'Take-a-risk Thursday'.

Yesterday at school was ‘Take A Risk Thursday’ – a day chosen as one in which in every lesson we, as teachers, would try something we wouldn’t ordinarily do. I like to think that in my own lesson, and certainly in my department, this is something we do try and do with each ‘re-working’ of a scheme of work. Certainly some of my colleagues’ ideas have revolutionised my teaching, and we make a point of peer-observing for ideas every half term. We’re lucky, I think, in that we are actively given time to be covered, and in department meetings, to do this.

Whilst there was endless fun in the staffroom on what constituted a ‘risk’  - lessons from home over Skype, food tech practicals with no oven gloves and re-enacting the charge of the Light Brigade were all mooted – it did get me thinking about what I actually do in planning day-to-day lessons. As an individual, as part of a department, and as a school our results are more than good. But I am also increasingly aware that with 4 GCSE groups and a full-to-capacity timetable, my lessons are tending to follow a similar route; a ‘think-start’ task, success criteria, modelling and then self or peer-assessment. Without a doubt, I am making use of recently-discovered ideas like silent debates and ‘Investigate’ lessons. But I know what my go-to lesson plan is. Loath though I am to mention the ‘O’ word, the recent announcement that inspectors won’t be looking for a certain ‘type’ of lesson has inspired thought that we should be mixing things up and ought to be taking risks.

I want to make it clear that for me, this isn’t about what OFSTED want, or what is going to work best in forcing kids to regurgitate chunks of learning in an exam format (indeed, that’s a whole different post itching to be written!). In fact, the purpose of this post is to consider what might ‘spark’ kids’ learning. The question in my mind was ‘Why not?’ If it doesn’t work, I’ve tried something different. If it does, then that’s a seam to be mined which can only benefit the kids – because whilst school is ostensibly about exams and qualifications, in reality it’s so much more than that. It’s about developing skills as people: working collaboratively; problem solving; I could even go so far as to quote Gove (!) and say that it’s about developing the ‘thirst for knowledge’ (though I’d substitute ‘knowledge’ for ‘learning’).

Here is my outline for 'Take a risk Thursday':

P1&2 - Year 10= Controlled Assessment. Short of mixing up the papers and getting them to complete each others’ (JOKE!) there’s not much I can do about taking a risk in these kinds of lessons.

On Friday we'll be starting Speaking and Listening. I will be asking students to choose their favourite songs on YouTube. We will play the songs and then students will use 'talk phrases' to explain to each other why they are their favourite songs. This is something I would probably not do for a whole lesson ordinarily but I am providing 'question cards' to maintain focus for those who are 'listeners' at different stages of the lesson. Planning to make a fool of myself by rhapsodising about something by the Spice Girls as my favourite song.... Don’t worry though, I’ll pass it off as ‘retro’. Maybe.

Talk phrases

P3: Year 8 – *NB This lesson will now take place next Thursday as students were in a Learning Assembly – I’ll keep you posted.*

This was intended to be the first time I will meet this class. I will be teaching them once a week so I will be starting a novel with them (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone), and spending time each week reading or using extracts as a starting point for creative writing.

 I will introduce a version of the Cornell note-taking method for them to record the events/unusual vocabulary/their thoughts about the chapter that we read. I have not used this method before and am sure that students haven't either. The idea is that they will be ‘active listeners’ and it will serve better than simply ‘make notes’. Because, thinking about it, what is that? How will they know what’s effective if I don’t actually show them what good notes are? I found this idea on @HuntingEnglish’s blog.

P4: Year 11 - My lovely set 4s (who I worked with last year on their Language GCSE) have found the demands of Literature a bit of a step up. The wonderful @EnglishLulu sent me some work on getting them to move away from the ‘clunkiness’ of their Point, Evidence, Explanation approach to questions and more towards embedding their quotes within a ‘thesis statement’. This has worked really well and so I was ambitious with my subject, posing the question ‘How far is An Inspector Calls a didactic play?’ The ‘risk’ here was pushing my students beyond what I would ordinarily prepare for aspiring C/B grades. I was hoping that this would translate to an exam-style answer, using their newly-gained skills in structuring their writing.

Having established understanding of the word ‘didactic’, I then provided A B C cards (add/build/challenge) to structure a debate – hoping to foster some ‘talk into writing’ - and was over the moon when one student actually broke off her argument to look something up in the text! (Bit of a  breakthough moment, that..!). To some extent, this was a hugely successful lesson – the kids were engaged in arguing how far they agreed with the question.  So, was their quantifiable progress in the form of an exam-style answer, with embedded phrasing, in their exercise books? NO! But to hear kids stumbling over the word ‘omniscience’ (we’re working on using sophisticated vocabulary) and how it helped them to prove their point was a step forward to me. I could have cut the debate off, and told them to channel their ideas into writing. Nevertheless, with twenty students who have been gradually coming down off of their ‘high’ (passing their GCSE Language) and finding Literature increasingly tough, this lesson was an important breakthrough. I’m more than happy to ‘revisit’ this lesson on Monday to consolidate and build on these gains.

P5: Accelerated Reader – silent reading in the library with Year 7

P6: Year 8P4 = Again, this idea was magpie’d from @HuntingEnglish. (I really can't recommend this blog highly enough - always worth a read.)
Students will be starting a new scheme based around the film 'Despicable Me'. They need to know the events of the film so we will be watching the first section of it, and I will be introducing students to the idea of 'triplicate note-taking'; rather than making a timeline of events students will split their page into 3 columns -

Column 1: Core information. The events, characters and  any quotes that jumped out at them. 

Column 2: Key questions sparked by the information in Column 1. It's unlikely that there will be any vocabulary they don't know but at a later date we will be looking at how a name can create an impression of a character, so I will ask them to note down any connotations they might have with names like 'Doctor Nefario' and 'Gru'.

Column 3: Memorable images and mnemonics to help students consciously embed the events/imagery of the film in their memory.

Triple-notes

I am really pleased with the amount of information each student garnered, and this will help them at a later date when we discuss character, pathetic fallacy, camera angles and mise-en-scene.

So, what did I learn? Have I ‘taken risks’? For me, yes. I am sure that there are many teachers who will scoff at the feebleness of my risks. Indeed, as I was teaching my final lesson one of my colleagues was conducting some kind of amazing ‘Imagery Quest’ with capes, and an invisible dragon. But I know that in terms of pushing my own boundaries as a teacher, and having a positive impact on my classes, there were gains. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

What constitutes a ‘risk’ for you? How willing are you to take them?

Why I will be striking....

Striking is a last resort; something a body of people do when all other ways of negotiation have been exhausted or somehow blocked to them.

Teachers are by their very nature, against strikes, despite what the tub-thumping press (not to mention our esteemed leader, Gove) would have you believe.

Though my reasons for striking are manifold, I've sort-of split them into two broad trains of thought. And I've tried to keep it brief couldn’t, sorry.

Firstly, my personal reasons; me, myself. I cannot speak for anyone else.

The Teachers' Pension. As a profession we’re now expected to work longer, pay more and get less than we agreed to when we started the job. Why yes, we ARE living in times of austerity. Indeed, we're all being expected to 'tighten our belts' (not that this seems to apply to the ministers telling us that's what we must do). But let me just point out that £43 BILLION pounds has gone into the teachers’ pension pot (paid for by serving, contributing teachers) than has ever come out. How then, can it be said that this needs input from the taxpayer? How is it not viable on its own? The enforced increased contributions, combined with the current pay freeze, equals a 15% real-terms cut since 2010. In the private sector, you’d go and find another job. Teachers can move schools, but not employers (the government).

The new pay structure (which, incidentally doesn't apply to leaders in schools) means that I have a very real chance of being stuck on the same pay point for the rest of my career. Again, something that is common –place in the private sector. But… school is not the private sector (yet)! Let me place it in its context; we’re being told that now is the time to ‘pay good teachers more’. Without blowing my own trumpet, I think I’m pretty good. I know I work in a school that’s more than pretty good – in fact I think my school’s amazing. Last year out of my GCSE class of C/D borderline kids, 88% achieved a C or above. The national average hovers around 62%. That’s over 20% above average. However, the way that students’ grades are predicted is extrapolated from their SATs exams. So if students achieve a Level 5 at primary school, by hook or by crook (revision, endless prep, primary schools flogging themselves to the bone) then the data says they’ll achieve a grade A at GCSE. Excellent, I’ll do my best to get them there. What price, however, the primary schools who support their students ‘too much’? The ones who find funding for 1:1 support, who award extra time, readers or other helpers? Not that I blame them; they’re only looking to boost their own results. But they create a legacy of students who truly struggle – and are now damned with a GCSE target they cannot achieve. (I’m convinced I have a whole separate post brewing on the gradual eradication of TA support in secondary education). What I’m essentially saying here is that in the event of my students failing to make three levels of progress from their entry-point at GCSE - regardless of the intervention and excellent teaching I put in –that can stop me moving up the pay scale. How is that paying good teachers more?

I stand up all day. Most days, I get to work at around about 7.15.  I often leave at around 5 or even 6 pm. There is rarely a weekday evening in which I don’t have something to catch up on be it marking, planning or correspondence. I am TIRED. Granted, I get great holidays, (though I also run holiday schools, revision session and plan the years’ schemes of work in my holidays). But we’re now being told we must work until we’re 68. Do you want a 68 year old teaching your kids PE? Is this what’s best for children?

Those are the personal reasons I will be striking.

On top of that, I am striking for the kids I teach. In recent years Gove has removed the Educational Maintenance allowance. I received this as a sixth-former. Without it it’s doubtful I would have remained in full-time education. The knock-on effect of this for many of the students I teach is becoming obvious. Last week I comforted a student who was in tears over the fact that their parents think that in July they should be starting work. This student longs to be a nurse, and would be the first in the family to go to university. Will they make it? EMA would have helped in ‘narrowing the gap’ in this specific circumstance.

 University fees have trebled in recent years, whilst funding has been cut by up to 80%. This means that many young people, on leaving school at 18 are not even considering university. The Conservatives last week announced that ‘’We know that profit, wealth creation, tax cuts, enterprise, (…) really are the solution because it's not government that creates jobs, it's businesses.’’ How are young people going to get into these jobs if they’re prevented from doing so because they’ve not been able to get to university? Why is it that big business is getting a break from paying tax at the expense of children currently studying at school and college?

The double-speak of what we’re being told to teach is baffling. On one hand, we have Old Etonians like Nick Hurd telling us that young people ‘lack grit and character’. I took that to mean a lack of inter-personal skills - the handshakes, the confidence; in short the ’soft skills’ which seem  to come so naturally to those who were privately-educated. As an English teacher I teach communication; that sort of thing is down to me to teach! And yet, just four days before term started in September, Speaking and Listening was removed from the final grade scores in GCSE English. This means that the carefully-embedded tasks I had planned to include in my teaching throughout the year, now no longer ‘count’. Oh, wait, we still have to DO it, and record it, it just won’t COUNT…. If you were 15, how would that leave you feeling?

Since the dismantling of the Building Schools for the Future program, schools have been left in limbo, in crumbling buildings in need of a total overhaul. Many classes, even in my own school are taught in huts; freezing in the winter, baking in the summer, and totally uninspiring learning spaces. My own Dad came to pick me up from my school a few months ago and commented on the state of repair. Let me make it plain that my school is a bright, welcoming and inspiring place. It just happens to be housed in the exact same building it’s been in for generations. Our children deserve better!

In the last month, we have effectively been told that our GCSE students who re-take a GCSE at school are cheating, whilst at the same time created a new rule in which if they haven’t passed English and Maths they need to re-sit at college. The same college many of them won’t be attending, as they’ll need some sort of income, due to the lack of EMA.

I could go on about the looming school-places crisis, the continued denigration of the role of teachers in society and the slashing of teacher-training budgets. But frankly, if you’ve read this far I hope you’ll understand why I and many of my fellow teachers will be striking this Thursday. 

Just to spell it out. 

TWO personal reasons pertaining to pay and conditions. At least SIX  grave concerns I have about the state, and future of education. 

'Work-life balance' and surviving your NQT year.

About a week ago, one of my colleagues asked me to help out with a PGCE training session she was running for all the student teachers in our school. My inner show-off immediately jumped at the chance - that is, until I realised that the topic was 'Work-life balance'. 'What a fine joke,' I thought. 'Work-life balance... what's that?' I thought. My over-riding thought was that I should just stand in front of these bright, keen people at the start of their careers and say, well, here I am... here's what not to do!

Obviously I didn't actually want people to run, screaming, from their placements. So I spent a weekend agonising over how, exactly, to phrase the facts and realities of being an NQT: the highs and lows, the expectations and realities, the exhaustion and the exhilaration.

Here's what I came up with, and links.

The change from trainee to teacher.

Starting my NQT year as an English teacher was daunting. On one hand I was pleased, and excited, to be joining a large and well-established team, and to have control of my own classroom, tutor group, and classes. On the other I was concerned that planning, data, marking and report-writing was now my sole responsibility! I wasn’t entirely sure how I would cope without the support of my university tutor, which leads me on to...

Expectations you should have of your school.

Regardless of how you came into teaching, as an NQT you’re entitled to training, development, encouragement, and support. I saw this year as very much part of my on-going training, and still feel very lucky to have had excellent opportunities, with access to the ITP, a team-and-skills-building weekend away, weekly mentor sessions, after-school training, and opportunities to observe and be observed teaching. This is essential and I feel that I am a totally different teacher in terms of my professional development than I was at the start of my career. Take every opportunity you get to go and look at different people teaching, in as many subjects as you can, that’s what the NQT extra time is for – and if you’re not given it, ask for it. It’s not cheeky; it’s a requirement schools have. I was incredibly lucky to have the most supportive Subject Mentor who has become a wonderful colleague and friend, too.

As a minimum, your school should provide:

• A suitably experienced Induction Tutor and Subject Mentor
• Discussions based around your Career Entry and Development Profile (CEDP)
•  An individualised induction programme, which provides support, monitoring and assessment
• Observations of your teaching, with timely and constructive feedback, each half term
• 10% reduction in timetable in addition to normal PPA time allocated

The highs and lows of being an NQT

I sometimes still stop to think ‘Wow.. I am a real teacher!’ This sounds really cheesy – it isn’t; it’s the culmination of all the work you put in during your training year, and the rounds of interviews you prepared for. I’m sure you’ll all feel the same as I do that this is the best job in the world – that ‘lightbulb’ moment is one that just can’t be replicated in any other job. I for one absolutely love planning sessions that I know are going to interest and inspire my students, and that can only lead to great progress. Some of the best times can also be when you get involved as a tutor; as a year 7 tutor it felt that we were all on a journey together. Things like Sports Day and Inter-Tutor activities really do make you feel part of a team and the kids absolutely appreciate the time you put in building up those relationships.  

With that in mind, there are times when things can feel overwhelming. My HOD has a great term – ‘pinch points’. Whatever subject you teach, there are times within the year where the pressure’s on – whether that’s controlled assessment deadlines, data or OMR entry, upcoming parents’ evenings or just a build up of marking. Although I am possibly the worst person in the world at maintaining perspective, you need to be strict with yourself. Some things are never going to get done... and that’s OK! The key is to prioritise your work. Although I would rather plan a creative writing lesson than mark a pile of scripts any day, I have learned the hard way that marking is, actually planning in itself. Having said that, there is no way you should revolve your entire life around work. Each and every teacher has fallen into this trap!

Here are some of my ‘top tips’.

I try to have ‘working hours’ during the week; during the day I get in early and leave late so that come 6pm, that’s my time, to go swimming, cook a different tea, or see some friends. This is, obviously not possible all the time – think of your own pinch points – but it should be an aim. It is unsustainable to work 16 hours a day and all weekend. You will burn out! Do you want to be outstanding for a term and a half and then off sick for a month?!

It’s important to recognise, as well, the people who have supported you this far – your family, partners, and friends. I find it’s easy to get sucked into the ‘school bubble’ but you need to remember that it is not your whole life – it’s a job!

If you end up in a big school, or a training school, you might be part of a big cohort of NQTs, as I was, and that’s reassuring in itself, just because there will be a lot of you going through the same things. However some schools don’t end up having a lot of NQTs in a particular academic year, and if you find yourself one of a small group, there are lots of places you can find support. Unfortunately, there are cases of people burning out or feeling unable to cope – an interesting report from 5Live last week highlighted the case of a HT in Worcestershire who committed suicide due to the stress of teaching.

Support I have found invaluable:

TES forums – it’s free to sign up and it’s also where you can find resources and job adverts

The Teacher Support Network

Guardian Education – lots of inspiring articles. In particular, one specifically about work-life balance this week by Marie Hazel which makes for excellent reading. Last week there was also a live blog chat on the subject.

Twitter – follow @TeacherToolkit, @innovatemyschl and @ThatsEarth – the last not teaching-related , but SO inspiring! NB as an English specialist there are so many more awesome people to follow - search #engchat or #ukedchat.



And now let's all take a moment to appreciate this fallacy. Don't worry, the feeling that your head is being slowly filled with boiling water is quite common....

Are you a teacher? Whether student teacher, aspiring teacher or veteran, we all need support; what's helped you cope?