Thomas Tallis School
  • Home
  • About
    • An Overview >
      • The Leadership Team
      • Who was Thomas Tallis?
      • School Vision
      • Artsmark
      • Prince's Teaching Institute
      • International School
      • Ofsted
    • School Prospectus
    • Mrs Roberts Writes
    • Tallis Habits >
      • Tallis Pedagogy Wheel Guide
    • Tallis Character
    • Tate Exchange
    • Secondary School Direct Hub
    • The Pupil Premium 2020-21 >
      • The Pupil Premium 2019-20
      • The Pupil Premium 2018-19
      • The Pupil Premium 2017-18
      • The Pupil Premium 2016-17
      • The Pupil Premium 2015-16
      • The Pupil Premium 2014-15
      • The Pupil Premium 2013-14
      • The Pupil Premium 2012-13
      • The Pupil Premium 2011-12
    • Exam Results 2020 >
      • Exam Results 2019
      • Exam Results 2018
      • Exam Results 2017
      • Exam Results 2016
      • Exam Results 2015
      • Exam Results 2014
      • Exam Results 2013
      • Exam Results 2012
      • Exam Results 2011
    • Early Catch Up 2019/20 and Action Plan 2020/2120 >
      • Early Catch Up 2018/2019 and Action Plan 2019/2020
      • Early Catch Up 2017/2018 and Action Plan 2018/19
      • Early catch-up review and action plan 2017-18
    • Job Vacancies
  • News
    • Tallis Newsletters
    • BBC School Report 2018
    • Tallis Photography
    • Tallis Video
    • Tallis Sounds
  • Calendar
    • The School Day
    • Term Dates 2020-21
    • Term Dates 2021-22
  • Curriculum
    • Curriculum Areas >
      • Business & ICT
      • Computing
      • English & Philosophy
      • Design & Technology
      • Humanities & Social Sciences
      • Mathematics
      • Modern Foreign Languages
      • Performing Arts
      • Physical Education
      • Science
      • Visual & Media Arts
    • Pastoral Care
    • Guidance >
      • Tallis Futures
      • PSHCE Bulletins 2020
    • Key Stage 3 >
      • KS3 Assessment guidance
      • Tallis Choices
    • Key Stage 4
    • Tallis Post 16
    • More Able Learners
    • Special Educational Needs & Disabilities >
      • Learning Support Unit
      • Support Centre for Autism and Language Impairment
      • Deaf Support Centre
      • English as an Additional Language
    • Extra-Curricular Activities
  • Community
    • Letters Home
    • PTFA
    • Governing Board
    • The Tallis Agreement
    • Admissions
    • Transition
    • Attendance & Punctuality
    • School Uniform
    • Policies & Guidelines >
      • Data Protection
      • Making Complaints
    • Support Your Teen
    • Online Safety
    • WisePay Payment Portal
    • Tallis Post 16
  • Students
    • Year 11 Support & Guidance
    • Remote Learning
    • Tallis Mentoring
    • JCQ Information for Candidates 2020-21
    • Virtual Assemblies
    • Independent Learning
    • Exam Revision
    • Stay Safe
    • Duke of Edinburgh Award
    • Rewards
    • Reading
    • The Library
    • School Council
    • Cycling at Tallis
    • Alumni
  • Staff
  • Links
  • Contact
    • School Map
    • How to find us
  • Search
T: +44 (0)208 856 0115

EDUCATION TO UNDERSTAND THE WORLD & CHANGE IT FOR THE BETTER

Best laid plans

23/1/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Mr Williamson, please listen to me.

I’ve been worried about your health for a year now and dear me, you’ve had a bad week. Allow me to help your reflections.

Let me deal with the elephant not so much in the room as in your face yesterday, Mr P Morgan of the telly. I wasn’t allowed to watch ITV as a child and old habits die hard, and the man represents the kind of newspapers I don’t allow in the house. Having properly established myself as a snob of the worst kind, I might add that Morgan, P. supported and sympathetically interviewed the former President of the USA several times, only at the very end referring to him in terms both appropriate and unrepeatable. Being interviewed by such a one must be an unpleasant experience. Shudder.

But what were you thinking? You can’t be oblivious to the furore surrounding your continuing as top dog at Sanctuary Buildings. You must know that there is general assent to the proposition that a dishwasher or astute turnip would be a better Secretary of State. You must have expected the question? You surely had an answer prepared?  ‘No, the PM has not asked for my resignation and loves me with all his generous heart’ or ‘Yes, the PM has asked for my resignation but I’ve barricaded Great Smith Street at both ends’ or ‘Yes, I’m keen to resign as soon as a I can find a pen’ or ‘No, as the Kingpin in a palace coup I expect to be PM by Candlemas and you’ll be first against the wall’. Surely any of the above would have been better than obliviously droning about what’s been allegedly achieved. At the very least, you could have said ‘I’ve been precious little use to child nor beast so far but look at the size of my consultation document’.

Piers Morgan, sadly, may not have read it. Had he done so he might have scoffed at the 64 questions. He might even have raised a sclerotic eyebrow at the sentence (p9) ‘That would put [teachers] in an impossible position, as they would be required to imagine a situation that had not happened’. If either of you had ever taught year 9 on a wet Wednesday in November you’d know that imagining things that hadn’t happened is a pre-requisite for good behaviour management.

He might even have suspected that you were about to implode after a sudden change of mindset to one which includes trusting teachers’ judgments. Upon which matter, do you take us for fools? 

‘Centre Assessed Grades’ worked pretty well eventually last year. It gave the correct impression that there was a standard centrally-directed process which schools followed. ‘Teacher Assessed Grades’ knowingly shifts the emphasis. It's reasonable to assume that you hope that all the doodah that descended on you last year when you ploughed on with an algorithm you’d been told wouldn’t work might this year be spread upon the teachers of the nation. 

Why do I think this? Because I’m ancient and recognise treachery when it bares its teeth at me. It is quite a theme of the document. Let’s look at the proposal for mini-exams. First, it is optimistic to assert that all young people are disappointed by not being able to take exams. Some of them will but many of them won’t. Me, I’d have loved not having to take exams.  Second, the proposal of exam-board-issued tests which teachers mark, have standardised by the board and include in the final grade by early July is boggling. Children in different places have missed different amounts of work taught in different orders, so how many papers will be available? How many exam board moderators are there? Are Ofsted inspectors going to be repurposed? What are you thinking?

Ah, but the penny drops, Mr Williamson, again and again. Here’s a fact not in the document: exam boards are not only going to charge for whatever they do this year but they’re going to put their prices up while reducing their service as we mark the things ourselves. For the big businesses that, shockingly, run our formerly independent examination system this is a scheme to print money. Reduce output and accountability while increasing profit. Kerching and thank you, Secretary of State.

However, some Headteachers whom I respect are convinced that exams are the only fair way to judge children, and that teacher assessment does a disservice to disadvantaged children because teachers are prejudiced in some way against them. I think they are wrong. Disadvantaged children are disadvantaged by poverty. If they had space to work at home, parents with secure jobs, good food on the table and a realistic hope of modest security in adult life they would do better.  It is fallacious to assert that exams can mitigate disadvantage. This, too, is not teachers’ fault. 

Mr Williamson, I was myself grilled on both sides at quite a temperature this week. I do try to sympathise.  Although, on reflection, perhaps I could spend my time better.

It's nearly Burns’ Night and I do love auld Rabbie. I’ve procured haggis and tartan napkins, other ingredients being part of daily rations chez Roberts. One of Burns’s biographers observed that he appeared to live his rackety life in the confident expectation of posterity’s attention. You could learn from that. You could certainly learn that the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley and perhaps decide to lay them in collaboration with people who know the terrain.      

I think you should think hard before appearing on any more telly.  Actually, I just think you should think hard. As Burns remarks

Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a' that,)
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall 
bear the gree, an' a' that.
Yours, at the end of my tether,

CR
22.1.21
 
PS A correspondent has asked me to make good on my promise to comment on the National Tutoring Programme.  Next week, dear readers.
0 Comments

You heard it here first

7/1/2021

5 Comments

 
Picture
How are you?

Fine, thank you. What difference would it make if I wasn’t?

May I call you Caroline?

No.

How many children do you have in school?

Usually over 2000. Between 30 and 60 since Monday.

Weren’t you annoyed at the sudden closure? How could you get ready for remote learning overnight?

All schools had to be ready for lockdown from September. It’s been a long night.

What about the exams?

That’s a vg q. The PM cancelled the exams on Monday and Mr Williamson says they’ll be replaced with teacher-based assessments.

How do you feel about that?

Fine and dandy. It’s the only remotely fair possible solution. As a teacher it's good to see someone learning from their mistakes and trying to improve.

Won’t teachers inflate the grades so that they’re meaningless and no one has a proper qualification and the world ends?

No, calm down. As long as results are used wisely everyone will play their part honestly. Since you’ve asked, might I rant on about this for a bit?

The ring is yours. Knock yourself out.

Thank you. Problem A is how to grade the children. They’re not less clever than children in previous years, they just know less stuff.  Problem B is that our exam-based system uses memory as a proxy for intellect so we struggle to decouple exams from learning. Problem C is that this particular exam-based system rations grades so you can only get a grade 5 if someone else doesn’t. Problem D is that you’re much more likely to get a grade 5 if you’ve been really well taught and you’ve done all the homework, which depends on your school and home life. Problem E is that there is a teacher shortage and the schools serving the poorest have trouble recruiting teachers. Problem F is that if you are poor, you’re less likely to have the space to do the homework or parents with the time to help you or a good laptop and connection for the online stuff, so you might get a worse grade because you haven’t been able to keep up. Problem G is that government describes a third of grades as a fail. So, you might be trying really hard against the odds and end up with a fail.  

That’s why schools have to stay open! It’s all fair then!

Had I finished?

Sorry, carry on.

None of this is new. The achievement gap between poor children and richer children is hard-wired into our system.  The current GCSE model makes it worse. We’ve been campaigning about this for years, but the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said that proved that Heads were enemies of promise with the soft bigotry of low expectations, also enslaved to The Blob.

Harsh?

Shameful.

Hopeless?

Mr Gove? I’ve seen worse. The exam system? Hmmm. We need a different way of assessing learning. We could start by agreeing that exams are a measure, not the purpose, of education. Might we do that this year, as part of all this, d’you think?

Search me. Ahem. What about the Beetex?

They’re more flexible. The school or college can decide on the configuration of exams and coursework for each candidate, within reason, although since 2016 there are more exams in it. We don’t really understand why. 

Really?

No, sorry, that was a lie. We absolutely understand why. It’s because there’s a doctrinaire elitist view afoot at Sanctuary Buildings that all learning has to be validated by exams which a portion of the cohort have to fail, or else they look too easy.  Are you sure there isn’t another question you should ask about this?

Curses, you rumbled me. What are Beetex?

Well done, I thought you were struggling. It’s always best to ask when you don’t understand. First, snappier pronunciation please – Be-tek. No bees. Second, BTECs are the qualifications organised by the Business and Technology Education Council. They run alongside GCSEs and A levels, you can mix ‘em up, and they’re based on the world of work. They’re modular, and you can resit bits of them. They’re useful qualifications and most universities like them.

Why don’t I know this?

Same way that the PM and Mr Williamson didn’t appear to know or care that they existed. Because of our ridiculous system that prioritises academic qualifications over anything with a vocational slant.  Your editor probably thinks they fall into the category of ‘courses for other peoples’ children’ but then he may be a fool.     
I’m not allowed to think like that, but thanks. May I move on?

Knock yourself out.

Shall we have mock exams?

Yes. We need to find out how the children are doing so we know what to remedy.

Isn’t that too stressful?

Not for most. We can make arrangements for others.

Are you Covid-testing at school? Who?

Yes, we’re all ready. Tables, screens, swabs, people, the lot. Staff, at the moment. Children who are in school next.  The Local Authority is helping us.

What about the children who’ll be really frightened by this?

What do you take us for? 

What do you think of the PM?

I’ve seen better.

How stressed are you?

Not very. I’m pretty old.

How annoyed with the government are you?

On a scale of 1-10? 400.  

Can I ring you up?

Happy to oblige. Ask me about the National Tutoring Programme.
 
CR
6.1.21 
5 Comments

Stairway to where?

27/3/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture
Dear Mr Williamson,
​
It was the staircase that did for me on Thursday the 12th, the morning after the announcement that schools would close and the exams were cancelled. We had a mock GCSE Physics exam and proceeded as usual, corralled the youth into the dining room, instructed them about examiners’ wheezes and checked them for pens. Then we send them up to the sports hall in batches, a trip involving four sets of double doors, six sharp turns and two flights of stairs. Old folks position themselves on the stairs encouraging the youth to approach the exam hall in the zone, silently, thinking about physics or whatever tasty dish is on the menu.  

I was on the half landing and frankly, unimpressed. I said to myself ‘This’ll have to improve before the real exams start’ until, as they say in the six counties, I caught myself on. This was it. There weren’t going to be any real exams. It was a miracle of muscle memory and instilled habits that they were walking quietly up the stairs at all. They’d never take Physics GCSE again. Or any other. What? How could that be? What vacuum were we about to enter (as the physicists say)?

For the record, I think the closing of schools and the necessary cancelling of exams was done well and briskly. It gave us just enough time to organise and to talk to year 11 and 13 in particular about their futures. It gave them the chance to see how adults have to mobilise rapidly and change quickly when crisis headbutts the door. At least, I hope that’s what they saw. We’d been doing Virus Q&A in assemblies and had y11 on Wednesday afternoon, two hours before the announcement. The first Q to Roberts was ‘What will happen about the exams?’. ‘Keep working!’ quoth I – ‘Exams will happen no matter what’. When I climbed onto a bench to address y11 the next day had to begin with ‘so you remember the question about the exams?’. They were kind enough to laugh.

Trusting in your skills, sir, to make sure the solution this year is fair and good, this break in the cycle could be a great opportunity to improve education. You’d probably welcome my advice. Are you sitting comfortably?

There are many things wrong with GCSE but the biggest is that it’s completely unnecessary. Until 1951 children who stayed at school past 14 got a School Certificate. That was replaced by GCEs in 1951 for those who stayed on until they were 16. The GCE pointed towards ‘matriculation’ or university entry. Indeed, the exam board AQA was, in my time, the Joint Matriculation Board of the northern redbrick universities. OCR was Oxford and Cambridge, Pearson the London Board. The blessed GCSE was born in 1988 of GCE O-levels and the CSE. They were both qualifications for further study or the job market at 16. A-levels remaining unchanged for nearly 70 years were designed to assess whether a tiny minority of young people were university-ready. We scaled them up but didn’t change their purpose.   
May I pose three questions? The first is: why does everyone have to take an exam that is essentially a filter for university entry two years later, for a minority of students? The second is: If no one can leave school until they’re 18 why does everyone have to take an exam at 16? The third is about the forgotten third. What possible justification is there for an examination that a third of students have to fail?    

You’ll be desperate to hear my solutions so here they are. First, we need to rethink what we want for young people and the nation. University is only one pathway and many, many (most?) jobs are better served by apprenticeships or on-the-job learning at 18. Not everything is examinable by examination. If we finally, formally decoupled most of our assessment system from its elitist past we might also put ourselves in a better position to seek the holy grail for English education, proper parity between academic and vocational strands. Second, we’d still need some kind of assessment because we swap a lot of students around at 16. This remains sensible because they’re old enough to make choices about their aims in life. They need a passport to the next stage. That should be a reliable, trustworthy and standardised set of grades with a particular focus on proficiency in English and maths. Third, that passport needs to be fair and to assess endeavour, not advantage. A child who works very hard but achieves proficiency slowly needs a qualification which tells the receiver what she can do, not what she can’t do. 

The current system which officially uses the word ‘fail’ to describe the school careers of a third of children is not only wrong, but wicked. But my solution is rooted in something much, much bigger.

My passport at 16 would be assessed by teachers, the same teachers that taught the children. Why? Because they’re already there, thousands of skilled education assessors. How? Through assessment based on our current expertise, standardised through the National Reference Tests. These are maths and English tests that a selected sample of children take each year – Tallis did them in 2019. Teachers don’t see those tests or find out the results, but they’re designed to estimate the range of abilities present in a national year group. We have the data we need to do something completely different and much better.

It will require a leap of faith from some earthbound factions. Politicians and policy-makers will have to trust teachers. School leaders will have to trust teachers. Parents and students will have to trust teachers. All of them will have to understand that teachers have a particular skill in assessment that only fails when too much weight is put on it. That skill can easily bear the weight of a single child and it can stand firm under scrutiny, but it can’t be used to measure the success of a school. That needs to be done another way, by a properly funded expert inspectorate using serious longitudinal studies into what helps children learn and what doesn’t. 

Teachers will be honest about assessment if school leaders let them, and if we all agree to lay down the petty rivalries that brought our system to its knees. We can hold each other to account using a nifty little tool that’s live in the system already, the Framework for Ethical Leadership in Education. That requires school leaders to show selflessness, integrity, optimism, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. It demands that we do it showing trust, wisdom, kindness, justice, service, courage and optimism. We could build a better system on a new level of professional trust.

Out of this terrible experience a better world might be born for our children. Future years might not equate education with exams and exams with failure. They might enjoy school a bit more and love learning for its own sake.  We might train and keep more teachers. Keep an eye on this year, Mr Williamson and have the courage to think big. Sure, we’ll still need some exams at 18, but they’re big enough to walk up the stairs on their own then.

Yours ever, CR   

27.3.20    
1 Comment

Decolonisation

7/5/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
I like a bit of punctuation and envy the sticky apostrophe first aid kits carried by obsessives. Similarly (to use a recognised connective) I challenged the overeducated amongst whom I spent the Bank Hol to define a fronted adverbial. Year 5 can, and these guys were way older than that. All night long, we bickered. Grammar matters too.  A well-turned sentence is a creative act in itself and we need to keep our standards up as darkness falls: Churchillian in the blitz.

There’s anger about the approach to writing represented by the fronted adverbial thing, and you should tread warily near a primary school teacher as it really isn’t a joke. I’m part of the generation who weren’t taught any English grammar at primary in the late sixties and secondary in the seventies. We were taught to spell and to write with structure, clarity and creativity, but not how to take the stuff apart and analyse it. I took German O level and was properly bamboozled by the sheer tonnage of grammar required accurately to describe a Danube steamer. (I cannot tell you how useful that’s been). In the mother tongue we were expected to write well because we read widely. It was a bit of a devil-take-the-hindmost approach and those whose lives weren’t full of books by background or inclination fended for themselves. That’s not fair education.

This month we approach the new GCSEs in English and maths. They’ve been attractively described as big and fat, meaning that a huge amount of knowledge and understanding is required and young people have to be able to manipulate their learning to perform well. Government, Ofsted and the exam boards are putting on a show of being reasonable about expectations. Everyone hopes they’re working hard to create a system in which children’s learning can be sensibly structured and assessed and, so far, tarantara, no-one’s said that everyone has to be above average.

A visitor came to see me about knowledge and we chewed the fat for a bit. We talked about the journey of the last seven years and the importance of putting knowledge and learning, rather than assessment and school performance, front and centre of the curriculum. We walked around school and I felt a bit of a fraud because everyone was doing exams and testing, but it is May. The artists and dancers were actually being examined, but all exuded a zen-like calm.

We wondered what will the new government do about the Ebacc? I formulated a view. When the curriculum was being weakened by performance incentives there had to be a way of stopping it. That turned out to be a debate about what’s important to learn and how we should assess it. It’s still a work in progress but the structural impediments have been adjusted: therefore, does the Ebacc need to be pushed all the way? Can the nation not devise a way to work together with trusted school leaders to judge if a school has a solid and sensible curriculum without a binary judgement? Ebacc good, Nobacc bad?

I understand entirely the notion of entitlement. A child should get, at any school, a curriculum that enables him to compete with the unreasonably privileged. But the Ebacc raises so many insurmountables: no teachers, no money, skewed calibration of GCSE languages which make them exceptionally daunting to slower acquirers, brexitty populism, overloading of English and maths, preservation of the arts and not enough time. I worry that the big fat specifications will be unmanageable for human students of all abilities unless we can really learn some new language about what constitutes progress.

However, young people have their own imperatives. Two year seven girls wielded a clipboard of their own devising at me, action researching into that great mystery, the pronunciation of Primark. I supported the majority view. The Guitar Night ended with some blues and an arrangement of the Game of Thrones theme beautifully played by young peoples 11-18 of all shapes and sizes. Our own politics is marginally less blood-sodden, I suppose.
Thursday’s Evening Standard headline was a marvel of punctuation:
Picture
Oh for an anti-colon sticker.
 
CR
5.5.17
0 Comments

Happy New Year

13/1/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
You can start a year where you like, but it has to end at some point and another one begins. Years actually start in September, but I understand that others may believe it to be January. Seems odd to me: it’s very dark, and cold even here in the south, and by January we’re actually nearly halfway through the real year which starts mellowly in September and chugs on until the examiners have had their pound of flesh. January with its much-hyped resolutions is just a reboot to keep us going until the sun comes back.

Year 11 had a nasty shock in December with mock exams based on what the new GCSEs will look like. You understand that I’m talking about maths and English here, where A*-G is being replaced by 9-1 and no one really knows what's going to happen. Well, year 11 do. They had a look at a maths paper produced by the exam board and it had given them pause for thought. Revision sessions were popular this week. Perhaps we’ll even offer biscuits. We hand out the mock results in a mock-August manner early next week, in the hope of focusing the mind of those who lack imagination about how they might feel on the actual day. It works for some, but for others 8 months is an eternal sort of time, even 5 months to the exams is unfathomable, like the age of the earth or the distance to Jupiter. One pleasant sort of chap told me he’d not done much revision because he wanted to find out how well he’d do without it. He knows now. Resolutions all round.

Just as well the young ones aren’t in charge of the institution (for all sorts of reasons, really). They’re easily distracted and very much concerned with the interior of others’ heads and phones, rather than devoting themselves to defeating the examiners. As I heard one remark to another ‘Yes, but you’re just trying to impress Ellen’. Has she noticed?

I go upstairs to take issue with year 9, the awkward squad of any school. This particular bunch of comedians was inhospitable to a visiting teacher and will be mending their ways. Some get to spend extra time reflecting on their manners. At lunchtime the dining room’s overcrowded because of the rain and there’s some huffing. I see some of them later, the huffers and ill-mannered, in punctuality detention. Every term the same, we re-embed the rules with those whose lives mean they forget them over unstructured holidays. Every term’s a new year.

And I make a hash of having a new idea and in fine cart-before-horsing put out a proposal without any time to discuss it or refine it. It’s not Machiavellian, just inept, so I press pause and give us all time to think. There’s a lot going on and just because the government change everything every year until our heads are spinning doesn’t mean that we should do it in school. There’s always time to think. Well, nearly always, and when there isn’t, you’d better be pretty experienced at making snap decisions.  I am pretty experienced, but still spooked this week by a combination of budget reduction, accountability measures, assessment and curriculum change.

But I enjoyed a few minutes this morning watching a new teacher talking to an old stager across the yard. I couldn’t hear them but the hand gestures were magnificent. If they were devising an entirely new language, its one I want to learn. We can add it to the gestures we already use in school such as  ‘take your coat off’ (plucking your own shoulder), ‘get in a line’ (a sort of repeated flapping motion) and ‘Really? Would you like to reconsider that action?’ (hands thrust outwards combined with a Gallic shrug, outraged  eyebrows and goggly eyes, try it at home). All those being ones teachers have to avoid using when out and about among the populace in the holidays and at weekends, for fear of being incarcerated.

I think the latter gesture would work well for the West Sussex Heads, the unlikely shock troops of the Reasonable and Exasperated Tendency, as they take on the Department over the money issue. How are we to make the books balance? Employ fewer teachers for more students? Close for half a day? Turn the heating off? Stop doing all the things that have made such a difference to vulnerable  children’s lives over the last 15 years? Altogether now: shall we reconsider?

I gesture at the weather as the sun suddenly goes in as we approach break. Snow. Really? 
 
CR
13.1.17
0 Comments

Ask for Angela

4/11/2016

1 Comment

 
Picture
Pardon me for mentioning it but I was in the loo of the Wig and Mitre in Lincoln on All Saints Day when I saw the Ask for Angela poster and thought that’s a damn good idea. If you've missed this – and I’m not often up with the zeitgeist – this is a dating safety genius from Lincolnshire County Council. The little posters say something like if your date’s not going well and you're worried about your safety, if you think there’s something a bit weird, go to bar and ask for Angela. The staff will know what you mean and will quietly get you out and whisked off to a safe place of your choosing. Angela the guardian angel, obviously.

Angela replicates for adults the safety nets we know are vital for children. From Childline to the NSPCC, from the trusted Form Tutor to the kindly dinner lady, we expect a worried child to be comforted and protected. We do it all the time. I was on the gate this week and a small person presented himself. It was Tuesday, moved house on Monday and he couldn't remember how to get home. That's a pretty panicky place to be for an 11 year old so we rushed to Reception where Miss even extracted a smile from the sobbing lost soul as she made the necessary calls. Everyone needs an angel when they're in trouble, someone who'll reach out into the hostile world and map you to safety.

We've entertained another Civil Servant from the DfE this week as part of our mission to change the world for the better. He did three days, glued first to a friendly child and then a range of impossible jobs so he could see what we do to protect our communities from political whim. He admitted on arrival (it was a good job l warmed to him) to expecting a big city comprehensive to be a bit chaotic but was bowled over by our calm and happy vibe. He saw English, maths, art, geography, break and lunch duty, staff room life,timetable, data, inclusion, deaf support, the dreaded IER and even did some speed networking for the Year 10 careers gig. He liked the warmth and safety that he felt, and the care he saw in action. He also saw the budget. And what the future looks like.

But we talked about teacher retention and what to do to restock the classroom for the longer term, and stop teachers bailing out. I went off on one as per about intelligent accountability, assessment expectations and unscrupulous school leaders wringing the life out of young teachers but we also talked about the effect of the myriad routes into teaching and the ethical underpinnings of the profession. Except I called it a service, because I think that helps. Decentralised recruitment and training needs really tight principles and explicit expectations if we're to preserve something that was once taken for granted. Kindness, optimism, scholarship (let alone tea and queuing) don’t survive accidentally. Old git, moi?

Which seamlessly segues into part one of a limited series entitled Reasons We Might Miss Michael Willshaw. Himself talked eloquently this week about schools being the glue of a cohesive society which any selection interference will wreck. Go to it, Sir! All power to your irritating elbow! Unfortunately he also blamed local colleagues for not preventing a nasty fight out of hours recently. A tad unjust: these things are the devil to manage and he just wasn't there. Still, one out of two ain’t bad.

We had Year 11 maths and English night on this week and Year 10 careers speed networking with 40 volunteers. Wednesday night was the wonderful Shakespeare Schools Festival at the Greenwich Theatre, complete with an authentically Shakespearean audience, where our young people were slick and witty, Puck on a skateboard, top marks for Bottom. The Dream lives on.

Life should be better than it is for a lot of people. Women ought not to fear for their safety when they're on a date. Everyone should look out for one another and any of us should feel able to ask for help. Our Tallis community isn't perfect, but it’s characterised by genuine warmth not based on a spurious grit ‘n' resilience tick list. Our children have the right to expect kindness and a helping hand when they leave us, and throughout their lives. I'd be proud to think one of them thought up Ask for Angela. #NO MORE.

CR
4.11.16
1 Comment

Tracey Emin's Bed

5/7/2015

1 Comment

 
Picture
Busy busy, I should say. Year 11 and 13 leaving ceremonies, prom and party, Headstart Day for year 6 and the last training day of the year.  It’s that that interests you? Glad to oblige, keen to scupper any notion that we sit around eating grapes and playing canasta. We’re still rewriting schemes of work now that the national curriculum has got very small indeed. Hardly visible to the naked eye, compared to its predecessor which was visible from space. Our departments have been deciding what knowledge and skills children need, working backwards while planning forwards (snazzy, eh?) from the top of A level to the littlest year 7s. 

We were putting the finishing touches to our new way of assessing and reporting at KS3, what with it being three weeks to September 1st in School Land. Imagine our pleasure, therefore, when we were well and truly goosed by a new announcement, its evil twin and an unspeakable triplet this week.
Item 1: GCSE grade 5. G5, as a spiffy young colleague called it, is the new C. G5 is where the measuring will happen, a bit higher than C, more of a B-lite. Got it? Our KS3 plan (taken us 9 months) won’t quite work so we needed to adjust, on Monday too. Stop me if I’m boring you. It’s not a big deal, but we’ll have to do a shedload of work again and it gives the lie to Morgan promises about lead-in time and workload. Who knew?

Staying calm, let us contemplate item 2: the EBacc, now compulsory for everyone starting year 7 in 2016. We’ll have to think. We spread KS4 over three years to develop a bit of depth, but that means we need to be ready for September 2018, which isn’t long if you have to retool without any money. We quite fancy a TBacc, which is EBacc with Tallis bonus, but we’re not through thinking yet. Perhaps we’ll install one of those French barber’s pole affairs as a foxy addition to our foyer, and just remove an A. It’s enough to make you yearn for a Gauloise. 

And now, ta-dah! Item 3: a school is coasting if fewer than 60 per cent of pupils get 5+GCSEs A*-C with English and Maths. Or, after 2016, if our yet-to-be-defined progress measures aren’t up to scratch. Hmm. Wouldn’t it be great if the coasting measure was ready before it was introduced. Wouldn’t it be great if the 60% figure meant anything more than adding 50% to Gove’s 40% which just doubled the number Ed Balls first thought of. Wouldn’t it be great if accountability wasn’t driven by the Regional Schools Commissioners’ academisation targets? Wouldn’t it be great if teachers had been consulted? Wouldn’t it be great if the progress measures weren’t loaded at the top end to make it easier for leafy or grammar schools? And has anyone thought about teacher supply? Even academies don’t have spare mathematicians stacked ready in cupboards. However, all will be well if you have a credible plan, hard to devise on Planet Incredible.

Item 4 to ensure that our cups runnethed over: OFSTED published a jolly new handbook.  

Our professional associations are desperately trying to help the DfE understand that you can’t simultaneously promise stability but bring upheaval if you don’t want to look like an idiot. I blame the posh schools they all went to: did their character education not include honesty or restraint (let alone foresight, common sense or an understanding of averages)?

Anyway, we continue tripping and the glorious galleries and museums of the capital are alive with Tallis turquoise. We have a brilliant photo of year 9s looking at Tracey Emin’s bed. Concentrating hard and respectfully, knowing it’s an important piece they still look slightly bamboozled, as if they can’t quite see it yet, as if they don’t quite get it. They will, because it does make sense and skilled teachers will get them to articulate a measured personal appreciation and decide if its art or not.     

I’ve seen the same expression on the faces of headteachers this week. We’re looking hard at all the policies but we don’t quite get it yet. It looks like Gove, but Nicky Morgan said she would take it steadily. It looks like playing politics with schools the same as everyone else has, but she says some Heads are complacent. I know heads who are tall or short, saints or loons, tutting or sobbing but I’ve not met a complacent one this century. This week’s policies are Tracy Emin’s Bed so bear with: I haven’t quite got it yet.  

CR 1.7.15

1 Comment

To be fair to the mayor

30/11/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, c. 1664
To be fair to the mayor, he’d just done his London-is-great spiel at his Education Conference when he was ambushed by a question that caught his attention. What did he think, asked the Press Association, about expanding grammar schools?

To be fair to the mayor, he didn’t answer that, but he did think out loud.  What do you think of academic selection, he asked the room?  What’s wrong with it? It never did any harm to the chap who was always at the bottom of the Mayor’s year group at Eton. He asked for a show of hands: did we use academic selection? He was interested that we did. The crowd started to rustle a bit and someone shouted ‘we do it all the time’. 

To be fair to the Mayor, he spotted that the temperature had dropped.  ‘I’ve lost my audience!’ he wailed. People got a bit cross, in a teacherly way, with muttering and tutting. We’re always irritated at suggestions that we don’t measure achievement or progress, or arrange our schools in order to support them.  

To be fair to the Mayor (and I may only be saying this because it rhymes) he didn’t say he was proposing grammar schools or the 11+.  He was concerned that we should support those who would lose out but he believed academic competition is key to success. Why does it work in the public and independent schools, he asked? I have several answers to this and muttered some of them to myself in a huffy sort of way. I may have said ‘follow the money’ out loud at one point in a noisier part of the discussion.  
In purely practical terms, selection is based on assessment which is troublesome to use in ways that are simultaneously humane and useful.  Our current use, both to measure students and judge schools, has muddied the water so much that National Curriculum levels have been removed. From dirigiste to deregulation in one move, with what mayhem in its wake.

Like other schools we are discussing life after levels now that the extraordinary decision has been taken that every school will invent its own system. What do we want to measure? What do we need? What do parents want to know? What will scrutineers want to see? What will partner schools do? What is the relationship between attitudes and work habits and subject knowledge? How can you judge progress in a subject that’s new at year 7, or at GCSE ? Can we measure progress in the arts and PE in the same way as in maths or history? What will work with the well-motivated, the reluctant, the struggler, the lazy, the misunderstood?          

Politicians love to talk about their own schooling.  Some – like Johnson and Tristram Hunt – admit that it was private and privileged.     There is a gap in their understanding of other types of schools, which is then compounded by media storms designed to sell news and dominated by those of a similarly narrow background.  We are trapped in misunderstandings which have their roots in the deep inequalities of British society, some of which were helpfully uncovered last week by the 1970 British Cohort Survey comprehensively exploding some grammar school myths.

May I offer some facts? Most schools use some form of academic selection in their setting processes. Setting is not streaming, but is done by assessing ability in a particular subject (this seems impossibly hard for politicians to grasp; they may be in the wrong set). However, there is no outcomes evidence to distinguish setting from mixed ability teaching: teacher quality is the key. Assessment measures progress and helps design subsequent teaching to accelerate it, which is standard good practice. Attending a grammar school does not confer lasting benefits in terms of university entrance or success as children from comprehensive schools achieve more highly at university than those from other types of schools. However, private schooling is powerfully predictive of gaining a university degree and especially a degree from an elite institution. This is probably because of the double advantage of close links with Oxbridge colleges and a prevalence of graduate parents, the strongest predictor for university success.

In 2007 David Willetts – supported by David Cameron - courted lasting unpopularity from the Conservative party by saying:
We must break free from the belief that academic selection is any longer the way to transform the life chances of bright poor kids.  This is a widespread belief but we just have to recognise that there is overwhelming evidence that such academic selection entrenches advantage, it does not spread it. 

The comprehensive dream can transform lives for all its children. That’s where we’ll get a return on our belief.

Christmas approaches and we’ve bought the red tags and the trees. Perhaps the hope I’ll write on my tag is that education debate might be embellished with facts and evidence in the General Election. Perhaps I’ll tie one to the door of Sanctuary Buildings, SW1.         

CR 27.11.14
0 Comments

    MRS ROBERTS WRITES...

    A regular column about school life.

    Archive

    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013

    Categories

    All
    11+
    1970s
    80s
    90s
    Aamilne
    Ability
    Absurdity
    Academies
    Academisation
    Accountability
    Achievement
    Addiction
    Administrators
    Admissions
    Adolescence
    Adulthood
    Adults
    Adventure
    Adverts
    Advice
    Aiweiwei
    Aleppo
    Alevels
    Alienation
    Allourfutures
    Altruism
    Ambassador
    Aneurinbevan
    Annefrank
    Anthonyburgess
    Anthonyhorowitz
    Apologies
    Apprenticeships
    Arabic
    Aristotle
    Army
    Art
    Arts
    Artsmark
    Ascl
    Askforangela
    Aspiration
    Assemblies
    Assembly
    Assessment
    Assessments
    Attendance
    Attributes
    Austerity
    Autonomy
    Autumn
    Aztecs
    Banding
    Battle
    Battleaxes
    Bbc
    Bees
    Beginnings
    Behaviour
    Belonging
    Berylhusain
    Beveridge
    Biafra
    Billlucas
    Billyconolly
    Blackhistorymonth
    Blacklivesmatter
    Blogosphere
    Borisjohnson
    Boundaries
    Bowie
    Brexit
    Briefing
    Bruisers
    Bsf
    Btec
    Budget
    Budgets
    Bugsy
    Building
    Bullying
    Bureaucracy
    Cambridge
    Cameron
    Campaign
    Capital
    Catalytic
    Celebration
    Ceremonies
    Ceremony
    Certificates
    Chalk
    Champions
    Change
    Changes
    Character
    Charity
    Charlescausley
    Checklists
    Childhood
    Children
    Chinese
    Choices
    Chriskillip
    Christmas
    Cicero
    Citizenship
    Civic
    Civility
    Classrooms
    Clothes
    Code
    Cohesion
    Collaboration
    Colleagues
    Commission
    Commissioner
    Commodification
    Commongood
    Community
    Compassion
    Compliance
    Comprehensive
    Compromise
    Concentration
    Conference
    Confucius
    Conkers
    Conservative
    Consultation
    Context
    Continuity
    Control
    Controversy
    Conversation
    Coronavirus
    Corridors
    Courage
    Cover
    Covid19
    Covid-19
    Craft
    Creativity
    Cressidadick
    Crime
    Cslewis
    Culture
    Cupboards
    Curriculum
    Cuts
    Cyberspace
    Cycling
    Dance
    Darkness
    Data
    Davidharsent
    Deadlines
    Deaf
    Debate
    Decisions
    Deliverology
    Democracy
    Demonstration
    Deprivation
    Deregulation
    Derekmahon
    Design
    Detention
    Determination
    Dfe
    Dialect
    Dianereay
    Dignity
    Diligence
    Disadvantage
    Discipline
    Discussion
    Diversity
    Donpaterson
    Douglasdunn
    Drama
    Drking
    Dt
    Durham
    Easter
    Ebacc
    Eclipse
    Economy
    Eddieandthehotrods
    Edhirsch
    Education
    Effort
    Eglantynejebb
    Election
    Elite
    Empathy
    Empowerment
    Endeavour
    Endurance
    Engagement
    Entitlement
    Epiphany
    Equality
    Equipment
    Ethics
    Eton
    Evaluation
    Events
    Everyday
    Exams
    Excellence
    Exchange
    Exclusions
    Expectations
    Experience
    Explosions
    Extremism
    Facilities
    Failure
    Fairness
    Faith
    Fame
    Family
    Farewell
    Fashion
    Festival
    Fidelity
    Finances
    Fitness
    Fog
    Folly
    Food
    Football
    Frederickdouglass
    Freedom
    Freeschool
    Friends
    Friendship
    Fsm
    Functionalism
    Funding
    Future
    Gavinwilliamson
    Gcse
    Gcses
    Generosity
    Geography
    German
    Germans
    Gestures
    Girls
    Gotomeeting
    Gove
    Government
    Governors
    Grades
    Grammar
    Greenwich
    Grenfell
    Guidance
    Habits
    Handwashing
    Happiness
    Headship
    Headstart
    Headteachers
    Health
    Heritage
    Hippocrates
    History
    Hmci
    Hmi
    Holidays
    Holocaust
    Homelessness
    Homesecretary
    Homework
    Hope
    Hospitals
    Hugging
    Humanity
    Humanrights
    Humanutopia
    Humour
    Hunger
    Hymnsheets
    Ict
    Illumination
    Imagination
    Immigrants
    Inclusion
    Information
    Injustice
    Inspection
    Institution
    Integrity
    Interdependence
    International
    Interpretation
    Interview
    Interviews
    Investment
    Invictus
    Invigilation
    Invigilators
    IPad
    Islam
    Janeausten
    Johnlecarre
    Johnrawls
    Journeys
    Joy
    Judgement
    Justice
    Kaospilots
    Kenrobinson
    Kidbrooke
    Kindness
    Knifecrime
    Knowledge
    Ks3
    Ks4
    Language
    Languages
    Laughter
    Leadership
    Learners
    Learning
    Leaving
    Lessons
    Levels
    Liberty
    Lines
    List
    Listening
    Literacy
    Literature
    Lockdown
    Logic
    London
    Londonchallenge
    Loneliness
    Lordagnew
    Love
    Luck
    Lucyholt
    Lunchtime
    Machiavelli
    Management
    Mandarin
    Mandela
    Marland
    Mastery
    Maths
    Mats
    Matthancock
    May
    Media
    Meetings
    Memories
    Menstruation
    Metrics
    Michaelgove
    Michaelrosen
    Michaelyoung
    Mickfleetwood
    Misconduct
    Miseducation
    Mistakes
    Mobility
    Mocks
    Mojo
    Monarchy
    Money
    Mothers
    Motto
    Movies
    Multiculturalism
    Music
    Musical
    Myths
    Nasuwt
    Nationalcurriculum
    Nationality
    Neo-trad
    Neu
    News
    Newyear
    Newzealand
    Nfff
    Nhs
    Nickdrake
    Nickymorgan
    Nihilism
    Noah
    Nolan
    Normanrockwell
    Nqt
    NSPCC
    Nuremburg
    Oaa
    Oath
    Obama
    Objectivity
    Oecd
    Offence
    Ofmiceandmen
    Ofsted
    O-levels
    Ombusdman
    Openevening
    Openness
    Opportunity
    Optimism
    Options
    Outcomes
    Oxbridge
    Parenting
    Parents
    Parliament
    Participation
    Partnership
    Pastoral
    Patience
    Pay
    PE
    Peace
    Pedagogy
    People
    Performance
    Persistent
    Pfi
    Philiplarkin
    Philosophy
    Phones
    Photography
    Piersmorgan
    Pisa
    Planning
    Plumbing
    Pm
    Poetry
    Police
    Policy
    Politeness
    Politicians
    Politics
    Poor
    Populism
    Posh
    Post16
    Postmodernism
    Poverty
    Power
    Powerpoint
    Practice
    Praxis
    Predictions
    Preparations
    Pressures
    Prevent
    Primeminister
    Principles
    Priorities
    Private
    Privilege
    Procedures
    Progress
    Progress8
    Protection
    Proxy
    Psychology
    Pta
    Public
    Publicsector
    Publicservices
    Punctuality
    Punctuation
    Punishment
    Pupilpremium
    Qualifications
    Quentintarantino
    Questioning
    Questions
    Rabbieburns
    Racism
    Radio
    Raf
    Rain
    Rainbows
    R&d
    RE
    Reading
    Recessional
    Recruitment
    Refugees
    Regulations
    Relationships
    Religion
    Remembrance
    Reports
    Research
    Resilience
    Resits
    Resolutions
    Resources
    Respect
    Responsibilities
    Restorativejustice
    Results
    Retention
    Revision
    Rewards
    Rhetoric
    Rich
    Riumours
    Rudyardkipling
    Rules
    Safeguarding
    Sajidjavid
    Sanctuarybuildings
    Sarcasm
    Savethechildren
    Scandal
    Scholarship
    School
    Schoolcouncil
    Schools
    Schoolsweek
    Science
    Seanharford
    Secretaryofstate
    Selection
    Selflessness
    September
    Service
    Sex
    Sexism
    Shakespeare
    Shortage
    Siegfriedsassoon
    Silence
    Sixthform
    Skills
    Socialcare
    Socialmedia
    Socialmobility
    Society
    Speech
    Speeches
    Sports
    Staffing
    Staffroom
    Standardisation
    Standards
    State
    Statistics
    Stevemartin
    Stress
    Stuck
    Study
    Suffering
    Summer
    Support
    Supremecourt
    Surestart
    Surprise
    Survivors
    Syria
    System
    Taiwan
    Talk
    Tallis
    Tallischaracter
    Tallishabits
    Targets
    Tate
    Teacherly
    Teachers
    Teachfirst
    Teaching
    Teams
    Technology
    Teenagers
    Terrorism
    Testing
    Tests
    Textbooks
    Thankful
    Thinking
    Thomasfuller
    Thomastallis
    Time
    Timetable
    Timpson
    Toilets
    Traceyemin
    Tradition
    Training
    Transgender
    Transition
    Treasury
    Trump
    Trust
    Truth
    Ttra
    Tutor
    Tutoring
    Twitter
    Tyneside
    Ucas
    Umbrellas
    Uncertainty
    Undergraduates
    Understanding
    Unemployment
    Uniform
    Unions
    Unitednations
    University
    Vaccine
    Values
    Veilofignorance
    Victorian
    Vikings
    Violence
    Virtues
    Virus
    Visitors
    Visits
    Walkabout
    War
    Warmth
    Weather
    Welcome
    Westminster
    Whatwouldyoucut
    Whistleblowing
    Whistles
    Whitepaper
    Wilshaw
    Winniethepooh
    Winter
    Wisdom
    Women
    Workload
    Worldbookday
    Worth
    Writing
    WW1
    Xfn
    Year
    Year11
    Year13
    Year6
    Year7
    Year9
    Yoga
    Youth
    Zeitgeist
    Zoom

    RSS Feed

Thomas Tallis School, Kidbrooke Park Road, London SE3 9PX
T: +44 (0)208 856 0115   F: +44 (0)208 331 3004   E: headteacher@thomastallis.org.uk
  • Home
  • About
    • An Overview >
      • The Leadership Team
      • Who was Thomas Tallis?
      • School Vision
      • Artsmark
      • Prince's Teaching Institute
      • International School
      • Ofsted
    • School Prospectus
    • Mrs Roberts Writes
    • Tallis Habits >
      • Tallis Pedagogy Wheel Guide
    • Tallis Character
    • Tate Exchange
    • Secondary School Direct Hub
    • The Pupil Premium 2020-21 >
      • The Pupil Premium 2019-20
      • The Pupil Premium 2018-19
      • The Pupil Premium 2017-18
      • The Pupil Premium 2016-17
      • The Pupil Premium 2015-16
      • The Pupil Premium 2014-15
      • The Pupil Premium 2013-14
      • The Pupil Premium 2012-13
      • The Pupil Premium 2011-12
    • Exam Results 2020 >
      • Exam Results 2019
      • Exam Results 2018
      • Exam Results 2017
      • Exam Results 2016
      • Exam Results 2015
      • Exam Results 2014
      • Exam Results 2013
      • Exam Results 2012
      • Exam Results 2011
    • Early Catch Up 2019/20 and Action Plan 2020/2120 >
      • Early Catch Up 2018/2019 and Action Plan 2019/2020
      • Early Catch Up 2017/2018 and Action Plan 2018/19
      • Early catch-up review and action plan 2017-18
    • Job Vacancies
  • News
    • Tallis Newsletters
    • BBC School Report 2018
    • Tallis Photography
    • Tallis Video
    • Tallis Sounds
  • Calendar
    • The School Day
    • Term Dates 2020-21
    • Term Dates 2021-22
  • Curriculum
    • Curriculum Areas >
      • Business & ICT
      • Computing
      • English & Philosophy
      • Design & Technology
      • Humanities & Social Sciences
      • Mathematics
      • Modern Foreign Languages
      • Performing Arts
      • Physical Education
      • Science
      • Visual & Media Arts
    • Pastoral Care
    • Guidance >
      • Tallis Futures
      • PSHCE Bulletins 2020
    • Key Stage 3 >
      • KS3 Assessment guidance
      • Tallis Choices
    • Key Stage 4
    • Tallis Post 16
    • More Able Learners
    • Special Educational Needs & Disabilities >
      • Learning Support Unit
      • Support Centre for Autism and Language Impairment
      • Deaf Support Centre
      • English as an Additional Language
    • Extra-Curricular Activities
  • Community
    • Letters Home
    • PTFA
    • Governing Board
    • The Tallis Agreement
    • Admissions
    • Transition
    • Attendance & Punctuality
    • School Uniform
    • Policies & Guidelines >
      • Data Protection
      • Making Complaints
    • Support Your Teen
    • Online Safety
    • WisePay Payment Portal
    • Tallis Post 16
  • Students
    • Year 11 Support & Guidance
    • Remote Learning
    • Tallis Mentoring
    • JCQ Information for Candidates 2020-21
    • Virtual Assemblies
    • Independent Learning
    • Exam Revision
    • Stay Safe
    • Duke of Edinburgh Award
    • Rewards
    • Reading
    • The Library
    • School Council
    • Cycling at Tallis
    • Alumni
  • Staff
  • Links
  • Contact
    • School Map
    • How to find us
  • Search