On a journey - the road to nowhere...

Eldest son's high school is in special measures after spectacularly failing an Ofsted in May last year. This damning situation was reinforced recently by a follow-up visit from HMI, which found little improvement. This is inspite of a number of - rather frantic - messages from the senior leadership team (SLT) to the effect that they have 'embarked on an exciting improvement journey'. Language like that chills my blood; it means absolutely nothing - and all the while reputation and lack of real progress ebbs away at morale (staff and student) - no-one wants to learn or teach in that sort of environment. Now, however, there is progress - a new name and blazers are on the way! Quite how this fits into the journey, or will lead to any concrete improvement in leadership or quality of education is hard to say, but we're all just so excited by it, not. I'm tempted to suggest a Latin motto for the new badge, something along the lines of Stercus non potest poliri.