- The DfE contains highly skilled, highly motivated and highly dedicated civil servants who have been rushed off their feet throughout Covid trying to issue guidance to support school
- Unfortunately due to the massive fragmentation of the education sector, the DfE no longer actually knows what is actually going on in schools [see many other posts on this blog on fragmentation]
- Political leadership at the DfE and in No. 10 appears to believe that the role of the department is to strongly assert certainty and ‘best practice’ when only uncertainty and emergent practice exist
- This is why there have been so many ‘U-turns’ as information comes to light that overtly contradicts the department’s over-confident assertions
- Consequently, much of the department’s ‘guidance’ serves only to shift blame for failure from itself on to school and Trust leaders and in doing so creates work with significant opportunity cost to children and communities
- As a whole the framework adds little value and much confusion, it is effectively a self-assembly noose with instructions to, “Insert neck of responsible officer here”
- It's based on a false premise as we simply do not know which are the better ways to deliver remote learning to children not in school yet, so we should be seeking first to understand before we rush to measure
- It is confused about whom it is for and confuses governance with operational management throughout
- It imposes a self-assessment grading system without evidence base or terms of reference and although it (optimistically) asserts it will only take “approximately 1 hour” to complete fails to show how this will achieve anything other than the creation of a piece of paper marked 'remote learning self-assessment'
- Having been drafted at speed for multiple audiences, it is less than clear over who is responsible for what and fails to even mention Trustees from whom authority must be delegated in MATs for some of the decisions it mentions
- It wrongly and dangerously attempts to make schools and Trusts responsible for the safety of the home learning environment when this can only ever be a parental responsibility
- Although it is merely repeating the line from other guidance, the requirements are stated in terms of quantity (hours per day) not quality when the role of remote learning is not to fill time but to help children learn
- It appears to add a requirement to provide real time both way communication ‘school community events’ which are likely to be safeguarding nightmares
- It lobs a reminder about GDPR in at the end just to keep us on our toes
- And its last line is one of the best “There are clear rules for behaviour during remote lessons and activities. Pupils know them and teachers monitor and enforce them.”
- Anyone who has attended Google hangouts, MS Teams or Zoom meetings in the last year will immediately understand the impossibility of controlling behaviour of primary school children remotely. NB the Spanish councillor or other example of carelessness and stupidity whilst online
Leadership
What this is really about: Accountability, responsibility and decision making authority
Schools and academies have statutory and contractual obligations that are different as are their mechanisms of governance
For mechanisms of governance in both sectors the question is, “Is our organisation meeting its legal duties and are we making a difference?”
For LA maintained schools the LA is the employer and bears the responsibility for health & safety and safeguarding, the governing body is the responsible body and must appropriately authorise remote learning plans drawn up by the Headteacher
For academies, the Trust is the employer and the Trust board is the responsible body who must authorise or delegate authority to the CEO to draw up and implement plans for remote provision, the Trust board must also decide how where the responsibility for curriculum and outcomes sits (either at the individual school or Trust level)
Questions to address
Has the scheme of delegation been followed? Or have operational leaders temporarily exceeded their authority? How can you balance the need to make quick decisions with the appropriate involvement of governance? Could you explain this in two sentences to an HMI? If you have temporarily delegated authority to a HT or CEO how is this balanced by the provision of risk management information and data back to the governing authority?
Remote education context and pupil engagement
What this is really about: How far does organisational responsibility extend into the home?
Schools and Trusts cannot accept responsibility for safety in the home
They can only be responsible for that which is within their control
We are no longer in loco parentis when a parent is present and primary age children should not be left alone at home - we are not digital babysitters
Questions to ask
How can you work with parents to improve the quality of the home learning space? What reasonable steps can be taken to mitigate for the most disadvantaged children? Do you know how many children don’t have decent access to the platform? If you can’t afford or cannot procure sufficient devices what mitigating steps can you take?
Curriculum planning and delivery
What this is really about: What are children going to learn and how will it be taught?
The digital learning space is comprehensively different to the classroom with significant loss of control by the teacher of the learning environment
That said we should aspire to the highest possible standards without killing teachers through overwork
Questions to ask
Do leaders and teachers have a shared understanding of how children will gain success in their learning (are we setting children up for success)? Do we have clear expectations in terms of what makes a high quality lesson/sequence of lessons in the Virtual School? How can we use systems which will help in terms of teacher workload e.g. automated marking? Is the curriculum broadly in line with our expectations in our ‘physical’ classrooms and relevant to the community that the school serves?
Capacity and capability
What this is really about: Retraining your teachers as digital delivery experts
Lots of teachers are feeling insecure and unsupported in their new roles as digital learning providers we should not forget how tiring it is to be an NQT nor how hard it is to acquire the skills and confidence needed
Questions to ask
Do you know how your teachers feel? How do you know? How are you communicating your expectations of teachers? Have you created networks for peer support? Which networks external to your organisation have you connected to or referenced in your work? How are you reassuring your staff that you will work with them to grow their skills?
Communication
What this is really about: Managing parental expectations - restoring reasonableness
The SOS has set parents against schools with his recent comments which is unhelpful
Questions to ask
How can you moderate unreasonable parental expectations whilst retaining the highest possible expectations of progress for all children? How often are you communicating with parents? How much are you telling and how much are you listening? How are you helping parents to create a positive environment and empowering them to encourage and motivate their children?
Safeguarding and wellbeing
What this is really about: Keeping children and staff safe
LAs and MATs are responsible for the safety and wellbeing of children and staff when they are in school
LAs and MATs retain responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of their staff when they are working from home
Schools and academies are not responsible for the safety and wellbeing of children when they are learning from home
Questions to ask
What mechanisms are in place to escalate and report safeguarding concerns about children when they are learning from home? How does your organisation determine when lack of engagement in online learning meets a threshold for safeguarding concern and how can these decisions be made consistently? How are you monitoring and moderating online behaviour? How are you prioritising scarce resources e.g. what are you taking off the priority lists for teachers as many are now teaching in two schools simultaneously?
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