Humpty Dumpty

According to the psychologist, Dorothy Rowe, we’re now in a period when children are being listened to and their views taken into account. Apparently, it’s a by-product of the women’s movement. But, although society is changing, in schools pupil voice may struggle to drown out the discordant noises-off from teacher unions who want to press the mute button.

Pupils are accused of over-stepping the mark, sitting on selection panels, daring to express their views during appointments, and also commenting on what goes on in lessons. Pupil voice, we’re told, means young upstarts can even ask candidates what font they think they most resemble. Well, I’d pick forte. Some apparently even rejected a teacher for a post because they claimed he was like Humpy Dumpty.

This isn’t just an infringement of union rights: it’s an assault on the teacher-pupil relationship in which the adult knows better than the child and is always right. But wait. Substitute ‘men’ for ‘adult’ and ‘women’ for ‘child’ and you can see the tectonic plates shifting as Rowe suggests, leaving the Band of Brothers on the wrong side of the debate.

I first explored student voice when I asked my classes to try out experiments with language, recording and transcribing their responses. With the tape recorder to control them, they followed the protocols of speaking in turn and commenting on the text. Once the writing barrier was removed and techniques learned for spoken contributions, classes which I had imagined to be low in ability gained the capacity to surprise each other as well as me.

At South Dartmoor, we now have an expert Student Learning Forum, volunteers selected by interview, who are trained in classroom observational techniques, using Guy Claxton’s Building Learning Power methodology to analyse and report, subject by subject. For example, they look at the learning environment. ‘Why no number lines in Maths rooms?’ they asked last year. Well, there are now and you can see the impact today as children look across the walls, counting from negative to positive numbers.

‘Who can enjoy hockey when the bibs we have to wear are dirty and smelly?’ they quizzed us. We’d never noticed but now the washing machines whir away to make sure it’s no longer an issue. ‘Can we have more student work on the walls, please?’ they request, making it clear to us that the environment really does matter to them. It’s an easy fix.

Our own push now is on assessment for learning. The principles have been explained to the Learning Forum and their latest comments are illuminating: ‘In subject X, we saw 60% of the students offering to answer questions. We think the proportion should be over 80%.’

There are comments about levels of engagement and responses by students to teacher strategies of pausing to allow reflection before requesting answers. The mysteries of how teaching works have been revealed like a David Blaine magic trick and the students marvel at how easy the skilled teacher makes their craft look.

It’s all voluntary, of course. Departments request these student-led observations because they help them to improve the learning. They commission reports for their subject SEFs- student views without the effort of processing questionnaires. And there is strictly no comment on the teaching- it’s all student-centred. Even so, I can hear the agonised cries of union dinosaurs, snarling in the swamp.

As for appointments, it was a no-brainer to use the Student Council and Sixth Form Councils as interview panels in their own right when my successor was appointed. It means he has widespread and popular endorsement. One candidate unwisely remarked that teaching would not be part of the head’s role if appointed. ‘Why not?’ asked the students. ‘It’s not important enough,’ came the reply. The candidate may not have been called Humpty Dumpty but certainly couldn’t be put back together again after a fall like that, even if forte had been the chosen font.

Ray Tarleton