http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jul/25/secondary-school-streaming
Don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Tuesday 26 July 2011
Monday 25 July 2011
Reading For Pleasure
Last week of term but instead of relief and euphoria we had tears, nose-bleeds and raging frustration. Way to go, Senior Leadership Team.
Good teachers want to inspire pupils, to instil in them a love for their subject. Like most non-selective secondary schools, we have a number of pupils for whom reading is a struggle and a chore, who come from homes where there are no books and where the feeling is that reading is what you do at school. Library lessons have therefore become something of an essential and a highlight for our Year 7s, an opportunity every so often to spend three-quarters of an hour immersed in a book they have chosen, something which really interests and engages them. It emerged this week that this is Wrong. Children should not be allowed to spend forty-five minutes reading. They should be interrupted on a regular basis to be told what their objectives are, which level they're on and how much progress they've made since they plucked the book from the shelf. Heaven forbid they should be left to concentrate, to be absorbed, to lose themselves in the written word. What good would that do them?
Similarly, a bottom set Year 9 class has been reading Blood Brothers this term. Two of the most challenged and challenging children in the class have been reading the main roles and taken them to their hearts. I have never seen either child as engaged with or enthusiastic about anything as they are about playing Mickey and Mrs Johnstone and their acting has been tremendous. But their teacher has been hauled over the coals because Blood Brothers was not listed in the Scheme of Work for that term. The children had already completed the Scheme of Work for that term. Heaven forbid they should be allowed to enjoy anything.
Questions need to be asked about what we are teaching our children and why.
Good teachers want to inspire pupils, to instil in them a love for their subject. Like most non-selective secondary schools, we have a number of pupils for whom reading is a struggle and a chore, who come from homes where there are no books and where the feeling is that reading is what you do at school. Library lessons have therefore become something of an essential and a highlight for our Year 7s, an opportunity every so often to spend three-quarters of an hour immersed in a book they have chosen, something which really interests and engages them. It emerged this week that this is Wrong. Children should not be allowed to spend forty-five minutes reading. They should be interrupted on a regular basis to be told what their objectives are, which level they're on and how much progress they've made since they plucked the book from the shelf. Heaven forbid they should be left to concentrate, to be absorbed, to lose themselves in the written word. What good would that do them?
Similarly, a bottom set Year 9 class has been reading Blood Brothers this term. Two of the most challenged and challenging children in the class have been reading the main roles and taken them to their hearts. I have never seen either child as engaged with or enthusiastic about anything as they are about playing Mickey and Mrs Johnstone and their acting has been tremendous. But their teacher has been hauled over the coals because Blood Brothers was not listed in the Scheme of Work for that term. The children had already completed the Scheme of Work for that term. Heaven forbid they should be allowed to enjoy anything.
Questions need to be asked about what we are teaching our children and why.
Friday 8 July 2011
Lambs to the Slaughter
This week in La-la land has seen our New Year 7 Parents' Evening. Hours of dressing it up and pretending it's a normal school. Exhausting. I watched the children, tremulous and excited, clutching at their parents as they met their new form tutors and explored the corridors and classrooms. Every September we are fed these innocent, eager little creatures and every June we regurgitate them as hard-eyed, diaffected tramps and thugs. It is a truly terrible machine.
I also stood in the shadows of the hall and listened to the headteacher's speech. He promised that in every lesson the children would receive 'high-quality teaching'. I wanted to step out into the light and ask whether that included the 30 or so lessons a day which are taught by non-specialists or indeed non-teachers. The cover work left for one particular Year 7 Science lesson this week was 'Complete the worksheet and do page 70'. Page 70 of what? And there were no worksheets.
My colleagues are tearful and depressed. The Senior Leadership Team cares only for results and nothing for the people charged with bringing about those results, whether they are staff or children. This is not going to end well.
I also stood in the shadows of the hall and listened to the headteacher's speech. He promised that in every lesson the children would receive 'high-quality teaching'. I wanted to step out into the light and ask whether that included the 30 or so lessons a day which are taught by non-specialists or indeed non-teachers. The cover work left for one particular Year 7 Science lesson this week was 'Complete the worksheet and do page 70'. Page 70 of what? And there were no worksheets.
My colleagues are tearful and depressed. The Senior Leadership Team cares only for results and nothing for the people charged with bringing about those results, whether they are staff or children. This is not going to end well.
Friday 1 July 2011
If Music Be The Food of Love
"The last thing anyone wants to hear," a teacher shrieked at a roomful of lively Year 8s today, "is the sound of children singing!"
Well yes, heaven forbid.
This week a theatre group came into school to work with forty Year 10 boys on understanding Shakespeare through performance. I had feared disaster. The boys chosen for the event were borderline underachievers, disaffected, too-cool-for-school hard cases. Within minutes the actors had disarmed them with humour, energy and a willingness to play the fool. Within half an hour the boys were completely engaged. I have never seen them so engrossed for so long. I have never seen them smile so much. This is what education is about - not Shakespeare specifically, but opening minds, channelling energy, raising self-esteem. This is what we should be doing.
According to our Great Leaders (and Ofsted), children failing to meet their target grades is entirely their teachers' fault. Nothing to do with social/economic deprivation or low parental expectations. Nothing to do with parents being drug addicts/mentally unstable/in prison. Some children barely make it through the gates with half their uniforms on because they are carers for their parents, or misbehave in school because it is the only place they can let off steam. Some are out of their minds on weed, or already have dysfunctioning livers due to their alcohol consumption. But if they don't mange to attain a C grade it will be because their teacher didn't ask them the correct question one Friday afternoon in July.
Well yes, heaven forbid.
This week a theatre group came into school to work with forty Year 10 boys on understanding Shakespeare through performance. I had feared disaster. The boys chosen for the event were borderline underachievers, disaffected, too-cool-for-school hard cases. Within minutes the actors had disarmed them with humour, energy and a willingness to play the fool. Within half an hour the boys were completely engaged. I have never seen them so engrossed for so long. I have never seen them smile so much. This is what education is about - not Shakespeare specifically, but opening minds, channelling energy, raising self-esteem. This is what we should be doing.
According to our Great Leaders (and Ofsted), children failing to meet their target grades is entirely their teachers' fault. Nothing to do with social/economic deprivation or low parental expectations. Nothing to do with parents being drug addicts/mentally unstable/in prison. Some children barely make it through the gates with half their uniforms on because they are carers for their parents, or misbehave in school because it is the only place they can let off steam. Some are out of their minds on weed, or already have dysfunctioning livers due to their alcohol consumption. But if they don't mange to attain a C grade it will be because their teacher didn't ask them the correct question one Friday afternoon in July.
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