Pathways To Inclusion

I wanted to write about a conversation I have pretty much every year. Variations of it, at least. A Mum will be on a tour, an open evening, some visit to my school and she asks to speak to the SENCo. Because her child has somehow ended up at the tail end of Year 6 (how time flies!) and now she’s not quite ready to let him stumble into this strange, labyrinthine school of mine without saying a few things first. Because our head has been busy painting a picture of the model student who he wants to see passing through our doors in September, and she knows that her child doesn’t quite... fit into that mould. Because she knows that he might do something in the early days that could give the wrong impression. And this is another opportunity for a fresh start, perhaps one of his last, and she's scared he might say something or do something that might spark that old cycle, that downward spiral. Do something that might lead us to reject him. And at that point, she knows she won’t be there h...

There are no easy answers to the 2020 grading problem, that much is clear. The disgruntled murmurings in Scotland may be nothing compared to the cacophony of anguish we’re about to be subjected to on this side of the border over the next couple of weeks. There are going to be some very distressed students, and parents - understandably, justifiably so. I sympathise with those suggesting that we should just let all teacher predicted grades stand without moderation. But on the other hand Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney do have a point when they say that this would rather undermine the credibility of the system on which we apparently have come to rely. The question we should now be asking is: are we ok with being  completely reliant on a system whose ethical foundations are so shaky in the first place? Clouds (1905) by Arkhip Kuindzhi The main aim of the algorithms used to adjust this year’s scores appears to be to preserve the credibility of our exam grading system - thr...