Ah, if only.
Next up – alongside cajoling Year 12s (who are already mentally on the beach) to the end of term – is writing their University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) references. To this end, the college has helpfully provided a ‘refresher’ on best practice.
Now, you might think this is where a teacher’s professional judgement, based on two years’ knowledge of a student, is paramount. We are, after all, giving universities real insight into what their next intake might offer. That’s what you’d think. But no. Our job is to present a pen-pic of the uber-student – forever, in senior management’s words, “cycling downhill with the wind behind them”. While encouragement is in every teacher’s DNA, the references we are expected to write – liberally dusted with inspirational adjectives and superlatives – belong more to prize-winning fiction than honest educational assessment.
Take Lola, for example, who rarely completes homework. She will become “a visionary free spirit who selectively channels her boundless energy into the pursuits that truly ignite her soul”. Tyler, for whom abstract thought remains an occasionally visited country, is reimagined as someone who “approaches problems with unusual deliberation, preferring thoughtful reflection to rushed conclusions”. Serial non-attender Madison is eulogised as “a fiercely independent trailblazer who courageously follows her own rhythm”...<<<Read More>>>...
