They do believe their own rhetoric, honest guv ...

In some of the national game play I am involved in the review of different centres to assure and ensure their compliance to some of the many national standards. Whilst I am by no means an ofsted inspector, for those we don’t utter these words of Mordor again, I can, if appropriate prevent a centre from certificating their students for an extensive range of qualifications.

Isn't dangerous what a little power can be ;-)

Nevertheless, this is not the subject of my thoughts for today.

One of the entertainments I get to hear is the rhetoric from the centre representatives, there is a suitable saying that ‘Bull***t baffles brains’. When I hear the rhetoric being switched on, having played these games in the past as the centre representative, I start dangling little (and big) fishes of uber-rhetoric to see if they bite and up the ante, sadly they do.

Often they believe that I want to hear it, when they hear me reflecting their words, they cannot escape from the need to layer the rhetoric with even more. It is entertaining, but it is sad. Many of these souls are conditioned into the belief that the rhetoric and the newspeak, politspeak is the way they need to communicate.

What they often misunderstand, is that I am taunting them, to see if they can use real language and tell me about what they really do with the students. We can all meet targets, raise standards and improve retention and achievement, but can you make the learners feel at home, comfortable and give them something that they can use forever?

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