Panelbeating

Today was my first professional development opportunity for the school - I attended a panel meeting as an observer.

Now I know you're thinking - what on earth is the 'panel'? Sounds like the 'godfather' or something. I think in some way they think they are like that, anyway. Basically, because we don't have external exams in Queensland, our teachers write their own assessment items and tests. Clearly, this poses issues as to standardising results, so a panel of teachers meet twice a year to look at samples of work from schools. At the start of the year, they look at the previous year's work, to ascertain whether the course is being taught correctly (and flag up any glaringly obvious issues with regards to assessment). This is called the "monitoring" meeting - and this is what I was attending. At the end of term 3, they meet for the "verification" meeting - where they determine if the standards awarded are accurate and in line with the rest of the state.

Anyway, there are strict protocol rules about being an observer - rules which were printed off and handed to me prior to my attending the meeting. Stuff like 'you may not comment, you may not take notes, you may not take photocopies away from the meeting.... blah blah blah... you may not pass wind, you may not breathe in and out....' you know, that sort of thing. Just what exactly you are allowed to do, I'm not sure - because observing, whilst it is a useful tool, implies in some way that you will be privy to what is actually going on. So what actually happens is, a panellist receives a submission a few days before and must look at it at home. He/She then brings this is to the meeting, and is partnered up with another panellist. They swop packs, and look through the work. When they are ready, they discuss it together, and make their decisions. That's that. Observe this. Only problem is, observing someone looking through another school's work that they haven't already seen is very difficult if the person you are observing is watching a DVD of a student's musical performance on a laptop - but they are wearing headphones so you can't hear anything. A whole day of that. Great.

So I flitted about the groups as best I could, trying to glean from their vast expanse of knowledge and wisdom re all things classroom music, but to be fair, I really didn't get much from the whole thing. It was also a bit of a case of "wrong place, wrong time" as well, or maybe "not what you know, but who you know" - because there actually were two of us there as observers, but the other lady clearly knew the panel chair, because when one panellist failed to arrive, that observer was allowed to work with the panellist as almost like a full panellist (except of course, abiding by the 'don't pass wind etc' rules). I wasn't given that opportunity because it wouldn't be fair for that person to have 2 observers...

So I did what I could and wished the day to be over, because oh boy, was it giving me a huge headache! The only 'highlight', if you could call it that, was that I noticed one of the panellists had an unusual spelling of her relatively common surname, one that I had only ever seen once before - in my old piano teacher. So I queried her about it, and it turns out, yes, she is the daughter of my old teacher. Clearly though, she suffers also from the "which Moore are you?" syndrome (as I also do), as she was somewhat less than impressed by me mentioning this fact, and actually, spoke quite patronisingly to me and was a somewhat rude. There's a lesson in that for me - and next time I'm facing the "which Moore are you?" moment, I will be much more gracious in my response - I will be all sweetness and light, and not the least bit irritated, or rude, or condescending. Having now been on the receiving end, I realise it is not at all pleasant. My words for that woman? Good luck to you love...

So I have now experienced the joys of the panel, what fun that was. At least I got a day off from school...