I’m sick of grades. Here’s why and here’s what I do and what I would do. This is the first part of a series of posts where I look at aspects of my professional life which I find difficult to correlate with my beliefs and principles. I have to emphasise that I love my school and it is the best place I have ever worked at. This is why i dare to look at things I would do differently. That’s because I believe that only people who have opinions and criticise even the things they like with the desire to make it better are the ones who move the world forward. I also believe that as long as the things I say aim at making teaching more rewarding and learning more engaging and self-directed, my criticism is what needs to be done to describe a different attitude and a different order or importance, which relies on the human afctor rather than the administrative requirements. If you ask me, I care much more about how my child feels like getting on and off the school bus than what the inspector says about the school. Outstanding is a category my child can give to their school (yes, even at the age of 5), not some box ticking person going around the building mildly irritated by the noise and chaos of children at a school….