BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!

Subject: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 05:06 PM

http://education.staffordshire.gov.uk/Governors/CommunicationsandInformation/JargonBuster

Here is your jargon buster to all the educational claptrap uttered by Ofsted and the like. I like the one they use for adapting a lesson for thick children - they call it "differentiation"!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 05:09 PM

And how about - Exceptionally Able Pupils - those are what we used to call brilliant, one simple 9 letter word which now requires 3 words - absolute bollocks,

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 08:09 PM

There's only one f in ofsted, one effin ofsted.....

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 08:10 PM

And why is there only one monopolies commission, when the government recently set up two committees to look at duploication of task in government bodies ( true).

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 04:01 AM

"I like the one they use for adapting a lesson for thick children - they call it "differentiation"!!!!! "
They call it being sensitive - how do you feel when people call you 'thick', as I'm sure you must be well used to?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 04:23 AM

Labeling will always be labeling. Someone is going to be offended, no matter what word you use to describe.

Unfortunately it is one great evil of assembly line type education. One size will never fit all.

Every student (no matter his/her ability) should have an IEP (Individual Education Plan) that the student, teacher(s), parent/guardian and any specialist is involved in the composition of. It should be set up as a contract and taylored to celebrate the student's interest and expand his/her abilities.

Ahhh. There I go. Dreaming again.

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 04:41 AM

"Ahhh. There I go. Dreaming again."
Nah, Virginia; much easier, and cheaper to write them off as 'Fick'.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 06:18 AM

Every student (no matter his/her ability) should have an IEP (Individual Education Plan) that the student, teacher(s), parent/guardian and any specialist is involved in the composition of. It should be set up as a contract and taylored to celebrate the student's interest and expand his/her abilities.


Yes you are dreaming, when I was at QE Boys Grammar School in Barnet - you know that school that is regularly top of the A level tables, to some masters you were the dregs if you lived in Borehamwood. We just got on with it.

IEP - Mmmmm are teachers not allowed to have any spare time??? I would have thought that parents should be responsible for that when they can drag themselves away from the TV!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 07:02 AM

"duploication"? it gets better.
G'arn - tell us it's a wind-up!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Anne Lister
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 07:09 AM

I'm generally the first to object to silly jargon, but "differentiation" is about more than a two-way split in the way you teach as there are more than two categories of brains in the classroom, generally speaking. So it's not about "thick" and "brilliant", although it would be nice to think it was all that easy.
But why has it taken so many years for this thread to appear on Mudcat? Ofsted, sadly, has been around for quite a while now and there are quite a few of us who have suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous inspections ....

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Young Buchan
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 09:01 AM

Anne is correct that differentiation is not just adout thick/clever. I am a Teacher of the Deaf. I want staff with Deaf students in their class to speak clearly to them, giving them a good view of the mouth and using their amplification equipment, rather than talking whilst facing the board. I want them to stop using pop music as their example for everything. I want them to show videos with the subtitles switched on. I want them to ... well, differentiate, really.

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 11:56 AM

When I did my teacher training in the US, (I went to Mary Baldwin a teacher college) we had to learn and employ the Four Mat training system during our student teaching.

It required creating lesson and unit plans which were adapted to all learning styles, giving each student optimum chance for success and helping each student work on styles they were not so adept at.

In my experience it worked well, but it was a lot of work on the planning and implementation side.

If classrooms were smaller, it would be easier for teachers to provide an IEP for all. Classroom management would be better too.

It is that damnable assembly line / grade factory model that cannot be broken and lets so many slip through the cracks. For the majority the name of the game is conform or fail.

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 01:04 PM

No Jim, not a wind up, two government bodies instituted, at the same time, and without foreknowledge of the others intent,set up groups to look at duplication. The late ted Wragg, who used to write the Education material for Rory Bremner delighted in telling that one.

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 01:05 PM

In theory all children do have an IEP although in practice their IEP may well be the same as several other children in the class and they would work as part of that group. I don't feel that it is particularly necessary to turn this into a contract with parents but it should be available should they wish to see it. Each child is given targets to work on particularly in Maths ,English and Science. There are aslo targets for PSD (personal and social development). Lessons are differentiated to meet the needs of all ability groups with extra attention paid to 'special' or 'particular' needs. None of this is new. Its the way I have taught since training 20 years ago. I currently work in a special school where the needs of the children fall outside the scope of a mainstream class. The only real difference is the numbers (8 in my class); I still have to differentiate up and down so the workload for the planning stage is much the same as for 30.

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 01:07 PM

IEP's etc merely give the illusion of knowing what we are doing. In reality we can only proceed in love and faith in the individual /group, laying out before them learning possibilities, and intervening or not sensitively and empathetically. Something is truly educational happens wheb someone learns something that was impossible to 'decree' inn advance.

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 01:36 PM

Safeguarding and child protection procedures are fully in place. Staff know their students well and they provide outstanding levels of care, guidance and support for them. Every department,
for example, has a clinic, a club and competitions to provide support for students who are struggling, extra activities for those who are interested and opportunities to be stretched for
the most talented. This is a safe place where students thrive and develop into highly articulate and mature young men who are exceedingly well prepared for their future lives.

That is an extract from a recent Ofsted report on QE Boys Barnet. It's interesting that no such provisions existed when I was there in the early 1960s. I was lucky to get through the school having only been caned twice. Some of the masters at that time were quite useless, one in particular - RM Cocks did no more than read from a text book!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Young Buchan
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 04:56 PM

"Some of the masters at that time were quite useless, one in particular - RM Cocks did no more than read from a text book!!!!!"

He was lucky to get the chance to read it. At Colchester RGS we had a teacher who tried to do the same. But he had a stammer. One of our number, having worked out what book he had copied all his notes from verbatim, borrowed the book from the library, had it open on his knees, and called out the next word whenever he got stuck.

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 11:39 AM

"He was lucky to get the chance to read it. At Colchester RGS we had a teacher who tried to do the same. But he had a stammer. One of our number, having worked out what book he had copied all his notes from verbatim, borrowed the book from the library, had it open on his knees, and called out the next word whenever he got stuck."

Sounds like fun.

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 12:32 PM

IPED
incremental personal empowerment differentiation
example "good job Timmy"

INS Initial navigational system. example: the first thing tried.

When you combine both of these concepts you get

INSIPED

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Allan C.
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 06:02 AM

As virtually all of us have seen, a vast majority of those we refer to as being teachers are more presenters than anything else. Good teachers, the ones who lie in bed at night thinking of new and better ways to excite interest in a topic, stand head and shoulders above the rest.

When I ran a college copy center I soon came to realize that a lot of the professors ran off copies of the same tired handouts, semester after semester, year after year. A few others would rush into the copy center, perhaps an hour before the day's classes were to begin, to make copies of some brand new materials that they hoped would capture their students' imaginations or illustrate a point a bit better. These latter teachers were still excited about getting students to learn rather than simply plugging along like hack horses with blinders on.

While it is extremely encouraging to see teachers who really want to do all they can to teach, it is equally discouraging to know that they are not at all in the majority.

Subject: RE: BS: Ofsted jargon buster!!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 08:19 PM

Tug The Cox
No - the wind up was a pair of clowns writing off kids as 'thick' and using words like "duploication" - you couldn't make it up, could you?
By the way - the name Ted is spelt with a capital T; I wonder if anybody wrote you off using the same term of abuse.
Glass houses - throwing stones?
Jim Carroll