The #JustTellThem mantra implies an anti-group-based activities approach. Life is group work; thinking, talking, working and playing together is the stuff of most people’s lives and we need sociable, thoughtful, articulate people. The best staff groups are collegiate, ironing out differences between them, to provide a continuous, rather than a stop-start education.

The problem with movements is the creation of self-styled gurus, with a message that often, through interpretation, becomes ever more reductive. Consider recent political announcements, here and across the Atlantic. Simple message, repeated endlessly, develops a sort of cult, with significant “othering”.

What the system needs is ordered and organised systems and individuals, with knowledge and articulacy that enables them to share it appropriately with different groups (know-how with show-how), able to spot and pick up the signs that a child may be struggling with learning (or something else) and have the skills to accommodate to the evident need. They must be able to provide guidance, feedback and sometimes coaching and mentoring to need.
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Most of all, they have to be human(e) and able to develop high quality relationships with children.

A cautionary tale; stuff happens in life.

This weekend has been something of a promoting one. It started last week, with Black Friday deals appearing among my emails trying to persuade me to take a holiday, a hotel or to buy a wide variety of stuff that had been “reduced in price”. It was quite relentless; sometimes several times each day from a couple of sources. It was very much “in your face”. I’m loathe to stop following the different sites, because occasionally something piques my interest and it results in some research and a purchase.
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It felt a bit like that on Saturday, with a day conference linked to Michaela School, to incorporate their book launch. Again, it was somewhat relentless in the Twitter feed, with tweets being retweeted. I seem to follow a number of people linked to the event, and, for some reason, they seem to follow me, even an avowed “child-centred inclusionist”. But, even one of the tweeters did admit that it was something of a promotion event. It’s always an odd feeling to hear any school be quite so self-promoting. I remember the first local Grant Maintained Primary school, where the head entered assembly to “Simply the Best”, replete with monickered baseball cap; sound familiar?
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I recently wrote a blog, entitled Stability and Sustainability, in which I explored a couple of notions that could be described as the difference between “new build and retro-fitting”. This idea is current, as while I am writing, we are having solar panels fitted. This will require some dexterity and consideration when it comes to linking the wiring to the fuse box, as it can’t just be put in and covered up. It has to follow already determined routes, if we are not to have holes and wires visible.

In the blog, I proposed a formula:

Like all things, over time, from the original vision, curricular aims and objectives, bits will have been added to any original structure, all of which will be evident in the offered curriculum and the outcomes.

Depending on where the school is, the availability of staff will be a significant factor. Working in the south east of Hampshire, we occasionally went from feast to famine, dependent on naval staff stability and rising house prices. On some occasions, I would have in excess of 60 applicants for a post, while at other times this could be just a handful. Being able to hand pick a near-perfect fit to a role is a bonus.

I would suggest that most schools are in this position, with some in far worse positions than I ever was. I did often start the term, in a one form entry Primary, in a classroom, where movement late in the summer meant an inability to fill a post. Being a teacher at heart, I preferred to be in the classroom doing an 80% effective job, than having a series of supplies and fielding the inevitable queues of parents wanting to know why their children’s education was being affected.

Every context is different. It’s that simple. Each context requires adaptable solutions, to resolve each issue as it arises. It’s not a case of implanting an orthodoxy onto the school and expecting immediate alteration of course.
Winning hearts and minds to the vision is an initial step.
·         It takes time to really audit the school provision;
·         To get to know each person well enough to be able to determine roles;
·         To deeply understand the school in it’s context, including community opportunities;
·         To determine an overview action plan, giving ownership of elements to key people;
·         articulating the brief and the direction of travel, with check points;
·         Creating the time and finding the finances to support them in making initial changes that begin the process through small achievements;
·         Evaluating and articulating ongoing successes, however minor, to sustain momentum;
·         Taking everyone with you. This can be the hardest part. Inbuilt resistance to change can be part of the human condition. Avoiding both “We’ve always done it like this” and “In my last school” discussions.

Schools are subject to change, which can sometimes be rapid and radical. This can be down to staff illness, movement for promotions or just relocation, disagreements with the ethos or a multitude of other reasons. Where replacements are not forthcoming, the effects are exaggerated with inevitable community questions, rumour and intrigue. This adds layers to the issues, which often create a momentum of their own. A school can appear to go from hero to zero quite rapidly. Schools can literally become “sick”.

I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. Where I have seen this, during my career, it has caused casualties, often among people who were very good at their job. Teaching is a humane, human role; events impact on us. Schools cannot be totally immune to external forces.

If you are fortunate, school development is progressive (word used appropriately), learning is progressive (ditto), children make progress, teachers and parents are happy and everyone can be a little more relaxed and refined in their approach, adding still further to the sum of the parts. It is not the same for everyone.

Context is likely to be everything and demographics can be a significant factor.

Mind you, if the Government cannot sort general building and teacher supply, the whole system has a major problem and, however good the sticking plasters applied by heads to their schools, some patches will break, and become infections.
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One (self-proclaimed, for now) good school doesn’t make a good system.

My last blog looked at the more overt politicisation of education since 1997 and the development of “celebrity education”.

Who’s making money out of education?

Before 1997, I’m not sure that I could name anyone who was a civil servant or special adviser in the Department of Education. During the first phase of the 1997 Blair Government, Andrew Adonis and Michael Barber became more prominent as the backroom engine of change. Andrew Adonis and Michael Barber went on to other roles, Barber most recently with Pearson Education, but also operating on a global educational scale.

Ruth Miskin was an adviser to the Government when the National Strategy for English was being disseminated. At the same time, she was instrumental in developing a scheme (Read, Write, Inc) that fitted with the requirements of the National Strategy. She has also been very high profile within the Michel Gove-supported Systematic Synthetic Phonics scheme.

Michael Gove, supported by his Special Adviser, Dominic Cummings, introduced free schools into the school environment, as well as rapidly expanding the Academisation programme, increasing the number of CEOs and senior staff. Recent stories about heads of academy chains and headteacher salaries reaching astronomical levels tell a tale of personal benefit, even within schemes that are supposedly “not for profit”.

Lord Nash is both an education minister, elevated in 2012, and the head of an academy chain…

​Toby Young, another Gove supporter, despite being a non-educationist ran a Free School and is to be head of the New Schools Network.

Many of the above would no doubt claim not to be taking money out of education, but by earning, in some cases, significant salaries, they are certainly making money out of education links.

Michael Barber phoned me up…

I had written to the Department for Education outlining a concern that had been an issue since SATs were introduced; whether level 3, 4 and 5 meant the same things at Infant, Junior or Secondary School.

As levels were criterion based, in theory they should have been progressive and in Maths and English, I would argue that they were. However, the Governments in their wisdom, had chosen to extrapolate from the KS2 SAT results and determine expected outcomes at KS4 across all subjects, which led to many happy hours discussing this with Secondary colleagues, at transfer. We were active in moderation and, over time, colleagues within the cluster began to agree standards, especially in Maths and English. Of course, with staff change, often we had to start again, from scratch.

I was called to the phone one day by my admin support, to discover Michael Barber on the phone, wanting to discuss the issue and share thoughts. It was a very pleasant half hour, which indicated a closeness of thinking and an encouragement to keep working on our moderation projects.

And that was as far as it went… As a mere headteacher, I was just a minion, with an idea.

Textbooks and testing

These two areas are ripe for exploitation. There’s a regular income to be made from testing, particularly as this is formalised at 11, 16 and 18.

Textbooks came back onto the agenda endorsed by Tim Oates, group director of assessment research and development for Cambridge Assessment, who was also an architect of the current National Curriculum. Cambridge Assessment operates the university’s three exam boards. Tim worked with Sir Ron Dearing on the 1995 review of the National Curriculum, a very significant piece of revision.

Publishers like textbooks, especially as they are updated and reprinted regularly. It’s interesting to browse the University bookshop and see last year’s version of a required book in the second hand bins. Textbooks are regularly being argued as better than random internet searching, which is probably a good use of time, but prescribing sites to access and read would seem to be a good, free equivalent.

However, it’s not that long ago, 2013, that a publisher proposed every child having a pre-loaded tablet, effectively carrying around their textbooks.

The NC, from 1987 to 1997 was certainly very broad, balanced and relevant to children.

National Strategies altered the dynamics, as did assessment models such as Assessing Pupil Progress, developed through the National Strategies. APP was supposedly created to give a broader picture of a child’s abilities than the SATs tests, supporting Teacher Assessment. It was cumbersome, demand heavy on teachers and focused on such small changes that it diminished the curriculum. However, I always felt that it could be a useful diagnostic tool for children whose progress in learning was concerning. Identifying and addressing gaps is a significant aspect of that.

Developing, disseminating and evaluating Government initiatives costs money, that diminishes the available pot of money for the schools’ budget. Every novelty can become effectively a scam. It was recently reported that the free school budget, set up by Michael Gove, had overspent by £1 billion.

Today sees the allocation of £250 million for Grammar School expansion.

Employing CEOs and Executive Heads of chains also costs.

With Lord Nash and Sir Craig Tunstall costing the best part of the equivalent of up to 30 classroom teachers, and multiples of a Prime Minister salary, the scale can be quite mind boggling.

We have seen centralisation of thinking on a grand scale over the past twenty years. It can sometimes seem as if thinking, in education, is the remit of a few people at the top, with minions employed to do their bidding; a little like the Oompa Loompas of Charlie and the Chocolate factory.

And yet, the whole of education is premised upon a class of children working with a teacher, whose role is to be the minute by minute thinker in the classroom, leading learning and ensuring that each child is enabled to make the maximum progress within a time scale. We need them to be the lead thinkers in education and that sometimes needs time to think. Teacher thinking time could be bought from saving some of the costs at the top.

It needs something of a business rethink, to ensure that the money is effective in the classroom, not just at the top.

​We don’t need well paid “shadows”.

In it for the long haul, or just a short term interlude, "doing good"?

​Much has been written recently about the need to recruit and retain teachers. The term sabbatical is often then trotted out as a potential solution. This is not a new phenomenon. It's been around for my whole career. Perhaps it takes politics a long time to catch up with real need.

​When I heard the term golden handcuffs, with regard to teachers, I wondered if I had fallen into a new plotline for “Fifty Shades…” However, it would appear that Sir Michael Wilshaw, the retiring head of Ofsted was advocating some kind of “bung” to say thank you to some groups of teachers for doing their job for a few years after qualifying. This same group may well have already received a bursary to cover their Initial Teacher Education (ITE) fees and living costs.

They may take a little while to really prove their worth. In the meantime, their colleagues, who may have been in post for significantly longer and will be doing the same job well, will not receive the pot of gold, as they have already shown their willingness to stay in service.

It could just begin to feel a little unbalanced, in a relatively short time.

In 1972, during my ITE period, Lord James of Rusholme produced a lengthy report looking into teacher education and seeking to reinforce quality provision across the whole sector. It is worth looking at what was proposed then.

1. teacher training should be seen as falling into three consecutive 'cycles': the first, personal education, the second, pre-service training and induction, the third, in-service education and training;
2. teacher training should be administered and planned by Regional Councils for Colleges and Departments of Education (RCCDEs);
3. a National Council for Teacher Education and Training (NCTET), linked with the RCCDEs and representing all branches of the teaching profession, should be established;
4. in the third cycle, all teachers in schools and full-time staff in FE colleges should be entitled to paid release for in-service education and training for not less than one school term every seven years;
5. there should be a national network of 'professional centres';
6. teachers in schools and colleges should have opportunities to take part in curriculum development projects;

This was over forty years ago. Needless to say that it didn’t become a total reality, although some elements became part of my early career, especially 5 and 6, especially the Teacher's Centre and the opportunity to be seconded to the Assessment of Performance Unit, with Dr Wynne Harlen, although both have largely gone.

The bit that encouraged me to get out into the world and teach, rather than stay on longer, as I was invited to do, was point 4, the opportunity to return for a period of in-service training, after seven years in service. For a teacher of seven years’ experience that would have cost somewhere around £10000, so could appear expensive.

However, having the potential of a sabbatical period, with study creating an incentive for the next seven years, might just be the fillip needed to restore equilibrium.

We need to start rewarding teachers for long service, not for a short period as a stop gap. That way the system can grow, utilising the stability engendered, to avoid constant reinvention, allowing evolution, not revolution.

If someone has had a bursary to cover their training costs, I think they already owe something back; three years doesn’t seem too much to ask.

Recently, we went for a walk in Winchester, parked by the water meadows, then walked the footpaths, passing opposite Winchester College, into the Cathedral Yard, then onto some of the smaller streets where we find our favourite coffee house. During that mile of walking, we passed over nine hundred years of history.

It made me think that just going for a walk around your neighbourhood tells many stories, if you know how to read them.

Orientation
In the first place, there is the organisation of the area itself, a series of interlocking paths that offer alternative routes and different scenery; we took a completely different route back to the car, to avoid the mud of the water meadows.

Knowing your way around is a fundamental organisational skill, which can apply to navigating your house (try moving around your house in the dark during a blackout, a different place) through to the journey to school or other important place. Within the school, orientation is an important aspect of being in the right place at the right time. So having mental maps is an important aspect of living in the world, in order to function independently.

My childhood, in Exeter, Torbay, Brisbane, Adelaide, and other cities en route to and from Australia and, living in a time where parents were less concerned about stranger-danger, the act of exploring created mental maps of localities, supporting active, confident and safe movement within the local environment. I was unconcernedly walking the mile and a half to school at five.

Today’s children may not have the same possibilities. One grandson is now being allowed to go out with friends, as long as he has a fully charged mobile and credit and makes regular contact, within a very clear time limit.
How is this change impacting on the mental imagery of children?

Are they creating useful personal maps within their heads from which to determine routes?

Do they have an exploratory (survival) mentality? Do they actively engage with their local area, with their parents?

Children drawing their routes to school vary greatly in detail. Some come by car, so may not pay close attention to the journey, while others walk and may possibly have a greater insight into their locality, although many do not, as they engage in activities other than looking around themselves. It can be a salutary experience to ask children to explain how they get from the classroom to specific areas of the school. Linking geography, oral and drawn and mental organisation akin to coding (giving directions), a child’s awareness, ordering and organisational abilities can be explored.
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Orientation is an essential life skill. I have heard it referred to as psycho-geography; developing maps in your head.

Or why SPAG may not be the be all and end all of writing

Last term, I watched a PGCE student on final practice take a class of year four students through an exemplary English lesson, with a major focus on grammar. The learning objective was on creating a setting.

The children demonstrated very good understanding of a range of grammatical elements, significantly more than I knew at their age. The lesson had several parts with imagery and excellent opportunities to talk and capture ideas. The writing and the supporting images were focused on the class book, so there were textual links as well as imported images and a short DVD.

The focus of The Railway Children was interesting and the children came up with similes and metaphors, adjectives and adverbial starters, strong choice of verbs and embedded noun clauses.

At the end of the lesson, the children had produced and shared a wide range of examples of sentences and constituent parts that showed that they could write appropriately.

But, throughout I had a nagging feeling. Did the children really have a good understanding of the setting about which they were writing? Despite the local station being a five or ten minute walk from the school, there was no guarantee that any of them had ever taken the train, or stood on a platform and watched trains arriving or departing. In addition, the setting was the early part of the 20th century, with steam trains, so several removes from their experiences. None wrote about the real sensory experiences, such as the noises, the feelings and the smells. They had the visual, so they wrote what they saw on the video.

In the summary session, the children were asked to share, on a post-it, what they knew about writing settings. Without exception, they wrote down the grammatical constructs. While they are essentials, the sensory aspects need to be available to provide the depth, to create writing that fully brings the reader into the narrative.

Children today, more and more are living vicariously, through television and computer imagery. While they give a flavour, as David Attenborough did, for me, as a young child, it was the fact that my best friend’s dad was the zoo superintendent at Paignton Zoo, so was able to get close to the animals, that they really became real.

Don’t assume that children have experiences from which to draw mental images. That may be a significant limiting factor in a child’s education.
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Ps. The conversation after the observation was very positive and reflective; the student is an excellent prospect.

Buildings

People need somewhere to live. Some live in houses, terraced, semi-detached or detached, while others might live in a flat, or possibly an apartment. On two occasions in my life, I lived with my family in a caravan.

Working on locality based topics allowed for an orientation project, using the landscape and features to orientate the children.

Another topic, based around settlements explored the need for temporary shelter, finding ways to cover and protect someone from the weather, then using the available materials to build slightly more permanent dwellings, within which families might be able to live all year round, which enabled them to develop small farmsteads. Within 20 miles of all the schools where I worked, were two excellent “living” museums, Butser Ancient Farm and the Weald and Downland Open air Museum, as well as Portsmouth Museum rooms from history, or the Gosport Search Museum 1930s experience. These provided excellent stimuli for exploration.

The basis of the topic was discussion of life essentials, food, water, shelter and the better places to build a house and to find out where the first settlement might have been. Exploring maps over an extended time frame gave the impression of the area growth.

Once this was established, consideration of the available materials for building gave rise to speculations, which could be checked through our local museums; for example, where locally there was evidence of Neolithic habitation, if they used trees to build, how did they cut and shape the trees with axes? Equally, with the museum showing deer antlers used for “digging” preparing for planting, finding a similar shaped piece of wood offered an opportunity to try in the school grounds.

Creating a building museum in the classroom and asking children to bring in labelled offerings, we received a wide variety of building materials that were surplus to projects, as well as a significant range of tools. Every item gave food for research and reflection.

Bricks, made from local clay, enabled the challenge to dig some from various gardens, then to make small dwellings from mini-bricks. Other (purchased) clay was also used. Various waterproof materials were explored to find the best for a damp-proof course, while sand, gravel and cement were mixed with water to make various concretes, which were then tested for strength.

Vocabulary was probably the most significant winner, providing the language through which the topic could be discussed, researched, explored and expressed.

All of the above was with Infant and lower junior classes, while an extension would be provided by exploring building details, windows, doors, brick sizes, all giving clues to the ages of houses, with local census materials giving the evidence of habitation over time.
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The essence of good topic activity is opening children’s eyes to what is around them, but also giving them the knowledge language with which to interrogate what they are seeing. The alternative is to leave them “blind” to their surroundings.

People

As a species, we tend to live in communities, starting with families, extended or otherwise, living in our street, among others with similarities and differences, within villages or towns which have different forms of collective structures.
Each of us experiences our personal narrative as a result of birth, most of us, fortunately, being brought up and kept safe by our parents, grandparents, wider family and friends. We are born in our particular time, which has implications for the articles that surround us and possibly the finances available to parents to support our upbringing.

Our story, my story, her story, his story = first steps in history.

I used to use the idea that each of us has a story when I worked with Infants and Lower Juniors, to make a link between different ages of “lived lives”. Working with their own memories, supported by photographs, we were able to consider time before they were born, with exploration of parent and grandparent narratives, again with photographic storyboards. In this way, children could develop the idea of time having passed. The oral tradition of sharing stories was kept alive and the shared experience was often quoted as bringing children closer to older family members, as links were established.

Stories of playing, or eating and how they dressed were shared. The highlights and difficulties of significant events. Each could be recorded, physically on tape, but also as transcripts.

People around us

The local police officer was a regular visitor to schools, especially when there was dedicated school link officer, to talk with the children about growing up issues and responsibilities. Other regular visitors would include the fire-service, ambulance, school nurse, area librarians, local sports coaches and local representatives of several different churches. In so doing, this extended the school community, by invitation.

Local organisations often asked for children to participate in local events, sometimes singing, carols or summer fair fun songs, sometimes country dance, including maypole dancing on 1st May on the village green.

Taking advantage of local expertise supported some aspects of the wider curriculum, as they became known to the school.

All of these events served to show the breadth of people locally and the specific skills that each had to offer to the community.

Life is largely lived in some form of group, home, school and work. Each of us has to find our place within this matrix. Some find it easier than others. An aware group will keep an eye on each member, to ensure that each has a place and is valued for themselves.
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Children need to learn to live within and value the group for all that it offers them and others.

Things.

The first twenty years of my life were somewhat nomadic. By that point, I had been around the world twice, both times as emigrants to Australia, first as £10 Poms, then at 17 with residual family after parent’s messy divorce. It was seen as the land of milk and honey by my dad. We came back reasonably quickly, as 1) he discovered that bringing up teenagers alone was not going to be easy and 2) he was worried that I’d be called up for the Vietnam war.

As a result, I got into the habit of travelling relatively light. The things of childhood were spirited away, but not into someone’s loft to be rediscovered in a sense of lost joy. A few special pieces remain from that period; my County cricket cap, having been awarded that the year before the second Oz trip and a small wooden model of a man that “lived” in my grandmother’s display cabinet and came out when I visited. The legs moved and that was magical to a three year old, “walking” the man down the arm of the chairs or across the table. That this belonged to my grandmother means that it is now over 120 years old.

That I lived a somewhat itinerant lifestyle and had little when I got married meant that this period was the most settled period in my life to that date. Seeking out and renovating furniture became a hobby. To be able to look at a finished piece and feel that it was pleasing to look at and the product of personal effort imbued the object with special meaning. It was something of mine. It belonged to me, and, in a sense, created a sense of belonging.

A few pieces remain from that period. After my first wife died, it was a period of sorting and readjustment, with special emphasis a couple of years later, as I remarried and moved house. Some special bits remain, this time some in the loft, but, in order to rebuild a life, it required an adjustment and a selection of specific special things. You cannot live in the past, only the present and with plans for the future.

A new “nest” had to be created.

The “things” that remain, when all is said and done, are the memories that go with and surround any physical pieces. You may pick up something and remember. I remember holidays in South Wales when I smell coal dust; the smell of the slag heaps. Meeting people jogs memories of shared experience.

The things matter, but so do the ephemeral aspects of life, the stuff of memories. The pictures and the words often outlast the physical closeness of “things”.
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I just need to know that I belong, which is also what I wanted for any child in my classes.

People, Places and Things

​There's always a time when whatever activity you have devised for a class comes to a close before the time you had planned. There's a need for some kind of "filler" activity.

​Early in my career, a colleague suggested that I should make three sets of cards, based on a set of people, places and things or objects. The idea was very simple. a child would select a card from each group, then link the elements together in a short spoken story. This became a very popular filler, but had the potential to be developed further, into extended pieces of imaginary writing.

​Where experiences might be limited, and based on the teacher's good knowledge of their class, each of the groups can be tailored to their locality. Of course, this also relies on the teacher having a good understanding of the area where their class lives!

Dipping in and out of Twitter today, it is clear that some conversations have been active throughout the day. It seems as if a school (Michaela) has written a book. I know that because the head and the tweachers have tweeted and retweeted as such and spent much time in keeping that in the public eye. There’s even been commentary in Sunday papers.

The responses have ranged in tone, style and substance, from the “Yosser” approach of “Gi’s a job” (Boys from the Black Stuff), through to outright opposition, neither of which necessarily helps the distant reader to fully comprehend the school and it’s context.

It may well be that, in the context of it’s neighbourhood that it’s idiosyncratic, and much vaunted, traditionalism suits the local need. Where there have been anecdotal reports of a “take it or leave it” approach to discipline, this has occasionally suggested that not everyone is happy. There are always two sides to every story.
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If, as a headteacher,
·         you are starting a school to a particular vision;
·         have a building that suits the growing needs of the anticipated population of a quality that should not need too much regular “firefighting” of defective fabric;
·         have broad availability of high quality staff and therefore the opportunity to hand pick team members who will work within and be part of the creative development of the ethos and the offered curriculum,
·         it’s a very high possibility that those teachers will perform at a high level, with confidence.

If you add into that that Ofsted will not inspect for three years, the development period is long enough to embed the desired practice and be able to refine to evident need.

In other words, it’ll work. The school is actually enjoying many of the curricular and pedagogic freedoms associated with the 1970s.

Would that every school should be so lucky. Many are continually looking over their shoulders at “make or break” Ofsted visits.

Earlier this week, I wrote a piece about my own school team, when I became a head. It took around three years to really settle the staff into a clear development period, as the inherited staff moved off to new challenges. Having settled, developed and succeeded, there was a period of instability when the development team moved on for promotions. Their replacements took varying amounts of time to take stock, understand their new working context and to be effective. Periodically, promotions happened at the tail end of resignation periods, so strategic decisions had to be made about replacement over a longer timescale. Sometimes it was difficult to find short term cover, to enable strategic decisions.

On a number of occasions, I had to assume the class-teacher role, at least to start the term. When the school caretaker had a heart attack, I was accustomed to donning the wellies and gloves and wielding the mop to clean the toilets, so that we could open, until one of my TAs offered to cover the role until the County found a short term replacement. As a head, the buck very firmly stops…

So, reflecting on today’s Twitter journey, it’s a pity that one (self-promoting) school is singled out for particular attention, especially as there will be many, many more, within the 25000 schools in the country who achieve at an exceptionally high level, often when facing significant levels of (possibly greater) difficulty, offering opportunities that may need to be broader than the single school currently does, to counteract locality deprivation.
There are so many ways to be a good school.

The best suit their locality, develop and work well with their community, enjoy high quality communications that furthers both the school and community agendas and effectively give their children a good deal in educational and social terms, that sets them up for the next phase of their learning, or the world of work.
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I’ve been lucky to see examples from Essex to Cornwall and north as far as Northampton, with many within London. As a result, I was able to distil these school into a nutshell, as they showed similar traits.

Dean Beadle managed to put much of the previous hour into context, by being himself. What you see is what you get. I had no preconceived idea about Dean. His bio shares his Asperger’s Syndrome, with details of his many accomplishments since leaving education. It suggested that he was humorous and insightful.

The next 75 minutes passed very much quicker than the first 60.  Dean spoke without notes, without Powerpoint and without any other visual resources. It was a tour de force presentation, which had pathos and humour skilfully interwoven, taking us through his school experiences, which can be described as considerably less than positive, especially at Primary School. His exit from that school was dramatically described, with added ambulance and an Eastenders twist. The problems that he described were largely associated with high anxiety, which led to inappropriate behaviours and speech, which elicited inappropriate responses from teachers unwilling to understand the needs of this “naughty” child. Dean showed how his lack of emotional response through his face often led to teachers believing that he was calm, when in fact he was in turmoil. He pointed out that some “social group” situations, set up by schools, with the best of intentions, to enable socialisation, actually heightened his social phobias, rather than addressing underlying issues. The reason was simple. Teachers talked about him, not with him, so based decisions n assumptions. It was when a TA became his advocate, coaching, guiding and prompting behaviours, within a framework of trust, that he began to make more sense of social norms and the system within which he found himself.

It was a pity that there was not time for further discussion afterwards.

Shay McConnon, special education teacher, psychologist, author, speaker and magician, shared his insights into what makes a good team and team member. He was challenging and amusing, with a dollop of magic to emphasise his points. There was a significant focus on the needs of an individual within the team, which, for me, began to work against the premise of a school being a collective endeavour, with a wide variety of staff roles that support the system and external forces which come into play in different ways, with parents, community, Governors and external authorities all impacting in different ways.  

One to one relationships can have a significantly different purpose from the same people in roles allocated by their institution, with differential status or responsibilities complicating the relationship beyond simple friendships. Working as a team exposes some members to situations that they find uncomfortable as they feel challenged by (the needs of) others, in order to accomplish tasks set by the institution.

While different members of the teams were described as bue, red or green, according to their essential temperament, as a former Head, I kept thiking that, in order to run an effective collegiate team, I had to understand, the mindset of each team member, if I was to get the best out of them; knowing the people is a key.

Understanding mindsets was the key to the day; the individuals who make up teams, the children who make up out classes and schools, the parents who put their trust in the school, the oficers who make decisions about children’s lives.

The weakness, if there was one, was in the use of the word INCLUSION. This term was used from around 1997, to acknowledge (encourage) deeper integration of children with SEN into mainstream schools. It could, cynically, be seen as a political ploy, to change perceptions.

Where schools had significant populations of children with SEN or other individual needs, the professional capital built up within institutions and individual teachers was great and the “Every Child Matters” agenda was enabled to be successful. Working with Inclusion Quality Mark and Leading Parent Partnership Awards, I was able to see and interrogate this in action in a wide spectrum of schools.

Where it meant that one or two children were to be somehow accommodated within a school, the lack of professional capital often put tremendous strain on a single teacher, and sometimes on a broader spectrum of people. They didn’t have the capacity to deal with identifiable issues.

Over my ten years with IQM, it became clear that inclusion worked where the definition covered all groups of children and struggled where there were few. The latter occasionally enabled teachers to claim that a child didn’t fit. This had to be interogated to find out whether the child had exhausted the school skill-set, or whether they had somehow “got under someone’s skin”.

Inclusion is a holistic philosophy, supported by significant organisation that is responsive to evident needs, through investigation, clarity of description, analysis, planning and follow through, including evaluation.  
Inclusion in reality, is described within the teacher standards; essentially it’s just doing your job really well, for all children.

However, it is getting harder for schools, especially within Government frameworks which describe children at specific points as being “at national standard”. A large number of children with SEN will NEVER be “at national standard”, so will be permanently vulnerable within their education.

The system, at a national level, far from safeguarding these educationally vulnerable children, may actually have created a system that makes them even more vulnerable, by classing all without an EHCP as effectively within some “normal” band; an ever decreasing circle of anxiety and feeling of failure, that is not understood.

The system is clearly not yet sufficiently robust to identify and support the individualised needs of those with the most challenging need. Nor yet to ensure that those who “fall behind” in one year, have sufficient additional help to make up the difference. Mantras don’t make a difference; bridging gaps and diminishing difference trip off the tongue, but don’t actually unpick o address the needs.  

There are times when teachers just have to teach the individual child in front of them. That’s the fulfilment of inclusion, when every child’s individual needs can be met within the school that they attend, but with system safety nets that provide adequate external expertise to support the teachers. It may occasionally mean transfer to a school with specific expertise, but that’s a sign of an inclusive system.
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We can’t yet describe the system as holistic and inclusive and we may never get there in a fragmenting system, where mainstream schools are fighting for survival based on their educational outcomes “at national level”. It seems like a self-defeating philosophy.   

Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Peter Sarstedt

It’s funny how over the space of 24 hours a number of ideas can coalesce and begin to crystalise. A Primary Rocks conversation about carousel approaches linked with a Twitter chat about setting and streaming, plus another about the teaching profession becoming younger.

Some thoughts that underpin my own thinking.

1)      All collections of children/people are mixed ability. No group is homogenous.
2)      Some school arrangements are based on age, with August 31st and September 1st becoming the deciding factor.
3)      Some selections, into sets, streams of even separate schools are made on some kind of test score, with the cut-off point being the number of available spaces in the groups, so being 30th can be deemed a “success”, while being 31st, even by one mark, will imply failure, along with others lower down.
4)      Within a class, organisational tools are used to create in-class groupings that facilitate the smooth running of the class. This in-lesson setting can have a similar perspective to the 3rd point, where it is feasible for a “top group” to number six members, because “that’s how many chairs are around the tables”. (This is a reported anecdote)
5)      Group reading approaches derive from these arrangements, with children of similar achievement levels being put together to enable the selection of appropriate reading material that challenges the group generically. Within this selection, there will be higher and lower achievers, in reading.
6)      Within groups, teachers can get to know the individuals better, enabling a refinement in their interactions; personal, rather than generic.
7)      However good a teacher is an exposition, often supported by images, carefully selected language structure and vocabulary that scaffolds and models as clearly as possible what they are trying to get across, there will inevitably be a range in the take-up of the information across the class. This becomes clearer when the children have to interpret the information in their own way, although this can be complicated by different achievement levels in the recording medium.
8)      However good a teacher is at organising their classroom as a learning workshop, with appropriate resources, spaces and time that should enable children to achieve, the variety of working approaches should also be anticipated, as should a range of outcomes. That these outcomes are now being considered as a basis for what is being called “Comparative Judgement” is an interesting development. Decision making across every sphere of school life can be premised on a simple formulation; how well do you know the children for whom you are responsible and do you understand the year group parameters of expectation, as a baseline to underpin and frame your judgements?

The prevailing teaching style when I started with my first class (in 1974) was called an Integrated Day. This meant that there could be a variety of approaches selected to achieve the desired outcomes with the large classes of 39 children. Sometimes, because there was a need for every child to know the same things, direct instruction was used. In between, there could be a variety of activities happening at the same time, in groups; perhaps a mixture of continuation tasks for some, such as extended writing, that allowed for some start-up activities with specific groups. While one group might be doing a maths task, another might be doing a science-based practical or research task, while there might also be an art or DT group or a group with a reading task. This “carousel” approach, carefully monitored over the weeks(s), allowed closer access to the learning needs within the groups, enabling personalised challenges for those within each group who achieved rapidly. They allowed dynamic decisions within each lesson. The carousel was premised on each task challenge level being designed for each group, either in an intellectual frame, or occasionally in a social frame, to support collegiate working and develop independence. It was complex, and often required significant lateral thinking, not least in the nature of challenge. However, as a result, peer to peer discussion often then facilitated others to understand the processes that led to achievement, with the teacher role to intervene appropriately to promote and develop the challenge.

Setting, streaming and selection can imply differentiation, with no further need to consider the dynamics within each classroom, especially as there has to be a system that enables upward or downward movement of children, depending on their ability to “keep up”, because class size is the determinant. Mind you, given that children who achieve less than others require exceptional teaching, there’s a case in my mind for classes in “top” sets, streams or in selective schools to be much larger, to enable “lower” achieving classes to have more personal approaches. Top set of 40 to allow a lower set of 20?

Guided Reading took over from personalised approaches, in many schools, sometime around 1997, with the National Strategies. Where guided groups were able to be challenged between sessions to continue to read for themselves, the approach could still embed some level of personalisation. However, if the taught sessions did not have an interim rehearsal challenge, it led to discontinuous learning and a loss of reading momentum. Where this was an obvious issue from the beginning, as a HT, I ensured that there was sufficient stock and range of “teaching level” books to allow for between lesson reading, together with considerable additional stock that could be read at a “fluency” level and changed at will. Where guided groups took place, there was the potential to incorporate continuous activities for others connected with the current reading book, or to allow for sustained silent reading from the fluency books, with opportunity to change these when finished, within their colour band. Every group had some purpose. In other settings, reading related activities were created, which sometimes felt like “fill-in” tasks, not necessarily leading to reading.

We now talk of “reading for pleasure”. Where children can find pleasure in the act of reading, they are likely to read for themselves, which, for me, is a signal of reading for pleasure. The level of appropriate challenge will vary with individuals, but the dynamics and forward momentum is key to future success.

All structures can be made to work effectively where teachers understand the needs of the children in their charge. Whether integrated approaches, called carousels, or sets, streams and separate schools, success will be determined by teacher expectation of each and every child. This can only happen if teachers structure their classes to be able to work with different groups and get to know them well, in so doing, having quality learning conversations that enthuse and cause children to think, reflect and act between sessions.

Perhaps we ought to instigate “thinking, talking, reading, discussing for pleasure”, encouraging reflection between sessions, through more purposeful approaches to homework/home activities.

The structure of the lesson is less of an issue than the quality of challenge and tasking, leading to continuity in thinking. Teachers are front line thinkers, responding to the moment, creating and enhancing the learning dynamics.
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If we want pleasure in learning, there is a need to avoid the “lesson syndrome”; what happens in the lesson stays in the lesson…