Every child I have taught has been given the best teaching I can offer yet you denounce teachers like me as lazy and demand more.
How dare you.
Every child I have taught works to their potential but if they don’t happen to meet your ‘every child’s the same’ national targets you accuse them as failing.
How dare you.
Every teacher I have worked with has shown strength in the face of media opposition, working tirelessly to ensure every child succeeds yet you accuse them of failing.
How dare you.
Every school I have taught in has demonstrated a belief that every child is to be respected, valued as individuals no matter what their ‘level’ and has been given every opportunity to be a child yet you and your inspectorate victimise them, blame them and fail them.
How dare you.
You are the cause of this. Your race to be the best in world league tables undermines the great work that thousands of educators do every day as you pursue results over learning.
You constantly berate rather than acknowledge and applaud the amazing work educators do.
How dare you.
You consistently blame others for missed targets rather than accept your changes have been to blame.
How dare you.
Who do you think you are? You do nothing to promote education. You promote enforced academia, rigour and discipline over creativity, collaboration and respect. You rush to shut schools to promote others that don’t need opening showing a complete disregard for those who have striven hard to make them happy places for learning.
How dare you.
Happiness is not on your agenda, nor creativity, collaboration, community or vision. My resolution for the new year is quite straightforward. I will seek to stop this blight you cause at every opportunity. I will ensure my classroom continues to learn freely and happily. They will learn when they are ready not when your league tabled results nor inspectorate system says they should be. Because we are all different, we are not data, we are not numbers to be counted, we are not ticks on sheets, we are not comments, we are not driven by assessment, we are not comparisons.
We are all learners, we are learning to learn in our own ways, in our own time, whenever, wherever we wish. We will challenge ourselves, we will applaud each other. We shall not blame, tarnish, strike down failure but rise to it and flourish in the directions it will take our learning.
We are learners and we will learn because we want to.
One week has passed with my class using Personal Journey’s, each one containing their very own personalised curriculum for the week ahead. Has the week been successful? Has learning improved? Well, one week is far too short to give detailed answers but I can say that personalising the curriculum for every child in my class has been an inspiring journey for me. I have watched in awe at children working their way through their learning, solving problems in pairs, discussing and thinking, coming up with solutions, offering suggestions and advice to their peers. It has confirmed my belief that if we give learners opportunities to follow a personalised approach they will fly.
