This isn’t the blog post I wanted to write so I’ll have to come back later … sorry!

For the first time in three years of blogging and tweeting have I doubted myself. After an episode on twitter I’ve spent the last 15 hours wondering if my chronicling of the accreditation process is being seen as a crusade … no … that isn’t what I mean. I am wondering if people see me as a “negferret” – you know the kind of person that says “this’ll never work .. its sh1t! … it never works”. .. I’m sure you know what I mean.

Let me start at the beginning …

Yesterday I responded to a tweet about the new maths GCSE with the below. I know there was the whole “frequency” tree thing (New Maths Post , Frequency Trees and Frequency Tree Update) and making up maths, but all along I have said that I quite like the content. In fact I quite liked some of the SAMs (yes they were challenging) … all along I have said that we shouldn’t be thinking about the new GCSE with our current cohort in mind. My issue has been the accreditation process and the fact that we are now speeding into the summer term and still nothing, but I suspect that people are “busting a gut” to get something out sooner than the end of June.

This was shortly followed by the below response and accordingly I responded. I have never knowingly set out to make personal criticisms (apart from taking the mickey out of some of my twitter buddies!) especially any that criticise another teacher’s professionalism.

Anyway the conversation continued and this person (you will note that I have redacted the tweets) went onto say that I was negative.

What I really wonder is in what world do people think its ok to make personal assumptions about me and then I got thinking about blogging. I put it out “there” so does that mean I am fair game, so to speak … ummm no! This person in my opinion stepped over the line and made it personal, especially assuming that by raising awareness it is being done at the detriment of my planning and preparation … well I can assure you that is not the case. The accreditation process is something I am passionate about and I will make the time, but it certainly will not affect the important stuff.

What is even more disappointing though and perhaps indicative of teachers having been through changes in the past. I’ve heard things like “oh it’s just another change”, “yeah that’ll pass” but even more worrying are comments like “what’s the point in replying to consultations? They never listen to us anyway”. So what I am doing is the exact opposite I am shouting it from the rooftops and even if it makes no difference I will continue and unlike someone’s naïve and narrow-minded point of view – Ofqual and the Dfe are not “administrators”. They have the ultimate power of changing the shape of education … maths teachers are feeling the pressure in a climate of more accountability than we have ever seen before. I take issue with education, and by association our students (particularly years 8 and 9 – especially year 9!) being used as political footballs.

Anyway the conversation ended with a couple of tweets reminding me how negative I am and that I was wasting her time – I didn’t ask her to reply to my initial tweet. I didn’t ask her to follow me.

 Anyway one last time, before I write up my next post about my letter to some very important people … if in doubt ….

PS: As I’m just about to press “publish” I have just received an email which ends “Thank you again for all your positivity, it helps more than you could imagine”