Open the blinds - and your eyes

I’ve got a serious gripe: classrooms with all of the blinds pulled down.

Walking into one of our rooms with all three blinds drawn has the power to send me spiralling into a claustrophobic whirl of hyperventilation. The walls begin to creep in towards me. The strip lighting seems to surge and buzz. My skin shrieks out for vitamin D. I run scurrying for the pull cord.

Maybe it’s my poor eyesight. An enclosed classroom, to me, is a darkened cave in which children are (seemingly) given permission to behave like the woolly mammoths that might’ve once inhabited them. They lie, lump-like, slumped across tables.  A stray scarf or other uniform infraction – that might’ve been challenged – seems to go awry in the womb-like gloom of the cave.  A mobile phone creeps out of the crack of a trouser pocket…

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly then, it’s definitely children who seem to demand that the blinds are down. But, I have also heard one repeated, impassioned, retort from teachers when I’ve challenged them for enshrouding their classroom with the tug of a curtain cord: “Students can’t see the Powerpoint!”

Most of the time this simple issue can be solved with an equally simple solution: keep the blinds open and turn off the incessant, omnipresent, electric light instead! Although using high contrast text – black and white – can also offset a friendly fuzz from daylight too.

But if this doesn’t solve the solution…? Shock. Horror. Turn off the Powerpoint! Ask yourself, is it a useful prompt for students or simply a useful prompt for you?

When I read this recent article that suggests the ‘naturalness’ of classrooms has the power to boost learning, my grievance finally felt vindicated. Here was the evidence I’d hoped for. For it’s my stance that with light beaming in through the windows learning itself becomes illuminated, bouncing sharply from the exercise book page and lighting up the conversations between teacher and student.

So, next time you’re tempted to smother the sun with a couple of sheets of grey plastic, don’t. Open your eyes to what you’re doing.

Open the blinds.

Don’t you dare make a judgement about my teaching from the Ofstedcategory of my school.

On a good day I’d say that, after eight and a half years at the chalk face, I might finally be getting the hang off this teaching malarkey. The horror shows are fewer and further between and I’ve come to recognise and celebrate those light bulb moments when they come about. But, if you want the credentials, I’ve been formally observed twice by Ofsted and my (ahem) ‘teaching across time’ on both occasions has been graded ‘Outstanding’. Sod it, every PM observation I’ve ever had has been graded a 1 too.*

And yet, my school ‘Requires improvement’ and I’m sick and bloody tired of this meaning people automatically assume that I need to be paired up with a teacher in an ‘Outstanding’ school in a Teaching Alliance or other network to learn from the teachers who work there.

No. What me and the other teachers in my school need is more time to share our own good practice from within and get better together. We do not need the local private school ‘doing their bit’, thanks Tristram. We need less pressure, more PPA/CPD time, praise and encouragement, some sort of work/life balance, and space from the relentless judgements and pressure that Ofsted bring to make true strides forward for our students.**

But it’s so easy for us to fall into the trap too; too easily we learn to think of ourselves as sub-standard. Tired teachers who are continually under the cosh from the media or Inspectors don’t have the poop to speak up for themselves and shout, ‘Hang on a second, Mr. I’m actually blinking good at what I do’. Perhaps as a consequence of this, I think there’s a perception amongst some at my school that the ‘Outstanding’ judgement in observation (sorry Mr Moyse we still grade at our place) is some unattainable measure that requires props, bells and whistles to secure (which is clearly rubbish). I think on occasion less experienced observers might even be tempted to hold it back, despite seeing students that are engaged, inspired and – fundamentally – learning.

It’s perhaps no surprise that a government who’ve demonstrated their belief in grammar schools is now seemingly creating a two-tier mentality amongst teachers: us and them; the haves and have nots; RI and ‘Outstanding’. Is a ‘Requires Improvement’ school the new secondary modern? Do the entitled grow in confidence because they’re told they’re inherently able and academic and encouraged? C’mon teachers, let’s not buy into this false dichotomy.

So how do we fight this crap? It’s apposite that the answer was tweeted to me at 9.40pm on a Sunday night by our brilliant Deputy Head of Maths @mr_g_walton. It’s positivity. It’s recognising our own hard work, commitment and talent. It’s celebrating one another’s teaching and shouting about the good practice we see. It’s the good practice blog started by one of our Senior Lead Practitioners. It’s our school website that lists the amazing things our students do on a daily basis – not just on the two days in two years the Inspectors choose to swing by. It’s working with other brilliant teachers without knowing the grading attributed to their school by Ofsted. And not caring about it either.

Rant over.

 

*Btw I do know this is a horribly arrogant way to start a blog, sorry, but it seemed necessary to make my subsequent point! And, for the record, external judgements are absolutely not how I would choose to judge my own teaching: I do that via the achievements of my student…  and the occasional ‘thank you’ card.

** Note: this is not the same as saying that our fantastic and hardworking SLT don’t provide time for this. Improving teaching and learning is at the core of every Inset and staff meeting. My comment is aimed at those external forces that make a presumption about the CPD needs of my school without having any understanding of it.

***There were supposed to be two more sections to this post, but I’m going to pause here and leave them for Round 2. Coming to a blog near you soon:

Don’t you dare judge my students and their achievements by my school’s Ofsted report alone.

Don’t you dare judge my school, its aspirations and the learning that takes place within it, solely by a number assigned to it on a piece of paper.

 

Teachers alone will not change this world

This blog post started as an NPQSL thinkpiece response to the NCSL's 'The Light is Worth the Candle' - hence the citations which I've left in to sound 'like brainy and stuff'. Anyway, the thinkpiece is a fab, optimistic piece it's well worth getting your hands on, but it left me feeling a little like Atlas: the world on my shoulders. Note: I've adapted it a little to try to help it make it a bit more sense without reading the original stimulus...


Education has practical and moral benefits: it has “positive effects on health and wellbeing” (Ross 1999) and “reduces the risk of poor mental health” (Feinstein et al 2006), but also has the ability to “create the kind of society that reflects and sustains what we believe to be good human relationships.” For those of us working in education, this is clearly aligned to the moral purpose with which we approach our jobs. From mentoring individual students to whole school professional development to improve the quality of teaching, this sense of commitment to a worthwhile endeavour is important in sustaining us in what is an increasingly challenging profession.

“Most would agree that a young person’s attainments, health and wellbeing should not to any large degree be determined by his or her parents’ income”. I too find the persistence of the achievement gap between disadvantaged students and their peers extremely concerning, not least in the context of my own school. It seems logical that here will be ‘private, social and economic returns’ if the gap is closed, but also agree that this is fundamentally a moral issue or fairness and equality.

Dyson, Goldrick, Jones and Kerr (2010) highlight that education “All too often, instead of equalising life chances… reproduces existing advantages and disadvantages”. The most recent Teach First advert did a good job of communicating the emotive nature of this achievement gap, calling it “an epidemic and national scandal”. However, despite also acknowledging that this is a “multi-layered problem” it is my opinion that Teach First here falls into the trap of presenting their initiative as one of the ‘silver bullets’ that has the power to bring about significant change. If this achievement gap has “persisted across more than a century of public health and education provision” then I do not believe that teaching initiatives alone can reverse this trend in any more than a localised and/or temporary context whilst such inequalities persist in wider society. The more cynical may even say that scapegoating educators as the solution to this societal issue is a convenience for a government in which the gap between the richest and poorest in society has been a significant issue.

If nothing else, then the thinkpiece reaffirmed my own commitment to the comprehensive state school system. As it notes, in the historical tripartite school system “comparatively few children from working-class families were going to the grammar schools”. In this context, the current government’s reaffirmation of the grammar schools is troubling. Similarly, the diversification of British schooling through Academies, free schools etc. would seem to raise concerns that, rather than providing equality of opportunity, educational reform is in fact creating a plethora of varying opportunities and experiences.

In conclusion, when it comes to narrowing the gap in achievement, school leaders may well need to focus on their own localised contexts, celebrating ‘small wins’ where gaps narrow and accepting that any wider whole scale shift towards true equality is in the hands of politicians and wider socio-economic systems. Teachers alone will not change this world.

 

 

 

Nurture 2014/15

Five positives from 2014

1.      I felt like a good teacher (at least some of the time).

I’d like to think it’s rare I toot my own teaching horn, so to speak, but I aced ‘Of Mice and Men’ with Year 11 this year. The kids loved it. Their resulting work was INCREDIBLE. And I managed to share some teaching ideas on my blog that other teachers seemed to like too. Bonus. It’s those moments when everything comes together in some gloriously exciting recipe of discovery that make this job EXCITING. And that have the power to sustain you through other days when nothing seems to go right or inspiration fails to materialise and an hour feels like a day…

2.      I turned 30.

I think this one’s at least partially related to number one. I am officially long in the tooth. I have grey hair. I am onto my third GCSE specification (not including the million and one revision to this one). And that brings with it a surprising amount of experience and comfort. Most of the time I feel like I know what I’m doing – or at least the parameters of what is expected. I definitely know who my friends are. As cheesy as it sounds, I know myself a whole lot better too.

3.      I found/am finding the NPQSL course hard – in a good way.

I suspect I wasn’t the only one to leave the first NPQSL session going ‘Woah, what have I got myself into?’; talk of 50 hours study time to a stressed out HoF was never going to be an easy sell. But, as it turned out, the work load hasn’t been the only difficult aspect of the course. It’s held a mirror up to the bits of me I don’t like and challenged me to think about how to address them. I like it because I’ve found it difficult, which surely means it will ultimately be worthwhile – like all the really good learning any of us do.

 4.      I started to write again.

I was an angsty teenage writer of short stories and poems, but hadn't written anything for enjoyment since Uni. However, this Easter I wrote my first blog post when my dad retired from his job as Head teacher and have managed to post on a nearly monthly basis since then. It’s been really great to get posted on the Oxfam site and to get my slightly deranged outpouring of devotion for ‘Lord of the Flies’ included in the ‘Pursued by a Bear’ online magazine. Zoning out for an hour to write a blog has been a great way of emptying my head.

5.      I got married to my best friend.

 

 

Enough said.

 

 

Five wishes for 2015

1.      For Ofsted to realise (finally) how brilliant my school is.

This is a big one for me; I am immensely proud of the teachers and students where I work and want recognition for them. Exam results alone do not a whole school make: when the big ‘O’ do arrive I’ll be very happy to peer through the magnifying glass to analyse our faults – there is no area for improvement we aren’t keenly aware of – but I will also have my arsenal of evidence ready to show them how much progress we have already made and exactly where we are heading.

2.      To be kind to my house.

We’re lucky enough to live in a lovely semi with views of sheep, high ceilings and a brick fire place. But, I don’t think our house feels lucky sometimes to have us as its guardians. It needs its damp course looking at. We don’t have a blue recycling bin. The loft has become a dumping ground for the unneeded and broken. The problem is that with demanding jobs, putting aside time for our little house is increasingly difficult. In 2015 I’d like to do something about that.

3.      To create a new GCSE course I can be excited about teaching.

I've made it out of the other side of the change curve in relation to the removal of tiers of entry, move to 100% exam etc. and am determined to embrace the new specs with open arms. Our students deserve a course that their teachers want to teach. For us, this is going to be mean exciting, fresh new texts and a new, more integrated way of delivering the course. We're only at the embryonic stage, but I'm excited for our plans to be brought to fruition ready for their September 2015 start.

4.      To cook proper food more often

Too often this year I've slipped into the habit of frozen things and takeaway menus and have been left feeling icky by it. I'm looking forward to opening up a couple of new cook books and making my occasional visits to our fab oriental super market more regular occurrences.

5.      For my two best mates to have fantastic weddings.

I'm looking forward to being the drunken bridesmaid this year rather than the overwhelmed bride: two of my brilliant friends get wed to their brilliant (and long-suffering) boyfriends this year. And that is just lovely.

Setting: what works for the wilting ones?

It is December 2013, half way through our GCSE English Language mock exam, and something is wrong. First at the front, but then to the sides of the sports hall, students begin to slowly wilt.

Their hands slowly slip forward on the exam desk. Their shoulders slightly droop. Their heads hang, woefully slack, wearing leaden expressions. And then – with a barely audible sigh - their exam papers close… and not even my best 'meaningful stares' will see them opened again.

OK, so I dramatise, but one of the important ‘stories’ that came out of our exam analysis from last year was a clear group of Year 11 students who had simply ‘given up’ in that exam. They had been beaten by the relentless two hours and fifteen minutes that is AQA’s ENG1 slog. Not because they lacked ability – in nearly all cases teachers felt they were academically capable of their aspirational GCSE target – but because they did not have the *thing* that keeps us working right up to the invigilator’s final cry. Namely: confidence, aspiration and a feeling of self-worth.

On closer investigation these were identified as the ‘set 4’ students. In our larger than average comp we set students at GCSE into five numerical ability groups on each side of the year group, with two set 3s running broadly as our traditional ‘C grade groups’.

Set 4 in this year group predominantly contained students with D grade GCSE targets. As a result, for the most part they'd been overlooked by our raft of interventions, had seen their more able counterparts ‘moved up’ into set 3, and, crucially, they’d understood throughout the GCSE course that they were  ‘set 4 of 5’: not the least able, but not much point in trying all the same.

With the heart-wrenching image of the 'wilted ones' firmly in my mind, it became clear: ‘set 4’ must die.
 

Whilst pondering how I could make this happen through my usual comfort blanket of the shiny graph*, I was also pondering a second conundrum: setting. Bringing to a head a year of trad/prog debate, at 2.11pm on Wednesday 3^rd June The Guardian had reported that Gove 2.0, Nicky Morgan, was likely to insist on setting for all. By 7.52pm this would be a claim she would strenuously deny but for many pro-setters this was to be a rallying cry. Within my own school, and indeed within my Faculty, there were many voices clammering for the introduction of setting at Key Stage 3, something my own pedagogical biases instantly had me baulking at.

So, what to do. Well, with a few words of encouragement from my Head and admittedly in part as a stalling tactic, I decided to go on a fact-finding mission to two of the highest achieving schools in our LA ‘benchmark group’.

It should be noted at this point that we simply don’t do this enough. Just pick up the phone and visit each other. The two HoF I approached welcomed me with open arms and their pride and professionalism reminded me once more that we truly are in this together, regardless of the competition so many toxic educational changes try to foster.

But, did this help? Er, no. Whilst one school used wholly mixed ability groups throughout KS3 and 4, the other rigidly set in year group. So, where did they leave us?

Right back where we started: with the 'wilting ones'. What those visits gave me the confidence to do was consider what was right for those students. For our students.

It seemed clear that our ‘set 4’ students needed to feel a sense of aspiration that would only be created if they were alongside other students gaining higher grades. They needed to be in a group with students in set 3, even set 2. And, crucially, they needed to not be called blinking 'set 4'! Why not do as form groups do and name the classes after their teachers? After all, aren’t we quick to call them ‘our’ kids? Let them see our pride in them and let us celebrate that sense of responsibility.

But, I was quick to be reminded, what about our most able students? And our students for whom securing a GCSE passing grade would be our raison d’etre? Again, driven by the needs of our students, as Faculty, we agreed that there were students in these broad groups for whom a true mixed ability model would not best serve them. But never, we concurred, must these choices be driven by behaviour only need.

Thus was borne a new model of grouping: 10HT JHU; 10HT CSPA; 10HT ABL; 10HT SFR… With a bit of knowledge about our Faculty you might be able to identify the teacher, but I challenge you, spot if you can find the ‘set 4’ student in that lot.

And the acid test? Last year, creative writing controlled assessment marks on average were 6/6/5, a high D grade. This year, 6/6/7, a secure C grade.

The true test? A lovely Year 10 student’s horrified reaction when I praised him for meeting his D grade target.







*shiny graph

 

The evolution of an idea: why Twitter rocks!

Back in September, struggling to get back into my Sunday marking routine and desperate to avoid that book, I took a quick snap of a 30 second starter I'd use the week before.
 

The next day, I'd received a number of requests for teachers for a copy of the worksheet, but lazy bum me just directed them to Google images...
 

 
Thankfully, some hardy souls weren't put off and made their own version. One kind teacher blogged their version, providing the Dropbox link that sloth-like me couldn't quite be bothered to.
 

 

 

The wonderful Amjad Ali then asked me to write up the idea for his fantastic 'teaching toolkit' blog site and, when I was too lazy to do it, did it for me.

And that's when things got really exciting.

First of all it got rebranded as 'Crowdsourcing' on this blog.

Then another teacher took the idea and turned it into an impressive display of not just one question but a whole army-full!

  

 

 

The idea even went cross-curricular, becoming an RE lesson!

 

 

67 favourites and 37 retweets later my throw away ten minute activity that came into being literally mid-sentence through a discussion with my Deputy is now something entirely new. 

The idea itself is not particularly remarkable. If you are interested then you'll find more details here. What was remarkable, however, were those incessant phone buzzes that resulted in the week to come. From across the country other teachers latched on to my silly little worksheet and turned it into something altogether more special.
 
To me those buzzes highlight just how exciting it is to be teaching in this brave new Twitter-filled work where an idea can reach outside the boundaries of one classroom and into other institutions the very next day.
 
I hope this blog can be a time capsule to be opened by myself and others when we're interacting with our students in this brave new world.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

The post-it note approach to essay planning

 
Overly scaffolded essays are RUBBISH. RUBBISH for the students who are lead by their nose through four hours of dullity. RUBBISH for the teachers who will spend hour after hour attempting to mark slight variations of one mediocre response. RUBBISH in that they reinforce Gove et al's tired old critiques related to spoons and feeding.
 
However, unsurprisingly, many 15 and 16 year olds still require stabilisers when it comes to writing an extended response under exam conditions. The approach below was developed to try and combat this dilemma specifically in English controlled assessments.
 
Pick your weapon
I think it's really important to give students a choice of question whenever possible. At my place, giving students choice seems to have lead to improved results, perhaps as they more readily 'buy in' to the question/task.

I RAG rate my questions to show that some are more challenging, but give students free choice in terms of which they then choose. 

Giving a choice also means that they are already thinking about their response before they've even begun to plan - or else how can you make a decision! 

They then write their chosen question at the top of an A3 sheet of paper, like so:





Prepare for battle
Firstly, students need to sum up their 'quick' answer to the question. They should be able to give you the gist of their response on the back of a post-it note:

 
With a bit of 'spit and polish' this will become their opening paragraph. They then stick it on their A3 sheet in the top left hand corner, at the 'start' of their response.

Locate your evidence
Students then need to consider their best bits of evidence (i.e. quotations) for the argument they've outlined. I've made a simple 9 box worksheet for this, but again post-it notes would do.

A top tip is to get them to add page numbers at this stage to save time later.

Build your case
This is the most crucial step, where the 'story' of the essay takes shape. Students need to arrange their evidence in an order that fits the ideas expressed in their opening paragraph. Take for example the second post-it note above. I would expect the student to group all of the evidence that Crooks is treated badly, then that he is disabled and, finally, that he is heroic and 'keeps on going'.

I get students to talk through their essay to me at this point, explaining how each point links to the last. Then and only then do I lend them the pritt stick so they can be stuck down in order!
 
Put flesh on the bones
At this point the skeleton of the essay is in place and it's time to put the meat on it: time for the highlighters, coloured pens and spider-like arrows.

I give students a RAG rated checklist for their notes linked to the assessment criteria. That way there really is no excuse for missing out tricky bits like structure or context!

 

Marvel at your future success

I hope that it goes without saying that my students do not have access to this plan when they write their controlled assessment. They do, however, use it to create their notes page and to revise from at home prior and during the assessment window. Many bright sparks get a marker out as soon as they leave the classroom to cross out the paragraphs they've written that lesson: a brilliant way to remain organised and motivated over what can span a fortnight of silent scribbling.