Does your school head teacher refer to the children as “learners”?

[Bbgy]

I tend to think it more normal to call them either children, pupils or maybe students? But she keeps referring to them as learners. Is this the preferred term now? Or is it just our school?

My ds's secondary calls them 'learners', their form tutors are called 'learning group leaders', and the year groups are called 'cohorts'! Dont like any of the terms!

I can assure you, from having worked across numerous schools, that the term(s) used to refer to the children in the school has no measureable impact on how much staff:

• care about them,
• work hard for them,
• see them as whole people, nor
• develop the whole child (academically, emotionally, behaviourally, socially, etc).

Especially at primary, where you are surrounded by the same children all the time, there's no way that you could end up seeing them as dehumanised beings even if that was an aim in education.

Oh I am aware it’s only a term of phrase and unlikely to impact how the children are treated. All the more reason for just using more normal terms though surely? Learners seems to have been actively chosen for some reason instead of children

I disagree that terms don’t mean anything. I think they reflect the attitude of the person who chose them, usually the headteacher. So can be a good proxy for their attitudes about other things.

I love that our headteacher talks about the children, knows all the children’s names and even has particular in jokes with different classes. She talks to the children about what books they can read now and how she loved their writing on a particular topic or about a school trip. She high fives in the corridor and stands on the school gate wishing them a great weekend. When they are scared, she isn’t above a hug and when they are misbehaving, they are disappointed to let her down because they know she wants the best for them.

Whereas, when I hear headteachers talk about students, learning as a noun, achievement with a capital A, targets etc I know I’m dealing with someone who spends too long in their office and probably isn’t going to be making choices based on their deep knowledge of children but on what some wally from the Department of Education said last.

A good headteacher does all of those things. He/she is capable of having effective and meaningful connections with the children and caring about them as individuals whilst also being focused on their academic targets and the impact on the future performance of the child. He/she can comfort and empathise with those who need it whilst also prioritising high academic expectations for all. Whether they then refer to the children as learners, children, students, blue-shirts, "SchoolName-ians" or some other random made up collective noun makes absolutely no difference at all to whether heads/teachers/support staff or anyone else who works in the school are capable of fulfilling all the roles they need to.

There is a false narrative in education sometimes where schools are either academic or nurturing. It's bullshit. It's possible and desireable to be both, particularly as one of the main reasons you, as a teacher, want your children to make huge progress and achieve well academically is because you genuinely care about them and their future.

My child has made huge progress academically precisely because the headteacher cares about him as an individual. I’m sure she does look at targets behind the scenes but she certainly doesn’t allow that to seep into the children’s experience. As far as he is concerned he was learning to read only and totally because he wanted to read more interesting stories not because he need to move up a level or reach a certain target. I can’t abide schools that make children carry that kind of nonsense just because they have to. But we digress…

No

Lol my old headmistress used to call us all scholars. She was great but extremely pompous