@tombennett71 I don’t get you Tom Bennett- your ‘certainty’ worries me - I realise this is what you get paid for but at what point do you pause to consider a pupil’s needs ? They ( the pupils) are people after all.
@PaulGarvey4 I understand the zero tolerance thing - we’ve all felt the desire for it when our ‘control’ begins to slip but committing to it as your guiding principle ? Too often the humanity present in this note is less likely under zero tolerance.
@Sue_Cowley Absolutely Sue- teaching is about people, hence emotions involved. There is a science to teaching but the science can’t become dogma. If you ignore the emotional, the science is weakened and the teaching loses meaning.
@Edu_Historian @nancyflanagan The sad thing is teaching is such a fine profession to be in - when you come across a class literally humming with goodwill and energy, it feels like a miracle performed - a beautiful thing - but then a paucity of respect saps all that goodwill and energy from teachers.
@Headteacherchat @AlisonMPeacock Yes to Alison Yes to Debra Kidd Yes to Dylan William Yes to Shirley Clarke - no to anyone indulging in being an Ofsted inspector and no to politicians
@Carter6D Absolutely -the difference in results, far from being about differences in quality ( I have experienced both state and independent - 100% it is not about quality) is yet another indicator of the significant and damaging inequality in society as a whole- discuss this not schools.
@FrankWNorris Thank you Frank - the misrepresentation of educational reality is draining and unhelpful; indicative more of a slightly toxic society than of anything to do with education itself.
@Thinkingschool2 Don’t mind competition - teaches useful stuff like learning to lose - but don’t believe it belongs at the heart of the education system. Personally I believe in mixed ability teaching over setting- we make it work in terms of the learning and pupils learn to appreciate each other
@Thinkingschool2 The whole blinking system revolves around grading and competition - between schools, teachers, pupils -with the assumption this will lead to the best outcomes.
@MaryBoustedNEU @Miss_Snuffy Ofsted gradings have no place in my world - agreed pass or support. And try to restructure so has potential to be more developmental - but this would require a relationship with said school rather than a once every few years insulting scratch at the surface
@MaryBoustedNEU @Miss_Snuffy And are you trying to tell me that some people can come to our school, to our community for 1 or 2 days and tell me/ us something I don’t already know after years of work. I find Ofsted such a poor judge of my school nowadays that I don’t even bother reading the report.
@MaryBoustedNEU @Miss_Snuffy Ditto - I find myself constantly dismayed by the professional time taken lost to people fretting about Ofsted and the educationally weak decisions made on the back end of this fretting.
@RobBradshaw73 Yeh - well - just a little humility is all one would ask for- to just keep asking questions- it is a little tragic that such an expensive education leads so reliably to this cul-de-sac of tribalism and hubris