HMI Education 8-12 (1985)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Contents, Preface
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 The content of the curriculum
Chapter 3 Personal and social education
Chapter 4 Provision for children with special needs
Chapter 5 Planning, assessment, continuity and liaison
Chapter 6 The management and organisation of the teaching
Chapter 7 The main characteristics of the schools
Chapter 8 Some issues for discussion
Appendices Inspection procedures, background to the schools, Statistical notes, HMI schedules
Index

A survey by HM Inspectors of Schools (1985)

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1985
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Chapter 6 The management and organisation of the teaching arrangements
[pages 54 - 63]

6.1 The management and organisation of the teaching arrangements involve decisions and actions related to the allocation and discharge of responsibilities, the deployment of staff, timetabling arrangements and the composition of classes and teaching groups. Each of these is discussed in this chapter.

THE ALLOCATION AND DISCHARGE OF RESPONSIBILITIES

6.2 The way heads discharged their responsibilities significantly influenced the effectiveness of the education provided in the schools. Where heads provided strong leadership, overall standards of work tended to be higher: the strength of the head's influence was one of the three variables (1) found to be statistically associated with the school's quality of work. In all, about three quarters of the heads were judged to be effective. They provided leadership through teaching classes or groups of children; formulating policy and enabling the planning of specific curricular areas; promoting pastoral care and contact with parents; and constructing the timetable and organising recording and assessment procedures. The positive influence of heads was reduced when too great an emphasis was placed on any one aspect of their responsibilities at the expense of others, for example, when administrative matters overshadowed curricular concerns. Often in small (2) schools where heads had a considerable teaching load (3) there was insufficient time for them to attend to other major responsibilities.

6.3 Deputy heads carried out the responsibilities of heads in their absence, and very often had general administrative duties in addition to their work as class or specialist teachers. (4) About three fifths of the deputies fulfilled their roles effectively. Responsibilities which often fell to the deputy included helping in the construction of the timetable, organising duty rotas, liaising between head and staff, assisting probationers and new members of staff, coordinating year groups, and overseeing discipline and boys' or girls' welfare. The major influence of most deputies on the work of the school came through their contribution as class or specialist teachers, but some had an effect on organisation and pastoral care throughout the school. Some deputies coordinated the work of the 5 to 8 age range in the combined schools.

6.4 Twenty-three schools had designated year leaders with responsibility for coordinating pastoral care and academic work in particular year groups. Sometimes year leaders acted as specialist teachers with other age groups. Many year leaders had little time to carry out their additional duties (5) and, in some cases, difficulties arose as a result of the lack of precise job descriptions or because of the problems of liaising with specialist teachers. However, in about half the schools which had year leaders they had an important positive influence on the work.

6.5 All schools had teachers with designated responsibilities for certain subjects or areas of the curriculum. Usually one teacher was responsible for coordinating the work in a particular subject throughout the school, but in some schools the responsibility was shared. Many teachers in the survey carried several subject responsibilities. The duties of designated teachers often included several of the following: preparation of schemes of work; ordering and organising materials and equipment; some specialist teaching; advising colleagues; liaison with other schools. The major influence of such teachers was often through their own teaching contribution but a number had a positive influence through one or more of the activities listed above.

6.6 Table 7 shows the number of schools which had teachers with special responsibility for subjects or areas of the curriculum. Most of the teachers carrying curricular responsibilities were paid on Scale 2 or Scale 3. Some teachers held both organisational and curricular responsibilities, these being most common in 'medium-sized' schools. (6)

6.7 The amount of time available to teachers with either or both curricular and organisational responsibilities to perform their duties varied considerably: (7) in general it was insufficient to allow such teachers to visit other classrooms so as to work alongside their colleagues from time to time. Because of such constraints, the impact of most teachers with curricular responsibilities was limited largely to the classes they taught. There were, however, exceptions, as in one school where the designated teacher taught science to the third and fourth year pupils, organised the subject throughout the school, held twice termly meetings with teachers in each year group to establish continuity and progression, and established curricular links with first schools, other middle schools and the upper school.

The deployment of staff

6.8 There were considerable variations in the ways in which the teachers of children aged 8 to 12 were deployed, depending on the particular circumstances of each of the schools, but certain patterns of organisation occurred frequently.

Table 7 Number of schools having teachers with special curricular responsibilities by subject

6.9 A very high proportion of the teachers were class teachers and so were involved in teaching most subjects of the curriculum as Table 8 illustrates. Rather less than half the teachers taught music or science, subjects characterised by rather more specialist teaching. Table 9 shows the relatively small number of teachers who taught a particular subject other than mathematics or English for more than a fifth of the week.

6.10 Table 10 gives the heads' classification of the different forms of organisation according to the age groups and sizes of schools. It reflects the predominantly class teacher based organisation of combined and 8 to 12 middle schools, and the number of schools which arranged some subject specialist teaching.

6.11 Typically, children in the first year [now Year 4] were taught by their class teachers for the vast majority of the time, though some received specialist teaching in music or, less often, in arts and crafts. Second year children were largely taught by their class teachers, though the teaching of music, French or arts and crafts was sometimes undertaken by teachers who specialised to some degree in one or other of these areas. In the third year, class teaching was still the predominant mode of organisation, though with some specialist teaching, most often in music or French. But in about a quarter of the schools, children were taught by members of staff other than their class teachers for four or more areas of the curriculum, most often music, French, arts and crafts, home studies, science or mathematics. In the fourth year [now Year 7], just over half the schools retained class teaching as the main basis of their organisation, but arranged for children to be taught by other teachers in one or more areas such as French, science, arts and crafts, music, mathematics and home studies. In the remaining schools, children in the fourth year were taught by members of staff other than their class teachers for about half or more of the time, particularly in areas such as mathematics, French, science, arts and crafts, home studies and music.

6.12 Three examples illustrate the variety of ways in which class teachers and specialist teachers were deployed. Throughout one school, emphasis was placed upon members of staff teaching their own classes for most subjects. The children were divided into sets according to ability in the third and fourth years [now Years 6 and 7] for mathematics and in the fourth year for science. Remedial help in English and mathematics was provided in the fourth year. Specialist teaching of French was provided for the third and fourth years and some change of classes for such subjects as music, science and art allowed teachers to share their particular skills and interests.

6.13 In a second school, the proportion of time devoted to specialist teaching increased as children moved up the school: it took place in all years for physical education and music, in years 2, 3 and 4 [now Years 5, 6 and 7] for French and in years 3 and 4 for home studies and science. Teachers within year groups exchanged classes for certain work in order that the teachers' special interests and abilities could be used to benefit more children.

6.14 In a third school, first and second year children were taught for most of the time by their own class teachers, with a limited exchange of teachers for physical education, music and for French in the second year. In the third and fourth years there was some exchange of teachers for French, physical education, music, science, art and craft, social studies and home studies. The third and fourth year pupils were arranged in sets within the year group for their work in English and mathematics.

Table 8 The number of teachers teaching curricular areas or subjects to children aged 8 to 12

Table 9 Teachers of the 8 to 12 age group: proportion of their week spent teaching in subject areas

Table 10 Heads' classification of their form of year group organisation

Timetabling arrangements

6.15 In all the schools the curriculum included English, mathematics, arts and crafts, physical education, music and aspects of religious education, science, geography and history. French was taught in over four fifths of the schools. Home studies as a separate subject was included on the timetable at some stage in about half the schools and needlecrafts as a separate subject in a slightly lower proportion. Craft, design and technology, as a separate subject, appeared at some stage in about a third of the schools.

6.16 The time allocated to the various areas of the curriculum differed considerably from school to school and occasionally between year groups within one school, but there were similarities in the overall pattern.

The diagram below shows the average proportion of the week given to particular subjects or aspects. The dotted [green] lines indicate the extent to which a minority went beyond the average.

6.17 History and geography were timetabled separately for some classes in about two thirds of the sample. In about four fifths of the schools some classes combined such subjects under headings such as topics or projects. There did not appear to be any significant association between the quality of work in history and geography and the organisation of the teaching of these subjects in terms of topics/projects or separate subject teaching. Topics and projects were organised under the heading of social studies in a third of the schools and were called environmental studies in about half the schools. In a few schools, topics, environmental studies and social studies were designations used at different stages in the programme. A difference in terminology was not always an indication of marked differences in content.

6.18 In about half the schools parts of the timetables were organised on a rotational basis. The areas most often included in rotational patterns were art, home studies, needlecrafts and craft, design and technology. The survey did not reveal any clear connections between the quality of work in these areas and the presence or absence of rotational patterns. The composition of classes and teaching groups

6.19 Just over half the schools had some classes containing pupils from more than one year group. The proportion of mixed age classes was higher in 5 to 12 combined schools than in the 8 to 12 middle schools, where they were comparatively rare. More than a third of the combined schools had a majority of their classes containing more than one age group and one school had mixed age groups throughout. Schools usually adopted these arrangements because of the uneven size of age groups, but a small number of combined schools formed their classes as mixed age groups as a matter of policy. Where there were mixed age classes in the 8 to 12 schools this usually involved placing a few pupils with a different age group to balance class sizes.

6.20 In nearly all the schools almost all registration classes were formed on the basis of mixed ability grouping. Four schools had set up one or more remedial classes for pupils with learning difficulties. These classes usually contained a smaller number of pupils than other classes in the school. Only one school adopted streaming as an overall school policy, and two others used streaming for the older pupils only.

6.21 For some subjects, the schools regrouped children into sets according to their ability in the particular subject concerned. As Table 11 shows, setting arrangements were mainly used for mathematics and, to a lesser extent, for English and were more common with older pupils. In a small number of schools there was setting for science and/or French for the third and fourth year groups [now Years 6 and 7] only.

6.22 Special arrangements for less able pupils were made in all but 3 schools. These most often took the form of the withdrawal of individuals or groups of pupils for special tuition, but additional teaching help within classes also occurred in some schools. Much less often were special arrangements made for those considered to be very able, though some schools withdrew individuals or groups and a few used additional teachers to work with such pupils.

Table 11 The number of schools setting for subjects in each year group

Footnotes

(1) Appendix 3, para 8 identifies the three variables which were statistically associated with the school's quality of work: the standard of pastoral care; the strength of the head's influence; the quality and quantity of resources.

(2) See Chapter 1 footnote (7).

(3) On average, heads of 'small' schools taught for 39 per cent of the week, compared with 26 per cent of the week for heads of 'medium-sized' schools and 28 per cent of the week for heads of 'large' schools.

(4) On average non-contact time for deputy heads of 'large' schools was 26 per cent of the week; in 'medium-sized' schools it was 17 per cent and in 'small' schools 7.5 per cent.

(5) On average non-contact time for year leaders was nearly 7 per cent in 'large' schools and just over 7.5 per cent in 'medium-sized' schools.

(6) The percentage of teachers holding both organisational and curricular responsibilities was 4.5 per cent in 'small' schools, 12 per cent in 'medium-sized' schools and 2.3 per cent in 'large' schools.

(7) Though there were variations from school to school, the average non-contact time for teachers with curricular responsibilities was 7 per cent in 'small', 'medium-sized' and 'large' schools.