Teaching’s like that, in that we have a journey on which to take a cohort of children. They will be known, to some extent, ahead of time, although the receiving teacher might have to recalibrate their prior expectations to tailor their responses to the new group. This applies to every teacher taking on a new class each September. It is especially important for a NQT, whose experience may yet be limited. However, in both cases, there are collegiate co-pilots, those who had the class before, whose insights are invaluable, but can also be subject to their own biases towards specific children, often on personality grounds.

The children come with a learning and achievement past. Records are shared, but, in the absence of descriptive information, data can mask both achievement and personal needs to cover “missing” bits from prior learning. I have to say that this has always been an issue. Specific personal needs have rarely been shared as effectively as they could, especially at transfer and transition, leaving receiving teachers to spend time reordering their thinking. Taking previous books into the new year, or at least copying a latter piece of good achievement, can provide an essential baseline for both the teacher and the child. To also have specific, personal needs highlighted as prompts for teacher and child focus ensures that “gaps” are at least identified and then capable of being addressed.

Learning is a continuous process. Why do we allow time breaks to become potential points for learning loss, which can be magnified in a change of school? There are many years of evidence of loss at years three and seven.

Where we had a system of levelness from 1987-2014, we now have the notion of yearness, described in terms of age related expectation, or ARE. Although some regularly argue that new assessment systems should not recreate levels systems, in many ways it could be an inevitability. Teachers are required to make judgements; there’s even a new kid on the block calling itself comparative judgement, which implies a level of judgement that allows comparison of two bits of work, taking me back to teaching before 1987.

Ordering classes according to whether they are coping with specific aspects of work, or who’s seemingly achieved and who needs additional help, has been a standard part of practice throughout my career. It’s how teachers think, at an organisational level. Dylan Wiliam now wishes that he’d called Assessment for Learning (AfL) reflective, responsive teaching. I just see it as essential teacher decision-making, as per this diagram.
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It’s when we get to the level of personal needs that teachers cannot be expected to remember every child’s needs.
To address this, in my Primary school, we developed exercise books as personal organisers, with flip sheets that allowed teachers to create prompts for themselves and the children to ensure focus on specific potential gaps. The interaction of the teacher with the journeys of each child, is the key to progress for each. Keeping an eye on specifics within interesting contexts allows for regular use and application, allowing children to maintain themselves within the class, with personal targets within the context targets.

Engagement and feedback are essential.

The teacher acts as sub-editor on written outcomes, giving feedback on technicalities, but when faced with a finished piece of work becomes a reader, offering a critique to the writer, in an effort to improve structural quality. As a teacher, they also make quality assurance decisions that then impact on their subsequent actions. Teachers will always interact with children at the level of “experts”, whatever their level of subject expertise. Their feedback, whether verbal in-lesson or written, post-lesson is a part of the child and class learning process; a form of guided reflection.
How much self-evaluative thinking are children really involved in?  

An earlier blog looked at process and product evaluation as an essential aspect of progress. I’ve extracted a short piece.

We talk in terms of a thought process, not a thought product, but there can be a product of thought. So the act of thinking is a process, not an end in itself. The challenge to think around a problem, to analyse and make a judgement about how to proceed, to order and organise a coherent plan of action, to carry out the action with record keeping embedded, then to review and evaluate the process and the outcome, suggesting areas for re-assessment, are higher order thinking skills leading to potentially different outcomes . To give a group of children a “recipe” to be followed is a lower order set of skills, following instructions, leading to thirty exact copies. The former approach leads to questions such as “How do I….?” rather than “I can’t…..” These two responses suggest, in the first example, the need for a skill as identified by the independent learner, while the second can suggest a block and dependence.

Within these areas, are teachers and supporting adults the barriers to learning? It is very arguable that they may become so, often inadvertently, by designing inappropriate tasks that cover all the children, in so doing potentially limiting a number of learners and over-challenging others. The implications for classroom practice can be great, particularly in resource terms, cost, access and use. The first can be limited by the use of recycled materials, or no cost collections, such as newspapers, boxes and so on. Storage and access need to be overcome. Thirty children all needing the same materials at the same time will cause chaos, unless there is clear organisation for use and return. Resources across the curriculum need to be in the classroom, easily accessible and available to be selected by children in their need to solve a problem.

Support staff, often concerned that the children for whom they are responsible have to fulfil the task as set by the teacher can become actively involved, in the more extreme cases actually taking over from the child to finish the activity. This can be the case in an art activity, especially activities such as cards for a special occasion. Why can’t Teaching Assistants be deployed with groups to allow independent tasks to be undertaken with an overseer as observer?

I think issues arise with teacher tracking of children’s outcomes. I’d argue that the system above for Primary writing is, in itself a form of personalised tracking, of need, outcomes and feedback. Reading records, at Primary, are often based on an adult making contemporary notes from hearing readers, but can also be as simple as a personal bookmark, with books read being recorded (by children). Maths books could benefit from flip sheets of reminder prompts.

Extrapolating the tracking of essential information into data points, is the area that has caused the greatest concern, as multiple pieces of information are expected to be collated into a simplified decision, formerly something like level 4b, now it’s +/- ARE. That’s also where the issues are then often hidden, especially at year end transition, with receiving teachers making assumptions based on the available evidence.

As a teacher and as a driver, you cannot take your eye off the road, keeping a check on those around you, to avoid accidents. Occasionally a stop is needed, to take stock, relook at the map, possibly rejig the route, especially for some, or to refuel and replenish supplies.

Journeys are rarely as simple as A to B. Actually, a detour can provide unexpected highlights that add colour to the journey.

Motorway driving can be very boring; I’m taking what used to be called Route Nationale (RN), but which now is renamed Route Departmentale (RD). As long as my journey of forward, I’ll get there eventually, making decisions as I go.

(as discussed on Twitter)
During a long day in London, yesterday, where I was enjoying some sightseeing before meeting my daughter to see my grandson take part in a Chance to Dance, the Royal Opera House charity opportunity for children in some London boroughs to receive some high quality dance tuition and experience.

As it was hot, I took advantage of occasional shade and, inevitably, wandered into Twitter. A regular feature is assessment. It has been so for several years, and, surprise, no-one’s cracked the definitive approach.

I think everyone agrees that it has something to do with interacting with learners and their different parts of their learning journey, although that is sometimes differently expressed, occasionally with polarised views; you could occasionally sell the ice…

SATs and testing generally, are seen by some as an essential good, while others see them as blunt instruments of child torture that make an overall judgement based on narrow areas and, if Twitter is to be believed, subject to significant moderator error across a major subject component, writing.

In discussing assessment, the demise of previous use of levels is welcomed by many (on Twitter), with possibly equal numbers (not on Twitter) wishing they were still available, at least as a form of descriptor guidelines. It is certainly frustrating that, in the thirty years since levels appeared in the 1987 National Curriculum, that the descriptive aspects became lost in the data scramble that characterised the latter 1990s.

Levels, to some, are almost described anti-knowledge. As a practitioner when they were introduced, they were a useful addition to the knowledge areas, to describe the child’s ability to use and apply their knowledge in more challenging tasks, with a degree of independence.

Yesterday’s conversation was with Clare Sealy @ClareSealy, Tim Roach @MrTRoach, Kate Aspin @etaknipsa and Juliet Green @s0f0nisba, with occasional interjections from others, including Daisy Christodoulou @daisychristo. It would be impossible and impractical to utilise all the tweets. Suffice to say that there was a level of disagreement and an occasional meeting of minds; probably as there would be if we were face to face.

Some of the discussion also reflects the different roles and sectors of the participants, which inevitably adds a particular slant to points raised. Current classroom teachers spend a great deal of time interacting with learners and their outcomes, as has always been the case. There will be variation between Primary and Secondary due to frequency of contact and closeness of relationships; it’s easier to get to know 30 children with 25 hours a week contact than 200+ only seen a few times a week. Kate Aspin and I are both involved in ITE, so see the need of developing teachers, whose training involves at least two school placements, where each school may have radically different systems to guide interaction with learning.

Anyone reading my blog over the past few years, will know of my view that assessment is essentially what drives all teacher thinking, helping them with analysing the needs of the children in their class, planning effectively, delivering high quality lessons, with informed interactions, reflecting during and after the lesson, recording any necessary details to support their thinking. Assessment can be summarised as how well you know your children, from ongoing and summative activities.
​
A long conversation was generated by my tweet that proposed locality dialogue to agree standards, through guided moderation activity, which I think should be seen as staff development activity.

My thoughts, tweets, on what teaching was like in 1986/7 is bullet pointed.

·         1987 reminisces. 85-87 National Writing Project improved process and outcomes. NC provided descriptors that enhanced collective dialogue.
·         1986 NC gave a language of notional progression that enhanced colleague dialogue. Previously was much less specific.
·         The National Writing Project instituted the idea of dialogue between children and teachers, to establish quality and tentative next steps.
·         Expectations rose, with greater clarity, so transition with l4 more than "good 3". Government exemplars also helped understanding.
·         Local Advisors and inspectors worked to common agenda, so widespread sharing in local networks. Sharing outcomes included process discussion
·         Strategies and APP distracted and distorted dialogue to minimalist progression; assuming learners would draw elements together. Skill loss.
·         Holistic processes, well modelled, together with informed interaction and intervention is needed, then you have quality outcomes to judge
·         Loss of common language reduces understanding and confidence in decisions; TS 2 drives 6&5, fine tuning to evident need.
·         So teachers revert to activities, rather than developing learning journeys. APP style tracking makes this worse.
 
There were a number of organisational differences in 1987.

Class sizes were bigger, TAs didn’t exist and technology was very simple. Timetables, apart from PE and music (timetabled in the hall), were very much in the teacher’s hands, which meant that flexibility could be built into challenges, with writing tasks taking whole mornings, practical science investigations being developed over a week, or in the case of a need for an extra ten minutes to complete a task, children “bridging” playtimes and carrying on for a while, with transition to the next lesson delayed. “Quality First” meant quality outcomes ahead of time-limited activities, which can be more of a feature in a rigidly timetabled system. Activities are then designed to fit the available time; what can you really expect in the 20-30 minutes available?

Staff talking together and moderating outcomes began to use the common language, which enhanced their expectations and so outcome quality rose. Process enhancement from planning, through drafting, to evaluation of outcomes, led to further raising achievement.

Creating real audiences for outcomes, through open area displays and class books, created motivation and pride in presentation. So it became a case of create quality, share quality, unpick quality (enhance qualities of the writing), publish quality, so that children wanted to do more.

With the current situation with assessment being somewhat fluid, it can be very difficult for trainees and providers to give a clear overall picture of what they might encounter in schools. This year, School Direct trainees have encountered a different system in each of their placement schools, which adds to their performance concerns.
 
·         Consider the need of developing teachers. Insecurity can lead to added workload, checking and double-checking. Mentoring essential.

·         In a group of nine mentors, had seven different systems. New school experience, new system...

·         Think the need to spend a bit of quality time talking together in locality could be seen as de facto CPD. Guided self-help groups?
​

I would like to see exemplar portfolios, locality and national, discussed with expert guidance, to share the thinking of an experienced colleague as they unpick the positive elements and learning needs being shown. This was a part of the original National Curriculum. Exemplar booklets, drawn from a wider area than our locality, showed what was being achieved elsewhere. This knowledge added to our local challenges.

Mentors need the confidence to be able to demonstrate what an acceptable standard of outcome is and what would be an aspirational outcome, so that the trainee had insights that supported learner journeys. In some ways, despite the availability of easy linking, through the internet, many schools are, like in 1987, little islands, which would be fine if they achieve highly, but could be disastrous for the children and their teachers if they do not have an idea of how high they could aspire; consider the needs of geographically disadvantaged schools.

The journey;
·         the thinking processes in response to challenges; the development of a toolkit of ideas and words, within a knowledge rich environment; the ability and time to draft and alter ideas, forever seeking self-improvement through guidance and coaching dialogue; making the learner at least part-owner of their journey,
·         takes time, reflection, high quality interaction and guidance, occasional detours for enhancement, but is always under the watchful eye of the teacher, who acts as overseer, quality control, guide and counsellor,
·         building up progressive baselines of quality against which the next outcome can be compared.  
In the “old days”, it was common practice, before levels, just to flick back in a child’s book to compare their current work with a previous piece. This was a simple mechanism to show them their own progress or that their output had declined.

From 1987, level descriptors and the National Writing Project approaches came together in a simple use of an exercise book, as many of you will have seen, but which might be of interest to new readers (see links below). It also gave rise to the use of one book for all writing, in whatever subject, to maintain a focus on the writing, for example, writing a science report, a trip account, how to play a sport, how a piece of art/DT was created, were all seen as report writing, so became the main focus for that week. Storyboarding and scaffolding aided first drafts, with interaction between drafts. Writing went across all subjects. Flip out sheets became prompts for in-lesson dialogue and evaluation. they were also a focus for detailed marking.

It wasn’t at all a bad approach. The outcomes in the last SATs of my headship gave us 90% level 4 and above writing scores. In a class of thirty, one child (3.3%) had come from Zimbabwe with limited English in year 6, but got a level 3a, with the other two achieving the same.

For children at that time, 2005, transition to Secondary was positive, as they enjoyed their learning and had some credit for their achievement, so did not have the stigma that can be attached to the current nomenclature “not at Age Related Expectation”. Implied failure, at any age, will be demotivating. On a long journey, you need encouragement to keep going, not a message to say that you’re not doing well enough.  

Children need a language that allows them to clearly understand where they are in their journey, what they need to do next, and, more importantly, how they can achieve this; a stepped explanation and exemplification that is easy to access and use.

Teaching today can sometimes appear too full of jargon, to the detriment of learner progress. We need assessment language in child terms. If there’s a need to interpret this to data speak, that is a teacher level role.
​
After all, it’s all based on assessment; refined/agreed judgements, leading to quality challenge in tasks, not small scale busy work...

Remember 24652=refinement.

Pile it high, sell it quick politics.

“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”   George Orwell "1984"

​So, this week, we’ve had the publication of a number of manifestos and a “leader’s debate”. In between we have the multiple soundbites and three word couplets that have become the party leader mantras. Theresa May has a single couplet, while Jeremy Corbyn has two; strong and stable, as opposed to for the many not the few. It seems premised on the proposition that if said enough it will be the single thing people remember.

The personality cults that have replaced party politics is worrying, in that I thought we were electing a parliament. It can appear as if we are being asked to elect voting fodder for (President/Supreme Leader?) Theresa May, so that she, and her allies can do absolutely anything they wish.

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Politics has become to resemble a form of overt, supposedly silent, auction, with ever grander, often very unspecific promises, that appear to be for the common good, but which, when looked at from a slight angle resemble something else entirely.

We have a number of conflicting agendas running. Everyone acknowledges that the “baby boomer” generation is coming towards the end of a productive work life, with a significant proportion in public service roles. That does mean promotional opportunities for others, but it also means that, at the early career stage, there needs to be a stock of youngsters available to take early career roles  in their turn. There may not be sufficient young people, with appropriate baseline training, to replace the older retirees. There will be a skills shortage. We need immigration to provide a proportion of these roles, but, at the same time, blame immigration for a multitude of ills. This begins to feel like distraction at best and destructive, at worst, as some attitudes alter towards an essential group.

The politics of blame, with an undercurrent of fear. We have a so-called “politician”, Nigel Farage, still earning quite well as a Member of the European Parliament, apparently threatening to take up a gun if Brexit is not as he wants it; Oswold Mosely, black shirts?

Social care relies on immigrants for a stock of low-paid care assistants, prepared to do the less than savoury jobs that come from looking after their charges. Recently, my first wife’s mother went into a nursing home for the last month of her life, having had an extended period in hospital. A large proportion of the NHS staff were from oversees, while a majority of the nursing home staff were non British. They were a mix of EU and non-EU.

These are essential staff, especially with an aging population.

And then, we have the Conservative solution to social care costs; we’ll all have to pay for our own, until our personal wealth drops to £100K. The looks like an attractive deal for the Government, as it “blames” those with some “wealth” for “taking” a share of the national pot put aside for social care from National Insurance; remember that? It’s one of the taxes that we pay, along with income tax, stamp duty on house VAT and a number of stealth taxes, all ostensibly to ensure that the fabric of life can be maintained. The Government takes the money in and then, uses it for vanity projects, often before maintenance; spotted a pothole recently? Oh yes, car tax and petrol duty. I’ll need a glass of wine soon; alcohol duty…

We are supposedly either the fifth or seventh, and dropping slightly, wealthiest country in the world. It’s one of our USPs, we are rich; we like rich, we like rich people even more, especially if they promise to do things for us, like spend their money here.

I digress. We are apparently not rich enough, nor sufficiently long sighted, to notice that, when people get older, they might begin to have different needs. I forgot, politics works on a five year, or fewer, cycle; you don’t actually have to achieve anything, just promise to do things and say “trust me, I’m a better bet that him/her”.

I began when two war-damaged people got together; dad was in the medical corps, picking up bodies and mum was in munitions. After 12 years, they didn’t get on and divorced messily. When I got married, for the first time, I pawned my camera and other bits, to pay for the ring and a short, simple “honeymoon”. A small bit of help from D’s parents and both working as teachers, started the long slog to pay for a house. Some twenty seven years later this was the eventual outcome; from nothing, I was a house-holder in reality, having paid off a relatively modest mortgage. It had meant periods of real hardship and much scrimping and saving, especially when interest rates hit 15%, with dietary change, maintaining very old cars and short camping holidays, rather than luxuries. Whenever possible, saving was the default position; much easier when the mortgage finished.

In a few months, after 45 years of paying all my taxes, I should get my old age pension. I am actually beginning to feel guilty for this. I’m not worried about the winter fuel bit; I’ve always been happy to put on a jumper or a fleece if I’ve been cold.

I’ve also enjoyed a feeling of belonging and being of worth.

I look at current house prices and see a generation unable to get onto the ladder, even if the bank of mum and dad is able to help. Multiples of relatively low wages don’t get anywhere near the need, which is dispiriting, to say the least. I think that it will be a necessary aspect of the near future that, if house prices are not to fall, the ability to help inter-generationally will become an essential part of most housing transactions.

If one generation can’t help the next, house prices will fall, buying will slow as a result of worry, and if interest rates were to rise, we have a couple of generations that have not really known austerity in it’s hardest form…

Did people really vote to get poorer?

Given the current crop of politicians, I keep thinking “Lions led by donkeys”, or of the carthorse in Animal Farm, striving against the odds, while the pigs have their snout in the trough. Politicians create “mock battles”, or just expect everyone else to pull their weight.

If things really do go pear-shaped, in the next few years, who will benefit? Not younger people seeking a house, not older people, trying to eke out their savings, it’ll be those whose real wealth allows them to lose some and still have more than enough to spare; usually called the rich. The rich will get richer, the rest of us will get poorer and we’ll have to know our place.

The rich will buy up the earth… and the rest of us will pay them for their largesse… get back to the workhouse…

Who’s pulling the strings behind Theresa May? Politics could be seen as the ultimate in insider dealing.
​

When I was around 6 years old, we had a holiday in Wales, staying at my grandmother’s house. Gran had a traveller family background and, one day, rummaging around in a chest of drawers, we came across, wrapped in a velvet cloth, a crystal ball, which confirmed in our childish minds that she was, indeed a gypsy. We didn’t want to incur the wrath of Gran, nor bring bad luck on our heads by disturbing the ball, as our older cousin intimated, so we carefully put it back in it’s resting place.

That we don’t know what the future will bring, in many ways is probably a good thing.

We can only seek to plan for perceived or imagined futures.

I have been very lucky, being born at a particular time, still with some post-war rationing, but able to go to college to train as a teacher with a grant, supplemented by holiday jobs.

From a relatively poor starting point, with dysfunctional parents, I have always been a very prudent adult and have scrimped, saved and occasionally salvaged, in order to “make ends meet”.

The fear of being poor is a powerful driver. Paying off the mortgage was a significant day; I owned my house! Modest holidays, camping in the UK and then to join friends who had emigrated to France, meant that subsequent savings allowed the purchase of a very small cottage, which cost the price of a modest caravan, and still would as French house prices have not risen as they have here. Improvements have been saved for.

And now, I look forward to the latter part of this year, when I should be the recipient of that terminal-sounding “old-age pension”.

For all of this I feel lucky, but…

I cannot look to the future without considering others who are my family, especially the younger generations, who, even if they were to scrimp, save and salvage, cannot aspire in the same way as my generation did.

I am annoyed and embarrassed that (political) members of my generation and the one that followed, who also enjoyed the same, have somehow conspired to ensure that a seemingly rich nation cannot now afford many of the things that we were able to take almost for granted, which means that where I could dream, even if the crystal ball didn’t help, my children and grandchildren, will not have the same, even if they take the same job opportunities.

Then what?

Following Mark Thomas’ show, I’ve been looking at the future…I have, after all, some gypsy blood...

Brexit will undoubtedly cause many problems, that some of us can perceive, but which will suddenly become very real, as “negotiations” proceed and cause significant public disquiet; no-one, I am sure, voted to be poorer, but that may become the reality.

Politicians, especially those closely associated with Brexit, will take the easy option and resign to go into relative obscurity, but may then join private enterprise companies as directors.

Pay will continue to stagnate, especially in the public services, which will further diminish what is available.

As the current workforce ages, “controlled immigration”, as an outcome of Brexit, will not fill gaps, so manufacture and house building, hospitality, nursing, teaching and social care, supermarkets among many others, will start to retrench, as they cannot find personnel.

House prices, unless they are artificially kept high by Government intervention (see recent schemes) will start to fall. Lowering house prices will cause disquiet among home owners, but anguish among younger purchasers, as the pay-mortgage differential begins to squeeze tighter- I remember the impact of 15% interest rates on a relatively small mortgage. Lowering house prices will not necessarily help younger people get onto the housing ladder, as pay may still not be sufficient.

​"Ex-pats" will return to the UK in numbers. The value of their houses in Spain or France probably will not purchase a house in the UK. Older and possibly with illness, they will need housing and nursing care, creating a new burden on the budgets.

Speculators, hedge funds and larger landlords, however, may well have a field-day, buying up repossessed properties. What proportion of MPs are private landlords? Profumo?

The “bank of mum and dad” will come more into play, supporting children through this period, but for revenue need rather than house purchase.

This bank will also be called upon to pay for any necessary personal care, especially if you have saved over a certain amount.

And then what? In 30 years’ time, when my contemporaries, like me, will hope to be approaching 100 (that’s frightening when written down) a smaller working population, potentially made poorer by decisions in 2016-17, will not be in any position to sustain spending, even as it is now. When you’ve sold the family silver, and anything else of any worth, there’s not much room for manoeuvre, and poorer people/countries can’t borrow.

The “people have spoken”, will be used by some politicians to mean that they can do anything they wish; it will be “our fault” not theirs; they are only doing what “we” asked.

Preferred future?

Stop being celebrity politicians and get on with the day jobs. At the moment, smoke and mirrors are deflecting from the real issues that affect everyday lives.

Stop this stupid Brexit. If, as CEO of UK Ltd, Theresa May is prepared to make the country financially and morally bankrupt, she, and her Government should be held personally responsible when it goes wrong, especially if she assumes a hardened approach. I’d like them all to place their houses and banking wealth into a sovereign wealth fund, only returnable if I’m wrong and Brexit is a success, in 10-20 years’ time, just like company bonuses. They are, effectively, gambling with our futures. They are all right, Jack.

Start talking, rather than posturing and ranting about “them”.

For the rest of us, I’d like us to be able to get on with our lives, without the constant backdrop of politicking that seems to dominate every discourse.

I’d quite like to enjoy whatever life is left to me.

I’d like to be able to plan a future that includes an active and interesting retirement. I’m not a ski-er, so will continue my careful ways.

I’d like to think that, if I am ever ill, there will be a safety net available.

I’d like to think that my children and grandchildren may enjoy their lives too, to dream, to strive, to enjoy the fruits of (modest) success.

I’d like the world to be clean, healthy and able to sustain them.
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Too much to seek?

​I was surprised, this week, when a post that I wrote last year passed by my Twitter timeline. In this, I looked at the impact of successive education secretaries over my career and how during the past forty years, education has become a central theme in politics. This could be because successive Governments have hived off other direct responsibilities leaving the rump of public service roles.

It is a truism that children are largely born into the world in the same ways as they always have, apart from medical interventions that are now available where they weren’t previously. They grow through whatever experiences their families offer then they enter school. They show variability at that stage, which might be an indicator of learning issues or perhaps of limited pre-school experience and interactions.

From entry, the teacher and other adults, through interacting with the children, begin to make judgements and fine tune their interactions to elicit detailed information. This may require a form of interpretation, unpicking the concept being experienced and tracking back in language forms, supported by manipulable resources or modelling, to a point where the child is able to engage at their personal level of understanding.

Where a child is in EYFS, the detail in records kept during that phase can be used to interrogate the possibility of the child having Special Educational Needs.

Tracking back and tracking forwards is a descriptor of a teacher life, in language and conceptual terms. We are continually told that “learning is not linear”, yet planning for teaching and learning is, with the examined implication of linear accommodation of each new element of learning. The year cohort approach to the National Curriculum assumes that each cohort should move as one, in a linear fashion, apart from the judgements that a child is, or isn’t at Age Related Expectation. If they aren’t, they will take forward a deficit, which has to be bridged, if they are to have any hope of keeping up with peers over time.

Therefore, in any classroom, at any one time, there will be a range of capabilities and understandings, even in a set or stream.

Inclusion was an item on the radio this morning, in the context of SEND. When the word was introduced, I was keen that the term should not just be used in this regard, but in a broader definition, which I framed as; an inclusive school is one that does it’s best, within the school capacity, to offer a quality education to each child, ensuring that any difficulty is identified, addressed and tracked, with clear evaluation underpinning decisions, including the use of external expertise. Where a school has utilised every available course of action, consideration should be given to alternative placement, where additional expertise or resources are available.

Labels and levels regularly flit by, as an addendum. If a child has a need, is that a label, or a descriptor? Levels, in the original National Curriculum, were clearly available as descriptors, and, where they were adopted as such, offered a language for discussion children’s learning. I blame the data bods for usurping the numbers of levels to supposedly predict progress, where, in reality, progress is effected in each classroom, a bit at a time, by a well-informed teacher with the skills and abilities to interact with the learning needs of each child, where this is evident. 

Progress is an interaction between the process of learning, including the quality of the teacher input of information into the lesson, and the outcomes from the child assimilating this information and being able to utilise it to fulfil a challenge, at whatever level is appropriate to the child. A post-activity evaluation can determine the next appropriate steps and the focus for the child.

This week, I have been making my last visit to School Direct trainees, and, in a couple of weeks’ time will host an interim meeting for Winchester University Post Grad mentors to review their progress to date. The essence of all the discussions can be refined to a few of the Teacher Standards; 2, 6&5, progress and outcomes, assessment and adaptation.

These, particularly standard 2, are critical to all decisions that affect learning in classrooms. If a teacher doesn’t know what “quality” outcomes look like for their year group, their underlying decisions may be faulty. This has implication for context expectation, so inter-school moderation is a key factor. With a young teaching force, breadth of experience may become a self-limiting factor. We are approaching the latter part of one year and schools are looking to the next, with decisions being made about teacher placement. PG and SD trainees may well be teaching year groups other than those in which they trained, and many will be in different school contexts, with structural differences to accommodate, as well as the different needs of children.

Quality awareness is a precursor to any form of quality control. This has to be a school-level discussion, so that every teacher is made regularly aware of potential expectations. Is it any wonder that many begin to struggle in their first years? It was a problem with sub-levels; what was the difference between a 4b and 4a?

Progress and outcomes are still subjects for debate among experienced teachers. Is it any wonder that trainees find this area fraught with possible issues? But, essentially, it is the single area that has the greatest impact across every decision, as per this diagram.

As the picture at the top of the blog says, we need these young teacher and their colleagues, to be the lead thinkers in their classrooms, to be capable of interpreting the needs of learners and to have the ability to adapt to these needs. They need to be aware; spotting and dealing with need at different levels, recording and tracking their concerns and their discussions with experienced peers, helping to make decisions about where a child’s learning journey will develop.

Interpretation takes time. Many of us, in using another language, make elementary errors, but, with practice, this becomes more refined and appropriate to need. Developing teachers need to be able to speak fluent “child-speak”, modelling and making appropriate links to “adult-speak” for those who struggle
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So, if I was a Primary head today, what would I want to be doing?

• Create an inspiring range of challenging topic and project areas that would embed the necessary knowledge to be used in other scenarios. These would have time allocations, not necessarily to fill a half term, so that Science, History, Geography and Technology all had a secure place.
• Ensuring that each element was appropriately resourced so that it could happen and be of quality.
• Link the English and Maths curriculum in such a way that each could make use of the current and recent past topics, so that one fed the other, with opportunities to use and apply earlier skills and knowledge.
• Ensure that art, drama and music were deployed as interpretative subjects of worth and each capable of supporting the English and Maths curriculum.
• MFL, music and aspects of PE can be used to support the PPA needs of the school, by judicious use of specialists.
• Ask for teacher medium term plans, to see the direction of travel. Short term plans are for the teacher in the classroom, so can take any form that suits.
• I’d want children to know the focus for their personal efforts at any particular time.
• Create portfolios of moderated in-house examples that could support decision making in the school, be used to moderate against other school outcomes to validate judgements.
• I would have some kind of measure of capability, to support and focus decision making ability, especially of early career teachers. Every area of life is governed by a measure of capability in some form, from the kick around in the playground to academic and work achievement. “Can do” statements are a guide.

It is a consequence of the fact that there is no one size fits all approach to education that, at the tail end of a forty-plus year career, no-one has created a system that completely “works” for children from 4-18. The variables will always be the children and life itself. The shifts in the world impact on the learners, but the needs are the same; to understand the world we live in and have the skills to interrogate and explore it and communicate effectively.

Learners need interested adults to help them to interpret what they are experiencing, to give them the conceptual vocabulary that enables them to more fully participate in ongoing discussions which can allow further progress.
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Linked blogs
When Blunkett trumped education. http://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/when-blunkett-trumped-education
Are you an inclusive school? (pdf download; checklists) http://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/pdfs.html
Levelness and yearness. http://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/revisiting-if-level-ness-became-year-ness
Quality= a work in progress (and outcomes). http://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/quality-a-work-in-progress

The truism that was passed to me early in my career was to expect the unexpected and deal with things as they arise, or the variation to “have something up your sleeve”.

It has been a noticeable feature since 1997 and the National Strategies, that the literacy and numeracy “hours” have had an impact on Primary timetables, with singular lessons, again called Maths and English, in the mornings, with other subjects relegated to the after lunch spot.

Children enter school, perhaps to an early morning task, which they have to do while the register is being taken. This could be something like “Thunks”, to get the children thinking, a maths check, which could be quickly marked before starting the lessons proper, perhaps a word play game; how many alternative words can you find for...

Then they pack up in time for break and before they return to a new lesson, with the inevitable moving around, waiting to be taught and detailed to new areas of activity. For trainees, this can be the first level of challenge, quelling some restless children, especially if the football scenarios are still being enacted.

It was a feature of running my Primary classrooms, especially pre-1997, that tasks often “bridged” playtime, so that children on exiting for break would know that when they returned, they should continue with the task that they had left. Transition to the new lesson was then decided when quality had been assured. If the pre-break activities had been completed, and it was made easier after the IWBs were introduced, a picture related to the topic for discussion would be available with a need to interrogate the picture ahead of the lesson. A very good description of such an activity was recently written by Tim Taylor.  

It is probably true that there is a difference between teaching four year olds, or younger, in Early Years settings and catering for the needs of year 11 or 13.

At the early stage, experiences that embed the notion of the colour blue, or the number 6 might include activities that are exploratory, or perhaps expressive; match the shapes in the picture and count them, put all the blue objects in this circle. An observing adult will be looking for the security of understanding of these relatively simple concepts, to be able to move to the next challenge; green or 7-ness.
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For a year 11 or 13, the colour choices of a Marc Chagall or Van Gogh painting might be the subject of a more philosophical discussion, linking different elements of their lives through their choice of colour.
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Young children are at such an early stage in learning that they have to learn how to learn; to focus, to become organised, to share with others, to listen to a speaker. These skills are not necessarily easy or natural for some. They do not all hear the same, nor have the internalise experiences that allow each to fully participate in the process(ing) of the ideas being shared. Differences in processing could be seen as a determining factor in school success; those children who seem to learn quickly and easily, become “fluent” learners; their journey through learning is unhindered. Physical difference, such as hearing and sight can have a significant detrimental impact before it really comes to the attention of adults. The resultant delay might then be addressed.

Reflecting on my Primary classroom career, there was a mix of sharing necessary information, followed by tailored tasks that enabled children to bring to the fore those things that had been learned and to revise those things that could be identified as less secure. The tasking, in itself, was a form of test, in that knowledge had to be used and applied, or identified, by the adult or learners as in need of revisiting. The practical situation enabled links to be made that demonstrated the point of the earlier, formal learning.
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As children get older and, hopefully, more mature in their approach to learning, it is easy to assume that they can concentrate for longer, can retain more information and are processing the information to be able to retain it. That testing can then show a lack of security might be down to a lack of linking activities, to enable the child(ren) to process the new against what they already know. Guided reflection, at any age, can scaffold information appropriately, with models developed that highlight those links. I do like sketch notes in this regard, with children developing their own personal methodologies, rather than just secretarial note taking. “Showing your thinking” is a very useful stage in securing learning, especially if it is then the subject of reflection and revision.
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I know I came upstairs for some reason. I can at least now claim “senior moments”.

My problem, at the moment, is that there are usually several things competing in my head for the available space, which is the lot of the freelance. For that reason, I have lists and post-its to try to keep track of the different strands. Even then, something can be missed, especially if something grabs the attention and takes over the time available. Occasionally, it’s a product of reading something on or through Twitter. These items can be tangential, but sometimes then coalesce within a variety of experiences. This time it was Nancy Gedge's article in the TES on working memory.

Life requires us to remember things. Orientating ourselves, organising our personal spaces to be able to sort, find and return items, ensuring that those necessary things are done. Many of these are held as memories, such as how to get from the house to somewhere else, while others might need a list, especially when specific items are needed from shopping. There’s little worse than getting home and finding something really important has been overlooked. Yes there is. It’s when the shopping is for someone else, especially when preparing for a special event!

As much of my working life is visiting schools to supervise trainee teachers, I have to have an ordered diary, ensure that the trainees and schools are aware of my visit and then make sure I read my diary to be in the right place at the right time. Constant rejigging of times to suit unexpected situations can put pressure on even the most organised of systems, but adaptability is essential, in life and in work.

Watching and discussing with trainee teachers is a privilege. With this being the whole of their development year, to see them move from insecure to very able is more than encouraging. From time to time they forget to do something that is written on their plan. This can be a conscious decision, based on their understanding of the learners’ needs, but it can also be an oversight. A simple piece of advice to highlight those bits of their plan that they must not forget to do or say can often be enough. Some carry a post-it in the palm of their hand. Others will develop a series of PowerPoint slides with key questions to open up like a book.

Overt modelling, where diagrams are developed from manipulatives, that then are available throughout the lesson as memory reference points can be key to supporting children with memory issues.

Success criteria for that specific activity, based on the idea of “What a Good One Looks Like”, or WAGOLL, can become a scaffold for self-checking; have you done these things? This is a task level set of expectations that provides the context for personal needs.

The need of the teacher and the children to hold onto their development needs, in Primary across a range of subjects, can be challenging. Thirty children and ten plus subjects can mean several hundred development needs or “targets”. It’s the same for Secondary. It was to support this need, to enable teacher and learners to be prompted to a specific focus, that the “exercise books as personal organisers” approach was developed in my school. Essentially these are flaps to note the continuing need. Opened out when working, the supporting adults can interact with individuals to a fine-focus need, which they might otherwise ignore in the broader need. Neither the teacher, nor the child has to hold the information in their heads.

If all Primary writing is done in a single book, a clear writing focus is maintained throughout. The process can be supported by note making, lists, recipes, etc, which can become the basis for a first draft piece of writing. Exploring the process of writing holistically enables thought processes to be developed.

For reading, an “advisory bookmark” can be created, to remind the children and any adult engaging with their reading of areas to consider while or after reading.

Providing prompts is an important part of development. Intervention in-lesson to ensure a child remains on track can enable a quality benchmark to be achieved, against which future outcomes can be compared.

Showing progress can be challenging. “Progressive benchmarking” can be a very simple means of doing this. As a class teacher, pre-NC, I would ask children, every couple of weeks to look back to their previous work and to seek to do “better” in some specific way. The NC level descriptors, appended to the edge of their books and working within the National Writing Project approaches, meant that “progressive marking” through conversation allowed me to agree that they had demonstrated an area and to append their next development goal. It showed tracking of development, the advice given and the progress made.

Personally, I’d far rather develop schema that support memory, short and longer term, than to continually feel harassed that I had forgotten something.

Teachers are under considerable pressure to show that their children are achieving at the highest possible level. Looking at the underpinning schema can be the route to stripping out unnecessary elements.

Organisation is in school and teacher hands.

I wonder how you try to keep track of these needs.

Linked blogs (click to read)
Nancy Gedge TES article
Exercise books as personal organisers
Primary writing in a single book
Advisory bookmark
National Writing Project
Organisation
1)      Planning for learning over time
2)      School organisation of time

People are ingenious when it comes to overcoming the need to get across the barriers that a water course creates. It is rare that someone wanting to get across would want to spend an inordinate amount of time throwing rocks and debris into the water in order to step across. In fact, this might be inefficient, as the water would keep rising on one side of the barrier.
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Paleolithic peoples would make stepping stones, by depositing stones large enough to poke through the water and allow steps to be taken in some safety. In some places, these stepping stones also had a flat top stone, to make a simple bridge. The bridge allowed regular and easy access from one side to another, supported on the simple pillars.
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There is a current education mantra, “Bridging the Gap”, which appears to have morphed into “Diminishing the Difference”. I think some highly paid whizz-kid sits somewhere and comes up with these statements, without thinking through the impact on learners, or having to implement the outcomes.

Some children run faster, jump higher, sing better, find maths easier, read and write better than others. That is one of life’s realities with which even young children can engage. At the end of each school year, children achieve across a spectrum of achievement, in different area of the curriculum. Where an artificial barrier is erected, let’s call it Age Related Expectation, or ARE for short, this will mean that a proportion of the children will fall below the level and some will achieve above another artificial level that says they are higher than expected.

The problem is that those who don’t achieve will be seen as having a residual gap in their learning from that year, which suggests a need to fill in the missing elements. This could either be done by throwing everything again into the gap, to try to fill the space, but, as with water, tensions might rise and the good intentions might actually exacerbate the problem. Bridging the gap might start with establishing the security of the foundations and then seeking a means to bridge without having to put in too many interstitial pillars to give temporary support. Regular check questions or conversations are necessary.

It is a situation where the ability to analyse or assess minute by minute outcomes and to reflect and react to the evident need is a key aspect. However, this is often a role given to a classroom assistant. Unless this person is well trained and well-versed in this role, there is no guarantee that the vulnerable child will make the necessary progress, yet the reality is that these children have to run to catch up, to stay near their peers.

Where a significant proportion of the education dialogue can veer towards the traditional whole class approach across Primary as well as Secondary, a narrow lesson focus can have the impact of leaving a proportion adrift, unless rapid in-lesson intervention occurs.

That some argue against mixed ability groups, or grouping per se, can appear perverse, as any group of children is mixed ability. Children, especially younger learners, can share ideas within a task, with the aim of finding a mutual solution. That one child might contribute slightly more than another in a group is akin to some achieving higher in any other lesson. It all becomes a moot point after a while.

 The single most important factor in my experience is the quality of the challenge, requiring thought that proceeds towards finding a solution to the initial problem. Poorly designed tasks can become self-limiting.

In my last blog, I looked specifically at SEND issues. If issues are not addressed, vulnerable children might be left to flounder each year with the inevitable consequence of being labelled, not at ARE; shorthand “fail”. Unless the teacher can demonstrate that this is despite their best, recorded efforts, with quality teaching and intervention to need, it is possible to argue that the child may have been let down by the system.