If you’ve ever wondered why we’ve not won the World Cup since 1966, this article on the Times Education website might answer the question for you. Apparently, the local council in the article has a “trophy-free” policy to ensure children express themselves “without the focus on the result”.

I could understand this for activities such as music or dance where you can have fun without any competitive element. With sports like football, though, there’s not much point in doing them unless there is a winner.

I’m glad the parents managed to get the competition reinstated in the end and I hope whichever team loses this year won’t end up too traumatised.

Hopefully with all this drama cleared up, the local council will be able to get schools to focus on areas where it’s really important to remove the competitive element – like Chess Club.

This post kind of harks back to something I’ve been complaining about for, and it’s an issue that is really starting to concern me. I have some bright kids in my class, and some totally hopeless ones. They both need attention. But plans to take even more money from the Gifted and Talented programme and give it to bright kids from deprived backgrounds (again) seems to show that there is only one group of interest to politicians.

We have so many initiatives and schemes already in place for the kids from deprived backgrounds; special reading groups and measures with one-to-one tutoring. Extra funds and rewards for those pupils who acheive that crucial C grade at English or Maths. We talk about our ‘deprived kids’ in staff meetings, and attend lectures on social mobility. But I can’t remember the last time I heard someone say something about ensuring some our brightest kids achieve the best they can. In fact the general consensus is that they’re likely to get an A or a B, so why bother? They’ll be fine; we’ll hit our league table targets. All is good.

This attitude is failing kids in exactly the same way that we are always accused in the press of failing kids from deprived backgrounds. These bright kids have a certain potential, and we are not pushing them to fulfil it for fear of not doing enough for the less able pupils. It’s like some kind of inverted elitism. When did we stop caring about being the best and just settle with, that’ll do?