Category: Uncategorized

There are many moments that have stayed with me from my ten years of teaching. The overwhelming majority of them are positive, but there is one in particular that has been circling around my head the past few days that makes me feel so sad about what current government policy is doing to our children’s experience of learning.

Early on in the first term of Year Seven, I often broached the question to my English class “What makes good writing?”. It’s a big question, and not one I ever expected to hear answered in its entirety, but still the responses that I got were pretty telling. The particular set of responses I remember was from Autumn 2012, just before I disappeared on maternity leave. Fresh from SATs preparation, hands shot up as I wrote the question on the board, and the answers spilled out proudly into the classroom: “varied sentence starters”, “correct use of conjunctions”…

My child is not a genius. He’s fairly bright at best,

He doesn’t have attainment medals glowing from his chest,

He’s pretty well behaved – at least, I don’t hear that he’s naughty –

He’s not a music prodigy, or known for being sporty.

He’s reading not too badly, can decipher what’s on signs,

His writing’s not too scrawly if he keeps between the lines,

He doesn’t have additional needs as far as I can tell,

And up to yesterday, I thought that he was doing well.

But then I got the test results, and thanks to you, I’ve learned

That instead of being proud, I really ought to be concerned.

A five year old that reads and writes seemed pretty good to me –

(Even though he gets confused between the letters B and D)

But it seems he’s way behind, and the levels that he meets

Only indicate…

It can be done.

Birmingham City Council has passed a motion stating that it does not want its schools to become academies

Source: ‘Our schools will not be academies,’ says major local authority | News

A teacher’s take on the jargon of explicit teaching…

I know that parents have to decode a lot of jargon whilst their kids are at school. I’m often asked about some of the acronyms commonly seen and heard in my classroom. Perhaps they sound more like a quartet of elderly folks in a retirement home, however WALT, WILF, WALA and TIB are some the latest educational buzz words.

Explicit teaching focusses students toward the learning/understanding/skill, rather than the doing/task/activity. Below are some useful acronyms that are becoming more and more common in schools, for making learning explicit for children.

WALT = We Are Learning To…
Sometimes called a Learning Intention, a WALT  makes the learning, concept, understanding or skill clear to students. For example, “We are learning to use talking marks in our writing”. I find WALTs extremely useful in differentiating between the task or activity and the actual learning…

(not satire – it’s G4S and SERCO)

Private companies G4S and SERCO have agreed to pay out £100,000 in compensation for restraining torturing kids.

This illegal “restraining” by staff working for subsidiary companies belonging to the two multi-billion pound conglomerates has even resulted in the deaths of at least two children.

G4S went on to deal with the problem of the torturing and killing of children in their care by promoting one of the members of staff involved in it to the position of Health and Safety Manager in their children’s homes.

And Serco went on to allow its staff free range to also sexually assault young women who had been put in its care.

Considering all of the above shocking facts – why are we still allowing these cowboy companies to run children’s homes and our children’s educational services?

Could it be because they have friends in high places?

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Related…

(satire?)

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has urged the UK government to consider military action against Scotland in the event of a vote for independence.

Mr Blair, who was prime minister between 1997 and 2007, broke his silence in the debate over Scottish independence to urge air strikes – including the use of the Trident independent nuclear deterrent – against Scottish strategic targets in the event of a ‘Yes’ victory next Thursday.

Interviewed in Kiev, Mr Blair said on Saturday that he hoped Scots would vote against independence, but warned that if Scotland voted to break up the United Kingdom then military intervention would be inevitable:

“Obviously I hope that Scotland votes to stay part of the United Kingdom. But Scotland should prepare itself for a full-scale invasion by ground forces if it doesn’t.”

Mr Blair’s comments came just weeks after the former PM called for NATO leaders to agree a joint campaign of targeted…