For the past three months, probably the majority of children have been effectively doing homework, having been required to stay at home during the lockdown. There have been exceptions, for key worker and different groups of vulnerable children.

Homework, at the best of times, is a strange beast in the education system, in that it is mandated, but can result in very mixed outcomes. Activities that are set by the school are required to be accommodated during the child’s time at home.

For some, this might mean a clash between homework and chosen interests. For others the challenge of the work or possibly the challenge of working in the home, competition for space and available technology might impact. Certainly, the recent few months have highlighted the significant difference between the haves and the have-nots. Many schools have possibly discovered aspects of their children’s home lives of which they were previously unaware. It has meant, for many, that schools have had to duplicate on-line work with paper-based alternatives.

Has anyone ever really trained children into homework or home learning? Clear tasks and expectations might be set, but what about “how to”? And if a child was to say that they couldn’t, for some reason, what’s the response?

It may be the case that previous assumptions have been very much challenged. Do all children have the time, space and resources to be able to concentrate on a series of challenging tasks that replicate a school day? This also questions the independent learning level of each child; some will be more capable than others of working on their own, especially if they have been dependent on a level of additional adult help in classroom learning.

Home adult engagement levels may vary, too, from the completely focused and hands-on to those possibly unable to offer help within the learning challenge, and potentially the disengaged.

In many ways, the adult engagement has been the potential casualty of pandemic education, the equivalent of the class teacher scanning the class to see those who are in need of extra support, teacher standards 6&5, or Dylan Wiliam’s reflective, reactive teaching.

While the past twelve weeks may have been a kind of holding operation, the outcomes will be very mixed, because it's been a novel situation in everyone's lives, perhaps because everyone has been trying the find the right balance, but also seeking appropriate forms of communication that help children and their parents to accommodate set challenges.

I wonder how the lockdown experience has altered school views on setting homework, which will become a significant factor in any form of recovery dynamic when schools return? Equally, if the pandemic continues and home-learning has to continue into the autumn, how schools will alter any remote approach?

One thing is certain, it can’t be assumed to be “business as usual”, “back to normal”.

​Planning for learning will need to be significantly underpinned by clarity in assessment. It will need to be longer term, with clear purpose and goals and make better use of class time. Setting home activity might need to incorporate that time for children to have a topic to talk about at home, to write draft notes or first draft writing that can be used as the basis for editing and improvement under teacher guidance in class time. Tasks need to be something that the child can do independently.
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Using time differently will affect the overall dynamics of learning, with home adding greater value to class activities. It’s in teacher planning that this dynamic will start.    

​This phrase will dominate the educational discourse for the foreseeable future. It’s in danger of becoming a new political mantra, with any fallout, or negative consequences inevitably then falling onto schools. I’m sorry, that’s cynical, but it’s hard not to be at the moment.

We are in “unprecedented” times, another political catch phrase, coupled with “gaps in education”.

The unprecedented element is that schools are now hybrid versions of previous organisations, some in face to face, for varied amounts of time, some totally remote learning and some a hybrid of the two. This may well continue into the 20-21 academic year. The remote element has highlighted disparities in access to technology, hardware and data, or family challenges in having multiple need of available resources; parents working from home at the same time as children trying to do schoolwork. Now that this is known, schools might be in a better position to address individual needs should the situation arise.

There is obvious concern for “vulnerable learners”, children who are identified daily in a lesson with needs addressed during the lesson. In a remote situation, this lack of access is likely to be a significant missing element. It might have been addressed by identification and a request to come to school to receive misconception coaching and guidance, coupled with expectations of how to use personal time when working remotely, if this continues, or simply absorption into a learning “bubble”. Whatever happens, these children will be in classrooms in the future.

How much “teacher time” and I mean time with a teacher, do vulnerable learners get in a lesson anyway? I’ll just park that question for now, but it may become an issue in the future. Catch up will require, for some, very highly focused teaching, not just time with another adult.
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We’re now four months into an alternative reality, of which nearly a month would have been school holidays, so three months of lessons have been accessed through remote means, online or on paper. Some children will have gaps. Some through not working, some having accessed the work, but may not comprehend, some will have made progress, perhaps in different ways. Each will be “where they are”, so there will be a need for personalised assessment, within restructured planning.

Which bits of teaching are missing?

In an earlier blog, I looked at different “teacher” models, the presenter, the structuralist (becoming organised) and the holistic, each one a stage in personal development. In many ways, the current remote situation puts most teachers into the structuralist mode, simply because the opportunity to reflect and react in lessons is not possible. So learning is ordered and organised and presented appropriately to children but may not be subject to intervention that would include personal guidance and coaching.

By September, there is every possibility that some children will have been out of school for six months. It will be near impossible to try to “fill the gap”, perhaps the best that can be attempted is to “bridge the gap”.
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• Identify those elements of planned learning that are less secure, but are essential, and must be covered to enable future use of this learning.
• Put plans together for the whole of the next academic year, to give an overview of coverage and to be able to assess any continuous gaps. If possible, start to look at the subsequent year of learning, too, in outline.
• Assess time need for topics. Avoid the natural wish to fill the half term with one topic.
• Consider the use of lesson time and the potential for home tasking to include writing up of notes, or first draft writing, enabling lesson time to be more interactive and focused on learning dialogue.
• Primary schools; consider the amount of extended writing across different subject areas and synthesise the foundation with the core, to create quality, rather than quantity of writing. Maybe even all such writing in one exercise book; see link blog.

​Talk learning; let’s consider the power of dialogue to work through this situation. Everyone talking together to make the best possible framework that can hold everything together for the next few years, not just knee-jerk reactive plans that run out of steam in a few months. Let’s include parents in that dialogue, to help them to help their children, both with the necessary learning, but also the social and emotional upheaval that many will have faced and continue to face.
 
It may well take the whole of the 20-21 academic year to really make sense of where we are in education, especially as the coronavirus pandemic is not yet ended. It can’t just be “business as usual”.

The whole system needs to come together, not beaver away in personal spaces, sharing ideas, resources, and support for each other.

​It’s time for inclusive approaches, not isolationism. The latter way will be devastating for what is, at heart, a collegiate profession. 

In December 2014, my blog was two months old.

For the Christmas break, I created a sort of reflective challenge to anyone who wished to take on an idea, to look back over their career and to distil what they had learned over that time, in three main categories; on you as a person, on children and on management, which I broadened to simply working with others.

The original blog had a number of very thoughtful contributions, so they can be explored at the base of the blog;
https://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/1000-years-of-experience
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However, even with a large number of very kind donations, the total came to approximately 700 years, so didn’t quite get to the 1000 years that I had hoped. So, as a last call approach, I hope that lockdown has given time for reflection on what is important in education, maybe lessons about yourself. Perhaps time away from front line teaching has offered food for thought about children as learners, maybe about working with others. There are some creative ideas for interpretation, but any reflections can be shared in the comment box at the bottom of this blog.

Some of the original collection were developed a little further into a downloadable "non-book", which can be accessed through https://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/pdfs.html 

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

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

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

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

Having contributed to Rachel Jones “Don’t Change the Light Bulbs” book, it struck me that crowdsourcing could be a means of collating a wealth of information.
So I extend an invitation, to any reader of my blog, to share their distilled thoughts as succinctly as possible. If we can get to 1000 years, with a corporate effort, I’ll do my best to distil the thoughts further to come up with a collegiate précis.
Below is a contribution from @GazNeedle, who is normally sketching, doodling and cartooning ideas. As it wouldn't copy into the comment thread, I thought it would fit here.
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Please Read Gaz's written comment plus those of many other kind contributors below. (Ed; via the original blog)

My own effort is below. You can use that format, or any that suits your style.

40 year career, Secondary science, Primary, Junior, Primary, Junior, Infant (DH), Primary (HT) ITT tutor, assessor for a range of national schemes, Consultant (isn’t everyone, these days?)

On you, as a person.

• Keep things simple; they are then easy to understand and communicate.
• Be yourself, be strong and continue to be a learner and thinker. Have a hobby/life!
• Be a team player and a leader when necessary. Schools are stronger together.
• Organise a class space that supports learning, as well as your teaching.
• Resource effectively, for easy retrieval and return.
• Be ordered and organised, be strategic in your thinking and communicate effectively with everyone.

On children

• Know your children well.
• Plan for their learning, over different timescales, make sure the “story” is good and makes them think. There’s a big world out there; open eyes, ears, hearts and minds.
• Think with them, talk with them and make adjustments when you see they are not “getting it”.
• As you get to know them better, fine tune challenges to their needs.
• Parents are essential partners. Harness their energy appropriately. Make home activity count.

On management (working with people)

• Humanity should be a byword for everyone. Create a climate of respect. Model it.
• You work with and through your team. You are responsible for their welfare. Value them.
• Make sure the work environment supports their efforts, with appropriate space, resources and time.
• Goodwill works two ways; a “give and take” approach buys extra effort.
• Communicate, communicate, communicate; don’t assume.
• Strategy is only as good as the explanation and the understanding. You can have all the plans in the world, but, if no-one understands them, they will fail.
• Take time to say thank you.

Thanks to Craig Parkinson @cparkie, for the Wordle below, highlighting the key words from eight early contributors. Interesting what are the highlights; could be a useful discussion piece. Would your staff room agree the priorities? 
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Pandemic pensées. Feeling kinda blue…

It’s proving to be a very strange time, this lockdown stuff. We can do some things, but not others. In many ways, it’s the restrictions on life in general that begin to wear thin at times. Stoicism enables some resilience and we’re lucky to have a garden and countryside within a few minutes’ walk, so we can occasionally “escape” to wander and see and hear the wider world.

Occasionally, the desire for some normality, like stopping for a coffee can weigh a little, but then thought of the front line NHS workers put that into perspective. We all have to be grateful for everything that they have done, often in near impossible situations.

Passing total strangers, with them either wishing to have some contact, at a reasonable distance of course (walking poles are an excellent guide) or, as we encountered recently, an elderly lady totally turning her back as we passed, because she was afraid. There are reasons to be fearful, especially as the Government has spoken often about asymptomatic cases of Covid19. You look healthy, not showing any signs, but do you have it or have you had it (mildly)?

It’s the not knowing all the details, despite reading as much as possible and preferring to listen to the “experts” that leaves residual concerns.

Politicians have a different agenda. They have to show that they are in charge, because that’s their job. Being in charge means telling others what to do, which is probably easier in a totalitarian state. It can appear as if today we are moving further towards that, rather than the more liberal state that we have known.

Lockdown, to a large extent, shows how people will comply. It also showed the fear, in panic buying, although it is arguable that this was simply sensible, given the potential that, at any point, a family could be required to be in a two week quarantine, reliant on neighbours if family members weren’t close.

So we have endured six weeks of lockdown, at a prescribed distance from others, seeing the best of neighbourliness and friendship; watching out for signs of distress, checking on food supplies, or, in our case, also acting as a mobile library for a housebound elderly friend. It’s proving beneficial to have kept books that have been read; they can be lent. As she is an artist, they are also giving food for thought as she seeks inspiration in isolation.

So what’s life for most of us reduced to?

Basic essentials; food, drink, sleep, gardens/exercise, reading, TV, texts and calls to keep in touch. For some, these have been in short supply, so neighbourliness has also included checking on those essentials; schools have become ad hoc food banks, free school meals interpreted as food hampers by some, bypassing the Government vouchers. Handing over food is a means of also checking how things are. Vouchers can be remote and they didn’t work properly, at all, for a few weeks.

Schools have worked exceptionally hard to accommodate the learning challenges of remote teaching and learning; setting up platforms and communication systems, checking and seeking to address home internet and hardware needs (the latter probably easier than the former), phone checks on children’s well-being and how they are managing with set tasks. It’s been very time consuming, in a different way to normal planning and classroom activity. Much of this will prove beneficial in what will inevitably become the “new normal”.

Since their inception, schools have been based on the class or year group of children, with various organisations over that time, from the large groups with monitor teachers that are now organised as a class of about 30 with a main teacher and a full or part time assistant.

Will we see whole class teaching in the near future? As a school Governor and as a grandparent, I am as concerned as anyone to consider this.

Classrooms, since the 60/70s have been based on a notional 55sq m as the basis size. This has been interpreted over time in different ways. The larger part of my teaching life was in a scola build, a mid-1970s incarnation that included the walk-through spaces as a part of the 55sq m. The class bit was about 35 sq m, so corridors were part of the teaching space. I use this as an example that not all schools have the same accommodation. This will include corridors that will vary in width.

Entrance doors vary from those with handles to automatic entry points. Some need handling, others don’t. This has an implication for hand and surface hygiene before entry and then at all points of the day.

Playtime is a social gathering time. This is when mingling might occur. Breaks are also the time when most schools ask children to go to the toilet, again a mingling, messing about, time. Maybe children will need to be allowed to go to the toilet singly during “lessons” instead?

We are now in May and there’s speculation that schools will be asked to open in June, so timescales are relatively short, to take account of the broad range of needs to be accommodated.

There are many permutations of how things can be organised and every school will, no doubt, be trying very hard to work out what is best for everyone. Pressure will grow to open fully, to enable parents to go back to work, but that might not be safe in the short term and safety, of everyone involved has to be paramount. There’s no benefit in exposing everyone to a rapid, second spike in the virus.

There are a number of options that immediately spring to mind.

1. Maintain the status quo. Keep teaching remotely for as long as is needed, bearing in mind that a number (different in each school) will not be fully accessing or participating in learning.
2. A full return. This would prove virtually impossible in the majority of organisations. Maintaining social distancing, whether defined as 2m, 1.5m or 1m, unless every child was expected to wear a face covering and teachers offered some kind of PPE; maybe wearing a face visor would be mandatory? Guaranteeing hand hygiene would be impossible and all tables would need to be wiped down assiduously. Would children move between lessons, causing corridor mixing, or teachers move to classrooms? There will be a difference between Primary and Secondary. Many will see this as near impossible in the short term.

Taking 1 and 2 into account, it’s more likely that children will return to school in groups. To ease family issues, if children are in the same school, attending on the same day would seem sensible. I would be considering a half day experience, probably 9-12, with no breaks and going home for lunch to avoid playtime mixing in the short term.

1. One year-group back as a whole, which seems to be the politician articulation of what will be expected? Take the example of a one form entry school, of seven age groups and an example class of 30/32 children. Classroom space of 55sq m is likely to allow 6-8 children to be accommodated in one space, so this will take four classrooms and require four adults. There wouldn’t be space for any other year group as a whole to attend, so attendance patterns would be a seven-day rotation. There would be a continuous need for every year group to do remote teaching for the days where children were not attending.
2. One group of eight children per year group? Morning only. Afternoons then available to teachers to plan and catch up with remote learning. I have tweeted that this reminds me of my 1974 integrated day planning, in that large classes of 40 children required organisation into groups for needs, so there was an element of remote or independent activity between formal teaching and catch up.

What if:

The key teaching day for essential information was on Friday, giving the weekend as a distillation period, with Monday to Thursday attendance in groups for teachers to do essential overlearning for some and guidance/additional challenge for others? Groups would attend on the same day each week, except for essential worker children, who will require a continuous provision of oversight on set learning, plus additional social activities, for however long this situation has to last.

Which groups come in on which days? Vulnerable learners on Monday, to secure learning that they can then do independently, maybe with a check in/reprise on Thursday?

The main focus for the three hours attendance was Maths, English and Topic (30 minutes each) with time then given to a social activity like art, for some as therapy and a chance to chat?

Schools are between the inevitable “rock and hard place”. Whatever organisation is put in place, there will be inevitable complaints. There needs to be a political acceptance that every school will be doing its best. It will do no-one any good to know that “the school down the road does x”. That school’s facilities may differ greatly. Locality communication will be essential, to seek to minimise that pressure.

At some point in the near future, as a Governor, I will be involved in discussions about plans to restore some element of face to face direct contact with children, ensuring that safety is paramount. Teaching is a people job, it’s also a social role. Getting close to children and their needs is the essence of good teaching and learning. We have to safeguard all adults in schools and monitor carefully any potential adverse consequences of these initial decisions.

We could try to hope that, for a week or so in July, some element of normality might be possible, maybe whole days and a chance to ensure transitions are managed for September. No-one should be over-confident that this will happen. It will be a case of envisaging and planning for all eventualities.

One of the simple pleasures of the recent need to stay at home for extended periods has been the opportunity to watch the bird feeders and the bird bath, both of which get regular visitors, getting up to various acrobatic tricks and having no shame in their bathing techniques.

Having some shrubs and small trees around does help the birds confidence, as they can make a quick getaway if necessary to avoid local cats or occasionally, us. However, by being a quiet presence in the garden, many birds are now coming to within a metre of us, and not just the robins.
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Both the feeders and the bath are very simple; something to hold seed or more open to hold the suet balls. Our local pet shops and certainly our local Wilko or B&M are open.
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The bath is nothing more than a tray to stand a pot in. It holds water and fits the space. It doesn’t need to be special; an upturned dustbin lid will work, too, with stones to make an “island” for birds to stand safely.
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A few weeks’ ago, we had a dozen varieties of birds coming in an hour. This week, April 14th, the birds are more active in the garden picking up bits of nesting material, so we have cut some of the dry grasses to help and also put out hair that was caught in hair-brushes.

Over the next couple of weeks, we will expect to see the parent birds coming regularly to the feeders to collect particularly the suet, if last year is anything to go by, to feed themselves, as a quick snack while out looking for insects, but also their young, eventually coming back in family groups for a few weeks before they disperse.

It’s very simple, but good fun.

​Online identification is possible, if you’re not confident in naming the birds that come., We’ve had blue tits, great tits, long tailed tits and an occasional coal tit, sparrows and starlings, robins, blackbirds, nuthatches, greenfinches and goldfinches. The wren makes an occasional appearance, as do the thrushes and jays. Fortunately, the magpies have been quieter this year, although they are impressive birds.

More blogs on using the natural world.
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Observation; get them to look
Creating Nature Detectives
50 things to Do; Thinking Locality
​A Sense of Place; naming things

The Wildlife Trusts have a junior section; Watch.
https://www.wildlifewatch.org.uk/
Or there’s the RSPB
https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/identify-a-bird/

Pandemic pensées
We’re living in very strange times. The world’s closed down. People are at home, some working, some furloughed, some looking after themselves or others, whose lives may be risked by catching the current virus.
Teachers are working really hard to maintain some elements of normality among the altered reality and, in different households, the capacity to support children with any areas of learning might be strained. Teacher capacity to identify and support individuals with specific help will also be constrained.
Children have been put into a situation where they are distance learning. Even as an adult, this can be a challenge, in motivation, resourcefulness and perseverance. Frustrations that might be expressed in normal times about “not understanding” what is expected may be exaggerated further by the expectations of a number of hours each day devoted to “schoolwork”.
This tweet, posted by an Aussie teacher made me stop and think.
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Teachers may well be sending home work that challenges the child’s ability to conceptualise what is being expected. If we look at maths as a separate area, in this case, a teacher or other adult might seek to unpick the problem and exemplify what is being asked by the use of supportive diagrams or with reference to physical materials.
But… home is not school, so the resources may not be available.
That, in itself, set off a train of thought and took me back to my first classroom, which I inherited with resources that were either twenty years old, or non-existent. There was a need to create, devise or collect resources that would support counting, matching and grouping. So visits to the beach might mean picking up shells to bring home, boil and clean to take into school. Autumn meant collecting conkers. I did try marbles, at one time, but, for some reason, they kept going missing… It soon became clear that anything could become a counting aid, so newsletter requests to parents helped with a variety of materials and the local sweet shop was a source of large, clear jars.
I thought it might be an idea to consider how to make resources from very simple materials that might be available in homes, provide useful activities in their development, then be useful in specific maths activities.
Let’s start with counting.
It’s possible that families are getting through quite a lot of cereal, or other boxed foods. The cardboard can be used as free base materials. A ruler, marker pen, pencil and scissors are needed.

Open out the boxes and cut the larger pieces. Keep bits, in case you want to make more at some stage.
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Measure and rule a 1cm grid, or larger, 2cm, if you are worried for a child’s dexterity, using as much of the card as possible. Identify a couple of 10*10 grids, as 100 squares, where you can cut 10 squares into “rods”, leaving the remainder to become “ones”, “singles” or “units”.

Drawing a 3cm by 4cm grid can create a series of rectangles that become number cards. If you have enough, numbering to 100 is very useful to challenge later learning.
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Cut out the various pieces.
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Combining the counting numbers with the cut out counters can begin to develop thinking mathematically, matching numbers, showing these in physical form.

Challenges can then develop, linking physical, diagrammatic and abstract.
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A very simple activity that can be very effective in supporting rapid calculation could be called race to or from the flat. This can be an extension from making the resources above, with the addition of one or more dice.
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As long as you have made the materials above and have some dice, this can be developed to cater for a variety of needs.

The rules of each game are simply described.
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·         Decide whether it’s a race to or from the flat (100 square). Decide whether, when the dice are thrown, the numbers are added together (any number of dice) or multiplied (two or three dice?).
·         Dienes materials available tin the centre of players, plus dice appropriate to the needs of the group.
·         Each child takes turns to throw the dice and calculate the sum or product.
·         This amount is then taken from the general pile and placed in front of the child. The calculation can be recorded eg 3+4=7. This can provide a second layer of checking.
·         If playing race from the flat, the child starts with ten ten rods, then takes an appropriate amount from these.
·         Subsequent rounds see pieces added to the child’s collection; recorded as needed, eg round 2, 5+2=7 (7+7=14; the teacher should see one ten and four ones)
·         The first child to or from the flat is the winner.


Altering the number of dice alters the challenge.

Like many people, I have a collection of “things” around the house. Found, picked up, purchased or inherited, they, in themselves hold a part of my back story, which can be triggered by a look or picking them up. They are reminders of a former self, another’s life, or a place. They are my “memory things”.

In addition, around the house are other things, more purposeful things, that make life easier. These are functional things.

The thing that all these things have in common is that they have names, words that might describe their function; chair, table, knife, forks.

There are similarities between things; there are several different chairs and tables around the house, each having a different function. On some chairs, we sit and eat at the dining table, on others resting in the lounge, the deckchair allows rest in the garden. But they are all chairs, objects that allow sitting.

Naming things is a function of a growing awareness of the world.

Exploring similarity and difference between things is an important step into classification and differentiation. This requires differential words; some simple, such as hard, soft, large, small, quick, slow. These develop into synonyms, or, in other words, an extended vocabulary.

Things therefore create the need for words, naming and descriptive.

Things can create a short journey of “discovery”, giving things their attributes, possibly leading to questions that can be answered by scaffolded exploration; Is it… Can you see/feel/hear/smell/taste as appropriate… The adult role is extending the oral awareness of the “things” that are the current focus. It’s a bit like playing “I spy” on a car journey, the spotting can lead to extended talk. "What's a...?"

The world is full of things.

They can be called artefacts and used to develop historical, geographical or scientific routes into exploration. The imagery of the artefact can be the start point for imagination and speculation, which, if developed carefully, can become hypothesis, a narrative that can be checked through ever more careful measuring or observation.

Things are the bread and butter of counting and arithmetic, being replaced by concrete representations that fulfil a different narrative journey; Dienes blocks, starting with one to one correspondence, leading to set and group theory and place value.

Things underpin learning. Without a mindful of named things, the ability to think can be limited. I am personally aware of that in a different language.

Give children “things” to think about, to talk about, then share in the discovery and description of those things. What are the similarities and differences in the objects in the header photo?

A spine of experiences, seeking to deepen exploration through scaffolding. This can, of course, be extended into the home through "Talking homework", something positive to explore at home with parents; guided parenting rather than paperwork homework.

Making sense of experience…
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Tennis, table-tennis, ping pong or whiff whaff, squash, badminton all games where two or more players take turns to hit a ball or shuttlecock, with scoring systems to see who ultimately wins. Just an example of the binary nature of sport, or possibly more generally in life?
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Apparently it's my 7th anniversary on Twitter. Sometimes education can appear to be a giant form of whiff waff. I hadn’t heard of this name for a simple game before the 2012 Olympics when one Boris Johnson sought to claim that whiff waff predated table tennis, to be corrected by the sport historians. In doing so, standing by the claim in the face of evidence, he showed the capacity of humans to box themselves into a specific way of thinking.

When there are simplicities in education, they can be framed in such a way that they can appeal to a narrow form of teaching. Having taught since 1971 there have been some simplicities, which can be expressed as:-
·         If children need to know something the simplest way might be to tell them.
·         The order, organisation and articulacy of the teacher will impact on the potential for learning.
·         Any teaching can fail if the children don’t have the means to visualise what the teacher is saying.
·         If children need to overlearn something, they may need to repeat an exercise, or receive some detailed, dedicated teaching or coaching.
·         If teachers want to know if the children have learned something, it may need checking out in some form, a combination of recall tests and use and application challenges.

Having looked at various descriptor models of teaching and learning over the recent past, I think the diagrammatic interpretation of Barak Rosenshine by Oliver Caviglioli describes that approach, to which I would add the earlier CPA (Concrete, pictorial, abstract) thinking of Jerome Bruner and “Dual Coding” thinking.
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CPA is an essential technique within the Singapore method of teaching maths for mastery. Concrete, pictorial, abstract (CPA) is considered to be a highly effective approach to teaching that develops a deep and sustainable understanding of maths in pupils. It is sometimes referred to as the concrete, representational, abstract (CRA) framework.
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However, when I started teaching, with classes of 39 children, no TA, occasional parent help and one chalkboard, there was a need to provide for the range and needs of the children. This was done in smaller groups, run on an integrated day approach.

It was, to some extent, a form of survival, but more importantly, the structures within which we could teach our mixed ability classes providing the broadest possible curricular opportunities. It did mean well ordered plans and resources, to underpin the needs of independent actions by children in-task. It was a lot of plate spinning, but that was what we knew and had been trained for. During a pedagogic discussion during my post grad Dip Ed in Environmental Sciences, the discussion focused on the amount of “teaching” that we did in a lesson, with a follow up activity during the subsequent week to track reality. In both “traditional” and “progressive” settings, each of us was doing in excess of 50% of the lesson time as direct teaching, as whole classes or smaller group focused teaching. The remaining 50% was responsive teaching to needs as the arose. Group dynamics meant that there was a varied demand for marking; editing, coaching advice or critiquing/responding.

Task challenge was, from the beginning, central to the approach, differentiated (small tweaks) to the varied needs of the groups and support available to need. Reading was individualised, supported by a colour coded reading scheme and home-school reading records.

It would have been seen now as “progressive”, but children made good progress, as measured by standardised tests.
A great deal of curricular water has flowed under education’s bridges since, not least several iterations of a National Curriculum; each seemingly adding layers of detail to the preceding incarnation. Teachers have often felt the need to run to stand still. Regular readers of the blog will know that I am not enamoured of the 2014 version.
 
This week, as a school Governor, I attended the morning session of a training day, where the staff were looking to develop the broader curriculum. The subject leads had spent time with LA subject inspectors, creating the overviews of the curriculum. The staff role, collaboratively on this day was to put the detail into the outline, structuring the broader curriculum for the term.

As a fly on the wall, it was interesting to listen to discussions that could have taken place in 1986. It struck me that, after thirty years, the constant changes have rarely been evolutionary, too often disjointed and distracting.

Education benefits from reflective development, is supported by long career teachers able to reflect on change over time coupled with newer colleagues bringing their enthusiasm and newer understandings to the discussion. Firm decisions can impact on resourcing, which is then, on an annual cycle, considered for utility, quality and, where necessary, replacement or updating. Teachers and children are entitled to the best quality resources available. However, these can also be supplemented by found items, eg buttons, conkers, stones for counting.

So, if I was a Primary head today, what would I want to be doing?

·         Create an inspiring range of challenging topic and project areas that would embed the necessary knowledge to be used in other scenarios. These would have time allocations, not necessarily to fill a half term, so that Science, History, Geography and Technology all had a secure place.
·         Ensuring that each element was appropriately resourced so that it could happen and be of quality.
·         Link the English and Maths curriculum within themes in such a way that each could make use of the current and recent past topics, so that each fed the other, with opportunities to use and apply earlier skills and knowledge.
·         Ensure that art, drama and music were deployed as interpretative subjects of worth and each capable of supporting the oral English and Maths curriculum.
·         MFL, music and aspects of PE can be used to support the PPA needs of the school, by judicious use of specialists.
·         Utilise one closure day in June or July to enable staff to consider overview planning for the coming year.
·         Then only ask for teacher medium term plans, to see the direction of travel.
·         Short term plans are for the teacher in the classroom, so can take any form that suits.
·         I’d want children to know the focus for their personal efforts at any particular time.
·         Create portfolios of moderated in-house examples that could support discussion and decision making in the school or be used to moderate against other school outcomes to validate judgements.
·         Mentoring, especially of early career teachers, needs to be secure.
·         Every area of life is governed by a measure of capability in some form. “Can do” statements are a guide.

So, to summarise
​
·         Plan long, medium and short with different emphases on what’s recorded and share with supporting adults. Organise the “knowledge journey” developmentally.
·         Order and organise space, resources and consider the available time.
·         Pitch and pace each lesson to known needs of the curriculum and the learners.
·         Set learning tasks that provide some challenge.
·         Share outcomes as learner models of expectation within and between lessons.
·         Evaluate throughout, ensuring continuity of expectation.
·         Checks en route, memory, use and application in challenge.
·         Simple personal record systems of developing vocabulary and presentation needs.
·         Books to become personal learning records.
·         Know your children as fully as possible, recognising that you can’t see exactly what they are thinking.

Children are children, as they always have been. They deserve the best that can be offered.
Schools need to secure their curriculum, so that it can provide the essential core of experience, enhanced by incoming expertise.
​
Something that I wrote a few years ago continues to resonate with me. Teachers are the lead thinkers in their classrooms. They must have every opportunity to be autonomous decision makers, in the moment.
​

Picture; Butser Ancient Farm. Reconstruction Iron Age settlement, Chalton, nr Petersfield, Hampshire

I know we’re not supposed “to Google” things these days, according to some commentators, but in reality, unless one has an extensive personal library, it’s highly likely that the internet is a major source of information.

So, in looking up the notion of Cultural Capital, which is a "current" buzz phrase, Wikipedia threw up this opener: -

In the field of sociology, cultural capital comprises the social assets of a person (education, intellect, style of speech, style of dress, etc.) that promote social mobility in a stratified society. Cultural capital functions as a social-relation within an economy of practices (system of exchange), and comprises all of the material and symbolic goods, without distinction, that society considers rare and worth seeking. As a social relation within a system of exchange, cultural capital includes the accumulated cultural knowledge that confers social status and power.

In "Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction" (1977), Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron presented cultural capital to conceptually explain the differences among the levels of performance and academic achievement of children within the educational system of France in the 1960s; and further developed the concept in the essay "The Forms of Capital" (1985) and in the book The State Nobility: Élite Schools in the Field of Power (1996).

As someone who was originally trained in 71-74, first year in science, then transfer to a Primary based environmental Studies course, where we explored the environment as a source of learning, Bourdieu was a bit of a revelation a few years later, as he appeared to validate the substance of my earlier study.

I think that we need to look at cultural capital as a product of a learner’s interaction with, first, their surroundings.

The home being the first environment and parents the first teacher, the richness of the surroundings is likely to be the original baseline opportunity. The quality of stimulus, toys, or natural opportunity, within the house or in the garden, supplemented by interactions with older siblings or adults capable of introducing language, naming and describing things that are experienced through the senses, is either enabling or disabling through a lack of potential. The willingness or ability of the adults to take their children further afield offers enhanced stimulus; consider the potential of a local park, a wood or an open grass area for example. A limitation could be disposable income available to a family. During a school visit in Redruth, Cornwall, the head spoke of the sea being only a few miles away, but families unable to afford the bus fare, so an opportunity was not available. This will have an unseen impact on children as they may not have the experiences common to their peers. Poverty can impact in many ways.

What a school offers children when they start, then progressively through their experience needs to be as rich a diet of opportunity as possible. Having experiences that they can then take into their locality to support further engagement, with natural or man-made environments, with living things, helping them to orientate themselves would seem key to progress(ive/in) learning. Building a vocabulary for description and for asking questions are fundamental capabilities. Learning is a social activity. Externalisation enables another to offer further or alternative insights, or to add their own understandings.

In many ways, this has a simplicity at the core. The richer the diet of opportunity, in experience and support, will lead to more independence in exploratory activity that enhances the core, enabling a child to become a greater partner in, or eventually to take responsibility for their learning. Greater experience embeds greater vocabulary, which in turn supports communication and reader understanding.

Why is this contentious?

Not everyone lives in, or near London. In a previous role, I was regularly visiting London schools. The quality of work was often absolutely stunning from children in “deprived areas”. The work was often based on school visits to places of interest, museums, galleries etc, all within relatively easy reach and supported by travel on the tube or a bus ride. Culture was on the doorstep and a “day out” meant a day out. These experiences were available to families at weekends, as were broader opportunities from national organisations offering “scholarships”, Saturday morning dance or musical opportunities to areas in need.

My career was Hampshire based. The schools were sufficiently far from cultural centres to require coach hire, even for Portsmouth or Southampton. London was a minimum of a two-hour coach journey at £450+ for a class of thirty children; Southampton could cost £300 and that meant building your day within school run timetables. It was often the case that the cultural experience had greater potential if bought in; a writer, poet, artist, drama group visit.

One such that will remain in my memory, was a six-week project for year six, where I was able to ask a former London teacher to create a Hindu experience using his contacts. This involved art, drama, music, dance, art and a visit to the Southampton Hindu temple. The quality of involvement throughout was a delight to experience, as the children encountered the specifics of the culture through interaction. We were able to repeat this for a number of years, with different partners. Real people sharing their culture, making it a part of the children’s world.

Cultural capital should enable children to interact with the world as they experience it, to orientate them to their locality and to be aware of the people who inhabit their area.

Schools should be facilitators of this, offering the “best of what the area has to offer”… which can lead to the best from further afield and in time.
 
Pic below; a visit to Southampton art gallery, to learn how to "read" a picture.

As a school Governor, I am involved in staff appointments. We are currently looking for an Assistant Head Teacher for Teaching and Learning; Curriculum Development, our previous, very good AHT having been promoted in another school. What such an activity does is to create opportunities for broad and deep discussions about the details of teaching and learning, particularly in the context of the school and its point of development, both before and during the interview process. It was during one interview that this thought was generated.

I have touched on this idea before in a blog entitled “Tribal memory”, where staff loss can be debilitating.

Teaching and Learning and curriculum development have been the bread and butter of my whole career. You decide on a range of “stuff” that you consider children need to know at particular points in their lives, then decide the best approach to making sure that it “sticks”. Knowledge is broad and the accompanying pedagogies are equally broad.

Schools therefore have had to make strategic decisions. Some of these are likely to be general, in that the “knowledge” in different curriculum areas has been relatively consistent throughout my career, in Primary this can be broadly summarised as variations on Maths, English (R,W,S&L), Topic (H,G,Sc lead, Art, DT interpretation), Music, PE, RE, MFL.

In school and curriculum development terms, the key can be the availability of colleagues with appropriate background to be able to, at least, map out curricular development statements, if necessary, drawing on broader collegiate expertise within and outside the school. This may be particularly acute in smaller schools.

One interview raised the question of personal ambition as a potential drag on development. It is conceivable that, after a period of leading development in one subject area, an experienced teacher might be asked to then oversee an area that had received less attention, in so doing relinquishing responsibility to another. Equally, another teacher might be brought into a school and will wish to “make their mark”, with an eye to their own future promotion prospects. In either case, there will be a hiatus, as stock is taken and proposals made for “improvement”. This could be seen as “change”, a regularly used word in education.

Whereas improvement implies a strategy, unless a comprehensive strategy is articulated, change can become distracting; wholesale change can mean abandoning what went before. As a result, nothing gets fully understood or embedded.

This can be as a result of Government decisions. I'd quite like Government to hold back from initiatives, allow teachers to take stock, to be able to plan securely, in order to put in place structures that can stand the test of time, by allowing consideration of improving parts rather than wholesale alterations every few years. 

​I would still contend that much of the 2014 changes wrought on education were change for change’s sake. After five years, the impact has led to poor implementation in SEND and Ofsted altering their 2019 approach to look at the broader curriculum. Strategy is complex, a bit like a Gaia principle of “wheels within wheels”. Knee-jerk alteration in one area has a knock on into another, often causing unintended, or unforeseen consequences.

School managers need to plan development with care, mapping clearly how different elements work together, seeking to avoid duplication of or wasted teacher effort.

Distraction destroys continuity. Continuity and progression were by-words of my school career; progressively building from one phase of education to the next, within an overall aspiration for all children.

To illustrate this, I now draw on the “Learning and Teaching” policy that was my school’s articulation of purpose. It was set as a central plank that supported developmental colleague dialogue, enabling discussion of detail without distorting the whole, or the proposed learning journeys through a child’s life at the school.

While no statement is perfect, it gave clarity to teachers appointed to the school. Communication is key to development, from overall strategy to the detail of a specific area. If teachers are informed, they can support the strategic direction.

The "class of 1993"; stability supported development, embedding qualities that survived change.

Learning and Teaching Policy (first articulated 1993, developed to 2005)
A Statement of School Vision

Everyone involved with the educational process at X School is a partner in progress
This, in terms of children, is encompassed in the motto Thinking, Working, Playing Together.
Educationally making guided progress, through individual and group effort.

Our Aim
A typical child leaving X School will have these attributes
Confidence in themselves, as people and learners.
Awareness of the world around them, locally and wider, showing sensitivity, an enquiring approach, and a developing sense of awareness of themselves as spiritual beings.
Capable of working in many different ways, with different grouping of others, and be able to sustain effort when required.
Solve problems with different, but developing, levels of independence.
Think creatively and reflectively when appropriately challenged, organising their needs, and being able to talk clearly to anyone with an interest in their activities.
Accept guidance to achieve the best they can, with a clear understanding of their strengths and areas for further improvement.

A policy for learning, achieving the vision
Children, their thinking and learning, are our core purpose, within the context of a broad, balanced and relevantly challenging curriculum. They are to become active producers of learning, rather than passive consumers of teaching.
Children will start as information gatherers, capable of clear description.
Children will progressively become problem solvers, applying a range of relevant skills, able to articulate clearly in speech and then writing, the detail of their learning, and to have a developing repertoire of presentational skills through which they can show their ideas.
Careful consideration of information, and logical thinking, together with the ability to explain their thoughts, using 2-D or 3-D models, will lead to secure links in learning.
Learning processes will be clearly articulated to children, who should be able to explain what they are doing, and why.
The processes through which the children will be challenged will be known to teachers, parents, support staff or any other assisting adult.
The potential for learning across and between different abilities needs to be maintained, to ensure that children derive learning from as many sources as possible.
The taught curriculum will be well taught, with teachers working to improve their personal skills and practice across the curriculum.
ICT in all its forms will be a central tool of development.
The school and each of its constituent parts, will see itself as part of a wider learning community, deriving information and good practice from sources that complement our own developing practice.

Putting the vision into practice
Teachers at X School plan to ensure that the vision and aims are put into practice, employing methodologies outlined in the policy for learning, through an approach summarized as Analyse, Plan, Do, Review, Record, Report.

Analyse… Teachers will receive information from a range of sources about the prior attainment of each child. This will provide a framework upon which to base decisions about working arrangements, suitable objectives for learning and tasks to achieve these.
​
Plan… Teachers plan over different timescales, annual, based upon allocated topic specifications. It is for individual teachers to use these specs creatively to provide a dynamic approach to learning.

​Contributing to school level Planning Detail; see blog on “Planning”

Whole of National Curriculum interpreted through School-based Topic Specifications for each topic within each subject.
Literacy and numeracy frameworks.

Planning at different levels (teachers)
Content
Learning needs
Space, timescales and resources

Do… Tasks given to children will be creative, challenging and engaging, leading to anticipated progress.
Task design. Tasks will have a definite purpose in progressing an aspect of a child’s progress, known to the child and any assisting adult.
Activity presentation. All activity will be clearly presented and understood by children before being active.
Independence levels, skill, knowledge and attitude will all be considered when devising the task parameters, as the different learning attributes of individuals and groups should be encompassed in the task challenges.

Children as learners
Understanding task… Children will have a clear grasp of what they are being challenged to achieve, be able to discuss and articulate purposes when asked.
Task behaviours… Children will be expected to demonstrate appropriate approaches to tasks, developing persistence to achieve.
Team working… Children will be challenged to operate as collaborative, independent learners on tasks specifically created to allow for qualities of cooperation to be developed.
Oral skill…Children will develop appropriate descriptive, analytical, exploratory languages to communicate clearly to a peer or interested adult.
Recording skill, written, pictorial, mathematical…Within any learning experience there will be opportunities for children to use different forms of recording to help them to remember sequences of events within an activity.
Evaluation… Children learn about learning by doing, by reflecting on the process and activity, and evaluating changes to approaches for future reference.
Review… Children will develop as primary evaluators of their drafts. Peer reviews will be developed over time, with the teacher giving informative feedback to help with the next phase of development.
By being given tasks that they will need to discuss, decide on action, carry out, review, re-evaluate and repeat, they will develop an insight into the ways in which adults work and solve problems.

Outcomes..Review
Teacher as reviewer and quality controller…Any piece of work from a child is the current draft capable of being reviewed and improved. Ongoing oral feedback should support the child within the learning process. Marking should provide opportunities for advice, and an overview of quality.
Feedback to children…should enable each child to review their own needs in learning for subsequent pieces of activity.
Room for improvement… advice on areas for development.
Objective and subjective…Correcting spelling or an aspect of grammar may be clearly objective, whereas a commentary starting “I liked…..” would be subjective.

Moderation…At intervals it is clearly good practice to share views on achievement. Moderation allows a consensus view about a discrete piece of produced work.

Record… Teachers will keep records which assist them in progressing learning for individual children.

Report… At half year and year end, teachers will write reports to inform parents about achievements and room for improvement.
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Review, Recording and Reporting, especially individual needs
To colleagues
To parents
Significant others

Thanks to the good offices of Simona McKenzie whose Twitter handle is @signoramac, there was a gathering at The Alexander Pope hotel in Twickenham to discuss Early Years issues. By no means an expert, I wanted to avail myself of the collective expertise and I wasn’t in any way disappointed.

There was Sue Cowley (@Sue_Cowley), Dr Lala Manners (@MattersActive), Ali McClure (@AliMcCureEP), Bethlyn Killey (@StarlightMcKenz) and June O’Sullivan (@JuneOSullivan). It was good to see Sue and Bethlyn again, after significant gaps between events, but equally interesting to hear the view of a broader group of speakers.

Sue Cowley gave a barnstorming opener for the day, as she put it, a bit of a rant, particularly about the general direction that it can appear that even early educational experiences are talked of in more formal terms, with testing and more structured “delivery” models being interpreted as “what’s wanted” from the “powers that be”. That this is external and top down can give the pronouncements greater weight, which in turn becomes interpreted into localised approaches, which, whether “liked” or “disliked” by the inspection regime, inevitably becomes the stuff of the local grapevine with other local providers changing to anticipate the needs of their next inspection, simply because no-one wants to be found wanting.

Topicality is the stuff of young lives, something that they have seen, heard or found and want to share with others. Equally, the adults will also want to bring in items of interest that will generate interest and inquiry. Sue spoke of “door handle planning”, in this context. Sue has a healthy scepticism of what is asked by others without the expertise in the age group.

Lala Manners is a professional who has links with Government decisions in the area of Physical Development (PD). With Sue, Lala shared the values of physicality in young lives, with specific mention of avoiding obesity at young(er) ages. In this regard she made reference to the need for EYFS professionals to be role models. One would think that getting children to be active would be one of the easiest things to organise, but the discussion moved to packaging of approaches, so that they required some form of preparatory training in order to deliver the programme.

While space can be an issue for some settings, there are many ways in which PD can be enhanced with limited equipment. Running and jumping are probably the easiest, dance can be supported by music and movement, as it was for many generations of children. General movement can be directed within a space, perhaps with floor markings helping instruction, or even masking tape, as a “balance beam”. Putting out scaffold boards, with bricks to enable them to be raised, can add to the balance challenges. Throwing stones or other natural objects (fir cones), balls, bean bags into a bucket. In many ways, it’s often limited by teacher imagination.

In my own mind, I linked physical development with literacy. I wonder how many teachers have considered that movement PE provides some of the oral base for many verbs and adverbs in describing movement that can be drawn into reading and writing?

Ali McClure worked with a wide range of ideas drawing from her career. She is a practising SENCo, as well as EY specialist and EP, so brought ideas about brain development through stimulus. While some colleagues might have argued with some interpretations of the internal workings of the brain, the idea of stimulus and vocalisation leading to some kind of mental schema organisation was central to Ali’s discourse. Using the term “Anchor of Attachment” made me think about the place of educational settings on the lives of children. For a number, the order and organisation of the setting may well be one of the few oases of calm in their lives; settled staffing, room organisation, resources and opportunities and understanding their place within the organisation can be stabilising factors.

Bethlyn Killey is well known to Twitter, as a strong questioner of SEND legislation and opportunity, or the lack, within the broader system. Bethlyn use the example of her son who had had nine settings by year seven. He’s now in a much better place, thankfully. The process of getting to this stage has been effectively analysed by Bethlyn, utilising the skills drawn from her work life. It is a salutary experience to listen to someone trapped in the complexities of EHCPs and the endless seeking of access to the relevant specialists, or advice, then to find school settings capable of addressing identified needs, but also to be aware of the potential for further diagnoses. In an education system that is gradually losing expertise, even staff in senior positions might not have had experiences that enable them to fully adapt their approach to the new needs. The system established in 2014 is complex, appears to offer a great deal for children with needs, yet often lacks the essential external expertise to support non-specialist staff. It is also budget constrained, as is regularly evidenced by contributors on Twitter.

When Bethlyn finished her talk, there was a collective gasp, as if we had all been holding our breath. It was more moving because it was her real-life experience.

June O’Sullivan was reticent to follow such an emotional experience, so we had a short break for refreshment or comfort.

June was another contributor who has the ear of Government. Her company runs a significant number of EY settings across London, including the House of Commons. Her brief was pedagogy and she took us on a journey that explored the philosophical background to pedagogies currently available. June is very down to earth, though and her approach is very child based; children doing, making, experiencing, exploring, discussing. She talked of dialogic reading as her philosophy, getting children into books. With over 100 languages across the settings, speaking is a key aspect; a mantra that I express as, something to think about, talk about, record (write?). In fact, the teaching and learning approach that she shared would have been seen in many successful mainstream primaries in SE Hants in the 80s-mid 00s. June’s organisation runs its own training for staff, calls each member of staff a teacher, so giving equality of status. It was always going to be the difficult “twilight” slot, but such was the knowledge base, delivered with humour and humanity, of June’s talk, that she held us over the planned finish time, yet the time passed very quickly.

As a first, Simona McKenzie can count BrewEdEY as a significant success. Thanks Simona.

All the speakers encouraged dialogue within their talks, so the significant collective expertise could be brought to the fore and available for everyone. Thanks to everyone for such a positive day; even on a Saturday… I was pleased that the Munster-Exeter rugby was still running on Channel 4+1 when I got home… even if it was a disappointment that Exeter lost…
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Everyone needs someone to talk with?
 
In watching my Twitter feed over the past few days, it has been interesting to note the concerns raised in response to some colleagues coming together to express concern about the use of excessive isolation for some individual children. It made me go back to a number of school visits that I made with inclusive practice in mind. Perhaps it’s always better to look at realities rather than just to express an opinion. I am happy to accept that the schools concerned were wishing to demonstrate their inclusive credentials, so will have been a self-selecting group.
 
In no school, out of over fifty visits, did I encounter isolation facilities. The closest example would be a school that set up a restorative centre, in a small building at the centre of the school where children could either be sent or take themselves, should there be a need to do so. There was always at least one member of staff on duty, available to offer a listening ear. Other staff were available around these listeners, to provide greater help as needed. For some children, being able to articulate their feelings and needs was sufficient for them to see a way to resolve what they had perceived as a problem. For others, who needed signposting to wider help, resolution took longer, but identification, advocacy and coordination helpd to reduce the time between identification and help.
 
I am struck by the similarity of approach with the Samaritans, available to listen to people in need. This is also available in prisons, with prisoners acting as listeners to others. Articulation of a problem can sometimes put it into a practical frame with commensurate practical actions to be taken, in order to resolve the issue for oneself. Articulation also allows another to question further, to seek additional clarity.
 
In looking at this area, we have to accept that each school operates in a specific context, which includes the community, families, and available staffing, so each has to determine internal practices that address issues that arise. Current school funding may well be putting pressures on school ability to provide nuanced support to individuals. Sadly, this can lead to off-rolling as an alternative to supporting a child through their personal issues.
 
The route to exclusion should be well documented for most children, especially where issues are identified as persistent low level. For this, clear documentary evidence should be kept, for future reference as needed. I’ve appended a copy of an earlier blog that seeks to do this.
 
There are occasions, in any social situation, and we should recognise schools as always being a microcosm of their context, where the issue is immediate and dangerous, so requires immediate response to keep others safe.
 
In simple terms, every school decision should be capable of justification in the face of robust challenge, with evidentiary statements available for external review; in the first instance the school Governing Body, especially if faced with parent requests for review or complaint.
 
 
School 1
There is much evidence of creative and innovative practice. This is broadly shared within a staff seeking to develop its own capabilities. Within a challenging environment, staff often exceed what might reasonably be expected. This is fully recognised by parents and students, who expressed fulsomely their praise for the staff, individually and collectively.
 
Staff development is a strength of the school. Starting from being valued for the role being undertaken, staff accept challenge, which is not only met but often exceeded. Individual staff are enabled to take on responsibility, supported to succeed and enjoy personal growth as a result. This is a staff with considerable personal and collective expertise. They also present as happy, throughout the staff group.
 
Innovative practice is encouraged from all categories of staff.
 
There is much joined up thinking, with staff articulating their working relationships with others. This was particularly evidenced in conversations with the staff who are involved in Inclusion, where each found ways to describe how they work together for the good of children. This was endorsed through other conversations focused on curriculum entitlement, where children are supported to succeed. All conversations had a focus of building capacity, taking personal responsibility, good communication, demonstrating that each child in this school has an identifiable Team Around each Child, should they need that level of support, always looking to enhance opportunities.
 
Joined up thinking is also evident across other aspects of the school, with staff describing how roles interlink and sometimes overlap, to ensure coherence and consistency as well as a high level of adaptability to personalised needs. This was clearly described with regard to KS4 routes. The discussions about the timetable also showed flexible thinking. The timetable does not create curricular constraints.
 
The staff are enabled, supported and challenged to ensure that the best possible opportunities are created for children, that, where possible, barriers to progress are identified and remedied to minimise the impact of disruption. The whole staff are the eyes and ears of the systems. They are vigilant, proactive or reactive as necessary or possible, developing functional capacity in the child, the family, with support, or the school, where individual staff may be coached in specific skills.
 
Documentary evidence shows the interactive approach that is taken within the school to ensure that all vulnerable children are identified and supported through an internal Team Around the Child, as well as utilising appropriate external agencies for focussed work, both inside and out of school.
 
Inclusion Group descriptor
 
Multi agency meetings scheduled termly
Regular meetings with outside agencies re individuals, to help in overcoming barriers to learning i.e. Speech and Language Service, CAMHS, YPSS, YoT, Connexions, Social Services, EWO
Extended Services Core offer & Freetime Project
Extra-curricular uptake is high
Annual Reviews – SEND
Parents meeting with SENCO/ GLs / Inclusion Manager re bespoke programmes for students 
School nurse
 
School 2
The enriched curriculum is evident and the search for quality outcomes is a feature of a walk around the classroom areas, which benefit from a range of well put together displays. Children’s work in progress shows an attention to detail and care in finishing.
 
Words and phrases that come to mind when thinking of The F Education Centre include: -
 
Humanity, empathy, complex, personalisation, order and organisation, enriched curriculum, adaptable, creativity, stability, complementary, rigour, fun, expertise, valued, trust, communication, excellent information, distributive management, reflective, coherent, sensitive, independence, participatory, articulate, visionary, opportunities, clarity, team, expertise, problem solving, integrated, coherent, normality, humour, humility, spirituality.
 
These can be summed up as people matter and a personalised approach as the default position.
 
These are essential characteristics of the staff team, who work tirelessly to ensure that the pupils attending the Centre are given the best possible opportunity to succeed. There is a significant team ethic, trust and collegiate approach, which ensures that each team member is supported by the whole group.
 
School 3
The college policy can be summarised as a dynamic continuum. There is 1) rigorous analysis of evidence leading to 2) detailed planning, including the provision of appropriate resources and staffing. 3) Students are actively sharing in their learning journey, which is 4) tracked and reviewed at regular intervals with 5) accurate and detailed records being collated and disseminated, allowing the process to be cyclic and developmental.
This process has been evolutionary, with some avenues having been explored, adapted to need or rejected, if not useful to college development. As in all college development, mistakes were the catalyst for rigorous consideration.
          As a result, Inclusion is evident in every aspect of college life, ensuring that Every Child Matters and, as an extension, that every person associated with the college is also fully valued.
 
SEAL is an integral part of college life, ensuring that Emotional Literacy is embedded within the inclusion aspects of college life. This includes active engagement in restorative conversations.
TAs have many individual specialisms, enabling them to be a strength of the system, supporting pastoral and learning needs. Many have been developed to become significant members of staff, including through GTP routes into teaching roles. The college supports staff personal growth.
 

Seeking greater clarity by fine tuning actions through a

Record of Actions, Discussions or Decisions, Interventions and Outcomes

(RADIO, in case you missed it!).

Building an individual case study.

Essentially, SEND practice describes a sequence of events, which seek to refine the actions and focus of attention, to identify, quantify and qualify the exact nature of a problem. Once this has been established, remedial action can take place. The longer the gap, the greater the problem can become, as further complications can become built into the experience, not least of which is learner self-esteem, affected by adult and peer responses to the circumstance.

Every teacher is a teacher of individual needs, which often identify themselves as little concerns when a learner either exceeds or does not grasp what is being expected.

The SEND framework 2014 does state that poor teaching approaches will handicap decisions on a child’s special educational needs. SEND is not a substitute for poor teaching or poor teachers. High quality teaching and learning should identify, describe and track needs within a classroom. Work sampling, annotations and record keeping will all contribute to good decisions. Some may say that this is additional work. However, it could be argued that well planned, well focused activities, with good oral and written feedback, to identified needs, in itself constitutes a reasonably clear start point of a record. An annotated personal record, for discrete individuals, as describe below should also be kept.

Teachers receive their classes from someone else, even at the earliest stages, where a parent or nursery member of staff has already become aware of little foibles, or gaps in understanding, or an area where there appears to be extra talent.

The parent is the child’s first teacher; it is to be hoped that their relationship is such that they get to know their children really well, through interactions at home and in places of interest that generate speaking and listening skills. As a Governor of a school in Gosport, as well as my own education career, I know that this is not the case, with children arriving operating at two year old levels, of speech and socialisation.

The adult role, teacher and support staff, is to be vigilant in spotting the child reactions in different situations, noting areas of concern, but also of achievement, so that a balanced picture can be built. The profiles built up during the Early Years stage is a more refined document than may have formerly been available.

If concerns emerge, there are likely to be three phases;

1.    Short (wave) term, classroom based. The teacher and other adults become aware that an area of need exists. They develop a short-term plan to address the issue and agree a monitoring approach that allows them to spot and track the outcomes. Where feasible, discussions with the learner might deepen the adult understanding of the learning issues. Outcomes are checked carefully to deduce any patterns arising, which are then shared with parents and decisions reached about next steps.

2.    Medium (wave) term, involving internal specialist colleagues. Where an issue goes beyond the current capacity of the classteacher, the school internal specialist, the SENCo, should be involved to oversee the record, to discuss with the teacher and the parent possible ways forward and to agree a new plan of action in the classroom. This may involve using a discrete approach to the identified problem, with some specified time need. For example, a child with a specific reading issue might need some individualised time with an adult, whose role is to undertake a miscue analysis during each session to deduce with greater accuracy the nature of the problem. The SENCo may be involved in classroom observations, keeping records of on/off task behaviours, relationships, task application, with outcomes being photocopied and annotated to deepen the understanding of the problem, thereby refining the classroom action. Interventions strategies must be SMART targets. Too often in SEND situations, classteachers operate at too global a level, so that the refined needs of the individuals are missed, until they become more critical. There is a need for regular work sampling and annotations to describe the learning journey and issues still arising. The lack of such a record could handicap a child and the teacher, as it will be requested before specific help can be offered, especially if the school SLT has to allocate additional funding/adult support to address the issue.

3.    Long (wave) term, the school will involve a range of specialist experts, to support the diagnosis of the issue. Diagnosis depends on the quality of record keeping in the classroom and the school, if patterns are to be describe and the area for investigation is to be narrowed. As a result, a programme of action is likely to be agreed, timescales set and evidence needed identified. This is likely to be similar to the needs above, but within a refined remit.

Over time, a case study emerges, with a record of actions, discussion, decisions, interventions and outcomes. It may be, at this stage, that the collective wisdom is that there is a problem that is greater that the system capacity to identify and remediate the need. In the new SEND framework, schools will apply for consideration of an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP).

The evidence file is sent to a panel for consideration, along with other applications. Each case is judged on its merits and there is no guarantee that awarding an EHCP will be the outcome. Equally, an EHCP may not guarantee extra funding or alternative education placement. The EHCP, if awarded, is quite likely to be a tighter descriptor of the learner’s individual needs, the education response to be allocated by the establishment, the timescale and regularity of reviews.

SEND issues cause teachers to become worried. I have suggested ways in which a teacher can expand their understanding of teaching and learning outcomes across the range of learners they are likely to encounter, in another post. Scroll down the page and click on download.

In an earlier blog I looked at my childhood from the point of view of my locality and the distances that I could explore as a child under eight.

When I was eight, as a family, we emigrated to Australia as “£10 Poms”, based on my father being a State Registered Nurse. For my parents, who had lived through WW2, father as an army medical orderly and mother in a munition’s factory, the idea of a new life was enticing. As children we had no idea of what to expect, apart from being told that it meant being able to play outside a great deal, as there would be lots of sunshine.
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So, we sold up in the UK, packed everything from one life and headed off on the train to London to catch the boat train to Southampton. Now living a few miles from Southampton, we often pass the railway gate into the port where we caught the P&O ship Oriana for the five and a half week ocean voyage to Australia, via the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, Colombo, then Perth, where we disembarked for the extensive train ride to Adelaide, to pick up another boat that took us to Sydney, and another train journey to Brisbane. Here we were billeted in a transit camp, a holding place from which a job was sought, followed by house purchase, meaning that we ended up living in a suburb called Zillmere, in Beams Road, which was an area that has since been extensively remodelled.
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However, it did offer the outside life that we were promised. At that time the walk from home to school took us across open fields to Boondall Primary; the barefoot walk often meaning a bit of a hop and skip to avoid the snakes that crossed our paths. Boondall Primary meant that I learned to play cricket, on a concrete strip and Aussie rules football, both played barefoot. You learned to be a bit nimble on your feet.

Weekends and holidays offered extended opportunities to walk to the local creek, with our fishing tackle, a mix of a rod and line together with a number of coke bottle lines. This was a local affectation, with the line wound around the coke bottle, twirled around the head and the weight taking the line out into the creek. Catfish and eels were regular catches. A small picnic allowed us to stay out a bit longer than perhaps we should have in the days before easy contact through children having their own phones. Suffice to say that none of us wore a watch either. I do remember a very angry, or worried, mother hitting me after I arrive home late.

Best friend John’s dad had a chicken farm along the road. The alternative to fishing was snake hunting, with the family Jack Russell and a forked stick, sitting in the mulberry tree picking and eating mulberries, with inevitable stained clothes, or climbing the banana trees to cut a bunch of bananas.

It did become the idyllic place to grow up, but it was to change again, with parents deciding that we were returning to the UK, but with an extended timescale, not telling us of the plans. Once the house was sold, we moved to the coast, to Shorncliffe, a very short walk from the pier and the shark-fenced beach. The pier meant much more fishing, often into the evening, with frequent hauls meaning that we were well fed on fish for days. Sharks of different types were also often hooked, resulting in a bit of a tussle. Shorncliffe School changed the Aussie Rules to Rugby League, and swimming at the Sandgate swimming pool.

Neither school has left a detailed imprint on my learning, apart from the sport and the copperplate writing done at Boondall with old-fashioned nib pens.
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Memories are of being outdoors, exciting my life-long interest in nature in all it’s forms, with a particular interest in insect life which led to an unrequited wish to become an entomologist. Seeing a manta ray leap from the water while fishing on a short pier beside the fishermen’s cooperative on Nundah Creek will stay forever, as will the memory of cockroach races along Shorncliffe Pier. 
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Homesickness eventually overtook my mother, which drew our four year stay to an end, with another six-week trip back to the UK, the reverse of the original. I think it’s probably true to say that, through the eyes of a child the excitement of the cruise foreshadowed the break up of my parent’s marriage on our return and their eventual hard-fought divorce. That 54-year-old memory is seared into my mind, dulling my memories of my teenage years. The few black and white photos that have survived the travelling and inevitable distribution across family members show shadowed smiles, perhaps based on an awareness of inevitable change.

All part of life’s rich developmental experiences...developing resilience that would be useful later in life.

As a result, I learned, at a young age, how to explore, to be safe and self-reliant, but also to be fully aware of my surroundings, orientated and secure, attributes that I learned to use more especially during my later teens.
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They open their eyes, they sense the world, they look, they listen, they feel, they taste, they smell.
They see apparent chaos around them with a central feature, a parent’s face, their voice, their sustenance.
They respond, through crying, gradually having some muscle control and smiling, making responsive sounds.
It all takes time, but, somehow, while we can only engage with their externalising, their brains and bodies are developing in very sophisticated ways.
They start to interact with their world; their life journey of experiencing and making some sense of these experiences.
 
Each of us carries around the distillation of our passing experiences, formal, some sustained like years in education, or training programmes, many informal, some fleeting experiences, others based on life, our families in childhood, then our friendship groups and personal decisions about partners and life location.

Every one of these experiences impacts on us, some as they are pleasurable, others because they are traumatic. It can be easier to recall life’s highlights or low points than the more mundane aspects of our lives, as the significant events are our life “landmarks”; transitions almost. While our memories do alter over time and recreating earlier life can sometimes lead to embellishment, at any point in time, we are the sum of the parts.

Recently exploring my earlier life through looking at locality maps, it was clear to me that in geographical terms, the bulk of my life to the age of seven was restricted to a distance of around one mile from home, with occasional school holidays spent with more distant family. From the age of five, this was often independent and outside with friends; perhaps a luxury for today’s children.

My world expanded exponentially when we became £10 Poms, sailing to Australia via stops allowing visits to Pompeii, Athens, Aden, Columbo, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, followed by the train journey to Brisbane. Five and a half weeks of watching out for dolphins, whales and flying fish. Playing deck quoits and other novel games. Watching the sellers with their fully laden, colourful canoes arrive beside the ship with their trinkets hoping for a sale, goods and money exchanged via ropes and baskets. Children and adults prepared to dive for coins thrown from the boat. It was interesting at the time, although my adult self can see it as demeaning. It was certainly “eye opening”. There was a very different world from the seemingly grey experiences that had preceded it.

Life has certainly happened since then. I have blogged about it, highs and lows, as I remember them. I won’t rehearse the features now, but it is worth reflecting that life memories are filtered through forgetting, as well as remembering.

On 13.09.18 I tweeted that I was reflecting on the following: -
We’re all constantly creating our internal models, developing them as new information appears. Challenging this creates internal tension; destabilising for some. Learning how to accommodate and adapt to circumstance has enabled ideas to progress; a life skill.

This followed a day when I worked with ITT trainees, followed by a session with their mentors. Within the room of some twenty nine trainees, there was clear evidence that some elements of their new experiences were causing internal tensions; the personal, getting to know their context and everyone and everything within it that might impact on their professional lives; the demands of studying and running a household, some with much reduced incomes; the detail of the academic information that they were receiving, some after a significant gap since their degree. Accommodation and adaptation take time, which, at this point in their existence is at a premium.

Children are learning to take in information, learning about learning, at the same time as having to accommodate to a multi-faceted world. There is a truism that young children are naturally inquisitive, prepared to try things out, familiarising themselves with novel experiences, through what we often call “play”, which they then describe as “fun”.

As an adult, I often engage in familiarisation activity; a new camera, smart phone or laptop requires familiarisation. For a while, I “play” with them to see what they can do, in my case, using prior knowledge that comes from earlier experiences with the same technology. I am sure that my camera, smart phone and laptop can do significantly more than my current uses, but, for now each serves the purposes for which I want them.

If I am listening to a speaker, as I will at an education conference, or in a university lecture from a colleague, I can be distracted by a single point that triggers a line of thinking; it resonates or challenges a previously held piece of understanding. This may lead to a bit of note making or doodling an idea trying not to forget the thought from “the moment”, which can happen with just trying to listen and hold onto everything that has been said. The single nugget can form the basis for further reflection, discussion or reading, leading to a change in my understanding.
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In the same way, school lessons offer a similar scenario with new information being shared hour by hour. The difference could be that in school it is every hour, whereas an adult has the luxury of taking or making “time out to think”. Children in school don’t necessarily have the opportunity to reflect, unless it is built into the plans. It is to be hoped that every lesson offers something of quality to think about, to talk about and perhaps to make notes, or write about in order to remember.

In the early days of school learning, learning to order and organise thoughts is a key element, which is supported by teacher organisation and presentation of the different curriculum elements, ensuring that necessary links are made overt between aspects of learning, so that children are not left floundering with the bits of a jigsaw but no image within which to place the pieces. It is to be hoped, too, that learning in school might lead to extension in the home; appropriately set home activities can extend vocabulary or lead to further discovery. See talk homework.

It is incumbent on the adult generation to offer life opportunities to children, in and out of school, that allow them to participate in the experience, to explore with whatever is their current capability, and to articulate their thinking, enabling an adult to engage further with questions or clarification. The act of learning can be “fun” to children. They need to learn that learning is not something that is done to them, but that they are active participants in constructing their own schemas.

As a headteacher, I used this ideal as the basis for the school teaching and learning policy, which is on the blogsite. It was simplified into one diagram, as follows.  
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At any point in time, we are the product of our experiences. If they are broad and supported by articulate adults prepared to unpick inconsistencies and add further value to the experience, the child can thrive, with the opposite also having an element of truth, although we may have to accept that children can succeed "despite their home/school experience".

If a child lives in a knowledge/language-rich environment they will experience and learn to use a wide range of conceptual words. The Bristol language studies of 1971 led by Gordon Wells showed the impact on less rich environments. It has implications for the language rich environment of schools, too, especially if the home contexts are known to be less rich.

Schools and parents, within their communities, are partners in bringing children into their world. Learning to work effectively together is essential.

Oh, it's a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
And the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
And I haven't got time for the waiting game

Last week, with my TSA/SCITT colleagues, I had a long discussion about strategic decisions that would have impact through 2018-19 and 19-20. In any organisation, it is essential to have a strategy that can be communicated throughout the participant group, enabling short term, situational decisions to be incorporated within the broader approach.

One decision, impacting on me, is that I will do one more year supporting next year’s Primary group of trainees. It’s my decision, but, looking at the longer term needs of the TSA/SCITT, they need to consider succession planning, and this enables them to do that within the year. Decisions in education are better made if there is a longer lead-in time. Last-minute decisions can become destabilising, if they become the norm.

In every school, plans for the coming year will be being made, staff appointed to vacancies, hopefully replacing one set of skills with similar or greater. A great frustration for any headteacher is having one or more vacancies in a period of supply famine. During 16 years of headship, on at least three occasions, the year started with me having to teach more or less full time, for up to half a term while adverts went out to scour the available teachers.

The pattern of each year, to some extent, is within school control; when to have parent evenings, report writing, meetings-developmental or organisational, presentations, assemblies (to include parents). Beyond that, teachers are better placed to teach if they have a coherent understanding of how the year will pan out, to ensure that everything that has to be covered is done.
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It was at the point where, as a whole school, we sat down, mapped out the school year to look at points of highest demand and also considered the idea of an annual overview curriculum plan, that teachers began to relax a little into the coming year. A relatively small investment in time had a huge impact on morale.

A “meet the teacher” parent evening was held in later September, to share the plans and make relationships. Time was offered to parents to make appointments during the term, instead of one staff meeting; three half hour slots after school.

Events such as Harvest Festival, Christmas and Easter, became extended assemblies, with everyone contributing a short piece, rather than Cecil B de Mille productions, more often sharing poetry or songs that had been learned as part of class time. It’s very easy to raise the general, whole school, stress levels with over-elaborate productions, but parents do like to be party to what their children are doing; they only have eyes for their child!

Just before February half term, we issued reports, probably equivalent to A5 in writing, with a short personal comment and key areas for further development, that became the areas for discussion at parent evenings to follow. It kept the subjects clear. Parents could respond and ask for other specific areas to be discussed. It allowed considered use of meetings, rather than reportage and response. If more than the ten minutes would be needed, then special appointments would be made, especially if the discussion needed the SENCo or another member of staff.

​Summer term reports were issued with an invitation to see the teacher if it was requested, rather than a formal meeting.

Closure days were rarely taken tacked onto holidays. After the initial day, the three subsequent days were used for development activity, with the fifth looking at the following year. Making a long weekend, especially in the summer term, proved popular with parents, as well as staff. Development periods were significantly more active from October to June, with one staff meeting being devoted to organisational matters, and three each month to subject development; sometimes single sessions spaced over time, sometimes a whole month devoted to one subject, depending on the lead’s request and possible trial activity in between.

By taking two finalist ITE trainees, some additional development time often became available, through paired staff release, at least for ten weeks.

Each year would be different, as a result of changing needs, of individuals or the school as a whole. Therefore, every year plan would have similarities, but also occasionally significant differences, for example if external curricular change was expected.

You do have to work with available skill sets. Supplemented by external expertise, either on a personal basis, through courses or one to one dialogue, or via expertise-led closures. It’s a case of fine tuning to the evident needs.

·         Overview planning allows for communication and a certain amount of diary control, both of which have a part to play in overall workload demands.
·         Teaching is demanding on a day to day basis.
·         To take account of broader needs requires careful planning.
·         The drip feed of external, often political statements, can be sufficient to become the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

There is pattern in time, in rhythm and rhyme; give thanks for a world full of pattern… but be ordered, organised and communicate.

I didn’t grow up in a reading household, but we were taken to the library in Exeter and I remember coming home with a fish identification book, as I’d started fishing with friends in the River Exe.  Around the age of seven, I received a Biggles book as part of my birthday present and remember being unable to stop reading it until I finished it. It hooked me. I don’t remember the weather, but, as life was more often lived outside, it may well have been raining and staying in was better.

​Specific books do not appear again until I was 15. I had a serious rugby accident tearing knee ligaments and needing an extended period of R&R. In that time, I read Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward, which left an indelible impression. At the same time, 1984 and Animal Farm also made an appearance. Were they read for pleasure, or just because I had time to read them?

For quite a long time in my school-based life, giving time over to reading, apart from during school holidays often made me feel guilty. 1994 brought news of my first wife’s cancer and, in response, the purchase of a “life project”, a small cottage in France, to make an escape from real life worries for short periods. I started to find some books by Georges Simenon, via charity shops and local second-hand bookshops, to read when not involved in a DIY project or gardening. Slinging a hammock between two trees and having a half hour break created small reading spaces. Eventually, over time, the Simenon collection grew, in French and English, to be supplemented by other authors. I had developed a proper habit and stopped feeling guilty about “just sitting and reading”. It took a lot of effort and occasionally rears its head.  

​Children “reading for pleasure” appears to have been a cause of concern for the whole of my career in education, during which, having undertaken a post grad diploma in reading and language development, I have done surveys of reading at home, including numbers of books in the home. As a result, during home visits, I have met adults who rarely read anything in book form, have no books in the home and couldn’t tell you the name of any children’s author, whereas I have also visited homes where there have been library rooms and parents read to their children almost from birth.

If we were to consider reading for pleasure as something that one does outside a requirement to do so, inevitably, the approach by children to reading at home will vary considerably.

Reading at home, as mandated by schools as part of homework, can often mean children reading aloud to an adult. This then becomes a situation where a child performs to an adult, who may or may not appreciate any nuanced difficulties that the child might encounter in a specific book. If the adult then chooses to be judgemental, this can demotivate the child.

If schools were to allow children to take home books that they can read with ease, alone or to another, they may well derive greater pleasure from the experience, as they might be able to demonstrate greater facility and receive praise. In some households, too, the busyness and pressures of some family lives can mean limited time available, so reading is something that must be done, rather than a pleasant shared experience.

I have to admit to being a fan of colour coded systems, originally started by Cliff Moon for the Reading Reading Centre, where a wide range of books is sorted into broad categories of challenge.

Some will say that children judge each other, based on their colour book. They always have and always will, even if/especially if whole class reading from one book is the norm; see above and replace one parent with twenty-nine peers as was my early school reading diet.  

Within a colour coded system, teacher-level, guided books were also colour coded. As a result, a nominal decision was taken to allow children to take home any book on a colour below their guided level book, so that they could go home and read for themselves or with a parent. They were able to change their books daily if they wished. In every colour there were at least fifty books, so a child could have ten weeks of self-chosen reading, during which time, hopefully, they had moved on in teacher reading challenge.

When they finished the scheme, they had “free choice”, but with the rule of thumb of the “five finger rule”; if they read the first page and found more than five words that slowed them down in their reading, they might choose to come back to that book at a later stage.

In addition, each class had an author of the term, with books selected to provide extension, broader challenges. Letters or postcards to the authors were seen as alternatives to book reviews. One or more of the books might become the teacher read aloud book.

There needs to be thought on three layers of books; fluency, mild challenge (teacher led, five finger rule), frustration- too many words unknown reducing fluency and understanding (10 words per page as a simple rule).

Mentoring and coaching were embedded in the approach, as teachers and children regularly shared what they were reading with each other, were active in book selection from our termly bookshop, from Wessex Books (now Wells, Winchester), so were able to guide children/peers individually to books that might interest them.

Books were freely available, read by children and teachers, not just in a(n) ERIC (everyone reading in class) way, but through lots of book sharing, with enthusiasm for the process, the activity and the outcomes. Book walls shared some of the reading; eg an “I liked this book” wall.

Ease of access and availability of good quality books, time to read, share, model and talk books, all contribute to a reading culture. With tablets and laptops having recording facilities, children can read aloud to themselves and listen back, to embed some self-assessment/adaptation.

If schools don’t create a reading culture, home cannot always be relied on to do so. If children are to learn that reading can be pleasurable, they must have access to material that allows it to be so and to have time and space in which to develop independent reading habits.

​I recognise that much thinking has been done in the area of assessment, by a wide variety of experts in the field. My interest, working with developing teachers, is to instil some working methods that will enhance their ability to make appropriate judgements about children, their achievements and their learning needs. This, to me, has underpinned my thinking about assessment for the whole of my career. 
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​Assessment is thinking; about children and progress in learning and, if they’re not progressing, or progressing more rapidly than expected, doing something about the needs.

Think engaging and appropriate activity, think learning, think progress and outcomes, think on your feet and adapt for evident need, Think before, during and after the event. That is assessment; thinking, about each and every child’s response to the learning situation. Spotting those whose behaviours show lack of understanding or effort and those who may be finding the task easy.

High awareness, high surveillance and rapid and purposeful intervention; or in Dylan Wiliam's words "the reflective, reactive teacher".

​Make quality visible, so it can be discussed and evaluated openly and regularly.
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To me, assessment is just another way of saying “Know your children, well, and get to know them even better”; to define and constantly refine where they are academically, socially and personally, so that they can be challenged or supported through carefully planned activities and interventions. Assessment in one sense is about data, but, more importantly, it is about individual children and their life chances, developed through the best available teaching and learning opportunities.

To be effective, assessment has to be seen as informed, rational judgement, leading to specific adaptation of intention, through a variety of means. Most assessment is situational, being at one level a sense that something is not going as it should and seeking to make whole again. It can also mean that under-expectation means that the level of challenge (perhaps for a few) has to be recalibrated.

Looking for inspiration in the thesaurus, the following revealed itself. These are some of the synonyms for assessment. It is possible to argue that all assessment if formative, even a test, as it informs subsequent decisions about the direction and speed of learning.

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On my main blog, I have a number of posts on marking, looking to make it a realistic aspect of a teacher life, while ensuring that children can participate fully and utilise advice and feedback effectively.

Marking; keep it simple
Marking
Is marking moderation step 1
Back to marking

In “Marking; keep it simple”, the main premise is that the child targets should be on a fold out sheet that can be seen within a lesson, to guide teacher-child conversation, but also be a guide for marking later. It can incorporate non-negotiables, as they appear in earlier scripts.

In “Marking”, there is a discussion of marking as a dialogue between the teacher and the learner. I also question the place of homework where that generates marking load.

Homework can create additional marking need, but, if the activity is considered within the learning dynamics of the topic, does not necessarily need to do so.

Consider as home activity:-

• Draft from notes taken in a lesson, to be brought back as first draft, for editing in class.
• Summarise what has been learned into three key pieces of information. Boxed, it becomes a form of revision note.
• “Drawing and colouring” to save class time for discussion.
• Personal research which adds to the lesson.
• Reading a piece of text before the lesson.

None of the above needs detailed marking, as they are part of continuous effort.

As children mature as learners, they can begin to direct the teacher to areas for marking. If, say, adjectives have been the subject of learning, then the child can be asked to highlight the adjectives used, so they are easy to see.

In “is marking moderation step 1”, the teacher is acting as quality control, feeding back to the child where their work is ok and where there are areas for improvement. Teacher judgement is key to these stages.

Moderation stage 1; teacher child conversation.

Moderation stage 2; teacher-teacher conversation.

Moderation stage 3; school-area conversation.

Moderation stage 4; school-national outcomes conversation.

In “Back to Marking”, in addition to the above, I also suggest a number of key steps to consider.

• As an organisation, schools should set marking expectations that are clear, concise and achievable and have impact on learning.
• Plan mark loads over a known timescale, so that books are marked appropriately in timescales that enable feedback to be useful. If a whole week of devoted to “assessment activity” it is not surprising if workloads are heavy, especially as they usually back onto school holidays.

Learners should see themselves as active partners in work review. It should be done with and through, not always done to. Marking in a lesson is a very supportive strategy, especially for struggling learners, where immediacy of response is needed.

There are no easy solutions, as this area is often unique to the teacher and their interpretation of expectations. But it is worth significant consideration.
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Assessment is normally based on clearly articulated or published criteria, with a judgement of whether the outcome demonstrates certain abilities, so that the assessor can say with some definition that “x can do…”. Some assessment situations also require a judgement of pass or not, with a pass at merit or distinction. These are bottom line capabilities, seen, for example in driving tests, music exams and Initial Teacher Education, each of which requires a level of competence in order to progress, with further guidance available.

Critique is what I think I do when I go to an art gallery or listen to music, usually starting from appreciation of what I like, through areas which make me less comfortable, to aspects that I don’t like. This is coupled with a rationale, so my critique is a descriptor, linked to personal insights. There has to be a “because”. As a reflective person, sometimes this is an insular activity, but, when in company, a shared reaction can become the stuff of dialogue, comparative and nuanced, and that’s the part that interests me in terms of classroom practice.

I think children and their teachers should engage in discussion of quality in work, in all subjects. With visualisers becoming a part of classroom practice, it is very easy to share outcomes and explore and diagnose aspects of the work, together, with children being enabled to explore the language and parameters of critique. Description, followed by speculation, enables the questioner to raise issues in the mind of the producer, to enable answers which might, in themselves, highlight the specific areas for improvement. I’d also expect classroom spaces to be awash with examples of quality work, on display, or in portfolios, which set the benchmark for expectation and reflection within the class. It is a holistic approach.

I am now beginning to view success criteria as surrogate mark schemes for a specific context. If they embed statements which clarify the steps that need to be taken in order to produce a piece of work of quality, they can be checked at the end to see if they have been followed.

However, on top of that, there needs to be the capacity to advise individuals about the quality within the finished work. These personalised targets, attached to the edge of the book, can summarise the qualities being sought from that learner adding to the potential for both critique and assessment. Assessment, in this scenario, becomes a “signing off” activity, with the critique proving a qualitative set of statements.

Learners can engage with success criteria and I have visited a number of schools that embed systems where learners have to highlight areas of their work which, in their opinion, demonstrate a specific success criterion or personal target, which focuses marking. Self-diagnosis of outcomes is an essential skill of editing, drafting and redrafting activities.

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.

I started teaching so long ago that it was certainly almost the dark ages for reading. The book stock in my first school was very limited and largely based on the Ginn 360 scheme, which gave a progression, so weekends and holidays were spent rummaging in charity shops to build up a personal class collection which would support the broader range of needs.

The prevailing advice from inspectors was that those with identifiable specific learning needs must be individually heard daily, those not quite keeping up at least three times and the better readers at least once.
With a class of 39 children that created a need for a lot of reading time.
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An integrated day, child-centred approach afforded some time, while playtimes and lunchtimes offered more. USSR, Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading happened straight after lunch, sometimes, but not often becoming ERIC, Everyone Reading in Class. Parent helpers were always welcomed. In the era of tape recorders, children had a personal tape, to be able to record themselves reading and to listen back to themselves as a self-correction activity. Almost another adult.

Phonics were taught, either directly to the whole class, to specific groups of children or within games situations. Approaches were multisensory, with sand trays, sandpaper shapes, plastic models, painting letters while saying out loud. We often did “rainbow letters”, overwriting or painting letters with different colours along strips of cardboard that came from the local materials bank. There was a link between gross motor and fine motor skills, enhanced by the use of blank paper exercise books with different width guide lines.

At the same time personalised phonics skills and sight vocabularies were regularly checked, developed and supported with spellings home and regular tests. Spelling was based on the look, cover, write and check approach, developing aspects of short term memory.

Cliff Moon’s Individualised Reading approach effectively colour coded the available reading schemes into bands within a defined readability level, from approximately age 5, rising by 6 months for each colour. Variation occurs, but an example from a school is below.

If each colour was stocked with sufficient books, this allowed free access to children to change books as and when they finished them, rather than waiting for a defined change time. Any commentary on the book was oral or shared through the home-school record, with any written responses limited to a postcard to the author.
It is important to recognise that the colours also had an essence of reading age embedded, so that progress could be described both in terms of colour movement and reading age, which can be compared with chronological age as a rule of thumb. Colour coded schemes also highlight children who are “stuck” and might need particular guidance.

Home-school reading record books became all-purpose reading records and comment books, shared by teachers and parents, with comments made at the time of hearing a child read. Individualised reading records were kept.

This approach created an understandable spine, with defined progression embedded. It allowed consideration of the different needs of readers, in that where a child needed some guidance within a book in order to be able to read it, defined a teaching level book. All books below this would be fluent level books, while any book above the guided level might be at a frustration level.
For reading at home, children could select from their fluent colours, changeable daily if needed. Inevitably, the movement from one teaching level to another determined the books read at home, so there was an element of motivation engendered, as well as a desire to be seen to be making progress.

Guiding teachers, children and parents within these books was achieved through bookmarks which had been written with a specific level in mind. Based on a “can do” approach, the statements, such as talk about the setting or a specific character, were given to encourage conversation between reader and listener. Colour coded to link with the books being read, they had an appreciable impact.

Beyond and around the spine, other books were available. Children took home a non-fiction book each week within their library exchange period. “Free reader” was the ultimate accolade, when self-selection from the available books required different guidance and knowledge from the teacher of the available texts. Non-fiction texts were displayed within the topic corner, available for reading, but also for study skill lessons, using the books to enhance the literacy curriculum, through note taking and information gathering. The index and contents offered opportunities for alphabetical order and judgements about suitability of the text.
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Author sets of books became a feature of each classroom, changed each term. This allowed consideration of author styles and approaches to writing across the class. In many case, the range of books written by the chosen authors allowed access across the whole class. One or more of the books would be chosen as teacher books to share with the children.

Free readers need the skills of choosing a book for themselves. To facilitate this, children were taught the “five-finger” rule; read the first page and fold one finger for each word that caused a problem. If five were counted, it’s probably too difficult. They also had to read the blurb to support their decision, made in discussion with the teacher. Children also had the (adult) right to say that they were not enjoying a book.

Children learned to read and enjoyed the process, in doing so becoming avid readers. Proof? For want of better, SAT English L4+ scores at age 11, usually 85% plus in classes with 20%+ SEN. Others will have greater evidence, from different approaches.

By now the reader will have noticed a theme developing.

• A good range of reading material should be available, organised to support progress. Colour coded would be my preference, as it saves some teacher decision making.
• Teacher awareness of available material and individual reading abilities and interests is essential.
• The reading journey should be guided and supported as well as guided personal practice and a dynamic that encourages sharing books as widely as possible.
• Adult engagement with different aspects is essential; diagnostic if necessary, such as miscue analysis and developmental feedback, written records of books read and qualitative statements of reading. Consider a home-school diary, especially for those who need close monitoring, and make sure that there is a positive dialogue, not just a parent notebook.
• Reading between guided sessions is essential to fluency. This can be in the form of expectation to read to a certain point in a specific timescale. Just to say to read at home for homework is not a sufficient driver.

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Developing a culture of reading in the class.

• Create a book corner which actively encourages engagement.
• “Author of the term”; a collection of books by one author, to be read and then followed up.
• Postcards to an author; Fold A4 in half; Side one, a pictorial interpretation of the book, side two a postcard commentary, aimed at the author.
• Letters to an author, alive or dead; offers opportunity for commentary instead of formal book review.

Display potential

• Reading walls, considering an audience. Potential for home activity?
• Photocopy book covers. Speech bubble commentary from children.

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I LOVE books
·         Wordsmiths. Ten interesting words I have found in ……….(book title)
·         Settings, characters. Descriptions into art, art into words.
·         Settings in a box. 3D theatres allowing story telling, possibly animation.

In 1995, I wrote an article for Books for Keeps, based on 3D models. Can be read here:-
http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/issue/92/childrens-books/articles/other-articles/books-into-art

• Storyboarding a book? Eg a book as a 5-picture cartoon.

 
Parents as partners
While parents are considered as partners within this process, there is no guarantee that they will all have a clear understanding of expectations, nor can it be assumed that every child goes home to a literate household.

Schools need to be aware of this dynamic, to avoid stress either to the child or the parents. Support and help may be needed and, where there is limited scope for support, this may need to be the focus for in-school intervention, such as additional TA time for reading.

Many schools have developed parent evenings specifically devoted to reading guidance, with modelling to parent of how to share books, not just talking about reading policies.

Where this was repeated over time and with an assurance that every parent participated, the impact on reading progress was often very impressive.

TEN SIGNS OF A SUCCESSFUL (ENGLISH) TEACHER

(Exeter University; Primary Improvement Project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust 1997)

This project looked at learning dynamics within reading classes and found the following:-

• A high level of personal enthusiasm for literature, often supplementing the school’s resources with their own books.
• Good professional knowledge of children’s authors and teaching strategies
• Importance of literacy stressed within a rich literacy environment
• Progress celebrated publicly and children’s confidence increased
• Teaching individualised and matched to pupil’s ability and reading interests
• Systematic monitoring and assessment
• Regular and varied reading activities
• Pupils encouraged to develop independence and autonomy, attacking unfamiliar words, or teachers backing pupils’ judgment as authors
• A high quality of classroom management skill and personal relationships with pupils
• High expectations, children striving to reach a high standard, whatever their circumstances