I have a headache.

Yesterday I had an ofsted inspector come in to the class where I was teaching. I'm on a long-term supply post, mornings only, and yesterday was my second morning. He wasn't very nice to me and basically said I didn't know where the children were up to, that I had to aim my work at the right level better and that I had to, essentially, rush a bit more to get through more. This all based on a 25 minute watch of the input (carpet) section of a literacy lesson that I had to change because the bit they were supposed to do last week didn't get done by someone else and... blah, blah, blah. Basically, at the end I felt like crap. I'm sorry to use bad language but that's the right word. It was demoralising, humiliating and horrible. And I don't think it was justified. Yes, I don't know where the kids are up to ( in one case, I had a little boy yesterday whom I had never seen before!) but in 4 hours of contact time, I don't think I should have been able to tell him where they were up to and I wouldn't have wanted to be so arrogant as to make instant decisions anyway. Where is the time to get to know someone? Why am I made to feel bad because I need a week to sort out who is who and where they are in their development? And why, on my second morning, am I supposed to justify labelling someone without prior knowledge or a chance to observe and assess?
I think this whole issue (and how angry I feel about it) revolves around time. The time to get to know these children was denied me yesterday. The children are being denied time to absorb and understand things in the quest for achievement (whose? And at what price?) and because it's a Year 2 class and we (if I'm still around next term) will be doing ridiculous jumping through hoops to satisfy the Government's quest for league tables and tick charts we as a class will be denied the time to do silly things in the classroom like look at the flowers, play with bits of paper and find a distraction so enthralling that we can lose a few minutes in contemplation. I was with a sats class last year as a 'second' teacher, and they had done nothing except Literacy, numeracy and a fair bit of science since January (and before) There was no PE, no art,design or creativity of any sort, no dance, no time to take a book and read a story outside on a fine day. Indeed, the teacher admitted she couldn't remember the last time she had actually read a story for pure pleasure to the class, since all reading had to have a purpose in the quest for 'full literacy'. It astonished me. These were children in a run down part of town. For some of them their only experience of books came from school & it was only work, work, work. What a memory to have! In 20 years time will they look back and say, "Remember when I was 7 and we had that fantastic time with all those past papers?" or will they remember, like I do, the teachers and times when life & school stopped for something magical; the teacher who read aloud every day with voices and sound effects, the junior teacher who had 3 different sized recorders and was responsible for making me into a musician of any sort, the art teacher who let me stay in and paint and draw big pictures for the hall. I still have the flat felt cat I sewed with a Mummy, Daddy and full wardrobe of clothes when I was 10. My childhood? Idyllic, in retrospect, and full of teachers who were free to make learning enjoyable, paced to suit me & them and full of humour. I wish today's youngsters had the same chance. When the government has to publish papers entitled "Excellence and Enjoyment" as if learning should & could take place without these, then it's time to despair of a world where in a search for all the boxes ticked we've forgotten to look and see whether the boxes are round or square.

(The image comes from a history of Powys website for schools which can be found here.)