Sammy Wright

Oct 21, 2024 | tes.com | Sammy Wright

The nights are drawing in, the leaves are falling and performance table season is upon us. This means that around the country, leaders are checking to see when their school data appears on the Department for Education website. There’s a kind of dual consciousness to this for me. The moment in the summer when I see the actual kids, and celebrate their real successes, sits uncomfortably with the moment when I get the school’s validation as “successful” or not. But that’s the world we have created.

Oct 1, 2024 | literaryreview.co.uk | Danny Dorling |Sammy Wright

In the run-up to the 2019 election, an extremely irate man appeared on Question Time attacking Labour’s plans to increase taxes on those who, like him, earned over £80,000 – in other words, the top 5 per cent of earners. He accused them of lying, claiming he was ‘nowhere near in the top 5 per cent … I’m not even in the top 50 per cent.’He was, of course, wrong and much mocked on social media. But his mistake is extremely common – and understandable.

Aug 26, 2024 | tes.com | Sammy Wright

One of the things that teachers know, and newspaper commentators often seem to forget, is that schooling only happens by consent. Ultimately, if a kid decides to up sticks and walk off down the drive, two middle fingers aloft like he’s in a John Hughes movie (as once happened to me), there isn’t much you can do. It is what the current attendance crisis springs from, with children and parents voting with their feet.

Aug 12, 2024 | theguardian.com | Sammy Wright

Over the next few days, hundreds of thousands of young people will get the grades that they have been told will define their futures. In many cases, these will represent years of study boiled down to a few hours in an exam hall. But for many of those young people, once the results are in, the memory of exams will quickly fade, only to surface in the occasional anxiety dream. All that training – the cramming of quotes, the learning of formulas – may never be used again. So why the fuss?