Etiquette under the microscope, Head Teachers reveal all.
At the Education Show 2008, The Consortium invited a select number of Head Teachers and
School Leaders from across the county for a light-hearted, enjoyable lunch.
The role of the Head Teacher involves less and less teaching time. You know how it is; more
time is spent managing admin, fire fighting, staff recruitment and training, and student wellbeing issues.
They rarely have the opportunity to interact outside their clusters and our guests welcomed the chance
to exchange views and experiences.
Etiquette
With the revelation of a Brighton school ‘bringing back’ etiquette classes, we were intrigued to
find out what else was being done in schools up and down the country. With a wealth of feedback
from our guests, here are a few more exclusive comments that didn’t feature in Streams:
- Consensus that schools had a ‘moral obligation’ to teach students proper etiquette
- With parents being ‘economically driven’ to work, less time is spent teaching these skills and manners to children
- Some parents are leaving the role of nurturing and caring to teachers and cares within the school environment
- Many Heads believe poor behaviour and bad manners stems from home life
- With the average age of a young mum at 15½ in one area, "how can we expect the parents to teach the children if they are children themselves?"
Education in the 21st Century
It can be argued that in nearly every profession, processes and technology have advanced immensely over
the last 150 years. Except for teaching. Take a doctor out of the 1850’s and place into today’s society
and they would undeniably not survive. Take a teacher from the same era and place them in front of a
class today and essentially they would get by, despite differing discipline issues! It appears the changes
in our deliverance of education to children are relatively small. Until now...
The 21st century continues to wow the world with advanced technology. The traditional 'chalk and talk'
teaching method is becoming a thing of the past, with Virtual Learning now the way forward. Have a look at
what some of our guests had to say:
- The greatest challenge is not implementation, but encouraging staff to be more IT literate
- Virtual learning would be welcome and thought there will be a place for virtual learning environments in the future
- Some current bullying issues could be resolved; the privacy of those pupils struggling would no
longer be exposed in the virtual learning environment
Participants were all enthused with new ideas coming through into the profession and feel progression
is long overdue!
Mobile Mayhem
How often is it that a mobile phone will sound during a lesson? Or you catch a pupil wondering down
the corridor texting and generally not looking where they are going?! The recent, and rather unwelcome,
role of the mobile phone in schools was briefly touched upon:
- On the whole phones were banned during school time
- Mobile phones are seen as a fashion accessory to a child as young as 7!
- Unfortunately, the use of mobile phones and emails is a relatively new avenue for attracting bullies
It appears however, that the popularity of mobile phones has created an opportunity for schools.
Communicating and alerting parents of school news by text, Training Days / school closures, is becoming
more widespread in recent years. Phone companies are even offering school contracts where contact is
free between internal numbers; a handy service used by staff and parents for trips etc.
Want to have your say?
We'd love to hear your thoughts on the above issues. Go on – be as honest as you like. Tell us
the new and exciting teaching methods you use in the 21st century. How do you feel about the role
of etiquette being re-introduced in some schools? What about engaging the i-pod generation – do
you see the trend of children preferring to play computer games than reading becoming a problem?
Get in touch with us at streams@theconsortium.co.uk or write to us at Streams, The Consortium,
Hammond Way, Trowbridge, BA14 8RR. We look forward to hearing from you.