Maria Arpa
This week
Not Done With Ofsted
Plus…
Maria’s Midweek Mindfulness
and
The Wednesday Whisper
Not fit for purpose
The education inspectorate Ofsted has been branded “toxic” and “not fit for purpose” by an inquiry, claiming it needs a major reform after losing the “trust of the teaching profession”.
I and thousands of others could have given that feedback without a costly inquiry.
Anyone who has followed my blog for any length of time knows that I am highly critical of the mainstream education system to the point of giving up on State schools.
One of my absolute joys is to bring the Dialogue Road Map into schools. Experiencing the absolute wonder of children discovering there is a whole other way of communicating and watching them put it into action is to be savoured. But too many times, the schools are under-resourced to make the necessary changes to take a whole school approach, and against a backdrop of punishment, ‘consequences’, star charts and other mechanisms that promote individualism and competition under the stress of passing worthless exams and impressing an even more worthless inspectorate, I realised that in the end, we set the children up to fail. We show them something beautiful, they embrace the gift, and then it is taken away.
I have nothing but love and gratitude for the people who give it their all as teachers and support staff, but they are overworked, under-resourced and constantly under threat from an ‘inspectorate’ that can ruin careers.
At the point where the people being inspected, schools in this case, have to put on a show for inspectors because they know it is inherently unfair and punitive, we know that the so called ‘authority’ is bankrupt in trust. Anything we do that lacks trust is worthless.
So, if there is a school out there that truly wants to become a centre of learning based on the principles of restorative justice, healing with a trauma informed approach and nonviolence using the Dialogue Road Map and is prepared to make the time for a truly transformative process, and is willing to stand up to the system and is willing to sit with the growing pains of radical change with a Head Teacher who is willing to embrace a ground up community approach, I’d love to hear from you.
Last time I made this request in 2015, it was easier to find a prison willing to undertake this change than a school. That is now our project in Dartmoor prison.
Maria’s Midweek Mindfulness
The DRM shows us how to build a community based on the philosophy of nonviolence and the practical application of healing and transformative approaches to learning, communication and organising.
The Wednesday Whisper
How do you view authority both when you are the authority and when you are the recipient?
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