Is it the greatest, or is it just standing on a box?

I follow all sorts of nonsense on twitter, as you would expect.   I follow this brilliant thing called classic photos (@History_pics), which links into lots of historical photographic sites.  The other day I saw a photo with the legend “The world’s biggest horse!”, and my first though was, of course, “How do they know?” My second though was “Is it standing on a box?”

Many are hailing this summer’s world cup as the best one ever.  I admit it largely passed me by; I was allowed to iron along to the Brazil-Germany mismatch, but other than that, I wasn’t bothered.  It appears to have been open and entertaining and full of the usual stories of heroes, villains and daring do.  As far as I’m concerned, Italia 90 will always be the best ever world cup, but that is tinged with rose-tinted nostalgia, and the fact we had a team, a manager worthy of the name and a chance greater than a prayer.  But again, you have to ask, how do they know?  How will it be measured?  Goals? People watching globally? Oral hygiene?

I’ve always preferred it when greatness has come tinged with a hint of irony, such as Tenacious D’s “Best and Greatest Song in the world Ever….tribute”.  But who’s to say it wasn’t, and how will it be measured?  When I was younger I used to read music magazines religiously, and at least once a year they would compile a “100 greatest albums ever” chart.  It invariably ended up with the Beatles’ Revolver coming top, but again, how is it measured?  Who’s to say that the two best albums this year (Crimson / Red by Prefab Sprout and Love Letters by Metronomy since you asked) will not soon send Revolver toppling?

It’s all about the measuring.  The benchmarks.  The indicators. 

Regular fliers of my blog will recall that I predicted a few weeks ago that our outcomes – our measures – were not looking too clever.  Sadly, and highly unpredictably to many of the women I work with, I was right.  I was gutted.  Devastated.

I felt like I had been kicked on a thousand fronts, but not one of them about me.  I have enough self-loathing in the tank for any man.  No, I was gutted for the kids, and for the staff who have worked so hard. How will we be measured, if the measurements do not give an accurate reflection?  It feels as if we will be measured using a picture of the school that is 10 years out of date.  And blurred.  With a coffee ring in the top corner.

I will not list the reasons why things did not go our way, and why I predicted this downfall; the world hates a whinger, or, at least I do.  What I will tell you is why I was so gutted.

We know our teaching as good, if not better.  We know our methods, our procedures and the anal systems we have imposed work.  One candidate told us this summer at interview “I want to come here because all the staff say you make teachers even better.” Anyone who has visited has only offered praise.  But the measurement isn’t there.  The world’s biggest horse is simply standing on a box.

We know that the quality of our work is stunningly good, again for all of the above reasons.  One candidate told people he wouldn’t need to keep his books that way.  He left shortly after that comment. 

The opportunities we offer our children are many fold.  Today’s core visit was held between a 1980s party and key stage 1 participating in the Big Bear hunt. Yesterday 120 children went to the farm and I took year 6 swimming.  We have had to plan not one but 4 music assemblies in order to show off everyone’s skills.

 It’s all there, but it’s not measurable.

3 weeks ago we took 14 children up to London (my biggest nightmare ever – measured by the amount of grey it gave me) and won a national reading recovery award.  It’s great, we’re in the Evening Post and we now possess a Darlington Crystal obelisk. 

We now have a PTA – first time in my time at the school, completely set up by people outside the leadership, and brilliantly supported already.

Our school improvement work has already started, and we have 8 projects running concurrently during the summer.

Our school has grown from around 200 to over 300. And we have a Children’s Centre.  When I started we had 206 children and were on the way down – now, across the entire organization, we have close to 450 children and 100 staff.  Will it get a mention?

But the very things on which we are judged may well become defunct, and any assessor may well toss them all aside whilst stamping a huge and damning “Must Try Harder” across our ever improving track record.  

This kills me.

There is another train of thought.  Perhaps we are suffering from “Inverse Expectational Proportion” or IEP.  It would be in all the recent medical journals had I not just invented it.  It is a difficult paradigm to adjust to, but allow me to offer you the basics.  Perhaps what is upsetting us the most is the fact that we have risen our expectations so high that aligning ourselves to previous thresholds is not agreeable.  We will have (fingers crossed) another 7 100% attenders for the whole year next week.  2 years ago that would have been amazing.  Now it’s just…what we do.

Writing results in the 70s two years in a row would’ve been unthinkable 2 years ago.  It’s just what we do. 

As for children taking level 6 … it’s what we do.

If you measure it via a balance of time versus progress made over an evolutionary continuum as opposed to quantifiable empirical data, then you’re not having a lot of fun if you’re the kind of saddo who knows what half of those words mean.

 I’d prefer to sum it up thus:  we know, in our heart of hearts, that we’re on the right track.  We know how good our teaching is, how good our work is and what we achieve for the lives of the children and families of Southmead on a daily basis.  We continue to be proud to serve the children and families from Doncaster Road, over to Pen Park and between Greystoke Avenue and Southmead Road.  And anywhere else for that matter.  It was never our job: it was our privilege.

The measure perhaps should be woven into the cobbles of Greystoke, instead of coldly dissected at Whitehall. 

Let me conclude another year’s worth of utter edrivel by saying a simple “Thank you” – to our children for their unswerving efforts to be better; to our staff for buying into chronically high expectations and delivering exceptionally high standards (both measurable and non); to our governors for standing by our convictions; to the community for the support they never fail to give us.  One thing that will remain utterly unmeasurable is how proud I am to be the head of our organization, and my feelings about what we have collaboratively built.

Have the most wonderful of summers everyone.  Next year, we aspire-achieve-enjoy even more.

That, with my inestimable gratitude, is all.  

It ain't over til the fat bloke sings, but, to be honest...

Reports went out today.  That always feels good.  As a staff we completed our final piece of shared monitoring last night, and, a few loose ends aside, I have finished my drop-in observations.  Our NQT reports are complete, and the mammoth work undertaken on our new curriculum is bearing fruit.  We have completed the teaching body for next year, and, all in all, things are going in the direction I intended. On top of all this, I am of course looking forward to a certain trip to London tomorrow...

That is not to say that we are about in anyway to take our feet of the pedagogical peddle; far from it.  There are still a number of projects I want to conclude / polish / initiate before we end term 6, and we are planning to run several school improvement and environment projects during the summer.  We've already started some (ask dear year 4 - they had to bear the brunt of some of it today, which they did with monumental stoicism).

By the way, a note on reports.  I am bowled over, every year, by the care and attention teachers put into the report system, and the genuine relationships that are reflected therein. It is a testament to the work of dedicated teachers how they manage, year after year, to create such celebratory reflections of an enormous proportion of a child's life.  A few typos and "cut-and-paste"-os aside, I didn't read a bad one.  Thank you team.

However, I have been in a state of mulling recently.  I do not mean simmering in a vat of wine with some oranges; I mean engaged in pondering.  Reflecting.  Considering.  Much, much car thinking (as you know, on the Willis scale of thinking, the second highest) has gone in recently to what I feel will be the true outcomes of this year.

The evidence of this year is plain to see, and has been repeatedly validated externally: our teaching is the best it has ever been; our environment is wonderful; our books are exemplary; our parents' opinion of our school, and indeed the children's, has improved significantly.  Writing our SEFs this year has been no chore.  Yet I have been forced to mulling the implications of the first sets of data that have reached me.

Our EYFS data, externally scrutinised and praised, is lower than our ambitious targets.  Key Stage 1 looks pretty good, especially the homegrown data, but falls a little below targets.  Our attendance is lower than last year due to an awful term 2.  SATs week, despite the best efforts of the majority of year 6s (one of whom now calls me "Dude" in a way that demonstrates his contempt for my musical tastes), did not go as well as I would've hoped.  It's all okay, and it reflects the children and the cohorts well, but it's not quite ... there.

So I've been thinking: what could I have done differently?  Could I have challenged something sooner?  Was a greater change required at some point?  Why will we stop making progress?  How will it be viewed?

My biggest worry has been ensuring that my staff will not feel as if they have not done their jobs this year: they have, admirably and with great skill, sensitivity and openness to challenge, in the face of some extremely poor behaviour.  Almost all teachers have improved, and I can point to more outstanding teaching over time than at any other point in my time at the school (or indeed, my time in any other).  Support colleagues have been a source of ever improving joy, and we now have a dining hall and food to be proud of.  In terms of unmeasurables, the standards this year have been off the as yet uninvented chart.

So you see my dilemma.  A school that is exceptionally hard working, not just according to us but to others as well, but outcomes that do not necessarily evidence this.

Many of my staff will be surprised at this next statement but it is the truth.  I was worried.

There you go.  I've said it.  I was worried, hence the pondering, mulling, what have you.

Then it struck me, one evening in the car, half way between a Prince track (back when he was Prince) and a Magic Numbers track.  The truth, when you discover it, is simple.  The truth is this:  we were always going to have a year, sometime in the not too distant, when we didn't improve in every measure.  When your maths results go from the 50s to the 90s in 4 years, I suppose there has to be a point at which they dip back down.  When writing in key stage one goes from consistently below 50 to consistently above 65, it was always going to remain constant at some point.  Our attendance cannot improve 6% in 3 years and still go higher ... can it?

Either way, I have worried a little less, and mulled over a slightly lower flame.  The outcomes may not be there, but I am confident of this: the provision is, the expectations are, and, as of Tuesday, the new team is.  Continuous school improvement can continue in the absence of the figures.  And, besides, I don't have all the figures yet.

Except for wishing BK and the governors the best of luck tomorrow, that is all.

PS My wife has asked me to inform you all that, apparently, I have not seen my last camp.  I have simply seen my last camp "for a while".  I have yet to be informed what this means #wifehashiddenagenda

Will he won't he 2014

So, the news is out.  The BBC, ITN, Points West were all at the press conference.  Reuters have been brought up to speed, and the lucky ones who were in the room at the time have been interviewed, their images bounced around the globe in the syndicated clips from the press.  What are they reporting on?  Of course, the big news from Badock’s Wood:

I am NOT going to camp this year.

Many regular subscribers to this nonsense will know that the will-he-won’t he decision about my Exmouth attendance is an annual internal monologue.  After the success of last year’s camp – which I swore would be the last – I started to waver.  Could I do it?  Could I manage one more?  What would be the ramifications if I did? I just started to think about it …

…when I had a change of heart, and a decisive one.  The amount of grey looking back at me in the mirror made me do it.  No, camp didn’t need me, and there were other people waiting in the wings, trained by yours truly, to take up the baton.  So I had made the decision.  I was happy with it.  I even did the most final-nail-in-the-coffin thing imaginable: I told the wife. 

So that was that.

It was no secret that I planned to pass the baton over to a fellow camper from last year, and a few selected others.  So when one of the chosen informed me one Monday morning that she wouldn’t be going, I had to do some radical rethinking.  Could I really?  Should I really?  Could I tell the wife I had been wrong?

Then, one evening, some of the others started to circle around me.  I sensed a trap, and trod with extreme care.  This could go badly. I might have to agree to something I didn’t want to. Or, even worse, spending money.  As it transpired, we wanted the same thing, ie, they wanted to go and I didn’t.  Negotiations began.  Negotiations continued.  An amicable settlement was reached.  The decision was made again.  It took the best part of 11 seconds.

I should point out at this point that the decision has nothing to do with my feelings about camp:  I still love it, and will continue to support it whether I go or not.  However, people throughout BS10 must have wondered what that strange noise was recently: it was my knees, my back and my right hip breathing a huge sigh of relief when they found out I wasn't going.  

There are, I freely admit it, things I won’t miss.  Such as:

• ·         Wrestling children into bed on that first night;
• ·         Telling them, for the seventh time, they do not need another wee at 11.45pm;
• ·         The zig zags;
• ·         The smell of the drying room.

However, in making the decision I would not go, it meant making certain sacrifices.  I will miss, miss terribly:

• ·         Watching the sheer joy on people’s faces;
• ·         Being a privileged observer of the successes;
• ·         The excuse to eat clotted cream on a flapjack at any time of the day;
• ·         Standing in the middle of the sea, with children surfing all around me, and thinking “I did that”.

Those who know me best know that it is this last one I shall miss most of all.

On the day, I shall wave the gang off with much excitement on their behalf, and not a little envy on my own.  But I am extremely happy in my decision, and hope that my small contributions to the event will make a difference.  (And I will still pop up on watersports day.)

Because here’s the truth: when it comes to memories, I have a tent full.  For every hour of sleep lost, I have a memory gained, an unforgettable moment shared, some magic woven.  It’s time for others to be let in on the treasure trove I have been privileged to gaze into for many years now, and I don’t begrudge them a second.    When I see them off the bus on the Friday evening, suntanned faces and exhaustion heavy, but full of new found life force, I will take no small pride in what my colleagues and our children achieved.

Magic is still magic, however far away you have to stand to weave it.

From me, that is all.

What Nanny Willis (might've) said

As term 5 comes hurtling to an all-too-soon curtain, I wish to make an alarming confession:  I have tried to write a blog several times this month, only to find myself despondently stabbing the crumple and throw into the forlorn looking bin button.  So much has happened, so many things cemented (and demolished) that I have sat at my laptop three times and tried to blog, but have miserably failed.

One idea occupying my ethoughts has been displays and learning environments.  Although I still have much to say, these seeds are still waiting to take full shape in the unloved, overgrown weed patch of my mind.  Improvement planning has also been at the forefront of my mind, but that's not a blog - at least not one that will make sense to anyone other than those who have the misfortune to be paid to sit in a room and listen to me ramble on about pedagogy.

Mostly, I have been thinking about positivity.  The power of positive thinking / talking / acting / being.  As term 5 is so short, I have reasoned with staff and pupils, how on earth can it not be fun?  How can our attendance be anything other than brilliant?  With so few chances, why wouldn't you make your books amazing?  Our assemblies have been filled not with answers, but with questions, and I have done no singing this term - just dancing (much to the chagrin of year 5).  Let's keep it upbeat everyone.

However, you can't do this halfheartedly.  You cannot be positive on a whim.  A painted smile is no smile at all.  You need to embody it, empower it, live and breathe it.

Because it's infectious.  It's relentless.  It's brilliant.

You get a small group of people - a happy cabal if you like - who start it off, and you can't stop it.  Although the feeling is undeniable, you can't really sum it up, until small but incredibly important things start to occur: children rewarding teachers in assembly, children giving up their lunchtime to volunteer, reconciliations being forged of their own will, a game of volley ball at lunchtime that encompassed ages 5 to ... 37 (she says.  We think it's more like 42 but, hey ho).  Even I got in on the act, offering to take a forfeit if key stage 2 could do the unthinkable and keep the toilets clean.  They did.  I took it.  Days of pain ensued.

May dear old Nanny Willis always used to say: "When it comes to positivity, you lay the ground work, and the building builds itself." (Alright, she never technically said it, but she was a thoughtful, very, very funny lady who never, even in her most painful, asthma ridden years, stopped smiling.)

It has been such an enjoyable and successful term, for all sorts of reasons, made all the more remarkable that it lasted a grand total of 23 working days.

But here's the real big news, the thing people keep forgetting - the best thing about term 5 is that it's followed, like an overly enthusiastic spaniel, by term 6.  And what better time is there to really kick start new projects, than term 6?

Sure, we're trying to cram even more in than we did in terms 3, 4 and 5 combined, such as reports, sports day, curriculum planning and transition, into an ever decreasing number of days, but what promise! What optimism!  Amongst all the usual fun, we have so much to look forward to (and I genuinely mean look forward to - no joke intended).  A new curriculum, new methods of assessment, new colleagues, new ideas.
You see, there is nothing more positive than the promise of something utterly new and exciting.  Except maybe, a happy cabal in a primary school.

Keep on smiling everyone.  You never know who you might infect.

Until the craziness that is term 6 is in the ascendancy, that is all.

The BIG Questions? Oh, you mean the REALLY BIG questions...?

What is everyone so worried about?  What’s the fuss?  It can’t be that awful, can it?

As a professional, surely we should be taking our creativity and expertise into overdrive, shouldn’t we?  Why should we be asking “why?”? Why aren't we demanding, hands-on-hips indignation, “why not?”?

I think this can be great, can’t it? In fact, could we go so far as to say that this could be our finest hour?

Only when we ask the big questions do we get anywhere, don’t you think?  That’s why we had the idea that the new curriculum should be loaded with questions, shouldn’t it?  These are only our first suggestions – we hope you like them – what do you think?

“How do you make the purple, and how does it sound?”

“How many Bristols are there around the world?”

“Where did that mountain come from?”

“Was Hadrian's building firm the first example of private enterprise?"

“What do those musical notes actually mean?”

Don’t you think that sometimes we get far too obsessed with answers?  When did the questions become less important?  The joy, the craft, the sheer art of discover surely never started with someone saying “I know that already thanks” did it?  Did we get as far as we have by people like Mozart / Moliere / Michael Angelo / Madge from Neighbours saying “It’s alright lads, we’ve got this one covered”? 

Did the code breakers at Bletchley, or the people who deciphered the Rosetta Stone, or the people who attempt to listen to Shane McGowan, all start with an answer?

Don’t you think this could be great?  Shouldn't we be using this as an opportunity to design and build something really exciting?  For once, couldn't we do it as a united profession that shows everyone how creative and passionate we are?  Did I leave the iron on?

Could we not take this new curriculum, with all its little idiosyncrasies, and transform it into something truly amazing that children up and down the land will be desperate to discover?  (Maybe the kid who put question marks after everything in Thunders and Lightning had a point after all?)

It could be amazing, couldn't it? Why not?

That is all….?