Looking out for the “newbies”.

As the term and the school year comes towards a close, staff have largely moved and been replaced, often with a newly qualified teacher, a newbie, fresh from their training. I’ve recently finished my final visits to School Direct trainees as a Link Tutor for one group and Quality Assurance for another. It is always a good thing to spend some time after an experience, to evaluate the process and the details that contribute to the whole, so that necessary tweaks can be made to improve the system for the future.
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It was a feature of all the trainees, across both groups, that their standard of professionalism was extremely high. This I have explored in an earlier blog post, identifying Teacher Standards 8,7,1,3 as common features of early success; they have a professional demeanour, recognised by colleagues and children, enabling them to get across their ideas.
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In my quality assurance report to one of the Teaching Schools’ Alliances, I focused on the role of the mentor as a key element in addressing the issues that will be a part of the whole training year, especially where there is a need to undertake a short practice in an alternative Key Stage. I offer these thoughts here, before extending them a little.

An earlier blog on mentoring looked at it as a form of CPD.

The quality of mentoring can be a significant variable, both in terms of the personality and the teaching quality of the individual mentors, but also in the receiving school, as a whole, in their preparedness to support a developing teacher.

In the early stages, where quality induction is required, there is a need to explore the totality of education and to make sense of the whole, as it is evidenced in their host school; eg ethos, safeguarding, behaviour management, expectations, resource base, planning approaches, among many others. This wealth of information can be overwhelming, if not carefully managed, and should not rely on the trainee just to find out for themselves. Introductions to key personnel need to be made, with Maths and English managers and the SENCo, to familiarise the trainee with current issues.

The mentor (or a nominated colleague) may also have to act as the “tutor in residence”, able to support the academic aspects of the course; at least to be party to reflective discussions about the writing tasks.

The above does require a mentor programme to run alongside the trainee programme. If, as suggested, trainees were given time to discuss “papers” during their training days, these could then inform discussions with mentors, to gain a school perspective on the topic.

In discussion, it is clear that many mentors do not generally attend formal gatherings, in doing so, limiting the opportunity to develop a network. This is not a dissimilar picture in university mentor meetings. Some thought needs to be given to incentives to encourage attendance, or at least to discourage non-attendance.
 
Regular meetings with mentors, on a personal level, “mentoring the mentors”, would also support the STSA profile. Where University Link Tutors visit more regularly, it can seem that some schools are able to misinterpret the roles of different visiting representatives.

To summarise. Mentors need to be fully appraised of the training programme, the demands on themselves and the trainees from the Alliance and the University and be able to provide support that ensures a smooth training opportunity.

After a committee discussion yesterday, I took the thoughts one step further, by reflecting on the role of the receiving school, developing the whole school into a global mentoring system, rather than just relying on one colleague, although, for weekly discussions, this would still be the case.

This, to me, sits within a “Teaching School”s Alliance; a collection of teaching schools, rather than a central Teaching School with satellite schools agreeing to take trainees. In this way, everyone becomes a mentor, additional CPD becomes an opportunity to reflect on practice and the central Teaching School could invite broader discussion within the group to explore the sharing of very successful practice.
We need high quality teachers, well supported at vulnerable times of their teaching careers.

The NQTs arriving in schools in September will not be the “finished article”. The newbies, transferring in from other schools may also be vulnerable. They will need support to settle, to organise and orientate themselves, to pick up the wide range of school systems in order to become effective colleagues. They need to get to know the children and the expectations that the school has of their progress during the year. They need to know the quality standards. These need to be effectively shared during induction, but also as a continuous activity. Induction could last the year, with regular meetings to support, enable downloading of problems, seeking solutions.

This is a school level need. Often, if a teacher is failing, it is the lack of colleague intervention that makes this harder to resolve. Teaching can be a solitary activity, but it is a team game. Everyone should be looking out for the newbies.

​Let's make all schools Teaching Schools, committed to teacher development at all stages of their careers. 
  

Why are politicians so self-centred?
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In a few days’ time, there will be commemorations of the Battle of the Somme, which started on July 1st 1916 and continued until November 18th 1916. During that period, more than a million men were wounded or killed, the highest loss of life during any period of history.

It is a sobering thought that only 100 years ago, the continent of Europe, indeed the whole world, was engulfed by horrendous and unimaginable human misery. Young men and women volunteered, then were conscripted, into an army that became fodder for machine guns or artillery. A bit of genealogical research shows that my grandfather, described as 5ft 1in, small but “suitable” was called up around that time. That he survived was good news for me, on one side. My paternal grandfather was in a reserved occupation as an aircraft builder, based in Southampton. He died in the Spanish flu epidemic in the winter of 1918/9, six months before my father was born. A few months difference and I wouldn’t be here.

My life, now numbering 63 years, has been significantly different from my father’s or my grandfathers’ generations. They were at war and were called up to fight. I and my children have never had to endure that, nor the suffering that accompanied the more distant fighting, although I do have a memory of walks to collect the still-rationed milk powder. I’d like to think, that if I had had to fight in the same way, that I’d have done so. Some things are well worth fighting for, such as personal liberty, something that is a higher aspiration.

The greater proportion of the past 100 years have been lived in peace, with people talking out problems for the main part through organisations such as the United Nations or the European Union. It seems as if “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war” has been largely successful. My last blog looked at some of my concerns after the recent referendum.

Sadly, there is no-one of the stature of a Churchill to knock a few heads together and to come up with some kind of plan that takes the discussion forward in a positive way. Treating other countries in the manner of a petulant teenager, stamping feet and having tantrums will not work. If you are a parent of older children, you’ll know that “I want doesn’t get…” in a very short week we have gone backwards very rapidly, financially and morally, because a few self-centred politicians and some rich backers felt they had the right to destroy the stability that has been part of the last 40 years, persuading sufficient people to believe in their promises of a “better tomorrow”.

The past week has been describe as a bereavement. It is almost eleven years to the day that my first wife died.
A few months previously, I had a valued member of my teaching staff succumb to cancer over a few short months. I had a very difficult time, supporting the staff of the school, but also the family. Geoff would call in each day after visiting for a cup of tea and a download. I was pleased to offer a listening ear. I was also very aware that I, in many ways had been lucky, in that grief was spread out over time and took many disguises. The raw emotion of such a rapid demise was unimaginable, even to me, who had gone through several recurrences.

In our case, we were told on our 20th wedding anniversary that she had breast cancer, which needed major surgery. At Easter we headed to France to visit friends who just wanted to look after us for a week. We had been friends for 20 years and they’d decamped to live in an old farmhouse. While we were there, we pursued a dream that had been alive for three years, to look to buy a small holiday cottage and settled on a two room house that had been empty for three years, since the elderly owner had died. We were able to buy a structure that had cold water and an outside loo, for the cost of a reasonable towing caravan. It became our bolt-hole and offered fresh air, calm and a chance to live a simple life for a few weeks each year. My hobbies developed into plumbing, electrics and coppicing. Between visits, plans were made for the next projects. It was a lifeline then, and after D died. It still offers the same respite from the world now.

But I do worry, not about my neighbours and many good friends, but about others who may seek to persuade us that we are not welcome, possibly with the rise of the Front Nationale, in the same way, sadly, that many have been made to feel welcome during the past week.

Johnson, Give and Farage have changed Europe, for the worst. They have played politics, for personal gain; in the process making at least half the country insecure about their futures.

Before Della got cancer, I used to sing at Folk Clubs, with Nick, the friend who moved to France. We often sang the song the Green Fields of France, which is a lament for the fallen at the Somme. For the past week, this tune has popped in and out of my mind, reminding me that we don’t ever learn from history.

I can only hope that sense will prevail.  
                                                               
Green Fields of France  
Well how do you do, Private Willie McBride,
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside
And rest for a while 'neath the warm summer sun
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the great fallen of nineteen-sixteen.
Well, I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
Or Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene.

Chorus :
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife
lowly,
Did they sound the dead-march as they lowered you down.
Did the band play the Last Post and chorus,
Did the pipes play the 'Flowers of the Forest'.

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
And though you died back there in nineteen-sixteen
In some faithful heart are you ever nineteen?
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed forever behind a glass frame
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained
Fast fading to yellow in a leather bound frame.
Chorus

It’s all quiet now in the green fields of France
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
The trenches have vanished, under the plough,
There's no gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard it's still no-man's-land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned.
Chorus

And I can't help but wonder, Private Willie Mcbride
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe when you answered the cause
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
The sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain
The killing and dying t’was all done in vain
For young Willie McBride it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again.
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife
lowly,
Did they sound the dead-march as they lowered you down.
Did the band play the Last Post and chorus,
Did the pipes play the 'Flowers of the Forest'.


If you would like to hear The Fureys sing a variation of this song
https://youtu.be/u0tFv8yu7ow

The Flowers of the Forest mentioned in the song is a lament played when burying the dead on the battle field.
https://youtu.be/g4xIozPcZLg
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There might be some mileage in using both during an assembly later this week, but have the tissues handy!

Hopefully above will be an openable PowerPoint of a presentation on transition for later in the year. I publish it now so that anyone can offer comments and insights that might help with the presentation.

Of course, what you don't get is the accompanying words, so some elements may be less obvious than others.
​Please feel free to comment and make (appropriate!) suggestions

We know that we have knowledge, or not, at the point where it becomes useful. It is the same for children. They know what they know and hopefully, their teacher understands what they do not yet know. They learn to function in the world that is created by their own knowledge. Hopefully, their curiosity is piqued by ideas and experiences, so that they glean from each experience a few new nuggets of knowledge to store away, squirrel like, until they are called upon to use it.

It is in the using and application of our knowledge that we may come upon a point where the detail and security of our knowledge is challenged. This could be a practical situation, when making something, that an unexpected problem means that we have to stop, to think, and perhaps to adapt our approach, to suit the tools available or the material. Learning in a classroom can often throw up the evidence where a child or a group become “stuck”. This is the point where the aware teacher intervenes to identify the reason and, by a variety of approaches, including instruction, enables the child or the group to continue with the task to completion. Education and training are rarely smooth processes, as the complex range of needs in the “audience” ensures that the language, vocabulary and register, of the trainer will be understandable to some, but may cause difficulty for others.

Use and application of knowledge are, in my mind, akin to testing, in that the learner is asked to perform, within a set challenge, to demonstrate their knowledge. The challenge is to identify the areas of need, to address them and to unstick the issues, so that learning can be continuous. Learning within a task can be very valuable, as it is seen in context, so has a clear purpose.

On being a higher achiever

The news this morning, 10.6.16,  highlighted the concerns of the Chief Inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, about the “plight” of higher achieving children. Since the newest incarnation of the National Curriculum, I have been concerned about this group too, as they can be less well challenged in tasks, even where there are progressively harder task to work through. To spend time on the lower challenges might be wasting valuable learning time.

Reflect on this week’s lessons and answer the following questions.

1. What was the point of being bright in the class?
2. Would an observer see a difference in expectation, in challenge or in outcome for those children?
3. Did they have to sit through the same inputs as the others, every day?
4. Did they actually need to do so?

I am talking about the more able quarter or third of the children in the class. If the answers to the questions were 1) none 2) no 3) yes and 4) no then there may be a problem in the room.

The teacher, or the system within which they are required to work, may be a barrier to learning.

Hackles rise. Of course teachers can’t be barriers to learning!

But surely, if you look at your class and know that a proportion already understand, from your assessment, what you are about to share, why waste twenty valuable minutes?

Why not give them a separate independent task to validate your judgements?

Perhaps they could be given a reflective task to simplify and remember information and teach the rest of the class at the end of the general input?

If “they all look just the same” within the process and the output is identical, where was the challenge and the embedded thinking, leading to children making decisions? Just following a recipe does not make for innovation and we should be looking to our brightest children to provide that level of spark, showing the best and the range of what can be achieved.

If you had as an example, Picasso and Cezanne within your class, how would they be accommodated? Picasso was demonstrating his abilities very early, a prodigy, whereas Cezanne was a late bloomer. Would they both have had the same experiences in art? A liberated Picasso was able to paint prodigiously and create world famous masterpieces early in his career, whereas, arguably, Cezanne’s best work was done in his sixties. The difference? Picasso was a better draftsman early and had the capacity to pull together a range of ideas in novel forms, possibly pure genius. Cezanne worked hard at the craft and got better. He did produce wonderful work. Would Picasso have received all the accolades and Cezanne been told not to bother? See Malcolm Gladwell’s book, What the Dog Saw, the chapter on late bloomers, for a deeper insight.

It is conceivable that the child looking out of the window and daydreaming may just be coming up with a tremendous idea.

Giving children time to be reflective is an important constituent of lessons. If children are allowed to think, discuss then articulate to an audience, their thinking is likely to be significantly deeper than an answer given as a response. The teacher determines this aspect of a lesson, by setting the challenges in the tasking.
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Differentiation by task challenge embeds a series of expectations, called variously success criteria or WILF (what I am looking for). The latter construction is useful, as the full explanation is likely to be; I am looking to see if you can.... with specific criteria stated depending on the subject and context.

Task differentiation is by far the more difficult of all differential approaches, but, let’s take an example of a class with a range of attainment in science. The high achieving children will need to be able to demonstrate independent actions within a fair test, whereas some children may need to have the process scaffolded for them, step by step.

Lower achievement
They make observations and measurements to compare living things, objects and events, using equipment provided for them. They record findings using prepared tables and communicate observations using scientific vocabulary. They say whether what happened was what they expected and, when prompted, suggest different ways they could have done things.  

Higher achievement
Pupils decide appropriate approaches to a range of tasks, including selecting sources of information and apparatus. They select and use methods to obtain data systematically. They recognise hazard symbols and make, and act on, simple suggestions to control obvious risks to themselves and others. They use line graphs to present data, interpret numerical data and draw conclusions from them. They analyse findings to draw scientific conclusions that are consistent with the evidence. They communicate these using scientific and mathematical conventions and terminology. They evaluate their working methods to make practical suggestions for improvements.

Talking to higher achieving children is also likely to show different approaches, in language forms as well as specific vocabulary. A very cursory skim over the descriptors above indicate a greater depth of knowledge required by higher achievers, so one would expect to hear a difference in group conversation and teacher or peer to peer didactic language.

It is possible that such a level of discussion would demand an extended reply as the teacher responds to the cues being given by the children.

There is a need to,
Look at planning and verify the challenge and extended nature of the tasks being set.
Allocate time for reflection and reflective articulation of thinking.
Allow a level of autonomy in decision making and selection of materials and resources.
Reduce prescription and enhance independence.
Give the time, space and resources and see what they can achieve.
Engage, but be conscious of your own role and the danger of becoming directive.
Be self aware, emotionally literate and model the reflective behaviours that you are seeking from these children.

Tasks should be challenging and, by extension, be testing. They should enable children to create ideas, to seek to use their current knowledge to find solutions. They can reprise and embed learned facts and allow extension through need.

If, after the challenge, the child, or children share their reasoning, the process, their choices and decisions, working methodology, outcomes and evaluation, peers can gain an insight into ways of thinking from the success or otherwise of their peers.

Everyone benefits, with the insights informing teacher decisions, as high quality assessment for learning.
A final question.

​Would you, as a (demonstrably) able person, currently want to be a child in your class?
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​The high achiever’s lament

What’s the point in being an achiever in this class?
We all do the same, same question, same activity, same organisation, same time.
Some get help to get it finished.
I took my time, lots of time. No point in finishing early,
Just to be told to check and check again.
Quiet, not to be noticed, because doing just enough is good enough.
We move at the speed of the slowest.
It could be different.
My group could have our own question, be allowed to think for ourselves.
To generate ideas, possibilities, choose our organisation, select our resources, check out our working.
Talk together, not too noisily, maybe talk with the teacher to confirm some things, be responsible for ourselves and what we produce.
Share our ideas with the rest of the class, encouraging them to try the same as us.
Instead, we all do the same, same question, same activity, same organisation, same time.
Same as always. It doesn’t get “better”.

​Note
The picture at the top of the blog is from FSC, The Field Studies Council, among others, but should be available from local Wildlife Trust outlets.

​The science pictures came from Association for Science Education publications in 1984 and 1988. Practical Primary science!

Assessment is very much in the news, almost daily, as we are in “Assessment Season”, with SATs, GCSEs and GCE as external testing and a considerable amount of time spent assessing every year group in between. Much of the internal time is spent “evidencing” that a child has a specific capability, not just once, but several times over a time period, so that the evidence has greater “validity” especially for external moderators. It appears to be showing up potentially significant flaws in the system as it impacts on Primary education, with bemoaning of interactions with moderators, who accept elements of school evidence and then close down discussion with their judgements.

Assessment, at core, means knowing the children, being able to sum up the child at a moment’s notice and having an idea of their needs in order to make progress.

When it comes down to brass tacks, much of assessment is a value judgement. I may not see things in exactly the same way as you. For most of life, that is fine; we can go our own sweet ways, never really bothering about each other. However, where we, as a collective have to agree on whether a specific element of a subject has been “sufficiently” evidenced and is of quality, it may well produce a fine or even a wide difference of opinion. If your judgement, by virtue of your status, is held to be superior, it may well undermine my own confidence in my judgement, with repercussions for the future.

And yet, teachers, in classrooms all over the country are making instant judgements, split-second decisions that ensure the smooth running of a lesson, especially for identified individuals, who may need greater confidence.
Having worked with a large number of School Direct trainees this year, the area of Progress and Outcomes (Teaching Standard 2) linked to their Planning (TS4), then to in-lesson thinking, evaluation and adaptation (TS 6&5) have been the hardest to evidence. One significant issue was the difference in approach between their two school experiences, where often the two schools use different approaches. This led to insecurity in decision making. In September, many will be working in yet another school, with potentially another different scheme. The lack of commonality makes it hard for trainers and trainees.

Much teacher time in 2013/4 was spent discussing or actively promoting the demise of Levels. Where levels were used purely as data points, with little or no reference to the word descriptors, they began to lose currency, especially as this approach enabled children to “progress” with apparent “gaps” in their knowledge. Where schools tracked individuals against their specific learning needs, this aspect was avoided.

We now have Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in many places as indicators of capabilities being sought in particular year groups. It is significantly likely that, at the year end, a proportion of the children in a year group will have “gaps” in their knowledge, which, unless it is tracked on an individual basis, will embed those gaps throughout. Equally, a proportion of children will have found the learning relatively easy and will be working at greater depth. How to evidence that, easily, will also be important.

The removal of levels was supposed to free up the curriculum, to ensure that there were “no limits” to achievement. With a significant focus on Maths and English in the current curriculum, there are regular apocryphal stories, via social media, of children in Primary school having a diet of Maths and English (and PE if they are lucky). So, in removing what was seen as a burden on teachers, to make judgements across different curricular areas, where the descriptors supported aspects of progression, the unintended consequences might be the removal of a common language for discussion and a severely limited curriculum.

It is easy to see how the different elements that make up Teaching and Learning have become more stylised, in order to ensure that each decision point is easily pointed out to an external moderator, or Ofsted.

So everything becomes a “thing” instead of a component in a cyclic process that is based around the central premise of getting to know the children as well as possible.

Planning becomes more rigid, to ensure that every teacher conforms and it can be explained easily. Differentiation can become a range of activities, rather than tasks with define challenge to need. Quality First teaching becomes whole class teaching. Assessment, instead of meaning prompts for in class teacher thinking and interactions, can mean checking the outcome after the lesson- (even Dylan Wiliam now sees AfL as responsive teaching). This approach leads to stacks of marking afterwards.
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​The trainees emerging from ITE this summer may well be entering a very different context to those in which they trained; after all, to be designated a Teaching School, the host school has to be “outstanding”. The receiving school must ensure that a professional mentor, capable of supporting the trainee is in place and has time to fully ensure that induction:-

Allows the NQT to settle early into the day to day running of the school, as a person of status, with colleagues, parents and children. (TS8)
Has good behaviour control operating within the articulated school system. (TS7)
Is able to plan effectively over timescales that allow for thinking time in between to ensure teaching of quality and to fill in any gaps in personal knowledge. (TS4&3)
Is aware of previous attainment, so that benchmarks are established early, to ensure no slippage. (TS2)
Is aware of assessment system in operation, to embed early in expectations. (TS6&1)
Allows them to think for themselves within each lesson and tailor responses to the evident needs of the children. (TS5)
In this way, some capacity is built into the system, enabling the trainee to become more autonomous over time. Not to do so condemns the trainee to be a dependent member of staff.

And, just reviewing the bullet points, the teaching standards could very easily be phrased as learner standards and expectations. They are, after all, two sides of the coin.

Allows the child to settle early into the day to day running of the class, as a person of value, with teachers, parents and children. (LS8)
With developing self-control, operating within the articulated school system. (LS7)
Able to involve themselves effectively over timescales that allow for thinking time in between to ensure teaching of learning and to fill in gaps in personal knowledge. (LS4&3)
Aware of previous attainment, so that benchmarks are established early, to ensure no slippage. (LS2)
Aware of assessment system in operation, to embed early in expectations. Knowing what to do to get “better” (LS6&1)
Allowing them to think for themselves within each lesson and expect appropriate responses to evident personal needs. (LS5)

Regular discussions, focused around Progress and Outcomes (TS2) can support wider expectations of learners and enable refinement in planning, exposition, in-lesson behaviours and post-lesson judgements about next steps.

After all, it’s all based on assessment; refined/agreed judgements.

Remember 24652=refinement.