Thoughts on mentoring as organisations; stop talking at, start talking with...

What if every teacher could learn from, and be as good as, the best in the school, with an extension into the local area or wider organisation (LA or MAT)? Teachers are full of great ideas. Shared, they take on another life, can be adapted and developed, then returned with interest. 

One of my roles with a local Teaching Schools Alliance is working closely with mentors, including five formal sessions of training during the school year, supplemented, as needed, with personal support. In many ways this works extremely well.

The mentor is, in most cases, the class teacher, so the feedback loop is very tailored within each lesson, not reliant on a timed “drop in” for an observation. The role, in interpretation, can occasionally become a little formulaic, with judgements being more judgemental than developmental. In a training year, the latter has to be paramount. Judgements about capability have to be kept in mind, but, trainees are not the finished article, by any stretch of the imagination. Everyone has to start somewhere...

In reflecting on the first year of my own career, I am wondering if elements could be useful for institutional reflection.
In 1974, I left training college, armed with my “permit to teach”, having passed the three-year course of training. This let me start teaching in what was then called your probationary year. In the August of 1974, I received a letter from the Department of Education and Science welcoming me and informing me that qualified teacher status was contingent on my passing the probationary year.

That first year, I spent a term in a boy’s Secondary Modern school, mainly teaching science successfully, but with additional teaching responsibilities for the ROSLA children, the Raising of the School Leavers Age group that had to be in school for an extra year, but who were not taking any exams at the end of the year. There was no curriculum and no support from the head of science who had no ROSLA groups, so it was very much trial and error with very challenging classes. The deputy heads were rarely seen, a couple of times to check on the quality of my teaching, with an “ok” at the end, but they were no use in curriculum support. It was colleagues in the science department with whom the probationers spoke in the tech rooms who offered some help and guidance. The hours were long and stressful, which, combined with little support became destructive. Plus ca change…

In January 1975, I moved to a local Primary school. In those days, there was no-one designated as a mentor, taking a supposedly key role in guiding and monitoring your development. You were a team member and were expected to be a team player, working and talking together, sharing the available resources and ideas. Everyone had something to offer and, as a result, the rest of the year went relatively smoothly. The principle was that sharing what you knew helped everyone. It was simply a sharing culture.

It is very hard to think that that class of children are in their mid-50s. I’ve met a few who stayed locally and they have done well in life, so I can’t have caused any permanent damage!

In addition to staff collaboration, there was a local teachers’ centre, with a dedicated lead, who would organise courses run by local teachers with acknowledged expertise that they were willing to share. These courses, all twilight, ran for between three and six weeks, so genuine background reflections into processes behind subjects and an opportunity to try out ideas supported deeper insights into what children could produce, especially if there were opportunities to share outcomes from the week. Some of this happened at our regular TGIF meetings, informal probationer chats over a bottle of beer at the teachers’ centre. It was a good way to unload and start the weekend and some of that group are still friends, some 43 years later.

The driver to all this was ourselves, as self-developers. It was not required by external demand; certainly not the school head or deputy, simply a response to personal awareness of need to fill in inevitable gaps from initial training. I didn’t have a mentor, just colleagues who shared.

Today’s trainees and NQTs have a dedicated mentor. This is seen as a significant role and has been flagged up as a need within the most recent Government consultation on QTS. Colleagues who currently take on mentor roles are usually senior members of staff, often SLT, with a range of competing responsibilities, some of which will inevitably interfere with planned time for discussion, observation and the myriad other requirements of supporting a trainee. Universities and TSAs pay receiving schools from the received fees to host trainees, so there is a pot of money available to facilitate meetings etc.

Trainees are also expected to show that they are self-developers (teacher standard 8), taking a full part in school life, working within school expectations (TS1) and behaviour systems (TS7) contributing, as possible, to year or subject planning (TS4), supporting wider school life, becoming colleagues, rather than just a trainee.
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Mentoring is a multi-faceted role; I blogged this as https://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/mentoring-modelling-moderating-and-monitoring
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In many ways, modelling, monitoring and moderating can be done by a range of colleagues, according to their personal specialisms, with the accredited mentor providing a conduit to signpost the best advice. In this way, the whole organisation becomes the mentor “knowledge base”, from which to select the best provider.

Where schools regularly take trainees, it is a very good idea for the whole staff to receive briefings from the providers of their student teachers, so that they can work in concert to provide the best training base; each knowing that they have something to offer. This year’s NQT was last year’s trainee, so they can empathise with the workload; others can give of their specialist help. Every school has to reflect on the needs of “newbies”, both NQTs and those new to roles.

There appears to be a relatively young workforce currently in teaching. CPD for all is important, but is also an expensive element, with supply for release and course costs. How about a bit of self-help first? All of the following were, at some stage, a part of my career experience, especially within my headship.

·         What about seeing internal sharing as first stage CPD, with colleagues sharing their practice, process as well as outcomes, to provide progressive descriptions that might begin to underpin descriptions of learner progress?

·         What about staff meetings occasionally being simply sharing what’s happening in classrooms, through alternating the venue to visit each other’s rooms?
·         If colleagues are sharing, they will have organised and clarified their thinking, in order to present. In doing so, they may well have revisited sources to be able to quote accurately. This research may well have resulted in questions that might stimulate discussions that, in themselves, increase the general understanding.
·         How about occasional papers, think pieces, to stimulate thinking and further consideration ahead of staff meetings; moving discussion from reactive to developmental?  
·         Mentoring skills are the first steps in middle management; being able to harness the capacity across the organisation to best purpose.
·         Specialists, especially in foundation subjects, can share the underlying developments in subjects, with essential “staging points” against which to make judgements. Collecting and collating outcomes across a school can provide essential reference points for others; the art of celebrating what’s possible. This can become aspirational, but also guide the non-specialist to ask appropriate questions.
·         Engaging in discussion about outcomes and processes, with interpretation into descriptions of progress, are essential to every classroom decision, from overviews and broad decisions to refined interactions.
·         How about a book club, which could be expensive if supplying a copy to everyone, or a led book session, with one colleague each month sharing an education book that they have read? This could also develop with a fiction title or an author being shared. This latter idea could become a staffroom display, with colleague reviews encouraging others to have a read, and share with classes.

All the above can be classified as part of the general collegiate discussion. I would hazard that it is rarely considered as any form of CPD, which has become synonymous with “going on a course”. These events, often costly, may have limited impact if they remain the property of the attendee. “Cascading” is often a hit or miss affair, unless it is timetabled into other meeting times. Reporting back, with a summary appropriate to the school needs would seem to be a minimum requirement after a day out of school that’s cost perhaps £500 in total.

The essence of all education is communication. Collegiate, talking schools share good practice and ideas, to the advantage of the whole. Talk is relatively cheap CPD, unless you count the cost of a cuppa and a good biscuit or two.
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Keep talking…

The autumn saw us helping M’s son to find and move into his shared flat for him to start work with IBM, having graduated earlier in the summer. It’s surprising how much “stuff” a relatively young person accumulates, and needs, to be a separate entity. He does still come back, usually on Sunday, so that he can work at Hursley, near Winchester, with some of his team.

We try to make time to enjoy a number of member privileges, visiting Chichester Theatre regularly on their £10 preview opportunities, Pallant House Gallery for some art and the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum for my interest in old house architecture and building. Each offers an opportunity for days out.

In work terms, my interest in developing mentors to better support trainees has been a significant focus for the past few years. I have come to think that mentoring is probably the key area where teaching needs to do some proper accounting. If every new teacher could be mentored to take advantage of the capabilities of the best available in the school, within a planned programme of sharing, this would be a significant first step. Using the available resources to best advantage, the skills and knowledge of colleagues is essentially CPD. It does require commitment and perhaps a little money, but could be more effective than sending people out on courses. I could see internal “Teachmeets” as occasional staff meetings or internal “papers” of “think pieces” to stimulate professional discussion.

Dialogue is the stuff of self-improvement; clarifying your own thinking through articulation and the opportunity to be challenged professionally.

Not sharing any real resolutions. I might have best intentions, but life’s shown that everything has to be adapted in due course. I am trying to get back to fitness, after three months dealing with a deep thigh muscle pull, so recently bought an exercise bike which has already been put to good use this holiday. Being able to get out for an hour or two of walking is always a pleasure.
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With very best wishes for 2018, for health and happiness and the opportunity to take advantage of whatever life offers.
 

​Nature, nurture, opportunities and money

In 2033, I’ll be 81, the latest member of our extended family may well see in the next century, if he gets to 83.

Yesterday, 13.12.17, we had Amada Spielman’s HMCI report, where, realistically, she identified groups which may be being less than well served by their educational opportunities. Notable groups were those children with additional educational needs, at either end of need, but particularly those whose needs don’t allow them to easily access offered curriculum.

Today 14.12.17, we have the Secretary of State, Justine Greening, talking of social mobility, in terms of opportunity.

In a previous blog, I reflected on social mobility as a feature of reduced discretionary spending. In all walks of life, opportunities cost in some form, either travel, entry or fees associated with activities. This may be compounded by uniform, kit, or other additional costs associated with the club or group that offers the opportunity. Unless the leaders are volunteers, there is a staffing cost involved. In that blog, I considered the families of two of my children, one living in Lambeth, South London, the other in Cosham, near Portsmouth. One has world class opportunity available free to her children within free short bus or tube rides, the other has travel costs, and a two hour each way trip to access the same opportunity. Local museums offer some cultural experiences, but not on the same scale as London. I also reflected on experiences in visiting a school on the tip of Cornwall, less than five miles from the sea, but whose children had not visited the coastline, largely due to travel restrictions. I had the same conversation last week on the Isle of Wight.

When I decided to become a teacher, some of my family saw this as a means of raising myself above what they had achieved, and, having been “in harness” for a very long career, I did achieve a level of comfort that proved that. However, becoming a teacher was a question of “happenstance”; playing with a mature cricket colleague who had just completed his teacher training at St Luke’s College. He encouraged me to go and have a chat to find out how to do the same. It was the end of June, I walked into the virtually empty college and met a secretary, who phoned through to the science department, where the head of science happened to be. While Tony Staden sat with his sandalled feet on his desk, we chatted about many different things. An hour later, I was back in the office filling in entry forms, to start in the September. The rest, as they say, is another story; if you’re interested, I’ve written it here.

Having someone capable of spotting a talent or interest, with the ability to nurture or signpost and, above all, support, can be the difference between “having a go” and “making a go of things”. This could be a parent, coach or a class teacher; each has a part to play in a child’s holistic development.

Talent may not be sufficient. It may need to be mentored, guided and encouraged. It may need elements of coaching, to focus and refine raw talent to be able to see the necessary progress that encourages self-belief and the willingness to persevere. To support the development of a child to their highest possible level of achievement can involve family sacrifice, of money or time, which can then impact on wider family life.

While some children will have opportunities outside school that enable them to progress in a chosen field, with coaches capable of spotting and coaching appropriately, a potentially larger number will be reliant on opportunities that are offered through their school. Beyond the need to retain a broad curriculum to enhance what has been described as “cultural capital”, the broader curriculum also offers opportunities for experiences that may only be available in that area. If this breadth is not available, then talents may not be spotted by default. If a child cannot experience art, drama or music, for example, how can their natural abilities be seen?

Social mobility is a worthy concept, but it has the potential to become just another mantra; anyone recall “Every Child Matters”, jettisoned by a certain Michael Gove? Social mobility and every child mattering, in my mind, go hand in hand. Social mobility and EBAC may not allow those with aptitudes outside the narrower remit to show their potential. Social mobility might just be supported by personalised opportunities.

So, in social mobility terms, who you know, or who you happen to bump into, might just be the determinant of a brighter or less bright future.

Back to “happenstance”; being in the right place at the right time, with the right people.

Every parent wants the best for their children and, in my case, my grandchildren. The world has changed significantly since I started work, in 1974.

My first house, bought on starting teaching, was a three bed mid-terrace on the Gosport Road, based on four times a teacher income and a small deposit, a wedding present. That same house, today, would probably require ten times a starter income and a significant deposit. This is not the stuff of happenstance. There’s an inevitable impact on an ability to dream, to plan and to see longer term. Life decisions can, effectively, be based on dreams or reflective plans. Some are able to plan their life journeys with some certainty, others may well be more tentative.

The chances are that this may be determined by the “safety nets” that exist, financial or emotional, where “having a go with the possibility of not achieving” doesn’t mean losing everything.

Some talk of entrepreneurialism.

In many ways, for many young people, life has become stuck in this model. To those that have, the opportunity to gamble or take a chance on succeeding in a field is easier than for those who have not. However, there may well be examples of entrepreneurs who started with nothing, and had a go, simply because they had nothing to lose.

Most will get onto the job treadmill, effectively operating as a great uncle did, as journeymen and women, paid by the day; or, in today’s climate “debt slaves”.

The idea of nothing ventured, nothing gained can be inspiring to some, self-defeating to others.

I am beginning to find the political mantras of social mobility to be nothing more than platitudes.

If politicians wanted to really offer hope to future generations, they could revive Sure Start opportunities, encourage community sport and cultural opportunities outside schools, address the issues of specific schools with identifiable support needs.

Of course, this requires money, from different pots. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time for some proper strategic thinking that spans rather more than the new year or two to get re-elected. A child starting pre-school now, will leave school in 16 years’ time, 2033, with a working lifetime beyond. Let’s give them all the best possible start and a realistic chance to dream of positive futures.

Developing a Primary curriculum

Start with a plan…

Tim Oates, director of assessment R&D at Cambridge Assessment, was interviewed this week in Schools Week. 

He talked of a “solid” Primary curriculum being needed for future GCSE success, that the National Curriculum, published in 2014, was “a list of desirable outcomes of schooling”, to be turned into a “compelling and engaging school curriculum”.

The piece went on to say that “Developing a school curriculum can and should be supported by a variety of processes – spontaneous innovation by teachers, digging out forgotten things that worked brilliantly in the past, sharing practice within and between schools, polishing existing learning activities through lesson study and observation, using paper and digital resources of the highest quality, and working in a context supported by inspection and targets.”

The example that he offered, of a “pen pal” letter scheme between Kidderminster Primary children and elderly residents of local care homes, was, apparently, not offered as something special.

What Tim’s piece did do, for me, was to make me reflect on those things that have been essentially thrown away on the bonfires of successive curricular changes, but more particularly, with the 2014 incarnation and the way in which it was introduced, at the same time as putting schools into a panic over assessment systems and also introducing major SEND changes and examination change.

Curriculum development needs time, quality time, lots of quality thinking time, to get above the minutiae of the written words, to begin to imagine directions of travel. Having been a classroom teacher when the 1987 NC became a reality, subsequent changes through to 2005 were relatively small adjustments to what had gone before. A little minor tinkering with a few topics, either tweaking them up or down a year group, was all that was required. Teachers could use much of what went before and spend some quality time thinking about the alterations needed.

Some schools will have been in a position to address each area of change early, some I visited in the run up to September 2014 had made great strides in development. Others, given their start points, their generic outcomes and locality issues affecting turbulence in staffing and pupil movements, may still be working on plans to fully embed these changes, seen as improvements.

In talking with parents and children from my time as headteacher, it is always made clear that the children enjoyed their learning, through a broad curricular approach, made good progress across the board, succeeded in the (level-based) SATs in each subject and went to Secondary School still hungry to learn, where they continued their progress into successful futures.
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Overall strategies supported shorter term thinking, in that while staff, in the July before the academic year, had time given to create an annual plan of learning intentions, this then translated into between ten and fifteen “topics”, which became the vehicles for cross curricular fertilisation, allowing many opportunities for real-life letter writing, instructions, lists, fiction or non-fiction narrative reports, based on their developing “cultural literacy”; they learned their vocabulary in context.

​Topics lasted as long as they were purposeful, so might be between one and six weeks. Sometimes they spanned half terms or longer breaks. It meant that a lot was fitted in, opportunities for revisiting earlier skills in a new knowledge context existed, so that rehearsal was also embedded.

​As a Governor of a Primary School in a deprived area that has struggled for a settled staff and has now achieved that, a secure development phase can begin in earnest, with potential for clarity in curriculum articulation being maintained over a longer term, across a broader curricular offer. It takes some time. 

1997 and all that

As a teenager, my best friend was the son of a zoo superintendent, so we had the run of the zoo out of hours. This often meant that we could visit the monkey house, where the grooming behaviours were often on display. This nit-picking served a very useful purpose in monkey hygiene. The care and attention being shown by the adults towards each other and the young also supported the colony cohesion.

The first years of my teaching career saw regular visits from the lady who was nicknamed the nit-nurse. At the first sign of a possible infestation, lines of children could be seen snaking through the school waiting for their inspection. It didn’t seem to have any great impact on regular hygiene, nor did it embed any group awareness, as anyone found with nits or lice might find themselves distanced by others.

A year ago, I was invited to speak at the #LearningFirst conference in Bath.
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In reflecting on that event, I have been considering what might be seen as dynamics in education over the time of my teaching career, to begin to understand why we are where we are today.

Being trained in the period just after the Plowden report, and at a time where there was a great need for new teachers, to replace the generation who were pre- or post-war trained and reaching retirement in large numbers, the freedoms to think about learning and teaching were immense. There was still a strong tradition of Direct Instruction, but mixed with less formal approaches, in part because class sizes were large (mine were 38/9 during 1974-79), but also because resources were few and often home-made. If you are making worksheets by hand, these take considerable time. The Banda machine was rationed, so 30+ copies were rare. There was a reliance on teacher voice, or perhaps something on the tape-recorder, a radio broadcast, or again, home-made activities.

In informal sessions, we were working with smaller groups, challenged a la Vygotsky, to embed some new challenge, to be approached collaboratively, with decision making and resourcefulness, so reducing, a little, the demand on immediate teacher response. As the teacher was the only adult in the class, this was an important consideration. Yes, there may be a variety of different activities going on at the same time. It did require some movement between groups to keep everything moving, but it also allowed time for individualised support and hearing readers. There was often significant personalisation of challenge, to accommodate the class range of needs, with those children with specific needs having tasks tailored to their needs. Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD) was the general term for SEN children. Describing their needs and seeking an appropriate approach was the working methodology. We did not seek to diagnose; that was for other professionals.

This approach persisted, with minor variation, within every school I worked in up to 1997, even through earlier manifestations of the National Curriculum, where there was often a 95% correspondence with prior practice, so, with a minor tweak, it was business as usual. The original NC, introduced in 1987, was at a point in time where the National Writing Project was also being secured, so that, from the earliest days, the English opportunities were created through the lens of the NWP, a process based approach that encouraged children to think like writers. This eventually developed into the two page approach to writing, then the personal organiser, with all writing in one book to bring together many different elements, resulting in nearly 90% of our year six regularly operating at L4+ in reading and writing. Level descriptors were used as the means through which to encourage progress and challenging targets, rather than any focus on the associated numbers.

SATs, introduced from 1991, were not seen as overwhelming, so they did not alter in-school approaches, as outcomes were discussion documents for improvement, rather than sticks with which to beat schools.
Schools were able to retain a broad, balanced and relevant curriculum, challenging to all pupils, with the wider curriculum able to offer opportunities for extending activities in English and Maths, or using maths and English to support the wider curriculum. It offered many broadening experiences all of which, when embedded in developmental structures, created fertile ground for children to make progress.

The prelude to the 1997 election offered teachers a voice, should Labour be elected. This may well have been an important element in them being elected. Teachers wanted to be listened to. Within a very short time, it was clear that this was not to be, as the National Strategies began to be rolled out, English first, with daily exhortations to embed the Literacy and numeracy hours into school practice. This began, to some extent, media challenge to teacher practice, with local advisers adding to the national agenda with their own interpretations, thus creating further layers of complexity.

This point coincided with a more nit-picking approach, although the attempted imposition was more of political steamrollering.

Levels were divided into sub levels, which seemed to morph into Assessing Pupil Progress (APP) sheets, with ticklists or checklists of very detailed expectations of what should be seen in a particular sub level. Thus an intellectual step by step approach was articulated, which, if followed, meant teachers seeking to devise tasks that taught or tested a very narrow expectation. Widespread adoption, across all abilities, created an educational straitjacket for many children. Some ten years after the introduction of the original National Curriculum, sub-levels became the currency of progress and more created for data than as statements of progress.

Some advisers, consultants and inspectors added to the general fray by “sharing good practice”, which often meant short hand approaches which another school had devised, which had got them higher achievement levels. They often forgot to share the process development behind the shortcuts, which allowed them to exist within a bigger picture.
The adoption of a “best fit” approach meant that children could be moved “up” a level, while having some gaps in their understanding. In my own school, these gaps were noted as continuing personal needs, in order not to lose some significant elements. As a result, children were enabled to be partners in their progress, as they understood what was being sought on a personal level.

The National Curriculum has been reordered a number of times, the latest being in September 2014.

It was interesting recently, in my capacity as a Link Tutor for a local university, to have the County senior inspector share the County view of assessment. It was evident that some thought had been put to some top level decisions that, superficially reduce the decision workload, to a number of statements, such as emerging, secure and mastery, at three points in the year, with percentages achieving different points being a key indicator. However, this then opened up into what could only be described as APP+, with an array of statements derived from the NC, that had to be covered and achieved by every child, to be counted in their “secure + or-“ statements.

That we are at this situation was exemplified during the summer term, with reports of moderator visits, where there was significant evident that security could be compromised if evidence of a very small element was missing, or not clearly evidenced.

Is the system refining to a point where everyone loses sight of the big picture? Teachers need to be able to show children how the bits fit together, to make sense of the jigsaw. If they are not able to do that, then children, as learners, don’t have the abstract maturity at a young age to do that for themselves. The curriculum is not end to end activities. A high quality curriculum has a very clear developmental narrative that is clear to all participants. What was evident at the Learning First event was the number of schools seeking to create holistic models for the curriculum, within which assessment can become a narrative of individual achievement.

In many ways, judgements about children often centre on their articulacy, facility with concepts and an appropriate vocabulary or their ability to record their thoughts with some fluency and skill.

Holding onto the big picture of children as writers is a key element to getting through this effectively, if teachers are not to disappear in a puff of assessment fog. Setting writing tasks in the broader perspective of need can ensure progress.

I’d suggest the following, which could apply from KS1 into 3, allowing open structures that support personal challenge and development.

Writing workbooks need to be capable of supporting the whole process of writing; see 2 page approach. This can embed any of the current approaches to writing planning, (eg Talk for Writing or Big Writing) or enable other scaffolds.
Making books into personal organisers, with specific needs identified for each child, through forward thinking and targets or recording ongoing needs from marking. They are prompts for interaction between child and adult, supporting “interleaving” or “intervention” at a personal level. This approach can apply to topic areas or maths as well, to avoid individual loss of challenge.

In Primary, consider all writing in one book, especially to first draft, to enable clarity of focus on the writing process across a range of writing needs and from a range of prompts. This can create higher quality of writing, but also limit the quantity to allow this to happen. Progressive baselines of expectation can be more easily created. Spread into different books, children can write less well in other subjects.

In KS3, English teachers could support writing skills in other subjects with foci such as report writing, note taking, instructions, which could then be honed in the subject lesson. This could become a form of “interleaving”; practice basic skill, then embed within a real task.

Support spelling with children always making a least one attempt at a word before checking. This attempt enables the teacher to interrogate the child’s phonic and whole word understanding, focusing the teaching need.

​To be honest though, had I been the SoS for Education in 2010, I'd have stuck with the curriculum that was in play, tweaked the levelness statements and charged schools with achieving good level 4, for 80%+ of the children, which is a pretty good starting point for Secondary education. I'd then have introduced a new National Writing Project and some kind of maths and reading project alongside to improve the capability of all teachers across these subjects. A coherent, holistic approach, rather than the nit-picking soundbites that have characterised the past seven years.
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​Last week has saw a report published, one by LKMco, “Testing the Waters”, with the headline that “most classroom teachers lack confidence assessing their pupils”. It’s been a very interesting few years as far as assessment is concerned, with significant curricular changes impacting in 2014.

Curriculum change was accompanied by withdrawal of the previous system of levels, that covered KS1-3, providing at least a common language for dialogue. In place of levels as a judgement base, ARE, Age Related Expectations, were introduced as end of Key Stage 1 and 2 statements, with several layers of decision that sought to describe achievement against test outcomes. These outcomes have yet to fully embed in transition practice to impact on subsequent learning.

The structure of the curriculum in terms of yearness gave rise to systems of tracking “progress” on the basis of teacher confidence against a number of key indicators. In discussion with a group of nine mentors of trainees on a School Direct route into teaching showed that there were seven different assessment/tracking systems on use, including four variations on the County scheme. This did impact on dialogue between colleagues and trainees. So, on one level, there is a potentially significant difference between school systems, requiring trainees to come to terms very quickly with them, especially within their short alternative experience.

The second layer of concern, in terms of judgements is exposure to different year groups. A Primary ITE trainee will have a substantive practice in one Key Stage, with a shorter, six-week experience in an alternate Key Stage. Our trainees also get a week with EYFS and a few days in Secondary, as an extension experience. However, in the September after their training year, they could be working with a novel year group, where their quality assurance will be less assured, simply from lack of experience.

For this reason, during their training year, during my training sessions on assessment, we use exemplars to explore qualities and to make statements about children’s evident achievements. We also encourage regular moderation discussions between trainees and mentors, to provide further insights.

All trainees will be insecure on appointment to their first post. Given that the current curriculum and assessment systems are relatively recent, even very experienced teachers are likely to be reticent to say that they are fully happy with every judgement. With the curriculum not being issued with assessment guidance, this enabled further insecurity to be present for a considerable period of time, especially as teachers change year group or school.

We need, preferably, a national system of exemplar sharing and moderation discussions across schools to embed understandings of judgements and the potential for children’s achievements. This would allow for quality CPD opportunities, exploring developmental processes as well as analysing outcomes. In many ways this would take us back to 1987 and the National Writing Project, which coincided with the National Curriculum descriptors of progress. Moderation discussion was supported by a common language. Given that schools may have different articulations of judgements, this may well be a layer of difficulty in discussion.

Assessment, as a central feature of teacher thinking, drives every classroom decision, including the teacher expectations of what will happen in lessons. My own blog on Assessment; with Children in Mind explores more of this, as does 24652.

Expectation mind-set supports the mental rehearsal of a lesson, where a teacher anticipates the points in the lesson where learners could exhibit misunderstanding or simply encounter a block. This allows preparations which ensure that issues are addressed appropriately and in a timely way.

​The teacher/expectation mind-set: - analyse-plan-do-review-record

• expects something specific to change as a result of the carefully matched learning opportunities being offered, (analysis)
• supports the teacher in looking at the resulting activities and discerning the nuances of behaviour that suggest ease or difficulty being encountered. (planning)
• drives conversations seeking to unpick areas of concern or to understand the fact that they’ve taken five minutes to complete a task you’d planned for twenty-five. (doing)
• creates the start point from which adjustments to the expectations are made, within or between lessons (review and adapt)

ensures that the learner(s) make(s) progress and provides food for thought at the end of the lesson about next steps. (record keeping)

In many ways, getting trainees to think in an investigatory way is key to assessment. Meeting situations that were not expected are points where interaction and learning decisions are needed. 
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 Reflective and reactive teachers anyone?
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Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote a blog where I reflected on my (then) 40 year career in different areas of education and invited Twitter friends to add their thoughts, should they wish to do so, in the hope of collecting 1000 years worth of experiences. In the end, the total got somewhere near 700 collected years. 

​I occasionally wonder if it would be possible to get to, or past, the 1000 year mark, so I thought I'd reissue the original blog and se if there were any other colleagues who would wish to share their thoughts. Just post them in the comments box below.

​I've linked the "galleries" that I developed out of the original contributions, for interest, and will look to do the same with any contributions this time.

​My pdf (non-book) Thinking Teacher; From Black to Grey, developed from that earlier thinking.
Many thanks,

​Chris 

1000 years of experience.
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#edn1000years gallery 3

Thank you to anyone who reads my blog. It’s been two months as of today and the visitor count has been high, which has been a source of much pleasure.

The site is a series of reflective posts, which occasionally seek to put current issues into a historical perspective, at least a career perspective. It has long worried me that large numbers of people leave education, after a long and successful career and that’s that. The wealth of expertise and their insights are lost to the system.

Schools are organic and go through phases of development. A settled staff, working together, develops an internal (historical) narrative that is enhanced and becomes more nuanced each year. When significant members, or large numbers, change, there can be a loss of history, with new members who may fail to understand the story to date and their own interpretations may be a shadow of what went before. Of course, it can be the case that the “group think” created by a settled staff can embed practices that a new pair of eyes sees more objectively. Either way, the organic nature of the organisation is to “heal” within the new body, to assume, hopefully, a new equilibrium.

Whether good, bad or indifferent, a school career offers insights into oneself, as a person and a practitioner, into children, as people and learners, parenting habits and management, either as a promoted post or having to deal with management decisions.

Having contributed to Rachel Jones “Don’t Change the Light Bulbs” book, it struck me that crowd-sourcing could be a means of collating a wealth of information. So I extend an invitation, to any reader of my blog, to share their distilled thoughts as succinctly as possible. If we can get to 1000 years, with a corporate effort, I’ll do my best to distil the thoughts further to come up with a collegiate précis.
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