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Headless Chickens? Well, we do live in interesting times. Last week it was decided that, in order to allow school leaders to have Christmas Day off from monitoring Covid, schools could close to children a day early, as their education clearly wasn't that important, after all they would only miss one day and teachers could be made to stay at work and take advantage of an extra Inset day. Luckily all those end of term Christmas parties had been cancelled because of the need to keep children 2 metres apart even though they do not apparently spread the virus. This week, when an increasing number of schools are unable to stay fully open because their staff have succumbed to illness, the Secretary of State has issued a court order to insist that schools stay open even when local conditions suggest that closure would be a sensible decision. Am I detecting a certain inconsistency he...

Well that went well, didn't it? The first half- term is almost over now. Many schools have opened and then sent children home, some have closed for all but the children of key workers and those who are vulnerable. Most have kept it all together and done their best to create a good learning environment for those who have returned. Unfortunately no one was able to predict that schools reopening would cause a spike in the cases of Covid 19 among families, nor that the students who had been given such a difficult time about their A level results would find it difficult to trust the education establishment about going to university. Of course no one expected them to spread the virus as they attempted to kick over the traces in a parody of the freshers' weeks they had heard their predecessors enjoyed. But they obviously weren't supposed to realise that they had been convinced to...

CLOWNS? As children return to school today, I was reminded by an article from one of our founders John Coe What Parents Really Want that the most important aspect of school for parents is to see their children gain confidence, improve their social skills and be happy and I was further reminded by the various news reports where children have been asked what they are looking forward to most when they get back to school. The answer is universally “seeing my friends”. I do wonder how disappointed they are going to be if they can't be any closer than 2 metres, collaborative working and cooperation are removed as the norm from primary classrooms and their playtimes are at a different time and /or place from their friends. I am slightly bemused by the insistence that children are virtually immune to the virus but that they should be kept apart, I think the evidence shows that...

IT's BONKERS! Wouldn't it be great if people were given the rewards they deserve for all the hard work they put in? I was thinking about this as we await A level results, some surprising new peerages were announced and then when the results of Highers were published in Scotland last week. In a change to the advertised programme results were based upon teacher assessments instead of exam results. Some people might say this is a much fairer way of judging a child's ability, after all the amount of hard work done over a year is probably what should be measured. Unless you do something to restrict that. Let's look at the way grades are being apportioned. This is worked out by a computer that takes into account the school's performance last year and how well a child performed 5 or more years ago in maths and English and it seems that social factors are also taken int...

BIG PLANS   Some people say that the DfE is only interested in the English and Maths, but, as has become clear over the last few weeks, they are always prepared to learn the lessons of history.   This photo shows how we used to do it, with the SLT gathered round the fire in the autumn, planning for September. But Gavin knows better than this and his letter to Headteachers on the penultimate day of the school year is a timely reminder, telling them, as it does, to start planning NOW for September, especially with today's clarifications from the Prime Minister, that however late or slapdash your plan might be, that it will only be a conditional plan anyway and could therefore be changed at any moment. This approach to planning is getting close to how it should be done. The most accurate form of planning is always retrospective. This is similar to  w...