I am on maternity leave. Whereas i love my maternity leave, I am missing my job A LOT! I still have a few months to go and whereas I started mat leave at the beginning of the year, I spent a lot of my pregnancy on sick leave!
So I feel TOTALLY alienated from the ins and outs of school.
So my question(s) is:
What's 'new' in the world of education since September 2014?
I know levels are now out, how is everyone assessing progress in their school?
What's happening with observations - how often and what's feedback like? Anyone still being graded?
Book scrutinies - how's that going? In or out?
I heard a very 'inspirational' speaker during a KIT day last week (professor, educationalist, university lecturer, worldwide speaker etc, etc) and he was STRONGLY encouraging HTs to ditch lesson onservations. His reasons - you cannot assess the performance and effectiveness of a teacher in one lesson, Children's progress cannot be measured or 'seen' in one lesson. Learning, and therefore, progress happens over a period of time. He was quite adamant about it!
Interested to hear about everyone's experiences of assessment, observations and scrutinies!
(I work in Primary!)