Tonight a primary school colleagues told me that their school had been served with a notice from the LEA saying that they were 'at risk of coasting'. 

What was happening?  Had the school and the staff been galvanised into action?  Far from it...the staff  were depressed and demoralised.  They felt at risk, and that the academy broker vultures were circling.   I asked what the figures were looking like, and my colleague said

'I have no idea, to be honest I have seen so many meaningless figures today that I have no idea why it's been decided we are not good enough.' 

And then, and tellingly...

Kids are going home to no food/heat/clean clothes and are experiencing and seeing all manner of abuse and yet they don't give a s**t about that. Just data.

And my colleague has ben thinking about leaving the profession.  No wonder.  

Finland is moving away from traditional school subjects and on to something called 'phenomenon based learning'.    In Phenomenon Based Learning (PhenoBL) and teaching, holistic real-world phenomena provide the starting point for learning. The phenomena are studied as complete entities, in their real context, and the information and skills related to them are studied by crossing the boundaries between subjects. Phenomena are  holistic topics like human, European Union, media and technology, water or energy.The starting point differs from the traditional school culture divided into subjects, where the things studied are often split into relatively small, separate parts (decontextualisation).

Phenomenon-based structure in a curriculum also actively creates better  opportunities for integrating different subjects and themes as well as the systematic use of pedagogically meaningful methods, such as inquiry learning, problem-based  learning, project learning and portfolios. The phenomenon-based approach is also key in the versatile utilisation of different learning environments (e.g. in diversifying and enriching learning while using eLearning environments).

In the diagram below (taken from http://livetheorganicdream.com/finland-abolishing-school-subjects/) the process is explained.   
 
Will this be the end of subjects, of 'knowledge' Govean style, and the start of an emphasis on process?  And will it be the end of HE and traditional academia?  And if so, does that matter?  It'll be interesting to see how this will pan out in Finland over the years.    

This is , I think, quite extraordinary.  One of the issues has been that the pupils have to wear shoes that are 'polishable' - what an interesting rule.  Does that mean no patent (apparently some shoes are too shiny) or suede?  And what is so great about polishable shoes?  No idea.  

I don't think I would ever call this a positive behaviour policy, so again, what an extraordinary use of language.   What I should prefer to see is rules negotiated and agreed (with staff, governors, pupils and parents), sensibly enforced, and most of all, without humiliating pupils.  
Article taken from the Guardian, 17 July 2017