Dc's juniors is really into fads. Frustrating. We'll get called into a meeting under a guise of "afternoon doing fun things with your dc" and find it goes something along the lines of:
1:30 arrive, which is the time they've asked people to arrive.
1:40 be let into the hall.
1:50 children join adults in the hall.
2:00 Teachers do a "joint presentation" on current fad. Presentation I mean in the loosest sense of the word. It's roughly a large number of powerpoint slides which the teachers take turns to read out word for word.
2:30 Enthusiastic governor/pta member adds how brilliant, amazing, fantastic it is and how wonderfully lucky all the dc are to experience it and she just knows we're in for a wonderfully exciting year.
2:40 questions opened to the floor. A couple of questions from people who either fell asleep or weren't listening (no one blames them), followed by a 10 minute monologue from wannabe governor/pta member saying roughly the same as above. (everyone does blame them)
3:00 Children and parents sent off to classrooms to do activity relating to fad.
3:20 Teacher realises that no one is going to be anywhere near finishing and suggests brightly that as we've all obviously realised how wonderful it is they're sure we'll want to take it home to finish.
3:30 Everyone released from school. By this point my eyes have rolled so far back into my head I'm not sure I'll be safe to drive home...
3-6 months later: I mention it to dc who says they haven't heard any mention of it for at least 2 months, and I groan knowing that the new fad will arrive shortly.
Ones I particularly dislike:
Switching classes every year. I'm sure sometimes it's a good thing. I expect some schools do it well most of the time. My experience is that it advantages the popular sociable ones and disadvantages those who struggle socially which is entirely the opposite to what I'd think would be the ideal. Also our school asked the children to name 10 children from their form only. I doubt most children will be bothered about 9-10 on their list. With that number you'd think that it'd be easy to sort. No, there's children every year, and almost always the vulnerable or shy ones who end up with none of their list.
I suggested to the head that his arguments for switching applied equally well to teachers so maybe they should join with a few other schools and switch round each year. It didn't go down brilliantly. In fact, lead balloons go down slower. He didn't have a good response though.
Phonics. Not talking about phonics as a whole, but the current trend for phonics and only phonics mattering. It may be better for some, but there are still some children who learn better by whole recognition, and they are failed if the school isn't able to be flexible enough to allow that.
And as adults people read mostly by whole word, using phonics only if they don't know the word. If yuo dno't beleive me thne how aer yuo raedng thsi?
I've had people tell me in all seriousness that people just read the phonics so quickly as adults they don't realise they're doing it. And that reading by whole word doesn't count as proper reading.
The other fad I don't like, but understand the reasoning is the trying everything. Now my dc at secondary do a different type of game in PE every 6 weeks. That's 12 lessons maximum. Realistically this means that they learn the basics and are perhaps almost at the level where they might manage a bit of a game. For a non-sporty child this is probably good, as I was. However I think for the sporty child who has a chance of actually being good, they don't have the opportunity to play enough to discover they're good and want to carry it further. And if they do want to carry it further then they're reliant on parents paying/transport and there being a club in reasonable distance. So it restricts those without parental support etc.
When I was at school we did hockey/rugby all winter and there would be several people who only played at school who got into the county team, and even some who got further. Someone who showed talent at school could be put forward and accepted in the county sides, and there were then grants etc to help them.