In the 37 years since I started teaching (25 of those as a head), many things have changed. Chalk has been replaced by smart boards and screens, we have a national curriculum, and sadly we also have a remarkably hostile regime of targets, monitoring and control, unimaginable when I started out in 1978.
But some things don't change. Take the playground spat. When required to sort out inter-student conflict, we must as ever seek the truth, Solomon-like, between contradictory claims. "He said..." "I never did!" Thus we battle on.
It's disappointing, however, when government and the media start behaving in that way, as happened recently. It started with the Daily Telegraph trumpeting that state schools are now outperforming independents. A comparison of the top 500 state and independent schools used A level points scores (a curious measure, since selector universities require particular grades rather than points), claimed to show state schools doing better in total.
Register now, read forever
Thank you for visiting SecEd and reading some of our content for professionals in secondary education. Register now for free to get unlimited access to all content.
What's included:
-
Unlimited access to news, best practice articles and podcast
-
New content and e-bulletins delivered straight to your inbox every Monday and Thursday
Already have an account? Sign in here