#priority schools

As some of you may know, my school is a Priority School on Michigan's Top to Bottom Ranking System. As a result, we have added a seventh hour to our school day in order to intervene in the areas of need for students. These areas of need were determined by student performance on standardized test scores. Proficiency across the board allowed students to take an extra elective or a leadership and community service hour. On Tuesday my students will be retaking the standardized tests to prove their proficiency in order to adjust our scheduling for next semester and to improve students' attitudes regarding our priority status. I've been struggling to talk with my students about this because they are quick to pass the blame for our status on to everyone but themselves. We do our best to prepare them for the tests, but when the test is in front of them the effort they put forth is on them. It is hard for me to wrap my head around the politics behind this as a first year teacher. I am being professionally developed to death with three or four one-hour long professional developments a week on top of weekly staff meetings, department meetings, and PLC meetings. I feel like I am swimming in paperwork and planning my lessons for four different preps never seems complete when I have paperwork for IEP's, MDR's, and referrals to do as well. I wish nothing but success for my students, but I'd like to feel some success for myself too.

Hello and welcome to the Building Future Education (BFE) UK blog. This is the first in a series of columns covering all things to do with the building schools marketplace. To the eagle-eyed among you this will have a familiar look – the magazine Building Schools Journal was launched in 2005 as an accompaniment to the Building Schools Exhibition and Conference, which began in Harrogate in 2006. I was lucky enough to edit the magazine at an exciting time - new money, lots of optimism and new thinking transformed the sector. Six years on and there are many parallels, late-2011 feels like a new era for building schools – there’s been a plethora of new funding announcements, culminating in the Autumn statement, and several new types of school now on the drawing board. Under the last Labour Government there was an attempt to ramp up school building activity and modernise teaching methods under the banner of ‘transforming the learning environment’. The whole BSF programme was dependent on a period of long term political stability and enduring prosperity. Unsurprisingly the wheels came off pretty quickly. Now programmes have a shorter time frame and have more pragmatic aims – the two watchwords for Priority Schools are dilapidation and demand. Some new building schemes, such as Studio Schools and UTCs, still involve innovation in the curriculum, however. City Academies have evolved from aspiring to churn out a nation of mini-Alan Sugars to offering some genuinely interesting specialisms. As with BSF before, the intentions behind the policy can be interpreted in a multitude of ways, and the jury is out. Building a school remains a complex process, so design and build teams really need to pay attention to the nuances in policy, detailed client briefs and the priorities of a range of stakeholders. The BFE website (www.bfeuk.com) and event, are here to help you through what is shaping up to be another exciting time, rich with opportunities and possibilities for those who are set to build new schools for our country’s children. To become a guest columnist on behalf of BFE UK, please email me on [email protected] or submit a request on the right hand side.