Lowbrook Academy was invited to enter a team in this years Festival of Rugby in Berkshire. The Tournament this year is structured differently to previous years whereby the team that "has the most fun" progresses through to the next stage of the competition, as opposed to the team that wins the most matches. Please see below Mr Rooney's response to the invitation;

The children from Lowbrook will not be entering this non competitive festival as it has clearly been designed without dedicated and hardworking schools such as us in mind.

I'm off to school tomorrow and I'm going to award all the children in Year 6 a medal for taking part in maths. I'm going to ignore the top 6 children and I'm not going to praise my maths coordinator for leading maths so well in my school. Instead I'm going to send my English teacher along with 4 of my struggling mathematicians to a masterclass with others from around the Southeast. A day off !!!!!!!! They might be humiliated but...

I know I'm doing the right thing because some professor who hasn't ever taught maths did a study, ignored all the teachers and what happens in other countries and convinced a committee of committed committee people at a committee to ensure this outdated and pointless ideology was followed through.

There is a maths test at the end of term but the results don't matter - everyone is a winner! I am however going to award points for neatest handwriting and those that thanked the English teacher for designing such a wonderful test . She even renamed it the Festival of maths quiz. A special prize will be awarded to the member of the class who did the most homework and neatest borders. No need to mark this homework of course but stickers will be given out for work with names on it. A special prize will also be given to 2 children because they haven't bothered handing homework in until this week. Better late the never- have a medal!

As for my maths teacher. I have a funny feeling he is talking to some private and like minded schools so he can carry on with his mission of teaching skills to a high level and allowing them to sit a test and measure their progress amongst peers. He assures me that the children understand about doing well and perhaps not doing so well. He told me they would enjoy the competition because they had worked hard towards a goal with a team. He related it to sport and affirmed to me that it was an important part of school - learning how to win and equally learning how to lose . He called it healthy competition and told me it happens in hundreds of thousands of schools around the world! He also told me about the RFU and how it did a study on maturation and applied it to the different sport of Tag rugby- an invasion game that incorporates rugby skills but has no tackling, rucking or mauling so was largely unaffected by such a study! He was really confused.

As the Head I'm also confused. I have a pay review next week when my schools results will be discussed. I have sacked my union rep and replaced her with a member of the RFU and sports partnership . At least I know I won't lose anything and with any luck another school with lesser results will be given more money to run their school to bring it up to the standard of mine. Everyone's a winner!

Before I sign off - my son had a great day at secondary school today but is not sure he wants to play rugby for his state school. They were beaten by Wellington by over 40 points!

Can't work out why there is such a differential. Am I missing something?

Must rush got to plan my assembly for tomorrow : Title : Winning, a losers game!

Dave

Born again football fan!

Executive Principal

Lowbrook Academy