In terms of accrediting out of school, informal and other sometimes formal learning / accreditation eg piano and dance lesson gradings, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award or youth work, I am highly sceptical.
I used to manage youth work teams and there was a constant push to ‘take our education seriously’. I strived against this emotion, not because I didn’t think what we did was important or useful. It certainly was. But for the reason that children deserve a private life, where they can tell their teachers about their other achievements if they want to but also keep them to themselves if they want to.
Additionally, we were under constant pressure to prove our impact. To show how informal learning benefitted children. And to this end we were forced to seek accreditations for what we did. To ‘formalise’ our informal learning. Can anyone spot the problem here?
If, as I often said, youth work was the Heineken of education: we reached the parts that other educators couldn’t reach, then measuring it in the same way made no sense and in fact reduced or eliminated our impact.
I replied to the consultation on the new qualifications and commented on the fact that children should have a home life separate from school, as you say. The authorities seem to want to negate the distinction and bring everything within the purview of the state. Couple this with making it a legal requirement for teachers to report signs of abuse (which I'm not against but will no doubt include side-effects of life like being tired, withdrawn, etc., so leaving it far too open to interpretation) and you start to see a picture of state intrusion emerging.
I predict that when teachers are told to look out for "signs of abuse" there'll be a real fervour for it and accusations of abuse will rise dramatically. It'll ruin innocent people. It might well come accompanied by a campaign encouraging children to consider whether just maybe they've experienced some kind of abuse; or maybe they won't be so obvious.
In terms of accrediting out of school, informal and other sometimes formal learning / accreditation eg piano and dance lesson gradings, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award or youth work, I am highly sceptical.
I used to manage youth work teams and there was a constant push to ‘take our education seriously’. I strived against this emotion, not because I didn’t think what we did was important or useful. It certainly was. But for the reason that children deserve a private life, where they can tell their teachers about their other achievements if they want to but also keep them to themselves if they want to.
Additionally, we were under constant pressure to prove our impact. To show how informal learning benefitted children. And to this end we were forced to seek accreditations for what we did. To ‘formalise’ our informal learning. Can anyone spot the problem here?
If, as I often said, youth work was the Heineken of education: we reached the parts that other educators couldn’t reach, then measuring it in the same way made no sense and in fact reduced or eliminated our impact.
Rant over.
I replied to the consultation on the new qualifications and commented on the fact that children should have a home life separate from school, as you say. The authorities seem to want to negate the distinction and bring everything within the purview of the state. Couple this with making it a legal requirement for teachers to report signs of abuse (which I'm not against but will no doubt include side-effects of life like being tired, withdrawn, etc., so leaving it far too open to interpretation) and you start to see a picture of state intrusion emerging.
As I’ve posted elsewhere, we defeated Named Person only for all state employees working with children to now be able usurp parents.
I predict that when teachers are told to look out for "signs of abuse" there'll be a real fervour for it and accusations of abuse will rise dramatically. It'll ruin innocent people. It might well come accompanied by a campaign encouraging children to consider whether just maybe they've experienced some kind of abuse; or maybe they won't be so obvious.