Teaching with moral purpose

Jim Mepham, Headteacher, Shield Road Primary, UK The aim of this reflective piece is to suggest that, as a profession, we need to consider a broader, more holistic version of primary education than we currently have, one that has moral purpose as its central focus. The [Ofsted inspectorate] framework itself is driven by an ideology of knowledge-rich curriculum, an obsession with cognitive science and reductive government targets for “academic…” subjects. In short, the inspectorate is no longer a collective of professional experts, but an autocracy. Kumari Wood and Lyons, 2022 This quote, which featured in the Schools Week magazine recently, was written by two former inspectors who have clearly become disillusioned with Ofsted’s top-down approach to teaching and learning. As I approach the end of my years as a primary headteacher, I have been reflecting on what I have learnt about teaching and learning, pedagogy and the purpose of education. I do this from a standpoint o