Reflections of an ex-head teacher

Firstly, despite what the social media controversy vampires would have you believe, she didn't 'ban' Easter. If any of these ridiculous publications bothered to read the fine print, they would see that the decision was made not to hold an Easter Bonnet Parade or Easter Service this year.  Unlike many of the 'experts' who have commented on this decision, as an ex-head of a primary school who made the same decision a few years ago, I am writing from a position of knowledge. This head teacher has made the right decision, and I will try to explain why. As the more balanced BBC reported in its coverage of the story, the children will still learn about Easter in R.E. (hint: it stands for Religious Education), but that doesn't make a good headline, does it? They will learn about all religions and their cultural practices as schools have a curriculum that we have to follow to ensure that all schools celebrate the diversity of our country. If we have to 'teach' r...

Quite a few of my posts have been about things I passionately believe should be part of the modern classroom experience for our children, but today, I want to tackle something that should be banned from this day forward. It is something that we have all used, me included, and I bet that on World Poetry Day last week, there were quite a few of them produced up and down the country. If I were a contestant in the brilliant TV show 'Room 101', the dreaded Acrostic would be near the top of my list, and here's why... Absolutely pointless Creatively restrictive Really boring to write Only given as busy work Spelling focused and not 'poetic' in any way Task completion is the focus and not the quality of the poem I hate writing them Challenging, in no way whatsoever! Can you see what I did there? I think I proved how boring acrostics can be! Samuel Taylor Coleridge described poetry as "the best words in the best order", which is the quote I would always share with ...

This is my 66th blog post. I have been doing this for a few months now, and I think I am slowly getting better at it. So, I thought it might be fun to revisit some of the first posts I wrote back in November last year, re-edit them, and hopefully improve them. I have chosen to start with the post I wrote about attendance because I feel like I am now better able to explain my position on this sensitive issue more clearly. I also have some new information to add to what I originally wrote, which adds weight to my argument. I won't delete the original post, though, just in case anybody wants to read it to compare the two. School attendance is what you would call a 'hot button issue' at the moment, and quite rightly, it has been in focus since the end of the pandemic. Ofsted identified it as a priority in their annual report at the end of last year, and no one would argue that schools are right to continue to aim for the highest possible level of attendance. It seems to me, tho...

Being a reflective sort, as teachers tend to be, I had some further thoughts following yesterday's publication of my first article for Headteacher Update. Here is a link to the article if you would like to read it: https://tinyurl.com/yc74jux9   I want to start by name-checking the headteacher I worked for early in my career, as he helped me see that it was possible to be the kind of leader I wanted to be. All of the ‘ten commandments’ in yesterday’s article could be applied to his leadership, even the one about learning the names of all the children, and that was quite an achievement for him as we had around 500 pupils in our school! So, thank you, Bruce Dale, for inspiring me to follow my instincts and be myself. Since sending in my article, I have been thinking a lot about why the headteacher-pupil relationship is so meaningful, and I want to mention one aspect I neglected to write about initially. It is a fact that this relationship is likely to be the longest and most signific...

So, the plan was to go to Tesco and get some milk first thing this morning before sitting down to write part two of my blog about kids' television from the 1970s. On my short journey to the supermarket, I pass three primary schools (it's actually one infant, one junior, and a primary school, to be exact), and today, I noticed that something was different about the children, which changed my plans for the morning. I was surprised to see  quite a few wizards, several minions, a company of firefighters and some old-fashioned robbers in stripy jumpers carrying their bags of swag with them on their way to school. Plus, I had the easiest game of 'Where's Wally?' ever as there were at least four of them!  Then I realised, of course, that it's World Book Day today. There are lots of special days that form part of the school calendar, and it is really weird now to be away from all that, as so many must be passing by without me realising. I just checked, and World Book Da...