JDMcDsblog

Ethos is a word everyone uses, but what does it mean? To me it is what we believe  and how we behave; it is an aspiration which informs our conduct and our attitudes. It finds expression in the way we work with one another, what we say, how we look and behave.

Useful definitions of the component parts of ethos can be found in, for example, “Careers in Teaching“, which sums up Professor Peter Mortimore’s definition of ethos, togther with a list of ”ethos indicators” sought by the HMIe in their inspections.

Interesting to note that Portobello High School have a Principal Teacher of Ethos and their web site sets out the means whereby a positive ethos is to be established. 

The website of the Scottish Schools Ethos Network (now defunct) can still be accessed for information, case studies and archive newsletters, on topics such as pastoral care and bullying.

Here is one quote I found interesting:

“Being made to feel part of the school is clearly related to a willingness to take part in problem-solving, planning, investing time in whole school issues that extend beyond the classroom. It is a form of inoculation against what Roger Martin (2002) has described as the’ responsibility virus’, once virulent in many Scottish schools. It expressed itself in teacher’s compliance, sometimes grudgingly, with responsibility seen as beginning and ending in the office of the headteacher. As the headteacher describes it, sharing responsibility and creating a collaborative culture do not happen overnight”

(from http://www.nationalpriorities.org.uk/Resources/iP-JohnMacBeath/Site/JM-3.html )

the first sign of a more sceptical scutiny of a Curricukum for Excellence have beem emerging lately. Writing in the TESS, Prof Lindsay Paterson,  criticieses it as vague to the point of confusion. He makes the point that,

“Sound learning is always engaging with what has gone before, and with what other people are doing now, and it often requires that we defer our own gratification.”

 He goes on to say,

 ”..A Curriculum for Excellence is confused about the past, tacitly presuming to demonstrate that no previous generation has thought up goals such as the four which it ritualistically proclaims at every turn. …A curricular reform that threatens to destroy an inheritance by ignoring it, venerates autonomy and spontaneity above all else and seeks to allure with the promise that learning ought to be good fun is, no doubt, reflecting the spirit of the times.”