It is the day of the general election and all of the major parties are using the “we’re here at the behest of the voters” (or words to the effect) to try to win our votes. Well today I received an email from the DFE and I am frustrated and concerned about “the extent to which any government is truly accountable to the public?”

In April CLICK HERE I wrote about getting fobbed off  when I asked for clarification. Let me remind you that I had to do a Freedom of Information request to get hold of a letter from Nick Gibb to Ofqual and having been fobbed off I wrote again, this time it was short and sweet stating what I was seeking, as shown below in bold and underlined!

7th April

Weelllllll … its only gone and flipping happened again. Today’s response said this: Thank you for your email of 7 April, with attached letter addressed to the Minister of State for School Reform, about the GCSE maths research programme. I hope you can appreciate that ministers receive a large amount of correspondence and cannot always respond personally. I have therefore been asked to reply and apologise for the delay in replying.

I am sorry that you feel my colleague’s previous reply did not fully address your concerns; however, as mentioned in the reply, accreditation of qualifications falls within the remit of Ofqual and I would therefore advise that you contact Ofqual direct.”

Do you know what? I can almost hear Seager saying to himself “oh no! she’s going to go off on one again!” … and YES I AM! So with both barrels:

  • No I don’t appreciate how much correspondence ministers receive and I don’t give a monkeys. I have a valid concern and if a government minister isn’t prepared to now confirm that the concerns are allayed then it must mean that those concerns remain. Ok so we have election purdah but confirming his support would not make a bean of difference … unless of course the concerns remain then I could accept that right now, with an election taking place, may not be the best time to announce this.
  • The matter is not one for Ofqual. A minister has written a comment in a letter about a major change and I want that addressed. I will not go away and if it isn’t the current incumbent that gives me an answer I will pursue the next person in that role, the PM and anyone else who will listen.
  • Todays email was exactly 1 month to the day that I sent my last letter. I understand that there is an obligation to reply and it would appear that I am being left until the latest point possible. Or maybe I am just paranoid!

As I’ve said in lots of my blogs when I’ve been a tad self-indulgent … We are good at our jobs … and I mean really good. I never came into teaching (having had quite a successful corporate career … ok so I didn’t get to hob nob with ex-public school types but real hard-working people who grafted to get where they were in their careers) to have an easy life, or earn shed loads of money. I came into teaching to work in schools where I could make an impact and the last set of results at my previous school are in the highest quintile across the board on the data dashboard (despite having a challenging catchment!) – they were good for a few years prior to that too having seen results go from mid 40%s to mid 80%s … I may be weird … I love what I do BUT I also work hard and I mean very hard. Most teachers work a silly number of hours and I am slowly coming to accept how new initiatives get introduced into education despite them being “completely bonkers” … teachers are sick and tired of making noises and being ignored by those that are making the “big decisions”. Too many times I have heard people say “and this XXX too will pass” and I am not talking about teachers that have been doing the job for 30 years I am talking about youngsters with 5 or 6 years’ experience .. .the pace of change is mind-boggling.

AGAIN … the new GCSE is really exciting. I am embracing the changes and loving looking at different ways to develop my teaching further. What I have an issue with is the fact that our current year 9’s (and I’m not talking about “my” students as I think I’m ahead of the game in general! Modest too!) – I mean the whole cohort in general. The scale of the change is massive and we are now edging ever closer to the end of the academic year. I present some numbers IN THIS POST about the number of students that are affected if we plough on regardless and go into this unprepared (I won’t be unprepared by the way, my competitive nature means I will work like “Billio” for my students!)

I am feeling a little like a lone voice, but I know that most of us are busy and I too must be off … lessons to plan for tomorrow. I have (in a moment of insanity!) invited the maths department over for dinner tomorrow evening and have a house to clean too but come the weekend, and once a government is sworn in I will be writing to EVERYBODY (not literally!) and may be canvassing some support from you too! I do know that lots of you have written to your MPs and I’ve seen some amazing comments of support so look out for the next chapter.