Grizzled Young Veteran

Ethical senior leader | Deputy Head: Curriculum | Existential | Look on my works ye mighty, and despair | Teaching’s an art

[Ruth Swailes @SwailesRuth]

6 deferral requests refused. How’s your wellbeing folks?

[Grizzled Young Veteran @GrizzledYV]

Please sign - a wonderful university is selling its soul and the academic staff are paying the price of exec greed

[Prof Francesca Stavrakopoulou @ProfFrancesca]

I’d love it if you’d sign this. It might not prevent me and my colleagues losing our jobs, but it will draw attention to the ideological vandalism being perpetrated by the wealthy execs running our university. Stop Redundancies at the University of Exeter https://t.co/2ELRb3Tz9G

[Grizzled Young Veteran @GrizzledYV]

@ProfFrancesca Signed - I was so proud to go to Exeter& loved my time there. I am so sad to see the greed it’s descended into. I still think of all of the academics in English who taught me to this day. It was an incredible education & to see the SMT vandalise courses is just tragic. Solidarity

[Prof Francesca Stavrakopoulou @ProfFrancesca]

Fun(damental) fact:

Exeter Uni’s finances are strong. We’ve large cash reserves (£200m in 24/25). Never had a budget deficit. The university’s claimed financial ‘crisis’ is manufactured.
#DefendExeterUni

[Sam Strickland @SamStrickers181]

I have no idea why anyone wouldn’t engage common sense here and delay the inspection.

[Grizzled Young Veteran @GrizzledYV]

We all did this in that awful 2005-2009 type of time frame and it was indeed a workload nightmare. And when you didn’t do it in your yearly observation (remember those?) you got told that teaching a normal lesson to a class was “inadequate” as “no differentiation” 😂

[Greg Ashman @greg_ashman]

Lots of discussion about this, but what I want to know is *why* a teacher would do this. For the sake of argument, let’s assume it’s not a planning nightmare. OK, so what’s the gain? What goal does this help to achieve? Any ideas?

[Ruth Swailes @SwailesRuth]

47 different publications from the DFE and 21 Ofsted publications since January this year. How are schools and settings supposed to keep up?

[Sam Strickland @SamStrickers181]

Sadly this was/is misjudged. Teachers and children cannot operate in classrooms where the temperature exceeds 35 degrees, more so come the afternoon. The optics should have been supportive of schools partially closing/closing. Common sense is commonly lacking at times.

[Grizzled Young Veteran @GrizzledYV]

Feeling really burned out by leadership lately. Genuinely contemplating packing SLT in and going back to my roots - just teaching English. Anyone done something similar? If I were to apply to a few things come September/October, would schools want an ex-SLT in the classroom?

[Daniel Kebede @DanielKebedeNEU]

1/4 Classrooms across the country are hitting 30°C+ today. Our Victorian school buildings have become greenhouses. We need a statutory maximum working temperature now.

​2/4 The Government must step up. We need urgent, massive capital investment to retrofit our ageing school estates with proper ventilation, shading, and climate-resilient cooling infrastructure.

​3/4 Expecting schools to carry on like normal right now is dangerous. Ofsted inspections must be paused during extreme heatwaves. Forcing school leaders to stress about paperwork and observations while they are managing such health and safety challenges is reckless.

​4/4 We need greater flexibility on these days:
- Ditch uniforms.
- Flex the curriculum.
- Plan hydration breaks
No schools should be enforcing blazer and tie requirements.

[Sam Strickland @SamStrickers181]

Anything above 25 degrees negatively impacts behaviour…

Hot, bothered, irritable, tired, lacking concentration…..

[Grizzled Young Veteran @GrizzledYV]

Patronising and useless

[Department for Education @educationgovuk]

There are several ways that schools can make changes to keep children safe in hot weather, especially as children are more at risk of becoming ill with heat-related issues than adults.

The UK Health Security Agency (@UKHSA) has published updated guidance for schools and early years settings to help them.

Here are some important points to support settings during hot weather: https://t.co/kaV8xZDRIv

[Grizzled Young Veteran @GrizzledYV]

Phillipson has been a woeful Ed Sec. Burnham needs to replace her as soon as he’s crowned

[Tes magazine @tes]

Bridget Phillipson is doing a worse job as education secretary than Sir Keir Starmer did as prime minister, @NEUnion members say, with the union calling for a change at the top of the DfE
https://t.co/r80He1MZv5

[Grizzled Young Veteran @GrizzledYV]

Having one of those days when I fantasise about not being a senior leader… but then you hear something like that 🫥

[Grizzled Young Veteran @GrizzledYV]

Is it really true that senior leaders who choose to step away and return to the classroom aren’t guaranteed UPS3 in and would have to go to M6 and go through the thresholds again? That seems completely insane and punitive.

[Daniel Kebede @DanielKebedeNEU]

The new enrichment benchmarks risk piling even more pressure onto schools and staff.

Ofsted will assess them under personal development from Sept 2026.

Again govt are creating expectations without sufficient funding.

Teachers cannot be compelled to deliver activities beyond directed time.

And we will vigorously defend members' 1265-hour limit.

#SaveEducation

New enrichment benchmarks: What schools need to know https://t.co/F4Md0ci0Kx

[Grizzled Young Veteran @GrizzledYV]

🤢

[Ruth Swailes @SwailesRuth]

Just seen my first Ofsted “strong standard” banner.

[Marcus Walker @WalkerMarcus]

It is literally insane simultaneously to think that 16 and 17 year olds are mature enough to vote but not mature enough to look at Instagram at 8:30pm. This is comically absurd.

[Grizzled Young Veteran @GrizzledYV]

This is the problem with government. The rhetoric is just too hyperbolic. If a kid wrote that in a Paper 2, Q5 I’d tell them off for being melodramatic. As soon as you read that tweet you just roll your eyes.

[Department for Education @educationgovuk]

Children will be given back their childhoods thanks to government action to ban social media platforms from offering services to under-16s, with less time for scrolling and more time for play.

Find out more: https://t.co/XDaM6SyvhE

@JoshMacAlister