The Strange Case of the Primary Specialist Art Teacher

Welcome to my new blog!

This is my very first post, entitled....

The Strange Case of the Primary Specialist Art Teacher 

Yes, as it states above, my name is David, I am an adult, and I have a truly rare job: I am a specialist art teacher...in a primary school. 

Yes ladies and gentlemen, it is my task to draw, paint, pot (is that a verb?) print and collage with the little ones. I mark no books, nor do I involve myself (any longer) in the instruction of basic multiplication or punctuation. I deal purely in graphite, paint, ink and mud. The role  I am currently enjoying (unlike in the high school sector, where we are of course legion) is rarer than hen's teeth.

I never expected to land this job, as I never believed it could actually exist.

When I commenced training to become a primary teacher in the early noughties, I took it for granted that the highlight of most primary teachers' week would be rolling up shapeless sleeves, chucking the dry maths books into a tartan shopping trolley and lustily whipping out the crayons of a Friday afternoon. Why would anyone want to hand that joy over to somebody else?

It turned out I couldn't have been more wrong.

Right from the starting gun, actually during my PGCE teacher training course, I discovered that my colleagues were rather afraid of art. Petrified would be a more accurate term. Double algebra followed by teaching a short unit on quantum theory was regarded as a walk in the park compared to a bit of colouring in. Trainees used to whisper, in the kind of desperate, boxed-in tones usually reserved for discussing imminent bankruptcy or trips to the gallows, that they were expected to teach art during their next school placement. The sense was that they were about to be publicly exposed as a fraud, or village idiot...more on the psychology of that later.

 I vividly remember the lectures on the subject were full of 20-some-things, gripping the table edges in terror as the moment they would have to raise a charcoal stick in anger approached. Pale, pleading faces locked onto the lecturer, desperately hoping for something, a pearl of wisdom, anything, that might demystify and render this mysterious witchcraft teachable. They winced as though with pain as their ears were assaulted by its foreign, arcane lexicon;  terms such as relief, or particularly chilling, multi-media sketchbook, were scribbled down, but with an air of resigned hopelessness.

As with the child, so with the man. Once I gained my brown elbow patches and was admitted into the professional ranks, I discovered that here too, the subject was a pariah, often cast away in to the outer darkness of PPA (planning, preparation and assessment non-teaching time for the uninitiated - did Gove managed to axe that before his own chop?) Once hands were cleansed of the art stain, it became the lot of some unfortunate and usually equally horrified supply teacher to wrestle with.

The only teachers who seemed to enjoy art were the half-mad, frizzy haired, NHS-specs-and-purple-skirt brigade; more proof for the sane majority that this was a dangerous, flighty subject, best avoided like the plague by anyone who didn't want to end up like that teacher who hummed to herself during the register and had a nervous breakdown.

However, even the few who did enjoy a limited bit of creativity had a bit of a problem with the subject: they weren't teaching it properly.

Art and Foundation subjects in Teacher Training and beyond

I soon found that the teachers who were good at art, or believed they were, professed a love for all things creative and colourful, but had little formal knowledge of the subject - almost never, in fact, a relevant O level or GCSE. Now before some of you fall out of your prams and start spluttering that formal qualifications aren't important when it comes to a subject of passion, intuition and creativity, let me ask you - how would you like your child to be taught mathematics by a teacher who reassured you that although they lacked any formal post-14 education or training in the subject, they were 'passionate' about it? I suspect a visit to your head teacher may swiftly follow.

This is of course the can of worms that is the teaching of foundation (non-core) subjects in the primary school. Often teachers will be expected to educate children in subjects they themselves have not encountered since their own school days, which can often mean since KS3. The majority of time in teacher training is, rightly, invested in preparing students to teach literacy and numeracy effectively, in addition to science and ICT. The other subjects (all seven or so) generally receive about afternoon apiece during the ten month course. This of course leaves massive gaps in teacher learning in subjects such as art and design, Geography, PE and music. These gaps can therefore only be filled by a) independent study (seriously limited by the demands on a trainee teacher's time) or b) on the job training in student placements and one's NQT year (first year on the job). Method b particularly is a lottery, because as mentioned above, the quality of teaching in these subjects can be patchy to say the least. Quality music education alone, I would argue, requires a teacher with years of specialist knowledge, and a clear whole school plan for the subject to back them up by ensuring continuity and progression as children move up through the school. I may be coming across as criticising my fellow professionals here, but that is not my intention; love them or hate them, (and there is a lot to hate) as the spotlight of OFSTED has been directed with ever increasing intensity into every corner of British Primary education, standards have undoubtedly been raised. Primary teachers are now in the basically impossible situation of needing to be an expert in every area of the curriculum; but as anyone knows, being a specialist sports coach, artist and musician, in addition to a well versed professional in the instruction of core subjects, is virtually impossible. Those kind of polymaths are rare in any walk of life, and education is no exception.

The reality is that most primary teachers excel at a handful of subjects, and naturally play to their strengths, whilst muddling through or relying on colleagues with specialist knowledge for the rest. Frequently, it is the case that some 'low-status' foundation subjects are not taught at all - this is often the case with art and music, which in my experience can rarely get a look in, especially in the curriculum of crunch years such as year 6.

The next blog entry will deal with how my school has addressed the problems in the teaching of primary art and design.