In the Secret Barrister’s book ‘Stories of the Law and How it is Broken’, he discusses how the justice system is becoming more focused on getting cases through court in the name of efficiency, rather that the quality of the judgement. This is no surprise given the free market model that has been imposed on every bit of society, where targets are the norm and those in charge like an easy headline figure to discuss. If the Secretary of State for Justice can point to x amount of cases being completed in a day, then clearly the public are getting good value for money.
This ‘efficiency creep’ is something that I find myself thinking about on a regular basis within education. On Twitter, there are often discussions about the efficiency of a lesson and how we must think about the most efficient way of delivering a curriculum. This invariably leads onto a discussion about the efficiency of ‘direct instruction’ vs ‘discovery learning’ but also it can be about the wasting of time showing a video or having a ‘fun’ end-of-term lesson.
I saw one tweet recently from a teacher who told her Y9 students that their last lesson wasn’t the one at the end of term but at the end of Y11 and therefore they would carry on as normal. As someone who enjoys doing an end of term quiz, I found that quite fascinating. There was a certain level of martyrdom about the fact that they were teaching ’til the end and I assume this is all done in the name of efficiency. When it comes to a child’s education, there is no time to waste!
I don’t necessarily disagree with that viewpoint but I am wary of any discussion about efficiency within a classroom/school environment. I would argue in the name of efficiency we have seen schools start teaching GCSEs in Y9 because Y9 ends up being a ‘treading water’ type year. This means that students are choosing options in Y8 which seems rather early to make quite big decisions. And if you think starting in Y9 is the right thing to do because it focuses their mind, then why not start GCSEs in Y8? Some would argue that they start in Y9 because they need more time to teach the specifications but if that’s the case, start even earlier. If you don’t want to waste a single moment of time, let’s get the students onto GCSEs as soon as they enter secondary school!
This might end up narrowing the curriculum but so what? If you’ve got a headline figure like Progress 8 to aim for, then as a school leader you will want to be as efficient with your time as possible to score highly on this accountability measure.
Within a lesson, to be efficient, you have to keep on delivering and delivering and delivering. No time to think about your well-being or the student’s well-being. There is content to get through and this must be done as efficiently as possible. This will then also leave plenty of time to work on exam technique in the most efficient manner possible. Testing, testing and testing!
As noted right at the start, if (like the law courts) we get so focused on efficiency, we may end up reducing the quality of the educational experience. School is more than just efficiently churning out students that can pass exams. Schools are about relationships and appreciating the world around us. Schools are about giving students time to figure out who they are and where they might want to go in the future. Schools are places where you can make mistakes and there are people their to catch you as you fall. Schools are places to have fun and enjoy the experience of learning a wide variety of things.
And that’s why at the end of term, I like to do a two team quiz. A classic noughts and crosses board with a variety of categories in each square. Yes, they’ll be the odd question on my subject (Economics or Business) but they’ll also be a sports square (boys always choose this and then get annoyed when I ask them about anything other than football), a general knowledge square, a Mr Simpson Hums The Hit Parade square, a WORDS square (where they have to form a key Economics or Business word using their collective bodies), a Junior Jokes square (guess the punchlines) and so on.
In this quiz, students have to show leadership, have to listen to each other, have to make decisions about what answer to go for, have to show teamwork and they do all of this with smiles on their faces. It is their reward for working so hard throughout the term. Plus I also get to see a different side of a lot of students. These end of term quizzes help build relationships, which (dare I say it) will lead to a more efficient learning environment in the future!
On Teaching... 