Right, I need to find some teachers to consult with – where can I look?
Ummmm – in a school?
No, too obvious, too yesterday – but where?
Got it! Twitter – but how to choose….what might be a handy rule of thumb? Hang on – what is this followers thingie…?
Now let me be perfectly clear – I am not for a second suggesting or implying that the teachers who attended the recent Primary Curriculum meeting are anything other than marvellous ambassadors for our profession, but in my experience of having had the honour to work with some truly outstanding colleagues – not all are on social media – so why look there for colleagues to offer input?
I can’t help wondering what the criteria for selecting delegates was? Surely it can’t be as simple as having a large twitter following or blogging rather a lot – can it?
@DHTjohn takes the view that this was opportunity missed http://deputyjohn.wordpress.com/2014/04/11/pawns-nah-pawns-are-important-guest-post-adapted-from-email-received/ – I am not so sure I would go that far.
What I would say is that if the Department for Education does want to consult teachers and feels that Unions do not provide this opportunity (a different question entirely) then this sort of consultation needs to be wider and better planned, rather than, seemingly, making the crude assumption that the most prolific bloggers or followed twitter users always can offer the clearest insight into issues that affect the whole profession.
I hope that this is the beginning of a process and that more will happen which will be more widely representative. I hope…
Chrismcd53's blog 
Reblogged this on Primary Blogging.
I have no idea what the objective of the get together was, and it seems that those who attended were just as confused.
As I understand it this was not the first time a group of bloggers had been invited to the Dfe and hopefully it won’t be the last.
Those invited seem to me to receive some very positive responses from others in the profession, they are enthusiastic and in this instance perhaps mainly primary.
The invitees of the previous (as far as I am aware) meeting I was less positive about, but I was pleased to see the latest bunch. The message for me therefore is that a cross section are being invited. I agree that future attendees should also come from the real world and hopefully that will come to pass.
I fear that the current exercise is one of inviting well known bloggers who will spread the word that they have been consulted and that word will be communicated across the web.
Hopefully this is not just PR, but we all know what politicians are like.
I think too be fair to the department, they invited people who had in some way engaged with policy ideas in their tweets or their blogs – including some who have been quite forthright their opinions of the DfE 🙂
Argh! Please forgive me my “to/too” error. Can I claim the defence of using the tiny keyboard on my mobile?
Reblogged this on The Echo Chamber.
I can understand your concerns. I think it’s important to remember there a lot of teachers who are not on Twitter & therefore it is not representative of the entire profession.