An art exhibition is not something that suits everyone’s taste. Bobbie Bale is not a photo-representative kind of artist. She is immersive, interpretative, inventive and in touch with her inner feelings; this past few years she has been dealing with bereavement and working out her feelings in her art. It is technically of exceptional quality, her work is in a number of national collections, but can be challenging. Seeing her being challenged by someone with more traditional tastes, reminded me of Twitter spats, between “progs and trads”. That is made uncomfortable viewing for a number of other visitors, including the man’s wife, showed that the method of presenting the argument was critical, especially when the visitor chose some remarks that could be seen as personal. During the course of the day, the majority of visitors were somewhat awestruck by the works, even if they wouldn’t have the pictures on their walls. They could relate to the underlying feelings that had been captured in the images. Bobbie had found a way to communicate to them. For this one visitor, she may have needed a little more time to talk the process and the emergent outcome.
​
The SEND Built-in not bolt-on conference was a chance to engage with some of the leading minds in SEND; not all, but it was a privilege to be party to a wide range of presentations and discussions. It was developed to share the thinking that had emerged from the earlier Government discussion groups about the need for SEND to be a greater part of Initial Teacher Education.

We had the “Every teacher is a teacher of SEND” statement, from Stephen Munday. I am waiting for a revision that says, “Every teacher is a teacher of children, some of whom have known difficulties, for which plans can be made initially, some of whom have issues, as yet to be identified, which may show short or long term needs, but which need to be identified and addressed within the capacity of, first, the teacher, and second within the school capacity, eventually, and in more difficult cases, involving external expertise.”

Equally, from Anita Devi, presenting on behalf of NASBTT, The National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers SEND toolkit, we had the SEND approach of assess, plan, do, review. Now, in seeking to take this for SEND, the process can ignore the fact that this approach underpins all teaching and learning, and, if it is seen as embedded in overall T&L, can be restated as refining assessment from interrogation, discussion and trying different approaches, which can be seen as the graduated approach. That a child has an observable need obliges the teacher to spot and deal with the need within their current skill base, referring to experienced colleagues as needed.
​

Life is a strange thing. We each pass through it in our own way even if we are ostensibly engaging in the same activity. We’ll see, hear or sense things slightly differently, because, whether some like it or not, our lives to that shared point will have been, to a large extent, unique, an interplay between our underlying, embedded capacities and the quality of the experiences which we enjoy. In seeking to make sense of our experiences, we put the new in relation to the old, make comparisons and, through any period of reflection, refine what we previously knew to create a new baseline of understanding.

That the experience, and therefore our understanding, contains flaws, has occasionally to be the case, especially where the experience is a third-party interpretation of something that has happened outside the immediate experience of the sharer. In other words, virtually every area of education, where a teacher largely imparts “knowledge” that they have gained and internalised from another "teacher/source" at some point in their lives. That they alter this to cater for the nuances of the situation in which they find themselves is inevitable; knowledge sharing can be resource dependent, to enable a variety of supportive models to be created.

I am acutely aware that I am the holder of “my understandings”. I’m not going to call this knowledge, because I am also aware that furthering my experiences is likely to result in alteration.

That this is a perpetual state for children working their way through school needs to be considered.

This requires order and organisation from the school, as the enabling body, ensuring that the resource base available to teachers is as good as it can be, in terms of available relevant developmental literature (how many teachers read the teacher guide to schemes?) and also the physical resources that enable visual interpretation through manipulation.

Order and organisation of resources has to be then underpinned through thorough, detailed planning, across year groups and within each class, with subtle adaptations between classes to account for the variability that inevitably exists within any mixed population.

As a head, I allowed teacher autonomy for these decisions, for which they had to have a clear rationale, on the basis that if these things are in place, then teachers can be held accountable for the outcomes of each child in their class.
Teaching teachers, as an initial activity or as continuing development, inevitably means that another adult, deemed to have some expertise is invited to share their expertise to the benefit of a wider group. Whether this is a seminar or an international education conference, the speaker has been selected as worthy of an audience.

What they share will be new to some, possibly old-hat to others, but, as long as there is also quality time for discussion, those with additional expertise can add further value to the understandings by broadening the evidence base, or questioning some of the premises of the presentation.

Apart from two extended periods of post-grad study, for diplomas that extended my professional knowledge, most CPD was short term, weekend at most, on specific subject areas, or even specifics within subjects. These sessions were led by experienced teacher colleagues, local authority or university specialists or national speakers.

They shared the distillation of their current thinking.

It was either reassuring or challenging; either way it was shared within the wider staff group on return and had a wider impact. I learned, as many others had learned before me and many will continue to do, by listening to others and making up my own mind, in relation to circumstance.

People helping each other to improve is, to me, the hallmark of a collegiate group of colleagues, prepared to spend time together to benefit each other. Those with experience have something to share with developing teacher minds, but this has to be done with care, to ensure that they think for themselves, not just become a clone. Cloning and copying rarely works, as there is a significant need to be able to think on your feet and make instant, reflective decisions.

So, if I was looking to make an improvement in education, I’d be seeking a profession-wide dialogue, with experienced support; let’s call them mentors.

• If mentoring occurs across a school, there is common assent to decisions regarding achievement and progress expectations.
• If mentoring occurs across schools, an area wide understanding occurs.
• If outcomes of National testing were seen as an aspect of moderation, the outcomes could provide exemplar material to support internal mentoring needs.
• If mentoring became a common tool across all schools, supported by external expertise as necessary, there could be an improvement in (detailed) teacher judgement and a reduced need for formal testing, so we could save money on SATs testing.
• If in-house teachers became trained mentors, for internal and external use, the use of such people would provide opportunities for mass localised CPD and lead to higher expectations, based on a common understanding.
• If lesson observations became a mentoring exercise, based on the common agenda of the teaching standards, then feedback would be developmental. Nobody is perfect all the time.
• If Ofsted and other assessment/inspection visits were mentoring visits, to validate the judgements of the internal moderation team, we could establish expectations common to every school in the country.
• If Ofsted inspectors and HMI mentored each other, the judgements across every establishment would be more consistent.
• If Ofsted and HMI regularly produced reflective (research) pamphlets about their distilled experiences, across all subjects, the system could benefit from such collated reflection. (Anyone remember the "raspberry ripple" series?)
• Perhaps we could have a new series of conferences; Mentored…

If judgements across every classroom in every school in the country were improved, as a national educational establishment we would make progress. It is a case of giving teachers space to think and something of worth to think about.
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Inclusion by Nancy Gedge

I read this book with great interest, as a large part of my life over ten of the past twelve years has been spent working with schools seeking to improve their approach to ensuring they had a secure inclusive ethos, starting with supported self-assessment.

There is a truism in education that you will always think that you will never know enough, and as a result, the relentless searching for self-development becomes the hallmark of a very good teacher. A good teacher is a life-long learner, prepared to look at themselves to determine where they need to address professional or personal needs.

Nancy’s book is written with the 2014 SEND changes in mind. The book is a very good resume of the need for a teacher to see themselves as responsible for the progress of each child in their class, making best use of the available resources, to the best of their ability. It offers much food for thought in this regard, with regular points that suggest specific elements to ponder. It would certainly support a teacher seeking to develop their practice.

The first chapter looks at the inclusive teacher and this is probably the most significant element, as, especially in mainstream Primary, the class teacher is the adult who will have the greatest impact on a child’s life for ten months. Being a teacher is a complex activity, ranging across a wide range of knowledge domains and skills.

The mind-set of this person determines every learning aspect of the year. If the child is not sufficiently challenged, they may not make an appropriate level of progress. The experience level of this person will determine their capacity to understand the child’s need and to be able to set expectations appropriately. Mentoring by an experienced colleague will be needed.

Where I work with ITE trainees, this can be summed up with the teacher standards 2,4,6,5,2 (see blog); an understanding of what progress means, leading to effective planning, engagement and interaction with learners in-lesson and adjustment to evident need, establishing a new baseline for subsequent challenge.

Other chapters look at the specifics of the 2014 SEND Code of Practice and what it means in detail for a class teacher, the removal of barriers to specific needs, behaviour management and the specifics of certain special needs, relationships including with parents and teaching assistants, concluding with a jargon buster.

This is a wide ranging book, covering areas of teaching and learning alongside the needs of children with Special Educational Needs. It will be if use to early career trainees and NQTs, but would also provide a basis for self-reflecting within a school.

As well as encouraging people reading this book, I’d offer my own thoughts, looking at some broader aspects of an inclusive approach in detail, from visits to some 100 schools, which can be downloaded as a pdf, but also a pdf on SEN(D) which includes a crib sheet of areas (see below) that might be worthy of note and record when a child is causing some concern.

I have to say that, over the past twelve years, the Inclusion agenda moved from integrating SEND children into school to become a more holistic ethos that sought to ensure all children were included appropriately. This move was to counter earlier philosophies that could be captured in the question “Does your school have the capacity to take this child?” which was effectively asked within a SEN Statement development before a school was named. It was up to the school to say yes or no; a form of initial exclusion. Professional capacity in specific areas may still be a determining issue, and combined with the diminishing of Local Authority staffing may well run counter to the needs of individual children. That this is often the case is regularly documented in social media.

That you haven’t an easy answer to a child’s needs can be the case where a special need is suspected. Before the term SEN(D) was coined, teachers spoke of Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD), describing needs in as much detail as possible, in order to support dialogue with external expert staff. The principle hasn’t changed, even if the title has.

As a rule of thumb, I’d encourage teachers to spot, record, think and talk about a child displaying anomalous behaviours or responses in a learning situation. Not all children come with a ready-made SEN(D) label identifying their needs. It will certainly make you think and can often be very challenging.

​Clarity is essential to good decision-making.

​Inclusion, at heart, is just doing your job, well.
 

Taking earlier time away meant that we were home for the school holiday. It took a few days to be aware of what appeared to be a campaign of blogging that daily sought to polarise and caricature one supposed extreme of the education spectrum, as a general free for all, while the other extreme was caricatured as exceedingly ordered. This extended on one day to the place of play in the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum.

Sledgehammers to crack nuts?

It got a little tedious, as the methodology being deployed copied one that was visible during my training between 71 and 74, through the pamphleteer group, “The Black Papers Group”.
(Click for LINK)

The technique is simple. One member writes and publishes a pamphlet, or blog, others then write in agreement, following this up with their own pamphlets (blogs) which cite the original pamphlet. Despite this, often being nothing more than a recycling of opinion, by appearing regularly and then being quoted in the newspapers or in political speeches, it becomes something of a “truth”. In many ways the Brexit campaign on 2016 was a mirror image of distorted half-truths being repeated endlessly and is already visible in the first days after an election has been called.

That it sways opinion is evident.

It is sad that it devalues discussion, especially when one side seeks to state what the other side stands for in ways that are nothing more than caricatures.

For the 32 years of my school based career, I worked across a wide spectrum of schools, starting in secondary, then a succession of through primaries, or separate junior and first/infant schools, covering the 4-16 age range. Looking back, 24 years were spent in open-plan or semi-open plan schools; eight as a class teacher, 16 as a head (teaching). These were very successful years, both as a teacher and as a head.

​Underpinning success was considerable organisation, impacting on the classroom and the whole school. This was supported by good communication, across all categories of staff. There was a singular ethos, well understood by staff, children and parents. Success could be argued from SATs results, but also from continuous reports from receiving schools and parents of children’s pursuance of further success.

By mentioning open-plan organisation, some readers will have immediately surmised that it had something of the Summerhill or William Tyndale about it. Visitors were very surprised at how quiet the school was, even with children actively engaged on tasks. 240 children can make little noise. The order and organisation was remarked upon and disseminated across the local area.

Teachers, and I include myself in this, did a lot of DI, direct instruction, or “invited” celebrity voices to do so, through the IWB. For example if David Attenborough had an appropriate series on the TV, this might be used to offer image insights and specialist vocabulary. Other subjects had similar supportive resources, selected by the school subject managers, in conjunction with the County inspectorate. Images and artefacts were regular features of teaching, as were visits to special places, such as museums and galleries, or off-site environments.

Talk was valued highly. This may the point where a purist might wish to part company, but I’d be surprised, as dialogue, reportage, questioning at different levels, feedback and guidance have always been a part of a good teaching repertoire.

Teaching is, at heart, getting ideas across to an audience that we organise into a class. The narrative has to be ordered, organised and presented in an appropriate vocabulary/register, making links with earlier experience to strengthen understanding. It may require a variety of models to be drawn, or exemplified through concrete apparatus, to ensure deeper understanding. We have a habit, in this country, of withdrawing concrete apparatus too early, when it should be kept available to support deeper conceptualisation, eg Dienes blocks to show decimal values.

A high quality teacher will be scanning the class for tell-tale signs that there may be some confusion, as the learning bit may not be visible apart from externalisation in some form. That Dylan Wiliam now calls this reflective-reactive teaching, not just AfL, to me, is important, as the reflective part might include clarification questions to individuals, with some requiring additional in-lesson intervention or adaptation.

Learning may be more difficult to define, as it is invisible as a process and reliant on outward signs, such as verbal or physical outcomes. Some now call these "proxies".

Tasking, beyond the information sharing, should be appropriately challenging, across all abilities. Different challenges for different needs have been staples of my thinking since 1971. Children can be solution finders from an early age using “learned” skills and knowledge; they respond to challenge, can learn to order and organise themselves, with different levels of independence, as long as classrooms are ordered and organised with appropriate resources. They can also articulate when they are “stuck” and need support or guidance.

By providing challenge, then unpicking the various processes that led to success provides insights to all learners about how to think through to solutions. That, to me, is the means to “challenging up”, not just having a mantra of “high standards”. It’s a case of know-how with show-how.

The idea of thinking about thinking has been a part of my practice since the 70s. Now given the name metacognition, it has always been important, to me, that children should be active processers, not just passive receivers of information. That can only really be achieved with children as active participants in their learning journeys. That you can’t see learning is another truism, but you can see the outward displays that indicate that activity is being pursued, which might require closer scrutiny to see the detail. This is one reason why I think in-lesson interactions are so important, to provide the basis for ongoing teacher reflection about next steps.

My slightly tongue in cheek assessment guide, “get it, got it, good”, explored the need for interaction and decision making. If a group “got it” and others didn’t, then the next lesson might start with different demands for the two groups, with a checking task for some, while review teaching might be appropriate for the others.

I want teachers to have the right to choose the best approach for any particular situation, based on their (rapid) rationalisation of the needs. That, to me, should be the basis of every decision in every classroom.

As a head, if a teacher could tell me the reason why a particular approach was happening, that was fine. Why be dogmatic? It’s very illuminating when the rationale is weak, such as, “It won’t hurt them to go over this again…”

A quick anecdote.

The topic for a period of time was sports, as it was an Olympic year.

During one week, I decided to use the long, wide corridor near my classroom to set a challenge. On day one, the group of eight seven year olds whom I thought had the greatest independence were challenged to create (design and make) a crazy golf hole, using materials available within the classroom. They had the morning as their working time. TAs had not yet been invented; this was an independent task.

In the first fifteen minutes, they collected a range of items which might be useful. This was followed with a group discussion around a large piece of sugar paper, with ideas drawn and discussed. The build process started from the agreed plan, but soon adjustments were made, deigned to be improvements. After an hour, they had their golf hole.
A period of measuring and drawing secured the design for posterity and allowed later consideration of scale, as drawings were tidied onto squared paper. Photographs were taken for reference.

The main task was the use of the hole to see how many shots and how long it took for different class members to complete. This tally and timing data was later collated into charts. The group explained before starting what needed to happen to each class member, so everything was “fair”.

Before lunchtime, the group sat together to reflect on what had been achieved, both in terms of measureable outcomes, but also in terms of their personal development. The maturity levels of all were enhanced, as they saw the purposes of the different aspects of learning and set the tone for subsequent groups to follow.

Follow up included instruction writing, developed into reports, scale drawings for the more able, but sketch maps with measurements for all. The quality of discussion was very high, as children had had a shared experience.

During day three of this experience, the school was visited by the chief County Inspector and the new school Attached Inspector, as “they were passing”. The golf course was in full spate and prompted discussion. I was able to point out the wide range of skills and learning embedded in the activity, which was part of a longer term project. This was accepted.

I’d go back to my earlier point. All good teaching is based on order and organisation.

The use of flexibilities within each lesson is likely to be down to teacher awareness, experience and expertise in any particular subject. If all the children can only go at the pace of the teacher, the teacher can be the cause of many not learning, slowing the whole. Letting go can allow some children to make learning steps that can be used as exemplars for others; the whole becomes greater than the parts.
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And this is likely to be the significant point of difference.

Investigative incrementalist

A huge amount of energy is currently being expended by groups on social media, using the written word, often through a series of 140 character tweets, to seek to score points over those they see as “opponents”. The sadness, to me, is that they are all, supposedly, on the side of educating children, seeking the maximum progress for each child for whom they are responsible.

It’s interesting seeing those who seek to identify as “traditionalist” seek to portray those that they would call “progressives” as having a laissez-faire attitude to all things learning, recycling the myth of Summerhill or William Tyndale-style education onto anyone who seeks to argue differently.

Sadly, I am of an age where my educational experience is now getting to the sixty year mark, as a pupil, then as a teacher. My Primary education, in the 1950s, would have been seen as traditional. Classes of 45 children with one teacher. In those days, one lesson for all was the norm, but, if you finished early, you were likely to be sent to the book corner, or to the art table to do some kind of time-filling activity, while the others had enough time to catch up, or not. I spent many happy days outside with Janet and John, having done my maths or English with time to spare.

I started teaching in 1974, with classes for several years that were close to 40, with no TA and no technology; even a single tape recorder was a luxury. Resources were very limited, not least by the relatively small budgets available to schools to by consumables. Conkers, buttons, pebbles and shells acted as counting materials.

An interesting side to the traditional/progressive debate today is that class sizes are significantly smaller, TAs are a regular support feature and resources, including technology are available to support every conceivable need that is identified. Whether the latter elements are used to best effect can be debated.

The curriculum has been a constant talking point, throughout my career, from Schools Council publications, through the 1987 National Curriculum, and the various incarnations thereafter.

One feature throughout my career has been the centrality of knowledge. Although this might have been less obvious to some, as topic headings might have been apparently non-specific, eg settlements, they were premised on the acquisition of information that would support a variety of activities that sought to embed this knowledge in longer term memory. The use and application of knowledge, in itself, acts as a form of test situation, where an engaged teacher can see, from verbal, written or diagrammatic outcomes, what children have secured over time. And yes, from time to time, tests were used, to look at specific elements.

Undertaking a secondment to the Assessment of Performance Unit (APU) looking at science investigation approaches with children, allowed considerable insights into children’s thought processes within an investigation, as the participants were encouraged to articulate their thinking through a problem.

I have taught in schools that have had a traditional slant and some that would have been seen as more progressive, even becoming head of an open-plan school…

In almost every setting, securing the maximum of progress in outcomes across all children has been a feature, and, to be honest, where this was compromised by top-down dictat of pedagogies, I left the school early, as I felt abused as a teacher, unable to deal with potentially significant needs appropriately.

Progress was premised on ordered and organised planning approaches that ensured the coverage required; it also embed a natural linearity of delivery, for any pedagogy.

In every situation, specific lessons would start with teacher input, to ensure that every child had a baseline of essential information; sometimes developing into the “three part lesson”. Dialogue, questioning, enabling articulation of thinking was necessary feedback to the teacher. It was important to know that children were secure before moving on.

In other lessons, children might be peeled away to specific tasks that allowed for some, independent challenges to use/apply knowledge, while others might have a greater scaffolded approach. When there’s only you and a class, using independence is an essential good.

Continuous tasks supported elements of independence. For example, a story might be developed over a whole day, a week, or a fortnight, within a National Writing Project approach of drafting, edition and redrafting before presentation. Art and DT tasking would also be longer term, capable of being returned to if time was created by early finishing of a singular task.

The freedoms of earlier education were available simply because fewer elements were so rigidly timetabled. Moving to the hall for PE and music/dance/drama, or the field for games were the main, immovable chunks. There was time to allow a child or children to have an extra ten minutes after play to finish one piece of work properly, before starting the next. Or if one task finished early, moving onto the next was sensible.

Fitting always purposeful tasks into a set period of time may actually mean, for some children, that they either finish early and have to fill time, or do not finish, so, either way, are regularly frustrated, or frustrating to the teacher.  

The underlying planning from 1990-2006 for my school, and as examples for the previous two, can be seen in this blog. Planning was a strong feature of the school, supported by what we called “Topic Specifications”. These are now being called “Knowledge Organisers”, but do similar things; stating the essential aspects to be covered. Every teacher had a file for their year group which they could organise in any order that they wished; some were particularly skilful in coordinating several topics into one theme. Our topic lasted as long as they needed, from one week to perhaps four or five. This flexibility allowed appropriate coverage and access to a broad curriculum.

Elements of my approach to school could be seen, by an outsider, as traditional. The difference was probably in the way in which children who struggled with learning, as presented in the regular input, were accommodated. Where there was a need to revisit an idea, this would be done, if necessary using a different resource or model. If this was unsuccessful, further adaptation might be tried, at each stage noting the working and thinking methodologies and outcomes. It was a constant state of investigating, in order to start making incremental improvements, from which the child might find a personal motivation for taking on the learning, rather than it being external exhortation to succeed.

Perhaps that’s the main difference between some teachers. Some are more presentational than others, while some are prepared to go deeper into investigation of pupil needs. But, and it is a big but, the need to be investigative, as a teacher, can be inferred from teacher standards 2, 6 and 5; getting progress and outcomes through engagement, advice and adaptation to needs. It is easy to make assumptions about children and learning. It is better to develop the skills of investigation, but also to be sufficiently humble, to ask colleagues for time to reflect, think and plan alternative methods.

I don’t like extremes. The trad-prog “debate is at best an irritation, at worst it is potentially destructive over time.

We encourage bright, creative, young people to become teachers. They bring with them enthusiasm and investigative potential that earlier cohorts would envy; just read a few blogs from newer teachers. If we tie them to a delivery model, we are effectively recreating aspects of the 1950/60s where radio or television lessons brought an “expert” into the classroom. Using the IWB, with centralised teachers and classroom behaviour monitors would not be my preferred methodology, but it could be seen as a natural progression, should pedagogy become more prescribed.

Thinking through challenge is an engaging activity. We need classrooms where high quality thinking, and dialogue within and across subjects is enabled and led by high quality thinking communicators.

Thinking, dialogue and investigation support all approaches and enable incremental improvement…   

It can appear, almost daily, that experienced teachers, on social media, bemoan some aspect of Initial Teacher Training. This can be behaviour management, planning, subject knowledge, working with parents, progress and outcomes or assessment.

Recently there has been some discussion on SEND; special educational needs and disabilities. It is almost as if a trainee teacher has to emerge from their period of training fully equipped for every eventuality that they will encounter, at least in their early career. It is important to view ITE as just that, an initial period of training. This has to be continued through a teacher’s career, with independent self-developing behaviours supported by schools.

From the list above, apart from certain elements of working with parents and generic national Curriculum directed subject knowledge, there is every likelihood that other aspects will be different in systematic terms in every school. The variability of the training context is likely to result in very different experiences for trainees.

It is the fact that every school is subtly, or sometimes significantly, different that has caused me to reflect on the role of the school and the professional mentor as a major factor in a trainee’s success or otherwise.

Today’s mentor is more likely to be an in-house tutor than just an experienced teacher with the skills to model good practice to an observer, but selected by the head as “their turn” to have a student. Most ITE providers offer training to mentors, including to Masters’ level. They need to be able to coach the trainee in every aspect of development as a professional teacher, ensuring that every one of the teacher standards is embedded into the teacher-to-be in a form that enables them to reflect and refine their practice in ways that benefit the children.

Where trainees struggle, it is usually because the mentor, often a member of SLT, or with specific responsibilities in a school, is pulled to other roles during a school experience, so that the trainee receives too little modelling of practice, support and guidance as well as challenge and reflective dialogue. While it is a truism, regularly expressed by trainees, that they valued the time when the mentor left the room, the need for in-lesson and post-lesson coaching discussions cannot be over-stressed.

There is also the question of the general context. Schools volunteer to take trainees and, as long as they have no significant weaknesses, universities often then place a trainee. From time to time, this does not work, so a trainee is moved. 

The school SENCo may, or may not, not be experienced, and have undergone SENCo training, so that the internal systems may not always be sufficiently mature to allow the trainee to anticipate significant support.

From the training provider, the ITE trainee receives a variation on the following thinking toolkit as a starting point.

1)      An understanding of child development across the subject range and abilities within the school setting; Primary age 4-11. This is the bedrock of all decisions, impacting on all classroom practices. This is summarised in two blogs.
24652 revisited
Build a Teacher; Structuralist to holistic

Teacher standard 2; progress and outcomes. Standard 4; planning. Standard 6; assessment. Standard 5; adaptation to evident need. The developmental continuum 24652 may well show up anomalies from specific children. These are the points for analysis and further refinement of challenge supporting investigation.

It is an area where significant collaborative work would be beneficial to teachers at every stage in their development. A very good understanding of the potential range of capabilities and an ability to frame expectations of the children in a specific year group or class is central to offering challenge and the potential for progress.

2)      An understanding of approaches to behaviour management and an ability to accommodate to the contextual demands of that school’s specific approach.
Behaviour management and ITE

3)      Understanding the SEND regulations, as per the 2014 framework.
The 2014 SEN framework

4)      An understanding that some children in any classroom will display individual needs that are outside the general range of class needs, or perhaps specific to a subject or context.
Individual needs
Individual needs; fine tuning

5)      They need to understand the need to keep careful records that may ultimately build into a case study that will add value to an application for additional support.
SEN Radio?
SEND Building an individual case study.

6)      And all this within a team ethic that starts with teacher, parent and child, extends to the broader school expertise, then supplemented with external expertise. Understanding a graduated approach.
SEND Tic-Tac-Toe

7)      Having a set of descriptors of learning and social behaviours and outcomes that might, over time suggest a pattern of need that can ultimately be categorised by an external expert, following the creation of a case study.
​

The school offers the real life opportunity to put this background thinking into practice. Trainee inexperience can mean an extended period of getting to know the nuances of the school system, which can be compromised by lack of shared time with an experienced mentor, or SENCo. The structural elements have to be considered within the whole. Systems understanding is an essential precursor to more holistic elements.

As an experienced Link Tutor, I am always concerned, after a couple of weeks of the school experience to unpick how well the trainee knows the children, as a class and as individuals. A level of security suggests that the practice will progress positively, as the trainee is beginning to show holistic thinking. Those still seeking to put the structures together cause more concern.

Colleagues at Winchester University have developed a ten week module for SEND that is a significant part of year 3 of the undergraduate course. This covers the above and also specifics of different identified needs. This module occurs directly before the final school experience, during which the trainee has to create a case study of one child chose with the support of the mentor and SENCo.

Learning needs are explored and described using a variety of criteria; social backgrounds unpicked with staff (teacher, SENCo, ELSA-emotional literacy support assistant) and parents through interview; discussions with children, where appropriate, underpin descriptors. Trainees have to seek to understand the needs of one child in detail. At the same time, they need to be acutely aware of the range of other needs in the class. This is particularly the case when trainees choose to do their final school experience in a special school environment.

Issues will always arise and can happen to anyone: -

Teacher standards 8, 7&1

Poor understanding of systems; schools are rapidly becoming single entities. Transfer between schools or changing year group within a school can cause concern. Dialogue and mentoring may be needed in self-organisation based on school systems, or sharing of information between colleagues, to enable deeper understanding of a child’s personal needs.
Class behaviour; understanding the school system, interpreting it into the practice of the class, ensuring that it is followed efficiently, and followed through where this is necessary. Involving senior colleagues as needed. Running a good classroom is key to every aspect of learner success.
Professional Relationships; getting on with colleagues, at all levels, is sometimes taken for granted. It’s easy to take this to an extreme and cause a tension, which can easily become exaggerated. Sometimes needs a quiet word, or, in severe situations, SLT intervention. Parent relations is a skill that is refined through experience, but there can occasionally be parents whose approach can be more challenging. Understanding is a key element of professionalism.  

Teacher standards 3 & 4

Being ordered and organised would seem to be needed as second nature in teachers, but cannot be taken for granted. Planning over different time-scales, resourcing appropriately, deploying available staff to predetermined need, are fundamental.
Subject knowledge appropriate to the needs of age and ability range of the children can be a variable, especially in Primary education, where the individual interest and expertise may vary considerably, but needs to be addressed.

Teacher standard 6&5

Responsive, analytical skill and the ability to adapt to evident need can be some of the last skills to be refined. It may well be evident between lessons, based on the relatively simple view of “They got it, or not; what’s next?” It is the in-lesson interactions, coaching, guidance and timely feedback, with, for some children a tweak down or up in the challenge to enable them to underscore some or additional progress.

Teacher standard 2
Progress and outcomes may be the last on this list, but it is the spine of every decision that a teacher makes. Going back to the 24652 dynamic, standard 2 is likely to encompass the teacher expectations, which, in turn, drives challenge, interaction and then expected outcome.

Getting teaching and learning right is a multi-layered and multifaceted reflective process. It is dynamic and ever-changing, permanently challenging.
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Trainees need to start this process in training, then keep reflecting, with colleague dialogue and support, to refine their thinking, organisation and professional decision-making.