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IT's BONKERS! Wouldn't it be great if people were given the rewards they deserve for all the hard work they put in? I was thinking about this as we await A level results, some surprising new peerages were announced and then when the results of Highers were published in Scotland last week. In a change to the advertised programme results were based upon teacher assessments instead of exam results. Some people might say this is a much fairer way of judging a child's ability, after all the amount of hard work done over a year is probably what should be measured. Unless you do something to restrict that. Let's look at the way grades are being apportioned. This is worked out by a computer that takes into account the school's performance last year and how well a child performed 5 or more years ago in maths and English and it seems that social factors are also taken int...

BIG PLANS   Some people say that the DfE is only interested in the English and Maths, but, as has become clear over the last few weeks, they are always prepared to learn the lessons of history.   This photo shows how we used to do it, with the SLT gathered round the fire in the autumn, planning for September. But Gavin knows better than this and his letter to Headteachers on the penultimate day of the school year is a timely reminder, telling them, as it does, to start planning NOW for September, especially with today's clarifications from the Prime Minister, that however late or slapdash your plan might be, that it will only be a conditional plan anyway and could therefore be changed at any moment. This approach to planning is getting close to how it should be done. The most accurate form of planning is always retrospective. This is similar to  w...

At a time when those who are supposed to be making sensible decisions, which will affect all of our lives , but are not quite up to the job It's heartening when the young people of our country step up to the mark and show leadership and decision making qualities. There have been several examples of this recently, with Scarlett recognising that the right place for her unicorn picture was more important than an interview on BBC News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yALJsnuSts0 16 Year old Rae Kwan writing the anthem for a country in crisis on the Choir https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000kqp0/the-choir-singing-for-britain-episode-3  and a group of school aged environmental activists confident to speak out about the issues that they are passionate about Teach the Future Luckily the latest DfE guidance helpfully tells us that if a bubble is too small for your ch...

FACE THE FRONT! Is he a visionary or does he just like looking at pictures? There is an argument that one could be inspired by a picture, that it could give you an insight into how things should be in the future, but surely this plan will only work if the teachers are at the front! This one is more like it. Let's hope he hasn't spotted that someone has smuggled in something white that the children are using straws to get into their system. Good news this week for all those unhappy West Ham fans bubbles are getting bigger. Originally only for 5 or 6 children at a time, then 15, moving swiftly to 30 when it was realised that this would mean twice as many teachers and classroom, we now learn that from September a bubble can be expanded to include 240 children! Luckily, we have it on the best authority that children do not need to socially distance, unless t...

HOT AND BOTHERED On a day when temperatures have risen to great heights, I didn't need the DfE to make my blood boil with their rewriting of history, saying that primary school children do not need to, and have never needed to, socially distance, despite all their guidance advising the opposite. That would have been enough to make me hot and bothered, but for the announcement that they insist that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, (see Margaret Clarke' meticulously researched paper on this site) teachers must be trained to understand that synthetic phonics is the only way to teach reading. Unbelievable! Am I bothered? I'm very hot and very bothered! My lid was prevented from coming off only by the fantastic news that baseless, sorry baseline testing will not be introduced this September. More than a crumb of comfort, perhaps half a loaf, we'll wait...