Health and safety gone mad?

Jo Brighouse might eye-roll about her own acquiescence to the misapplication of “health and safety” to minor and disproportionate risks (“Why are we all so risk-averse”, 1 March). So we should be thankful that the Health and Safety Executive is taking a robust approach to this issue by highlighting decisions that were wrongly justified by health and safety on its education myth-busting list. 

Clearly, where there are legitimate and proportional risks, these should be properly assessed and addressed. And where there are activities, such as geographical fieldwork, required by the national curriculum and examination specifications, we need a proportionate and enabling mindset towards them. 

So when I hear of some geography teachers being asked to risk-assess weather observation on their school field or told that umbrellas are a hazard and can’t be used on a field trip (where rain is surely a requirement?), I feel that the HSE might deserve a few more calls.

Steve Brace
Head of education and outdoor learning,
Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), London

How to save MFL in schools

So, to stem the decline in foreign language learning in schools, the education secretary proposes to set up a new network of schools to share best practice, a mentoring project to encourage pupils to learn a language and the appointment of some kind of tsar to advise on teaching methodology. Chicken feed. Window dressing.

What’s needed is a radical change in the way MFL is viewed in schools. I taught French and German in the 1960s under an enlightened Welsh headmaster who wanted all children in his nine-form entry developing comprehensive school to learn a foreign language: English for the two Reception classes, French and German for the other seven. Pupils in the top two bands took CSE or GCE examinations, depending on their ability.

Headteachers today are preoccupied with exam results and their school’s standing in league tables and, because foreign languages are viewed as harder subjects in which to attain higher grades, their status in the curriculum is allowed to dwindle, otherwise known as dumbing down. Of course, they are harder subjects. They are harder because they are the only subjects where the medium is the message, the only subjects where rote learning (now out of fashion) is unavoidable. Vocabulary and grammar have to be committed to memory, intellects stretched, phrases and sentences rehearsed. What’s wrong with a little application and perseverance?

The satisfaction of achievement is enhanced as a result. Perhaps there should be additional recognition in league tables for that achievement in modern languages. I think that’s “added value” in modern assessment parlance.

I won’t rehearse the arguments for the cultural, economic and political importance of learning languages here: they are already well known. What is also well known by language teachers are the methods to employ for the best outcomes. Grammar-grind was rejected long ago. It was fine for Latin and Greek, but not for spoken languages. The direct method transformed the languages classroom, followed by audio-visual and audio-lingual materials and methodologies. The language laboratory played an important role in the development of language teaching and learning, and now interactive, computer-based technologies are adding a new dimension to learner aids. There is also an enormous variety of beautifully produced and stimulating course books, work books, exam practice books and radio and television programmes for teachers to choose from. These are all useful tools that MFL teachers use successfully in their work. They have the benefit, too, of more books and articles on language learning and language teaching than, I suspect, any other subject.

We don’t need “best practice” schools or “mentors” or “tsars”. We need a stream of highly enthusiastic, fluent, well-trained and well-paid graduates with a fair share of curriculum time to work their magic.

David Smith
By email

Sex education protests are a distraction

The Department for Education guidelines for relationships education in primary schools, sex education in secondary schools and health education for all ages are a welcome development that support headteachers in giving these subjects the status they deserve (“Sex education guidance to be published”, 24 February).

Having contributed to the consultation, and personally met with the DfE to explore the best possible approaches to make RSE more relevant to modern life, I am delighted with the overall outcome. My personal interest is mainly within primary education and getting the right building blocks in place to support children in today’s world. My view is that the new guidelines give us a recognised platform to do just that - and I am in total agreement with what schools are required to have in place for September 2020.

The guidelines fit the overall ethos of the proposed new Ofsted inspection framework, which is currently out to consultation. Importantly, they acknowledge that personal development cannot be assessed in a uniform way, that all children are different and develop at different rates, and that the best way for children to thrive as individuals is for them not to be limited by a previous system that was obsessed with statistics and data.

I have, however, been disappointed to read what I consider to be somewhat narrow media headlines focusing on how primary school children will be taught about gay and transgender relationships as part of compulsory lessons, which really only serves to alarm a proportion of parents who will inevitably not welcome it. They have also chosen to link the guidelines to a protest among more than 300 parents and children in Birmingham who are unhappy that lessons on homosexuality and gender will be taught - Parkfield Community School has now halted the lessons (“Primary halts LGBT lessons as parents continue ‘upsetting’ protests”, 5 March ) - as well as the petition signed by over 100,000 people objecting to the RSE curriculum.

Many school communities will be distracted and swayed by these stories, and we all have a responsibility to make a stand on the wider focus of learning and the societal issues that the guidelines address. Nobody can say that the teaching of sexual content, cyber safety and mental health are not important. Yet here we are focusing on LGBT issues when RSE and health education encompass so much more. The message should be about equality, diversity and inclusion - that we are all unique in some way and this should be embraced - rather than reinforcing divisions around male/female, black/white, gay/straight and so on. Children need to be taught to be accepting of differences and opinions.

The DfE has said it will provide £6 million of funding in 2019-20 for a school support package to cover training and resources to ensure that teachers are well prepared ahead of the subjects becoming mandatory. This commitment to funding, together with the guidelines, offers autonomy and flexibility for schools to support the requirements for RSE and health education. September 2020 is only 18 months away and schools should have clarity now as to when exactly they will be able to access this funding. For all the promise and potential created by the new guidelines published, this is the biggest question we do not yet to know the answer to.

Hayley Sherwood
Founder and CEO, 1decision