Finally, some standardisation/consistency

But it is easier for teachers to hit the ground running because the things that need to be learnt are the same, no matter what. The exam boards in English lit, history etc build in choice for the teachers.

If a teacher arrived to do mat leave, for example, and a whole department was doing Frankenstein and they had never read it or taught it, life would be no easier. And you can argue they'd be better off instead teaching, say Jekyll and Hyde , if they had vast, recent and relevant experience in it.

Of course any mat leave type cover would expect to carry on with nay text if a teacher was half way through teaching it.

Yes, I always meet deadlines! We do have some menrenegades in the department , but I am not one.

I did rebel when someone tried to enforce a route march through a text at a ridiculous pace with lesson by lesson conformity, however.

Out of interest piggy (because I know we get on well on here), do you still meet the things that impact on other people?

E.g. We have some department deadlines which are tracked back from SLT deadlines and I find it infuriating when I can't do my job because someone's not got reasonable information to me by a deadline.

I couldn't care less if someone overruns a text by a fortnight as long as they meet the few reasonable deadlines we have.

I think on a personal level I feel the same as you, but I've been bitten by staff who seem to think that they can and should do whatever they like so now favour a level of consistency.

I never said anything about not having a schedule although I rarely manage to stick to it

I think it makes a lot of sense for some standardisation.

Much as I would love to teach some brilliant, but unpopular with stafff, set texts, I think it's best for the students to have consistency.
If someone goes on maternity leave and there's people ready to go to step in. If students need to move groups for whatever reason then there's no spending 6 weeks on one text and then 3 on the tail end of another.
It's also better for moderation of mocks because everyone has done the same texts (or same within a band eg 1-3 do text A but 4/5 do text B).

There doesn't need to be lesson by lesson uniformity but a certain level of consistency is common sense to me.

As i say, I'd love more autonomy on a personal level, but then I've also been leading in teams where those who claim they want autonomy were also utterly incapable (unwilling) to do anything other than pursue their own agenda and then when results weren't good or there were issues they'd blame the students. Sadly not every department has a team of effective and strong teachers who are team players.

We have done that for years. It is tedious in the extreme. And our schemes are rubbish

Having a schedule is just basic long term planning and I'm surprised it hasn't been done that way before! You can still have a good standardised long term plan and allow teachers SOME autonomy over their text choices. This is how I run my (very successful) English dept.

Also, I am not a sets person...! If sets are not rigidly done by ability there is no reason for all this constant movement between sets anyway!

Also probably controversial!

English isn't maths. Some English teachers are happy all to go the same way but so much of literature teaching is about engagement. It is hard to teach something you hate. I am an individual myself and instinctively react against words like 'consistency. I think It is taken to be the same as uniformity. All classes are different and I choose texts based on their make up, really.

I understand why parents might want uniformity but ,as I have already read once today, most parents aren't educators...

The time when a Teach First type came into our department and tried to enforce lesson by lesson uniformity upon us led to a very unhappy department.

Not sure I have explained very well but I know at least 6 members of my department would not work in the one described. It usually indicates a department with non specialists.

Piggy May I ask why?

At DD's school the maths department has a clear schedule. All sets are on the same topic (e.g algebra) at a time, with level of difficulty depending on the set, and then after 3 weeks they move on to the next topic. I believe Science act similarly, in-fact they must do as the end of term tests are the same topics for everyone so they can't have one teacher teaching out of order.

Why shouldn't English be the same with a time frame for any module, and standardisation across the department enabling set movement?

I'm sure you have good reasons, so it would be interesting to hear them. (Not being sarcastic, genuinely interested).

Well, I can tell you, in terms of staff recruitment and retention, I wouldnt work in that school!

In DD's school English is streamed with sets in within the streams. The streams have slightly different texts top stream pride and prejudice, bottom stream Christmas carol. You can move sets within your stream, but not move streams.

Although I agree with you, I think I have seen argued that some texts have more 'meat' in them, making them harder for less able, but better for the more able as they can show their ability.

As long as DD2 doesn't have to do LotF. I find it very disturbing, and DD will too.