With original words by Tony Hatch, Messing about on the River was a song on weekend children’s radio in the early 1960s.

As a child growing up in Brisbane, Qld, and Torbay, boats were a regular feature of life. Being in or on the water was a particular pleasure of growing up, with one darker incident, when a friend and I were the last people to see a boat loaded with six men and several sacks of cockles, with so little draught that while we were still out rowing, the police launch drew alongside and asked us if we’d seen them, as they hadn’t got back as planned. They had shipped water and all six had drowned when their boots, filled with water, had acted as anchors. It led to my first and only appearance in a Coroner’s court.

A tweet today talking of the oral tradition and nursery rhymes, reminded me of an earlier blog, but also made me think a little further about examples from my teaching.

As a teacher of a year 3 class around 1984, the topic choice was water, which provided the science, with exploration of floating and sinking, density exploration, evaporation and the water cycle, especially on showery days, siphons and pumps. Rafts enabled exploration of area and volume, linking science and maths. Rivers underpinned the geography, a visit to the Victory for some history and, for a short period, the song was the basis for dictionary and reference book research.

In the days before mass internet availability, the use of non-fiction books, using the contents and index to seek out information that could then become a general class resource, eg within displays was a common feature. Any parent who was associated with the navy, Royal or merchant, or a sailor or boater might be asked to visit to provide a personal talk.

Occasionally, this developed into an “alphabet of…” whatever was the current topic, creating a glossary of useful terms.

The song gave the focus, with specific words being identified as worthy of exploration. Ultimately, the activity also developed in-class thesaurus-style collections of associated words. By becoming the active explorers, children then often went home and found out more for themselves. The song became the vehicle for broader language development, but also, by being learned by heart for a performance in their assembly, helped with memory.

Oracy is a current buzz word. Like many others, it seems to mean different things to different people. To me, it means giving children something of quality to talk about, in small or larger groups, with the purpose of finding a solution to a problem, or working out how they will tackle a challenge. It’s rarely as formal as a debate, but might become such in specific circumstances. The confidence to interact with peers, to me, is more important than performance to a wider audience, as that’s how we live. Few of us have a soap box upon which to stand or a lectern to hide behind.

Learning to interact verbally is a life skill. A language rich environment encourages that.
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For those of you who don’t know the song, here’s a link. I'm hoping to resurrect my interest in the water and water activities when retirement beckons... who knows, I may even be tempted to accompany this with singing! 

If you type the word quality into the search box on my blog site, you’ll come up with ten pages of blog references where the word has appeared. Quality is the hallmark of (high quality) education. It is, in my opinion, the essence of what teachers try to do each and every day; raising the quality of what children achieve.

This means, of course, that each and every day, teachers are making qualitative judgements about what their children achieve. With experience, teachers begin to calibrate their judgements more finely, as they have seen a greater number of outcomes. This fine judgement enables more refined responses to the individual concerned. In many ways, it is the qualitative judgement that informs formative assessment; aka thinking about what the children have achieved and deciding what that means for the next course of action.

Therefore, to me, improving the quality of teacher judgement has always seemed to be central to CPD, or PPD, as it often affects individuals.

We have a relatively young teacher force. Primary NQTs entering the profession in September, will have had between 100 and 150 days of direct in-school experience. This will have been across two key stages, with a gradual build-up of experience in each, in a school context supportive of trainees and with a direct mentor available. As a trainer, I always emphasise moderation activities, to promote professional dialogue about processes and the output.

Whether we like it or not, stratification of children happens; teachers and peers know who is the “best” reader, writer, mathematician, gymnast… They also probably know the opposite. The difficulties can occur when fine-tuned judgements are needed, especially where direct teacher intervention may be needed. And, in many ways this is what concerns me, especially where so much attention is placed on summative judgements and the ensuing data crunching.

There are simple questions that aid calibration of judgement; is this “good enough” for a year x child? Is it better than “good”? If it isn’t good enough, what needs to be addressed? What are the implications for the next teaching session, with a range of outcomes from this one?

Unless the activity devised by the teacher is a “copyist” one, where every child will produce an almost carbon copy of a teacher model, there will be a range of outcomes. Even if every child in a class is “above average”, as can occasionally occur, there will still be a range. Moderating discussion of outcomes is comparative, with embedded criteria being identified as evident or not.

Not that long ago there was a system of levels as a national judgement, used by every school to describe the stratification of outcomes. That these levels were used to give feedback on children’s developing work was inevitable, but over time, from the start in 1987, the move from using the descriptors to the numerical forms distorted their use and utility. We still have a form of descriptors within the year-based approach to the current National Curriculum, with a number of tracking systems ticking off coverage (at least what they’ve planned) and hoping that summative evidence will enable sufficient numbers of children to be described as “at (or above) standard”. In some case, you can’t be “above standard” until term three of the year, as you haven’t covered everything.
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And then you end up with this: the set of descriptors that are used to stratify children at the end of the key stage. How helpful is this to further progress, or to identify what needs to be tackled next? It is no use to child, teacher or parent. Ten ways to say you’re not “at standard”. In other words, a waste of teacher (and system) time.
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I look at this slide through the eyes of one who was a class-teacher in 1987 when levels were introduced as part of the National Curriculum. They were developed through the work of the Task Group on Assessment and Testing; TGAT, using the available expertise. (blogged about that here) In the context of broad, balanced and very relevant curriculum developments, they were only ever seen as guidance descriptors, to help with teacher judgement, highlighted through moderation activities, a novelty for some. They did move teacher expectations at the end of year 2 to 80% plus achieving a generalised level 2 or better and, in year 6 to level 4 or better. The descriptors described general capability. They enabled standards to rise over a relatively short period.

Today, we have yearness instead of levelness, and in the context of year-based outcomes, I would argue that the statements in James’ slide hold as much for the present as for the recent past, but with the added disadvantage that no-one knows what any of the statements really means. Outcomes are still largely best fit, and gaps can still occur and they certainly don’t tell us the detail that will help future teachers to build on prior learning in detail. If you set a pass mark at 75, with a range of outcomes, there’s not really much difference between 73 and 77, probably decided by qualitative teacher judgement, but is between 60, 75 and 90. It’s the same set of problems. We just think we’re cleverer in having a novel way of describing difference. Numbers don’t describe what a child can and cannot do.
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This is one of the reasons why, with my school, we developed an approach to writing that allowed individualised progress and feeding forward of needs, so that they could not be forgotten by either the child or the teacher in the busyness of learning.

Workload issues have been there throughout my working career in teaching, from 1971, and, from tales told at that time, was ever thus. My earlier thoughts were captured in this blog.

It has always struck me that workload becomes an issue when the status quo is shifted, by an initiative that can be presented by any layer of responsibility, but when it’s from Government, it is then interpreted by leaders at LA or Academy level, before dissemination and further adaptation within each school. At this point, teachers, who are “delivering” what has been required, are then expected to get their heads around the new approach, continue with the old before implementing the new, the implication being that up until then they had been doing something inefficiently.

Having been party to every incarnation of the National Curriculum, from 1987, the 2014 approach was, by far the most radical, requiring significant alteration to approaches, while also embedding changes in wider approaches, such as SEND legislation, GCSE and A level exam systems. It is not surprising that teachers are complaining about workload, especially if systems are in constant flux. Education requires a significant level of consistency, so that everyone knows what they are doing.

One area that will never be removed from a teacher workload is thinking about learning. In many ways, the key issue with teaching is that it can be very hard to switch off, and, with teachers being their own personal critics, sometimes the thinking needs to be identified by others, in order for the teacher to talk through their concerns. There will be variability of need from early career novices through to experienced colleagues taking on extended responsibilities. That experienced colleagues need to support, guide and mentor younger teachers is to the common good. If a novice quickly becomes effective, it reduces the team demand.

After one Ofsted, I sat with my staff and talked in detail about workload, in order to strip out unnecessary duplication and to refine the need to write things down, particularly in the short term, where reflective and responsive teaching was particularly needed. It took a little while to come to overall, effective decisions, but, in the end, it had an impact on every element of the teachers’ lives, and built in a form of PPA time well before it was a requirement.

I can’t help being someone who prefers order and organisation and overall planning. It has always seemed to me that good overview plans allow for appropriate or necessary diversions along the way, which are in response to evident needs. Running an effective school requires an organisation that is well known and a common thread for every teacher, but, I am a firm believer in seeking to release the talents of each individual teacher for the benefit of the whole team.

We drew up a holistic framework that sought to describe the detail of what the school was about in terms of organising for learning. This was an overview that could be easily understood by a wide range of people. As a Head, it was important, for me, to know that we had approaches that ensured that what we had to cover was actually planned to be covered, in the available time.

Two diagrams articulate the general thrust of thinking, at different points.

Every subject area had developed a range of support materials that we called topic specifications. Some people are today calling them knowledge organisers. They were designed as start points for thinking, especially to support non-specialists and to ensure that every child received a broad, balanced, relevant and engaging curriculum. Each articulated the available school resources and suggested challenges that were appropriate to the appropriate year groups. They were revisited every two years with County inspector support, so that they were up to date and each subject manager had personal CPD from their subject lead.
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We organised what we called an annual plan, for each year group, to be worked on during a July closure day, in preparation for the coming September. This meant that 1) teachers knew what they were going to do in the first few weeks and 2) I knew what was intended across each year in July. It also saved teachers some valuable holiday time.
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In addition, we also built in a two week, return to school, topic, completely down to teacher choice, in order to get to know their new children and to embed expectations. On the Friday of the second week back, we held a closure, where, in addition to early year needs, a proportion of the day was given to planning in detail the next few weeks of learning. Again, this allowed teachers to, perhaps, think about their plans during the holiday, but removed the need for them to write everything down in detail for me.

I asked for two layers of planning, the annual plan and the term overview. This was to support supply cover, should it be necessary.

Short term plans were seen as aides memoire for the teachers. We provided hard back, A4, note books, within which teachers would keep whatever notes that they needed, available to need if queries were raised about teaching, but the format was not prescribed, so that teachers could note whatever they didn’t want to forget!
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However, we did create a format that could be used by student teachers within the school, which was available to any staff who wished to record their lessons formally, or, on one occasion, where significant questions were raised about capability.
Many teachers created a form of medium term, weekly or fortnightly planning, to emphasise the dynamics of learning.
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Planning articulated the expectations of, say, writing forms, and the specifics that would be embedded in a good outcome, eg, a letter, where to put the address(es) and date, the start formalities and the appropriate endings. The contents would be the subject of discussion and modelling, with writing frames developed to support some needs and emphasise personal organisational challenges. The two page approach to writing development provided further support.
The specific needs of individual children, in writing, were articulated on flip sheets. These were available to children and any adults engaging with their learning support. So, if, for example, a child needed to select adjectives or adverbs more carefully, this would become a topic for discussion when engaging with the developing outcomes. The flip sheets also became de facto records of challenge and achievement across the year, summarised in reports/data. They certainly focused teachers' minds on their marking, which became much clearer.

Recording evidence, as we did, also provided evidence for the specific needs of individual children, especially where they were greater than that of their peers. The following crib sheet was not in use, as it was developed in line with 2014 legislation, but the framework certainly was evident in practice, supported by a very active SENCo. 
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The past couple of weeks have been an adventure, in many ways, which has had the added benefit of a partial sabbatical from Twitter. It’s very easy to get drawn into a “so-called” discussion that descends into areas that are point-scoring, rather than providing clarity. In other words, making mountains out of molehills. Dichotomies are seen everywhere and amplified exponentially, until personal hurt is evident. Today’s has been seemingly dichotomous takes on two conferences that took place yesterday. Both will have been inspiring to attendees, many taking away ideas that will be reflected upon and have an impact on future classroom experiences, which will lead to further reflection and refinement. Personal development is key to educational success for children, adapted to the circumstances of each school.

With one of my step-daughters, Jocelyn, getting married, in Spain, to her Spanish boyfriend, Juan-Jose, the need to take some significant items of clothing, wedding and bridesmaid dresses and specific equipment for the youngest family member, preferred car seat, was causing something of a headache. It became clear that the “simplest” solution, was to use the cost of putting several large cases and a child car seat onto a plane and for me to undertake the role of courier, taking a car-full of necessities to Valencia. This also meant that we had a car for the week, which was well-used for transporting other family members from and to the airport.

The 1000 mile each way journey, a repeat of one made six years earlier for a university placement year, was planned in stages; a stop-off at my cottage in the Limousin, near Limoges being the first 370 miles, from Dieppe. The second part was to be the remainder, with three potential routes being suggested, via Santander and the north Pyrenees, Perpignan and the south, or Agen and directly over the top, through the middle.

The first stage enabled some necessary maintenance on the house, one day taking advantage of the sunshine to cut the grass and pick up some earlier rows of dried grass from a neighbour’s cutting. Moles, which we haven’t had for many years, had made a reappearance and created several natural obstacles that needs to be removed. I won’t lose any sleep over the moles, as, with nature abhorring a vacuum, to remove them would create a space for more to move in. Just as well I did cut the grass, as we had a thunderstorm in the night. Painting the kitchen had been on the cards for the past few visits. With just me to worry about, clearing the kitchen and working around an unfinished end of the first day meant an al-fresco evening meal and breakfast, sitting on the door step. It gets the morning sunshine.

Loading the car, again, the night before the long haul, meant a 5am start was planned, especially to take advantage of slightly cooler travelling conditions. In the event, I woke at 4am and was able to be on the road earlier, setting the sat-nav co-pilot for an address in Valencia, with a map of France and Spain open for reference during any stops. It became clear quite early, from the direction of travel, that the car and I were on the way to the centre of the Pyrenees, which was fine by me, as the earlier trip had been south via Perpignan and north via Santander. To go over real mountains would be a novel experience. I didn’t know quite how much.
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It took some five hours to get to the foothills and then start the real climb. On the way, the changing scenery was intriguing, becoming ever more alpine in house construction and ever smaller fields.
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​For the past few years, my librarian wife, Melanie, has read current children's literature and collated a set of books that she thinks would be interesting and challenging for year six children as they progress to Secondary education. These are recent titles, so some may be unfamiliar. Hopefully they will spark some interest.