It's not normal for 30 people in a room to do what you say because of their "good relationship" with you personally. If that's what's happening, then you aren't managing a classroom, you're leading a cult.

When pupils are not expected to bring basic equipment, the responsibility does not disappear. It is shifted onto teachers, who are then expected to provide supplies repeatedly, and are blamed when they cannot.

Sometimes, I enforce rules on children.

One of the standard ways teachers are gaslit is being told that sanctions do not work, often dressed up as “the research says so”. In reality, we see sanctions work all the time, and new ones can produce immediate, visible changes in behaviour.

If you have never given a clear, reasonable instruction to a class and watched it be ignored despite doing nothing wrong, your views on behaviour management are not something I need to hear.

Once someone decides that bad behaviour and SEND are the same issue, it becomes very hard to bring them back to reality.

I think that since I wrote this, we've seen "establishment" voices and "activist" voices taking radically different paths. And that applies to both progressives and traditionalists.

How many people realise that a policy of “inclusion”, forcing pupils into mainstream schools, was tried in England in the 2000s and failed badly? Do ministers even know this?

Most criticism of school discipline rests on the idea that there is a middle ground between enforcing rules and letting pupils break them. No one can explain what this middle ground is, but it is still used as an excuse to attack schools for enforcing rules.

The best test of whether someone understands education is what they say about exclusion. Arguing that schools should never exclude is an argument that collapses under scrutiny, especially when it relies on false or misleading statistics, as it usually does.

I don't understand those who say we should only be positive about schools. Not all complaints are valid. However, we should talk about the things that harm schools because it is easier to make a school worse than to make it better.

A few years ago, it reached the point where most boys were identified as SEND at some point. Even then, activists claimed not enough was done to identify SEND. Demand for labels is not related to their usefulness. If everyone is special, nobody is.

I think this turned out to be largely correct.

“What is this instead of?” is the most useful question to ask of new policies, initiatives, and methods in education. Often, the answer reveals that a new idea is being used to remove something that works, without anyone saying so explicitly.

One of the most damaging ideas in education over the last twenty-five years is the belief that SEND causes poor behaviour, and that enabling that behaviour is a reasonable adjustment.

Allowing disruption in lessons does not mean you care more.

One last time for this: Yesterday’s blog post. (£ or free trial) PREMIUM: Personal, Social, Health, and Economic Education open.substack.com/pub/andrewol...

Another reminder for this: Yesterday’s blog post. (£ or free trial) PREMIUM: Personal, Social, Health, and Economic Education open.substack.com/pub/andrewol...

People argue against school rules by saying adults do not face this in the workplace. That is irrelevant, since children are not adults and schools are not workplaces. But it is also wrong. Many workplaces are stricter about uniform, equipment, noise, punctuality, politeness, and even toilet breaks.

In case you missed it: Yesterday’s blog post. (£ or free trial) PREMIUM: Personal, Social, Health, and Economic Education open.substack.com/pub/andrewol...

One last time for this: Tuesday’s blog post. (£ or free trial) PREMIUM: Hackney: Where did the allegations about MVPA come from? Part 1 open.substack.com/pub/andrewol...

Another reminder for this: Yesterday’s blog post. (£ or free trial) PREMIUM: Hackney: Where did the allegations about MVPA come from? Part 1 open.substack.com/pub/andrewol...

New blog post. (£ or free trial) PREMIUM: Personal, Social, Health, and Economic Education open.substack.com/pub/andrewol...

Enforcing rules is hard work. No school does it for fun. But the alternative, letting children do whatever they like, turns everything into hard work.

In case you missed it: Yesterday’s blog post. (£ or free trial) PREMIUM: Hackney: Where did the allegations about MVPA come from? Part 1 open.substack.com/pub/andrewol...

New blog post. (£ or free trial) PREMIUM: Hackney: Where did the allegations about MVPA come from? Part 1 open.substack.com/pub/andrewol...

Conquest’s Third Law is useful for understanding the education establishment: “The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.” Assume that, and a lot suddenly makes sense.

Throughout the 2000s, the problem with secondary schools was that they did not enforce their own rules. Now some do, and it is treated as deeply controversial. To oppose this, critics have to pretend that something far more sinister is going on.

You do not have to work in a school to have a valid opinion about education. However, if you do not, you should not argue with those who do about what happens in schools, or imply that you are more caring, better at teaching, or in any way superior to them.

Most ideas in education have been tried before. That is why the worst ones usually arrive with new labels, or with language so vague that you cannot work out what they mean until after the damage is done.

I still get wound up by people using the word “dysregulated”. If you mean "upset", say so. If you mean "went on a violent rampage," say so. Don't say “dysregulated” and expect us to guess.

Just rereading the original Observer story about MVPA. The two things that stand out. "Parents... have urged the local authority to exercise extraordinary powers to intervene." and... (1/3) www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Can anyone double check this for me? I don't think this claim actually appears in the MVPA review, except by insinuation. It mentions around half of pupils receiving sanctions were PP or FSM, but, it does not claim this is disproportionate. I can find no current data supporting the idea that it is.

If you were wondering how people can be outrageously dishonest in the MVPA debate, but still consider themselves the good guys, read this: jessesingal.substack.com/p/rightside-...

The people who claim @ttradioofficial.bsky.social is biased are people who claim that clearly partisan institutions and individuals are just "experts" and their critics are ideological. They cannot imagine anyone claiming to be non-partisan is sincere, because they are never sincere.

If accurate (and it is written by a KC), the Mossbourne Federation's account of where the complaints about MVPA came from gives every school a reason to be worried.

It's very hard to square what CHSCP (the body behind the MVPA review) told the school when arguing in favour of secrecy about their accusers, with the justification for the review.

One last time for this: Friday’s blog post. (£ or free trial) PREMIUM: Two Stars and a Wish #56 featuring children's group chats, autism, and getting rid of isolation open.substack.com/pub/andrewol...

"Disability policy should be grounded in evidence and not in identity-based ideology." Another reminder for this: Yesterday’s blog post. (£ or free trial) PREMIUM: Two Stars and a Wish #56 featuring children's group chats, autism, and getting rid of isolation open.substack.com/pub/andrewol...

Mossbourne Federation claims to believe in "No Excuses". However, it appears to be in the sense it was originally used (i.e. making no excuses for itself), not as a description of behaviour policy.

Now available to everyone. Hackney Part 2: What happened after the review was announced open.substack.com/pub/andrewol...

In case you missed it: Yesterday’s blog post. (£ or free trial) PREMIUM: Two Stars and a Wish #56 featuring children's group chats, autism, and getting rid of isolation open.substack.com/pub/andrewol...

Does anyone know when the Telegraph stopped distinguishing between the government and the party that is in government in headlines? Perhaps it makes no difference, but it always seems dumbed down (and possibly partisan) to me. telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...

New blog post. (£ or free trial) PREMIUM: Two Stars and a Wish #56 featuring children's group chats, autism, and getting rid of isolation open.substack.com/pub/andrewol...

New blog post. Available to paid subscribers now. Available to everyone from Saturday. Hackney Part 2: What happened after the review was announced open.substack.com/pub/andrewol...

I hadn't even thought about the recommendations in the MVPA Review properly. The second point here is particularly bonkers.

My biggest worry about the MVPA review is that there will now be political pressure on Ofsted to go in and find fault on the basis of a reinterpretation of facts that previously they had no issue with. I remember Trojan Horse.

“There seems to be no precedent for using Local Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews as a response to uncorroborated parental complaints about a school.” One last time for this: Saturday’s blog post. Hackney Part 1: An irregular investigation. open.substack.com/pub/andrewol...

Fascinated by this argument. The Nolan Principles include openness and honesty. How can anyone be open and honest if their language can't reflect their actual beliefs? There's no respectful way to say "this is poppycock" that doesn't dilute what's being said.