The Irritating Educational Words and Phrases Dictionary

November

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This month's winner comes from Dave Thomas with:

interactive pupil tracking

There is an NUT calculator for each month’s winning entry.

The Dictionary

actuarially reduced pension
Spelling mistake - should be 'actually'.
AOTT - Any Other Than Teacher
A person who may wish to attend a course but isn't a teacher. How defining!
aspirational targets
Sort of gives itself away, this one.
best practice
There's a teacher in Surrey does this. Why can't you?
blue sky thinking
Please tell us why you had to hide away for so long. Where did we go wrong?
building schools for the future
...of the company directors.
cascading
I was on a course yesterday, thanks for taking my classes.
choice
The opportunity to get turned down by the nice school.
coterminosity
Think authorities and umbrellas.
cross-curricular pollination
This happens when your voice can be heard in another classroom.
design envelope
The set of limitations within which a building can be designed. Used by teaching management, a broad brushstroke way of suggesting casual familiarity with all aspects of architectural practice.
embedding good practice
Take out your planners and put them on the desk in front of you. No, don't write anything in them, just do it.
end users
Pupils with computers.
entrepreneurism
And then when this school also realises I'm crap, I'll join a consultancy.
every child matters
Feeling guilty enough?
fit for purpose
English has, funnily enough, not developed any suitable, appropriate or relevant words to describe this concept.
framework objectives
Is this about framework knitting? Strands of wool? At last, something practical.
knowledge management
Writing.
learning walk
Spot checks. Nothing written down, honest.
new build, the
The word is buid*ing*, for goodness' sake.
pay award
(Note the gratuitous addition of the word 'award', just to make you feel like you've got to have done something really, really special to get it.)
payoff
A reward for abject failure. Only kicks in at management level.
robust
Survives rough treatment, but is still basically not quite right.
robust strategy for change
Review this in a couple of months, then quietly file. Life moves on.
sharing good practice
Boasting to others about something that worked quite well for a few minutes. Pretend that you do it the whole time.
step change
A sudden, almost transcendental ascent to a higher level of functioning, eg. you've found a new way of presenting the stats.
teaching and learning
(Definitions vary according to your Ofsted inspector's current whim.)
There is no failure, only feedback.
- So why does it still feel like failure?
There is no such thing as failure, just deferred success.
And for that matter there is no such thing as success, just a sort of embellished failure.
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same...
thinking outside the box
A phrase used by people who have difficulty thinking inside the box.
thought showering with your talk partner
Concept bathing with your discussion cohabitee.
twilight session
Working late instead of doing proper training. There is no mechanism for claiming money for this, in case you were wondering.
value added
If in year 7, subtract two from the primary school's score. Otherwise, add one to last year's score.
work life balance
Don't even think about it. Slippery slope.
zonally speaking
Here.