Greetings from South America, 14 June 07

I spent nine days in Brazil in June working on a British Council Project with four other UK heads. I found schools run by elected heads, teachers assessed by their students and teenagers untainted by the British disease of cynicism.

These are some of my emails/texts from Brazil.

E-mails from Brazil

8 June (6.00 am)
Arrival in Rio to glorious sunrise, clear skies and winter temperatures of over 25 degrees. Before stepping out of the hotel, we are given a severe warnings about the need to remove watches, mobile phones, cameras, loose bags: some of the cities are not safe – a reflection of the extremes of poverty and wealth which we are about to see.

We are five UK headteachers on the first phase of a four year British Council project with 25 schools in Brazil. Each headteacher will visit five schools in one of the states and at the end of the week run a two day conference with all 25 Brazilian headteachers in São Paulo.

9 June
Guided tour of one of the favellas, home to the urban poor and dispossessed where hard working Brazilians flock to make shelters and seek employment. I buy six handbags made from recycled can pulls, ingenious works of art and craftsmanship with practical application.

There’s a planning meeting with the British Council and Brazilian Secretariat before we all fly to our different destinations. Mine is Recife in the north east – a three hour internal flight from Rio de Janerio. Imagine flying from Heathrow for three hours. You could be in Morocco. Brazil is three times the size of India.

11 June
A three hour bus journey takes us to our first school. There is a greeting party of staff, students and local representatives, all waving cameras. Each greeting, even with complete strangers, involves two kisses and much hugging - all repeated when you say goodbye. The Brazilians laugh, joke and have constant fun.

The visionary head of this school works in complete partnership with his student council and is having a major impact on the community. We watch him knocking on doors with his students, persuading the local people to sign anti-litter contracts and work with the youngsters to clean up the area – very moving; we have a lot to learn.

12 June
Beautiful handcrafted badges are pinned onto us as we arrive at our second school. On display in a foyer is a large homemade poster with a world map on which the UK and Brazil have been highlighted. Underneath are the words: An ocean divides us. A goal unites us. An impromptu assembly ends with the entire school doing a Brazilian folk dance and I am expected to join in!

School is the only social and recreational centre in communities torn by drug abuse, alcoholism and violence and it’s the place students all get a free meal every day. With 68 million school pupils, a third of the population, that’s an amazing achievement.

At school three, in the afternoon I ask about bullying. It is not a concept they understand. In their school communities pupils are polite and friendly. These students appear to have nothing and yet they have everything.

13 June
Visits to the final two schools. There are two fascinating differences between the UK and Brazil: headteachers are elected by the community (in and beyond the school) for a four year term and, if re-elected, can serve two terms only. It means they have massive authority as community leaders and can develop improvement projects with parents.

Secondly, the students complete regular, published evaluations on their teachers, ranging from punctuality to teaching. The Student Council works alongside the headteacher in promoting learning. The overworked teachers have to do two shifts a day of four and half or five hours with full contact time apart from four hours a week for preparation. Some do evening shifts in addition.

I am taught the north-eastern Portuguese slang for: “He’s a great guy” and use it when making a speech about the headteacher. It goes down well. I have also learnt enough Portuguese to be able to order the local spirit – 40% proof on ice and quite a drink.

14 June
After a planning meeting with the five Brazilian headteachers we fly to São Paulo (three hours in the air) for our final two day conference. Language is a barrier though we are well supported through British Council translation. No-one else seems to speak English in Brazil and I determine that I will make some effort to learn at least a few phrases before our next scheduled partnership visit in 2008.

15 June
All 25 Brazilian heads and five UK heads with the British Council and Brazilian Secretariat officials meet at the conference on School Self-Evaluation. On the coach to the Conference Centre, one of the heads leads in a good morning song in which they say hallo to the world, to the sun and to their brothers and sisters.

That evening, because of safety on the streets, we are ferried to a shopping complex to buy some gifts. It takes an hour and three quarters because of traffic but time passes with Brazilian folk songs and requests to sing in return. We arrive back at the hotel near mid-night after 15 renditions of “Hey Jude”.

16 June
Conference begins with the good morning song, danced, sung, hugged and kissed throughout by all participants. I have never experienced a staff INSET day in the UK like this one!

By the Saturday afternoon the groups are fired up and have clear action plans for us to monitor when we return. My Pernambuco group are going to introduce peer observation. I have also suggested that they try to provide both training and a means of celebration for members of the community as volunteers in their schools. This is one way they could help free teachers from some of the administrative and pastoral burdens which they have to cope with in addition to their heavy teaching loads.

The conference ends with a thank you song to us, outpourings of physical affection and a dash for the airport. It is 9.00 pm Saturday evening UK time. We have an exhausting twelve hour flight ahead. A bottle of wine given to one of us is willingly opened at the airport by a member of the restaurant staff and, smilingly, we are even given glasses to drink out of.

The British disease of cynicism has not yet infected Brazil. One of the Brazilian heads spoke movingly of the power of education in an assembly, ending with the words: “I kiss your hearts”. Imagine the reception British teenagers: “What is he on?” These students appear, materially, in comparison to us, to have nothing. In fact, they have everything.

Monday 18 June
Arrived back at South Dartmoor: energised and exhausted at the same time. My phone is still on Brazilian time – 3.58 am!

Counting the Days

Bus duty on day one of the new Inspection regime and the pupils are chatting about how it’s been. “What’s all this OFSTED stuff about?” asks one. “Oh I can tell you,” says another who has clearly already been through the process; “It’s dead simple. If you see a bloke wearing a smart suit and carrying a clipboard sitting at the back of your class, you are going to get a bloody good lesson!”

Fifteen years after Ken Clarke set up the system, OFSTED is still the most powerful force in education. What else will bring 120 teachers into work, at least for two days, before 6.00 am? The displays, even with only three days notice made me think I had walked into the wrong school, while lesson plans and departmental SEFs were more detailed than a Victorian novel.

Whatever your role in education – teacher, manager or governor – if you know that OFSTED are going to measure it, you will make sure you do it. If you want evidence, just look at a sample of recent Section 5 reports.

The Government wants to encourage diversity so the specialisms in secondary schools get plenty of attention. They want the public to believe in the re-branded comprehensive so the OFSTED agenda is to comment on how much the specialism has done to raise standards, support the community … fill in your own blanks. Schools have had both safety and health scares recently, so plenty of references to diet, lifestyle and safety conscious staff and pupils go down well.

Racist incidents? Show me your log. Bullying in the playground? Give me the records. If the Government decided it wanted all schools to serve unsalted pistachio nuts on Parents’ Evenings, test basket weaving skills and dress lollypop ladies in union jackets, it would only have to make these things inspection tick boxes.

Because the Government wants to increase the numbers committing to Trust Status a new and unremarked criterion for high performing secondary schools has just been released. They will be expected to move to Foundation or Trust Status. Only a matter of time, then, before OFSTED is on to that one.

I experienced my first OFSTED – “a training” inspection in 1992 before the full scale assault the following year. I am now through number four (just). So what’s changed? Short notice – but that’s fine. I can still remember a ruined Christmas holiday for the Leadership Team who were sworn to secrecy. We broke the news to staff with a happy New Year greeting – and they still had four weeks’ notice.

There is now a pre-inspection briefing which has all the subtlety of a murder investigation. Hypotheses are laid out with the misdirected fervour that comes of an ill spent career salivating over data charts. As the number one crime suspects, the Leadership Team are wheeled in to disprove X, Y and Z.

Crime: “You wilfully, during the months of 2006-07 allowed attendance to drop at this comprehensive …. er Specialist Sports College.” Defence: “Did you know about the ‘flu epidemic that closed some local schools or the road works that meant some rural catchments were cut off? Actually, your honour, we think you have got the wrong bloke. Isn’t it the parents responsibility to get their offspring to school?”

It is easier to cheat now (if you dare) but not on the critical standards section because they have the data. The array of scores there left us feeling like European Song Contest entrants. The letter to the pupils is the most novel twist of the knife – effectively a school report for them on their teachers. “Look Mum – it says the Astronomy Department is underperforming. Teaching bedevilled by staff shortages. What does bedevilled mean?”

The reports may be formulaic and comment bank driven but I am sure, like medicine, they are good for us. Their all powerful force means that we will pay attention to their findings and sort it for next time. Only two years and 32 teaching weeks to go. Who said they don’t give us enough notice!

Ray Tarleton
Principal