My daughter’s friend has just passed his grade 1 piano. His mum said he did really well, but lost a few marks in one piece because he didn’t do the pedalling marked on the score.
He can’t reach the pedals. He’s five years old.
“That’s really unfair.” I said. “How can they mark him down for something he can’t do?”
She shrugged. “We did email them beforehand but they obviously couldn’t make allowances.”
Now, I’m all in favour of sky-high expectations, I really am, but sometimes I think our expectations of children can be plain unfair.
When we do set targets, they can’t just be an act of teacher bravado - there should be a degree of realism. What if we, like that piano examiner, are genuinely expecting the impossible? What if we know we are setting children up to fail?
To even think this sets you deeply at odds with current thinking. If your expectations are not meteoric then you are implicit in letting children down and supporting mediocrity. These days everyone, no matter what the individual circumstances, can be a high-flyer; a straight-A student; above average. Only, we can’t all be above average and the most deeply held beliefs in brilliance-for-all aren’t going to achieve this end any more than labelling a child dyslexic will help them to read.
How high is too high?
What really counts is what you do once the expectations have been set. This is where lofty notions of ambition and greatness take a back seat and the real hard graft sets in, coupled with plenty of blood, sweat and tears.
Teachers know this. I’m not sure all school leaders do.
Pressurised headteachers who passionately set “non-negotiable” expectations for behaviour and academic success often fail to extend this passion to creating the systems needed to make it a reality.
Children will respond to ambition but they’re even hotter on injustice
I have a teacher friend whose secondary school has such high expectations of exceeding its attendance record that staff are told to send sick children back into the classroom. Clearly this is barmy: children will respond to ambition but they’re even hotter on injustice.
Once the targets have been set, there’s no arguing them downwards. The phrase “high expectations” is not easy to quantify. How high is too high? Who’s to say when a child has achieved their full potential? Could they have done more?
This is a grey area often seized upon by lesson observers groping around for feedback. “Do more to stretch the most able” is an easy win. You could be teaching nuclear fission to Year 1 and, somewhere, someone with a clipboard and a tenuous relationship with the classroom will come along and ask you what you’re doing to stretch the children.
We need to expect great things while keeping an eye on the tipping point, where ambition becomes despondency. The skill of a teacher is managing this without lowering the bar, a nuance that comes only from knowing your children.
Get this right and they’ll never doubt that one day they will reach the pedals.
Jo Brighouse is a primary school teacher in the Midlands
