{"id":619,"date":"2009-01-05T01:52:19","date_gmt":"2009-01-05T01:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=619"},"modified":"2009-01-05T01:52:19","modified_gmt":"2009-01-05T01:52:19","slug":"schools-bans-the-word-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=619","title":{"rendered":"Schools Bans The Word ‘School’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, I wrote the other day about an\u00a0 anomaly at a school in Kent<\/a> who had banned his teachers from using red pen to mark pupils’ work. But another story in yesterday’s press has quickly put headmistress – sorry, headteacher<\/em> – Linda Kingdon on the 2009\u00a0Total & Utter Prat <\/strong> contenders list.<\/p>\n

She has banned the use of the word ‘school’<\/a> to describe her… school. It has ‘negative connotations’, you see.<\/p>\n

Instead it is to be known as ‘a place for learning’. Its head hopes the change will help ‘de-institutionalise’ the school. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She sounds a right laugh, doesn’t she. Having worked in industry for many years, I can imagine the off-site meetings her teachers will have been involved in, the reams\u00a0flipchart paper (all in nice pen colours – except red: we don’t want any negative connotations), presentations by ‘groups’ (they’ll naturally have all been split into groups), and so on.<\/p>\n

‘We decided from an early stage we didn’t want to use the word “school”,’ she said yesterday. ‘This is Watercliffe Meadow, a place\u00a0for learning. One reason was many of the parents of the children here had very negative connotations of school. <\/p>\n

‘We wanted to de-institutionalise the place and bring the school closer to real life.’ Watercliffe Meadow, which was named after Watermead, Shirecliffe and Busk Meadow schools, is described as a 2,000 sq m learning environment for 481 children, from nursery stage through to Year 6. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s a photograph of her, as well. She has the kind of irritatingly smug countenance\u00a0which, when you consider\u00a0the crap it\u00a0spouts, is rather more to be expected\u00a0at the rear end of a farm animal than on the shoulders of someone charged with teaching future generations.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Ms Kingdon – and possibly her eager-to-please teachers – are the only people on the planet who think it is a good idea. Parents aren’t impressed, neither is the Campaign for Plain English .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, I wrote the other day about an\u00a0 anomaly at a school in Kent who had banned his teachers from using red pen to mark pupils’ work. But another story in yesterday’s press has quickly put headmistress – sorry, headteacher – Linda Kingdon on the 2009\u00a0Total & Utter Prat contenders list. She has banned the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latestposts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t