Gove kills the mockingbird with ban on US classic novels ...what do you think?

[mrz]

www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/article1414764.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2014_05_24

So when Y6 DD goes to secondary she'll learn that the Educational High Priests' overarching ideology of 'equality of opportunity' has paralysed the system somewhere down near the hem of the new regulation length skirt that she's too scared to roll up yet. Nevertheless she might become very familiar with at least a part of just a few short texts and learn how to use the names of literacy devices to articulate largely pre-canned observations in a manner intended to maximise the exam score. Especially if she reads an exam-board approved guide, available now for a special introductory price of of just ££! However it's really not clear whether these skills will be especially transferable given the apparent dread of teaching unseen text analysis, despite the school having five years to build on some significant junior PEEing on unseen texts etc. for primary SATS Reading.

As a parent looking to the adult not just the next exam, I would clearly be insane not to carry on endeavouring to finesse DD into reading for pleasure and actually learning quite a lot of valuable stuff from exposure to a wide range of literature. This of course will be an 'advantage' that will widen some gap or other that the equality of opportunity brigade is attempting to close.

Fair summary?

Pretty fair, given your DDs school needs to keep Ofsted sweet by every DC making at least expected progress.

The only way to do this is spoon feed them perfect exam technique and get them to learn perfect model answers.

If you spend time on things outside this path and your one or two of your DDs slip up on a question. Chop, off with your head. Even if they and rest of DCs in your class go forth into adult life loving books and more DCs do English at A level.

Yes EvilTwin I said 15 mins IF no reading in school and if you follow the thread you will see that is in response to Bluestrawhat but I didn't say that is what should happen. If you look you will see I think reading should happen in class backed up by reading at home. But you tell me you can't read in school.

I'm telling you that OFSTED say you can't read in school.

The whole thing is ludicrous . In an ideal world, kids would both read at home AND at school. It's a ridiculous game.

Hasn't anyone read the news lately? It looks like Ofsted are desperately trying to get their house in a more sane order so perhaps we should begin to look at their future shape. Sadly I very much doubt they'll give up the data delusions, but that's probably something for another thread.

You told me one OSTED inspector criticised your drama lesson but other teachers (and an OFSTED inspector) are telling me they would expect to see reading in a literature lesson and definitely in a drama lesson.

In an ideal world, kids would both read at home AND at school. which is what I suggested ... we are never going to get an ideal world but perhaps we can make a small beginning?

Can you link to something from Ofsted then please showing this because you are being pretty adamant about it and it doesn't tally with what some friends' children are doing ( yr10) at various schools.

That was for Evil BTW.

I think 'reading in class backed up by reading at home' is what most of us are advocating, actually.

You read, analyse, & write critically on pivotal scenes in class & leave the bits that you don't have time for to independent reading.

Not everybody will do the independent reading, being pragmatic about it, & plenty more will dutifully read those bits without actually understanding more than the plot, but given some judicious summarising in class they can still have a crack at the exam - which is lucky as for some bonkers reason it's going to be untiered.

Having spent a half term last year racing five of my year 10 boys through 'Game of Thrones', I'm not for a minute counselling despair on the home reading; many kids can & will get stuck in. But lots can't or won't, & you just have to plan accordingly.

Ofsted don't want to see reading in an observed lesson, or at least the inspector that saw your lesson doesn't, evil. That's not the same as an edict from Ofsted saying reading in lessons isn't allowed at all.

It's just playing the Ofsted game isn't it? Ofsted wouldn't want to see kids sitting in silence doing a test, so the test is postponed. You postpone your reading lesson and do something a bit jazzier.
I had the same thing with Ofsted as an NQT. I got observed starting a two week piece of coursework with Y10 and was going to be marked down for not stretching the most able until I pointed out that they would definitely be stretched in the two weeks the task was expected to take but they still needed to be told what that task was to be able to start it.

Now I would postpone starting coursework in an Ofsted, mainly because Ofsted are idiots and can't be trusted to make a sensible (nor indeed consistent if you read the latest research) judgement.

I don't think there's any evidence anywhere of what OFSTED want to see. I think they make it up as they go along.

I've asked Michael Cladingbowl to clarify OFSTED's position on reading.

See here It's my understanding that the "read around the class and discuss it" approach would fall into category 4 because it does not sufficiently engage all students throughout and does not allow for differentiation, personal learning or the building of resilience.

You do know that OFSTED don't grade individual lessons? but I don't see why a "read around the class" lesson can't fall into category 1 if done well.

I think you've been arguing all of this on a false premise Evil and are guilty of 2+2 = 5.

I'm fully aware of those Ofsted grades/ levels and they bear no relation to what you have said about them not accepting reading in class.

As another poster has said, no teacher will do themselves a favour by having a class reading ( passively) while they are observed. You've got to turn it on on the day for the observation and make it outstanding!

Surprised you didn't know this.

I don't believe teaching isolated bits of text in little islands of lessons between oceans of homework nothingness would sufficiently engage all students, either, let alone build their resilience. How can you differentiate fully if you can't take into account the presence of children in your class who actually read the books and do the homework, and who do want to talk about more than little isolated passages? Surely you are only successfully differentiating between the least able and the most able who don't, for whatever reason, do any work unless you are hovering over them.

Ofsted subsidiary guidance document (last updated Apr 2014):

"It is unrealistic, too, for inspectors to necessarily expect that all work in all lessons is always matched to the specific needs of each individual. Inspectors should not expect to see ‘independent learning’ in all lessons and should not make the assumption that this is always necessary or desirable. On occasions, too, pupils are rightly passive rather than active recipients of learning. Inspectors should not criticise ‘passivity’ as a matter of course and certainly not unless it is evidently stopping pupils from learning new knowledge or gaining skills and understanding."

That's sorted then:)

Of course isolated bits of text between oceans of homework nothingness wouldn't work nobody is suggesting that should happen but asking pupils to read a chapter or two between lessons and sharing a summary in class before moving onto further in depth study ensures all the class are familiar with the whole text.

lazysummerdays I'm astonished that this somewhat seismic shift isn't very common knowledge in the profession. They apparently pulled some fresh but old-thinking reports around the start of the year to fix them and now we're told they are ditching outsourcing, presumably to have much better control over adherence to their official lines.

If @mrz does get a response it will be interesting, but I imagine it will reflect the spirit of that paragraph.

But I teach every lesson as if OFSTED are in the room. Doesn't everyone? My students deserve better than a fancy pants lesson pulled out of the bag when I'm being watched and boring shit the rest of the time.

I'm actually not joking. Teaching in a school that's been inspected to within an inch of its life, has been in SM and leapt out the other side does that to you.

I'm willing to accept I'm not normal in this way.

Questionable though whether a non-Ofsted ready lesson is necessarily a shit and boring lesson. In my experience students get actually thoroughly fed up with mini plenaries and independent learning and at times relish just doing ex 2,3 and 4 in the book, and they still learn!

I don't do mini plenaries and I reckon it's easier to do bells and whistles lessons frequently in my subject. It lends itself well to group work, creative thinking, independent work and is fairly easy to differentiate in. As long as I'm diligent with record keeping I can show progress well and almost all the kids like it so engagement is high. I had an ob recently (HT & Chair of Govs) where I wasn't even in the room for much of it (OK, that sounds odd - I hD groups of kids in 4 different areas and I floated between them) but they all got on solidly even when I wasn't watching them. It's probably easier in my subject than in others.

IME as a maths teacher, an "Ofsted lesson" where they sing, dance and do card sorts while simultaneously discovering calculus through the medium of group work actually isn't as good at getting the stuff they need to know into their heads than sitting down and doing a series of progressively harder questions.

My classes do a lot of answering questions in their exercise books. Inexplicably they get good results, and seem to enjoy maths. So I keep doing it, unless I'm being observed, at which point the sugar paper comes out.

I teach observed lessons to a plan which I've drawn up to tick all the Ofsted outstanding criteria; it may or may not be all right on the night, but it's not rocket science to make explicit the sort of evidence that'll keep the buggers happy.

Sometimes, though, what a group actually needs is a nice sustained wodge of reading interspersed with a class discussion, or a quiet 'writing an essay in timed conditions' lesson...