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Messing About on the River

30/6/2017

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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! 
When the weather is fine then you know it's a sign
For messing about on the river.
If you take my advice there's nothing so nice
As messing about on the river.
There are long boats and short boats and all kinds of craft,
And cruisers and keel boats and some with no draught.
So take off your coat and hop in a boat
Go messing about on the river.

There are boats made from kits that reach you in bits
For messing about on the river.
Or you might want to skull in a glass-fibred hull.
Just messing about on the river.
There are tillers and rudders and anchors and cleats,
And ropes that are sometimes referred to as sheets.
With the wind in your face there's no finer place,
Than messing about on the river.

There are skippers and mates and rowing club eights
Just messing about on the river.
There are pontoons and trots and all sorts of knots
For messing about on the river.
With inboards and outboards and dinghies you sail.
The first thing you learn is the right way to bail.
In a one-seat canoe you're the skipper and crew,
Just messing about on the river.

There are bridges and locks and moorings and docks
When messing about on the river.
There's a whirlpool and weir that you mustn't go near
When messing about on the river.
There are backwater places all hidden from view,
And quaint little islands just awaiting for you.
So I'll leave you right now to cast off your bow,
Go messing about on the river.

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Quality, a Long and Winding Road...

28/6/2017

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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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Tom’s tweet elicited a long conversation, during which most people expressed exasperation at the current system and a number questioned whether we would have been better off retaining levels. This led to James Pembroke posting a slide from one of his talks; James is a regular speaker at Beyond Levels conferences.
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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.


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Many regular readers will recognise this approach and will have read the associated blogs, but, for those who may not, here are the links.


All writing in one exercise book?
Writing process; tweak your books
Exercise books as personal organisers?


If the development process is sufficiently high profile, then the outcomes improve over time, creating new baselines of expectation, resulting in greater challenge in contexts, associated vocabulary and child motivation, as teachers recognise and identify the progress being made; a self-fulfilling approach.
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Process and Product can = quality
Quality; a work in progress

​For interest, you might like to see what TGAT originally said about the place of assessment (30 years ago) ...

Clear acceptance that the aim is to support and enhance the professional skills that teachers already deploy to promote learning.
Clear recognition that the focus of responsibility for operation of a new system lies with teachers within schools.
Stress on the formative aims and on giving clear guidance about progress to pupils and to their parents.
Widespread consultation and discussion before proposals are put into effect.
A realistic time-scale for phasing in a new system.
Adequate resources, including in-service provision.
Help with moderation procedures so that the system contributes to communication within schools, between schools, parents and governors, and to the community as a whole about the realisation and evaluation of the aims of schools.
Sensitive handling of any requirements for outside reporting, recognising that simplistic procedures could mislead parents, damage schools, and impair relations between teachers and their pupils.
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Workload Thoughts

21/6/2017

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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.
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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.
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By adopting a colour coded reading scheme, the embedded reading ages associated with the colours gave some indication of the movement in a child’s reading ability, with qualitative evidence from regular monitoring of reading, through either individual or group reading activity.
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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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Integrated systems ensured that the widest possible safety net was cast, to ensure teachers could teach and provide meaningful challenges to children’s learning. We were lucky to be able to appoint semi-specialist TAs who supported Science and DT, Art and PE, providing opportunities for smaller supported group activities, in addition to more generalist classroom support. Teachers were expected to take those groups with particular learning needs, with the TA overseeing other group needs. Outcomes provided evidence for discussion and modelling. Unpicking process improvements was as important as evaluating the outcomes, with reflection providing the impetus to subsequent challenges.

Engagement with parents had a number of elements. A September “meet the teacher” evening allowed teachers to share the year outline and talk about reading and other homework likely to appear. Teachers prepared a half year bullet-point report, that effectively became an agenda for a short discussion, with parents able to add an item if they wished. At the year end, the teachers wrote a personal report, appended to a child overview report of their year, with specific achievements and continuing needs. Teachers saw parents on request, after this report. Staff meetings were not planned for this period, to accommodate need.

My advice to any school wishing to tackle workload is to step back and look at every aspect of demand that can impact excessively on teacher time. Time spent on “busy work” is not necessarily productive and can impede the dynamics of learning or distract the teacher from thinking about their teaching in sufficient depth, so children’s progress in limited.

Where early career teachers are employed, there is a need for experienced colleagues to mentor and coach them into good habits, which is easier if the school has clearly articulated processes. There is also a need to provide personal development time, with a clear framework, so that wider reading and observation of, and talking with, colleagues adds to personal skills and knowledge.

Teachers work at multiple layers of need. A swirling mind, trying always to make sense of what is being asked eventually results in diminished outcomes. Creating time to think is an essential good; everyone benefits, especially the children and teachers can actually enjoy their teaching.
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Of Molehills and Mountains

18/6/2017

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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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Half way up, I encountered my first experience, the transhumance of a flock of recently-shorn sheep. The problem was that they were not just in the road, but lying down on the hot tarmac, in some cases sleeping, creating a natural, but hazardous, chicane. Transhumance was, up until then, only something that I had read about, made real. On the return, there was a second version, with a classic shepherd heading a fan of sheep on their way up the mountain.
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Having driven for an hour and a half ever upwards using a switchback road of epic proportions I reached the tunnel that avoided the final near-vertical last few hundred metres. Kites, buzzards and other large birds of prey glided effortlessly, looking for suitable prey, while snow still covered the uppermost parts. Why doesn’t the snow melt when the air temperature is at least 16C?  

Coming out on the other side was not just another country, but a very different landscape. Verdant pastures were less evident, but the view was stunning because of the perfect blue of the lake from damming a spring-fed river to support a huge hydro-electric dam. The lake went on for several kilometres. Using natural resources was a feature of the whole journey, not just hydro-electric, but fields of large photovoltaic panels or wind-mills that provided an alternative “crop” for farmers. Beneath and around each was a flock of sheep, to keep the grass down. I had to forget that I was still only just over half way at this point, the arrival in Valencia still a further five hours away, in total a thirteen hour stint of driving. Fortunately a comfy bed was prepared.

The following morning, I woke early, to encounter Juan-Jose’s mother Ana. Without the available two interpreters, who were still asleep, Ana and I had a “communication”, with her speaking her Spanish and me interspersing the few Spanish phrases that I had managed to remember with smiles and positive gestures. This was to be the pattern for the week when making contact with Juan-Jose’s family. It’s also the first real lesson from the week, to really value languages. While I can now speak reasonably passable French, and make a stab at reading Spanish, I can sort-of follow a conversation in Spanish, picking up some of the essential vocabulary. The need to be an active listener is intense.
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The wedding took place three days later, a very Spanish affair. Rather than try to describe it, I’ll let the picture says a thousand words maxim work. Here’s a gallery of a selection of pictures.
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The weather supported an exploratory week around the wedding, seeing a few of the local sights and finding different places to eat that could cater for the varied needs of a large group.
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Early morning walks showed a wide variety of different wildlife; swallows, martins and swifts wheeling in the sky; storks flew over seemingly grunting to each other; a rose chafer and female rhinoceros beetle were out for an early morning stroll, and a furry-eared red squirrel ran along the electric wire. Fishermen dotted the coastline, some able to demonstrate that there were fish in the Mediterranean.
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Juan-Jose’s father, Juan, has a small farm north of Valencia, growing almonds and olives, which he takes to the local cooperative for processing. With his connections, we were shown around the processing plant by the manager and, with a little translation help, we were able to understand the larger part of the process. A subsequent visit to Juan’s farm across rutted, dusty tracks, showed us the reality. Far out in the countryside, the romance of the olive grower was rewritten; it’s sheer hard work, and with temperatures hitting the high 30s, required significant stamina and resilience. At approximately 150cm and at 68, having retired from a lifetime of building work, Juan had the energy, drive and enthusiasm of a much younger person. He is also, despite effectively living on a subsistence pension and income, very generous and we came away with a five litre bottle of his own olive oil, despite our protestations.

The return journey, again broken into two equally tiring stretches, allowed me to use the very hot weather to wash and dry the clothes that we’d used during our time away and to cut the grass again, hopefully to find it in good shape when we return to France in the summer break. The house is clean and tidy, beds made up afresh, so we’ll look forward to that holiday as a real break from routine. Weddings are great experiences, but can require a great deal of work.

I’ve been over the mountain, seen the other side, seen a lot and learned a lot, the known to explore the unknown and to seek to make sense of different experiences. When it comes down to it, human interaction is communication; finding forms of words to try to make yourself understood. Sometimes this is across languages. In teaching, it can mean speaking to children in their language, bringing them into the academic language of different subjects. Teachers are effectively interpreters of learning, so that children can participate and understand. Teachers are also learners; we have to accept that we’ll never know everything. Becoming a learner again helps a teacher to understand the needs of other learners.

It’s also been an interesting period of abstinence from social media; I can live without it, but I do value the professional friendships that it has enabled. I enjoy some of the cut and thrust of debate, but, having shown that, although it serves a purpose, it is not the be-all and end-all of existence, so, at some point I will retire from the fray, but not quite yet…
 
The transhumance; from http://www.ariege.com/en/discover-ariege/agro-pastoralism/the-transhumance

is the leading of livestock (cows, sheep, horses) to the high mountains (or "estives") for the summer months, farms in Ariege generally being too small to support an entire herd all year round. The ascent occurs in late May and early June, sometimes taking several days. The descent from the estives takes place in early October.

Until 30 to 40 years ago the transhumance concerned mainly milk cows, and cheesemaking was an important activity on the estives. Pigs were brought up to be fattened on the byproducts of the cheese fabrication, as well as sheep which grazed the steepest slopes inaccessible to cows. A cat was essential to protect the cheese from mice, and chickens provided eggs.

In some regions up until this century, nearly all the members of a family decamped to the higher mountains with their cows, living in rudimentary stone cabins. In most cases one "pâtre" or shepherd looked after the herd. He usually slept in a tiny round hut resembling a stone igloo, called an "orri," built without mortar and the top covered with turf.

This system evolved during the middle ages and endured until the early 20th century when it began to break down as a result of industrialisation and the depopulation of the countryside. In recent times associations of livestock farmers have formed which hire shepherds and cowherds to look after the animals. A census conducted by the Fédération Pastorale de l'Ariège in June 1997 of livestock on the 66 estives counted 12,000 cows, 40,000 sheep and 1,000 horses.

The work of the shepherd/cowherd is seasonal (4-5 months) with very long hours (5:00 am - 10 pm). His task is complex: the animals in his care must be cared for and watched over to limit losses (from falls, disease, accidents) and he is also responsible for the lands he occupies. He must maintain it and indeed improve it through rotation of the grazing area and strategic transfers of the herd. He must strive for a management in harmony with the eco system.

The shepherd is assisted in his work by one or more dogs. In the Pyrenees, two breeds of herd dog predominate: the berger des Pyrénées (Labrit) and the Border Collie. As a guard dog the Great Pyrenees (Patou) is favored. Normally the shepherd trains the dogs himself, which requires a good understanding of the behaviour of the sheep and the dog. For this purpose, and for the job in general, a training program exists which prepares one for the vocation of shepherd as well as ongoing training for those already working.

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Year 6 Book List 2017

16/6/2017

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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.

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    Chris Chivers

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

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