Thomas Tallis School
  • Home
  • About
    • An Overview >
      • The Leadership Team
      • Who was Thomas Tallis?
      • Why 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 2021-22 >
      • 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 2014-15
      • The Pupil Premium 2013-14
      • The Pupil Premium 2012-13
      • The Pupil Premium 2011-12
    • Exam Results 2021 >
      • 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
    • COVID-19 Catch-Up Report
    • 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
    • Tallis Photography
    • Tallis Video
    • Tallis Sounds
  • Calendar
    • The School Day
    • Term Dates 2021-22
    • Term Dates 2022-23
  • Curriculum
    • Curriculum Areas >
      • Business & ICT
      • Computing
      • English & Philosophy
      • Design & Technology
      • Humanities & Social Sciences
      • Languages
      • Mathematics
      • Performing Arts
      • Physical Education
      • Science
      • Visual & Media Arts
    • Pastoral Care
    • Guidance >
      • Tallis Futures
      • PSHCE Bulletins 2020
    • Key Stage 3 >
      • KS3 Assessment guidance
      • Year 8 Arts Choices
      • Tallis Choices
    • Key Stage 4
    • Tallis Post 16
    • Exceptionally 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
    • Bromcom Guide for Parents
    • PTFA
    • Governing Board
    • The Tallis Agreement
    • Admissions
    • Attendance & Punctuality >
      • Apply for Exceptional Circumstances Absence in Term Time
    • School Uniform
    • Policies & Guidelines >
      • Data Protection
      • Making Complaints
    • Support Your Teen
    • Online Safety
    • Tallis Post 16
  • Students
    • Year 11 Support & Guidance
    • Bromcom Guide for Students
    • Remote Learning
    • Tallis Clubs
    • 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

Frolics and Detours

3/5/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
I am indebted in this blog to Paul Muldoon’s volume of poetry of the same title, and, in particular, his 1916: the Eoghan Rua Variations. In it, he discusses the contrary nature of the longevity of English power in Ireland. Caesar and Alexander fell, so why not the English? Well worth a read.
Faber London 2019 ISBN 978-0-571-35499-8.
​
Now the world’s been brought low.  The wind’s heavy with soot.
Alexander and Caesar. All their retinue.
We’ve seen Tara buried in grass, Troy trampled underfoot.
The English? Their days are numbered too’
​

Some people are a pundit’s gift. Social Mobility Chair Katherine Birbalsingh is a worthy successor to  Lord Agnew and Gavin Williamson in these Pulitzer-worthy pieces. You’ll recall that I heard her say (to a thousand school leaders) that she didn’t know what the Social Mobility Commission was doing? This week she’s said that she has no idea how DfE White Paper GCSE targets can be met, and that fewer girls choose physics because “physics isn’t something that girls tend to fancy……they don’t like it. There’s a lot of hard maths in there that I think they would rather not do.” This she backs up fully with detailed evidence: “The research generally … just says that’s a natural thing….I don’t think there’s anything external.” Surely her days are numbered?
 
As the Grauniad said, this prompted anger from leading scientists.
 
‘Dame Athene Donald, a professor of experimental physics and master of Churchill College, Cambridge, said the comments were “terrifying” and “quite damaging” and questioned to which research Birbalsingh was referring in suggesting that girls had an intrinsic lack of appetite for maths and physics.
 
Dr Jess Wade, a physicist at Imperial College London who campaigns for equality in science, said: “I honestly can’t believe we’re still having this conversation. It’s patronising, it’s infuriating, and it’s closing doors to exciting careers in physics and engineering for generations of young women. Whilst girls and boys currently choose A-level subjects differently, there is absolutely no evidence to show intrinsic differences in their abilities or preference.”
 
Rachel Youngman, the deputy chief executive of the Institute of Physics, said: “The IOP is very concerned at the continued use of outdated stereotypes as we firmly believe physics is for everyone regardless of their background or gender.”
 
Surely the inevitable will eventually take its course? Surely she’ll eventually be moving along?
 
Sadly, as with the PM, no one is surprised. KB was the Deputy Head who sank her own school at the Conservative Party Conference in 2011. Four years later she set up a Free School and now calls herself the strictest headmistress in the country, as if that doesn’t raise more questions than it answers. Invited to reflect on the scalability of her model, she says – all schools should be like mine, look at the quality of the artwork. (This echoes her 2011 claim that children in state schools didn’t read whole books, in comparison to fee-paying children who might read four or six a year). What? I saw the artwork, which was nice, but lots of us have remarkable teachers eliciting fabulous stuff. Many of our students would think four to six books a year pretty thin stuff. Her pronouncements are often met with well-raised eyebrows. Surely one day she’ll have to give up?
 
I wonder. We have a DfE which appears to be better led in the ‘I want this: Ofsted will inspect it and I’ll name and shame those who aren’t managing it’ style. Around, above and below sit all kinds of Tsars and Tsarinas, favourite MATs and pseudo-research. KB is, to the current government, a very attractive figurehead for the not-very Tory endeavour of social mobility, her media-savvy performances a wonderful distraction from the job in hand. Just like the PM.
 
And yet why say that about girls? KB’s school-based pronouncements about the need for total control and discipline are all about clearing a space for potentially disadvantaged students to not-fail. Because they aren’t given any choice, they are freed to achieve. It is an argument, certainly. So why doesn’t it work for girls doing physics? Shouldn’t the same lie in store for girls with no family history or university or science thinking about storming that citadel? As Mandela said, freedom is indivisible. You can’t raise the economically disadvantaged while oppressing those disadvantaged by gender. Why would you?
 
Part of me wonders, flying in the face of the political zeitgeist, if this latest set of gaffes might dislodge her from favour. Perhaps the cup might pass to someone else’s more reliable lips? Perhaps she’ll get what’s coming to her? Then I look hard at the evidence before me and the sorry context in which we’re in and give myself a shake.  Personal integrity is less important than a snappy soundbite: blame and distancing are more worthwhile than trying to solve an intractable problem; sounding iconoclastic is all that matters. Brexit happened thus, and we sink under its weight.
 
Clever people don’t make accidental gaffes. The PM has never said anything he didn’t mean to say, whether he meant it or not. Oxford-graduate KB may or may not care about girls in physics, but she cares hugely about herself, her profile and her future. Raising the numbers of girls in A level physics and Further Maths has been a long and painful journey for all thinking schools. I wonder if she knows this, has tried her best and not-quite succeeded?  She’s had all the plaudits for so long that perhaps she can’t risk-assess admitting failure. 
​
The world’s topsy-turvy, though. This dust’s the dust that fanned
Caesar and Alexander as each gained ground.
Tara’s under pasture. At Troy, it's clear how things stand.
For the English, their time will come around.

​Where next? From Social Mobility Tsar to oblivion, the Lords or a safe seat? I don’t think she need worry. I think she can say what she likes. I’ll keep you informed.
 
CR
29.4.22
 
0 Comments

Hancock's Half Hour

13/6/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Hancock’s Half-Hour
 
Dear Mr Williamson,

You look more than usually frazzled at the moment so I thought I’d try to cheer you up. Would you like a joke about the Marmite shortage? It’s all stuck in a lorry travelling yeastbound. Sorry, perhaps that’s the wrong joke for someone accused of being asleep at the wheel this week.

Perhaps an undemanding film would help? Steve Martin’s 1987 Roxanne has long been a favourite on the Roberts sofa. He plays the frustrated Fire Chief of a small town whose crew are hard to train. At one point he says:

I  have a dream. It's not a big dream, it's just a little dream. My dream - and I hope you don't find this too crazy - is that I would like the people of this community to feel that if, God forbid, there were a fire, calling the fire department would actually be a wise thing to do. You can't have people, if their houses are burning down, saying, "Whatever you do, don't call the fire department!" That would be bad.
I have a sinking feeling when the Department’s daily briefing flops into my inbox that it’s not quite the first place I expect to find clear and precise advice. Sorry. 

Maybe a political Drama? I’d steer clear of The Thick of It, to be honest, under the circumstances, but there’s a favourite episode of The West Wing where a briefing goes all to pot. (Series 1 Celestial Navigation). The Deputy Chief of Staff takes the podium instead of the usual spokesperson and ends up saying that the President has a secret plan to fight inflation which he’s not going to tell anyone about. I think a secret plan’s probably on a par with a ‘very big plan’ for getting everyone back to school or a ‘huge job’ to catch up disadvantaged children. The PM’s such a joker, isn’t he?   

Children’s laughter is missing from HMS Tallis at the moment. While teenagers can be hard to amuse its great fun when you manage it. Even the coolest adolescent will eventually let a chuckle slip and the rolling eye and weary sigh is just a different sort of belly-laugh. Classes love to be diverted with a groan-worthily predictable witticism that makes a teacher memorable and a ridiculous joke can make the driest content palatable. I once heard a lunatic maths teacher declare that ‘fractions make you taller and more attractive to the opposite sex’ to year 9 and I worked next to a gifted mimic twenty-odd years ago who could do a whole lesson in a voice of the class’s choice. Myself, I use the Billy Conolly method and laugh immoderately at my own jokes well before I tell ‘em.
Of course, this only works if humour adds to the security and quality of the classroom. A good teacher keeps it witty and prevents sarcasm or unpleasantness. Children soon twig on if jokes are a distraction from a teacher not knowing their stuff: chaos follows that. No amount of droll banter appeases a class if their books are never marked or the lessons are rudderless and drifty. You have to earn their laughter.

We keep it light at Tallis and we try to look as if we’re enjoying ourselves, because we usually are. Sometimes levity’s just wrong – this isn’t a piece about racism, for example. Judging content and tone takes skill and experience. Everyone remembers cringeworthy moments when you’ve got it wrong, and can issue a quiet shudder. Leaders need to set the tone at every gathering, and I wonder if that’s what troubling you, Mr Williamson? You know, I don’t think it’s entirely your fault?

What about some poetry, then? One of my favourite recitations is Siegfried Sassoon’s The General which if you don’t mind I’ll quote in full:

Good-morning, good-morning!” the General said
When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead,
And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
“He's a cheery old card,” grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.
 
But he did for them both by his plan of attack.    
 
Oof. I wonder, Mr Williamson, if this strikes a chord?

One of my personal cringe regrets is laughing at Boris Johnson when he used to be on Have I Got News For You. Sober analysts at the time warned me this was a ploy to get into the nation’s easily-amused hearts, but I still chortled through his blundering routines. He’s harmless, I said. A frothy cross between Stephen Fry and Bertie Wooster, a buffoon in the English upper-class-twit tradition.   

But where has it led us? The CV-19 crisis lurches between underaction, overpromise and retreat. The star turn is exposed without the braying laugh-track of the Commons and his flannel misses the note nearly every time. It’s too painful to watch. A cheery old card indeed, and he may have done for us all, in one way or another, by his plan of attack.

Mr Williamson, there’s a time to weep and a time to laugh. For so many reasons, this is the weeping time. You look as though you might know that. Your colleague the Secretary of State for Health certainly does. He could have been the man of the moment. In March he looked reliable and on top of his brief but now he looks exhausted, all at sea. In his half-hours at the briefing he looks like he’s given way more than an armful. 

I’m grateful to a colleague for this witticism, but it’s not really funny, is it?     

Yours ever,

​Carolyn Roberts
12.6.20        
       
 
 
0 Comments

Tallis in the woods

17/12/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
We know it’s Christmas at Tallis when the red tags are issued to decorate the trees with messages of hope and happiness. Thursday was Christmas Show day with lots of excitable Tallisees running about in dancing gear and suchlike, feeling important by being on the wrong lunch and performing while their compatriots are slogging through the curriculum. 

Yea, even unto week 14 and in these last two weeks, mock GCSEs. The new exams have a lot of stuff in them and year 11 looked distinctly queasy by Wednesday. We teach them the right behaviour for the task so lining up in the canteen, ushering upstairs in silence to the be-desked Sports Hall, shushed by Sir on the landing, Miss on the stairs, Sir at the door. And me, hassling thoughtlessly raucous small inmates: ‘Stand aside! These people are going to an exam!’ as if they were slightly bemused gods progressing to a test on Mount Olympus. Anyway, its back to basketball in the big space now, until we gather as a whole village on Wednesday for the Christmas Assembly.
Likewise the Gallery, a much-used space. Exams this week, governors’ meetings, anti-Gangs work and a visit from a team of researchers at the British Museum interspersed by tetchiness ‘who left the tables like this?’. And the hall: exams, staff briefing, assembly, and tonight the Christmas show Tallis in the Woods. Spaces have specific meaning in schools but flexible spaces are where we train our young for the unpredictability of the outside world. This is what’s expected, these are the conventions, don’t worry about how to behave, we’ll teach you to be secure so we can teach you to be confident. That being said, in the last staff briefing of 2017 I amused myself gathering views through the medium of head shaking and nodding. Funnier for me than them, I said. Sorry.

‘Something Christmassy?’ requested Heads of Year 7 and 8 so I was away. Having watched Cressida Dick on the news, I was impressed by the quantity and inventiveness of her hand gestures even when sitting with a select committee. So we gathered in the Sports Hall, I waved my arms about a lot and got 540 11-13 year olds to think about the shape of the school year, festivals of light, nativity plays in their past and how all the characters in the ancient story behave unexpectedly. I asked them which parts they’d played and then had to stretch my interpretation to cover ‘trees’ and ‘bales of hay’, let alone donkeys. Bales of hay? That’s a primary school with more actors than useful parts.

Something Christmassy in maths too this week. Venn diagrams: what’s warm, what’s festive, what’s made of fruit? Lee was away with dreams of a warm mince pie: Tommy trying to persuade Sir that turkey is fruit-based. What falls outside the circles? Shoes! Dogs!  Another maths lesson, another set of sets (vets’ clients) and Mario’s howl ‘I’m having trouble with the dogs’. We teach children to categorise and analyse so they can contain the world in their heads, but sometimes stuff doesn’t fit and we need to find a way through uncertainty.

Which is why herself had to forage in the archives for a new box of hankies. My room has multiple uses too: meetings, interviews, book looks, arguments, crises, exasperations and the imponderables of human life. Hankies provided, if we can find a new box. I’m writing our Christmas cards today. No winsome drawings of robins and Santa by a perky year 7 for us. Christmas is about a baby, the only character who behaves as expected in the nativity play, the eternal symbol of hope. Our card this year is another lovely sixth form portrait of a young person, and a line from Eglantyne Jebb whose work founded Save the Children: all wars are wars against children.

So as their government forget to count the Rohingya refugee children we look on the clear-eyed face of a girl and try to think about a better future. Tallis in the Woods combined all sorts of music, dance, film and drama with Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk and a mystery demon caretaker in an anarchic feast of harmony and wit. As the song says, how do you measure a year? 525 600 minutes? We measure it by hours, lessons, breaks, queues, jokes, plays, trips, events, detentions, quiet, nudging, scuffling and forests of hands up. It’s a training for life until they’re old enough to put it behind them and change the world for the better. Who says that won’t require dancing?  
 
CR
15.12.17
0 Comments

The Voice of the Sluggard

24/3/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
When Alice has her day in court in front of the King of Hearts in the matter of the tarts, a guinea-pig becomes overexcited and is suppressed by playing-card soldiers putting him in a bag and sitting on it. I had assumed Michael Gove had undergone something genteelly similar at the hands of the Conservatives but too soon. With muffled roar, the self-styled ‘slavish backbencher’ addresses the world (a conference in Dubai – how much?) from within the bag. ‘London schools’ success is due to aspirational immigrants’ he trumpets. They have raised standards because of their high expectations! Simultaneously, they have prevented ‘some people’ from getting places at good schools! In other parts of the sceptred isle it hasn’t gone so well! With a message for those who like to criticise immigrants and teachers equally he’s back in our ears. Good and bad at once! Tricky, eh?
 
My head still rotating on its stalk I stepped out into the corridor for un-Goved air. I exchanged cordial greetings with the young people and advised on matters from precise location of the Exams Office to the correct carriage of a basketball in an enclosed space. They smiled and grumped their way to class in this corner of world city where ‘immigrant’ really only means that you might speak more languages than the next person tripping over his feet.
 
It’s a stupid smokescreen from one of the great communicators of modern politics, part of a revisionist plot to remove the impact of funding from the legacy of the London Challenge. Simultaneously saying that non-immigrant parents aren’t involved in schools or want great things for their children while saying that immigration works in London but not in the north he only manages to illuminate the thing he tries to mask. It’s the economy, stupid.
 
People from all over the world make London a wonderful place to be no matter what, but schools don’t run on ambition and aspiration. If that was so, Oxford and Cambridge would be full of the children of the poor. Schooling for social mobility works when aspiration is generated, harnessed, transformed into a successful education by gifted and valued teachers in stable and respected schools. One of the things the London Challenge tackled from 2003 was the unhelpful distribution of those schools. Expensively, government set about four controversial policies to improve London’s education: the challenge itself, which involved school-to-school support and big data; Teach First; the academisation programme and higher expectations of challenge and support from local authorities. London children were funded well in schools who were given the cash to release teachers to share and learn across the city. It worked, demonstrated by the well-worn but nonetheless remarkable statistic that London thereby became the only capital in the world where achievement is higher than the national average.
 
What Gove doesn’t say is that before he got involved in 2010 there was investment in teaching, training and release time, for thinking and learning, and that there was money to go with the aspiration, and a plan. He doesn’t want to say that because he took the money away and, as a slavish backbencher, he has to support a range of harmful and destructive policies. There will be no release time in the future. There will be no training in the future.  There will be no sharing of good practice and no learning from the best. There will be fewer teachers, not more – 6% fewer applications this year at a time of shortage - and there will be little support from the local authorities now almost starved to death.
 
Oh, and those ‘refugees from Somalia or Kosovo’ who arrived new in our schools? They were welcomed with language programmes, counselling when they needed it, tailored curricula and intensive intervention to get them up to speed. Their parents looked for help from an education system for which they’d travelled halfway round the world, and they got it. Where the journey had nearly killed them, we helped put them back together. Now we’re taking it apart. 
 
And why hasn’t that happened for refugees from the same places who fetched up in Sunderland or Scunthorpe? Follow the money: it was underfunded schools that will stay underfunded while London schools become underfunded. It was grinding poverty with no shiny city on the doorstep. So when Gove says that success in London was solely because of the aspiration of children and their parents he says it because that comes free, in the free air of the world city – so we can do it without the visionary public investment we once had. Shame on him.   
 
In better news, the Year 13 BTEC farewell music performance by Streamlined was sublime. The Danes who visited us and built recycled models were charming. The Tallis Centre for Contemporary Arts is beautiful. The pi competition was sheer entertainment. And in my close surveillance of year 8s some of whose habits are not yet Tallis Habits, I’ve chanced upon a tiny diverting commentator whose favourite adjective is ‘tedious’. Gove is tedious. Back in the bag with him. As the King said ‘If that’s all you know about it, you may stand down’.
 
CR
23.3.17
Picture
What are the values and principles that underpin great leadership? Could expressing those make a better education system? In this article for the ASCL's Leader magazine I share my thoughts and ask for yours on proposals for a new Commission on Ethical Leadership in Education.
0 Comments

Run Boy Run

27/3/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
​I started on the Education White Paper. On page 11 it declares that autonomy isn’t apathy, which is interesting as I didn’t know they were alternatives. However, two can play at that game. Lettuce isn’t fishcakes. English isn’t French. Lesson 2 isn’t hometime and Mr Nicholls isn’t Ms Minnicucci. We’ve been a bit busy at Tallis so it may be that I haven’t read the whole thing yet. 
​
It's tricky settling to read a long document (124 pages) at school and evenings are a bit full-on as term ends (and I go to bed at 9.30 because of advanced age). So, I plonked myself down at the cabinet table to make a start on Monday, after leadership briefing and year 11 assembly. Then a civil servant came a-fact-finding to talk about staffing pressures and after that an upset parent. 
I read a couple of pages before going to another school for lunch to talk with the HT about what the thing that neither of us had had time to read might mean. Then another 2 pages before talking to a science teacher about the future then Parent Forum (eSafety with Mr Pape) and home. 

​Tuesday was bound to be more productive, so the WP roosted on the table overnight.  Only what with the Head of Maths, year 10 assembly, more parents, break duty, meeting the union reps, tracking down a child, talking to the Chief Scientist about the future (physicists, they see the future everywhere), trying to get out on lunch duty, meeting the Deputies, writing to other parents, leadership group meeting and then Governors, I didn’t make much headway.  Certainly my goal of being able to refer the WP knowledgeably at Governors was properly fettled, so thank goodness they postponed discussion. Wednesday?

Business Manager and I had to catch up then there were farewells at the briefing. I teach on Wednesday, which was Community Day this week (Tallis Law) so we talked about the foundation of law in ancient religions and meandered through the byways of Leviticus.  The Iceland trip needed discussing, then a different union rep dropped in. Jess came to tell me how well she’s doing, then there was the secret photograph for Mr Quigg’s farewell.  All 300 of year 7, being noisily secret on the yard in plain sight: it’s the thought that counts. Year 8's Great Debate couldn’t judge itself, then I visited the scientists in person which they civilly reciprocated an hour later. After that the Fashion Show: if only I’d got there sooner I could have eaten more of year 10’s canapés. Then home.

Thursday morning after the 0745 meeting didn’t turn up I put the damn thing in a folder to take home to read on the train a week on Monday. I predicted that what with the saying goodbyes, writing the bulletin, sounding out old stagers, getting through the list of 24 things to do before term ended (reached number 12), seeing a parent, trying to solve a wicked (as in currently insoluble) problem, meeting a maths man, an English man and the HR advisor again that I might conquer the next 101 pages. I’m not telling you this to annoy, just to explain why it is that this game-changing paper hasn’t been committed to the Roberts memory yet. Of course, if the SoS had taken the chance with 1100 school leaders two weeks ago and actually told us what was going to happen, then I’d know more.

Just in case you’re worried, talking to unions is normal once a half term and the HR chap is a blessing. Science are hatching a plan, always good. But on Wednesday night I saw the Fashion Show and it was just wonderful. Dancers, singers and models, led by the sixth form designers and supported by media, art and technology made for an evening of joy and wonder, with teachers’ small children dancing in the aisles. Most wonderfully, a repeat of the year 9 dance company’s Run Boy Run first shown at Christmas. Fast and moving with an explosion of exuberant speed and leaping acrobatics at the end, it’s made hard- hearted old me cry twice now. Again!
​
Chuckle and marvel all we like, but the truth is that the White Paper will require careful reading and a lot of thought. Governors are meeting on a Saturday soon to talk about it. Autonomy isn’t apathy, but interdependence isn’t compromise and democracy isn’t under-aspiration. Tinkering isn’t strengthening and deregulation isn’t determination. Legislation isn’t a leaping year 9 who tried to behave so he can be allowed to dance. Forgive me if I’ve postponed reading more.
 
CR 24.3.16
0 Comments

Crass or Class?

28/2/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Sean Scully - Morocco, 1995
Wednesday I was at Emily’s piano recital but Thursday I gave the wind-up speech at a conference in in town. One of the previous speakers had an interestingly fancy day-shape, but another made me want to bang my head on the table: ‘Building ethos through teacher rewards’. Not as in hard cash or time off, elegant performance-related pay review or a glowing reference.  No, visiting classrooms and handing teachers postcards. Writing to them on Fridays ‘so they get a doormat thank you waking up a bit growly after a few cheeky beers’. ‘Corridor chats’ were recommended, and namedropping in briefings, because everyone loves that.

To my certain knowledge there’s only one person in a school who loves briefings. They’re catnip to the head but dentistry to everyone else. I’ve had leadership teams volunteer for bus duty in snow rather than sub for me at briefing.
Despite terminal nosiness, I didn’t enjoy them that much when I was a footsoldier and being publicly complimented made me want to tunnel out. I’ve served with people who gave out light-hearted awards in briefing and the ice still makes me shiver.  I’m here to tell you that no teacher likes chirpy public thanks amongst their grizzled and witty chums.

​
Why so ungrateful? Why do I think this goodhearted Head so squirmingly wrong? First, teaching is a public service to be rewarded with decent pay and conditions and public respect. ‘A finger of fudge’ awarded in briefing (yes, really) is demeaning not amusing. Second, teachers choose the job and are paid for it: they don’t need corralling into a jolly gang but professional guidance and support to do well. Third, good teachers are tuned into the personalities in a room and are skilled at trying not to embarrass people. Fourth, teachers are not children. 

Treating adults in a way that’s too crass even for most adolescents is symptomatic of a gimmicky, shortcutting, undermining approach to educating the nation’s young.  Maybe I don’t thank teachers enough, but I know that their hard work and motivation aren’t reliant on clumsy presents from a corporate mother. Teachers are public intellectuals with advanced interpersonal skills and a liking for children. Being good at it can’t rely on superficial activities.  It takes time, years of it.

Some training routes for teachers underplay this and undermine young colleagues with false promises. They breed an expectation that the institution will always do all the heavy lifting in terms of adolescent formation through uniform and behaviour proxies, silence and compliance. It’s just not as easy as that: a school’s strength relies on individuals and their relationships in classrooms, labs, studios, fields, offices, corridors and yards. Young people make choices and it’s in the nature of youth to make the wrong ones. They have to be educated and turned to face the light so they can grow.
Chatting on the corridor (oh all right) we tell Thos to take his coat off. He does, slowly. Sir remarks: we could have yelled at him and destroyed him on the spot, then he’d yell back and we’d have to exclude him.  What would be the point?  We like simple rules that build up our common life, so Thos has to take his coat off because the sea of Tallis turquoise indoors shows that we all belong together.  As we explain again.

I collide with a class of year 7s rushing to watch a primary dance showcase that’s been practising on our lovely hall floor. They are beyond excited at a change to routine as we sheepdog and shush them into the hall, and the little ones gaze on these giants with awe. The dancing is blissful and the audience immaculate. Is that compliance, or happiness and human interest in a secure atmosphere? Year 13 assembly this morning was Caleb on gender construction: clear as a bell.  ‘He couldn’t have done that when he was younger’ his form tutor beams.

Earlier I’d been to admire the new whiteboards in maths. We’ve got ‘em on all four walls in the rooms now and the mathematicians love them for their squares. ‘Maths teachers love squared things’ I remarked to a class which amuses Peter the wonderful band singer. Small groups help each other with topics from the mock. ‘I’ve just not been comfortable with this decimal!’ shouts Ahmed.  ‘It made me panic in the exam and I lost 3 marks! I insist on doing it again tonight! ’ 

Some of them came to school for four days over half term and with skilled help are edging ever closer to success. How do you reward that public servant with a bar of chocolate?
 
CR
24.2.16
0 Comments

The Hare and the Tortoise

31/1/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Marcus Gheeraerts 'De Lieure & de la Tortuë', 1578
By the time you read this the Ebacc consultation will have closed. We’ll be a little nearer knowing what government thinks we should do, but nowhere nearer doing it. May I share some thoughts, dear readers?

​First: to what problem was Ebacc the solution? Gove believed that state schools were sloppy about knowledge so enforcing a core of academic content would put this right. This was at a time when GCSEs or ‘equivalents’ had been bent out of shape by the pressure of the performance tables. Knowledge is fundamental to teaching and academic rigour should be the norm. So far so good.

​Second, the subjects (English, maths, two sciences (see below), hist or geog and a modern foreign language)? People got terrifically agitated about the omission of RE and you’d think I would too, as a theologian. I used to argue that RE is a universal entitlement which everyone ought to be doing so it didn’t need including. I'm now persuaded that it should. 
The new GCSE RS specification requires everyone to study Christianity and another religion. The world would be a better place if everyone understood Islam a bit better and calm teaching by skilled religious educators would be a public good. Put it in. 

​Third, bizarrely, if you do triple (separate) science, you have to do all three for two of them to count. That’s just barking. What’s wrong with doing chemistry and physics? Sort it out.

Fourth, languages. Take a deep breath. Tackling a foreign language is a hallmark of being civilised and languages rewire the brain in a particular way. I know some outstanding languages teachers, whole departments of them, but we’ve made a real pig's ear of languages education in the UK and we need to pause, reflect, plan, fund and start again. 

Why? We don’t have many languages teachers because we made languages optional at GCSE years ago. That meant fewer young people with languages A levels, fewer undergraduates und so weiter. Then there’s the British antipathy to the foreign tongue, so we behave as if languages were an unnecessary luxury. We beat ourselves up for not being like the Dutch and the Germans, but motivating a young person to learn globally dominant English is different to motivating them to learn a language for which they might not see a ready and pressing use. We should teach Mandarin and Arabic widely but that’ll take a generation and some serious funding to get the teachers.  Worth it if the result is an outbreak of global understanding?

But it gets worse. We need to overhaul how we examine languages because we do it really badly. GCSE languages are about the hardest of them all and the same paper is used for native speakers as for ab initio learners. Making any progress is hard even for acquirers of average speed, let alone those who take longer. We need a total redesign of assessment in languages so we can actually measure what children know, rather than what they don’t know. It’s a really depressing experience for a gloomed youth if, after a shedload of work with a gifted teacher over 2, 3 or 5 years he ends up with an F or a G. No Ebacc for you, chum, no matter how hard you’ve worked.

Which is my fifth point. Hiding under its umbrella of aspiration and rigour, the Ebacc is outrageously unfair and a denigration of slow and steady learners. There are two ways of solving this. If Ebacc was a progress rather than a threshold measure then it would encourage all learners to have a go at some hard stuff. If it was assessed at level 1 as well as level 2 we might have an education system that embraced rigour, knowledge and integrity for all. What does it say about us if we only value the swift? What does the fable say?

Year 11 are deep in the alternative reality of maths. There’s a joke doing the rounds from the States: ‘math, the only place in the world where someone buys 60 watermelons and no-one wonders why’. Today’s question considers Joe who bought a hot dog, a coffee and a cheese sandwich (and a prescription for statins), then Sita who buys two unspecified snacks followed immediately by Sam who wants a saxophone.  Sam’s in the wrong shop: he needs geography or business as well as maths and he needs music to be valued too. For the government as well as year 11 there is much work ahead.
 
CR
​
26.1.16
0 Comments

Life as a leaf

26/11/2013

3 Comments

 
Picture
'Ejiri in Suruga Province' also known as "A Sudden Gist of Wind' by Katsushika Hokusai
Teachers say that young people are excited by wind. Undoubtedly true, but they are also excited by chips, rain, wasps, blinds falling down and pheasants tapping the window in geography. You have to get your excitement where you can in school and being buffeted by elemental forces and shrieking as you bucket across to Art is more fun than walking with due care and attention to other yard users.

There is a cosiness to the warm and hardworking indoors while a storm rages outside. I love the Rolls Royce purr of an expert’s classroom and the happy immersion of young people tussling with something they’re just working out how to do, that’s just beyond their grasp. I love hearing teachers and children confident in technical language. I love seeing them seize really powerful knowledge, to understand the world and change it for the better. I especially love going to Maths and seeing young people chewing their pens and clutching their hair while they try to repeat something Sir made look pretty straighforward.  
I am ashamed to say I have been skittish with maths teachers – I once described a conversation between a timetabler and the Head of Maths as dinosaurs calling across the swamp – but because I’m the Head they have to be patient with me.  While I chuckle at a former colleague describing A level Further Maths as The Sum of all their Fears, they treat me kindly, hoping I’ll find my way back to the yard soon and leave them to get on with the numbers that keep the building standing and make the earth turn.

It was maths in the wind last week that stopped me chuckling. Looking up from upper and lower bounds through a lot of hair Child, 14, grasped her neighbour’s arm with ‘but what would it be like to be a LEAF?’  We looked through the window at the storm and the poplar trees swaying and the leaves swirling, then got back to work. I thought – but the world would make you a leaf caught in the wind. Unless we are very careful with you it would exploit you and measure you and design you with a template and scissors and hurl you from one expectation to another.  I thought - we know a bit in schools about being leaves in the wind, about being at the whim of changing external forces so that we are blown hither and yon, castigated for raising a thoughtful protest as we try to protect you from the storms of change.  

How different our lives would be without that wind beyond the window. If education was de-politicised.  If there was a check on change that meant that no child could have his examination course changed mid-track. If the role and value of teachers and schools, of knowledge and scholarship and the needs of a good society could be decoupled from the election cycle.  If a College – like the medics have – could be a gatekeeper for our training and development, and speak for us in a calm and scholarly manner. A check and a College – now that would be a change in the weather.

Poetry, like maths, usually has an answer.  I never see a windy tree without hearing great Larkin challenging me to begin afresh, afresh, afresh.  Our great good fortune in school is that we can do that with every young person who shares part of a life with us, and while they’re young they can experiment and make mistakes secure in the knowledge that we’ll help them to begin afresh. Yet young life is so complicated and unforgiving now. Mistakes are preserved in cyberspace in perpetuity making a fresh start harder.  Poverty and debt makes it hard to feel free as a leaf on the wind.  And the education system, which should give them a reliable and secure start is recalibrated annually, trapping young people in caprice and uncertainty.

What would it be like to be a leaf?  I’d love it if she never knew.

CR 26.11.13

3 Comments

    MRS ROBERTS WRITES...

    A regular column about school life.

    Archive

    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    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
    Academics
    Academies
    Academisation
    Academy
    Acadmies
    Accountability
    Achievement
    Addiction
    Administrators
    Admissions
    Adolescence
    Adulthood
    Adults
    Adventure
    Adverts
    Advice
    Aiweiwei
    Aleppo
    Alevels
    Alienation
    Allourfutures
    Altruism
    Amandagorman
    Ambassador
    Aneurinbevan
    Annefrank
    Anthonyburgess
    Anthonyhorowitz
    Anti Racism
    Anti-racism
    Apologies
    Apology
    Appointments
    Appraisal
    Apprenticeships
    Arabic
    Argument
    Ariadne
    Aristotle
    Army
    Arrogance
    Art
    Arts
    Artsmark
    Ascl
    Askforangela
    Aspiration
    Assemblies
    Assembly
    Assessment
    Assessments
    Attendance
    Attributes
    Austerity
    Autonomy
    Autumn
    Aztecs
    Balfourbeatty
    Banding
    Battle
    Battleaxes
    Battlements
    Bbc
    Beauty
    Bees
    Beginnings
    Behaviour
    Belonging
    Berylhusain
    Beveridge
    Biafra
    Billlucas
    Billyconolly
    Biology
    Blackhistorymonth
    Blacklivesmatter
    Blogosphere
    Borisjohnson
    Boundaries
    Bowie
    Boys
    Breaktime
    Brexit
    Briefing
    Bruisers
    Brutality
    Bsf
    Btec
    Budget
    Budgets
    Bugsy
    Building
    Bullying
    Bureaucracy
    Cambridge
    Cameron
    Campaign
    Cancelled
    Capital
    Catalytic
    Celebration
    Ceremonies
    Ceremony
    Certificates
    Chalk
    Champagne
    Champions
    Change
    Changes
    Character
    Charity
    Charlescausley
    Checklists
    Childhood
    Childq
    Children
    Chinese
    Choices
    Chriskillip
    Christmas
    Cicero
    Citizenship
    Civic
    Civility
    Classrooms
    Climate
    Clipboards
    Clothes
    Code
    Cohesion
    Collaboration
    Colleagues
    Commission
    Commissioner
    Committee
    Commodification
    Commongood
    Community
    Compassion
    Compliance
    Comprehensive
    Compromise
    Concentration
    Conference
    Confidence
    Conformity
    Confucius
    Conkers
    Conservative
    Consultation
    Context
    Contingency
    Continuity
    Control
    Controversy
    Conversation
    Coronavirus
    Corridors
    Costcutting
    Courage
    Cover
    Covid19
    Covid-19
    Craft
    Creativity
    Cressidadick
    Crime
    Cslewis
    Culture
    Cupboards
    Curriculum
    Cuts
    Cyberspace
    Cycling
    Dameedna
    Dance
    Danger
    Danielhuws
    Darkness
    Data
    Davidharsent
    Deadlines
    Deaf
    Debate
    Decisions
    Decolonising
    Deliverology
    Democracy
    Demonstration
    Deprivation
    Deregulation
    Derekmahon
    Design
    Detention
    Determination
    Dfe
    Dialect
    Dianereay
    Diary
    Dickens
    Difference
    Dignity
    Diligence
    Dipsticks
    Disadvantage
    Disaster
    Discipline
    Discourse
    Discussion
    Diversity
    Dofe
    Dog-whistle
    Dominiccummings
    Donpaterson
    Doors
    Douglasdunn
    Drama
    Drking
    Dt
    Durham
    Earthday
    Easter
    Ebacc
    Eclipse
    Economy
    Eddieandthehotrods
    Edhirsch
    Education
    Effort
    Eglantynejebb
    Election
    Elite
    Elites
    Elitism
    Empathy
    Empowerment
    Endeavour
    Endurance
    Engagement
    Entitlement
    Epiphany
    Epistemology
    Equality
    Equipment
    Equity
    Ethicalleadership
    Ethics
    Ethos
    Eton
    Evaluation
    Events
    Everyday
    Examboards
    Exams
    Excellence
    Exchange
    Exclusions
    Expectations
    Experience
    Explosions
    Extremism
    Facilities
    Failure
    Fairness
    Faith
    Fame
    Family
    Farewell
    Fashion
    Fatherbrown
    Fear
    Feminism
    Festival
    Fidelity
    Filming
    Finances
    Fitness
    Fog
    Folly
    Food
    Football
    Frederickdouglass
    Freedom
    Freeschool
    Friends
    Friendship
    Fsm
    Functionalism
    Funding
    Future
    Gaffes
    Gardening
    Gavinwilliamson
    Gcse
    Gcses
    Generosity
    Geography
    Geordie
    German
    Germans
    Gestures
    Girls
    Globalwarming
    Goats
    Gotomeeting
    Gove
    Government
    Governors
    Grades
    Grammar
    Greenwich
    Grenfell
    Guidance
    Guilt
    Habits
    Handwashing
    Happiness
    Harassment
    Hartlepool
    Headship
    Headstart
    Headteachers
    Health
    Heatwave
    Helicopter
    Heritage
    Hippocrates
    History
    Hmci
    Hmi
    Holidays
    Holocaust
    Homelessness
    Homesecretary
    Homework
    Honesty
    Hope
    Hospitals
    Hugging
    Humanity
    Humanrights
    Humanutopia
    Humility
    Humour
    Hunger
    Hymnsheets
    Hypocrisy
    Ict
    Illumination
    Imagination
    Immigrants
    Inclusion
    Information
    Injustice
    Inspection
    Institution
    Integrity
    Interdependence
    International
    Interpretation
    Interview
    Interviews
    Investment
    Invictus
    Invigilation
    Invigilators
    IPad
    Islam
    Janeausten
    Johnlecarre
    Johnmasefield
    Johnrawls
    Journeys
    Joy
    Jubilee
    Judgement
    Judidench
    Justice
    Kaospilots
    Katherinebirbalsingh
    Kenrobinson
    Kidbrooke
    Kindness
    Knifecrime
    Knighthood
    Knowledge
    Ks3
    Ks4
    Language
    Languages
    Laughter
    Leadership
    Learners
    Learning
    Leavers
    Leaving
    Lessons
    Levels
    Liberal
    Liberty
    Lindsayhoyle
    Lines
    List
    Listening
    Literacy
    Literature
    Lockdown
    Logic
    Logistics
    London
    Londonchallenge
    Loneliness
    Lordagnew
    Louismacneice
    Love
    Luck
    Lucyholt
    Luddite
    Lunchtime
    Machiavelli
    Macpherson
    Management
    Mandarin
    Mandela
    Marland
    Martinlutherking
    Mastery
    Maths
    Mats
    Matthancock
    May
    Media
    Meetings
    Memories
    Menstruation
    Metacognition
    Metaphor
    Metrics
    Michaelgove
    Michaelrosen
    Michaelyoung
    Mickfleetwood
    Middlesborough
    Midlands
    Misconceptions
    Misconduct
    Miseducation
    Misogyny
    Mistakes
    Mobilephones
    Mobility
    Mocks
    Mojo
    Monarchy
    Money
    Mothers
    Motto
    Movies
    Multiculturalism
    Music
    Musical
    Myths
    Nasuwt
    Nationalcurriculum
    Nationality
    Neo-trad
    Neu
    News
    Newyear
    Newzealand
    Nfff
    Nhs
    Nickdrake
    Nickgibb
    Nickymorgan
    Nihilism
    Noah
    Nolan
    Normanrockwell
    Npq
    Nqt
    NSPCC
    Nuremburg
    Oaa
    Oath
    Obama
    Objectivity
    Oecd
    Offence
    Ofmiceandmen
    Ofsted
    Oldtestament
    O-levels
    Ombusdman
    Openevening
    Openness
    Opportunity
    Oppression
    Optimism
    Options
    Outcomes
    Outrage
    Oxbridge
    Parenting
    Parents
    Parentsevenings
    Parliament
    Participation
    Partnership
    Pastoral
    Paternalism
    Patience
    Paulmuldoon
    Pay
    PE
    Peace
    Pedagogy
    People
    Performance
    Perseverence
    Persistent
    Pfi
    Philiplarkin
    Philosophy
    Phones
    Phonics
    Photography
    Physics
    Piersmorgan
    Pisa
    Planning
    Plumbing
    Pm
    Poetry
    Police
    Policing
    Policy
    Politeness
    Politicalcorrectness
    Politicians
    Politics
    Poor
    Populism
    Posh
    Post16
    Postmodernism
    Poverty
    Power
    Powerpoint
    Practice
    Praxis
    Predictions
    Prejudice
    Preparations
    Pressures
    Prevent
    Pride
    Primeminister
    Principles
    Priorities
    Private
    Privilege
    Procedures
    Progress
    Progress8
    Protection
    Protests
    Proxy
    Psychology
    Pta
    Public
    Publicsector
    Publicservices
    Punctuality
    Punctuation
    Punishment
    Punishments
    Pupilpremium
    Qualifications
    Quentintarantino
    Questioning
    Questions
    Quotidian
    Rabbieburns
    Racism
    Radical
    Radio
    Raf
    Rain
    Rainbows
    R&d
    RE
    Reading
    Recessional
    Recovery
    Recruitment
    Refugees
    Regulations
    Relationships
    Religion
    Remembrance
    Reports
    Research
    Resignation
    Resilience
    Resits
    Resolutions
    Resources
    Respect
    Responsibilities
    Restorativejustice
    Results
    Retention
    Revision
    Rewards
    Rhetoric
    Rich
    Richisunak
    Riumours
    Romans
    Roof
    Routines
    Rudyardkipling
    Rules
    Safeguarding
    Safety
    Sajidjavid
    Sanctuarybuildings
    Sarcasm
    Savethechildren
    Scandal
    Scholarship
    School
    Schoolboys
    Schoolcouncil
    Schools
    Schoolsweek
    Schoolwear
    Science
    Screens
    Seanharford
    Secretaryofstate
    Selection
    Selflessness
    Send
    September
    Service
    Sex
    Sexism
    Sexual
    Shakespeare
    Shops
    Shortage
    Siegfriedsassoon
    Silence
    Singing
    Sixthform
    Skills
    Skipping
    Socialcare
    Socialmedia
    Socialmobility
    Society
    Software
    Speech
    Speeches
    Sports
    Staffing
    Staffroom
    Standardisation
    Standards
    State
    Statistics
    Stephenlawrence
    Stevemartin
    Stress
    Stuck
    Study
    Suffering
    Summer
    Sunderland
    Superhead
    Support
    Supremecourt
    Surestart
    Surprise
    Survivors
    Syria
    System
    Taiwan
    Talk
    Tallis
    Tallisat50
    Tallischaracter
    Tallishabits
    Targets
    Tate
    Teacherly
    Teachers
    Teachfirst
    Teaching
    Teams
    Technology
    Teenagers
    Tennyson
    Terrorism
    Testing
    Tests
    Textbooks
    Thankful
    Thanks
    Thinking
    Thomasfuller
    Thomastallis
    Time
    Timetable
    Timharford
    Timoates
    Timpson
    Toilets
    Traceyemin
    Tradition
    Traditions
    Training
    Trains
    Transgender
    Transition
    Treasury
    Trump
    Trust
    Truth
    Tsarinas
    Tsars
    Ttra
    Tutor
    Tutoring
    Tutors
    Twitter
    Tyneside
    Ucas
    Ukraine
    Ulysses
    Umbrellas
    Uncertainty
    Undergraduates
    Understanding
    Unemployment
    Uniform
    Unions
    Unitednations
    University
    Vaccination
    Vaccine
    Values
    Veilofignorance
    Victorian
    Vikings
    Violence
    Virtues
    Virus
    Visitors
    Visits
    Walkabout
    War
    Warchild
    Warmth
    Weather
    Welcome
    Westminster
    Whatwouldyoucut
    Whistleblowing
    Whistles
    Whiteness
    Whitepaper
    Wilshaw
    Winniethepooh
    Winter
    Wisdom
    Woke
    Women
    Words
    Workload
    Worldbookday
    Worldpeacegame
    Worth
    Writing
    WW1
    Xfn
    Year
    Year11
    Year13
    Year6
    Year7
    Year9
    Yoga
    Youth
    Zahawi
    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?
      • Why 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 2021-22 >
      • 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 2014-15
      • The Pupil Premium 2013-14
      • The Pupil Premium 2012-13
      • The Pupil Premium 2011-12
    • Exam Results 2021 >
      • 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
    • COVID-19 Catch-Up Report
    • 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
    • Tallis Photography
    • Tallis Video
    • Tallis Sounds
  • Calendar
    • The School Day
    • Term Dates 2021-22
    • Term Dates 2022-23
  • Curriculum
    • Curriculum Areas >
      • Business & ICT
      • Computing
      • English & Philosophy
      • Design & Technology
      • Humanities & Social Sciences
      • Languages
      • Mathematics
      • Performing Arts
      • Physical Education
      • Science
      • Visual & Media Arts
    • Pastoral Care
    • Guidance >
      • Tallis Futures
      • PSHCE Bulletins 2020
    • Key Stage 3 >
      • KS3 Assessment guidance
      • Year 8 Arts Choices
      • Tallis Choices
    • Key Stage 4
    • Tallis Post 16
    • Exceptionally 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
    • Bromcom Guide for Parents
    • PTFA
    • Governing Board
    • The Tallis Agreement
    • Admissions
    • Attendance & Punctuality >
      • Apply for Exceptional Circumstances Absence in Term Time
    • School Uniform
    • Policies & Guidelines >
      • Data Protection
      • Making Complaints
    • Support Your Teen
    • Online Safety
    • Tallis Post 16
  • Students
    • Year 11 Support & Guidance
    • Bromcom Guide for Students
    • Remote Learning
    • Tallis Clubs
    • 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