Remember #
askgove? Of course you don't, it was a fraudulent merkin of a listening exercise, designed to give the appearance of consultation but with all the structure and definition of a collapsed duodenum.
Teacher Voice, as regular readers might already know, is somewhat of a hobby-horse of mine, inasmuch as it occupies my every waking thought and damns me in my dreams in a feverish chase. Quite simply, there are next to no (*checks*....sorry, that should be just 'no') effective avenues for the opinions of the teaching profession to be communicated in a meaningful way. Any consultation is ad hoc, cherry picked and designed to confirm the desired answer. C'est la guerre.
Any opportunity to match the profession with those directing the course of the profession is something to be seized. So I was unusually happy to be asked to host an on-stage interview with Charlie Taylor in this year's
Festival of Education. Who him? Shame on you; he's been christened the Behaviour Tsar by the PR wallahs/ compliant news vendors, and is the DfE's advisor on behaviour management. Man; 'behaviour czar'- I was stuck with 'guru'. That makes him, like...an archduke or something.
This blog is a request, a simple one: what would you like me to ask him? Unlike some special advisers, he's a man of the profession; I like a lot of what he's said, to be honest, and take issue with parts, so I'll do my best to unpick and unpack the thinking behind the man who has the prestigious and prodigious ear of M-Gove.
Leave your questions in the comments below (with a name if possible), or send it to me on Twitter, and I'll line up the best ones.
Your servant
Tom
PS I will be blogging and live tweeting the CRAP out of this year's festival. Possibly even during my sessions.
PPS While 'Have you ever gone full pelt with a tranny?' is indeed an excellent question, it regrettably will not make the cut, for reasons of time.
Some links to Charlie Taylor:
DfE advice on behaviour management
'Bad behaviour should be identified early'
Guardian feature
Festival of Education. Book NOW, earthlings. I'm also doing a 'workshop' on behaviour management and education in general there. What more could you ask for? Come along and say hello.
You probably will anyway, but please ask him about the plan to make schools responsible for the funding and future results of those they permanently exclude. And maybe widen this into the question of how far the government sees badly behaved pupils as having been 'failed' by the system, as opposed to being responsible for their own actions.
ReplyDeleteHis stuff is interesting but there is a lot of emphasis on rewards. You could ask him about the potential for rewards (which are sometimes very useful) to send a subliminal message that when kids behave well they are doing us a favour, instead of simply allowing themselves to learn, with all the wonderful rewards that brings in itself.
Thanks!
Dear Charlie Taylor. Do you have an opinion as to why children who behave badly as school are doing so? What is it and is there anything we can do about it? Kind regards, judyzara
ReplyDeleteDear Mr Taylor,
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think some children habitually misbehave?
What can we do about those reasons ?
Regards,
How much of challenging behaviour is an early indication of a special educational need? How do we encourage teachers not just to manage 'bad behaviour', but to consider and monitor a possible underlying learning need that it is masking.
ReplyDeleteIs there merit in mandating a Mental health/learning assessment for all children at the point of a second fixed term exclusion to screen for such needs?
How would you compare Michael Gove as an Education secretary to those of the last twenty years?
ReplyDeleteWhere did you do your teacher training (ref comment in I of 28 June)? As advisor to a government keen to name and shame surely you do the same to whichever education establishment gave the advice you say was given in the 1980s? As a teacher trainer in that decade I have never heard such nonsense. Janet
ReplyDelete