As Daft As It Sounds?
The good thing about having approachable and flexible colleagues is that you can run things up the flagpole in the knowledge that they will be considered and only knocked back for good, practical reasons. As this year’s testing process runs on & on the following facts occurred to me:
- the most time-consuming process takes place in primary schools with several P5 classes
- testing can be started right at the beginning of term as pupils in primary schools are simply easier to contact
- the process is much shorter in secondary schools
- due to rotas, some pupils do not have Music in the first part of S1 and special measures have to be taken to ensure that everyone has a fair chance to apply – so testing does not begin until week 3 or 4. During this time, the periods reserved for S1 pupils are not used for teaching.
One of the results of this is that the youngest people are waiting the longest for results. It must be like being told on Dec 24th that Christmas is as frequent as leap years.
So, one idea to run up the flagpole, is that secondary schools donate as much of Week 1 as necessary so that the entire Primary process (Listening Test followed by Aptitude Test on the guitar) can be wrapped up and invitations issued before the end of that week.
The advantages are obvious enough. Are there any obvious disadvantages?
- Any pupil absent in the first week would miss out completely.
- Disruption - each P5 class would have a “whole class” Listening Test followed by several smaller groups of pupils being extracted for the Aptitude Tests. This could be very unsettling. Would it be worth it?
