Baroness Williams concerned that curriculum stifles teacher creativity – except in Wales

22 January 2009

Classroom creativity is being affected by UK class sizes and the stifling effect of a prescriptive curriculum says Baroness Shirley Williams in her address at the fifth annual Wales Education Lecture.

More than 230 people turned out to hear Baroness Williams of Crosby speak on education in Wales and her comments on class sizes were met with agreement from the audience of teachers and educationalists from across Wales.

Organised by the General Teaching Council for Wales (GTCW), the Wales Education Lecture – this year entitled ‘Schools in the community: hubs of change’ – has grown into an important event In the education calendar, giving professionals from all aspects of education in Wales an opportunity to hear a leading figure speak on education issues but also to network with the Welsh education minister, policy makers and senior education figures.

Baroness Williams noted that the autonomy of teachers had been eroded over time with the introduction of the national curriculum in the late 1980s but she felt that the move away from the key stage testing would give teachers greater freedom to teach rather than constantly having to prepare children for exams.

She congratulated the Welsh Assembly Government for leading the way in abolishing first school league tables and then testing at Key Stages 1 and 2. She said: “League tables reflect only outputs with no reference to the inputs. It is hard for a teacher to be enthused when their efforts in working with socially disadvantaged youngsters with low attainment on entering secondary education is not recognised. League tables undermine the difference these teachers have made because they only recognise academic success. They have little value and Wales must be congratulated on scrapping league tables at that earliest opportunity.”

Baroness Williams’ theme on disaffection in young people continued when she examined the links between school exclusions and youth offending, citing much lower levels of long-term and permanent pupil exclusion in Scotland compared to Wales and England.

She commented that: “Using exclusions to make the school society better has had a detrimental effect on society as a whole. Exclusion causes peer isolation and deaden motivation.” She also noted the impact of poor diet, bad parenting and a lack of discipline at home and suggested that the structured environment of state boarding schools could help young people faced with such barriers.

The pressures and burdens faced by headteachers was also discussed in the Baroness’s lecture. Despite being “better trained than ever before,” she felt the recruitment of headteachers was becoming a problem not because of a lack of skills amongst the teacher profession, but because few wanted the burden.

She felt that the levels of funding, unlikely to increase in the current economic climate coupled with unfavourable pupil:teacher ratios of 24.5:1 in UK primary schools (compared with just under 15:1 in Europe) made for difficult school environments and one to one teaching had become almost impossible. On that point, she heralded the introduction of Teaching Assistants as, “a wonderful discovery”, allowing warmth, patience and affection to return to a busy classroom.

The lecture went on to explore the importance of the developing 14-19 Learning Pathways agenda in Wales. “There are many different kinds of intelligence, not just academic,” observed Baroness Williams. She advocated the importance of nurturing “practical intelligence” and the need to develop better vocational and non-academic education pathways to equip all young people for the future. She applauded the work of the Welsh Baccalaureate in providing a credible alternative to the traditional academic GCSE/A-Level/University Degree route to the workplace.

In closing, Baroness Williams looked at the increasing involvement of communities in schools. She reminded the audience that school governors were volunteers and that increasing bureaucracy was in danger of driving out local governors which link the school with its community. She said: “Community based schooling will bring young people back to the community from which they have been alienated. We should encourage 14-19 years to interact more with nursery groups and older people, perhaps inviting such groups into the school or allowing pupils to work with such groups.”

She closed by saying that the debate about class size must be embraced and that the value of vocational education cannot be overstated.