The New Normal…

 

These are strange times indeed. I’m sure somewhere on my job contract buried in the small print there is a clause that covers the last few weeks, I haven’t found it, however.

It felt like a good time to stop and breathe, in fact this is the first moment I’ve had to stop and breathe. It’s been great to pause today, I’ve listened to a lot of Bruce Springsteen (I’m working my way through all his albums…currently on Live 75-85), I’ve read quite a bit. I’ve sat and thought quite a lot.

I stepped away from twitter today, as there was much that was frustrating me.

In education we have had very little time and guidance to create this new normal, parents have had very little time to adjust to this. First thing I have to say is it’s not the same, it can’t and won’t be the same.

We all have a wealth of new pressures on us, parents, teachers, children, everybody. Fundamentally our roles as schools and educators has changed.

Fact is education isn’t our most important job now. First and foremost, our role is about supporting our families to manage their way through this, helping them create rhythms and patterns, helping them find a home balance about what will happen in their homes for what could be quite some time. We have a key role in helping families find their way through this. We also have a key role in ensuring the children are safe.  We are in a honeymoon period now parents are more likely to engage with us, and there is a first flush of enthusiasm about doing this from many. For some this will last from many others this will diminish. As teachers and school leaders we need to remember that it’s not all about us.

I’ve seen schools trying to run a full timetable, I’ve seen parents stressed, many of whom will have to be working from home while having their children there and children stressed by the demands. I then think of the teachers who may be home with their children and trying to create this plethora of stuff. I’ve seen teachers produce full timetables of internet links to learning videos and saying children must do this (some of these are great however, Joe Wicks has broken me though). I’ve seen demands on teachers to mark and feedback submitted work exponentially increasing their workload. (I now know what exponential means). We need to let go. We can’t control it all.

As time goes on, we need to help families find a healthy balance. In primary, that’s probably a bit of Maths, a bit of writing and some reading every day, (I’d say lots of reading but I’m a bit obsessed) anything more than that and we will create something impossible. We’re planning a more project-based approach for after Easter as way of keeping children motivated and engaged with the work. The key point of the learning is parents spending time and talking with their kids. Cook together, listen to music, draw, do a jigsaw, do some gardening, make the beds etc. Creating home patterns and rhythms is the key bit. We don’t know what will be going on behind those doors, we don’t know the pressures those families are facing, just in the last week I’ve had parents concerned about money, and food and a hundred other things.  One thing we should not be doing is making this harder for families. Equally we should not be creating an impossible job for our staff.

This isn’t school, it can’t be school…there are going to be so many more issues to deal with when the children return into our buildings. Firstly, how do we help these children become used to being with other children again and feeling safe in our care.

People have talked about the “Gap” fact is whether we like it or not the gap between children will grow. I’d love to say it won’t, but the gap will be exacerbated, we have children without internet apart from a data package on Mum or Dad’s phone (Constant video lesson watching probably used that up by Tuesday). We have children, with no tablets or computers at home. The wonders of internet teaching will zoom past these children, how do we make sure we don’t forget about these children.

This weekend is a time to step back breathe and re-evaluate what it is we’re doing and how it helps our families and our communities.

To paraphrase Professor Ian Malcolm “Your teachers were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

Anyway back to the book and the Springsteen marathon. Stay Safe

 

 

 

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The Silence… (sat in no-mans land)

For a couple of weeks now war has waged on twitter. Since The right honourable Gav, dropped his silence bomb, people have planted their flag in the ground and nailed their colours to the post.

This has been exacerbated by an Ofsted report that dismissed a strict behaviour regime due to objections by pupils and parents. We have high profile tweeters sniping  others about it if they don’t agree with them and even a robust response from the Tsar himself criticising Ofsted and the way behaviour was reported. I have to say in this case I agreed with Mr Bennett with his point about schools doing what they need to do. It is sadly, a hopeless, futile war where neither side will give ground and stop to consider the others view.

It is a landscape full of hyperbole, both sides portraying the other as wrong and spinning webs of propaganda to support their argument.

Silence on the corridors = compliance, control and robot children

Talking on the corridors = Chaos and supporting bullying

Exclusions = The greatest evil or the greatest weapon (depending on your side)

All children are Naughty/angelic delete depending on your viewpoint.

 

…and on and on it goes

Isolation booths, restorative practices, warm-strict etc…. Grenades hurled by both sides, good or evil depending on your stance.

This battle has waged and will continue to wage. There is no winning.  So now the mortal enemies stand either side of no man’s land staring across into the ravaged landscape, sniping from their bunkers and ever more it will be.

Except that some of us are caught up on the barbed wire singing quietly into the night or cowering in shell like craters whispering our thoughts.

We are the middle. Generally, they are people doing the job on a day to day basis rather than the ones telling people how to do the job from the safety of their war-rooms miles from the front.

I am one such person, I have views on all these things, and they have changed and adapted as school has changed. I’m six years down the line here

 

When I walked into my current school behaviour was some of the worst I had seen in a primary school, the chief issue was behaviour. It was challenging and this was impacting on the wellbeing of staff and pupils alike. A new behaviour policy was devised and quickly embedded. Patterns of behaviour were analysed, and minor but high-impact changes were made, we restructured lunchtimes, for example, so all year groups were not on break together. Meanwhile, I made sure I was visible in school, and visibly supporting behaviour. I also spoke to parents and we put the onus on them helping us to get it right.

There were sanctions, there were rewards, we removed children from their classes (Most often to time spent with me. If children are disrupting learning of others, they should be removed IMO) We had clear systems and we stuck to them, as head I backed the staff to the hilt. We excluded; we even called the police.

We set rules and we held the line, corridors were silent, it was reset. It was not the end of the line though. We taught children about behaviour, we were rigorous to the expectations and we stuck to it. All the time we were building relationships and trust. In primary relationships are key, but if there aren’t clear expectation and boundaries you don’t ever give them the chance to flourish.  My teachers are fierce and demanding in the best way. We coined the term #FierceKindness way before warm/strict became a rebrand. We never saw it as end though. It was a moment, as behaviour improved the policy adapted, corridors were silent for about a term, now they are calm and orderly, class behaviour is focussed, children most of the time want to learn. We have some children that need extra. Sometimes behaviour is uncommunicated need, sometimes its children testing boundaries and making poor choices. The behaviour policy is still there, it’s very rarely used now in the way we had to use it. We equally work hard with those children who struggle.

‘The behaviour of pupils is outstanding. What marks it out as being beyond good is how considerate pupils are towards each other and how they remind each other of how to behave without having to be prompted by adults. This does not just happen by chance. Teachers have worked hard to create an ethos in the classroom where mutual respect, tolerance and cooperation are very much the order of the day.’ Ofsted 2016

Ask anybody who’s visited (that includes Mary Myatt) and they’ll tell you it’s a calm, orderly school, with enthusiastic children who want to learn.

The fact is each school should be able to choose what happens in their school and what those rules and routines are. For me too many rules mean that you are creating a battleground, for others I appreciate it’s a communication about values and expectations. (that’s why I’ve never challenged my son’s school on a behaviour policy that frankly I thought was a bit silly, equally I was careful not to say that to my son)

Ultimately it comes down to what our expectations of young people are. I think they can be brilliant, creative, caring, generous, hard-working and will with the right support make the right choices. I trust and believe in children in my school and they repay that in spades.

So, the question is what is it that we want from behaviour in our schools. Personally, I want children who have responsibility for their actions and choices and make them in a secure moral framework. Therefore, if we look at our behaviour systems, we should question what they achieve. Discipline without responsibility will need constant vigilance. Discipline driven by pupils’ own morals is almost self-regulating. Behaviour policies aren’t static, and the aim should be more than compliance.

When children get stuff wrong and they will because lets be honest we all do, do we just punish and expect them to not do it again (it will work for some, my son hates being in trouble he’s spent the last four years terrified he’d get into trouble for the tiniest infraction) or do we do the thing we are good at and teach the children.

We need a behaviour “Christmas Truce” where we all step into no-mans land shake hands (or just fist-bump now) and listen to each other. I think we’d find that most of us are not as far away from each other as twitter makes us believe.