Performance is currently the clear front runner when it comes to assessing school effectiveness. Accountability is the keyword, evidenced by exam results backed up by a consistent discipline regime. This was emphasised this month in the English education secretary’s reference to children’s behaving in ways that promote performance, “… if they choose not to do so, then they need to be held to account where […]
Children and young people who struggle to meet the demands of school are facing the additional stresses and changes brought about by the pandemic. Many of them who were struggling before the virus appeared will have suffered loss, bereavement and the effects of social isolation and ruptured relationships. We now have clear scientific evidence on the links between stress and behaviour; learning is only possible […]
The need to find solutions to the complex problems children face has never been more urgent. We’re in a time of high stress, constant change and stretched resources. The same holds true for the school staff who are working hard to keep students on track for learning, safely and productively. Usually we can hold most children securely in school, we teach them the rules and […]
Responding to Covid19 Recently I wrote about the distinctly different responses we could take to the changed practices and new thinking Covid19 is demanding in schools. Option 1, routinely promoted by the DfE, is to put everything into the pre-pandemic box, with the routine use of punishment to control ‘bad’ behaviour, hitting children hard with exclusion as the weapon of choice if they go wrong. […]
Emotional health in childhood ‘is the key to future happiness A London School of Economics study “What Predicts a Successful Life? A Life-course Model of Well-being” (Economic Journal 2014) offered “a completely new perspective on which factors contribute most to a satisfying life”, namely wellbeing, challenging “the basic assumption of educational policy in recent years – that academic achievement matters more than anything else”. (Guardian […]
