We are pleased to present Vol. 6 of our ongoing glossary of U.K. education. For previous volumes, please follow these links:
Apprenticeshit
/əˈprɛntɪˈʃɪt/
noun
collective term for any of a range of words or phrases used in schools that sound like team names on The Apprentice, and thus should be treated with caution, e.g., resilience, relevance, rigour, facilitation, growth mindset, flight path, etc.
bucket
/ˈbʌkɪt/
noun
a receptacle used by pupils to fill with GCSEs at the end of their secondary education; they then take these buckets along to prospective colleges or employers and empty the contents out onto the desk of the admissions officer/manager in the hope that it will impress them enough to take them on.
CPD
/siː piː diː/
abbrev.
continuing policy dissemination.
creativity
/ˌkriːeɪˈtɪvɪti/
noun
an abstract phenomenon that was brutally murdered in 2006 by schools, who were themselves subsequently brought to justice by Chief Inspector Ken Robinson of the TED Police.
curriculum dumping
/kəˈrɪkjʊləm dʌmpɪŋ/
verb
phenomenon whereby politicians, journalists, public figures and commentators identify a need or failure in society and automatically decide that schools should be the ones to pick up the slack of that need; this is usually announced through the press using the headline format “Schools should teach X“.
Dale’s Cone of Experience
/deɪlz kəʊn ɒv ɪkˈspɪərɪəns/
noun
Ben & Jerry’s ice cream variety which combines invention and lies to create an overall flavour of scienceyness.
Fadlehrerfreudenverlustaugenblick
/just write it down and point to it/
noun
(origin. German) word for the moment when a teacher seizes a youth trend in order to make their lessons seem cool and “relevant” and thus immediately kills the youth trend, automatically making it seem lame and joyless in the eyes of the children.
faith school
/ˈfeɪθskuːl/
noun
a school that teaches a general curriculum but which also aligns itself with a particular belief system based on the supernatural guidance of an exterior force and which is based on faith rather than empirical evidence; see also: edtech
fidget spinners
/ˈfɪdʒɪt ˈspɪnəz/
noun
fiddle toys that were absolutely necessary for many pupils to be able to concentrate in their lessons for a few months in 2017 until they went out of fashion and pupils were suddenly able to concentrate without them again.
GDPR
/dʒiː diː piː ɑːr/
abbrev.
an elaborate and wide-ranging policy enacted solely for the purpose of forcing me to tidy my desk.
Hendrick, Carl
/hɛndrɪk, kɑːl/
noun
annoying man who walks around picking up things and asking, “What does this look like in the classroom?”
Lionel Richie challenge
/ˈlaɪənəl rɪtʃi/
noun
a challenge undertaken upon being asked to cover an Art lesson in which the cover teacher, whilst pupils are working, attempts to find the clay head in the room that looks most like that of Lionel Richie in the ‘Hello’ video.
PLTS
/pɛltz/
abbrev.
a framework of six skills identified by the QCA in 2006 to be “essential to success in learning, life and work” and identified by classroom teachers immediately afterwards to be a nebulous and vague distraction from the job of teaching; the six skills were Team Worker, Reflective Learner, Creative Thinker, Assistant Manager, Golden Retriever, Tiny Dancer.
Progress 8
/ˈprəʊɡrɛs eɪt/
noun
Directed by Nicky Morgan and starring Vin Diesel, the eighth and latest instalment in the popular Progress franchise, a series concerned with school performance measures; other instalments in the series include The Rapid and the Sustained, Progress 2: EBacc in the Habit, Five A*-C (starring English and Maths), and International Progress: Singapore Drift.
Singapore maths
/ˌsɪŋəˈpɔː maθs/
noun
Like maths, but better.
TES Resources
/ˈtɛz rɪˈsɔːsɪz/
noun
popular online website that cleverly taps into the gap in the education market for teachers who wish to buy back their own resources from people they once gave them to for free.
Othmar's Trombone 