This term we’re going to try something different at Unteachable, and host a range of other teacher bloggers alongside an occasional rant from us.  Just let us know if you’d prefer more bile and less enthusiasm!

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.

These are without doubt exciting times. And you can feel the buzz all around the corridors at school. (Though there’s a good chance that might have more to do with some bad taste gossip concerning a certain physics teacher and his recently revealed predilection for recreating medieval battles in full traditional garb. I think a pupil even has a questioanable photo that seems to circulating via some form of social media…)

Aaaanyway, the scandal of the century that is consuming my every waking thought is whether i’d prefer things to be ConDem or LibLab. We’ve been discussing in class what the benefits for the school would be of each alliance, and I’m impressed at how well-informed some of my pupils are. Or rather, how sensibly they just want a government who is ‘going to give us lots of cash, Sir. Innit.’

Wise children indeed. Though I am still unclear on which marriage of evils would be best for us.

Pupil Premiums: No one has had the guts to say they don’t support this, but the details are hazy at best. LibLab would seem to be clearer on this, putting a specific sum of money into reducing class sizes and giving the power to headteachers. A ConDem option would merely focus on disadvanataged kids, which is vague at best.

Parental Involvement: You already know my views on this; and the ConDems would seem to support it, where LibLab would seem to be focusing more on closing special measures schools and starting Academies.

 Curriculum: LibLab plans for exams and an amended curriculum seems to be focused on making things easier, with a series of vocational subjects taking over. A ConDem plan would see us having more control over what we teach, and how we teach it, even offering international exams. That sounds pretty good to me.

University: Hard to see where the ConDems could reach a compromise here, with Cameron wanting to 10,000 more uni places available and Clegg wanting to scrap the 50% target for people attending uni. However, with Labour wanting 75% to go to uni, the LibDems may actually find more common ground with the Tories.

Bottom line, is that whatever we get will be markedly different to what we all thought we were voting for – which begs the question that has dogged discussions thus far. How can electoral reform not be considered a crucial part of any new government’s decisions when this hung parliament has left us with leaders and policies that bear no resemblance to what we hung our hopes (or resignation) on?

As the cloud of ash shot out into the sky from Eyjafjallajokull my inner geek shot out to catch it on the Internet and online volcano watching has consumed almost all my free time since the eruption.

I’ve been so distracted, in fact, that I almost missed out on the interest that Nick Clegg’s performance on the recent TV debates has stimulated in the Lib Dems. Now, it’s looking like their policies may have some relevance though, so I decided to have an ash-free weekend and do some catching up.

My starting point was Dan’s excellent overview of the manifestos and how similar they are. After reading that, I felt inspired to do a little further reading online and came across this really easy-to-read table comparing the offerings from the various parties on the Keystone education blog.

The most interesting part of the Lib Dem manifesto for me was the proposed end of KS2 tests and the introduction of ‘Teacher Assessment’ instead. I’ll be interested to read more about this over the next week and especially to see exactly how this would be implemented.

I was also interested to be reminded of the Tory proposal to only fund graduates with a 2:2 or above for teacher training. I know it caused a lot of fuss when they announced it but when you put it in context, it’s not such a big deal. Can you imagine any other course or graduate scheme giving funding to people with less than a 2:2? I certainly can’t.

The part of the Labour manifesto that caught my eye was the £10k ‘golden handcuffs’ for the best teachers. The idea of ‘golden handcuffs’ intrigues me for two reasons. Firstly, I wonder about the criteria for choosing the ‘best teachers’. Will heads have the power to nominate their ‘best teachers’ or is it just going to be based on statistics?

The second reason it attracted my attention was that sounded like some kind of unwritten James Bond novel: ‘The Teacher with the Golden Handcuffs’. Maybe he could charge £10,000 a class.

Since everyone from Sebastian Faulks to Charlie Higson seems to be writing new James Bond novels at the moment, maybe that’s what I should do to fill my free time once the elections are over…

I was late for my first class this morning, and when I got there I wasn’t exactly in a state to teach either. I didn’t have any handouts, and seriously, how can one possibly teach these days, without a handout? Thank god for the whiteboard; without it, and a motivational video that ran for half the lesson, I might have actually had to talk to the kids. Jeez.

Honestly, how can a school for 1000 pupils have only one photocopier? I have been trying to copy two pages from a book for my class for over a week. I made sure I left enough time to get it done, and have queued at the copier for an hour on Friday, but it breaks, always breaks. Or someone else had to copy the entire bible so then it ran out of ink, or the paper delivery hadn’t come, or the queue was filled with more important copying needs than mine (as usual). Or, as today’s excuse was, Joan in the office hadn’t had her coffee yet and therefore we weren’t allowed to disrupt her morning perusal of The Sun with the sounds of copying. Yes, of course, your the peace and quiet  is SO much more important than actually teaching the young minds of today. Way to go, Joan.

The government – whoever that ends up being – has been promising to reduce the ‘administrative burden’ they place on teachers for years. Increases in support and admin staff are meant to have eased the workload, and technology is supposed to have made it easier to do everything. But the situation hasn’t really changed. Sure, I print what I can off the internet, I use TES.com, and teachable,net and even teachernet.gov.uk, but then half the time the printer breaks as well.

I sometimes miss the days of blackboards, and chalk and simple exercises that got the kids motivated. And yet there’s so much potential out there, amazing resources that make lessons fun, and help the children to learn at a different pace – but actually getting access to them, and being able to use them in your classroom? Bloody hopeless.

So Election 2010 continues with the posturing and mud slinging between different political parties in full swing. As always it is education and healthcare that seem to get the majority of the attention, I just hope this time that someone starts to come up with solutions for the chronic problem of league tables. A blight that is massively failing a generation of learners.

League tables are causing schools to only concentrate on struggling pupils, or to simply make sure everyone passes. We’ve already seen that some schools are entering students in what they consider ‘easy’ subjects to ensure they get good grades; and I know from several colleagues that the pressure in our school is to focus on ‘borderline’ pupils to make sure they get their vital C grade, and not to worry about moving some of the brighter kids from a B to an A.

High aspirations are entirely gone, teaching today seems to be about being average and doing the minimum – everything is ab0ut league tables. We  have endless meeting about them, are shown spread sheets with targets and projected outcomes on. Teachers are being singled out for praise when everyone in their class is getting a C. This is not teaching, it’s target hitting.

Whoever gets voted in on 6th May needs address this problem, as much as they do any other, and yet it seems from all their manifestos that it will just be the same old same old.

After Rosie’s post on another dose of health and safety insanity, and the subsequent comments from teachers about how common sense has long since deserted the classroom, I thought it would be prudent to share this little gem that someone forwarded to me recently; a supposeduly genuine obituary for Common Sense…

“Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years.

No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as: Knowing when to come in out of the rain; Why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn’t always fair; and Maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well -intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.  It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an Aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason….

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers: I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I’m A Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.”

Amazing really that at least half of the decline of Common Sense is atrributed to the recurrent instances of woeful idiocy that litter our schools. Amazing, but not suprising.

Today’s image is from spring.org.uk

thanks flickosopher.com

Monday:A massive headache onset, followed by a twisted ankle as I managed the rampaging bus queue, topped off with a massive case of sneezing as I drove home, subsequently almost hitting a wall.

Tuesday: To be or not to be – Hamlet with Year 11 and a SEAL co-ordinator turned into an amazing lesson on revenge and honour…working with at least five kids who had gang-related allengiances made for a pretty intetresting hour.

Wednesday: That lull of awfulness that hits midweek was further exacerbated by a looming parents evening.

Thursday: Meeting with my newest recruit who used words like ‘inspired’ and ‘motivated to lead the learning’. Christ help us all.

Friday: Ducking out of a staff meeting to write this, and enjoying the free doughnuts and cup of real coffee, provided by my new recruit, trying to curry favour. It’s totally working.

I’m not sure what to think anymore – when pupils are supported by crazy parents, how are they ever supposed to learn?

We encouraged all our children to give something up during Lent. Either a food they liked, or television (yeah, funnily no one took up that option); computer games etc. The idea was to teach them about religous fasting, and also to get some discussions going about doing without, poverty, the concept of not having something you loved.

 Most of them went for a food. Chocolate, sweets, biscuits, meat etc. And it was going well, the children were keeping diaries about their experiences and what they missed. We had some good assemblies on fasting, and also on poverty in Africa and parts of Asia.

And then I was on lunch duty. One of the boys – we’ll call him Horrible Harry (it’s quite appropriate I assure you) – was screaming at the dinner lady. I intervened and it transpired that Harry was giving up vegetables for Lent – so couldn’t, not wouldn’t eat broccoli, spinach or carrots that day. Clever kid I thought, but called his parents anyway to explain how the ‘giving up’ scenario worked. 

“Oh we understand,” his mum assured me. “But he wanted to give up vegetables. And he doesn’t like them anyway so we thought it would be a good solution. And he wouldn’t find it too difficult.”

“Yes, but he’s supposed to give up something he likes. So he understands about not having things; it’s meant to be a learning experience for him. It’s not meant to be easy.”

“Oh.” She paused. “Well actually, he really loves vegetables. Yeah, loves ‘em. Tomatoes and carrots and all that. So, yeah. It’s hard for ‘im.” And she hung up on me.

Now I have to explain to a hundred other children who have given up things they love, why this child gets to give up something he hates. And you what they’ll say? And they’re right. It’s not fair.

Thanks Flickr

Ah, another day, another ridiculous idea from the silly men in nice suits. New teachers are to be tested on their desk side manner, apparently.

 According to the BBC tests will be done to ascertain whether teachers have the “empathy, understanding and passion to ensure they have the qualities to be a good teacher.”

 Every new teacher is positively brimming with empathy, understanding and passion – at least for the first week or so, until the great machine of educational doom sucks the lifeblood from them and leaves them the same as their more experienced colleagues. Brow beaten, defeated and really pissed off. These traits do not a good bedside manner make.

 The test will be done not with actual children of course, but with a range of ‘on-screen questions’; a foolproof plan surely?

 When confronted with a screaming child, do you:
a) run away

b) try to calm the child down

c) quit your job.

 You answered b? Well done, you may now progress to a real classroom for you are ready to inspire young learners.

 This is classic, classic ignorant crap. You are testing a teacher’s ability to empathise with, understand and show compassion to children – without actually exposing them to any children. Genius, pure unbridled genius that is.