Teach Secondary Issue 13.6

On board this issue: Ed Carlin is a deputy headteacher Ama Dickson is a maths teacher FROM THE EDITOR “Welcome… KEEP IN TOUCH! Sign up for the weekly TS newsletter at teachwire.net/ newsletter First comes the wave – sweeping away the firmly held assumptions, the articles of faith, the entrenched orthodoxy that says, ‘Round here, we do things like this .’ But what then? How different will the new boss really be compared to the old boss, and what plans do they intend to enact? One election day and a robust 158-seat Labour Parliamentary majority after we last met in this corner of Teach Secondary , it appears that we’re going to start seeing a few changes in how the DfE conducts its affairs – though based on what we’ve heard so far from the new(ish) Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, it doesn’t seem like a dramatic, Gove-esque overhaul of the profession is on the cards any time soon. That said, a wide-ranging curriculum and assessment review led by Professor Becky Francis CBE is currently underway, which will be paying particular attention to the challenges faced by socio-economically disadvantaged children and their families, as well as the various barriers that learners with SEND are confronted with. It’s also beenmade clear that any revised National Curriculum to emerge from the process will need to be taught by all state schools, with academies no longer being able to opt out of doing so. The ability to re-envision and reform the education system in line with your governing principles may come with the Ministerial gig, but so too does responsibility for addressing the long list of ongoing issues that disrupt and complicate schools’ core mission of educating the young – and right now, the issues jostling for attention near the top of that list include funding, rates of student absence and hard-to-reach teacher recruitment targets. As Melissa Benn notes on page 19, it will be interesting to see how long Labour’s very public vows to be frugal in its spending last in the face of enduring problems that will be costly to address, like depressed teacher pay and a school estate in dire need of refurbishment and repair. It may also be necessary for Labour to contemplate some radical solutions in the face of the absence issue, suggests Ed Carlin (see page 57), while Sally Newton puts forward a few ideas for novel incentives that might go some way towards attracting the teachers that successive cohorts will need over the coming years. So yes, change is on the horizon. Let’s hope it’s for the better. Enjoy the issue, CallumFauser callum.fauser@theteachco.com Steve Brace is chief executive of the Geographical Association Sally Newton is secondary partnership manager at the Tommy Flowers SCITT provider Kit Betts-Masters is a lead practitioner for science Jenny Hampton is an English teacher and literacy lead Find out about our Employee Assistance Programme: educationsupport.org.uk/eap Supporting teacher and education staff wellbeing for 146 years Support and counselling for your staff when they need it – from the people who understand education The only education focused Employee Assistance Programme 03 teachwire.net/secondary