'It was all going well until about 18 months ago. That, to me, was when everything changed in education. It went crazy. Free periods were no longer about spending time on my classes and the future of our department. After school time stopped being about giving children extra help and running extra-curricular clubs that would nourish their passion for my subject.
'Suddenly, those things were no longer important. What was important now was data. Six times a year we were required to fill out little boxes about every single child we taught. Not meaningful comments designed to help children progress, just grades and numbers in boxes.
'The columns swam in front of my tired, admin-hating eyes. Instead of being trusted to manage our departments' assessment programme, we had to do "work sampling" every half term, as though our colleagues were not trusted professionals. It felt like sneaking. And worst of all, we were expected to produce formal exams for every single year group at the end of every term. Every term! That's seven meaningful exam papers every term in a practical subject that gets one period per week of teaching.
....
'You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned Gove yet. Well, that's mainly because I actually think that it's not just about him. It's about the way that schools have reacted to his changes. From what I can see, the main way is with knee-jerk panic. No pedagogical thought and intelligent debate went into the decisions at my school. It was fear. Education has become a horror film in which senior leadership teams are just trying to keep the wolves from the door by any means possible, and it's happening everywhere.'
Footnote: I know if it should be 'data are...' but the is data the glomerate beast, not intelligible bits of information.
