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Vakuous...

29/4/2015

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Vacuuming is a very useful time to let your mind wander, especially if, like me, a random series of thoughts seems to develop when apparently not thinking directly. (The potential of daydreaming and doodling? They work really well for me.)

Regularly on Twitter, VAK is a topic for blog posts and some discussion. I know I am stepping into murky waters, but there might just be a VAKant space for one more.

Excuse me if anyone finds this post VAKuous, but it strikes me that certain pedagogical terms cause fear and anxiety among teachers. Maybe it’s a case of personal perception or predisposition. Colleagues somehow just don’t see things the same way. OK, life would be boring if we all thought the same, but why should there be such apparent hostility to certain approaches, especially when a key question teachers ask is how to get across a particular idea?  Maybe we need to take a good VAKation just to have time to reflect? Sadly, there is no VAKcine for this kind of concern.

What’s VAK? Interpreted as standing for visual, aural and kinaesthetic approaches to learning, the terms derived from work on multiple intelligences by Howard Gardner in the 1980s and 90s. He added other predispositions, musical, logical-mathematical, intra- and interpersonal, spiritual, moral, naturalist, seeking to describe the varied ways in which learners interact with experiences. 

An example might be a person entering a place of worship and sensing some kind of “specialness”, which might be Gardner’s spiritual definition, but the concrete experience (feeling) might lead to reflection and abstraction.

Other work on learning styles was undertaken by Kolb, which has been interpreted in the diagram below, where he seeks to articulate the mental processing of learning, whereas Gardner would appear to focus more on how learners take on information.

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A very good discussion of the parameters of a range of learning styles can be seen via:-

http://www2.plymouth.ac.uk/ed/ELT%20documents/umistlearningstyles.pdf

Embedding Learning Technologies discussion document.

Another view of learning styles is given by Grasha (1996), who describes six types of learning style that he and Sheryl Riechman used as the basis for their Student Learning Styles Scales and which may have more resonance and application for some. This table is extracted from the UMIST document above.

 

Competitive students learn material in order to perform better than others.

They like to receive recognition for their accomplishments and prefer both

teacher-centred instruction and also group tasks where they can lead or

demonstrate their pre-eminence.

 

Collaborative students feel that they can learn by sharing ideas and talents.

They like to co-operate with the teacher and to work with others. This leads

to a preference for group work, projects, seminars and lectures that feature

small group discussion

 

Avoidant students are uninterested in classroom learning and participate

reluctantly. They prefer large group situations where they can remain

anonymous and do not like enthusiastic teachers.

 

Participant students are good citizens and enjoy participating in as much as

they can. Typically, they are eager to take all the options that they can and to

fully meet all the requirements. They prefer participative exercises,

including lectures that allow student participation, informal discussions and

reading assignments.

 

Dependent students show little intellectual curiosity and learn only what is

required. They look for structure and specifics and prefer teacher-centred

classroom situations, good handouts or notes to copy and clear deadlines and

instructions for assignments.

 

Independent students like to think for themselves and are confident in their

learning abilities. They often like to work alone and prefer student-centred

methods, self-paced instruction and assignments that give students a chance

to think independently.

So you have examples of three articulated views of learning styles and yet more exist. One of the three is seemingly based on the receiving of information, one on the mental processes and one on the personal disposition towards learning. They are helpful to have in mind when thinking about learning, but there is no way that a teacher could accommodate to the multiple permutations afforded.

However, there is room within the whole to consider the style of challenge in seeking to engage individuals who may be showing signs of discomfort if presented with an approach which provides challenge beyond their comfort zone.

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If Kolb, Gardner and Grasha are correct, it supports the simple assertion that we all see the world in different ways, as well as “through our own eyes”. Multi-sensory interpretation of experience starts from birth, based on exploration, reinforcement, copying and developing attempts at language.

There is a principle of experiential learning which I have sought to capture in another post, Making sense of experience, Experience, Explore and Explain, or something to handle, look at, talk about, find out about and share.

Go into any Early Years environment and you cannot fail to notice the physicality of the resources, providing visual and kinaesthetic experience, which could be interpreted as evidence of Gardner’s three main learning styles, as well as the others, being challenged. Children will be actively looking at, handling and exploring different artefacts or other visual stimuli, listening to the teacher, other adults or each other, working in different groupings or alone, speaking their thoughts aloud, as they refine their thinking based on responses. It is a significant part of the way that we learn, but it is not necessarily useful to describe a child as being a particular type of learner and adapt to that.



Information comes to us through a wide range of media. Everyone needs the skills to extract and use the information, however it comes.

In Key Stage one, children will still spend a proportion of their time working with concrete apparatus, such as counting supports, base ten materials, play farm or house, dressing up role-play, puppets, craft materials. Images will be evident, as prompts for talk. Practical, hands-on activity-based learning is still the norm.

Key stage two may see fewer examples as described above, but, if Piaget was correct, a relatively sizeable proportion of the learners still need to work problems out with concrete materials. In many cases the concrete materials are replaced with modelling of, or drawing ideas, manipulation of ideas on a page or screen. The outcome of all the approaches is the creation of mental imagery which can support more abstract thinking.

While the majority of Key Stage three learners, on the whole, are hopefully moving further away from the concrete phase of thinking, the novelty of many subject based learning contexts will require teachers to offer visual imagery, artefacts, museum and art gallery visits, trips to theatres, places of worship, local and distant places of interest.

And so on. The difficulty may be implicit in the age group being taught, but, as adults we find pleasure in our senses as learning tools, whether in formal or informal learning situations. We still look, listen, touch, smell and taste and can get very excited, agitated or reflective as a result. The smell of coal dust always takes me back to holidays with Welsh mining relations.

Student teachers engage with a wide range of presentational styles, which could be called VAK approaches. Students of architecture “play” with Lego or other structural materials. The new piece of technology creates an alternative play opportunity.

Where some of Gardner’s descriptors are more subject-based, there probably is less room for dispute among professionals about different learning preference if consideration is given to statements such as “He’s better at English than science”, “She’s better at design than French”, “That group tries hard in…” suggesting an implicit recognition that some learners find some subjects more to their liking than others. We’re quite good as a profession at making judgements about how good a learner is in any particular field and what they can recall, relative to others, but are we always as good at describing the specifics of what they are good at, which is at the heart of learning capabilities?

The dispute often seems to focus on Gardner’s more general, visual, aural and kinaesthetic statements, with the implication that some children prefer to see, hear or manipulate information in order to learn and that there is a prescription for teachers to offer experiences within learning to satisfy the individual learning style needs.

Perhaps some of the problem is a perceived challenge to the teacher’s preferred teaching style, which can be dictated by personality, the nature of the curriculum, the time available and pressures from “management” to achieve.

Grasha (1996) describes five teaching styles:

Expert Possesses knowledge and expertise in the subject; concerned with transmitting information; strives to demonstrate expertise to students and thus maintain own status.

 

Formal Authority Possesses status because of role as a teacher; concerned with the correct, acceptable and standard ways of doing things and with providing feedback, both negative and positive; likely to establish learning goals, expectations and rules of conduct.

 

Personal Model Believes in teaching by personal example; oversees, guides and directs by showing how to do things and encouraging students to observe and emulate.

 

Facilitator Guides, supports and encourages students to develop themselves; encourages asking questions and exploring options; develops initiative and responsibility; works with students on projects in a consultative fashion

 

Delegator Perceives role as a resource to be called upon by students; expects students to work autonomously and independently.

 

Teachers have always argued about the “best way” to teach, with the almost inevitable polarisation of views. Some of this will be down to their personality, some to their own learning experience and some to the context of their school, or just their subject. In many ways this becomes a superfluous argument, as, in my experience, the majority of teachers mix and match their approaches, from one end of the spectrum through to the other. It is a case of “horses for courses” and the mixed economy of approaches which is likely to enthuse learners, if for no other reason than children and many teachers like a little novelty, to make their lives interesting.

The best way to teach, in my opinion, is the best way that the children in the class learn. That needs to be known by the teacher, or the teaching can miss the mark.

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Life, Decisions and Character

27/4/2015

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Or, why don't they just "grow up"?

Life is a series of experiences within which we have to make decisions, some of them more difficult than others. However, the need to make decisions cannot be taken away from you, even if you follow the instructions of the sat nav. You still need to be aware of the road circumstance and to override the instructions if necessary.


Life experiences are often subject to organisational need and planning to be effective, with an element of preparatory reflection preceding these aspects, perhaps perusing maps, making lists of necessary equipment, lists of jobs to remember to do. In other words, life is a bit of a project and like all projects, some bits need to be more prepared than others. The level of difficulty is likely to depend on prior experiences, so that the new one is put into context, with lessons learned from the earlier experience being used to guide decisions this time around.

In teaching and learning terms, for ease of memorisation, I reduce this to analyse, plan, do, review and record. Teaching and learning are further complicated by a significant variable; the children. Knowing the children who will be undertaking the learning, as well as possible, is likely to enable fine tuning of planning, especially at tasking level, with further refinement in-lesson to arising needs.

However, I think that, for many children’s learning, the tasking itself has become a significant issue, in that they are often brought into the task at the “doing” stage, so are required largely to respond, then to remember. Unless children are introduced to tasks that enable them to be partners in the whole of the learning process, they become reliant on the teacher for instruction, for resourcing and for the instruction of how to go about the task. They do not develop self-reliance, nor the attributes often classed as resilience and independence, as they do not have a secure overview of the task in hand, nor are they enabled to make appropriate decisions.

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An example

Topic; sorting things out…

I arrived one morning at the Infant school where I was deputy head, with a mixture of dried peas, lentils, sand, salt and paper clips. The story that I told was that I had been bringing these materials into school for a later art activity, but that they had spilled in the back of the car and been muddled. The problem was that we needed them to be sorted so that they could be used. A group of children were given the problem of trying to sort them out. (This was an integrated day approach; others were otherwise detailed to tasks)

They proposed and shared ideas, using what they knew to sort the problem in stages. The paper clips were removed with magnets, as one child knew that paper clips were steel and were attracted by the magnet.

Different sized sieves were deployed to sort the peas, then the lentils, leaving the sand and salt mix. This was the critical point, as it embedded the main teaching point; that some elements dissolve in water, while others don’t. Some children had experienced dissolving salt and sugar at home and were able, with carefully guided support questions, to offer this solution to the problem. The solids were put into water and stirred, the sand retained in a coffee filter, with the liquid left to evaporate in the sunny window.

The children, aged 6 and 7, were enabled to use what they knew and then to accept that at certain points they needed to know something more, if they were to succeed.

This style of activity also lent itself to high quality report or instruction writing, based on what they had done.

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Short cuts and recipes

Repetition can lead to inadvertent short cuts being developed as teachers think about how something went the previous time and seek to iron out the areas that might have caused some concerns, wither to them or to the learners.

The introduction of the National Strategies and the accompanying QCA guide lessons, were, to me and many colleagues who had careers before the National Curriculum, as nothing more than the recipe for satisfactory teaching. They were introduced to achieve that, but, in so doing, had a reductive impact on those creative teachers who felt that they ought to do as they were asked.

I have a slight concern about too much sharing of ideas, unless this is surrounded by the background thinking, in that the act of copying could circumvent the need for both the teacher and the learners from the need to think.

Avoidance (nice, neat classrooms?)

Seeking to avoid issues in learning can reduce the challenge, the need to make decisions and the need to clear up and reflect afterwards.

In this way, certain subjects can be left until the “really important” ones have been achieved. The apocryphal story of art on a Friday afternoon is a case in point; more often than not, it does not then happen.

The question might be, “Do you run a learning workshop, or a space where your wisdom is dispensed?” Of course the answer to this will change over time, from EYFY to A level, depending on the subject.

Character education

A great deal is currently being said about character, with words like resilience joined for good measure. While you can also use notions of discipline and some then take this to organised cadet-style training, much character is already being shown by children who may be growing up in circumstances which are very demanding. Some already have significant levels of maturity, responsibility, order and organisational skills.

These can be downplayed, by constructing an imposed discipline model. I have a personal preference for a self-disciplined model, with children learning through encountering and overcoming challenges which might impact and improve their daily existence. While there is pleasure in personal challenge and, as I have written in other blogs, my childhood allowed for climbing trees and rock faces, as well as messing about in boats, real life has a greater impact and demand.

Parents divorce. People die. Money gets tight. People argue, fight, take risks, get caught, go to prison.

Some are born with disabilities with which they have to live. Some of these will be more limiting than others. Some will learn to overcome them, with help and support, others will need continual support.

Character is formed from thinking, acting, succeeding, reflecting, reorganising, taking stock, taking charge, developing independence, self-reliance, building a skill set that enables challenge to be considered from different angles, enabling finer decision making.

For an insight into the formation of my character, see here.

Life, which is about learning is a project, which needs to be carefully handled, if it is to make sense.

A project seen as a whole process can be reflected upon. Areas where the process can be improved can be noted for next time and the impact on the outcome considered.

So the idea of improvement can be embedded in the ongoing series of projects that make up life, as well as school.

Always recognising that some will need more guidance than others if they are to succeed.

As Esther Rantzen used to say “That’s Life.”  

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 teacher5aday End of holiday update

26/4/2015

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The secret of #teacher5aday would seem to me to do something that is totally divorced from work that completely occupies your mind.

Having offered some initial thoughts and also posting a couple of ongoing blogs, it became clear to me that, as a freelance, the opportunity to put anything into regular practice would be compromised, so in an attempt to ensure a healthy balance, I decided to take charge of my diary at the end of the spring term and to make sure that I had a clear week, just before the school holidays began in my local county, in order to travel to my small house in la France profonde, to do some heavy duty tree work and gardening. It was a head clearing experience, as the loudest noises were the dawn chorus and the cuckoo, which arrives earlier in that part.



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Focus, concentration, sheer hard graft, with a little blood and sweat, but no tears, except for the tears caused by bonfire smoke, ensured that my head was clear by the end of the few days available between the rain.

The other thing that I have been able to fit into a variable timeframe has been some reading. For many years, I was an avid collector of the novels by Georges Simenon, who is best known for his Maigret detective series, which eventually ran to over seventy titles. I have managed to collect all but one of the books in English and a large proportion in French too, so that I am able to dip in and out of the two languages, especially in preparation for travelling.

For the past couple of months, my relaxation reading has been the Maigrets in order, reflecting on the development of what became an ever simpler, cinematographic style of writing. Once the stories were taken up by television and film, the style almost created the background script. They are a reasonably light read, especially before bedtime. They fall into the oldie but goodie category. However, I may well delay getting into the 200 or so novels which is the larger part of the rereading project.

Bonne chance.



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Seeing the world differently

24/4/2015

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I love France; I’ve had a love affair with it since I was a teenager and discovered the beauty of the language and that I could actually speak it with native French speakers and we could understand each other. I’ve since had the good fortune to buy a very small house and play at being a peasant, at least for a few weeks of every year.

When travelling distances in France, I’ll tend to use the route nationale (RN) system, in preference to the autoroute (A roads), largely because I like to feel as if I am in a different country, watching the terrain and the housing change, as well as reading the adverts alongside the road. The autoroute is like any motorway anywhere, apart from the regularity of the aires de repos, which can be very useful for comfort stops, so occasionally a small diversion is needed, as les toilettes can be hard to find in the villages en route.

While I am happy taking a little longer and occasionally stopping to look around, to get a feel for the places, I have very good friends who get in their car and just head directly and through the quickest means to their destination. They could be in any country, apart from the need to pay tolls in France for the autoroute. Their enjoyment of France is different to mine. They enjoy the destination, rather than the journeying.

I am tempted to use this difference as an analogy for teaching, in that some prefer to take what appears to be a more leisurely journey, while others prefer the more direct style. If done well, both arrive at their destination. However, as a journeyer, I’d argue that, by taking the more circuitous route, stopping to have a close look around at the details and to put these into an appreciation of the whole, the experience of the journeying approach provides a greater degree of understanding and the ability to bring to mind that detail when needed.

Sometimes there is a need to go back and recover some of the ground already covered, to fill in the detail that has been missed, so that the onward journey is better informed.

Sometimes there’s a need to speed up and finish quickly, especially, if journeying, you are likely to run out of available daylight and will not reach the house. One has to be pragmatic.

The greater the mental detail developed, the easier it is to re-tread the same ground the next time it is needed. Having a good idea of the whole can help if detours are needed in response to an unexpected blockage. That way, it is possible to maintain the forward momentum towards the destination, even if that takes a little longer.

If you keep going in the right direction, you get to the destination eventually.

Hares and tortoises anyone?
Who wouldn't want this view?


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Year 6 Book list

24/4/2015

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Busy teachers don't always have the time to keep up with the multitude of books that are printed each year.

My wife, a Secondary Library Manager, produces, each year, a list of books which is shared with the school feeder Primaries, to encourage the year 6 children to keep reading between SATs and entry into the school. This year, I have persuaded her to develop this as a "flyer" and wanted to share the outcome generally. The books are varied, in interest and challenge, but should encourage a good level of discussion.

Enjoy.
Please let me know if you use the list.

In case you missed it, there is also a list of books for Inclusion, which might be of interest. Link HERE.

Apologies to colleagues (on PC) for two versions of the list below. I've done that as Scribd doesn't seem to like mobile, so hopefully mobile users will get one version. Overkill maybe.
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4b or not 4b? that's the question.

20/4/2015

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If things go unchanged, children at the end of Primary education will be subject to national tests which will determine whether or not they have reached the “National Standard”. Recently, the SoS for education proposed that any child not reaching this standard will be required to retake the test at the end of year 7.

Now, a few things come to mind when thinking about this.

The new “standard” is supposedly higher than previously considered as the standard. That could mean fewer children passing, unless teachers get better at teaching to the new test, so a large group could need some kind of defined intervention in year 7. This group will vary in size from area to area, depending on the local demographic; possibly from near zero to a majority.

It could be seen as an action on Secondary schools to ensure that they play catch up with a specific group. However, this group will be largely those children who have special educational needs, some of them quite specific, which may preclude them from achieving at the end of year 7. There has been no mention of what might be the outcome for those children.

For the 26 years of the old National Curriculum, with level descriptors providing the basis for decisions, there was always a dispute with Secondary schools about their willingness to accept the outcomes of Primary assessment and testing, even with regard to levels 3 and 4, in Maths and English. They were deemed, by colleague professionals, not to be the same in the different contexts.

I have to say that I can see the same happening over the next few years, as Primaries develop their own assessment schemes and as the outcomes of the National assessment tests may, or may not, validate those internal decisions, so that, on entry to Secondary education, children will be faced with a further battery of internal tests to enable Secondaries to create their own baselines. This will also happen to in-year entrants, to enable decisions on placement.

In reality, it is likely that in the near future, children will face more and more testing, until some settling takes place.

All this could have been avoided, with a national “tweaking” of the wording of the level descriptors to be used as “capability or progress descriptors”, coupled with the imperative to only use words in discussing progress with children.

Numbers are for teachers, as data; words are for learners.

A national portfolio of exemplar outcomes across all subject areas would be possible, as demonstrated by the many websites that encourage work sharing. This would enable local moderation against national benchmarks; something that may be lost in the next period of time.

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Top Tips for Inclusion

20/4/2015

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A significant highlight of this academic year was to be asked by Rachel Jones to write a piece for her book, Don't Change the Light Bulbs. My topic was inclusion, so I duly wrote my Top Ten Tips for Inclusion, which eventually made it into the pages of the finished book. If you have not read the book, it is a great one to dip into, as each section is a separate and easily readable synopsis of ideas and can be a starter for much reflection.
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Policy; make sure that the school policy for Inclusion is written in such a way that it is easily understood by the wider audience, has the potential to impact on the overall school ethos and can be tracked and evaluated regularly. Reference is likely to be made to associated policies, such as behaviour, safeguarding, parents and teaching and learning (all abilities).

Policy; Interpret the broader policy into a shortened series of memorable statements. Translate as needed for any significant heritage groups. Display expectations clearly around the school and refer to them regularly, in class or in assemblies.

Clear lines of responsibility are essential. Good record keeping at all stages is a hallmark of effective, supportive practice. Record keeping should be streamlined, but be easy for staff, parents and external expertise to effect and be seen to have impact in supporting the school's ability to support the children.

Communication in all its forms is the bedrock of successful inclusion, between all parties. Ease of access for parents to key teaching staff can limit the impact of potential issues. Reduce the time for parents to brood on a possible problem. Parents can be the key to successful Inclusion; it is essential that children see the school and parents working together with a common purpose.

Know your children really well, the identified vulnerable ones, but also knowing what to look out for, so that none slip through the net. Know their personal situations as well as their academic achievements. Ensure that this information is known by those with a need to know, classroom teachers as well as mentor staff.

Plan for individual personal support. Allocate a specific member of staff to be the front line mentor and support. Where there are a number of vulnerable children, ensure that each mentor has a manageable number to monitor.

Teachers differentiate appropriately in academic situations. This can take a variety of forms, but should provide challenge, as well as opportunities to succeed, to all abilities. Descriptions of different differentiation approaches are described in this article.
http://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/differentiation-explored

Personalise teacher response to children's needs in learning situations.

This can be seen in:-

Inputs which allow for the breadth of ability, through careful vocabulary selection, use of appropriate resources, use of metaphor or reference to prior learning. 

Questioning quality, initial and scaffolded subsidiary questions.

Oral feedback, within the lesson should provide support and guidance to the next learning steps.

Marking which adds value to subsequent learning and which is enacted quickly to have impact.

Evaluate and reflect on the system regularly, from individual examples to corporate level, to quality assure the whole system, seeking and utilising feedback from everyone concerned.

Inclusion is embedded in all the Teaching Standards 2012. Inclusion is, in reality, doing your job, really well, for each and every child for whom you are responsible. Know the standards.
 

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NQT; getting that first job.

16/4/2015

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Spring has sprung

And all over the country there is the annual job-fest that is the merry go round of teacher appointments.

Last term, I worked with a large group of finalist students, all of whom proved that they had the potential to become high grade teacher at an early stage in their career. As the school experience progressed, we began to discuss the need for job applications, as the NQT posts were beginning to appear in the local Council website and some of their colleagues were actively applying.

The process, in itself, can appear, from the point of view of the school, to be relatively straight forward, but in the minds of the applicants there are many potential pitfalls to avoid, if the student teacher is to become one of the few who will eventually walk through the door to the final stages.

The first step is likely to be the initial contact with the school.

Going to have a look around the school is an important step, especially for the applicant, as, whether you feel comfortable in the institution is important. It will be a very large part of your life for the time you are there. Teaching can become all-consuming. You need to be in the right place, especially at the start. Visit, look around, ask questions and discuss professionally. It is a two way process and you are, whether you feel it or not, on and informal interview, even at that stage. You are, after all, selling yourself and the school will be wanting to sell itself too. Remember that schools are experts at selling themselves; they do it all the time to prospective parents, so can tell their story very well.

The written application

Is very important, if you are to get through the door again, as it is the document that will be pored over by the head, deputy, other involved staff and Governors, who will make up the interview panel. The detail and style of your writing is critical. This document is selling you, not some generic prospective teacher, so make sure that you are visible throughout the writing.

Make sure that the school and the headteacher names are correct.

Don’t repeat information that is already asked for in another section of the form.

Order and organisation are key attributes of teachers. Show this in your application.

Tell the story of how you decided to become a teacher, the essential details of what you believe and what you’ve learned through your course of study. If you have a subject specialism, describe how important it is to you and why you feel it’s important to learners too.

You need to get across some idea of what your classroom would be like. This may be linked to ideas about how you think children learn best and may well vary considerably depending on the year group(s) the school caters for.

Have a draft of your personal statement checked and proof read. Errors can creep in, inadvertently and we can skim read and miss them. My advice to students on school experience was to share it with the school management, with a simple question; “Would this get me an interview?” That way, they got advice from the people who make the decisions.

Make sure that your references are strong; use the final teaching practice school. They’ve known you really well.

The interview.

Be prepared. You need to look, sound and act the part, professionally, standard 8 writ large. Once you are through the door for interview, you are one of a small field, each of whom could do the job required, at least on paper.

You have to teach a short lesson? Make sure that you’ve organised the resources appropriately and preferably had a trial run beforehand to iron out any blips that become apparent. Go back to you final practice school if possible and “borrow” some children.

You have 20-30 minutes to get across the fact that, you can engage with children, have ideas and a manner that captures their interest, get them talking and possibly recording, and that you are getting to know them a little as individuals. There should be an outcome to share and celebrate, but also for you to evaluate afterwards, possibly as part of the oral interview.

The panel

The final stage is likely to be the panel interview. This can vary considerably, depending on the school style, from an informal chat around the coffee table, to a formal panel behind a desk. You can ask what to expect of the organisation, for example, how many people will interview, and who they are.

There are so many variations on the questions that can be asked at this stage, but many will be based on how you will be as a teacher in that school.

My priority question, after an early experience, was to ensure that each candidate was asked if they were still a firm candidate for the post and that they would accept the post if offered.

One of my favourite openers was to ask candidates to take me for “a walk” around their ideal classroom. How you view behaviour and learning are likely to be discussed too, as these are bread and butter classroom issues. Working with others, showing team skills, as participant and leader may be probed. Your order and organisation may well also be explored, as a tidy, well-resourced classroom with ease of access and return is very supportive of learning.

What else do you offer the school? This could ultimately be the decider in a close contest. What additional interests do you bring that would complement the school talent pool? Music, PE, Art, Outdoor activities might be useful, but so could reading widely, building computers, the list is endless. It also shows that you might have interests beyond the work environment.

You get offered the job, congratulations!

You are probably surprised, as you’ve seen the other candidates throughout the day and can see their strengths. It can be a little like the winners of the Oscars. However, you need to retain your professionalism and be able to make the decision. You have to tell the school if you will accept the offer. 

Then you have to get your head around preparing for the beginning of the school year, but that’s probably another story.

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3D Masks made easily

15/4/2015

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Cost=very little. Materials- old newspapers, PVA and water mix 40:60, masking tape, paint wash, then small for detail. Plastic milk bottles.

Measure your head circumference. Who has the larger head? Record for data handling later.

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Fold lengthways approximately 2cm then start to turn the fold into a roll. When finished use masking tape to hold together at different points.

Put the roll around the circumference of your head and with a small space in which to move, join the two ends.

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Repeat stages 2 and 3

Join the two circles so that one is horizontal, the other vertical. You have the base of the mask.

A third roll is joined from back to front, joining where it hits the other two pieces. It can be folded in places to create a nose.

Frame made.

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Tear paper strips. Note; newspaper tears well one way and badly the other, so tear lengthways.

Use the 40:60 PVA mix and coat the frame where you will start to fix the paper strips to cover the frame. Work with dry paper and use the PVA on the brush to model the paper into place. It’s less messy.

Work your way around the mask first layer vertically, second layer horizontally, third vertically. That should be enough.

Leave to dry. A large plastic milk bottle can act as a carrier.

When dry, two coats of emulsion grade paint provides the base for final decoration.
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NB At stage 6, animal faces can be created by shaping the nose. This may need some extra rolls to support.

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A week away

10/4/2015

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Well, in reality, nearer two, but they say a week’s a long time in politics, so I thought I’d be safe!

In the spirit of #teacher5aday, being freelance, I managed to work my diary so that I could take a week in France, in the garden of my “very small” house in the Limousin region, to spend three, very solid days of cutting trees, either pollarding, taking out the tops at around two metres height, or coppicing, reducing the tree to ground level to encourage multiple stems. Travel day was heavy rain, as was the first morning at the house, so that was devoted to some food shopping and visiting a local neighbour to look at his work schedule. We both sat and moaned about the weather, in true British style. At 2pm, I donned my wet weather gear and bot out the hand tools, at least to make a start on the process and to feel that the journey had not been wasted. It was not a holiday for sitting and drinking the wine and that’s not really a good habit with power tools anyway.

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Amazingly, by 2.30pm, I was shedding the nylon outer layer, as I was as wet inside as out and beginning to enjoy the beginning of the sunshine, which lasted for the next three days; unexpected, but very welcome. With daylight being another hour longer into the evenings, I was working until 8pm each night, cutting, logging, carrying, bonfiring, until everything was either stacked for later cutting, stacked as next year’s fires or burnt to leave the garden tidy. The new chainsaw came into it’s own on day three, with consequent major change to three large trees.

Since I became a teacher, I have had an affinity with gardening. After a particularly hard day, to spend an hour turning the soil would ensure a relative relaxation and time for the brain to calm.

The alternatives to this have been long walks and discovering new places, which have been the features of this second week, with M, as the first week of the school holidays. To walk, with the only sounds being the birds and to experience wild boar running across your path, are significant memories.

It is the doing something different that makes the difference.

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But…

Whereas last week I had no real contact with the outside world, as I have no TV, radio reception is poor and, despite having a fixed telephone for emergencies, I have not gone for the internet, this week, we have had the pleasures of the TV news and the latest political wranglings during what seems to be an interminable election already.

SATs resits have hit the news. Goodness knows who thought this would be a “good idea”, but, whereas I anticipated Grammar Schools becoming a hot topic, I didn’t anticipate the reverse. Perhaps because UKIP has already flagged up the Grammars, someone in the Tory office thought “Let’s offer the alternative.”

What was strange though, to me, was the announcement that followed hot on the heels of the first, that pre-school groups should have graduate teachers, to ensure high quality language and reading before school.

Let’s start at the beginning. Not all children are born equal, as a result of many factors. Some will have significant disadvantages compared to their age equivalent peers. Up until now, these children have proceeded with their age cohorts, with adaptation within lessons for individual needs. Some may have what we have defined as special educational needs and addressed with specific supportive interventions.

The SATs resits, if accepted as policy, will come into effect at the point where the current new National Curriculum takes hold. The descriptors associated with the assessment proposals see children as either side of a line that defines “National Standard”. It would appear that the SATs proposal sees those “not at National Standard”, to be in need of more of the same to ensure that they are “at National Standard” by the end of year 7, except that they will still be behind their peers, who have moved on a year, so that doesn’t quite make sense.

Any good EYFS teacher, after a short period of time with children, could give you a very clear picture of the strengths and areas of concern for each child in the class. This pattern could be seen throughout a child’s career in school. You could probably see children early who for one reason or another may not “make the grade”. Sadly, schools are already beginning to use similar terminology in school reports, in other year groups.

Now, I agree with the premise of “Learning without limits” and growth mindset, and teaching well, but we have to keep in mind and understand each and every individual well, not just because they are the data fodder, but because we owe it to each of them to ensure they get the best chance of succeeding.

If I was feeling generous, I might like to think that the SATs suggestion was made to provide a focus for schools on ensuring that the needs of the lower achievers were being met. However, with other agendas running at the same time, eg Mastery grades, I think the whole system may fail children at both ends, neither end being challenged appropriately.

As for the pre-school proposal, if the suggestion was that staff in pre-schools should provide language-rich environments and appropriate support to parents to fully develop a broad language, with a wide vocabulary that can then be harnessed in reading and writing, the sense, to me, would have been greater.

We are in the season of sound bite politics. Nothing quite makes sense, as it’s always a part, an unthought-through story.

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    Chris Chivers

    Long career in education, classroom and leadership; always a learner.
    University tutor and education consultant; Teaching and Learning, Inclusion and parent partnership.
    Francophile, gardener, sometime bodhran player.

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