Cameron, Clegg, Gove and ilk.

Hope you don't mind if I rag out the last dregs of my remorseful pap for you to inspect.

I'm sorry that during that one particular bad day a couple of years ago, I took my eye off of the ball and because of my personal mistake I caused a global economic recession. On behalf of schools up and down the country, let me say that I am pleased - nay, proud! - to take the spending cuts on the chin. I know that it was me, little me getting a bit overzealous with my photocopying and a bit wanton when buying my red pens, who caused this mess and I am honored that you would offer me the chance to venerate myself of this guilt by scalping the aspirations and opportunities of every wide-eyed little child who has the misfortune to be sinking into the intellectual cesspit which is my classroom.

 You can doubt my intelligence. You can doubt my professionalism. You can doubt my commitment.

But please, please, don't doubt my sincerity when I apologise.

Don't doubt my sincerity when I apologise for personally knocking on the front door of every house on every council estate in the UK to remind every parent who opens up that their children are destined to fail. Don't doubt my sincerity when I apologise for those few bad days when I've expressed a wimpering gripe about being a bit stressed out - I was just being weak (not like you real men!). Don't doubt my sincerity when I apologise for leaving my station by the whiteboard to trundle about with a placard once or twice; it was a bad phase in my life but I have clearly - as you can see from this uplifting letter - seen the light.

I can't thank you enough for allowing me, as a teacher, to publicly shoulder the blame for creating the festering sodden blitzkreig which is Britain in 2012

Keep up the good work all of you.

Pedagoggles

When teaching as a 'calling' means 'put up and shut up'

To be an outstanding teacher almost inevitably requires you to spend heaps of your own time, unpaid, putting in the extra hours. Whether it is through meticulous marking, the planning and creation of inspiring lessons and resources, the barrage of constant detailed assessment or even the sleepless nights spent worrying about a child's welfare, being a teacher is anything but the 9-3. As the children and their parents wake up, the teachers are there - in school - laying out resources, organising assessment, beautifying the class. When the children go home, the teachers grab onto their coffee and settle down for another 3 hours of work. There can't be many jobs where unpaid work is expected to quite the same degree: if a teacher worked only the hours they were paid, most would be inadequate.

Yet when teachers complain - either verbally or through union activities - they are castigated with a venom reserved usually only for Tube drivers and rubbish collectors. What links the teachers, the tube drivers and rubbish collectors? They are taken for granted. You dump yourself on a train platform and expect a train to transport you. You dump your rubbish outside the front door and expect it to disappear. And you dump your kids at the school gate and expect them to be occupied for 6 hours.

This phantasmagorical six-week break - ignoring for now that the start is often spent tying up loose ends of one year, and the end is used preparing the next year - serves to shut down any argument a teacher might make.

 I am being asked to work longer hours for, effectively, less pay.
But you get loads of holidays.  

I am being forced to stay in school beyond my working hours.
Yeah, but it's only a few weeks until the next holiday.

In dribs and drabs, teachers' working conditions are being eroded while the pressures, workload and expectations are raised. Teachers already work ridiculously long hours - certainly most that I know. Anyone who lives with a teacher will know that it doesn't 'stop' when you leave the building - your lessons, your children and your classroom come back with you. Why is it like this? Why are teachers working for free so much, and why then, despite this, are they continually being asked to do more and more, without so much as a passive querying peep of dissent?

Because it's a 'calling'. Because it's 'more than just a job'. Because it's about 'making a difference'. Because it's about 'changing lives'. Because it's more a 'vocation' than a job. Because it's more of a 'lifestyle' than a profession. Tied into the cultural idea of the teacher is the idea of selflessness, almost sacrifice. So much of what we do can be justified by the phrase 'I'm doing it for the kids'.

Why are you getting up at half past five to get into work early?
I'm doing it for the kids.  

Why are you sat in on a Saturday night cutting out paper caterpillars with connectives on them, while others in your age bracket are enjoying a weekend of socialising on their juicy pay-packets?
I'm doing it for the kids.

Where is this argument going then? Am I going to argue that teachers shouldn't care about their work once they leave the school building? If I am, I am surely and thoroughly an uncaring selfish braggart who shouldn't work with children, right? Do you see the bind here? Ultimately, teachers are restricted to two choices, they can either continue to carry on taking on more and more of a backbreaking workload (all for the kids, obviously), or they can protest it (not in the benefit of the kids).

There is research behind this. Stephen Brookfield writes that  
Teachers who take the idea of vocation as the organizing concept for their professional lives may start to think of any day on which they don't come home exhausted as a day wasted...Thus what seems on the surface to be a politically neutral idea on which all could agree - that teaching is a vocation calling for dedication and hard work - may be interpreted by teachers as meaning that they should squeeze the work of two or three jobs into the space where one can sit comfortably.

We are in the uniquely restricted position of being expected to do whatever is asked of us, uncritically, or else not only is your work ethic called into question, but you are perceived to be weak (because it's an easy job anyway, right) and - most importantly - you are seen to lack devotion, love and care for the children you teach.

So maybe we should start questioning what it means when the pressure is heaped on, for the good of the kids.

Of course we want the best for the kids - for the kids in our class, we want it more than anyone else. It would just be better if providing a great education didn't mean grinding down the mental health and working rights of teachers.

How is it in the children's interest to have a pallid drained zombie for a teacher day in day out? How is it in the children's interest to have their teachers come into work resenting the place, as staff morale drops? It isn't.

It is in the interest of the cost-cutting government who want to pay the smallest number of staff possible to do the greatest amount of work. Headteachers might be the ones asking you to do it, but they don't have so much choice either. It starts at the top. Brookfield speaks of a 'self-destructive workaholism' which some teachers, proudly devoted to their careers, may wear like a badge of honour. I'm still very happy in my school, although there are constantly increasing but sensible pressures, but I know of many in other schools who are being driven to despair. But still, when they are on their knees, they will defend their school as 'doing it for the kids'. New recruits into the profession have been heard to bicker with braggadocios about how little sleep they have had, as though competing to see who can survive whilst being pushed the furthest. It's absurd.

We need to question these assumptions if we want to do what most of us became teachers to do - to love teaching, to love working with children and to help children to achieve their potential. Otherwise, it will only get worse.

All teachers should have access to academic journals

If I was feeling more artsy I would title this post 'The Frosted Mirror', because it is about teachers being unable to reflect properly. Pedagogical theorists place high esteem on those teachers who can engage with scholarly literature and incorporate research findings into their classroom practice. I agree with them and I think that the ability to draw upon high-quality research would be invaluable when striving to become a good teacher.

The government continually harp on about the low standards of entry into teaching and Gove has sought to professionalise teaching; if it is the teachers' subject knowledge that they wish to improve, then they should provide access to the educationalist journals to all teachers.

The venerable cast of educational theorists will be familiar to any trainee teacher - Bloom and his questions, Maslow and his hierachy, Vygotsky and his zones - but there is no expectation for a continuous engagement with classical and contemporary theory and research throughout one's teaching career. This absence is seen most clearly with the example of the notoriously restricted access to academic knowledge in lay society. Whether the desire is there or not (and it may well be laying dormant from understimulation), the point stands that teachers are unable to access the theory which undergirds good practice.

Those working towards their QTS are expected to synthesise theory and practice in order to demonstrate their competency, and though this is easily manipulated and made artificial by the 'snapshot' observations, the need to use - for example - Bloom's Taxonomy to differentiate questions within a lesson does breed good habits and good practice.

Policymakers who perceive, rightly or wrongly and for whatever reason, an underskilled teaching profession are faced with the decision of whether to focus their attention on attracting highly qualified new recruits to the profession, or embarking on retraining of current teachers. Compromise would always be the best option, but opening up access to academic journals to all teachers is not only a gesture of trust in the commitment and abilities of the profession but it would be an instant and invaluable resource.

For those teachers with the drive, ambition and/or know-how to research independently, they can get started immediately. For those who would benefit from extra help, it should be provided.

Despite the pessimistic zeitgeists which seem constantly to cast teachers in a bad light, across the educational profession you find levels of commitment which go way beyond most other professions. Dedication to pupils and their learning is the motivating force behind nocturnal planning, the spending of weekends trimming caterpillars out of A4 and requesting that everyone you know saves their cereal boxes for you. Good teachers care enough about their work to put in the extra effort. The precedent is there.

Theory and research are too valuable to be available only by those studying at university. If academic knowledge was connected to the classroom, it would facilitate the innovations, drive and deeper commitment that - in a rare triumvirate of agreement - teachers, politicians and inspectors all wish to see.

'The Gayest Kid Ever' - Gender, Sexualities and School

When in primary schools, I've quite often heard it said that a child is really gay. More recently, it was said that one boy is the Gayest Kid in the World. When a teacher says something like this, I usually doubt it carries any malicious intent and it is rarely said in an overtly condemnatory manner, but it remains a fixed character judgement and one which is harmful.

It is a textbook example of the concepts of the heterosexual matrix and normative heterosexuality in action.

The heterosexual matrix is the lens through which individuals in society make sense of the world through presupposing a coherent identity - eg male (sex), masculine (gender) and attracted to women (sexuality). By thinking through the heterosexual matrix, any deviation from the norm is one category affects how people conceive of the others. For example, an individual with an indeterminate biological sex becomes suspected of having a deviant gender, or an abnormal sexuality - see the sexual fetishisation of Thai 'ladyboys'.

Normative heterosexuality works closely with the heterosexual matrix, and provides a hegemonic validation for certain sexual and gender identities - making some identities normal and some abnormal. The processes of normative heterosexuality may be quite difficult to identify; this is exactly why they are so potent. In the establishment of a sense that certain genders are abnormal or unnatural or immoral or ungodly, you see the deployment of different discursive paradigms - in turn psychiatric, biological/eugenicist, ethical or delusional - which seek to present heterosexuality as the norm.

Back to gay kids. The first hurdle is the entrenched presumption, ingrained in Western culture since Rousseau, of childhood innocence. The willful (willed?) ignorance of child sexuality is something which has been problematised by Foucault in theory, and by the research of Emma Renold, among others, in educational research. The lengths to which schools and adults go to prevent displays of child sexuality stand in hypocritical contradiction to the denial of its existence - why strain to prevent the manifestations something which doesn't exist?

Children have sexualities and sexual cultures - most of you need only think back to when you were 9,10,11 to know this - but this isn't the topic here.

When the teachers say that a certain child is - as I have recently heard from a teacher - 'the gayest kid ever', they are quite clearly not talking of sexualities whatsoever. They were not implying anything about the sexual practices of the particular 7 year old boy - instead, the teacher makes the potent conflation of sex/gender/sexuality.

In my time in schools, I have not once heard a teacher refer to any of her young female pupils as a big lesbian, certainly not the biggest lesbian ever. In only a handful of schools can I recall girls policing other girls so explicitly, using terminology of female homosexuality. It appears to be a phenomenon curiously weighted against male children that they must prove their straight sexuality, rather than have it presumed or rendered invisible, as with girls. The Gayest Kid Ever's gendered identity is only problematic because of his biological sex, and because of the 'asymmetry' between the two. Male (sex) children should act like boys (gender); sexuality is called into question for those who don't.

In terms of gender identity, the school and the playground are dangerous places for a boy in the process of constructing his sense of self, his subjectivity, in the situated context of the different masculine identities available to him. Most boys will play the game of masculinity. They will go out into the playground or sports field every lunchtime without fail for an hour of football: they might not be in the mood for it, it might have been played unfairly for years, they might want to do something else, they might (shock horror) dislike football, but most will still play. Not the Gayest Kid in the World though. Having seen the procession of injured peers pass by him, and witnessing the bullying and fights, he decides he'd rather have something else as a hobby. But if football is a site for the construction of masculinity, to be playing outside the touchlines positions the Gayest Kid in the World alongside the other excluded people - the girls, the younger kids, the women, the disabled and the bullied.

When a teacher says that a child is the Gayest Kid in the World, what I think they are trying to do is somehow 'apologize' for the gender of the child - the hushed-tones way in which the 'information' about these children is given to me, as an outsider, almost seems like I am being given a disclaimer. There isn't usually any overt malice, but the child is nonetheless barricaded into this paradoxical master status. The atypical gender performance of a 7 year old boy - be it through something as stereotypical as being 'overdramatic' or things like disliking football or being tactile - calls into question their sexuality (which is thought not to exist).

Nobody benefits from this. From being told about his 'gayness' I know nothing more about the child, other than that the teachers perceive him to be different enough from the rest of the boys that he warrants his own label. As male children (sex) who perform their gender differently by not behaving like the other boys (gender) are gradually pushed to the side and silenced, all that remains to be seen is a narrow vision of boys doing their gender 'properly'. These boys get into fights, argue, don't voice their frustrations except in outburst and the same teacher who would label the Gayest Kid in the World would explain away these conflicts with "Boys will be boys".

So long as teachers are complicit in constructing the one-sided battle between Real Boys and the Gay Kids, boys will be boys, but these boys might not want to be boys in this way. So long as schools perpetuate the heterosexual matrix, gender violence will be inflicted on their children.

TROOPS TO TEACHERS

More than anything else, with this post I want to highlight a strange discrepancy in political rhetoric about people's eligibility to teach. The idea of a 'Troops to Teachers' programme, following the lead of the T3 programme in America has been floated around by the Conservatives for a few years now, and after a report by the Centre for Policy Studies seems to be pushing the idea towards a reality.

I am not against soldiers. What I find unsettling is the idea that the sole fact that they are soldiers, that they have gone through military service, makes them particularly eligible to teach, and particularly so in inner city schools. I'm sure that some ex-servicemen would make great teachers; I'm sure that some would be awful. But likewise for ex-shopworkers, ex-mechanics, ex-doctors, ex-hairdressers, ex-anythings. The Conservatives' unerring love affair with discipline, usually to the detriment of creativity, seems to posit soldiers' militaristic obediance and hierarchical structure as some form of 'ideal type' classroom.

I'm not sure about your experiences in school, but with me, the lessons in which I learnt the most, and in which the pupils most engaged with and liked their teachers, were those lessons which we led by teachers who interacted with us, who 'had a laugh' and who respected our views. Conversely, the worst lessons were those in the chalk and talk mould, which involved the lone pedagogue reading from a textbook to his charges, who had been threatened into stillness and silence. Now obviously, I'm not suggesting that all 'troops to teachers' will necessary fit into the latter teaching style, but from how I am interpreting it, this is what the Conservatives are heralding as the major innovation of such a programme.

One final point, about suitability. If a candidate has a criminal record, although the crimes may not relate to one's suitability to teach, they nonetheless must be declared and the employers make a decision upon that knowledge. You can imagine the uproar if the parents, or - God forbid - the redtop press, discovered that somebody teaching their children had committed a murder. Yet the government, and I would expect they would have the backing of the Daily Mail, Express, Telegraph etc, positively encourage soldiers into their schools; the vocation of a soldier is to 'defend the realm' and this often means killing foreigners. If you are killing in the name of the Queen you are a role model for disaffected youth, if you are killing anybody else you are unsuitable to be in contact with children.

I just wonder whether ex-soldiers are the best solution for 'high-poverty, typically violent inner-city schools'. Maybe I'm overly Gandhi-fying this, but I would rather children and young people were discouraged from guns and violence, rather than having their interest gently assuaged towards a 'legitimate' use of that violence. Should the role model for inner city kids be a soldier? Does this not deepen the stratifications through which pupils in affluent areas go into safe, prestigious, well-paid work and through which pupils in deprived areas go into manual, underpaid, dangerous work.

As I said, some soldiers will be great teachers and some would be awful, just like any profession-switchers. My own view is that military service certainly should not make somebody more suitable as a candidate to teach in modern schools.

HOW X FACTOR CREATES SOCIAL INEQUALITY

Last night, Joe McElderry won X Factor 2009. He’s perfect for it – he can sing, he’s nice, he’s pretty, he’s humble, he’s working-class (I think) and he’ll look good branded over posters, calendars and pencil cases marketed for 10 year old girls. More than that though, he’s now a role model for the teen generation. It isn’t so much the winners as the journey which provides the inspiration to the programme’s devotees; just look at the titles of the songs that become the winners’ first singles - ‘The Climb’, ‘Hallelujah’, ‘When You Believe’, ‘A Moment Like This’… The general theme of this is the triumph over adversity, the virtue of self-belief and the persistence of hope. Despite their shitty normal little towns, despite setbacks, the average normal kid with a great voice has done well in the end.

This is heart-warming and entertaining, but it is also fucking bollocks.

Most aspiring pop stars who have intently watched X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent etc, can’t sing, can’t dance and are wasting their time believing. Better advice would be to buy a lottery ticket – at least with the National Lottery everyone stands an equal chance. It might seem that I’m being the Spirit of Christmas Cock here, but most teenagers would be better off uncrossing their fingers, putting a pen between them, and trying to learn. This might not secure them the instant gratification of a £100,000 pay off and crooning alongside George Michael or a psychologically regressed Robbie Williams, but it will better equip them for what is most likely to happen – normality, mediocrity, reality.

The X Factor is so successful and popular because it leeches onto that age-old sentiment that you can cheat the system, ‘surely there’s an easier way?’. X Factor can be seen as a cheat-code for life. Why take the effort to do GCSEs, to try for A Levels and University when you could, from one audition, secure fame, wealth and esteem from the masses? The system still has its effects though, even if people choose to ignore it – if kids aren’t interested in their education, they will be less likely to succeed and less likely to get a decent job. This is the truth – it doesn’t inspire 16 million people to tune in on a Saturday night, it won’t make you and all your friends change your facebook status, but the fact is, there’s a pretty hefty likelihood that if you devote yourself to the hunt for celebrity, you’ll fail.

Meritocracy is so seductive. Pierre Bourdieu emphasised the necessity for a few, a tiny few, working class pupils to excel and to climb the greasy pole of academic success, in order to present the image of a meritocracy. If one scummy little jack the lad from the estates managed to make good of his situation, the others could have done so too – this is the thinking. By letting a few working-class kids do well, the mass failure of the rest of them to gain success is made legitimate. The X Factor winners are an epitome of this meritorious victory – Leona, Alexandra and now Joe can now provide hope for all of those working class kids turned off by their education, by their lives, and now these kids can devote themselves to fostering their X Factor. And these working class kids, most of them, will NOT have the X Factor.

Credit to Joe McElderry, he’s got talent – he could have got a record contract based on his merits, but the X Factor made it a lot easier. But let’s not peddle the idea that this is attainable for all – it just isn’t. ‘Talent Show’ could become as valid a career path to the psyche of the teens as vocational education or A Levels, and who could blame them. They have the myth of meritocracy slapped in their face throughout the year thanks especially to ITV – it needs to stop because whilst all this goes on, the kids who don’t focus upon these dreams are filling up all the ‘legitimate’ paths to success.

The real winners of X Factor – the middle classes who turn their nose up at it.

EVERY LITTLE HELPS...

Sir Terry Leahy, the Chief Executive of Tesco, has criticised the standards of education in Britain as being "woefully low", and complains that businesses like his are left to pick up the pieces.

The Times writes 'Tesco is unhappy that it spends time training recruits in basic numeracy and “communications” skills, which includes writing, because workers are ill-equipped when they leave school.' Tesco seems distinctly less unhappy to pay their low-skilled workers close very close to the minimum wage. Tesco's complaint isn't about the educational system at all, which, incidentally, he is in no position to comment on - his complaint is that his business is loosing revenue from having to train up some of the 40,000 under-19s it employs. If they are keen to have 'better educated' employees they could maybe try offering a fairer wage. But no, that's the last thing they'll want to do - Leahy needs to take a step back and realise you can't have your cake and eat it. For want of a better metaphor, if you offer to pay people in peanuts, your only applicants are going to be monkeys.

His main gripe is that bureaucracy is stifling the educational process as teachers struggle to find their whiteboard pens amongst the red tape that is draped across their classrooms. How innovative, he's quite the bluesky thinker. Leahy thinks that school standards are too low - too low for whom? He's certainly not commenting here for the benefit of Britain's illiterate yoof - he is looking to gain from the better education of his students. I'd pity the students who manage to put in the extra effort, to grasp the basics of literacy and numeracy that are wanted by Tesco, only to end up employed in Tesco, where they will be underpaid, overworked and where they face little prospect of job mobility. If the children were 'better educated', you'd hope their newfound skills would take them away from the unskilled service sector.

And then we have another prize twat from the supermarket sector who considers himself this generations Giddens in terms of his depth of social knowledge - Andy Clarke, Asda’s chief operating officer, announced "No one can deny that Britain has spawned a generation of young people who struggle to read, write or do simple maths. That’s why we’re finding packs of nappies discarded in the booze aisle, as the last few pounds are spent on alcohol rather than childcare."

You'll have to pardon my partiality on this one, but what the fuck gives the manager of Asda the right to decry the failings of state education? Not least to perpetuate sweeping false generalisations about the inability of the poor in society to look after their children.

Sure, everyone knows that we have an education system which filters out students at various points - those who fail GCSEs end up working at the bottom rung, those who finish A-Levels start a little higher, many graduates can look at managerial salaries from the offset and so on. So yes, maybe Tesco and Asda are likely to end up 'purchasing' the lowest performing students from the state system; however, that gives them no right to oversee, to comment on, and infuriatingly, to have influence over the state system.

In terms of Tesco, I am very likely over the next couple of days to visit one of their stores to buy some apple juice. I, however, have no plans to gather a crowd outside of the store and bemoan the low quality of the apples. If I don't like the shit juice, I either don't buy it, or I offer up some more money to buy something of a higher quality. I don't stand out in the cold shouting off about how my cheap apple juice tastes cheap - you get what you pay for, and Tesco and Asda have absolutely no authority, as businesses, to issue comment on the perceived failings of the state education system.

EDUCATION CUTS DON'T HEAL - £2bn CUTBACKS

In 1996, at the Labour Party Conference, Tony Blair famously stated that his top three priorities on coming to office were 'education, education, education'. In 2009, as the New Labour project drifts inexorably towards its terminus, Ed Balls, now the Minister for Education, has set out to cut £2bn from schools funding, which is 5%.

Throughout the duration of the New Labour administration, there has been tolerance of, followed by flirtation with, followed by an opened armed welcome to, market forces. New Labour continued in much the same vein as Thatcher - favouring deregulation and free trade, neo-liberal policies and privatisation. Despite their spin in the run on to 1997, Labour were evidently not the new modest socialism that the country voted for. In fact, the gap between rich and poor has grown under Labour - as can be seen here.

And now the shit has well and truly hit the fan. Banks are collapsing, big businesses such as Woolworths have disappeared from the highstreet, small vendors are being forced to close their shops, the nation is in huge personal debt, our industry is being outsourced to countries with a less expensive labour force and there are close to 2.5m unemployed. And who is going to foot the bill?

Of course. It is us.

The government plans to make its biggest cuts in public services - in health, education, housing, justice, culture... And the first minister to declare the cuts in his department is Ed Balls (ever willing to please the Prime Minister). The plan is to reduce the number of headteachers and senior management - federations of schools will develop meaning a management team can run numerous schools simultaneously to save money. This comes only months after the very same department welcomed the need for greater personalisation of educational provision, in the form of personal tutors and so on. Balls seems to be of the opinion that headteachers are little other than bureaucrats - commodities - that can be disposed and dispensed at will. Balls, in his wisdom, feels this will not affect the quality of teaching.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Balls said “If we are going to keep teachers and teaching assistants on the front line, that means we are going to have to be disciplined on public sector pay, including in education.” How fucking generous of him. It's nice that he is showing the courtesy to those working in education by not getting rid of their jobs to plug a deficit caused by his party's wanton liberalism, it's nice that he is only going to curb their pay. He is quite the altruist. Similarly, after asserting he hopes that comprehensives may come together into federations with a single headteacher and a number of deputies, he adds "But we are not going to have larger class sizes." Again, very generous, despite the fact that class sizes are already too large, are having a detrimental effect on learning and are affecting those of lowest ability the most.

Schools will also be expected to cut back on their purchasing of books, teaching equipment and computers and individual schools are expected to make 10% spending cuts.

My God. Education is Labour's pride and joy, along with the NHS. If this is what the government is doing to Education, I dread to think what will be cut in other public services. The issue is that school children and teachers should not be punished for the laissez-faire capitalism of City bankers and the governments selective myopia. I don't know how Ed Ball dares state that he is doing something good by the teachers by not kicking them out of their jobs to save money.

If Balls is looking to make some saving cuts for his department, he should look a little closer to home. The DCSF which Balls heads most probably has more than its fair share of policy wonks - certainly enough to be able to churn out contradictory policy findings and agree with both, before deciding they haven't the money for either. Or maybe Labour should cancel its commitment to ID cards, or to Trident, or call back the troops - all which are far less necesssary and financially gumptious.

This does not bode well. Cuts may well be necessary, but certainly not in education.

WHAT MAKES A GREAT HEADTEACHER?

Being a Time Lord is very helpful, or so say the primary school children surveyed by the National College for the Leadership of Schools and Children's Services, as Dr Who came out to be the 'Dream Headteacher'. Leaving Alan Sugar, Jamie Oliver and Lewis Hamilton feeling painfully inferior, the Doctor (in his David Tennant carnation)also managed to pip Barack Obama, JK Rowling and Cheryl Cole into second place. And funnily enough, when the same options were offered to the adult readers of the Education Guardian page, Doctor Who was the adults' Dream Head too, although my choice of Michelle Obama looks set to come in in 2nd place.

Asked why they had chosen their particularly dream teacher, nearly half of the children did so because they were 'fun'. Also important was whether they could look up to this headteacher and their intelligence.

This helps to see what children seek in a headteacher, a role that can be of huge significance to their education and development - fun, intelligent and a good role model. Children themselves clearly place high value on their headteachers too - 75% of children surveyed said that their headteacher made them happy to be in school, and a similar percentage stated that their headteacher was fair and understood right from wrong.

The role of a headteacher then is quite different from that of a teacher. Although the head is not as much of a frontline character in the classroom as the teachers, they nonetheless play a large role for the pupils themselves. In a primary school in which I've volunteered, I overheard Year 6 children talking about the previous headteacher, who had left over 3 years ago. The position itself, ignoring the individual personalities, is something quite mythical in the childhood imagination - 'the Headteacher' is the character children read about in many books, see on children's TV. 'The Head' is where you get sent if you misbehave. 'The Head' is a place as much as a person and is a by-word for authority.

The tricky position of being a good teacher demamds that you are the figurehead of the school, that you command authority, that you are intelligent, that you are fun and that you can discipline. This is quite a difficult combination and one, for those that can master it, warrants a very healthy salary.