Hants CC Special Ed Governors’ Conference

I feel that am lucky enough to live in, to have worked for, and to be a Governor in a County that has maintained a strong LA structure. This means that Governor Services play a very active role on Governor development, including an annual conference for Governors with interest or responsibility for SEND. It is an opportunity to meet together, but also to listen to speakers with a national profile, to bring experience and expertise from a wider perspective.

I hope that I have caught the flavour and some of the key details of the day.

This year’s conference started with Matthew Barnes, Specialist Adviser for SEND, HMI and Ofsted, whose key message was that Ofsted, while still maintaining rigour in processes, would be looking more closely at in-school systems, the impact of activities, whether a broad balanced curriculum was available to every child and personal development, including behaviour and welfare.

Learning and progress of all pupils was paramount. Leadership and management were highlighted, in that, in the absence of graded lessons, progress and rigorous evaluation of elements such as Performance Management and interventions, with clear evidence of investigation of anomalies would be needed.

Matthew emphasised that school tracking and data is for each school to determine and explain rationally, as well as being able to show the progress of children. He also shared thoughts on the IDSR, the Inspection Dashboard Summary Report, which Ofsted use to create points for investigation, utilising scattergrams and trends/outliers to clarify areas for consideration.

With a significant background and interest in SEND, Matthew also highlighted the need to track children whose performance is always likely to be described as “low”, giving examples of independence in various contexts, developing essential life skills, especially communication.

Questions that arose in my mind, as a result, were connected with a growing number of early career teachers, with, as Nick Gibb stated recently, a chance for “rapid promotion”.

• Much teacher/child interaction is based on judgements, derived from previous experiences. Is the experience sufficiently broad to encompass the skills to deal with the needs of the children in a class, or, if promoted, in a school?
• Linked to; have they had experience of teaching every year group for which they are responsible? Implications for decision-making?
• Do teachers really identify their concerns (personal/professional and about the children) sufficiently quickly and in sufficient detail to support their own and subsequent, supported investigation of anomalous outcomes or behaviours?
• Do early career teachers fully understand their responsibilities as teachers of SEND children? Do they fully understand, and adhere to, school systems?
• It is very easy for individual children to fall through or get tangled in supposed safety nets. Clarity and consistency are key.

Gareth Morewood, asked to be introduced as “a SENCo from Stockport”. Gareth is well respected among the SEND community, working at local and national levels. His title is Director of Curriculum Support, which, in some ways, could more clearly define the role of a SENCo. It is in coordinating curriculum support, teaching teachers and creating appropriate support programmes for children, that underpin the SENCo role.

His talk was essentially two parts of a whole, entitled Accountability in Action and Parent Partnerships and, in some ways, might have benefitted from being a whole session, to avoid a split in the narrative journey.

Gareth clearly highlighted the legal aspects of SEND legislation, including a very clear background to SEND changes effective from 2014. He suggested that schools should consider IPSEA online legal training module for the SENCo and possibly other members of staff. There is a need to consider the broad aspects of every teacher being a teacher of SEND, as legal responsibilities.

That teachers as teachers of SEND is especially highlighted in the legislation, was referred to often. Each teacher plays a central role in every aspect of learning, making reference to existing plans and developing and sharing personal targets, but also in highlighting anomalies as they arise, recording and discussing with the SENCo in timely manner.

A focus on definite outcomes, aspirational or otherwise, underpinned much of Gareth’s talk. To have clarity about where you want the child to end up offers guidance on interactions along the journey. In fact, it was interesting that both Gareth and Matthew talked of the importance of the journey, the process and the progress, through progressive outcomes.

Discussion of EHCP, education health and care plans was a central feature of Gareth’s talk, as this is the “sharp end” of SEND, when the way in which the school has managed a child’s needs to a particular point is placed under scrutiny by an external audience. The quality of record keeping, the interactions and interventions, with evaluations of outcomes, the involvement of external expertise and following through with their advice. The central place of the child and their parents was regularly emphasised.

In talking about personal target setting, Gareth was not a fan of IEPs, but preferred student passports. He has details of these on his blog, www.gdmorewood.com
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For me, a significant element in learning has always been how to keep the detail of current, key aspirations in front of teachers and children, so that they can be live within each piece of work. With a class of children, to remember the personal targets of each child might just be asking too much of the teacher. However, to articulate them in a form that can be easily accessed allows the child level targets to be discussed within activities. I’ll mention again the flip out sheets, within a drafting approach to written work.

For a number of parents, just to access the school can provide challenges, eg some may have had difficulty in school as children, which has left them uneasy in such settings. Making it easy to make contact with specific staff who are in a position to help or signpost a parent to help can allow easy resolution of issues. If parents know who’s who, who to contact and how to do so, with telephone, email or text access, they can more easily pass on their concerns and, if the school has a response system in place that can offer reassurance that the problem has been picked up and is receiving attention, they may well be calmed as a result. A case of a problem shared…

Staff training is of paramount importance, in creating structured approaches that help teachers and TAs to develop case studies that might support EHCP applications. Having easy to use systems, which can be digital or paper based, or a combination, allowing contemporary notes to be collected and collated, might just reveal patterns of behaviours that can give insights into issues.
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Parent Partnership issues were explored through both sections. It is important that these are established early and with some strength, ahead of potential need, especially where SEND needs are already clearly established and recorded. Active and productive parent partnership is not something that can be taken for granted as a natural part of the family-school “bond”, but, where it becomes a proper meeting of minds, can lead to proactive interventions that benefit the child and, by extension, the family and the school.

It’s something to work on.

​No-one reading my blogs will be surprised that I like this book by Paul Dix! It's a book written with humour, humility and humanity, deriving from experience.

In any school, the climate is set by the adults in charge. How they choose to set up rules and regulations, sometimes generic, often quite prescriptive. Some choose to take this to an extreme and employ “no excuses” policies, while others work through the children taking responsibility for their own self-regulation.

Schools are based on countless interactions each and every day. The quality of these interactions enables a child to have a sense of belonging or to feel alienated and distant from the organisation, with the latter potentially demonstrating as dissociated behaviours leading to further alienation.

Consistency is a central feature of a successful behaviour management system. Everyone knows what is expected, because it is talked about and publicised effectively. The teachers have a clear understanding which allows them to interact easily and speedily. This knowing enables mutual regard and levels of trust, which in turn are enabling. Children like to feel that they are liked for themselves and will acknowledge when they are in the wrong, if the systems allow for this. This approach enables rapid restorative actions.

A sense of belonging is instilled if you are noticed and acknowledged. This might be formally, as a personal greeting on entry to the classroom, handshakes, or simply a friendly smile and noticing, as children enter the classroom. If you have a place that is yours, either a tray and hook for your things in a Primary school or a locker and a set place in a classroom in Secondary, it confers you as a school/class member.

Behaviour management can sometimes feel like “keeping on keeping on”, posters, messages in class or assemblies, or selected gatherings, eg simply having the boys of their toilets are messy. It is about clarity of expectations, well articulate, a collegiate staff approach and appropriate “follow through” that is supported by everyone.

Parents are a key group in this regard. Excellent communication is a hallmark of schools that enjoy better behaviour relations, as the parents support the school approaches.

Spotting children being good can be a very positive way to define what is expected. In a Primary classroom, this can be as simple as a thank you to a child for sitting well on a carpet. It could be a special recognition in an assembly, or a star of the day in class. Marbles in a jar can become a motivation, if there’s a tangible reason for their collection. It’s also a collaborative effort, embedding a team culture into a classroom. However, as Paul Dix points out the “token economy” can be counter-productive, as merits, or similar, are showered on some children, alienating others. Unintended consequences?

Calmness is tested by poor behaviour. But keeping calm through difficulty can be a significant factor in rapid resolution. Children recognising where they are at fault enables fair solutions to be sought. Paul uses the term “botheredness”. This takes time, patience and a drip feed of positive reinforcement; the teacher being bothered models botheredness to the children.

Passing on praise from another teacher, a parent or someone from the wider community is an important aspect. Someone has spotted something good, bothered enough to mention it and this needs to be fed back to the children. A “well done” goes a very long way, equivalent to a “thank you”.

Security and certainty are a necessary part of being an adult in school. The opposite can lead to insecurity and uncertainty in children, which results in getting into trouble, sometimes inadvertently.

This is an excellent book, that will challenge many experienced teachers, but, with newbies, will give insights into good and less useful practices, as they come to terms within their new role. Hopefully, it’ll enable them to “smile before Christmas” and to run classroom that turn into places where high quality learning takes place at all times.

As a headteacher, I’d often tell children that I was the highest paid nag in the school, that their parents expected that of me and that the teachers were paid to do that too, but that we’d prefer not to be doing that all the time. Even as young as four, they seemed to understand that…

Paul’s conclusion is that “a focus on adult behaviour is the only responsible approach”. Staying calm and in control of yourself, is a start point for controlling others.
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Or to quote Vic Goddard, of Passmores School, “We make the weather” …

The truism that was passed to me early in my career was to expect the unexpected and deal with things as they arise, or the variation to “have something up your sleeve”.

It has been a noticeable feature since 1997 and the National Strategies, that the literacy and numeracy “hours” have had an impact on Primary timetables, with singular lessons, again called Maths and English, in the mornings, with other subjects relegated to the after lunch spot.

Children enter school, perhaps to an early morning task, which they have to do while the register is being taken. This could be something like “Thunks”, to get the children thinking, a maths check, which could be quickly marked before starting the lessons proper, perhaps a word play game; how many alternative words can you find for...

Then they pack up in time for break and before they return to a new lesson, with the inevitable moving around, waiting to be taught and detailed to new areas of activity. For trainees, this can be the first level of challenge, quelling some restless children, especially if the football scenarios are still being enacted.

It was a feature of running my Primary classrooms, especially pre-1997, that tasks often “bridged” playtime, so that children on exiting for break would know that when they returned, they should continue with the task that they had left. Transition to the new lesson was then decided when quality had been assured. If the pre-break activities had been completed, and it was made easier after the IWBs were introduced, a picture related to the topic for discussion would be available with a need to interrogate the picture ahead of the lesson. A very good description of such an activity was recently written by Tim Taylor.  

Have you ever had the experience of "corpsing" or "bottling it" during a public performance? How much rehearsal is "enough" or possibly too much?

​Some years ago, personal relaxation time was provided through plating in a performance folk dance group band, from which, occasionally, we morphed into a barn dance ensemble for special occasions. In addition to playing the Irish drum, the bodhran, which I'd played in France in front of an audience of 3000, I also stepped out from the band to sing folk songs appropriate to the occasion.

​This was fine, until the day that I literally froze mid-song. I’d sung this particular version of “As I walked out, one bright May morning” many times, but for some reason, the beginning of the next verse eluded me. In front of an audience of 100 people, I was stuck. Fortunately, the band discretely started to clap, as if the song had finished and I slunk back behind my drum. The experience was so stark and devastating, my confidence so dented, that it has stuck with me ever since.

We’re into observation season for ITT trainees. They are, during an observation, on show, demonstrating their current abilities. It’s very public, with an audience of children adding to the adults in the room; the TAs are as much part of the audience as the class teacher and, occasionally, an external tutor.

This has also heightened to me the ways in which we ask children to perform, every minute of every day, changing their focus from one lesson to another, often with just a few minutes’ hiatus. Some lessons are highly performance based; PE, dance, drama, music and art come to mind, but reading aloud could be seen as performance, as can being put on the spot to answer a question. It’s the immediacy that can cause a tension in an insecure child required to respond, perform and achieve. Where there is the potential for responses to be right or wrong, the insecure child may take time to respond.

Desert Island Discs interviewee on 10.3.17 was Jimmy Carr. Most people will know of the seemingly brash, confident comedian, prepared to say the unsayable. It was with great interest that I listened to him talking of his childhood that was marked by late diagnosed dyslexia that left him unconfident in class reading lessons. That he went on to exam success and to Cambridge was down to teachers later in his career who believed in his abilities and focused him in the right way.

Wait time; helpful or not?

I watched a class lesson, based on bible reading, with the teacher reading aloud from the bible, while every child had their own copy and had to “read along with the teacher”. For me, there were a number potentially issues built into this activity from the start; the readability level of the text and the reading ability of the class as a whole. While the additional adults were deployed with the readers with greatest need, there was no guarantee that the children were reading with any accuracy, or with understanding. Wait time is a useful technique, allowing a child a bit of thinking time before responding. Well used, it can be the difference between offering an answer and becoming tongue tied and unable, or unwilling to answer. When one of the struggling readers was asked a question, the pressure to answer was great and became more so as the wait time progressed. Fortunately, the teacher offered an opportunity to think longer by going to another child. An alternative would have been for the child to talk with her supporting adult, who could act as advocate for ideas.

Rehearsal time.

When I was a class teacher, the prevailing orthodoxy in reading was to hear individuals. Where this was planned, it was possible to think ahead and “line-up” readers, who would be called, by offering them time to come out of the activity that they were doing and allow some time to go back over a few pages of already read material, so that they were prepared to move onto the next few pages to be read aloud. This preparation, or rehearsal, was very valuable for vulnerable readers, for whom reading aloud can be sufficiently great to diminish their performance, meaning that they might receive less than flattering feedback.

Where any form of reading aloud is envisaged, I would always advocate a period of time where the children could do some personal practice ahead of the reading, especially if they have moved from one subject to another. Where an additional adult is available, some children could do this out loud, while others, if iPads are available, could record themselves reading aloud and listen back.

Responsive teaching.

Watching for the nuanced responses of children is a key element of responsive teaching. Spotting and responding to evident need in timely fashion is an example of quality teaching. It is very easy to miss tell-tale signs, especially if the teacher is in training or in their early career. As I wrote in an earlier blog, inexperienced, developing teachers move from structural considerations to more holistic, child-evidenced decisions.

Not everyone is a naturally outgoing personality.

We hope in schools, that we offer a safe environment where it is possible to make an error, in any aspect of life, without it being blown out of proportion. Should it become so, it can have a long term detrimental effect on future effort and outcomes.

Insecurity in any form can become debilitating. It is the teacher role to minimise the potential for learning opportunities to add to present insecurity. Children know if they struggle with learning; they don’t need it exaggerated. We need them all to be active participants, but not necessarily in a starring role.

In this regard, I do have some concerns about some 1:1 teaching; are these children potentially under too much scrutiny?  

​Images are of "Octan" playing and rehearsing for the Truffe de Perigeux; Chris Chivers, Paul Fane and Nick Manley.

Deconstruction of Walderton farmhouse

When Shakin’ Stevens sang “Ain’t gonna need this house no longer, ain’t gonna need this house no more, ain’t got time to fix the shingles, ain’t got time to fix the floor”, he obviously hadn’t met with the people who run the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum at Singleton, near Chichester. Their mission is to save old houses that otherwise would become derelict and their historical heritage lost.
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These houses are painstakingly taken apart, marked, measured and mapped, so that they can be repaired as necessary and then put back together in such a way that they are accessible to a very large number of visitors during each year. The team also reconstructs buildings of archaeological interest, recently building a Saxon Hall from evidence of a 950AD structure from Steyning in West Sussex.

​When my children were young, being naturally inquisitive, they regularly asked “What does that word say?” The response was the whole word, with perhaps a side order of sharing the first letter sound. Children want to understand the world around them, and awareness of words is a significant part of that. For deconstructing, in current parlance, read decoding, the new orthodoxy. Young children don’t necessarily want to know that “Road” says “R-OA-D”, or worse “R-O-A D”; or perhaps try “Crescent”. They want the word, perhaps because they are also naturally seeking meaning, to make sense of the world. That they are aware that a written road name “says” something is a step to note, in itself?

I have already said that I can see great benefit in deconstructing to determine the parts that can then be put back together. A large number of words conform to rules according to how letters are linked together; equally, there are many that don’t. Listening to children read who are over-reliant on decoding can be a painful business, especially if this is their approach to each word. Reading requires some fluency, to enable sentences to create an overall meaning, which, in turn, requires retention of whole words, or significant chunks of words that allow rapid construction of the less secure parts.

To my analytical mind, deconstruction (decoding) leads to reconstruction (encoding), then to retention, for rapid retrieval when required in context, by definition the reconstructed word, in memory becomes a (recognised on) sight word, a form of word matching.

I can remember the pleasure of playing with words, within “word families”. Having learned a simple word like “at” beginning to add letters to make additional words: - bat, cat, fat, hat, mat, pat, rat, sat, tat, vat, or “it”: - bit, fit, git, hit, kit, lit, mit(ten), nit, pit, sit, tit, wit. Coupled with learning nursery rhymes and simple songs, words like this and the idea of rhyming allowed children to be explorers of words.

I have worried about the potential for approaches advocated since 1997, with the National Strategies and Assessing Pupil Progress (APP), that the curriculum, as a whole has become disjointed through deconstruction, requiring the learner to make sense of large parts of the journey, without a clear picture of where everything fits; a bit like trying to make a complicated jigsaw without sight of the picture.

I made this point, in this way, to Lord Dearing at a local curriculum review conference, because teachers were finding themselves in a similar position. The current curriculum approach has an even greater feel of an incomplete jigsaw. In fact, at times, it feels like someone decided to throw the bits out and ask people to find them first; not much fun playing an incomplete game.

A lack of overall narrative, or breadth of knowledge and understanding, allows smaller elements that are in place to assume greater prominence than each perhaps should have, as busy teachers seek to cement some simplicities into the complexities of the curriculum demand. Some schools seek to simplify further by giving some subjects greater prominence at the expense of others, diminishing the conceptual and vocabulary base.

Much mention has been made recently of the need to memorise, thoughts in working memory leading to storage in long term memory, with the potential for cognitive overload and dissonance thrown in for good measure.

There is the idea that the current simplicity ensures no cognitive overload, that working memory is only put to a particular use and that this is then stored and retained, for easy recovery when needed.
If only life and learning were that simple, we’d have been doing that forever. The narrative of sharing ideas with learners often leads, in the telling, to the leader making links with other ideas, some of which are aroused in memory simply in the telling, a link having been made by the use of a word, or seeing something in an image that jogs a thought. These tangents can sometimes be seen as new insights, which arise as much within discourse as in “deep reflection”.
This, for me, is one reason why teachers need to be excellent storytellers and children need to talk their ideas, in discussion with an adult, who can offer appropriate additional linked asides that add value to the retelling.

We don’t know the capacity of a child’s working memory, nor do we have any idea about their long term mental organisation, but we can assume that these will vary. Unless there is very good modelling of ideas in a framework that makes sense to the child, they will be struggling cognitively. As an adult, if you have been in a lecture and found an idea interesting or challenging and spent time reflecting on that, is that at the expense of the next few minutes of the talk? I know that I have, probably on many occasions.

Learning can be hard.
The problem, for a learner, in a deconstructed environment, where they have no clear map or picture, nor signposts to how things link together, is that they then have to try to put things together for themselves. It is not surprising if many find this very challenging; some may be experiencing working memory or cognitive overload or, in extremis, stress.
It can be made even harder if it isn’t articulately presented and effectively scaffolded, through appropriate concrete and visual modelling and examples that encapsulate the concepts that are embedded within the subject specific vocabulary and processes being espoused.

Learning is often hidden in the language used.
The teacher is, at times, an interpreter, even in a home language, where extended vocabulary needs to have a developmental relationship to earlier forms. This may be specific within subjects, but needs unpicking if gaps in learner understanding are to be bridged.
 
Deconstruction, without reconstruction, leads inevitably to gaps, as bits are not picked up and put back into place. If the gaps are in the teacher element, it’s not surprising if the learner demonstrates those gaps.
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Put your learning jigsaw together with clarity, share the overall picture, then unpick the pieces as they become relevant during the journey.
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Walderton farmhouse, reconstructed.

 
A simple idea that I used on a long ago teaching practice, thanks to Rolyat Trebor, enabled children to enter a world of pure imagination. The premise is a simple one; you take your name and write it backwards. In so doing, you become your anti-person, the complete opposite. This allows children to explore their own personality, so would have explored ideas that are now a part of Personal and Social elements of school.

for example, some personality traits are positive:

• Being honest no matter what the consequences.
• Having responsibility for all of your actions.
• Adaptability and compatibility can help you get along with others.
• Having the drive to keep going, and having compassion and understanding.
• Patience, so people say, is a virtue.
• Having the courage to do what’s right in those tough situations and loyalty to your friends and loved ones.

Read more at http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-personality-traits.html#wieQA3vRM9k4XYbi.99

So, obviously, the anti-person, in this case, would be dishonest, irresponsible, dogmatic, lazy, impatient, cowardly and disloyal.

The benefit is that it enables the exploration the language of opposites and opposition, but is also enables children to develop a reflective scenario where they meet their alter-ego.

Making masks accompanies this idea really well.
​Links to two different methods; one simple the other slightly more complex.

3D Masks made easily
Five fold 3D masks

I like this poem, I woke up this morning, by Karla Kuskin
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I woke up this morning at quarter past seven.
I kicked up the covers and stuck out my toe.
And ever since then, that’s a quarter past seven,
They haven’t said anything other than “no”.

They haven’t said anything other than,
“Please dear, don’t so what you’re doing” or “Lower your voice.”
Whatever I’ve done and however I’ve chosen,
I’ve done the wrong thing and I’ve made the wrong choice.

I didn’t wash well and I didn’t say thank you.
I didn’t shake hands and I didn’t say please.
I didn’t say sorry when, passing a candy,
I banged the box into Miss Witelson’s knees.
I didn’t say sorry. I didn’t stand straighter.
I didn’t speak louder when asked what I’d said.

Well, I said that tomorrow at quarter past seven,
They can come in and get me, I’m staying in bed…

Or this one, Sulk, by Felice Holman.

​I scuff my feet along and puff my lower lip,
​I sip my milk in slurps and huff and frown and stamp around,
And tip my chair back from the table,
​Nearly fall down, but I don't care.
​I scuff, I pout and frown and huff,
​and stamp and pout,
​Till I forget what it's about. 
​

Much of my working life is spent working alongside developing teachers, at different stages in their careers. In 2012, the Teacher Standards changed, from 33 statements to 8 headings. It still surprises me that, after nearly four and a half years, many teachers still cannot identify all eight standards, even though they are supposedly working within them each day.

However, in my developmental roles, they can be very interesting, as it is possible to play with permutations of the standards that exemplify what it means to become a complete teacher, especially during university or School Direct (short) experiences. There is much to be learned and this often has to be learned and adapted in the context of the school experience, which can cause tensions, with performance needs as well as personal developmental needs.

For information, the eight standards are
1)      Expectations
2)      Progress and Outcomes
3)      Subject Knowledge
4)      Planning
5)      Adaptation
6)      Assessment
7)      Behaviour management
8)      Professionalism

Plus there’s a part 2, which describes further the professional standing of a teacher within the broader community.

Behind these headings are many lines of exemplary materials. Click to link to pdf download, with a shortened version.

However, the headings are quite useful, in themselves, as supports for a narrative that seeks to describe teachers in development.

Presenter

34 – Not necessarily the ultimate age for a teacher, but this could describe, say, a wildlife expert, or similar, who knows their stuff and can put it across in a clear narrative to an audience, using age appropriate vocabulary and language structures. The chances are that children in the audience are with parents taking control of behaviours. To some extent, it also describes some television presenter approaches, as they can take for granted that their core audience is watching. If they are also looking at a mobile phone, making a cup of tea, or are in any other way distracted, it’s not their problem.

873 – A person of professional standing, who has the skills to control an allocated group, for a period of time, who can be trusted to get across some subject knowledge in an ordered manner. This could be used to describe a teaching assistant, or other adult whom a head deems appropriate to lead an activity.
They can work within any prescribed approach to behaviour, dealing with issues that arise appropriately.

Structuralist approach; a trainee still making sense of the organisational needs.

8731 – Having appropriate expectations of behaviour and learning (TS1) raises the expectations of the adult, as the conduit through which some level of progress in a subject area might be accomplished.
It is often the case that these standards are the first and easiest to be evidenced for a trainee teacher, as, by and large, they describe the personal, professional persona of the adult, who knows their subject and can organise a classroom to get information across in a coherent form over time.

It is also likely to describe a teacher confident in their professionalism and ability to get what they know across to a range of school audiences, within an overall planning approach. See the diagram above.

​The limiting factor from this point is embedded in standard 2, progress and outcomes; in other words, how well are the children known and how well does the adult understand the learning outcomes appropriate to different year groups?

Holistic approach

432-65-2 - You’d want the person described above to have a wider range of skills, to include 432, being able to organise their subject over different timescales, so that the subject requirements were built up appropriately and checked on the way, with the intention that children should embark on a journey towards an expected point, with the teacher aware of the whole journey and the significant checkpoints on the way, as well as the final destination.

It can depend on how you define children making progress (TS2) and how you determine whether they have. If the definition is coverage leading to a test for memory, it might, in inexperienced hands, preclude analysis of the needs of specific individuals (TS6), leading to further engagement with them, undertaking adapted approaches (TS5).
 
Interaction with learners, engaging with the ongoing learning and making subtle or more significant alterations to the expectations of some, responding to evidence within the classroom, TS6&5, are probably the key to ultimate teacher success, in that it is the sum total of progress of each child (TS2) in a class or cohort, that ultimately is the signal that the school is doing well be every child, whatever their needs.

Teacher standard 2 also covers the full range of needs likely to be encountered. If, for example, a teacher has experience limited to one year group, as can happen in some organisations, knowledge of achievement in years above or below enhance and extend the outcome knowledge base, enabling the teacher to make more nuanced decisions about challenge and intervention needs. Mentoring and moderation are key elements in this area, to allow the less experienced teacher to benefit from the wisdom of more experienced colleagues.

Teacher standard 2 is also the area that is currently causing concern, in looking at assessment and tracking needs for teachers. It’s the one area where experience provides the basis for personal development, in making accurate judgements about children as learners, leading to better planning, interaction and adaptation; TS 465. The bottom line question; “How well, breadth and depth, can you show that you know your children?”

It takes time, and is a stage in a progressive development, based on analytical reflection, from reading and first-hand experiences on behalf of the developing teacher. Self-development is a constituent of teacher standard 8; developing yourself into the best possible professional, as a team player and a team leader, is key to long term success in teaching.

Teaching, in many ways, is an investigative role, based on an original hypothesis that the planning is pitched at the right level, with in-lesson evidence showing the need to alter course, or to provide additional scaffolds to support individuals.

Thinking takes time and that can be a rare commodity in a busy school room. So it is incumbent on each teacher, especially trainees, to make best use of available time to think and talk about the role. It is a job where it can be difficult to switch off, too.

Many will use holidays as time to catch up on thinking. As a head, I often thought of the job as 24/7/365. Perhaps that contributes to both success and burn-out?

That’s something else to think about… Be well.
 

This post follows on from a blog on preparation for the second experience.

Going into their second experience, trainees have already demonstrated a high degree of professionalism, as team players and future team leaders. They are able to make good relationships with their class teachers and support staff, as well as with the children. They tend to be allocated to classrooms that are well ordered and organised, with good, positive behaviour management strategies enabling the teacher to teach and learning to occur.

The trainees themselves, are well ordered and organised. They plan effectively and make sure that they have high quality resources available to enhance their lessons. The IWB is usually used to good effect and there is evidence of other technology being used to enhance learning, eg visualisers, cameras and iPads.

They all work hard to make sure that they have appropriate subject knowledge and appropriate resources for each lesson, either through discussion with colleague professionals or personal research. This can be discrete knowledge and would benefit from broader understanding of how the discrete fits into the holistic model of learning for the children, thus allowing some deeper interrogation of in-lesson outcomes.

The following diagram seeks to describe the dynamics being explored, as a result of the second round of visits. The trainees are at a transition point, where they are moving from absorbing structural knowledge, linked with discrete subject knowledge, to being able to embed these as procedural and interactive understandings within an active classroom environment; ie timely decision making.

In the second experience, standards 8 professionalism, 7 behaviour management, 1 expectations, 4 planning (order and organisation) and 3 subject knowledge, are generally secure, across all the trainees, as they are personal attributes that are enhanced with experience and application of personal capabilities.

There is some variation in standard 7, within classes where specific behaviour issues required individualised responses, which the class teachers acknowledged were significant.

Although teaching standards 2, 5 and 6 can therefore be argued as less secure, it is perhaps important to reflect why this is the case, as they appear across all types of trainee going in a second experience.

·         With standard 2 being progress and outcomes, the trainees are at a disadvantage in going into their second school, as they just don’t know the children in that class. Neither will they have an understanding of children of that age group, so may not have mental “baselines” from which to extract appropriate learning expectations.

·         Standards 6&5; Learning to develop tasks for a new age range is challenging in itself, to match and challenge appropriately over time. In the absence of good subject knowledge that embeds an understanding of how the subject develops, lessons can become activities that may or may not lead to secure learning and, in addition, appropriate interventions may be missed. The ability to think on their feet and adjust a task demand to evident needs of the learners might be compromised. Assessment can be further undermined, as each school is seeking to develop their own internal systems in the absence of national descriptors. The meeting with mentors showed that there were seven systems within nine mentors, including four variations of the local County system.

·         An early meeting with the teacher mentors leading the second experience enabled discussion of issues that arose in earlier cohorts, seeking to pre-empt some of the issues that might simply be a constituent part of the second experience.

·         As a result, these areas were a focus for mentor-trainee discussion.

·         Trainees were charged with monitoring progress and interventions over their five weeks of experience. They had to unpick the detail of learning from interactions and outcomes to understand ideas behind progress.

Reflections

Trainee reflection time. With the inevitable pressures of such a route, built in (collaborative peer) reflection/ weekly review time would seem a necessary element to consider, when reviewing the programme as a whole. These trainees don’t often have the luxury of non-timetabled time with peers, as a traditional undergrad or post-grad might have. Where two trainees are together in a school, they have this opportunity, which is much valued.

The breadth of teaching standard 2, as progress and outcomes, covering year 1 to year 6, is one that would repay some developmental thought, to create exemplar material that demonstrates the development from EYFS (year 1) to year 6, within the current curriculum, especially in English and Maths.

To exemplify TS2 further, regular moderation activities between the trainee and the class teacher could result in a portfolio unpicking progress in different subjects, but also introduce the trainees to the need for regular evaluation to inform teaching practice.

In the main, the trainees are on track to achieve at a good or better level at the end of their training year. They would all benefit from considerable additional reflection time looking at the 2, 6, 5 dynamic, working to fine tune their approaches, including personalisation to evident needs. This will need to be an action on the mentors in their second half year experience.

Their specific need in returning to their substantive experience, is
·         to develop (with support) their own medium term plans,
·         to unpick the detail of  learning from outline intention through their own actions,
·         understanding subject development over time,
·         creating challenging tasks appropriate to the children’s needs,
·         interacting with learning giving appropriate supportive feedback and guidance,
·         making rational decisions based on outcome,
·         interacting with anomalies
·         and evaluating outcomes.

​In other words, refining, or recalibrating themselves as whole class teachers, taking ever greater responsibility for progress, preparing for their own classes in September.

​Schools Week, on 27th January 2016, ran a story by Freddie Whittaker, about Government plans outlined by Jonathan Slater, the DfE Permanent Secretary, to introduce a post graduate scheme, to be called an apprenticeship route into teaching. This is being designed to run in line with the apprenticeship levy, soon to be introduced into schools, top-slicing funds to then be claimed back if apprentice teachers are developed. There is some discussion whether this will replace the current School Direct route.

Post-grad routes into teaching cost money, whether PGCE or School Direct, with the latter occasionally offering a few candidates a salaried route. The majority pay the £9k university fee and fund their living. It will be interesting to discover whether the apprenticeship is a salaried route and whether university fees are paid by the school, the Government or the trainee.

Trainees currently have to pass an English and Maths test before starting training, are required to have at least ten days in-school experience before their compulsory interview.

Current routes provide periods of training, interspersed with in-school experience, with clear guidance on what should be experienced within these periods. The training has to be at graduate level, whether in a university setting or a school-based approach. Trainees, on both routes, have assignments set by universities which are marked by university staff.

Both routes have systems of Quality Control, with external staff monitoring the quality of experience being offered. This is in addition to in-school quality controls, where trainees are supported by mentors and senior school staff.
There is a current need for teachers undertaking training for teaching, that experience must be had across two key stages. This can mean, in Primary, key stage one and two separate experiences, in two different settings. One is the substantial setting, the other is a minimum of six weeks experience.

But, there is always going to be variability in a human system.

·         Selection of trainees, will depend on the quality of the people available.
·         Will potential new trainees be subject to interview and have to pass the skills tests, as now?
·         The training sessions will vary with the person leading the session.
·         Mentoring can vary widely, from limited to extensive. Mentors can vary from untrained to Masters level training.
·         Schools as a whole range in preparation. By taking a trainee, they become a de facto training school, with every member of staff taking a training role in developing the trainee.
·         The variability of school settings can be the cause of concern with the second, shorter experience, where the trainee has to demonstrate quality skills rapidly.

This then raises questions.

·         Who will select the potential apprentices as trainees?
·         If individual schools, how will quality selection be assured?
·         Will they be subject to interviews and the skills tests as now?
·         Who will provide the training sessions, at the appropriate level?
·         Is the school prepared as a whole staff to undertake training of an apprentice?
·         Will there be a nominated senior training member of staff, with status and time to oversee and coordinate the process, including regular developmental and quality control observations?
·         Who will sign off on achievement?
·         Will there then be the NQT year as now?

If an apprenticeship route into teaching is to be successful, therefore, it will need several new layers of bureaucracy, in the same way as should exist for all other routes into teaching. This would need to be at national and regional level, linked to the available universities. There would need to be a coordinated training army of teacher mentors, for subject specific and pedagogic training, together with secretarial backup to ensure that training spaces were available to need. There would need to be management training, as quality control and to have specific staff designated as coordinators. Mentors would have to have time off-timetable, to be able to undertake training and also to create quality development time to work with the trainees.

If future teachers are to be trained in-school, starting as apprentices, then the current situation of every school creating their own systems across all aspects of pedagogy would also need to be questioned. At a recent meeting with SD mentors, I asked each to describe their current approach to assessment. Within nine mentors there were seven systems, including four variations on the local County scheme. This, in itself, causes trainees difficulty in their second experience, as they have to get to grips with significant system change, as well as new children and current expectations of them. They are far less nuanced in their decisions on the second experience.

Mind you, the same could be said of many teachers changing schools in the current climate. It’s not surprising that there is so much talk of burn-out and workload issues. Ever changing systems add to the day job considerably.

As I wrote in an earlier blog, everyone has to start somewhere. It’s a truism, but, if a new generation is to take on the mantle of becoming teachers, the systems that lead to them doing so have to be clear and understandable, on order for them to be enacted successfully. It cannot be left to chance. There is too much at stake; someone’s livelihood and children’s life experiences.

Related blogs on mentoring…

http://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/the-importance-of-being-a-mentor
http://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/on-mentoring-schools
http://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/mentoring-can-be-excellent-cpd
http://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/personal-development
http://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/teaching-is-a-team-game

​

There’s a small residual box of my “historical bits” in the loft, which I have reserved simply as keepsakes. There’s a glass plate negative of my paternal grandfather standing beside a biplane on which he worked before 1918. My father never knew his father, as he was born in 1919, while my grandfather died in the Spanish flu of 18/19. Flying solo was a metaphor for my father’s life, as well as my own, as a result of parental divorce.

Flying solo can also be a metaphor for development as a teacher. From the initial stages of learning the fundamentals of the craft, making errors and occasionally crash landings, gradually, controlling the whole class becomes easier, enabling the key messages to be developed effectively. I spend a great deal of my working year with ITE trainees in schools. At every step they are seeking to prove that they are not just developing as future teachers, with potential, but that they are offering opportunity at a good level.

Eventually, the trainee achieves sufficient status and then flies solo. They have to make appropriate preparations and checks before embarking on the journey, to have a log book that records what they intend. They need to learn to read the signals “in-flight” and take notice of potential hazards, without reference to their textbooks, or thinking “What would “expert name” do?”, making appropriate adjustments within the flight. Post-flight, they will evaluate the outcomes, learning for the next opportunity.

January sees many of the School Direct trainees embarking on their second school experience, moving from their substantive practice, where they have become familiar with routines and expectations, to a completely new environment where, within the six week half term, they have to again show they are good, as defined by the teacher standards.

In the best situations a trainee will have a well-informed, very involved mentor, prepared to provide coaching to the trainee, within and between the lesson.

A visit to the Discovery Centre (library) in Gosport yesterday brought me into contact with a small display. What drew my attention was a photograph of a biplane and engineer which was almost exactly like that with my grandfather.

The accompanying text detailed a development made in the Gosport engineering works around 1918, where a rubber tube with effectively a funnel at each end was used to link the trainee pilot with their instructor behind. This simple device avoided more accidents as the instructor could make the trainee alter their behaviour and engage in actions that would be more effective, or resolve issues before they became more difficult or dangerous.

This is a relatively simple act that can prompt behaviours in the developing trainee, altering their behaviour in the classroom context. There are systems now that effectively emulate the rubber tube and funnels, with digital in-ear coaching, while lesson study activities can further develop awareness.

Developing the next generation of teachers is the responsibility of the whole profession. Where schools, as a whole, share responsibility for development, the trainee benefits from the collective knowledge. Where trainees and NQTs are left to their own devices, it is not surprising if they begin to flounder and crash land. Opportunity to talk, to discuss successes and areas for development must be available. Too often, the mentoring role is given to an already busy teacher. This can lead to the mentor only operating in a judgemental role, diminishing the development of the trainee to simplified target setting and achievement. Helping the trainee to understand how to improve is as important as telling them what to improve.

This echoes every learning situation.

If you are a mento to a trainee nect term, the following might be a useful aide memoire to support your and their organisation and lead to early successes.

Considering Post Graduate and School Direct Short Placements.
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Being such a short experience, the six/seven weeks will fly past very quickly, so, in order to maximise the potential for a successful practice I offer the following organisational insights from previous experiences.

The first thing is to secure the professional standards as per this diagram.

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?
​

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.
​
One (self-proclaimed, for now) good school doesn’t make a good system.

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.
​
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.
​
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.
​
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.   

Group activity is a natural part of life; in fact it could be said that life is a form of group work. Schools are a microcosm of life, in that younger humans are grouped together in an organisation where they are just expected to get on together and it can seem a surprise to some when some of them find the situation difficult, for a variety of reasons. Each of us has our tolerances, likes and dislikes, which we exercise in our own way, as adults, by choosing to participate in social situations or not. That becomes our prerogative.

There’s been some recent “discussion” on Twitter about group work in schools. I say discussion. It often becomes more assertion, with a selected piece of writing being trailed as the essential truth.

Over a long career, I have seen many incarnations of group based activity, some of which worked extremely effectively and some that didn’t work for a variety of reasons.

Group based activity requires a task that is designed to engage the challenge the group, as a whole, to participate in the process of creating something or finding a solution to a problem together. They should be a collaborative partnership, incorporating all members of the group.

Tasks should enable discussion and decision making by the group, who then take responsibility for their planned initial decisions and actions and for the reflective journey which may result in changes to the original plan.

Resources, space and time are all restrictive elements for some kinds of group work, and, where group work fails, it is often because one or more of these variables have been ignored, providing limits to the group capacity to succeed.

Group size can be a limiting factor. The process of learning to work together starts with a partner, then in threes, etc. This can be frequently seen in PE/games, where small team games are a part of skill application in small scale situations. Where group work becomes a “thing”, organised with different participants selected in different roles, this puts a different complexion on the process, as play acting the given role overtakes the purpose of the task.

The flexibility to use group work effectively was a key element of Primary classroom practice up until 1997, when the National Strategy introduction began to push teachers to whole class approaches. Space, time, and resources were a part of classroom creation, with areas available for a range of activities, resources available in labelled drawers and time given to the task that showed how the time was to be used and the expectation of an outcome. With a growing number of TAs, it was possible to deploy someone to keep an eye, either on the class while the teacher intervened, or the group as a guide/facilitator. I managed to employ one TA with a science and DT background/interest, and another with an art specialism so some specific additional skills were often available to support learning.

I can see, for some teachers, who move from room to room, that it might be easier to turn up with minimal resources and just teach, particularly if the teacher voice is the significant resource, to impart specific areas of knowledge. The current approach to timetabling, setting and streaming and withdrawal groups in Primary is also a very limiting factor, especially for space and time. It does mean some resources are now often underused.

However, discussion is group work and this has a place in all teaching and learning, in that learners articulating their thoughts are akin to testing, as it is an externalisation of their thinking. With some kind of recording facility, it is possible to focus the group on the task in hand, by creating a “listener” at the table. With my career being long enough, this was done with a tape recorder, turned to record. It focused minds and kept the groups to task; iPads and digital microphones are now available.

As a headteacher, the benefits of group work outweighed any supposed disadvantage, as, by working together, the children learned to respect each other, which in turn supported the school motto of “Thinking, working and playing together”. Playground issues became minimal over time, as children developed very good social skills. They saw the “team” in many different ways, from the pair, through to the class, through to their school.
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In other words, they saw that they had a place and that they belonged. They understood the idea of collaboration.

​See also
Teaching is a team Game
Collegiate Teachers

  

It’s been a good summer. This year, I managed an extended stay in my French cottage, which was planned in order to do some necessary decorating and gardening. The painting was a partial success, in that two-thirds of the plan was effected, largely down to the thermometer hovering around 26C from 10.30am and rising steadily thereafter. The garden tidying did mean time in the sun, to clear a bamboo thicket and a very large conifer that had grown unchecked for several years. It was a case of blood and sweat, and a few tears when I tripped in the bamboo and slightly impaled myself on a small spike!

The heat from mid-morning did mean much time could be spend seeking shade, with litres of cold water, reading, in order to cool and prepare for another short onslaught, to go to town for the shopping or just to have a walk. We have several circuits of different timings that can be accomplished in available slots. Longer walks also happened.
I’m not sure that I have ever read so many books while away. As I was garden or house based, trips to town were fewer, so the option of buying the local paper was not available.

Georges Simenon, a Belgian writer of dubious reputation, was writing from the thirties into the seventies. His best known books, about Inspector Maigret, have been made into several television series, but not in the very recent past. These were “pot boilers”, pocket novels that could be read easily, based around the central figure of a bear like figure immersing himself in the lives of victims, in order to understand the motives of potential perpetrators. It was a human precursor to personality studies. His other novels, or his “romans durs” are a more mixed collection of stories, with a different cast of “heroes and heroines”, but, essentially still with an effort to share the psychological makeup of every character. His books have a certain cinematographic style, which lent itself to film and television adaptation. Every one shows Simenon’s ability to observe, settings and characters. A Simenon splurge, of two Penguins, each with two stories, was a relaxed way to unwind after a period of “green gym”, with greed, insecurity, fears, jealousies and bravado leading to demise, all featuring.

One of my charity shop finds before the holiday was Joseph Kanon, Leaving Berlin, a post WW2 novel, where a Jewish writer is persuaded to return to Berlin after persecution lead to his fleeing the Nazis before the war. This time he was fleeing the McCarthy witch-hunts, but in the hopes of a return to the USA, to be reunited with his son. As an agent, he encounters some of his past, but also has to manipulate events, to provide information to his handlers, but also to deal with personal issues that brought him in contact with Soviet spy networks. It was a fascinating insight into the human capacity to survive, despite a range of pressures.

Orhan Pamuk, The Black Book, has been sitting on the shelf for a few years. I’ve tried several times to get started on it, but found it a little dense. However, this time, I persevered and was very surprised how it drew me in, after the first thirty or so pages. The main story is of Galip, a lawyer whose wife disappears, probably with her ex-husband, Celal, his cousin who was a famed journalist. As Galip explores every possible avenue in trying to find his wife, he meets a wide variety of people and starts to piece together a narrative. As the story progresses, Galip appears to take the mindset of Celal, eventually beginning to write his column. In seeking to discover more about others, Galip eventually discovers himself.

The Village of Secrets, by Caroline Moorehead was another charity shop find. It was a story based on events in the Massif Central in France, an area to the east of my cottage, during the Vichy period. We had a trip to Clermont Ferrand during the holiday, so drove near the area where this story was set. In passing through the rugged countryside, with a few houses dotted infrequently, it was easy to see how the locality would lend itself to hiding all sorts of people being sought by the Nazis. The book unpicks the key storylines, the main characters and seeks to do so unsentimentally. Focused on the small town of Chambon and outlying districts, with a Protestant ethic across many communities, the pacifist, non-aggression approach was followed, as was a code of silence, each building a strong community prepared just to do good for others. While the passage of time allows stories to be changed, added to, distorted to specific ends, the book seeks to provide a balanced view of events, but also to offer the alternative viewpoints. The capacity of human beings to be courageous, generous, brave and single-minded in their efforts to help others was evident, as were the opposite traits, where some were prepared to denounce for money, torture or kill with little provocation. Self-preservation, or fear of punishment is likely to distort one’s viewpoint.

I like Steven Pinker’s Stuff of Thought as a book now to dip into occasionally, having read it earlier. I fits with my ideas that we are all just trying to make sense of life, a series of experiences that are a result of the passing of time and our journeys through different events, with people and places playing their parts. I like his assertion that life is like a series of metaphors; one event linking us to previous experiences, which modify and adjust our viewpoint, either by expansion or replacement.  

I came back to Tim O’Brien’s Inner Story several times during the holiday, in part because it asked me to think, and while every book I read engaged me in different ways, Tim was asking the reader to think about themselves. In many ways, the time and space to think about yourself is a luxury in today’s busy lives. Just occasionally, life provides experiences where this is an enforced activity. Tim uses anecdote effectively to illustrate how this can come about. I reflected back to pivotal moments in my own life, which I have written about at length here, to make my own links with Tim’s book.

Becoming self-aware, taking responsibility for your own decisions, reflecting on outcomes and adapting to these are the essential building blocks of a developing human. We each live life as it appears to each of us. Every situation is unique to the event and the participants. Sometimes these are life-changing; each adds something to our journey memory. We are the product of the sense we make of each of the little experiences that make our lives. Whether we take opportunity when it arises is likely to depend on our circumstance and frame of mind. We operate within a personal profit and loss account; what’s in it for me (WIIFM)?

When we see ourselves, we are likely to be able to see and empathise with others too.

Reading does make you think!

Ps. In case you haven’t seen it yet, the #teacher5aday handbook is a useful insight into ways to add elements to your busy life that might provide some R&R. In my case, this holiday, I managed (a lot of) “green exercise”, reading, photography, painting a couple of pictures (not so easy with high temperatures, meeting friends and, since we’ve been home, some grandparenting in London and clearing and replacing the conservatory tiled floor. Busyness that provides an extended time thinking about something completely different might just be the key.

Looking out for the “newbies”.

As the term and the school year comes towards a close, staff have largely moved and been replaced, often with a newly qualified teacher, a newbie, fresh from their training. I’ve recently finished my final visits to School Direct trainees as a Link Tutor for one group and Quality Assurance for another. It is always a good thing to spend some time after an experience, to evaluate the process and the details that contribute to the whole, so that necessary tweaks can be made to improve the system for the future.
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It was a feature of all the trainees, across both groups, that their standard of professionalism was extremely high. This I have explored in an earlier blog post, identifying Teacher Standards 8,7,1,3 as common features of early success; they have a professional demeanour, recognised by colleagues and children, enabling them to get across their ideas.
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In my quality assurance report to one of the Teaching Schools’ Alliances, I focused on the role of the mentor as a key element in addressing the issues that will be a part of the whole training year, especially where there is a need to undertake a short practice in an alternative Key Stage. I offer these thoughts here, before extending them a little.

An earlier blog on mentoring looked at it as a form of CPD.

The quality of mentoring can be a significant variable, both in terms of the personality and the teaching quality of the individual mentors, but also in the receiving school, as a whole, in their preparedness to support a developing teacher.

In the early stages, where quality induction is required, there is a need to explore the totality of education and to make sense of the whole, as it is evidenced in their host school; eg ethos, safeguarding, behaviour management, expectations, resource base, planning approaches, among many others. This wealth of information can be overwhelming, if not carefully managed, and should not rely on the trainee just to find out for themselves. Introductions to key personnel need to be made, with Maths and English managers and the SENCo, to familiarise the trainee with current issues.

The mentor (or a nominated colleague) may also have to act as the “tutor in residence”, able to support the academic aspects of the course; at least to be party to reflective discussions about the writing tasks.

The above does require a mentor programme to run alongside the trainee programme. If, as suggested, trainees were given time to discuss “papers” during their training days, these could then inform discussions with mentors, to gain a school perspective on the topic.

In discussion, it is clear that many mentors do not generally attend formal gatherings, in doing so, limiting the opportunity to develop a network. This is not a dissimilar picture in university mentor meetings. Some thought needs to be given to incentives to encourage attendance, or at least to discourage non-attendance.
 
Regular meetings with mentors, on a personal level, “mentoring the mentors”, would also support the STSA profile. Where University Link Tutors visit more regularly, it can seem that some schools are able to misinterpret the roles of different visiting representatives.

To summarise. Mentors need to be fully appraised of the training programme, the demands on themselves and the trainees from the Alliance and the University and be able to provide support that ensures a smooth training opportunity.

After a committee discussion yesterday, I took the thoughts one step further, by reflecting on the role of the receiving school, developing the whole school into a global mentoring system, rather than just relying on one colleague, although, for weekly discussions, this would still be the case.

This, to me, sits within a “Teaching School”s Alliance; a collection of teaching schools, rather than a central Teaching School with satellite schools agreeing to take trainees. In this way, everyone becomes a mentor, additional CPD becomes an opportunity to reflect on practice and the central Teaching School could invite broader discussion within the group to explore the sharing of very successful practice.
We need high quality teachers, well supported at vulnerable times of their teaching careers.

The NQTs arriving in schools in September will not be the “finished article”. The newbies, transferring in from other schools may also be vulnerable. They will need support to settle, to organise and orientate themselves, to pick up the wide range of school systems in order to become effective colleagues. They need to get to know the children and the expectations that the school has of their progress during the year. They need to know the quality standards. These need to be effectively shared during induction, but also as a continuous activity. Induction could last the year, with regular meetings to support, enable downloading of problems, seeking solutions.

This is a school level need. Often, if a teacher is failing, it is the lack of colleague intervention that makes this harder to resolve. Teaching can be a solitary activity, but it is a team game. Everyone should be looking out for the newbies.

​Let's make all schools Teaching Schools, committed to teacher development at all stages of their careers. 
  

Knowing the Children

The variability that one encounters when visiting a school is often greatest when working with the children. Their uniqueness can introduce you to relatively rare conditions or needs with which the school is learning to cope. Even when there are several members with a similar need, the differences are personal and there is little that one can do except seek to understand the needs of each and every child.

Knowing the children as well as possible as individuals allows for nuanced intervention where this may be necessary, minimising the disruptive effects that inevitably accompany any adult intervention.

Of course, the more one does this, the more refined become the judgements, from greater awareness. I would suggest that this principle would pertain across many aspects of life. There are two key ideas. Do you know what you are looking for and do you know what it will look like when you see it? Within this mindset, anomalies will be identified to be investigated in some form.

Learner attitudes.

While there will always be a range of attitudes with which children arrive at a school, deriving from their prior experiences, the preparation, modelling and articulation of expectations, from all the receiving adults working together as a coordinated team, provides the best possibility of children settling into their new environment.

Early years classes seek to provide settings that are similar to nursery or other pre-school group, enabling the children to feel comfortable in their new surroundings, within which they will begin the transition to more formalised periods of learning together.

It is important that positive attitudes are developed and maintained, as the children are then enabled to become more independent and active partners in their learning. Being offered opportunities, exploring, making mistakes and learning from these, across a range of challenges, supports a developing maturity.

Learner attitudes grow through understanding their place within the school, having a sense of belonging that derives from a good understanding of school expectation in terms of personal responsibility, for themselves, for their treatment of others and for their environment, as well as for their approach to their learning.

There are many schemes, some local as in Rights, Respects and Responsibility (Hampshire CC), or the UNICEF scheme, which provide background discussion topics that can be developed through assemblies, circle time or used to support one to one conversation.

Some schools extend these schemes to enable self-reference to adult support. This can often be seen in Primary schools as a form of lunchtime club, with a TA responsible for emotional literacy in charge. I have encountered self-reference opportunities in Secondaries, with different formulations of student support, including restorative counselling conversations.

A broad range of experiences that extend children’s understanding of their place in the world, through extending and broadening their minds, opening them to new possibilities is important, especially in areas of deprivation. Deprivation can be in cultural terms, with families not taking children to local areas of interest, libraries, galleries, museums or the local fields or the sea, even if they are close. Parent knowledge may preclude them from interpreting experiences to and with their children. An example may be an inability to move beyond the word “bird” to identify a blackbird, robin, pigeon, blue tit or wren.

After school clubs can offer areas not covered in the curriculum. This need not be a drain on teacher time, as a local sixth form college can be a source of willing workers able to offer a broad range of opportunities. These extra-curricular opportunities often provide opportunities for informal contacts that support in-lesson relationships.
Opportunities to do things together enhance a contributory, collaborative, collegiate approach to school, embedding formal PSHE into activities.

After a visit to a school, I was able to write the following about learner attitudes.

The children whom I met during the visit were, without exception, courteous, confident and articulate. They were allowed to speak freely and did so openly and honestly. They were a credit to the school. The discussions showed that the children were fully aware of their part in school life, could articulate their expectations and ambitions and knew in great detail how they could find the support that they needed should this occur.

They valued their school, their teachers and TAs, and saw how the school was enabling them to achieve at their best and represented a community that sees learning as the central feature of the establishment. There is a broad range of rewards, encouraging continuous involvement.

There are many layers of support for children’s behaviour needs, within the system, which allows intervention and decisions to be taken by both staff and children, being enabled to make “the right choices”. This is articulated through the “Going for Green” system, which was well understood.

The children are given responsibilities within the school, which they carry out with care, ensuring that their peers are able to learn effectively or are being supported emotionally. They value all that is available to them and take advantage of the many experiences available, in and out of normal school hours.

Induction and transfer arrangements are very effectively organised, with a significant body of evidence that shows clearly that the majority of children on the special needs register make good levels of progress within the school, specifically in reading and writing. There is a wide range of interventions, ably coordinated, utilising internal staff as well as external expertise. These interventions were highly valued by parents.

Specifics.

• Induction and transition arrangements very secure
• Communication systems in place throughout the school allowing children to articulate their views
• Children feel safe in the school and are regularly asked for their views
• Documentation illustrates the community feel of the school, with clear articulation of understanding individual needs, personalised approaches, broad understanding of the school community of individual needs and a strong support network surrounding children throughout their school experience.
• Children’s progress is tracked thoroughly.