Always me: don’t read the letters page don’t read it don’t read it
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Always me: don’t read the letters page don’t read it don’t read it
Also me: fuck it. I’ll bite…
“I am a senior school leader in a comprehensive and I am clear that the act of suspension is not what causes poor life chances. It is the propensity for not respecting others, not working hard and not being willing to follow reasonable instructions that lead to suspensions and poor life chances.”
Arrrrrrgggghhhh.
It’s poor choices, not suspensions, that harm students’ life chances | Letters
Letters: Adrian Hartley says pupils who are suspended can sort out behavioural issues with the help of family and friends. Plus a letter from Kevin Buckle
the Guardian (www.theguardian.com)
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I am not a ‘senior school leader’, and if I was, I wouldn’t introduce that way because it would make me look like a wanker from the off.
I *have* done a stint teaching in comprehensives, but also I’m a scientist, and I look for the confounding factors, and try not to stop when I hit an answer I like the sound of.
Isn’t it JUST POSSIBLE that the suspensions, AND the propensity to… whatever he’s sermonising about, AND the poor life chances are all symptoms of a deeper root cause..???
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My first teacher training placement was in the kind of city comprehensive they write dark, gritty TV dramas about… I actually loved it.
But my mentor gave me a stern lecture on my first day: “Don’t come in here with an education-sets-you-free pitch. It means nothing. Lots of these kids are 2nd or 3rd generation unemployed. We will teach them. We will make them safe and confident for the hour they spend in our classroom. We will not patronise them with our privileged worldview.”
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I met kids who were playing up because they didn’t have the life chances to start with.
Lots of them with undiagnosed and/or completely unsupported ADHD, autism, dyslexia.
Lots of them were every bit as bright as I was at their age, but *they* didn’t have parents with 4 degrees between them and the systemic knowledge to navigate a neurodivergent kid through the education system.
And you can absolutely bet that some of them hadn’t even had breakfast.
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So, yes, when some prick in the letters page comes over sanctimonious about how these children - THEY’RE CHILDREN!!! - are making bad choices that will lead them down a bad path, I’m going to call them out as a self-congratulating ASSHAT.
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Who signs up for a career in teaching when they have so little feeling for the people they teach - especially the ones who are struggling. They cannot be good for schools, but Jesus… schools must also be singularly miserable for them!
Why did I love my time at that gritty comprehensive? Because I learned to see through the ‘naughtiness’ to the kids they were behind the facade… and then we had fun, and they learned, and I never had a single lab stool thrown at me! 🥰