Prep School Magazine - Summer 2019 Issue 95 by John Catt Educational

Summer 2019 â&#x2013;² Issue 95

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep and junior school world

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CONTENTS

SUMMER 2019| ISSUE 95

From the editor

The magic kingdom, technology and the Golden Mean, Leo Winkley

Challenging poverty, Carolyn Savjani

Getting it right, Andrew Whitehouse

A right not a privilege, Malcolm Tozer

What does CE stand for? Durell Barnes

The demise of Common Entrance, Ben Evans

The origins and nature of ‘maths anxiety’, Craig Brierley

The lamentable loss of Latin in South African schools, Dr Paul Murray

The importance of adapting to change, Richard Merriman

Nurturing resilience and physical goals, Rose Hardy

What will you leave behind? Ian Morris

An education on social media, Tom Lawley

Dyslexia in the classroom, Kate Sarginson

Fearless females and future leaders, Joanna Leach

Shall we talk burnout? Victoria Hewett

To be a loser, Neil Rollings

A breath of fresh air, Katie Jones

Which suite is sweeter, Mark Templeman

Plays in prep, Andrew Beattie

Pondering the machine and the organism, Christopher Parsons

Strategic change making, Sian Dawson

The power of prep, Christopher Barnes

Sir, I don’t get it! Kevin Donnelly

Mark my words, Dr Matt Jenkinson

How to Teach English Literature, Jennifer Webb

The Compassionate Teacher, Andy Sammons

The Primary Curriculum Leader’s Handbook, Roy Blatchford

Proven techniques for test-taking, Dr Junaid Mubeen

Why more prep schools should do language trips abroad, Douglas Haines

A guide to outdoor spaces, Fawns

SATIPS Broadsheet

Twenty years, Dr David Kent

Editor Paul Jackson Managing Editor Meena Ameen Designer Scott James Advertising Gerry Cookson, gcookson@johncatt.com Steering Committee Bill Ibbetson-Price; Sarah Kirby-Smith; Richard Tovey MBE

ISSN: 0963 8601 Printed by Micropress, Reydon,Suffolk IP18 6DH Publishers’ Notice Prep School is published three times a year, in January, May and September, by John Catt Educational Ltd. £25 for a two-year subscription, post paid; discounts for bulk orders are available. Opinions expressed in Prep School are not necessarily endorsed by satips; likewise advertisements and advertising features are printed in good faith. Their inclusion does not imply endorsement by satips.

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From the editor Forgive me if your part of the country has not been so fortunate but in our neck of the woods, we have been blessed with an almost perfect start to Spring. The smell of the first mowing by the groundsmen fills me with anticipation for the forthcoming Summer Term and all that awaits us. Of course, it will be busy. It was ever thus so but we will witness all the things that are wonderful about our individual schools; progress made by the pupils both within the classroom and outside; music, drama and sport. There will be parties galore, some goodbyes to say, and holidays to look forward to once those reports have been written! Certainly SATIPS will

have a very busy few weeks with the handwriting and Challenge results imminent, the Poetry Competition and SATIPSKI about to take place, and Bromsgrove ready to host the Art Exhibition for a second year. Inevitably, there will be issues to face. One of my concerns when I took over the role as editor was whether there were enough issues to highlight and discuss. I need not have worried and this issue alone is testament to that. The challenges come our way and the solutions seem to follow – and some folk thrive on this – so much so that they are happy to consider headship. Good for them. Do please let me know if there is a change of head or senior leadership – or any exciting news or other changes – at your school and we will happily publish the details in the next issue of the magazine. At the same time, new

heads need advice and support, and on that note it is with great sadness that we record the recent death of David Tytler. David was a former editor of Prep School magazine and is fondly remembered as a chap who gave tremendous help to new heads. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family at this sad time. I woke this morning and by chance heard a former head and his wife talking on Farming Today on BBC Radio 4. They dealt with issues whilst in post at school and now face a whole different range of them on their farm. This confirms the view that some people thrive on life’s challenges, whatever situation they find themselves in. I won’t mention their names but I do hope that they will respond to my challenge of writing an article entitled ‘From Pupils to Polls’. Watch this space!

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The magic kingdom, technology and the Golden Mean Leo Winkley, Headmaster of Shrewsbury School, takes a look at the inclusion of technology, the internet and social media in schools The last ten years have seen parents and schools scramble to keep up with the explosion of possibilities that come from the exponential growth in personal technology. The advent of the smartphone has left sensible parents and responsible educators baffled as to what we should put into policy. The media cannot get enough of the topic, with articles and opinion pieces peppering the columns and broadcasts almost every day. Fear mongering over technology has become a ‘Golden Moan’. A common trope presents smartphones as instruments of malevolence, poised to infect the magic kingdom of childhood. On the other hand, IT evangelists propose the irresistible allure and educational potential of hand-held devices. What is beyond doubt is that they are a part of the magic kingdom. We have to decide whether they are poison or cure. Questions abound. How should we play this very new and unpredictable game? What are the rules? If we love and care for our children, should we protect them from the numerous perils of the internet, the dark web and various social media? Should we ban and prohibit? Or should we let them play with a sense of joyful abandon, hoping that we will be there

to pick up the pieces when they fall, to patch them up with an electronic first aid kit? Or should we occupy some middle ground, policing and monitoring as best we can, trying to keep informed and up to speed with the latest app? Should we be positively steering our children to the enlightenment that comes from the myriad learning opportunities on the internet. Should we embrace the positive benefits of the electronic age with a pioneer spirit? Or, should we be putting the brakes on, even turning back the clocks to the pre-smart age? Probably, the first question we will face as parents is: what is the appropriate age for a child to own a smartphone? As parents, we take attitudes to risk from the very first breath our children take. We know that the world is fraught with danger; we also know that the joyful burden of independent living is the ultimate gift a parent passes on to their offspring. We trust carers, nannies, nurses, teachers – strangers even – to guide and protect our young. Each parent will vet and size up the risks and rewards any situation may present for their child. Gradually, these moments of decision – these choices – become set into attitudes and enshrined into family policy. Do we let our youngsters play in the road? Never. Do we let them walk

to the sweet shop or to the park or library? Sometimes. And under certain conditions. Do we expect to have control over all their choices? It depends when, what and how long for. It’s a gradual process, of course, and it occurs though a uniquely personal blend of values, experience, rules, and, of course, through trial and error. So, our attitudes to technology will depend on the age of our children. What of the smartphone and its infinite portals to electronic education or digital corruption? I can offer no particular technological expertise, neither as a parent or an educator. However, the first point I find myself making is that this conversation is not a technical one: it is about tolerance and boundaries, it is about risk and reward, and it is about learning to play and explore safely. You don’t need to be a digital expert to set boundaries for your children. Five further thoughts flow from this starting point: 1. Play is ok – if there are rules. The curiosity of children is what drives them to learn. We need to set parameters for this natural and healthy curiosity. This is particularly important in the early days: better to start off strict and be able to relax the parameters than trying to row back from an overly liberal beginning.

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2. Learning comes to us from many sources – we should be willing to explore and embrace pluralism. At my senior school, we try to tread a middle way on electronic devices: they are used in learning as directed by the teachers – for example, in regular Virtual Reality sessions in biology or doing interactive class quizzes to test understanding in philosophy and theology. Outside the classroom, pupils are not permitted to use their phones unless in their own space and at downtimes. Rather than acting like Canute and trying to turn back the tide, we have allowed controlled and monitored use of social media. The school’s firewall protects and filters internet activity ensures our safeguarding of pupils when online. The houses each operate systems that limit the use of phones, for example during Top Schools (Prep time) and prevent late night screen time. The device becomes something that is a part of learning and daily life but is managed and controlled by adults. This does not mean that we are naïve enough to believe that the pupils don’t look for – and find – ways around the system. However, we believe that the rewards of bringing technology

into the school outweigh the risks attached. The pupils lower down the school will have less free time to access their smartphones and there are tighter controls to ensure that they get good sleep and are not straying into forbidden territory when online. 3. Addiction is addiction. Harm is harm. We need to be savvy about the way apps and games are designed. They are made to be addictive. This means we need to approach them in a similar way to sweets, junk food, and other pleasant but addictive substances. We also need to recognise that the harm that comes through the virtual world is as real as any other form of harm. Cyber-bullying, online taunts, self-obsessive sharing, and edited body images – all of these and many more besides can bend and harm our children’s self-perception. It is difficult to block access to all these possibilities once we have given the child access. Again, we need to work with them to establish rules; use the technology to set up parental controls and, above all, we need to keep a dialogue open with our children. If we demonise technology, its allure becomes all the stronger, and children are forced to be secretive.

4. Digital skills are not the same as human skills. We are social animals and need real interpersonal contact to grow and develop. The hours spent in a virtual world (whether relational or solo) are not the same as face-to-face interaction. This argues for firm limits on the time we allow children in particular to be online. They need to be breathing the fresh air of real communication and social interaction. The canned oxygen of online life is fine, maybe even rather exhilarating, but it’s definitely not the real thing. What’s the best line then? Well, we must all make our choices as parents and as schools, and then stick to them consistently. We might follow the French example and ban smartphones from schools. This has the appeal of being very clear. But, I’m not sure that banning will really yield the best outcomes. Unless we take such a position of principle that rules out all forms of technology – in the same way that a principled vegetarian will rule out all meat – then we will need to plan our diet. This means balance and moderation, which brings me to a final observation. 5. All things in moderation. The Greek philosopher Aristotle was smart way before the smart phone. His notion of the Golden Mean, that the good life lies in creating habits that navigate between extremes, is one that applies well to managing our relationship with technology. He argued for moderation, suggesting that deficiency and excess are both to be avoided. For example, an excess of courage leads to recklessness, but a deficiency creates timidity. How might this apply to technology and guiding the young in their use of it? By pursuing a middle way that controls, manages, limits, and selectively removes technology if behaviour is not correct, parents and schools can help the children in their care to have the best of possible worlds. The Golden Mean will triumph over the Golden Moan.

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Challenging poverty Our schools are always seeking worthy charities to support. Carolyn Savjani describes the important work undertaken by Global Care Education is widely acknowledged as the best available tool for breaking intergenerational cycles of poverty. By teaching children the skills they need today, young people can build a better tomorrow. Yet for far too many children worldwide, education remains a privilege not a right. Girls are kept at home whilst their brothers go to school, when families can only afford to educate one or two children. Children with disabilities suffer a toxic combination of stigma and poverty. They cannot easily travel to school, and are not welcome when they arrive. Children drop out in slum communities where education is not valued, sent out to work in the streets or fields, for whatever income they can garner, by whatever means. Children stay at home in countries where the education system has been so damaged by conflict, or stultified by low levels of development, that schooling is simply inaccessible. UK charity Global Care is seeking to change the story for thousands of children in poverty worldwide. CEO John White explains: ‘Education is in our DNA. We passionately believe that education is the single most effective tool for improving the lives of individuals and communities over the long term.’ The charity, based in Coventry, has over 35 years of experience in the field, and currently works in 15 countries on four continents. It’s a message echoed by larger NGOs: ‘The benefits of investing in quality education for the most disadvantaged children are tremendous… Education nourishes young minds, expands horizons and can break the cycle of

disadvantage that traps generations in poverty. By investing in education systems and putting the needs of the most disadvantaged children first, nations can unlock education’s potential to transform children’s lives and the world.’ (UNICEF, 2016) Global Care’s methods look different in different countries, depending on local need and capacity, but the goal is always the same. Education, education, education – to coin a phrase! Global Care is training teachers in South Sudan, where a shocking 70% of children aged between six and 17 have never set foot in a classroom. This young nation, emerging from over 50 years of civil war, has one of the worst primary completion rates in the world – with just 10% of children finishing primary education. Global Care’s partners in South Sudan, the Diocese of Wau, run 13 primary schools across a large area. Nine of their schools meet under trees, few are able to offer the full primary cycle, and they have only two trained teachers across all 13 schools. The situation is no better in government schools. Global Care has funded a three-year diploma in teaching for 50 teachers, selected in equal numbers from church and government schools across Northern Bahr El Ghazal Internal Province, an area roughly 1.5 times the size of Wales. When the education system is in such disarray, there’s no point building classrooms or providing textbooks. The only resource which will kickstart change is skilled teachers. The 50 trainees teach in the morning and train in the afternoon. Every year they offer an improved quality of education to over 3000 children.

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In Lebanon the challenge is different. Government schools in this tiny country (population 4.5 million) have been stretched way beyond capacity by the influx of over one million Syrian refugees since 2011, including 500,000 children. Most schools now run in shifts, with Lebanese classes in the mornings and Syrian education in the afternoons. But there are still thousands of refugee children out of school, living in tented settlements in fields and by roadsides up and down the country. They can’t afford transport, or school resources, and their families desperately need the income they can bring in. Sometimes traumatised families simply won’t let their children leave their immediate environs. Global Care has been funding Syrian refugee education in the Bekaa Valley since 2014. The charity has supported a series of Shack Schools – informal schools in a tent, located in the middle of a group of tented settlements. There are no transport costs, resources are provided free of charge, and the school operates in two shifts, so children can still work in the fields. Currently around 150 children aged between 6 and 12 are learning maths, Arabic and a little French. The quality of teaching and pastoral care is high. Informal schools are an effective way of boosting the educational prospects of disadvantaged children. As well as providing basic education to children who are out of school, informal schools can also supplement the learning of particularly vulnerable children who can access government schools, but due to additional disadvantage are unlikely to succeed without advocacy and support.

In India, Global Care supports informal schools in slum communities in Kolkata and near Mumbai, focusing on the needs of Dalit children. Even though the Indian caste system was officially abolished, its effects are still far-reaching. Dalit children ¬– formerly known as Untouchables, from the lowest caste – face opposition from higher caste groups, who do not believe Dalits deserve education. In schools they are forced to sit at the back, or even outside, teachers refuse to mark or even touch their books, and they can be forced to do menial tasks like cleaning toilets. Staff at the Global Care centres provide teaching for Dalit children who have dropped out, and homework support and advocacy for students still in school. Informal schools also make a huge impact when they function as preschools, teaching numeracy and literacy to disadvantaged children before they go to government schools. Pre-schools like these not only give children the basics of learning but also the classroom skills and confidence they need to succeed – how to sit still, how to listen. In Bangladesh, Global Care’s partners have supported hundreds of children

from illiterate peasant families through six pre-schools in the rural Sundarbans. Children join between the ages of four and eight, and stay for two or three years before progressing to government schools. Whereas the national school dropout rate in Bangladesh is 21%, the rate falls to only 2% for graduates of Global Care’s partner pre-schools. A similar initiative funded by Global Care in rural Ethiopia is impacting over 800 children each year, and has proved so popular with parents and community leaders it will soon be self-sufficient. Global Care has a clear focus on targeting limited resources at the most disadvantaged children, arguing that healthy change narrows inequity within communities, and does not increase it. In recent years this has led to a deeper interest in the needs of children with disabilities. In Uganda, as well as an extensive child sponsorship programme supporting children identified by their own communities as particularly vulnerable, a number of initiatives are helping children with disabilities access education. In Uganda, a shocking 90% of children with disabilities never attend school.

Global Care is not a large charity. With a turnover of less than £1 million, and no government funding, it is proud of the impact it achieves through the generosity of individuals, churches and schools. ‘Partnership is the key,’ says CEO John White. ‘We identify grassroots Christian groups, determined to make a difference to children in their own communities, of all faiths or none. The commitment of UK partners who catch our vision for change enables us to come alongside these international partners with resources, capacity building and support. And children’s lives are changed, for good. ‘Our motto has always been “you can’t do everything, but you mustn’t do nothing”. Thanks to generous UK donors, we are able to do more and more, in the lives of more children, who are more vulnerable. I ask everyone, is that a vision you can share?’ Global Care welcomes contact with new UK partners who recognise the high value of education. Further information is available at www.globalcare.org

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Getting it right Andrew Whitehouse is a specialist in neurological diversity and behaviour who provides interventions for professionals, parents and young people with autism, ADHD and dyslexia For around 20 years now I have been working with young people with neurological diversities such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome (PDA) and a range of related conditions. More recently, the focus has been on Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) and the links between SEMH and Neurological Diversity are plentiful. People who are perceived as being different, or indeed are different often feel like they don’t fit and struggle to achieve in a neurotypical world with neurotypical expectations. I do a range of things: conference presentations, keynote speeches, training workshops and insets and observing young people in the learning environment. This can be for a variety of reasons, challenging or disruptive behaviour, difficulties integrating socially, problems accessing the curriculum, not engaging with learning and a whole raft of other reasons. I have no particular system that I follow, other than that I follow leads. I look for what is going wrong and try to remove it from the equation or I look at what is going well and try to replicate it – ‘more of what works and less of what doesn’t; a sort of non-system system.’ Based on observations I have carried out in the classroom, strategies and interventions I have found successful, I have put together the following list of ADHD friendly practices. Normalise ADHD. Young people with ADHD often feel that they are being judged for being different and not succeeding. Actually, people with

ADHD are good at lots of things. They can focus on the minutiae of tasks, they are creative problem solvers, they have boundless energy and yet often have low self-esteem. Talk about their ADHD, ask them about what they like about it, ask them what it is about it that causes them problems. Give them opportunity to talk. People with ADHD find talking the quickest, most efficient way of communicating and yet we can find them verbally intrusive, accuse them of interrupting. Try to make opportunities for your ADHD learner to talk. This brings us to… Use your visuals. People with ADHD are visual processors mostly, and yet, in my experience, most teaching is auditory verbal. Try to use your visuals more: visual timetables; now and next boards; lists of instructions; flash cards for spellings; and, any other visual interventions. Remember attention spans #1. Depending on what you read, ADHD attention spans vary greatly. The theory I like to use is that a child’s attention span is there age plus a minute up until the age of 16. If that child has ADHD or a related condition, you can knock a third off that figure. So, an eight-year-old child with ADHD has potentially a six-minute attention span, and yet may be expected to sit through a 20-minute assembly followed by a further 20 minutes on the carpet listening to teacher. Remember attention spans #2. In contrast to what we have just discussed, if a child with ADHD

is really interested in something, they can have an almost unlimited attention span. This has a knock-on effect on teaching and learning, if you can engage the child with ADHD’s interest, you will have great success. Gross/fine motor hyperactivity. Sitting still and not fiddling is not the natural state for people with ADHD. Try giving them something to fiddle with: hand putty, fidget cubes, or fidget spinners, and for gross motor hyperactivity try fidgety feet wobblers. Keep them busy. Do you need a monitor for something? Do you need a personal assistant? Pencils need sharpening? Photocopying need doing? This is the ideal situation for a young person who finds sitting still a problem. React/respond. Most teachers I work with agree that when working with young people with ADHD the hardest thing to manage is impulsive behaviour, in particular the tendency to react to situations without thinking through the repercussions. Spend time role-playing situations that are either respond or react. Practicing this will prepare children to make the correct and appropriate choices in a range of situations. Teaching a child with ADHD should not be difficult, just different. The problem with children with ADHD is not generally the ADHD but the expectation to behave neurotypically. With a few tweaks and some creative thinking, you will get significantly better results.

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A right, not a privilege Malcolm Tozer, former Head of Wellow and Chair of the Curriculum Committee for PE in Independent Schools, reflects on the issue of compulsory sport. His article appeared in the Times earlier this year entitled ‘regular school sport should be a right not a privilege’ When it came to writing the post2000 history of physical education (PE) for my new book, Edward Thring’s Theory, Practice and Legacy: Physical Education in Britain since 1800, I found that there were five developments that stood out from the many. First, that the several PE associations of the past had unified as the Association for Physical Education (afPE). Secondly, that the medal haul of Team GB at the Olympic Games in London in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016 was a triumph and former pupils of independent schools were well represented. Thirdly, the introduction of the PE and Sport Premium in 2013 was greatly improving the provision of PE and school sport in primary schools. Fourthly, the much publicised legacy of the London Olympic Games for the improvement of the nation’s health and wellbeing had still to be realised. The fit may well be fitter but most adults take little or no part in physical activity; fitness levels in children are also falling, and childhood obesity is another major concern. Lastly, PE is being squeezed out of the timetable in state secondary schools. More than a third of schools have reduced timetable provision for pupils aged 14 to 16 since 2012, and a quarter have done so since 2016.

So I wrote to The Times: PE should be compulsory for all pupils (Does it surprise you that it is not?).

The last two must be connected - and what I saw (or, rather, did not see) on a stroll on a sunny Saturday afternoon gnawed away at me for a week.

Fitness in children is also falling: research at Essex University found that muscle strength of ten-year-old boys and girls had decreased by 20%

A walk across Wanstead Flats in east London on a Saturday afternoon was both exhilarating and depressing: exhilarating to be strolling with my daughter’s family on a sunny day; depressing to see only one kick-about game in progress on the dozen or so football pitches. Perhaps it was an atypical Saturday but the absence of many goalposts and the scuff-free turf in goalmouths suggested otherwise. A check the following Saturday on the website of Uppingham School, where I taught PE for 23 years, showed that girls and boys there were playing that day in 55 teams across seven sports. More than half the 800 pupils were representing the school in sport; more were enjoying other forms of physical recreation. The promised legacy of the London Olympic Games for the improvement of the nation’s health and wellbeing has still to be realised. The fit may well be fitter but most adults take little or no part in physical activity, with nearly 80% failing to meet the government’s target of half an hour of moderate exercise 12 times a month.

between 1998 and 2014, and muscle endurance by 30%. Obesity in children is another big concern: in 2017 the NHS classified 10% of children entering primary school and 20% of primary school leavers as obese. Physical education is being squeezed out of the timetable in many state secondary schools, despite being rated by pupils as the third most enjoyable subject. Research by the Youth Sport Trust has found that more than a third of schools had reduced timetable provision for pupils aged 14 to 16 since 2012, and a quarter had done so in the previous year. Many pupils receive no PE in the years when they sit exams at GCSE and A level. If we judge that the physical, mental and emotional wellbeing of all pupils is as important as their ability in English, mathematics and science, it follows that PE should join these three as a core subject in the national curriculum. PE’s place on the timetable would then be protected. As a second step, the extended school day should be reinstated to promote after-school activities in sport, music and the arts. Why should children in east London, some of the 93% who do not attend schools such as Uppingham, be denied what Edward Thring, the school’s mid-Victorian headmaster, termed the ‘wondrous vital powers’ of sport?

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What does CE stand for? Durell Barnes, Chair of the ISEB since September 2018 and with 20 years of experience teaching in the independent sector, states the case for Common Entrance At the heart of the debate about Common Entrance is a welcome discussion of the prep school curriculum, particularly in Years 7 and 8. Much has been said and written about what some perceive as the stress imposed on pupils by the CE examination itself and this itself is a reflection of wider discussion of young people’s mental health issues. In the TES on the 21st of January, Andreas Schleicher of PISA stated that there was no worldwide evidence that exams drive pupils’ anxiety – it has more to do with how tests are used and what support students have. This reflects remarks made by Barnaby Lenon, Chairman of ISC, in the ISC Bulletin: ‘Exams used to be much harder – Common Entrance, GCSE (when they were O-levels) and A Levels used to be much more demanding. In 2015 both January A Level and GCSE exams and GCSE resits were scrapped, so halving the number of exams sat by most senior school pupils. Exam ‘modules’ are gone, and it has never been easier to get a high grade at GCSE or A Level. It has never been easier to get into university. So if there are signs of increased stress, the fault does not lie with the exams.’ The Independent Schools Examinations Board’s 13+ Common Entrance syllabi and assessments do not of themselves have to

induce stress in pupils or impose a straitjacket on teachers. It is clear that for many schools they provide a rigorous basis for imaginative, creative teaching and learning. This lays firm foundations for study at senior schools that appreciate the learning profile that CE grades indicate. For parents, moreover, they provide an assurance that schools are following a purposeful path in developing their own curricula based on the ISEB syllabi. In this sense, while still relevant for some as an entrance examination, CE is fulfilling a valuable role for others as an exit certificate, giving pupils something to aim for and teachers a framework around which to build stimulating programmes of study.

where the passion and commitment of teachers on display affirms the dynamism of the teaching profession in our sector. In many ways, Key Stage 3 (Years 7 to 9, so children aged 11 to 14) is the last bastion of independence in the curriculum nationwide, coming after Key Stage 2 where the testing regime reflects the requirements of the National Curriculum and coming before Key Stage 4 where GCSE specifications set the basis for the curriculum. At this stage, and especially in prep schools, the independent sector can play a role in leading discussion about the curriculum just as Ofsted has brought it to the centre of their inspection regime and thus generated discussion about this in the maintained sector.

As the role and nature of CE adapts in the light of the discussions currently being held on the nature and scope of the Key Stage 3 curriculum, ISEB has been holding its own consultation process about future developments in this area. It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to be present to hear subject specialists from senior and prep schools, including both users of CE and those who have moved away from it, discussing the nature of their subject, its contribution to the development of young people’s learning and their understanding of their own place in the world. These have been fascinating occasions

The Independent Schools Inspectorate’s inspection framework includes the curriculum as a contributory factor in the development of pupils’ achievement and personal development and CE has always played a role in these. ISEB is pleased to play its part in this important discussion and its syllabi and assessments will continue to develop in such a way as to promote an up to date appropriate and effective learner profile for pupils in Years 7 and 8.

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The demise of Common Entrance Ben Evans, Headmaster at Edge Grove School, takes a look at the demise of Common Entrance examinations in prep schools Common Entrance is considered by many more forward-thinking prep and senior schools to be outdated, old-fashioned and no longer fit for purpose. It is an exam, which has been in place for many years and has served an excellent purpose over this time in rigorously preparing pupils for their public schools while laying the foundations for O Level and more recently, GCSE skills. However, the educational landscape has changed and schools have put in place their own individual assessment processes including pre-testing, which no longer include Common Entrance. The ISEB 13+ Common Entrance syllabus is a two-year course followed in Years 7 and 8, which culminates in a weeklong set of written examinations in all subjects. Traditionally, it is a rigorous course and the exams incorporate and examine high-level skills that are considered to be of GCSE standard. Few can really argue with the suggestion that this has been diluted or dumbed down and with level

3 paper and CASE, it more than adequately stretches the most able. The big question, though, has to be: Is it still fit for purpose? Hiding behind the ‘virtues’ of Common Entrance I recoil in horror when I hear prep school teachers extol the virtues of Common Entrance because they believe ‘it teaches academic rigour and keeps them (the Year 8 pupils) busy until the end of prep school’. If schools cannot devise their own rigorous academic, innovative and exciting curriculums and mange to keep 12 and 13 year old pupils engaged and enthused about their leaning, they are clearly doing something wrong. Public examinations at 16 and 18 years are still an unfortunate reality of our education system. However, expecting the same of pupils in Years 7 and 8 is both unnecessary and educationally damaging. Teachers will, inevitably, teach a narrow and stifled curriculum concentrating on

We need to ensure that pupils can develop into independent. and active learners who are willing to question, explore and become lifelong learners 18

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

the acquisition, memorisation and regurgitation of facts in order to pass an exam. Where is the creativity, the development of skills such as critical thinking, communication and independence of thought? We need to ensure that pupils can develop into independent and active learners who are willing to question, explore and become lifelong learners. This requires a curriculum, which excites and inspires together with methods of assessment that allow pupils to demonstrate a deeper understanding of the curriculum content and also high level skill acquisition. Education for education’s sake In truth, the Common Entrance approach does have some benefits but in order to better prepare pupils for senior schools and to ensure they are accomplished young people who have something valuable to offer, the common entrance process is definitely lacking. The two-year course culminating in a week of paper-based exams is a tried and tested method within our education system but is it right for 11-13 year olds? It is a rigid process with little flexibility (other than the level of the exam papers) to adapt to the needs or interests of the pupils. Any good prep school will already have an inspiring and engaging curriculum in place from the youngest age, with a strong sense of academic rigour at its heart but delivered with creativity and innovation. This allows pupils to progressively build a good depth

of knowledge and understanding alongside strong skills acquisition whilst enjoying and being enthused by their learning. We are then doing our oldest pupils a huge disservice by interrupting this progression and enjoyment with a fixed and rigid curriculum which is inevitably lead by the terminal exams. These, in turn, become the focus rather than education for education’s sake. Certain senior schools still require common entrance as a condition of entry and therefore schools are bound to follow the process. For some schools, it provides the framework for Years 7 and 8 that would otherwise be lacking and is, therefore, a valuable system. Parents with children in prep school are looking for high quality teaching and learning delivered by enthusiastic and committed teachers who know and understand their children extremely well. They are expecting a certain degree of individual attention which comes from smaller class sizes and with teachers who have the time and energy to inspire their pupils. Perhaps most importantly, parents are expecting their prep school to prepare their children well for the next stage of their educational journey and for them to be accepted at their schools of choice.

Going beyond an ability to learn and memorise

questioning and debates are of far greater value then paper based exams.

Due to the very individual nature of this process from school to school, Common Entrance has lost its importance and one has to question whether it really provides the degree of preparation that is now required for children to hit t-he ground running in their senior schools and for them to be successful and accomplished in often very competitive environments.

Preparing pupils for a future world

Today, it is becoming essential for schools to provide a much broader range of opportunities for pupil assessment and go beyond their ability to learn, memorise and regurgitate. In the wider world, universities and employers are continually looking for candidates who are articulate, confident, can flounder intelligently, think critically and, above all, have the resilience and positive attitude to overcome problems and disappointments. Therefore, in schools today we must provide opportunities for pupils to develop these skills and demonstrate them in how we assess and measure their progress. Practical assessments based on pupils’ abilities to communicate their understanding of topics covered through presentations,

Of course, some schools will still see Common Entrance as a good way to keep their Year 8 pupils busy and occupied for as long as possible as well as seeing the exams as good practice for GCSEs. This will be their raison d’etre for continuing with it. Other schools meanwhile, will be looking to implement their own rich and exciting curriculums together with innovative forms of assessment to ensure their pupils are well prepared for their future lives. It is becoming increasingly obvious that many senior schools are looking beyond Common Entrance today and are therefore expecting prep schools to prepare their pupils in different ways with higher and more advanced outcomes. Common Entrance has, for many years, been a valuable stage in many children’s education and has served a useful purpose. However, as with all things, times and requirements have changed and it is important that prep schools recognise this and adapt accordingly. In short, we must ensure that we understand the needs and exigencies of the working world our pupils will enter and recognise that it is never too early to start.

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The origins and nature of ‘maths anxiety’ Craig Brierley, Head of Research at the University of Cambridge, reflects on a report that examines the factors that influence ‘maths anxiety’ among schoolchildren A recent report ‘Understanding Mathematics Anxiety: Investigating the experiences of UK primary and secondary school students’ showed that teachers and parents may inadvertently play a role in a child’s development of the condition, and that girls tend to be more affected than boys. Funded by the Nuffield Foundation, with additional support from the James S McDonnell Foundation, the report found that the UK is facing a maths crisis. According to a 2014 report from National Numeracy, four out of five adults have low functional mathematics skills compared to fewer than half of UK adults having low functional literacy levels. While mathematics is often considered a hard subject, not all difficulties with the subject result from cognitive difficulties. Many children and adults experience feelings of anxiety, apprehension, tension or discomfort when confronted by a maths problem. This report, published by the Centre for Neuroscience in Education at the University of Cambridge, explores the nature and resolution of so-called ‘mathematics anxiety’.

Background Researchers worked with more than 2700 primary and secondary students in the UK and Italy to examine both maths anxiety and general anxiety, and gain a measure of mathematics performance. They then worked one-to-one with the children to gain a deeper understanding of their cognitive abilities and feelings towards mathematics. This is the first interview-based study of its kind to compare the mathematics learning experiences of a relatively large sample of students identified as mathematics anxious with similar children that are not mathematics anxious. Although further in-depth studies are needed to substantiate and expand upon this work, the findings indicate that the mathematics classroom is a very different world for children that are mathematics anxious compared to those that are not. Origins of maths anxiety In a sample of 1000 Italian students, the researchers found that girls in both primary and secondary school had higher levels of both maths anxiety and general anxiety.

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More detailed investigation in 1700 UK schoolchildren found that a general feeling that maths was more difficult than other subjects often contributed to maths anxiety, leading to a lack or loss of confidence. Students pointed to poor marks or test results, or negative comparisons to peers or siblings as reasons for feeling anxious. ‘While every child’s maths anxiety may be different, with unique origins and triggers, we found several common issues among both the primary and secondary school students that we interviewed,’ says Dr Denes Szucs from the Department of Psychology, the study’s lead author. Students often discussed the role that their teachers and parents played in their development of maths anxiety. Primary-aged children referred to instances where they had been confused by different teaching methods, while secondary students commented on poor interpersonal relations. Secondary students indicated that the transition from primary to secondary school had been a cause of maths anxiety, as the work seemed harder and they couldn’t cope. There was

Further research should be focused on how maths anxiety can be best remediated before any strong link with performance begins to emerge also greater pressure from tests – in particular, SATS – and an increased homework load.

• Majority of children with high maths anxiety are normal to high achievers on maths tests

Relationship between maths anxiety and performance

• Intervene early to break ‘vicious circle’ of maths anxiety

In a study published in 2018, the researchers showed that it is not only children with low maths ability who experience maths anxiety – more than three-quarters (77%) of children with high maths anxiety are normal to high achievers on curriculum maths tests.

Recommendations

‘Because these children perform well at tests, their maths anxiety is at high risk of going unnoticed by their teachers and parents, who may only look at performance but not at emotional factors,’ says Dr Amy Devine, the 2018 study’s first author, who now works for Cambridge Assessment English. ‘But their anxiety may keep these students away from STEM fields for life when in fact they would be perfectly able to perform well in these fields.’ However, it is almost certainly the case that in the long term, people with greater maths anxiety perform worse than their true maths ability. Today’s report includes a review of existing research literature that shows that this can lead to a vicious circle: maths anxiety leads to poorer performance and poorer performance leads to increasing maths anxiety.

The researchers set out a number of recommendations in the report. These include the need for teachers to be conscious that an individual’s maths anxiety likely affects their mathematics performance. Teachers and parents also need to be aware that their own maths anxiety might influence their students’ or child’s maths anxiety and that gendered stereotypes about mathematics suitability and ability might contribute to the gender gap in maths performance. ‘Teachers, parents, brothers and sisters and classmates can all play a role in shaping a child’s maths anxiety,’ adds co-author Dr Ros McLellan from the Faculty of Education. ‘Parents and teachers should also be mindful of how they may unwittingly contribute to a child’s maths anxiety. Tackling their own anxieties and belief systems in maths might be the first step to helping their children or students.’

• Girls more likely than boys to experience maths anxiety

The researchers say that as maths anxiety is present from a young age but may develop as the child grows, further research should be focused on how maths anxiety can be best remediated before any strong link with performance begins to emerge.

• Parents and teachers may influence a child’s maths anxiety

‘Our findings should be of real concern for educators. We should

Research findings

be tackling the problem of maths anxiety now to enable these young people to stop feeling anxious about learning mathematics and give them the opportunity to flourish,’ says Dr Szucs. ‘If we can improve a student’s experience within their maths lessons, we can help lessen their maths anxiety, and in turn this may increase their overall maths performance.’ Josh Hillman, Director of Education at the Nuffield Foundation, said: ‘Mathematical achievement is valuable in its own right, as a foundation for many other subjects and as an important predictor of future academic outcomes, employment opportunities and even health. Maths anxiety can severely disrupt students’ performance in the subject in both primary and secondary school. But importantly – and surprisingly – this new research suggests that the majority of students experiencing maths anxiety have normal to high maths ability. We hope that the report’s recommendations will inform the design of school and home-based interventions and approaches to prevent maths anxiety developing in the first place.’ You can contact Craig Brierley, Head of Research Communications at the University of Cambridge, for more information or a copy of the report at craig.brierley@admin.cam.ac.uk

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The lamentable loss of Latin in South African schools Dr Paul Murray, Archivist at Diocesan College (Bishops), Cape Town, laments the decline of Latin in South African schools As a South African educator whose teaching career included the teaching of Latin at two independent South African schools in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively, I thought it would be a good idea to examine the current situation of Latin teaching in the country to see if there were any of them that still offered it as a subject. The school that I retired from as a teacher stopped teaching Latin in the 1990s. However, I Googled to see if there were any others that are still doing so. What all the Googling did come up with, however, was to show that many South African schools sport Latin mottos and that these feature on the scrolls of the school badges for instance, ‘Sibi fidelis ipsi’ (Unto thy own self be true); and ‘Pro Fide et Patria’ (For faith and country). What also surfaced from the Google search, was that certain schools offer ballroom and Latin dancing! But there was no sign of schools still teaching Latin. At this point, I recalled my own miserable experiences as a pupil at school studying Latin, and the tediousness of its grammar, such as having to learn all the conjugations and declensions, especially when it

was the last lesson of the day in the hot Cape Mediterranean summer weather, forcing us to declaim that well-known saying: ‘Latin is a language, as dead as dead can be, it first killed the Romans and now it’s killing me.’ Well, now it seemed Latin was deader than ever before! From my recollections, very many South African schools both independent and state-owned, once taught Latin… so one might ask, where has the Latin disappeared to? Possibly and understandably, over the years, a change of curriculum was required, to better equip pupils for their lives on the African continent. Latin has also gradually been replaced by more seemingly useful subjects such as business studies and economics. So, then I thought that I would see if the school, St John’s College in Johannesburg, where I had taught Latin in the 1980s, still did offer it as a subject, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it does. Whilst the St John’s College’s Latin website starts off by posing the question: ‘Why bother with Latin? No one speaks it today’ The site then proceeds to describe why, today, it could still be a useful subject. Certain of the

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reasons presented by the St John’s Latin website resound in an article by Peter Jones in The Spectator of 24 September 2011, which is that – from studying Latin – you get a ‘firm linguistic grip on English and other languages, verbal sensitivity, the capacity to communicate clearly and concisely, and a broad perspective on the intellectual, political and cultural foundations of our world’. Very disappointed with the state of affairs for Latin teaching in South Africa that practically no longer exists, I thought that I would see how one or two countries abroad feature, from this perspective and was immediately surprised by the website Classics for All. It was like opening a treasure chest, containing a great deal of interesting information, reports-back and a video clip of what ‘Classics for All’ is doing in its community in Leicester. The website gives a number of important factors that can influence a student’s progress, for instance, a chance for students to acquire a deep understanding of grammar, essential for an accurate use of language. This would apply to all languages albeit European, Asian, African or any other,

from the world. With studying the rich Latin literature such as the plays of Plautus or the epic poetry of Virgil, themes come up which can assist in the study of theatre, the visual arts, film and pop-culture. Many of the political systems, philosophy and history that we see in our present-day societies, such as parliamentary debates, emanate from the ancient Greek and Roman societies. For example, the orations of Cicero, can provide pupils engaged in debating and public-speaking great insights into this important science. The philosophical elements from writers such as Lucretius, Seneca and Horatius, can allow students ‘to reflect deeply about themselves and the lives of others – an important quality in a modern, multi-cultural society’. This can enable a crossing of boundaries, to better understand others. A recently placed video clip from ‘Classics for All’ (https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=SqzqscwAh5g) documented the impact of students from a number of prep and high schools in Leicester, and the appreciation that they expressed, from being afforded the opportunity to study Latin and Classics at school. Judging by the contents of the video and the interviews, there is a growth in the number of students gradually being exposed to Latin as a school subject in the Leicester community. From these studies, not only were the students able to appreciate past histories but could also better appreciate the current landscape of their city. The historic city of Leicester was founded by the Romans as Ratae Corieltauvorum, after the Corieltauvi, the local tribe of Britons who occupied these lands at that time. Today Leicester is known to be the second most excavated once-Roman settlement in the UK, after London. It does help a lot, however, to have a department of classics at the University of Leicester that promotes the teaching of Latin and Classics so nearby! Listening to the students

providing their own testimonies in the video clip, one gets to learn so much about the relevance that these students see in studying the classics; points such as explaining science and physics, and that it helps with studying languages. One student explained her fascination with how studying about the Roman Gods and Goddesses taught her more about human nature. One of the prep schools in the UK with a strong Latin tradition is the Dragon School in Oxford. It has a flourishing department of no less than seven classicists who promote its legacy of excellence in Classics and a passion for helping their pupils to love the language. With the department’s philosophy being ‘Knowledge, Rigour and Fun’, it is no wonder that there is this spirit of learning Classics at the Dragon School. One of the points from the Dragon School’s Classics department’s rubric up on their website further explains how: ‘Children of all abilities enjoy being able to learn an appropriate portion of the ancient languages and to tap quickly into the myths, characters and creations of these amazing civilizations.’ It also explains how the interest of the pupils was caught through devices for learning such as pelman cards, dice games, Latin Bingo and various online quizzes. Once into high school, pupils in the UK have a great many options to learn Latin, up to A Levels; and from there, can then go on to studying it at university. One of the schools strongly engaged in the teaching of Latin and Classics to A Levels, is Eton College with a ‘strong understanding of the structure of languages and providing a solid foundation of the acquisition of other languages’. In addition, Latin classes lays the groundwork ‘for students to use strategies to decode legal, medical and technological structures in vocabulary’.

which they are, that once taught Latin in South Africa; or in the UK offering Latin as a subject to its pupils, but what seems clear is that according to the University of Cambridge Schools Classics Project, there is a significant rise in the number of state secondary schools in the UK teaching Latin. Presumably Latin is continued being taught at traditional independent schools. And Professor Dennis Hayes, an expert from the University of Derby and Chair of the College of Education Research Committee, has asked that a debate be opened to discuss his view that: ‘As a minimum, Latin and classics should be taught in every primary school and continued into secondary school with the addition of ancient Greek’, adding that the subjects could be offered by state schools through the ‘Classics for All’ programme or ‘the use of retired Latin teachers’. He feared that this would not happen because ‘the problem lies in teachers’ attitudes … adding that the teachers in his own training sessions would ‘hate’ the idea of teaching classics in all schools, because ‘they think the only thing you need is Google’. Learning Latin is hard, and teachers are few, which is definitely the case in South Africa, as Latin Departments at universities have shrunk with funds being used for more seemingly needed and important areas. This is happening whilst in the USA there is a resurgence of Latin at schools. As Winnie Hu put it in a 2008 article that featured in the The New York Times entitled ‘A Dead Language that’s very much Alive’: ‘The resurgence of a language once rejected as outdated and irrelevant is reflected across the country as Latin is embraced by a new generation of students […] who seek to increase SAT scores or stand out from their friends, or simply harbor (sic) a fascination for the ancient language after reading Harry Potter’s Latinbased chanting spells.’

It is not the purpose of this article to enumerate the number of schools or

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The importance of adapting to change Since retiring last summer as Headmaster of Foremarke Hall, Repton Prep School and after over 20 years in headship, Richard Merriman remains a passionate educationalist and internationalist ‘It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, that lives within the means available and works co-operatively against common threats.’ – Charles Darwin I feel as though I have had a most wonderful time as a headmaster, leading three schools over a period in excess of 20 years. Over these years I believe I have overseen the most dynamic period of constant educational change, evolution and revolution occasionally. I am currently penning the biography of my four times great uncle, the Reverend Dr Joseph Merriman, the founding Headmaster of Cranleigh in 1865, the first public school for the new emerging middle classes. What is so striking is the similarity of his fledgling school with the first years of my teaching career: hierarchical management structures, examinations, staffing, behaviour and the spiritual wellbeing of the boys, curriculum, the growth of sport and muscular Christianity and even inspection; we would all recognise his school and yes he had issues regarding

establishing the school, parents and parenting, recruitment and significant building projects as the school grew and prospered. Thankfully, today the mortality rates of pupils are significantly better! At my second prep school, in rural Shropshire, located up a circuitous country lane, I took over a school that had seen, not long before a headmaster, who was also bursar, in position for 30 years. Reportedly, his school on his final day was no different to his school on the first day. I inherited a school, two form entry-semi-full, all boys, 4-13 with boarding and which I discovered had a parental population of 85% affluent greys – old money. Funds were very tight; spending £10k was a truly considered enterprise and not to be made every year. 12 years later, when I left, the school was co-educational, still up to age 13, but with a day care facility taking youngsters from as early as six weeks old, open every day of the year, single form entry but full and retaining a thriving boarding community of local families who saw the life benefits of boarding and with a splendid new kitchen and dining facility. The

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parental body, only 12 years later, was 85% new money. A cosmic about-face; such rapid change. Anecdotally, my first PA, Mary, had started life at the school under the under the aforementioned headmaster and bursar. She recounted at her retirement party in 2004 after 17 years of distinguished service, how she was initially employed two afternoons of the week as the only secretary, perhaps typing two letters and answering the phone twice. She went on to question how 17 years on, she was leaving a school, with a headmaster, a bursar, an accountant, a bursar’s assistant, headmaster’s secretary, a school secretary, a marketing secretary, a constantly ringing telephone, constant typing and her final statement, ‘and as for these new emails constantly going ping!’ She asked what has happened? I have often wondered at this transformation and what truly drove it. External and internal forces, yes. Political changes and financially prosperous times, yes, and then the crash. Constantly changing secretaries of education, the quality or not of state education, the quality

of our provision, the education of the whole child in a truly holistic way, both within and outside the classroom, securing the best of the past but keeping an eye on the future, yes. A dedicated common room of ‘doers’ with glasses predominantly, half full, yes. Parental demands and expectations, ever bespoke and the value for money proposition, yes. Greater invasive inspections which seemed to become less and less collegiate, the leviathan of paperwork, regulation and compliance, health and safety, yes. Child protection and safeguarding, rightly yes. Changing curriculum demands and a variety of examinations and attitudes towards meritocracy and social mobility, yes. The start of the technological evolution developing into the exponential growth of skills and understanding driven by digitalisation at the expense of knowledge, yes. You can add your own experiences to this inexhaustible list. I started life as a headmaster as a teaching headmaster; I finished at Repton Preparatory School, Foremarke Hall, the CEO of a multimillion pound, internationally active school. By this stage I had – I like to think – m astered the art of plate spinning, whilst juggling and sat upon a unicycle, and occasionally – just to keep me sharp and things interesting – all performed blindfolded! As a mentor to new IAPS heads, I do wonder how the enthusiasm, energy and commitment of these fledging educationalist can avoid being crushed, indeed how can they retain these qualities against the levels of expectations from so many constituent audiences? And also, how can they acquire, and hopefully, understand and master the business demands in it myriad forms? There is no easy explanation or answer. Indeed, the future looks even more complex and demanding. How do we remain relevant and vibrant to as many pupils/customers – current and prospective/clients as possible against a tide as repeating and

clockwork as King Canute tried to master? It is not too hard to perceive an independent schools’ Armageddon. We are under threat financially; just think of the current potential evils, pensions, VAT, affordability, political isolation and colour, pupil numbers including or not boarders, data protection; the list knows no end. We are under threat educationally, whether we like it or not. How do we generate a curriculum that prepares children for a future dominated by artificial intelligence and digitalisation including virtual reality? How do we generate a curriculum and examinations system that serves business and UK plc? How do we create a curriculum that is exciting and stimulating to the iPod generation who’s brain development is changing significantly from the historic knowledge and memory based frontal lobes to an elastic cortex that thrives in immediacy and new technological skills? How do we progress an examination system that reflects these developments. We have plenty of food for thought, if at the moment few answers. A system that embraces the mental health and emotional wellbeing of our communities, both pupils and colleagues operating under incessant stresses and strains. It is no good for your schools if you are exhausted and unable to see the woods for the trees. Your wellbeing is paramount to the success of your schools. Take care of yourselves. We grew up with a vision of the future, for some of us George Orwell’s 1984 was representative, then it was the millennium, for others it was 2001: A Space Odyssey. Today, the future is now. In my experience children now struggle to understand the concept of a future based years ahead. The future to them is now! They are the first generation in the history of humankind to have greater knowledge than their elders albeit digitally. Yet, we shape their future, the middle aged and older! Perhaps

a question we should consider is whether our youngsters should have a greater hand in determining their futures? A significant change in culture is required by society, government, and by schools. This has to be a key priority despite change being our and previous generations worst nightmare born out of our inherent conservatism and unease. We all prefer the known and the status quo; in it we see security, confidence, and the preservation of our own comfort. Without change there will be the inevitable, slow, cankerous death. Darwin’s quote written as Merriman was establishing Cranleigh, seems to be a great place to start and hopefully find some answers. We have to be adaptable to all the invasive threats, constraints and demands. Being adaptable provides great opportunities for innovation and development. It is a chance to challenge the current norms, to reflect upon what we do and how we do it. Yes, it requires bravery. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. We need to envisage our own schools in the future both individually but more importantly collectively. We cannot exist in isolation, we need to be collegiate, see each other as key partners and not adversaries. Gone are the days of ‘Little Englanders’. The survival of our wonderful sector is based in unity, co-operation, mutually support and respect and collegiality. Working collectively for the greater good of all. Being resourceful together has a greater chance of breeding success whether we talk in Darwinian terms or educationally. We have to be as one against the imposed and self generated threats. We have to be open to change. You need to be adaptable, flexible and ready to work co-operatively. Rise to the challenges, grasp the opportunities and stride forward with confidence. Quality will always rise to the top!

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Nurturing resilience and physical goals Rose Hardy, Headmistress of St Margaret’s School in Hertfordshire, explains why she is investing in a challenging and imaginative play area for her pupils Play time is more than simply a part of the day for children to let off steam. While all children need to have regular breaks from the focus and challenge expected in the classroom, play actually gives them an additional way to discover, take risks and challenge themselves without the rigid structure of day-to-day lessons. Play is imperative to children’s growth and development, both in body and in mind. It is only through play that children begin to learn more about who they are as a person, their strengths and weaknesses and the differences in personalities between them and their friends or peers.

Out in the playground children also learn about taking responsibility for their actions, about what it means to make choices independently as also about how to use their social skills. Play time is actually much more important than it might first appear on the surface because children also enjoy a level of control over their time in the playground, something that is less likely or at least different to the traditional classroom setting. However, this new sense of freedom also has to work alongside playground rules and for many children this is the biggest lesson they must learn.

Playing is one of the only natural ways for children to communicate with each other from a very young age and schools need to continue to give children the space and the freedom to play safely 26

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

As part of a strategy to increase opportunities for imaginative play within school, late in 2018, St Margaret’s School in Hertfordshire opened its gates to a new state-ofthe-art playground, aimed at bringing a new dimension to play times for pupils. The playground is used by children in Reception through to Year 6 and the innovative space boasts an array of exciting physical experiences from a three-towered ‘cook multi-play unit’ with a large platform, to a fire fighter’s pole, a climbing wall with scramble net, a jungle swing trail and multiple slides and tunnels. The playground is designed to offer safe but enhanced opportunities for physical challenge as well as to encourage imaginative and cooperative play as the girls continue to learn about goals, perseverance and resilience. The school also operates a special rota for the use of the playground on a daily basis to ensure everyone gets the opportunity to experience it but in manageable numbers, this rota is proving to be very popular with the girls who can’t wait to have their turn. Since installing the new playground there has certainly been an increased buzz of excitement amongst the

girls at play times and watching the children enjoying the new facilities and learning independently through their play is very encouraging. Certain elements of the playground, such as the fireman’s pole and the scramble nets are also proving to be a real challenge for some pupils too and it is great to see everyone having a go – this is so important during play times because it means that children are constantly pushing themselves out of their comfort zones and striving to achieve new goals. Being around peers who are trying out new physical challenges also inspires others too and can often give children that extra push and determination to succeed. For the construction of the playground, the school chose to work with outdoor activity specialist Wicksteed Park over some of the more conventional suppliers; this was mainly due to its experience in developing play areas in a variety of settings. When you are looking at developing a play area in your school grounds you need to be sure that anything you do compliments the current surroundings and takes into account the local environment and wildlife.

With lots of woodland and surrounding fields, it was important during the planning stages to ensure that the playground would fit into our local surroundings and showcase our beautiful countryside setting. We used as many natural and sustainable materials as possible in the development too and this was an extremely important factor in the construction of the playground. The playground was constructed on an Ecotumble safety play surface, which means children can enjoy the equipment with the benefit of a soft landing should they fall or stumble during play. The playground also includes a ‘Pick up Sticks’ area for general climbing and a fun and challenging ‘Crawl Tunnel’, the school is also considering the prospect of incorporating a new ‘zip wire’ feature in the future due to the on-going popularity of the new play area. For many children the playground can be a place of enhanced opportunities. When we speak to children about what they think is important in their own lives, we usually find that playing and spending time with their friends is close to the top of their list. This is for good reason, playing is one of

the only natural ways for children to communicate with each other from a very young age and schools need to continue to give children the space and the freedom to play safely whilst knowing when to intervene and when to take a step back. With different boundaries to those we see in the classroom, the outdoor play environment should offer a safe but stimulating haven upon which to participate in physical challenges and also to learn more about imagination, role playing and cooperative play. Children will also begin to learn more about having personal goals (and goals as a team with their peers) and what it means to achieve them. Building on perseverance and physical strength is also important during periods of free time. Most of all, the new playground equipment has inspired a real sense of determination amongst the children and this is evident every day. It’s wonderful to hear children talk so enthusiastically, not only about the goals they have set themselves but also the excitement and pride on their faces when they have finally achieved them. Play is what makes us human and it’s also what makes us happy.

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

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What will you leave behind? Ian Morris, Chaplain at Bishop’s Stortford College, considers present day-to-day life and what that might look like in 50 years As part of our 150th celebrations a committee of children and staff beavered away, carefully considering what they ought to leave behind in a time capsule that will be unearthed 50 years from now. What are the sorts of things we want future generations to discover about us? The time capsule was carefully lowered into its resting place by an old boy and overseen by our present Head Boy and Head Girl of the Prep School who we hope will be on hand to help dig it up in half a century’s time. I’m sure that those who were alive 50 years ago could not imagine the changes that have happened. In 1968, the average house price was just under £4000, the average salary less than £900, the average car cost more than a year’s salary at £1000 and the price of a grocery shop was just over £1. With no mobiles, microwaves or PCs, the most sophisticated piece of kit one could carry was the ‘pocket’ calculator – though owing to its size one had to have deep pockets! Perhaps the biggest change since 1968 has been in our domestic arrangements. With little of today’s technology available, jobs had to be done daily by hand and from scratch. ‘Housework’ and all that it entailed was considered a drudgery and it’s from this that many of our innovations and technological advancements have brought about drastic change. During

the 1970s, washing machines, tumble driers, dishwashers, food processors, microwaves and fridge freezers have all sought to save time and labour. Moreover, our desire for greater liberation from the chores saw a rise in convenience foods. Packets that just needed water or an egg adding to make a ‘meal’ were superseded by the readymeal that requires not actual cooking, just a plastic film pricking and being placed in the microwave to be heated up. By the 1980s, food came to be regarded as little more than fuel in our ‘Get up and Go!’ culture. We were sold fast food and convenience as the way to, ‘Live Life to the Max’ and unfortunately we swallowed the advertisers’ strapline. Fast-forward to 2018 and we have finally come face to face with the full cost of the choices we have made over the last 50 years. The age of convenience had an inconvenient truth that most people at the time didn’t want to see. Our reluctance to remain at the sink and wash the dishes now means that the plastic containers of our convenience food now wash up on our beaches. Our willingness to let machines take the strain has put a strain on our climate as the increased demand for energy has fuelled global warming.

that we are now asking the next generation to pick up. UN scientists have given a stark warning of the mess we have left behind, with their Final Call to save the world from a ‘climate catastrophe’. Their report urges each one of us to move away from the convenience to which we have become so accustomed by buying less animal products and more locally sourced seasonal food, walking or cycling short distances, taking trains and buses instead of planes and using a washing line instead of a tumble dryer. How inconvenient! 50 years ago, innovators and inventors didn’t mean for us to mess up the planet, they just sought to make life easier for all who could afford it. Nonetheless, by thinking the world owed us an easy life we now owe the world and life won’t be easy. I very much hope that in the next 50 years, we will all lead lives that are well lived, but we will also mind what we leave behind for those who follow on afterwards.

Moreover, our desire to do whatever we can financially afford has left behind a huge environmental cost

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

An education on social media Tom Lawley, an experienced teacher in independent schools, focuses on the responsibility we all must share with regards to the culture of social media Recently, tragically, 14-year-old Molly Russell took her own life. Her father has squarely blamed social media for her death, most specifically pointing the finger at Instagram. While we can argue at length, as they did recently on Question Time about whether it is the job of the media companies to self-regulate, or it is the government’s responsibility to bang some heads together, there is no doubt that social media has created, and benefitted from, an culture of nastiness online. It’s the world we are living in. Who recently hasn’t gently and laughingly compared differing views of Brexit over the garden fence, only to find

themselves indoors later, isolated and insulated from the real world, hunched over a computer, angrily proselytising on their own viewpoint or else ridiculing the beliefs of others? We do it, because it is what social media wants us to do. Social media takes out the connectivity that makes us human and allows us to imagine monsters at the other end of a tweet. Social media makes monsters of us all. Children are thoroughly alive to the potential of social media for bullying and unpleasantness; I have not seen a prep school that didn’t have a clear and thoroughly sensible policy regarding the dangers of social media. Independent schools in

This one tragic suicide was framed on Question Time as the responsibility of social media, but the truth is that suicide is the biggest killer of young men that there is 30

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

particular are in a position to protect their pupils from harm online by limiting and monitoring access; but the answer has to lie in rather than purely protecting children, in building resilience and equipping them with the skills that they need to manage not only their online behaviours but also their emotional health. This one tragic suicide was framed on Question Time as the responsibility of social media, but the truth is that suicide is the biggest killer of young men that there is, and that somehow, we as a society are simply not equipping our young people well enough to deal with a dangerous and difficult world. We can blame successive governments for the chronic lack of NHS funding for mental health and we can blame Instagram and the other big social media companies. In reality, the truth is that all this finger pointing ignores the people central to this debate – the children themselves. Preparatory schools need to prepare children to take their place in a difficult and confusing world. Most of the children we are teaching now will – in years to come – be taking up jobs that do not at this moment exist. On a daily basis they have to

decried the Instagram generation – we need to connect. Children need to be aware of these amazing tools they have at their disposal; equally importantly, so do their parents and teachers. We need to educate a whole generation to have the skills and language to look after themselves. However, the first job of the teacher and the senior leaders in schools is to make sure the teachers have these skills, language and emotional literacy. Under sudden loss of pressure, passengers on a plane are always instructed to put the oxygen masks on themselves before attempting to help those around them. So is it in teaching. We, by our nature and calling, tend to put children needs before our own, but in truth, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? pick their way through a deluge of misleading messages on the way they should look, talk to each other, what they ought to think and what they should eat and drink. Lindy Wheeler’s Human Toolbox programme helps equip children (and adults) with some very well needed clarity with regard to how they can manage their own emotional wellbeing and negotiate the minefield that is growing up in this tech-obsessed age. Her programme, which is being rolled out in schools throughout Suffolk, is based on the premise that children and adults have the innate tools to manage their emotional wellbeing but need to be taught to use them. Take for example the Connect Tool. I mentioned in the opening paragraphs the divisive nature of online discourse and of the way it takes out the connectivity that is the root of society. If children were educated to see personal connections as an important part of their lives, they might begin to see social media for what it is and begin to value close connection with friends and family.

They might even put the phone away at mealtimes. I came to Lindy’s training course as an English teacher with a very personal interest in emotional wellbeing and a professional fascination with language as a force for good with regard to mental literacy. Equipping children with the language to discuss difficult and confusing feelings is the central theme of the Human Toolbox programme. Confusing and conflicting impulses can be made sense of in terms of the Control Tool, our amazing brain, the product of millions of years of evolution, a meshing of reptilian instinctive reactions, mammalian impulses and hominid rational problem-solving. Understanding our most instinctive fears is the job of the Back-up Tool and managing our brains’ responses to stimuli is the Input Tool’s job. Looking after oneself involves monitoring our use of Fuel Tools, the vital stuff of life we need like quality sleep, water or healthy food. Above all – and perhaps this is what poor Molly’s father was getting at when he

In the 15 years since he gave up his role as an account manager for a WPP media agency in London, Tom Lawley has taught English and Drama in four prep schools, most recently running the English department at Orwell Park School for six years. In that time he developed a keen interest in emotional wellbeing and he is particularly interested by the role language skills can play in mental health. He now divides his time between writing, tutoring and teaching English at Woodbridge School. Lindy has been a School Counsellor for over 12 years during which time she developed an innovative psycho-educational emotional wellbeing programme called The Human Toolbox. Lindy runs regular Human Toolbox Practitioner courses, and has a thriving private practice in Bury St Edmunds, offering counselling to children, young people and adults.

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

Dyslexia in the classroom Kate Sarginson, an Assistant Headteacher and former Head of Learning Support who has been coordinating Special Educational Needs provision in two schools for over a decade, discusses the best classroom practices when it comes to dyslexia Teaching pupils with dyslexia has fast become an expected part of classroom practice. With the figure estimated by the British Dyslexia Association (BDA) to be 10%, there is a need for teachers to be aware of common traits and know the processes to follow if they are concerned. Schools have had to rapidly become more dyslexiafriendly environments. Definitions of dyslexia can vary, but key areas of difficulty are in the development of reading, writing and spelling skills. Teachers are more alert that problems experienced by children with phonological awareness, memory and processing speed could potentially indicate an underlying difficulty. There is an emphasis on early identification, with the view that swiftly implementing strategies and

providing support makes a significant difference to the development of literacy skills. Dyslexia is, rightly, evermore understood and catered for in the classroom. However, understanding and responding to a diagnosis in practical ways may only form a small part of the picture. What can begin as an educational problem can become an emotional one. There is a growing understanding that dyslexia can also have far reaching and long-term psychological impacts. Struggling with literacy can have serious side effects on childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wellbeing, and acknowledging and responding to this could be of equal importance to practical approaches. Dyslexia can significantly impact on self-esteem. The realisation that

If no formal diagnosis has been given, there is an absence of an explanation for the difficulties they are experiencing 32

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

children are struggling to master the skills that their peers appear to gain so easily can affect how the child sees and feels about themselves. Feelings of frustration and shame can grow; they can feel isolated, and increasingly conscious that they are different to their peers as they compare themselves to non-dyslexic pupils. Their reality in the classroom is a groundhog day of being unable to meet expectations. Social difficulties can also be encountered, as children misunderstand language-based humour, struggle to keep pace with the conversation, or be reluctant to communicate outside school through written means such as text or messaging as this may highlight their differences in literacy competencies. If no formal diagnosis has been given, there is an absence of an explanation for the difficulties they are experiencing. Such children often come to the conclusion that they are stupid, which erodes their self-esteem. Repeatedly failing can result in feelings of inferiority and withdrawal. They may feel powerless when their amount of effort does not produce positive results. For those who require it, counselling support may need to be made available.

It can be extremely demoralising for a child to repeatedly try their best and not see a noticeable reward in doing so. Crude interpretations of growth mindset approaches don’t necessarily apply when there is a specific literacy difficulty, as it isn’t a case of simply trying harder. Conversely some dyslexics go on to develop perfectionistic tendencies, which is exhausting and impossible to maintain. Some can see the use of labels as controversial, but having an explanation for why they are different can be liberating for a dyslexic child. Instead of being the stimulating and nurturing environment it is intended to be, school becomes associated with negative emotions. Children can develop depressive symptoms. Competent literacy skills are highly valued in our culture, and assumed that all children can master. Despite it not being the case, there is an association of poor literacy skills equating with low intelligence. Despite great gains in teacher’s understanding of SEND, teachers can still misinterpret the situation, and think pupils who complete work slowly lack intelligence, are lazy, or don’t care. Success or failure in learning can impact on emotional development. Children will understandably fear tasks involving reading, writing and spelling, and feelings of stress and anxiety are common. Being in this state can lead onto increased memory and attention difficulties, which compounds the problems already experienced. When children are feeling anxious they are unable to learn. Children may also find ways to successfully mask or detract away from their difficulties and avoid work in the classroom by exhibiting poor behaviour. There is a risk that these actions may be misinterpreted and poorly behaved children slip through the net as the true source of their difficulties may not be recognised and appropriately responded to.

As children with dyslexia are more likely to experience low self-esteem, teaching and intervention approaches should have the explicit aim of helping to boost confidence and develop positive self-image. Pupil voice work can be undertaken to establish how children feel about themselves and what helps them. There may be some simple steps teachers can take to consistently communicate to children with dyslexia that they understand, and value, them. A considerate and empathetic teacher, who deploys dyslexia friendly approaches, can make a huge difference. Children can be taught about their diagnosis and learn self-advocacy. There is also scope to re-frame what a dyslexia diagnosis can mean for an individual, by acknowledging the many positives that people can experience, so it is not perceived as a damning prognosis but as an opportunity. Making children aware of famous dyslexics may be a place to start, but always bearing in mind that their success might also be intimidating and unrealistic to emulate. Assisting the child to identify within themselves where their skills and talents lie is important. Some turn a diagnosis on its head, and describe dyslexia as a gift. This can cause children to focus on their strengths rather than their weaknesses. Being positive is important, but we must ensure that teachers and parents do not gloss over how difficult learning can be. Dyslexia is on a spectrum, and although there are many areas of commonality, no dyslexic child is the same and it can be unintentionally harmful to make bold claims that all people with dyslexia are creative, or entrepreneurial for example. Dyslexia usually runs in families, so it is likely that generations will experience literacy difficulties. A number of adults with dyslexia may hold resentment about their experiences at school, and feel disappointed by the response to

their literacy difficulties at a time when knowledge and understanding about the existence of Dyslexia was lacking. Seeing their child struggle may bring back painful memories for them, and they may relive their own failures. They might not be aware of how the field as moved on and may be sceptical that nothing has really changed. Parents with dyslexia themselves may need their confidence in the system boosting. Building trust with parents who may have had endured rather than enjoyed their school days will be an important element of the practice of schools. Dyslexia is not something that children simply grow out of; it is lifelong. What does change is the arsenal of coping strategies – both practical and emotional – that someone has at their disposal, following a diagnosis and subsequent provision of individualised support. Schools need to ensure that they alert to the varied manifestations of dyslexic difficulties and have effective screening and assessment routes open to them in order to know the root of the literacy problems the child is experiencing. The emphasis continues to be on early identification and support. There have been significant developments in the understanding of what dyslexia is and its impact on learning, which will only improve as research continues. Schools need to intentionally include wellbeing approaches as part of their response to a diagnosis to avoid exposing children to greater risk of more serious, long-term mental health difficulties. Kate started her career in a special school and has an MA in Inclusive Education, an MPhil in Education and is a qualified Dyslexia assessor and specialist teacher.

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

Fearless females and future leaders Joanna Leach, Headteacher at Highfield Prep School, points out the importance of educational leaders understanding stereotypes and the discourse around gender Women have been leaders throughout history. From the pharaohs of Egypt to the Queens of England, women rulers are found in nearly every culture and time period. Yet, in almost all circumstances, male leaders greatly outnumber female leaders, even today. Society in general has made great gains in women’s participation in social, political, and employment spheres, though women’s representation in positions of power and influence has not been quite so impressive, there has been an increase in women who manage to break

through the glass ceiling and occupy top-level leadership positions.

limit their opportunities and help to continue the ideal of a glass ceiling.

Educationally and economically, girls generally are attaining higher and more levels of education than boys, yet they may hold themselves back from taking risks at work and limit their own potential as well as the potential of our workforce and not tap in to all the available talent. It is critical for us as leaders in education to understand gender stereotypes and the discourse around gender because if we don’t, the vision for more women in leadership will continue to

One way to increase the number of women leaders in the world is to start early — by encouraging girls to take chances and be leaders, and that is what we do here at Highfield Preparatory School, educating girls from the age of 3-11 years. In an all-girl environment there is a very strong ethos of gender equality and that is something that we strive for here at Highfield by giving girls an exceptional platform to develop self-belief and confidence to lead and succeed. Underlying everything is our warm, nurturing and caring community, where girls can grow and become independent while supporting each other. They truly can be themselves, away from the social pressures and challenges of a mediadriven world. They are encouraged to find and use their voices — to stand up for what they believe in and to help the causes of others. I truly believe it is equally important to offer girls a rich educational experience with inspirational teachers who create a nurturing happy atmosphere in which they can flourish and not be influenced by gender. A lot of gender research shows that even young children, boys and girls, can be absorbed and influenced by gender stereotypes and this can start having an effect on the sorts of subjects and

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

interests that girls and boys want to pursue. For example did you know that women are underrepresented in STEM occupations as they only make up 14% of all people working in STEM in the UK, despite being about half of the workforce? The researchers say these early ideas about gender and intelligence could steer young women away from high-profile careers associated with high intelligence, like neuroscience or engineering. Educational resources and the school curriculum are an important aspect in achieving gender equality and have widely been discussed in literature. One area of schooling and society in general is the use of stereotypical gender patterns in literature and

online so it is vitally important for girls to have access to a balanced and varied curriculum where they can read and learn about positive female role models and one which gives them all sorts of opportunities. Here at Highfield we encourage the girls in STEM subjects, helping to tackle the stereotypes that girls are exposed to. They take part in exciting engineering challenges, 3D animation workshops and inspirational talks to just name a few, helping to dispel the myths that STEM subjects are associated with a specific gender but in fact opens up to them many more different and varied employment opportunities. I am so incredibly passionate about Women in Leadership and believe that

Educational resources and the school curriculum are an important aspect in achieving gender equality

we should encourage all our girls from a young age to take on leadership roles. This is something we do very well here at Highfield as our girls have lots of opportunities to take a lead, whether it is being a school councillor, a House leader or a sports captain. We also expose the girls to strong female role models through our inspirational mural which celebrates great female leadership from Marie Curie to Ada Lovelace to Malala Yousafzai. It is important that we do this for our girls to see all kinds of female role models from different eras and different walks of life. Showing girls female role models who took risks, and succeeded because of that, is a great way to encourage them to step outside the box. Show them it’s ok to fail and that by taking risks is a win-win. If the risk pays off, you grow in confidence and have succeeded in what you were trying to do. If you fail, you become more resilient and more able to deal with future challenges. Things may be more straightforward now and there are definitely more opportunities and more exposure for girls and women in all kinds of aspects but we do still have a way to go to be on parity with men, particularly when it comes to leadership. At Highfield, nothing holds a girl back. Every opportunity is open to girls and they are encouraged to take on every role and every subject. Highfield girls step out into the world confident in their ability to take on any challenge they choose – whether the world is ready for them or not! We don’t just provide a first class education, but we help develop our girls independence, selfconfidence, resilience and who are not afraid of taking risks and making mistakes on their way to success. Girls today should become their own role model and as it says on our mural, ‘Be what they want to be’ and follow their own path, nobody else’s! So let us promote and celebrate the female leaders of today and continue to work together to help all of our girls become the fearless females and our future leaders for tomorrow.

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

Shall we talk burnout? Victoria Hewett, a subject leader for geography in a Kent school and an educational blogger who goes by the name of Mrs Humanities, discusses mental health and advises on avoiding burnout Rewind to April 2016, before the Easter holiday, I broke down and cried in front of a class. The behaviour, the workload and the responsibility had broken me. I needed a break. Yet the Easter holiday came and went and instead of stopping, relaxing and taking time for myself, I worked much of it, as had been the case for most of the school holidays. During my first five years, the holidays barely existed, if I wasn’t catching up on tasks from the term before, I would be preparing for the term ahead. The first five years of my time in teaching were characterised by a heavy workload, long hours and a continual sense of dread. This meant that by April 2016, I couldn’t do it anymore. Resultingly after the Easter holiday, I arrived at school, reached my classroom door and stopped. A wave of panic came over me – I

couldn’t go in. I sat on the floor and tried to control my breathing. When I had finally caught my breath, I decided I had to find someone to talk to. When I met a colleague in the corridor, the moment they asked if I was okay I burst into tears and didn’t stop for what felt like several hours. The sad thing is, I’m far from alone in this experience. The Education Support Partnership’s Teacher Wellbeing Index 2018 found that 67% of education professionals describe themselves as stressed, 57% of which have considered leaving teaching over the past two years, followed by a further 72% citing that workload was their main reason for considering leaving. These figures are worrying, and yet not surprising. Whilst for many reaching the point of burnout has resulted in the end of their teaching career, it doesn’t have

Reaching burnout doesn’t need to be the end of your career in teaching, it just means you might have to step back for a little while 36

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

to be that way. There are alternatives and solutions. For me that was giving one more school a try. It took a lot of encouragement from family, speaking to a counsellor at the Education Support Partnership and a lot of deep searching to find the confidence to write and send the application. I worried intensely that it would just be more of the same; long hours, relentless workload and constant pressure. Luckily it paid off and I have found myself in a supportive school. You can too. However, I would like to hope that more is being done in education to stop teacher, leaders and support staff reaching the point of burnout. Avoiding burnout Here are my five top tips for avoiding burnout: 1. Be aware of your emotions, stress levels and health. Ensure you make time to ‘check in’ with yourself. Strategies such as mindfulness, mediation and journaling can be helpful as can talking to others, or even yourself. I didn’t know I was experiencing burnout until after I had actually burnt out. I didn’t recognise how burnt out I had been until almost 12 months later. Having awareness and understanding of stress, burnout and mental health is invaluable to helping and being aware of yourself. Take time to find out.

2. Take control of your time. I like to think of my time in terms of fixed and fluid, influenced by Alex Quigley’s discussion on time management in The Confident Teacher. Fixed time is the time outside of your control, your directed time essentially, whilst fluid time is the rest of the day, the time you have control over. I know what I have to do in the fixed time but have choice over what I do and when in my fluid time. I used the Eisenhower Matrix to help me to organise my workload in terms of importance and urgency, helping me to decide what needs doing and when. 3. Simplify your teaching. Learning to step back from planning lessons that were super exciting, engaging and full to the brim was a learning curve but in doing so I teach better lessons, my students make more progress and my workload is reduced. 4. Mark less, feedback more. What a difference focusing on feedback in

my classroom has had on my teaching and student learning, resultingly my students take greater ownership of their progress and I take less work home. It takes time and effort to develop effective feedback strategies and routines but once in place they can do wonders for your practice and workload. 5. Put yourself first. Far too often, we put our students before ourselves. I have done it too, but you have to look after you. Putting yourself before work is not wrong, as the old saying goes, you can’t pour from an empty cup. If you are to look after and provide the best education for your students, you have to spend time refuelling and looking after your health and wellbeing. Take time doing the things you enjoy, spend time with family and friends, get outside and enjoy the world. Plan your holidays and weekends in advance so that you aren’t tempted to just work. Give

yourself a break; you will be a happier, healthier teacher for it. After burnout Reaching burnout doesn’t need to be the end of your career in teaching. It just means you might have to step back for a little while. I took several weeks off and whilst I wasn’t ready to go back I was coerced into returning. I just had to get through the final term before I would be leaving. Don’t worry if you have to do the same; if a school is worth working in they will understand your experiences and will not hold it against you. Be honest, it’s the only way to reduce the stigma. To read more on Victoria’s experiences and advice on tackling workload visit her blog MrsHumanities. com follow her on twitter (@ MrsHumanities) and check out her book Making it as Teacher due for publication in June of this year.

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

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To be a loser Neil Rollings, from Independent Coach Education, considers the harmful effects on pupils who appear to struggle with sport in schools Most schools provide well for their athletic kids. A curriculum based on skill development and competition will offer them opportunities to improve and demonstrate their capacity against peers and other schools. They develop a love of movement, teamship, and the excitement of competition. All of which is great. Everything that these boys and girls want and need to send them into the senior school world with the habit of activity and confidence in their ability to participate in, and socialise through, sport. When the question is asked in week one ‘who, played in their prep school first team?’, a select few will put their hand up enthusiastically. It’s a self-perpetuating system. A generation later, their own children usually have the same experience in a virtuous cycle of active lives.

culture of losers. These are not the kids who score fewer goals, but the ones who have fewer opportunities. Many start by looking optimistically at the team sheet, but soon lose the habit. When the same names appear every week, and in every term, then the same ones are always missing.

These are the winners in the game of prep school sport. The ones who miss lessons for the important competitions, and whose names are read out in assembly when they return with some triumph. Those who are on the team sheet every week, have a special relationship with the games teachers and who set the records in sports day. Enjoying special sessions to prepare them for sports scholarship assessments. All of this is a triumph of school sport, but what about the losers in this game?

The prep sector is keen to rush to a judgement about its pupils. The hurry to have teams in Years 3 and 4, and an undue concern - amongst adults - for the goal count in these chaotic encounters, begins the categorisation before many can run and catch. To be in the A team carries undue status for kids and parents. Pupils are acutely aware of their status in the alphabet, and a cursory look around the playing fields leaves no room for misjudging which group is which. The resource allocation often reflects the meritocracy, where the best kids are on the best pitches, with the most capable coaches and the newest equipment. The competition opportunities are often similarly unequal, with the lower ranks of the alphabet having to be content with their one excursion of the term. This informs the boast that all

Physical activity in schools is structurally unequal. When most of the provision is based on competition, there is an inevitable meritocracy. Opportunities and resources are disproportionately focused on the early maturers. The unintended consequence is the creation of a sub

Or they turn up as dutiful substitutes, grateful for a few consolatory minutes in an uninfluential position if the score isn’t too tight. Their self esteem is incrementally defeated, and they drift away. Some find other avenues of activity, inside or outside school and maybe restore their confidence and enthusiasm. Many fade into the athletic underclass. As long as there is still a critical mass to ensure the fixture programme is intact, it is rare that the organisation cares. There appear to be more things to think about and competitions to prepare for.

pupils have played in a school team. Closer investigation reveals that, when the mini bus leaves on a Wednesday afternoon to take the marquee athletes in search of athletic glory, what remains is the ‘leftover’ culture. What is provided for these pupils varies in quality and character, but it is rarely more than a consolation prize. Do the losers matter? It depends on the culture of a school, what it values, and what they lose. If the reinforcement of failure removes motivation to be active, then possibly it matters a lot. Many prep schools have a constituency of pupils who learn, by the age of 11, that they are not ‘sporty’. They revise their expectations downwards, and seek self-esteem from other activities. They turn up at senior schools already disengaged. The same traditional games are presented to them again, but they have little reason to believe that their existing record of failure will change. The majority of boys arriving from prep schools into senior schools at age 13 would choose not to play cricket if they could. They have already had a negative experience that they are not anxious to repeat. Many of these children become sedentary adults, who equate exercise with sport, and therefore evaluate it negatively. This is the silent underworld who schools have failed. The losers are not those who didn’t win the matches, but those who become teenagers, and then sedentary adults. Who then pass their aversion to sport to their own children. These impacts endure long after the scores of those matches have long been forgotten.

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A breath of fresh air I heard Katie Jones on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show and I am delighted to say that she responded to my call for both an article and an outline of her journey for providing wellbeing in schools Our world is more connected than ever and can present remarkable opportunities for education. We have access to stimuli on a global scale. Technology brings the wonders of the world into the classroom. This can mean greater cultural diversity, more choice, and a wider appetite to learn and develop. Children are enjoying

travel, cultural experiences and technological advances far superior to our own childhood. The world truly is full of awe and wonder. This wonderful world does however come with some caveats. We are faced with a 24/7 culture where the expectation is to be permanently switched on. We no longer compare

ourselves within the confines of our immediate environment, but we judge ourselves against ideals, which may not even be real. Social media interactions take it to another level all together. We crave instant gratification, and then often feel subsequent disappointments profoundly. How can we make the most of these opportunities whilst navigating our ever-changing world? We know that building resilience and a growth mindset provide us with a bank of resources we can use when faced with challenges. However, many of us, adults and children alike, still find it difficult to bounce back when faced with adversity. So how can we empower and support our children to seize these wonderful opportunities? In our view, the key is to start from the earliest age. The formative years are called that for a very good reason. Early childhood is critical for cognitive, social, emotional and physical development. If our children learn techniques to self regulate from the youngest age, they will be able to respond calmly, rather than react from a place of fear. At Wellbeing in Schools we are passionate about supporting schools to ensure that wellbeing is at the heart of everything they do. We do not want to just add another activity; we are not simply ticking a box or providing a sticking plaster. Our approach is much more deeprooted. We believe wellbeing can become an intrinsic part of school life, engaging children, teachers and

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

pupils. It is about gradually shifting the culture so that wellbeing is central to everything. Here’s the key to unlocking the secret of wellbeing. It has to start with us. We are exceptionally good at putting others before ourselves. Most of us went into teaching to inspire the next generation, to continue with a love of learning and see people flourish. It’s likely that we have frequently put other people’s needs before our own. We are exceptionally good at caring for others but rarely do we care enough for ourselves. Self-care is taking the time to pay attention to ourselves: It is not selfish. It is essential. What does self-care look like? Well that is entirely down to us. It could mean going to bed early, going for a walk at lunchtime, laughing with colleagues, taking a moment to notice the beauty of the natural world, cooking a new recipe, taking in a breath of fresh air, spending time in the garden, learning a new skill. There is no right or wrong, it’s about finding something that feeds our heart, body, mind and soul. Self-care could be learning to be kind to ourselves. We are often our own worst critics and we can put unreasonable expectations on ourselves. Learning to treat ourselves with compassion is life-changing. It takes practice to speak to ourselves in the same way we would speak to a loved one. It could also be protecting our boundaries and learning to say ‘no’. Saying ‘no’ is one of the more challenging aspects of self-care. We want to help and support others but it’s essential to assess the impact it will have on our own wellbeing. As we are told so often, we need to put on our own oxygen mask first before we assist others. As teachers, we know that children learn through our role modelling. We deliberately demonstrate good manners, crossing the road safely and washing our hands. It’s no different

with self-care: perhaps we should be showing our children that it’s ok to be kind to ourselves. By nurturing and nourishing ourselves, we are teaching our children to do the same.

Learning these essential life skills from the earliest age, gives children a wide range of strategies that they can use in every aspect of their life, both inside and outside of school.

What is wellbeing?

We train teachers to deliver our programme in their own schools, so that this can reach every child. We provide lesson plans and resources, based on PSHE and school values, curriculum topics and learning skills, which staff can deliver with confidence. We have tailored our programme to meet the needs of prep schools today. We provide INSET training and presentations to parents so that wellbeing becomes a whole school priority. Prevention really is better than cure.

Our natural state of wellbeing could be described as an absence rather than a presence of feeling. It’s the sensation we have when we are completely mesmerised by a sunset, a spectacular view, a piece of music or a sculpture. We feel it when we access that deep ocean of calm that we have inside us, when we stop and allow our body to completely relax. It’s how we feel when we sit comfortably and quietly with someone we love: that feeling of being completely content, within the moment. Returning to our natural state of wellbeing on a regular basis helps us to keep everything in perspective and allows us to truly unwind. Of course, we are not going to sail through life without encountering some choppy waters and everyone’s life experiences are unique. We each cope differently when faced with challenges. But we all know that when we pause and allow ourselves time to relax, we feel more positive, and gain a sense of perspective. Often we are transfixed on searching externally to find the very thing that is going to make us happy, when we had it within us all along. Our Wellbeing in Schools programme encourages children to find moments of pause, stillness and reflection throughout their day so that they learn they have everything they need within themselves. They do not need to look externally for validation. We teach children about their natural state of wellbeing through breathing techniques, yoga, peer massage, positive affirmations and meditation. Our innovative approach teaches children from Nursery to Year 8, to recognise when they are experiencing big emotions and to build up a toolkit of practical resources they can use when faced with challenges.

Take one small step But where do we start? We can feel overwhelmed by the current mental health crisis and our lack the expertise to tackle it. Our advice is take one small step today. Put something in place that creates a shift. Start with yourself. What could you do to bring happiness and a sense of gratitude into your life today? ‘Happiness is a choice, not a result. Nothing will make you happy until you choose to be happy. No person will make you happy until you decide to be happy. Your happiness will not come to you. It can only come from you.’ – Ralph Marston The wonderful thing about wellbeing is it has a positive ripple effect on those around us. Compliment someone, carry out a random act of kindness, and spread a little happiness today. Smile and the world will smile with you. For information on how Wellbeing in Schools could support your school, by delivering training courses for teachers, INSET training and presentations to parents, contact Katie and Sally at info@ wellbeinginschools.co.uk and check out www.wellbeinginschools.co.uk

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Which suite is sweeter Mark Templeman, Head of ICT at Brockhurst and Marlston House Schools, assesses the different options we have when it comes to software and technology ‘Of course our school has the cloud. At least I think we do. Actually, what is the cloud, exactly?’ If only I had a pound for every time I have heard a teacher say this. In short, ‘using the cloud’ in a school basically means you and your students work on programmes that you access via the internet. The programmes and your files aren’t necessarily stored on your physical device. For a school, there are two big advantages. First, it can be cheaper as there’s less fussing about with local technology issues; much of the technology is not ‘local’ but ‘remote’. Second, the security of a device is less on an issue. You can generally log into your work from any computer, meaning students and teachers don’t have to carry laptops or USB drives to and from school. For these reasons, many schools have added a cloud productivity application suite for staff and students, the two most popular being those provided by Google and Microsoft. Specifically, Google offers its platform to education providers as Google Apps for Education, while Microsoft offers its Microsoft Office 365 for Education. Both are free for schools. So which is better? The short answer is that both have their pros and cons. In this article, I’ll do my best to briefly describe both from my experience. Of course, everyone has their subjective bias and you may notice my own bias towards Google Apps, but I will try my best to present each suite in balanced

manner and with the teacher-student relationship as a priority. Remember to choose carefully. Switching between suites is an onerous process.

can be saved locally on your computer or device instead of in the cloud so you are always in control of them.

Word processing

Word processing layouts and interface

For decades, the 800-pound gorilla of word processing has been Microsoft Word, however, Google Docs is a serious competitor and a lot of teachers prefer it. Google Docs uses web-based platform that has some editing and sharing functions that are better than Word. This is particularly great for group work.

To my mind, Google Docs wins for sheer user-friendliness. It is true that Word does have a tonne of features but navigating them all can be exhausting and students can tire of searching through the ribbons and toolbars just to find the one button they need. After all, how often do you click on the ‘References’ or ‘Mailings’ ribbon?

The one thing to bear in mind with Google Docs is that it is entirely online. This can be both good and bad. Firstly it’s good in that you can access your documents online, write and edit in-browser, and your documents are saved to your online Google Drive cloud, which can be accessed anywhere. But what happens when the internet fails thanks to local roadworks? Or Google’s servers go down right before a school assembly? Although you can work in Google’s offline mode, it requires jumping though a few hoops and you can’t normally access the platform without the internet. Cue major stress. Of course, you can download or email physical copies of your documents but few people ever do this on the slim chance the internet goes down.

In contrast, Google Docs has a drastically simplified layout and toolbar setup that creates a more user-friendly, easily manageable workspace. Google places all your most frequently used buttons in your easy-access toolbar. Everything else, like inserting images or tables, can be found in one of the dropdowns. With Word, any time you change one of the ribbons, for example if you clicked on Layout, all the buttons in the toolbar change as well. Although Word does let you customise your toolbar, narrowing down all the options can be overwhelming for a novice or casual user. Quite simply, the less time that is spent hunting for the required tool, the quicker work will be accomplished.

So for word processing, Microsoft probably has the upper hand since you can do work in the offline desktop version of Word. Plus, your documents

Google saves the day when it comes to saving files. How many times has a pupil forgotten to save their work before closing out of a programme?

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File storage

You may have crossed your fingers and recovered several Word documents in your time but it’s far better to avoid this stress. Google Docs not only automatically saves your work every few minutes or so but also, it continually saves as you’re working. This means you can log into your desktop and see the changes made live from your smartphone at the same time. In addition, Google Docs backs up your saved files to Google Drive in the cloud instead of your local hard drive. I trust the reliability of Google’s servers more than I trust that of my own computer! That leads to my favourite outcome – no more excuses from pupils about losing their memory stick. And that’s before considering the GDPR implications of a staff member losing a memory stick. Email Email is a tricky one and tends to be a personal decision. Teachers love Gmail; administration staff generally prefer Outlook. In the case of the latter, it may simply reflect an aversion to change but, in any case, it can be worked around by using Google email through Outlook. Of course, this somewhat defeats the purpose of using just one system. The one question that almost always pops up is about memory. Here, both Google and Microsoft offer enough space for zillions of emails so no worries there. Compliance Not much to say here. Both Google and Microsoft know their software is sunk without the same very high level of GDPR compliance and data auditors. Virtual learning environment The things I like about the Google Classroom application are the features such as collaboration and assignment tracking. In my own classroom, I have created an area for each subject and I can add work or reference material. This has proved a wonderful way for pupils to revise for exams. Finally, there is a space for a staff ‘classroom’ where inset programmes and notes can be posted.

Basically, it’s a virtual notice board that is integrated into the whole thing.

to have to install all the software on various computers.

Forms

Online or offline?

Another area where Google has an advantage is its ad-hoc form builder – forms. This is a great tool for schools to use to gather and share information. From in-class applications such as creating cheat-proof quizzes, to results of student elections or parent surveys, forms have far-reaching uses in and around the school. We use ours to gather data from staff for requests and collecting data about pupil behaviour. I feel that effective cloud-based form software is taking over a lot of aspects of our MIS database. Forms doesn’t make database software obsolete, but given the amount of money spent on databases, I feel it won’t be too much longer before Forms has enough features that we can rid ourselves of the expensive, cumbersome databases and just use a fully integrated, cloudbased alternative.

I have spent a lot of time extolling the virtues of Google’s online suite. However, there are certainly benefits to Microsoft’s version that has online and offline functionality. Obviously, a locally-installed version of Microsoft’s productivity software allow users to work without internet access – great for working on a train, or even in the garden. Google simply does not provide offline application support as everything runs in the browser.

Microsoft competitor, InfoPath, has been discontinued. It hasn’t yet announced a functional replacement but customers have been pushing Microsoft for a new form tool and I suspect a new one is in the works. Ease of managing at a school level I’m partial to preferring Google over Microsoft on this point. As a member of the senior staff at my school I manage many staff issues and with the Google software, I find it relatively easily to find time in my day to add new staff into the system, configure email addresses, access to shared documents in the cloud, and manage staff distribution lists. These tasks were formerly done by an expensive technician. Cost Every school’s technology setup is slightly different so cost comparisons can be a little tricky. But, for our school, Google is generally the most cost effective. The cost of a Chrome book starts at £150 with no other software costs. As Google’s setup is entirely online, it reduces the time burden for technology staff who used

Mobile Google is the Victor Ludorum when it comes to mobile. It has a native advantage being the originator of the Android mobile operating system. That allows control not only the operating system itself, but also influence the application development ecosystem through the Google Play Store. To be fair, Microsoft has very functional mobile renditions of Word, Excel, and other productivity applications that integrate well into the Office 365 environment. These can be used on smartphones and tablets but Microsoft just does not have the advantage of being able to integrate with Android. A word of warning: third-party developers can still write and release apps independently on Android, skipping the Play Store itself. That is considered risky from a technology governance perspective, and also requires special non-default security settings at the individual device level to be able to install an application from sources outside Play Store. Google’s mobile superiority also gives it an edge when teachers consider tablet devices for classroom use. Android tablets and Chromebooks work well natively access Google applications whereas Microsoft applications require downloading and deployment to the device. Anything that can reduce the burden on a school technology team is always going to be an attractive option.

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CUTTING EDGE CPD with Will Ord Bespoke INSETs on: • • • • •

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As part of the discovery of cognitive science, teachers are waking up to the powers of dual coding – combining words with visuals in your teaching. But cognitive scientists aren’t graphic designers, and so their books don’t show teachers how to be competent in producing effective visuals. Until now.

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Independent thinking for education

Plays in prep A number of prep schools have staged Andrew Beattie’s plays over the years; here he reflects on the enthusiasm for drama he has observed in our schools I do not teach in a prep school, and nor have I ever done so. I am also not a specialist drama teacher. It may seem strange, then, that I am writing an article championing drama in prep schools! The reason for this is that during the past 26 years that I have taught at an independent senior school I have developed a ‘side line’ in writing children’s stage plays, many of which have been published and have been performed – by schools and youth theatre groups in the United States and Australia but also by schools in this country, particularly prep schools. I wrote these scripts for lower school pupils at my own school to perform. Because my school starts at age 11 these year groups (7 and 8) coincide with the top year groups in many prep schools, and my plays have appealed to directors at these schools who are looking for something to put on with their senior pupils. Schools that have staged my plays over the years include the Dragon School in Oxford, Shrewsbury House School in Surbiton, Gayhurst School in Gerrards Cross, Cothill House School near Abingdon, and a number of others. My plays as a director have included a number with sixth form casts – including John Mortimer’s A Voyage Round My Father and Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound – but, partly because I am not a specialist drama teacher, most of my work as a director has been with lower school pupils, and has included productions of Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. My most significant

contribution was a production of Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2012, with a cast of 12 actors aged 11-14. Whilst these productions have been rewarding to put on, it is the scripts I have written myself that I have found it most enjoyable to stage. My school is a boys’ school (up until age 16) and I have tried to produce scripts that are both challenging and fun to perform, laced with the sort of surreal humour that boys appreciate and which an audience will warm to. With a firm belief that drama productions should give as many pupils as possible something to do, I have purposefully developed scripts with large, flexible casts that are also straightforward to produce, with basic lighting and few scene changes. I have always eschewed plays that deliberately set out to explore ‘teenage’ themes and issues; though acknowledging that these sorts of plays have a valuable role in schools, they are not ‘me’. Likewise I am also not a fan of producing musicals, so all my plays have been entirely speechbased. Thus I have concentrated on writing plays large-cast dramas and comedy dramas that are appropriate for casts of 10-13 year olds. My comedy-dramas are Ordinary Jack, a surreal fairy tale about a lovelorn prince in a semi-mythical kingdom, and Dramatic Licence, a comedy about an actor who has had his ‘dramatic licence’ withdrawn, both of which are one-act plays that can be performed by a mixed-gender cast, and which

are published by www.playstageya. com. By way of contrast, Arthur, Boy-King of Britain (published by www.lazybeescripts.co.uk) is a oneact play with an all-male cast that tells the story of King Arthur, the magician Merlin and the sword in the stone, while The New Boy (published by www.dramanotebook.com) is a 20-minute Gothic ghost story with a cast of 12 that’s set in a boarding school, and also has an all-male cast – its short running time might make it a good ‘filler’ for an evening of short plays and sketches. Those interested can read sample scenes from these plays on my own website (www.andrewbeattie. me.uk). Whilst many schools tend to favour musicals, it is my belief that a production slate should also include straight theatre pieces that give nonmusical pupils a chance to shine; and these pieces are invariably easier to put on, if only because they tend to be shorter (most of my plays have running times of between 45 and 75 minutes, which I have found to be an ideal length for both performers and audiences). Is your school missing out in not producing plays such as mine – oneact, large-cast pieces that offer their casts a challenge and their audiences some entertainment? Plenty of prep schools have found that my plays fit the bill just nicely as a performance piece – maybe you should visit my website to see if one of my scripts is exactly what you are looking for!

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Pondering the machine and the organism Christopher Parsons, Deputy Head (Academic) at Norwich Lower School and Visiting Lecturer at the University of Buckingham, reflects on whether we can create an outstanding school based purely on routines, policies and metrics The contemporary lifestyle we enjoy is only possible through the rational application of mechanistic principles. Our society has advanced due to our ability to track, predict and control the physical world, and such a formula now seems both obvious and extendible to every aspect of human life. So, we’re swamped with ‘how to improve…’ courses drawing upon the machine metaphor, along with the assumption that the fulfilment of such approaches should inevitably result in excellence everywhere. Efficiency, accountability and

measurable efficacy seem to be all that industry, the inspectorate, and (consequently) our anxious parents appear to be interested in. What’s not to like?

But, but, but – nothing will be outstanding!

Well, it is – I think – perfectly possible to get children to pass exams, and to get inspectors to be satisfied with what you are attempting to do as a school leader, simply through the careful use of ‘machine’ principles. This might be because you are a devotee of Taylorist management principles, Skinnerian behavioural

We’re not machines. Neither are our classrooms, our schools, nor the wider societies in which they are embedded. Work in Artificial Intelligence may strive to get robots to information process such that they can accurately replicate our behaviours, but there is no pretence that they accomplish these activities in the same way that we ourselves carry them out.

Ultimately, human beings are organisms who need to be nurtured, challenged and sometimes cajoled towards the pursuit and fulfilment of excellence in a particular area 46

principles, or just an adherent of any other tick-list of ‘best practice’ in how to succeed at something…

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Humans simply aren’t computers! We are biological organisms that happen to have evolved the capability to perform computations at various levels of abstraction. The substrate of the human brain – and the general principles leading to ‘action’ – function entirely differently to the binary digital processing of invented computational devices. Human reasoning only occasionally uses the slow process of logical deduction and syllogisms. In practice it tends more accurately to arrive at inferential outcomes based on a

combination of evolutionary survival mechanisms: genetic, chemical and subliminally cognitive. Indeed, rational discourse is more often than not just an outward manoeuvre providing socially and psychologically respectable justification for what we have already done, or what we would like to do. So don’t think you can completely engineer the learning of a child simply through cognitive principles. Don’t think that you can just convince them rationally to become mathematicians, have a ‘growth mindset’, or to see the uncontestable logic of working hard and consequently behaving perfectly in class. Children might arrive at a point where they thoughtfully articulate the logical ‘truth’ or value of such things, but that will rarely have anything to do with you directly designing their thinking. The idea that we can rationally plot how to move another person forward with any certainty is an illusion. We can never know for sure exactly what anybody else has experienced in their life, what their biology predisposes them towards, nor what their personal life experience will most demand of them in the future. We cannot plot in any detail a ‘personalised

learning’ course for them. It’s a vanity to think we can plan much beyond simply treating the symptomatic behaviour that appears before us in any particular moment. We can’t even achieve this for ourselves. Ultimately, human beings are organisms who need to be nurtured, challenged and sometimes cajoled towards the pursuit and fulfilment of excellence in a particular area, until such a goal happens to align with their search for personal satisfaction. If a teacher confidently declares their impact on a student, more often than not any certainty reflects simplistic hindsight. The process of progress is a subtle and messy business, emerging only after many competing interactions. Similarly, classes too are more like organisms than machines. Do not think that you can just ‘manage’ into existence a class of excellence through behaviourist principles, as if the children are simply a set of resources. Yes – structures, routines and consequences will benefit every child in your care, helping to channel and normalise behaviour and expectations. However, the key consequence of such things will lie

primarily in as much as they then enable you to connect personally with pupils as both individuals and – crucially – as a healthily functioning community, where the whole emerges independently of the strengths of the individual elements. An excellent class needs nurture. And – yes – don’t think that you can engineer an excellent school through commercial management principles, as if your staff and children are ‘merely’ a business. Yes, you might be able to avoid a pastoral worstcase scenario with a child. Yes, you might be able to help some struggling children achieve the bottom rung of skills assessments. Yes, you might be able to pass an inspection. But that’s it. You cannot manage a school, or a class, or a child to excellence. For that, you require leadership. Leadership principles are not just for designated ‘leaders’. Rather, they are for any of us who wish to positively influence an individual or a group. Leadership relies on the engagement of you as a person with the lived reality of the individual in front of you. You need to connect with them – one human with another – and provide for them the sufficient conditions for them to be able to grow; sometimes through firm structures and constraints; sometimes through warm nurture and freedoms, but always through an authentically human relationship which enables the child – or indeed the community – to know and trust the difference. We are a species of social beings, and this process transcends the individual to the collective mind of the class and the school. Great classes and schools need a sense of identity, of tradition, of camaraderie, of pride, of aspiration, of empathy, of humour and – above all – of compassion and charity. We can’t simply ‘manage’ these things into being in a way that will create a healthily functioning organism. Rather, what we need are teachers and leaders who can inspire, empathise, reassure, and generally collaborate as co-participants in the human condition.

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Strategic change making Sian Dawson, Director of Studies at Oxford High Preparatory School, considers the all important process of change and the natural responses that are associated with it As a general rule, few enjoy the process of change. No one can dispute that schools have to make curriculum and organisational changes when the education system and external obligations demand them. Nonetheless, these changes can often be negatively interpreted as a reflection of teachers’ capabilities that prompts reticence and a natural inclination to fall back on the ‘but we’ve always done it this way’ response – avoiding innovation. The fact is that schools have to adapt and it is not only teachers who may push back on change. Parents can have an antiquated view of effective pedagogy often based, quite understandably, on their experience of school. They fear that changes to what they perceive to be a good education will only be negative and will risk their child’s chances of success. While these concerns and attitudes are understandable, they can be stifling and any school wishing to embrace effective, evidencebased improvement must be prepared to engage with parents (and often governors) sensitively and knowledgably in order to promote confidence and support. All independent schools want to remain true to the customs and instincts that have served them well

for generations, but this should not mean that nothing ever changes. Clarity of vision when instigating any major change can make the difference between wholesale investment and a short-lived notion. Choosing the right model Finding a child-centred approach to teaching maths drove our decision; maths is a subject that still polarises opinions and where it can often be socially acceptable to be weak at it. You hear less parents or students proclaiming quite so vocally that they are unable to read, for example. Maths is also a subject that children can get quite competitive and anxious about and where the fun can be easily lost. It elicits a strong emotional response for many at every age. Excessive repetition, a lack of physical resources, minimal discussion and a lack of application to the real world and other subjects can lead to poor outcomes. Couple this with peer and parental expectation and a streaming system where students could be moved ‘up’ or ‘down’ a group each half term, and you have a recipe for anxiety and negative pressure. We wanted a system that promoted keeping up with curriculum content not catching up, and supported and encouraged group work and problem

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solving. Providing a personalised provision with a focus on a growth mindset was important to us. The approach we chose built students’ mathematical fluency without the need for excessive rote learning. It introduced new concepts using Bruner’s Concrete Pictorial Abstract (CPA) approach, now very popular and common terminology. It is very inclusive for all abilities but also used as a standard teaching practice for those with dyscalculic tendencies. Most importantly, it strengthens pupils’ ability to think mathematically as opposed to reciting formulas they don’t really understand. No doubt there are many parents and teachers out there who find that their children already have a ‘soup’ of mathematical understanding consisting of concepts and fragments of how to perform certain operations, but no firm foundations on which to build their knowledge. Some children learn to cope with this quite readily, following a set procedure and thriving on the repetition of similarly pitched questions and amassing lots of ticks on a page as positive reinforcement of their mathematical worth. However, when a mistake occurs the emotional reaction, particularly in high-achieving children, is often

extreme and unsettling. They become averse to challenge.

access the curriculum at their level and ‘depth’.

A sea of correct answers should only indicate that the challenge level was too low, but it has become the motivator and gauge of a pupil’s feeling of success. All this style of lesson can conclude is a confirmation of material already understood. There is no forward momentum. Progress stalls. The content having not been deeply mastered, regardless of the number of ticks they have collected, can only give an understanding that is shallow and progress that will be capped.

It is then the skill of the teacher to support or extend individual pupils based on their responses and to make links between mathematical concepts. A child who is struggling with abstract multiplication may flourish with tessellating shapes.

For pupils who struggled to cope with the early years and Key Stage 1 curriculum the gap can only continue to grow, with incorrect answers reinforcing the negative view of their ability in the subject. This can come to light quite early in their primary education or only become apparent in Key Stage 3 when there is little time for ‘gap filling’, particularly when there are many years to pick back through and so much confidence lost. A teaching method that does not solely repeat reams of questions – albeit at different levels – until a mistake is made but that actually targets misconceptions in the first two or three questions is not only a more efficient approach but also one that positively reinforces the importance of mistakes for learning. Everyone beginning with the same question and content allows students an equal chance in each lesson to

Finding the relationships and making links between these two subjects, as a common starting point, builds a network of connections that in turn encourages confidence, creativity and positive participation and engagement. Ticks and crosses should lose their emotive potency when a pupil’s ability to question, explain, explore possibilities and communicate ideas are explicitly valued as the indicators of understanding rather than only finding the right answer. Discussion becomes celebratory in a lesson as opposed to being interpreted as criticism or a spotlight on what went ‘wrong’ for those less self-assured. Although there are many examples in other countries of highly successful educational systems beginning when children are much older, in the current UK system additive reasoning ideally needs to be mastered by end of Year 1 and multiplicative reasoning by end of Year 2. These benchmarks coupled with times tables knowledge and a secure understanding of place value, are the fundamentals needed for a highly successful Key Stage 2. Choosing a cyclical curriculum that

covers these foundations every year at an ever-greater depth was also a factor in choosing the right model for our school. The series we chose to use had been selected for use in the Department for Education’s £41m Maths Hub programme and focused on teaching for mastery. It was the only one available as a package to buy that had been specifically written for the English 2014 National Curriculum. We continue to develop and adapt the delivery to reflect our school and students, which is easy to do now the practice and understanding is firmly embedded. As with anything ‘bought in’ it is so important to develop the given scaffold into something that is unique and purpose built for your setting, not only in terms of delivery but also support, enrichment and assessment. Getting everyone on board In our school, the key to getting everyone on board was – and still is – communication. Setting out a clear mandate for change was critical. This was not just a process of disseminating information but providing a chance to explore the evidence, experience the teaching in practice, ask questions and embrace the change with the confidence that the children would be the direct beneficiaries. Giving ample opportunities to revisit the evidence and ask questions when needed has provided reassurance and built confidence, though this has been labour intensive. A few years down the line the positive data speaks for itself.

A sea of correct answers should only indicate that the challenge level was too low, but it has become the motivator and gauge of a pupil’s feeling of success PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

The power of prep Christopher Barnes, Deputy Head and Head of Prep at Edenhurst, takes a look at the power of prep schools At our Spring Concert in April, I looked on with a sense of pride as all classes from Reception to Year 6 took to the stage and took us on a tour of films and musicals: ‘Oliver’, ’The Sound of Music’ and ‘Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang’ were intermingled with ‘My Fair Lady’, ’The Wizard of Oz’ and ‘Mary Poppins’. The children stood proudly in front of their families and sang with confidence and aplomb. Between the songs, a range of solo singers, musicians and a group playing African drums added to the diversity of the evening. It was a tour de force of all the reasons why music is vital to the curriculum as a whole, and why Edenhurst places such a high value on it as a subject.

the ensembles and individual music lessons. Children learn the skills of reading music, playing or singing in parts, counting, listening (carefully!) to the conductor and keeping time. There are speech and drama lessons and the weekly drama club, developing children’s performance skills – reading, aspects of pitch and tone, and the confidence to stand up in front of an audience – as well as knowledge and appreciation of the English language. Duologues and small group work encourage teamwork and the sense of knowing that everyone needs to play their part – no pun intended – in order for the whole to look and sound of a high standard.

For most of our Year 6 children, this is their seventh Spring Concert. They have also performed in three Form Plays in Pre-Prep, led the Nativity in Year 3, taken part in the Play in a Day in Year 4, and had a main role in the whole-school play in Years 5 or 6.

Learning a modern or classical language enhances one’s appreciation of English or other native tongues. The skill of learning vocabulary and recalling it correctly, and applying it in a range of contexts, facilitates communication. Being able to read and write accurately, conjugate a verb correctly and realising the interlinkages with similar words in another language, allows the development of understanding in one’s own language. As a linguist – teacher of English and

During a child’s time in prep school, they are given a wide range of opportunities, both curricular and extra-curricular. In order to take part in a concert, there are the inevitable choral rehearsals, not to mention

During a child’s time in prep school, they are given a wide range of opportunities, both curricular and extra-curricular 50

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Latin, and speaker of both French and Russian – I love to hear and see the moments when a child recalls how we made connections between two or more languages, and likewise how this strengthened their written word. And then there are the residentials, domestic and overseas… any teacher who has taken children away knows how mentally and physically tiring this can be, but also how much growth is seen in every child. The less academic child who is an amazing organiser and has great practical common sense, shining in a way that they may not in a classroom. The child that you’re delighted to see let their hair down a little bit. The child who loaned an extra teddy bear to their friend because they were missing home. We all see these children and the way that they grow in stature and confidence during and following these residential trips. A Leavers’ Assembly provides reflection on all that has been achieved by these pupils as they prepare for their transition to senior school. There are plenty of funny, happy and embarrassing memories; all schools have their own traditions of activities done to or by those leaving, with some being tamer than others! I would encourage all of us who work with prep-aged children – whether your school works to 11+ or 13+ – to take a moment about how well we are marketing these achievements to our partner senior schools and how they and our (now former) parents reflect these back to us. A loyal community of families leaves us for

it is fine to get something wrong, as long as you learn from your mistake. These attitudes are all important and modelled to the children throughout their time with us. The feedback that we are given consistently tells us that this sets them up well for when they enter the senior level.

pastures new when their children join a senior school, yet there are many fond memories and strong loyalties still attached to their prep schools. How can we make the most of this? I would encourage all of us to not forget that prep schools are building on foundations established and developed since nursery. Senior school life has a range of five or seven years. This thought and the genesis of the article came when I spotted that one of our partner schools recently had an overhaul of their website and media channels. It was notable that almost all of the photographs of senior school pupils featured one or more of our alumni, in fields such as music, sport and drama. For us, as a single form entry school, that was quite an achievement! It was somewhat of a backhanded compliment, because none of those pupils had developed those skills at this particular school – they had all been nurtured and inspired to take up music, or to become involved in speech and drama, or likewise to become part of a sports team and develop the competitive spirit and skills, whilst with us. It can easily be forgotten that prep schools are building on foundations established and developed since nursery. Senior school life has a range of five or seven years. Prep school is a little more varied, but our time

with these children ranges between seven and 13 years. Yet there is often a disproportionate focus on the achievements of pupils in senior school; in part, thanks to social media as the pupils themselves can also publish instantaneously and with greater ease. Senior schools cannot do what they do without strong foundations established at prep level. Whether the skills are social (the ability to ‘rub along’ well with peers, or listen until another person has finished talking), academic (complete work to the best of their ability, or revise effectively for exams), personal (be kind and considerate to others, or display the qualities of a growth mindset)… the list goes on, but the point remains – these pupils are now outside of what the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky termed the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’. They have established patterns in their speech, thoughts, behaviour and development that will stay with them throughout their life. Each year, like many others, my school hands up an eclectic mix of pupils, but there are always commonalities: a willingness to join in; a sense of the importance of looking after each other; treat others as you expect to be treated; the knowledge that both learning and working hard are important; and that

It is worth thinking about how we market ourselves internally to our parents and pupils, and as part of our communications with our partner senior schools. Watching out for the recognition and achievements of alumni, and ensuring that current and former parents are aware of these, is crucial. It shows that you are interested in pupils after they have left your care, and develops a reciprocal interest - they remain alert to what is happening at your school. Some careful use of social media also shows partner schools that you are interested in them and helps to develop and maintain a strong relationship. So, when you next see that one of your alumni has gone to represent their senior school on an overseas sports tour, reflect if it was you that nurtured their love of that sport and took them overseas for the first time. You gave them a head-start in being able to do both of those things. Similarly, if one of your alumni gets the lead role in the main senior school play - did you give them the love of speech and drama through lessons, roles in Form plays and drama-related activities at Prep level, that they have then continued to nurture and develop in senior school? Be proud of their achievements and the part that you have played in their development. Let us celebrate ’the power of prep’! Since 2012, Christopher Barnes has been Deputy Head and Head of the Prep Forms at Edenhurst Preparatory School (@EdenhurstSchool), a non-selective 0-11 day school in Staffordshire and part of Bellevue Education (@BellevueGroup). Prior to that he spent nine years at the British International School, Moscow. He tweets as @EPSDepHead.

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Sir, I don’t get it! The old adage that Prep Schools simply prepared pupils for their Senior Schools is outdated. Kevin Donnelly, Head of English at Moor Park, explains why

Even the greatest teachers have heard this many times: here at Moor Park we are increasingly focused on how we help the children deal with it for themselves. Helping our pupils learn how to learn is now at the centre of our teaching. For example, a science teacher recently wrote to me, saying: ‘I was thrilled when some Year 8 children designed their own (safe) test for a gas that was being given off in an experiment. They didn’t just wait to be told what it was or ask me, they wanted to find out for themselves; an example of how we are already being successful at developing this kind of independent and curious thinking.’ In May 2016, Charlie Minogue, our Headmaster, sent me on a course in London. Nothing so unusual about that, you might think, except this was a course that has led to a complete revision of our school’s approach

to teaching and learning. Never in my professional life has the 5:50am train from Leominster had so much significance.

These had become part of the whole school’s life and were being used by all members of the school community to help boost achievement.

The course was called Independent Minds and was centred on things variously called mindsets or learning habits. These are habits of thought and approach that schools have been making the centrepiece of their teaching and learning. They are inspired by the work of Carol Dweck, psychologist, whose work on growth mindset has inspired many educationalists to revisit what it is that enables students to achieve highly.

It set us at Moor Park thinking. Up until now, the role of a prep school has often been simply to enable pupils to move to the senior school of their choice; that, or the school has had a particular, powerful ethic of its own that it has wanted to spread. When we thought about the world the children would be entering – a deeply uncertain world, one marked by rapid and constant technological change; one marked by social change; one in which the political and cultural landscape would likely be radically different from today (Brexit has, of course, shadowed Moor Park’s development of the mindsets) – we thought what our children now and in the future would need to build themselves into achievers in that world.

Several schools presented their existing programmes. In each case, the common denominator was that the school had chosen some habits of thought or approach that they believed their pupils needed to engage as part of their everyday learning.

Up until now, the role of a prep school has often been simply to enable pupils to move to the senior school of their choice 52

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The first thing we did was study what kinds of skills we saw being necessary in this future world. We saw these as being dominated by flexibility, rapid adjustment to disappointment and change and the ability to think logically and creatively. We distilled these concepts into 20 nouns that we put out for all staff members at Moor Park to consider: if you had to choose six of these for the children to develop over the course of their school lives, which would they be? I collated the results and

We thought about the world the children would be entering – a deeply uncertain world, one marked by rapid and constant technological change; one marked by social change presented the data to the SMT. This led to six concepts: creativity, critical thought, independence, resilience, curiosity and confidence. Bear in mind that the consultation meant that this was not just what staff felt about the future, but it was their combining of their knowledge of our children, our demographic and their thoughts about the future. It was also important for all staff to be involved because kitchen staff, maintenance staff, nursery staff and games coaches all see different sides of the children. At this stage we were careful to work as a whole school. The programme was always intended to include our nursery and pre-prep school. Nursery children (and, in fact, children up to Year 2) have some cuddly toys to help them visualise the six mindsets. In the nursery, children have used the Independent Iguana to show that they are happy exploring their new surroundings or have used the confident camel when they have been participating in activities they have found challenging. The mindsets – it was foreseen – would each present their own issues. Developing resilience, for example, involves failure: by definition, it cannot be easy to learn. We had to discuss how we could always be positive in setting children challenges in academic and social life and how we could enable children to fail safely. An interesting example of this

from earlier this term is a child in nursery who was struggling to blow bubbles; using the Resilient Rabbit toy to motivate her, she kept going until she could do it. I have seen children in Year Six become inspired by seeing someone else trying hard at something they found difficult and wanting to do the same: all because the children now know that resilience is a prised quality, not a sign of weakness or incompetence. Implementation of the mindsets began in earnest in the autumn of this academic year. We have encouraged teaching activities with mindsets at the forefront of learning objectives; we praise and recognise children’s use of the mindsets and we discuss them in assemblies. We have Mindset Champions and displays in classrooms that show how the mindsets are being used by the children. This applies all the way across the school. I have seen a child in Year 8 applying resilience – knowingly and deliberately – to try to work quickly enough in exam conditions. Instead of feeling as if time is something she struggles with, she has made it part of her working skills, just like long division in maths or verb endings in French. In some ways, using and applying the mindsets is a matter of sharpening what we already do. For example, in science, the teacher gave the class some climate change data recently that was deliberately rather inconclusive to get them to be

independent – to think against the norm – and think critically about what was being presented. This sort of activity has been a staple of effective, challenging teaching for decades: now, we find we plan more of these to help the children learn to use the mindsets. It is not just lessons in which we promote the use of the mindsets. In the morning, the children from Year 6 to Year 8 register with their tutors. This is also a good time for discussion. As one tutor told me: ‘we used critical thinking, curiosity and creativity the other day in tutor period to discuss open questions from the children: why is grass green, why do people in the north of England tend to favour Brexit and why is Rudolf’s nose red?’ Above all, motivating all of this was the desire to equip children with the methods to help them succeed. With these skills we hope the children who come through our school will be able to meet the challenges they face and will have the resources to deal with those. Putting mindsets at the heart of our teaching and learning is nothing less than saying to the children: ‘we want you to succeed, long after you have left us. We want you to be happy and fulfilled in whatever you do and wherever you go.’ I can’t think of a better motivation for a school than that.

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Mark my words Dr Matt Jenkinson, Headmaster designate of New College School, Oxford, expresses his views on the importance of marking Like many teachers, I am currently very much enjoying reading Carl Hendrick and Robin Macpherson’s What Does This Look Like in the Classroom? This has proved to be a practically useful antidote to a sometimes cold and distant educational research. I have been particularly taken by the chapter on assessment and feedback as someone who spends a significant proportion of their life marking (English and history – lots of words in those), or asking others to mark effectively. There has been quite a lot of head nodding going on. ‘It’s very difficult to be excellent if you don’t know what excellent looks like’ – uh huh. ‘Don’t ever give feedback to students unless you make the time for them to respond to that feedback’ – sure. ‘It has to be specific, very precise, and making sure that it’s expressed in such a way and that it’s dealing with something that the people already have some ownership of’ – absolutely. There have been some nuggets that have made me think about my

own classroom practice and the fundamental rationale behind it. ‘Feedback that is given too frequently can lead learners to overly depend on it is an aid during practice, a reliance that is no longer afforded during later assessments’ – yup, that’s what I feared. ‘Students will only act on feedback if they believe they can get better so motivating students to believe in improvement itself becomes a key part of the challenge’ – I agree, but do I always focus on it? ‘Make feedback into detective work’ – hmm, interesting. ‘The best person to mark a test is the person who just took it’ – ah, that’s what I kind of stumbled towards while left to my own devices revising for A Levels all those years ago. Prompted by all of this sage advice, model what you’re looking for; get pupils hungry for feedback that they can comprehend and have ownership of; give whole-class feedback on common misconceptions; harness the power of the self-quiz or the expertly-controlled peer assessment – I have been thinking about why we tick, correct spellings,

write nice things, and give areas for further improvement. I have been wondering why we bother if so many of our suggestions go unheeded straightaway. If little Bobby doesn’t use apostrophes for ownership after the thirtieth time of asking, should I just give up? Should I radically overhaul expectations of myself and my colleagues, after all that seemingly unwisely spilt ink? And the answer is… no. When discussing the power of marking and feedback, we can too often focus on little Bobby’s apostrophes. We can get frustrated that we told the pupil to do something; they smiled and nodded, then totally forgot, or didn’t actually listen in the first place. Even when we get little Bobby to initial next to our comment to confirm that they have read it, or if we ask them to write a little note, against which we can write a little note if we wish, most of the time that pesky apostrophe won’t appear next time. It’s frustrating, yes, but only if we misunderstand what marking is about.

If our marking is quick and messy – an impatient tick and turn, a scribbled grade – then our pupils notice that we have not taken care over what they have written 54

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Prompted by all of this sage advice, model what you’re looking for; get pupils hungry for feedback that they can comprehend and have ownership of I would argue it is not about the quick fix or the immediate improvement. Most pupils, as we all know, do not follow an upwardly linear path. Rather, marking and feedback is about creating a culture, and it is this culture that will have positive impacts in the long term – beyond the apostrophe. When I think back to the marking in my own schoolbooks, I can remember four or five instances of corrosive feedback. I know, it’s a bit odd, but I dwell on these things. The first was in a piece of Year 7 science homework where the teacher scribbled ‘3/10’ and left it at that. For years I had no idea how to get the extra seven marks; in fact I think the answer came to me about 15 years later while I was mulling (yes, I know) on the task on some interminable train journey. The second was some marginalia in a Year 9 history essay where the teacher had annotated, next to one of my arguments, ‘I said that’, and wrote virtually nothing else. Well, yes, you did, but is it a huge problem if I am adding ideas that have come up in the lesson? I’ll never know. Or, how about the Year 12 politics essay when I was told ‘repetition is dull’ because I had twice written ‘knowledge is power’? What have I learned from that snarky comment? That I shouldn’t repeat myself? That I shouldn’t repeat myself? Or, finally, my first year undergraduate tutor (I use the term loosely – I was quite unsure which century of French history we had been

studying after a year of this person’s lectures) who sneered ‘Oh, you’re one of those are you?’ after I had asked how I might improve my middling 2:1 essay. It’s alright. I’m over it. All of these examples speak to a culture in which the educational process was undermined because of the cursory, the snarky, the dismissive, and the vague. If our marking is quick and messy – an impatient tick and turn, a scribbled grade – then our pupils notice that we have not taken care over what they have written. And, quite often, they have put in an enormous amount of effort into that writing. We correct spelling and punctuation to model the correct way of writing, effective communication skills, attention to detail, and so on. But we also do it because it says to the pupil, ‘I have read your work carefully enough to notice where the errors are, and I care enough about you and your work to show you how to get better.’ Once that relationship is built and enhanced between pupil and teacher then the culture is one in which there is sufficient trust and care for improvement to occur over the long term. The missing apostrophe might not appear tomorrow or next week, but little Bobby knows that I care enough about their education and progress, Bobby will be more likely to engage with my teaching and their learning, and improvement

will occur in so many different areas – apostrophe or no apostrophe. If little Bobby clocks that I’m only marking because I have to, or because I have been told to, that I don’t really enjoy what I’m doing, or care about what they have written, then it is a corrosive factor in the classroom. It’s a hard one from which to recover. Also, it’s nice to write nice things about people and their work. I have marked thousands and thousands of scripts, but it’s still a joy to point out when someone has done something well, or where they have made improvement. It’s great to be able to reward them. I know it’s hard work and it’s time consuming – which is why comments should be specific and precise – but I would rather frontload the culture in my classroom by showing that I care, then save time later on from not having to claw back pupils I have lost because they think (rightly or wrongly) I don’t have any time for their work. And, call me a sadist or a pedant, but it’s enjoyable to be able to find something to improve on next time, no matter how ‘perfect’ the piece of work in front of me might be. There’s always something, and it’s usually a missing apostrophe. Dr Matt Jenkinson’s co-authored book How Poems Work was released in 2018 and is now available to order on the John Catt Bookshop.

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How to Teach English Literature Jennifer Webb shares an extract from her debut book on overcoming cultural poverty and teaching English A brief foray into Barthes Books don’t just pop out of thin air: someone writes them. Somehow, all the environmental factors aligned, and someone wrote a book. Those conditions and external influences have a significant impact on the final text; they feed its soul. How does influence work? 1. The writer is inspired and motivated to write; this is a complex mixture of personal experience, life events, closely held beliefs, childhood trauma, love, loss, and life. For example, Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry is often deeply personal and inspired by her own experiences, ‘The clocks slid back an hour/ and stole light from my life/ as I walked through the wrong part of town/ mourning our love.’ 2. The composition of all texts is influenced to some extent by the reading habits of the writer, their education, culture, and age. For example, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is a heavily satirical work that could have been written in another form; he wrote a verse story collection because it was a fashionable form that many writers, such as Giovanni Boccaccio, were using at the time. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales tells a

number of stories that also appear in Boccaccio’s Decameron. 3. The text, either through the conscious choice of the writer, or not, is a product of its time; historical, political, religious and social factors are inextricably bound up with the final product. For example, Wilfred Owen’s poem ‘Exposure’ is a direct product of his own experiences during WW1, and his beliefs about the role of the government in that conflict. 4. The text exists within a body of work from that particular time, genre or movement. Consideration of literary context is crucial because it can tell us why someone chose to write in a particular form or structure. Shakespeare was not particularly original in the five-act structure; Othello fits a well-established model in wider Renaissance tragedy. GCSE courses require students to do a range of complicated things in their analysis: •

Explain what texts mean (complicated)

•

Explore writers’ possible intentions (even more complicated) Apply extensive understanding of context to texts and suggest how they might have

•

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influenced writers (potentially hazardous!)

Problems with context and authorial intention: What if it’s just a blue curtain? It would be disingenuous of us to suggest to our students that every writer consciously crafts every single detail of a text. Sometimes the curtain is just blue; not an indicator of grief over a lost love, just blue. This isn’t particularly helpful when teaching literature, though, because we can’t possibly know with any certainty what was consciously crafted, subconsciously inspired, or just a blue curtain with no hidden meaning. This is where the great challenge and beauty of literature lies – personal choice and interpretation. Students need to be given the freedom to decide what is interesting to them, and what they think may have inspired the writer. In his iconic essay, ‘The Death of the Author’, Roland Barthes explores the conflict between author intent and reader interpretation. In brief, his argument is that, once the text is written, the author no longer truly exists. Writing consists of ‘several indiscernible voices (…) to which we cannot assign a specific origin: literature is that neuter, that composite, that oblique into which

every subject escapes, the trap where all identity is lost, beginning with the very identity of the body that writes.’ Barthes sees literary criticism as fundamentally problematic, because its key aim seems to be finding the answers; discovering the author and what they really meant, ‘this conception perfectly suits criticism, which can then take as its major task the discovery of the Author (or his hypostases: society, history, the psyche, freedom) beneath the work: once the Author is discovered, the text is ‘explained’; the critic has conquered.’ This is quite complex compared to our discussions in GCSE classrooms, but the basic principle is very important; teaching students that there is an ‘answer’ is wrong. There isn’t always an answer, and there is very rarely a simple one that can be boiled down to an easy point in a GCSE essay.

How to say ‘what the writer means’ 1. You must have done some form of detailed analysis of the text first, for example zoned in on some detail of language or structure and explored possible connotations and reader interpretations – ideally, you have given multiple possible interpretations! 2. Use tentative academic language. Avoid phrases that assert that you know something, which you can’t possibly know to be true, e.g. Shakespeare believes that women who don’t conform to feminine stereotypes must be wicked. This statement can never be verified. It might be true, but we will never know. It is, therefore, not an appropriate statement to make if we want to be sophisticated literary critics. If

we change the statement slightly to include more tentative language, it works far better: Shakespeare may be suggesting that women who don’t conform to feminine stereotypes must be wicked. Use words such as: might, possibly, may, could, and perhaps. A tentative approach to writing also allows for the possibility of a range of other conflicting meanings and interpretations. 3. Ensure that the beliefs or ideas you are ascribing to a writer are commensurate with their age. Dickens cannot be described as a Marxist. Marxism was an ideology in its embryonic phase when Dickens was writing, so an attempt to align him with a concept so removed from his experience is nonsense. 4. If you do know what the writer thought or meant by something, you must give some sort of reference to prove it. In some rare instances, writers explain their actual intentions. John Steinbeck once explained what he intended in the character of Curley’s Wife, and Dickens frequently wrote about his mission for social justice, so we can say with certainty what these writers’ beliefs or ideas were on these topics. If you want to bring this into your analysis, you must cite the source, or refer to well known facts, e.g. Dickens was a well-established campaigner for the rights of children in Victorian London, so we can safely assume that the description of Ignorance and Want in A Christmas Carol is a political reference to the reality of the lives of many in the capital. It is a challenge for teachers to empower students to decide what they think is important, rather than have them parroting what we have said something means.

History lessons There is nothing worse than reading an essay which begins, ‘Shakespeare was born in Stratford-Upon-Avon in 1564…’. It has ‘history lesson’ written all over it. History is a crucial subject for our students, but history students are not just taught dates and facts in isolation; they are taught about the impact and significance of events and decisions. They are taught to weigh up their importance, make judgements, identify patterns and appreciate the complexity of human behaviour. In a similar vein, we cannot teach historical context details for literature by simply teaching dates and facts in isolation and ask them to drop in details at the end of every paragraph. Students must attach significance to historical detail by understanding, from the outset, how it influences the meaning of the text.

How to Teach English Literature by Jennifer Webb is available to buy via the John Catt Bookshop (johncattbookshop.com)

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The Compassionate Teacher An extract from The Compassionate Teacher by Andy Sammons, who believes it’s time we reclaimed our mental health for the sake of everyone in education I’ll start by being blunt: 2018 was the worst year of my life. When it began, I didn’t know it would be the year that I would experience something so intensely miserable that it would push me to even consider taking my own life. Someone I went to school with took his own life a few years ago. I remember thinking: ‘Why? What causes you to what to do that? It’s so alien.’ Well, I found out in 2018. Work-related stress and anxiety pushed me into a depression that forced me to question everything I had ever known. This chapter, affectionately titled ‘The Crash’, is the summation of me limping from January through to April thinking I would be fine. I have always been an advocate of the place of mental health in education and wider society, and as an admittedly overly sensitive person (I teach English – it comes with the territory) I’ve never been far from anxiety and that type of thing. But what happened between Easter and – well, what is still happening to me – was nothing less than an education in the severest possible terms about what ‘mental health problems’ means. It was the Easter holidays. I had been sat in the lounge with my parents, wife and little boy making plans for the coming months. When Mum asked if we needed her and Dad to look after our son – Wilfred – something shifted in my mind. I was intensely relieved that they’d offered to help us out on a weekend we were

due to be away, but the relief somehow seemed drastically disproportionate. I was breathless, my heart palpitated, and my mouth was dry. I panicked, and I couldn’t put my finger on why. Unbeknownst to me, what was brewing inside me was about to rear its head in a way far beyond anything I could anticipate. I had been asked to step up as Head of English during a turbulent period at my school. It was an incredible amount of work, but also thrilling. I loved it: strutting my stuff and being able to formulate and execute all of what I thought were my ingenious plans that were going to change the world. At the time, I joked to a friend: ‘Brogues, a Moleskine pad – I’ve arrived!’ I was even told that I was ‘holding my own’ and being commended for my leadership. All good stuff. Easy. My little boy had stopped sleeping a few months prior and I was running on empty, but powering through, working all hours and simply not stopping. I just assumed I could keep going back to the well. In my head, I was Harvey Specter from Suits. I even had a tie pin and a striped shirt with a white collar and a waistcoat. What was it Gordon Gekko said? ‘Lunch is for wimps.’ Well, sleep, fun, happiness and anything other than work was for wimps as far as I was concerned. I lost sight of what connected me to the people around me at work: I’d

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always been someone who fought hard to protect my colleagues, but under massive strain I stopped fighting for my team. A couple of pretty unfair things happened and I should have stepped up and said something – but I felt powerless to stop my own negativity, let alone protect anyone else. I just went in on myself. My own fears began to manifest as seeing others as threatening. Seeing the worst in others is absolutely exhausting. If someone took time off, I would silently think, ‘God, they’ve let me down. They’re slacking.’ My own misery was exacerbated because I totally lost faith in others’ capacity for honesty and goodness. I was negative to my core, and so, it seemed, were other people. My insides slowly accumulated pulsating, intolerable waves of guilt and shame. The situation was unscalable – so many insurmountable problems, yet so many probably solvable problems – but my brain could not distinguish between them. I felt blind. On reflection – much to my bafflement now – I had ignored all the warning signs: checking my phone and waking in the night to add to my to-do list, working through lunch and dinner, not speaking with my wife and no exercise. I began to grow distant from my family as well: when Wilfred cried, that weight on my chest would increase; and when he came to hold my hand and ask me to play, waves of anxiety crushed my insides. I even ignored it when the

I needed someone to intervene. After about five minutes, Mum emerged and glanced at me. She asked casually: ‘You alright?’ I looked up, held her in my eye for a second, and just shook my head. Then I burst into tears. wakefulness in the night became more frequent. However, that weight on my chest that started to characterise my mornings? It would surely just go away, I thought. This was life in the fast lane, wasn’t it? How silly. In his masterpiece memoir, The Noonday Demon, Andrew Solomon captures the sneaking horrors of this with wonderful eloquence: The birth and death that constitute depression occur at once. I returned, not long ago, to a wood in which I played as a child and saw an oak, a hundred years dignified, in whose shade I used to play with my brother. In twenty years, a huge vine had attached itself to this confident tree and had nearly smothered it. It was hard to say where the tree left off and the vine began. Around that time, my brother – a person I have an unshaking love and respect for (I idolise him, truth be told) – jokingly commented that I’d ‘died’ on him. It hit me, to be honest; but I brushed it off.

No time to waste. Two months earlier at a family gathering, I remember remarking to Philippa – my wife – ‘I feel like the Ghost of Christmas Past: no one gives a toss if I’m here or not.’ I was angry, frustrated and upset, but I didn’t really know why. That day, my mum had looked at me and asked, ‘Where’s my Andy gone? I’ve lost him.’ I was a grey, tired, miserable shadow of myself, with huge bags under my eyes, lost under a pile of self-importance, work and stress. At the time, I recall the feeling inside me being

somewhere between irritability and dismissiveness when I looked back at her; I was so, so angry. I thought she was being unsupportive and making it all about her when I was just being busy and successful. Anyway, back to my parents’ house: I noticed a swathe of emotion overcome me and then leave me all at once; I didn’t know what it was, but I just wanted to be alone. I took myself away to my parents’ kitchen and sat there quietly. I felt unspeakably miserable. Beaten to the point of no return. Just utterly hopeless. Not only was I defeated, but now I realised the Harvey Specter suit I had been wearing was from Matalan, not Savile Row; I didn’t have the finances, the corner office, or even a fraction of the success to go with it. I sat silently. I hoped to hell no one would find me, yet I was desperate for someone to come and pop their head around the door. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be alone at that moment, or whether I needed someone to intervene. After about five minutes, Mum emerged and glanced at me. She asked casually: ‘You alright?’

through to the lounge to tell everyone what an epic failure I was; the fact I couldn’t be strong for my wife Philippa any more; or that my gorgeous little blue-eyed boy was running around without a care in the world, unable to comprehend the mess his dad was in. However, my family were amazing. They had caught me: I fell backwards and had forgotten whether anyone really cared, but we resolved to work together to get through it. I drove home in tears, Philippa trying her best to console me. It was all coming out now. That night, I rang my best friend, John, and told him I had taken one of those depression self-assessment tests on the NHS website, and had answered honestly that I felt it would be better if I wasn’t here. Not-so-dormant parts of my mind began to consider planning the worst. It was then that I started to realise how serious things were. I was sobbing on the phone to him. Thank goodness he picked up.

I looked up, held her in my eye for a second, and just shook my head. Then I burst into tears. I was inconsolable. As I leaned into her, she cuddled me and said, ‘Just struggling a bit, aren’t you?’ Somehow, that captured it. She got it. Maybe it was the recognition that I wasn’t ok – just empathy and connection – but I felt safer. Still, I don’t know what was more heartbreaking: conceding that things weren’t OK; the thought of going back

The Compassionate Teacher by Andy Sammons is available now via the John Catt Bookshop (johncattbookshop.com)

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Are you getting the most out of SchoolSearch? Have a look at your school’s profile on our leading online guide to UK independent schools – www.schoolsearch.co.uk

Now with dedicated search pages for UK regions and counties, many of which feature on the first page of Google search results. Add your school’s dates to our open days calendar and send us your success stories to post in the news section, which also includes leading advice and features provided by our featured schools. Featured schools can add social media links to their profile, including embedding a Twitter feed, and can showcase a promotional YouTube or Vimeo video. Our site has visitors from across the world looking for UK independent schools, and an established UK audience. Families can find and compare their nearest schools with our postcode search. SchoolSearch is in association with John Catt’s Which School? guidebook, now in its 94th edition, John Catt’s Preparatory Schools and Which London School? & the South-East.

Contact: enquiries@johncatt.com or call 01394 389850

The Primary Curriculum Leader’s Handbook

At a time of renewed focus on the curriculum, Roy Blatchford has brought together some of the sharpest thinkers in education in a brilliant mixture of both practical and conceptual essays about what makes for a positive primary curriculum. Prep School readers are treated to a short extract from Peter Hyman’s essay The grand bargain is breaking down and fast. The deal went like this: School will often be grinding and a little dull. Chunked up lessons in chunked up subjects for chunked up exams taken by chunked up pupils. However, it will all be worth it one day because good GCSEs will lead to good A Levels will lead to a good university will lead to a good job. Only it doesn’t quite happen like this any more. The cracks are appearing and like a damp patch on a bedroom ceiling the rain is beginning to drip through. Employers realise that this narrow academic conveyor belt is producing graduates who in their damning words have ‘nothing about them’. Yes, academic credentials, but what else? For this reason, the big four accountancy firms – PWC, EY, KPMG, Deloitte (where they start others often follow) – and a range of other companies are becoming qualifications blind. They are doing their own tests and interviews and ignoring the 2:1 from a Russell Group University. This is a game changer. A £40,000 university experience, with piles of debt, might be a reasonable

deal if it sets you up for a great job, but if it doesn’t then many, who never really wanted three more years of academic study, will want to rethink. Children crave more from their life and their childhood than the ‘compliant cultures’ that are the necessary partner of the exam factory. Let us be clear that the feat that every secondary school has to perform each year, getting 200 or so 16 year-old students to sit 25 to 30 exams in one month requires a level of organisation, regimentation, control and relentless drive that is so harmful, distorting and unnecessary that any hopes of a broad curriculum is nothing more than a dream. To quote a 16-year-old’s devastating piece in the TES recently: ‘They say high school is the best years of your life – but not in this world, where qualifications matter more than personal qualities. I feel like I have grown backwards, as if I now know less about myself and who or what I could be than when I started.’ ‘I feel like I have grown backwards’ is a phrase that should be engraved on the walls of DfE headquarters, as well as every school, as a warning and a rebuke. Teachers are leaving

the profession in record numbers – numbed by what they thought would be a layered, intellectual, exploratory profession and instead is a race to the exam finishing line. Employers, teachers, students all want more from education. Many are trying their best to provide it against the odds. I believe that whatever the pressures and constraints, our duty – collectively – is to do so.

The Primary Curriculum Leader’s Handbook is available via the John Catt bookshop now (johncattbookshop.com)

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Proven techniques for test-taking Dr Junaid Mubeen, Director of Education at Whizz Education, shares his top six tips for taking a test You are sitting in the exam hall. The time for preparation is over. There is no more anticipation. It is just you and the exam. Your revision will surely pay off, but so too will these proven test-taking strategies. Love them or hate them, exams are a part of life for all students. Exam success is shaped by three factors: knowledge, exam preparation and test-taking strategy. The last part is often overlooked so we have jotted some proven techniques for bagging maximum marks in the exam. 1. Scan every question at the start Problem-solving is as much an unconscious effort as it is conscious. By quickly scanning questions, students plant key ideas in their mind, which will fester in the background. When the time comes to attempt the problem in earnest, students won’t be starting from scratch and they will be amazed at how often the key breakthrough will suddenly reveal itself. Additionally, scanning questions removes the anxiety that comes with anticipating what might come up. There’s nothing quite as daunting as the unknown, and however hard the exam may be, when a student scans a question, they at least know what they are up against. 2. Underline the key parts of every question Encourage students to try and

see things from the examiner’s perspective. They should think about what exactly the examiner is asking for and what key vocabulary or concepts the question is based on. They should then underline the words that seem to matter most, which will ensure their interpretation of the examiner’s intent is spot on.

that might be relevant to the problem, or even just part of the problem, it is always worth jotting it down. Similarly devoting some time to checking through answers – even to the ‘easier’ questions – to ensure they pick up careless mistakes, which are perfectly natural to make in exam conditions.

3. Get marks in the bag

6. Look for dependencies

A good tactic at the start of the exam is for students to go through the paper and answer every question or subquestion they feel they can answer right away. They will have plenty of time to return to the tougher questions, and guaranteeing so many marks up front will build their confidence and relax their mind.

Many exams, particularly in maths, will contain questions that can only be answered by completing a logical sequence of linked sub-questions. If a question has multiple parts, it is highly likely that later parts will depend on the earlier ones. With that in mind, students should think about how parts of a problem interrelate.

4. Show your working – as far as needed

In closing this piece, we would like to remind students that they have several years of learning ahead of them and that – whatever the outcome of an exam – it will not determine their life trajectory. Ultimately, they should just do their best and once they are done, take a breath and enjoy the sunshine.

Students should always have a look at the number of marks available for each question, as this should give them a good gauge of the appropriate amount of detail they should put into their workings. Generally, we recommend that they always err on the side of ‘too much’ detail, but not to the point of running out of time for other questions) A good practice is to read answers back to yourself and check that it will make sense to whoever is marking it. 5. Strive for every mark

Dr Junaid Mubeen is Director of Education at Whizz Education, providers of the award-winning online maths programme, MathsWhizz, offering accelerated learning in maths to children globally. To find out more, go to whizz.com.

Even when students are stuck, they may get partial credit for showing some working. If they have an idea

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Why more prep schools should do language trips abroad Douglas Haines, from Spark Spanish, describes to Prep School magazine readers why he thinks more prep schools should do language trips abroad When children learn their native language, they do not see it as a subject nor a chore, it is communication. It is a means to interact with their peers and parents and their mechanism to let the world know who they are, how they feel and what they want. It is an integral part of their identity. However when children learn a second language, their relationship with that new language is often similar to that which most children have to mathematics. It is a subject to study and often a chore to learn. The new language is frequently only experienced as a collection of phrases to memorise and rarely are children able to see the new language as what in the long run it should be, which is the way of interacting with people from a different country.

connection that excellent English speaking countries make to English. At a young age Dutch children experience English not merely as a subject enforced upon them at school, but as a language: to watch television in, to listen to music in and they frequently witness Dutch adults using it to communicate with non Dutch speaking people. In short Dutch children experience English as another language to use, rather than just a subject to be learned. If the British are to catch up with the rest of

This is where language trips abroad come in to bridge the gap between viewing the new language as a subject and experiencing it as real communication. It is essential to make this connection at a young age in order that children link the hard work done learning the language in class to real practical usage with native speakers. This is exactly the

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the world, this is exactly how we need to view second language acquisition and naturally language trips abroad have a huge role to play in providing this real contact to the second language at a young age. Currently less British adults know a second language than in any other European country. At a moment Britain arguable looks inwards, due to the political climate surrounding Brexit, it is more essential than ever that our independent preparatory schools be

at the forefront of getting our future movers and shakers looking outwards from a young age. A language trip abroad not only provides that vital link to using a new language as real communication but it also exposes young students to new experiences and alternative ways of doing and seeing things, providing that all important cultural awareness. Add to this the unique bond that can form between teachers and students as they experience a trip abroad together and preparatory schools have so many positive reasons to run, what will likely be, the first ever trip abroad for many students. Organizing a school trip abroad also looks great in school prospectuses, as it proves to parents the importance the school places on language learning and building greater cultural awareness. Of course saying all of this, the challenges of taking primary school children abroad should never be underestimated. A school trip abroad can throw up many headaches: the challenge of moving children through an airport, worry about whether safety standards are the same as at home and concerns about the accommodation being suitable for children to name but a few. However all of these can be planned out to be prevented from causing issues. First and foremost it is vital to look for a quality local supplier who can do the bulk of the organization and take care of risk analysis and assessment.

Not to mention providing vital on the spot local knowledge and support, which is also why you should look for companies that provide local chaperones to accompany the group throughout the trip. Choosing a supplier who can provide residential accommodation on exclusivity basis is also a must for primary schools as this provides a safe and controlled environment for young students. Next it is recommended to do an inspection visit of the residence and area and experience the activities and excursions first hand. Not only does this allow you to check safety

A language trip abroad not only provides that vital link to using a new language as real communication but it also exposes young students to new experiences and alternative ways of doing and seeing things

standards but also meeting the local supplier in person builds up vital trust and allows for tweaking of your schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bespoke programme. Via doing all these things a school trip abroad need not be a strain to organize and certainly the gains linguistically and culturally more than provide payback for any time put in.

Douglas and Inge own and run Spark Spanish with a family feel. Douglas Haines and Inge Hol are a British/Dutch couple who run Spark Spanish (spanishschooltours.com) a school trip provider based in Spain, which offers bespoke residential primary school tours for both independent and state schools.

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A guide to outdoor spaces Fawns, who manufacture and install playground equipment, treat Prep School magazine readers to a guide to outdoor spaces While many prep schools are blessed with substantial grounds, allowing pupils to be at one with nature, the provision of good quality play equipment is equally important to promote physical activity throughout the school day. Playtime by Fawns have designed, manufactured and installed outdoor playscapes for school and nursery settings for over 30 years, working in consultation with school leaders to improve play opportunities. We wanted to share our experience and a brief guide to good practice for those looking to create or update outdoor spaces that maximises play opportunities all year round for preprep and prep-aged pupils. Step one is to establish what space you have, what budget is available,

how many pupils you need to cater for, what facilities already exist in the school, and how flexible you need the space to be. For nursery and reception classes, this space could be the focus of their day, especially if the school operate free flow. How much covered area do you need, how much of the space needs to be used all year round? For example, in terms of climbing and upper body strength can the children use equipment situated within a Year 1 & 2 play area while those children are in lessons â&#x20AC;&#x201C; this will allow a focus on role play and other play types to be the priority in the area allocated for early years. If the area is for preprep children then more of a focus can be put on challenge but also think about the inevitable ball sports that are played at break and lunchtime. Creating an area for ball sports,

including goals and appropriate surface that can be used during free play and as part of curriculum PE lessons, can help reduce potential altercations and can direct the children in terms of appropriate play in designated areas. Once you know what you are looking to achieve and what budget you have to play with it is time to call in the experts. Larger more reputable companies are members of the Association of Play Industries (API), a trade body that promotes best practice and high-quality play provision within the play sector. Some companies within the API, such as Playtime by Fawns, specialise in the education sector and have been established for many years. Do some bench marking, ask local schools who they have used and check out websites for appropriate case studies that show the companies understand the specific needs of educational settings, as oppose to more local authority park oriented companies. These companies should offer to come and meet with the school, spend some time understanding the specific needs of the setting and then carry out a site survey. They would then come back with specific designs and costings based on your requirements. The whole process should be very consultative and the sales consultants should show good knowledge of play and a clear understanding of what schools need in terms of play space: flexibility, sustainability (low

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Play companies should come back to the school and present their designs, talking through the features and benefits of what they are proposing maintenance and keeps looking good for years to come); an emphasis on challenge and managed risk; and, equipment that is suited to children of many different abilities and different levels of confidence, even within the same age group. They should be able to illustrate how the play space encourages inclusivity, children with differing needs as well as differing abilities being able to play alongside one another. The space should be able to allow the children to learn and enhance crucial life skills, especially so at early years. Think about involving the student council within these consultation meetings, it will give the children a sense of ownership and allow them to participate in the decision-making process. We have often presented to student councils and governing bodies, as well as then arranging visits to our factories and timber suppliers to see the products being manufactured once winning projects. Different schools have different philosophies and play consultants should take time understanding these differing views and reflect that within their designs. For example, some schools are happy to have prescriptive equipment such as boats that offer great play value for varied abilities, other schools may want something less prescriptive such as a structure that is open-ended, one day it can be a boat, the next a plane or a space ship. Good companies will have a large product portfolio that can offer both options, the same with brightly coloured structures as opposed to natural timber options.

Play companies should come back to the school and present their designs, talking through the features and benefits of what they are proposing. A full breakdown of costs should be provided without any hidden extras. The dynamics of the areas are important, how the flow works within the setting and taking into account supervision and access for the children to maximise the play opportunities. Many options exist in terms of materials, especially so regarding surfacing, these need to be sitespecific and offer the best long-term solution for schools, taking into account the limited maintenance and all year round nature of play requirements, as well as varied abilities and any specific requirements the school. All play areas will need to meet EN1176 and EN1177 guidelines, this means the play equipment meets international standards concerning entrapments and other safety issues and has the required safer surfacing for the fall height required. Planning permission might need to be a consideration depending on the height of the equipment or if the school is in a conservation area or has listed buildings, or again depending on the proposed location of the play area â&#x20AC;&#x201C; how the space will impact on neighbours, or if it is considered a change of use. Reputable companies will be able to offer advice on this and if need be offer drawings and plans that planning documents will require. Once a particular design and company has been chosen they should then

be in a position to offer a pre-works meeting where the contracts manager responsible for the installation will meet with key stakeholders at the school to agree timescales, the methodology of the installation, how the health and safety of the children, staff and parents will be prioritised during the works and how disruption to school life is kept to a minimum. While some larger projects and installations within areas that are difficult to access may have to happen during school holidays, most installations occur during school term with minimal disruption â&#x20AC;&#x201C; if anything, we have always felt it is more of an advantage to the children for them to see the work and see the area take shape on a daily basis, rather than it just spring up miraculously over the course of a half term or the summer holidays. Companies should be able to offer method statements and risk assessments for the school to review in terms of ensuring health and safety during installations. Communication is key to ensuring the success of these installations, companies should provide the school with contact numbers available 24 hours per day, specific installation coordinators should ensure that the school is kept up to date with exact start dates and times, progress reports and expected finish dates. While many companies use sub contractors to carry out installations and safer surfacing work, the project should continue to be coordinated by the lead company, the school should not be dealing with more than one person. Upon completion of the works specific information should be passed to the school about any required maintenance on the new equipment, independent inspections for the area should be offered for the future: this shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be the end of the relationship between the school and play company, support and guidance should be always on hand. Good companies will keep in contact with customers making sure that the play areas remain in tip top condition and available to play all year round.

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The SATIPS Broadsheets are a superb practical resource for schools. The editors of the Classics Broadsheet is Nicholas Richards, Head of Classics at Christ Church College, and Emiliana Damiani, Head of Classics at Pinewood School

As the Spring Term is now upon us I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy New Year. I hope everyone had a restful Christmas break ready to start 2019. Maybe you have even made some resolutions pertaining to your subject. After one has been teaching the same subject for a few years it can be easy to get stuck in a comfortable rut rather than have a go at exploring new ideas. I have therefore decided that I am going to try and have a New Year resolution for Classics this term. Many a Modern Languages department up and down the country at their Inset meetings decides upon a termly focus of using the target language more in class. Once you the teacher have got into the mindset of regularly using slow and simple phrases of that language in class, it is a successful way of contextualising and improving pupils’ vocabulary and grammar. I have decided that this term I am going to try doing the same thing for Latin with short phrases nothing too complicated. I am hoping that using instructions such as “sedete!” will help pupils identify imperatives in a text, as the verb endings will have been introduced in a real and memorable way. I find

that many pupils muddle question words, and maybe this will also help consolidate these. Also, for anything that involves counting we can use Latin numbers, helping pupils to retain those words. Every little helps to work towards CE and scholarship, especially as so many of us feel that we never have enough teaching time allotted to our subject. Although not strictly linked to CE, my classes already write the date in Roman numerals in every lesson. I have been pleased with how this has given lots of pupils a greater understanding of how to read Roman numerals and many, especially the younger pupils, enjoy the challenge of writing the date on the board each day. Do you have any Classics teaching resolutions for this New Year? If so, or should you feel inspired to write an article about a Classics topic that interests you then we would love to hear from you. Emiliana Damiani emilianadamiani@pinewoodschool.co.uk Another term, another broadsheet. In this edition we have contributions from Ed Clarke (a review of the IAPS conference last May), Thomas Neal, Director of Music at New College School (about music and ancient Greek), Bob Bass (teaching prep school

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Greek), Charles Bradshaw (captivating French teenagers with Virgil), Fred Pragnell (Latin and Greek cartoons to accompany the animated Trojan War film). Last edition’s crossword reappears - this time with the necessary grid (!), for the first solution of which a small prize is offered. In the last edition we appealed for contributions, but triste dictu we received none as a result of this appeal. We do want the Classics broadsheet to be a forum for a wide exchange of ideas rather than a little visited niche for a few by even fewer. We know classicists have much to say about the teaching of their subject; and so please use this area to say it in. Connected with this desire to make the sheet useful we are hoping to feature a survey of classics teaching area by area; and we have already begun writing to schools in Oxfordshire, Bucks and Wiltshire (as our first featured area) asking teachers to share details of their departments’ organisation, viz. number of lessons, CE Levels, background, textbooks etc. If you would like to volunteer this information for your school that would be most welcome. (It is unusual these days to find individual e-mail addresses from websites, and

messages sent via the school office have so far - and not surprisingly, given the season - elicited few replies.) Do read and enjoy what we have collected for you this term; and do please send in your own thoughts to the addresses below! Nicholas Richards richards.n@cccs.org.uk “Classics for All” – IAPS Conference May 2019 It was a privilege, if a slightly daunting prospect, to step into Fred Pragnell’s sizeable shoes and take on the role of IAPS Classics Adviser earlier this year. I am greatly looking forward to the 2019 Classics conference and glad of the chance to draw its programme to your attention. As at the 2018 conference, I will lead an interactive workshop focusing on best practice in Classics teaching and tried and tested approaches for particular topics, with plenty of opportunity for everyone to share ideas and innovations on the floor. I will also be joined by a truly starstudded line-up of speakers. Chris Smart (Head of Classics at Eton) will speak from the perspective of a senior school department, with insights into the qualities he looks for in scholarship candidates and the areas of grammar and vocabulary on which we might particularly focus our efforts, as well as Classics teaching more generally. Bob Bass (Head of Classics at Orwell Park and Chief Examiner at ISEB) will provide his customary update from the board before giving what promises to be a fascinating talk on French and its roots in the evolution of the Latin language.

Natalie Haynes (writer and broadcaster) has of late become a household name through her television and radio appearances, including her own series Natalie Haynes Does the Classics on Radio 4. She will be talking to us about her latest book, A Thousand Ships – a retelling of the Trojan War due out in May – and the role of women in the Trojan story. Nor is Edith Hall (Professor of Classics at King’s College London, writer and broadcaster) a stranger to celebrity, with a string of books and TV and radio appearances to her name. She is going to share her thoughts on the teaching of Ancient History and Greek mythology and the ways in which we can embed Classical Civilisation into other areas of the prep school curriculum. The course will take place in Central London on Wednesday 1st May 2019. If you have any queries, please refer to the IAPS website or feel free to contact me via latin@highfieldschool.org.uk. For now, very best wishes for the New Year – I hope to have the chance to catch up with many of you at this exciting conference in May. Ed Clarke Head of Classics, Highfield School IAPS Classics Adviser Ancient Greek: Why not give it a go? There has never been a better time to get ancient Greek off the ground in a prep school. Bright children who have already (but not necessarily) been exposed to Latin will enjoy the challenge as well as the cachet of working in a different and beautiful alphabet, the basics of which can be mastered in forty minutes. ISEB’s Level 1 syllabus is readily accessible

to those with only a few months’ experience; the gap between Level 1 and Level 2 is now vastly reduced from what it once was and Level 2 is a real possibility for those who have studied the language a little longer. And there has been a relatively recent proliferation of resources available for delivering the subject at this level. As with Latin, the subject has not always done itself many favours as far as text books have been concerned. Uninspiring, and catering for secondary level pupils only, prep school pupils have been sorely neglected. The iconic status of Wilding’s Greek for Beginners (1954) has always puzzled me. For years public school guidance to prep school teachers preparing pupils for scholarship papers would consist simply of a Wilding chapter number. Yet Wilding’s grammatical sequencing is eccentric to say the least. It is not long before the perfect tense (not to be confused with the perfect tense in Latin) appears, and the very rarelyencountered pluperfect soon after; whereas augments, strong aorists and in particular participles – without which virtually no Greek sentence is complete – are not dealt with at all. I could go on. Yet this was indicative of the situation for decades: prep school children had to make do with, faute de mieux, materials devised for secondary or even tertiary level pupils (e.g. Greek through Reading, Thrasymachus, Athenaze). An ever-expanding curriculum has over recent decades resulted in increasing pressure on Classics generally, and in particular on Greek, which is taught in about only one in four schools where Latin is offered. Public schools – some more readily than others – have adopted over this

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

period a more humane approach in setting their 13+ papers, no longer anticipating an intake of A level linguists, but gradating their papers and thereby not discouraging potential GSCE candidates and thus enabling modest candidates to leave prep school with a sense of achievement. There are two unsung heroes of the prep school Greek revolution. The legendary Michael Bevington of Stowe led the ISEB’s Classics panel for more than two decades. A pragmatist and quick to see the writing on the wall, Michael always had half an eye on how other subjects were being examined and was keen for Greek not to be left behind. Under his guidance ISEB’s Greek offerings evolved gradually, their papers improving in accessibility and thereby attracting more candidates. And it was Michael who devised the cunningly-structured Greek Common Academic Scholarship paper, unfortunately discontinued in 2013 when it could no longer be sustained commercially: but by now potential CAS candidates were able to cope with the more realistic demands of public school scholarship papers. The second pillar supporting prep school Greek was, and continues to be, ISEB itself It is fashionable to carp at exam boards, but ISEB continues to fly the flag for both Greek and Latin – minority niche subjects which are still appreciated by enlightened managers, teachers and parents. The eagle-eyed ladies at ISEB are meticulous in their attention to detail, to ensure the yearon-year consistency and predictability in the papers which are so appreciated by the punters but for which they rarely receive acknowledgement. So, what about the nitty-gritty of actually getting Greek into the

classroom? Firstly, you do not need to be a Classics specialist to get a pupil to Level 1 standard. Indeed, there is nothing to stop a motivated teacher learning from scratch in parallel with their pupils. This is facilitated by the well laid out, easy-to-follow textbooks which are available. Secondly, only a very few schools will have curriculum time allocated specifically to Greek. The alternative options are to steal some time from your brighter Latin pupils, turning it into ‘Gratin’ time, or for motivated pupils to pursue Greek off-timetable. Little but regular is best. After a while the initial enthusiasm and the kudos of studying Greek will wane, and it will be obvious when sustainability and staying-power become problematic – especially if the child is, like many, pulled in different directions by conflicting demands on his time; in which case it is best to cut one’s losses. However, if the pupil is prepared to stick with it, and to read, absorb and apply the clear explanations given in the text books, very little actual contact time is necessary, and the pupil’s commitment will determine his own rate of progress. A well motivated and intelligent child can get from scratch to Level 1 standard in six weeks. When the current syllabus was devised, the content was based upon what it was considered desirable to learn rather than what any preexisting textbook dictated. It was acknowledged that prep school Classicists were an industrious and enterprising bunch, and anticipated that once the syllabus was published, it would not be long before resources appeared to support teachers. Such was indeed the case. Kris Waite mapped some of his extensive homemade resources to

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the Level 1 syllabus, and these were eventually combined with those of the indefatigable Fred Pragnell – who did the same for Level 2 – to arrive at An Introduction to Classical Greek (2012). The current author has produced (2018) workbooks leading to either level, Prep School Greek and More Prep School Greek respectively. For those prep school pupils aiming higher there is Bass’s Streamlined Greek (2017), and for high-fliers IAPS’ Classics Advisor Ed Clarke has produced Poikilia, as thorough and comprehensive in its approach as his Variatio Latin course. I seem to recall a quote from that exceptional linguist Enoch Powell saying that it was practically an act of barbarism to deny to young learners even the opportunity of getting to grips with the classical languages and thereby being exposed to the many benefits which will accrue as a result. With a range of age-appropriate resources available, leading to accessible exams, and without the need of a degree in Classics to deliver it, why not give ancient Greek a go? Bob Bass bobbass@orwellpark.org Bob Bass MBE is Head of Classics at Orwell Park, Ipswich. Former IAPS Classics Subject Advisor and SATIPS Classics Broadsheet editor, he is the Team Leader of ISEB’s Latin setters.

expectations or what “works”. Writin staff to reflect on their classroom

SATIPS 1

Broadsheets are edited by Prep Schoo in their field, have taken on Why Whyshould shouldmy myschool schoolbe bein inmembership? membership? For further information about the Bro • SATIPS offers a breadth of training, networking and supportive • SATIPS offers a breadth of training, networking and supportive opportunities to schools in membership opportunities to schools in membership.editions, follow t recent • It is the ONLYsight organisationof in Britain which is dedicated • It is the ONLY organisation in Britain which is dedicated

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to the needs of teaching staff in prep schools. to the needs of teaching staff in Prep Schools. • SATIPS is absolutely concerned with catering for staff ranging •from SATIPS concernedortoSenior cater Leadership for staff ranging NQTistoabsolutely Head of Department Team. from NQT to Head of Department or Senior Leadership Team. We also aim to cover all age ranges from Nursery to Key Stage 3. We also aim to cover all age ranges from Nursery to Key Stage 3. SATIPS offers a four part core of activities and support: SATIPS offers a four-part core of activities and support:

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CoursesThe areprogramme designed tois cover a wide rangeatofthe interests. Attention is given to primarily directed classroom practitioner. course feed-back helps to shape ourare programme. New towhich the programme this year certificatedSchool courses,requests for training is particularly encouraged. more details of which are on the website. Our trainers and consultants are very carefully selected. Course presenters are very carefully vetted. Our aim is always to make use of Our aim is to always make use of known experts in their field. known experts in their field who are also first-class presenters. Full detailsschools of the training can be foundon oncourse the website. Members receive aprogramme substantial discount fees. Member schools receive a substantial discount on course fees.

SATIPS

expectations or what “works”. Writing staff to reflect on their classroom pr

Broadsheets are edited by Prep School in their field, have taken on th Why should my school be in membership? Competitions, Exhibitions Exhibitions and Competitions, andevents eventsfor forpupils pupils For further information about the Broa SATIPS offers a variety of pupil-focussed events. Over many years Schools SATIPS offers a variety of pupil-focused events. Over many years schools havehave • SATIPS offers a breadth of training, networking and supportive enjoyed entering their their pupils intoevents that hold a nation-wide attraction with enjoyed entering pupils in events that how a nationwide attraction opportunities schools in membership. standards. Currently, these events are: sight ofinrecent follow the with high standards. These events include: • It is the high ONLY organisation Britain which iseditions, dedicated Support and training in Prep Schools Support and training in Prep Schools

to the needs of teaching staff in Prep Schools. • SATIPS Challenge Knowledge quiz • SATIPS ChallengeAnnual (annualGeneral general knowledge quiz) • National Handwriting Competition, held in conjunction • Nationalconcerned Handwriting • SATIPS is absolutely to Competition cater for staff ranging with Cambridge University • Poetry Competition from NQT to Head of Department or Senior Press Leadership Team. • Poetry Competition • SATIPSKI We also aim to cover all age ranges from Nursery to Key Stage 3. • SATIPSKI the annual Ski competition • Annual Art Exhibition held at Hemel Hempstead indoor skiand centre SATIPS offers a four-part core of activities support: • Challenge Harry Paget (pagethar@papplewick.org.uk) • Annual Art Exhibition • National Handwriting Competition Paul Jackson (eajackson22@hotmail.com) Broadsheets • Poetry Competition Stephen Davies (shd@bryanston.co.uk) Full details of all these events areaatwide http://satips.org/competitions/ These are published each term, covering range of curriculum interests, as • SATIPSKI Gillian Gilyead (gilliangilyead@aol.com) well as specific concerns: eg Senior Management, Special Needs and Pre-Prep. • Annual Art Exhibition Alayne Parsley (A.Parsley@cheltenhamcollege.org) “Prep School” Magazine Full details of all these events are at http://satips.org/competitions “Prep School” is published three timesbya practising year. It offers readers Prep Schools Broadsheet articles are usually written Prep Schoolinteachers with a broad range of authoritative articles in ontheir educational matters with anwhatever emphasis occasional contributions from leaders field. This ensures that, Prep School Magazine on issues that concern all Prep Schools. the article is about, the reader can be certain that he or she will not only share ‘Prep School’ is published three times a year. It offers readers in prep schools a subject and age-group relevance but also cultural assumptions: eg parental broad range of authoritative articles onfurther educational issues. Whator next? seeking information? expectations whatJoining “works”.Satips Writingor articles for the Broadsheets encourages We are proud of what SATIPS offers. With all Council members and Officers staff to reflect on their classroom practice and curriculum development. stillWhat working in Prep Schools we believe we understand theinformation? demands on staff next? Joining SATIPS or seeking further working schools andteachers are here to support them.and We areare proud of what SATIPS offers. With allwho, Council members Officers Broadsheets edited byinPrep School with proven track records stillinworking in prep schools believe we understand the demands on staff their field, have takenweon the role of subject ambassador. Please working do contact us Broadsheets, if you would more information in school and are herelike to support them. For further information about the go to http://satips.org/ and, for or if we can be of any assistance. sight of recent editions, follow the links to “Specimen Broadsheets”. Chairman Chairman David Kendall Courses and INSET Lisa Newbould chair@satips.org SATIPS offers a wide range of training courses, Conferences chair@satips.org and other In-Service opportunities. Director of Education Courses can be accessed on the web-site at http://satips.org/courses/ Director Education Paulof Jackson Paulrange Jackson Courses are designed to cover aeducation@satips.org wide of interests. Attention is given to education@satips.org course feed-back which helps to shape our programme. School requests for training isDirector particularly encouraged. of Training Director of Training Sarah Kirby-Smith Sarahvetted. Kirby-Smith Course presenters are very carefully Our aim is always to make use of training@satips.org training@satips.org known experts in their field who are also first-class presenters. Members schools receiveGeneral a substantial discount on course fees. Secretary General Secretary Bill Ibbetson-Price Alec Synge gensec@satips.org GenSec@satips.org

Courses a SATIPS offers a wide range of and other In-Serv Courses can be accessed on the we

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articles for the Broadsheets encourages SATIPS and directory ractice and courses curriculum development. Officers Chairman David Kendall chair@satips.org

Finance Director Stephen Coverdale finance@satips.org

Vice Presidents

General Secretary Bill Ibbetson-Price gensec@satips.org

Director of Training Sarah Kirby-Smith sarahlks@gmail.com Director of Education Paul Jackson eajackson22@hotmail.com

Lisa Newbould (lanewbould@gmail.com)

Alayne Parsley (a.parsley@cheltenhamcollege.org)

Emma Goodbourn (nedgoodbourn@yahoo.co.uk)

Anna Wheatley (anna.wheatley@homefield.sutton.sch.uk)

Brenda Marshall (brendamarshall@supanet.com)

Paul Baker (bakerpabs@gmail.com)

Julie Keyes (jkeyes@polwhelehouse.co.uk)

Ben Moir (benmoir@hotmail.com)

Mark Middleton (markmiddleton@orwellpark.org)

Paul Mason (paulmason@crossfields.com)

teachers who, with proven track records he role of subject ambassador. adsheets, goofto http://satips.org/ and, for Members Council e links to “Specimen Broadsheets”. Trevor Mulryne & Richard Tovey MBE

and INSET SATIPS Broadsheet editors f training courses, Conferences vice opportunities. eb-site at http://satips.org/courses/

Art Jan Miller, Moreton Hall (millerj@moretonhall.com) Emiliana Damiani, Pinewood School (emilianadamiani@pinewoodschool.co.uk) Classics Nicholas Richards, Christ Church College (richards.n@cccs.org.uk) Design Technology Vacant Drama Stacie Bates, Walhampton School (s.bates@walhampton.com) English Charlotte Weatherley, Knighton House (charlotte.e.weatherley@gmail.com) Geography Ben Mono, Eagle House (ben.mono@eaglehouseschool.com) History Matthew Howorth, Twickenham Prep (mhoworth@twickenhamprep.co.uk) ICT Mark Templeman, Brockhurst and Marlston House Schools (m.templeman@brockmarl.org) Mathematics Matthew Reames (mreames@gmail.com) Modern Foreign Languages Richard Smith (tricks6543@gmail.com) Music Claire Tomsett, Edge Grove (ctomsett@edgegrove.com) Mark Penrose, Bilton Grange (msp@biltongrange.co.uk) Pastoral Development & PSHCE Jenny Burrett, Wishford Schools (jenburrett@gmail.com) Physical Education & Games Liz Myers (liz.myers@scholary.com) Pre-prep Emma Smith, Stamford Junior School (headjs@ses.lincs.sch.uk) RE Richard Lock, Wetherby Prep (richard.lock@wetherbyprep.co.uk) Science Luke Busfield, Ludgrove (emmaandluke154@btinternet.com) Senior management Christopher Parsons, Norwich Lower School (c-parsons@norwich-school.org.uk) Special Needs/Learning Development Claire Thurlby, St Faith’s, Cambridge (cthurlby@stfaith’s.co.uk) Classroom Management Mark Philpott, The Elms, Trent College (markypotts1@yahoo.co.uk)

range of interests. Attention is given to pe our programme. School requests for ularly encouraged.

vetted. Our aim is always to make use of Courses and events ho are also first-class presenters. bstantial discount on course fees. A selection of forthcoming courses from May 2019 onwards:

14/05/19 16/05/19 17/05/19 22/05/19

Independent Learning & Increased Pupil Initiative Wellbeing for Better Teaching Excellent Pupil Outcomes for all Students Leaders’ Day: Stress Management and Resilience Building for SLT

London London London London

For more information on this terms SATIPS courses please see the SATIPS website or contact the SATIPS Course Director These courses will run as training days in London, Bristol, Birmingham or York. The cost of the day courses includes follow-up project based work and one to one feedback. They are also available as inset days. Bespoke training packages for schools are available with discount for more than one course booked. For more information please email the team on training@satips.org or telephone 07584 862263.

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

Twenty years Join Dr Peter Kent as he reflects on 20 years as headteacher of Lawrence Sheriff School I was very touched and surprised by an assembly held last week to mark my 20 years as headteacher of Lawrence Sheriff School. I definitely had not seen the assembly coming and both my wife and I hugely appreciated the kind comments that were made. Hitting my 20 years as headteacher has left me to reflect more and more on the extent to which the job has changed since I first took over on the 1st of January 1999. To some extent the differences are profound. Believe it or not, email was not really around when I was appointed and my first task each day was to plough through my in-tray of written correspondence. My office was in a different location (at the front of the school where Mrs Scott is now based) and the school had a very different timetable, which included 80 minutes for lunch and us finishing the day at 3:45pm. The school was also smaller, with three forms of entry and a sixth form of around 200. There were fewer demands on my time beyond the boundaries of the school and for my first ten years as head, I was able to teach around a third of a timetable. I could go on with a long list of what is different in 2019 compared with 1999, ranging from government education policy to management structures and everything else in-between. In light of this, it may be rather surprising to hear that all of the change have â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in my view â&#x20AC;&#x201C; not altered the essential nature of the job. When I was deputy, my then boss Rex Pogson advised me that my key focus should always be on people and that advice still has considerable resonance 20 years on. Educational structures and organisation and assessment change at a dizzying speed. However, the need to remain focused upon the people who make up the organisation, whether it be pupils, staff, parents or former students, remains completely unaltered. In the end, education is not about data or targets or achieving all of the priorities in a development plan. Instead it has to be focused upon helping people to achieve their potential, whatever that might be. Looking back through my archive of First Words, in one of my very first pieces I wrote about the importance of intellectual freedom and the opportunity to pursue personal interests and the need to foster the joy and excitement and unpredictability that should be a part of education. From the perspective of 2019 those comments still go to the heart of what Lawrence Sheriff is all about. My focus and that of the school continues to be helping each individual achieve all that they are capable of. Compared to this aim, everything else remains a less important detail.

PREP SCHOOL Reflecting the best in the prep & junior school world

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