Standards tend to be treated as equivalent to test and examination performance rather than applying to a broader spectrum of school quality
In the corruption of language standards has come to be seen as what tests and examinations measure. While these are standards in one sense of that term their usage tends to exclude other equally important standards such as professional standards, human and social standards, moral and spiritual standards and the standards by which a school evaluates itself and reports its success. Active citizenship is one such standard.
Active CitizenshipActive Citizenship
Doreen McPhail, Alva Primary School
"For me active citizenship is about our children making good use of the knowledge and understanding, the values that we're trying to instil in them and their core skills that we're teaching throughout the school. When they have to make informed decisions about themselves, about other people that they are alongside in school and about their families and people in the community that they live in now, one hopes that ultimately they'll be able to draw on this experience and their knowledge and all the skills we're giving them in the future and make informed choices for themselves, for their life and obviously for the society that they live in."The emphasis here is on informed decisions, self knowledge and children's response to, and responsibility towards, others exemplifies ways in which headteachers broaden the purposes of school education and see their own role as creating an environment for learning and personal growth. A similar theme can be seen in Neal Clark description of Stewart's Melville College's broad and diverse standards which encompass extra-curricular activities and field trips, music, art and sport in tandem with intellectual inquiry and a school 'tone' which reinforces what is valued.
Neal Clark, Stewart's Melville College, Edinburgh
"We pride ourselves on having a huge range of extra-curricular activities. There are, for instance, approximately 70 clubs and societies that operate during the course of each week. In the course of a year there are over 200 trips and visits that boys will go out on and there is a huge amount of sport and drama and music. 70% of boys for instance will represent the school at some sport or other and 35% of boys will be involved in music and drama..."He wishes his students to be 'excited about school life', to see classroom learning as only a part of what they do and at the same time to ensure they will come out of the school much more rounded people. This testimony from a secondary student reveals the impact of learning that comes from what R.F. Mackenzie once described as 'Escape from the Classroom'.
Fiona (Student), Garnock, North Ayrshire
"Well, meeting... like when I'm meeting the Swedish people it's... for a start it's made me want to learn languages more, because I felt... when we went to Sweden, the Swedish people were talking English to us and the Spanish people were trying to, but we couldn't talk back in any way whatsoever back to Spanish or back to Swedish. We could only speak English and we had to try our best to use hand signals or slow ourselves down or use a different tone to try and communicate with the Swedish people and the Spanish. It felt... it showed... it was another experience that encouraged me to do music more to show that it's not all competitions and exams and stuff..."
Leadership: From The Ground Up
