A Glossary of U.K. Education (Vol. 1)

Debates around education on social media can sometimes be hard to follow if you aren’t well versed in the jargon of education in the U.K. With that in mind, we’ve produced this handy glossary of commonly-used terms.




1. the process in which a school undertakes a Faustian pact resulting in the handing over of its pupil data to Amazon, the selling of the school fields to Starbucks, and eternal damnation for all staff in exchange for better SATs/GCSE results.


2. the process in which a school merely alters a word on their signage and stationery.




small human beings cared about by progressives and hated by traditionalists.

free school

/friː ˌskuːl/


evil, bloodsucking entity, set up to appease the greed of its vengeful ruler by educating the children of the local community.

Gove, Michael

/ɡəʊv ˌˈmkəl/


pantomime villain, originally from Old English folklore where he is often depicted as having the body of a Tory MP and the head of an agitated baby; in many stories in which he features, Gove is vilified by the adults of the village for trying to give their children more knowledge.




Kraftwerk tribute band marked by their performance style in which one of the members arranges all of the songs, plays all of the instruments and prepares all of the lighting, sound and stagecraft, whilst the rest of the band take the opportunity to muck about and do nothing.

learning styles

/ˈləːnɪŋ ˌstʌɪlz/


antimicrobial resistent organism that continues to thrive despite numerous attempts to medicate against it.




word used as part of a compound noun to give an air of legitimacy to an otherwise woolly term, e.g., digital literacyvisual literacyliteracy literacy.




versatile combining form that can be adjoined to the beginning of any noun in order to make that thing sound more sinister than it actually is.




traditionalist, only more sinister. Synonyms: right-wingTory, Nazi, Sith Lord, Agent of Hydra.




capricious inspectorate, prone to systematically dishing out unfair judgements. Unless that judgement is ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’, in which case it is entirely accurate and should be emblazoned across letterheads and banners. 




from the Greek παιδός, (paidos), “teachy”, and ἄγω (ágō), “teaching”: literally, “teachy teaching”.




1. a teacher committed to the values of progressivism.


2. a teacher just out of initial teacher training.

Robinson, Sir Ken

/ˈrɒbɪns(ə)n ˌˈsəː ˈkɛn/


chivalrous knight of YouTubian legend; the folk tales tell of how Sir Ken is bestowed with a golden tongue by TED the Enchanter, and of how he uses this tongue to defeat the Great Sages of Rote Wisdom by invoking the Spirits of Dance.

rote learning

/rəʊt ˌˈləːnɪŋ/


1. that which Sir Ken Robinson opposes, instead suggesting more dance in the curriculum.

2. the most common and effective way to learn how to dance.

Shift Happens

/ʃɪft ˈhap(ə)nz/






a diabolical cult dedicated the denigration of fun, posters, role play and group work; based on ideology (cf. progressivism, which is ideology-free and entirely based on pragmatism and principles); followers of traditionalism dislike children and can be mostly found in schools.




to disagree with a view on education that one holds; this is a transitive verb which can only be done unto the first person me and not unto second or third person pronouns such as him, her or you – “he trolled me” is correct usage, whereas “I trolled her/you” is incorrect.


someone who disagrees with your view on education.



15 thoughts on “A Glossary of U.K. Education (Vol. 1)”

  1. You must have spent 5 or 10 minutes of your life composing this, that really is commitment to the cause. While I think you have captured the flavour of the “traditionalist”, your understanding of the “progressive” is a little stunted. A good effort none the less. Whether it was worth spending 5-10 minutes of ones life on depends I guess on what one would have done with the time otherwise. Grade: 4C and neat writing merit.

    1. If you’ve read it and have been moved to comment, it was worth the time it took to write. Thank you in return for taking the time out of your life to give your kind and thoughtful feedback.

  2. Made me smile. Thank you. Will use this as my school’s final ‘Friday Blog’ (did I steal that idea from you as well?) of the term.

Leave a Reply to kpulleyn Cancel reply


WordPress.com Logo


Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s