As trailed on twitter… a short round-up of annoying things controlling schools still do that have no basis in evidence. 1. Grade individual lessons There is no justification for this in terms of professional discourse. It’s voodoo; a control device. No human observer can reliably maintain graded judgements over time, let alone ensuring that this … Continue reading
On Friday 23rd February I gave talk at the Headteachers’ Roundtable Summit on the theme of assessment and workload. This blog captures some of the main points. I’ve been exploring this theme is various other places too so, to avoid repetition, please also read: Towards an Assessment Paradigm Shift – how we need away from macro … Continue reading
On my travels I’ve encountered schools that are doing brilliant things without resorting to short-cuts, without saying that they’ve sacrificed their principles to satisfy external pressures and without making life miserable for their staff with ugly brute-force whip-cracking performance cultures. Some schools are lovely to work in because leaders increasingly recognise the power of building … Continue reading
Everyone is talking about workload and rightly so. It’s even becoming a line of enquiry for inspections. The folk up at Wizard of O HQ are banging on about it – because they are the new Good Guys – and Headteachers now have an extra incentive to make sure they are doing something. This time, … Continue reading
When things get out of control, work is very stressful. The solution is to take control. In numerous school scenarios, I’ve found that it helps enormously to seize control out of the chaos by pressing the Reset Button: clearing it all away and starting again. This applies to marking, behaviour management, emails, reports and general … Continue reading
Recent Comments