I stumbled across the archive blog posts of Sarah Thomas recently. They are a treasure trove.
Sarah was Deputy Head at Uppingham where we overlapped for a short spell. As a young teacher, I remember thinking she was superb; reading through her posts reminds me of why.
I hope Bryanston continue to leave up her posts up on their website as an archive. In case they don't, I'll be liberally cutting and pasting from them whilst I can. Here's an excerpt, for example, from her post about school rules:
Bryanston’s fundamental rules are, by contrast, ultra simple. There are just four of them.
- A breach of common sense or courtesy is a breach of school rules.
- A breach of the law of the land is a serious breach of school rules.
- We ban sex, drugs, alcohol and smoking and you are liable to be expelled for involvement in either of the first two.
- Furthermore, the following are automatic suspension offences:
- night wandering,
- being on the roof of the main building,
- smoking in a building.
I love that simplicity.
I suspect you can't do away completely with a more comprehensive set of rules somewhere - in fact the comprehensive set at the last three school's in which I've worked now bear an uncanny resemblance to Uppingham's as they stood in 2011. Those rules no doubt still bearing the hallmarks of Sarah's work earlier in the noughties.
But Sarah's simpler set are far better for sharing, better for ready reference in pupil planners and on noticeboards.
They will enter my own canon forthwith!