Tag Archives: awards

Celebrating the success of young people

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On Monday evening, I watched an audience give a standing ovation to a young man in a wheelchair. The event was the Oxfordshire Youth Awards, and this was the first time that they had been held in public for several years.

The awards celebrated the great range of activities undertaken by young people across the county, many from those you don’t always associate with success in conventional academic terms.

The awards are a celebration of young people and the hard-working and talented children and young people living in the county. Even more impressive is that the decisions about who receives an award is made by a committee of young people aged between 13-25. This in itself provide a great work experience. I was proud to have been invited to attend the event.

In between the presentation of the awards, introduced by two young people, there was music and dancing from a variety of different groups and solo performers, all held on the big stage of the New Theatre in Oxford, more often the home to big budget musicals and other similar events.

There were seven different categories of awards including;

Community Champion that attracted 38 nominations including both a whole year group at one secondary school and many for individuals.

The Inspiration Entrepreneur award attracted six nominations and included those creating social businesses as well as for-profit enterprises.

The other awards included; Youth Project of the Year; Sports Personality; Arts Superstar; STEM Innovator; Youth Activist and the Pride of Oxfordshire Award that the citation said was for the young person that had shown courage and inspirational resilience in the face of challenging circumstances. There were 18 nominations.

The evening was a noisy and celebratory event; perhaps too noisy for an old-foggy such as myself, but I am sure that it inspired the audience to think of how they can become involved next year.

All too often we hear the horror stories of the day, so it is good to be able to write a positive story of the celebration of our young people. My thanks goes out to both the young people themselves and also to everyone that has mentored, motivate and supported their achievements. Long may these awards continue.

Here is what the awards team said of the evening:

“he Youth Awards is over for another two years, but it proves that every single hour of every single day, the young people of Oxfordshire are training, learning, reaching out, making, inspiring and creating ever better versions of themselves and the world around them. On Monday night, Oxfordshire seized its chance to show its appreciation and share the love in style.

The audience whooped, cheered and got to its feet for a standing ovation during an emotional evening celebrating our county’s talented 8-21-year-olds in every possible field. In between the award presentations: rappers rapped, actors performed, songbirds sang, dancers wowed and acrobats back flipped their way across the stage. We would like to thank every single one of our nominees and winners for being the stars they are.”

To find details of the winners visit You are all stars! – Oxfordshire Youth

Morale matters

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Earlier this week the NHS as an organisation were awarded the Nation’s highest civilian award; The George Cross. This was in recognition of the huge efforts staff made, and indeed continue to make, during the on-going covid pandemic and the direct and indirect effects upon all the staff working within the service created as a result of the pandemic.

The award, created in 1940, sits at the top of the UK honour’s system joint with the military Victoria Cross and is the highest civilian gallantry award. It is given for acts of the greatest heroism or of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger.

NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard and May Parsons, a matron for respiratory services who delivered the world’s first Covid vaccination in December 2020, were presented with the award by the Queen at Windsor Castle.

This is only the third time the George Cross has been awarded to a collective body, rather than an individual. It was previously awarded to Malta in 1942 and to the Royal Ulster Constabulary in 1999.

Should some sort of collective thank you is also due to our schools, and those that staff them, for remaining open throughout the pandemic. A signed certificate for every school thanking everyone for their ‘service’ during the pandemic and signed by the Monarch as Head of State might not come amiss.

Using the Platinum Jubilee to create some Regis Professors of Education to celebrate both the 150th Anniversary, in 2020, of 150 years of State Elementary Education and its successive expansion into the present system, and in 2022, the 210th anniversary of state funding of the education of children for the first time would have been a nice gesture. Yes, I know that they were children of soldiers that were funded, and it was The War Office that paid for the education in 1812, but it was still the start of state schooling.

The 150th anniversary of the 1870 Education Act, as a milestone, disappeared in horrors of the pandemic, but should not be forgotten. The ‘thank a teacher’ movement has raised the profile of teachers at the individual school level, and since the Blair government more school leaders, but not classroom teachers, have received awards in the Birthday or New Years’ Honours lists. But, do we need to do more to raise the morale of the profession?

As an employer, I know the importance of motivation, and of saying thank you for working through trying times. I can award a bonus, something not really available to the public sector as a whole, especially in this time of fiscal challenge.

Morale, workload and pay are the three key areas that support the successful staffing of any organisation. Managing morale is the cheapest and most overlooked, possibly because it is difficult for politicians to seem genuine. But, missing key anniversaries is a sign that morale isn’t taken seriously enough amongst senior decision-makers and those that shape the policy of our education system.

With a week to go to the end of term, there’s still time to wish everyone the best for the summer, and to say a Thank you to everyone for their dedication to the cause of education. So, from me, at least, a great big THANK YOU to everyone in our education system.

NASBTT Awards 2019

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Last evening I attended the first ever awards ceremony to celebrate excellence in school-based teacher education and to recognise the exceptionally hard-working and talented staff that make school-based teacher education a success.

This was an evening of meetings with old friends, including someone who I help tutor on their Master course more than twenty years ago and who is now a senior education official. Such meetings are just as joyful as when teachers meet former pupils. There was also the opportunity for great conversations about education and, hopefully, the start of new friendship within the education community.

Much of my career in education since the 1980s has been involved with teacher preparation in one way or another, and it is wonderful to see how NASBTT has developed and flourished into the important organisation it has now become.

TeachVac, the organisation where I am chairman, was especially delighted to be able to sponsor the award for the Administrator of the Year at last night’s ceremony, as throughout my career I have been lucky to work with some splendid administrative staff at all levels. Entrepreneurs probably miss the support of a good administrator more than anything else when starting up a new business: well, I know that I certainly have.

Below is an extract of the short speech I gave when introducing the finalists and then presenting the award.

Full details of this award and all the others, including the successful nominees can be found at https://www.nasbtt.org.uk/nasbtt-awards-2019/

“As many of you know, we started TeachVac five years ago to save schools time and money by using the best that modern technology can offer, coupled with an extensive understanding of the education scene.

TeachVac has listed 47,000 jobs since the start of January, well 47,003 to be precise up to when the office closed this afternoon, all at no cost to schools in either money or time.

TeachVac doesn’t want to waste administrator’s time, but please do ask your teachers to check when they cut and paste information about jobs. The number of times either a maths job contains the word English all the way through the job description or the closing date is after the starting date: well TeachVac’s staff have stopped counting.

Administrators are busy people, indeed I salute their ability to multi-task; dealing with the panic on the phone while at the same time reassuring the student about an assignment date, and simultaneously filling in that DfE form requiring the number of left-handed trainees over the age of thirty and with naturally curly hair; while thinking, whatever next.

When I set up a SCITT in 1995, I appointed the administrator before the course leader. Good teachers are not yet commonplace, but they can be found; good administrators are like gold dust.

I was reminded of all this when reading through the excellent submissions for this award: hardworking, sensitive, forward thinking, tea and tissues were just some of the terms that would feature in a wordle of the description of the qualities of an administrator. I would add, approachable, friendly and all-knowing to that list

As a result, it is with really genuine pleasure that TeachVac sponsors this award.”

NASBTT has come a long way from its early days to its current format as a leading player in the teacher training, education and development market. Good luck for the future

 

Congratulations and commiserations

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Congratulations to everyone awarded an honour in the Queen’s Birthday honours list announced earlier today. Governments always seem more likely to honour those working in the policy areas that they favour and the latest list doesn’t appear to have bucked that particular trend. Sure, there are governors, crossing patrollers and those working in school meals awarded honours, but many of the top honours have gone to those working in the academies or free schools areas.

The honours’ list comes at the end of a week where UCAS have published some detailed data on offers made by individual universities https://www.ucas.com/corporate/data-and-analysis/ucas-undergraduate-releases/ucas-undergraduate-reports-sex-area that show some have different offer rates for different groups when analysed by race, class and gender.

Sir Michael Wilshaw, the soon to retire Chief Inspector, also added his voice to the debate on how well pupils from poor backgrounds do at school and, according to the BBC report of what he said, he highlighted how gifted children from poor homes entitled to pupil premium money were still lagging well behind. He said, “The most recent statistics paint a bleak picture of underachievement and unfulfilled potential.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-36490164

Social mobility appears to have stalled in many schools. Even among the ‘best in class’ schools, whose heads are honoured today, there may still be some under-achievement of disadvantaged and among the poorest performing pupils.  Of course, parents may be partly culpable by not helping instil the value of education in their offspring, and it can be a real challenge to educate children in care whose lives, by the very fact they have been taken into care, are often among the most damaged and who present some of the greatest challenges to educators. It would surely be encouraging to see the head of the school that does best for these pupils rewarded with an honour and also some recognition of the virtual school services across the country that help coordinate the education of these often seriously challenged young people. How they would operate in a fully academised education service is another interesting question for the future.

So, commiserations to those pupils still not receiving the best possible education they could. They may also be affected by the other news story of the week, the debate in two parliamentary committees – the Education Select Committee and the PAC – about teacher supply and the role of government. If there are insufficient teachers in some subjects the ‘low attainers’, to use the DfE terminology, may study at Key Stage 4, such as design and technology, business studies and IT then perhaps it isn’t surprising that they don’t fulfil their potential.

I am sure that the in-coming Chief inspector, assuming her appointment is confirmed, with a background in leading a charity whose academies are aimed at developing the potential of all their pupils, will want to make the part schools play in helping achieve social mobility a key priority for the period in office.  Our aim must be to be able in a position where it is possible to congratulate every school on achieving the best possible outcome for every child.

 

 

 

An oath for teachers?

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Labour’s suggestion of teachers taking an oath on entering profession is an interesting idea. One reason to embrace it is that it would mean the word teacher would became a reserved term that could only be used by those prepared to take the oath unlike at present when anyone can call themselves a teacher regardless of their qualification, or even their lack of them. However, taking an oath guarantees nothing as the history of medical and legal malpractice cases testifies. While it may be useful to help those that haven’t thought of the professionalism and associated values of being a teacher it can be ignored by anyone with predetermined intentions to misbehave. But, I cannot be too negative. I took an oath on becoming a magistrate and it was a solemn occasion.  Similarly, I have witnessed the oath taking of police officers at attestation ceremonies and explained to them why it was so important.

If there is to be an oath who is to administer it? Police, army, even medics all work for organisations with a national structure and with other professional bodies there are organisations, whether Inns of court, the Law Society or other professional bodies, but the General Teaching Council for England was abolished by this government in a short-sighted move allegedly linked to a supposed bonfire of Quangos. Without a professional body it seems unlikely that teachers would be prepared to swear an oath of professional virtue to the State, especially if they were working in the private sector.

The situation may well be different in Singapore where the oath-taking procedure was apparently spotted by Labour. Realistically, if it is about enhancing the status of teachers and making them more professional then returning power to the profession in return for enhanced status may not be enough. Professions don’t generally go on strike, so is Labour also signalling that teachers should sign away any rights to industrial action with no corresponding control over their earnings that would still be set either by the government of the management of individual schools?

I think most teachers already have a strong sense of public duty and a wish to serve the young people that they teach. After all, there may well be easier ways of earning a living for many graduates than the long hours and relentless term-time working life where the pace of teaching doesn’t differ from day to day as patterns of working do in most other professions.

On balance, I think the oath idea probably won’t fly unless Labour’s friends in the trade unions are prepared to endorse it. I am sure that they won’t do so without testing the strength of feeling among their members. Now a Queen’s Medal and long-service awards might be another matter. And while we are at it, perhaps the creation of some Regis Professors of Education might enhance the status of the profession in higher education.