The Insider's Guide to Early Professional Development: Succeed in Your First Five Years as a Teacher (Tes Career Guides)

The Insider’s Guide to Early Professional Development After the initial intensity of training and induction, it is com...

Author: Sara Bubb

17 downloads 857 Views 4MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

The Insider’s Guide to Early Professional Development

After the initial intensity of training and induction, it is common for teachers to feel adrift and abandoned in the first few years of their career.This book addresses the factors that lead teachers to leave the profession early and will guide new entrants through the hurdles encountered at this challenging time. Throughout this accessible and engaging book the author draws on the experiences of those who contribute to the TES online forum and outlines the key concerns of those in their first few years of teaching. She provides a wealth of useful resources, case-study material, action points and practical suggestions, covering topics such as: • performance management and threshold standards • career planning • improving classroom skills • managing workload • dealing with inspection. Addressing all the key areas of teaching and as a useful source of tips and advice, this helpful and accessible guide will be a valuable resource for all new teachers. Sara Bubb has an international reputation in the field of induction and trains a wide range of teachers at the Institute of Education, University of London, and across the country. She writes a popular weekly advice column for new teachers inThe Times Educational Supplement.

TES Career Guides The Insider’s Guide for New Teachers Sara Bubb The Insider’s Guide to Early Professional Development: Succeed in your first five years as a teacher Sara Bubb

The Insider’s Guide to Early Professional Development

Succeed in your first five years as a teacher

Sara Bubb

First published 2004 by RoutledgeFalmer 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeFalmer 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. RoutledgeFalmer is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2004 Sara Bubb The right of Sara Bubb to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. The views expressed in this book are those of the author and are not necessarily the same as those of The Times Educational Supplement. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Bubb, Sara. The insider’s guide to early professional development : succeed in your first five years as a teacher / Sara Bubb. p. cm. -- (TES career guides) ISBN 0–415–33494–2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. First year teachers--In-service training--Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2.Teachers--In-service training--Handbooks, manuals, etc. 3. Career development--Handbooks, manuals, etc. I.Title. II. Series. LB2844.1.N4B814 2004 370⬘ .71’5--dc22 2003020615 ISBN 0-203-41625-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-43855-8 (Adobe eReader Format)

Contents Preface

vii

Acknowledgements

x

List of abbreviations

xi

Part 1 Early professional development

1

1. Getting the most from early professional development Professional development 3;Why is there a focus on early professional development? 9; The EPD pilots 10; Professional bursaries 12; Deciding what you want to develop 13; Recognising how you learn best 15; Drawing up action plans 19; Evaluating your development 20

3

2. Early professional development activities Range of activities 23; Observing others 26; Courses and conferences 28; MAs 35;

23

Part 2 Things that can help or hinder

41

3. Performance management Performance management 43; Setting objectives 47; Professional Development Portfolios 47; Being observed 50; Threshold assessment 53

43

4. Being inspected The inspection process 60; Inspection gradings 61; Observations of your teaching 62; Categories of failing school 66; Inspecting your professional development 67; Inspecting your leadership and management 68;

60

vi

Contents

Part 3 Getting better …

71

5. Getting even better in the classroom Classroom environment 73; Planning 76; Putting plans into practice 78; Support staff 81; Questioning 84; Thinking skills 85; Marking 87; Reports 90

73

6. Managing your workload The extent of the problem 91; Restructuring the workforce 93; Work–life balance 96; Knowing how you’re spending worktime 97; Planning to change 102; Using time well 103

91

7. Handling tricky situations Choosing the appropriate behaviour 106; Managing pupil behaviour 107;Violent parents 112; Covering other teachers’ lessons 113; Criticisms following observations 115; Bullying at work 117; False allegations 120

106

8. Leading and managing You’re an emergent leader! 124;What subject leaders do 125; Getting a feel for standards 126; Making judgements about teaching 127; Observing teachers 128; Feeding back to teachers 131; Running training sessions for other staff 138

123

Part 4 Getting on

141

9. Career options Career paths 143; Salary 145; Maternity 149;Advanced Skills Teachers 152;The independent sector 154; Educational psychologists 156

143

10. Getting a new job What job do you want? 157; Job hunting 158;Application form 160; Interviews 163; Contracts 170

157

References

171

Index

175

Preface This book aims to support people in their first five years of teaching, traditionally a time when many feel a little lost and neglected after the intensity of the training and induction years. Its concern is with early professional development (EPD) – a term which because of the EPD pilots which had earmarked funding, has become associated with the second and third years of a teacher’s career. My use of ‘early’ professional development is broader, covering the first five years. So, this book will be useful to any teacher in their second to fifth year in the profession. I’ve written about induction in the Insider’s Guide for New Teachers, but much of what this book contains will also be useful to newly qualified teachers (NQTs). So why do teachers in their first five years need help with their professional development? Ofsted’s reports (2003) say that because the quality of training has improved, schools now have the best NQTs ever. Excellent! However, not all who train end up working as teachers. Only 83 per cent of those who get qualified teacher status (QTS) through primary Postgraduate Certificates in Education (PGCEs) in London are teaching in the year after their course (TTA 2002b) – and this percentage includes those working abroad, in the independent sector and on supply. So it looks as if for every 100 people who start a primary PGCE in London only 85 qualify and 71 work as teachers. Similarly for every 100 people who start a PGCE in secondary maths only 78 qualify and 69 end up teaching when they finish (Bubb 2003a). But the picture gets worse. Smithers and Robinson’s research (DfES 2003) into why teachers leave the profession found that it’s the very newest teachers who are leaving. Only about 70 per cent of teachers stay in the profession for more than five years. So of the 100 people who start a PGCE primary course, only 49 are teaching after five years.What a waste!

viii

Preface

The government is putting an emphasis on teachers in their first five years as an incentive to help recruitment and retention. The biggest drivers on retention are said to be workload, discipline and a general sense of professional self-respect. Professional development can help significantly. The General Teaching Council/Guardian/Mori teacher survey (2003a) found that: Teachers who are given the opportunity for further training or professional development are much more likely to want to stay in teaching.

Thus, EPD is a way to stop the haemorrhage from the profession, but in many schools teachers in their second to fifth years feel in limbo regarding continuing professional development (CPD) – not needing induction courses but not seen as eligible for leadership and management and other development. I’ve written this book in four parts: Part 1 Early Professional Development Part 2 Things that can help or hinder Part 3 Getting better … Part 4 Getting on. Part 1 describes the elements and issues around professional development in general and EPD in particular. I give examples of what teachers in their fourth and fifth years have done with their professional bursaries.Then I focus on how to choose what to develop, how to do so – and how to evaluate what you’ve achieved. Part 2 is about two things that can help or hinder – performance management and inspection. Both can be seen negatively but I hope that you’ll use them to help you. Part 3 is called ‘Getting better …’.The first chapter is about getting better in the classroom. Subsequent chapters look at how you can get better at managing your workload, handling tricky situations and lastly leading and managing – something that you’re likely to do more and more of as you go through your career. Part 4 is entitled ‘Getting on’ and is about where you want to go in your career.There is a chapter on career options which discusses career paths, salary and maternity benefits. In the last chapter,‘Getting a new job’, I cover applications and interviews. I know that you’re busy people, with lots of reading to do, so I’ve tried to write in an accessible and to the point style. I’ve used extracts

Preface

ix

from postings (anonymised, of course) on the TES virtual staffroom to give you a real feeling for the issues as well as some useful tips. Here’s one: From the

TES staffroom

It’s really a disgrace that so many schools seem to think that education is fine for people up to the age of 18 but not for those people they employ!

The TES staffroom is open for discussion on all aspects of education. You can ask questions, help colleagues, debate, make friends, laugh, cry or just talk.There is a forum for every subject and for specific groups and topics. Click on any forum (www.tes.co.uk/staffroom) and see what friendly, entertaining and helpful people there are around. I hope you enjoy reading this book, and find it useful so that your first years in teaching are successful (not just survived) and that you have a great career in education. Sara Bubb

Acknowledgements This book has been written as a practical guide for teachers in their first five years in the profession. I would like to thank all the people who make contributions to the virtual staffroom at the Times Educational Supplement website and everyone who comes to my courses, particularly those at the University of London Institute of Education and at the Lewisham, Lambeth, Greenwich, Medway and Jersey Professional Development Centres. Thanks to all who have helped me, especially Peter Earley from the Institute of Education, Stephen Jones from RoutledgeFalmer, Susan Young from the TES and Fiona Minnis from the Institute’s MA in Educational Management. Most of all, I must thank Paul, Julian, Miranda and Oliver for their encouragement and tolerance of me while I wrote this book.

Abbreviations AST ATL CEDP CPD DfES DHT EAL EBD EiC EMA EPD G&T GTC HEI HMCI HMI HOD HOF HOY HT ICT IEP ILP INSET ITE ITT LEA LftM

Advanced Skills Teacher Association of Teachers and Lecturers Career Entry and Development Profile Continuing Professional Development Department for Education and Skills Deputy Headteacher English as an Additional Language Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties Excellence in Cities Ethnic and Minority Achievement Early Professional Development Gifted and Talented General Teaching Council (for England) Higher Education Institution Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector Her Majesty’s Inspectorate Head of Department Head of Faculty Head of Year Headteacher Information and Communications Technology Individual Education Plan (for pupils with SEN) Individual Learning Plan In-Service Education and Training Initial Teacher Education Initial Teacher Training Local Education Authority Leading from the Middle

xii

Abbreviations

LIG LPSH LT MPS NCSL NLC NPQH NQT OFSTED PANDA PGCE PPA QCA QTS R&R SEN SENCO SMT STRB TES TIPD TPLF TTA UPS

Leadership Incentive Grant Leadership Programme for Serving Headteachers Leadership Team Main Pay Scale National College of School Leadership Networked Learning Communities National Professional Qualification for Headship Newly Qualified Teacher Office for Standards in Education Performance and Assessment report Postgraduate Certificate in Education Planning, Preparation and Assessment Qualifications and Curriculum Authority Qualified Teacher Status Recruitment and Retention Special Educational Needs Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator Senior Management Team School Teachers’ Review Body Times Educational Supplement Teachers’ International Professional Development Teachers’ Professional Learning Framework Teacher Training Agency Upper Pay Scale

part one

Early professional development Early professional development is a fairly recent notion. The government EPD pilot funds were for teachers in their second and third years so many people think that EPD just covers this two-year period. But it makes more sense to me to use the concept of early professional development more widely to cover, say, the first five years. In your first year, when you complete your induction period, you should have intensive support, so this section focuses on what professional development there is for you when you’re no longer labelled a newly qualified teacher – your second to fifth years. The first chapter describes the elements and issues around professional development in general and EPD in particular. I give examples of what teachers in their fourth and fifth years have done with their professional bursaries. Then I focus on how to choose what to develop, how to do so – and how to evaluate what you’ve achieved. The range of professional development activities is huge. The second chapter lists these and goes into more detail on how to learn from observing others, getting the most from going on courses and lastly about doing a masters degree – an increasingly popular option for many teachers.

one

Getting the most from early professional development Professional development Why is there a focus on early professional development? The EPD pilots Professional bursaries Deciding what you want to develop Recognising how you learn best Drawing up action plans Evaluating your development

Professional development Professional development has been defined in various ways but the DfES, launching its strategy for professional development, calls it:‘any activity that increases the skills, knowledge or understanding of teachers, and their effectiveness in schools’ (DfES 2001a: 3). It’s everything that you do to improve and keep up to date, starting with your training and going on through your career, as illustrated in Figure 1.1. Your training provides the platform on which continuing professional development (CPD) is built.Aha, a new term! But what do we mean by CPD and is it different from staff development or in-service education and training – more commonly known as INSET? Broadly speaking, continuing professional development encompasses all formal

4

Early professional development Initial teacher training – 1-4 years

Statutory induction – year 1

Early professional development – years 2 & 3 Professional bursaries – years 4 & 5

Continuing professional development – on-going individually focused, school-focused and LEA/nationally focused CPD Supported by performance management

Teaching-based CPD supporting excellence in the classroom

Role-specific CPD e.g. NPQH, leadership team, head of department, subject leader, SENCO

Figure 1.1 Professional development throughout your career (Jones 2003, p.38) and informal learning that enable individuals to improve their own practice. INSET and staff development are ways in which it can occur, but CPD is the big umbrella term to describe every aspect of your professional development. CPD is a huge area. Ray Bolam (1993) makes a useful distinction between professional education, professional training and professional support. • Professional education, e.g. long courses and secondments emphasising theory and research-based knowledge • Professional training, e.g. short courses, workshops, conferences emphasising practical information and skills • Professional support, e.g. activities that aim to develop on the job experience and performance I like the way he distinguishes between training and education, because they’re not always synonymous. Many courses that people

Getting the most from EPD

5

have been on for the strategies for literacy, numeracy and Key Stage 3 give lots of information.You’re not required to do much thinking or questioning – just take a great deal on board! Professional support is a crucial and everyday way to develop.You’ll do that even when you’re planning lessons or moderating work with another teacher. England’s General Teaching Council goes a bit further when it says that professional development should:‘recognise and seek to enhance teachers’ sense of vocation, creativity and autonomy, and help to realise their career aspirations’. (GTC 2003b). Yes, we are people, not just ‘teaching machines’ as one teacher describes herself (Minnis 2003): people are always much more than the roles they play. I like the idea of my creativity and autonomy being enhanced – but it hasn’t often happened. Creativity and autonomy are really about personal as well as professional development. Much has been written about the importance of emotional intelligence.We’re judged by how well we handle ourselves, and each other. So personal development does matter. Peter Earley (Earley and Bubb 2004) thinks that wherever possible the two should interact and complement each other. Waters (1998) uses the term ‘pro-personal’ development to indicate that when learning is most successful there are changes in self-awareness. Teachers therefore need CPD opportunities in three areas (see Figure 1.2): • Individually focused – these activities should focus on your own needs and career plans. • School focused – activities in areas in which the school wants to make progress. These are usually identified in the school development plan and take place during the statutory INSET days and at staff meetings. • National/LEA focused – activities that meet the demands of national and local initiatives.

Your responsibility Professional learning and development is a responsibility throughout teachers’ careers, as can be seen in the Teachers’ Standards Framework (DfES 2001b). One of the standards that people have to meet in order to get qualified teacher status is that:

6

Early professional development

Individually focused which includes: professional skills subject support

All teachers take responsibility as reflective practitioners

School focused which includes: school improvement cross-curricular activities

Local and nationally focused which includes: national initiatives subject or cluster networks professional links

Figure 1.2 Continuing Professional Development Framework (Jones 2003, p.37) They are able to improve their own teaching, by evaluating it, learning from the effective practice of others and from evidence. They are motivated and able to take increasing responsibility for their own professional development.

In order to pass induction teachers have to: Show a commitment to their professional development by • identifying areas in which they need to improve their professional knowledge, understanding and practice in order to teach more effectively in their current post, and • with support, taking steps to address these needs.

The threshold standards require people to have ‘wider professional effectiveness’ and be able to demonstrate that they: • take responsibility for their professional development and use the outcomes to improve their teaching and pupils’ learning, and


7

• make an active contribution to the policies and aspirations of the school.

Your entitlement The General Teaching Council has drawn up an entitlement to professional learning within its Teachers’ Professional Learning Framework (TPLF) that was published in March 2003. The GTC believes that there should be a personal entitlement to professional development throughout a teacher’s career and one that is not linked solely to school targets. It’s not exactly on the tips of people’s tongues so it’s up to you as the new generation to know about it and really make sure you get it. Teachers need the opportunity to: • Have structured time to engage in sustained reflection and structured learning. • Create learning opportunities from everyday practice such as planning and assessing for learning. • Develop their ability to identify their own learning and development needs and those of others. • Develop an individual learning plan. • Have school-based learning as well as course participation, recognised for accreditation. • Develop self-evaluation, observation and peer review skills. • Develop mentoring and coaching skills and their ability to offer professional dialogue and feedback. • Plan their longer-term career aspirations. (GTC 2003b: 6)

This is a brilliant list. I like the way it starts off by saying that we need time for reflection. It’s so important to step back from the hurly burly of school life to think about things. It emphasises the learning from everyday practice – or in the words of the DfES catchphrase,‘learning from each other: learning from what works’. The ability to identify our own learning needs is also identified, which is good because it really isn’t that easy. Later in this chapter I’ll outline the importance of prioritising what you need to do and considering how you learn best in order to help you draw up an action plan. Have you noticed how mentoring and coaching, and observation and feedback skills, are included in a list about your entitlement to

8


professional development? Interesting, and I would agree that you learn a huge amount from watching and discussing another teacher’s lesson. It’s important to do it well, to aid their development as well as your own. Chapter 8 covers just that. Lastly, the GTC entitlement links career aspirations to professional development.This is great because so often people only get professional development to fix an immediate need within the school, rather than taking account of what teachers want to do in the longer term. So, we have a great lever for professional development in the Teachers’ Professional Learning Framework, but as any teacher who has worked in more than one school will attest, the training and development culture may be quite different from one school to another. In some schools teachers’ on-going professional development is seen as integral, given great significance and very closely linked to the school development plan (SDP). In this sense ‘good schools’ make ‘good teachers’ as much as the other way around. Schools that don’t look after their staff ’s professional development usually lose the best teachers. From the

TES staffroom

When I went to see the school I’m at they seemed so on the ball and had loads going on but are in fact crap, crap, crap. I told them a priority was CPD and that I want to get credits towards a Masters in the future and they said they were very into that, but they are not at all. I feel like I am wasting a year here.

The arguments for professional development are clear – but just in case your headteacher needs reminding, it: • Helps everyone be better teachers, so pupils learn better and achieve higher standards. • Improves retention and recruitment – word gets around about the places where you’re looked after, and where you’re not. • Contributes to a happy ethos where people feel valued and motivated. • Makes for a learning community – the pupils are learning and so are the staff. • Is a professional responsibility and entitlement.


9

• Saves money – the costs of recruiting a new teacher can be about £4,000.

Why is there a focus on early professional development? The government is putting an emphasis on teachers in their first five years as an incentive to help recruitment and even more importantly retention. Only 83 per cent of those who get QTS through primary PGCEs in London are teaching in the year after their course (TTA 2002b) – and this percentage includes those working abroad, in the independent sector and on supply. So it looks as if for every 100 people who start a primary PGCE in London only 85 qualify and 71 work as teachers. Similarly for every 100 people who start a PGCE in secondary maths only 78 qualify and 69 end up teaching when they finish (Bubb 2003a). The GTC/Guardian/Mori teacher survey found that a third of teachers plan to quit. However, Teachers who are given the opportunity for further training or professional development are much more likely to want to stay in teaching. (GTC 2003a)

About 30 per cent of teachers quit within the first five years. Thus, EPD is to an extent a way to stop the haemorrhage from the profession. Although many people have long seen the need for giving teachers special support in their second and third years, it’s fairly new as a formal notion. It was mentioned in England’s Learning and Teaching:A Strategy for Professional Development (DfES 2001a). Northern Ireland has recognised it for some time and in Wales induction is seen as the first year of a three-year-long EPD, but in Scotland there is no named period of EPD as such. Teachers have often felt a little at sea in the years immediately after induction.They get lots of attention (or should do) when training and during induction and then it suddenly stops. They’re meant to be experienced and know what they’re doing, and no longer have allowances made for them. But in reality learning to teach confidently takes years so having early professional development can be a bit like

10


being able to drive with P plates on – it’s a safety net.Teachers in their second and third years have felt that they’re in CPD limbo: neither entitled to NQT courses nor ready for leadership and management development. As a result some teachers go off the boil. They’re no longer observed regularly and don’t get stimulated. A typical pattern emerges: if they don’t get a tonic they don’t teach so well, then they don’t teach so well, then they don’t enjoy the job so much, so they leave.What a waste. The Ofsted report (2003a) on teachers’ early professional development found little differentiation in the CPD offered to second- and third-year teachers in at least half of the schools inspected, so that their particular needs remained unrecognised and, consequently, were not addressed. In the schools where EPD was effective, Ofsted found a raft of benefits including stronger teaching, a clear contribution of secondand third-year teachers to the work of their colleagues, and more commitment to a career in teaching. Professional development can also help to bring about change.The government is bringing in massive changes and it needs to have knowledgeable and motivated teachers to implement them. So EPD could be seen as the lifeboat offered in the increasingly choppy seas of reform. EPD is expensive but it’s a cost-effective investment if goodquality teachers stay in the profession.

The EPD pilots The DfES and GTC have set up a pilot project of early professional development for teachers in their second and third years of teaching. The pilot programmes are running in 12 LEAs at a cost of £25 million.They started in autumn 2001 and benefited three cohorts of teachers. Perhaps you were one of the lucky people who got £3,000 over the two years to spend on their professional development? The DfES’ (2001c) aims for teachers involved in EPD are: • to have made significant progress towards the threshold standards – increasing their pedagogical skills and their ability to apply them effectively to a wide range of children and a wider range of situations; • to have strengthened their ability to learn from the knowledge base in schools, professional networks, research and enquiry;


11

• to have increased the ability to contribute, as professionals, to immediate colleagues, their school and the wider education community; • to be more strongly committed to teaching as a career. Teachers are encouraged to ‘be creative’ with their EPD funding, and some have considered career moves to alternative forms of educational provision as a result. One such example is a drama teacher who attended a course on drama and movement therapy with her thirdyear money, and is now considering specialising in drama therapy in education, a long-term goal: The EPD fund gave me an opportunity to get this plan into action and let me know that I hadn’t been forgotten. My needs are as important as the students’ but we often forget this as teachers. When I feel creative and inspired, as I certainly did after this course, it has an effect on students and colleagues. (TES, 2003)

From the

TES staffroom

I’m hoping to spend mine on a MPhil programme with the aim of getting out of the classroom and developing a career in research & uni work. Not sure if this is realistic (and it’s the opposite of what the government have set the scheme up for) but I can’t go on as I am.

You shouldn’t feel guilty about meeting personal needs and career plans.They are bound to make you happier, which will probably have a positive effect on how you deal with pupils and colleagues. Even if you move out of school teaching, the chances are that you will move to a related field within education – and many who leave teaching return to it at some time in the future. The kind of training is important. Classroom observations and being mentored by an experienced colleague were rated highly by second-year teachers. Teachers were also more positive if they had chosen their mentor and their own training programme. The more involvement teachers had in selecting their EPD programme, the

12


more likely they were to feel their professional development needs had been met, and record higher ratings for the effects of EPD on their teaching practice and professional attitudes. Teachers have a done a wide range of things with their EPD fund. One mainstream secondary-school teacher wanted to work with children with emotional and behavioural problems. She went on behaviour management courses, visited another school’s unit, studied inner-city schools in New York state, and now wants to shadow a youth-offending team and visit local special schools. It all helped prepare her for her current post, as second in charge of her school’s social inclusion unit. Someone else wanted to work on pastoral issues and is now acting head of Year 9. Her EPD fund went on training, working with a head of year, buying resources and developing a project on attendance. She was delighted:‘I have friends teaching in other boroughs who feel they haven’t progressed as they would have liked to, yet I have gone through the roof. It’s motivated me because I was able to get extra training in areas I was interested in’ (TES 4 Apr. 2003).

Professional bursaries There are also ‘Professional Bursaries’ for teachers in their fourth and fifth years.These are £500 per year, which isn’t a lot but can be put to good use. Some people have spent the money on professional development directly related to their current post and teaching. Others have used it to further their own subject knowledge or to explore places to take pupils on educational visits. Others have done things that seem a little self indulgent such as the English teacher who is buying guitar lessons on the grounds that it’s a good stress buster and that he’ll run a guitar club. A science teacher has had a weekend in Paris to see the Pasteur Institute. Here are some more examples: After being appointed to a new job as music co-ordinator, a teacher wanted to use the summer break to develop his skills as a music teacher. He had already established contacts with a summer camp in New Jersey that offered music courses for children with severe behavioural problems. Using the funding provided through the bursary scheme, he was able to arrange


13

a visit to the camp, where he spent the two weeks observing music sessions, exchanging ideas with camp instructors with extensive experience in the field and leading sessions himself. He acquired a wealth of new ideas and techniques to draw on. The head of a French department was looking for ways to support a move from head of department to head of year. Using his bursary as a fourth-year teacher, he attended a course entitled ‘Becoming a Pastoral Leader’. He intends to use the remainder of the money, plus the further bursary he will be entitled to as a fifth-year teacher, towards funding a post-graduate diploma in Education Leadership.

Sabbaticals, trips abroad, etc. Later on in your career you may have an opportunity to take a sabbatical or a trip abroad.The purpose of sabbaticals is to create opportunities for experienced teachers to enhance their own learning and effectiveness, and bring subsequent benefits to their pupils and their school. Government organisations, charities, unions and industries all have a history of supporting teacher involvement in educational research, with the opportunities on offer changing from time to time. The Professional Bursaries, Best Practice Research Scholarships, Teachers’ International Professional Development (TIPD) programme and the sabbaticals offered by the DfES and National College for School Leadership all offer great opportunities.Advertisements for such things are often placed in the TES as well as in professional association journals. Advice on European Union funded initiatives is available from the Central Bureau, which is part of the British Council. The teachers’ international professional development scheme enables you to learn from and contribute to educational ideas and good practice throughout the world. One group recently visited four primary and four high schools located in and around Cape Town, South Africa.

Deciding what you want to develop It’s quite fun thinking about what you’d like to do, but as when you create a lesson plan, you need to know why you’re doing it. Some people regret that they didn’t use their induction and EPD funding

14


more wisely to address something really important to them. Money and time are precious resources that need to be spent well. It’s great if you can find someone to talk things over with, someone who knows your work. Choosing someone to act as a sort of coach or mentor is really important.You need someone to bounce ideas off, who can help you focus and who can give you more ideas. It’s ideal if someone in your school can take the role but sometimes an outsider proves useful too. These sorts of questions may structure your thinking: • What aspects of teaching would you like more experience in – strengths or interests, weaknesses or areas of limited experience? • What do you find most interesting and rewarding about your job? Why? How do you want to develop these? • What are your main strengths and achievements? What brought them about? What’s helped your learning? • Do you have any new roles that you need help with? • Is there anything that you planned to achieve in the recent past that you didn’t? Why not? Can you learn anything from this? • How do you see your career panning out? What’s the next step to get you there? Think about whether you want to address a problem, a weakness.You keep losing your voice? Well, now’s the time to get some input on voice management.When you have a problem, it needs to be reflected upon and diagnosed accurately in order to draw up the most useful objectives and plan of action. The first thing to do when you have a problem is to brainstorm its features and results. For instance, Rachel’s control problems include the following: • Her voice is thin and becomes screechy when raised. • Sometimes she comes down hard on the pupils and at other times she lets them get away with things. • She takes a long time to get attention. • She runs out of time so plenaries are missed, the class is late to assembly, etc. • Pupils call out. • Pupils are too noisy.


15

• A small group of pupils is behaving badly. • Even the usually well-behaved pupils are being naughty. Make a list of your own and then look at it. Does it seem a fair picture? It’s easy to be too hard or too generous. Then list some positive features of your teaching, relating to the problem area. For instance, Rachel: • • • • • •

really likes and cares for the pupils speaks to them with respect plans interesting work for them is very effective when working with individuals or small groups has better control in the early part of the day works hard.

Think about why things go well.The process of analysing strengths is very helpful and this positive thinking can now be used to reflect on problem parts of the day.Try to tease out the reasons for the problem. Think of actions to remedy situations – they can be surprisingly easy! It’s often the small things that make a difference. Rachel completed a very detailed action plan (see Figure 1.3) because she had such problems – but you won’t need to. I’ve simply included it to illustrate how breaking a problem into manageable chunks helps. Whatever you choose to address, make sure that it’s tailored to your professional and career progression needs.

Recognising how you learn best When you’re teaching it’s useful to think about how children learn. Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences and our awareness of children who are predominantly visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learners are useful. But do you ever stop and think about how you learn? Not only do we teach the way we were taught but we usually learn the way we were taught to learn. The difference between the learning of most adults and the learning of teachers is really significant, because it relates so closely to their core activity at work – like the health of doctors. If you understand how you learn best and can appreciate that others have different learning styles, then you’ll be more able to support the learning of both pupils and colleagues.

16


Name: Rachel Objective:

Date: 1 Nov.

Date objective to be met: 16 Dec.

To improve control, particularly after playtimes, in independent literacy activities, at tidying-up time, and home time.

Success criteria

Actions

When

Progress

Gets attention more quickly

Brainstorm attention-getting devices Use triangle, etc. to get attention

4.11

7.11 Triangle made chn more noisy – try cymbal

Rarely shouts

Voice management course Project the voice Don’t talk over children

19.11

23.11 Using more range in voice – working!

Plans for behaviour management

Glean ideas from other teachers through discussion and observation Watch videos on behaviour management strategies Write notes for behaviour management on plans

4.11

12.11 Improvement thro lots of tips, staying calm and being more positive. Not perfect and exhausting but better

Successful procedures for sorting out disputes after playtimes

Glean ideas from other teachers Ask playground supervisors to note serious incidents Children to post messages in incident box

11.11

18.11 Incident box really working for those who can write and I can now tell when there’s a serious problem

Successful procedures for tidying

Discuss what other teachers do Start tidying earlier and time it with reward for beating record. Sanctions for the lazy

18.11

25.11 Sandtimer for tidying working well tho still a few chn not helping. Might try minutes off playtime

Successful procedures for home-time

Discuss ideas with other teachers Monitors to organise things to take home Start hometime procedures earlier and time them (with rewards?)

25.11

2.12 Changed routine so tidy earlier. Some Y6 chn helping give out things to take home.

Children succeed in independent literacy activities

Ideas from literacy co-ordinator 2.12 Change seating for groups Differentiate work Discuss with additional adults

9.12 All class doing same independent activity working better. Mrs H helping

Figure 1.3 An action plan to meet an objective (Bubb 2002, p.111)


17

Most people learn best when they want to learn and when there are on-going opportunities to ask questions, investigate, reflect, apply and share knowledge in real-life contexts.They learn best as follows: • • • • • • • •

when they want to learn (motivation, thirst for knowledge) by doing (practice, trial and error) from feedback (other people’s comments, seeing the results) by digesting (making sense of what has been learned; getting a grip on it) at their own pace at times and places of their own choosing often with other people around, especially fellow-learners when they feel in control of their learning.

Different people learn in different ways and have preferred learning styles. Probably the best-known analysis of this is by Honey and Mumford (2000), who identify four types of learners who prefer to learn in different ways: • • • •

activists reflectors theorists pragmatists. The theorist: likes to learn using abstract conceptualisation and reflective observation (lecture, papers, analogies) and ask such questions as:‘How does this relate to that?’ Training approach: case studies, theory readings, thinking alone. Theorists’ strengths lie in their ability to create theoretical models. They are less interested in people and less concerned with practical applications of knowledge. Theorists are often found in research and planning. The Pragmatist: likes to learn using abstract conceptualisation and active experimentation (laboratories, fieldwork, observations). Pragmatists ask:‘How can I apply this in practice?’ Training approach: peer feedback and activities that apply skills. Pragmatists’ greatest strength is in the practical application of ideas. They tend to be unemotional and prefer to deal with things rather than people.

18


The activist: likes to learn using concrete experience and active experimentation (simulations, case study, homework). Activists tell themselves:‘I’m game for anything’. Training approach: practising the skill, problem-solving, smallgroup discussions, peer feedback.Activists’ strengths lie in doing things and involving themselves in new experiences.They excel in adapting to specific immediate circumstances. They tend to solve problems intuitively, relying on others for information. They are at ease with people but are sometimes seen as impatient and pushy. The reflector: likes to learn using reflective observation and concrete experience (logs, journals, brainstorming). Reflectors like time to think about the subject. Training approach: lectures with plenty of reflection time. Reflectors’ strengths lie in their imaginative ability.They tend to take an interest in people and the emotional elements of the learning process. Honey and Mumford have a questionnaire designed to help people pinpoint their learning preferences so that they are in a better position to select learning experiences that suit them. Few people fall neatly into one category; most have a leaning towards one or two. However, it’s useful to know where your preferences lie and for people organising professional development to take this into account where possible. For some people the form of the training activity may be a significant factor – if this is not compatible with the way an individual learns then they may be hostile to the content or message of the training. Perhaps this is the reason why you don’t learn as well as you want! Maybe you’ll be more successful going for an activity that suits your learning style. People learn in different ways and have their own preferred learning styles, and learning takes place in a variety of ways and settings. It can be formal or informal, within school or off-site. Informal learning can be planned (but other things may be learned too), reactive (unplanned – day-to-day learning from doing) or implicit (learning that the individual is unaware of – it needs someone else to point it out).


19

Drawing up action plans Once you’ve chosen the area in which you want to develop you need to set a SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timebound) objective/target/goal (don’t get tied up in the semantics). Remember the KISS rule too: Keep It Short and Simple. Keep asking yourself ‘Are you sure you can do this?’ Think about the learning cycle as illustrated in Figure 1.4.You need to do something, review it, learn from it and then apply it, as I’ve illustrated here: Aim: get better at taking assemblies Do Review Learn Apply Do

Observe someone that you admire taking assembly Think about it and discuss it with them afterwards Learn some key techniques for taking assembly Try them out when you take assembly Get someone to observe you taking assembly and give you feedback

One of the problems with much CPD or training is that it is seen as an end in itself – you just ‘do’ it.That’s why so much has so little impact. Build into your action plan activities that you review, learn from and apply. Perhaps choose a course that has this sort of structure built in, such as the example of the subject leaders’ four-day programme in Figure 2.5. Be creative in selecting the activity that will get you nearest your goal. Look around your school – there’s often someone you can learn

Do

Apply

Review

Learn

Figure 1.4 A learning cycle (Dennison and Kirk 1990)

20


from so ask if they can be freed up to work with you.Advanced Skills Teachers (ASTs) can be used in this way. David Reynolds (2003) says, ‘There is a much better chance of learning from someone in the next classroom than from someone 20 miles away’. I’m not sure I fully agree, but this is a good point – and one that’s cheap too! There are hidden riches amongst local teachers, and you won’t be able to get away with the excuse that a new teaching strategy (or whatever it is) won’t work with your kids.

SWOT Use a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis to help you choose the most suitable activity and to make sure you get the most out of it.Thinking about your strengths and weaknesses, particularly in terms of preferred learning styles, should focus you. Considering potential opportunities and threats is also useful. If you can predict threats you can do something about them so that they don’t happen. Figure 1.5 has an example of a completed SWOT analysis. After completing your SWOT analysis, ask yourself: • How can I use my strengths to take advantage of the opportunities I have identified? • How can I use these strengths to overcome the threats identified? • What do I need to do to overcome the identified weaknesses in order to take advantage of the opportunities? • How will I minimise my weaknesses to overcome the identified threats?

Evaluating your development When you’ve done some professional development, don’t forget to evaluate it. Like the plenary in a lesson, it’s a way to firm up what you’ve learned.Think about these questions: • What have you learned? • What are your significant achievements? • What brought them about?


21

Proposed activity: A course on observation and feedback skills What do you want to get out of it? Greater confidence and knowledge of how to observe someone and discuss the lesson sensitively but usefully Factors within you that might affect your ability to carry out this activity? Strengths Enjoy courses; take an active part; really want to do it Weaknesses May be too shy to do the role play activity; may not have the chance to carry out an observation soon after the course External factors that might impact on this activity? Opportunities Someone who comes recommended is running the course; I’ve got funding for the course; may meet someone really nice; may learn things that I didn’t expect Threats May not be allowed to attend if there’s nobody who can cover my lessons; would rather not be out of school at this end of term; may get paired up with someone I don’t like; course may get cancelled; people may not want me to observe them What needs to be strengthened in order to carry out this activity? Cover – emphasise its importance Book an observation and let the head know – then it’ll happen

Figure 1.5 An SWOT analysis (© Sara Bubb 2003) • What were your key learning moments? • How can you use this new learning to help your pupils? • Can you share what you’ve learnt with any other staff? How and when are you going to do so? • Have you learnt anything you didn’t plan to? • Was there anything you planned to achieve but didn’t? Why not? In measuring the impact of any EPD think of four different levels: 1. How did you feel during or straight after the EPD? Try not to be too affected by superficial responses to the food or environment.

22


2. Have you learnt anything? Even if you didn’t learn anything new, have you had time to appreciate what you know and reflect more deeply? Have you grown in confidence as a result? Have you learnt anything unexpected? 3. Are you going to do anything differently with pupils from now on? This is the tricky one – you really need to strike while the iron’s hot or you’ll lose impetus. 4. What is the impact on pupils, colleagues, the school, the community? This is hard to judge but very important to consider. Otherwise, what is the point? You can look at impact in different ways. Frost and Durrant (2003) have recently developed a framework to show how the outcomes of CPD can be seen not only in terms of professional development of individuals but also in the extent to which there is an impact on pupils, colleagues, the school and beyond. Impact on pupils’ learning: • attainment • disposition • meta-cognition. Impact on teachers: • classroom practice • personal capacity • interpersonal capacity. Impact on the school as an organisation: • structures and processes • culture and capacity. Impact beyond the school: • critique and debate • creation and transfer of professional knowledge • improvements in the community. In this way you can see whether you’re getting the most from your early professional development. The next chapter considers the range of activities you might want to consider in your EPD.

two

Early professional development activities Range of activities Observing others Courses and conferences MAs

Range of activities The range of professional development activities is huge. People often think only of courses but here are some ideas for self-study, observations, extending your professional practice and developing your pastoral experience:

Self-study 1. Reflecting on progress so far. 2. Reading the educational press. 3. Learning more about strategies for teaching pupils with special needs. 4. Learning more about strategies for teaching pupils with English as an additional language. 5. Learning more about strategies for teaching very able pupils. 6. Visiting local education centres, museums and venues for outings. 7. Looking at the educational possibilities of the local environment. 8. Working with the SENCO on writing Individual Education Plans (IEPs).

24


9. Improving subject knowledge through reading, observation, discussion, etc. 10. Analysing planning systems in order to improve your own. 11. Analysing marking and record-keeping systems to improve your own.

Observing other practitioners 1. Observing other teachers teaching. 2. Observing teachers in other schools – similar and different to yours. 3. Observing someone teach your class(es). 4. Observing someone teach a lesson that you have planned. 5. Observing how pupils of different ages learn. 6. Discussing lesson observations. 7. Tracking a pupil for a day to see teaching through their eyes. 8. Watching a colleague take an assembly. 9. Observing a visiting expert. 10. Shadowing a colleague. 11. Visiting and seeing other schools in action. 12. Observing and working with an artist in residence.

Extending professional experience 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Leading school-based INSET. Rotating roles/jobs. Developing your professional profile. Taking part in developing a learning community. Posting comments to an online staffroom such as the TES staffroom. Coordinating/managing a subject. Assuming the role of leader for a special initiative in school. Carrying out action research in the classroom/school. Contributing to a professional publication. Gaining experience of interviewing. Acting as a performance reviewer. Serving as a governor. Contributing to courses.

Early professional development activities

25

14. Serving on professional committees/working parties, etc. 15. Becoming a union representative. 16. Leading/supervising non-professionals who work in the classroom. 17. Working on extra-curricular activities. 18. Taking part in staff conferences on individual pupils. 19. Working with other professionals such as education psychologists. 20. Working with an exam board or marking exam papers. 21. Networking and sharing with a group of colleagues from another school. 22. Team teaching. 23. Learning through professional practice with others. 24. Developing use of ICT. 25. Counselling parents. 26. Collaborating with peripatetic teachers. 27. Mentoring a trainee or NQT. 28. Organising a display.

Working with pupils 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Taking responsibility for a group of pupils on an off-site visit. Developing teaching skills across a wide age and ability range. Working with pupils on school councils. Working with pupils to present an assembly, play, performance, etc. Working with pupils preparing a school year book. Integrating the use of pupil websites and online communities into teaching. Using e-mail/video conferencing between pupils. Negotiating targets and evaluating work alongside pupils. Mentoring and counselling pupils. Helping pupils with peer mentoring.

There is a big movement towards school-based professional development.

26


From the

TES staffroom

Teachers are the most valuable resource we have for INSET. If more teachers exchanged ideas and shared good practice (cliche) on a regular informal basis, we would all be better off.

Some schools’ staff are better at this sort of dialogue than others.You’ll really benefit if you’re part of a Networked Learning Community – which some schools are.

Observing others Whatever stage you’re at in the profession, you’ll learn a great deal about teaching from watching others doing it. Similarly, the more you watch children learning, and think about the problems that they have, the better your teaching will be. Newly qualified teachers find it the most useful of all induction activities (Totterdell et al. 2002). Make the most of any opportunities to observe other teachers, formally or just informally around the school.Try to watch a range of people. It’s very cheering to see that everyone has similar problems and fascinating to study the different ways people manage them.You might even want to look at teaching styles in another country like this modern foreign languages teacher: From the

TES staffroom

I’m using my fund to observe teaching in a school in Spain. Flights and accommodation are being paid for out of EPD fund. Have overdosed on courses so thought classroom observation a good idea.

Don’t always watch experienced and successful teachers.You’ll learn a great deal from seeing trainees, NQTs, assistants and supply teachers. If you watch a class you’ve taught being led by someone else you can see the pupils’ learning, behaviour and reactions, and how another teacher handles them. However,observing so that you get something out of it is not easy.You need to have a focus for your observation.There is so much to see that you can end up getting overwhelmed. First, decide what you want to


27

observe. Ideally, link the observation to something that you have problems with or want to develop. For instance, if you want to improve pace in introductions, arrange to observe that. Notice the speed of the exposition, how many pupils answer questions and how the teacher manages to move them on,how instructions are given,how resources are distributed, and how off-task behaviour is dealt with. Julian was interested in developing his explanations of mathematical concepts so that he could make things clearer and not get thrown by pupils’ questions. With this clearly in mind, he chose to observe maths lessons where new topics were being started. He learned the benefits of rock-solid subject knowledge and scaffolding information. He also gained a broader repertoire of questioning techniques that he was able to try out in his own teaching. Diana had problems with behaviour management, so observed a teacher with a good reputation for control. She gained some ideas, but found that much of this experienced teacher’s control was “invisible” – he just cleared his throat and the class became quiet. So, she observed a supply teacher, and someone with only a little more experience than herself. It was hard to persuade them to let her observe, but when they realised how fruitful the experience and the discussions afterwards would be, they accepted. These lessons, though not so perfectly controlled, gave Diana much more to think about and she learned lots of useful strategies. Both teachers found it useful to have Diana’s views on the lesson, as a non-threatening observer, so they too gained from the experience. Miranda wanted to improve how she shared learning intentions with pupils so she observed a teacher who was known to be good at this. She not only listened well to the teacher’s explanation of what he wanted the pupils to achieve but saw that he wrote different lesson outcomes for each group under the headings “What I’m looking for”. As well as focusing on the teacher, she watched the pupils carefully and spoke to them about their understanding of what they were doing and why.This gave her insight into children’s learning and areas of confusion.

Once you have decided what you’d like to observe, you need to arrange it and discuss what you want to see with the teacher. Remember that they’re doing you a favour and may be apprehensive about you being in the classroom so you’ll need to be sensitive. Tell them what you’d like to see and why.Ask if you can look at planning

28


related to the lesson. It’s essential to look at teaching in relation to learning. Always think about cause and effect. Why are the pupils behaving as they are? The cause is usually related to teaching. Make sure you sit where you can see both the teacher and the pupils, and look at what high, average and low attainers accomplish. Jot down things of interest. You may want to note certain phrases that teachers use to get attention, ways they organise tidying-up time, etc. You can use a blank piece of paper for this, but a form with prompts (Figures 2.1, 2.2, 2.3) helps keep you focused. Afterwards, reflect on the teaching and learning you’ve seen – ideally in discussion with the person you observed. Perhaps it inspired a brainwave, unrelated to what you saw. Write a few bullet points about what you’ve learned, and the ideas that could be implemented. Over time, observe a range of teachers and other staff, age groups, specialist groups, subjects and lessons at different times of the day. Observe in other schools, too. Keep a record of observations on a format such as Figure 2.4.

Courses and conferences Going on a course is one of the ways to gain a good level of professional development quickly. There are hundreds of courses available. You can look at what your LEA offers but don’t neglect to consider what other areas are doing. Universities and private outfits also put them on. Colleagues in school will probably recommend good ones. Conferences can offer you the chance to hear an inspirational speaker and meet up with other people with the same interest.They’re a good way to keep informed of the latest developments in the field. Usually they combine some keynote lectures with workshops or small-group meetings. Prices need scrutiny – they vary widely. I run courses for lots of different outfits, all to the same standard, but I know that the punters’ schools are paying very different amounts of money.The private firms usually hold training in swanky hotels with lovely food.Yes it’s nice to feel pampered but if you’ve got a limited budget for your professional development you need to think about value for money.Are you going to get £x worth of benefit from the course? Don’t forget to factor in the costs of covering your absence, whether by a supply teacher or


Teacher: Subject: Learning objective: Prompts:

29

Date and time: Additional adults:

OK

Comments. What has the teacher done to get this response?

Pay attention Behave well Relate well to adults and pupils Are interested Understand what to do Understand why they’re doing an activity Gain new knowledge, skills Speak and listen well Have errors corrected Work hard Act responsibly Understand how well they have done Understand how they can improve Enjoy the lesson

Figure 2.1 Lesson observation sheet – how well pupils learn (Bubb 2003b, p.88)

30


Observer: Teacher and year group: Subject and learning objective: Prompts:

OK

Obs started . . . . . . ended . . . . . . .

Comments and evidence. What impact does teaching have on pupils?

Planning Ground-rules Behaviour man. Expectations Organisation Resources Shares learning objectives Subject knowledge Explanations Tg strategies Voice Pace Use of time Questioning Motivating Differentiation Add. adults Feedback Activities

Time: Pupils on task: ............ off task: ...........

Plenary

Time: Pupils on task: ............ off task: ...........

Figure 2.2 Lesson observation sheet – prompts for looking at teaching (Bubb 2003b, p.89)


Teacher: Arrangement of the room

Year group:

31

Date and time: What and when implemented

Resources

Behaviour management

Teaching strategies

Figure 2.3 Format for recording ideas from observations (Bubb et al. 2002, p.131) Observing other teachers – what have you learned? What could you implement in your classroom?

32


Date

Time

Class

Teacher and school

Subject and focus

Figure 2.4 Record of observations of other teachers (Bubb 2003a, p.148)


33

someone within the school, and travel expenses.Then there’s the nonfinancial costs: the disruption to your pupils, the fact that they may not learn as much without you, resulting in you having to re-teach lessons and sort out problems that occurred in your absence. Some courses and conferences are held after school, on Saturdays or in holidays. These mean that pupils are less disrupted. Teachers can get paid to attend courses in their own time – ask your CPD co-ordinator or headteacher. After all, you are saving the school the cost of a supply teacher or the hassle of covering your absence internally. One primary school measures the cost effectiveness of any training or professional development by dividing the effectiveness and impact on teaching by its financial cost (course fee, travel, supply cover, etc.). This has thrown up some interesting data, with the cheaper, more local courses appearing inexpensive, but when supply costs, travel etc. are added they often produce quite low cost-effectiveness ratings. The apparently more expensive consultant or specific trainer, who is asked to come to school to hit a specific need, often proves more cost effective overall. The opportunity to network with other teachers and broaden your horizons is an important factor in deciding where to go for your course. LEA courses enable you to meet up with people from local schools, which is hugely advantageous.You also get to know the local advisers and inspectors. Sometimes the local scene gets a little insular so going to a venue that attracts a wider range of people can be great and give you a broader perspective.All your contacts will help to some degree. Remember that a good teacher is one who goes around getting lots of ideas from others. It’s also great finding out about other schools, albeit at third hand. Sometimes this makes you feel rather smug that you’re working in a good school and at other times the dissatisfaction can be quite depressing! Anyway, file the information about other schools away in your memory for when you’re job hunting. One of the big advantages of going on a course is that actually being out of the school building and atmosphere gives you some time and space to think, to reflect. Some courses have activities to do back at school that help put this reflection into practice. Here lies one of the problems with courses, however. If you consider the learning cycle that I mentioned in Chapter 1 (do, review, learn, apply), courses can often just be the ‘learn’ part – and that’s assuming that you do learn


34

something new.You have got to apply the learning through your own teaching or actions within school, otherwise what is the point? Some courses that last for more than one day have activities built into them so that you are forced to learn – do – review. Figure 2.5 for instance is the timetable of a course I run for subject leaders. Some courses are accredited.These tend to spread over at least four days and give you a certificate of professional development or 20 credits towards an advanced diploma or MA.This is a really efficient way to get a foothold onto an MA. Day 1 ◆

9.15 – 10.30

◆ ◆

10.50 – 12.15 13.15 – 15.15

Introduction – the national standards for subject leaders Group task – bringing the standards to life Ways to monitor and audit. Observation techniques

Task: Observe a small amount of teaching using the sheet demonstrated, even if it’s only someone taking assembly. Bring the notes you made and prepare to tell us about it. Day 2 ◆ ◆ ◆

9.00 – 10.30 10.45 – 12.15 13.15 – 15.15

Case study 1 Observation techniques cont. Giving feedback – the post-observation discussion

Task: Observe someone teaching and give her/him feedback. Bring the notes you made and be prepared to talk about how it went. Bring some planning for your subject from at least two teachers for a month. Bring your school’s statistics booklet. Day 3 ◆ ◆ ◆

9.00 – 10.30 10.45 – 12.15 13.15 – 15.15

Presentation on your observation. Monitoring planning Analysing data. Analyse your school’s Monitoring planning from your school

Task: Feed back the results of your monitoring of planning and analysing of data to your school. Be prepared to tell us how it went. Bring some samples of your subject’s work to monitor. Day 4 ◆ ◆ ◆

9.00 – 10.30 10.45 – 12.15 13.15 – 15.15

Monitoring through sampling Case study school Action planning and course evaluation

Figure 2.5 Professional development for subject leaders (© Sara Bubb 2003)


35

MAs Quite a few people consider doing some further study within five years of starting work as a teacher.Teachers – almost by definition – like learning. Some will be keen to improve their tennis, others are adult education groupies and a few like some rigorous intellectual stimulation.They get fed up with one-day professional development sessions, especially when so many of them reflect the school’s or the government’s agenda and not theirs! They want (and deserve) something meatier. So for many people the logical step is to do an MA. From the

TES staffroom

I decided to do an MA as I was fed up with the very poor level of INSET available – nothing went deep enough into any area, and I wanted to understand teaching and learning a bit better. I prefer to pay for the course myself, because then I am not beholden to the school – I do not have to provide feedback from my research, and am not bound to research according to the ‘party line’. Yes, it takes up a lot of time, but being able to think freely, to read widely and thereby make changes in your own personal practice makes it worthwhile!

A masters usually takes one year full time or two years part time. There’s a whole range of topics you can do an MA in Education in. Here’s a list of what the Institute of Education in London offers: Art and design Childhood studies Citizenship Comparative education Early years and primary education Economics Geography Health History Humanities ICT International development Literacy

36


Management and Leadership Mathematics Media and cultural studies Music Philosophy Policy studies Post-compulsory education Psychology and child development Religious education School effectiveness Science Social justice and education Sociology Special education Teaching Teaching English to speakers of other languages Theory of education You need to do your homework on which course will suit you best. Within each masters course you have some modules that are compulsory and others from which you can choose, so that you study what you like. For instance, the MA in Educational Leadership and Management – which is popular with people who are already into school leadership or who fancy moving in that direction – requires you to do modules adding up to 120 credits, divided up like this: Required modules: • Leading and managing educational change and improvement (20 credits) • Leadership for the learning community (20 credits) • Understanding education policy (20 credits) • Dissertation (40 credits) or report (20 credits) on educational management and leadership Examples of optional modules: • • • •

Developing management skills (20 credits) Finance and budgeting for schools (20 credits) Human resource management (20 credits) Any other MA module


37

Some MAs require you to have taught for two years or to have some management experience but a new and popular course, the Master of Teaching, is designed specifically for teachers at or near the beginning of their careers.There are three routes through the course: • • •

P route (for those who have just completed their PGCE) I route (for those who have just completed their induction year) E route (for those with at least three years’ teaching experience)

This course gives you credits for work that you’ve already done. Yippee! It gives you 20 credits in recognition of your PGCE so long as you have good grades on written work and submit a professional development portfolio based on your training year for assessment. Many of the things it asks you to reflect on are the same as for the Career Entry and Development Profile and induction.You discuss it at a group viva – really quite painless! Much of the Master of Teaching is taught online, to cut down on the need for you to trek into a university after school. There are online discussions about issues and articles. Whatever course you fancy, you need to check out the entry requirements and find out what sort of people do the course.You don’t want to be surrounded by people hugely more or less knowledgeable than you. From the

TES staffroom

I fancy doing an MA in psychology and child development, but worry that I’ll be surrounded by people with first class degrees in psychology. I’ve only got a BEd though I have read lots.

Also enquire about the numbers who do the course and what the primary/secondary/special school split is. A course with large numbers is usually popular and high quality, but that may mean that you’re in large teaching groups of 30 or so.

The downside Doing any sort of course is quite an undertaking.The costs of doing an MA part time are between about £1,000 and £1,600 a year. Your

38


school may pay for it, or make a contribution – it’s worth asking and spending your EPD money on it if you’re allocated any.Then there are the costs of books – and library fines! A computer to work on at home is pretty much a necessity. In the current climate schools often go out of their way to keep good people – but you need to ask. Apart from the financial considerations, consider the costs to you as a person.The drop-out rate is quite high because it is really hard work. Having to fit study into an already packed existence is tough: the school holidays become an opportunity to write your dissertation. Typically you’ll have to spend an evening a week (say 5.30–8.30) on a taught module.The Open University and other places have distancelearning modules, but you still have to go to the odd Saturday session. You’ll have to do lots of reading, thinking, discussing and some writing. If you don’t like that sort of thing, think again.You also need to work to deadlines. As far as possible these are geared towards teachers’ lives but they are an added pressure. If you have a family, they’ll need to understand and support you through essay crises. Also think what you want to get out of it. If it’s for promotion, there may be other courses that would be more tailored to where you want to end up, such as the National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH) that you can do if you’re a deputy, or a diploma in dyslexia if you want to be a Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO). Some people get suspicious of colleagues with an MA.You may get pigeonholed as someone who’s a bit above themselves, a boffin, an academic who by definition is no good at the practical classroom stuff.Well, that’s nonsense – a view bred of ignorance.

The bonuses Doing an MA is not easy but I don’t know of anyone who regrets it, and many are passionate, such as this evaluation from a masters student at the Institute of Education: It is difficult to write in a few lines the positive impact the course has had on my personal and professional life – I know that sounds a little melodramatic – but it is the case! It’s been a thoroughly stimulating and enjoyable experience.

A masters really suits someone who likes thinking through issues and who wants to get their brain working.The topics that you cover will


39

be the very ones that you’re doing battle with at the chalkface so everything is relevant. For instance, reading about and discussing the issue of inclusion will be all the richer for the fact that you and the majority of people in your group teach pupils with special needs in mainstream classes. The modular approach to most courses means that you can follow your own interests, specialising or diversifying as you wish. For instance, the MA in Educational Leadership and Management allows you to take modules in any other MA that you wish.You could do a bit of art, mentoring, school effectiveness – whatever you fancy.You’ll gain a great deal more knowledge at a much deeper level. You can focus on the pet aspect of your choice for the dissertation. Often this will be about something that you’re doing anyway, such as mentoring beginning teachers, so you do that job even better as a result. From the

TES staffroom

I conducted small-scale research in my school, which led to some useful outcomes for at least two departments. This was recognised by the head, who recently appointed me head of middle school.

Doing research for the dissertation is fascinating. Tutors are always keen for you to write up your findings in journals or the TES so you can end up getting contacted by people with a similar passion to you. You’ll get to meet lots of people with whom you can discuss big and deep issues rather than the piecemeal, more superficial exchanges that are all that we have time for in school.They’ll come from a wide range of schools and different countries, thus opening up your experience, albeit by proxy.You’re bound to meet someone who is on the same wavelength as you: lots of very great long-lasting friendships are made. People often say they learn as much from each other as they do from the professors (if not more!). An MA takes dedication and determination. It shows that you are really interested in education. Interview panels recognise this – and like it. It’s certainly useful if you want to get into teacher education, especially in a university. Having an MA qualification is not at all essential to promotion if you stay in school, but it helps – not least in broadening your horizons, making contacts and giving you a great deal of confidence. It can fast-track you to jobs you didn’t even know

40


existed. For instance, within a year of finishing the MA a primary advisory teacher got a job as a link advisor in the General Teaching Council policy department, liaising with schools and LEAs around the country to pilot models of professional development and accreditation.

part two

Things that can help or hinder This part is about two things that can help or hinder – performance management and inspection. Both can be seen negatively but I hope that you’ll use them to help you. In Chapter 3 I explain how performance management is meant to work and how you should use it to get recognition of the work you do and to steer your professional development. Then there are sections on setting objectives, keeping a professional development portfolio, and being observed. Lastly I explain the threshold assessment process – something that you can apply for when you reach M6 on the main salary scale. Chapter 4 is about being inspected – something that everyone dreads but which many find beneficial in giving them an objective picture of their work and the school as a whole, and a clear steer on issues that need to be addressed. I explain the inspection process under the 2003 framework, what the gradings mean, how to cope with being observed, and what inspectors are looking for when they judge your professional development and your leadership and management.

three

Performance management Performance management Setting objectives Professional development portfolios Being observed Threshold assessment

Performance management Performance management (or appraisal) is the term to describe the procedures in school for making sure that you get an opportunity to discuss your teaching, your career and how to be more effective. Clearly this should help your professional development, but it is controversial, especially with its link to performance-related pay, and some schools and teachers don’t take it very seriously.

From the TES staffroom Ninety per cent of the time it is toothless ticky-box bollocks. I was appraised a year ago and got a good report, which highlighted some training needs about which I have asked about at three monthly intervals since but without result. What nonsense it all is!

I think performance management can be great, if you use it to capture time to reflect alone and with senior colleagues about what you want to do to make your teaching better (Bubb and Hoare 2001). NQTs are not part of this statutory performance management, because induction already includes termly assessment, setting objectives and

44

Things that can help or hinder

reviewing progress.The induction tutor has a role similar to that of a team leader. The questions that the Career Entry and Development Profile (TTA 2003) asks you to reflect on are very useful throughout your career. At the moment, what do you consider to be your most important professional development priorities? Why are these issues the most important for you at this time? For example are there any new needs and areas for development related to: the pupils you will be teaching the context of the school the subject(s) and year group(s) you will be teaching the courses and schemes of work you will be using the resources to which you will have access to support pupils’ learning responsibilities you will be taking on your career plan?

At the end of induction NQTs will set objectives for performance management like all other staff. It’s a good time to evaluate what forms of support have worked – and what hasn’t been so valuable, perhaps using Figure 3.1.

How performance management works Everyone in the school, including the head, has someone to talk to about their work. Someone who knows your work will be nominated to be your ‘team leader’. You discuss your work with them and set between three and six objectives (most people go for three) for the year.At least one of these must relate to pupil progress and at least one should help your professional development. The former should be based on a realistic assessment of what your pupils can be expected to achieve.The other objectives should be about developing your professional skills, and should give you access to the training that you want and need. Most teachers set some objectives that relate to the school development plan (SDP), so if the whole school is trying to raise the achievement of Afro-Caribbean boys then you’ll have an objective about the performance of that group in the context in which you teach. There is room for you to set a personal professional objective related to where you want to go in your career.

Performance management

Forms of support I have valued

Reasons why this support has been so valuable

Forms of support which have been less helpful

Reasons why this support has not worked so well

45

Figure 3.1 Evaluating your support Once you’ve set the objectives, you draw up an action plan of what needs to be done when.Your team leader will take away a list of your professional development needs. Some will have to be met individually but when the CPD co-ordinator has the big picture of everyone’s needs he or she can plan INSET days around common areas. During the year you and your team leader should keep an eye on your progress towards the objectives, and take any supportive action needed. The team leader has to do at least one observation of your teaching.At the end of the year you should do a formal review of your progress together and then set some more objectives for the next year. At the meeting you should: • • • •

discuss progress in meeting the objectives celebrate strengths and successes analyse the reasons for not meeting any objectives discuss and set new ones that are clear, challenging and realistic.

46


The team leader then writes a performance review statement and gives a copy to you within 10 days of the meeting.You have 10 days in which to add written comments. Then the completed review statement is passed to the headteacher. Performance management is linked to pay only in that it might in exceptional circumstances provide evidence for a headteacher’s recommendation to the governing body that individuals should move up two rather than the usual one spine point in a year.When you have reached M6 you can apply to ‘cross the threshold’. This isn’t some quaint newly weds event but an assessment which gives you access to the upper pay scale and increases your salary by at least £2,000.There’s more on this later and in Chapter 9.

Snags Well, that’s how it’s meant to work, but in the real world there are snags, such as this one: From the

TES staffroom

Had my performance management meeting last week. It did not go well. I did not ‘bond’ with my team leader. She has preconceived ideas of who I am that I did not recognise. She attacked my personality and wanted to make drastic changes to it. I felt like Eliza Doolittle.

The performance management process in most cases is about a professional sitting down and discussing your career and professional development.I’m afraid there are some team leaders who get the wrong idea about the process – and their own role.They take the opportunity to prove and stamp seniority and perceived superiority. They have completely missed the point of working as a team and having people work for you, as opposed to working because of you. This is often because they have been inadequately trained in what performance management is aiming to achieve.At worst you experience professional bullying. If you want a change of team leader you can request one. Simply state that there is a conflict of personality or that you consider that this person has preconceived ideas about you that you think are prejudicial.The head then decides.


47

Setting objectives You have to set yourself objectives for induction, early professional development and performance management. However, as one teacher says: What is the point of setting objectives? I have to be able to do everything to be able to teach at all. If my planning, control, assessment, teaching strategies or whatever are not right, everything falls apart. (Bubb 2003b, p.29)

Though I sympathise with this, I do think objectives provide a framework for teachers doing a complex job at a very fast pace.They encourage you to prioritise tasks and give you a sense of achievement when they are met. Some people find that there is discussion about how they are doing but no specific objectives.This is a missed opportunity. The very act of writing objectives down makes people think whether these are the real priorities. Another problem with objectives is that they may not be specific enough, which can lead to failure. Many are too large and so are not met. Always remember that objectives should be possible, while containing a degree of challenge. They should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Unfortunately this is easier said than done. Consider an objective such as ‘Improve control’. This may be too large, and could take a long time to achieve. It’s better to be more specific about what needs most urgent attention, such as: ‘Improve control particularly after breaktimes, during independent activities and when tidying up’.Action plans to go with the objectives are essential.There are two examples of formats in Figures 3.2 and 3.3. Everyone should be encouraged to log, albeit briefly, their progress in meeting the performance management objectives during the year. The team leader should be aware of your progress and take any supportive action you need.

Professional Development Portfolios One of the problems with the present system of performance management and the documenting elements of induction is the lack

48


Name:

Date:

Date objective to be met:

Objective:

Success criteria

Actions

When

Review:

Figure 3.2 An action plan to meet an objective

Progress notes


What do you want to achieve

Why?

How?

When?

49

Cost/resources

Figure 3.3 What do you want to achieve now? How are you going to do so? of an integrated means of recording and storing material. LEAs and schools give teachers folders of different sizes, contents and quality – and some produce nothing. There is no nationally recommended folder or file where the all documentation can be kept.This results in different interpretations of what should be kept and inefficient practices such as copying out of objectives from lesson observations from one format to another. Teachers need a receptacle for all professional development related paperwork. Maybe you use the one you started in training.There are many models around, such as the Professional Development Portfolio (PDP) that I use with Lambeth teachers (Figure 3.4).This embodies the wider idea of the responsible and reflective professional and is used as an on-going record of professional development. It is a receptacle for all objectives, actions plans, reflections and assessments that can stay with the teacher for their whole career and be used for induction,

50


performance management, threshold and job applications. Some portfolios are kept electronically. Teachers who keep PDPs say how useful they are. Here are some sound bites from teachers in a Norfolk school: The portfolio does make you think differently about yourself. You recognise the things that you do and it makes you feel good about the things that you do. It’s very easy to become frustrated by what you are not achieving rather than by what you are achieving. And, it’s so easy to forget. The portfolio is one of those ways to look at what you have achieved. I think parents should see the teacher’s portfolio. It would blow their mind. I love doing my portfolio! I find it really satisfying, especially to look back at. (Berrill and Whalen 2003, p.5)

Being observed You’ll be observed at least once a year for performance management purposes.To get the most from an observation, think about what you’d like to get out of it. Feedback on your teaching is really valuable – and normally very boosting. In research I did on NQT induction with a team at the Institute of Education we found that 89 per cent of NQTs found being observed and receiving feedback on lessons either ‘very useful’ or ‘useful’. The views of this NQT were typical: ‘It’s vital. It’s just so informative having someone watch you teach because you can’t see everything and sometimes you don’t see what you do well, as well as the things you need to develop.’ It was considered ‘the most nerve racking part but I think it’s the most effective’. Many spoke of it as a positive and constructive experience. One NQT we interviewed said that she ‘loved’ being observed: ‘I love showing my kids off as well … I choose my lowest sets … It raises their own self esteem and it makes me feel really proud of them.’ Most teachers don’t like being observed and get nervous. Being nervous when observed is perfectly normal, and people can tell when you are and make allowances. One way of coping with nerves is to understand why you get worried: then you can do something about it. Common concerns and possible solutions are listed in Table 3.1.You’ll feel better if you’re completely prepared. If you know when you’ll be seen, plan with even more care and have a copy of the lesson plan for


51

Contents 1.

Introduction

2.

Career history

a. b. c.

CV and qualifications References Job descriptions

3. Objectives a. b. c. d.

The Career Entry and Development Profile Objectives Action plans Reviews of progress

4.

Professional development

a. b. c. d. e. f.

Induction programme at LEA and school Professional development activities and meetings Notes from professional development meetings e.g. with induction tutor or team leader List of and certificates from courses attended List of other teachers observed and observation notes Articles read and websites visited

5.

Evidence of growing effectiveness

a. b. c. d. e.

A list of observations and monitoring of my teaching Feedback sheets following observations and monitoring The three termly assessment reports for induction Performance management statements Evidence of: i. knowledge and understanding ii. teaching and assessment iii. pupil progress iv. wider professional effectiveness v. professional characteristics

6.

Other information

a. b.

Policies for induction and performance management Information about the LEA, beacon schools, Advanced Skills Teachers and lead teachers

Figure 3.4 The Lambeth Professional Development Portfolio (Bubb 2003b, p.27)

52


Table 3.1 Common concerns about being observed Your concern

Possible solutions

Pupils will be passive – won’t engage, answer questions, etc.

Plan something to get them lively. Use talk partners (‘turn to your neighbour and tell them the answer to my question’)

The behaviour of a certain child will ruin everything

Plan for an assistant to be with the child

I can’t get or keep attention

Do your best; plan well with this in mind; try suggested strategies such as the ones in Chapter 5; have as much written on the board beforehand as possible

The pupils play up when I’m observed

Tell them that they are being observed. Remind them that you are expecting exemplary behaviour

Technology will go wrong

Set it up beforehand; check and double check; have a backup in case it does go wrong

I’ll forget or lose key resources

Make a list of what you need, tick items off when collected, organise them

The teaching assistant won’t turn up

Keep reminding them that you’re relying on them and give them a plan of what they should do

The pupils will finish work too early

Have some extension work; make the task harder or open ended

I’ll forget what I planned to do

Do a clear written plan – that very act helps lodge it in your mind; keep your plan to hand on a distinctive clipboard to avoid it getting lost; have a spare just in case you leave it somewhere; use prompt cards; rehearse the lesson structure in your mind

I’ll forget what to say

Script key parts of the lesson, especially questions; rehearse out loud and in your head.

I’ll let the class wander off the point of the lesson

Stay focused; put timings on your plan and try to stick to them; write up the learning objective; plan questions that will guide the pupils’ thinking

the observer. Be absolutely clear about what you want the pupils to learn and achieve by the end of the lesson, and make sure that your teaching and the activities enable them to do so. Here are some tips for how to get ready for an observation.


53

• • • • • • • • • • •

Be completely prepared. Plan with even more care than usual. Have a copy of the lesson plan for the observer. Be absolutely clear about what you want the pupils to learn and do. Make sure your teaching and the activities match the objectives. Think through every stage of the lesson to pre-empt problems. Have as much stuff as you can written on the board beforehand. Think about what the person observing you is looking for. Address things that haven’t gone well before. Get a good night’s sleep. Do everything you can to feel confident – wear your favourite teaching clothes, encourage other people to boost you up. • Tell yourself that you’re going to teach well, and believe it. Don’t panic if things start to go wrong. Think on your feet. Most teachers have some lessons that go swimmingly, others that are okay and the occasional disasters.There are a huge number of factors to do with you and what you’re teaching and then a whole heap to do with different classes, what lesson they’ve just had, and what time of day it is. So, don’t beat yourself up about it.

Threshold assessment The threshold is the next assessable point after induction. Crossing the threshold is not an automatic process. To be eligible you must have qualified teacher status, be working in a state school and be at the top of the main scale – M6.You have to apply, and the application has to be assessed. It’s quite a palaver but most people get through. There is a tight timeframe for this to happen in.Table 3.2 outlines the steps and approximate timings. There are eight threshold standards.They cover five main areas, all of which relate directly or indirectly to classroom teaching: knowledge and understanding; teaching and assessment; pupil progress; wider professional effectiveness; and professional characteristics. There are three standards in the teaching and assessment area and two standards under wider professional effectiveness.

54


The Threshold Standards (DfES 2001b) Knowledge and Understanding: Teachers should demonstrate that they have a thorough and up-to-date knowledge of the teaching of their subject(s) and take account of wider curriculum developments, which are relevant to their work. Teaching and Assessment: Teachers should demonstrate that they consistently and effectively: plan lessons and sequences of lessons to meet pupils’ individual learning needs use a range of appropriate strategies for teaching and classroom management use information about prior learning to set well-grounded expectations for pupils and monitor progress to give clear and constructive feedback. Pupil Progress: Teachers should demonstrate that, as a result of their teaching, their pupils achieve well relative to the pupils’ prior attainment, making progress as good or better than similar pupils nationally. This should be shown in marks or grades in any relevant national tests or examinations, or school based assessments for pupils where national tests and examinations are not taken. Wider Professional Effectiveness: Teachers should demonstrate that they: take responsibility for their professional development and use the outcomes to improve their teaching and pupils’ learning make an active contribution to the policies and aspirations of the school. Professional Characteristics: Teachers should demonstrate that they are effective professionals who challenge and support all pupils to do their best through: inspiring trust and confidence building team commitment engaging and motivating pupils analytic thinking positive action to improve the quality of pupils’ learning.

Teachers are responsible for applying for threshold assessment, normally by early December.This involves summarising evidence – in the form of concrete examples from day-to-day work – to show that you have worked at broadly the standards indicated over the last two to three


55

Table 3.2 Steps in the threshold process Step

Action

Details

Step 1

DfES information to schools

Forms, guidance and support pack for threshold in England and Wales available on the DfES website at www.teachernet.gov.uk/performancethreshold

Step 2

Teachers complete applications

Form is submitted to headteacher any time up to, but no later than closing date

Step 3

CEA information to schools – request for applicant details

CEA ‘green’ form with threshold applicants’ details, completed by headteacher and returned to CEA. Information includes applicants in alphabetical order, giving the correct DfES number. Headteacher connectivity with any applicant MUST be declared on the green form.

Step 4

Head teachers assess Headteacher checks eligibility and assesses each the applications eligible application in relation to all eight standards. Headteacher records on the application form a judgement as to whether or not each standard has been met. Areas for further development should be noted as the basis of feedback to individual teachers after the verification. Headteacher sends application pack and contextual data (PANDA/PICSI and other relevant information) to CEA.

Step 5

Telephone discussions between head-teacher and threshold assessor. Not all schools will receive a visit.

These may be needed for one or more of the following reasons: To discuss individual applications and/or overall process; To clarify issues and answer questions; To check eligibility and/or possible connectivity; To discuss any further documents required by the assessor in order to complete the verification (which may include evidence from individual applicants); Where a school visit is to take place, to arrange the date and discuss protocols and administrative requirements.

Step 6

Written confirmation and requests for evidence so that teachers have five full working days notice

Evidence requests (where applicable) will be: Sent to the headteacher with copies for each of the teachers in the sample; Specific and focused on the individual’s application; Sufficient to verify the headteacher’s judgements; Clear about the structure of any discussions or observations that have been agreed.

56


Table 3.2 continued Step 7

The threshold assessor may visit to: a. verify headteacher’s judgements; b. give feedback on management of threshold process

The structure of the visit may vary according to the school context but the main elements remain the Discussion early in the visit with the headteacher on school context, threshold assessment processes, performance management arrangements and the applicant sample. The scrutiny of evidence. Further discussion with the headteacher and other key staff, if required. Feedback to the headteacher and final decisions. Administrative tasks, including certificate of verification.

Step 8

Outcomes for the school Where a visit does not take place, the verified outcomes will be posted to the headteacher.

There are several possible outcomes: Threshold assessor verifies all the headteacher’s judgements. Threshold assessor disagrees with the headteacher’s judgements, but following discussion, there is final agreement about the outcome. No agreement is reached between the threshold assessor and headteacher and the assessor substitutes his/her decision for that of the headteacher. A revisit is required because the assessor cannot satisfy him/her self that the assessment process in the school has been sufficiently robust.

Step 9

Actions for the school and the threshold assessor, following the verification

Headteacher notifies applicants of the threshold assessment outcome. Headteacher gives written feedback to those who have not yet met the standards. This will consist of application forms together with any further feedback, giving clear reasons for the decision. Where the threshold assessor has substituted his/her decision for that of the headteacher, s/he will provide additional written feedback to arrive in school within ten working days of the verification. Headteacher may wish to add written comments before returning this feedback to the teacher within twenty working days of the verification. Assessor and headteacher sign ‘TH5 (School to LEA) Threshold Round 3 Assessments’ form. Headteacher sends form to LEA to claim funding. LEA provides a letter of confirmation to all successful applicants, including those who have since left the school. Headteacher passes these on to teachers.


57

Table 3.2 continued Step10

Application for review

Teachers judged to have not yet met the threshold standards are entitled to seek a review of the decision. Teachers have up to 40 working days from receipt of written feedback in which to make an application for review.

years. The headteacher makes the assessment because he or she has a legal and professional responsibility for evaluating the standards of teaching and learning in the school and ensuring that proper standards of professional performance are established and maintained.All applications are then looked at by external threshold assessors.

Completing the threshold application form Filling in forms is something that most people hate. In 2000, the first cohort of eligible people found the threshold form very difficult to complete because everything was new. Keeping the threshold standards in mind during your career will make this process easier.That’s why the contents of your professional portfolio should have sections for you to keep evidence against the standards. First, you get a copy of the DfES application pack – which contains the application form and guidance for applicants – from your headteacher or direct from the DfES.Your application has to be made on the official application form.There should not normally be any additional enclosures. You have to write down the evidence of how you are meeting each of the standards. It’s best to type this into the boxes but beware that each of the standards has been set to accept an average of 250 words, and there is no advantage in writing more.You’ll probably find a great deal of overlap between sections so you need to decide what you’re going to say where.You can cite evidence of things that you’ve done in the last three years, though qualifications can obviously be from earlier. If you’ve been on maternity leave or absent for a large portion of the last three years you might decide that you’re going to delay applying for threshold assessment for another year.

58


From the

TES staffroom

Whenever you fill it in remember don’t be modest. Remember to claim personal responsibility for everything you can.

Your completed application form (which is confidential) should be given to the head of your school. Remember to keep a copy. It is the professional responsibility of the head to assess your application. He or she may need to see specific items of evidence that are mentioned in your application but it shouldn’t be necessary, or usual, for a head to review all the evidence because they should know your work already. Headteachers have to say whether each standard is met or not yet met and can comment on each standard.They can suggest areas for further development if they wish, whether or not they confirm that you meet the standards. The head has to send all the threshold applications to Cambridge Education Associates, who manage the process for the DfES.All applications go forward for a second professional opinion. The external assessor’s role is more to ensure that proper procedures have been followed than to re-examine every application in detail.The assessor therefore normally identifies a sample of applications to examine by going to the school. Generally, there is no significance for you in whether or not your application is included in the sample. The external assessor will select how much and what evidence to examine as regards particular standards in any sampled application.The main aim is to verify that the head’s assessment is professionally sound. The assessor writes to the head about what evidence s/he needs to examine, giving people about one week to assemble the necessary specific items of evidence. The head is under a legal obligation to inform applicants ‘promptly’of the outcome of their threshold application and give feedback which: • explains the outcome and the reasons why each of the eight standards were or were not met • gives advice about the aspects of her/his performance that would benefit from further development. The head should also return a copy of the application form.


59

Teachers who pass the threshold receive a ‘threshold letter of confirmation’ from the head of the school at which they were assessed. Keep this safe as evidence for future employers.The confirmation letters are issued as soon as the teacher is assessed so that funding can be claimed as quickly as possible. The proper certificates are produced at a later date and sent straight to the teacher.

four

Being inspected The inspection process Inspection gradings Observations of your teaching Categories of failing school Inspecting your professional development Inspecting your leadership and management

Being inspected is something that all teachers dread, but really there’s no need.You know you’re a good teacher, don’t you? Well it’s nice to be told so – something that doesn’t happen too much in schools. As teachers, we’re not very good at using praise to reinforce the behaviour we want in colleagues. Many people, though they dread the run-up, actually enjoy being inspected because they get some objective feedback on their teaching, and recognition that they’re doing a good job.

The inspection process Knowing more about the inspection process will help allay fears – there’s a lot of folklore about inspectors rooting through cupboards etc. that is completely untrue and only serves to wind people up. There are two layers of inspection: the Ofsted one from which reports are published and given to parents and are publicly available, and the LEA ones, which are not quite so serious. Both tend to be based on the Ofsted inspection handbook (Ofsted 2003b). This is a public document and it contains all that that you need to know.The one in your school is exactly the same as the inspectors’.

Being inspected

61

Ofsted inspects each school in England at least every six years. It decides the timing of each school’s inspection by looking at: • the date of the previous inspection – schools have to be inspected at least every six years • the findings of the previous inspection • trends in performance over time • performance in relation to national averages, and in relation to similar schools. So, if a school’s last inspection report was positive and it maintains good test results it will probably be left alone for six years. However, if a school’s test results go down or the previous inspection found weaknesses it will be inspected more frequently. LEAs also inspect schools according to their level of success. Generally they have a lighter touch, but happen more often. Ofsted gives between 6 and 10 weeks’ notice of an inspection. It used to be longer, but this spread the misery out for too long. Now schools go into a panic when they get the letter. The latest Ofsted framework came into being in September 2003. School self-evaluation is a crucial aspect and inspectors evaluate leadership and management at all levels, so if you have any responsibility you need to be aware of this.They’re hot on inclusion and catering for individual needs, and they now take account of the views of pupils as well as parents, through questionnaires and discussion.

Inspection gradings Inspectors grade everything on a seven-point scale (see Table 4.1). Once you understand the lingo you can read reports and translate what inspectors are saying.They don’t use adjectives like ‘wonderful’, ‘super’ and ‘great’ but have to conform to a prescriptive style where ‘very good’ equals a grade 2. Once you get into it you can have fun grading everything on the Ofsted seven-point scale:The weather is a seven (freezing cold and raining), my bank balance a six (well below the national average), the state of my desk is five (untidy), my New Year’s resolutions are four (meeting national expectations), the car’s ability to start today is a three (good), that Mars Bar is a two (yummy) but with elements of seven (extremely bad for me).

62


Table 4.1 The Ofsted seven-point scale Grade

Teaching

Standards

1

excellent

exceptional

2

very good

well above average

3

good

above average

4

satisfactory, sound

average

5

unsatisfactory

below average

6

poor

well below average

7

very poor

extremely low

In each lesson observed there will be grades for four things: • standards of pupils’ attainment – whether they are above or below average • pupils’ attitudes, behaviour, etc. • progress in the lesson • quality of teaching. By and large, if the pupils make good progress and behave well and work hard it will be as a result of your teaching so all those grades should match – all threes. Pupil standards are not affected by one lesson so they may be different. For instance a low set in maths will have a grade 5 (below average) for attainment even if everything else – the teaching, attitude and progress – in the lesson is a grade 3. Inspectors judge pupil attainment in comparison with standards nationally. So, what’s below average for your school may well be average in comparison to the national picture.

Observations of your teaching People worry most about judgements on their teaching. It’s important to realise that the same criteria apply for all people teaching a lesson whether they’re the headteacher or a trainee. So no allowance is made for you as a fairly inexperienced teacher.This may seem unfair but the reason is that all children are entitled to a good education. It would

Being inspected

63

seem logical to think that less experienced teachers get the lowest grades but actually they usually do well in inspections.This is because you plan, teach and assess using the latest methods – and don’t get thrown by having someone watch you teach. And because you’re good! Almost half of all lessons taught by NQTs seen during Ofsted inspections are graded between ‘excellent’ and ‘good’. Imagine you’re on teaching practice and you’ll be fine. You’ll probably know when LEA inspectors will be observing a lesson but Ofsted inspectors don’t tell you so you have to be prepared to be observed in every lesson that you teach over the period of the inspection, which is usually three or four days. The criteria that inspectors use to judge teaching are shown in Figure 4.1.They’re all the sorts of things that you’ll have been used to being judged against as a trainee and NQT.The significant difference is that they look closely at the relationship between your teaching and the pupils’ learning. Bear this in mind when you’re planning. Some lessons demonstrate your impact more than others. You need to make sure that pupils ‘acquire new knowledge or skills in their work, develop ideas and increase their understanding’. Similarly, some lessons ‘interest, encourage and engage pupils’ more than others so go for that fun stuff in inspection week. Then, with luck, the kids should ‘show engagement, application and concentration, and be productive’. I’m sure all your lessons are like that! Obviously you’ll prepare well but make sure that for instance you ‘show good command of areas of learning and subjects’. Don’t teach something that you don’t understand inside out when you’re being observed. Ignorance normally exposes itself when you try to answer those funny questions that kids ask. From the

TES staffroom

I was teaching a lesson on life in Victorian England when a boy asked whether there were cars in those days. My mind went blank. Instead of saying something like ‘An interesting question – I’d like you all to find the answer for homework’, I said I didn’t know and asked the inspector who was sitting in the room. Oh doom!


64

Inspectors must evaluate and report on:

❑

the quality of teaching, and

❑

how well pupils learn,

highlighting relative strengths and weaknesses in English language and literacy, mathematics, particular subjects and stages, that help explain pupils’ achievement, assessing the extent to which teachers: ■

show good command of areas of learning and subjects;

■

plan effectively, with clear learning objectives and suitable teaching strategies;

■

interest, encourage and engage pupils;

■

challenge pupils, expecting the most of them;

■

use methods and resources that enable all pupils to learn effectively;

■

make effective use of time and insist on high standards of behaviour;

■

make effective use of teaching assistants and other support;

■

where appropriate, use homework effectively to reinforce and extend what is learned in school;

■

promote equality of opportunity;

and pupils: ■

acquire new knowledge or skills in their work, develop ideas and increase their understanding;

■ ■

show engagement, application and concentration, and are productive; develop the skills and capacity to work independently and collaboratively;

❑

the quality of assessment of pupils’ work,

assessing the extent to which teachers: ■

assess pupils’ work thoroughly and constructively;

■

use assessment to inform their planning and target-setting to meet the needs of individual pupils and groups;

and pupils: ■

understand how well they are doing and how they can improve.

Figure 4.1 Ofsted criteria for judging teaching and learning (Ofsted 2003b)

Being inspected

65

The Ofsted handbook has examples of judgements about teaching and learning.This is what an unsatisfactory lesson would be like: A significant proportion of pupils make limited progress and underachieve. Teaching is dull and fails to capture pupils’ interest. Activities are mundane and, because of limited tuning to individuals’ needs, some pupils get little from them. Greater effort is exerted on managing behaviour than learning. Some pupils are easily distracted and lack the motivation to work. Staff have an incomplete understanding of subjects, resulting in patchy coverage. Their sights may be set too low and they may accept pupils’ efforts too readily. Support staff provide an extra pair of hands, but little effective support for learning. (Ofsted 2003b, from Table 11)

The proportion of unsatisfactory or poor teaching (grades 5, 6 and 7) is very low, as you can see in Figure 4.2. In over half of primary schools no unsatisfactory teaching was reported and in over two thirds of lessons it is good or better. However, the gulf between the quality of teaching in the core subjects and the foundation subjects is something that inspectors are concerned about.Too often, says Ofsted, teaching in many foundation subjects fails to enthuse or challenge pupils. Figure 4.3 shows the picture by subject at Key Stage 3. Don’t exhaust yourself by spending hours on displays – they don’t feature in the list of what inspectors are looking for, though obviously they contribute. Concentrate on helping your pupils make progress by teaching as well as you can. Inspectors will be focusing on the quality of children’s learning and the teaching and management of the school that accounts for it.They’ll want to see the work of a high, an average and a low-achieving pupil.You select the children and obviously you’ll make sure their work reflects well on you. Choose ones who attend well, work hard and who have made most progress. Make sure your marking is as useful to the children as possible, praises effort and shows you are pushing them on to the next level. You’ll get feedback on the lessons that have been observed.The Ofsted guidance says that you should be left in no doubt as to the quality of what was seen and notable strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately you don’t get a written copy and it’s rare to be told the grades so you should listen out for key words that link to a grading, and jot down key points. Inspectors often summarise by saying ‘and so overall the pupils made good progress’.This would normally equal a grade 3 lesson.

66

Things that can help or hinder English

10

56

30

4

Mathematics

9

57

31

3

Science

7

Music

53 13

36

42

41

Art

7

45

43

Information and communication technology

6

46

41

Physical education

6

45

47

History

5

Religious education 3 Design and technology 4 Geography 3 0%

41 41 37

20% Excellent/ very good

5 4 8 2

51

4

50

5

52

33

7

58 40% Good

4

60% Satisfactory

6 80%

100%

Unsatisfactory/ poor

These figures have been rounded and may not add up to 100%

Figure 4.2 Teaching by subject, Key Stages 1 and 2 (Ofsted 2003c)

Categories of failing school Most schools come out of inspections with credit but there are three categories of ‘fail’ – not that such a word exists in the Ofsted framework, but this is how it is perceived. From the

TES staffroom

I’m working in a school with Serious Weaknesses. We’re going to be inspected again and things are getting fraught. I don’t want to be constantly harping on at other staff members who are stressed enough but I need help. I’m getting myself in a pickle worrying about this.

The worst that can happen is that a school is deemed to be failing, or likely to fail, to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education, and thus requires special measures. Other schools, although providing an acceptable standard of education, nevertheless have serious weaknesses

Being inspected 8

Physical education Art and design

70 16

67

20

3

56

24

4

English

8

62

28

3

History

10

58

30

2

Geography

6 15

Music Design and technology

7

Mathematics

5

Religious education Science

58 49

9 8

0%

29

8

36

55

5

33

8

53

34

8

49

37

5

48 20% Excellent/ very good

3

35

48

6

Information and communication technology

5

54

11

Modern foreign languages

31

37 40%

Good

60% Satisfactory

8 80%

100%

Unsatisfactory/ poor

These figures have been rounded and may not add up to 100%

Figure 4.3 Quality of teaching at Key Stage 3 (Ofsted 2003c) in one or more areas. A small number of schools, although not requiring special measures or having serious weaknesses, are deemed to be underachieving. People worry about the repercussions of an inspection but you can’t be accountable for the state the school is in. It’s not the end of the world if the school is put into special measures or has serious weaknesses. It can be positive because it means something will be done to improve it.

Inspecting your professional development Inspectors need to find out if the school is complying with the induction and early professional development regulations. The inspection framework looks at whether:

68


• performance management of staff, including support staff, is thorough and effective in bringing about improvement • a commitment to staff development is reflected in effective induction and professional development strategies and, where possible, the school’s contribution to initial teacher training • the recruitment, retention, deployment and workload of staff are well managed, and support staff are well deployed to make teachers’ work more effective. Hopefully all is in place but there’s nothing to be gained from being anything less than honest. It’s in everyone’s interests that inspectors get an accurate picture of the school. In my experience it is actually quite hard to paper over cracks – inspectors are experienced teachers and they can spot them!

Inspecting your leadership and management If you lead or manage anything within the school, this will also be looked at.The criteria listed in Figure 4.4 will apply to you whether it’s in the context of ICT co-ordinator in a primary school or head of department or head of year in a secondary school.The criteria don’t just describe the work of the head and senior management or leadership team. It’s worth noting the difference between leadership and management. You need to be clear what is expected of you – it will vary according to your job description.There’s more on this in Chapter 8. Inspectors will interview you about your role so you need to prepare evidence of how you do each of the activities listed in Figure 4.4. For instance, what data do you keep for your subject? How do you monitor it, review patterns and take action? Don’t panic! It doesn’t say that you should, though in subjects that are tested nationally they would expect it. Speak to others about what you intend to say and make sure you know what has been written in the school self-evaluation so that everyone sings from the same hymn sheet.

Being inspected

69

Inspectors must judge the quality of leadership of the school, particularly by the headteacher, senior team and other staff with responsibilities, assessing the extent to which: ■

leadership shows clear vision, a sense of purpose and high aspirations for the school, with a relentless focus on pupils’ achievement;

■

strategic planning reflects and promotes the school’s ambitions and goals;

■

leaders inspire, motivate and influence staff and pupils;

■

leaders create effective teams;

■

there is knowledgeable and innovative leadership of teaching and the curriculum;

■

leaders are committed to running an equitable and inclusive school, in which each individual matters;

■

leaders provide good role models for other staff and pupils;

❑

the effectiveness of management,

assessing the extent to which: ■

the school undertakes rigorous self-evaluation and uses the findings effectively;

■

the school monitors performance data, reviews patterns and takes appropriate action;

■

performance management of staff, including support staff, is thorough and effective in bringing about improvement;

■

a commitment to staff development is reflected in effective induction and professional development strategies and, where possible, the school’s contribution to initial teacher training;

■

the recruitment, retention, deployment and workload of staff are well managed, and support staff are well deployed to make teachers’ work more effective;

■

approaches to financial and resource management help the school to achieve its educational priorities;

■

the principles of best value are central to the school’s management and use of resources.

Figure 4.4 Ofsted’s criteria for judging the effectiveness of leadership and management (Ofsted 2003b)

part three

Getting better …

This part is about getting better – the Holy Grail! Chapter 5 focuses on the classroom and covers teaching and learning – things such as planning, putting plans into action, developing your questioning skills and the pupils’ thinking skills, working with support staff and marking. Chapter 6 is concerned with managing your workload – something we all need help with. Teaching is a very intensive and demanding job and you need to manage time and set boundaries otherwise you’ll get burnt out, particularly as you gather more responsibilities and are classed as experienced. By the way, don’t worry if you don’t feel experienced – it hasn’t happened to me yet and I’ve been teaching for ages. I didn’t really know what to call Chapter 7 but settled on ‘Handling tricky situations’ because it seems to me that in your early years in teaching you’ll come across many of these – and be expected to deal with them. This seems to be a great need if the postings on the TES staffroom are any measure. The chapter covers how to be assertive, managing pupil behaviour, coping with violent parents, covering other teachers’ lessons, handling criticisms following observations, dealing with bullying at work, and responding to false allegations. Chapter 8 is about leading and managing – something that most of you will be doing to some degree from your second year as a teacher. A history teacher I know is assistant head of an inner London comprehensive after just four years in the profession – and he hasn’t had management experience in any former careers. I cover what subject leaders do, how to get a feel for standards in the area you’re responsible for, making judgements about teaching, particularly through observations, and running staff meetings.

five

Getting even better in the classroom Classroom environment Planning Putting plans into practice Support staff Questioning Thinking skills Marking Reports

Getting even better in the classroom is a huge area. I’ve been selective in this chapter, covering eight aspects that seem to me to be ways to move forward during your first five years. I cover dealing with children’s behaviour and parents in Chapter 7, which is about getting better at handling tricky situations.

Classroom environment Clean and tidy classrooms create a good atmosphere across the school. When things aren’t organised there is a downward cycle: there’s more graffiti and litter because there’s nothing nice to take pride in.You’ll be at a huge advantage if the whole school is a pleasant environment – and will have a battle on your hands if it isn’t.

74

Getting better …

From the

TES staffroom

I went to see my new classroom and what a tip! All the artefacts are broken, the displays are hanging off the walls, none of the tables match, the blinds are broke, my white boards have loads of scratches and dents in, and there are no whiteboard pens.

The best way to improve the classroom is to choose something that can be quickly implemented and highly visible. Pupils should be involved in the improvement effort as much as is possible. This will mean the climate is improved in ways that are important to them and will help them feel involved and valued. It encourages them to take responsibility for their environment.

Display Colourful and bright displays can cheer up the classroom and make it a more pleasant environment, while allowing peripheral learning to occur – if the word ‘because’ is looked at enough, surely children will be able to spell it correctly? Displaying pupils’ work encourages them to take pride in their work and can motivate them. However, it is time-consuming. The number of bare display boards in your room at the start of a new school year may fill you with blind panic. Unless they’re painted or already covered, ask an assistant to put up backing paper and some posters until the pupils do some displayable work.You may be in a school where support assistants do all the displays for you. Even so, you’ll probably need to tell them what you want. Getting ideas for displays can be hard so keep photos of displays, look around the school and in books, and ask others for inspiration.There are always people in school who love display and will be more than happy to help you. In fact many, including myself, find it a really creative, relaxing and rewarding part of teaching, so ask for help. Here are some tips that teachers have shared: • Word process labels – and keep them on file for the future. • Laminate labels that can be used again. • Laminate small labels with pupils’ names on for attaching to their work.

Getting even better in the classroom

75

• Involve the pupils, e.g. in writing labels, mounting work and finding artefacts. • Incorporate the making of a display into the lesson. • Pre-cut paper (to be smaller than A4) for pupils to work on so that it can be mounted on A4 paper and not need trimming. • Have permanent displays that only need occasional adding to (e.g. literacy – alphabet, key words). • Attach some card or a coin to your staple gun so that the staple doesn’t go all the way into the board but is slightly raised for easy removal.That way, work, labels and backing paper won’t get torn. • Save artefacts for displays that you are likely to repeat, such as ones for Black History Month.

Seating The early years of teaching are good for trying things out. Don’t always arrange the classroom as you always have and as everyone does – experiment. Think about how you’re going to teach when deciding how to arrange the tables. How often do the pupils work collaboratively in groups? Everyone needs to see you when you’re whole-class teaching so where are you going to stand? Where is the board? Popular arrangements include rows, horseshoes and clusters of fours or sixes. Choose whatever you think is going to work best for you and the children rather than slavishly following what other teachers do. Nigel Hastings and Karen Chantrey Wood (2002) found huge benefits to flexible seating arrangements. For instance, one teacher has two layouts for her Year 3 class of 26 children. Her basic arrangement is a double horseshoe with tables laid out into a big and small U shape, and a table for a group teaching. This is used for whole-class teaching and paired and individual work. There’s sufficient space between the two U shapes for her to move comfortably around and work in front of or behind any child. She rearranges the tables for collaborative activities, usually in science, DT and history. They are moved to form five grouped sets. A team of six children does this just before breaktimes and it only takes a minute.

76

Getting better …

Planning Planning is an essential aspect of teachers’ work. All teachers need to plan what they will teach and how they will teach it, but spending excessive amounts of time on long, detailed plans does not necessarily lead to better teaching and learning. One of your challenges will be to teach well without having to rely on such detailed plans as you wrote on teaching practice.There is no prescribed format or length for any teacher’s plans. For example, I don’t teach classes very often so when I do I write reams of lesson plans – not that I refer to them much in the classroom because the process of writing things down locks them in my head.All that is specified in the Ofsted framework is that “teachers plan effectively, using clear objectives that children understand”.Your planning should no longer be judged on what’s written on paper but on the quality of teaching and learning in lessons and the progress pupils make. The DfES (2003) has said that your time should be used for aspects of planning that are going to be useful for you, and which have a direct impact upon the quality of teaching and learning.You should rarely have to start with a blank sheet when planning for the week ahead. Use other people’s experience – collaborate, copy and share. There are many resources available that provide useful starting points and greatly reduce planning time. Good-quality plans are already available, such as National Numeracy Strategy Units and National Literacy Strategy medium-term plans and planning exemplification,ones written by colleagues and those on the Web. For medium-term planning, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) schemes of work contain the detail you need for each subject. It’s not necessary to write things out again; QCA schemes, for example, can easily be converted into lesson plans by scribbled post-its, notes and annotations to add detail of your own. Planning in this way will meet with Ofsted’s approval providing it has a positive impact on teaching and learning. Planning on the computer saves time substantially in the long term because it’s much easier to share plans with colleagues, and also to re-use, copy or adapt them in future. Remember: the better you plan, the better the lesson will go. But this doesn’t mean reams of paper: what’s in your head is what counts. It’s useful to use a checklist like the one in Figure 5.1 to review your short-term planning. If anything is missing, think about it and whether you need to do something about it.


Do your day-to-day plans (on paper or in your head):

Usually

Sometimes but not always

77

Rarely

focus on how you will teach and outline what you will do as well as what the pupils will do? identify clear objectives for the start and for the main teaching activity? outline the main teaching input each day, and the key points for teacher exposition, both what and how? outline any tasks to be done by the whole class as individuals or pairs? outline any differentiated activities? indicate the key vocabulary? indicate the most important lines of questioning? show the essential resources needed? give an outline of the key points for the plenary? outline any homework? make clear which group(s) the teacher and any support staff will be working with?

Figure 5.1 Review your short-term planning

Making resources Teachers spend a great deal of time making resources and worksheets. Think about ‘fitness for purpose’. Is it worth spending time on resources in terms of: (a) (b) (c) (d)

what children will gain from it? how long they will use the resource for? how many times the resource is going to be used? what else you could be doing?

78

Getting better …

Sometimes professional pride makes you do an unnecessarily perfect job. Keep things simple. Using ICT to make resources and worksheets will normally save time – and is useful as a way to share and store worksheets so that they can be adapted for future use – but sometimes handwritten versions can be quicker and just as useful. Somebody (in your school or at a neighbouring one) probably has the resources you’re looking for, so ask around. Share resources with teachers of the same year group. Use or adapt already published worksheets and resources. Organise a system for keeping worksheets and resources so that you can find them next time you teach that particular topic. Use the overhead projector more. If you ask one pupil to do their classwork on cheap transparency paper (in black pen so that it can be photocopied for their folder or exercise book) you can use it as an assessment and teaching resource in the plenary and in a future lesson.

Putting plans into practice Lessons should have a clear structure, so that pupils know what’s going to happen and how it relates to what they already know. Make your introduction really tight. Start by recapping previous learning, giving the lesson objective (what they’ll learn or get better at) and the ‘big picture’ of the lesson (what’s going to happen and in what order). Apart from starting on time, the beginning of the lesson can involve other classroom management difficulties that you need to take into account.The main problem is that pupils will often be coming from the playground or lunch where different, more lax rules apply, and therefore the transition to appropriate classroom behaviour may cause difficulties. Keep disruption to a minimum by instituting a number of set procedures for dealing with lesson starts. For example, write instructions on the board before the pupils come in so they can get started on something immediately. Plan interesting ways for pupils to learn but check your ideas with others. I’ve seen some crazy things. One Year 3 teacher used a Mr Men book as the text to teach the literacy strategy objective: ‘to discuss characters’ feelings, behaviour and relationships, referring to the text’. This was not the level of text that the authors of the literacy strategy had in mind! Think about different learning styles. People learn


79

through visual, auditory and kinaesthetic (physical interaction) stimuli. Some pupils learn better through one more than another, so aim for a mixture of them. Differentiation is hard.You need to find out what the highest and lowest attainers can and cannot do, and then plan to allow all to make progress. Different needs can be met in a range of ways, such as: • • • • • • • •

same task, performed with varying degrees of success same task but with different expectations for different pupils same task but with different time allocations same task with an extension activity for the more able adult support to enable low attainers to succeed different resources to help or make the task harder different tasks but same objective different objectives entirely.

Shirley Clarke’s term WILF – ‘What I’m Looking For’ – can help you have realistic but challenging expectations. These can also be your assessment criteria. The plenary is an excellent opportunity for you and the pupils to see how the objective of the lesson has been met.

Pace One of the most fruitful ways of preventing misbehaviour during lessons is to keep the momentum of the lesson going. Kounin (1970) describes how teachers sometimes stop an activity already begun. A dangle occurs when the teacher starts to do a particular activity but then stops it halfway, leaving it ‘dangling in mid-air’. A variation of this is a flip-flop, in which a teacher starts an activity, and then before finishing it goes to another activity, before going back to the original activity once again. Both can cause confusion and can trigger misbehaviour. A further way in which teachers can impede lesson flow is through overdwelling – when a teacher goes on explaining instructions to pupils after they have totally grasped what they need to do.This will lead to boredom and restlessness and thus to a higher chance of misbehaviour. Fragmentation occurs when the teacher breaks down activities into too many different steps. An example would be where a teacher hands out papers with too many instructions:‘take the pile of handouts’,‘take one off the top and hand the pile to your neighbour’,‘now take one off the top’.

80

Getting better …

Group Work Group work can be great, especially in your mind when planning – but it can be disastrous in practice. Have your groups argued, messed around, left one or two to do all the work? Mine too! People need to be trained to work in a group, so here are some tips: • Be clear about the goal of the activity, one of which will be how well the pupils work as groups. • Explain the task clearly. • Structure it around tight time limits. • Give every group member a particular task or role. In a science experiment you could have a: – presenter, who will prepare the group’s presentation to the class – measurer, who collects data – timekeeper, who keeps everyone on task and to time – resource manager, who tries to find the resources needed to complete the task – recorder, who does the writing. As well as sharing results, have a debrief – what the pupils thought went particularly well or badly during group work.

Dealing with bad behaviour A first rule for correcting misbehaviour is not to overreact.Try to deal with minor off-task and attention-seeking behaviour quickly and with a minimum of fuss so that the lesson flow isn’t interrupted.One way to do this is through what is known as overlappingness, a term that refers to teachers’ ability to nip misbehaviour in the bud in an unobtrusive way. Moving close to the student can quickly stop off-task behaviour, while allowing you to continue teaching. Keep scanning the classroom, looking around the class to try and spot any (emerging) problems. You can try to divert the misbehaviour by, for example, distracting the child by asking a question, picking up the pace, boosting interest by starting a new activity, or removing certain tempting materials with which pupils can fiddle. If that does not help, more explicit correction may be needed, by moving close to the pupil, making eye-contact


81

with them, using verbal cues such as naming the pupil, pointing out in general that the class should be engaged with the lesson, or praising someone who’s behaving well. If this doesn’t work you need to go on to more severe warnings or, if necessary, sanctions and punishment.

Support staff There are plans to have 50,000 more support staff in schools by 2006 (DfES 2002a) – most of them providing in-class support in the roles of teaching assistants (TAs) and learning support assistants (LSAs). This means that you’ll have to manage the work of other adults, as well as the learning of the pupils. Most support staff are of high quality, but some can prove challenging to manage.Table 5.1 has some issues identified by teachers, with a few suggestions for solutions. It’s very hard for teachers to find time to talk to other adults who are working in the class.This often means that they are not used to best effect because the teacher needs to explain the activity and what they should do. A plan that can be given to them at an appropriate time should help (see Figure 5.2). Think about what you want the other adult to do during the whole-class teaching parts of the lesson. This could be a time to prepare resources or for them to be involved with certain children – checking their understanding, for instance.Additional adults will want to know which children to support and where they should work. Most importantly, they need to know what the children should do, what they should do to help them and what the children should learn. Giving the adult a list of resources that they will need means that they can be responsible for getting them out. Even when the teacher is teaching the whole class, there’s a role for the teaching assistant in oiling the discussion by drawing in reticent pupils, starting the ball rolling when they are slow to contribute and joining in. Teaching assistants can help to prevent and manage incipient behaviour problems by: • sitting alongside a difficult child so they can be settled and involved • focusing the attention of inattentive pupils on the teacher, by directing them to look, answer or apply themselves to questions as appropriate

82

Getting better …

Table 5.1 Problems with support assistants Issue

Ideas/solutions

Being unsure of the additional adult’s role

Find out exactly what they are paid to do. For instance, some special needs assistants are funded to work with individual SEN pupils

Not sure when they are going to be in the class

Find out exactly when they’re coming and make sure they know that you’re expecting them

Not wanting to ask them to do menial tasks

Again, look at their job description. Most are happy to help out

Some do too much for the children and encourage over-dependence

Model the sort of teaching you want. Don’t be afraid to mention concerns – they haven’t benefited from training like yours and so are usually more than pleased to be given advice

Some have little control over the children

Again, model how to manage behaviour. Speak to their line manager if it’s a big problem

Some can take over the class

This is very tricky. Speak to them about the need to establish yourself as the teacher, but otherwise get advice on how to deal with this

Some talk when the teacher has asked for everyone’s attention

Theatrically or humorously emphasise that you need everyone’s attention

Some don’t do quite what you’ve asked them to

Explain, model, write instructions; speak to them about your concern

Some are stuck in their ways and do not like new ideas and practices

Tricky. Try to get them on your side by asking for their advice, their patience in trying things out

Planning for them, but they do not turn up

Make sure they and others know how much you depend on and value them. Make a fuss if they’re taken away too often

• making eye contact, by sitting at the front rather than the back, so facial gestures can be seen • providing learning support for children who need specific help to access the lesson. Confident teaching assistants can help deliver the lesson.They might echo the teacher by repeating, rewarding or refining teaching points, e.g. repeating or rephrasing instructions for pupils who are slow to respond:“That’s right – look for the speech marks”.The most obvious


83

benefit of teaching assistants is the presence of an extra pair of eyes (and ears) for: • • • •

observing individual pupils noting who ‘can’ and who ‘can’t’ picking up emergent issues comparing notes and giving feedback to the teacher.

Additional adults have important information about the children they work with. They often know more about the children with special needs,for instance,than the class teacher.These insights can be tapped by asking the adult to make some notes about how the children got on.

Name: Lesson and time: What to do while I am whole-class teaching: Introduction: Plenary: Pupils to support: Where and when: Activity: What the pupils should do: What I would like you to do: What I want them to get out of it: Things that they will need:

How did they get on?

Thank you!

Figure 5.2 Plan for an additional adult (Bubb 2003b, p.52)

84

Getting better …

Questioning One of the best ways to become even better in the classroom is to improve your questioning skills. Firstly you need to consider the difficulty of the questions, in particular whether they require relatively sophisticated thinking skills from pupils (‘higher’ level) or more basic application of rules or retention of facts (‘lower’ level). Lower-level questions should be relatively easy to answer, and should in most cases elicit a correct response. As higher-level questions require more thinking from pupils they will be more difficult to answer. Research has shown that effective teachers use more higher-level questions, although the majority of questions used are still lower level, even with these teachers. Obviously, the exact balance of the two must depend on the content taught. A topic requiring factual recall, such as multiplication facts in mathematics, would require more lower-level questions than one that probes for higher-level content, such as asking pupils to design an experiment in science. It is, however, important to ask higher-level questions whenever possible, to help develop pupils’ thinking skills. A related distinction is that between open and closed questions. Closed questions have one clear answer (e.g. ‘How much is 4 times 8?’), while open questions have open-ended answers (e.g. ‘What do you think makes a country democratic?’). Again, effective teachers have been found to ask more open questions than less effective teachers. However, the right mix of open and closed questions will depend on the lesson. Another distinction is between process and product questions. Product questions are designed to find the answer to a particular problem, while process questions are meant to elicit procedures, processes and rules used to get to the answer. Research bears out that it is important not to limit questioning to product questions. Effective teachers having been found to ask more process questions than ineffective teachers, within a mix that contains product questions as well. Generally speaking, product questions are closed, and often lower level, while process questions are often open and at a higher level. Process and product questions can often be combined in one teaching moment.Thus, the teacher can ask a student a product question (e.g. ‘What is the area of this room?’), and then ask the student to explain how he or she worked out that answer.


85

How long should one wait for an answer? This is an important matter, as you need to ensure the smooth flow of the lesson and avoid embarrassing silences but also allow pupils enough time to think through their answers.Therefore, wait time has to depend on the type of question asked. If the question is a closed, lower-level factual recall question, 3 seconds or slightly longer is the optimal wait time. However, for open-ended, higher-level questions a longer wait time (up to 15 seconds) is required.Waiting much longer than this may lead to the other pupils becoming restless, so you can prompt.When asking a complex question requiring a lot of thought it can be a good idea to allow the pupils some time to work the answer out on their own (on paper for example) before asking them to provide the answer. Get all pupils involved in answering questions through using individual white boards to write answers on, letter or number cards or fans, or partners to discuss an answer with.

Thinking skills Any use of the brain is a form of thinking, but when people talk about thinking skills they are usually referring to higher-order thinking. Higher-order thinking is when we use the brain for more than storing and retrieving factual knowledge. So, learning to reel off the kings and queens of England wouldn’t involve higher-order skills, but devising a mnemonic to help you remember them would. Behind all thinking skills is a strong emphasis on understanding the process of learning – on knowing how rather than what.The national curriculum lists five higher-order skills pupils should develop: information processing, reasoning, enquiry, evaluation and creative thinking. Experts claim that the left side of the brain controls logical and analytical processes, while the right controls creative and artistic processes. Brain-friendly teaching tries to stimulate both sides, while recognising that individuals have dominant areas and learn in many ways.Thinking can be hard work, and making mistakes is an important part of the process. Children must be told that getting stuck isn’t a sign of laziness or stupidity, but a great opportunity to stretch their thinking muscles.

86

Getting better …

Another principle of brain-based learning is that tension or fear causes the part of our brain associated with learning to switch off.This leaves the part that controls primitive instincts, such as “flight or fight”, to take over. So children won’t learn effectively if they aren’t relaxed and at ease. Other parts of the brain switch on only when they recognise that they’re about to learn something of direct personal importance. So brain-friendly lessons need a clear relevance to the pupils and a link to everyday situations. To develop thinking skills you need to: • encourage metacognition • create cognitive conflict, and • facilitate bridging. What a lot of jargon! Metacognition, which occurs when someone becomes aware of their own thought processes, is considered central to almost any thinking skills programme.You can encourage this learning about learning by always trying to make explicit the mental processes involved in the classroom. Cognitive conflict occurs when the mind is faced with new possibilities that perhaps go beyond its current lines of reasoning. As a teacher, you have many possible ways of creating cognitive conflict – by introducing new material to a class at key times, for example, or by playing devil’s advocate during debate, or by constantly asking pupils to define terms, give reasons or expand on their initial answers. Finally, bridging is the name given to the mental process of taking thinking skills learned in one context and applying them in another. By linking lessons in such a way that children can make connections, you can help them learn to bridge. Puzzles and games can play a key role in developing thinking skills. Word games or number games; two-minute teasers at the start of the lesson or more complex problems that may take a lesson to solve; lateral thinking or logical thinking; verbal games or physical games; and tests of memory or tests of strategy.The list is endless. But the trick is to make children aware of the skills they are using as they tackle each puzzle. Starting lessons with a puzzle or game can be a useful warmup. Try some brain gym when the children start flagging. This is a series of exercises, like rubbing their tummies while patting their heads, and massage routines designed to increase the supply of oxygen to the brain and improve mental alertness.


87

Perhaps one of the best-known thinking tools is mind-mapping (now often called concept-mapping or model-mapping), developed in the 1970s by Tony Buzan as a means of setting down information in a brain-friendly manner. Mind-maps can be a useful tool for notetaking or revision, for thinking through a complex problem or for presenting information to others. A mind-map begins with a central idea in the middle of a page radiating out to major subheadings, then minor subheadings or individual facts. It may be helpful to encourage pupils to think of a mind-map as being like a tree, with a main trunk, several large branches, smaller branches and twigs.

Marking You may have been warned, but nothing really prepares you for the length of time marking takes.You need a system to help you stay sane. Firstly consider why you mark work: • • • • • •

I have to. Other staff expect it. Pupils expect it. Parents expect it. It’s useful. It gives me a picture of the pupils’ understanding and achievement.

Do the rewards, in terms of feedback to pupils that they read and act upon to improve their learning, merit the time spent on marking? Hmm, I wonder … I suspect you want to maximise the usefulness of marking, while allowing you time to plan, make and gather resources – and have a life. How long are you spending on marking? Try to keep a record so that you know the scale of the problem. Are you letting marking spread over a longer time than it should? It’s so easy to do. If you want to cut down time spent on marking you need to look at whether you’re making the most of all the different sorts of marking. Estimate how much marking (of class work and homework) you have to do in a week and at what level. Remember that peer review and self-assessment are very valuable as well as potentially less timeconsuming for you since you’ll be in the role of ‘moderator’. Balance

88

Getting better …

out work that needs marking over the week so that you don’t have too much at one go. Decide what seems a realistic amount of time to spend on marking and when you could get it done to fit in with other commitments. Try to stick to your ‘timetable’, aiming to reduce the time and to do things earlier and more quickly, if possible.

Different sorts of marking Perhaps you could benefit from extending your range, by considering different sorts of marking: • • • • • • • • • • •

children ‘marking’ their own and each other’s work self-assessment pupils marking their work during the plenary quick ticking and checking as pupils work using stampers (‘good effort’,‘excellent!’) using codes (sp, underline) rather than full sentences (make sure pupils understand them!) grading selective marking – ignoring all but answers to key questions brief comment against the learning intention detailed comment against the learning intention traffic-light marking – pupils put a green mark against work where they feel they’ve met the learning objective or a red mark where they haven’t understood it. This enables teachers to prioritise those pupils with difficulties.

You’ll probably find that different pieces of work require different levels of marking. There will be occasions when a Rolls Royce product is needed but at other times something more everyday is fine. Once you get to know the expectations of the school and the pupils’work rate you can design a marking schedule to help you manage what can be a very stressful burden. Ask your colleagues how they manage their marking. How long does it take them? When do they do it? What tips do they have? Little things such as collecting books so that they’re open at the right page for marking can make a real difference. Ask to see some examples of other people’s marking to get a feel for what is really expected, but avoid the temptation to do a more rigorous job – a one-upmanship that will generally make your life even harder.


89

Julian Stern (1999) suggests building a bank of useful marking phrases and questions, instead of the everyday ‘Good’, to help you. Do you deliberately plan work that doesn’t take so long to mark, but which still meets learning objectives? If you’re clear about the learning intention for the lesson, you should be able to write some specific assessment criteria – the things that pupils might do towards meeting the learning intention partially or fully. Shirley Clarke (1998) recommends using the acronyms WALT and WILF.WALT (We Are Learning To … ) is a way of sharing the learning intention with pupils.This can then be refined for different groups of pupils through telling them WILF (What I’m Looking For). If you are using worksheets, consider writing assessment criteria directly onto them for you to make some abbreviated judgements against. These can be differentiated for different groups of pupils. For instance, in a lesson on fractions with a mixed-ability class, a teacher wrote assessment criteria onto the worksheets that she could quickly tick, cross or comment on. Peer review is a very useful form of marking. Plan some time for pupils to swap books and ‘mark’ each other’s. Ideally do this before the end of the lesson so that they can improve their work before the lesson finishes.This will be truly formative marking. Pupils are rarely silly or rude about each other’s work, but you’ll need to consider your pairings carefully and come down hard on those who do not approach their responsibilities sensibly. Putting people who are friends and whose work is of a similar standard together works well. If you have an assistant, deploy them to help those who have difficulty reading and writing. Pairing people who speak the same mother tongue can also be advantageous, because they can explain things to each other in their own language. Obviously pupils will copy the marking style that they have experienced, so your one-to-one marking will have countless spin-offs. Follow the school or department marking policy and decide on your own additional one. Note points that many pupils had difficulty with on a lesson plan so that this information can feed into teaching. Try to focus on marking against assessment criteria – how well the pupils have met the learning objectives.This is easier said than done, particularly in a piece full of errors.What are you going to do about spelling mistakes, for instance? What about handwriting, grammar and punctuation? When will the pupils have time to read and respond to your marking, by correcting and learning spellings for example?

90

Getting better …

Reports Reports take ages to write. Don’t be deceived by report-writing computer programs – the process still takes ages. If you’re writing reports in a new school find out what’s required: whether there’s a computer program, who will work out the attendance figures, how much detail to write. I know of schools that go for something quite minimalist but others require lengthy paragraphs.You need to fit in with the school style. Ask your pupils to do a self-assessment – what they’re good at, have enjoyed, need to improve.Their information will help you write one or two very personal points so that the report gives a flavour of the individual.

Report-writing checklist: • • • • • • • • • • •

Draw up a timetable of when you’re going to write your reports. Speak to others about how they go about them. Read old reports to get a feel for style and useful phrases. Write a straightforward one first. Ask the children to do a self-assessment. Think of the overall big message. Write succinctly and avoid jargon. Start with positive comments. Phrase negatives positively. Suggest what the pupil has to do to improve. Get a few checked by a senior member of staff before you do the rest.

Ask yourself: • • • • • •

Have I commented on all the necessary areas? Have I made any spelling or grammatical mistakes? Will the parent/carer understand it? Does it give a clear, accurate picture? Is it positive? Are weaknesses mentioned?

six

Managing your workload The extent of the problem Restructuring the Workforce Work–life balance Knowing how you’re spending worktime Planning to change Using time well

The extent of the problem Workload seems to be the greatest reason why people leave teaching. In May a NQT posted this on the TES website: From the

TES staffroom

It is not at all what I expected. Nothing prepares you for what it is really like – not even the PGCE. You get a form you get a duty you get a lunchtime club to run you get after school revision club you get marking you get parents evenings you get 300+ exams to mark you get 300+ reports to write I don’t blame anyone who wants to leave.

It’s all the things on top of teaching that break the donkey’s back. But you, as the new generation of teachers, need to make this job

92

Getting better …

manageable so that you want to stay in it – at the moment the profession is haemorrhaging from people leaving within the first five years. What is the actual picture on workload? Table 6.1 shows the hours worked by people at different levels in primary and secondary schools. The average working week for classroom teachers is 52 hours. However, averages disguise a wide variation. For instance, although primary teachers on average work some 52 hours nearly 20 per cent work over 60 hours and around 5 per cent do under 40 hours. Let’s hope you’re not in that 20 per cent category and are not having to work with someone who’s doing under 40 hours a week! The PriceWaterhouseCoopers research in 2001 found that teachers’ working weeks are more intensive than those of other professionals and that holiday working is widespread. However, if you spread teachers’ hours across the year they are broadly comparable with other UK professionals – our 13-week holidays make up for it, as you can see in Table 6.1. One also needs to take account of the intensity and performance nature of teaching. It is very tiring. As a job I think it has many Table 6.1 Teacher Workload Study Interim Report (PriceWaterhouseCoopers 2001) Occupation

Average weekly hours

Average total holiday hours

Total annual hours

Primary schools: Headteachers

58.9

122.4

2420

Deputy heads

56.2

115.5

2307

Classroom teachers

52.8

97.4

2157

Headteachers

60.8

155.5

2527

Deputy heads

58.6

149.6

2435

Heads of faculty

52.9

149.6

2213

Classroom teachers

51.3

113.3

2114

Secondary schools:

National averages for other managers and professionals: All managers

46.3

0

2222

All professionals

44.0

0

2112

Managing your workload

93

similarities to acting, but no one would expect an actor to do be on stage for five hours a day, five days a week, for 39 weeks a year. From the

TES staffroom

I am a mature NQT and still find teaching stressful and the hardest job I have ever done. Big deal about the holidays – I’ve never had a holiday yet that I haven’t had to mark coursework or exams, write reports or just prepare lessons. I still work every evening and every weekend.

The effect of working long hours The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD 2000) survey report found that one in three partners of people who work more than 48 hours in a typical week say that the ‘long hours’ working has an entirely negative effect on their personal relationship. Seventy per cent of partners interviewed by the CIPD report that the long hours worker is sometimes too tired to hold a conversation. Fortythree per cent agree that they are fed up with having to shoulder most of the domestic burden. Most long hours workers themselves feel that they have struck the wrong work–life balance, with 56 per cent saying that they have dedicated too much of their life to work.Two-fifths of those working more than 48 hours per week report that working long hours has resulted in arguments with their spouse or partner in the last year and the same proportion feel guilty that they are failing to pull their weight on the domestic front. More than a quarter of partners with children of school age or younger say that the long hours spent at work have either a quite or a very negative effect on their partner’s relationship with their children.

Restructuring the workforce The government recognises that a tired teacher is not an effective teacher and is committed to doing something about it. With the Restructuring the Workforce agenda the image of the school teacher struggling under an excessive workload and working long days with

94

Getting better …

hardly a break, followed by evenings and weekends given up to preparation, should become a thing of the past. By 2005–6 the government plans to invest on average £70,000 per primary school and £350,000 per secondary school to help the remodelling process in English schools. It has pledged funding to ensure an extra 50,000 support staff of all types. In Wales, the Welsh Assembly has committed £21m over the next three years to increase the level of administrative support in schools. At least 10 per cent of your teaching time should in the next few years be timetabled for planning, preparation and assessment (or PPA for short) so that you have guaranteed time during the school day to plan and prepare lessons and to mark work.Although this won’t necessarily mean that no teacher will ever take work home again, it will be a significant step in freeing up some of the out-of-school time that is currently devoted to schoolwork.Teachers with management responsibilities will get guaranteed time in the working week, too, on top of their PPA time. Covering for absent colleagues – which eats up secondary teachers’ free periods – will not be allowed to encroach on PPA time, and there will be a limit on the number of classes teachers are expected to cover. Initially,this will be set at 38 hours a year,but it will be reduced over time. The idea is that hopefully it will be unusual for a teacher to have to cover this many hours.You should only cover unexpected absences; known absences, such as courses, longer illnesses or maternity leave, should be covered by supply teachers or teachers on temporary appointments. Cover supervisors – non-teaching staff who can supervise lessons set by a teacher, for example in a computer suite – can also be employed. A combination of all this, as well as the use of higher-level teaching assistants to provide cover and the appointment of ‘floating teachers’, should mean that staff teachers will be used to provide cover only as a last resort. Teachers will also no longer be expected to routinely do 24 clerical and administrative tasks (listed in Table 6.2), such as bulk photocopying or stocktaking. Personal assistants will also be recruited to give teachers and subject departments the administrative back-up they have needed for years. From September 2005, invigilating external exams, which takes so much teacher time, should become almost a thing of the past. Nonteaching staff will take over the role.


95

Table 6.2 Tasks that teachers should not have to do (DfES 2003) collecting money

processing exam results

stocktaking

chasing absences

collating pupil reports

cataloguing, preparing

bulk photocopying

administering work experience

issuing and maintaining equipment and materials

copy typing

administering examinations

minuting meetings

producing standard letters

invigilating examinations

co-ordinating and submitting bids

producing class lists

administering teacher cover

seeking and giving personnel advice

record keeping and filing

ICT trouble shooting and minor repairs

managing pupil data and inputting pupil data

classroom display

commissioning new ICT equipment

analysing attendance figures

ordering supplies and equipment

In the classroom there will be more adults, including a new category of higher-level teaching assistants. They will be sufficiently trained to take responsibility for classes under the direction of the teacher. There will also be access to other expert adults such as specialists in sport or drama to help spread the teaching load. Some classes might be doubled up and taken by one teacher with one or two teaching assistants. The cumulative effect will be to reduce teachers’ working week below the current average of 52 hours over the next four years and to increase the proportion of the working week spent teaching or preparing. Currently, only one third of a teacher’s school week is spent teaching, with another quarter spent on activities that directly support it.A quarter of their time, around 13 hours per week, is taken up with general admin duties. Well, that’s the plan. Certainly if you’re to survive, let alone succeed in your early years of teaching, you need to get into the habit of using your time well. Perhaps you’re already ruthlessly efficient in this area, but most people feel that they have too much to do in too little time. Here are some good habits to get into.

96

Getting better …

Work–life balance Wherever you’re working, it’s useful to see how you spend your time. Complete a table like the one shown in Figure 6.1 for one week to get a feel for whether you have a work–life balance. ‘Me time’ should include anything that you feel better for, such as socialising, going out, exercise, watching a favourite television programme, reading, soaking in the bath, talking to someone you like. Under ‘domestic’ put basic everyday living – cooking, shopping, tidying, washing, cleaning, talking to people at home, eating. You don’t have to be precise in allocating time, but does each day add up roughly to 24 hours? If it’s under, maybe you, like me, find that time just disappears.This is lovely if you’re on holiday – in fact it’s one of the marks of a relaxed day when I can’t think what I’ve done with my time … and I don’t care. When you’re a teacher, though, disappearing hours can be dangerous because there’s just too much to do and you’ll get behind. Look at your chart.What are you doing too little of? If you don’t get enough sleep noisy classrooms are unbearable, so that’s a definite one to keep an eye on. Is there any way that travel time can be reduced by,

Working at school

Working at home

Travel

Domestic

Sun Mon Tues Weds Thurs Fri Sat Total

Figure 6.1 How do you spend your time?

Me Time

Sleep


97

say, going to work or college before the morning rush hour and leaving before the evening one starts? If you use public transport could you get anything done in travel time – marking, planning, thinking, some ‘me-time’ reading, or a quick nap? A journey can be a good way to wind down after a day’s work. I know a teacher who returned to her old job, which involved a long journey, because the new one was so close that there seemed to be no gap between work and home, so no winding-down time. For those of you with dependants at home, travelling may be the only time you get to yourself.

Knowing how you’re spending worktime If you feel – like most teachers – that your work is taking over your life then you need to try to work shorter hours but spend them even more effectively. One step in this journey is for you to audit how you spend worktime at the moment, compare it with what’s known about other teachers’ use of time, and then consider how to reduce or redeploy it. We all feel overworked, that there aren’t enough hours in a day – but how do we really know how long we’re working and whether we’re spending our time well? Teachers currently have few tools to help judge how they are using their time and whether their workload, or the quality of their teaching, is getting better or worse. This was what Peter Earley, Anique Laverdure and I aimed to help teachers to find out in designing and piloting a worktime self-audit toolkit for the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL). It takes time to complete a week’s audit of your work but, as one teacher said, it is ‘a question of taking time to save time’. The results of the audit can give you hard evidence on which to renegotiate workload and empower you to make some changes. One teacher said: ‘I’m working too long and, therefore, becoming more inefficient. I get few things done to the standard I would like to achieve. I am forever compromising on quality or half completing tasks.This is not professionally rewarding’ (Bubb et al. 2003). The teachers repeated the audit after a term and most found that they had reduced their working time and felt happier that they were using time more valuably. Comparing weeks isn’t straightforward because no two weeks are the same. However, your trend should be towards working time being reduced.

98

Getting better …

Teachers kept a diary for each of the seven days in a week, categorising time spent on all work in and outside school using these headings: • • • • • • • •

teaching cover and registration lesson preparation and classroom organisation marking and assessment non-teaching contact with pupils and parents school/staff management administrative tasks professional development.

An example of the results is given in Table 6.3.Try doing it. Once you get used to the different categories you may find that you can just jot the minutes down on a form like the one in Figure 6.2 Simply adding up the amount of time you spend on tasks tells you nothing about how exhausted or frustrated certain tasks leave you. For instance, in terms of stress the 15 minutes spent dealing with disruptive pupils or 10 minutes unjamming the photocopier may feel equal to an hour’s planning. It’s useful to think about each day’s work in terms of: • the value for the pupils of the various activities • the degree of professional satisfaction you have derived from undertaking them: what has given you most and least professional satisfaction, and what has caused stress or frustration. You can then add up your worktime under the different categories using Table 6.4 and compare it with average teachers in the School Teachers’ Review Body survey which was based on many teachers’ records of how they spent their time in a week in March 2000. Look particularly at those tasks on which you spend more (and less) time than the average.You might want to use the last column to calculate how much more or less you worked.An analysis of your daily running record will give you more detail of exactly how you are spending your time under the various work activity headings. For instance, if you’re unhappy with how long you are spending on lesson preparation and classroom organisation you could look at the running records to ascertain which of the elements – planning/preparing lessons; display; or setting up/tidying classroom – are more time-consuming.

Managing your workload Table 6.3 Example of running record of how time is spent in one day (Bubb et al. 2003) Time

Duration in minutes

Code

Work activity

7.50–8.00

10

S3

Speak to Senco

8.00–8.15

15

A1

Photocopying

8.15–8.45

20 10

P3 P2

Setting up room and a display

8.45–8.55

10

S1

Morning meeting

8.55–9.05

10

C2

Register

9.05–10.15

70

T1

Teaching

10.15–10.30

15

N1

Assembly – attended

10.30–10.50

20

N1

Playtime – on duty

10.50–12.00

70

T1

Teaching

12.00–12.10

10

N3

Kept three children in

12.10–1.00

20 30

P3 S3

Lunch – tidying, setting up Talking to other staff

1.00–1.10

10

C2

Register

1.10–3.00

110

T1

Teaching

3.00–3.15

15

N5

Home time, chat to parents

3.15–3.45

30

P3

Tidying

3.45–5.00

75

S1

Staff meeting

5.00–5.15

15

A1

Sorted work

5.15–5.50

Travelled home

5.50–7.30

Domestic

7.30–8.00

30

M1

Marking

8.30–9.00

60

P1

Planning. Cut out resources for tomorrow’s lesson

various

20

D4

Doing this audit

99

Teaching (T)

Cover and register (C)

Lesson prep. and org. (P)

Marking and assess. (M)

Nonteaching contact (N)

Sch/staff man. (S)

Figure 6.2 A summary of how time is spent in one day (Bubb et al. 2003)

Total mins

Collate mins

Type of activity

Admin (A)

Prof. devt (D)

Other (O)


101

Table 6.4 Benchmark your use of time in one week against that of other teachers (Bubb et al. 2003) Grouped activities

Yours

Average primary teacher

Average secondary teacher

Teaching (T)

18h 48m

18h 36m

T1. Own lesson/teaching/tutorial

18h 6m

17h 54m

T2. Assisting pupils in other people’s lessons

18m

18m

T3. Educational visit

24m

24m

Cover and registration (C)

1h 42m

2h 42m

C1. Covering a lesson

6m

48m

C2.Registration/classroom management/pastoral

1h30m

1h 36m

C3. Administering test/exam

6m

18m

Lesson prep. and classroom org. (P)

12h 42m

7h 42m

P1. Planning/preparing lesson

8h 12m

5h 48m

P2. Display

1h

12m

P3. Setting up/tidying classroom, etc.

2h 48m

1h 6m

P4. Other non-contact tasks relating to a lesson

42m

36m

Marking and assessment (M)

5h 24m

8h 30m

M1. Marking pupil work (including exam/test)

4h 12m

6h 24m

M2. Keeping records on pupil performance

54m

36m

M3. Writing reports on pupil progress

18m

1h 30m

Non-teaching contact with pupils/ parents(N)

4h 54m

5h 18m

N1. Supervising pupils

2h 30m

1h 18m

N2. Coaching, rehearsing, clubs/ societies

36m

1h 18m

N3.Disciplining/praising pupils

12m

36m

N4. Pastoral care with individual pupils

6m

30m

N5. Contact with parents/families

1h

54m

N6. Other non-teaching of pupils or parents

24m

42m

+ or –

102

Getting better …

Table 6.4 continued Grouped activities

Yours

Average primary teacher

Average secondary teacher

School/staff management (S)

4h

3h 6m

S1. Any staff meeting

1h 30m

1h 18m

S2. Appraising/ monitoring teachers

6m

6m

S3. Contact with other teachers

1h

48m

S4. Arranging teaching duties, timetables

6m

18m

S5. Contact with support staff

12m

6m

S6. School policy development

30m

6m

S7. Financial man’t and planning

6m

*

S8. Contact with governors

6m

*

S9. Contact with educational bodies

6m

6m

S10. Other management activities

18m

18m

Administrative tasks (A) total

1h 36m

2h

A1. Simple clerical activity

36m

42m

A2. Keeping records or department records

12m

18m

A3. Organising resources and premises

30m

30m

A4. Other kinds of admin activities

18m

30m

Professional devt activity (D)

3h 18m

2h 48m

D1. Training other staff

12m

12m

D2. Being trained or appraised

1h 6m

48m

D3. Studying/background reading

30m

30m

D4. Keeping this audit

54m

42m

D5. Other professional activity

36m

36m

TOTAL working hours

52h 24m

50h 48m

+ or –

Planning to change Now that you have the big picture of how you spend your time, and the comparison with other teachers, how do you feel about the way you are making use of your time? Take account of your daily records in which you noted the tasks that:


103

• were of most and least value to the pupils • gave most and least professional satisfaction • caused most stress and frustration. What do you want to change? Consider: (a) What things are achievable by you alone? (b) What will need to change at a school organisation level? All teachers will soon have PPA time, but what other changes would be useful? How are you going to change an element of your worktime? Draw up an action plan like the one in Figure 6.3.Think about these questions: • What do you want to spend less time on? • How are you going to do so? What implications are there for others? • How much time are you going to aim to save, and by when? Are you aiming for a radical or a gradual reduction? • How are you going to measure your progress? • How will you spend the time saved? It shouldn’t be spent on more work-related tasks!

Using time well It’s useful to think about the quality of your time, as well as the quantity available. It’s worth recognising which part of the day – or night – is the most productive for you: the time when you have your most creative ideas, or can concentrate best. For the majority of people this is early in the day, when they are freshest.A minority of people do their best work late at night. About 20 per cent of our time is prime time and, used well, it should produce about 80 per cent of our most creative and productive work. The rest of your time is likely to be of lower quality, and is nowhere near as productive. In this low-quality time, plan to do things that are easy to pick up after interruptions or jobs that you look forward to doing. Lesson planning, writing reports and other difficult jobs need high-quality time. If you try to do them at times when you’ll be interrupted, or are tired and hungry, you’ll become frustrated, and

104

Getting better …

Date: What I’m going to spend less time on: How long do I spend on it at the moment? How many minutes am I going to save? How I’m going to do it, who’s involved

By when? When

Record any time reduction and other comments

Figure 6.3 A worktime action plan everything will take longer.You also need to consider where you work best. From the

TES staffroom

I just get so annoyed that being in the building seems to equate in so many people’s minds with being committed. It seems to me that most of it is mere presentism. Am I alone in finding that I work far more efficiently at home where I am not surrounded by others and can focus much more efficiently on lesson preparation, marking or admin?


105

It seems to be the done thing, in primary schools at least, to stay as long as possible – there’s definitely a competitive element to it. I’ve known teachers who came in at 7 or 7.30 a.m. and stayed until 5.30 p.m. or later, and still went home with huge amounts of work. Let’s face it, if you’re a teacher who cares even a little bit about the quality of work you do you will be investing massive amounts of your own time on the job outside of directed hours. Indeed, you could work all the time if you were so inclined and still have more things to do: evenings, weekends, holidays. There’s always room for work, but you need a life too.

Work smarter, not harder Areas in which you could reduce worktime are: admin, planning, marking, making resources and worksheets, and display. But how do you do so? Here are some tips: • Prioritise. • Compartmentalise – set boundaries, especially when working at home. • Accept ‘good enough’. • Avoid stressful people and time bandits. • Set yourself targets – don’t add to them. • When do you work best? Fit work around energy highs and lows. What work can be done in lows? • Set boundaries to tasks – time, quality, quantity. • Build in rewards. • Draw up an action plan of how you’ll reduce time on specific tasks. Remember that a tired teacher is rarely an effective teacher.

seven

Handling tricky situations Choosing the appropriate behaviour Managing pupil behaviour Violent parents Covering other teachers’ lessons Criticisms following observations Bullying at work False allegations

Choosing the appropriate behaviour Tricky situations are a fact of life. I hope you’ll have been shielded from the worst in your training and induction years but as you get more experienced you are expected to handle things alone – and well. Assertiveness training is well worth considering – even if you just read a book on it.There are four behaviour choices that you have in dealing with difficult situations.You can be: • aggressive – behaviour that makes the other person angry, resentful, hurt or demoralised • passive – backing down, withdrawing • manipulative – hints, flattery, etc. • assertive. Of all these, assertiveness is usually the most helpful. It’s the direct and honest expression of feelings, needs and opinions that calls for selfrespect and respect for others. When you’re assertive people know

Handling tricky situations

107

where they stand with you – and neither you nor they will get upset. Being aggressive or passive takes a lot out of you, whereas you can feel an inner calm if you’re simply assertive.

Managing pupil behaviour Managing pupil behaviour is one of the greatest concerns of teachers. If you are having difficulty with control you need extra support, urgently.At a practical level it’s useful to have someone who will take miscreants off you, and someone to read the riot act for or with you. The chance word of a friend, ‘Don’t let the buggers get you down’, when I was having problems with a class as an experienced teacher, gave me the resolve not to give up. I changed tack, became ruthlessly firm. It worked.

Violence I hope it never happens to you, but some pupils are violent. One teacher was bitten ‘almost to the bone’ by a five-year-old when removing him from a classroom. On another occasion, a friend asked about scratches on her neck inflicted by a child. She had forgotten they were there, because such incidents were so common. If you are physically injured, get a medical assessment of the injury as soon as possible. Even if it seems a small injury at the time, it’s worth having it noted by a GP in case of subsequent consequences such as long-term back problems. A doctor’s report can be important evidence if you later pursue compensation or decide to prosecute. If your injuries last for more than six weeks, you’re entitled to claim compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, but only if the police recognise that an assault has been committed. Unions say schools should immediately suspend pupils who have attacked teachers, and deal with them through the disciplinary system.You shouldn’t have to teach a pupil who has assaulted you, although you have no contractual right to refuse.The school should consider informing the police.They are often reluctant to prosecute unless the injuries are serious, but they may give the pupil a formal warning.

108

Getting better …

Children with behaviour problems Violence is, thank goodness, fairly rare but you’ll probably have to deal with children with significant behaviour problems. What would you do if you found yourself in the shoes of the reception class teacher below? From the

TES staffroom

A four year old boy with particular behaviour problems The problem behaviour: • • • • • • •

clapping while I am speaking calling me ‘Miss Poo-poos’ throwing objects calling out and getting other children to copy him hitting other children kicking me on one occasion ignores my instructions, refusing to take time out and having to be physically walked to another room • has put one finger up to other classes as walking past • during playtime is often aggressive towards peers. Strategies tried: The behaviour policy in my class is three warnings then the child sits away from the children for ‘time out’, if they are still misbehaving they are sent to another class (Reception or Nursery). Specifically, I’ve tried: • • • • • • • • • •

remaining calm with him ignoring minor behaviour using a sticker book giving him special responsibilities using stickers and catching him being good warnings, time out, time in another class, sending him to the Head talking on our own about his behaviour giving him special time with me using a stern tone of voice sending him off the carpet to do other work while the other children sit, and giving him no eye contact.


109

Getting and keeping attention Getting and keeping attention are more common problems.The secret is to keep lots of strategies up your sleeve.After a while, even the best ones get stale and you need to do something new.Whatever you do, try to minimise your voice being used and time being wasted. Here are 20 ideas from the TES new teacher forum: 1. The more negative I am and the more I shout, the more the pupils make more noise. Be calm and positive; this gives the impression that you are in control. 2. I have used a system of table points before but this is not helpful if there are some tables with mixed levels of behaviour, as it causes resentment in the ones who are trying to behave on a table where others are losing them points. 3. Display the names of all of the pupils on the board at the start of every day, or (more permanent) laminate each name onto card and affix to a board with blutack or a felt board with velcro. Stick a smiley face at the top of the board and agree rewards for the pupils whose name is still on the board at the end of the day/week. Clearly establish the kinds of behaviour which will result in the pupil’s name staying on the board. 4. Football card system. Cut up squares of red and yellow card. In this system, like a football referee, a pupil who misbehaves is given a warning, and then a yellow card. This means that if the pupil misbehaves again, he or she will get a red card, which means lost minutes at playtime.They spend a set length of time during the next playtime indoors, writing about exactly what they have done wrong to get the cards and what they will do in future.You then file this ‘signed confession’ by the pupil as it can be used as evidence later if the pupil misbehaves again – for example, to be shown to parents or the headteacher. You can even tell the pupils that if they get three red cards in a week or more they are sent to the head or a letter is sent home – or some other harsher punishment.This is a good system as long as you have the cards nearby. It causes no disruption to the lesson, as you don’t even have to discuss it with the pupil except briefly. You just have to make the rules consistent and clear so the pupils accept these terms as ‘fair and just’.

110

Getting better …

5. I’ve found that pointing at the offenders one by one while counting them up seems to work. I’ve got no idea why – perhaps because they don’t want to be one of the ‘counted’ ones! When I started doing it, I asked the ones I had counted to explain why they were talking – now I just have to start counting and they stop. 6. Let them have noisy moments. I’ve learned to anticipate that they will have noisy moments between lessons etc., and things have become easier since I stopped expecting them to be quiet all the time. 7. Peer pressure is starting to kick in nicely in my class at the moment after my having abandoned interesting lessons/ discussions a few times due to disruptive kids, and giving them boring listening exercises instead. I literally stopped in midsentence while about to tell them where they were going for their school trip, and they had to wait until the next day to find out. Now, if they see me starting to close my book or move over to where I keep worksheets or stop mid-sentence, they quieten down. 8. If they are too noisy when coming onto the carpet for intro/plenaries I count the ones who are sitting quietly until I have counted everyone. 9. I just stop and stare at them with a ‘you know you are in the wrong, now do what I want’ look and they shut up! 10. Simply stand at the front and raise one arm.As each pupil notices he/she raises an arm and stops talking. No one wants to be the last so they all quickly quieten down and listen. 11. Try getting a stopwatch and calmly timing how long it takes them to be quiet. Then take that time off whatever breaktime comes next! Use it in conjunction with rewards and they soon get the idea. 12. The pupils tend to be as noisy as their teacher! Basically, if you’re a loud teacher, they adapt so they can hear themselves, if you’re quiet, so are they. Raising your voice then immediately lowering it mean they have to be much quieter to hear you. 13. Fire out the rewards (stickers etc.). If you spot a couple of quiet pupils, then REWARD them! The rest will soon follow suit. 14. I have 30 mins written on my board at the start of the week. Every Friday they have 30 mins, ‘golden time’ where they can choose


15.

16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

111

what to do.Taking minutes off this time (or now even threatening to) works a treat. Instead of having them on the carpet and bored while you’re doing the register, seat them at their desks and give them a ‘busy book’ each. Get them into the routine of coming in and doing SOMETHING: handwriting, anagrams (write up a word on the board and get them to find as many other words in it as they can), number bonds, times tables, maths challenges, anything really, the more fun (and absorbing) the better! I’m a big believer in having instructions written on the board for when they come in, this way both you and they know what to expect. Tell them you’re going to close your eyes and when you open them they’ll all be looking the right way, sitting perfectly and smiling sweetly. It’s a high-risk strategy but it’s never failed to work for me and at least you get to shut your eyes! Turn the lights off to get everyone’s attention when they’re all busy. Call ‘3, 2, 1 silence’. Bang a drum, cymbal, etc. Clap a rhythm for them to copy or ‘answer’.

Everyday irritating behaviour You need to think creatively about solutions to the numerous everyday irritating behaviours, such as: • • • • • • • •

calling out fiddling tapping talking when you’re talking the whine – miiiiiiisss hair-dressing being out of their seats farting – and the fuss from other pupils.

Just take one or two of the things that wind you up and think how you usually handle them, and then all the alternative ways you could do so. Think of your potential responses ranging from cool to very hot, slow

112

Getting better …

to breaking the speed limit.You need to give yourself plenty of room for manoeuvre so go for calm strategies at first rather than going for the jugular straight away. Remember that you, as a teacher, are a manager of incidents as well as of teaching materials, furniture, curriculum, etc. Patrick Powling and Roy Ramsey (2002) give these tips on their excellent courses: • The teacher is part of the incident, often party to it.What you do or say can vary the incident in just as significant ways as the disrupter. • Most difficult incidents can be managed well by someone. • Our colleagues all have expertise – perhaps preventative, perhaps curative. We need to develop a professional culture that encourages a genuine exchange of anxieties and strategies for managing and controlling disruptive children. • Whole-school approaches, which have included the involvement of the children, are crucial. • Most disruptive incidents can be anticipated and predicted. Our management techniques can also be considered in advance. Teachers need to prepare for discipline as rigorously as any aspect of the curriculum. • We need to take three or four seconds to reflect on possible responses before applying a specific management strategy. In other words, try and run through possible tactics. • We need to stay polite, calm and cool and leave room for manoeuvre. Losing one’s temper impressively is a practised art, best used rarely and specifically. • Teachers can unwittingly escalate problems by failing to consider alternative strategies or predicting likely responses. • Finally, we need to remember that there is always another day. Not every management problem needs to, or can, be resolved immediately.

Violent parents Violence from parents seems to be on the increase.A headteacher was hit eight times around the face by a parent in a potentially fatal attack. She was attacked by a mother angry that her 8-year-old son had been


113

temporarily excluded for holding a knife to the throat of a classmate. ‘She had been throwing things around and screaming and shouting. She took one look at me and hit me about eight times around the face. She was jabbing up my nose in such a way that if she had connected, it would have been fatal because it would have driven the nose cartilage into my brain’ (Thornton 2001). If a parent assaults you, the head should inform the police and write to the assailant a letter warning that such behaviour is unacceptable. The parent shouldn’t be permitted to enter the school premises again without an appointment. If they do they can be prosecuted for trespass.The DfES’s A Legal Toolkit for Schools:Tackling Abuse,Threats and Violence towards Members of the School Community can be ordered free on 0845 602 2260.

Covering other teachers’ lessons Do you ever have anxiety dreams? In one of mine I was asked by a head to coach the First XV rugby team. All my arguments – I’m a primary teacher; don’t know how to play rugby; think a ruck sounds rude; they’re bigger than me; I’m a woman, for goodness sake; to say nothing of the ‘but I don’t work at your school’ line – were met with the glib assurance that he had every faith in my talents. Ghastly. But many teachers have to take lessons that they haven’t planned, in subjects they know nothing about – and which give them the heebiejeebies. Schools vary in the amount of cover they ask newer teachers to do. In some schools newer teachers are used only as a last resort. In others, their goodwill and enthusiasm are shamelessly exploited.‘Doing cover day-in day-out demoralises staff and would be the single thing that would make me leave the profession,’ said one person on the TES staffroom. Another covered a Year 7 class doing ICT:‘They didn’t know their passwords and I hadn’t a clue where to find someone to help.’ Even trainee teachers aren’t exempt. Someone training on the Graduate Teacher Programme covered at least one lesson a week in the autumn term. ‘I’ve been to classrooms where no work has been set and I frequently go to cover and the classroom door is locked. I then have to traipse around the school trying to find the HOD for a key.’

114

Getting better …

Practical subjects are notoriously hard to cover, particularly when no work has been left. One teacher had to cover drama in a temporary room. From the

TES staffroom

We had to leave 20 minutes before the end of the lesson so that tables could be put out for lunch. The kids told me that the regular teacher allowed them to go, but that sounded suspicious. There was nobody around to ask so I ended up marching this disgruntled Year 9 class back to my own faculty area, because I felt responsible for them.

Safety is a key issue. If there’s an accident during a lesson, the legal position is that the employer (the LEA or governing body) has ultimate responsibility. According to Health and Safety: Responsibilities and Powers (Ref: DfES/0803/2001), teachers’ responsibilities include: • taking reasonable steps to ensure their own safety • carrying out work in accordance with training and instructions • informing the employer of any serious risk. For instance, the science teacher who was asked to cover a PE class, playing netball, decided that this was a safety risk, and so did a theory lesson instead. So what are the solutions to the cover problem? Some schools employ more staff than strictly necessary so that some are on a ‘light’ timetable but are expected to cover classes as part of their teaching load. It’s a good idea, but crazy to give a NQT such a role. Isn’t it hard enough teaching lessons that you’ve planned, on subjects that you know a great deal about, to pupils you know? Another solution suggested by the DfES (DfES 2003) is for assistants to take classes when teachers are away. In many schools assistants are seen as a better option than unknown supply teachers who don’t know what to do or how to deal with the children. Is it legal though? Yes, assistants, unqualified teachers and trainees should be under the supervision of a qualified teacher, but this is not to say that the qualified teacher need always be present. It’s for the head to say what supervision is necessary.


115

Unfortunately, you can’t refuse to cover.The letter of the law is in School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions (DfES 2002a).You’re expected to do what the head asks of you and that includes covering for colleagues, for the first three days of their absence. NQTs aren’t exempt from this requirement, though lots of schools try not to use them for cover, at least the first term or two. Certainly don’t let cover eat into your reduced timetable.That doesn’t mean that you can’t be asked to cover for absent colleagues in your free periods, but remember the notion of ‘bankable cover’. If you’re called upon to do cover, the time can be ‘banked’ and repaid at a later date. If you earmark free periods for professional development then they’re less likely to get taken away. Or just be bold, like the NQT who wrote on the cover slip ‘I thought I was on a 90% protected timetable. However, if there is an emergency please let me know.’ Now, that’s an example of being assertive. She hasn’t been asked again!

Criticisms following observations You can really learn a great deal when observations are done well, but they can be destructive. From the

TES staffroom

I have been teaching for about a year and a half, and have always had good lesson observations. Today, a member of middle management came in to see me. She gave no positive feedback. I was told the lesson was too slow (even though I have been observed by others because my lessons were a good pace), that the kids were bored and uninvolved (although they were on task and had met the aims of the lessons at the end), that I wasn’t marking the work properly, I wasn’t praising enough (which I always do, and SMT always comment on my good use of praise). I feel so upset. I know I have lots of things to improve on, but all my other lesson observations were fine, and now I’m worrying that I’m becoming a bad teacher.

There are people who get off on belittling people, especially in education. The good observations prove you are a good teacher, so concentrate on that fact.

116

Getting better …

Bad practice in observing causes great problems and can damage your confidence. I’ve heard about observers who: • • • • • • • • • •

arrived late and disrupted the lesson observed without any notice corrected the teacher’s errors in front of pupils looked bored or disapproving fell asleep let their mobile go off during a lesson did not give any feedback gave written feedback without an opportunity for discussion contradicted the views of others gave simplistic feedback without any ideas for further development • made erroneous judgements based on poor knowledge of the context or the curriculum • made criticisms based on a personal fad • upset the teacher without giving positive ways forward. It’s hard to deal with observations that are not carried out well because any complaint you make looks as though you can’t take criticism. It helps if there is a school policy on monitoring so that you can refer to that in discussing any contraventions of good practice. I guess you need to ask yourself whether the criticisms were fair. If they are, yes it hurts to have weaknesses pointed out but at least you can then do something about them and get some help. Really pay attention to the points that come up time and time again and are noted by more than one person. Sometimes someone will make a criticism that’s never been pointed out before. This maybe because they have great experience and knowledge in the topic you’re teaching and want to move you on.This advice is certainly worth heeding. However, if you don’t think the comments from an observation were fair you need to handle things carefully. Firstly, ask what the evidence is for their judgement. A weakness in your teaching, such as pace or boring activities, will normally have an impact on pupils – the evidence.Who was yawning, fidgeting, doodling? Then there are some criticisms that are so loony that all other points are discredited:


From the

117

TES staffroom

I was told that my classroom was the wrong size, and my TV was too small. It’s fairly pointless for an observer to criticise things that you have no control over or which you can do little about. On the other hand, it’s useful to get an insight into what your lesson was like for the pupils – and you do need to know that some couldn’t see the screen or board.

Bullying at work Shocking as it sounds, bullying is a problem in schools and not just for children.Teachers get their fair share too. One teacher in three claims to have been bullied at work, according to research carried out by the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. Bullying is defined by the Industrial Society as ‘improper, offensive and humiliating behaviour, practices or conduct, which may threaten a person’s job security, create an intimidating, unwelcome or stressful work environment, or cause personal offence or injury’.What do you think of this teacher’s experience? From the

TES staffroom

We had a briefing where the Head announced that there was to be a practice fire drill during a lesson I had scheduled for a timed A level assessment. I said ‘Oh no’, pretty quietly I thought. The Head stopped and said ‘Something wrong? Do you mind if I continue?’ At the end of the meeting I got a note from a deputy saying ‘Please see HM immediately. X will cover your class’ When I went I was treated to a lecture during which I was told that I had been very rude to him and was a disgraceful role model to all female professionals on the staff. In staff meetings hardly anyone speaks. I once shook my head in one, got into terrible trouble, and from then on sat in staff meetings frightened to move at all in case I was picked on.

Shouting, giving impossible deadlines, making threats and removing responsibilities without consultation are signs of bullying. A run-in with a bully can cause stress, damaged self-esteem, depression and even

118

Getting better …

suicide – so don’t suffer in silence. People tell me some harrowing stories, but then say,‘I don’t want you to do anything’.They’re worried about making matters worse. If you are being bullied record the details – keep a diary. Other advice includes: • Talk about it. Find out if other colleagues have similar difficulties. • Raise the issue with teacher governors. • Always reply in writing to memos designed to harass or bully and keep copies of the responses. • Always establish the status of meetings before agreeing to attend and, if possible, arrange for a ‘friend’ to go with you. • Attend an assertiveness course – some unions run training specifically on how to deal with bullies. • If an incident leads to illness requiring sick leave, make a record in the school accident/incident book and complete Department of Social Security form B195,‘Accident at Work – what to do about it’. • If you can, ask them to stop; this can be done verbally – ask a colleague to accompany you – or in writing. If informal approaches fail, consider formal procedures. • Remember, it’s not your fault. You can take out a grievance procedure, but that can make things worse. Some local authorities have excellent procedures for dealing with bullying; your union will be able to tell you what is available in your area.As well as unions, the Teacher Support Line: 08000 562561; www.workstress.net will provide useful advice. As a last resort, you could use the law – or threaten to. Unfortunately, there is no legislation that directly addresses bullying; the Dignity at Work Bill, which would make bullying at work an offence like harassment or discrimination, looks unlikely to become law. But there’s a whole raft of legislation that can be used to protect you. Employment Rights Act (1996): unfair dismissal, constructive dismissal, wrongful dismissal. In 2002 a Swansea teacher agreed to an out of court settlement of £230,000 on the grounds of being bullied for five years by his former headteacher before being sacked. He alleged that the head had sat for hours on end at the back of his classroom during lessons, not saying a word, but taking notes.


119

Health and Safety at Work Act 1974: breach of duty of care, also the provision of systems of work that are, so far as is reasonably practicable, safe and without risks to health. The bully’s behaviour constitutes a breach of the employer’s duty of care under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, whereby employers have a legal obligation to ensure both the physical and psychological well-being of their employees. The Act requires employers to provide both a safe place of work, and as far as is reasonably practical, a safe system of work. If, having had a health and safety issue brought to their attention, an employer chooses not to take action, they will be in breach of this Act. It can be argued that stress is not the employee’s inability to cope with excessive demands but a consequence of the employer’s failure to provide a safe system of work as required under this Act. Other legislation that you should be aware of includes: • Sex Discrimination Act 1975: discrimination on the grounds of sex by dismissing an employee or submitting them to “any other detriment”. • Race Relations Act 1976: ditto on racial grounds. • Disability Discrimination Act 1995: ditto on grounds of disability or perceived disability. • Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992: victimisation on the grounds of trade union membership or nonmembership. • Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998: unfair dismissal or redundancy or detriment for blowing the whistle in the public interest. • Personal injury for psychiatric injury. • Negligence for psychiatric injury arising out of the employer’s failure to protect employees from bullying, harassment and victimisation. • Defamation of character for the bully’s, and perhaps employer’s, vindictive remarks – libel (if it’s in writing) or slander (spoken) for wilful and defamatory remarks. • Data Protection Act 1998: the right to see personal information held on file.

120

Getting better …

Tricky assistants Bullying is not necessarily the prerogative of those senior to you. Support staff can be difficult too. From the

TES staffroom

I’m feeling very inadequate due to the vibe I am getting off the teaching assistant. I feel she is currently undermining me and telling my Head of Department what I am and am not doing. She seems to be constantly there and I cannot speak to my Head of Department in private. She is always listening in to conversations and I know that she goes spying on people and reporting back to the Head of Department.

In this sort of situation you need to share your experiences with others and then speak to the person in question about how you feel about their behaviour.Try to be assertive without being aggressive. State the facts calmly and don’t rise to any confrontational behaviour.

Whistle blowing Occasionally people in authority misuse their power. There have been several high-profile cases of misappropriation of school funds. For instance, in 2003, the head of St John Rigby College was found guilty and imprisoned for spending around £500,000 with school credit cards. She used the school funds to pay for foreign holidays, expensive meals, designer clothes and theatre tickets as well as presents for relatives. If you think that something fishy is going on in your school you need to seek advice on what to do. The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 protects people who raise genuine concerns about crimes, illegality (including negligence), miscarriages of justice, danger to health and safety or the environment, and about the cover-up of such incidents.

False allegations Having false allegations made against you is extremely upsetting.


From the

121

TES staffroom

My sister told me that there’s a rumour that I had lost my scout leader’s warrant for ‘child molesting’. Said rumour is completely untrue (two CRB checks since September, including one from the Scout Association can prove this). However the effect on me has been, shall we say ‘impressive’? I have been depressed ever since and I have lost my spark for teaching. I am also short tempered, nasty and struggling to keep myself together.

If there’s a rumour or an allegation against you, you need to get advice very quickly and do what you can to nip things in the bud. It’s hard because people will think that you’re getting upset because you have something to be ashamed of. It’s best if you can get someone to speak up for you and scotch rumours. The threat of taking legal action to clear your name for libel or slander is a potential avenue to go down. Pupils’ allegations can cause a lot of trouble and also need to be dealt with assertively and quickly.Tell your side of the story to the head as soon as possible.Then they’ll know how best to deal with things and will be able to support you. It’s useful to think about how you would deal with a situation such as the one below – and how to reduce the chances of allegations being made in the first place. From the

TES staffroom

Have been accused by a pupil of swearing at him and using the ‘f**k’ word. Pupil wants to take this to the Head. Pupil has little evidence apart from his friends saying they ‘heard’ me. Have had to write up incident report, all staff are on my side but am concerned as how to deal with this pupil in the future. Pupil is also Asian – could he play the ‘race’ card with me? There is no way that I would have used this word, I’m not stupid!!! I know how much trouble I could get in for saying anything like that! Pupil’s form tutor is involved saying pupil is extremely upset and does not want to return to lessons, this could continue on Monday. My HOD is going to give my incident report to the Head on Monday morning anyway. When the so-called ‘incident’ occurred a member of staff was standing next to me so they would have heard what I supposedly said.

122

Getting better …

Pupils from other classes have also said how rude this pupil was to me. Pupil wouldn’t leave building when requested, re-entered building twice after leaving, I instructed pupil to stand to one side and wait for me, pupil walked off shouting ‘No’, I followed pupil outside, shouted at him to ‘come back’ and added ‘do you want me to get a senior member of staff?’ Pupil turned around and shouted in my face ‘No’. End of school so I couldn’t do anything but I issued a detention slip for the pupil and thought the matter had ended there. Pupil didn’t arrive for detention at break and was escorted to languages block to do detention at lunchtime. I found out where pupil was being taught after break and asked him why he didn’t come; he said he ‘didn’t want to’! Pupil did detention at lunchtime and during this detention made the allegations against me. Any ideas as to what I can do? What happens to a pupil who makes false accusations against a member of staff? Who is going to support me? Is it wise of me to take it any further if the pupil drops the matter? I have to work in this school and get a decent reference from them.

eight

Leading and managing You’re an emergent leader! What subject leaders do Getting a feel for standards Making judgements about teaching Observing teachers Feeding back to teachers Running training sessions for other staff

I’ve been tracking what people are doing after three years in teaching in Lambeth. The range really is quite amazing! Yes, there are some who have left teaching, gone travelling or are on maternity leave but there are also plenty who are now in leadership roles. Many have had trainee teachers working with them and some act as induction tutors to newly qualified teachers. In primary, some have responsibility for fairly small areas such as PSHE, others are already maths coordinators, but most are in charge of ICT in the school. One or two are on the management team and are key stage co-ordinators. Secondary teachers have a similarly amazing profile of rapid promotion. Some are second in charge of their department and a few are already heads of department. For instance, Asma is head of the seven-strong English department. One guy, Nick, was a NQT in 1999–2000, became head of history in his second year, then moved to another school to become a head of house and head of history and has just been appointed assistant headteacher after just four years of being in the profession.Wow!

124

Getting better …

You’re an emergent leader! Rapid promotion is great but it means that you have to gain leadership and management skills very quickly.The National College for School Leadership in Nottingham has identified five stages of school leadership (NCSL 2002): 1. Emergent leadership, when a teacher is beginning to take on management and leadership responsibilities and perhaps forms an aspiration to become a headteacher. 2. Established leadership, comprising assistant and deputy heads who are experienced leaders but who do not intend to pursue headship. 3. Entry to headship, including a teacher’s preparation for and induction into the senior post in a school. 4. Advanced leadership, the stage at which school leaders mature in their role, look to widen their experience, to refresh themselves and to update their skills. 5. Consultant leadership, when an able and experienced leader is ready to put something back into the profession by taking on training, mentoring, inspection or other responsibilities. Many of you will be in the ‘emergent leadership’ stage. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? At this stage people are beginning to take on formal leadership roles or would like to do so. Some already manage a team, others co-ordinate the work of a group of teachers in a single subject area or have pastoral or special needs responsibilities. It is a large and diverse group with important differences between phases. Many of these people have significant leadership responsibilities but they are working within a thematic or departmental context and not yet dealing with the full range of issues faced by headteachers and members of the leadership group. There’s a special course called Leading from the Middle (LftM) that the National College for School Leadership runs just for you. Its aims are • to support the professional development of existing successful subject leaders • to enable them to lead their teams more effectively at a time of considerable rapid change

Leading and managing

125

• to enable them to become highly competent subject leaders in the context of their own schools, and • to develop critical analytical skills that they can apply to their leadership of their subject teams. Subject leaders will be prioritised for the national roll-out of the programme in September 2003, when 2,250 will be recruited via an online application form.A further 1,000 participants will be recruited for start in April 2004. Some 6,000 middle leaders (with plans to include SENCOs, pastoral leaders and ASTs) will start in the academic year 2004/2005, and a further 9,000 in 2005/2006. Leading from the Middle is designed to be taken by between two and four people in a school, supported by a coach usually drawn from the ranks of the leadership team. For the subject leader participants, there are three full days of regional face-to-face training during term time plus two twilight sessions.The programme says it offers a ‘blended learning experience’ (don’t you just love the jargon?) by including a range of face-to-face sessions, online activities and a school-based project.At £220 per subject leader it is very reasonably priced, but the school will need to fund supply cover, travel and subsistence.

What subject leaders do The term ‘subject leader’ isn’t used much in schools, but it’s what you are if you co-ordinate a subject in the primary sector or are a head or even second in charge of a department in a secondary school. Subject leaders provide professional leadership and management for a subject to secure high-quality teaching, effective use of resources and improved standards of learning and achievement for all pupils. The term ‘subject leader’ is used to emphasise that you shouldn’t just be coordinating or managing but leading – making decisions and moving things forward. Both leading and managing are important. Howard Green (2003) illustrates the differences between them with the story of Noah. Leadership was the quality that Noah demonstrated by getting the animals and people on to the Ark in the first place. Management was his skill in building and organising the Ark so that the elephants did not find out what the rabbits were up to! One can imagine the initial

126

Getting better …

scepticism of his family when Noah was feverishly building this great wooden ship and saying that God had given him a vision that it was going to rain like hell and the whole world was going to be flooded. But he was able to share this vision with sufficient conviction to get the people and animals on board. He valued both the word of God and the wellbeing of those around him. As a result lives were saved and the people moved on to a better future. But if Noah had not also been a good manager, the Ark may have sunk under the weight of elephants!

The role covers all the 10 areas in the teachers’ standards framework (DfES 2001b) but has a leaning towards the end ones: • • • • • • • • • •

knowledge and understanding planning and setting expectations teaching and managing pupil learning assessment and evaluation pupil achievement relations with parents and the wider community managing own performance and development managing and developing staff and other adults managing resources strategic leadership.

Ofsted will want to know how effective your leadership and management are. See Figure 4.4 (p. 69) for the criteria they use – or perhaps don’t: it’s too scary! Whether you get paid extra responsibility points for it, your three core roles, according to the Key Stage 3 strategy for instance, are judging standards, evaluating teaching and learning, and leading sustainable improvement. How much of this you’ll be able to achieve depends largely on your other responsibilities.You’ll still be teaching and if you have a full timetable there’s a limit to how much you can do – and how much your headteacher can expect you to do.

Getting a feel for standards One of the ways to get a picture of standards in your area of the curriculum is to look at the data the school collects. Analysing tests results gives you a picture of what the school is teaching well and what


127

it needs to do better. The DfES produces PANDA (Performance AND Assessment) reports.These contain detailed information on the performance of pupils in the key stage assessments.You can see how your school compares with the national picture and similar schools (on the basis of the number of children entitled to free school meals). Some LEAs factor pupil turnover into the analysis of your results, so that you can see that, for instance, even though the number of children getting level 4 or above at the end of Year 6 was low, all who had been in the school for the last four years met the required standard. Sampling pupils’ work is a good way to get a detailed picture of what they are good at and what needs to be improved. It also gives you an insight into the quality of teaching. Looking at children’s work can be very time-consuming so you need to have a clear focus and a time limit of say one hour in total. It’s good to do it with someone else so that you can share ideas.Write down what you find. Brainstorm some prompts of things you want to look for as part of your focus, or questions you want to ask. Judge what you can see, but also think about what you can’t see that you might expect to. Here are some other tips that will make this very time-consuming activity manageable: • Look at a high, an average and a low attainer. • Compare three children’s work on a certain date.This will show you how the teacher has catered for different needs. • Compare recent and old work. This will give you a feel for progress. • Look at plans so that you understand what the children were meant to be learning and the context of the work. • Have level descriptions to hand so that you can judge attainment against national standards. • Note down hunches and questions you want to ask. Too often these are just in your head. Write them down, then talk to the teacher and use the evidence to test your hypotheses.

Making judgements about teaching Making judgements about teaching is difficult, especially if you haven’t been teaching long.You will need to do so, however, if you are to help trainee or newly qualified teachers and other members of staff

128

Getting better …

at your school. Starting off by looking at planning can be a good idea if you feel nervous about observing someone. If you say positive things about plans and phrase criticisms sensitively, people will trust you and not be so defensive about you coming into their classrooms. As with all monitoring it is essential to have a focus – something that you are looking at in particular.This won’t stop you from noticing and commenting on other things but will ensure that you have information on the key area that you are working on.This will depend on what your overall focus for monitoring is. In all cases, it should be linked to raising standards – helping pupils learn more effectively. Here are some tips for monitoring planning: • Why do you need to monitor planning? Be clear about your purpose. • What are you going to do with the results of your monitoring? Who are you going to talk the findings over with? • Decide on a focus, aspect and time span. • Write some questions and sub-questions that you want the answer to. • Make clear to teachers what you require (and why) so that they provide exactly what you need. How will you do that? • Collect all the planning that you need in one place. • Set a time limit for the monitoring – and stick to it! If the job takes too long perhaps your focus needs to be more specific. • Scribble points on post-its or on the plans themselves if they are photocopies. • Note down your hunches, questions to ask and judgements – be precise about dates, examples, etc. so that your monitoring means something to you when you look at it in the future. • Don’t assume that something doesn’t exist because isn’t written down – ask.

Observing teachers There’s a great deal more observation of teaching than ever before, carried out by a range of people – inspectors, headteachers, members of senior management teams, subject leaders, induction tutors and people working with trainees. Observation is a powerful tool for


129

helping teachers and giving you a clear picture of what’s going on. Newly qualified teachers find it the most useful of all induction activities (Bubb et al. 2002).The value of observation, however, depends on how well it is planned, executed and discussed afterwards, and how knowledgeable and astute you are. Few people have had any in-depth training in how to observe or even to discuss what effective teaching and learning is.Yet both are crucial if you are to feel secure in your judgements. It is almost always a stressful experience, not only for the teacher but also for the observer.You’ll probably find observing stressful, because you feel inexperienced and uncertain of the best way to go about it. The year group and area of the curriculum to be taught may not be familiar. You may feel that the quality of your observation and feedback will compare unfavourably to that of others. You’ll be mindful of the need to move teachers forward while maintaining a good relationship.This can lead to misplaced kindness.Teachers sometimes feel that they are not being sufficiently challenged, and that the observation and feedback is only superficial.This is particularly true of the most successful teachers, but they too need to be helped to develop professionally. Observation and giving feedback are very complex skills; skills that need training and practice. To this end it is essential to consider the context of the observation. This includes the stage the teacher is at; how they are feeling; their previous experiences of being observed; the observer’s relationship with the teacher; the time in the school year, week and day; and the disposition of the class.

Before the observation As with all monitoring it is useful if not essential to have a focus – something that you are looking at in particular.This will not exclude you from noticing and commenting on other things but will ensure that you have information on the key area that you are working on. This will depend on what your overall focus for monitoring is. In all cases, it should be linked to raising standards – helping pupils learn more effectively. Discuss with the teacher what should be the focus of the observation. Ensure that both of you are clear about the purpose of the observation. Is it for assessment or performance management – or to help?

130

Getting better …

What will happen to the observation notes: given to a third party or not? Let teachers have a copy of the proforma and the criteria you will be judging them by. Agree a date and time in advance. Choose a lesson that the teacher feels happy with and that will give you the information you need. Agree how long you will be observing – a whole session is ideal, but this may not be necessary, depending on what you want to look at. Discuss ground rules such as how your presence is to be explained to the class, what you are going to do, where you should sit, and your exact time of arrival. Decide what you’ll need before or at the beginning of the observation, such as the lesson plan or access to the planning file. Agree a time and place to discuss the lesson, giving yourself time to reflect and write notes, ideally within 24 hours of the observation. To build up trust, arrange for the teacher to observe you before you watch them. Be positive and optimistic, to aid the teacher’s confidence.

During the observation Look at teaching in relation to learning – cause and effect.Why are the pupils behaving as they are? The cause is often related to teaching. So you need to look carefully at what both the teacher and the pupils are doing.Too often the teacher gets most of the attention, yet the product of their work is the pupils’ learning – the proof of the pudding. 1. Read the lesson plan, paying particular attention to the learning objective. Is it a sensible objective, and is it shared with the pupils? If you have a photocopy it is useful to annotate the plan, for instance showing what parts went well, when pace slowed, and so forth. Look at the teacher’s planning file and pupils’ work to see what the lesson is building on. 2. If the teacher hasn’t given you a place to sit, choose one which is outside the direct line of the teacher’s vision, but where you can see the pupils and what the teacher is doing.When the pupils are doing activities, move around to see how much they understand. Look at different groups (girls and boys; high, average and low attainers; and pupils with English as an additional language or special needs) to see whether everyone’s needs are being met.


131

3. Make notes about what actually happens, focusing on the agreed areas but keeping your eyes open to everything. Make clear judgements as you gather evidence. 4. Try to tell ‘the story’ of the lesson, by noting causes and effect. For instance, what was it about the teacher’s delivery that caused pupils’ rapt attention or fidgeting? 5. Think about the pupils’ learning and what it is about the teaching that is helping or hindering it. Note what pupils actually achieve. Teachers are not always aware that some pupils have only managed to write the date and that others have exceeded expectations, for instance. 6. Avoid teaching the pupils yourself or interfering in any way.This is very tempting! Pupils will often expect you to help them but once you help one others will ask.This will distract you from your central purpose, which is to observe the teaching and learning. It is not wise to intervene in controlling the class unless things get out of hand, because it can undermine the teacher’s confidence and may confuse the pupils, who will see you as the one in charge rather than their teacher. However, letting pupils get away with things may undermine your role.As far as possible be unobtrusive. 7. Remember that as an established member of staff your presence will normally have an effect on the pupils – they will often be better behaved but sometimes show off. Leave the room for a few minutes and loiter nearby to see if the noise level rises when you’re not there and to get a feel for the atmosphere as you go back in.This can also be used when the lesson is going badly because it gives the teacher the opportunity to pull the class together. 8. Look friendly and positive throughout, even (and especially) if things are not going well. Say something positive to the teacher as you leave the class. Ideally, give an indication that you were pleased with what you saw.The teacher will be very anxious, and will almost always think the worst unless reassured.

Feeding back to teachers Take some time to reflect.Think about the teaching and learning you have seen, focusing on strengths and a few areas for development. Be clear about your main message – this will take some thinking about.

132

Getting better …

There is no point listing every little thing that went wrong.You need to have ‘the big picture’ in your mind in order to convey it to the teacher. Remember it needs to be useful to them – aim to help them develop.You want to avoid the extremes of crushing them or giving the impression that things are better than they really are. It is a very fine line to tread, but your knowledge of the context and the teacher will help you.

Written notes Before you write observation notes you need to remind yourself of their purpose and audience. Are they aiming to develop someone or be brutally honest? Some things are easier to approach orally or in an oblique way.There are two sorts of writing from an observation: 1. the notes you make during the lesson 2. the summary of strengths and areas for development for feedback. I think both should be used.That way the observer can make informal jottings during the lesson knowing that they will be pulled together in a tidy summary afterwards. You’ll probably want to make sure that your written feedback contains: • • • •

praise acknowledgement of success identification of strengths identification of weaknesses or areas to develop, which will be useful in future lessons • ideas for improvement. There are different sorts of comments in observation feedback: • Descriptive – what happens but without any evaluation. • Questioning/reflective. There are two sorts of questions: those designed to stimulate thought and get people thinking about an area that could be improved, e.g.‘How could you have avoided the arguments over pencils?’, and genuine questions for clarification. • Evaluative – judging, e.g.‘v. well planned’;‘shouting simply raises the noise and emotional level’. • Advisory – suggestions, e.g.‘Dean and Wayne might behave better if they were separated’.


133

Look at my observation notes in Figures 8.1 and 8.2.They were made while watching a TTA Supporting Assessment video (TTA 2001) of an English teacher called Juliet. If you can get hold of the video you can watch it and decide whether you would have made the same judgements as I did, and how you would have phrased your points. There’s no right or wrong way to do it.

Discussing the lesson Think about the physical setting of the discussion. Choose a place where you won’t be disturbed – you never know how someone is going to react in a feedback. Position chairs at right angles for the most conducive atmosphere.This enables you to have eye contact but not in the formal direct way that sitting opposite someone across a desk would have. Good feedback is: • Prompt – takes places as soon as possible after the lesson observation. • Accurate – based only on specific observations/evidence which can be readily shared with the teacher. • Balanced – the positive emphasised and points for development related to the focus chosen as an objective. • Respectful to the teacher’s perspective – allows for input from the teacher. • Related to objectives set for review and directly actionable by the teacher. • Conducted in a quiet and private space. Be aware of your body language and notice the teacher’s. A large proportion of communication is non-verbal. Try to ask questions to guide the teacher’s thinking, but not in a way that intimidates or implies criticism. Encourage reflection and listen well by asking openended questions, such as: How do you think the lesson went? What were you most pleased with? Why? What were you trying to achieve? What did the pupils learn?

134

Getting better …

Observer: Sara Bubb

Date: 14 March

Obs started: 1.40

ended: 2.36

Teacher and year group: Juliet, Y7 low set Subject and learning objective: English: structure of autobiography and past tense Prompts Planning Ground rules Behaviour man. Expectations Organisation Resources Shares learning objectives Subject knowledge Explanations Tg strategies Voices Pace Use of time Questioning Motivating Differentiation

Add. adults Feedback Activities Plenary

OK

Comments and evidence: What impact does teaching have on pupils? Pupils come in calmly and settle down – clearly know expected behaviour. Good to have Yvette go through homework straight away while you get your things organised. Wonderful snappy start. Lovely smile – real warmth that the pupils react well to. Good to ask the difference between biog and autobiography, though you didn’t pick up on the boy’s use of the term ‘story’ which would have been useful. I don’t think you shared learning objs or told the class the big picture of the lesson. These things really help pupils cue into what you want them to and aid their learning. It’s also school policy. I like the way you hook the children’s interest by asking them whose autobiography they’d like to read. It does however take a while. Could you use talk partners to make even more of this part of the lesson? V. good choice of text – prob appealing to all boys and girls. A good hook – shows you have thought about what will motivate the pupils. Good, snappy getting of the chapter headings from a range of pupils – again perhaps you could do some pair work for this to get more out of more of them. Ordering was done efficiently and democratically, but to get where you want. Lovely humour and lively style, in getting them to articulate why they know it’s David Beckham’s autobiography. Good use of Yvette to read paragraph. How could she be more involved at other times? Good changing of tenses as a class, and coping with errors e.g. bring – branged. Lovely to get the class to clap the boy for reading aloud – really celebratory and boosting. The pupils seemed to cope well with the activity of writing out a paragraph in a different tense. It would have been brilliant if there’d been a purpose for doing so. Could you have differentiated this to challenge pupils more? It was good to get them working though they had little time to do so (5 mins?). Could they have done more individual/paired work throughout the lesson? You told them what to do for homework – finish off drafts. Shame there wasn’t a plenary to pull together what they’ve learned. What did they learn? What did you expect them to? Pupils packed up and left sensibly. Time: 1.50 Pupils on task: all……… off task: …… Time: 2.15 Pupils on task: all off task: but some looking a bit switched off

Figure 8.1 Notes from a lesson observation (© Sara Bubb 2003)


Strengths of the lesson Well done, Juliet, this was a lesson that I enjoyed. You have so many talents as a teacher! In particular the strengths of this lesson were: Your clear enjoyment of teaching and self-confidence Strong voice, good intonation – clear explanations Warmth towards the pupils – your smile, eye contact, facial expressions and body language all work to encourage and give pupils the confidence to take risks. V. positive feedback and use of praise to boost self-confidence Good questioning, esp. stretching EAL pupils to explain what they mean Excellent control – all the above contribute in this area but you are also very confident yourself and this helps. You expect them to behave in a certain way, and they do. You handle the odd misbehaviour briskly with a change of tone (‘Don’t call out, Michael’) and good use of body language (turning away, not giving attention) but then you catch M being good – brilliant! Well resourced and organised Clear plan, with timings Good use made of the OHP Good use of support teacher at start of lesson and in reading out a paragraph to emphasise the tense difference Good choice of text that motivates and is part of their culture Areas for further development Try to increase the learning of more of the pupils more of the time, e.g.: Share learning obj – WALT & WILF? Big picture of the lesson More paired work: discussing whose autobiography they’d like to read, writing and maybe ordering chapter headings Having a plenary for them and you to evaluate learning and progress Make even more use of support teacher Objectives Plan lessons to increase the learning of more of the pupils more of the time. Teacher’s comment

Signatures:

Figure 8.2 Summary of lesson observation (© Sara Bubb 2003)

135

136

Getting better …

What did the lower attaining pupils learn? What did the higher attaining pupils learn? Why do you think the lesson went the way it did? Why did you choose that activity? Were there any surprises? When you did ____ the pupils reacted by ____.Why do you think that happened? Help me understand what you took into account when you were planning? If you taught that lesson again, what, if anything, would you do differently? What will you do in the follow up lesson? Be aware of what you say, and how you say it. Focus on the teaching and learning that took place, using specific examples of what pupils said and did. Avoid talking about yourself or other teachers you have seen unless this will be useful to the teacher. Comments such as ‘I wouldn’t have done that’ or ‘I would have … ’ are inappropriate and can irritate and alienate the teacher. It is sometimes tempting to talk about your most awful lesson.This can be comforting for the teacher, but can detract from the purpose of the discussion. Aim for the teacher to do most of the talking and thinking. Paraphrase and summarise what the teacher says. This helps you concentrate on what is being said and is very helpful in getting a clear understanding of what the teacher thinks. It involves reflecting back your interpretation of what you have heard, which can be very useful for the teacher. Use phrases such as ‘So what you mean is …’,‘In other words….’. Be positive and upbeat throughout. Be sensitive to how the teacher is taking your feedback, and ease off if necessary.

Conclusions about the quality of teaching When you’ve seen a number of teachers you could start to collate your findings on a grid such as the one in Figure 8.3.This one was designed for monitoring maths teaching but could easily be adapted.


Characteristic

Embedded in practically all lessons

Evident in some lessons but not all

Expectations are high and children are told what they will learn in a lesson Lessons are well structured and the pace is suitable A high proportion of each lesson involves direct teaching to the whole class or large groups Part of each lesson is for oral and mental work, to allow children to practise their existing mental skills and to learn new strategies for mental calculation Teachers use and expect children to use correct mathematical vocabulary and notation Effective differentiation and questioning during whole-class work keeps all pupils involved in the lesson, including those with SEN or EAL Differentiated group work is manageable; the number of group activities going on at any one time is usually no more than three, each linked to a common theme The class and resources are organised so that a teacher can teach a group without interruption Children have a variety of opportunities throughout a week to demonstrate and explain, to do practical work, discuss, practice, solve problems, extend their class work at home A purposeful plenary helps children to focus on the key aspects of the lesson; the teacher deals with any misconceptions s/he has identified If available, support staff are well deployed throughout the lesson, helping to keep the class working together

Figure 8.3 Collating judgements about teaching

Not really part of practice yet

137

138

Getting better …

Running training sessions for other staff Another ordeal that you’ll have to go through is running training and staff or department meetings. Hmm, a wet Friday afternoon with your most dreaded class seems infinitely preferable. Suddenly you regret that display of enthusiasm that landed you with this staff meeting or INSET day to prepare. Skilled teachers don’t always make brilliant learners, especially at the end of an exhausting day, or in an INSET session when large numbers of your audience want to finish their packing or talk about their holiday. You’re bound to have some people who don’t want to be there, and others who delight in finding fault with your teaching strategies. Don’t panic.You just need to prepare with the cunning of a battle strategist. Start with the obvious, and the rather difficult.What do you want people to get out of the session? As with any lesson, a focus on the learning objectives is key. You might want to refine it by asking yourself what you hope the new teacher, the deputy and the seen-itall-before cynic will get out of it. Are your aims realistic for the time allocated? Probably not. How are you going to achieve your intended outcomes? Few people like going to meetings, so how are you going make sure their time is spent well? Will they come prepared? Do you need an agenda? What snags can you foresee? Take account of the visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learning styles. Think about what sort of meetings or courses you’ve enjoyed and got something from – the two don’t necessarily go together. What were the elements? What sort of training don’t you like? What’s worked for your staff in the past? For instance, I hate courses where you’re expected to do an activity every five minutes – and, no, I don’t suffer from attention deficit disorder. Nor do I like hundreds of PowerPoint slides being flashed at me, or speakers who recite every word of every slide. I like a bit of pace, a chance to talk through issues, and a trainer with personality and a lot of humour who can keep control of the group, especially that pain who keeps asking such stupid questions. Think about seating and groupings. Plan the session to a tight schedule. Think of what will work best at the time of day you’ll be doing the training.What about handouts? If you have some, what will


139

be on them and when will you give them out? As a participant, I want them stapled together, but as a trainer I don’t like people to read ahead. Aren’t these just the sorts of dilemmas you face when teaching classes? Yes, but unfortunately you can’t tell adults off when they misbehave, as you can children.They’ll think it strange when you give them a sticker, too. But you can think about how you’ll deal with mobile phones going off and people who are late and who wander off the point. Public humiliation is tempting, but remember that you have to work with the culprits. Expect to be nervous. Being prepared and organised will help, but also give yourself a bit of quiet time before you start so you can focus on the task ahead. Practise your opening line. If you find the thought of everyone looking at you terrifying, get them to look at a screen or a flip chart. Give the group a clear purpose and outcome for the session, and the big picture – what’s going to happen. Make sure you explain any activities clearly – and why you’re asking people to do them. Give people tight time limits so they get on with the job. Be selective in the amount of feedback you ask for, because it can take a lot of time and get repetitive. Keeping to time is tricky. Finishing early is never a problem. Overrunning is a big no-no, so you’ll need strategies for moving things on. In your plan you might want to distinguish absolute must-dos from items that can be omitted if you run out of time. No matter how well you plan, you’ll have to think on your feet. One last tip: don’t apologise for having run out of time for a certain activity – it will make that part appear highly attractive, and people will feel cheated. Pull the learning together in a slick way with a few minutes to spare and everyone will be happy.

part four

Getting on

This last part is about getting on in your career. Few teachers plan their careers but you are the new generation. A fair number of you have had other careers and so come to teaching with a wealth of experience and firm ideas of what you want to do and where you want to go in the profession. Great! I’ve never had any career plan, and only moved on when I was unhappy or bored – or someone pushed me into it. This has worked brilliantly for me but I’ve been lucky in getting good breaks and being in the right place at the right time. Others aren’t so lucky, so it seems infinitely sensible for all teachers to start to think what they fancy doing in 5, 10, 15 years’ time. Then you can use professional development to get to where you want to go. In Chapter 9 I look at various career options and explain salary implications. Many people think about having children of their own as well as teaching other people’s all day, so there’s a section on maternity pay and leave. I then look briefly at three of the many options that you could go down that aren’t the traditional leadership and management route: being an advanced skills teacher, becoming an educational psychologist or moving to the independent sector. Chapter 10 is concerned with the nitty gritty elements of getting a new job – the application and interview process.

nine

Career options Career paths Salary Maternity Advanced Skills Teachers The independent sector Educational psychologists

Career paths After you’ve been teaching a while you’ll probably have a feel for where you’d like to go in your career. In secondary schools you could move up the management structure within your subject team and become head of department.You could become a head of year or lead an area such as special needs or pastoral care. In primary schools you’ll be asked to take on responsibility for a non-core subject from your second year. In my experience, this is most likely to be ICT. In order to get paid to co-ordinate a subject you’ll probably need to lead literacy, numeracy, science or special needs. You can also move into management by becoming a member of the senior management team, deputy head and then headteacher.Alternatively you could become an Advanced Skills Teacher (AST) or an educational psychologist, or go into the advisory and inspection service or teacher training. If you don’t know where you’d like to go in your career, try analysing how you feel about parts of your present job using Figure 9.1. People go down different career paths, as illustrated in Table 9.1. Here are some real-life cases of what three people did in their first five years:

144

Getting on

1 (love)

2

3

4

5 (hate)

N/A

Planning Running inset Organising resources Meetings Pastoral role Leading others Assessing Budgets Working with teachers Working with Parents Teaching the very able Teaching SEN Being part of a team

Figure 9.1 How you feel about parts of your present work Nick did a PGCE in history, taught history and a bit of RE and geography in a very tough inner-city secondary school, and became head of history in his second year. In his third year he moved to another local school to become a head of house and head of history – and head of faculty the year after. At the start of his fifth year he became assistant headteacher. Cath did a Cert Ed 16 years before but never taught.After having children she decided to go back to teaching and so did a refresher course. She worked part-time for three years, gradually increasing her time until she was full-time. She now teaches Year 5 and is art co-ordinator. Annie did a primary PGCE after an English degree, spent a year in one school but left mainly because she didn’t have any friends on the staff (all were 20 or 30 years older than her). She moved to a school in a very deprived area, which she loved and the staff were great.After a term she applied for and got responsibility for art and display. In her third year she took over the maths co-ordinator role. In her fourth and fifth years

Career options

145

she was released one day a week to be an LEA advisory teacher, initially for equalities and then for NQTs. She also did an MA in literacy part-time in her fourth and fifth year. This inspired her to move in her fifth year from teaching Year 5 and 6 to taking a reception class of 4 and 5-year-olds.

Salary I guess one of the things you need to consider when thinking about career options is the salary.The information in this section is up to date as I write but is liable to change. It comes from the English School Table 9.1 Career paths Training

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Nick

PGCE hist.

History teacher + some RE and geog.

Head of history

New sch. Head of house and history

Head of house and humanities

Assistant headteacher

Asma

PGCE English

English teacher

2i/c of English

Head of English

Head of English

Head of English

Pete

PGCE social sciences

FE college teaching sociology

FE college teaching sociology

Australia training teachers

Australia training teachers

Australia lecturing sociology in a university

Cath

Cert Ed when 24; returners’ course when 39

0.5 for SEN

0.5 + some supply

0.6 + supply

0.7 Y5; art co-ord.

Full-time Y5; art

Annie

PGCE pri.

Y4

New sch. Y3/4; art

Y5/6; maths co-ord.;

Y5/6; maths; MA; 0.2 LEA advisory teacher

YR; maths MA; 0.2 LEA advisory teacher

Jules

PGCE

Y5/6

Y5/6; RE co-ord.

Y5/6; RE; teacher

Y5/6: literacy co-ord.

Y5/6; literacy co-ord.

Secondary

Primary

146

Getting on

Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document. Keep up to date by looking on www.teachernet.gov.uk/pay.

Pay scales The ordinary classroom jobs are on the main pay scale (MPS) salary scale (Table 9.2). Some adverts refer to this by its old name CPS, common pay spine or teachers’ pay scale (TPS).There are six points on the main pay scale, and people working in inner London get an extra £3,400 or so.Teachers normally move up a point on the main pay scale every year, in September.This also applies to part-time and short-notice teachers, so long as they’ve been employed for at least 26 weeks during the year.The 26 weeks do not have to run consecutively and they do not all have to be served at the same school. Most people start on M1 and after six years will be at the top of the scale, M6. In exceptional cases teachers can be awarded an extra point on the scale for excellent performance over the previous academic year, so they would go up two points in a year. People on the Fast Track scheme are expected to do so. Similarly, the annual point progression can be withheld if the teacher’s performance has been unsatisfactory, but again this is rare. Each school’s governing body can (but don’t have to) award additional points for other relevant experience.You’ll need to be proactive in asking for this, but there’s not much you can do if they don’t give you an additional point since it’s at the discretion of individual governing bodies. Once awarded, experience points, whether origi-

Table 9.2 The main pay scale Spine point

Salary from April 2004, £ p.a.

Inner London from April 2004, £ p.a.

M1

18,558

22,059

M2

20,025

23,550

M3

21,636

25,188

M4

23,301

26,883

M5

25,137

28,743

M6

27,123

30,750

Career options

147

nally mandatory or discretionary, can’t be taken away regardless of whether you stay in the same school or get a post in another school. The upper pay scale (UPS) is what people get when they’ve reached the top of the main pay scale and have applied for and successfully passed the threshold assessment (Table 9.3). Everyone who passes starts on point 1 of the upper pay scale and then movement through this pay scale happens every two years but isn’t automatic. It is performancerelated and your head and governing body decide. Normally people are asked to demonstrate how well they’ve done in a letter. The Leadership Group pay scale is for deputies and members of a school’s senior management team. It goes from £32,202 to £90,360, with an extra £6,000 per year added on to the salary of people in inner London (£38,292 to £96,450). For those of you who fancy being one, it’s useful to look at the headteachers’ pay scale.This varies according to the size of the school. Heads of the smallest schools (Group 1) earn between £36,432 and £48,963 (or £42,525– £55,056 in inner London) and heads of the largest schools (Group 8) get £62,547 to £90,360 (or £68,637 to £96,450 in inner London). Hmm, tempting …

Allowances Classroom teachers on the main pay scale can also get allowances. There are separate pay scales for people working in inner London but people in outer London get an allowance of £2,247 and those in the fringe areas get £870. There are also allowances for management responsibilities, special needs and recruitment and retention. Table 9.3 The upper pay scale Spine point

Salary from April 2003, £ p.a.

Inner London from April 2003, £ p.a.

U1

29,385

34,851

U2

30,474

36,564

U3

31,602

37,692

U4

32,766

38,859

U5

33,978

40,071

148

Getting on

Management There are five levels of management allowances which can be awarded to a teacher who ‘undertakes significant specified management responsibilities beyond those common to the majority of classroom teachers’. NQTs shouldn’t be asked to take on management responsibilities, though some people are, with or without an allowance.After your first year you can’t refuse to take a subject leader role in primary and may not get any financial recompense.

Special Needs There are two levels of special needs allowance (£1,716 and £3,396) which are given to classroom teachers in special schools and those teaching designated special classes in mainstream schools.

Recruitment and retention Until April 2004 there were five allowances for recruitment and retention (see Table 9.5) which schools can use if they have problems in getting staff.You get paid the R&R allowance for a fixed period but the amounts are not nationally agreed but for schools to decide.

Deductions You will have deductions for: • National Insurance – have to pay • tax – have to pay Table 9.4 Management allowances Level

Allowance from April 2004, £ p.a.

Management 1

1,638

Management 2

3,312

Management 3

5,688

Management 4

7,833

Management 5

10,572

Career options

149

Table 9.5 Recruitment and retention allowances (before April 2004)

• • • •

Level

Allowance, £ p.a.

1

£1,002

2

£1,971

3

£2,985

4

£4,158

5

£5,415

repayments on your student loan pension (also called superannuation) – strongly advised to pay General Teaching Council – have to pay £33 a year in England union subscription – optional but highly advisable.

All but the lowest-paid work incurs National Insurance deductions. These build up towards your state pension and give you rights to statutory sick pay and other welfare benefits. You pay tax on any money earned over your personal allowance of approximately £4,500 per annum.The next £1,880 earned after this is taxed at 10 per cent, then the rest is taxed at 22 per cent. Superannuation is the 6 per cent deducted to fund your Teachers’ Pension.The employer contributes to it, so it’s much better than a personal pension.You can also make additional voluntary contributions (AVCs) to boost your pension. Repayments on any student loans kick in when you’ve earned over £10,000 in a tax year. The English General Teaching Council fee of £33 was a bone of contention when it was brought in so the amount has now been added to the main scale pay rates and is then deducted by the LEA employers from your pay. Union membership is offered at a reduced rate for NQTs and is regarded by most teachers as a necessity. Join all the unions for free while you are a PGCE student and assess which provides the best information and service.

Maternity Unless you’ve come into teaching already having had a family, sooner or later you’ll probably start to think about having children of your

150

Getting on

own. It’s good to know about your maternity and paternity rights. People whose babies are due on or after 6 April 2003 benefit from revised, simplified rights to maternity leave. You’re now entitled to 26 weeks’ ordinary maternity leave (normally paid leave), regardless of how long you have worked for your employer. Women who have completed 26 weeks’ continuous service with their employer by the beginning of the fourteenth week before their baby is due can take 26 weeks additional maternity leave, which is usually unpaid but means that you can have a year off in total. From the

TES staffroom

Q: I have accepted a job for September but have just found out I am pregnant and due at Christmas. What should I do now? I do want to work if I can and take maternity leave – will I be able to? When should I tell the new LEA/headteacher? Help! A: Well certainly don’t say anything yet, but you’ll have to do so by the end of the fifteenth week before your expected week of confinement, which will be soon after term starts. I know you’ll feel guilty about it, but there’s nothing you can do about it. Even though you won’t have worked for long, you’ll be eligible for 26 weeks ordinary maternity leave and will be able to claim Statutory Maternity Allowance (£100 per week). You also need to think about you, your body and the baby. Starting in a new school when you’re six months pregnant will be very stressful – and you don’t want to risk complications such as preeclampsia. So seek advice from your doctor too.

Maternity pay for teachers is more generous than Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) but it depends on length of continuous service and conditions of service. A teacher under Burgundy Book (LEA employment) conditions of service with one year or more continuous service by the eleventh week before the ‘expected week of confinement’ (EWC) will get: • • • • •

4 weeks’ full pay 2 weeks’ 90 per cent pay 12 weeks’ half pay plus SMP (at £100 per week) 8 weeks’ SMP 26 weeks’ unpaid leave.

Career options

151

A teacher with 26 weeks’ but less than one year’s continuous service by the fifteenth week before the EWC will receive only the statutory entitlement: • 6 weeks’ 90 percent pay • 20 weeks’ SMP • 26 weeks’ unpaid leave A teacher with less than 26 weeks’ continuous service by the fifteenth week before the EWC will receive 26 weeks, ordinary maternity leave. She will be able to claim Statutory Maternity Allowance (£100 per week) from her local Benefits Agency if she has been in employment for at least 26 of the 66 weeks ending with the week before her EWC. You can start maternity leave any time after the beginning of the eleventh week before the baby is due, but most people carry on working for as long as they can so that they have longer with the baby. You need to be cunning with school holidays if you can. For instance, my twins were due on 22 September so I officially started maternity leave on the first day of the school year, after having the six-week holiday, and gave birth on 6 September! Once you’re on maternity leave the time just accumulates whether it is term time or not.That’s why most people try to return just before holidays start. From the

TES staffroom

Q: My friend is starting maternity leave in September and will come back to school at the end of March. Will she be able to add on the holidays (the two half terms and the two week Xmas holiday) to the end of the 26 week maternity leave? A: No.

Paternity Fathers can take up to two weeks’ paid leave to care for their new baby and support the mother. Both mothers and fathers who have completed one year’s service with their employers are entitled to 13 weeks’ unpaid parental leave to care for their child. Parental leave can usually be taken up to five years from the date of birth.

152

Getting on

Advanced Skills Teachers If you want to stay in the classroom, becoming an Advanced Skills Teacher (AST) is a financially viable alternative to taking the promotion route into management. The salary range is £30,501 to £48,657 (£36,594 to £54,747 in London). The government wants 3–5 per cent of the teaching workforce to be ASTs. ASTs are excellent teachers who achieve the highest standards of classroom practice and having been externally assessed are paid to share their skills and experience with other teachers. This can cause problems. From the

TES staffroom

Others view you suspiciously and assume that because you’re an AST you should never have a problem with a student and have all the answers to every educational question that comes up.

The main duty of ASTs is to be excellent teachers in their own school for four days a week. For one day a week they have to share their good practice with other teachers and help other people’s professional development – not only in their own schools but also in others.They do things like: • • • • • • • • • • •

advising other teachers modelling lessons spreading good practice based on educational research producing high-quality teaching materials advising on professional development establishing and leading professional learning groups helping to support the performance management of other teachers supporting teachers experiencing difficulties helping with the induction and mentoring of NQTs helping train teachers working in specialist subject areas, e.g. music.

There is no minimum period of time that teachers have to have worked before they can apply to be an AST, and they don’t have to

Career options

153

have passed the threshold. So, if people think you’re an excellent teacher you can apply when you’re still on the main pay scale. However, the application form is gruelling and your head has to provide supporting evidence under each of the standards on your lengthy application. If your application cuts the mustard, an assessor will spend a day watching you teach, interviewing you and others who know your work, and looking at your portfolio of evidence of how you meet the standards. From the

TES staffroom

The assessment process is similar to having your very own Ofsted inspector in for a day, with nothing better to do than scrutinise you and your work – what fun!

The AST standards (DfES 2001b) Advanced Skills Teachers have to have: 1. Excellent results/outcomes As a result of aspiring ASTs’ teaching, pupils show consistent improvement in relation to prior and expected attainment; are highly motivated, enthusiastic and respond positively to challenge and high expectations; exhibit consistently high standards of discipline and behaviour; show a consistent record of parental involvement and satisfaction. 2. Excellent subject and/or specialist knowledge Aspiring ASTs must keep up to date in their subjects and/or specialism(s); have a full understanding of connections and progressions in the subject and use this in their teaching to ensure pupils make good progress; quickly understand pupils’ perceptions and misconceptions from their questions and responses; understand ICT in the teaching of their subject or specialism(s). 3. Excellent ability to plan Aspiring ASTs must prepare lessons and sequences of lessons with clear objectives to ensure successful learning by all pupils; set consistently high expectations for pupils in their class and homework; plan their teaching to ensure it builds on the current and previous achievement of pupils.

154

Getting on

4. Excellent ability to teach, manage pupils and maintain discipline Aspiring ASTs must understand and use the most effective teaching methods to achieve the teaching objectives in hand; display flair and creativity in engaging, enthusing and challenging groups of pupils; use questioning and explanation skilfully to secure maximum progress; develop pupils’ literacy, numeracy and ICT skills as appropriate within their phase and context; are able to provide positive and targeted support for pupils who have special educational needs, are very able, are from ethnic minorities, lack confidence, have behavioural difficulties or are disaffected; maintain respect and discipline and are consistent and fair. 5. Excellent ability to assess and evaluate Aspiring ASTs must use assessment as part of their teaching to diagnose pupils’ needs, set realistic and challenging targets for improvement and plan future teaching; improve their teaching through evaluating their own practice in relation to pupils’ progress, school targets and inspection evidence. 6. Excellent ability to advise and support other teachers Aspiring ASTs must provide clear feedback, good support and sound advice to others; are able to provide examples, coaching and training to help others become more effective in their teaching; can help others to evaluate the impact of their teaching on raising pupils’ achievements; are able to analyse teaching and understand how improvements can be made; have highly developed inter-personal skills which allow them to be effective in schools and situations other than their own; provide a role model for pupils and other staff through their personal and professional conduct; know how to plan and prioritise their own time and activity effectively; are highly respected and able to motivate others.

The independent sector Independent schools are free to offer a wide range of terms and conditions to new staff.Although there are often similarities with the maintained sector, take nothing for granted.Ask for a copy of the contract of employment before you finally accept the post. Don’t be afraid of appearing pushy by asking questions. Taking a new job is a major commitment. The ability to give you a contract on request and to answer questions openly says a lot about a school and its management.

Career options

155

Read the contract carefully. If there is anything not covered or which you do not understand, raise it with your school. If you are asked to accept a job without seeing the contract, then one option is to accept the post conditionally, subject to contract. However, if you accept a post conditionally, the school in turn might be able to withdraw the offer without being in breach of contract. Keep a note of what was said at interview and in conversations afterwards and keep offer letters and relevant documents.They could have contractual importance. Never assume that the school offers a particular term or condition – ask about it.

Specific issues • Job title: make sure you know your major responsibilities. • Job description: look out for an expectation to do extra-curricular activities. • Pay: look at the salary and allowances scales to see how you will progress up the scale, when pay is reviewed and how. • Hours of work: ask what hours you’re expected to work, including weekends and evenings. • Holidays: how many days can you be asked to work outside the teaching term? • Professional development: what are you entitled to? It may be less than in the maintained sector. • Probationary periods: if there is one, find out its length, what the review arrangements are and the support you can expect from managers and colleagues. • Notice periods: find out how much notice you are entitled to receive and obliged to give, especially in your first year. • Maternity pay and leave: the key question is whether the school would pay statutory maternity pay only or higher rates under an occupational scheme. • Sick pay entitlement: this is worth checking, especially the entitlement in the first few years of employment. Most independent schools provide full pay for 25 working days in the first year with an extra 50 working days on half pay after four months. • Pension: most schools are members of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) but check.

156

Getting on

• Retirement age: 60 is the retirement age in most independent schools. • School accommodation: if you are required to live in school property make sure you know what this will involve. Are there charges or rents to be paid, are you responsible for bills and maintenance, can the school ask you to move into different accommodation, can the school give you notice to quit even though your employment will not end, who can live or stay with you? Ask for a copy of the Licence to Occupy School Accommodation. • Time off: if you have a big boarding responsibility then you ought to agree your rest periods.

Educational psychologists To train to be an educational psychologist you need to do an MSc in Educational Psychology, which takes a year full time. For this you need: • an honours degree in Psychology (or its equivalent) • a teaching qualification (Qualified Teacher Status) • at least two years’ teaching experience covering any age up to 19 in mainstream or special schools. The main pay scale goes from about £27,000 to £35,000, and there are separate scales for senior and principal psychologists. There’s strong competition to get a funded place on the MSc. A passion for psychology and a desire to be an educational psychologist are essential and you have to be prepared to be a lifelong learner. Teachers usually have many of the core skills already.

From the TES staffroom It’s a fast-moving and dynamic discipline. It is intensely rewarding, especially when you get feedback to say that you have made a significant difference – the catalyst in solving a negative, obstructive problem. I have a lot of autonomy and flexibility and can be creative while applying scientific theory. I think I’ll get more professional development and career satisfaction than I would have if I’d stayed a teacher.

ten

Getting a new job What job do you want? Job hunting Application form Interviews Contracts

What job do you want? Most people move jobs after three or four years though there are no hard and fast rules about what is best for your career.Anyway, it’s likely that you’ll move schools or be thinking about doing so during your first five years in the job – and it’ll probably be for promotion. It’s good to have a career plan but don’t be in too much of a hurry to get promoted. People who are promoted prematurely can suffer a great deal of stress from feeling not up to the job or not having the credibility to be taken seriously by other staff.Think about enriching your experience by doing the same post in a different school – developing horizontally rather than vertically. Think about what sort of a school you should go for – it’s good to have experience of a range so that people don’t pigeonhole you into the sort of teacher who can only work in a tough area or with wellmotivated kids. Every time you visit a school and spend time in a classroom and in the playground, take a good look at what you see around you. It will help you work out the kind of school you want to work in. Look out for: • the relationship between pupils and staff – is it formal or informal? Which do you feel more comfortable with?

158

Getting on

• behaviour management policies – are they positive enough? Are they too liberal and lacking in discipline? Different policies suit different schools and different teachers. What do you feel comfortable with? • the balance between academic progress and pastoral priorities. • staff workload – what sort of hours are teachers working and do they seem happy about workload? • staff professional development – how much is there? What’s the quality like? • the leadership of the school – every head has their own style. Make mental notes of the style of headteacher you like to work for.The same goes for senior management and departmental heads. • the other teachers – the staffroom tells you a lot about a school. These little things tell you a great deal about the character of the school. Different teachers suit different schools. The difficulty is deciding what is right for you at the stage you’re at.

Job hunting You can begin to get a feel for the jobs market even before you decide to apply by keeping an eye on the TES jobs pages or website. Is there a demand for teachers in the part of the country where you’d like to teach? Get a feel for staff turnover.A school with frequent ads probably has a high turnover.This could mean quick promotion for you, but it may also indicate an unstable and unhappy working environment. Learn to read adverts. Here are some not altogether flippant interpretations of adspeak terms from people on the website. From the

TES staffroom

Schools with mottoes such as ‘Rising to Challenge’ or ‘Striving for Excellence’ usually indicates that they’re in, or have recently been in, special measures. Refers to its SMT as leading edge and impatient for change. That means they have no personal lives, don’t expect you to have one and take on as many new initiatives as they can muster.

Getting a new job

159

Staff who are committed (means some staff have been), inspirational and creative (children’s entertainers required) and able to overcome barriers to achievement and learning both inside and outside the school (shorthand for our parents are alcoholics and/or drug users). Improving school – recently failing school. Rapidly improving school – in or just out of special measures. Strong management – SMT are bullies. Expanding, increasingly popular school – neighbouring crap school has closed. Excellent value added scores – we’re sh**e but the feeder primary is worse. A bid for sports college status is to be submitted – our academic results are well below the national average. Join this developing department – the HOD has taken ill health retirement, and several other members of the department have left. The role is suitable for an experienced teacher, an NQT or a GTP candidate – we are desperate and we will take on anybody. Laptops, points negotiable, retention allowances paid – we will give you anything to get you. Fast improving – in this neighbourhood anything can be made to seem possible. Good promotional opportunities on offer – nobody stays long here so there are always promotional opportunities on offer.

When you’ve found a job you like the look of you need to act fast. Most applications have to be in within two weeks of the advert, and interviews are held about a week later.The first step is to ring for an application form and information about the job. Do this straight away – don’t delay. For instance, the TES comes out on Fridays.You’ll need to read it in the morning and ring for an application pack at lunchtime.With luck it will get posted at the end of that day, so you’ll probably receive it on Monday or Tuesday. However, you can see how you can lose precious time if you don’t request an application until the following week. Once you’ve requested the application form, do some detective work. If you found the job ad in the TES you can look at a map on

160

Getting on

their website. Is your journey going to be long and stressful or are the pupils likely to be rather too close to your home for comfort? Ask around – teaching is an incestuous profession and you’re bound to find someone who knows about the school. Where is it placed in the league tables? Check them out on the DfES website. You should also read the latest Ofsted report via the TES site or try www.ofsted.gov.uk. Look at the date of the report. If it’s four or more years old the school may be due for another – do you want to be involved with that? The summary pages are the most useful in getting an overall picture. Look out for the sections on ‘Pupils’ Attitudes and Values’ as well as ‘Leadership and Management’ – a poorly managed school will be frustrating to work in. Ofsted (2003b) use a seven-point grading system, and words such as ‘good’, ‘excellent’ are used very precisely, so translate what they write to get an accurate picture. I’ve written more about this in Chapter 4.

Application form As soon as you get your application form, photocopy it at least twice. You need to perfect a rough copy before you complete the real form. Read through it to see the information it requires. Check the closing date and make sure you have plenty of time to contact referees, draft the form, write the personal statement, complete the form, check it and post it well within the deadline. Follow any instructions about sending photocopies, using black ink, etc. Don’t send a CV with your form unless you’re asked to – you will have provided the information they want.Write neatly and make sure your pen doesn’t smudge.

Referees Remember to ask people’s permission to use them as referees and let them know when the closing date for applications is and when interviews might be. This will give them an idea of when they’ll get the reference request so that they can schedule the writing of it. Often schools expect a quick turnaround, and this puts referees under pressure, so the more you can do to ease this the better. Give them a copy of your application form so that they can see what you have written and decide what needs reinforcing and what they can mention.

Getting a new job

161

Your personal statement If the form provides space for a personal statement, word process that on a separate sheet and indicate on the form that it’s attached.Your personal statement should be written specifically for each job you apply for. It will be used to assess whether you meet the person specification part of the job description, so pay special attention to this when you’re drafting it. Jot down examples of how you meet each part of the person specification.You’ll find that there are many examples that fit different parts so you need to decide which to use where. Give examples of how you meet the specification. For instance, “I have a clear understanding of the literacy and numeracy strategies,” says little. Show how you have gained the skills and knowledge through a practical example. When structuring your writing think of how to be helpful to the reader. Use the same headings or order as in the person specification. Express yourself with care. Don’t use too much jargon, but get in the latest buzzwords to show that you’re up to date. Be relevant and concise, and don’t include anything you can’t back up at interview. If it’s not on the person specification then it’s not likely to be relevant. Address any problematic issues (e.g. gaps in employment) that the reader is likely to pick up from the information parts of the application form.Try to turn things to advantage. Your personal statement should cover no more than two sides of A4 and it should be word processed – it’s easier to read and looks professional. Proofread it, then get someone else to check it … and then check it again! I can’t emphasise enough how off-putting any spelling or grammatical errors are in an application form. Read it out loud to yourself; unlike a CV, your personal statement is prose and it needs to read well. It will be this, more than the rest of your application form, which gets you that interview. Finally, keep a photocopy to read again just before your interview. Attach a word-processed covering letter saying where you saw the ad, that your personal statement is attached, and that you look forward to discussing your application with them. You should hear whether you’ve been shortlisted after a week or two, though there is much anecdotal evidence that this does not always happen:

162

Getting on

From the

TES staffroom

Usually, a couple of weeks’ silence signals that you have not been shortlisted. A month-long pause is enough to let you know that all hope is gone. But your failure is compounded by a lack of manners on the part of the school that refuses to write to say you have been unsuccessful.

If you’re not shortlisted From the

TES staffroom

I recently applied for a job that I am well qualified for, but found out yesterday that I haven’t even been shortlisted. Knowing the difficulty that my school has in even attracting applicants, I have to confess that I was shocked.

It’s very hard to cope with rejection. Sometimes you just have to face facts and accept that they want a woman, or man, someone under 30, someone over 30, someone who is able to contribute to extracurricula stuff, someone cheaper, someone more experienced, someone who works in the school now. Or maybe there were just a lot of high-calibre applicants and you got pushed out (not that you are not high calibre). Look on it positively: better to exit now rather than have to go through the interview process and then get turned down. If you aren’t getting the jobs that you apply for, you need to consider why.The problem may be a weak reference but in my experience this is unlikely. Most schools only ask for references when they have shortlisted and some don’t read them until they’ve made a job offer, which seems a bit mad to me.What really matters is what you write on your application form and how you present yourself. Sometimes it’s so obvious to you that you are highly qualified for the job that you don’t put too much effort into telling other people so in the application.This often happens when you’re the internal candidate, and assume that you don’t have to write everything down because they know you. But for equal opportunities the shortlisting panel simply compare all the forms. You must write against every element of the person specification – and make sure that the form looks good. If you are surprised that you’re not shortlisted for a job you could phone up and ask the head – or ask your head to do so. I think the

Getting a new job

163

trick is to be non-confrontational and show a genuine interest in why you haven’t got an interview for something that you think you are well qualified for. Perhaps it was something in your application or how you presented it. But be prepared for the basic message that your application wasn’t good enough. I think I’d prefer not to hear that in any more detail than the ‘I’m sorry to say that your application was unsuccessful’ letter.

Interviews As soon as you are offered an interview you’ll need to prepare.Time will be short.Try to visit the school before the interview even if you weren’t able to do so before you applied. This gives you a huge insight about what is being looked for. Remember, though, that you’re being judged even on an informal tour.Try to speak casually to other teachers to find out if they’re happy and whether they’ve been treated well. Appearance is really important.You’ve got to feel good, and look the part. Wear smart clothes, but make sure you’ll be comfortable. Shoes can be a real problem if you’re on your feet all day. Go for a reasonably professional look but jazz it up with interesting jewellery or a tie to express your personality. Smell is important, too – don’t go in reeking of cigarettes or strong scent. Take your professional portfolio with your application form and statement, and a copy of the most recent TES.You can read this while waiting. It will make you look professional and may come in handy in answering a question or two.

Possible interview formats Interviews vary in how formal they are and how long they last – it just depends on the school, what the job is, how well organised they are, how proactive their governors are, how many applicants they’ve got and how short-staffed they might be on the day. Interviews can take place over a whole day, with all shortlisted candidates together. These may include more experienced teachers and internal candidates. Don’t be intimidated. Tell yourself you’re good! You’re likely to get a tour of the school, maybe a group interview/discussion, hopefully lunch, and, if you’re there for a whole day, you’ll probably be asked to teach a class, observed by some or all of

164

Getting on

the interviewing panel. You’ll then be interviewed individually. You may be asked to wait until they’ve made their mind up, in which case you’ll probably have to sit in the staffroom with the other candidates until one is called in and offered the job.This part can be grim. You’re on show all day long. If you meet pupils or teachers, ask them about work they’re doing and show that you’re interested. Look at displays, through classroom doors, the way the pupils and staff conduct themselves. Most importantly, find complimentary things to say about what you see – a little flattery goes a long way. And ask yourself: can you imagine working in this school? Some schools think up challenging activities for you to do as part of the interview: From the

TES staffroom

I was interviewed for a KS1 one-year temporary post, NQT preferred. The school wanted a music specialist – I had made it clear I was not, but had an interest. In groups of four we were given 15 minutes to prepare a 10 minute talk on the benefits of music in the curriculum. We then had to write half a term’s planning of a musical topic in 35 minutes, linking it to all the other areas of the curriculum with no literature or national curriculum to refer to.

Teaching at the interview Teaching at the interview is ghastly. Still, you need to be prepared. Here’s what an art teacher did: From the

TES staffroom

I had to do a 20 min lesson on colour theory. I prepared a laminated colour wheel with velcro pieces and had a quick interactive colour theory quiz. Then the kids had to get into groups of 4 and produce colour wheels by cutting up paint charts. I set it like a challenge: each team had to complete their colour chart in 10 minutes! For extension work I got some kids to consider tones and hues within the colour wheel. It was a very fast paced lesson and the kids loved working in teams. I had each team’s equipment in trays so clearing up was just a case of chucking everything in the trays! It was a great lesson. The observers loved it, however the job went to someone who’d done supply at the school!

Getting a new job

165

Consider what the interviewers are looking for, and plan to give them what they want. Ideally get the lesson finished within the time you’ve been allocated so that the observers can see how you bring the learning together at the end. Think about how you can show that you’re professional, have a rapport with children and manage them well, are enthusiastic, plan well, use effective teaching strategies, and reflect on learning and teaching. Give the interviewers a wordprocessed copy of your plan – check for spelling errors. Make sure it has a clear learning objective, some useful motivating activities, and clear differentiation. Keep the lesson simple and do it well. Bring your own (or borrowed) resources rather than assuming that the classroom will have them.Think of questions for the very able and for those with special needs. Make sure your behaviour management is as good as possible. Make lots of eye contact with the children, smile, and use praise to reinforce the behaviour you want. Act confidently, even if you’re terrified. Afterwards, reflect on the lesson honestly and intelligently, showing that you can assess children’s answers and think of ways to improve your teaching. No one expects you to be perfect, but your interviewers want to see that you’re enthusiastic and can approach and reflect on unfamiliar situations with verve. Oh, and be modest when it goes superbly – they are lovely children aren’t they?

Nerves Interviews are very scary, so much so that some people never apply for another job: From the

TES staffroom

I’ve been teaching on and off for twenty years in the same school, but the one single thing that keeps me in my job is the abject horror of going through a modern interview.

Nervousness is to be expected, but you’ve probably never suffered as badly as this teacher:

166

Getting on

From the

TES staffroom

I was so nervous that my mind went blank. I waffled, misheard questions. Giving my views on date rapes rather than day trips was particularly embarrassing!

I can picture the scene now:‘What would you take account of when organising a date rape?’‘What would you see as the educational value of date rapes?’The good news is that this story has a happy ending – the teacher got the very next job she went for.The head said that her nervousness was a plus point because it showed that she really wanted the job.

Interview tips A governor said: From the

TES staffroom

I find that the person who usually appeals most and gets the job can give plenty of enthusiastic examples of work they have done with children. Some people give very bland, obviously rehearsed answers but others just have that extra ‘something’ at the interview.

Here are some interview tips: • When you walk into the interview room, look them all in the eye and say good morning with a bright smile – it is really difficult to talk to someone who stares doggedly at the floor. • Relax – I know it’s hard but breathe deeply, wriggle your toes or do whatever works for you. • Consider questions before answering and don’t be frightened of a few seconds silence – it’s better than gabbling nervously. • Be reflective – if they raise a weakness, or ask you about something you’re weak on, turn it into a positive – give an example of how you picked up an unfamiliar subject quickly, or how a disastrous teaching experience taught you valuable lessons in needing to be flexible/using positive behaviour management/ keeping records, and so on.

Getting a new job

167

• Make eye contact with whoever is asking you a question and make sure you address each member of the panel during the course of the interview, even the governor who makes notes but says nothing throughout. • If you’re stumped on a question, smile and ask them to repeat it. • Be enthusiastic – no one expects a new teacher to be perfect, but they can expect you to be enthusiastic, prepared to ride a steep learning curve, to reflect and improve and to approach unfamiliar situations with intelligence.

Interview questions You’re likely to be asked questions along these lines: Why do you want to work in this school? Why do you want this job? What are your impressions of the school/department? What are the essential qualities of a good (subject/phase) teacher? Describe a lesson you’ve taught that went well. What are your strengths/weaknesses? How in a mixed-ability class do you cater for the needs of ____? What are your views on the government’s inclusion policy? What are your views on promoting citizenship in the classroom? What would you say to someone who says ICT is merely kids ‘playing around on computers’? What do you do to raise boys’ achievement? Tell me about a lesson you have taught and the planning/assessment involved. How do you think (some aspect of your subject or age phase) should be taught? What extra-curricular interests can you offer the school? Describe your classroom. How you would handle some difficult behaviour? How would you ensure that all children were treated equally in your class? How would you like to work with parents? How do you approach planning and assessment? How do you exploit opportunities for literacy and numeracy across the curriculum?

168

Getting on

How do you keep up to date in your specialist subject? Would you accept the job if it was offered to you? You can plan answers to these sorts of questions and any other hot topics, thinking of examples from your experience that you can use to bring yourself to life. For instance, when asked about how you’d manage a difficult parent, refer to a real example of something you’ve experienced or observed.All the time think about why they’re asking the question and what sort of things they want to hear. From the

TES staffroom

I was asked ‘What is your classroom like?’ I was in full flow about its architecture, windows, doors etc. until I realised this must be a question about classroom organisation!

Sometimes you’ll be asked a strange question, one that you can’t see any purpose to. Ask them to repeat it so you don’t make a date rape/day trip type fool of yourself. You can’t really be prepared for weird questions … but here are a few that I have heard of. If you could put one object on the table in front of us to sum you up as a person, what would it be? What would you add to the department on a social basis? Where do you see yourself in three years time? How will you get to school? What does your boyfriend think about you working in a place like this (an EBD boarding school)? If asked to give one word that would sum you up to us what would that word be? At the end of the interview you’ll probably be asked if you have any questions.You do, and will have written them down, if you want to come across as bright and proactive.Ask about the school’s professional development for teachers or something specific to the department you’ll be working in. If your questions have been answered during the course of the day/interview, then smile and explain what your questions were and that they’ve been answered, thank you.

Getting a new job

169

You’re offered the job From the

TES staffroom

Asking prospective teachers, who are dazed and wrung out by the interview process, to make an instant decision is unfair and unnecessary. I can think of no commercial industry that would get away with such a practice. That teaching has got away with its arcane appointments system for so long is amazing.

You will usually be offered the job on the day, after everyone else has been interviewed, or a day or two afterwards.The school will expect you to accept straight away. Say you’ll accept, subject to a satisfactory contract and salary. Remember that phrase, say it again and again in your head: subject to a satisfactory contract and salary. They should be clear about whether the contract is permanent or temporary and about the salary they’re offering you. If they’re not, check you’re happy before you formally accept in writing. If you decide not to accept the job, be gracious and reject the offer as quickly as possible.You should always treat a school as you would like to be treated yourself. It’s not professional to accept a job and then change your mind for a better offer, unless you have a good reason such as a sudden change in domestic arrangements. If you have to do this, let them know as quickly as possible, in writing, and explain the reasons why. Bad behaviour has a way of coming back to haunt you.

Being rejected Not getting a job offer is a fact of life for most of us at some point in our careers, so don’t take it to heart.This is the time to see an interview as good practice for the next one. Make the most of it as a learning experience. Reflect on what you did well and think about what you can improve next time.When you’ve had a few interviews you can see that the questions are along similar lines. Rack your memory and note down all the questions you can remember being asked.Then you can practise getting the perfect answer to questions on behaviour management, equal opportunities, etc. Don’t forget to pepper your answers with real examples to bring your responses to life. Though it’s painful, do ask for feedback about the unsuccessful interview so that you can learn from the experience.The bearer of the

170

Getting on

bad news may not be able to offer this immediately, in which case ask if you can have ten minutes of their time in the near future. If you’re told in writing, ring the school and ask if a member of the panel could call you at a time convenient to them. You need to persevere in the job hunt. Perhaps consider supply.This will give you rich experience to draw on in future interviews, and is a great way of getting to know about jobs that are coming up. It also gets your name about so that you apply for jobs with a good reputation to back up your application.

Contracts There is a range of problems with contracts: • a long delay between being offered the job and receiving anything on paper • not being given a written contract or job description • being given a temporary one • being expected to do a different job to the one described in the advert • not being given the fair number of points on the salary scale • accepting a job without realising that any of the above would be issues. There are times when you might agree to something that you later regret. From the

TES staffroom

I applied for a Key Stage 1 job, but at the interview I was asked if I would consider foundation stage – only too keen, I agreed! I was offered the job and accepted. I’ve since been told the position is to be the nursery teacher. I have no experience in the nursery and I am now extremely worried.

The more experience you get, the more confident you’ll feel about being assertive about such matters. Written contracts are important and you need to read them carefully. A school that looks after its staff deals with such matters efficiently. If schools can’t get a contract right what are they going to be like about other things?

References Berrill, D. and Whalen, C. (2003) Professional Identity/Personal Integrity: Towards a Reflective Portfolio Teaching Community. Paper presented at American Education Research Association, Chicago 2003. Bolam, R. (1993) ‘Recent Developments and Emerging Issues’ inThe Continuing Professional Development of Teachers. London: GTC. Bubb, S. (2000) The Effective Induction of Newly Qualified Primary Teachers:An Induction Tutor’s Handbook. London: David Fulton. Bubb, S. (2003a) The Insider’s Guide for New Teachers: Succeeding in Training and Induction. London:TES/Kogan Page. Bubb, S. (2003b) A Newly Qualified Teacher’s Manual: How to Meet the Induction Standards. London: David Fulton. Bubb, S. and Hoare, P. (2001) Performance Management: Monitoring Teaching in the Primary School. London: David Fulton. Bubb, S., Heilbronn, R., Jones, C.,Totterdell, M. and Bailey, M. (2002) Improving Induction: Research-Based Best Practice. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Bubb, S., Earley, P. and Laverdure,A. (2003) The ATL Teachers’Worktime Self-audit Toolkit. London:ATL. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (2000) Effective People Management. London: CIPD. Clarke, S. (1998) Unlocking Formative Assessment. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Dennison, B. and Kirk, R. (1990) Do, Review, Learn, Apply: A Simple Guide to Experiential Learning. Oxford: Blackwell. Department for Education and Skills (2001a) Learning and Teaching:A Strategy for Professional Development. London: DfES. Department for Education and Skills (2001b) The Standards Framework. London: DfES. Department for Education and Skills (2001c) The EPD Pilots. London: DfES.

172

References

Department for Education and Skills (2002a) School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions. London: DfES. Department for Education and Skills (2002b) A Legal Toolkit for Schools. London: DfES. Department for Education and Skills (2003) Raising Standards and Tackling Workload:A National Agreement. London: DfES. Earley, P. and Bubb, S. (2004) Developing Teachers, Developing Schools: Making Continuing Professional Development Work. London: Sage/ Paul Chapman. Frost, D. and Durrant, J. (2003) Teacher-led Development Work. London: David Fulton. General Teaching Council (2003a) Teacher Survey. Birmingham: GTC. General Teaching Council (2003b) Teachers’ Professional Learning Framework. Birmingham: GTC. Green, H. (2003) Ten Questions for School Leaders. Nottingham: NCSL. Hastings, N. and Chantrey-Wood, K. (2002) Reorganising Primary Classroom Learning. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Honey, P. and Mumford, A. (2000) The Learning Styles Helper’s Guide. Maidenhead, Berks: Peter Honey Publications. Jones, T. (2003) ‘Continuing Professional Development in Wales’, Professional Development Today, vol. 6, issue 1. Kounin, J. (1970) Discipline and Group Management in the Classroom. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Minnis, F. (2003) Early Professional Development. MA dissertation. Institute of Education Library. National College for School Leadership (2002) The Leadership Development Framework. Nottingham: NCSL. Ofsted (2003a) Early Professional Development. London: Ofsted. Ofsted (2003b) Inspecting Schools. London: Ofsted. Ofsted (2003c) HMCI Annual Report. London: Ofsted. Powling, P. and Ramsey, R. (2002) ‘Some Thoughts about Managing Behaviour’. Handout from a course October 2002, Institute of Education. PriceWaterhouseCoopers (2001) Teacher Workload Study Interim Report. London: PWC. Reynolds (2003) ‘So Near But Yet So Far’ in Times Educational Supplement, 20 June 2003, p.23.

References

173

School Teachers’ Review Body (2000) Teachers’ Workloads Diary Survey. London:TSO. Smithers, A. and Robinson, P. (2003) Factors Affecting Teachers’Decisions to Leave the Profession. Research brief and report No .430. London: DfES. Stern, J. (1999) Learning to Teach. David Fulton: London. Teacher Training Agency (2001) Supporting Assessment. London:TTA. Teacher Training Agency (2002a) Qualifying to Teach: Professional Standards for Qualified Teacher Status and Requirements for Initial Teacher Training. London:TTA. Teacher Training Agency (2002b) ITT Performance Profiles 2001. London:TTA. Teacher Training Agency (2003) The Career Entry and Development Profile. London:TTA. Thornton, K (2001) ‘Mother Punched Head Eight Times’, Times Educational Supplement, 25 May 2001. Times Educational Supplement (2003) On Course. Special issue, 21 March 2003. London:TES. Totterdell, M., Heilbronn, R., Bubb, S. and Jones, C. (2002) Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the Statutory Arrangements for the Induction of Newly Qualified Teachers. Research brief and report No. 338. London: DfES. Waters, M. (1998) ‘Personal Development for Teachers’, Professional Development Today, vol. 1, issue 2, pp. 29–38.

Index accreditation 34, 40 action plan 14–6, 19–20, 47–8, 51, 104–5 activities 23–5 advanced skills teacher (AST) 20, 51, 143, 152–4 allegations 120–2 application forms viii, 159–62 behaviour 80–1, 106–112, 158, 167, 169 Berrill, D. 50 Bolam, R. 4 Bubb, S. 5, 16, 21, 29–32, 34, 43, 47, 51, 83, 97, 99–102, 129, 134–5 bullying 117–9, 159 bursaries 1, 4, 12–13 Buzan,T. 87 career development 11, 14, 143–157; career paths viii, 143 Career Entry and Development Profile 37, 44, 51, Chantrey Wood, K. 75 Clarke, S. 79, 89 classroom environment 73–5 coaching 7, 14 contracts 169–70

control 80–1, 106–112 cost (of professional development) 28, 33, 37–8 courses 28, 33 continuing professional development (CPD) 3–7; activities 23–5; coordinator 45; strategy 9 cycle – learning 19 Dennison, B. 19 differentiation 77, 79, 137 display 74–5, 101, 105 Durrant, J. 22 Earley, P. x, 5, 97 early professional development (EPD) pilots 1, 10–12 educational psychologist 143, 156 emergent leaders 124–5 entitlement 7–8 evaluating development 20–2 feedback 7, 131–6 Frost, D. 22 Gardner, H. 15 General Teaching Council (GTC) viii, 5, 7–10, 40, 149

176

Index

Green, H. 125 group work 80 Hastings, N. 75 head of department (HoD) 4, 13, 113, 159 Hoare, P. 43, Honey, P. 17–8 independent schools 154–6 induction 4, 6, 37, 51 impact 21–2, initial teacher training (ITT) 4 in-service education and training (Inset) 3, 4, 5, 24, 35, 45, 138 inspection 41, 60–9 international visits 13 interviews viii, 163–9

master’s degree 1, 11, 34–40 maternity viii, 123, 141, 149–50 mentoring 7, 25 Minnis, F. x, 5 monitoring 127–8 Mumford,A. 17–8 National College for School Leadership (NCSL) 13, 124 newly qualified teacher (NQTs) vii, 10, 25–6, 43–4, 50, 63, 91–2, 114–5, 149, 159 objectives 16, 43–8, 51 observation: being observed 45, 50–3, 60, 62–5, 115–7; observing others to learn from them 1, 24, 26–32; observing others to help them 7, 128–137 Ofsted vii, 10, 60–9, 76, 153, 160

Jones,T. 6 Kirk, R. 19 Kounin, J. 79 Laverdure,A. 97 leadership 4, 13, 24, 36, 71, 123–139, 147, 158; emergent 124–5; inspection of 68–9; stages of 124 Leading from the middle 124–5 learning community 8, 26, learning cycle 19, 33 learning styles 15–8 management 4, 13, 24, 36, 39, 71, 123–139, 148; inspection of 68–9 marking 87–9, 98–102

pace 79 paternity 151 pay 145–150, 152, 155–6 performance management 4, 41, 43–7, 68–9, 129 personal development 5, 44 personal statement 161 planning 76–8, 94, 98–102, 127–8, 130, 136–7, 167 portfolio 47, 49–51 Powling, P. 112 professional bursaries 1, 4 professional development 3, 102, 155; activities 23–5; inspection of 67–8; portfolios 47, 49–51 professional learning framework 7–8

Index

qualified teacher status (QTS) 5, 9 questioning 84–5 Ramsey, R. 112 reflection 23 reports 90, 91 Reynolds, D. 20 resources 77–8, 105 responsibilities – of teachers for CPD 6, 7–8 retention 8–9, 148–9, 159 Robinson, P. vii sabbaticals 13 salary viii, 46, 145–9, 152, 155–6, 169 school development plan 8, 44 Smithers,A. vii, special measures 66–7, 158–9 staff meetings 138–9 standards framework 5; for qts 5–6; for induction 6; for threshold 6, 10, 53–4; for subject leaders; for advanced skills teachers 153–4 Stern, J. 89

177

subject leaders 4, 34, 69, 71, 125–7 support staff 64, 68–9, 81–3, 94, 120, 137 teachers: teachers’ standards framework 5, 126; professional learning framework 7–8; international professional development 13 teaching assistants 64, 68–9, 81–3, 94–5, 114, 120 thinking skills 85–7 Thornton, K. 113 threshold 6, 10, 46, 53–9 Totterdell, M. 26 trainee teachers 25–6, 63, 114 violence 107–8, 112–3 Waters, M. 5 Whalen, C. 50 whistle blowing 120 workforce restructuring 93–5 worklife balance 96–7 workload 91–105 workplace bullying 117–9, 159

The Insider's Guide to Early Professional Development: Succeed in Your First Five Years as a Teacher (Tes Career Guides)

Career As a Kindergarten Teacher

The Insider's Guide for New Teachers: Succeed in Training and Induction (TES Career Guides)

Career as a Fundraising Professional

Career Development for Teachers: The TES Handbook

Teacher-Centered Professional Development

Teacher-Centered Professional Development

Professional Pilot's Career Guide

A Guide to Early Years Practice (1998)

Bringing the Montessori Approach to your Early Years Practice (Bringing...to Your Early Years Setting S.)

Bringing the Steiner Waldorf Approach to your Early Years Practice (Bringing ... to your Early Years Practice)

Bringing the High Scope Approach to your Early Years Practice (Bringing ... to your Early Years Practice)

Transforming Teacher Education: Lessons in Professional Development

Teacher Professional Development in Changing Conditions

Physical Development in the Early Years (Classmates)

Supporting Mathematical Development in the Early Years

Teacher Thinking Twenty Five Years On

A mathematician's survival guide: Graduate school and early career development

How To Succeed as a Lifestyle Entrepreneur

The Professional Programmers Guide To C (Professional Programmers Guides)

The Professional Programmers Guide To C (Professional Programmers Guides)

Career As a Podiatrist

Field Guide to Finding a New Career: Education (Field Guides to Finding a New Career)

Career As a Dancer

Career As a Naturalist

Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry

Quick Guide to Career Training in Two Years or Less

Career Guide for the High-Tech Professional

Career Guide for the High-Tech Professional

Promoting Children's Learning from Birth to Five: Developing the New Early Years Professional, 2nd Edition

A. H. Clifford: The first sixty-five years

The Insider's Guide to Early Professional Development: Succeed in Your First Five Years as a Teacher (Tes Career Guides)

Career As a Kindergarten Teacher

The Insider's Guide for New Teachers: Succeed in Training and Induction (TES Career Guides)

Career as a Fundraising Professional

Career Development for Teachers: The TES Handbook

Teacher-Centered Professional Development

Teacher-Centered Professional Development

Professional Pilot's Career Guide

A Guide to Early Years Practice (1998)

Bringing the Montessori Approach to your Early Years Practice (Bringing...to Your Early Years Setting S.)

Bringing the Steiner Waldorf Approach to your Early Years Practice (Bringing ... to your Early Years Practice)

Bringing the High Scope Approach to your Early Years Practice (Bringing ... to your Early Years Practice)

Transforming Teacher Education: Lessons in Professional Development

Teacher Professional Development in Changing Conditions

Physical Development in the Early Years (Classmates)

Supporting Mathematical Development in the Early Years

Teacher Thinking Twenty Five Years On

A mathematician's survival guide: Graduate school and early career development

How To Succeed as a Lifestyle Entrepreneur

The Professional Programmers Guide To C (Professional Programmers Guides)

The Professional Programmers Guide To C (Professional Programmers Guides)

Career As a Podiatrist

Field Guide to Finding a New Career: Education (Field Guides to Finding a New Career)

Career As a Dancer

Career As a Naturalist

Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry

Quick Guide to Career Training in Two Years or Less

Career Guide for the High-Tech Professional

Career Guide for the High-Tech Professional

Promoting Children's Learning from Birth to Five: Developing the New Early Years Professional, 2nd Edition

A. H. Clifford: The first sixty-five years

Recommend Documents