I had a very surprising conversation with my head yesterday that stunned me completely. It was my performance management session and he was congratulating me on being an outstanding teacher. We are on Ofsted alert as well and he said he would certainly try to point them in my direction. I argued this as I always do. I do not think that I am an outstanding teacher. I read lesson plans and activites designed by other teachers and I think that they exceed what I do by miles. I’m not desperately creative although I have the odd spark of inspiration and I don’t differentiate work anywhere near as much as I should.
However he was ready for this argument (we’ve had it before) and produced some figures. Apparently my children make more progress in English and Maths than any other teacher in the school and have done for the past 4 years. He had exact figures for reading, writing and maths to prove it.
I know that my results are good but as I work in an outstanding school, I always assumed that so were most other people’s so this took me completely by surprise.
It makes me wonder as well. I am probably a fairly traditional class teacher and like things to be safe and orderly so I don’t experiment too much. I don'[t think that I do outstanding lessons but I do think that I am a good teacher and that it is possible to be a good teacher from week to week.
Maybe there is more than one way to be outstanding . Lessons with bells and whistles and excitement for the children tick all the boxes for Ofsted but if my path of trying to do what I can as well as possible generates good results then maybe that’s a different route.
After nearly 20 years in this job, I think I am finally beginning to feel that what I am doing is right. Not to the extent that I am going to shut my mind to anyone else’s ideas because I’ve always been interested in moving forward but maybe feeling a bit more confident in myself.
Life obviously begins at 50!