This thought has been playing around in my mind since the beginning of the summer holidays, when a sudden eruption by one group against another point of view bordered on some kind of crusade. Some topics are soon polarised.

Everyone who comes into teaching is likely to have had a rationale for doing so; it is not really one of those jobs one falls into accidentally. Having been involved in interviewing prospective ITE trainees, with two universities, an important aspect is to determine the underlying reasons for wanting to become a teacher. Somewhere in the mix is a liking for children, as well as an enjoyment of learning, for a specific subject or more generally. The 18 or 19 year old, possibly older with mature entrants, will bring with them a significant number of years of experience, with 13 of them having been spent in formal education settings for BA(QTS); PGCE plus 3 years.

They embark on an Initial Teacher Education course that lasts between 1 and 4 years. In that time they will have at least two, possibly up to four different experiences in school. They come out as largely formed teachers, with the schools within which they pursue their career being the test bed within which they will harden up their formative thinking. The one essential constant is a desire to become a teacher and a belief in themselves in that role. The personal belief in ability is a significant driver in performance.

They need to have professional status, be ordered and organised, know their stuff and know how to best get it across to their audience, the children, sometimes having to interpret the same ideas in different ways. They also need the skills to fully investigate and address anomalies.

Recently, as the current half term has evolved over a couple of weeks, and a chance to watch a number of history based TV programmes, on the Celts and the Hundred Years’ War, coupled with reading several vitriolic exchanges, I was moved to go back to my original musings on the nature of belief in teaching.

Education has had a long history of pseudo-polarisation. Although the bread and butter of teaching and learning is, and always has been, the transfer of information from one generation to another, talk of traditional and progressive would appear to have more than a century of history, with classicists probably able to tell me that this has been the case for a couple of millennia. I blame the philosophers.

Anyone reading my blog would surmise that I am and always have been of a more progressive nature. I have always had an eclectic interest in a wide range of subjects, know that I have occasionally a slightly oblique view of things, and have been described on occasions as a “lateral thinker”. However, in the classroom, I would always argue that I have sought to deploy the best methodology necessary for each group of children in any class to make the maximum progress while they were my responsibility. I can remember classes where my dominant approach was traditional, and many others whose independence allowed them to take greater responsibility within tasks. One thing I found was that my teacher life was easier with more independent children in the class.

The school ethos, which is fundamentally an overarching belief system to which the teaching staff are appointed, will articulate preferred approaches to learning and teaching, so will have a bearing on the personal approach in the classroom. As long as this is very clear before interview, there should be no ambiguity, but I have a vivid memory of an error of judgement on my part, which meant that I stayed in a school for only one year. The clash of ideologies was too great to bridge and it didn’t help, professionally or personally, to be in an “or else” situation.

We develop our underpinning belief systems from a broad range of experiences, a large number from our life experiences, but also through formal training, reading, listening and working with others, and joining in communal sharing opportunities. We accord certain colleagues additional status, as they share their developed or developing experience. Some among us are braver than others to try out ideas, to take risks within the learning situation, in an attempt to maximise the learning opportunities, based on a good knowledge of the children.

I have always enjoyed listening to others talk about their experience, particularly if this was a complete narrative, not just the highlights and the special outcomes. The processes underpinning the achievements are as important as the outcomes themselves, especially if one is looking for replicability. Copying may not be the best option. I would argue that all CPD is valuable, if it makes you think, as in all learning. If I left a meeting with a nugget to pursue, I felt happy.
The prescription and proscription of approaches that can appear to have been embedded in the political rhetoric, over the more recent past, has become the background to many of the arguments that can erupt on Twitter.

Each of us is unique in our personal lives. Although we may experience similar events, each will be nuanced and builds into our psyche preferences and reference points. Where some approaches have been seen by some as strengthening their position and therefore their belief in themselves, they are emboldened to challenge others. “Prove it, prove it”, is the often heard cry. There may be some “truths” that hold on the balance of proofs, but, like all things educational, children don’t always subscribe to the prevailing truths, so the teacher needs to explore “off piste” with groups or specific individuals. The “proof” may sometimes have to rest with the outcome evidence.

There is a character played by Kenneth Williams in the 1960s programmes “Round the Horne” and “Beyond out Ken” (see pic above), J Peasemold Gruntfuttock, who, each week ‘ssumed a title, he was “self-appointed”, the greatest being the “King of Peasemoldia”. On one occasion he was a Witchfinder General. When I see Twitter spats emerging, I sometimes caricature argumentative participants in similar fashion, which may not be fair to either, but it helps to limit my involvement.

One thing that I know for certain, after forty plus years in education, is that I can’t and don’t know it all and it is not possible to do so. I have only lived my experience. And if I could do it again, I would, but I’d like to start from where I am now, not my earlier self. I’d be much better.

I have always reserved the right to be a “Doubting Thomas”, seeking clarifications and seeing with my own eyes that which is claimed “to work”. In my experience, I have seen some very strange things be made to work, by creative teachers who developed the holistic approach to go with the basic idea. One has only to look at the range of available Maths concrete apparatus to see a wide range of approaches.

I need to see the rationale, the processes and the outcomes to be able to judge for myself. I don’t need gurus, to copy slavishly, but I do need clarity of vision, which comes from clarity of explanation. I am not a fundamentalist in any area, use teacher-centred approaches along with child-centred approaches, selected to the needs of the children at a particular point in time. Timely teaching is an essential good. Use and application might require a more open ended approach to enable clarity in seeing what a child can do unaided.

It is a matter of balance, but with the over-riding need being the needs of the child within the learning context.
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To talk without a receptive audience may not lead to learning.

Assessment is likely to be a matter of contention for some time to come, as the realities of letting each school decide a system becomes apparent. Ofsted will need to come to terms with a different system on each visit. Secondary schools will receive transfer records from multiple schools, and, more than ever, are likely to put these to one side and retest the children. Transfer between schools will become complex, as systems don’t quite match up, so individual schools will come up with some form of arrival assessment to find equivalence. SEND will be affected, as any transfer between special education and mainstream will be affected in this way. Records may be less than useful. SEND will also be affected where a school seeks an EHCP assessment, where the rigour and accuracy of the internal record may be a factor in the decisions. Putting significant responsibility onto classroom teachers with regard to SEND without ensuring the quality of skill in decision making also potentially embeds another layer of issue.
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The biggest issue is that the system is not holistic, and as a result, contains holes, through which potentially vulnerable learners might fall, not necessarily at school level, but through misunderstandings; the law of unintended consequences.
Assessment, to me, is the biggest bodge/botch job of all, in that a National system was cast aside, ostensibly because it was misused for data and because “parents didn’t understand it”. In reading the first draft of the proposed National Curriculum replacement document with the attainment target statement to essentially know and understand the contents of the curriculum, suggested, when assessment was hived off for schools to make decisions, that it had been done so in order that the curriculum could stand as read. So, however it is dressed up, in effect, children either achieve or not, with different “levels” of achievement, as a scaled score or in words. As this is based on an examination outcome, there is still room for children to have gaps in their learning, as long as they get a pass score.
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After a period of visiting student teachers during last year, I explored the relationships between the Teaching Standards, as they described teaching and learning. The diagram below exemplifies some of that thinking.

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​With the new term and working across a range of schools, for different purposes. The same conversations are happening.

The standards, in essence, offer the following interpretations

• 2; Know your children, and know what to expect from children, of a similar age, so that appropriate decisions can be made about challenge within planning, over time.
• 4; Plan effectively, over a reasonable timescale, to ensure curriculum coverage, but also to take account of the range of abilities involved. In the first instance, this may well be a form of hypothesis, against which in-lesson interactions will clarify the basis for expectations.
• 6; Think on your feet. You have set challenges, and need to engage with individuals, especially those whose learning behaviours prompt you to act.
• 5; Where necessary, adjust the challenge so that every child has an opportunity to succeed and to make some progress.
• 2; Reviews after the lesson will show with greater clarity the specific abilities of the children in the context of that lesson. Moderated against other class outcomes allows a deeper understanding still, especially in terms of clarifying expectations.

Repeating this cycle enables ever greater refinement of challenge and understanding of what your children can achieve. For specific groups and individuals, the nature of challenge may well become investigative, to discover the extent of any areas that appear to be less than secure, or to ascertain the extent of ability or talent.

This issue can manifest itself in many ways. A trainee may not have a secure understanding of child development, especially across a range of subjects, in a Primary setting, nor will they have a specific knowledge of the class in front of them. Equally, an experienced teacher transferring from one year group to another, while having expertise from the previous experiences, may well struggle on both counts, as with the trainee, but hopefully can bring insights that speed up the acquisition of knowledge.

Putting together the needs of the curriculum with the needs of the children is the bread and butter of teaching and learning, as it does embed the skills of assessment. This, as I have argued previously, requires a Frame of Reference against which to make judgements. Insecurity with the curriculum demands, the assessment needs and the personal needs of children, especially at the SEN end of the spectrum are all currently in play.

Planning, and using plans dynamically over the medium term, can enable a rapid recycling of 24652, to ensure that teacher and child confidence can grow, enabling all to move forward with enthusiasm.
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The bottom line is to know your children, well. Upon this knowledge, the whole teaching and learning edifice depends. Or it is a “house of cards”.

This week has been an interesting one, in that people whom I follow on Twitter have written, and been attacked for writing, articles promoting equality between men and women. This has often focused on the use of specific words which can be seen in different lights and therefore can be the subject of different interpretations. The two most common among these are Grit and Resilience, so I looked up definitions.

Resilience; the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.
Grit; courage and resolve; strength of character.

Neither of these definitions, to me, imply a male or female trait, yet putting them into action in schools can become synonymous with team sport and collective activities. Again, neither of these activities needs to be seen as exclusively male or female, but I can see how, when interpreted at a political level, this can be seen as such. Highly publicised enterprises such as “Troops to Teachers” and involving rugby clubs in schools can be articulated as male-centric.
My personal lessons in grit and resilience have come, not from the extensive sport playing that I did as a young person, nor the broader activities through organised groups, but from two significant women in my life, my grandmother and my first wife, who died ten years ago, after a long fight with cancer.

Both showed other character traits, which I think exemplify more what might be a general aspiration.
Resolution; a firm decision to do or not to do something, quality of being determined or resolute, the action of solving a problem or contentious matter.
Resolute; admirably purposeful, determined, and unwavering.

The first, a diminutive woman of 4ft 10ins (she measured herself in feet and inches), was born in 1893. She came from quite a well to do family in Brixham, whose interests were fishing, owning and running several boats. She married my grandfather, an engineer, who worked on early aeroplanes. Their early married life coincided with the First World War, with my uncle being born in 1918 and my father one year later. Being in a reserved occupation, my grandfather didn’t have to go and fight, but, sadly, became a victim of the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918/19, before my father was born. So my gran was widowed, with one young son and a baby on the way.

Sadly, again, my grandfather’s family decided to disown their daughter in law, as she had refused to agree to go to Canada before the outbreak of the war, so was held responsible for her husband’s death.

For the next 70 plus years, she became a survivor. She was an admirable and very capable seamstress, so began a life of sewing, at home and for a local department store, Rossiter’s of Paignton, where she stayed until she retired. She scrimped and saved, was helped by a better off sister and son in law to buy a house, to provide security for herself and her boys, who, of course, both went off to war, both as medics. Her resolution never faltered. She was a very pretty young woman and was offered marriage by a number of eligible men, but she stuck to her task, even after her boys had left home, in their thirties, to get married and have their families, with mine disappearing to Australia for four years.

On our return, with my parent’s messy divorce, living with gran was the stability that got me through, but it did stifle many teenage urges. The Victorian eye was kept on the growing boy and his sister!

She cooked, cleaned, washed clothes and bedding by hand and never complained, although she was well into her seventies when we landed on her doorstep. She had pride, in herself, was self-reliant, self-possessed, never had any excess money, but, growing up as she had showed incredible adaptability and the ability to make do and mend, in order to survive.

I was pleased to take her first great grandchild to see her, but, on our journey home, while stopping at friends, had a call to say that she had died after we had left. She didn’t have much, but she had great humanity, probably the greatest gift she was able to give.

I met and married Della while at training college, and we were married for 32 years. I have told more of the story in another blog. Suffice to say that, on our 20th wedding anniversary we heard that a lump was indeed cancerous and needed urgent surgery. So started the journey with cancer, which ended ten years ago. Della showed the same courage, determination, resolution, adaptability and  humanity that my grandmother had shown. She gave far more than she ever got back, supporting family, friends and me through difficult times, with never a reference to her illness. Dreaming and planning allowed a house in France to become a reality.

To both of them, and to Melanie, my wife, I owe many lessons. Love and humanity underpin true grit and resilience. Having a goal, making timely decision, being able to see things through, adapting to circumstance and learning along the way is real life. Finding contentment in smaller things, and with your lot, while working to improve it. Saving for “a rainy day”, for more expensive items, learning about deferred gratification.

The immediacy of modern life might, in reality, make these qualities more difficult to achieve, but, if we do really enter a period of true austerity, will put people under considerable strain, as they may be unused to dealing with problems.
I think it is often the ability to give, rather than to receive that is, to me, a greater hallmark of humanity than slightly clichéd words like grit and resilience. I would forecast their demise, in the same way that other ideas pass their “sell by date”.
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Life, for some, is tough. They learn their lessons the hard way; the school of hard knocks. That breeds real resilience; how to cope, with life itself…