HWRK Magazine: Issue 21 - July 2022

educational magazinefor teachers the essential magazine

HWRK JULY 2022 / ISSUE 21 / FREE HWRKMAGAZINE.CO.UK

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written by teachers for teachers

Advice for new and aspiring SENCOs

DO tEAchErS rEALLy NEED A DEgrEE tO tEAch? Why yOu ShOuLD (pOSSIbLy) jOIN A SubjEct ASSOcIAtION tESt-ENhANcED LEArNINg - A mODEL fOr rEtrIEvAL prActIcE OutDOOr pLAy AS A StrAtEgy fOr WELLbEINg & chILD DEvELOpmENt WhAt IS OrAcy AND Why ShOuLD WE prIOrItISE It?

We work tirelessly to change the lives of those affected by bullying and we know we make a difference. We see it in the way young people engage in our projects, how we empower them to Make a Difference and how they develop confidence and learn new skills.

By developing a positive ethos across a whole school/organisation community, we can create an environment that meets the emotional, academic and social needs of pupils and staff. Creating an anti-bullying and respectful ethos is a powerful way to Inspire Change.

Our Youth Ambassadors are a dynamic team of young volunteers working together to help deal with the issue of bullying. They are committed and dedicated and all have a passion to Make A Difference in their local communities. The programme is open all year round and you can join wherever you live and whatever your background and interests are.

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FEATURE

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STraNger ThiNgS iN educaTioN: The upSide doWN World of email

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FEATURE

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The poWer of SubjecT aSSociaTioNS

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Advice For Aspiring And new sencos

Why Should TeacherS Need a degree aNyWay?

The role of SENCO is one that requires a lot of strategic thinking, with policies that need to work across key stages and that are inclusive of extremely diverse educational needs. Not only that, the potential (actual) workload generated requires SENCOs to have slick procedures in place to manage what must be done day-today. Saira Saeed offers her advice on what to prioritise when new to the SENCO role.

By Saira Saeed

FEATURE

By Pete Forster

In a bid to solve the recruitment crisis for schools, it is often mooted that non-graduates should be encouraged to become teachers. But many argue that a degree-level qualification is a must-have, for a number of reasons - subject knowledge being only one. Pete Foster gives his thoughts…

The 1980s are enjoying a welcome resurgence. Netflix’s phenomenon ‘Stranger Things’ has opened up the joy of a more straightforward, less frenetic and, paradoxically, more exciting time. The protagonists of the show devote their time to friendship (face to face), music (albums on vinyl or cassette), freedom (BMX, outdoors) communication (face to face or payphone) community (families, schools and friendships) and some monster hunting…

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Why Should TeacherS have a degree anyWay?

Curriculum

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One of the key tenets of Stranger Things is that there are other dimensions where events are played out in parallel to the human world. The Upside Down is the name of the alternate dimension and Will, Mike, Dustin, and Lucas inadvertently create a portal to this world. Watching and becoming nostalgic about the 80s, the decade I spent in school as a pupil, I started to ponder.

advice for NeW aNd aSpiriNg SeNcoS

What if there was an upside-down education world where schools were still in the 1980s? How would things be different? Have the advances of the past 40 years all been beneficial, aiding and progressing learning for students and making the profession more attractive for teachers? Would pedagogy be much different with chalk and a board? Would leadership be more of a challenge

without software and hardware on computers? Has technology made life easier or harder for teachers?

In my education analogy, the faceless beast, the Demogorgon is in our dimension and that beast is email. A function that was designed to make sending messages easier has morphed into a pernicious and all-pervading monster. Leaders I have spoken to regularly receive over 100 emails a day from teachers working in the same building. One of the stranger things is that if the leader didn’t receive so many emails, they may actually be able to escape the office and speak to the senders! Communication is of course important, but does it need to be instant?

If a portal was created to the 80s teaching world, would you step through it, to the upside down no email world?

A look through the portal and look at the day of a school leader in the 1980s

Morning

No mobile phone to scroll through instead of getting up, no emails, no pressure, freedom to enjoy breakfast and talk to family. No work-based communication and you’re unlikely to have missed anything.

In class

Fully immersed and present. No incessant pinging. No chance of disturbance or derailment and full freedom to teach

Breaktime and Lunchtime

Converse with colleagues, without the conversation starting with the wearing “did you see my email?” Mark books if you must, duty is not a requirement.

The opportunity to sit down and have a rest.

Meetings

The whole team engaged in discussion, no computers or screens. Shorter and more productive meetings with clear actions and time to follow up. Focus on breeding teamwork.

Evenings

Your time is your own. You have escaped the tentacles of the Demogorgon. Nobody should need to reach you (unless an emergency). Work if you need to or wish to. Hobbies, leisure, family and recharge are possible. An interesting scene in series one shows a teacher taking a late-night call and being most perturbed and somewhat annoyed by it, while today we allow 24hr, 7 days a week access through the email beast.

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PEDAGOGY

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If we anticipate the requirement to reteach, we need to use forgetting, (spacing) in a way which delicately balances the effort needed to retrieve information with the likelihood of successful retrieval.

No, let’s circle back around to “encoding and retrieval are two distinct phases.”

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TeST-eNhaNced learNiNg: reSearch-iNformed iNSighTS iNTo reTrieval pracTice

I have devised an email protocol which may be useful for readers returning to our side of the board, in 2022 schools.

I set out a list of questions that you should consider before sending an email:

1. Do I really need to send this

email? How many conversations start with ‘Did you get my email?

2. Do I have to send it now?

3. Can I solve this issue by waiting and asking the person face to face?

4.

Does every single member of staff need to read it? Some schools have adopted an email window, for example:

“Effort is vital and we must warn students of this fact: Human memory is fragile. The initial acquisition of knowledge is slow and effortful. And once mastery is achieved, the knowledge must be exercised periodically to mitigate forgetting.” (Lindsey et al, 2014).

Encoding (learning) is often pedestrian, information may or not may have been stored in longterm memory, it is often difficult to access. Whereas retrieval, remembering or relearning, is much more efficient at doing this.

Knowing this will impact upon how you employ testing to enhance learning.

why teSt-enhAnced leArning?

Suffice to say that given “the strong evidence for its benefits for memory, many cognitive and educational psychologists now classify testing as among the most effective educational techniques discovered to date,” (Pan & Rickard, 2018).

‘how’, in two phASeS And Seven StAtementS

“Testing is not only an assessment of learning but also an assessment for learning.” Yang et al, 2021.

The historic 2011 Roediger et al paper offered us “10 benefits of testing and their applications to educational practice.”

Tom Sherrington is right to issue a warning shot at “rigid, formulaic quizzing regime[s]” and “performative quizzing.” However, get test-enhanced learning right, during encoding and as retrieval, and you can make a healthy contribution to the direct and indirect effectiveness of your

Testing aids retention, identifies gaps in knowledge, causes students to learn more from the next learning episode, promotes better organisation of knowledge, improves transfer of knowledge to new contexts, facilitates retrieval of information that was not tested, aids metacognitive monitoring, prevents interference, gives feedback to instructors and encourages students to study.

Firstly, directly, in securing superior long-term retention, durability, accessibility and transfer of knowledge.

And secondly, indirectly, as a vehicle for motivation, increased investment and attention in lessons and by providing a framework from which students can adapt their own learning and relearning.

It is a broad and convincing argument.

As Dr Tom Perry, who led the Education Endowment Foundation’s Cognitive Science Approaches in the Classroom review (Perry et al, 2021), summarised in a recent conversation, “We know a huge amount about learning, memory, cognition, attention, and it’s creating some really powerful and practical principles that we can trust.” But now it’s over to the educators, he said, “to really work out what good looks like in their own contexts”.

increase success

increase difficulty

During encoding

During retrieval

Use recognition recall: Matched pairs, Multiple Choice style questions, fill-inthe-blanks.

Use free recall or cued questions, or reverse the cue eg Q&A and A&Q

Retrieve more recent learning or deeply rooted learning; rather than selecting new retrieval prompts, retrieve then reorder

Extend the chronological reference.

Retrieve learning from last term, or even last year(s)! Misalign the retrieval tasks, set homeworks from the previous topic.

Shorten time intervals, (Eglington et al, 2020).

Extend time intervals

Reduce the breadth of knowledge being probed

Extend the breadth or weight of knowledge being probed

Cue the retrieval, extend the cue(s) use hints

Remove cues - free recall

Massed practiced retrieval - selecting the same retrieval prompts repeatedly, or reorder* the prompts

Spaced practice: Select new retrieval

Block retrieval - securing high success rates on a set of flashcards before progressing)

Interleave retrieval, new prompts from across topics

Self-paced

Time pressured

early days in leadership and invest more in the formative years of their own children and families.

6.

These same leaders identify that the value of constant communication is overstated. The ‘always available’ ‘always on’ approach may be beneficial in the short term, but the only place a leader is indispensable is in their own home.

Leaders are too often present at home and at work but unreachable, like Will, behind the email wall.

the hours of 7pm and 7am from Monday to Thursday.

7.

Write out the email, store it in your drafts and then send it in the morning.

8. Alternatively, most email

providers have a ‘Delay Send’ facility.

This allows you to schedule emails days in advance.

I would like to see leaders incorporating a digital detox and allowing themselves and their staff to ‘go back to the 80s’ occasionally. It is palpable the number of books written by leaders who wish they could be transported back to their

Email is one of the stranger things of education, it is making us frenetic, and it is the beast that needs to be tamed. Is it time to become phronetic and use our experience of the 1980s and turn our view upside down?

You also get a huge injection of subject knowledge development, connecting you back to what you loved about the subject when you started teaching, and giving you a huge boost of inspiration for renewed curriculum and subject thinking.

“A function that was designed to make sending messages easier has morphed into a pernicious and all-pervading monster.”

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Many subject associations offer regular training, ongoing consultancy and support, or huge ranges of resources that have been

expertly prepared and curated.

Both the Royal Geographical Society and Geographical Associations offer CPD courses, online resources, and professional accreditation and support for all stages of your career and it’s become more accessible and open to all in the hybrid era.

Subject associations also offer a “trusted voice”, being able to speak on behalf of the subject in exam consultations, in the design of national curriculum documents and of representing the range of the teachers of a subject in a way that isn’t possible in almost any other platform.

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iiN defeNce of TeachiNg parTTime department that I was due to support.

He said, “well, two of them are part time so… not great”. I took huge delight later in our conversation when I had to decline the invitation to visit on a Monday as I too was part-time.

His genuinely surprised response was very telling; I don’t think he’d ever considered that someone in my role would fit into his preconceived ideas of part-time working.

prompts from the same topic or refresh the cards

So, if part-time working can help us achieve greater work-life balance, how do we go about it?

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Finally, you are challenged to see more than just your own context.

Some of the most powerful work at this year’s Conference was about the voices and the stories of diverse lived experiences. It’s easy to focus on your own context, and it’s good to be confronted with different realities and the difficulties that others are facing in their work. That’s sometimes uncomfortable; but so necessary.

“As part-time workers I believe we need to rigorously interrogate our own biases towards parttime work if we are ever to change the way it is perceived by others.”

Throughout my teaching career, I have been able to find work-life balance using a variety of approaches. Before having my son, I’d worked in the same school for many years. I was at a point where my life was as balanced as I wanted it

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feel like it’s being “done to you”.

That’s really empowering.

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“less library system and more ecosystem”

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Your access to knowledge isn’t just about the subject, though. It’s about sharing the best practice, thinking and ideas of all kinds of other teachers. You learn from others, talk to them afterwards, share your resources and theirs, and come away feeling like you’ve had a chance to really discuss and debate your learning. It’s about being part of a conversation, not

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teaching and to the outcomes for your pupils.

retrievAl-deSign for low fAilure rAteS

In the past ten years, we have evidence to add to Roediger’s paper.

Where testing is used to enhance learning, students prepare better for lessons, take more notes, are more focused or less distracted in lessons, are less anxious about exams, more resistant to stress and have improved attendance.

5. No emails should be sent between

No emails should be sent after 5pm on a Friday. This email window could apply in term time and during holiday periods. But what about if you want to work outside this window? The good news is that it’s still possible to work on emails outside of this window for teachers who wish to do so and for whom this fits better with their working lives. Teachers should always consider the ‘before sending an email’ questions above first.

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PEDAGOGY

“Remembering is greatly aided if the first presentation is forgotten to some extent before the repetition occurs.” (Roediger & Karpicke, 2011) hwrkMAGAzine.co.uk

If the modern world’s allure is too strong and you find yourself longing for the benefits of the 2020s, you can traverse the portal and return. Having experienced life on the upside down, on your return you may seek to tame the email beast. Having experienced the headspace, the serenity and the freedom away from the reach of the beast, you may decide to use technology in a way that you control it rather than it controlling you.

“the scale and diversity of subject associations is really powerful in helping teachers broaden their thinking and their experience”

to be. I think this is essential: my life conformed to my idea of balance.

If you are seeking work-life balance, it is important to have a clear understanding of what “balance” means for you and what is realistic. I arrived at 7.30am, I left by 6pm, I did all of my work in school and I had sensible systems in place for prioritising tasks. I rarely hung out in the staffroom and I didn’t make whizzy PowerPoints as I wanted to be efficient as possible. For some, those working hours are too long and it’s true that they left little time for cleaning our flat or ironing. But it did mean that I did no school work on weekends or in the evening, which suited me perfectly.

To be clear on what work-life balance means for you, you need to know yourself, your school and your role

really well.

For example, although I know I would find a pastoral role very rewarding I have always avoided such positions. I like to be able to control my time as much as possible but seeing incredible colleagues in these roles tells me that it is unlikely I’d be able to keep all my work tasks to within the school day.

The nature of pastoral roles is that you need to be responsive to pupils’ needs throughout the day. Therefore, being realistic about the work you’ll need to take home is crucial.

In my new role, I work 4 days per week.

I know I will never be able to do nursery or school drop-offs, and that is a reality I have had to accept. Luckily, I have a highly competent partner who is fully capable of getting our son ready in the

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CONTENTS EDITORIAL: 05. BUT SIR, whY ARE wE EvEN LEARNING ThIS?

FEATURES 07. whY ShOULD TEAChERS NEED A DEGREE ANYwAY?

In the current recruitment crisis, is a degree really necessary for teaching?

10. STRANGER ThINGS IN EDUCATION: ThE UPSIDE DOwN wORLD OF EMAIL

Is our always-available email culture preventing us from doing our jobs?

14. DO SChOOL BUILDINGS RESTRICT OUR STUDENTS’ POTENTIAL?

PEDAGOGY 30. TEST-ENhANCED LEARNING: RESEARCh-INFORMED INSIGhTS INTO RETRIEvAL PRACTICE

A whistlestop tour through the science behind testing and why it shouldn’t just appear at the end of our teaching.

Why oracy strategies are essential if we want to promote everything else.

42. OUTDOOR PLAY: AN ESSENTIAL STRATEGY FOR ChILD DEvELOPMENT AND wELLBEING

21. ADvICE FOR NEw AND ASPIRING SENCOS

How interactions with the physical school environment play a vital role in the development of our younger students.

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48. ThE POwER OF SUBjECT ASSOCIATIONS

Are subject associations really worth it for teachers and curriculum leads?

37. DEvELOPING ORACY SkILLS TO RAISE ATTAINMENT

Are our ageing school buildings still fit for purpose, or even damaging our students’ chances?

Essential priorities for SENCOs who are new to their role.

CURRICULUM

EXPERIENCE 54. IN DEFENCE OF TEAChING PART-TIME

Opinion: An alternative viewpoint on teaching part-time.

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h w r k M A G A z i n e . c o . u k // M e e T T h e T e A M

CONTRIBUTORS WRITTEN BY TEACHERS FOR TEACHERS

Pete Foster

Kelly Coleman

Rob Potts

Pete foster is an English teacher and Assistant Headteacher for Teaching and Learning at an all-through school in Somerset.

English Teacher at an International School and previously 17 years teaching in the UK as Head of Department, Assistant Principal and Lead Practitioner as well as a GCSE Examiner.

Rob Potts is an experienced teacher and senior leader. His book ‘The Caring Teacher - How to make a positive difference in the classroom’ (John Catt Educational Ltd) is available for preorder on Amazon now.

@pnjfoster

@kellycoleman23

@RJP_LEARNS

Kristian Still

Phil Naylor

Sarah Watkins

Kristian Still is Deputy Head Academic at Boundary Oak School in fareham. Author of the soon to be released Test-Enhanced Learning - A practical guide to improving academic outcomes for all students.

Phil Naylor is Deputy Head at an academy in Blackpool and is the creator and presenter of the Naylor’s Natter podcast, where he interviews teachers and school leaders to discuss pedagogy, curriculum and school leadership.

Sarah worked for a charity before retraining to be a teacher. She was Assistant Head, then Head of School and is now an Associate Lecturer at the University of Worcester. Sarah is the author of two educational books published by Routledge.

@KristianStill

@naylorsnatter_

@mini_lebowski

David Preece

Saira Saeed

Hannah Pinkham

David taught Geography in London for over a decade, before becoming Head of Geography at Teach first.

He’s a member of the Geographical Association, and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and is a huge champion of subject associations supporting classroom teachers.

Saira (better known as Miss Saeed) is an experienced Secondary School practitioner who has been teaching English for the last 17 years. She has also taught PSHE and RE for some of those years. As an accomplished DSL and SENCO, Saira specialises in all things Safeguarding and SEND.

Hannah was formerly Curriculum Director of Languages at Reach Academy feltham in West London where she worked for 7 years. She is now Trust Assistant Principal for Research & Development in Languages with Dixons Academies Trust based in Leeds.

@SafeSENCOSaeed

@DoctorPreece

@hannahpinkham

HWRK MAGAZINE PUBLISHED BY STAffROOM MEDIA LTD 5 Hackins Hey, Liverpool L2 2AW, UK E: enquiries@staffroommedia.co.uk T: 0151 237 7311 EDITOR Andy McHugh PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Alec Frederick Power DESIGNER Adam Blakemore MANAGING DIRECTORS G Gumbhir, Alec Frederick Power Legal Disclaimer: While precautions have been made to ensure the accuracy of contents in this publication and digital brands neither the editors, publishers not its agents can accept responsibility for damages or injury which may arise therefrom.

No part of any of the publication whether in print or digital may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission of the copyright owner.

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Editorial:

But Sir, why arE wE EvEn lEarning thiS? It’s a question many of us have faced, especially with students who are at that age where they question why they should have to do anything they don’t feel like doing. At Secondary, students will often throw out this question, at a random point in your lesson and it can derail everything you’ve planned, unless you have a pre-planned system for managing it.

It can feel like your students are being deliberately difficult, or are trying to challenge and undermine your authority. Many of us have had to face that, whether new or experienced and regardless of our level of seniority. It can hurt, it can be annoying and it can get in the way of something you’ve prepared for hours.

You might just reply with, “let’s discuss that after the lesson, or at breaktime/hometime if it’s really important to you”, in order to put off their question, in the hope that it will be forgotten, or that the student will prioritise going home or to see their friends instead. After all, you can then get back on with your lesson.

But their awkward question, although perhaps badly timed, is an important one.

Students should know why they are studying what they’re studying. They should understand how it benefits them to have the actual education they are being provided. This might mean discussing the specific knowledge or skill being taught and HWRKMAGAZINE.co.UK

how it helps them, or it might be that there is something bigger that you want them to participate in and their participation brings advantages in terms of students’ development.

But whatever you do, don’t wait until they ask. It’s useful for them, but its also a huge opportunity for you.

There are so many moments when you can get students to buy into what you’ve planned for them. You could build into your teaching resources phrases like “we are studying this because…”. You can show students at the beginning of a term, scheme of work, lesson, or even task, their current point on the curriculum journey. It’s good practice and many schools do this and have done for a while now.

But don’t treat it as a tick-box exercise. Make it meaningful and explain why your students are studying these things in the order that they’re studying them and why they’re studying them at all. They might not understand why they’re debating, learning about something that seems off-topic, or why for once they’re “doing a practical”.

If they don’t understand why, they’re unlikely to connect that lesson’s contents to other things they’ve learnt. Every lesson is an opportunity to build a deeper and more complex schema, but that’s only possible if students understand the connections that should be made and the significance of them.

You might not see the immediate need to refer back to the curriculum journey every time you teach something. But whenever you don’t do it, there will inevitably be some students who will fail to comprehend why they should try their best. When they see the bigger picture, they will understand why this one little piece of the jigsaw matters.

This has consequences further down the line. When I read my own students’ extended writing, the ones who score most highly on any given task are usually the ones who are most able to make connections between things and can identify and articulate the significance of those connections.

If, however, you struggle to be able to articulate the raison d’etre for any one of your topics, it might be useful to go back to your Curriculum Intent documentation and discuss it with your colleagues, to explore what you’re doing and why you’re doing it at all. If you can’t articulate clearly why it’s there, it probably shouldn’t be there. And the awkward questions will just keep coming.

So next time your students ask the inevitable “why are we even learning this?”, just take a moment. They’re probably not trying to be difficult, or attempting to undermine your authority. They probably just don’t know. We should tell them.

Andy McHugh

Editor | HWRK Magazine J U LY 2 0 2 2 // H W R K M AG A Z I N E // 0 5

FEATURE

Why Should TeacherS have a degree anyWay?

By Pete Forster

In a bid to solve the recruitment crisis for schools, it is often mooted that non-graduates should be encouraged to become teachers. But many argue that a degree-level qualification is a must-have, for a number of reasons - subject knowledge being only one. Pete Foster gives his thoughts…

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I was an NQT standing in the book cupboard wondering what to teach Year 7. The trouble was I didn’t know these books. Other teachers came in, grabbed thirty dusty copies of something and walked out all whilst I dithered in unfamiliar territory. Michael Morpurgo didn’t feature in my childhood, or in my degree.

Most recently, I’d studied Peter Carey’s reimagining of Great Expectations: Jack Mags and the lesser-known plays of Ben Jonson. But surprisingly neither featured in the Year 7 set texts. I had trained to be an English teacher in part because I didn’t want the conversations about literature from school and A-Levels and degree to end.

Yet a disconnect between graduate study and teaching practice lingered.

What was my degree for? If all I was teaching was children’s literature and basic creative writing, did I really need it? How did it help me teach a Friday period five lesson about newspaper columns, a topic I had never studied?

How did it help in the design a theme park unit we wasted the summer term on?

Of course, it wasn’t that none of my degree was relevant. Lots of it was.

When I taught Frankenstein and Macbeth and Dubliners I was drawing on, often quite recent, deep study. I enjoyed teaching those texts more than anything else, perhaps because I could talk about them confidently.

As a teacher, you inhabit a world – a subject domain – that is probably quite clear to you but is foggy and unknown to your students. Your job is to map the terrain with them. Our aim is not that students know everything, not that they complete your subject. Rather, it is that students reach the point that they can navigate it, at least to an extent, by themselves.

I’m sure at one stage or another we’ve all been told we just need to be a chapter, a page, a lesson ahead of our students. But if we really want to help them find their way, we can’t just stay a couple of weeks ahead of our students.

We can’t just know the content they will learn really, really well.

Lee Shulman, the great thinker in teacher education, emphasised the importance of knowing the grammar or syntax of our subjects. For Shulman, a teacher’s subject knowledge contains

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within it the rules and reasons why of the domain. Our understanding of the curriculum isn’t limited to its contents.

We see connections and choices invisible to our students. Our teaching isn’t on a track that we can never deviate from. Lessons can frequently take a student-prompted detour. A student asks, How can historians know this? Or a similar question arises in Science on our understanding of the subatomic. The teacher answers from the deep well of domain knowledge.

Of course, a History or Science teacher will often teach beyond the realm of their expertise. Some degrees map better onto the curriculum you’re likely to teach. Teaching topics we haven’t studied is not impossible. In fact, it’s probably quite frequent.

An anatomy degree does little to prepare you to teach the solar system. A specialism in twentieth century history doesn’t prepare you to teach the AngloSaxons. But you probably know more about how truth claims are made and tested in your domain than someone outside of it. In this way, we’re able to offer students what Michael Young calls a ‘relationship with knowledge’ – an understanding of how and where and why knowledge is generated in each domain.

If this makes graduate study seem detached from the classroom – a sort of background knowledge we may need to call upon – plenty of research suggests subject knowledge is a core pillar of successful teaching. A degree certificate is not an end in itself. It should speak to knowledge, understanding and ability.

Better qualified teachers get better results. Teachers with poor subject knowledge improve rapidly as their subject knowledge improves. Strong knowledge of the pedagogy of your subject appears to lead to better teaching.

None of this means that non-specialists can’t be excellent teachers or that primary teachers can’t do the miracles they somehow manage to each day. It isn’t an argument for anything really, other than recognising the steps we’ve taken to arrive in the present.

All these benefits of a degree could, of course, be acquired through other means. If you haven’t studied the subject you teach, you can learn the grammar underlying your subject and

“Our aim is not that students know everything, not that they complete your subject. Rather, it is that students reach the point that they can navigate it, at least to an extent, by themselves.” you can forge that relationship with knowledge.

The disconnect between study and practice lingers perhaps because schools don’t often make the connection in planning CPD. When I was an NQT, department meetings consisted of admin, information and the occasional teaching idea like throwing a ball to ask a student a question. Whilst an individual teacher’s expertise will likely only cover a part of the curriculum, collective expertise is incredibly powerful and comprehensive. Having teachers present, lead on planning and coach others through difficult topics can help us all to use prior study effectively.

It is a massive shame when your subject-expertise atrophies through disuse.

In the debate over which qualifications teachers should have, I don’t really offer you answer. For now, most secondary teachers get a degree close to the subject they will teach before they join a training route. Other possible entries to teaching are available. Graduate and postgraduate study confer benefits that are often hidden or illusive. But we benefit nonetheless.

In the book cupboard, I ended up picking thirty copies of Private Peaceful and shuffling back to my classroom to get reading. I loved it. We studied as we would loftier texts. We read it and discussed the characters’ motivations.

We debated the intent of the writer. We drilled down into the imagery of birds and nature. You can see studying a Year 7 text, or any topic, as something basic, beneath the level of your expertise. Or you can see it as inducting the students into the methods and habits of thought used to study at a much higher level.

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FEATURE

“Teachers with poor subject knowledge improve rapidly as their subject knowledge improves. Strong knowledge of the pedagogy of your subject appears to lead to better teaching.”

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Stranger thingS in education: the upSide down world of email Do you sometimes wish for a simpler time?

One where your colleagues came and found you for a face-to-face chat, rather than bombarding you with emails, creating an impossible to-do list? Phil Naylor believes it’s possible to flip our current email practices upside down…

By Phil Naylor

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“Has technology made life easier or harder for teachers?”

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The 1980s are enjoying a welcome resurgence. Netflix’s phenomenon ‘Stranger Things’ has opened up the joy of a more straightforward, less frenetic and, paradoxically, more exciting time. The protagonists of the show devote their time to friendship (face to face), music (albums on vinyl or cassette), freedom (BMX, outdoors) communication (face to face or payphone) community (families, schools and friendships) and some monster hunting…

One of the key tenets of Stranger Things is that there are other dimensions where events are played out in parallel to the human world. The Upside Down is the name of the alternate dimension and Will, Mike, Dustin, and Lucas inadvertently create a portal to this world. Watching and becoming nostalgic about the 80s, the decade I spent in school as a pupil, I started to ponder.

What if there was an upside-down education world where schools were still in the 1980s? How would things be different? Have the advances of the past 40 years all been beneficial, aiding and progressing learning for students and making the profession more attractive for teachers? Would pedagogy be much different with chalk and a board? Would leadership be more of a challenge 1 2 // H W R K M AG A Z I N E // J U Ly 2 0 2 2

without software and hardware on computers? Has technology made life easier or harder for teachers?

In my education analogy, the faceless beast, the Demogorgon is in our dimension and that beast is email. A function that was designed to make sending messages easier has morphed into a pernicious and all-pervading monster. Leaders I have spoken to regularly receive over 100 emails a day from teachers working in the same building. One of the stranger things is that if the leader didn’t receive so many emails, they may actually be able to escape the office and speak to the senders! Communication is of course important, but does it need to be instant?

If a portal was created to the 80s teaching world, would you step through it, to the upside down no email world?

A look through the portal and look at the day of a school leader in the 1980s

Morning

No mobile phone to scroll through instead of getting up, no emails, no pressure, freedom to enjoy breakfast and talk to family. No work-based communication and you’re unlikely to have missed anything.

In class

Fully immersed and present. No incessant pinging. No chance of disturbance or derailment and full freedom to teach.

Breaktime and Lunchtime

Converse with colleagues, without the conversation starting with the wearing “did you see my email?” Mark books if you must, duty is not a requirement.

The opportunity to sit down and have a rest.

Meetings

The whole team engaged in discussion, no computers or screens. Shorter and more productive meetings with clear actions and time to follow up. Focus on breeding teamwork.

Evenings

Your time is your own. You have escaped the tentacles of the Demogorgon. Nobody should need to reach you (unless an emergency). Work if you need to or wish to. Hobbies, leisure, family and recharge are possible. An interesting scene in series one shows a teacher taking a late-night call and being most perturbed and somewhat annoyed by it, while today we allow 24hr, 7 days a week access through the email beast. @hwrk_magazine

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If the modern world’s allure is too strong and you find yourself longing for the benefits of the 2020s, you can traverse the portal and return. Having experienced life on the upside down, on your return you may seek to tame the email beast. Having experienced the headspace, the serenity and the freedom away from the reach of the beast, you may decide to use technology in a way that you control it rather than it controlling you.

I have devised an email protocol which may be useful for readers returning to our side of the board, in 2022 schools.

Iv’e set out a list of questions that you should consider before sending an email:

1. Do I really need to send this

email? How many conversations start with ‘Did you get my email?

2. Do I have to send it now?

3. Can I solve this issue by waiting and asking the person face to face?

4.

Does every single member of staff need to read it? Some schools have adopted an email window, for example:

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5. No emails should be sent between

early days in leadership and invest more in the formative years of their own children and families.

6. No emails should be sent after

These same leaders identify that the value of constant communication is overstated. The ‘always available’ ‘always on’ approach may be beneficial in the short term, but the only place a leader is indispensable is in their own home.

Leaders are too often present at home and at work but unreachable, like Will, behind the email wall.

the hours of 7pm and 7am from Monday to Thursday.

5pm on a Friday. This email window could apply in term time and during holiday periods. But what about if you want to work outside this window? The good news is that it’s still possible to work on emails outside of this window for teachers who wish to do so and for whom this fits better with their working lives. Teachers should always consider the ‘before sending an email’ questions above first.

7.

Write out the email, store it in your drafts and then send it in the morning.

8. Alternatively, most email

providers have a ‘Delay Send’ facility.

This allows you to schedule emails days in advance.

I would like to see leaders incorporating a digital detox and allowing themselves and their staff to ‘go back to the 80s’ occasionally. It is palpable the number of books written by leaders who wish they could be transported back to their

Email is one of the stranger things of education, it is making us frenetic, and it is the beast that needs to be tamed. Is it time to become phronetic and use our experience of the 1980s and turn our view upside down?

“A function that was designed to make sending messages easier has morphed into a pernicious and all-pervading monster.”

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“I’ve always looked upon our school buildings as vessels, rather than living organisms”

Do School BuilDingS ReStRict ouR StuDentS’ Potential?

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“what happens when our educational aims are hindered by the very spaces that we occupy?”

Many of our school buildings were built in a different era for very different needs. Are they still fit for purpose? Do our school buildings limit our students’ potential? And is there something we can we do about it?

By Rob Potts

Over the last few years we’ve witnessed change occur at an often dizzying pace and the landscape 10-15 years ago looks and feels completely different to the one we occupy now. During that time much has changed: an endless line of Education Secretaries have come and (mercifully) gone; the way that we assess both our HWRKMAGAZINE.co.UK

learners and our schools has changed irrevocably; perhaps most critically, the needs of the young people we serve have changed beyond recognition.

The change to the physical landscape over the last couple of decades has been equally dramatic. The ‘Building Schools

for the Future’ programme instigated by Tony Blair’s New Labour government around the turn of the new millennium swept away many of the dilapidated buildings that had been left to decay and degrade for far too long. In their place, a new generation of modern, aspirational facilities emerged up and down the J U Ly 2 0 2 2 // H W R K M AG A Z I N E // 1 5

country, transforming the educational experience of millions of children - particularly in some of our most disadvantaged communities.

The change within the independent sector has been no less profound.

Years marked by recession, austerity, pandemic and economic self harm have widened the gap between the average family income and the rising cost of private school fees. Those schools that have been able to stay afloat in this shrinking market have been forced to direct any funds that they can muster towards improving facilities, in the hope of differentiating themselves from the growing competition in both the state and the independent sectors. It’s an increasingly harsh environment and, as the effects of Brexit, Covid and the cost of living crisis kick in, it’s only likely to get tougher.

The one thing that has remained largely constant during these years of change has been my own attitude and values.

I’ve always looked upon our school buildings as vessels, rather than living organisms; my belief has always been that it is the people who make a school, rather than the structure that houses them.

As I have encountered an increasingly diverse range of schools over my years in education, that belief seemed to solidify. I’ve visited schools where the walls are literally crumbling but the moral foundations and values that underpin them are rock solid. Similarly, I’ve been to schools where the facilities are pristine but, if you dig beneath the superficial, the substance behind those walls is somewhat lacking.

However, just as our experiences over successive lockdowns have prompted us to reflect over philosophical issues such as policies, aims and values, it has also given us time to pause for thought and consider altogether more concrete issues.

As the author of The Caring Teacher, my outlook has always been (understandably) people-focused. My attention, in both academic and pastoral leadership roles, has always been directed unashamedly towards shaping policies and promoting cultures that provide students, families and teachers with the most positive educational experiences possible.

But what happens when our educational aims are hindered by the very spaces that we occupy? Where do we turn 1 6 // H W R K M AG A Z I N E // J U Ly 2 0 2 2

when the warm, inclusive, communal spirit that we are eager to engender is being blocked by the physical geography of our buildings? What do we do when our progressive pedagogical aspirations are being diverted by environments designed to suit the needs of a different era?

People will always be the most valued commodities within our schools but it’s becoming increasingly evident that the spaces that those people occupy really matter too.

As a senior pastoral leader, I’ve witnessed first hand as the challenges facing our young people have grown and mutated. Given the pace of these changes, it’s understandable that our schools haven’t managed to evolve physically at the same rate. We may wish to provide welcoming, communal environments but these aspirations can quickly be strangled by narrow corridors and awkward spaces. And our ability to ensure that the needs of all our students are recognised and met can be obscured when those responsible for their welfare are hidden and buried in inaccessible spaces.

More recently, having pivoted back into an academic leadership role, I’ve watched as we’ve adapted to the transition to online learning and back again without necessarily figuring out what our ‘new normal’ should look and feel like. Our children did an incredible job of adapting to independent learning, taking full advantage of the technology now available to them, but now find themselves back in classrooms where there aren’t even accessible plug points to charge their laptops. It’s becoming apparent that too many of our analog classrooms are struggling to cope with an increasingly digital world.

The disconnect between people and spaces is particularly stark in many of our more traditional independent schools. Parents may still be wooed by intangibles such as ‘character’ and ‘charm’ and may even coo appreciatively about how it’s ‘just like Hogwarts’ as they’re carefully toured around the facilities, but in a shrinking market they’re also becoming more discerning.

No amount of ‘charm’ can compensate for dark and tired communal spaces and awkward and uninspiring classrooms.

Disappointingly, the failure to make the most of our spaces can often be just as evident in some of our new schools.

Over recent years I’ve been wowed by the sweeping atriums and lofty horizons @hwrk_magazine

FEATURE that have become de rigueur in many new-builds. Too often though, what could be bustling communal areas or inspiring study spaces are being poorly utilised, lack the necessary fittings and finishes and end up being soulless, cavernous expanses or bloated and barren corridors.

Whether new or old, many schools aren’t utilising their buildings in a manner that befits the 21st century and meets the needs of their learners.

So where will the change come from?

Today’s school leaders are expected to play increasingly auxiliary roles: part educationalist, social worker, diplomat and CEO to name just a few. Expecting our headteachers to somehow become experts in interior design, network solutions, acoustics and soft furnishings might be asking a little too much!

Similarly, many of those organisations called upon to build and modernise our facilities may have decades of expertise in construction but they’re likely to lack the understanding of pedagogy and the unique rhythm of education needed to transform steel, glass and concrete into a living, breathing school.

Somehow we need to discover that middle ground.

Little over two years ago, few of us had given any deep consideration to remote learning; little over a decade ago, evidence-based practice was the preserve of a dedicated few rather than an intrinsic part of a teacher’s DNA. The world of education has spun on its axis and is unlikely to turn back.

Despite these seismic shifts, I remain convinced that people - not bricks and mortar - are what make or break a school. But in an ever-changing world, it’s becoming increasingly important for our buildings to elevate, rather than limit, the people who occupy them.

“Expecting our headteachers to somehow become experts in interior design, network solutions, acoustics and soft furnishings might be asking a little too much!”

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Advice For Aspiring And new sencos The role of SENCO is one that requires strategic thinking, with policies that must work across key stages and that are inclusive of extremely diverse educational needs. Not only that, the potential (actual) workload generated requires SENCOs to have slick procedures in place to manage what must be done day-to-day. Saira Saeed offers her advice on what to prioritise when new to the SENCO role.

By Saira Saeed

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It is my longstanding belief that the role of the SENCO is one that has been desired by many but obtained by few and retained by fewer still. Why? It is categorically one of the most challenging and underestimated roles you can hold in an educational setting and I say this as someone who is both a SENCO and a Designated Safeguarding Lead.

However, it is also one of the most rewarding roles and one where you can develop significantly as a teacher and leader. The role of SENCO is not new to me; it’s the most long-standing role in my professional repertoire, yet I can still recall my first year as a SENCO as it if were yesterday, with the mountain of paperwork, acronyms, overworked Local Authority colleagues and the line of parents venting at me due to their frustrations with an underfunded and understaffed system.

However, I also remember the tearful parents thanking me for securing the correct support for their children, the children who settled into mainstream education and felt like they finally belonged, as equals to their non-SEND peers. I also remember the colleagues who were grateful for being able to understand and cater for the needs of their SEND learners due to CPD I had delivered and the Ofsted inspectors who told me that my passion and skills made me an asset to my school.

The first year for any SENCO is arguably the most difficult, but not impossible to complete. As such, this article lists some advice for aspiring and new SENCOs.

1. Identify your SEND learners Your role is SENCO, which is an acronym for Special Educational Needs Coordinator, hence the accurate identification of your setting’s SEND learners is key, especially if you are in a mainstream setting where they can get lost in the myriad of other learner groups (non-SEND: PP, EAL, More Able and so on.)

A SEND register should exist, which lists all students in your setting, per year group. (Software such as Arbor allows you to create and import this in a matter of minutes.) I have many memories of triangulating data and involving numerous external agencies in order to hone this register to ensure it was accurate; no easy feat I assure you, but absolutely required.

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Some suggested reads to help with this: ‘Essential Guides for Early Career Teachers: Special Educational Needs and Disability’ (Anita Devi, 2020) - Don’t be fooled by the title, it is as invaluable to experienced SENCOs as it is to ECTs or new SENCOs! ‘The SENCO Handbook: Leading Provision and Practice’ (Sarah Martin-Denham & Steve Watts, 2019) ‘The Lone SENDCO: Questions and Answers for the Busy SENDCO’ (Gary Aubin, 2022)

2. Reach out to your families I can still recall the first time a parent shouted at me about how their child was being failed by the system and it was upsetting, as I felt personally attacked. Upon reflection a few days later, I real-ised she was hurting and venting at me because she didn’t know what else to do. As SENCO you must never forget that you may be responsible for 25, 70 or more students on a SEND register but for a parent/ carer of a SEND child, THEIR child is the most important to them. Their child’s dreams matter and deserve to be realised.

This is something that needs to respected and understood because a SENCO’s job is challenging but parents of a SEND child live with their child, thus manage their respective needs all the time and this is not without impact on them and/or other members of their family.

If you are active on Twitter, I would advise following some well-known parents of children with SEND to see what this might look like, thus gain a better understanding of it. Beth Wilson (@Beth_Tastic), Ben Newmark (@bennewmark), Marie Martin (@ martinimarie), Taneisha Pas-coeMatthews (@Mellow_Pascoe) and Helen Ashby (@HelenAshby72) are particularly useful to follow, as they give you an honest insight into their lives, values and feelings; insight that is most invaluable for all SENCOs (not just new or aspiring ones).

One of the first things I did in my first year as SENCO was collate parent voice data for every child on the SEND register. A letter was posted informing them of them of who I was and why I

wished to hear from them, a Microsoft Form was emailed out, phone calls were made (by myself and the TAs) and multiple coffee mornings were held to make the process accessible to as many parents as possible.

I also ensured that these weren’t a novelty, instead ensuring that they occurred at key points throughout the academic year so that I could gauge their responses to SEND provisions at my setting. I can safely say that a lot of parents knew nothing about SEND, their child’s rights and so on, so I always made sure that I regularly shared information about local support groups and CPD opportunities with them.

That being said, there were some parents who knew as much as I did (eek!) but rather than be intimidated by them, I celebrated them and utilised their expertise. Honestly, don’t ever see knowledgeable parents as a threat, they almost never are. On the rare occasion that they might try to use their knowledge to undermine you, lean on your line manager/SLT for support because no-one has the right to mistreat you regardless of their knowledge; everyone is learning.

3. Know your team Contrary to a common misconception, as SENCO you are NOT solely responsible for the SEND provisions at your respective setting: ‘The SENCO has day-to-day responsibility for the operation of SEN policy and coordination of specific provision made to support individual pupils with SEN, including those who have EHC plans’ (SEND Code of Practice, 2015). SEND, just as Safeguarding, is everyone’s responsibility.

Notably, one of the most significant updates to Keeping Children Safe in Education 2021 places a much-needed importance on SEND learners, as their needs create additional barriers for staff to recognise signs of abuse and neglect, thus effectively safeguard them. In short, SEND should matter to everyone in your setting.

In light of this, it is worthwhile to undertake a staff voice and also a skills audit for them in order to see what (if anything) needs addressing. I have vivid recollections of doing this for the first time and being speechless to discover – amongst other things – that very few staff knew who the EHCP students in my setting were, what an EHCP was and thought that certain SEND learners @hwrk_magazine

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misbehaved just because they were ‘naughty’! Reader, these particular students weren’t naughty, they had ADHD or ASD respectively and were receiving minimal support from support staff who themselves had little to no training.

As your setting will no doubt cater for students with a range of needs, it is inevitable that you will work with many external agencies too: PSS, an EP, CAT and so on. You will also have contact information for key staff in the LA (as the LA has many responsibilities too!) Get to know as many of them as possible – especially your LA links – and utilise them whenever necessary.

Lastly, network as much as possible with fellow SENCOs; Twitter is again great for this. I myself am one of the moderators of the SEND Twitter Community. Reach out to others. You will gain knowledge, reassurance and make some good professional links too.

be most effective in that role if they are part of the school leadership team’ (SEND Code of Practice, 2015).

Throughout my career thus far, I have been a SENCO as a member of Middle Leadership, Extended Leadership and Senior Leadership and in all honesty, the level of leadership itself did not impact my work. What did impact my work was the level of autonomy I was given, as well as my own ability to lead both operationally and strategically when required; confidence is absolutely key here – believe in yourself! Teachers are more likely to be invested when they are trusted (not constantly judged), given time and guided by a knowledgeable leader who empowers them.

Some recommended reads to help with this ‘Great Expectations: Leading an Effective SEND Strategy in School’ (David Bartram, 2018) ‘The Leadership Book: A Step by Step Guide to Excellent Leadership’ (Neil Jurd, 2020) ‘Leadership Matters 3.0: How Leaders At All Levels Can Create Great Schools’ (Andy Buck, 2018) ‘Intelligent Accountability: Creating the Conditions for Teachers to Thrive’ (David Didau, 2020) – definitely one to share with your line manager/SLT!

5. Keep the importance of pedagogy in mind

Some suggested reads to help with this The pastoral team are those you will work particularly closely with in order to ensure that SEND learners are treated fairly (including making sure that relevant policies are fully inclusive). Take a look at some of these books to help you inform your work with Pastoral leads, Heads of Year etc.

‘The Complete Guide to Pastoral Leadership’ (Amy Forrester, 2022) ‘The Behaviour Manual: An Educator’s Guidebook’ (Samuel Strickland, 2022) ‘After the Adults Change. Achievable Behaviour Nirvana’ (Paul Dix, 2017) ‘Running The Room. The Teacher’s Guide to Behaviour’ (Tom Bennett, 2020) ‘The Ladder. Supporting Students towards Successful Futures and Confident Career Choices’ (Andrew Bernard, 2021)

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I have worked in schools where seeking an investment in SEND (CPD-time, staff interest, value in SLT’s eyes, etc) was a battle and I have also worked in schools where I was able to make SEND a priority without any struggle. How? Amongst other things, I leaned on The Teachers’ Standards; namely, Standard 5.

Yes, the SEND Code of Practice and multiple laws should be enough but The Teachers’ Standards are far easier to share via CPD sessions, which is why I tend to share this with staff prior to introducing them to legislation.

They also add that extra layer of accountability. This has served me particularly well when faced with conversations about ‘bottom sets’, ‘simplifying the curriculum’ and ‘they can’t do that GCSE option, it’s too hard’ (cue lengthy sigh of despair.)

Once I had staff investment in SEND (ie staff understood how important SEND learners are and how important staff are in ensuring these learners have access to a broad and balanced curriculum) I needed to provide guidance on how to make the curriculum accessible.

Some of my most successful CPD sessions for staff ensured that (a) staff gained a better understanding of how SEND can manifest in a classroom setting and (b) staff left the CPD session with ‘takeaways’ to help them address this and support student progress.

Staff were reassured that what works for SEND learners, will work for every learner; it’s not additional work. Moreover, I made it crystal clear that progress would not necessarily look the same for all SEND learners, especially in direct comparison to their non-SEND peers. @hwrk_magazine

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Some suggested reads to help with this ‘Teaching Walkthrus 3. Five-Step Guides to Instructional Coaching’ (Tom Sherrington and Oliver Caviglioli, 2022) ‘The researchED Guide to Special Educational Needs: An Evidence-Informed Guide for Teachers’ (Karen Wespieser, 2021) ‘Understanding How We Learn: A Visual Guide’ (Yana Weinstein, 2018) ‘Anna Murphy Paul’s The Extended Mind in Action’ (Emma Turner, David Goodwin and Oliver Caviglioli, 2022) ‘The Inclusive Classroom: A New Approach to Differentiation’ (Daniel Sobel and Sara Alston, 2021)

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6. Never stop revisiting statutory guidance and the law Be kind to yourself - you can’t be the allknowing oracle. The world of SEND is laden with laws and statutory guidance (I haven’t even touched upon the medical side of things in this article).

There is a plethora of information to remember and refer to, which is made even more challenging by the fact that much of it is forever being updated.

Ensure you familiarise yourself with key laws, as well as statutory guidance including: Children and Families Act (2014), Equality Act (2010) and the SEND Code of Practice (2015) to name but three.

It is also worth getting a subscription to a reputable organisation such as NASEN, as their publications will help you keep up-to-date with key SEND news and reforms etc. If on Twitter, Special Needs Jungle (@ SpcialNdsJungle) are also a brilliant source of information, as well as IPSEA. The latter is an organisation that runs regular CPD on SEND Law for professionals and parents.

Some suggested reads to help with this: An example of SEND Funding explained (Birmingham Local Offer, 2022) – please note, this Local Offer website is for Birmingham in the UK, every LA will have their own LA Offer website.

Ensure you familiarise yourself with any LA websites that apply to your setting’s cohort. For instance, if your setting is based in Birmingham but has students who live in Sandwell too, then ensure you engage with both LAs (Birmingham and Sandwell.)

7. Invest in your wellbeing

End note

The role of SENCO is one of the most exciting, pivotal and rewarding roles I have ever undertaken. However, I have also, on many occasions, sat in my office wanting to scream ,through sheer exhaustion as well as frustration, at the ongoing misconceptions about SEND (eg the idea that EAL is a category of SEND – ugh!).

I have deliberately suggested a range of reads that are mostly succinct and not dear in cost, as I wish to give you some variety. I also am fully aware of the lack of time and CPD budgets that many SENCOs face. By all means, purchase as many of these books as you so wish – and as your pocket allows – but where possible, ask for your choice of books to be purchased in your school as part of your own CPD or for a staff CPD library (if your setting has one). Also, do not feel compelled to read any of them from cover-to-cover; ‘dip’ into them as required.

Consequently, it is paramount that you make time to ‘switch off’ from work completely every day, as this job (like most in education) will consume you if you let it.

Sacrilegious as it will sound to many, do not keep a stock of chocolates, soft drinks and coffee in your room/office ‘in case of emergencies’ either; treat yourself but please do so sensibly. The job is strenuous as it is, hence being and staying healthy is absolutely paramount.

Now, I do have a penchant for bonding with a Bounty or pack of Bourbon biscuits after a particularly challenging day but this is only on the odd occasion, not a daily occurrence.

Have a snack drawer by all means but stock up on healthy treats that will give you much needed energy boosts; protein bars, fruit, nuts (only keep nuts if your setting isn’t nut-free and you don’t work with any students who have severe nut allergies), seeds (particularly squash and pumpkin), as well as Green Tea (Matcha has a particular kick to it!)

All in all, the world of SEND is always evolving, hence your role as the SENCO will too. Prioritise your SEND learners and their families, collaborate with colleagues and external agencies, keep holding your LA accountable (remember the law, as well as statutory guidance) and most importantly, ensure you eat healthily and take toilet breaks on time!

The role will always be challenging, so learn from every mistake and celebrate every win, no matter how small. I guarantee that even the smallest win will make a BIG difference in the life of your SEND learners, as well as their families.

‘How Grand is 6 Grand?’ (Garry Freedman, 2020) ‘The SEND Green Paper – how can we move towards a more affirmatory conception of SEND and learning disability?’ (Ben Newmark & Tom Rees, 2022) SEND and Disability Statute Law, Regulations and Guidance (IPSEA, 2022)

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PEDAGOGY 30. Test-Enhanced Learning: ResearchInformed Insights Into Retrieval Practice

A whistlestop tour through the science behind testing and why it shouldn’t just appear at the end of our teaching.

37. Developing Oracy Skills To Raise Attainment Why oracy strategies are essential if we want to promote everything else.

42. Outdoor Play: An Essential Strategy For Child Development And Wellbeing

How interactions with the physical school environment play a vital role in the development of our younger students.

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PEDAGOGY TesT-enhanced Learning: research-informed insighTs inTo reTrievaL PracTice Taking the complex ideas behind test-enhanced learning and simplifying them, doesn’t seem to make it any less complicated.

So forgive me, when I attempt to deliver my insights into retrieval practice in approximately 1500 words. Fasten your seat-belts!

Despite the “wealth of evidence” (Agarwal et al, 2021) about the “reliable advantage” (Yang et al, 2021) of test-enhanced learning – more commonly referred to as the ‘testing effect’ or ‘retrieval practice’ – it is actually far more complicated than it is often presented.

By Kristian Still

A model of memory “Without an understanding of human cognitive architecture, instruction is blind,” Sweller (2017).

When it comes to cognition – to thinking – theory is unavoidable.

Therefore, a model is almost always inevitable. And a model, generative of pedagogical strategies, helps us understand the mechanics or processes of test enhanced learning.

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For the purpose of a shared understanding, let’s go with Willingham’s (2009) Simple Model of Memory (other models are of course available), a model that highlights the abstract cognitive processing of encoding1, storage2, and retrieval3. Attention is the primary gatekeeper of learning and relearning, and is the ultimate commodity of our classrooms.

encoding1: The process

by which information moves from short-term to long-term memory.

StorAge2: Securing newly

acquired information into memory and maintaining it.

retrievAl3: Accessing

learned information held in longterm memory.

To add a little meat to these bare bones, “using our memory shapes our memories,” Bjork (2012).

Moreover, the information we recall and access becomes “more retrievable in the future and things in competition with that gradually become less usable,”Bjork (2012).

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“using our memory shapes our memories”

In that sense, memory is reconstructive rather than objective. It is dynamic, forever changing, rather than static.

And repeated retrieval and reencounters helps your students build accessing, networked, adaptive, durable memories.

To paraphrase the eloquent Sarah Cottingham (Twitter: @ overpracticed) think “less library system and more ecosystem.”

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A Short word About forgetting And quick word About releArning Our memories (what we attend to) are encoded (and possibly consolidated), stored and connected, either to be retrieved or forgotten. The fact that encoding and retrieval are two distinct phases is important and

we will return to this later.

Secondly, knowledge of forgetting is also important. Once teachers foresee that their teaching and pupils’ learning, remembering and relearning is a process and not a product, we can see the requirement to “reteach”.

What is at first quirky, tricky to get a handle on, is that some forgetting, or spacing, is actually helpful to learning.

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PEDAGOGY “Remembering is greatly aided if the first presentation is forgotten to some extent before the repetition occurs.” (Roediger & Karpicke, 2011) If we anticipate the requirement to reteach, we need to use forgetting, (spacing) in a way which delicately balances the effort needed to retrieve information with the likelihood of successful retrieval.

Now, let’s circle back around to “encoding and retrieval are two distinct phases.”

“Effort is vital and we must warn students of this fact: Human memory is fragile. The initial acquisition of knowledge is slow and effortful. And once mastery is achieved, the knowledge must be exercised periodically to mitigate forgetting.” (Lindsey et al, 2014).

Encoding (learning) is often pedestrian. Information may or not may have been stored in long-term memory and it is often difficult to access. Whereas retrieval, remembering or relearning, is much more efficient at doing this.

Knowing this will impact upon how you employ testing to enhance learning.

why teSt-enhAnced leArning?

Suffice to say that given “the strong evidence for its benefits for memory, many cognitive and educational psychologists now classify testing as among the most effective educational techniques discovered to date,” (Pan & Rickard, 2018).

“Testing is not only an assessment of learning but also an assessment for learning.” Yang et al, 2021.

The historic 2011 Roediger et al paper offered us “10 benefits of testing and their applications to educational practice.”

Testing aids retention, identifies gaps in knowledge, causes students to learn more from the next learning episode, promotes better organisation of knowledge, improves transfer of knowledge to new contexts, facilitates retrieval of information that was not tested, aids metacognitive monitoring, prevents interference, gives feedback to instructors and encourages students to study.

In the past ten years, we have evidence to add to Roediger’s paper.

Where testing is used to enhance learning, students prepare better for lessons, take more notes, are more focused or less distracted in lessons, are less anxious about exams, more resistant to stress and have improved attendance.

It is a broad and convincing argument.

As Dr Tom Perry, who led the Education Endowment Foundation’s Cognitive Science Approaches in the Classroom review (Perry et al, 2021), summarised in a recent conversation, “We know a huge amount about learning, memory, cognition, attention, and it’s creating some really powerful and practical principles that we can trust.” But now it’s over to the educators, he said, “to really work out what good looks like in their own contexts”.

“less library system and more ecosystem”

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PEDAGOGY

‘how’, in two phASeS And Seven StAtementS Tom Sherrington is right to issue a warning shot at “rigid, formulaic quizzing regime[s]” and “performative quizzing.” However, get test-enhanced learning right, during encoding and as retrieval, and you can make a healthy contribution to the direct and indirect effectiveness of your

teaching and to the outcomes for your pupils.

Firstly, directly, in securing superior long-term retention, durability, accessibility and transfer of knowledge.

And secondly, indirectly, as a vehicle for motivation, increased investment and attention in lessons and by providing a framework from which students can adapt their own learning and relearning.

retrievAl-deSign for low fAilure rAteS

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increase success

increase difficulty

During encoding

During retrieval

Use recognition recall: Matched pairs, Multiple Choice style questions, fill-inthe-blanks.

Use free recall or cued questions, or reverse the cue eg Q&A and A&Q

Retrieve more recent learning or deeply rooted learning; rather than selecting new retrieval prompts, retrieve then reorder

Extend the chronological reference.

Retrieve learning from last term, or even last year(s)! Misalign the retrieval tasks, set homeworks from the previous topic.

Shorten time intervals, (Eglington et al, 2020).

Extend time intervals

Reduce the breadth of knowledge being probed

Extend the breadth or weight of knowledge being probed

Cue the retrieval, extend the cue(s) use hints

Remove cues - free recall

Massed practiced retrieval - selecting the same retrieval prompts repeatedly, or reorder* the prompts

Spaced practice: Select new retrieval

Block retrieval - securing high success rates on a set of flashcards before progressing)

Interleave retrieval, new prompts from across topics

Self-paced

Time pressured

prompts from the same topic or refresh the cards

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PEDAGOGY StAtement 1:

Explicitly define the knowledge - Teacher knowledge is at the heart of test enhanced learning.

StAtement 2: Design a testing routine. Teacher expertise is at the heart of retrieval.

StAtement 3: Lead the approach. And when I say lead, also teach the pupils why testing is such a powerful approach to learning.

StAtement 4:

Design for low failure rates.

Learning is emotional and emotions influence adolescents’ achievement, over and above the effects of general cognitive ability and prior accomplishments. The optimal error rate ‘could’ be as low as 15% (Wilson et al, 2019) or even lower (Eglington et al, 2020).

Plan for 85% success - especially during encoding.

Regrettably, the term “retrieval” is misleading. It implies a terminal strategy. A test at the end. A test, post learning.

And we have not yet mentioned the benefits of pre-testing or potentiated learning, testing during learning.

Testing is, and informs, learning.

It is more than retrieval.

Further Reading:

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it a million times more: the first time students retrieve shouldn’t be on a … final exam.” Renowned Cognitive Psychologist, Pooja Agarwal.

https://teacherhead. com/2022/06/18/whendaily-quiz-regimes-becomelethal-mutations-of-retrievalpractice/

“some forgetting, or spacing, is actually helpful to learning”

StAtement 5: Testing and self-assessment develops metacognitive monitoring and enhances metacognition accuracy, (Rivers, 2020), directing more informed study decisions.

StAtement 6: Testing as homework, or self-directed testing, can be very effective.

StAtement 7: The

most efficient retrieval schedule is a personalised one, accounting for the learner’s rates of forgetting and prior knowledge, (Latimer et al, 2021). There are tools that support personalised spaced retrieval practice.

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Pedagogy “we need to see oracy as an integral part of teaching and learning”

Developing oracy SkillS To raiSe aTTainmenT Oracy development is often overlooked, in favour of written literacy and numeracy. But prioritising it is hugely important, as Kelly Coleman explains.

By Kelly Coleman

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Pedagogy In recent years, the term “oracy” has increasingly been used in education. The term was first used by Andrew Wilkinson in 1965 to describe the speaking and listening skills needed to be a good communicator. This was echoed more recently by Geoff Barton, who noted that we need to see oracy as an integral part of teaching and learning.

To get our classrooms talking then, we need to provide opportunities throughout all subjects (not just in English lessons) and make it a schoolwide focus.

The Communication Trust published a report, Talking About A Generation in 2017 in which they identified some staggering statistics: • By the age of 5, 75% of children who experienced poverty persistently are below average in language development compared to 35% who hadn’t experienced poverty.

• Those same children are 10 times less likely to achieve expected levels in Maths.

• They are also more than twice as likely to be unemployed at the age of 34.

With this current research, and the increasing gap thanks to the Covid pandemic, why should schools prioritise oracy, in the same way as written literacy and numeracy?

Firstly, according to the Better Communication Research Programme, those with good communication skills are 4 times more likely to achieve GCSE grade 4 or higher.

Secondly, it improves verbal reasoning and can gain the equivalent of 2 months progress in Maths and Science , according to the Education Endowment Foundation.

More importantly though, is the positive impact it has on confidence, self-esteem, resilience and engagement in society. This is according to the Sutton Trust and 97% of teachers and 94% of employers agreeing.

With all the research pointing towards a correlation between oracy and progress, the bigger question is how do we make our classrooms talk? And how do we achieve this without making it another tick-box exercise, or another layer of work for already busy staff?

• They are twice as likely to experience mental health difficulties.

Some Simple, yet effective oracy StrategieS:

Furthermore, The National Literacy Trust noted that in some inner-city classes, disadvantaged children contribute, on average, just four words per lesson and usually start school 19 months behind their wealthier peers in language and vocabulary.

1. Questioning that requires pupils to “think”. Get them to clarify, probe and/or recommend. The more that students require depth from their responses, the greater the opportunity for oracydevelopment.

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2. Thought stems (in the same

way that writing stems are used).

3. Allowing thinking time for

students to formulate thoughts.

One tip I took from a colleague is I take a drink of water while pupils are thinking so that I don’t inadvertently rush them.

4. Pupil-led feedback and

critiques. Gallery critiques are a great way to peer assess, but to also encourage constructive talk.

5. Use the register! Legally, we

have to do it, so why not make it part of the lesson? For example, as you call the register, rather than replying with “yes”, get the pupils to recall one thing they learnt from the previous lesson or even just one thing they did at the weekend. Contribution is the most important thing here, rather than the quality of response.

6. Random tasks on display that get them talking: Would You Rather? Thunks, Riddles to Solve, Tongue Twisters, Problems to Solve (I’ve noticed that the more random ones get the most engagement!)

7. Build confidence by using critical buddies, triad-groups, or think, pair, share.

8. Debate questions: In my

previous school, I stuck random questions on classroom doors and as pupils entered the room, the teacher would ask them for their view. It’s a quick, friendly entrance to the room and builds great rapport quickly too. I circulated the questions every week and stuck them on different doors so that pupils saw different questions each time.

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Pedagogy

9. Scenarios: putting pupils

into imagined situations. The scenarios can be as imaginative as you like. Get students to think creatively and present their solutions to the problems you’ve presented them with.

10. Lockdowns have given us technology – so let’s use it! At my current school I have started using Teams which allows pupils to video, or record themselves, and submit it to me to listen to.

As an English teacher, this has changed my life when marking homework! (You can also record verbal feedback.)

Oracy is ultimately a whole school responsibility and the impacts can be huge. As James Britton noted, “Reading and writing float on a sea of talk”.

Therefore by encouraging oracydevelopment, we are also at the very root, cultivating the skills needed by our pupils to support their development in literacy, numeracy and social skills too.

further reading:

“disadvantaged children contribute, on average, just four words per lesson and usually start school 19 months behind their wealthier peers in language and vocabulary”

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• https://cfey.org/wp-content/ uploads/2016/11/Oracy-Report. pdf • https://literacytrust.org.uk/ research-services/researchreports • https://ican.org.uk/media/3215/ tct_talkingaboutageneration_ report_online_update.pdf • https://www.gov.uk/ government/collections/bettercommunication-researchprogramme • https:// educationendowmentfoundation. org.uk/education-evidence/ teaching-learning-toolkit • https://www.suttontrust.com/ our-research/

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PEDAGOGY OutdOOr Play: an EssEntial stratEgy FOr ChilddEvElOPmEnt and WEllbEing An increasing number of children and young people are finding it difficult to cope, and anxiety and depression are on the rise.

Studies show that children need to feel capable, trusted and able to make decisions. In this piece, Sarah Watkins argues that outdoor play is one of the most effective ways we can support children’s wellbeing.

By Sarah Watkins

Placeness “Children are active participants in their own development, reflecting the intrinsic human drive to explore and master one’s environment.” (Shonkoff and Phillips) Neurons to Neighborhoods.

Our sense of place, identity and wellbeing are closely intertwined – the places where we played as children helped shape who we are. If you think back to your own childhood, your memories of outdoor play are probably most vivid because play engages so many different senses.

‘Placeness’ is an old word that

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means having or occupying a place and I’ve decided to reclaim it. How truly do children feel they occupy their play space? Do they feel like custodians, visitors or even intruders?

I was Head of School at the same school I attended as a child. On the day I started, a four-year-old pupil asked me shyly “do you know where the secret hiding place is outside?” “Yes,” I replied, “because I went to this school!”

We then went straight out to find it together. I was first shown this area by older children, who probably learned about it from their older peers. Why not find out which areas of the outside space are viewed by the children as special?

You can also increase a sense of belonging by getting the children to carry out an audit of the space: children tend to know every stone and bush so they have a unique perspective. The Anna Freud Centre states that when children feel listened to this develops their sense of belonging and this can act as a buffer against the effects of disadvantage. A child-led audit can also stimulate great discussion amongst staff.

Children have an instinctive need to put their mark on their environment. Make them responsible for watering and planting, and storage and maintenance of outdoor play resources, which should be easily accessible.

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PEDAGOGY

“On the day I started, a four-year-old pupil asked me shyly “do you know where the secret hiding place is outside?”

autonomy Trusting children to manage play resources gives them the message that they are capable and trusted. Autonomy is a vital feature of flow, where children are completely absorbed in an activity that they find genuine satisfaction in. For physical and mental health, children need what occupational therapists call ‘the just right challenge’ – not too easy and not too difficult.

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One of the best ways to achieve this is to give children of all ages regular access to large loose parts such as cable reels, planks, plastic crates, sections of guttering, buckets, tyres and logs.

Don’t just keep loose parts for EYFS: all children need to experience a sense of control and experience exhilarating play that supports them to test their limits.

Simon Nicholson, who coined the term loose parts, called for

a “laboratory type environment where [children] can experiment, enjoy and find out things for themselves.” It’s joyful to watch KS2 children collaborate to create their own STEM challenges, making a tree swing, a kart, or a restaurant from loose parts.

Local businesses are often delighted to be able to donate loose parts, supporting sustainability. Why not send home a wish list with pupils?

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PEDAGOGY Rewilding We all need to feel connected to nature in order to feel good and function well, and regular opportunities to play in nature improve children’s emotional wellbeing, particularly if the environment includes ‘wild’ spaces rather than just adultfriendly manicured outdoor areas. Greening the play space helps children feel restored and stimulates their sensory system.

Without time in nature, stress and fatigue levels are likely to increase.

Even as little as five minutes of ‘green exercise’ can improve mood and self-esteem, and children need access to green space in all weathers. A great investment is good quality waterproof clothing for all staff.

Natural outdoor environments have also been shown to have a more positive effect on the quality of children’s speech and language. They are an ideal springboard for vocabulary building because they are constantly changing with the seasons. (The outdoor space is

also a great arena to support children to build conflict resolution skills).

Plants can grow in even the smallest outdoor area, and a good diversity of plants will attract a wide range of minibeasts so that the play area is less sterile and more therapeutic.

If you can let areas grow wild, establish no-mow areas and throw down some wildflower seeds. Drought-resistant plants such as succulents are ideal for small spaces and survive well in containers. If you look at the planting around supermarkets or new housing developments, you’ll often see shrubs, hostas, daylilies, sedum, astilbe, and achillea – all plants that do well with very little attention. Herbs such as lavender, rosemary, and mint are equally robust and when crushed, they release a moodelevating scent.

Risk in Play The Health and Safety Executive states that we need a balanced approach to risk in play, and warns against sterile play environments that prevent children expanding their learning

and stretching their abilities. But what is ‘risky play?’ To me, it is simply child directed play where children are enabled to challenge themselves, make evaluations and decisions and test themselves.

For one child, this may be tree climbing, for another it might be allowing a ladybird on their hand.

Studies have found that loose parts play outdoors helps children become less fearful and able to take progressively more healthy risks. When they have repeated opportunities to explore age appropriate, healthy risk taking, children become better prepared to deal with subsequent anxiety and fear provoking situations.

Having the opportunity to roll tyres down a slope or walk across a plank between two crates encourages children to practise making safe decisions.

More than ever, children need to feel ownership of their play space and they need opportunities to understand their own capabilities and develop perseverance. What’s more, happier, more engaged children means happier break times and better focus in the classroom!

“But what is ‘risky play?’ …

For one child, this may be tree climbing, for another it might be allowing a ladybird on their hand.”

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EXPAND YOUR MIND ONE SUBJECT AT A TIME

48. The Power Of Subject Associations Are subject associations really worth it for teachers and curriculum leads?

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CURRICULUM

The Power of SubjecT ASSociATionS Joining a subject association might just be the one missing piece of your CPD puzzle. But is it worth it? David Preece explains his own experience of subject association membership and asks whether or not it is time you joined too?

By David Preece

What’s the collective noun for a group of Geographers?

A map? A legend? A meander, perhaps?

our subject networks – the Geographical Association and the Royal Geographical Society. While the Royal Geographical Society has always been about the academic discipline of Geography and We know that subject knowledge connecting the whole profession development is critical to making teachers as good as they can be, but across the different pathways and careers that it embraces, the for most teachers, the chance to Geographical Association was talk about their subject can often always designed deliberately for be limited by structures or the Geography teachers. phase or size of their school.

I’ve been a Geographer for all of my teaching career, and that subject-identity is really important to me. I like developing my subject knowledge about Geography, which is a pretty vast range of topics and I enjoy discussions about approaches to teaching and working with other Geographers.

Lots of us work in departments where there are only a few subject specialists at best; and even across Trusts and wider organisations, the chance to discuss your subject doesn’t always happen as much as we’d want.

So, what’s the solution? For Geographers, the answer has always been in the power of

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In April 2022, the Geographical Association held their first hybrid conference in two years, with participants joining face-to-face at the University of Surrey in Guildford, as well as remotely and this celebration of Geography was a strong reminder of the power of subject associations in helping teachers to thrive.

What are the advantages?

Firstly, I think the scale and diversity of subject associations is really powerful in helping teachers broaden their thinking and their experience. You’ll find people who work in schools just like yours, doing your exam specifications, but you’ll also talk to people in all types of school setting, all kinds of

locations, and a wide breadth of professional Geographers too.

Teachers talk to Geophysicists about their work; primary colleagues talk to secondary colleagues about the expert ways they’re embedding Geography in their curriculum; and experienced Heads of Departments or curriculum writers talk to recently qualified teachers and share their ideas.

Instead of feeling like you’re in a small team, you feel like you’re part of a large and powerful group. That’s really reassuring.

Secondly, you have a chance to access really specialist knowledge and training. At the 2022 Conference, teachers heard from internationally-renowned disaster specialist, Ilan Kelman; the UK’s COP26 leader, Dr John Murton, and ‘Africa Is Not A Country’ author Dipo Faloyin.

You might be able to read some of their work by yourself, but it’s a completely different experience to have them bring it alive, and then share your thinking at lunch or over coffee.

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Curriculum

“the scale and diversity of subject associations is really powerful in helping teachers broaden their thinking and their experience”

You also get a huge injection of subject knowledge development, connecting you back to what you loved about the subject when you started teaching, and giving you a huge boost of inspiration for renewed curriculum and subject thinking.

Your access to knowledge isn’t just about the subject, though. It’s about sharing the best practice, thinking and ideas of all kinds of other teachers. You learn from others, talk to them afterwards, share your resources and theirs, and come away feeling like you’ve had a chance to really discuss and debate your learning. It’s about being part of a conversation, not

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feel like it’s being “done to you”.

That’s really empowering.

Finally, you are challenged to see more than just your own context.

Some of the most powerful work at this year’s Conference was about the voices and the stories of diverse lived experiences. It’s easy to focus on your own context, and it’s good to be confronted with different realities and the difficulties that others are facing in their work. That’s sometimes uncomfortable; but so necessary.

Many subject associations offer regular training, ongoing consultancy and support, or huge ranges of resources that have been

expertly prepared and curated.

Both the Royal Geographical Society and Geographical Associations offer CPD courses, online resources, and professional accreditation and support for all stages of your career and it’s become more accessible and open to all in the hybrid era.

Subject associations also offer a “trusted voice”, being able to speak on behalf of the subject in exam consultations, in the design of national curriculum documents and of representing the range of the teachers of a subject in a way that isn’t possible in almost any other platform.

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CURRICULUM

What are the disadvantages?

Of course, joining a subject association isn’t a universal panacea. There’s a location bias towards more populated places.

If you’re in London and the South East, you’ll find more events available and accessible to you.

Often, they’re not cheap either.

While many offer ‘school’ memberships, individual membership can become expensive in a time of budget challenges and a cost of living increase. You might feel like you’re getting a lot out of the association, but there’s no question that they come at a cost.

These factors combine to make the diversity and inclusiveness of the organisations an evolving work in progress. I think there’s still a long way to go before our subject

associations fully reflect the majority of the profession, and the views of all. There’s a skew towards more experienced teachers and presenters, and I think the costs can be off-putting for those at the start of their careers when the benefits aren’t immediate and clear.

So, is it worth it?

My identity as a Geography teacher has been intertwined with the work of the subject associations over multiple decades now. They’ve offered me a wider community of practice to share with, and learn from, and I’ve found inspiration, reassurance, expert knowledge and challenge.

I’ve become a better teacher because I’ve been able to learn from others – not just those colleagues in my own school,

but across the full range of Geographers across the country.

That’s been amazing and I’d encourage all Geographers to be part of our associations.

And yet, as I’ve stepped away from the classroom, I’ve come to learn that not all teachers are always tuned in to their subject associations, and that there’s a wide range of subject associations in their provision. Some are focused on the links to academia, others on the provision of training alone, and there are contested areas in some disciplines which have caused tensions and debates in the associations.

If you’ve never thought about it before, perhaps it’s time to look up your own subject association, and see what it might be able to offer you?

“Instead of feeling like you’re in a small team, you feel like you’re part of a large and powerful group. That’s really reassuring.”

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54. In Defence Of Teaching Part-Time

Opinion: An alternative viewpoint on teaching part-time.

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EXPERIENCE

Teaching ParT-Time: an alTernaTive viewPoinT Teaching part-time can have its advantages and disadvantages. In this piece, Hannah Pinkham explores an alternative viewpoint to the one presented in the May 2022 edition of HWRK Magazine. Would this model of part-time work for you though? Let’s take a look…

By Hannah Pinkham

Like Sherish Osman (Is Teaching Part-Time Really Such A Good Idea? May 2022), when I first qualified as a teacher, I had no children. During this stage of my career, I stayed at work until around 6pm and when I got home, I’d do a Joe Wicks workout and my partner would cook dinner. My colleagues were my friends and life was all about work, which was fine with me.

Fast forward to the present: I am still living with the same partner; we have a toddler and I work 4 days per week.

Unlike Sherish, my decision to go parttime wasn’t based on a desire to find work-life balance. After maternity leave, I went back to work on 3 days per week.

The decision to reduce my working days was based on a combination of exorbitant childcare costs in London’s Zone 2 and a desire to spend time with our son while he was very small. I am fully aware of how privileged I am to have been able to make that decision and I am enormously grateful to my partner for shouldering the household financial burden (and cooking).

I read Sherish’s excellent article with excitement. I wish I had read it when I was trying to figure out my own part-time working arrangements. Back then, I struggled to know where to look for advice and ended up mirroring

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the model provided by other part-time teachers in my school.

However, I wanted to address the representation of part-time working in the article. Initially, Sherish presents part-time working as a positive step.

She says, “to try to balance work and life, I decided to go part-time”. But she later says: “Mothers all over the country are having to compromise their jobs in order to have a better work-life balance”.

I am worried that this is framing the decision to work part-time as an inherently negative one. As part-time workers I believe we need to rigorously interrogate our own biases towards parttime work if we are ever to change the way it is perceived by others.

Some examples: In my current role, I am surrounded by exceptional female leaders working part-time at all levels, from executive to novice teachers. Nobody could say any of these impressive women have compromised their careers by reducing their working hours.

When I initially returned to work after maternity leave, I was a Head of Department working Wednesday to Friday. Since then, I have been promoted to an SLT role in a new organisation, now working Tuesday-

Friday. Again, I would challenge anybody to say that I have compromised my career by working part-time.

Despite these experiences, the view that part-time workers are only partially invested in their jobs pervades the teaching profession. Recently, I was participating in some training on the GROW coaching model. I was roleplaying a coaching conversation with a woman who was due to return to work full-time after having her first child. She was very worried about having to leave “early” for childcare pickups. Over the course of the conversation, she came to the realisation that a lot of her anxiety about this came from how she had perceived other women doing the same before she became a parent herself. In this scenario, she was her own worst enemy.

Again, we need to rigorously interrogate our own biases to ensure we are not perpetuating an unsatisfactory status quo for all teachers. Policies that reduce workload and encourage flexible working benefit everyone whether you have children or not. We shouldn’t begrudge those who are successfully making use of the arrangements available to them.

A while ago I was discussing with a Headteacher the profile of teachers in a

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“As part-time workers I believe we need to rigorously interrogate our own biases towards parttime work if we are ever to change the way it is perceived by others.”

department that I was due to support.

He said, “well, two of them are part time so… not great”. I took huge delight later in our conversation when I had to decline the invitation to visit on a Monday as I too was part-time.

His genuinely surprised response was very telling; I don’t think he’d ever considered that someone in my role would fit into his preconceived ideas of part-time working.

So, if part-time working can help us achieve greater work-life balance, how do we go about it?

Throughout my teaching career, I have been able to find work-life balance using a variety of approaches. Before having my son, I’d worked in the same school for many years. I was at a point where my life was as balanced as I wanted it

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to be. I think this is essential: my life conformed to my idea of balance.

If you are seeking work-life balance, it is important to have a clear understanding of what “balance” means for you and what is realistic. I arrived at 7.30am, I left by 6pm, I did all of my work in school and I had sensible systems in place for prioritising tasks. I rarely hung out in the staffroom and I didn’t make whizzy PowerPoints as I wanted to be efficient as possible. For some, those working hours are too long and it’s true that they left little time for cleaning our flat or ironing. But it did mean that I did no school work on weekends or in the evening, which suited me perfectly.

To be clear on what work-life balance means for you, you need to know yourself, your school and your role

really well.

For example, although I know I would find a pastoral role very rewarding I have always avoided such positions. I like to be able to control my time as much as possible but seeing incredible colleagues in these roles tells me that it is unlikely I’d be able to keep all my work tasks to within the school day.

The nature of pastoral roles is that you need to be responsive to pupils’ needs throughout the day. Therefore, being realistic about the work you’ll need to take home is crucial.

In my new role, I work 4 days per week.

I know I will never be able to do nursery or school drop-offs, and that is a reality I have had to accept. Luckily, I have a highly competent partner who is fully capable of getting our son ready in the

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EXPERIENCE morning before starting work at 9am.

I arrive in school at 7.15am and I leave by 5pm to collect my son. Joe Wicks has been replaced by cycling to work, which also reduces the demands on my time at home. My partner still does all the cooking. Cleaning is ad-hoc at best.

It also helps to be strict with yourself: I always want to run out the door as early as possible on a Friday, but I sit at my desk ensuring all planning and printing is ready for the coming week before leaving at 5pm. This has meant accepting that some things can’t be done the way I originally planned, but it is worth it for my and my family’s happiness.

Now that I am in a leadership position, it is the managing of emails and people’s communication expectations that has become central to maintaining balance in my two worlds. I am always very upfront that I don’t work Mondays or over weekends. I ensure that any colleagues know that; though they are welcome to email me on those days, I will neither read nor respond until I am at work on Tuesday. This has led to some awkward conversations but setting your stall out clearly at the start makes these less likely over time.

When I do need to read emails on non-working days, I make liberal use of the “send later” function to maintain

control over my own time and to avoid sending confusing messages about my availability. Unfortunately, if you are the first part-time worker in your school, you are likely to have to fight harder to protect your non-working time. But if this is done in a firm but professional manner it can ensure expectations are clear for all parties.

Good communication and assuming the best of all involved has generally been useful for me.

I completely understand Sherish when she says “mentally, I’m always at work”, but experience tells me this gets easier as you get used to a new way of working.

I definitely recommend blocking your working days together (e.g. MondayWednesday) where possible to give yourself a clearer disconnect between work and school.

I’d also avoid “compressed timetables”.

This was something I considered when I first returned from maternity leave but after putting together a possible timetable of doing four days’ worth of responsibilities over 3 days, I realised I’d be spending a lot of time at home doing the work I wouldn’t be able to complete during my jam-packed working days. Just thinking about it made me feel anxious and this wasn’t something I was happy to do.

In both experiences of part-time

working, I have benefitted hugely from working for family-friendly organisations with centralised and sensible behaviour, feedback and planning policies, whose leaders are constantly striving to reduce workload. If your work-life balance isn’t what you want it to be and your school isn’t focusing on ways to reduce workload, it may be time to look for a different organisation.

In summary, it’s true that part-time working is not a silver bullet for achieving work-life balance. But that doesn’t mean it is bad. If you find it hard to prioritise all the tasks in your week on 5 days a week, working fewer days is unlikely to make this more manageable.

And the stress caused by the gap between what you thought part-time life would be and the reality may simply add to your stress levels.

Be honest with yourself about when you are your own worst enemy when it comes to workload and interrogate your own biases about part-time working. There is no need to hand craft charming badges for your Year 11 leavers: it’s nice but it’s only adding to your workload. Your lessons don’t need 1000 animations or that specific picture you spent 15 minutes looking for. Finally, lower your standards.

Our house is messy, and we would rather spend money on things other than a cleaner. We’ve just had to accept that as the price we pay for balance.

“If you are seeking work-life balance, it is important to have a clear understanding of what “balance” means for you and what is realistic.”

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