Jean Walker

We also have separate senior secondary colleges for all students after Yr 10 and I'm sure you'd find a niche in one of them!!

Twenty years ago I taught in a very progressive secondary school which was divided into mini-schools and in each of them, pastoral groups were vertical, as were optional units in the afternoons. I have to say that I thought it was one of the best systems I've ever taught in. There were only 100 students in the mini-school with one class for each grade. Basic subjects were taught in grade groups in the morning, but in the afternoon, students could select a 6-week unit in a mixed age grouping. The older ones did provide an example and a steadying influence in pastoral care time, and the units worked well too. it lasted for about 15 years, but then fell to the onslaught of new fads and fancies, as always happens.

I'm afraid it's sad but true. When I go to the Sydney Opera House nowadays, for instance, I am consciously aware that the first visits I made 25 years ago, gave ma an incredible buzz which I no longer feel, and I really regret it. And I have to admit that I am starting to look at young people with the awareness that I'll probably not experience those extreme emotions of youth ever again. However, I'm pleased to report that there are still things which give me joy and excitement, including travel, a good restaurant with good wine, the company of close friends, thatre, concerts, and a good book. Are they the answer? Mmmm Now you've made me wonder if I should risk becoming fat, destitute and imprisoned or settle into my armchair witrh a heavy sigh.

Inn Australia we have many of the features of the Finnish system - no league tables, no exams, no inspections, in the state system all schools are comprehensive with mixed ability classes, with no entry requirements and many of our students go straight from the nearby primary to the local secondary. However, teachers are not respected, they are not valued, and not well paid. I think the very different attitudes to social justice and social responsibility in Scandinavian countries is the biggest deterrent to this. But as I said before, what is our govt about to do? All the things that have proved to be a failure or problematic in the UK and the US. The more things change etc etc.

Writing in the Guardian's Comment pages, the education secretary ruled out a return to comprehensive schools, a disguised retort to claims that academies will become two-tiered, selecting students on ability to meet targets. Ms Kelly will also outline her vision for a seamless education for all pupils, regardless of their abilities, for three to 19-year-olds, leading to the divide between nursery, primary and secondary schools essentially disappearing and becoming less strict. What the heck does a "seamless education" actually mean in practice? Is she for or against comprehensives? Sorry, perhaps I'm dumb, but i can't tell what she's actually saying??

This is why having one union frees it up to fight the educational fights as I believe we do here. We have regulated contact hours (40 per fortnight for secondaries/44 for primaries but we are working on that), maximum hours on site (75 per fortnight), regulated break times. we do not have an inspection system (and yet we rate near the top, above the UK in international tests) and because management is also part of our union, we have some control over their antics (if they "do the wrong thing", there's no other union to represent them). The advantages benefit everyone in the system, including the employer who only has one union to deal with and knows what to expect and the strength that can be applied.

Mmmm...it probably works better here than it ever could in the UK because of our federal system. Each state/territory is a branch of the national union and as such the President/Gen Sec/officers in the states are more important in their own state than the officers in the federal office, whose job is really to facilitate and coordinate, so there are eight opportunities for being a big cog in the wheel of unionism, if you follow what I mean, as well as being at federal level. I don't suppose that could work in the UK in the same way. We also have all of management, most TAs and some admin in our union and that makes a heck of a difference. Membership in schools is 94% and the non-unionised are almost entirely small fraction part-timers and a few of the temps. However, as i said before, our federal government is out to destoy us this year when they get control of the Senate in July. We will be out on the streets very shortly!!

But what does she really mean? Distinct separate schools for different "streams" as in Holland for instance? And what does she mean by "the role of tuition in smaller groups"? It all sounds somewhat waffly, besides being poor English.

Here in Australia, where we have only one national union for all education workers from K-12 including management, the union's emphasis has always been on educational issues as well as salaries and conditions. In fact, we market ourselves as a professional and industrial organisation, rather than a "trade union". Teachers seem to connect with this and as a result we have had many wins on educational issues as well as industrial. At the moment we too are fighting the battle of assessment and reporting - not on the basis of workload, but in the sense that teachers have not had sufficient time, PD or practice to move to the new system demanded by our DoE by the end of this year. Supporting teachers in this way is good for them and ultimately good for the union. However, our re-elected federal govt is determined to turn back the clock industrially in the next couple of years and move us as close as they can to the US model of individual contracts, banning right of entry, cutting awards etc. It's going to be a long and nasty fight but our membership is strong and active and I hope, ready for the fight.

If you follow the threads on the TES chatline, you will soon see that insomnia is one of the most commonly repeated topics, along with student behaviour and Ofsted. It is very obvious from all the posts on this topic that many teachers do suffer from it and for the reasons you quote. Most of the posters are aware of the causes, but can't do anything to remove them. I also note the number of teachers on the same site who openly declare their addiction to alcohol for the same reasons. As someone recently noted, teaching has been classified as the most stressful job after air traffic controllers, who are hopefully only dealing with one or two planes at a time!!

I am writing from Australia, and I agree with everything you have said. We have exactly the same problems here. This is from the other side of the fence, but equally relevant. Today, in my job as union president, I met with a teacher who has had a severely autistic 7 yr old placed in her prep class. He has a full-time aide and the school is supportive, but this child is dangerous - he is big, he throws furniture, scissors, pens etc, he bites, kicks and scratches. Two TAs have resigned because of him. Two TAs have had to have hospital treatment for the wounds he has inflicted. The other children cannot hear the teacher as he shouts/moans incessantly. The teacher is about to go out on sick (stress) leave. Can we get him into a special school? No, because his mother believes he is better off in mainstream and she has stated she will go as far as it takes to keep him there. So from all points of view except the mother's - the child, the teachers and the others in the class - this is not working for anyone, yet the mother will go to the ends of the earth so she doesn't have to appear to have a child in a special school, and this quite a common attitude. She wants him in the classroom all the time - the school has refused that, and she's gone to the Minister for a judgement. This attitude to special schools is something which has been created by the full inclusion bandwaggoners and it is madness. For the sake of one disabled child, a dedicated teacher may resign and a 25 students are having their education spoiled. Will this make them more tolerant of disabilities, as is always thrown back at us? I very much doubt it.

You may not be aware, but we have Princess Mary fever hitting us at the moment - she's from Tasmania and is presently here on an official tour and our papers are full of her, hailing her as the new Di. However, the good outcome is that our DoE has seen it as an opportunity to link Tasmanian and Danish schools and have put some money into helping to set it up. For students here who are relatively isolated from Europe, it's a good way to get them interested in the "outside" world. Also, if anyone there wants to link with a Tasmanian school, I can probably help you.

Would you like to come out here as a visiting consultant and persuade our govt they need to do the same??? My partner from South Shields would make you very welcome!! I believe we are not supporting our SEN kids at all well despite the govts protestations to the contrary. We have just restructured our entire system and finance distribution and it looks to me as if even fewer SEN kids will get into a spevial school and/or get enough TA support. It will take a disaster or parental revolution to get something done.

Below is an article by an Australian Professor at Monash Uni (Canberra) on education in Japan. This is very similar to what is happening now in most states of Australia, although not perhaps in quite such an orderly manner as in Japan. Educational Vision Realised Last week I visited a secondary school in Japan. It began life just ten years ago when the vision of education in Victoria suddenly narrowed its focus very considerably to focus on economic efficiency and structural indicators of effectiveness. To the contrary, educational vision was expanding in the Miyasaki Prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu. Private schools loom quite large in Japan although less so than in Victoria. A number of parents who can afford their high fees choose them in an effort to optimize their children’s chances in the competitive academic climate prevailing for university entrance. These private schools offer six years of secondary education in the same school context, whereas government schooling is organized into Junior high schools (Years 7-9) and Senior High schools (Years 10-12), thus confronting government school students with a significant social and educational transition after Year 9. Part of the vision of the Board of Education for Miyasaki Prefecture was to make six years of continuous secondary education also available in the government system. This was, however, only part of the vision. More substantially, the Board had a belief that secondary education should be much more integrated than the differentiated subjects in secondary schooling usually allows. This sense of integration involved at least three dimensions. The first was more integration of the school community of staff and students, particularly within and across the six year levels of secondary education. The second was a curriculum that facilitated integrated learning across and beyond the confines of the existing secondary subjects. The third was an integration of the life of the school with the life of the local community in which it is set. Finally, the vision included that such an education should be economically accessible to any families in Miyasaki interested in this type of education. The result was the establishment of Gokase Secondary School – a government boarding school for 40 students at each of the six year levels – in the small mountain community of Gokase (population 5000 plus) that had a long history of forestry and simple furniture making. “Go” is Japanese for 5, so the school has chosen five characteristics as its mission – Motivation, Loyalty, Sensitivity, High Values and Energy as part of Nature. Each year group of 40 students forms a House with one of the teachers as House “father” or “mother”, and within the House six students (one from each year level) form a “family” with responsibilities of caring for each other and celebrating together events like birthdays. Students are selected for the school on a set of information consisting of recommendations from the primary school, individual interviews, an entrance examination (not exceptional in Japan), and participation in social tasks. The current boarding fee is probably within possibility for 90% of families in Miyasaki. For some learning purposes the 40 students form one class but on many occasions they work in smaller groupings. Many of the rooms were only set up for 20 or fewer students and the school was sufficiently staffed to make this small group teaching and learning possible. On the day of my visit the whole school was engaged, year level by year level, in Integrated Education. The Japanese education system nationally is now committed in principle to Integrated Education for the equivalent of two to three hours per week from Year 1 to Year 12. The use of this substantial learning time is up to the teachers in individual schools. Gokase Secondary has pioneered this integrated learning opportunity since it began. Year 7 students had ridden 8 km uphill on mountain bikes to the Gokase Community Centre to study, with the help of local people, the history and place of dance in this community. Year 8 were engaging in timber crafts under the tutelage of local craft persons, not only learning skills of making timber chairs but also the commercial and social details and consequences of keeping this industry viable in today’s world. Year 9 students work on a year long self chosen topic which last year ranged from misconceptions about Buddhism to developing a anti-misting treatment for ski goggles. Year 10 students chose between three environmental options – Mountain environment, Environmental science, and Art and Nature. In Year 11 a major enquiry project is undertaken in one of these environmental options. Four students I spoke to had chosen a science-based enquiry – one pair about negative ions in the atmosphere and the other about water quality and its maintenance. The Year 12 students work on a major report that is to bring together their integrated learning over the six years. The subject curriculum in this school covers what is mandated nationally together with some school additions. In Years 7-9 there are 11 subjects – Japanese, English, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Music/Art, Physical Education, Craft Education, Moral Education, Extension Studies and Integrated Regional Studies. In Years 10 and 11 all these subjects continue, but Moral Education is now part of the Integrated Studies and IT appears. Social Studies is now differentiated and a choice is made between Art/Music/Caligraphy . In Year 11 separate sciences appear with Chemistry required and Physics/Biology optional. In Year 12 there are Japanese, English, Mathematics, one or more of the Sciences, one or more of the Social Sciences, Physical Education and Integrated Studies Not surprisingly, after ten years the Boards of Education in Japan have new priorities and new issues to solve, among which the problem of empty school places and surplus teachers as the school age population drops looms large. Parental interests in education are also changing so that the competition for places is not now so fierce as in Gokase School’s early years. Nevertheless, Gokase School exists as a testimony to a vision of integrated schooling that is now more generally recognized in Japan, and a vibrant example that others may be inspired to emulate. In Victoria I know very well that there are many government schools where there are caring communities and educational programs of quality. But I wonder, at the system level, what in ten years time will be testimony to the vision (or lack of it) that the Bracks Labor governments brought to Victorian education. Peter J Fensham 24 September 2003 Emeritus Professor Peter Fensham of Monash University is at present visiting Japan as a Monbukagakusho Professor at Kobe University.

http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/evt/teachereduc/ Above is link to the new Inquiry into Teacher Education which has just been announced by our federal govt. It's about the 4th in the last decade and won't produce anything greatly different from the previous ones, because they won't put any extra resources in, they'll just blame the unis, the states and the teachers. The age profile of our teachers, including many women having to stay till they're 65, means that older teachers are loathe to take student teachers as they see them as just another burden adding to their stress, and one for which the payment is token and not worth the effort. This is a great shame, but unfortunately true. We cannot find enough places for our student teachers at the moment, yet the unis are training more and more to get bums on seats. The result is that we do not have a shortage of teachers, but the quality of some graduates is questionable.

Thanks, David. That's interesting - would they really be able to do it if they got into power or is it just one of those pre-election promises that disappear into the ether?

And haven't I read once somewhere that indulgent parents do no more harm than authoritarian or uninvolved? I suppose that makes sense! After reading the authorative descriptor I immediately thought it applied to me, but then how much do we know about ourselves? I'll have to ask my adult sons.

PS If I've done my sums correctly that means Sweden has 179 teaching days and 5 INSET days, which is interesting because that's fewer teaching days than many other countries, but you always do well in International tests (naturally) which is evidence of the point I want to make that number of teaching days is a simplistic corellation to outcomes. We have 190 in Tasmania compared with 196 in Victoria and that''s being put forward as the reason why we did less well in the TIMMS/PISA tests!!

Thank you all very much - this is really appreciated. What a great resource you all are.

Could anyone quickly find out for me how many days a year pupils attend school in various countries? I am having a heavy debate with our shadow minister who is contending that our state PISA/TIMMS results are a consequence of fewer school days than other states and I'd like some ammunition, especially feom countries who did well such as Finland, Sweden, Korea and Japan.

Just got up to read another teacher-bashing letter in our Sunday paper. Too many holidays, don't work like real people do, don't teach kids to spell, are "coddled" by their union. And no doubt there are lots of people reading their paper and nodding their heads in agreement. One of the problems of disruoptive behaviour is that many of those who could do something to help, don't really believe the problem is as bad as "lazy" teachers make out. After all, it wasn't that bad in their day, so how can it be so much worse now? PMs and MPS come into schools and everything is made to look wonderful for them. Maybe TeachersTV should film a real day in the life of a teacher and have it shown at prime time on commercial TV.

Could someone do a half-page translation of the above???

Yes, Jim, very interesting. Here in Australia the teachers union is one of the strongest in the country with the highest membership. That's because there is only one national union for all govt teachers which includes all senior staff and principals. Each state is a branch of the national union. Here in Tasmania we have 93% membership in schools and senior colleges, a bit less in vocational colleges of further education and as a result we are able to negotiate good deals with the state govt. Unfortunately, our newly re-elected federal govt (which will also gain control of the Senate in July) are neo-liberal, right wing bas***ds who intend to inflict their agenda of testing, exams, league tables, compulsory flagpoles etc - sorry to say it, but our stupid little PM is an worshipful follower of Bush. However, each state can operate under a state agreement and we can refuse to obey their orders. This will probably result in them withdrawing federal funding this year, so we are going into a very interesting industrial scenario in the next 12 months. We are beginning to educate our members in civil disobedience and the possibility of illegal action, which may be necessary if we are to stand up against the rubbish they are promoting. We had a speaker from the US at a conference I attended recently and the picture he painted of current American education under Bush is not one we want to emulate here. Australians are known for their strong unionism but our federal govt is trying to do to us what has happened with US unions. It will be interesting to see how strong our members are in the coming months.

I have to say that I am not unpleased to be out of the classroom at this stage of my life, but I continue to feel great sympathy for those who have to be in difficult schools for some time to come. Re the UK, I heard via TES that Ruth Kelly may be going to scrap the Tomlinson Report recommendations, which seemed to me to be an improvement on the present curriculum offerings. Is that true? Also, I'm just in the process of reading a new book from the US titled The Promise and Failure of Progressive Education by Norman Dale Norris. It's very interesting and well worth a read.

We have a very similar problem here though not because of the funding (which is relatively sparse) but because of an entrenched philosophy of full inclusion. We also have severely disabled students in classes who yell and groan and scream all day to the extent other pupils can't hear. We have severely autistic and severely ADHD kids in mainstream classes causing absolute havoc to the education program of others in the class not to mention the teacher. We have now 0.5% of students in special schools whereas Europe and the UK has an average of 2.0% (even the Scandinavian counturies have about this %) and we are repeatedly told that this is because we are "better" than other countries. It is a policy of absolute madness, but one that the union I head, can seem to do nothing to shift, as the community has been brainwashed to accept it, as have parents of disabled kids, and the bureaucracy of our DoE. Of course they deny it is cheaper, but it is. Our teachers would refuse a pay rise, if it was in order to solve this problem, but shifting ingrained philosophy which fits the budgetm, is very hard to do.