If I were about to start a new year as a school leader I would:
… determine that I would allocate one day each half term to shadow a pupil chosen at random. This would include breaks and lunchtimes
… work out what portion of the day the individual actually felt stretched. This would be labelled the stretch factor and would be given as a percentage
… design a survey to get pupils to give me an honest assessment of how stretched they felt each day
… work with teachers to increase this stretch factor (e.g. by 10% each term) by an agreed percentage each term. A 43% starting point would have to go up by 4.3 to 47.3% the next term and so on
Why?
… because I reckon that children are often bored at school and
… I actually think that boredom leads more often to paralysis than creativity
… I believe that brilliant teaching leads to all children being fully engaged and stretched
… I think that children’s brains expand and develop at a greater rate when they are engaged and stretched
… I think teachers need to focus hugely on this if they are to keep their learners motivated and a stretch factor might help them with their practice
Do please let me know if you try this. I’d love to know the results.