mikethain

Timetables – part 1

This blog is inspired by this amazing thread by @illwriteitdown about the experience of receiving your timetable and the feelings it generates.

I’ll try to pick off each issue as best I can.

Let’s start with keeping up with their KS2 scores:

There are a number of issues with the use of KS2 scores for setting targets in KS3/4. The 2 biggest ones I can think of are that learning isn’t linear, far from it. And secondly using Maths/English KS2 scores as a way of setting targets in other subjects for KS4 (the process that many schools use is data provided by FFT) is problematic.

FFT produce a series of chances graphs for every child based on historical data collected over many years that includes numerous background characteristics. Schools use these to set targets for their students, but it is down to the school about how rigid they are with these.

Some schools will insist that because FFT says that child A has an FFT target of a 7, then the school will hold you accountable for that if they don’t achieve it. This is a flawed approach to the use of FFT, and shows a lack of understanding of the appropriate application of the data.

Other schools will look at the FFT data, and understand that it is useful for looking at a cohort target, e.g. 74% of students achieving FFT20 of 5+. They will look at the cohort and expect a department to deliver this, but will be slightly less concerned about who those students are. The chances graph gives heads of department a useful set of data to support the process of identifying the most likely candidates, but it shouldn’t be used for a “putting all your eggs in one basket” approach.

I’ve worked in both these types of schools. The school with a rigid view of individual students that included holding staff accountable based on FFT targets for each student was an RI school that struggled to make it to good. The (in my view) more enlightened school was securely good and looking to improve further.

Using Maths/English KS2 data for setting progress targets for other subjects:

Just writing it makes you realise how fraught with issues this is. Yes, FFT data can be and often is extremely useful for giving an indicator about possible future performance, but to hold teachers accountable to this data for individual students or classes is one of the biggest issues I’ve seen with the high stakes accountability that is blighting the state school system in this country.

Test scores resulting in demoralised staff and students

This one’s easy – if you are writing tests that result in low scores for a group where motivation is absolutely critical to their chances of success, you need to write some new tests.

It is so important for building up students that they get into the habit of doing well. A huge part of this for them is their test scores (it also helps teachers too!). If you know that students aren’t going to succeed on a test, don’t give them the test.

Do the numbers say you’re failing?

This is tough. It is really difficult to look beyond the numbers. HoDs will always be asked to rank classes, to use the data to start a process of evidence gathering. An experienced HOD will not just look AT the data, they will look BEYOND the data. Data is at best a starting point. It is used to start an enquiry.

Ele makes some really important points – “you can lead a horse to water”, “it’s not your fault” etc.

The issue here is that schools are stuck in a brutal cycle of high stakes accountability. Schools are now responsible for most aspects of bringing up a child. It’s the teachers fault that a student doesn’t attend revision, that they don’t do their homework, that they don’t revise, etc.

These things aren’t on individual teachers. They are about the culture and ethos of the school.

If you have a strong culture around learning, preparation for assessments, understanding the learning process is much more than just a set of test scores etc. then it creates the environment where teachers are able to impact on these issues with their classes. Where this culture doesn’t exist, or isn’t well embedded or consistently encouraged, it makes it so much more difficult for teachers to have impact beyond a small group of their students.

What can you do when the culture isn’t there yet?

This is where departments can really make a difference. Get everyone pulling together. If a large department works together to tackle the issues of poor homework, lack of preparation for assessments etc. then it can impact beyond your classroom and department, and support the wider school.

It requires the whole team to spend time working together to draw up a plan, implement it consistently and over time, and be relentless with it. By doing this you will effect change. It isn’t a quick fix. Embedding a change in ethos and culture takes time, and there will be bumps along the way. All the best leaders know that the key to embedding culture change takes everyone buying in and playing their part It is the same at a department level too.

Part 2 to come when I get a chance.

mikethain

Planning a “themed” curriculum – a parents view

Before I get into this fully, it is essential I define what I mean by “themed” curriculum – this is where the content to be covered in a fixed period of time (e.g. a half term) is focused on a particular theme. For example, you could use “oceans”, and therefore in English you study a book based on oceans; in Science, your study focuses on the ecosystem of the oceans; in Geography, you could look at the impact of pollution or global warming on oceans/habitats/coastal regions; in history you could look at how different civilisations have used the seas and oceans to grow their influence; etc. Hopefully you get the idea.

I should also add that I am basing this on the experience I’ve had over the last year home schooling my children, who in lockdown 1 were both at primary school. One is now in secondary school and the other in year 5. I am also writing this primarily as a parent, but also with my experience as a former teacher thrown in.

Previously I’ve had no clear view on the merits (or not) of organising a curriculum around themes. It was an idea that was explored a number of years ago at secondary schools, if my memory is correct around the late 2000s when PLTs were being discussed. It was something I always associated with primary schools more than secondaries, and was pleased when it was rapidly dropped as a proposal in the school I was working in at the time.

The obvious merits of a themed approach in my mind centre around (but are not exclusively) the following:

  • it allows children to immerse themselves in a particular theme and get a deep understanding of that topic
  • teachers are able to easily transfer knowledge between subjects and “knit” it together coherently
  • it gives a richness and depth to the curriculum that you might not achieve if subjects aren’t aligned in this way
  • it (hopefully) saves planning time

The obvious disadvantages of this approach in my mind are:

  • if the children don’t connect with the theme, it can be a really hard slog for both them and the teachers
  • unless carefully planned and coordinated, there is a risk of crossover between activities in different subjects
  • you can risk trying to shoehorn the theme into some subjects where it really doesn’t fit, creating an activity “just to fit it in” when it can risk doing more harm than good. An issue particularly true with my subject – maths.

My experience this year has highlighted some suggestions about how this approach can feel for some children, and also some potential things to avoid if your school approaches their curriculum organisation in this way.

My experience –

Whilst home schooling in the latest lockdown, my year 5 son has had a particular theme running through most lessons. On the whole, it has resulted in knowledge flowing pretty well across the subjects, an improving recall of the facts being taught, and a growing and deepening understanding of the issues of this particular theme. Thankfully, maths has been left out of this themed approach, as even as a subject specialist, I’d struggle to find a way to get meaningful learning around this theme.

The theme has been used in Science, English, guided reading, Geography, Art, and their topic work. RE, French, PSHE, and Maths have not been delivering lessons on this theme. It has been running since January, so for approximately 7 weeks. The school has a subject leader for each core and foundation subject. I am unsure how much detailed guidance on what is to be covered each lesson is in the medium term plans given to class teachers. I am also unsure how much of the planning for each subject is left to the class teacher. I know that this varies between schools, and probably between subjects, so there is no uniform approach that I can base this on.

At the start of term, activities were readily attempted. The theme chosen was something of interest, so it was easy to engage my son. I was also interested in the theme, and learning myself, which probably helped to keep him going.

In the last week or so, there has gradually been more resistance to some of the work. More work avoidance, less motivation, less engagement. Some of this is definitely down to lockdown taking its toll, being bored of home school, and getting frustrated at me. I’ve also struggled to maintain my positivity recently due to the toll lockdown has taken on me. This absolutely won’t have helped.

However, the timing of all this has coincided with some of the activities being undertaken becoming repetitive or at least very similar, and in my view, a bit of tiredness and boredom with the theme itself. For example, we have recently looked at the arguments for and against one aspect of the theme in Geography. We have then been asked to plan a writing task in English on forming a balanced argument of the pros and cons of this same theme. The arguments were stuck in his book last week, so all that was needed was to turn the page back and see that he’d already done that task of identifying the pros and cons. He didn’t want to repeat the work because he couldn’t see the point.

This episode led me to reflect on the merits of this whole approach and what has worked this term and what recommendations I’d give for planning something like this next time.

What has worked –

  • the theme was engaging, well chosen, a current issue, and something of interest to my son
  • the theme naturally lent itself to being used in a number of subjects that provided that deeper “immersive” learning experience
  • most activities were suitably different that there was little repetition but lots of links to be made
  • subjects that didn’t lend themselves well to the theme weren’t shoe-horned in

What would I change –

  • the length of time on the theme – my suggestion would be a half term (approx. 6 weeks feels enough to me). This should reduce the risk of boredom creeping in.
  • there needs to be a way of making sure that tasks in different subjects aren’t too similar (there needs to be clear links, but they need to be different enough that children don’t view it as repeated work). How this is done will depend on how subject leadership and planning are organised in each school, but the impact of repeated work on a child and their motivation cannot be under-stated.
  • In some subjects, if you run out of good quality ideas that link to the theme, don’t be afraid to say “we’ve done enough, now time to look at something else”.
  • Look at the timetable for the week. Are the subjects teaching the chosen theme spread out or bunched together. I’m not sure which approach is better, but from what I’ve seen, I’m not convinced that spending most of a day on one theme is always the best approach.

I’d welcome comments from other parents who’ve experienced a themed approach and what your experience has been like.

mikethain

World Book Day – what’s happened???

I posted the following thread a couple of weeks ago about my thinking around #WorldBookDay

So… World Book Day.

Some thoughts.

1) being a good reader is essential to access any other learning. I would argue that being able to read is more important than maths (and I’m a former maths teacher).

World Book Day is a day to celebrate books and reading in particular. Done well it is a fantastic day that can help to cement a love of reading, or perhaps inspire someone to pick up a book for the first time in a long time.
Schools rightly should be celebrating World Book Day.
Encouraging a love of reading leads to an intrinsic love of learning (in my view).
A love of reading should not require any spending of money.
You can celebrate books without encouraging (or forcing) families to spend money on costumes and other paraphernalia.
The ever increasing commercialisation of dressing up for schools is costing families more and more money.
Coupled with non-uniform days, charity cake sales to “raise money for school funds” etc. Families are having to spend more and more on the basics of educating their children.
Schools need to actively reduce the costs they expect families to spend on their children’s education. This is especially true for those on lower incomes.
Encouraging them to dress up diverts essential money away from household bills, or dare I say it – buying a book!
So, instead of doing a dress up day because “the children love it” (do they all? Really?) why not do some of the following:
Give an hour in the day to just reading a book.
Encourage children to write a short story based on their favourite character.
Write to their favourite author.
Design a new front cover for their favourite book.
There is no doubt more you can think of (I taught maths for goodness sake).
Buy please, stop with dress up days and actually do something that costs families nothing, but could impact on their children for years to come. 
For me there are some key actions for different people that come out of this.
1) Governors – you set the direction of the school. One thing that matters is the additional financial burden that schools place on families. There are numerous trips, mufti days, charity fundraising days (Comic Relief, Sports Relief, Children In Need etc.), crazy hair days, race for men, race for life, the list goes on.
You need to be directing the leadership of your school to keep an eye on the amount of money they are asking parents to give, particularly families who are struggling. These “fun days” might be a nice thing to do, but they put a massive pressure on families who are struggling to make ends meet, as well as those who are working long hours to provide for their families and simply don’t have the time to deal with a last minute request for a costume.
Governors need to be asking questions about this:
  • Is there a calendar of events?
  • What are the expected additional costs for parents?
  • How do we mitigate these costs for students from disadvantaged families?
  • What is our communications strategy to families about these events?
  • Do we have the balance right between engaging in these events and considering the financial burden on families?

2) Teachers – you need to take time to consider the questions above. When looking at what you intend to offer also consider:

  • Is the activity directly related to the curriculum being offered?
  • Is the event being done because “it will be nice to do” or does it serve a really useful purpose?
  • What are the expected costs being asked of families?
  • Are these costs reasonable?
  • Does what you intend to do for big national/international events (such as World Book Day) fit with the ethos of the event?
  • What will the impact of a day out of uniform be on disadvantaged learners and others who are from families struggling?

3) Families – keep a track of how much you are being asked to contribute to the school each year. Consider the following:

  • Does it feel reasonable?
  • Does it feel like good value?
  • Is it benefiting your child and their education?
  • Is your child enjoying the events being organised?
  • Do they create undue stress and angst when you are told about days out of uniform?

If when answering these questions the responses are negative then communicate this to your school. Talk to the class teacher. Ask them what the value is of the event. Tell them about how it makes your son/daughter feel. Talk to the PTA. Talk to the governors.

I am not asking for schools to stop all these activities. Many have value if done well. I just want them to consider the financial impact of everything they are doing on families and ask whether it is a reasonable ask or not.

mikethain

…because that’s the job!

I’ve discovered that there are a small number of phrases in education that really get me angry.  The title of this blog is one of them!

This tweet today is what has really got me cross –

(I’d like to thank @pink_prompts for her permission to post her tweet, and @Kateowbridge for being so incredibly supportive of her with calling out the Head who is clearly finding the job of leading a school very challenging).

I have heard this same phrase myself from two previous heads I’ve worked for.  At the time I was more compliant and accepted the status quo. I continued working to get through everything that needed doing whilst spending less time with my family, being more tired and stressed, and never feeling like I was on top of things.  I didn’t question it.

As I look back now, I wish I’d been braver and asked the key question – WHY?

Why is it ok to say “because that’s the job”?

From my experience, this phrase is always used to justify either maintaining the already high workload, or increasing it.  I cannot fathom any other possible reason for a leader to use this phrase.

When I hear this phrase I am drawn to reflect on the reasons this phrase would even be spoken.

If you are a leader in any role in schools and are thinking of using this phrase (or it just comes out without you thinking), please STOP, and ask yourself – why?

Why am I using this phrase?

What culture am I creating/leading by using this phrase?

What message does this send to the person I’ve just said this to?

My view is that the message this sends is one of a nodding dog compliance. Of accepting that the profession isn’t going to change. That it will continue to demand too much of teachers and leaders. That people will continue to leave in greater numbers than can be recruited. That the never ending stream of additional work, of excessive bureaucracy, of relentless demands is doomed to continue until the end of time.

Thankfully, there are people out there trying to do something to change this. There are schools where there is a culture of wellbeing ingrained in every aspect of what the school does. Of school leaders finding different ways to manage their staff performance. Of things like no marking policies. Centralised behaviour management systems where teachers are freed up to actually teach. I see so much evidence of this from so many of the senior leaders who have a presence on twitter.

There is hope!!!

Constructive Conflict:

If you are the person who’s just heard this phrase then be brave and ask the question – “why is the job like this?”

There is no denying that it takes a huge amount of bravery to challenge the status quo. If I’d done this with one of my previous heads then I’m not sure what the consequences would have been.  With the other Head, my hope is that they would have been open to discuss it.

This is because there are some leaders who aren’t afraid of being challenged, and for a few, they actively seek it as a way of finding better ways of doing things.  Leaders who embrace this are happy to engage in constructive conflict.

I want to issue a challenge that I hope will be taken up by at least some who read this –

If you are a leader, don’t use this phrase. Say something more constructive like “let’s find a way to manage this…”, or “can I do this differently?”

If you are a teacher who hears this phrase then challenge it.  If the answer doesn’t change, and the school doesn’t change, then there are plenty of schools out there who are doing things differently. It might be time to brush up on your interview skills and get out before the school you are in breaks you.

 

mikethain

Teaching Interviews -why are they so stressful?

There is no doubting that interviews for teaching jobs are incredibly stressful.  I’ve been reflecting on this over the last few months as I was interviewed for a new career role outside of teaching (team leader – broadly the same role as a HoD) where the process was the opposite and wondered why a teaching interview is so much more stressful than in other careers.

I found being interviewed in schools hugely stressful. In my teaching career I had perhaps 20 interviews at different times for different roles. Thinking on my feet is something I’ve always found challenging. “I wish I’d thought of that” is something I’d always say, even when I was younger.  This is always regardless of how much prep I’d do – and I’d do a lot. I’d roll play all the possible scenarios, make notes, practice answers to common questions, script possible answers, redraft, refer to the person spec, speak to colleagues for advice, roll play practice interviews.  I did all this because very early in my teaching career (possibly even as a trainee going for my first job) I was told that it was frowned upon to take notes into a teaching interview.

These two polls therefore make for interesting reading and reflection.

There was also a fascinating thread with middle and senior leaders about their views on the use of notes for interviews which really opened my eyes and raised questions about how candidates perceive the behaviour expectations of interviews.

In my new role I’ve just spent a lot of time working through interview training. This included how to sort candidates, score their skills based on CVs/supporting statements, interview skills, question design, different types of questions, strength based interviews, competency based interviews, inclusive interview processes, neuro-diversity training, unconscious bias training and numerous other aspects preparing for and conducting interviews.  It was an extremely thorough process.  When I was interviewing in schools, I received none of this training.  We were given a script of questions, talked through as a panel who would ask what, and then we got on with it.

A recent poll I’ve posted asking about interview training returned some very interesting results.

You want interviews to give you as accurate an idea about the relative strengths of each candidate in order to give you the best chance of selecting the right candidate for your setting.

I wonder how many schools simply trot out the same old interview routine because they’ve not reviewed their recruitment process for a while because other things take priority?

There are a few things about interview days that I still find confusing.

  1. the length of the lesson to be taught. Why ask someone to teach a lesson that doesn’t reflect the normal length of your lessons? I’ve never understood why candidates are asked to teach a 25-30 minute activity. It in no way reflects the normal process of planning and delivering a lesson so what does it give you as an interviewer?
  2. Student panels – a “nice” thing to do as part of demonstrating that your students have a voice and are involved in the wider life of the school, but how useful are they for judging the candidate really?  The students are even less experienced at interviewing than the staff on interview panels so are not going to get much useful information. From sitting on interview panels, often the student panel opinion is given very little weighting, so my simple question is why use them?
  3. Meeting the department – often rushed. Squeezed into a break time. Done really poorly everytime I’ve either been the candidate or the interviewer. If as a school you want to know how they will get on with the team they are going to work with every day then this needs to be given greater importance.

 

This therefore begs the question –

What are we looking to get from candidates during the interview process?

and…

Does the interview process being used maximise the chances of us getting the information we want about the candidates?

This is the subject of a follow up blog I’m working on.

mikethain

What advice would I give to my younger self?

I was asked this the other day by @memneon as I was musing about the fact I had so few lessons less to teach. It really got me thinking and I completely failed to give him any adequate response.

Here are my thoughts on classroom management:

  • Establish really strong routines right from day one. Don’t take any nonsense. Don’t give an inch. Be relentlessly consistent.
  • Learn back to front the school behaviour policy. Test it out on colleagues. Roll play different scenarios to learn how to handle them calmly and with authority.
  • Shout less (stopped doing this a few years ago but did far too much earlier in my career).
  • Pause more. Give students time to think and process, then test their understanding with good quality whole class feedback.
  • Say what is needed. Don’t be afraid of talking for longer than you planned to ensure a class understands what you are teaching.
  • Talk more slowly. Teachers who talk too fast will never get the whole class to understand a concept.
  • Equally don’t waffle. Keep it concise. Pause. Repeat key points where needed.
  • Talk with authority. You are the expert in the room. Students need to listen to you to get better.
  • Don’t be afraid to throw out the lesson plan if the class just aren’t getting it.
  • Go and see others teach, then talk to them afterwards about the what they did. Do this often. It is one of the best ways to learn your craft.
  • Don’t change routines to try and get a class on your side. This rarely works and smudges the boundaries.
  • Focus relentlessly on good modelling in the classroom.  Model good behaviour. Model good written maths. Model how to set out their work. Model respectful discussions. Model good use of language. Model good use of subject specific vocabulary.  Model everything.
  • Always meet and greet at the door (if you can). Learn their names and welcome them.
  • Be the same every day. If children know what to expect then they will feel safe in your classroom.

Other advice:

  • Make friends with the cleaner, site team, reprographics team, and all members of the admin team.  Without them the school falls apart. They are the glue that holds the school together.
  • Make friends with the rest of your department/team.  Working as part of a great supportive team can make the difference between a bad and a good day.
  • Do your best to follow the systems in school. Systems help to keep the school moving forwards.  Equally don’t worry if sometimes this slips. It happens.
  • You are entitled contractually to a work life balance, and Heads are mandated to provide one in the School Teachers Pay and Conditions Document. Make sure you have one.
  • Try not to take work home every night. Having some down time each week is important.
  • Don’t feel guilty about having down time.  Ever.
  • Keep at least one day at the weekend work free.
  • If you are struggling TELL SOMEONE. You are entitled to support when life throws a few hurdles at you.
  • Work to live. Don’t live to work. This is not healthy. It only leads to one thing in my experience.

And finally, some sage advice:

  • Not everyone on staff have the motivation that it is all about the students.  Some are all about themselves. Watch out for them. They will trample on you if they need to.
  • Watch out for the ambitious ones. They too will trample on you if they need to. Be careful what you say around them as it will get back to the boss and will be twisted on the way like a game of chinese whispers.
  • Join a union. Make sure you know who your union rep is, and don’t be afraid of seeking them out for advice.
  • Look out for hypocritical leadership. Leaders who implement policies then don’t follow them in their own practice need to be called out for it.
  • Be cautious about how strongly you argue your point. There are people who will use this against you. These people are snakes and cannot be trusted.
  • It is not a badge of honour to never have a day off.
  • It is not a badge of honour to do more hours than anyone else.
  • Your health matters. Don’t put off seeing a Doctor because you don’t want to leave cover for a class.
  • You must look after yourself. Better to take one day off to beat the illness than have to take a week off because you pushed yourself too far.
mikethain

Trust – where has it gone?

This brief blog is in response to a tweet seen earlier that @rogershistory tweeted:

This sort of thing really winds me up. I mean gets be actually angry about what is happening in some of our schools.  Ultimately it boils down to one simple thing:

TRUST

A policy such as this is put in place by an SLT that no longer (if they ever did) trusts their teachers to perform their role in line with the teacher standards.  This is a reactionary policy in response to either a Local Authority visit where concerns were highlighted about consistency of feedback and it was raised as a red flag in a period where OFSTED are due at any time, or worse, it is in response to an OFSTED inspection where feedback is highlighted as an area needing attention.

I’ve been increasingly asking the question of when did senior leadership teams stop trusting their staff and embark on systems and processes such as this that are purely there for a draconian purpose to trap the small number of teachers who are not regularly marking their books?  Who is to blame for all this nonsense?  Unfortunately I’m left with only a couple of possible answers.

  1. The Heads themselves – some headteachers are simply not up to the job.  They have been over promoted, accelerated through the ranks without taking the time to really learn about leadership and management. They forget that to build successful teams you need to have good relationships based on mutual trust and respect.
  2. Governors – effective governance is all about being a “critical friend” to the leadership of the school.  They are there to support and encourage, but also to ask hard questions and hold the staff to account.  This does include having one eye on workload management for teachers and leadership. Governors need to have a constant eye on new initiatives to ensure that the demands on an already overworked teaching workforce are not exacerbated by an over-zealous SLT who initiate changes in policy off the cuff without little or no thought about how their teachers are going to put it into practice.  Governors need to have regular meetings with staff through a staff forum or similar, as well as effective whistleblowing procedures where policies that significantly impact on their ability to be effective in the classroom as well as maintain any form of work-life balance can be red-flagged without putting them at risk.
  3. OFSTED – a huge amount of trust has been lost over time and systems of measuring impact been demanded by SLTs over many years as part of chasing a “Good” or better OFSTED rating.  Numerous frameworks have come and gone, and I have worked through somewhere approaching 10 inspections in my career. They all are constantly looking for evidence of policies being consistently applied, of impact, of consistent whole school data tracking to show progress, etc. This historic drive to find evidence for everything, and SLT creating ever more numerous systems and procedures (and no end of fancy spreadsheets) to track it all have added almost exponentially to workload over the last decade.
  4. Government through the accountability culture that has built up over schools since the 90s and made worse by both Conservative and Labour Governments.  Accountability measures are the key driver of the need for schools to measure impact of everything in order to support with moving schools up the league tables, beating other local schools, being in the “top 25% of schools” etc.

Thankfully there is an increasingly vocal profession that is fighting against this sort of oppressive regime. More teachers are prepared to call “bullshit” on these kind of practices. We need to continue to be brave and stand up against policies such as this.

A headteacher I know often uses the phrase – “a teachers day is already full up like a glass. If we are going to add something for them to do, we need to take something else away”.

Policies like the one Tom cited are utterly contemptible. They show a deeply worrying lack of consideration of workload implications.  They show a complete lack of awareness of increasing levels of research that show that the most impactful feedback is instant and verbal.  They show a complete disregard for the differences of the subjects taught in school and that effective feedback can look quite different depending on subject is being taught.

Ultimately, they show a complete lack of TRUST in the staff they lead.

mikethain

Supporting Subject Leaders in Primary Schools (part 1)

As a primary governor and teacher who is passionate about reducing workload and improving work life balance for teachers I’m looking more closely at how schools can support more effectively subject leaders to fulfil their role and have an impact on school improvement without an excessive increase in their workload.

To help I ran 4 polls:

The results were actually quite distressing to read.

With over 1000 replies, only 28% of primary teachers are paid a TLR for being a subject leader.

Almost two thirds of those who replied to poll 2 don’t have any allocated time to fulfil their leadership role.

90% of responses thought that primary subject leaders should get allocated leadership time.

Just over half of responses felt that a fortnightly allocation of management time would be appropriate for subject leaders.

I then followed it up with another poll as a result of a tweet I received with two paragraphs from the School Teachers Pay and Conditions Document (Sept 2019)-

Management time
52.6. A teacher with leadership or management responsibilities is entitled, so far as is
reasonably practicable, to a reasonable amount of time during school sessions for
the purpose of discharging those responsibilities.

Section 3 – Guidance for Local Authorities, School Leaders, School Teachers and Governing Bodies of Maintained Schools

Allowances and other payments TLR payments (paragraph 20)

48. Teachers are expected to contribute, both orally and in writing as appropriate, to
curriculum development by sharing their professional expertise with colleagues
and advising on effective practice. This does not mean that they can be expected
to take on the responsibility of, and accountability for, a subject area or to manage
other teachers without appropriate additional payment. Responsibilities of this
nature should be part of a post that is in the leadership group or linked to a post
which attracts a TLR1 or TLR2 on the basis set out in paragraph 20.

The poll showed this:

This appears to suggest that a significant number of subject leaders in primary schools are not currently being paid a TLR but are being held accountable for the subject that they lead through the performance management process.

Part 2 of this blog will suggest some possible strategies that schools of varying sizes might be able to employ to support their middle leaders to drive improvement in their schools.

If you have any suggestions of strategies that work in your setting then please comment on this blog.

mikethain

Why teaching is no longer the path for me (at least for a while anyway)

So it’s finally time to confirm that I’ve handed in my notice. My final day of teaching is Wednesday 23rd October. I start a new job outside of teaching on the 1st November.

The big question is – what has driven me to turn my back on a career that I have invested  pretty much 25 years in, that I have loved (and still do love some of it), and that has been a huge privilege to work with some of the best young people?

I am not a teacher who chose to do a PGCE after my degree to try teaching out.  I wanted to be a teacher from the age of 17. I did a 4 year BSc(Ed) course at St. Luke’s School of Education, University of Exeter and after a sabbatical year started my first job in Sept 2002 in a fantastic maths department in a school in Surrey. I was blessed with a brilliant mentor and the most amazing Head of Department who was (and still is) a huge inspiration to me.

Very early on, my fiancee (now wife) and I quickly realised that the job was at times all consuming (She is a primary teacher). At the end of year 2 we decided that before we got married we needed to see the world in order to re-align our priorities and “work to live” not “live to work”.  We had an amazing 6 months travelling then came home, got married and relocated to Wiltshire.

My first role as a 2nd in maths was a bit of a mixed bag. Some really horrific times where I doubted if this job was for me, and some amazing highs. I met a deputy head who was the most inspiring person who spurred me on when times were hard and worked with some great teachers in other departments who I am still in contact with now.

I moved to another school after 5 years for another 2nd role and after a further year took up my first Head of Department role.  Wow!  Nothing, not even the NCSL Middle Leadership training I did could have prepared me for what was involved in running your own team.  That 5 1/2 years at times were a blur. Some huge achievements both for me personally and for my team. Some more huge lows, including a couple of calls to Union reps for issues that required their support.  After some major issues with some questionable management practices that I won’t go into here I moved to the school I am now leaving.

The change couldn’t have been more different. The school helped me to fall in love with teaching again.  I re-discovered what teaching a class of enthusiastic, focused, well behaved, motivated young people felt like.  I could focus again on pedagogy rather than constantly fire-fighting. I was leading a fantastic team that was on a par with the first department I worked with, and I was working for a Headteacher who had a clarity of vision that I hadn’t seen before and I could see myself working for her and the school for many years.

During this journey into management we had endured numerous curriculum re-writes, OFSTED framework changes, changes in governments, numerous changes of Education Secretaries, and the national picture was constantly changing.  There was also the issue of a lack of pay rise since 2010.  These constant changes meant more work, but with an ever decreasing (in real terms) salary. Doing more for less.

The pressure to deliver results in a maths team is something that unless you have taught maths, english, or science at secondary level you simply cannot understand what it requires of you.  This pressure over the 7 years as a middle leader made me have to chose between my own children, and the children in the school(s) I was working in.  My children are now 11 and 8.  When you hear phrases come out of their mouths like “Daddy never laughs” and “why is Daddy always sad” your heart breaks.  When you come home and within 5 minutes you are telling them off because you are so stressed after work that you are like a coiled spring. When everything becomes hard to get done because the huge levels of stress is making you so tired from lack of sleep, unable to concentrate, getting you to the point where you are unwell, unable to exercise due to injuries that are likely to have been exacerbated by stress, and going to see your doctor due to the impact of extreme stress on your health, you realise that something has to change.

I reached this point in February this year.

It was time to make a change.  Time to make a choice.  My family v the children in my classroom.

The job had got to the point where it was simply impossible to be the sort of husband and father I wanted to be, as well as the kind of teacher and leader I wanted to be.  I loved both of them.  But there was no longer room in my life to be able to do both. One had to go.  It was a simple choice where there was only going to be one winner.

So I got in touch with one of my oldest friends who agreed to help me write a CV for the first time in nearly 20 years.  After spending my entire Easter holiday getting it done it was sent to some companies to see if there were any posts available.

In early May I was contacted by a company and called to interview. I heard before May half term that they’d like to offer me a role leading a team of people and I accepted. At this point I spoke to my Head and informed her that I had accepted another job and would be resigning.  I was however unable to formally resign as I needed to negotiate a start date.

When I was finally able to resign I left my Head’s office and cried. The only feeling I can compare it to was when my Grandparents passed. It genuinely felt like I was grieving. I was losing something that I had invested 24 years into. I’d given blood, sweat, tears, and every possible emotion you can imagine to this life.

The day after was a Friday. I came to work feeling lighter. I felt less stressed than I had for months, probably years. I went home that weekend and enjoyed myself with my children. The first time I’d felt able to do this for longer than I wish to remember. I laughed. Actually laughed with my boys. I played cricket in the garden. Watched them in their squash lesson. Smiled without it being forced. Relaxed. I mean actually relaxed. I didn’t do any work at all.

It’s now a few weeks since I resigned.  I’m finally getting excited about what I’m moving on to. I’m relaxing at home. Enjoying being a Dad. Working hard to be a much better husband. The house is less stressed. I am less stressed.

All of this makes me realise that I have made the right decision.

I’ll still be involved in education. I’m going to be doing some maths tutoring. I’m a primary school governor and hope to get much more involved in this over the coming years. I’m still going to attend conferences and hope to be accepted to speak at some too. I still feel that I have much to offer education, but am going to do it from a position of a former teacher.

mikethain

Results Day

Ok, a quick blog of what I’ll be doing tomorrow for #GCSEResultsDay2019.

  1. celebrate the success of my students.  Regardless of what else needs to be done with the results this is the absolute priority.  They’ve worked for 5 years to get to this point and deserve to be congratulated (or commiserated for some).
  2. Before going to the area where students will receive their results I will go armed with several printed copies of the grade boundaries (not released until 6am tomorrow).  A copy for me, one for every maths teacher that is there, and a couple of spares just in case.  This means that those discussions with students who are borderline students can take place immediately.
  3. Get your examinations officer to print out and get signed a script release form if you are with an exam board with a script viewer option. (Pearson Edexcel do which is the board my centre uses). Do not let students leave until this is signed.

    Last year when I tweeted this next bit it wasn’t universally popular due to the workload implications.  Please accept my apologies for this now, but I will be doing this.

  4. Once the students have left the building the hard work begins.  With script viewer I will be downloading scripts for every student who is within 5 marks of the grade above.  I have used this larger than normal gap due to the lack of accuracy of some examiners.  I was able to get a couple of grade changes in the last 2 years for students who were 4 and 5 marks away so I will continue with this.
  5. As I am already an examiner (and I marked paper 2H this Summer), I will be going through the individual scripts with a fine tooth comb.  I will be annotating the scripts with any potential mistakes to see if they are worth appealing.  As it is so expensive to review scripts (if the grade doesn’t change that is), this work is a money saver and also helps with a formal appeal if the request for a remark doesn’t come back with a grade change.
  6. It is important to check the whole paper.  Mistakes from examiners will include giving more marks than they should as well as not giving enough marks.  Hence the warning with any request for remark that marks could go up or down.
  7. The errors I find are generally of two types:
    a) glaringly obvious – unfortunately in spite of their best efforts examiners do make some pretty obvious errors.  It is rare to get an examiner with 100% accuracy, particularly given the interpretation questions.
    b) possible errors – these are more ambiguous and often will involve a second opinion from one of my team.
  8. Once I’ve added up the change in marks and seen who should (in my view) be remarked, I’ll send this request with reasons to my examinations officer and SLT line lead for them to make the final decision.

This work takes time, but it meant that last year I only requested around 20 scripts to be reviewed. I was successful with remarks for about 10 students.  From a list of about 16 or 17 this was an extremely high success rate.

If I didn’t have script viewer then I’ve have requested a lot more with a much lower success rate.  This included students moving from grade 3 to 4 and therefore not having to retake maths, a couple from grade 2 to 3 which meant they could get onto their college course they wanted, and some at grade 6 or higher which meant they could get onto the level 3 qualifications they wanted.

This effort is the final act of my year as a head of department before the new academic year starts.  I don’t just look at grade 3/4, grade 4/5 and grade 6/7.  By looking at every student it sends a message that every student matters, not just those that impact on the headline figures.