What does it mean, for example for a 5 year old to thrive, compared say with a 10 year old? How do we measure how well children are thriving and whether they are making progress? How can we benchmark this across the schools? In short, does anyone know what a thriving child looks like? It raises a number of important questions that need to be addressed. A quick check in the accompanying Common Inspection Framework confirms no mention of it there either. The handbook however makes absolutely no reference in the ‘Sources of evidence’ sections as to what this might look like in terms of ‘to thrive’. Presumably then, in order to make this judgement, evidence needs to be found that shows that pupils are thriving. When making a final judgement on overall effectiveness, the handbook states that ‘inspectors must use all their evidence to evaluate what it’s like to be a pupil in the school’. ‘The school’s thoughtful and wide-ranging promotion of pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and their physical well-being enable pupils to thrive.’
In fact it appears on only one other occasion, as an outstanding descriptor for overall effectiveness: Nicky Morgan has made it clear that she values the importance of character education, so no doubt the concept of children being able to thrive appears a number of times in the latest schedule. In the section quoted above, the phrase ‘curious, interested learners’ appears in the preceding sentence.
We know from the previous framework that words like ‘resilience’ now feature. ‘They thrive in lessons and also regularly take up opportunities to learn through extra-curricular activities.’Įncouraged by this I wanted to see where else it appeared. It appears in the teaching, learning and assessment sections as an outstanding grade descriptor: It was the word ‘thrive’ and it pleased me considerably to see its inclusion. When I first had a flick through the latest inspection handbook a particular word caught my eye.
0 kommentar(er)
