No Longer Satisfactory

A good head would never be loved by his

or her staff, he added: “If anyone says to

you that ‘staff morale is at an all-time low’

you know you are doing something right.”

The thoughtful words of Sir Michael

Wilshaw the new head of OFSTED.

Outstanding, wouldn’t you say?

Is the new chief inspector of schools just an instrument of government?

Michael Wilshaw, the new Ofsted chief, comes with a reputation as a ‘heroic’ head, but is he now just an instrument of government, unsympathetic to schools more challenging than his?

Fran Abrams – Guardian 23/01/12

Schmoooozing!

Michael Gove talks the National College of School Leadership

The speech can be read here.

Scapegoats is what we are!

Lord Hutton has made scapegoats of public sector workers

Hutton knows pensions are being cut not because they are unaffordable but because banks caused a public finance crisis

Mark Serowtka – Guardian 10/06/2011

‘Crafty’ Teachers – Watch and Learn

Learn your craft just by watching someone else do it.

I’ll learn how to be a plumber just by watching someone else do it.

I don’t need to go to college to become a qualified plumber.

I’ll learn how to be an electrician just by watching someone do it.

I don’t need to go to college to become a qualified electrician.

I’ll learn how to be a nurse by watching someone else do it.

I don’t need to go to college to become a nurse.

I’ll learn how to be a banker just by watching someone else do it.

I don’t need to go to college and learn about economics.

(Although you do wonder, even with college?)

I’ll learn how to be a brain surgeon just by watching someone else do it.

I don’t need to go to college to become a doctor.

I’ll learn how to be a teacher just by watching someone else do it.

I don’t need to go to college to learn how to teach.

There we are, that’s that then.

All you’ve got to do is watch and learn and you’re there.

Fully qualified and raring to go.

I’ll learn how to be a politician just by watching someone else do it.

OOps
Trouble is they probably will and keep their prejudices.

Is there actually a notion of a professional politician?

Teacher trainers threaten to strike over Michael Gove’s plan to move training to the classroom

Education secretary wants trainee teachers to learn their ‘craft’ by observing other teachers in schools rather than learning in universities

Daniel Boffey - Observer 17/04/2011

The fact that this conversation is actually taking
place points to philistinism on a grand scale.

Absurd

PS. I found that a one year PGCE was just not enough to fully appreciate the skills required in being a teacher.

If anything that needs expanding to two so you can have the space to reflect in those early years.

Sabbaticals need to be paid for to allow professional development.

Supervision should be a possibility in difficult teaching environments.

Architecture does matter!

Architects do matter, Mr Gove

The education secretary claims architects have ‘creamed off’ money that could have gone to teachers. It’s time he opened his eyes to the far-reaching benefits of a beautifully designed school.

Rowan Moore – Observer 06/03/2011

Untold Stories

A quite extraordinary animation from Kirklees.

Teenagers draw on animation film to highlight plight of child soldiers
Books Not Bullets is the brainchild of a group of Kirklees youngsters after they heard firsthand tales of genocide survivors.

Beverley Addy – Guardian 01/03/2011

The Long-Tailed King Strich

A little bit of cross curricular. Art, Science, ICT & English

The creature can be created by drawing, painting, Paint.net or similar programme. The science is adaptation and an array of english possibilites for a variety of aptitudes.

If you have Jo Shapcott’s ‘Of Mutability’ there’s a great poem about thinking yourself into being a barn owl, – Night Flight from Muncaster’ A line or two looks like this

Feel a pair of flat

cheeks grow, satellite

dishes to funnel sound,

The Long-Tailed King Strich – Adaptation

Version 1

It lives on tiny fish that can only live in the pools of rainwater that collect in the holes created when lightning strikes a tree.

It has strong, muscular legs for running long distances looking for trees that have been hit by lightning.

It has a long, wrap around tail for swinging into the branches of trees.

It’s sharp bill makes it easy to catch the fish.

Version 2

King Strich’s survive on tiny fish, only to be found in pools of water found in the branches of trees struck by lightning.

Trees are few and far between on the plains of Africa. For the Long-Tailed King Strich to survive it needs…..

Strong, bulging leg muscles allow the King Strich to wander the plains of Africa looking for the odd tree.

A tail that it can wrap around a branch or a trunk and swing itself up into the tree. Whence it can look for the pools of water.

The tree has to have been struck by lightning as these are the only branches that contain pools deep enough and with sufficient minerals ( from the lightning reaction you understand) for their prey to live in.

A sharp beak for catching the fish.

All in all the Long – Tailed King Strich is a very specially adapted creature.

Version 3

Specially adapted to wandering (it’s those long muscular legs) the plains of Africa looking for the odd tree. Whence it can swing up into the tree (using it’s wonderful tail) and look for pools of water in the crooks of lightning struck branches. These are the only branches that contain pools deep enough and with sufficient minerals ( from the lightning reaction you understand) for their prey to live in. The long sharp beak just gives it the edge in catching the tiny diving creatures in the pools that keep it alive.

Version 4

Changing Education Paradigms

More RSA Animations can be found here

Teacher Bashing Again Today

Weak teachers the biggest problem in schools –

Ofsted

• ‘Dull and uninspiring’ lessons hold back pupils, report finds
• Child protection services hindered by staff shortages

Jeevan Vasagar – Guardian 23/11/10

Bish, Bash, Bosh

Weak Teachers are the biggest problem.

Dear old ofsted blaming teachers again.

It must be wonderful to be so one dimensionally correct.

The certititude is mind numbing.

Such a complexity, reduced to a right singularity.

_____________

37% Satisfactory

is ‘merely’ or worse

But it means

Fulfilling expectations or needs

acceptable, though not outstanding or perfect

Given that perfection isn’t possible

Allow satisfactory a useful place

or change it.

___________

We’ve been here before.

I won’t mention the name.

But the figure of

15,000

comes to mind

back in 1999

(Read Francis Beckett if you need a reminder)

_______________

And there’s this whole teaching as a craft thing, going on

trotting off to work

with our kit bags over our shoulder

Whistling

Colonel Bogey

But we know where that led Colonel Nicholson

‘Madness Madness’

_____________

But whither talk of a revitalised curriculum.

The New Primary Curriculum

A Cambridge Review.

Chomping at the bit we were.

Last September.

But no.

The ConsLib Pact….

and

Since.

A baleful silence.

LIMBO LIMBO LIMBO

SuperEggMan

Back in the dim and distant past, when the dinosaurs roamed the earth it became clear that someone needed to look after “The Egg.”

Luckily, from another egg was born “SuperEggMan.” Now he wasn’t one of those superheroes with tights and a red cape but he could fly. Given that he looked after eggs this is perhaps not surprising. But then again, not all eggs grow into flying creatures as you may know. Some grow into the slightly more frightening crocodiles or in the days of the dinosaur the rather more fearsome T-Rex.

“Look after the eggs,” his mother sang. Over and over again until he had no choice but to do exactly that. In a way, he was mesmerised so much by the song that it became his life’s work. “The SuperEggMan” became, in the word of a famous writer of tall tales. (For more of ‘became’ stories read ‘How the Whale Became’ or better still ask your parents to read it to you.)

Ever since that time the power of ‘SuperEggMan” has been passed down from generation to generation. The only creature to take advantage has been the cuckoo.

Still there’s always one.

Just experimenting with a bit of writing about a Superhero.

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