One meeting I enjoyed last week, was welcoming Constantin Court (Headteacher) and Karen Chester (Admisions Manager) from Brantwood Specialist School to Paces and Paces Campus.
That led me to the School's website. Actually, I'd been to the website before so was suprised that I had not then noticed in the header their tag-line "re-imagining potential".
Now I tend to bang on about potential. Particularly, objecting to glib formulations such as "unlocking potential" or "releasing potential". You'll find a couple of posts or more on this blog if you use the Search tool and put in "potential". Posts such as these:
Please, (Sir/Miss as you like), have I reached my potential yet? (May 2013)
In what way (I asked) is "Progress against appropriate measures" any more a measure of learners achieving their potential than it is of teachers teaching to their potential, especially when no-one can possibly yet know the "potential" of either learner or teacher? And when, if "potential" has any meaning whatsoever in education, it can only be something that is not "achieved" nor "fulfilled" but "created".
Is potential "spotted" as Les Ebdon says or created? (March 2012)
Personally, (I wrote) I find the idea that "potential" is somehow innate, waiting to be "spotted" in children just 7 years old (or younger, or older, take your pick), presumes an utterly negative view not just of education (of learning and teaching and upbringing) but of Humanity in general.
So it was a delight to come across "re-imagining potential" which the Ruskin Mill Trust use for each page of their website including their Brantwood School page. I wish I had thought of it myself.