We are primary school practitioners who promote creative thinking in the classroom and beyond. Always open to and creating our own ideas to help children develop a passion for learning.
Last year I gave a presentation at the education show entitled ‘Preparing for Ofsted.’ I sifted through lots of Ofsted reports, founds patterns of ‘behaviours’ and looked for things inspectors seemed to be consistently asking for. I then created a slide show based on my findings.
In February 2013, Ofsted visited my school. As a result I’ve recently updated the slide show and below is the new updated version. I hope it will help you when your visit is due.
We (Lee and David) are hoping to organise a Teach-Meet in Staffordshire. The venue would be James Bateman Junior High school in Knypersley.
No formal agenda will be set but perhaps we could open it with a few words from ourselves; myself and David could offer a thought provoking half hour about teaching and learning and we promise to make you laugh!
Any other suggestions would be welcome, so if you want to speak, please leave a comment below and we can put together a plan. There will be plenty of time set aside for discussions. At the moment it’s at open forum for participants to suggest the way forward.
My target number for the event is 10 attendees but I can accommodate more; once I’ve reached that number, I’ll set a date in stone, which I hope will be in March.
Tea and Biscuits will be provided!!
Please confirm your attendance by leaving a comment below.
I visit many schools and talk to hundreds of professionals all of the time. Never far from the conversation is Ofsted. Ofsted worry schools to the point that the whole ethos is to please Ofsted. This is wrong because a school’s ethos should be built around its pupils.
I was listening to Mick Waters just the other week and he talked about ‘Game Theory;’ the idea that organisations adjust their practices because of the coercion of others. He gave the example of the railways. Since privatisation, the government has set train operating companies punctuality targets, in response to this the timetables have been adjusted to allow for more ‘slippage;’ the outcome is simple, journey times are longer but targets are met. A classic case of:
“Hitting the target but missing the point”
Schools are in danger of doing precisely this! The Ofsted game has led to some dubious practices; below are just a few that come to mind:
The learning objective must be shared.
We’re not saying it should never be shared, but for every lesson? Surely great learning is great learning and pupils will know this! We shouldn’t forget that learning is never ‘objective!’ It’s a personal process, it belongs to individuals and groups; it is therefore subjective!
The mini-plenary.
Of course great learners need time to reflect, to think about how it might be used; a chance to ponder. However, I heard a story the other day of a class given just 1m 40s before the first mini-plenary was delivered. Pupils need time to question, discuss and just to get on with learning; they don’t need the teacher stopping them every five minutes to check progress.
The end of curiosity.
I’ve seen too many lessons in the past 5 years where the learning outcome is measured in levels. The message is clear; “no need to be curious or inquisitive, I’ve given you the outcome using an arbitrary numerical level and that’s where we’re all heading.” What happened to wonder? Wondering what the outcome might be, the chance to play, to experiment and take risks. I asked a learner in July what he needed to do to get better at maths and he replied “Get a level 5.” Earlier this year I asked a girl what she was learning in English and she replied “AF5” – she could tell I was bemused. I then asked her why and she replied “to get a level 4.” Needless to say writing for pleasure is not one of her pastimes!
Tick Box Teaching
The arrival of the ‘lesson observation grids’ has done great damage to teaching. Instead of teachers, the danger is we become technicians; just ticking the boxes as we go along and ticking as many boxes as possible when an observer is in. Of course there should be guidance, hints and tips, strategies shared and practice observed but when you’ve seen practitioners shower praise like confetti, include a dozen mini plenaries and share enough differentiated learning outcomes for the entire population you know it’s ‘Tick box Teaching.’
Teaching to the tests.
Ofsted predominantly measure a school by their ‘standards.’ Some argue this is not the case, but I’ve yet to come across a school with 100% level 4s at KS2 who’ve been put into special measures. So along comes the ‘SPaG’ test and hey presto, grammar lessons are back on the menu, the ‘how many pieces of punctuation can you fit in a sentence’ game is played and spelling tests, lots of spelling tests! Some argue that children should have this type of experience, but if they felt so strongly why weren’t they doing it last year?
If we continue down this ‘Game,’ education will lose its heart, writing will be a technical experience marked with levels, learning will become boxes to tick and teachers will become robots who simply deliver the packages of contents…And pupils…I fear for them…
So please, follow your philosophy, don’t be compliant and ensure the children in your class/school enjoy an education fit for their futures.
The following blog is a fictitious account and bears no resemblance to any person(s) living or dead. The idea for this blog came from the experiences and interactions I have had over the past 27 years working with both children and adults with Special Educational Needs Disabilities (SEND). I have worked in a variety of settings including: schools, youths groups, deaf clubs and prison (in a teaching capacity may I add)
I’m SEN
I’m SEN
I write with Pencil
Not in pen
There again
Nor do them
I wonder if they’re SEN?
A Day in the Life of a Special Needs Kid
Hi My name is … well it doesn’t really matter what my name is does it? I’m simply known as the Special Needs Kid, or Level 3, Under Achiever; Slow Mover, Reluctant this… Reluctant that, I even overheard someone calling me a bottom feeder once! Sad, I know!
My dad is (or was last time I saw him) a haulage contractor. He didn’t do very well at school and he told me he was taught by nuns who used to hit him with a ruler because he wrote with his left hand. It’s fair to say that neither of us really like school.
I’m in Mrs Holsgroves’s class 4F, all the groups in school have names – our class are all animals (the groups I mean not the children) I’m surrounded by pandas, giraffes, zebras, koalas and gazelles! I’m in the – wait for it – The Tigers. We’re the group that struggle and need more ‘help’ – Miss thinks that if she calls our group after the strongest and bravest animal, that’ll fool all the others kids into believing that there’s nothing wrong with us.
My group consists of Ryan B, Joe, Ebi (he’s Polish) Sophia, Ahmed (he’s known as SEN and EAL (whatever that means) – I saw it once on a list that Mrs Holsgrove had in her SEN folder, finally there’s me, Joseph Jeremiah Knight everyone calls me JJ. All of us Tigers live on the same housing estate Lime Grove. Apart from Ryan B, we are all living with a single parent.
Mrs Holsgrove gives us different coloured paper to everyone else, Gary Cooke says it’s ’cause we’re thick we have to have ‘Special’ paper. Mrs Zainab our Teaching Assistant says it’s because it’s ‘Dyslexia Friendly’ whatever that means! We get called lots of names when the teacher can’t hear. I’m not thick I just can’t work out my spellings very quickly that’s all.
Last Christmas during our school play I was tidying the class with Catherine Pike, she’s dead clever – top group – Panda.
Mr. Lees the Y6 teacher came in and asked Catherine to look for a cloak that was needed for the school play, she looked everywhere but she couldn’t find it. He then asked me – I was really happy but before I could do anything she looked at Sir whilst pointing at me and she said:
“If I cant find it, he wont!”
Great I thought – now I’m even in the bottom group for looking and finding things !
I’m not in the play this year as I was getting fed up – I love acting and singing but because I find it difficult to read the words as fast as the others I don’t get the parts I like. Two years ago I was ‘Seaweed!’ in Under the Sea. The only bit I get to say is:
“Welcome everyone to our school assembly!”
I’m always taken out of lessons to work with Mrs Zainab and the children from the class below. I don’t like it very much as I get embarrassed because the kids from the class below laugh at me. I miss out on all the good stuff that my class are doing and I miss out big chunks of the learning because I’m out of class when the teacher gives the introduction and I find it hard to catch up. Plus Gary Cooke trips me up and calls me ‘Thicko’ when I stand up to go the ‘Rainbow Room’ with Mrs Zainab. I hate spellings, phonics, handwriting lesson they bore me.
I wish I was up the yard with my dad stripping down a Volvo. I can’t spell but I can weld. Perhaps one day they’ll have a SATs Paper on Metal Fabrication! I could talk about heating steel or burning, cutting and bending angle iron. I could tell them that they could use Propane Gas to burn metal but using an Acetylene torch is much easier.
I wonder if they know that to get great results from welding you should use a mig welder with Argon Gas and a constant wire feed. I wonder if next year they’ll have a comprehension paper on ‘Welding Aluminium?’ I’d be able to tell them to make sure that the surface of the metal is spotlessly clean before you start, as any dust particles could cause impurities in the weld.
Anyway I better stop moaning as Mrs Zainab has just walked in and I’m off for my fifteen minutes of Toe by Toe – guess where? Yeah – The Rainbow Room!
In the best schools children like JJ thrive! The School celebrate the uniqueness of each child and sees them for what they can do rather than what they can’t”
“What’s the difference between a rut and a grave?”
Answer: The depth of the soil,
This phrase was rather eloquently coined by the American Novelist – Ellen Glasgow in the early 1900s; although it’s over a century old the sentiment is still as fresh as the day it was first written.
Those of you who are teachers will know that the job can sometimes be a series of extreme highs and lows.
The highs occur when the light flickers within the eyes of a child and they say:
“Oh I understand now!”
That ‘Bing’ moment when the imaginary light bulb appears above their head. An additional high point can be when you bump into a former student/pupil and they inform you that their chosen career path was all down to a comment or a bit of advice that you gave them when they were younger. (As you can imagine this can also work the opposite way round and become one of your low points.)
The lows are, all too, familiar to many teachers that I speak to:
An ever increasing workload.
High and sometimes unrealistic expectations of parents.
Demands from the Head Teacher and Senior Management Team.
The ever changing nature of education due to change in government.
Unsupportive colleagues.
‘The Class from Hell!’
Ofsted.
So the question is: How can we stay out of the rut, or better still how do you get out of the rut once you have fallen in? Here are a few Thought Weaver suggestions that may help.
1. Talk to colleagues.
Many of the old sayings that our grandparents came out with still ring true today:
‘A problem shared is a problem halved.’
Perhaps if we share the problem a second time that would take care of the remaining half; therefore the problem would be dissipated. It’s always good to get the opinion of another professional whether it be in your own school or another.
2. Try some summer reading.
Some of you may think that books about education are high brow and too academic. There are many out there which are exactly that. However, if you choose wisely you’ll be in for a treat. Here are a few suggestions, they are great for a read or something you can just dip into:
Inspirational stories that help capture the essence of why we do what we do!
3. Get on Youtube and be inspired; here are few of the gems we have found!
SIR KEN ROBINSON: Changing paradigms.
SIR KEN ROBINSON: Do schools kill creativity?
NICK VUJICIC: I Love Living Life. I Am Happy.
MATT HARDING: Where the hell is Matt?
BOBBY McFERRIN: A demonstration of the power of the pentatonic
DAVID HOLMES: The Rapping Flight Attendant – Try to love your job this much!
4. Get on Twitter!
We assume that by reading this blog you are already aware of Twitter. However, if you received this link from another source, and as of yet you haven’t got a Twitter account, we strongly suggest you set one up. From our perspective it will be the best continual professional development tool you’ll ever use! It’s easily accessible 24/7, user friendly, highly informative, humorous and more importantly its FREE!
Following on from our previous blog – Poetry for the Totally Terrified – we’d like to share with you a great ‘practical’ idea to help you, to help the children, become more engaged within poetry. We have tried this idea with children from 7 to 17 and it works! It is also a great fun activity.
The first thing happens within the classroom. Tell the children that we (you as well) are going to write a Personification poem; ask them to read the first six letters of personification and they will soon realise that it spells ‘PERSON.’ Explain that we are going to make ‘seemingly’ inanimate objects come to life; like the toys do within the Toy Story movies.
Ask for a few suggestions of what we could use within our poem: The usual answers are pens, books, tables etc. Usually the items that they see before them. Tell them that today’s topic will be FENCES! The look of bewilderment and total confusion upon the faces of children is to be expected.
Next, take the children into the playground/yard and ask them to go and talk to the fences. You will get the usual: “But sir, fences don’t talk.” Or “This is a silly idea!” perhaps you may get “I’m calling parents because you’re loosing the plot!” Please be assured all these are natural responses.
Then explain that if they manage to hear the fences talk they will get house points, merits, extra playtime/recess etc. It is astonishing how relaxed the fences become and they begin to wax lyrically about their life and what it is like to stand there all day, watching and listening to the world going by.
In our school playground we have three very distinct fences one large, dark green, security fence that goes around the periphery of the school. Secondly a small multicoloured fence that surrounds our early years play area and finally an old wooden fence that that been there since the school first opened forty years ago.
I start with asking the children:
What do the fences hear?
What do they see?
When are they at their happiest? Loneliest?
Do they have any friends? Who are their friends?
Does your fence have a particular accent?
What are they scared of?
It’s amazing what starts to come out once the first child has spoken. ALL of the ideas below are genuine responses from different classes that we have taught over the years.
“My fence says that it hears all our secrets when we are talking to our friends!”
“She loves it when children tickle her tummy with sticks on they way to school.”
“She is scared of the fireworks on Bonfire night!”
“My fence says that the grass tickles her feet in the summer.”
“Mine says that she gets really lonely during the holidays when we’re not here.”
“My fence says that the morning rain is refreshing.”
Next it was decided that each fence had a very distinct personality and accent.
The large security fence spoke with a big, deep voice like a bouncer or a security guard and with arms outstretched says “Come on move back please, there’s nothing to see here.”
Where as the small multicoloured fence was a rather precocious show off. “Look at me and all my pretty colours I am by far the loveliest fence that anyone could ever meet!”
Finally, the old wooden fence was the wise old aunt or uncle that had seen it and heard it all. Always with a kind word and never once was disrespectful towards the other fences, realising that each one has its own place and purpose in life.
This is a great activity for a number of reasons:
A great speaking and listening activity; with the fear of getting it wrong is eradicated.
Gives the children the opportunity to show empathy.
It makes poetry real and accessible
It provides a great stimuli for writing.
Have a go – you and the children will love it and we’d really like to read some of the children’s poems when they have written them.
What were your experiences of learning poetry at school?
I don’t know about you but my experience of the dreaded poetry lesson at school was always a rather torturous affair. My memories are rather clouded nowadays but I distinctively remember the fear and humiliation of not being able to conjure up words quickly enough to appease my teacher.
I didn’t have the ability (at the time) to randomly pull from my brain – long, flowing prose like that of my very gifted peers. I definitely had the ideas but I didn’t have the ability to express myself. I therefore fell into the myth that poetry (like Shakespeare) was only for the posh or clever kids – of which I may add – I was neither!
There were a number of poets we learned about in school; all of them had very different and distinctive styles and approaches to poetry. What I did observe was that 99.9% of them were either – male; white or dead!
I remember the excitement of reading Spike Milligan for the first time. Spike was – dare I say it? Funny! It wasn’t until I got into my early thirties that I found such gems as:
Nick Toczek – The Dragon Who Ate Our School
Roger McGough – Mafia Cats
Michael Rosen – Chocolate Cake
Celia Warren – Chimpanzees in Dungarees
Benjamin Zephaniah – Pencil Me In
There are hundreds more I could mention consequently they taught me:
You could write a poem on any subject
The poem could be any length
It didn’t matter if it rhymed or not
The most important part being; that if the poem made you happy (as the author) well that was the main thing.
When encouraging children to learn poetry you only need to keep these four basic principles in mind. It allows freedom and encourages their creative to flow.
Another great tool for writing poetry is the use of Personification – ask the children
“What do the first six letters of personification spell?” ‘PERSON’
They love the idea of making inanimate items come to life; in others words giving non-living things ‘person-like’ qualities.
This does come with a health warning though! If personification is taught using the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century models it will invariably turn kids off! You know the sort of thing I’m talking about; where personification becomes entwined with simile and metaphor:
“Trees were dancing with the wind.”
“The cruel Easterly wind roared like a lion.”
“The Sun threw down his majestic rays of golden sunshine.”
To make it more fun and exciting use everyday examples.
If all the items of clothing in your wardrobe had a debate which one has the best job? The worst job? Think about a cake shop – who are the toffs? Which items are the down and outs. I’ll share some more examples and ideas in my next blog.
Sticking with the clothing theme my class thought a silk tie would have the best job as it is worn on special occasions and is on full view for all to see. Where as the title of the worst job goes to the pants (for obvious reasons) see the two examples below:
Personify the Tie
Pete the Dancing Pants.
I hope you enjoy them.
Cheers Lee & David (The Thought Weavers)
PERSONIFY THE TIE
“Oh my!” Sighed the tie,
suspended from the collar white.
“All alone, no friends have I,
to sit and chat with through the night.”
Then a voice came from beneath,
Twas the yellow polka dot handkerchief.
“I wish I were you instead of me,
you are on full view for all to see.”
“You are lofty like the rocket -
I am crumpled and stuffed in pocket.
You are bought as a forget-me-not,
I am cold, damp and
full of SNOT!”
Last year I gave a presentation at the education show entitled ‘Preparing for Ofsted.’ I sifted through lots of Ofsted reports, founds patterns of ‘behaviours’ and looked for things inspectors seemed to be consistently asking for and produced a slide show based on my findings.
In February 2013, Ofsted paid my school a visit. As a result I’ve recently updated the slide show and below is the new updated version. I hope it will help you when your visit is due!
Myself and David (AKA the Thought Weavers) love to play around with analogies, sometimes they help us get a point across and at other times people look back at us with glazed eyes. However, we really feel this one works and will hopefully help you think about your practice.
So here goes.
We think classrooms are like (or perhaps even should be like) a good restaurant. However, this is not always the case, sometimes they are more ‘fast food’ than ‘gourmet’
Let me explain some of the classic features of a ‘fast-food’ model of the classroom:
Pupils walk in with no-one to greet them
Adults talk really quickly; they’re impatient and want answers quickly.
The menu is always the same.
A diet of uninspiring food learning is supplied daily. (it does however hit all of the APP outcomes)
Pupils will never remember their favourite or lesson when they’re older
Standards are high because the criteria for judging them is so narrow. The ‘fast-food’ restaurant makes and healthy profit and the classroom produces high ‘standards’
The tables and chairs never move.
All posters and displays are professionally made by adults.
Differentiation is made by the words ‘small,’ ‘regular’ or ‘large,’ or in classroom speak; ‘poor,’ ‘average’ or ‘bright.’ (Although occasionally ‘G&T is on the menu)
Sometimes special menus/promotions are created, in schools these are known as ‘theme days,’ this is the only time when the menu is slightly more interesting.
Feedback is standardised and irrelevant. In the classroom this might be ‘Good Work’ or ‘Well Done’
No tips are given; the children will never go the extra mile.
Customers can never change the menu and ask for something a little different; in the classroom children get what they’re given.
There is no overt way of expressing pleasure or disappointment at the service provided.
On the other hand, a gourmet restaurant (or perhaps country pub!) model for the classroom might read as follows:
A friendly smile when you walk in.
Small talk at the table with staff.
The menu changes regularly and there are lots of daily specials
The meals (learning) are well deigned by experts who truly know what they are doing.
Great memories are created by the quality of service and friendly atmosphere.
Relationships with all adults and children are positive.
‘Difficult’ customers are treated with dignity and respect
Standards are exceptionally high, because of the attention to detail at every step of the process.
If something special is required or someone wants to deviate from the menu it is celebrated and explored
Differentiation is the choice of the customer/pupils; there is a wide variety of activities/meals set out in a variety of ways.
Feedback is personalised and unscripted, it feels natural but authoritative.
Plenty of tips! Children bring in masses of things from home because they’ve been inspired in school.
Pupils can personalise the menus, giving feedback to the lead adult about their performance.
Pupils are encouraged to think about their decisions; they have time to evaluate the menu before making a decision
And so on…
Let’s make it clear. Classrooms are not restaurants and certainly shouldn’t be run as a business; pupils are not our customers, they are learners and we should be proud to facilitate their progress.
But, we feel the comparisons can be made. We believe that too often, the standards agenda pushes schools into a ‘fast-food’ model of education. Children deserve better! Whilst a ‘Gourmet’ classroom means hard work, it does mean that the children are the most important people and they will remember their experiences.
Michael Gove often talks about leaving the running of schools to the professionals. We agree!
Below are headlines from the BBC website over the last few months. We suggest what Gove actually says and what he actually does are two different things!
‘Schools minister cracks down on league table incentives’
‘Ofsted plans to scrap ‘satisfactory’ label for schools’
‘Poor teachers face tougher system under shake-up’
‘New Ofsted chief takes aim at incapable teachers’
‘Third of schools in Wales not good enough, says Estyn’
‘Labour ‘would have cut school building scheme’
‘Ofsted head to tackle coasting and incompetent teachers’
‘Schools in England will face no-notice inspections’
‘Ofsted inspections to scrutinise teaching quality’
‘Michael Gove queries schools’ Ofsted ratings’
‘Education Bill outlines shake-up for England’s schools’
The great thing is that teachers are breathtakingly resilient! We are the eternal optimists! We get on with our jobs despite the headlines above! This is what makes teachers great!
