I agree with you 100%, and from an educational and learning theory perspective that's the way to go. Something that is engaging, interesting, exciting and cool is highly motivating and therefore has a much greater chance of being able to "sneak in" the learning while the kids think they're just having a bit of fun.
Unfortunately, that's now how it works in England. It's completely bass-ackwards and all performance and learning has to be measured so that it can be inspected, compared to others' and reported on.
Unless there is a political "sea change" in England with respect to this issue, your "preference" is worthless. Edexcel, is a private publisher who writes the exams, and sells the textbooks and makes millions of pounds a year on the system as is. Inspection and Regulation can be billed at a tremendous markup and it pays for a lot of lobbyists.
Unions in England were broken by Thatcher, so the 3 (4?) teacher's unions (yes, plural) are powerless to lobby against the system ... in a brilliant case of divide and conquer, they spend as much time arguing amongst themselves as lobbying for teacher's right to be trusted.
The office of inspection of schools has a motto of something like "Better education through inspection" ... how disjointed is that? Not through "instruction" or "enjoyment" or "making cool stuff" but "inspection"
Sorry ... your preference is irrelevant.
I feel very passionately about that, every day they're failing their children and they can do so much better.
It's a large part of the reason I've quit teaching but, Que Sera right?
Unfortunately, that's now how it works in England. It's completely bass-ackwards and all performance and learning has to be measured so that it can be inspected, compared to others' and reported on.
Unless there is a political "sea change" in England with respect to this issue, your "preference" is worthless. Edexcel, is a private publisher who writes the exams, and sells the textbooks and makes millions of pounds a year on the system as is. Inspection and Regulation can be billed at a tremendous markup and it pays for a lot of lobbyists.
Unions in England were broken by Thatcher, so the 3 (4?) teacher's unions (yes, plural) are powerless to lobby against the system ... in a brilliant case of divide and conquer, they spend as much time arguing amongst themselves as lobbying for teacher's right to be trusted.
The office of inspection of schools has a motto of something like "Better education through inspection" ... how disjointed is that? Not through "instruction" or "enjoyment" or "making cool stuff" but "inspection"
Sorry ... your preference is irrelevant.
I feel very passionately about that, every day they're failing their children and they can do so much better.
It's a large part of the reason I've quit teaching but, Que Sera right?