12:00 pm
Sir Alan Steer: There clearly is a link between poor teaching and poor behaviour. That can be taken as a given, in a sense. The Ofsted chief inspector, Christine Gilbert, said that in January, I think. My view is that standards of teaching are generally good. However, I do not think that we get the benefits of the sum of our parts and there are major development possibilities there. The culture in English education is too disparate. I am not preaching a Stalinist policy, but it is really important in a school that a group of professionals get together and identify their common practices so that they can support each other and make much more of an impact through their individual efforts. That is of huge benefit to teachers and children. I told you that I go on and on about consistency, and at the press of the button I will come back to that.
So, there has to be a link between poor teaching and bad behaviour. However, it needs to be said—I want to say it loud and clear—that schools are rarely the cause of problems. They are pickers-up of problems and they generally do that well. I am a bit defensive of schools. You might think that I would be because of my background and I accept that, as I accept that I am defensive of young people. The outside world has a very harsh and sometimes unkind attitude towards schools. You can find schools that are the author of their problems—absolutely—but that is not common. Generally schools pick up problems in society and they usually do that well. We need to ensure that that message goes out.