Writing that teachers face a year of tumultuous change has become an annual ritual.
And at one level - with new GCSE grades and specifications, Ofqual and Ofsted chiefs, Progress 8, and a national reference test to contend with - 2016-17 will follow the usual pattern. Ministers unleash a blizzard of reforms, teachers adapt fast, cope and wait for the next storm to arrive.
But we are now entering a very different weather system. Teachers may not have liked change in the past, but at least they knew where it was coming from, why, and where it was supposed to be heading.
Increasingly, that no longer holds true. Breakneck change continues, but thanks to the recent rapid deregulation of state-funded schools, one can no longer be quite sure who’s in charge, what the rules are and where things will go next.
Academisation - begun as a boutique policy under Labour and turbo-charged by the coalition and Conservative administrations - has been tearing up long-established power structures.
A completely new schools system has emerged in a few short years and is continuing to evolve. But the changes are about more than just institutional structures. At their most exciting, free schools and academies provide the opportunity for pioneering teachers to innovate, disrupt and work to achieve the previously unthinkable.
But this new world also risks growing gaps for the vulnerable. Fair admissions are essential in ensuring a schools system that does the best for everyone.
However, as Dame Sally Coates argued in these pages only last week, the current situation is “madness”. Academisation has led to an exponential increase in admissions authorities with no corresponding increase in resources to police them.
Alarming questions
Our investigation in this week’s TES reveals that the same seems to be true of academy finances. Yes, (some) rules are there. But the fact that the overwhelming majority of Education Funding Agency investigations have been triggered by whistleblowers raises some alarming questions about the overall effectiveness of official checks.
It feels as though ministers have struggled to keep up with the consequences of the change that they have unleashed, let alone the teachers in the middle of it.
More autonomy for schools was one thing (although MATs mean that it is rapidly diminishing), but the Department for Education only belatedly realised that taking away responsibility for schools from local authorities would leave a vacuum. Ministers’ solution - regional schools commissioners - seem woefully under-resourced to supervise thousands of academies. Some DfE insiders privately say that is not their key role anyway - they are there to broker more academy conversions.
And that process seems unlikely to slow down. The government may have backed down from forced universal academisation. But the measures left in place would still pave the way for most local areas to be wholly academised.
Education secretary Justine Greening could, if she wanted, step away from the free-for-all. But that seems unlikely when the virtues of academy status have attained such an unchallengeable position in centre-right politics.
And just as Nicky Morgan seemed more interested in “grit” than the consequences of her deregulation, it appears that the new administration also has its educational focus elsewhere with plans for more grammar schools.
Some teachers and schools will thrive in this fast-changing world. But others - already coping with funding cuts and staffing shortages - will struggle.
@wstewarttes
