Gogwit's Blog

Unfortunately from time to time in the world of teaching you can encounter another member of staff that seems to be making your life difficult. This may include

• talking to other people about you behind your back.
• deliberately putting your ideas down during a meeting.
• criticising you by e-mail and copying other people, often senior people into it. The cc and bcc are rarely used carefully.
• greying matters by telling half truths.
• talking to the students in their classes about you. A false and wholly inappropriate way of them gaining respect.

If you think this is happening to you then the worse thing you can do is to do nothing. You must confront the person directly and take the following steps

1. Ask the person that you would like to talk to them privately – don’t do this by e-mail, keep it all face to face.
2. Tell the person how…

If you are a Head of Department in a school then you will want to do your best to maintain a good team spirit. Here are twelve ways that you can do this  – if you have any more then please comment.

1. Communicate well with honesty – you could have a weekly briefing sheet with all the important events and deadlines on it.
2. Be visible in the department, for instance make sure you around at break times and lunchtimes.
3. Set the standard – make sure that you are seen to be working hard and not going against the school ethos. Lead by example and set high standards
4. Make an effort to point out the good in what people are doing. If someone in your team has spent time putting up a display then go and look at and make them feel appreciated. Celebrate what you see.
5. Make sure that…

(satire?)

Educational experts have expressed reservations over Education Secretary Michael Gove’s announcement that the coalition government intends to phase out teaching in state schools.

According to reports, government ministers have already started talks to phase out the provision of education in primary and secondary schools in order for schools to focus more on their core function of making money – without the need to teach pupils, as required by existing legislation. 

Some experts however have criticised the plans, saying the complete axing of all teaching in schools could possibly lead in some cases to pupils not actually learning anything at all.

A spokesperson for the Department for Education, explained the reasons for the plans:

One of the biggest obstacles to the smooth running of a school is the distraction of constantly having to teach things to children.

It’s clear that unless we allow our schools to be able to…

(It’s not satire – it’s ATOS)

Workers at an ATOS office in the Mann Island area of Liverpool refused to allow a Labour councillor to accompany disabled claimants during their medical assessments.

They also threatened that any disabled claimant who was accompanied by Cllr Joe Walsh during their ‘fit for work’ test could have their benefits ‘affected’.

And when the councillor and a welfare advice expert who was accompanying him asked for the refusal to be put it in writing – amazingly the ATOS staff called the police on them.

Here’s the full story from the Liverpool Daily Post:

Police called after welfare experts offer advice to disabled ahead of Atos sickness benefit assessment

The police – obviously – later confirmed no-one had broken the law.

Apart from the seriousness of attempting to prevent a democratically elected representative from helping his constituents – and the equally serious issue of wasting…

A previously unseen report, commissioned from the Rothschild Bank on behalf of the government, reveals plans to sell off student loans taken out since 1998 and retrospectively raise the interest rates paid by graduates to increase the attractiveness of the loan book to private buyers.  This could leave 3.6m graduates facing sharp rises in their student loans repayments, while the tax payer stands as guarantor in the event students default on the debt, paying up to ensure the private investors never lose a penny.

First Came the Fees

 

Previously, tuition fees were capped at £3,000 a year.  One of the first acts of the Coalition government was so introduce a new ceiling of £9,000 a year (despite Liberal Democrat pledge to scrap tuition fees altogether) – trebling the potential fees payable by students.

It’s hard to believe that a little over a decade ago, we viewed higher…

A couple of weeks ago, I published a blog following an email discussion with the DfE which outlined the nonsensical situation that the cohort completing Key Stage 2 in 2015 will – according to current plans – be taught under the new National Curriculum for the year 2014-15, and then assessed against the old on in May 2015. That blog has been viewed over 2000 times, and was today reported in the Guardian Education Education in Brief column.

I had, in fact, tried to get clarity on this matter from the department several times. One of my emails, originally via the TES DfE page, has only now received a response, stating:

“Really sorry this isn’t answered yet. Legal team are involved!”

And that’s it.

And I got to wondering: would such a situation even be legal? Is that perhaps what is holding up the response? Has somebody at the DfE…

On April 9th, the leader and deputy leader of the Council decided to cancel the initial attempts to find outside bidders to run the new Library of Birmingham. Yet there has been no categorical assurance that this public library, costing £188 of public funds to build, will remain public. There has been confusing talk from the leader of no immediate plans to privatise the library, combined with the information that they are ‘working with the development trust on further operating arrangements and responsibilities’. Given that everything else in the public sector is up for grabs, and given that the Labour Council is now talking openly of privatising leisure centres, why should the Library of Birmingham be any different? The campaigning needs to continue until its future as a public resource is assured.

For that reason, a “Friends of the Library of Birmingham” group is being set up. The founding meeting will…