Secret Lecturer: Standards, workload and reputation
We all know the pressures on colleges and lecturers created by a dire lack of funding and, for many, no pay rise for several years, plus the inevitable pre-election ‘sweeteners’ by a government at least paying lip service to these problems. But another onerous but less publicised element has been the unnecessary extra workload of collecting data to feed Ofsted’s fixation on monitoring test and exam results, on outcomes.
Fortunately, things may be changing. Starting this September, the inspection agency is actively discouraging data collection and reducing workload by introducing a new set of standards in its new Education Inspection Framework (EIF). This replaces the Common Inspection Framework (CIF) introduced in 2015 as a blanket set of standards for schools and colleges. The question now is will the new framework be good news or make FE teachers’ jobs as hard as its predecessor?
Old standards never really suited colleges
The CIF handbook was written mainly with schools in mind and never really suited the college format with its different funding mechanisms and learning/teaching structures. The problem has been Ofsted’s lack of support to colleges in helping them understand the CIF. It was left to my college’s quality team (a group of senior staff tasked with setting and maintaining specific Ofsted-related performance standards) to interpret it: they concluded they needed to collect data, lots of it, and much of it has had to be provided by people at the coalface - the lecturers.
Quality teams became obsessed with supplying Ofsted with enough data to show their colleges in a good light and thus have had little time to do what they should be doing - staff training; raising quality by promoting innovation and working on action plans for improvement, teaching strategies, new ways of using technology; and a whole range of education audits (eg checking the quality of our marking, grading, registers, our infrastructure, services).
Ofsted’s data demands affected lesson quality
Meanwhile, lecturers had to undertake a lot more work than was necessary - wasting valuable lesson preparation time by collecting reams of performance data to feed Ofsted. Most lecturers will use their own system of tracking courses and other units they teach but here they were being asked to collate and input the same information again several times over into different databases that quality teams said they needed to meet Ofsted’s requirements - simply to prove we were doing the work we said we were doing to meet the inspectorate’s set aims and objectives. Never mind that the whole exercise was taking up so much valuable teaching time.
The paperwork and data input required of tutors also meant students were getting the less one-to-one time and less pastoral care to help them with social skills and mental wellbeing, while the tutors themselves with too much to do were finding it much harder to manage their own well-being.
Students were expected to do more and more within shorter lesson times as teachers were being asked to cover two units within a 90-minute lesson per week that had hitherto covered one unit. Colleges were being forced to shave off teaching hours where possible to preserve funding rather than putting their students’ needs first.
Crippling for any teacher who cares
Ofsted requirements combined with constant cutbacks have been crippling for any teacher who cares academically and pastorally about their students’ progress. And no, the promised £400m Boris Johnson has pledged is still nowhere near enough finance to put things right.
The EIF is a welcome change, though. For instance, it actively encourages governors to play a much fuller part in helping colleges and staff implement standards. Rather than traditionally meeting designated staff representatives when learning about their particular institution, governors are now expected to speak to people randomly and thus hopefully get a better picture - although if the governor is accompanied by a manager, less than positive feedback from staff may count against them. Why not, then, help governors more by introducing the idea of surprise visits in the form of ‘mystery shoppers’ used by the retail industry to check customer care?
Building reputation by word of mouth
If students know they are being given a second chance, that they will be looked after and have more time to develop essential employability and social skills. and then go on to flourish, that will do as much for enrolment and building a reputation by word of mouth as anything else. On the other hand, a bunch of disgruntled learners aware that they are getting short-changed over the lack of one-to-one sessions and general lesson time will only tarnish reputations.
Increasing pressure on students to finish assignments in an unreasonable time frame to save costs will do likewise.
Helping staff actually understand the value of top-tier management and what it is they do to make our jobs safer would also go a long way. It’s about showing staff they are valued - simple things like principals knowing the names of all their staff, reducing class sizes down from 25-30 students. These are the building blocks of great reputations.
Will the new standards reduce teacher workload?
Will things now change? Well, the new EIF is more about intent, implementation and impact and managing development within lessons; it’s meant to rely far less on paperwork evidence. However, I can’t see funding agencies pressing any less than before to show we are meeting their goals and so far I have not noticed any respite in the paperwork we have to provide. But it is early days and the jury’s still out. Stay tuned.
