On testing

‘Science is curiosity, testing and experimenting.’

- Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

How on earth can testing help us feel good about our work? Well, when we put ourselves under a bit of pressure, to do something we find difficult, to go through where we might have got something wrong, we are able to clock very clearly how far we have come. Just one additional correct response helps us to realise that with a bit of application, stuff can stick and that we can get better.

This is how it works. We might read something which we need to be learning about. We then make notes of the key points. We then ask ourselves to describe the key points without going back to the original piece. How much did we remember, how much was missing? In the process of trying to recall we are doing two things. We  are setting up the conditions for the neural networks to be stronger, to make sense of the material, so that it remains in the long-term memory and we can recall it at a future date. The very process of testing ourselves, under the right conditions makes us brighter.

And the second thing that happens is that we can see very clearly just how far we have come. This is what I was able to recall at the beginning. Having checked, reread and tested myself again, I can see the difference. This builds resilience at the deepest level and provides the bedrock of hope that, with a bit of effort I can get better, I can see how I might improve this in the future. Daniel Willingham has written about how testing can improve performance, and interestingly, one of the findings from the small-scale research was that frequent testing resulted in less rather than more anxiety.

Tests are an unavoidable fact of life. Whether it is for a driving test, school examinations or professional qualifications they are an indicator of proficiency. A marker that something has been achieved. And they are usually dreaded because the stakes are high, either we pass or we don’t. But the kind of testing referred to here is the self-testing where no one is watching, no one is criticising and no one is making us feel inadequate. We are creating our own conditions for checking what we know, understand and can do. It is a private matter and no one is going to check whether we have passed or failed. This is the important distinction. Testing is being used as a deliberate tool to help us improve. And in doing so, help us to feel hopeful, not helpless. If I couldn’t grasp this before and now I can what happened? I put a bit of effort in and I improved. It is as simple as that.

How might this work in the classroom? Well the first thing is, that the high stakes element has to be removed. There should be no penalties for getting something wrong. This is just checking what we know and what we need to do to improve. Tests can provide a very concrete way for children and their teachers to see their progress. Particularly when the results are monitored over time. They are the fundamentals of ensuring that children have the basics. We couldn’t do our six times tables two weeks ago, but now we can.

The language around this is important. In talking about this work with children, it is important that this is not about failure it is about checking what we know, what we don’t know and to see how far we have come on the one hand, and how far we can go on the other.

The element of improvement and competitiveness needs to be set against what the child could or could not do before, and what they can do now. This is not about measuring children against one another. These are personal, not public, milestones. But they help to make the learning visible. The bottom line is, ‘I couldn’t do this before, and now I can.’

Making the progress visible is a fundamental aspect of supporting children to feel hopeful not helpless. It also helps to support meta-cognition and talking about the learning. What was it that made the difference between then and now? What did I do to get this level of progress? What was the effort I put in? What were the things I used to help me to get better? What does it feel like to see how far I have come? And in doing this, we support children to be hopeful, not helpless.

One of the ways to minimise the potential threat and fear of this, is to get children to set their own tests. What do they need to get sharper at? What do they need to improve? So, there might be a generic test for the whole class. And as a result of that, what do individual children need to practise to get right next time? This means that the teacher is holding the bigger picture, whether it is times tables or spellings and then allowing children to self-regulate by realising that there are some things which they need to go back and do again. This turns it into a journey of improvement rather than a shallow test. And it is deeply satisfying, because the evidence is there for the child as an individual to see and to take pride in their improvement.

There is no shame in not knowing something; there is only shame in not trying. It is in the trying that deep learning takes place, in the retrieval of information that secures long-term memory. And once the initial lack of confidence is overcome, it becomes deeply satisfying and as a by-product of that actually enjoyable. It moves from feeling hopeless to hopeful and is a way of working which will have implications beyond the classroom. We need to encourage our pupils to say ‘I just need to go back and revisit this’. Because it is in the revisiting that the learning goes deeper.

Hard won success

‘We shy away from hard work because inherent in hard work is risk. Hard work is hard because you might fail.’

- Seth Godin

Success feels sweet. But easy success is hollow. Feeling hopeful comes from knowing that we have done difficult things in the past and managed to do them well. And we surprised ourselves by achieving things we didn’t think we could do. When we trawl though our memories for the times when we thought something was beyond us and rerun it in our minds. It could

be related to our work, to our relationships or to something we do in our own time. Something which seemed really tricky, or uncomfortable, but we went ahead and did it anyway and surprised ourselves with the fact that it went well. This is securing our resilience and setting us up to be hopeful, not helpless for the next big thing.

It could be that we committed to doing a charity walk or run further than we have ever done before, and we just weren’t sure how it would go. But we took one step, and then another, and then another. And we did it. Often, with other people for company, doing the same thing. Think back to the feeling of what it was like to arrive at the finishing post. The feeling of exhausted pleasure at a hard job, well done. If we can do something like that in the past, we can translate those feelings of anticipation, tinged with fear before we started, to the pleasure or elation of finishing.

And we can apply that to the job we are facing now. That is how we grow, by extending the muscles and doing things which we haven’t done before, or going further than before. And it’s painful en route, but the sweet sensation of achievement more than compensates.

For many people, the fear of public speaking is on a par with the stress and sorrow of bereavement and divorce. They would rather do anything than stand up and talk to other people. But those who have felt the fear and done it anyway, also talk about the tremendous rush of adrenaline and pleasure which comes from going through the pain threshold, actually doing it and finding that they survived. So, it is hard won success. But it feels sweet. One of the things to remember about speaking to an audience, is that we talk to people all the time. And most of us are happy to talk to one or two people. Well, a large audience is made up of lots of individuals, so we just need to imagine that we are talking to one or two of them. Another thing to hold in mind is that most people are not out to catch us out. They are interested in what we have to say, and we don’t need to be word perfect. In fact, perfection puts people off.

Or we might have done something difficult in our spare time - learnt to ride a motorbike, grown vegetables, cooked a demanding dish, completed a difficult crossword or a challenging puzzle. These are all examples of successes which did not just land in our laps. We had to work at them, put some effort and sweat in and be prepared for them not to work. In other words, being prepared to take a risk. It is in these examples that we learn that success can only be hard one. Things which come too easily are not stretching and strengthening the muscles and sinews of resilience.

How does this translate into the workplace? Well, we shouldn’t make things too easy for ourselves, our colleagues or the children we are teaching. Otherwise we won’t savour the sweetness of success. It is in the struggle and the uncertainty that the real work goes on. And if things don’t work out as we hoped, then we learn from them. It is better to have tried and not got something than not to have tried at all. Being prepared to fail is one of the conditions for savouring success. Because if everything were certain, we would have no satisfaction when things go well.

Radical candour

When the work of any setting is underpinned by the principle of ‘humans first, professionals second’, something interesting happens: people are happy to be held to account. This is because they want to do their best work and because they know that any aspect of their practice can be critiqued because it is not an attack on them as a human being.

This distinction between the human being and the work is one of the most important things which characterise top leaders. Their warmth and humanity underpins everything that they do. But this never translates into soppiness or an unwillingness to take tough decisions. Or to have difficult conversations. And what they expect of other people, they expect of themselves as well. This is not a one way street but an open-ended agenda where only great work matters. And thoughtful leaders want to be held to account too.

Kim Scott has worked on the difference between feedback and guidance. ‘The single most important thing a boss can do, Scott has learned, is focus on guidance: giving it, receiving it, and encouraging it. Guidance, which is fundamentally just praise and criticism, is usually called “feedback,” but feedback is screechy and makes us want to put our hands over our ears. Guidance is something most of us long for.’

in high functioning settings people want to be held account for their work. But they don’t want to be made to feel like muppets. No-one wants to be made to feel like a muppet. However, top leaders understand that everyone wants to get better at what they do. It is one of the most rewarding things, to track our progress from novice to expert, from clumsy to proficient, from unsure to confident. But we don't do this on our own. We need people who are able to analyse what we are doing well so that we can do more of it and talk us through how things might be better. That’s when real efficiency comes into play because as we move from unconscious competence to conscious competence we internalise the best things about our practice so that they are second nature to us. But another interesting thing happens when we talk about the strengths and areas for development in our practice. They become concrete. They become solid and we are able to analyse just why something works well, not just have lunch that it does.

But there is a toughness underpinning this. This is not about soothing words when thing are not up to scratch. In high functioning settings, leaders create the conditions where it is not only acceptable but expected that critical guidance is there at regular intervals and also ad hoc. The healthiest settings are where people are confident to ask for this both formally and informally. ‘I tried this and it didn't work out the way I expected. What do you think?’

So how do leaders get to the point where colleagues and students are in this space of wanting constructive guidance to improve their work? Kim Scott argues that it has to be underpinned by a deep concern for the person first. ‘Humans first, professionals second’. She talks about her own mistakes, not least those she made when running her own company before she joined google. At Google she recounts how Sheryl Sandberg offered her some feedback after a presentation Kim had made to the board. She said to her ‘When you use ‘um’ every second or third word, it makes you sound stupid.’ ‘Would you like me to arrange a speaking coach to help you sort this?’ At first Kim was dismissive, she didn't think this was a problem. But Sandberg persisted. ‘No, you need to get this sorted, it makes you sound stupid.’ And that stopped Kim in her tracks. Note that she wasn't being told she was stupid, Sandberg said, it makes you sound stupid. Big Difference. This aspect of her work was not up to scratch, rather than she as a human being was stupid. Kim analysed what was going on here. Why was Sandberg insistent and why was Kim able to take the feedback in good grace? Because it had been underpinned by a deep personal concern for her as a human being. When she first arrived at the company, knowing no-one, Sandberg had invited her to her book group, she had encouraged her to take time out to care for a family member who was ill, she had shown in a many small ways that Kim mattered. As a human being. So when it came to giving her tough advice, the deep work had already been done. Without this, there would have been resentment, a total unwillingness to take on board the key message and a shutting down. So the two crucial aspects of this deep guidance were that Sandberg had built a bank balance of deep concern for Kim as a human being and had taken care to critique an aspect of her work rather than her as a human being. And the third thing was that this was done in private.

This links back to the attribute of human beings first, professionals second. The hard work of moving practice does not happen without the former. On the back of this, Kim developed her theory of radical candour. In her talk she is disarmingly honest about how she still suffers from the ‘um’ intrusion, but that it is better than before.

Sitting behind this is an effort made to support people to note the difference when they make improvements. Helping them to articulate what has changed for the better. Ron Berger in his example of invisible Austin and his famous butterfly, show how it is possible to do this with pupils and students of all ages. What Berger argues is that once any of us has experienced the deep satisfaction of high quality work, often over many drafts and changes, we will never be satisfied with less. The locus of high quality work shifts from being external, not that there is anything wrong with that - good grades, correct answers, pleasing the teacher, but to a deeper internal metric which consistently asks ‘Is this my best work, how can I improve it?’ And interestingly Berger uses the same process as that identified in radical candour. Making the feedback and guidance very specific, focusing on improvement of the work and without ever ever being mean about the person. Powerful stuff.

High challenge, low threat

We are a challenge seeking species. We all know someone, and it might even be us who spends some of their downtime working on a crossword, doing a sudoku, a puzzle or a word search. Why are we spending money and time on things which are essentially 'testing' ourselves? Companies make a small fortune out of the fact that we like 'testing' ourselves. What is that about? Is it because we enjoy the deep satisfaction of struggling with something, thinking hard about it, getting it wrong, going back and correcting it, realising our mistake and then getting it right?

Critical to this ‘testing’ is that it is done in private. No-one is watching, no-one is making us feel a muppet. We get cross with ourselves, but what’s different is that there is no-one out there pointing at us and making us feel inadequate. The struggle and the joy are personal, private things. And we choose whether to share our pleasure at having worked something out with others. Who are going to be pleased for us. We can tap into this deep satisfaction of grasping difficult things and doing them well. The struggle is part of the process. But what is crucial is that this is not a public, humiliating struggle which dehumanises the person, it is the private conversations we have with ourselves about what is working and what isn’t. The second strand to be considered here is that the circumstances are always low threat. No-one else can see our struggling to get the solution. No-one is pointing the finger. It is when we feel safe at this deep level that we are prepared to risk things and have a go.

If we are a challenge seeking species, how does this translate into practice? Many leaders talk about the challenge and why it is satisfying. And that sometimes we don't get the right answer, but the journey is always worth it, for the deep satisfaction and insights that it brings. And sitting alongside that is that notion that making mistakes are good. Health and safety aside, which of course must never be compromised, mistakes are a trigger for new learning. Increasingly we know from cognitive science that we need to learn something, forget it, come back and learn it again. As a result deep connections and are made. But it is in the struggle of the challenge, when we are working our imaginative muscles that the real work of learning takes place.

How does this translate into the classroom? The assumption is that we are hard-wired to enjoy challenging, interesting things to think about. This territory is characterised by dilemmas, problems, puzzles, questions that have no obvious, immediate answer. Underpinning this way of working is asking questions. So, many teachers are reframing their planning for learning around big questions. Big questions are a tease, because the answer is not there immediately. Learners have got to do some deep work to get there, often by trial and error. They offer these to their classes and ask them to consider what might be going on here. What are some of the questions we might have about this, what will we need to do to find out the answers? How are we going to get some deep work going?

The interesting thing about questions is that they have enormous power. Not only in terms of opening up a curriculum, but in terms of being highly motivating. If I have asked a question or pondered what might be going on, I have an incentive not only to find the answer but to persevere in the process. The answers matter because I have invested in the questions. This is what happens when high expectations for learning mean that we want to get to the meat of the matter and it is going to take some tough work to get there. But the questions asked provide the context for high challenge, low threat. There is no such thing as a stupid question, as long as it is legal, decent and honest and is related to the matter in hand.

Humans first, professionals second

‘When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That's when you can get more creative in solving problems.’

- Stephen Covey

This doesn't mean that everyone is their best friend, but it does mean that thoughtful leaders see the human being beyond the function. Men and women are more than their work. They have a life beyond the confines of the daily nine to five or whatever. They have the joys and the sadness which are the lot of every human being. While they might be put on hold when at work, they are still there in the background, bubbling away. This background doesn't need to be brought to the table but it does need to be acknowledged.

There is an excellent example of this in a Birmingham school. This head is never in his office, because he is out and about. He cares passionately about his school and everyone in it. At the start of the school day he is at the school gate an often in the street outside, urging students to come in, hurry up, get a move on. Because he doesn't want them to miss a moment of the good things that are in store for them. He sees them as humans first and students second. He cares about them as individuals, he knows that for many of them life is tough, but he makes no excuses. While they are with him and his colleagues, he makes it clear that he enjoys their company and expects them to do well.

This is a feature of many top leaders. A combination of warmth and tough love. Another head, a towering personality, exudes a warmth and a critical concern for all he works with and teaches. He cares about them as human beings first and as professionals second. I once saw this through a window as he spoke to a student. I couldn't hear the conversation but I could see the expression on his face. He addressed the student sternly, asked her a few questions, waited for her response and managed a smile in his eyes. She turned on her heels and headed back to where she was meant to be going. It was a moment of ‘extreme’ care. And it said, get cracking with what you are meant to be doing, stop bunking your lesson. You matter and your work matters. the subtext was, you are a human being and your success matters to me.

Teachers do this when they are waiting for their students to arrive. Whether they are standing at the door as they come in to the lesson, or are already inside, they convey a warmth which says I am glad you are here, I’m glad you are in my lesson, we are going to be doing some interesting things today. The temperature is different in these places. There is still the liveliness and bustle and boisterousness of a lot of young people making either way around a school, but there is a tangible sense of purpose because everyone knows they matter.

Now the teacher is able to do this because she knows that she matters. She may be lucky enough to have this sense of mattering in her personal life. She also knows that this is a place where she matters. So how does this happen? It is not always put into words but it more often felt. She knows that her headteacher values her not just for the professional skills she brings to the job but for the individual that she is. How is it possible to pull this off in a large setting? Whether it is large or small, the principles are the same. The tone is set by the leader at the top, who knows that power must be underpinned by authority. And while power comes with the role, authority comes from the consistency and humanity with which a leader goes about his daily business. Everyone matters, and that means everyone, including teaching assistants, cleaning staff, lunchtime staff and caretakers. And it goes without saying that the students and parents are included in ‘everyone’. There are a number of things that top leaders do to achieve this. First they know everyones names. How is this possible in a setting with over 1000 students and adults in it? Well they make the decision that this is important, so they make it happen. What I have noticed is that the leaders who make the effort to know everyone’s names occasionally forget them. This seems not to matter because people realise that they are making the effort.

They know the names not only of all their staff, naturally, but they also make a point of noting something about their personal lives too. They are skilled in knowing the right information to refer to. Things like: ‘How did your son’s sports trials go?’, ‘How is your daughter getting on at university?’, ’How’s the allotment going?’, ‘Are things ok?’. They are investing in the wider part of the human being, beyond their work. And the impact of this? Everyone knows that they are valued, why would they want not to do their best or work anywhere else? They are being affirmed at the deepest level and it is a deeply satisfying thing to experience.

At a classroom level, teachers invest time either at the beginning of a term or meeting a class for the first time by getting to know their students. This is done, not just to make the running of the classroom smoother but to make a deeper connection with the young people they are working with. They know that the people in front of them are more important than the piece of paper which is their lesson plan. This need not take long, but it signals an attitude about the way we do business here. It says ‘You matter, I matter and together we are going to be doing important work.’

The leaders working to the principles of humans first, professionals second are not agony aunts. They are not everyone’s best friend. They don’t think it is their duty to sort out everyone’s problems, but they are saying ‘You matter, I appreciate you and I know you will do your best work here.’

What happens is that there is a ‘bank balance’ which of goodwill. And it means that when it needs to be drawn on for tough conversations, there are always tough conversations, the underlining message is that ‘You’re ok but this aspect of your work needs addressing, so what are we doing to do about it?’

They distinguish the work from the human being. They know that it is possible to be robust but kind. But the kindness always comes first.

Revisiting the curriculum without levels

‘There are a number of compelling reasons for levels being dropped.’

- Professor Tim Oates.

A reminder that levels were removed from the National Curriculum seven years ago. There were several reasons for this: first, they had become disconnected from their original purpose, which had been to create a system which would show progress through a curriculum. But, in spite of their good intentions, they were used for purposes for which they were never intended. They were only ever ‘best fit indicators’ to describe standards at the end of a key stage; they were not able to provide information about what a pupil could or could not do, they were never designed to be broken down into sub-levels or for fine measures of progress, their use often meant that pupils were rushed through content due to the cliff-edge threshold between levels, they gave a false impression of parity between subject and they implied that progress is linear. As Jamie Pembroke argues, ‘progress is catching up, filling gaps, deepening understanding, and overcoming barriers. As much as we'd like it to, can all this really be accurately represented by a single, simple, linear point scale?’ And there were real problems when they became connected to performance management, because teachers were under pressure to ‘show’ progress through improving and rising scores on spreadsheets, which might often mask significant gaps in learning.

Two examples to exemplify this; Shaun Allison, deputy headteacher at the Durrington School: ‘I was observing somebody who came for a job interview at our school.  During the lesson he said the following: “If your target is a level 5, you can try the extension task.” Now, I’m sure many of us have said similar, but if we unpick that statement, it’s not useful.  Why should we limit deep thinking to those students who have managed to acquire the arbitrary label of a level 5? Why not seek to challenge all students to think more deeply? The second was from a headteacher, reflecting on the presentation on our approach: “Thinking about it, our KS3 teacher assessments are always bang on target or above… but our GCSE results are awful!” This speaks for itself. Levels haven’t really provided us with accurate assessment information.’

The removal of levels in the latest curriculum allows schools to move to a model based on focused assessment of the specifics of the curriculum. As chair of the expert panel that reviewed the National Curriculum between 2010 and 2013, Tim Oates studied many high performing jurisdictions across the world and found a common theme among them was that primary school age children studied fewer things in greater depth. ‘They secured deep learning in central concepts and ideas. Assessment should focus on whether children have understood these key concepts rather than achieved a particular level.’ There continues however, to be a problem, particularly at Key Stage 3, where assessments are linked to the criteria for GCSE. These statements were only ever intended to be used as descriptors for the final exam, they were never meant to be criteria for judging work in earlier key stages. What seems to have happened is that in attempting to prepare younger pupils for the demands of the GCSE, there has been undue focus on the generic skills, rather than concentrating on the content to be learnt for that key stage. As Daisy Christodoulu says, ‘Curriculum planning and its formative assessment should be structured around mastery of the building blocks, not ‘retrofitted’ to the test structure and requirements.’[1]

So, the new curriculum provides far more specific age-related content with an increased expectation of attainment. The question in relation to assessment is simple: if I have taught it, have they got it? And if not, how do I know? And it is here that questions are helpful. For example, with multiple choice questions, pupils will identify the correct answer or answers if they truly understand the distinctions in the range of possible answers. Daisy Christodoulou has some helpful examples which show the power of thoughtful questions. In one version: which of the following words can be used as a verb?
a) run
b) tree
c) car
d) person
e) apple

It is likely that the majority of pupils will get the correct answer. However, a more nuanced response to pupils’ understanding is likely to emerge from a question such as:

In which sentences is ‘cook’ a verb?

a) I cook a meal.
b) He is a good cook.
c) The cook prepared a nice meal.
d) Every morning, they cook breakfast.
e) That restaurant has a great cook.

And it is in the discussion about the correct answers which both support the identification of misconceptions and secure deeper learning. It is the use of these which provides clearer insights into what pupils really understand.

The second area which needs to be considered relates to comparative judgement. Instead of the artificiality of vague criteria, we look at pupils’ work and make judgements about which is better. This calls on the innate professional knowledge of teachers and, when carried out at scale, across a school or nationally, it provides a greater degree of reliability and locates the quality in the actual work itself. The work on comparative judgement is still being developed and it might not be suitable for every part of the curriculum. The greatest benefit is that it gets teachers talking about the features of quality work and how these might be developed in their own classrooms. Jen Reynolds, a teacher and adviser, has written about how she has worked with local schools to make judgements about the quality of pupils’ written work. There are a number of promising aspects to the comparative judgement work - teachers reading lots of work by children from other schools, being able to see how the work of their own classes compares with others, a clear picture of what strong work looks like and what gaps might need to be addressed, and a real sense of professional collaboration rather than suspicion and defensiveness, which sometimes characterises moderation sessions. Comparative judgement meets the criteria for a curriculum without levels.

And in thinking about the curriculum without levels, we need to remember this, from Tim Oates ‘every child, with the right support, is capable of anything.' 

[1] Christodoulou, D. (2017) Making Good Progress: the future of formative assessment 

Thoughts on assessment

‘Assessment is, indeed, the bridge between teaching and learning.’

- Dylan Wiliam.

 The word ‘assessment’ comes from the Latin ‘to sit alongside’. Now, it is not realistic for us to sit alongside every pupil. But it does have something to tell us about how we might think about assessment - that it is the process of gaining insight into what our pupils know, understand and can do as a result of what we have taught them. In doing this, we will have greater insight into what appears to have been learnt, what needs to be consolidated or revisited and where the gaps are.

If the purpose of robust curriculum planning is to ensure that pupils are taught the demanding aspects of a topic, then checking whether they have got it needs to be done through assessment. There are formal and informal ways of doing this. Not all results of assessment instruments need to be captured on spreadsheets or other documents. But whether documented formally or not, the information should be fine-tuning the next stages in learning.

At its lightest touch, assessment can be done through talk. In fact, I would argue that assessment for learning involves high-quality conversations about learning and then acting on that information. Dylan Wiliam, whose work was instrumental in driving assessment for learning in schools, said ‘responsive teaching’ is one side of the coin: I have taught something and I need to know whether my pupils have ‘got it’ and to what depth? The information I gain from this light-touch assessment will determine where the learning and the work go next. It is through the ‘to and fro’ of questioning conversations in the classroom that I know not only whether pupils have completed something, but whether they have understood and are able to apply it in different contexts. There are very effective ways of developing this across a class - the work done by Alex Quigley[1] on techniques such as A, B, and C. The teacher asks a question, one pupil gives an answer (A) a second pupil builds on it (B) and a third either contradicts or contributes (C). Building this kind of structure during lessons, with no hands up, so that any child, within reason,[2] can be asked a question without warning, ensures that all are kept on their toes, and have to listen to one another’s answers in order to be able to contribute. If, as a result of doing something like this, I find that pupils are able to respond with A and B but have less to either contradict or make further contributions, then I will realise that there is more to do. Conversely, if all seem secure, then I will make the decision to move on. The second side of the assessment for learning coin is this: what pupils will do differently as a result of the feedback: how will they change their work and how will I know?

If the purpose of this light-touch assessment is to provide information about where to go next, then this is formative assessment. The critical thing is that it provides information about where the gaps are and also what can be celebrated, in terms of the distance travelled - so that we and our pupils are able to say we didn't know that before and now we do. And there is still this to be grappled with and understood. Whatever information is gathered and whatever feedback is given to pupils, the important thing is that they act on it.

Too much feedback is generic and imprecise, such as ‘use more imaginative vocabulary in your writing.’ Well, the pupil would have used more imaginative vocabulary if they’d known that more imaginative vocabulary was available. Without the prompts for the missing links, pupils are likely to be adrift.

More formal, but still low stakes assessments, are also part of the assessment process. For example, pupils sit vocabulary tests, times tables tests and key terms recall, and all provide opportunities for checking whether something has been learnt. The most powerful way, identified by Dylan Wiliam, is for the results of these sorts of tests to be private to the pupil. They need to be reassured that there is no shame in getting things wrong, because, with practice, that is how we learn. It is in the process of trying to recall an answer that the learning, in other words, what is remembered, becomes stronger. Both multiple-choice and short-answer quizzes enhance later performance.[3]

It also appears that if we get an answer incorrect, our neural pathways are more sensitive to finding the correct answer. So, the paradox is that learning is often more powerful, albeit uncomfortable, when we get things wrong and search out the correct answer, than when we get something correct in the first place. If pupils know this, they are likely to persevere longer with knowing and remembering things. A further benefit of this light-touch but efficient way of assessing is that it demands revisiting. And it is the revisiting, over time, which secures the learning in the long-term memory.

A further benefit of assessment is that it is possible to see the distance travelled. It is deeply rewarding to see the difference in knowledge and proficiency at the start of a course or unit of work, as we make progress through it and at the end. When we consider examples like Austin’s Butterfly, we can see that through careful critique and feedback, those basic attempts, refined and practised over time, become solid pieces of work. It was in the assessing, discussion and reworking that the impressive piece of work was produced. This would not have been possible without thoughtful, sensitive and robust assessment.

[1] https://www.theconfidentteacher.com/2013/12/disciplined-discussion-easy-abc/

[2] Caveat here: I would not call on a pupil if I knew they had been recently bereaved, for example. But I would check that they were paying attention.

[3] [PDF] Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 20, 3-21.[PDF]

Developing expertise

‘True intuitive expertise is learned from prolonged experience with good feedback on mistakes.’

- Daniel Kahneman.

 If we are serious about the curriculum, we need to think about how pupils develop expertise. There is a paradox to this, and it links to mastery - if we are expert at something or have mastered something, the conundrum is that we realise how much there still is to know and understand. At its heart, expertise is knowing something really well; the nuts and bolts and are able to show this in different contexts.

This will look different for different age groups, but underpinning expertise will be pupils’ ability to describe the key elements of what they have learnt, in their own words, and to show how this can be applied in different contexts. A child in Key Stage 1 will be an expert in story-telling if they are creating stories using their own ideas, with correct spellings, punctuation and grammar. It will be recognisably individual to them, rather than something which has been heavily scaffolded and similar to every other piece of work in the class. This doesn't happen overnight, and scaffolding will need to be in place at the early stages, but these should be removed as soon as possible so that the child’s own unique take on the subject can emerge.

If every child in the class is producing work which is remarkably similar and if they are not able to articulate what they have learnt in their own words and in their writing, then it is unlikely that they have developed in that topic. They are likely to be parroting back what the teacher has said and completing identical worksheets or closed writing frames, which mask the limitation of what they know. At a superficial glance, it might appear that they have ‘got it’, but a brief conversation with them will reveal whether this is the case or not. And quite often it isn’t. Too many children, when asked what they are doing in a lesson and why they are doing it, are not sure. Their eyes swivel back to the board and the learning objectives , which they repeat back, word for word. When this happens and they are not able to describe what they are doing and why, in their own words, they are not in the process of developing expertise.

Developing expertise is messy. Not every child will do it the same way. The unique products, namely what children say and write, are the ways in which teachers find out whether they have really understood. This applies whether it is the basic nuts and bolts of spelling, punctuation and grammar or explaining their working-out in maths, writing an account of rainforests in geography or a piece of creative writing in English. The difference between superficial and deep learning is an important one; it can appear as though a child has produced a lot of work, but it is possible that they are completing the tasks set rather than being shown how they can be deeply learnt.

The route to deep learning and expertise is, to quote Tim Oates, fewer things in greater depth [1]. When the curriculum is offered in this way, without an overload of props and activities, we have the chance to get to deep learning and the development of expertise. When we produce too many resources or plan too many activities, these can become proxies for learning. It is possible to be convinced that learning has taken place because so much has happened. In fact, what has really happened is that plenty of activities have taken place and without the slower, tentative conversations about what the heart of the matter really is, this can create a false impression of busyness masquerading as learning. The text, the source material, the scientific artefacts and the maths should have the limelight. It is tempting to dumb things down, to make them easy and accessible, but if every child is entitled to a rich and demanding curriculum, they need to be provided with and guided through the hard stuff.

If everything is easy, it is hard for learning to take place. Expertise comes through the struggle of not knowing everything, having sufficient support and making sense of it on our own terms. This is not about letting children flounder, it is rather about providing them with high-quality material and supporting them to get to grips with it and apply it in new settings. When starting something new, scaffolding needs to be there so that unnecessary time isn't wasted, but if that scaffolding remains too long, it prevents deep learning and expertise from taking place. This is because it is easy to become reliant on the structures rather than dealing with the discomfort which comes from having a go and not getting it.

The second condition which needs to be in place is sufficient time. When something complicated is expected to be covered in one or two lessons, it is very unlikely that expertise can be developed. Without the longer periods, over time, it is unlikely that the deep, intellectual architecture can be developed. This deep space is like a bucket which holds the big ideas of the aspect of the curriculum which is being learnt. If this is done properly, it means that new knowledge can be added quickly. Without the deep work, the new knowledge floats around without any organising structure to it. So what might seem time-consuming at the start is actually an investment in time, so that when more detail and knowledge is added, it links to existing earlier knowledge, which is held together in the deep structure. For example, if we have paid enough attention to helping children understand new material, when they come to see new data and information about the subject, they are able to make sense of it and discuss it in the new context, because the connections have already been made.

[1] http://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/insights/national-curriculum-tim-oates-on-assessment-insights/

Curriculum pace

‘The slow philosophy is not about doing everything in tortoise mode. It's less about the speed and more about investing the right amount of time and attention in the problem so you solve it.’

- Carl Honoré.

‘Curricular materials in high-performing nations focus on fewer topics, but also communicate the expectation that those topics will be taught in a deeper, more profound way...’[1] If we are to do justice to the curriculum, we need to take the right amount of time. The pressure to rush through the material was one of the drawbacks of the previous version - it encouraged speed at the expense of depth, swiftness of coverage over security of that coverage and superficial knowledge at the expense of deep understanding. It is fair to say that the latest curriculum is more demanding and that the orders for English and maths expect children to have mastered aspects from an earlier age than they had previously. However, for all other subjects, apart from history, the content coverage is much less. Somehow, however we have got it into our heads that fast is good and slow is bad.

There was a time when some schools were encouraged to inject more pace into lessons and that was because the thread of the lesson was drifting, and, in some cases, it was sluggish, with too little being expected of pupils. However, most of that has been eradicated and instead speed trumps more thoughtful ways through the curriculum. One way of thinking about this is by considering the curriculum as a banquet. In this analogy, the gifts of the subjects are offered and opened up to children. But because speed is the trump card, they do not have enough time to do more than taste a few elements and if they do swallow some of it, they get indigestion because they are being moved quickly on to the next ‘course’. If we are to honour the curriculum and children’s learning, we need to think of pace differently - pace needs to be appropriate to the learning. There will be times when it is appropriate to move on quickly, but only because it is clear that the children have got it and now need something additional. Mostly, however, things need to slow down. It is simply not possible to work through a curriculum at break-neck speed. All that happens is that the destination is reached, but without any of the necessary equipment or indicators to be able to say whether it had been a successful journey or not.

When pace is privileged over security of content, there is often some confusion between the work and the learning and it goes something like this: well, we have done it, so they should have got it. But between the doing and the being able to say that they have got it, lessons need to slow down so that the curriculum matter can be properly digested. And this can only be done through talk, discussion, making mistakes and addressing misconceptions. Mistakes need to be celebrated as the launchpad for new learning - if all our pupils understand things the first time round then the work is probably too easy. And the demands of the new curriculum, which require greater depth, mean that it is no longer reasonable or realistic to plough on at great speed.

What are we doing when we slow down? We are not talking here about going at a snail’s pace, but at the appropriate pace for deep learning. When we get this right, we are allowing pupils to engage with material - this should be source material wherever possible, either extracts or full texts, according to the ages of the pupils - to go through unfamiliar words, talk about them in context, check for pupils’ understanding of these terms and ask them to make sense of the material.

In fact, in everything we do, we should be getting to the heart of the matter. And it is the appropriate use of pace which allows us to help our pupils to go deeper and learn better. To really take this to heart and put it into practice, it means that we do not take superficial, one-word answers, but expect pupils to explain their reasons, to listen carefully to their responses and to expect other pupils to do so, and ask them whether they agree or not. If we are helping our children to infer as well as to take on board surface details, we need to probe, to check what they are thinking and to see if their peers agree. One way to make this more efficient is to ask the pupils to talk in pairs about what they understand the key points to be. While this is happening, it is possible to wander round the room, listening to what they say. Then, when it is time to bring things together, it is possible to highlight some of the things which have been heard: ‘I noticed that you focused on this, can you tell us why? What do the rest of you think?’ and ‘Over here, I’m not sure that you understood the question correctly. What do you think it means? Do the rest of you agree?’

By slowing down and going deeper, we not only make things more meaningful for children, we are also able to select fewer resources, which we explore in depth, rather than racing through a pile of irrelevant material.

[1] Schmidt, W. & Prawat, R. (2006) ‘Curriculum Coherence and national control of education: issue or non-issue?’ Journal of Curriculum Studies vol38 (no6) pp. 641-658

Beautiful work

‘The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.’

- Elbert Hubbard

A few questions: do we provide enough opportunities for our pupils to produce beautiful work? Do they have the chance to polish and refine something? Are they clear about what good work looks like? Have they been inspired by the finished work of others? How often do pupils get the chance to produce work for a real audience? Are there opportunities for multiple drafts, punctuated with honest and specific feedback? The schools which do this are providing their pupils with something important - authentic work of high quality, something that pupils can be proud of.

Again, how often do pupils have access to the highest quality materials for their final work? In a Reception class in a school in Birmingham, I noticed that children were using artist-quality pastels. What was the rationale behind this? The response was interesting: if we want our pupils to produce beautiful work, we need to make sure they have the best materials. They know that these are used by professional artists. This means they take care of them, do not waste them and are inspired to do their best work. And the expense? Well, we’d rather have fewer things of the highest quality…

The notion of ‘beautiful work’ has been championed by Ron Berger, who argues that it is possible both to meet standards and create authentic work. Underpinning this is the idea that children’s work should be honoured. It should be of the highest quality and it should also have an audience. ‘Once a pupil creates work of value for an authentic audience beyond the classroom - work that is sophisticated, accurate, important and beautiful - that student is never the same. When you have done quality work, deeper work, you know you are always capable of doing more.’[1]

The beautiful work exemplified by Austin’s butterfly[2] did not happen overnight. Underpinning beautiful work is the imperative to draft, take feedback which is precise, robust and kind, redraft and repeat. Then we are ready to showcase to the world. The key takeaway from Austin’s butterfly has been focused on the drafting and the quality of the final piece. However, it is also worth noting that this work was for a purpose: for many years, pupils in this school studied birds, and created beautiful note cards with a scientific illustration of a bird on the front and information about the bird on the back. Those cards were printed on quality card, bundled in boxed sets and sold in the community and throughout the state, including at state rest stops on highways; all the profits were used to support preservation of bird habitats.[3] And so we have the criteria here which are twofold: quality work and a real audience.

There are samples of high-quality work collected on the Models of Excellence site. One, for example, where pupils aged 13-14 created a book for younger pupils, featuring original fables and accompanied by cut-block print illustrations.[4] The students studied the genre of fables, wrote personal narratives to surface issues in their own lives and created animal protagonists and stories to embed those issues in fables with helpful morals. This involved considerable practice, as they only had one chance to compose the woodcut. What is important about this is that pupils were producing both high-quality literary and artistic work. The rules and criteria for each discipline were adhered to. This, and other examples, show how academic standards can be reached from work that is deeply artistic and connects the heart to learning.

If we want to produce more beautiful work, should we think more about the quality and quantity of worksheets, most of which do little to promote beautiful work, or should we be investing instead in high-quality sketchbooks, for example? While these are designed for art, they also make great resources for showcasing beautiful work. Work that is original, that represents the fruits of considerable labour and which are worth keeping. How much of pupils’ work gets thrown away at the end of an academic year? What does this say about the sector’s attitude to learning? And if funds are tight, there are electronic tools for capturing beautiful work, such as Book Creator[5] and Explain Everything.[6]

This is not to make the case that every lesson needs to produce a final produce of beautiful work. Rather it is the opposite: that there should be opportunities across the curriculum for this quality to take place, over time. It is a worthwhile endeavour not just for pupils, but for adults as well. It shifts the landscape, it raises the game and it means that we have to continually ask, is this the best it can be? It’s a question worth asking: What do standards actually look like when met with integrity, depth, and imagination?

[1] https://www.edutopia.org/blog/deeper-learning-student-work-ron-berger

[2] https://vimeo.com/159082211

[3] http://modelsofexcellence.eleducation.org/projects/austins-butterfly-drafts

[4] http://modelsofexcellence.eleducation.org/resources/wolf-would-forgive-illuminating-standards-video

[5] https://bookcreator.com/

[6] https://explaineverything.com/

Curriculum products

‘I might have taught it, but have they got it?’

- Mary Myatt

There is a joke about two men in a bar. One says to his friend, ‘I’ve taught my dog to speak French.’ ‘Really?’ says his mate, ‘let’s hear him then.’ ‘I said I taught him, I didn’t say he’d learnt it’ comes the response. There is something important in this anecdote and it is this: the fact that I have taught something does not mean that my pupils have ‘got’ it. And they are unlikely to have really learnt something unless they produce something worthwhile with the material they are studying.

In the video explaining the rationale for the National Curriculum, Tim Oates talks about curriculum ‘products’.[1] When he talks about products he means the things which pupils write, say or draw, the low stakes tests they complete or the things they make. All these provide insights for the teacher into the extent to which pupils know, understand and can do something on their own terms.

First, let’s consider writing. In many parts of the sector, there is a temptation to get through the writing as fast as possible. A written piece of work requires considerable background knowledge, discussion of that knowledge and rehearsal in order for it to come together. Too often, pupils are set off on a writing task without sufficient ‘food’. By food, I mean the stimulus, exposure to and discussion of vocabulary, use of spelling, punctuation and grammar to support meaning and modelling by the teacher. English teacher Matthew Pinkett has quite rightly said, ‘Showing kids a pre-prepared model answer and asking them to write a paragraph off the back of it is no different from showing them a picture of duck a l’orange and sending ‘em to the kitchen to knock one up. Teachers must get in the habit of live modelling whenever it is required.’ [2]

Writing is slow and it is difficult. But when pupils are supported and guided through the writing process carefully, the product of writing is likely to reflect what they really understand.

So we need to move away from the temptation for children to complete work which might not be original to them, such as completing closed questions on a worksheet, for example, and to conclude that they have understood, just because they have completed it. Completion of a task and understanding are not the same thing, but they are often confused. So a child is praised for having finished, before it has been checked whether they have understood it or not.

Next, let’s move on to what children say. It is the responses pupils give which provide insight into whether they have understood something. If we are going to find this out, we have to spend time during the lessons asking children questions and listening carefully to their answers. This needs to happen more. Under the pressure of time, it is tempting to either take the first correct answer from one or two children and assume that everyone has ‘got’ it; or to complete some of the answers if they are struggling; or to take incomplete or partial answers and assume that they know the rest. What quite often happens is that children are praised for an incomplete answer and then the lesson moves on. This is not good, on several counts. First, the teacher’s information is incomplete - in the rush to move on to the next part of the lesson, the brief incomplete response is taken to have more significance than it does; it is nothing more than an incomplete response and there is not enough information to judge whether to move on or not. The second reason it is not good enough is because we often need to rehearse and say our thoughts out loud before committing them to paper. As James Britton argued, ‘writing floats on a sea of talk.’[3] So by shortcutting the responses we not only have incomplete information about the security of children’s learning, we are also denying them the chance to practise articulating their thoughts. And the third reason why it is not good enough is because pupils have the right to have their ideas heard by others. By moving on too swiftly, we are cutting down their ability to refine their language and to deepen their understanding.

The importance of speaking is emphasised in the National Curriculum for English. We are doing our children a disservice if we do not both provide them with opportunities and also expect them to articulate their ideas. Many children come from backgrounds which are language poor. If we either expect partial answers, or don't ask them to speak out loud in full sentences, using subject specific vocabulary, then we are denying them the opportunity both to engage deeply with the material and also to perform well in the subject when it comes to exams.

In some, but not all, areas it is possible to gain an insight into children’s thinking through their artwork or artefacts. If they have made a representation of a key idea from literature, or history, or science through sketching or through creating something and are able to talk about what they have produced and how it relates to the subject matter, then it follows that we can gain information about what they understand and where the gaps might be.

Many schools are now experimenting with thinking about real audiences for children’s work. Much of what is asked of children in schools requires isolated knowledge and skills. While there is nothing wrong with this per se, the purpose of learning takes on a new dimension when we ask ourselves, where could this go, who else needs to know about this, are there links we could make with this knowledge with the wider community and who might be an external audience for what we have done?

These are some of the things they are doing: creating a class blog, preparing an exhibition with detailed notes for visitors, preparing samples of their work for governors, taking part in local and national competitions, linking with the local community on arts and environmental projects, younger children sharing their work with older pupils, and vice versa, asking family to come into school to see their work. Children are only able to engage with these wider audiences if they have something authentic to share, based on solid foundations of deep knowledge.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q5vrBXFpm0

[2] https://twitter.com/Positivteacha/status/950265654564806656

[3] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Language-Learning-J-Britton/dp/0870241869/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Some principles for planning

‘A good plan is like a road map: it shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there.’

- H. Stanley Judd

Planning is critical and it is fundamental in providing the structure and architecture for pupils’ learning. Results are better when teachers are given time to plan together on a scheme. This should identify the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of the content to be taught. Best practice in planning starts with an overarching question, ideas for opening up the content and the things to be taught over the medium term. These constitute the big picture and framework for what is to be taught. They are the roadmap. This is a useful metaphor for thinking about the curriculum to be taught. A roadmap shows the destination, but provides a number of routes to get there. This allows for teachers’ autonomy in the delivery of the scheme as it unfolds, lesson by lesson. When good-quality schemes of work are in place, they should reduce teacher workload.

The Department for Education’s workload review group on planning and resources [1] identified planning a sequence of lessons as more important than writing individual lesson plans. So what leaders can do to support this aspect of the workload challenge is to stop asking for detailed daily lesson plans, if that is current practice. It is essential for leaders to have conversations with colleagues about the difference between ‘lesson planning’ and ‘lesson plans’. The only situation where daily lesson plans might be an expectation is when senior leaders are supporting a colleague via coaching. Here, precise planning might be needed to improve practice, in which case the plans should be prepared jointly with the senior leader as coach, as part of the larger scheme of work.

The most compelling reason for moving away from compulsory daily lesson plans is that not only are they not necessary, but they can get in the way of the bigger ‘flow’ of the sequence of learning. As leaders, this might appear risky. So, let’s be clear about why it might not be risky to do away with daily lesson plans. First of all, what do lesson plans tell senior leaders that they don’t already know? If they have an overview and indeed have had some input into some of the longer-term plans, they do not need a detailed lesson plan to tell them this. If they are honest, how many leaders read the individual lesson plans from every teacher? In a school with ten teachers and five lessons a day, that would be about 250 plans to check; with 100 teachers, 2,500 to check. Each week. Are any senior leaders doing this, seriously? And if they are, wouldn’t the time be better spent going in to the actual lessons to see how things are going? Not as lesson observations, or learning walks, but simply by walking about. And offering support if needed and affirmation for work well done. How much more powerful than reading all those plans, which often bear little relation to what is happening in the classroom.

Second, senior leaders might deem it too risky to do away with lesson plans because they believe that they might be needed for an inspection. However, Ofsted has been made clear in the clarification for schools section in the 2019 School Inspection Handbook where it says that the clarification is ‘to dispel myths about inspection that can result in unnecessary workload in schools. It is intended to highlight specific practices that we do not require: how planning (including curriculum and lesson planning) should be set out, the length of time it should take or the amount of detail it should contain’.

Apart from anything else, time is so tight on an inspection that there wouldn’t be time to read files of lesson plans. The only thing which inspections comment on is impact - the impact of the delivery of curriculum plans on children’s learning. It would be technically possible to have perfect plans, which do not translate into meaningful practice for children in the classroom. And the danger of this is that it is possible to be seduced into thinking that the piece of paper is the work, when in fact it is the action in the classroom.

Third, senior leaders might believe it is risky to stop insisting on lesson plans as they will have less control and view of quality assurance. But this is like a restaurant checking that all the orders have been placed so that dishes can be prepared. It suggests that the paperwork is more important than the meals that eventually end up in the restaurant. Any decent restaurant will check on the final product and tweak it to make it better, rather than thinking that the process stops at the ordering. So, for those leaders reluctant to let go of the safety net of lesson plans, they might want to trial it for half a term, then check what difference it makes not having them. Those schools which have done this have found that the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom goes up, not down. It is a case of fewer things done in greater depth.

Given the above, one of the recommendations in the ‘Report of the Independent Teacher Workload Review’ is that ‘senior leaders should consider the cost benefit of creating larger blocks of time for this practice to make the planning activity as productive as possible and reduce the amount of time spent by individual teachers on individual planning.’ As John Hattie says, ‘planning can be done in many ways, but the most powerful is when teachers work together to develop plans, develop common understandings of what is worth teaching, collaborate on understanding their beliefs of challenge and progress, and work together to evaluate the impact of their planning on student outcome.’[2]

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/teacher-workload-planning-and-resources-review-group

[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reducing-teacher-workload-planning-and-resources-group-report

Leadership of the curriculum

‘A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.’

- John C. Maxwell

There are a number of things which leaders need to take account of when thinking about the curriculum.  The first is that the curriculum is more than subjects on a timetable; the second is that the national curriculum is not a scheme of work and the third is that colleagues need time to plan, to collaborate and to reflect. The role of leaders is to know what the curriculum is for, how it is constructed and what content is covered. The work of Christine Counsell in unpacking the key questions to be asked is fundamental to supporting leadership of the curriculum. Her blog posts are essential reading for all leaders as they consider the quality and purpose of the curriculum in their settings.[1]

To take the first, namely that the curriculum is more than the subjects on a timetable. Leaders need to know the quality of the content of what is being taught. It is not an easy task to do this with subjects which are not the leaders’ own subject specialisms. This is where they need to trust the subject leaders as specialists and to have conversations with them about what is being taught and the rationale for it being included. This should not be ad hoc. It is one of the most important aspects of quality assurance which will ensure that pupils receive their entitlement to a broad, rich offer. Tom Boulter, deputy head for curriculum has written about the importance of taking a close interest in the detail of the curriculum. ‘We run meetings three times each year between myself, faculty leadership and the SLT link for that area. One of these meetings is dedicated entirely to curriculum at KS3, and involves listening to and discussing the rationale for the specific content being delivered, and the resources provided to students and teachers. My view is that, whilst in the past SLT have not often tended to be involved in discussion of the detail, it’s actually a core responsibility of any senior team.  If you are a senior leader in a school, particularly with any curriculum responsibility, the day-to-day content being taught in all subjects should be high on your list of priorities to give your attention; it’s fundamental to your job.’[2] This is echoed by John Tomsett who asks his subject leaders the following question: ‘What are the specific hallmarks of pedagogy in your subject?’[3] This encourages colleagues to go beyond the generic, to the specifics within their subjects.

The second is that the national curriculum is not a scheme of work. It might be a surprising observation, but too many conversations about overall planning and purpose are answered refer back to the national curriculum as though it is the actual scheme for what should be taught. It is the minimum content to be covered and it needs to be translated into meaningful, demanding schemes to bring the subject alive.

The third element relating to planning is the most important here. There is never enough time. So given that, what should leaders do to create the space for proper curriculum thinking and planning to take place? Well the first is to recognise that not everything can or should be done. It is better to start with fewer topics and to do these well and build on them over time. To take an example, if the school has recognised that it has not offered sufficient geography at key stage 2, in addressing this, why not take one area eg India which is often taught in year 3 and plan and for the first time round, teach this to all year groups in key stage 2? Then in the next round to take another topic and do the same. By the time the original year 3s have arrived in year 6, there will be new topics and so they will not be repeating what they have already done. The value in doing this is that several classes will be doing work on the same plans at the same time. This means that teachers will be able to plan together, share what has gone well and what needs to be tweaked and there will be plenty of examples of pupils’ work to compare. Working in this way means that teacher expertise grows incrementally and is consolidated through conversations with other professionals. This is light years away from teachers working in isolation.

If we are serious about improving the teachers’ subject knowledge beyond English and maths then directed time should be created for this. A number of schools such as Durrington[4] have overhauled their planning time so that it is focused on subject planning and resourcing rather than administration which is done by email and kept to a minimum. At Durrington they have prioritised planning time so that it is subject specific, regular, collaborative and within the context of what is being taught at that time.

Beyond this, in order to create time there needs to be a long hard look at some of the work such as written marking and data collection which does not add to pupils learning. If sensible approaches to marking such as Andrew Percival’s[5] and Clare Sealy’s schools[6] where they take a minimal approach to marking, then this frees up time for thinking about curriculum planning. Working to minimal marking not only saves time for teachers, it is more effective for pupils who have a much clearer idea of what they need to do to improve.   

A key thread in this is that teachers should not be planning in isolation. Every teacher with responsibility for a curriculum area should be encouraged to work with others within the school, join subject networks where these are available locally, tap into the expertise of subject specialists within a MAT if they are part of one, engage with the subject communities on Twitter and belong to the relevant subject association. Linked to this aim for more collaboration is that subject leaders in secondary schools should have time to gain insights into what pupils have already been taught in their primary schools.

In order for curriculum planning to be effective, leaders need to make sure that planning takes account of the research on effective learning, for example Bjork’s work on ‘desirable difficulties’ which found that if learning is too easy and straightforward it is less likely to be secure in the long term memory. The research is now clear that some activities in classrooms result in better learning and it is important that teachers are aware of the headlines of these and consider how to adjust their practice where appropriate. It is not easy trawling the research and this is why it is important that schools support their colleagues to become members of the Chartered College of Teaching[7] because one of the strands of their work is to make the research available through their website and their termly publication Impact.

Subject specific continuing professional development has been the poor relation compared with generic pedagogic CPD. However, work by Philippa Cordingley at CUREE[8] has found that programmes that unhand teachers’ subject knowledge and/or their ability to teach in specific subjects has a greater impact on pupil outcomes than generic CPD. Again, from the research: ‘while teachers in England rate subject specific or contextualised CPD more highly than generic pedagogic CPD, their leaders are less convinced – and both groups see it as much less common and desirable than do their peers in high performing countries.’ If we know this and we are serious about raising outcomes for all pupils, we need to make sure that it is given sufficient time in schools.

There are no quick fixes for this. Philippa Cordingley and Toby Greany’s work found that many school leaders do work to build a strong professional learning environments and systems for developing depth in content knowledge at the heart of school improvement, as the case studies in the report show. But there is a long way to go to make this practice widespread.  ‘Effective leaders use performance review to identify and balance CPD needs for the school as a whole and for individuals. Primary and secondary schools with a strong CPD offer and a focus on how teachers learn through deepening subject knowledge work hard to sustain support and make it systematic, using different kinds of evidence and making sure there is a clear logical connections between analysis of the needs of individual and groups of teachers, school self-evaluation, improvement and CPD activity.’

[1] https://thedignityofthethingblog.wordpress.com/

[2] http://thinkingonlearning.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/improving-curriculum.html

[3] https://johntomsett.com/2018/05/06/this-much-i-know-about-subject-specific-pedagogy/

[4] https://classteaching.wordpress.com/2016/09/19/subject-planning-and-development-sessions/

[5] http://primarypercival.weebly.com/blog/no-written-marking-job-done

[6] https://thirdspacelearning.com/blog/why-my-school-banned-marking-confessions-of-a-primary-headteacher/

[7] https://chartered.college/

[8] http://www.curee.co.uk/node/5033

Walking the talk

‘Writing floats on a sea of talk’ - James Britton

Why do we privilege writing about everything else? It’s odd that high quality talk in classrooms is often regarded as an optional extra, something quite nice to do, rather than an entitlement for all pupils. Why, as a sector, do we think written outcomes matter more than talk? High quality talk, and its twin, listening, underpins reading and writing. And yet in too many classrooms, it’s something that is just assumed will happen, without being explicitly taught.

As Beccy Earnshaw, CEO of  Voice 21[1] argues, ‘pupils’ oracy skills are too often left to chance. Classroom talk is an unstructured break in a lesson rather than a fundamental and integral part of teaching and learning. Students are rarely given feedback on the quality of their verbal contributions; teachers don’t plan the purpose of a discussion item; and neither pupil nor teacher has a consistent view as to what ‘good talk’ looks, sounds and feels like. Speaking and listening gets scant coverage in the national curriculum and unlike reading, teachers have no commonly understood indicator or guide to identifying students’ spoken language skills. Students’ speaking skills are therefore generally judged by subjective criteria created by individual teachers, or not at all.’

And yet high quality talk in classrooms does improve standards. The Education Endowment Foundation’s report on oral language interventions[2]  found that for all oral language interventions, certain factors are associated with higher learning gains, suggesting that careful implementation is important. ‘For example, approaches which explicitly aim to develop spoken vocabulary work best when they are related to current content being studied in school, and when they involve active and meaningful use of any new vocabulary.’

The Education Endowment Foundation found that ‘overall, studies of oral language interventions consistently show positive impact on learning, including on oral language skills and reading comprehension. On average, pupils who participate in oral language interventions make approximately five months' additional progress over the course of a year. All pupils appear to benefit from oral language interventions, but some studies show slightly larger effects for younger children and pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds (up to 6 months' additional progress).’

Approaches to support oral language include targeted reading aloud and book discussion with young children; explicitly extending pupils’ spoken vocabulary; the use of structured questioning to develop reading comprehension; and the use of purposeful, curriculum-focused, dialogue and interaction.

School 21[3] a through school in London, believes that oracy, the ability to speak well, is one of the biggest indicators of a child’s success later in life. From the beginning, School 21 gave speaking an equal status to reading and writing in school. Oracy is present across all subjects and settings, challenging teachers to get pupils in class to talk in purposeful and meaningful ways, to model good speaking and listening in their practice and value and celebrate the spoken word. Some examples of how they make this happen: pupils in Year 4 give a three minute talk without notes in front of an audience; assemblies are a place for discussion and debate; tutor groups in the sixth form have discussions on themes from Yuval Harari’s Sapiens;[4] children of all ages are expected to rehearse their ideas, discuss, debate and recognise others’ points of view; pupils in every year group, starting in Year 1 learn parts of Shakespeare off by heart and attention is paid to the processes that support this – from Socratic dialogue to Harkness discussion[5] groups.

There are many resources available to support this work. Robin Alexander’s Dialogic Teaching[6] makes the case that ‘dialogic teaching harnesses the power of talk to engage interest, stimulate thinking, advance understanding, expand ideas, and build and evaluate arguments, empowering students for lifelong learning and democratic engagement. Being collaborative and supportive, it confers social and emotional benefits too.’ He goes on to show how it also helps teachers: by encouraging pupils to share their thinking it enables teachers to diagnose needs, devise learning tasks, enhance understanding, assess progress, and guide pupils through the challenges they encounter. This chimes with the ‘implementation’ judgement in the School Inspection Handbook[7] where it states that for judgement to be at least good ‘teachers present subject matter clearly, promoting appropriate discussion about the subject matter being taught.’

Further resources to support this work are the ‘Thinking Together Project’ from Cambridge University’s Faculty of Education[8] and the English Speaking Union’s ‘Speaking Frankly’.[9]  We need to tap into these resources if we want to improve outcomes for all our pupils.

[1] https://voice21.org/

[2] https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/evidence-summaries/teaching-learning-toolkit/oral-language-interventions/

[3] https://www.school21.org.uk/oracy

[4] Harari Y N Sapiens 2015: A Brief History of Humankind Vintage

[5] https://www.teacher.org/daily/what-is-the-harkness-discussion-why-ive-embraced-this-method-and-how-its-worked-for-me/

[6] http://robinalexander.org.uk/dialogic-teaching/

[7] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-handbook-eif

[8] https://thinkingtogether.educ.cam.ac.uk/about/

[9] https://www.esu.org/resources/

Thinking about curriculum impact

When considering impact, the question that needs to be asked is whether our pupils have learnt what they have been taught and how do we know? It is important to remember that the impact judgement feeds into a single quality of education judgement, drawing together intent and implementation along with impact.

The school inspection handbook[1] says ‘when inspectors evaluate the impact of the education provided by the school, their focus will primarily be on what pupils have learned.’ It goes on to say that ‘inspectors can use work scrutiny to contribute to an evaluation of whether the work that pupils do over time reflects the intended curriculum. Work scrutiny will help inspectors to form a view of whether pupils know more and can do more, and whether the knowledge and skills they have learned are well sequenced and have developed incrementally.’ It is important to emphasise that inspectors ‘will not evaluate individual workbooks or teachers. Inspectors will not use work scrutiny to evaluate teachers’ marking. Inspectors will connect work scrutiny to lesson visits and, where at all possible, conversations with pupils and staff.’

Again, we see that the criteria are drawn from inspection experience and research that shows that ‘the most important factors to consider are that:
a well-constructed, well-taught curriculum will lead to good results because those results will reflect what pupils have learned. There need be no conflict between teaching a broad, rich curriculum and achieving success in examinations and tests.’ In fact, it could be argued that a broad and balanced curriculum is essential for success in external exams and tests. For example, some pupils do not perform well in the SATS reading test at the end of key stage 2 and this is quite often due to a lack of vocabulary. Some schools identify this and provide spelling tests in order to bridge this gap. While spelling is important, it falls short of deep vocabulary development which is an ongoing process of encountering and using words in different contexts. It turns out that the most powerful way of achieving this is through a broad and balanced curriculum.

The sources of evidence relating to the impact of the quality of education comes from a number of sources: ‘the progress that pupils are making in terms of knowing more, remembering more and being able to do more’ and the first source of evidence is external: ‘the nationally generated performance information about pupils’ progress and attainment. This information is available in the IDSR, which is available to schools and inspectors, and will be analysed for its statistical significance in advance by Ofsted’s data and insight team.’ It goes on to say that ‘national assessments and examinations are useful indicators of pupils’ outcomes, but they only represent a sample of what pupils have learned. Inspectors will balance outcomes with their first-hand assessment of pupils’ work.’

As a starting point, inspectors will use the official IDSR, then gains further information through seeing firsthand the quality of education as experienced by pupils and understand how well leaders know what it is like to be a pupil at the school. In relation to any assessment data collected by the school they ask, ‘what they are drawing from their data and how that informs their curriculum and teaching’. There are implications here for schools where data input is required from teachers, but which is never used to identify gaps in pupils’ learning, nor to adjust the curriculum and teaching in light of that information. If this link cannot be made, then it begs the question of why it is being collected in the first place?

The question needs to be asked about the reason for inspection teams not using schools’ internal assessment data as evidence. ‘Inspectors will not look at non-statutory internal progress and attainment data on section 5 and section 8 inspections of schools’ (although interestingly, they will consider the school’s use of assessment). It goes on to say ‘that does not mean that schools cannot use data if they consider it appropriate. Inspectors will, however, put more focus on the curriculum and less on schools’ generation, analysis and interpretation of data.’ We have to ask why this is? One answer is that internally generated school data does not have the level of validity nor reliability that external has.

Teachers’ workload is also a factor in this: ‘teachers have told us they believe this will help us play our part in reducing unnecessary workload. Inspectors will be interested in the conclusions drawn and actions taken from any internal assessment information, but they will not examine or verify that information firsthand.

And to reinforce this message, Matthew Purves, Deputy Director, Schools explained that Ofsted’s goal is to view performance measures more in the context of the quality of education provided:[2] ‘Data should not be king. Too often, vast amounts of teachers’ and leaders’ time is absorbed into recording, collecting and analysing excessive progress and attainment data within schools. And that diverts their time away from what they entered the profession to do, which is to be educators. And, in fact, with much of that progress and attainment data, they and we can’t be confident that it’s valid and reliable information. … inspectors will not look at school’s internal progress and attainment data.’

The bulk of the information comes from ‘first-hand evidence of how pupils are doing, drawing together evidence from the interviews, lesson visits, work scrutinies and documentary review; nationally published information about the destinations to which its pupils progress when they leave the school; in primary schools, listening to a range of pupils read; discussions with pupils about what they have remembered about the content they have studied’ and finally, ‘how well pupils with SEND are prepared for the next stage of education and their adult lives.’ 

So, it turns out that much of the evidence collected during inspection relies on looking at pupils’ work (not just written work their books), talking to them about what they have learnt and talking to their teachers about how they are getting on. None of which sits neatly on a spreadsheet.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-handbook-eif

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcrp5N6c334&feature=emb_logo

Thinking about curriculum implementation

The implementation of the curriculum is the nuts and bolts of the quality of education. It is here that pupils encounter and grapple with the material. It is possible to have a website full of fine words and statements that the curriculum is ambitious, however, it is the quality of what happens in classrooms that indicates whether the intent has been translated into practice. The handbook says that inspectors will ‘consider the way that the curriculum developed or adopted by the school is taught and assessed in order to support pupils to build their knowledge and to apply that knowledge as skills (we call this ‘implementation’).’[1] The three strands of the quality of education judgment are not graded separately, but are considered together.

There are implications for staff development which follow from the implementation judgement. For example, ‘teachers have good knowledge of the subject(s) and courses they teach. Leaders provide effective support for those teaching outside their main areas of expertise.’ In order for teachers to have good subject knowledge, they need to be given the time and the resources to do this properly, it cannot be a bolt-on. Subject knowledge development is probably the greatest professional development need. The reason is that most primary colleagues teaching subjects beyond English and maths will need time to develop this aspect of their teaching. And this is the same for many secondary colleagues as well, due to the fact many are teaching subjects which were not their first discipline in university. And even for those who are teaching the same subject as their degree, they still have to get to grips with texts which were not studied at university. So, the professional development need for subject knowledge development is sector wide.

The handbook goes on to say that ‘teachers present subject matter clearly, promoting appropriate discussion about the subject matter being taught. They check pupils’ understanding systematically, identify misconceptions accurately and provide clear, direct feedback. In so doing, they respond and adapt their teaching as necessary without unnecessarily elaborate or individualised approaches.’ At the heart of this is responsive teaching, purposeful questioning to expose what pupils have understood and to address misconceptions.

The handbook also says ‘over the course of study, teaching is designed to help pupils to remember long term the content they have been taught and to integrate new knowledge into larger ideas’. In order to get this aspect right, we need to take on board the findings from cognitive science. As we do this, we need to be mindful of the limitations of research - nothing can have absolute proof, but there is plenty of evidence that retrieval practice, spaced repetitions, interleaving, low stakes quizzes, discussion about the knowledge being learnt are important strategies in helping to secure knowledge in the long term memory. At the heart of this is the recognition that deep learning is not a one-off event.

This is what the implementation sections says about assessment: ‘teachers and leaders use assessment well, for example to help pupils embed and use knowledge fluently, or to check understanding and inform teaching. Leaders understand the limitations of assessment and do not use it in a way that creates unnecessary burdens on staff or pupils.’ At the heart of this is formative assessment, namely checking for understanding during the lesson. This can be done in a number of ways: through verbal questions (not directed just at one of two pupils) which, where appropriate expect elaboration and discussion. Alex Quigley’s strategy of ‘ABC’[2] is incredibly helpful for embedding this in classroom practice. ‘By asking students to Agree with; Build upon; or Challenge the answers of other students it allows students to develop their ideas in a more disciplined fashion, whilst giving a helpful scaffold to their ideas.’ This type of activity is a powerful way of helping teachers to ‘check pupils’ understanding effectively, and identify and correct misunderstandings’. It is also useful in meeting this element of the handbook: ‘teachers use assessment to check pupils’ understanding in order to inform teaching, and to help pupils embed and use knowledge fluently and develop their understanding, and not simply memorise disconnected facts.’

The handbook refers to ‘teachers create an environment that focuses on pupils. The textbooks and other teaching materials that teachers select – in a way that does not create unnecessary workload for staff – reflect the school’s ambitious intentions for the course of study. These materials clearly support the intent of a coherently planned curriculum, sequenced towards cumulatively sufficient knowledge and skills for future learning and employment.’ This should give us pause for thought in relation to random worksheets which neither support ambition nor sequencing. If we are serious about pupils knowing more, understanding more and doing more we need to swap lightweight materials for solid resources which have an honest link back to the domain. This is echoed in ‘the work given to pupils is demanding and matches the aims of the curriculum in being coherently planned and sequenced towards cumulatively sufficient knowledge.’

Reading is prioritised to allow pupils to access the full curriculum offer.

A rigorous and sequential approach to the reading curriculum develops pupils’ fluency, confidence and enjoyment in reading. At all stages, reading attainment is assessed and gaps are addressed quickly and effectively for all pupils. Reading books connect closely to the phonics knowledge pupils are taught when they are learning to read.

A theme running through the quality of education in general and the implementation element in particular, is the importance of pupils being taught concepts. The handbook says ‘this is because research and inspection evidence suggest that the most important factors in how, and how effectively, the curriculum is taught and assessed are that: ‘teachers enable pupils to understand key concepts, presenting information clearly and encourage appropriate discussion’ and ‘teachers ensure that pupils embed key concepts in their long-term memory and apply them fluently.’

The handbook also states that ‘teachers enable pupils to understand key concepts, presenting information clearly and encourage appropriate discussion.’ The teaching of concepts is important because they help pupils to develop understanding in the long term memory which in turns helps them to make connections with new knowledge.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-handbook-eif

[2] https://www.theconfidentteacher.com/2013/12/disciplined-discussion-easy-abc/

Thinking about curriculum intent

In the quality of education judgement, the school inspection handbook states that ‘inspectors will consider the extent to which the school’s curriculum sets out the knowledge and skills that pupils will gain at each stage (we call this ‘intent’).’

One section within the ‘intent’ refers to the school’s curriculum reflecting ‘the school’s local context by addressing typical gaps in pupils’ knowledge and skills.’ Here, there is an opportunity to consider carefully what it is that pupils within a setting ‘might be missing’ and which the curriculum might address. For example, a school might have identified that some pupils have narrow minded attitudes to people who are different from them. In order to address this, some schools consider resources such as Shaun Tan’s The Arrival or a platform such as Lyfta which works to build vital skills and values by giving children access to human story-based learning experiences from around the world. Alternatively, a school might have identified that many pupils are coming to school with low levels of literacy, including speaking and listening and as a result they ensure that high levels of oracy are built into curriculum thinking by drawing on resources such as Voice21.

An important element within the intent section of the quality of education is frequent reference to ‘ambition’ and the extent to which a school’s curriculum is ambitious for all pupils: ‘there is high academic/vocational/technical ambition for all pupils, and the school does not offer disadvantaged pupils or pupils with SEND a reduced curriculum.’ What underpins this is ensuring that pupils with lower starting points are not offered a diminished diet, but rather are supported to access demanding work, through appropriate scaffolding and support, primarily through talk.

The handbook goes on to say, ‘It is clear what end points the curriculum is building towards and what pupils need to know and be able to do to reach those end points.’ What is entails is having a clear rationale for the importance of individual subjects and we might ask ourselves what would our pupils miss out on if they did not learn this subject in school? This helps us to identify the big themes and ideas that pupils need to be taught. While the content to be taught is set out in the national curriculum programmes of study for each subject, discussion of the importance of the subject itself is an important precursor to curriculum planning. It is not enough to say that we are teaching history or geography or design and technology or any of the other subjects ‘because it is in the national curriculum’, our rationale needs to go beyond this. 

In order get some purchase on the importance of individual subjects we might consider quotes such as Marcus Garvey’s ‘A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.’

We do not need to agree with this, but we do need to formulate our own rationale for why we are teaching a particular subject. This is because it takes us to a deeper, more satisfying curriculum space. Ideas for discussion about the importance of each of the national curriculum subjects can be found in the resources on this site. And quick overviews of each subject with draft planning outlines can be found here.

The judgement focuses on factors that both research and inspection evidence indicate contribute most strongly to an effective education and to pupils achieving highly. One of the factors identified is the curriculum being planned and sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before and towards its clearly defined end points. This means schools taking account of findings of cognitive science which identify the importance of concepts, sequencing and spaced repetition in order to help pupils retain learning in the long term memory. The Great Teaching Toolkit is a good starting point for engaging with this element of curriculum planning.

When judgements are made about the quality of education, the school’s curriculum intent flows into the implementation, in other words, how the intent is translated into classroom materials and how the subject is taught. We see this in the following statement: ‘the school’s curriculum intent and implementation are embedded securely and consistently across the school. It is evident from what teachers do that they have a firm and common understanding of the school’s curriculum intent and what it means for their practice. Across all parts of the school, series of lessons contribute well to delivering the curriculum intent’.

It is important to remember that the ‘intent’ and other elements of the quality of education section are not checklists to be ticked off. Rather, they are about ensuring that the curriculum offer is demanding and equitable for all pupils. As the framework states: ‘inspectors will not grade intent, implementation and impact separately. Instead, inspectors will reach a single graded judgement for the quality of education, drawing on all the evidence they have gathered and using their professional judgement. During inspection, inspectors will probe leaders’ understanding further but, most importantly, they will focus on gathering first-hand evidence. Inspectors will visit lessons, talk to individual teachers and pupils, and look at pupils’ work (in its widest sense) together with curriculum leaders to see whether it matches leaders’ intentions. Inspectors will then draw all this evidence together from different pupils, classes and year groups.

Have they grasped it?

‘The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.’

- Leonardo da Vinci

There is a joke about two men in a bar. One says to his friend ‘I’ve taught my dog to speak French.’ ‘Really?’ says his mate, ‘Let’s hear him then.’ ‘I said I taught him, I didn’t say he’d learnt it’ comes the response. There is something important in this anecdote and it is this: that the fact that I have taught something does not mean that my pupils have ‘got’ it. And they are unlikely to have really learnt something unless they produce something worthwhile with the material they are studying.

In the video explaining the rationale for the national curriculum, Tim Oates talks about curriculum ‘products’[1]. When he talks about products he means the things which pupils write, say, draw, the low stakes tests they complete or the things they make. All these provide insights for the teacher into the extent to which pupils know, understand and can do something on their own terms.

First, to consider writing. In many parts of the sector, there is a temptation to get through the writing as fast as possible. A written piece of work requires considerable background knowledge, discussion of that knowledge and rehearsal in order for it to come together. Too often, pupils are set off on a writing task without sufficient ‘food’. By food, I mean the stimulus, exposure to and discussion of vocabulary, use of spelling, punctuation and grammar to support meaning and modelling by the teacher. English teacher Matthew Pink has quite rightly said ‘Showing kids a pre-prepared model answer and asking them to write a paragraph off the back of it is no different from showing them a picture of Duck l’Orange and sending ‘em to the kitchen to knock one up. Teachers must get in the habit of live modelling whenever it is required.’[2]

Writing is slow and it is difficult. But when pupils are supported and guided through the writing process carefully, the product of writing is likely to reflect what they really understand. We need to move away from a temptation for children to complete work, which might not be original to them, such as completing closed questions on a worksheet, for example, and to conclude that they have understood, just because they have completed it. Completion of a task and understanding are not the same thing, but they are often confused. So a child is praised for having finished, before it has been checked whether they have understood it or not.

Next, to what children say: it is the responses which pupils give which provide insight into whether they have understood something. If we are going to find this out, we have to spend time during the lessons asking children questions and listening carefully to their answers. This needs to happen more. Under the pressure of time, it is tempting to either take the first correct answer from one or two children and assume that everyone has ‘got’ it; or to complete some of the answers if they are struggling; or to take incomplete or partial answers and assume that they know the rest. What quite often happens is that children are praised for an incomplete answer and then the lesson moves on. This is not good, on several counts: first, the teacher’s information is incomplete - in the rush to move on to the next part of the lesson, the brief incomplete response is taken to have more significance than it does: it is nothing more than an incomplete response and it is not enough information to judge whether to move on or not. The second reason it is not good enough is because we often need to rehearse and say our thoughts out loud before committing them to paper. As James Britton argued ‘writing floats on a sea of talk.’[3] So by short-cutting the responses we not only have incomplete information about the security of children’s learning, we also are denying them the chance to practise articulating their thoughts. And the third reason why it is not good enough is because pupils have the right to have their ideas heard by others. By moving on too swiftly we are cutting down their ability to refine their language and to deepen their understanding.

The importance of speaking is emphasised in the national curriculum for English. We are doing our children a disservice if we do not both provide them with opportunities and also expect them to articulate their ideas. Many children come from backgrounds which are language poor. If we either expect partial answers, or don't ask them to speak out loud in full sentences, using subject specific vocabulary then we are denying them the opportunity both to engage deeply with the material and also to perform well in the subject when it comes to exams. 

In some, but not all, areas it is possible to gain an insight into children’s thinking through their artwork or artefacts. If they have made a representation of a key idea from literature, or history, or science through sketching or through creating something and are able to talk about what they have produced and how it relates to the subject matter, then it follows that we can gain information about what they understand and where the gaps might be.

Many schools are now experimenting with thinking about real audiences for children’s work. Much of what is asked of children in schools is isolated knowledge and skills. While there might be nothing wrong with this per se, the purpose of learning takes on a new dimension when we ask ourselves, where could this go, who else needs to know about this, are there links we could make with this knowledge with the wider community? Who might be an external audience for what we have done?

These are some of the things they are doing: creating a class blog, preparing an exhibition with detailed notes for visitors, preparing samples of their work for governors, taking part in local and national competitions, linking with the local community on arts and environmental projects, younger children sharing their work with older pupils, and vice versa, asking family to come into school to see their work. Children are only able to engage with these wider audiences if they have something authentic to share, based on solid foundations of deep knowledge.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q5vrBXFpm0

[2] ] https://twitter.com/Positivteacha/status/950265654...

Photocopying

‘The need for a quick, satisfactory copying machine that could be used right in the office seemed very apparent to me. So I set out to think of how one could be made.’ [1]

- Chester Carlson

The money that is wasted on photocopying. And that’s before we get to glue sticks to stick the photocopies into books. We need to stop and have a word with ourselves. Why are we putting paper onto paper? There are some real problems with this beyond the high costs. For example, here are thousands of eco schools across the country and eco school status is proudly presented on school websites which is great. However, we can easily become seduced by the high profile efforts to save the world from rubbish, cut our emissions, clear litter, recycle and so on. But photocopying is low profile. And I think far more attention needs to be paid to it. Whether we are an eco school or not.  But it’s no use having a badge for something just for the sake of it. We need to get to a place where, to quote Contender Charlie. our values are lives, not just laminated.

Why does so much photocopying go on in schools? One response might be: it saves time, to which the further question might be ‘It saves time to do what?’ Another answer might be ‘I need these sheets as resources to use in class.’ Again, it is reasonable to ask why? It’s as though producing photocopied resources has become a crutch. As though a lesson can’t happen unless we have a pile of papers under our arms to present to a class.

Essentialism asks us to go back and ask these awkward questions. It’s not as though teaching and learning didn’t happen before the advent of photocopying. Decades ago, there were Banda machines - inky, oily and messy, so teachers had to be really clear about the benefits of copying off if they were prepared to go through this rigmarole. Funnily enough, learning still took place even before the Banda machine was invented.

But it’s not just the expense that we need to be mindful of. It is highly likely that the reliance on photocopies can lead to some lazy thinking and planning. Along the lines of ‘I’ve just found this great resource online, I could use that tomorrow, let’s print if off.’ I think we are better than that. It is possible that the resource we have just stumbled across is just the ticket and will fulfil a proper learning purpose. But let’s be honest, mostly this isn’t the case. Usually, photocopying resources is a short cut for proper professional thinking about the purpose of the lesson. I’m not talking about every case of course, but there’s enough of it going on for us to question it.

The argument here, is not the complete banning of photocopying, but a far more intentional approach to why we are doing so. Who really needs it? Are we sure that it isn’t just a prop? A further problem is that much photocopied stuff for pupils to complete becomes a proxy for learning. We look busy, they look busy, their books are stuffed with completed worksheets, so they must have learnt something, right? Well it doesn’t automatically follow. The completion of the worksheet does not mean that anything has necessarily been learnt. In fact the photocopying and completion of worksheets does no such thing. Too often they place very little cognitive load onto pupils and yet this lack of thinking is masked by the fact that they have stuff in their books.

Is this an argument for the banning of photocopying? Of course not. But it is important that we stop and think: why am I photocopying this? What will  pupils learn as a result of this resource? Could there be a better way of them doing this work. If they do it in a different way will there be a greater likelihood of their unique ideas and voices coming through? Probably yes. This is because one of the consequences of over reliance on photocopying resources is that they often put limits on pupils’ responses, their work all looks pretty much the same. And most importantly when you talk to them a bit later about what they have learnt they aren’t usually able to tell you very much. So, this is a significant investment for very little impact.

How then might things be done differently? Instead of photocopying could we show an image through a visualiser? Some text through a visualiser? A powerful image on the classroom wall? Agree the learning objectives and pupils where appropriate writing them down? Use post its rather than printing out WWW and EBI - these are likely to be more purposeful than random tick lists? Pupils actually doing work directly in their exercise books and folders?

So, what are the examples of things that might be considered for photocopying? These might be Information booklets which can’t be sourced in any other way; some knowledge organisers - but we could also think about whether some knowledge organisers could be constructed with the pupils and students in class, across the unit? This would also have the benefit of greater, appropriate cognitive load as the key words, concepts and important information would mean that pupils would have to think hard about what is being included, rather than just being given it by the teacher.

The case here is that only those things where the information can’t be gathered from elsewhere. Furthermore, whatever is photocopied should have material and information that goes beyond one lesson. It’s about extracting value from anything that we produce either through our own efforts or those carefully selected from elsewhere.

A judicious, hardnosed look at what we photocopy in  schools actually turns out to be something deeper: namely the extent to which we are offering our pupils top quality information and resources or a fast food type of diet which might satisfy our appetite in the short term but is likely to be missing some key nutrients in the long term.

[1] Owen, David (2004). Copies in Seconds: Chester Carlson and the birth of the Xerox machine. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 70. ISBN 0-7432-5118-0

Cynic or skeptic?

‘In a democratic society scepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.’

- Napoleon Bonaparte 

In order to get back on track, we need to think about our attitude to the status quo, to be prepared to change or remove those aspects of school activities which do not add value to pupils’ learning. Then, to have reasonable conversations about what might be worth thinking about and doing differently. We have some choices about the stance we adopt. We can either subscribe to a cynical position, which is essentially one of intellectual defeatism or we can take the more nuanced approach of the skeptic.

Both the words cynic and skeptic have interesting roots. The etymology of cynic is the Greek ‘kyon’ which means dog. The philosophical movement of cynicism began in the 5th century BCE and Diogenes[1] was one of its founders. Cynicism as a school of thought in the ancient philosophical tradition argued that people can gain happiness by rigorous training and through living in a way which is natural for themselves, rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, and fame. Instead, they were urged to lead a simple life free from all possessions.

The modern usage of cynicism, however, generally refers to a reluctance to believe the sincerity and honesty of others. It tends to take the view that people are motivated by greed or ambition and shouldn’t be trusted. While it is possible to have a positive reading of cynicism which involves the desire to expose hypocrisy and to point out gaps between ideals and practices, generally cynicism implies a defeatist attitude to the world and its woes and as a result, it’s not worth the bother of trying to change things.

The cynical path has the potential to take us down some long and unproductive rabbit holes. The space of cynicism is occupied by blame, by defeatism, by negativity and helplessness.  It is not the temporary helplessness of someone in the deep throes of loss or pain, but rather a mindset that robustly asserts that this is the way things are and they can’t possibly get any better. The real poison of the cynical stance is that it believes it is right, that it also has the right to shout down other possibilities, other ways of doing things. And that is why we need to be alert to commentary such as: ‘Things are awful, and they will never get better’; ‘What can you expect from pupils from these backgrounds?’; ‘What can you expect from this group of leaders or this government?’ The real danger of cynicism’s negativity is that it does not allow for possibility, it depresses both those who express it and those who hear it. It is resolute in not allowing the agenda to be opened up and for alternative ways of working to be explored.

The argument here is that it is more helpful to consider scepticism as this is a more productive space from which to consider our work and what might need to be changed or removed, in order to focus on the activities which had the greatest value. The word sceptic also derives from the Greek ‘skepsis’ which means inquiry or doubt.

The sceptical viewpoint, in contract to the cynical one, recognises all of the problems and challenges shrilly proclaimed by a defeatist stance. The skeptical position does not have its head in the sand, it does not follow a Pollyanna position of denial, puppies and trite exhortations to believe in better. What it does do however, is take up a clear sighted position and ask questions about whether things are good enough, strong enough, relevant enough for current circumstances. And then turn to what might be better.

The sceptic asks questions, refines the skill of questioning, turns questioning into an art form. Following, whether intentionally or not, a Socratic line of enquiry, where the outcomes are not predetermined, where they are not set out in advance but are engaged in, in an attempt to seek, not absolute truth, but a better way of going about business. And as it goes through this process, it means that those elements of our practice that still remain, do so because they have earned their right to be there. They are not there simply because they have always been there.

A significant thread of the sceptical mindset is to ask why, repeatedly. Not in an aggressive or threatening way but in a spirit of curiosity, of openness, of helpfulness, of amusement, and of being prepared to be surprised. To do this takes self-confidence, a deep knowing that it is alright not to know the answers or solutions straightaway. The likelihood is that we will not to be prepared to go to this space if we are concerned about our image, about how we come across, about what other people think of us. We have to put those factors to one side and to say: the pursuit of clarity means that it is worth letting go of some of our preconceptions.

Matthew Syed in Rebel Ideas[2] makes the case for individuals and organisations keeping an open mind, of seeing what is possible and what might be different. He tells the history of suitcases with wheels: these were only added in the 1970s. We might ask ourselves: ‘What is sitting right in front of us, staring at us, that will seem mind bogglingly obvious once we make the connection?!’

Doing this kind of work means that we have to pay attention to culture. We need to develop collective wisdom, underpinned by psychological safety. An environment is psychologically safe when people feel they can offer suggestions and take sensible risks without provoking retaliation. Syed argues ‘These wise groups express a different dynamic. They are not clone-like. They do not parrot the same views. Instead, they are more like groups of rebels. They do not disagree for the sake of it, but bring insights from different regions of the problem space.[3] As the psychologist Charlan Nemeth puts it: ‘Minority viewpoints are important, not because they tend to prevail but because they stimulate divergent attention and thought. As a result, even when they are wrong, they contribute to the detection of novel solutions that, on balance, are qualitatively better.’

[1] https://academyofideas.com/2013/05/diogenes-the-cynic/

[2] https://www.matthewsyed.co.uk/resource/rebel-ideas-the-power-of-diverse-thinking/

[3] Syed, Matthew. Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking John Murray Press