Ryan / Gilbert Inspirational Teachers Inspirational Learners

A Book of Hope for Creativity and the Curriculum in the Twenty First Century
1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-1-84590-723-5
Verlag: Crown House Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 288 Seiten

What is it that Inspirational teachers do differently? In short, they plan for their pupils to be inspirational. Many teachers who join the teaching profession do so because they were taught by inadequate teachers and they feel they can provide a far better and more exciting education for youngsters than they received themselves. Whereas other teachers speak with clarity of detail about stimulating and influential teachers who inspired their lives and now they want to do the same. This book is an examination of what our most inspirational teachers do in order to get creative and inspirational responses from children. It aims to put fun back into teaching, provide a framework for creativity in the twenty first century and act as a book of hope for the new curriculum proposals.

Will Ryan has worked in schools in Rotherham, South Yorkshire for over thirty years as a teacher, head teacher and Local Authority Adviser. As a head teacher he led a school that prized itself on genuine pupil creativity and was described by Ofsted as 'outstanding'. He is a speaker and Associate of Independent Thinking Ltd.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ryan, Will

Gilbert, Ian

Leseproben

The Curriculum is Designed
Not to Cover but Uncover

How Inspirational Leaders and Teachers
Create a Powerful Curriculum

The prior task of education is surely to inspire, to give a sense of values and the power of distinguishing in life as in lesser things what is first-rate and what is not.

Sir Richard Livingstone

Overheard in the Classroom

Pupil: Now we are in Year 5 will we be doing the Tudors? My brother and sister both did the Tudors in Year 5 and so did our next-door neighbour and he is seventeen now.

To be continued on page 65.

The Prologue

Are school car park gates more important than the curriculum?

This book takes the view that every child deserves to be taught by inspirational teachers who create an inspirational response from their learners through the creation of an inspirational curriculum. The core purpose of a school is to provide high quality memorable teaching and learning that leads to pupil progress and attainment. However it can be hard to be inspirational when the stakes are so high. Overall Ofsted reports on curricula in schools consist of a few bland statements. Inspection teams are weak at scrutinising the wider curriculum even though it is the lifeblood of the school. In recent years the government and Ofsted have discouraged any form of curricular innovation by making school leaders paranoid about limiting judgements relating to standards and safeguarding. During the autumn and spring of 2009–2010 Ofsted ran amok. The number of schools crashing into Ofsted categories of concern doubled whilst the proportion being judged outstanding halved. In March 2010 the Times Educational Supplement stated: ‘For heads, teachers and those who represent them these figures represent more than just figures. They represent lost jobs, ruined careers, damaged morale and schools already struggling in difficult circumstances being pushed into steeper decline as alarmed parents take flight.’24 The following week the same publication stated: ‘Heads are being advised that it is no longer worth their while complaining or appealing to an independent adjudicator about Ofsted inspections.’25 This was an extremely damaging time for many schools and fear levels rose to an all time high. So let me tell you the following story to illustrate how the ‘powers that be’ bled the confidence out of one organisation. I hope it makes you smile first and angry second.

It was a Thursday afternoon. I was in a meeting with two government officers when I was told that I had to meet an inspection team who were about to place a school into a category of concern because they were failing to meet safeguarding regulations. As a senior member of the school effectiveness service I was told that I also had to bring with me the council’s health and safety officer and the buildings manager. I arrived at the school in driving wind and rain. The institution had been told it would fail the inspection because there was a significant issue with the car park gates which had been left unlocked for a period of time on the first day of the inspection. We were told to meet in a small room at the end of a corridor that overlooked the car park and await the lead inspector’s arrival so that she could discuss the problem with us all.

It was now around 2 p.m. and the head teacher, deputy head teacher, buildings manager, health and safety officer and I were squashed into the room awaiting the arrival of the lead inspector. There was a door into the room on the right hand side, another door on the left hand side and a very large pot plant stood in the corner. Please do not forget the pot plant as it has a significant and starring role to play in this story.

As we looked out towards the offending car park gates a little blue van arrived, a man in overalls climbed out and proceeded to unlock the gates. He then entered the car park leaving the gates wide open behind him. The head’s heart sank, but she dived out of the room and accosted the driver of the van. She demanded who he was, how he had got the key and why he was there. He looked up and with a nervous tremble in his voice said, ‘I’ve only come for my missus – she works in the kitchen. I’ll only be ten minutes.’

The head demanded that he locked the car park gates straight away. As soon as this was done the now bedraggled head teacher dashed back into the room through the door on the left. A split second later the lead inspector entered through the door on the right. The doors opened and closed with the precision timing you might see in a Whitehall farce.

The lead inspector then went into a long lecture about the fact that the car park gates had been left open during the first day of the inspection and children could have wandered out, and that we all had to make a personal commitment that the gates would be locked in future. She also informed us that she would be writing our full names and job titles on her evidence form and sending it straight off to Ofsted as soon as the inspection was completed.

We duly provided the necessary information. We were all thinking of easing out of the cramped little room and escaping from the over-officious inspector when she added: ‘Just a moment. There is one final question to complete. If the gates are going to be locked how will the fire engines get onto the site in an emergency?’

The day before I had been reading in HELLO! magazine (or was it Cosmopolitan? – I’m a big fan of such publications!) that 34% of adult females had experienced some kind of fantasy involving a fireman. All of a sudden I had visions of fire engines screeching to a halt with sirens sounding and lights flashing saying, ‘We would like to put your fire out but we can’t get through the gates.’ It somewhat dampens their heroic image.

It was at this point that the so far silent buildings manager spoke up and said, ‘I don’t know if you are aware of this, love’ (that made the lead inspector bristle) ‘but fire engines are designed to rip gates open, but if you don’t believe me we can take that pot plant out and bring the fire officer in and you can write his name on your piece of paper too!’

One and a half hours had been spent on this ridiculous situation. It takes less than thirty seconds to say, ‘You need to keep the car park gates locked.’ By comparison the time and energy put into inspecting the curriculum was minimal.

Schools should create a curriculum based around powerful, memorable and well-structured learning opportunities that hook children into learning for the rest of their lives. The curriculum is the lifeblood of the school and this inspection report contained a few bland comments about the curriculum in just 125 words, which focused mainly on extracurricular chess and sporting activities. If you compare this with the energy that went into the safeguarding issue then you could easily take the view that car park gates are more important than the school curriculum. Here is one final thought. Finland, Singapore and Canada are three very high performing and yet contrasting countries in terms of education. However they do have one thing in common: they don’t have any equivalent of Ofsted!

Emerging from the dark ages

The prime duty of any school leader is to take a dynamic and inspirational lead on the curriculum. It is the lifeblood of the school and therefore should course through every vein to create a passionate community where everyone wants to learn, believes they have a duty to learn and a duty to help others to learn.

However the period since the advent of the National Curriculum has represented the ‘dark ages’ for curriculum design in many of our schools. Some writers have called the era the ‘ball and chain’ years. Wave after wave of centrally prescribed initiatives have led to some school leaders abdicating their responsibility for curriculum design and adopting a national one-size-fits-all model regardless of the school’s unique situation. Too often even when there has been a willingness for change the focus on testing, targets and league tables has resulted in a tired and impoverished curriculum. Over the last twenty-two years the policy makers responsible for educational reform have confused imposing structures with the fundamental purpose of education, measurement with accomplishment and the achievement of quick wins instead of longer term gains. In too many of our schools the definition of the curriculum relates to subjects and programmes of study that need to be covered – and ‘covered’ has been the optimum word. Too often very little attention is placed on deep learning or creating a set of knowledge, values and skills that will see a child through their life. Fortunately this is not always the case. In some schools inspirational leaders have set about creating their own outstanding curriculum that is personalised to the needs of the children growing up on the streets around the school. These leaders have become increasingly influential and the work of this minority is now starting to bring change. Even in those ball and chain years some of the peasants started to revolt!

Enter the inspirational mavericks

The word ‘maverick’ often has negative connotations. But I love the word! It is the people with maverick qualities who have the capacity to either bend or break the rules...