OFSTED Wobegon....

One of my great pleasures is to catch the weekly podcast from Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion radio show when he does his weekly 'News from Lake Wobegon' slot. It's a monologue lasting about 10-15 minutes, which is based in the fictional town where a lot of Keillor's books have been set. 
Each one is a little masterpiece of the storyteller's art, and almost all of them have me laughing, or with a lump in my throat... sometimes both...
The town is introduced as the a town:
"where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."

Now it seems that various bodies who run and inspect schools are keen to get to a situation where most people/schools are above average, which is of course impossible. Michael Wilshaw was caught out on his too.

Thanks to Phil Wood for tweet inspiration...

And now we're going to go back to 'O' levels too it appears, as well as new 'A' levels in 2 years time, and a new KS3 curriculum too. And what about English colleagues offering Welsh qualifications - will that still be possible ?
At least it might keep me busy supporting colleagues through yet another change.

The Guardian also features this apparent exchange in an Education Select Committee meeting:


Chair: If "good" requires pupil performance to exceed the national average, and if all schools must be good, how is this mathematically possible?
Michael Gove: By getting better all the time.
Chair: So it is possible, is it?
Michael Gove: It is possible to get better all the time.
Chair: Were you better at literacy than numeracy, Secretary of State?
Michael Gove: I cannot remember.

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