The Irritating Educational Words and Phrases Dictionary

April

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This month's winner is is Paul Livock for:

putting raising standards first

Keep sending them in to Ian. 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
Doesn't really prepare us for a wet break though, does it?
brokerage
[Note the creeping terminology of the financial sector.]
building an enquiry culture
[But what does this mean, exactly?]
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.
corporate parenting
Tesco High School is here. And here, and here...
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
Vague and temporary intentions. We'll work out the details later, yeh?
General Teaching Council
Please, please email us if you either (a) know what it is for (b) don't irritatedly throw away its magazine unopened (c) have ever had it do anything good for you (and you are not part of its administration), or (d) think 'fair enough' as you pay its imposed-out-of-nowhere pay-or-you'll-get-struck-off fee.
harnessing technology
Buying an expensive bit of software that another headteacher said they're using.
immersion
Drowning in the Sea of Knowledge.
interactive pupil tracking
A sort of Twitter but with the threat of phone calls home.
knowledge management
Writing.
learning walk
Spot checks. Nothing written down, honest.
new build, the
The word is 'building', 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.
progression routes
involving the familiar skills
putting raising standards first
thinking using dogwhistle phrases first
readiness to deliver
"Good news class! I now know why we are here."
remodelling the workforce
Mysterious reorganisations that move the goalposts, start a new game on a different pitch, etc.
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.
satisfactory
Just when did it start meaning 'unsatisfactory'?
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.
widest stakeholder participation
Get reactions from the largest number of people possible, thus demonstrating that you have taken their views into account. Persist with your original plan.
work life balance
Don't even think about it. Slippery slope.
zonally speaking
Here.