So a friend who had a friend who randomly found my blog reminded me of it’s existence today.

I remember the benefit of reflecting on my professional life and I’m going to try and resurrect this blog – after more than a year! Firstly, that’s some time, and secondly, well will I have the motivation. At some point the “tipping point” mentioned in another post wasn’t “tipping point” at all.

When I came on here I was simultaneously surprised at how the layout has changed from a year ago, and then immediately resistent to the change. I guess that’s how a lot of my colleagues feel about the changes that are imposed on them.

In truth, some of the changes, such as the new OFSTED framework (they’re going to be in lessons a lot again, Assessment for Learning is explicit on the report, lots of stuff on the progress of groups of learners, Satisfactory is not good enough [I know, I think they need a dictionary], the Headteacher to almost lead the OFSTED team, big emphasis on the leadership of Learning and Teaching [which is my job title]) are unavoidable, and I just have to spell out to colleagues what they mean. For other changes though, I seem to be constantly trying to persuade colleagues that they’re not really big changes, and that we’re just tinkering – and I think that’s because of fear of the reaction to change.

However, I also believe that change is something we shouldn’t be scared of. I can’t remember if I have repeated the story that Tony Buzan mentions in his book “embracing change”, but the upshot is pretty much that change happens, and if you don’t embrace it, then it happens to you.

In the meantime, one of the reasons that I’ve been crap with the blog is that I embraced the change that was happening in my life, moved house (twice) and have done the first year of a Masters course. And I’m really happy. But this is a professional blog. I will write a lot more about my Masters, however – another time – I better get back to work!

I wrote a while ago that I went to a happiness conference in Belfast and Dr Carol Craig of the Centre for Confidence and Well-Being spoke about the dangers of the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) programme.

I’ve just found a link to her paper, and though I don’t have time to read it tonight (I’m preparing for the new term and more specifically, our INSET day tomorrow) I’m sticking it on here, so that I can read and comment on it (hopefully tomorrow evening.

I’m back to blogging as the new term starts. I’m quite looking forward to going back to work tomorrow, but that might be because the summer wasn’t as great as I’d hoped it was. The new term brings me back to work full of hope (results were identical to last year, which is good as they were the best ever for our school) and the football season has started!

Cheers!

Oh, the paper

Most people working in education will recognise that ‘Time’ is a common cry from teachers, support assistants, students and all who work in schools. I was having a conversation with a colleague today about encouraging staff and students to develop relationships (via activities) and the only real problem is that, as she said “we need to create time”.

It’s impossible, of course, to create time, so what we’re really saying is ‘prioritise’.

At our school in previous years we’ve had a challenge day towards the end of the year. This is where students compete against each other in a host of challenges which test different learning styles. Part of the purpose is relationship building, part is about developing awareness of learning styles in staff and students, and part is about encouraging colleagues to take a risk and do something a bit different – so that they might use that in their lessons. And of course it’s partly about having fun. The challenge day model is a bit tired in our school now, and so we need to do something different. I still absolutely believe that the development of positive relationships is important – it’s no accident that teachers who go to see the netball team play are the same ones that have few behaviour problems. So we were talking about the potential of having a day a week where our timetable is different…. the conversation arose out of next year’s timetable, where she is going to have a difficult Year 9 group in History on a Friday.

So on a normal day we have 8.45-9.05 registration
9.05-10.05 Period 1
10.05-11.05 Period 2
11.05-11.25 Break
11.25-12.25 Period 3
12.25-1.25 Period 4
1.25-2.15 Lunch
2.15-3.20 Period 5

We could do the following
8.45 Period 1
9.45 Period 2
10.45 Break
11.00 Period 3
12.00 Period 4
1.00 Lunch
1.30 Period 5
2.30-3.30 Relationship building

Of course, this would require some goodwill on the part of colleagues – it’s extra and it’s been taken off the lunchtime and breaktime.
An alternative is to remove period 5 and have 2 hours of relationship building in the afternoon. Of course this could mean that whatever is timetabled period 5 will suffer, but in reality you could miss period 5 one week, period 4 the week after (so the four periods are subject 1, subject 2, subject 3, subject 5), period 3 the week after and so on.
Or remove period 5 and do it on a Friday one week, a Thursday another week, a Wednesday another week, and so on.

By ‘relationship building’ this could mean just playing table tennis with a group of students. Our playground has been redeveloped with multi-sports areas and table tennis tables and as a result, several staff have been out at lunchtimes and the atmosphere is really improved as a result. I also have no doubt that those colleagues will benefit in their classrooms from this time they’ve given up to spend with students involved in play and leisure.

So the afternoon activities or ‘relationship building’ could replace challenge day. I might test the waters with a few staff to see whether I’m likely to get a frosty reception if I propose it!

The national curriculum is exciting and challenging. We’re desperate to develop it for OUR learners. I wrote this in an email to colleagues (obviously edited here to get rid of personal names and so on…):

I went to a really good session with our Awareness Learning Area (LA) yesterday delivered by the Learning Leader (LL) of Awareness (for external readers, Awareness is PSHE, History, Geography, Learning to Learn, Health and Social Care, RS, Citizenship). Here’s what I took from it that you might want to use with your teams:

When you read through the curriculum documentation it starts with concepts. When you’re reading about concepts it’s really easy to start thinking about content and get side-tracked. Of course, we want to move away from a content driven curriculum and towards skills and competencies. So instead of looking at concepts first, the LL had us look at processes. I spent some time, for example looking at the second process in the Geography National Curriculum – “select and use fieldwork tools and techniques appropriately, safely and efficiently”.

The question then asked was “what implications does this have for us?” and the first year Geography teacher (the Head of Geography wasn’t present) and I started talking about the local dog-track, about a local roundabout, about a local park and even about our BSF program. We talked about the use of GIS (I don’t understand this term either, but it’s Google Earth and stuff like that), using the websites that map that we’re on a flood plain (that I know the head teacher has talked about in the context of BSF) digital cameras, video cameras and so on (I’m not a Geography specialist, so I started waffling on about those tripod things that people stand in fields and use to do something – I don’t even know what it is) and these would need to be in our Schemes of Learning.

We then looked at the concepts that map onto this process – and lots of the concepts in Geography do, but the major ones were Place, Space and Scale. This started a conversation with the Geography teacher regarding what the Scheme of Learning might look like to deliver the opportunities for students to actually gain experience of using the skill/ process “select and use fieldwork tools…” and suddenly we started to get a picture of what we would like to put in our Geography Year 7 Scheme of Learning (or when we look at the Scheme of Learning, where we already deliver this and tweaking it).

So after mapping the concepts onto the processes, the next stage would be to select the right content to deliver these processes and concepts (the Geography teacher and I didn’t get to this stage), and then we can look at the exciting stuff around Curriculum Opportunities (which is the fourth section in the documentation). It means the colleagues in the Awareness LA are not only using the National Curriculum stuff now, but are getting some concrete ’stuff’ done and moving past the ‘thinking about it’ stage that we’ve all been going through.

The comments and discussion on the blog (though very minimal) make it utterly engaging for me to write. I suppose it legitimises what I write in a way.

When artists started contributing, and then a colleague, it was weird to see that they could. Then I remember when the head at my school first contributed. I was delighted. Then Dr Jonathan Barnes – who I’d heard of – wrote a couple of comments. That seemed serious.

I had someone from education in the Cayman Islands stumble across the blog and commented, and so did Doug Belshaw, whose blog is one of the finest educational blogs on the web (though he commented mainly because I linked to him).

Now there’s a small discussion developing around BSF from a previous post, and it feels like, well, I posted something worthwhile to other people! That’s cool!

This was very self-indulgent. My apologies.

I wrote a while ago about “The Tipping Point” in a blog post. The point at which a project, or idea, gains a life of it’s own and doesn’t need a lot of effort from the instigator to continue gaining momentum.

The outcome of the project that started this blog was “Every Third Tuesday” – the possibility that invited colleagues will, on occasion that they are asked to, go to a space off-site to reflect together on issues that are current. These may have been raised from a big poster in the staff room, or something else.

We agreed a date for our reflective sessions. In fact, the reason the name “Every Third Tuesday” was used was because we chose a date and then named the sessions after the date (which was the third Tuesday in the month).

I sat back because I was genuinely curious as to whether any tipping point has been reached.

It hasn’t.

I think all the participants are enthusiastic if it’s arranged for them, but none have asked me, or anyone else (to my knowledge) if they’re going to take place. That means that they’re all busy enough doing things they see as more valuable than chasing up the Every Third Tuesday sessions. It also means that I’m going to have to motivate the participants to participate – that shouldn’t be too hard if we make it a very exciting experience. I guess I’m a little demotivated by the fact that three of the participants of the project are leaving (or taking a break from) our school this academic year (none for reasons to do with the project, and not for reasons to do with the school either), but that necessitates me being more of a leader than I am being.

So I will be. Every Third Tuesday will happen in July. I’ll get onto it (with the help of at least one colleague).

I’m also hoping that it will be re-energised by our application to become a Creative Partnerships Change School – though obviously that’s a competitive bidding process.

So I’m not going on the SEAL training tomorrow as I’ve had plenty of time out of school recently. One such time was today when I was lucky enough to attend a seminar relating to Building Schools for the Future.

It was called “How learning environments can enhance teacher well-being” and was organised by the British Council for School Environments, who I’d never heard of before, and the Teacher Support Network.

There were lots of people there high up in the trade unions, architects, representatives from the DCSF, some people from my local authority, a principle from Australia, and people responsible for Health and Safety in Local Government and various consultants. As far as I could tell, there were just two teachers, both of us in leadership positions at our school.

Basically, I think they’re trying to learn the lessons of the first wave of BSF (which is massive capital expenditure on buildings) where schools have been unhappy with their product. It seemed to be moving on from the “Don’t build a new old school!” type argument (this is that you should do something suitable for the 21st century with your building, rather than just build a new school that is the same as the old one).

The main message though, was that the users of the buildings should be consulted at every opportunity. This is, of course, very important. I think we’ve done some of that, with our consulting students on “happy” and “not happy” places in our present school, and students have had a very real say in the transformation of our playground (I will write more about this another time). Staff have been consulted, probably not as widely as we would like. I blame this almost entirely on the deadlines that our Head is subjected to in terms of submitting various documents, bids, and visions. I really hope that we can consult and debate more. I think everyone accepts that a successful vision is not ‘handed down’.

I have the utmost respect for our Headteacher, and I think she’s incredibly capable. I wonder, though, if there was some lack of foresight in putting Education professionals in charge of a multi-million pound building program. That appeared to be what some people were saying today.

Some of the organisations there had done a survey. Some of the survey results were unsuprising (classrooms too small, staff rooms look like 1970s Old People’s homes, etc etc) but one of the unions representatives there was saying it’s outrageous that teachers don’t have their own classroom. I disagree with that fundamentally, because I think we need a wide variety of learning spaces to cater for the variety of teaching and learning styles that we have in our schools – and I don’t think any learning space should be ‘owned’ by anyone any more. One of our best learning spaces is our outside classroom – and that’s definitely shared.

The last thing on consultation, and I made this point today. If you ask teachers what they want in their school, they’ll say clean toilets, decent staff room, place for PPA to be productive, and modern technology in a well-resourced classroom. That’s not transformational for the 21st Century (in my opinion), but what do you expect when that’s what teachers experience and they are a product of their environment. They want the ‘bad’ things to be fixed. I think that in any consultation we have to ensure that we allow teachers to think far far wider than that – and the impression I got today is that in the (admittedly limited compared to what we would like) consultations we’ve done my school has been far better at providing that permission than the majority of schools and authorities have been so far.

I also found out that architects get blamed for lots of things, and on a recent conference I took away that we should “presume honest intentions” when you get annoyed or angry with people. The architects clearly don’t want to create new old schools or poorly heated buildings. So we need to work with them.

Lastly, I learned that making schools modern buildings with materials that, for example, deal with heat effectively, requires far more expensive materials (that meet different standards to the minimum) and with it being public money that is spent, we need to use those buildings for more than educating students for 195 days a year for about 8 hours a day. Our school is again much better than that, as I speak (or write) there are adult education classes and community sports events going on at my school (it’s nearly 9pm) and that’s another place where we’re ahead of the game. But I am starting to see where all the jargon that refers to “Extended Schools” has come from.

Oh, and as a PS, PFI is a nightmare, but being an old lefty, I think I knew that!

So I was at a very enjoyable wedding in Brussels this weekend, and I spent a small amount of time on two occasions chatting about my job, and I talked about SEAL in secondary schools.

As a result I started to reference Carol Craig, who I saw speak at the Happiness conference I went to in Belfast a few weeks ago. She said that the “self-esteem” movement was largely responsible for the disgraceful state of education in America. That as a result America has young people who expect to be praise for little achievement, and that the real achievements that involve overcoming adversity are largely redundant.

Carol Craig has written a long paper criticising SEAL and wonders if we might do the same. I suppose a key question I’d like to know is whether American education really does represent the pits of Western civilisation, or was that just her being polemical. I suppose I should do more reading/ research!

Meanwhile, I’m going to a conference that launches SEAL in my authority this Thursday – I suppose it would do no harm to read Carol Craig’s paper in advance of that – but I can’t find it online!

My day at school was surreal today. I felt like I was always active, but I was also really not productive.

It is great that the school is building an outdoor classroom. When the students get used to it and it’s not a novelty, (or maybe for some colleagues if it used as a novelty can enhance motivation) I think we’ll really have another string to our bow.

We’re using the Apprentice as a theme for a challenge in the borough’s “Excellence Challenge Week”. The plans (based around media, came from the English department) are superb.

The PE event for the same week – we’ve done that for years! It feels tired. I think they’re
going to revamp it.

I can’t really explain why I keep having times where I don’t contribute to my blog. If you look at blogs around the web, it’s very common, but it’s also not like I don’t have a lot to write about.

I really want to write a lot more about the outcomes of the project that started this blog. I also want to write about the final term at school, which though I don’t think it’s ‘easier’ than others has an extremely different character to it. I want to write more on the Leading Happy Schools conference I went to, particularly my lessons from other schools and some reflection on Carol Craig’s talk there. I also want to write about the improving Teaching and Learning agenda at my school and that I really want to have a greater role in leading the training of new and beginning teachers.

I don’t think it’s because I don’t have the time to contribute, because the automatic writing used to get rid of the need to have a lot of time set aside, but I do feel a lot of pressure to write something decent when I’m writing about something where I’m trying to articulate an argument, and I think as a result sometimes I don’t start it – because that post seems very very long. Or I write it and it sits in the ‘drafts’ folder of this blog unpublished, so no-one can actually read it.

I’ve just enjoyed the football this week. I feel very very far behind at school. That’s quite stressful. Looking forward to really sorting out work in the remainder of the week.