Sixty Seventh Republic - under temporary guardianship

[Hercisback]

In the absence of staff and her fabulous thread titles and witty openers here is a 67th thread. The broom cupboard is overflowing so time for another Republic. Hopefully we hear from staff soon.

Stolen from thread 66.
'You are most welcome to this school staff support thread to get us through stressful times. It is meant for school staff only – a sort of room of requirement for school staff to let off steam.

Baiters, haters, goaders, and bashers can jog on somewhere else.

If you are NOT staff and just have a general education query please start your own thread.

Do not give the staffroom password to non-staff as it attracts the wrong sort of crowd.

Other requirements for staff room entry include the ability to find the staff room, the ability to find a clean mug in the staff room, knowledge of the photocopier codes, and the ability to sniff out where the booze is stashed - Thirsty Tuesdays, Fizz Fridays now in operation.'

I’m also not quite sure that’s what original sin means, is it?

Opinions vary, but for example, in the Catholic Church, baptism washes away original sin. So Catholic children don't have original sin and therefore don't need boundaries and routine?

It is a very bizarre concept to be tweeting about and I didn't think KB was religious? I got the impression that her school was about stoicism in ethos rather than Christianity.

Well my first thought was ‘I don’t suppose she means baptising them all.’

Rafa

Her recent tweet listing everything she now no longer does at Michaela that she originally shouted from the rooftops as being the best way when it opened, really highlights this.

Yes, weren't they so confident that they were right that they wrote a book about it? I mean, it's great that she's willing to change her mind and admit that she was wrong, but it's not great that she was promoting it as the one true way rather than an interesting approach and one to watch.

It was always their ‘we’re the only school with discipline and teaching attitude’ that rubbed me up the wrong way. In every other school all the children are feral and nobody every teaches they just stand around letting them discover stuff while beating the crap out of each other.

I also dislike the "we are the only school" rhetoric, but do think she was right when she raised systemic issues about behaviour and expectations across the system as a whole.

I still have discussions with colleagues that go like this:
Them: We need to look at what we teach Y8. Lola, you have bottom set. What should we do to engage the boys?

Me: a high quality text with enough time to focus on improving particular areas. We could have set standardised pieces, but beyond that each teacher could use the text to develop their group's weaknesses.

Them: that sounds nice, but what about boys? We also have a PP gap which we need to look at. Maybe we could do a project linked to football? Visit a local football club and do some writing.

Me: or we could pick an appropriate text and teach it well instead of sending a message that our disadvantaged students and boys aren't suited to English?

Them: maybe something about war, or Stone Cold, that'll engage them, something edgy, something topical.

Me: it might, war poetry could be good. We could get an anthology and look at how representations change throughout WW1

Them: or we could get a documentary about PTSD and war and they could write like they're a soldier.

Me: that could be interesting if we looked at shell shock, PTSD, soldier experiences, attitudes to mental health. We could do some good non-fiction coverage. What's the main focus of this scheme of work going to be so we can narrow it down?

Them: to engage the boys/PP

Me: what's the main curriculum focus though? Do Y8 need more poetry, or more non-fiction? What's our weakness area at KS4, could we start addressing it early?

Them: we need to address boys not doing as well, and the PP gap

Me: so the whole of Y8 will study a scheme of work with no curriculum justification other than 'we think war and shooting people will engage boys and disadvantaged pupils'?

(Bangs head on desk)

I think KB is good at pointing out that a lot of schools have avoided challenge, particularly at KS3. I also think she's right that there are lots of schools where it's warning after warning about behaviour and it affects learning. The phrase low level disruption should be banned in my eyes because it's disruption.

Doug Lemov got there first in Teach Like a Champion where he discussed the problem with trying to engage black disadvantaged students by teaching them hip-hop lyrics instead of Shakespeare.

Doug Lemov said that?
Really?

That surprises me. I rate him and it seems so far removed from his TLAC stuff.

Feeling like I need to dig my copy of TLAC out again as that bit didn't go in when I was reading it.

Disappointing Lemov, most disappointing

No, he was saying you shouldn’t engage them with hip hop, not that you should!

Must admit, while watching Back In Time for School, I have been hankering after the 80s and 90s. They downplayed Ofsted a bit but did show how everything was less exam mad and simpler and more fun for most of the kids. Literally the biggest problem was Tamagotchis.

Phew! For a second I started to doubt my reading of TLAC as its been a while since I touched my physical copy. That'll teach me not to read the thread properly.

Lemov is back on the good shelf again.

Piggy I've often told our students my time through school was a lot more chilled out than theirs, but if I was being honest I think a lot of my year group were let down if I put my teacher hat on. A lot of time was wasted and KS3 was very much 3 years of killing time.

Ks3 was very definitely wasted in the days pre-nation curriculum whilst those who had come from "good" primaries waited for everyone else to catch up. Especially in maths.

@DanglingMod

Ks3 was very definitely wasted in the days pre-nation curriculum whilst those who had come from "good" primaries waited for everyone else to catch up. Especially in maths.

That was my experience of going to secondary school and it definitely had a negative effect.

I mean humanities were "new" but weren't challenging at all. Neither was science or English. Maths was easier than primary school.

I was so bored at secondary school and dreamed of boarding school just because I assumed the work would be harder. What a weirdo

Genuinely the only new maths I learned in 5 years was the quadratic formula. Damn my amazing primary school.

I am old so I was teaching in the 90s. Much better for creativity and much less spoonfeeding.

Is TLAC any good? One of our SLT were very excited about it a couple of years ago, but a colleague said it was very primary focused...

I really wish my school would drop the 2 year KS3. It's basically a year of education they're missing so they can spend 3 years on GCSE. I'm not sure how it's even fair that children are competing for grades based on such different amounts of time spent doing a course.

KS3 is like a race through units at the expense of depth and.... freedom to take more time or vary pace and methods and go off piste a bit and do more cross curricular link type stuff? I am not putting it well but it's such a gallop and so condensed. Then three bloody years for KS4 which means year 11 is basically no new content and just revision and exam prep which must be dull as hell.

@HobnobbingAboutHobnobs

Is TLAC any good? One of our SLT were very excited about it a couple of years ago, but a colleague said it was very primary focused...

It’s certainly worth reading, I’ve picked up some good stuff from it.

There’s quite a lot in there that I’ve ignored too, but that goes for all teaching books!

But there's "less spoonfeeding" and there's no teaching at all at the other extreme. Secondary school was just so easy and therefore boring in my day (mid eighties on).

I agree honey.

This government just keep sinking lower and lower. In Rishi’s new budget, the new promised ECT starting salary of 30k has to come from school’s existing budgets and the existing budgets have not increased.

So, if a school is to appoint an ECT, they have to find 30k and fund their now 2 year ECT inductions years.

Bastards.

@DanglingMod

I mean humanities were "new" but weren't challenging at all. Neither was science or English. Maths was easier than primary school.

I was so bored at secondary school and dreamed of boarding school just because I assumed the work would be harder. What a weirdo

I WENT to boarding school in the 1980s. I skipped what is now Y7, took Maths early at the end of what is now Y10 (so 5 years of curriculum in 3 years) and was STILL quite bored for much of Y8.

My primary school wasn’t that great but we had Maths books that we worked through at our own levels, so it was easy to get ‘ahead’. I also had a bonkers teacher in Y5 who did proper science experiments and taught us to paint in oil with palette knives.

(I remember doing transformations by multiplying of matrices in Y6, for example)

@ChloeDecker

This government just keep sinking lower and lower. In Rishi’s new budget, the new promised ECT starting salary of 30k has to come from school’s existing budgets and the existing budgets have not increased.

So, if a school is to appoint an ECT, they have to find 30k and fund their now 2 year ECT inductions years.

Bastards.

Good. Then those of us who have experience and know what we’re doing will at least get the chance of an interview as we’re less disadvantaged by being too expensive (though I guess in reality there’ll be even more unqualified ‘teachers’ appointed)