At the chalkface Bigging it up


YOU’RE SLUMPED in the staff- room at the end of the day. You gaze at your knackered chums. Are they any good? Are you? Are you as good as them? As me? Better than that old dotard over there? Advanced skills? Or com- plete rubbish? Are you as good as that young superteacher with the Armani and memory stick? Are you exercised by this stuff?


Probably not. Well, perhaps you should be. The Education Select Committee wants you to be. It has just suggested that “good” teachers should get paid more than those of you who are not. Teaching should be performance-related and deadbeats should be consigned to soup kitchens. Divide and Rule stuff. I thought things


were roughly thus. Ah, but this is much more fierce. But wait, how do you


measure “good”? “Results!” say the Select Ones. Results. Merely results. “Good” teachers fill tots up with whizzo facts and nice grades and thereby enhance their little life chances in the market place. Result. Teaching is becoming like football management – you’re only as good as your last game or last lesson... or as you say you are. Couldn’t this lead to rampant


bragging, as practised by those goons on The Apprentice? What if this creepy-crawly culture takes off? It seems it already has. It’s all the go. Apparently, I should have done it. “You should have


bigged yourself up!” my destitute daughters would often tell me. The clot Crumlin concurred. “Wigwam yo big up! You could have made something of yourself, sir!” Heaven forfend! In my day it was poor form to go boasting thus. Embarrassing. We were all in it together, not for the pittance. Have you go any Biggy Uppies


in your staffroom? Always banging on how bleeding brilliant they are? How bleeding inspirational! Preening, self-regarding, self- aggrandising oafs, forever flagging up their very advanced skills to management. Like Ms Dazzle. “I’ve got such rapport with the


disenfranchised!” Or Mr Flash, who never


has any trouble with your more illustrious nutters, who has “really significant


interventions” with Dave Mania, who teaches Dante’s


Inferno in the original to freshly traumatised Kosovans, who has


just got Sidney Lunk into Balliol College Oxford, who gets all A*s, who grins like a born again Mormon in your slick prospectus – and who prompts tots to say things like “brill” on ratemyteacher.com. Pay them more? Never. They


should rather be fined for poor form and vulgarity. You simply can’t measure teaching thus. There are so many ways of being “good”. I’d like to think that staffrooms can resist this vicious nonsense. But for how much longer?


• Ian Whitwham is a former teacher at an inner city comprehensive.


News


Girl power: Caitlin Davies (above) from Howell’s School won the ReadThis Competition, while Sarah Fletcher from The American School won the Christopher Tower Poetry Prize


Girls scoop literary prizes by Emma Lee-Potter


Two talented schoolgirls have won major literary prizes – one for poetry and the other for encouraging youngsters to read her favourite book. Sixth former Sarah Fletcher


scooped the prestigious Christopher Tower Poetry Prize, an annual award to encourage aspiring poets aged 16 to 18. This year’s theme was “voyages”


and Sarah, a 17-year-old pupil at The American School in London, won the £3,000 first prize for her poem entitled Papa’s Epilogue. Sarah was presented with her


award at a special reception held at Oxford University’s Christ Church. One of this year’s judges, poet


and 2009 Costa Prize winner Christopher Reid, said: “I was delighted by the adventurous spirit of so many of our young voyagers, who took us to surprising places, sometimes by highly imaginative means of transport. The sea, life’s journeying and voyages through time were all used to good effect.” The Christopher Tower Poetry


Prize, launched in 2001, has a reputation for discovering exciting young poetry talent and many past winners have gone on to receive further acclaim for their writing. This year’s competition attracted


entries from 356 schools across the UK. Meanwhile Caitlin Davies, 12, a


year 8 pupil at Howell’s School in Llandaff, won the National Literacy Trust’s ReadThis competition. The idea behind the peer


recommendation challenge was for school children to choose their favourite book and promote it in the most creative way they could think of. Caitlin chose The Wedding


Planner’s Daughter by Coleen Murtagh Paratore and came up with a host of ideas to encourage youngsters to read it – from running a “design a wedding dress” competition to throwing a party in the


library, complete with bunting, cakes and a film-screening. She entered the competition because none of her friends had heard of the book and she wanted more people to read it. “It is important to think of


original ideas,” she said. “But I didn’t think I could win.” Other favourite books chosen


by highly commended youngsters included Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever, by Jeff Kinney, Withering Tights by Louise Rennison, and Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz. For more details, visit www.


literacytrust.org.uk/schools_ teaching/competitions/readthis and www.towerpoetry.org.uk/prize


FINAL THE 16


VOTE FOR YOUR FAVOURITE BIG VOICE FILM


Thirty-six films made by young people throughout UK schools and colleges are being showcased online as part of BT’s Big Voice competition - part of its Education Programme supporting the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.


The ideas for the films, covering issues like eating disorders, disabilities, homophobia, teenage pregnancy, bullying, drink driving and litter as seen from a young person’s perspective came from youngsters, aged between 11 and 19.


The 36 films were chosen from more than 100 submissions from across the UK. They each received a £1,000 grant from BT to produce their film and were partnered with film students at local universities and colleges who took the lead on the film production.


A ‘People’s Choice’ winner will be awarded and you can go online and vote for your favourite film at


www.bt.com/bigvoice


SecEd • May 17 2012


Photo: Ralph Williamson


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