I am a former teacher. Not from UK—and as far as I know the situation in my country is not as bad (yet! growth mindset) -- but I definitely see some similar patterns.
The mechanism “if you punish students, it reflects badly on school, therefore schools tolerate things they in theory shouldn’t” applies both to behavior and grades. Some students are shy, and when you tell them to stop doing something, they stop. But if they call your bluff… well, there is not really much you can do about it. The official advice provided by school administration is completely useless. If they disrupt the lessons, you can record their behavior, but unless there are about hundred records for given student per year, there are no consequences, so who cares. If they don’t pay attention, and then fail to answer your question, and you give them a bad grade, they have a right to ask for independent re-examination. Which means that if they are smart, they can ignore you for most of the semester, ask for re-examination, cram for the exam, and get their grade fixed, maybe not to A, but B is still good enough for a semester of not working. Consequently, most teachers don’t even bother to give grades other than As and Bs. Actually, giving bad grades usually reflects badly on the teacher (because you didn’t teach them well, duh), so most teachers mostly give As.
The relation between public and private schools is reversed in my country. Public schools are the boring mediocre, but most private ones are “pay to win”. The teachers in private schools are paid slightly better than in public schools (like extra €100 a month), and in turn they are expected to turn a blind eye on everything, give everyone As, and generally not make trouble. The school inspections are just like you described (except for taking the worst kids away), everywhere. I taught shortly, so I only experienced one inspection as a teacher, and I was shocked how everything was completely different on that day. I didn’t try to do anything differently, but kids were sufficiently instructed how to behave by the school administration. That was the only day when bad behavior could get them into actual trouble, and they understood the difference perfectly.
Cheating on exams I only saw at the one private school where I taught briefly. At the end of high school, you take the Matura exam, where teachers from other schools (randomly assigned) observe the process: each student chooses a random question by lottery, then answers the question in front of a committee (consisting of teachers from that school, and the visiting teachers from other schools); the committee then collectively decides on the grade. On that private school, selected students were told in advance which question they would get, and some of them even got answers written on paper they had to memorize. Then the lottery was rigged, so each of them “randomly” selected the one and only question they prepared for. (There were plastic tokens with numbers of questions, randomly mixed face-down on the table while the teachers from other schools observed. Then one local teacher distracted the visitors by small talk, the other teacher peeked at the tokens and told students waiting in front of the classroom “choose the third token from right” etc.)
I am a former teacher. Not from UK—and as far as I know the situation in my country is not as bad (yet! growth mindset) -- but I definitely see some similar patterns.
My favorite blog about teaching is Scenes From The Battleground (Teaching in British schools).
The mechanism “if you punish students, it reflects badly on school, therefore schools tolerate things they in theory shouldn’t” applies both to behavior and grades. Some students are shy, and when you tell them to stop doing something, they stop. But if they call your bluff… well, there is not really much you can do about it. The official advice provided by school administration is completely useless. If they disrupt the lessons, you can record their behavior, but unless there are about hundred records for given student per year, there are no consequences, so who cares. If they don’t pay attention, and then fail to answer your question, and you give them a bad grade, they have a right to ask for independent re-examination. Which means that if they are smart, they can ignore you for most of the semester, ask for re-examination, cram for the exam, and get their grade fixed, maybe not to A, but B is still good enough for a semester of not working. Consequently, most teachers don’t even bother to give grades other than As and Bs. Actually, giving bad grades usually reflects badly on the teacher (because you didn’t teach them well, duh), so most teachers mostly give As.
The relation between public and private schools is reversed in my country. Public schools are the boring mediocre, but most private ones are “pay to win”. The teachers in private schools are paid slightly better than in public schools (like extra €100 a month), and in turn they are expected to turn a blind eye on everything, give everyone As, and generally not make trouble. The school inspections are just like you described (except for taking the worst kids away), everywhere. I taught shortly, so I only experienced one inspection as a teacher, and I was shocked how everything was completely different on that day. I didn’t try to do anything differently, but kids were sufficiently instructed how to behave by the school administration. That was the only day when bad behavior could get them into actual trouble, and they understood the difference perfectly.
Cheating on exams I only saw at the one private school where I taught briefly. At the end of high school, you take the Matura exam, where teachers from other schools (randomly assigned) observe the process: each student chooses a random question by lottery, then answers the question in front of a committee (consisting of teachers from that school, and the visiting teachers from other schools); the committee then collectively decides on the grade. On that private school, selected students were told in advance which question they would get, and some of them even got answers written on paper they had to memorize. Then the lottery was rigged, so each of them “randomly” selected the one and only question they prepared for. (There were plastic tokens with numbers of questions, randomly mixed face-down on the table while the teachers from other schools observed. Then one local teacher distracted the visitors by small talk, the other teacher peeked at the tokens and told students waiting in front of the classroom “choose the third token from right” etc.)
I’ve read that blog too. It’s pretty interesting. Do you have any other sources to recommend?
Also, if you’re willing to share which country did you teach in?
Answered in a private message, didn’t want to dox myself publicly, it’s a small country.