Sunday 23 September 2018

Listening: The Golden Frame

We have been using Peter Reynold's picture book, 'The Dot' with year seven in their oracy lessons this week.  Picture books can be a really good way to reduce transition anxiety at the start of the new year and really capture their attention.
This fabulous book has all sorts of lessons about the learning journey within it.  I originally bought it for my nervous and shy son, who struggles with struggle and persistently told himself that struggle equals a huge, resolute and scary problem.  Whilst reading it to him, I fell in love with the book; like all the greatest picture books, there is an economy of words - the visuals are equal to the words.  In our school, we use it to explore listening, in particular we use the 'golden frame' within the story as a metaphor for the power of listening - how focus and attention in listening can increase a person's capacity to talk well.


The 'Golden Frame' surrounds Vashti's first dot, the first mark she makes in her art class, where in a state of crisis she tells the teacher she just 'can't draw'.  The teacher meets her struggle calmly, insisting she simply makes a mark and owns it by signing it; once Vashti leaves, the teacher frames the simple dot and hangs it above her desk.  This affirmation spurs Vashti on to open her 'never before used' water colours to paint many dots in many colours and sizes, which are then shown as a collection at the school art show that term. There are so many things that Vashti's school is getting right in her education, because the authentic audience for the gallery sharing of her work is younger learners including a boy who believes he can't 'draw a straight line with a ruler' and who interacts with Vashti, giving her the opportunity to help him make his first mark and pass the inspiration to paint on.

One of our 'catch all' phrases for our oracy work is that 'the quality of talk will not exceed the quality of listening': that to talk well, we need others to listen well.  This is easy to model within the lesson: a volunteer is asked to come up to the front and have a conversation with the teacher twice.  In the first conversation, the teacher listens carefully, focusing on the speaker and smiling encouragingly whilst asking questions to draw points out.  In the second conversation, the teacher loses her focus, turns her back and walks away a little, she asks no questions to develop the talk.  The quality of the talk is diminished by the teacher's negative listening.

The lesson then develops to explore the different messages for us as learners within the book (you’ll have to buy the book to understand these quotes – I promise you its worth it):
  • Courage and Resilience - 'just make a mark'
  • Humour - 'Ahh, a polar bear in a snow storm'
  • Kindness - 'she was surprised to see what was hanging above her teacher's desk'
  • Inspiration - 'she opened her never before used set of water colours' 
  • Agency and self belief - 'I can make a better dot than that'
  • Teacher expectations - 'Just make a mark and see where it takes you'
  • Grit - 'Vashti even painted a dot by not painting a dot'
Before drawing all of these ideas towards listening and talk:
  • Courage and Resilience - once you've talked once in class talking again gets easier, listening well is the first step in this journey
  • Humour - be human with each other, making someone laugh through a reflection on their talk can free them up to talk more
  • Kindness - a kind listener hears more
  • Inspiration - you are all 'change makers', your listening will inspire others to talk; changing the world involves listening first
  • Agency and self belief - by letting our light shine, we give others permission to do the same, by listening well we give others the context in which to shine as talkers
  • Teacher expectations - all of your teachers will plan lessons where talk will be significant, they will expect to hear your voice and expect you to hear their's
  • Grit - if you keep listening, others will keep trying - remember to use drawing out questions, immerse yourself in what they are telling you, help them to explore their ideas fully
We currently teach these protocols within this lesson and then consistently model them and scaffold student behaviour toward exhibiting them through the year; I picked them up from leading the EEF/Voice21 Research Pilot in school and must acknowledge the huge part this played in developing our work:
  • The 3 M's of Listening: Teaching self regulation
    • Me Listening
      Attention is focused entirely on themselves.  You are me listening when you are bored or distracted.  Your focus is not in the room.
    • Micro Listening
      Your focus is entirely on WHAT the person says verbally, you will be able to remember what they have said, but have not been thinking actively about their words' significance.
    • Macro Listening
      Large net listening, absorbing everything the speaker is saying; you've considered their tone of voice, energy, facial expression beyond what they are saying and have started to connect HOW they are talking into your understanding.  Beyond this you may notice what they are NOT saying as much as what they are saying.

      PRACTICAL TASK - with the whole group watching say these words 'I'm fine, thanks for asking' firstly as if you really mean them, then as if you really don't - you must indicate this physically both times.  Consider the impact of the voice and body in making meaning.  Try to get the students to find a different statement that can also function like this, e.g. I love you, I hate you, etc.
  • The 3 magic keys to good listening: ***CONTENTIOUS KLAXON***
    • We continue to teach focusing and accepting as good practice, but in lessons discuss how some students/people find eye contact and tracking a speaker difficult.  Using the social and emotional strand, we consider how necessary these skills are:  they do work for the majority of people, but their absence isn't always an indication of negative listening.  I offer the example that many times in a lesson a student will not have focused on me but immediately shows in a question to me that they have indeed been listening.  We reflect on how it feels different to the speaker if they are met by smiling faces, accepting their words and willingly drawing out the talk.  The audience for talks are part of the process, not passive receptors.
    • As teachers we reflected after our #Embrace week last year that as 210 students each gave a speech, the majority of the experience for the majority of the students was listening.  By the end of that week, they understand how key the audience are in helping you to deliver your speech: this lesson prepares them to really enter into that process whole heartedly.

      PRACTICAL ACTIVITY: Ask students to talk to each other in triads, use cards to decide what role they will play in the talk (Good listener/Poor listener/Speaker).  The listeners should not identify themselves: the talk must be easy for the speaker such as describing their route to school that morning.  Let the exercise run then ask the speaker for feedback on the listening in their group - look for themes of how the good/poor listening impacted on their ability to continue to talk.
  • PROOF OF LISTENING - 
    • The direction 'I'd like to see your proof of listening everyone!' has been really helpful to teaching staff.
    • Again, it involves the contentious notion that your proof of listening requires eye contact.  We ask each student to consider what their proof of listening would be and offer those behaviours in that moment.
    • The key is to focus on their awareness of how they shift to make themselves receptive and encouraging to others as best they can and to recognise the individuality of how this might look

      PRACTICAL ACTIVITY:  Ask students in pairs to establish their 3 behaviours that will prove they are listening: stillness, single focus point, ears towards the speaker, eyes up, smile, calm pose, etc.  Then get them to demonstrate them all at the same time - pick three examples that contrast with each other and talk through the differences, noting for the class how they all have their own merits and individuality.  In our school, I would reference our #uniquetogether statement from the school mission statement.

When we started planning our discrete oracy curriculum for year 7, the intention was to teach the implicit expectations about talk explicitly and through this to up skill both students and teachers in using talk more actively in the classroom and beyond.  Daniel Willingham asserts, 'Memory is the residue of thought': a student's talk within the classroom is an expression of their thinking.  If we structure and plan for better talk, we will prompt more focused and developed thought and therefore, memory.  Listening is an implicit part of this process; the clarity in our expectations and standards for listening as teachers will impact on the quality of talk. Teaching and modelling the listening expectations, consistently asserting the standards for how we listen will develop the quality of talk also - it's a virtuous circle based in a culture of mutual respect.

We are now moving into our third year of teaching oracy, the entire of our KS3 have been exposed to a year long discrete oracy curriculum and are either on the way to presenting a speech or have presented a speech in our #Embrace week.  We have had university tutors recognise that students have been taught oracy whilst observing their trainees in our school, however, as the Oracy Lead I recognise that the use of oracy protocols is still patchy and needs further attention to become consistent.  Listening is the cornerstone of most lesson practice and developing a school wide approach to it is key to our success as a school; this year I will be working to establish these behaviour expectations as part of our 'Ready to Learn' rule in school.  I hope this will develop more consistent use of language in how teachers refer to the skill of listening and our listening expectations of every student in every lesson.

This week I set a homework asking the students to look out for a 'Golden Moment' of listening in school to talk about in our next lesson.  I am always able to tell them that my example of a 'Golden Moment' was the way they listened to me reading 'The dot' voicing out all the characters with a rapt and silent audience; at the end of one lesson, three girls said that they had their golden moment already - it was me listening to everyone all lesson.  Blooming marvellous!  We are our students best models in listening and talking, as Paul Dix says 'Model the behaviour you want to see'.

I hope this helps you to have many 'Golden Moments' of listening in your lessons.
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Sunday 9 September 2018

In house CPD: Drawing different approaches of great teaching together

What makes great teaching?

This is a discourse question; a brilliant way to start a discussion and generate helpful talk about teaching, but the aim should never be a single answer, because...


Leading a whole evening of CPD where teachers generate their own ideas and provoke interesting discussion based on their existing knowledge and experience of teaching could be an enjoyable CPD event.  It could even provoke some heated moments, however, the pedagogical rigour of a CPD session will be lacking if the session does not move beyond the vernacular of current experience and knowledge in the room.


There currently seems to be a debate on twitter between the need for subject specific CPD versus pedagogy CPD: if you are talking great teaching in whole staff T&L session, the focus needs to be on consensus across departments of the core values for the school in teaching and learning - WHat makes teaching great here?  This consensus can then drive the quality assurance work of the T&L team - see earlier blog here.

To build pedagogical understanding across the CPD session, I'd be tempted to explore some models from other schools and bloggers.  These models should provoke deep thinking and clarify what each teacher knows about the best of their existing practice, whilst probing into how to take it further.

I think I'd start with a whole group introduction of the teacher standards, which give us these headings as the basics of great teaching:
Before giving out the models, I'd be tempted to split into working groups for discussions to ensure that every voice within the session is heard and every teaching mind stretched.  You could even set up the models at different tables within the room and have the groups circulate between them as in a carousel lesson.  The choice of the models is going to be key to what is discussed, I'd promote these:
    • At Huntington school, their model of 'great teaching' has these headings;
    • Inclusive teaching strategies promoted by Mary Meredith to support social and emotional might cover;
      • Consistent routines
      • Clear rules
      • Relationship building
      • Meet and greet
      • Modelling empathy and understanding
      • Personal connections
        (See twitter account @marymered)
    • Ruth Swailes shared these ideas at #BrewEdChezzy (with thanks to Helen P for sharing) for further ways of being an inclusive teacher:


    • From Tom Sherrington's 'Great Teaching: The power of...' we have:
      1. Probing
      2. Rigour
      3. Challenge
      4. Differentation
      5. Joruneys
      6. Explaining
      7. Agility
      8. Awe
      9. Possibilities
      10. Joy
        (https://teacherhead.com/2015/05/29/ideas-for-teaching-better-all-in-one-place/)
    • From Mark Enser this weekend at ResearchED's national conference we have:
      1. Recap
      2. Input
      3. Application
      4. Test
Prior to asking each of the groups to present their list of what makes teaching great in our school I think you have to consider two other areas of our work:

  • Current Initiatives and how these should impact on the classroom:
    Our #Oracy initiative would suggest that great teaching includes and promotes great talking by:
      • Meeting and greeting - get them talking before they cross the threshold
      • Discussion Guidelines
      • Time to think alone and in pairs before sharing
      • Planned talking activities
      • Strong recording practices such as talk detectives or note takers
      • Scaffolded talking activities
      • Both higher level techniques such as Harkness as well as the basic techniques like referring to the 6 types of talk
      • A chance for every voice to be heard
      • Little use of 'hands up'
      • Links between the talking and writing activities that are exploited for greater gains
  • Literacy and Numeracy - how should these be witnessed within the classroom:
    As the literacy lead for our school, I'd be looking for the support and development of literacy through:
      • Clear use and promotion of the Literacy Ladder to build vocabulary knowledge (Listening/Talking/Reading/Writing)
      • Highlighting the etymology of new words to build understanding and retrieval
      • Removable scaffolds that push the student towards independence in talking, reading and writing
      • Reading strategies including: skimming, scanning and zooming, teacher reading aloud, students reading aloud, discussions deconstructing the reading, support for students who will struggle such as specific highlighted sections of accessibly readable text or coaching/reflection/praise after the reading task.
      • Writing strategies including: group writing, modelled writing, using a WAGOL (What A Good One Looks Like), Deconstruction and construction activities, talking the task before writing the task and links beyond the current task to high/academic literature.
Each Group should report back to the whole staff, but I would save analysis and the final selection of ideas for the middle leaders at a later meeting, where I would push them to really consider data.  Middle Leaders would be asked to attend the meeting with a prepared strengths/weaknesses audit in the teaching and learning in their subject disciplines, which they should have developed within department meetings.  These need to be consolidated together at the start of the meeting and combined to give the team of middle leaders a 'hit list' of practices that need to be targeted in the coming year across departments - ideas for changes in expectations of teachers and learners/students.

The middle leaders should then consolidate the ideas of the whole staff meeting into a single list; the process of doing this should be led by the democratic principles of what was most referenced by staff as well as by the professional judgements of those involved.

The resulting list should then by compared to the 'strengths and weaknesses' audit and adjusted as necessary, practical and reasonable.  At this point middle leaders need to consider how the feedback sheets for observations are designed and tweak them to meet these ends so that all notes, reflections and discussions are targeted towards the agreed 'great teaching' structures.  CPD and line management coaching sessions also need to be tweaked (by paper work if necessary again) to ensure that these agreed skills are subject to training through post observations reflections, coaching and development.

Let me be very clear the intention of this joined up thinking is to support and coach staff into better practice.  This work needs to be about how we raise every professional up towards a challenging and aspirational model of great teaching that has been tailored specifically to the school's context and needs.  Here's a reminder from John Tomsett:


Love over fear, always wins.  By committing to support and train teachers through the quality and quantity of training they receive, the school's outcomes will improve. 


I have never met a teacher, who didn't want to improve and do better for the students in their class, but I have met plenty of teachers who struggle to know where to start and which strategies and ideas to prioritise.  In house CPD is key in every teachers' ability to develop and improve.  Managing CPD effectively is key to reducing the variability of teacher performance - we can talk about attainment gap all we like, what has impact is the teaching every student receives.


Great teaching changes lives.
Great CPD drives it.



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Monday 3 September 2018

Learning about Leading in School

The WHAT of the process: getting the settings right

This used to be the icon for settings back in 1998 when I got my first, brick like mobile phone.  I remember vividly seeing this image and thinking 'That's just like teaching'.  



Odd, but true, let me explain.

In your classroom as a skilled teacher you fine tune activities to yield different learning experiences; for example, when I am introducing a unit of work on theatre design I might start the the lesson with a montage of different openings of productions of the same play and instigate a teacher led discussion about the impact of the design on the same scene with every student engaged in hearing most points.  As the weeks progress in studying theatre design, I will want the students to develop their own concept for the design of our set text and here the discussions will be student led in small groups and then progress to some quiet individual study as concepts begin to be generated and tested out.  An overall lesson might change some of these settings up or down:


The more I mused on this diagram as a teacher, I began to realise that I actually had a settings diagram for each child as well as the lesson plan: students who required more one on one time, students who wouldn't speak up in a whole class discussion but who would talk to me with a small group, students who needed more support with written work.  The diagram scales down to an individual student level and up to a classroom level; what the levels are change depending on who/what they are for

I completed NPQSL in February 2017 and was then asked to function as part of our school's extended leadership team from September 2017.  As my practice and knowledge has developed, I find myself seeing the same settings diagram in my mind for the whole school; it has always seemed to me that the classroom is a good model or microcosm for the school.  The settings diagram might look something like this:


The theory once again following that your choice of variables will be adapted for your school.  For example, schools like Michaela have chosen to up their behaviour controls for students.  Schools like ours have made a commitment to oracy protocols across both teachers and students practice to enhance confidence, trust and independence.  As an SLE I have worked in a variety of settings where different school's give a different accent to their work: heavily prescribed and monitored appraisals or less centrally controlled more teacher directed appraisals, for example.  The variation should be in response to the context of the school and the culture promoted through the senior leadership team: the aim is to get the variables right for the whole school in every classroom for every student.

The very best leaders that I have worked with know their context, students and staff; they have 20/20 vision, cool eyes that do not miss anything, but don't react and it is this that helps them make the best choices - they know the operable variables for their school and exploit them.  They choose the variables to make their vision a reality, their vision gets staff buy in and they manage the logistical practicalities well so that staff and students are engaged in purposeful work in helpful conditions - this is great leadership.

The HOW of the process: Managing vs Leading

When I first started teaching practice, I could either have what felt like bedlam across the drama studio or complete silence as I addressed the class, I struggled to find anywhere in between too much control and not enough.  I could lead well when speaking to the whole class, I could inspire their engagement and get them to understand what I wanted them to do and where the lesson was going, but I couldn't practically manage the class when they were working independently; my instruction and modelling had not sufficiently developed to help them to manage themselves better.  Slowly, I learnt to do better to both lead and manage the classroom.  




That was some 20 years ago now, I have developed into a strong teacher and can manage classes, even multiple classes, well.  I have also developed as a leader of teachers through leading departments, youth theatre networks, faculties, year groups and teams of moderators as an assistant principle moderator.  In the smaller setting of a pastoral team, even the larger setting of faculties or even beyond school working nationally across three teams of moderators, I can lead well getting colleagues to buy into the vision, our purpose in this team and consistently monitor and evaluate progress to ensure that we reach our destination on point, not a couple of yards out.  I can manage well too ensuring that work gets done, employing the necessary logistical structures to allow the team to function well, minimising any obstacles to our progression and ensuring that teachers and students are nurtured and grow through the process and are not undone by it.  


There is a balance to be reached between leading and managing; both are necessary practices in leading a school.  I have known too many leaders who had control without soul and equally too many whose highly wrought vision never becomes a practical reality.  The balance of practical concerns and vision & ethos is key to ensuring a school moves forward purposefully.

The WHY of the process: motivating & engaging the school community

Over the twenty one years of my career in teaching, I have worked in six schools/colleges/educational settings, where I have been led by 9 different head teachers as in three of the six schools the head teacher changed during my time there.  Each of them provided a model for me in what helps me work well and what inspires me.

Trust and Integrity
The head teachers who reached out to me as a person, who took the time to get to know me and who went above and beyond in demonstrating their teaching and leading skills as models.  Those who were unafraid to stand next to me and fail with me in the interest of doing better next time.

Humility - being human
The head teachers, who were able to share the best and worst of their experiences, in order to help me gain perspective on my experiences and grow from them.  The head teacher who owned mistakes and in doing so helped us all to move on.

Humour
There has to be laughter.  The catharsis of shared belly laughs glues our community together. There is no better laugh than that with your colleagues as you help to get each other through the days.

Kindness
Unfortunately, life is a massive journey of ups and downs personally and professionally.  I am so grateful to the head teachers who have gone 'above and beyond' in supporting me.

Respect and Trust
I have always valued the space to work it out for myself and have flourished most when head teachers have respected and trusted in my ability to work it out, who have helped me to grow through coaching me through evaluating and improving my practice.

Mentoring/Coaching
As an experienced teacher in a recruitment and retention crisis stricken profession, I take such heart from the head teachers who are willing to plough their time into building me as a professional. Those who see it as part of their mission to build me up as much as the school and the students, even if I might leave...

As I grow as a leader, I hope to build on these skills.  The best compliment I ever got from a member of my team was a young teacher who reflected that I need never remonstrate her, because she knew what I expected and knew that it was not only possible, but right. If she ever got anything 'wrong', she continued, she was more disappointed in herself than I was and knew I would only ever be interested in helping her to move on.  This is what it is to lead; essentially I want to move the team towards independence and mastery and then focus on other areas of our practice.

'Leader;
anyone who holds him or her self responsible or accountable 
for finding potential in people or processes.'
Brene Brown

So thank you to Ann Coward, Kate Campion, Neil Rathmel, Helen Pegg, Graham Clarke, John Sullivan, Neil Stonehouse, Marie Garside and Ben Davis for the support in making me realise the leader I want to be.  

POST SCRIPT
I have also been lucky to work with some amazing Deputies so thanks also to Mr Wennington, Penny Wysome, Steve Carter (now a head!) and Mike Carroll; you have all been so significant to my practice.

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