I think this year will be the most challenging year of my life. And I don't say that lightly. I will be finishing my PGCE as well as going back to work full time and starting at a new school with a new curriculum on top of all the scary Covid requirements and regulations! If I think about it too much I get sucked into an unhelpful vortex of anxiety. What if I don't finish my PGCE? Will we stay open? What if we close? What if only some of the schools close and not others? How will I manage child care? Will I get ill? Will I get really ill? Will my son go to school this year?...
However there are plenty of things to be thankful for. I have a job. I found a placement. I will have new colleagues to meet and get to know. I will have a new class who I will get to spend a lot of time with and really get to know. So in the spirit of thinking positive, I'm setting myself some goals for things I would like to achieve this year that should be achievable whether I'm doing online teaching or in class.
1. TIME MANAGEMENT
a) By nature I am an organised person and this year does not bode well for me. I will have to go with the flow and be endlessly adaptable, but I still hope to work on my time management. In particular I wish to schedule some off time in the week as well as a day at weekends.
b) I want to schedule in time to do things that I am not especially good at finding time for. In particular I'd like to make a better effort at contacting parents and keeping them up-to-date about the good things that happen in class.
2. EMOTIONS
I'd like to do more PSHE work with the children. This year it seems more important than ever to create emotionally literate children and a safe classroom environment for all. I'd like to try introducing mindfulness or yoga into the classroom too.
3. RESPECTFUL AND SENSITIVE CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
a) Reprimand and praise individuals privately.
b) Frame requests, reprimands and reminders positively. Emphasise purpose over power (the reason for the rule rather than my authority).
4. SET UP GOOD HABITS for saving my voice and patience!
a) Deal with behaviours that are irritating before I get wound up.
b) Teach students explicitly how to actively listen and participate in class.
c) Teach students to use hand signals for common requests and give non verbal corrections, answers and reminders so that I can look after my voice.
5. SET HIGH STANDARDS
a) Some of the ideas that struck me the most when reading Doug Lemov's Teach Like a Champion were Right is Right, Cold Calling and No Opt Out so I would like to experiment with those.
b) This year I'd like to bring all my students with me, which means planning lessons which work at the pace of the slowest rather than the middle of the class as I usually do. I'd also like to make sure that everyone has understood the lesson's key vocabulary and can use it before discovering comprehension problems at the end of the lesson (or even unit!).
Have you got any goals or resolutions this academic year?
This series of blog posts covers areas that I feel are often missing from the PGCE year and teacher training in general. That's not a criticism - there simply isn't time to cover everything but I have been using my extra pandemic time with the university library and the World Wide Web at my finger tips to search for answers to questions that have been perplexing me for some time. It turns out that many people have thought about these things a lot more than me so I'm excited to be sharing the insights that resonated the most.
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For my final entry in this series I want to share the research that I have done on motivation, and more specifically motivating students, because after all what is teaching if not motivating children to do productive work, grow and learn? As a child I remember thinking that the teacher "controlled" the class, but as a teacher I realised quickly that it isn't true. A bad teacher coerces the students into behaving, a good teacher makes them want to behave well. And while it seemed that content was something that was poured into me and the students I now realise that I was lucky. Learning came naturally to me and I was intrinsically motivated to learn. When I met students who were not like me, later as a teacher, I really felt quite helpless.
During my PGCE I had carried out research on a reward and sanction classroom management system that the school I did my Teaching Practice in used. As part of the literature review (bibliography at bottom of post) I took hard look at extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and what I found was illuminating but incredibly complex. What I found out will, I hope, change my teaching forever.
The Basic Principles of Motivation
Intrinsic motivation (motivation that comes from within the student themselves) is more effective than extrinsic motivation. Since teachers cannot make students be intrinsically motivated teachers need to cultivate self-esteem and self-discipline so that intrinsic motivation can grow and be careful not to damage students' intrinsic motivation either.
It is necessary to provide extrinsic motivation when a student does not have intrinsic motivation. This may be a reward or a sanction. Both rewards and sanctions can be effective if used correctly. Remember that even a cross look or verbal reprimand is included under the idea of sanction. Rewards are generally thought of as being more effective than sanctions however the devil is in the detail...
Students are incredibly sensitive and averse to being manipulated, with an exception for only the very youngest students. Students can be very suspicious of praise, often believing that teachers praise the least able students because they need the most encouraging. For this reason public rewards and praise are best used for groups and private rewards and praise for individuals, because it will make the praise seem more sincere.
In order to promote intrinsic motivation teachers should aim to praise effort and process rather than ability. If students think you think they are good at Maths they may be unwilling to try for fear of proving you wrong. What is more, to make praise a useful part of feedback it should be as specific as possible. "Great work!" is nice to hear "I can see that you planned out your paragraphs well" is more gratifying because it seems more sincere and is undoubtedly more helpful for the student.
Rewards work best when they are unexpected. Rewards which are routinely given out and expected by students can become outright demotivating. It should go without saying that rewards are most effective when they are something that the students really desire.
Sanctions work best in environments with high levels of trust (your classroom, hopefully) so building relationships and consistency with students is important.
Allow students to keep their dignity in tact. It is hard to stay focused and alert all day. Students report that public reprimands are the most likely form of sanction to make them stay quiet and switch off. Remember that compliance does not equal learning so like with praise keep warnings, corrections and sanctions as private as possible, or use them anonymously when in public ("I'm waiting for one set of eyes").
If students believe a rule to be unfair the chances of them complying are low, so it is important to stress why the rule is necessary ("We have these rules to keep everybody safe" rather than "Do it because I said so!"). Doug Lemov calls this principle Purpose over Power. Likewise when giving a sanction make sure that students understand that it is to help them learn to manage or correct their behaviour, not just a punishment.
Taking away a privilege can be one of the most effective kinds of sanction because humans have 'Loss Aversion'.
A telephone call home or a good or bad report can be one of the most powerful motivators for most children and young adults. If you call to say something positive keep it clean with no ifs or buts for the biggest impact.
When I think back to my own time in education two teachers stand out for being at opposite ends of the spectrum. One was utterly lovely but she used to praise us even when we got the answers wrong and pretend that we had given her the correct answers. Perhaps she thought she was being encouraging but we got the impression she thought we were all a bit dim. The other was a real character and used to regularly complain that he didn't know what he had done to deserve students who wrote as badly as us. Of course, the second was horrendous for our motivation but our confidence was dented with both extremes. Like with most things in life, rewards, praise, corrections and sanctions need to be done in moderation.
Bibliography
Bear G. et al (2017) 'Rewards, praise and punitive consequences: relations with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.' Teaching and Teacher Education July 2017 65 (10-20) DOI: 10.1016/j.tate.2017.03.001
Cameron, J. and David, W. (2002) Rewards and Intrinsic Motivation: Resolving the Controversy. Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey, 2002
Payne, R. (2015) 'Using Rewards and Sanctions in the Classroom: pupils perceptions of their own responses to current behaviour management strategies' Educational Review. Nov2015, 67 (4), p483-504. DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2015.1008407
Naughton, C. & McLaughlin, T. (1995) 'The Use of a Token Economy System for Students with Behaviour Disorders.' B.C.Journal of Special Education. January 1995 19.
This series of blog posts covers areas that I feel are often missing from the PGCE year and teacher training in general. That's not a criticism - there simply isn't time to cover everything but I have been using my extra pandemic time with the university library and the World Wide Web at my finger tips to search for answers to questions that have been perplexing me for some time. It turns out that many people have thought about these things a lot more than me so I'm excited to be sharing the insights that resonated the most.
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Before even writing this I am already starting to regret having put Colleagues onto my list of blog posts because it is such a difficult area of teaching to navigate. And I'm not an expert, but I have worked in a LOT of different schools, often only popping in for a supply lesson or an after-school course and then back out again but the atmosphere that you breathe in is unique to every premises. Schools are, like businesses, a microcosm of society and the members within it, with the general mood being greatly influenced by the management. But let's take a look at why schools can be particularly difficult places to sail the treacherous waters of office politics.
Schools are very flat organisational structures. There is a Senior Leadership team, often only one or two people, and maybe some coordinators for different year groups and subjects. Then all the teachers rub along together irrespective of experience, competence or temperament. In Italy this unusual set up (for the world of work) is made even more er... complex by schools being run on a democratic basis. The Teachers' Collegio Docenti reigns supreme over the Head. This makes school politics utterly unavoidable.
Teachers spend the most of the school day in their classrooms in charge of their class/es, and beyond the Pre-school, mostly alone. They are not used to taking orders and they are also very busy.
Teachers tend to be in teaching because they care about teaching rather than for the money, which means that teaching can be an ideologically charged profession and although pedagogical ideas go in and out of fashion like wheel going round and round, school policy changes can produce a big reaction in the staff meeting (or its aftermath) because people have very strong ideas about the right way of doing things.
Teachers and admin often stay in one school for much of their teaching lives resulting rigid power structures and domains which are invisible to a new teacher. I know because I stepped on the toes of a rather zealous Union Rep in my first meeting at a new school and was made to pay for the rest of the year! I also know of a secretary with an unofficial veto over which teachers to appoint for what positions.
With these peculiarities in mind let me share the points of the compass that I use when starting at a new school.
If you can talk to a teacher who works at the schoolbefore you accept the job and find out if the school pays on time (no job is worth the stress of a school where you have to strike to get paid), what kind of overtime is expected and if the management are approachable. When you go to interview try to visit the staff room if the school has one (Ross Morrisson McGill has a nice chapter on UK staffroom politics in Teacher Toolkit: Helping You Survive the First Five Years). During the interview, if your interviewer is very stiff and serious then this is probably going to reflect the school's internal culture. But in the current climate, if you need a job this is not the biggest worry on your mind so onwards...
Be very nice to everybody, but especially the admin team and janitors. Learn everybody's names as soon as possible. Ask for permission before arranging trips, changing materials etc from your SLT and your new colleagues.
Do not badmouth the management to anyone! There are spies. I joke, but no, really. Some schools can be like Bridesmaids others are more like Game of Thrones. You cannot escape school politics but you can at least be diplomatic and discreet.
Try not to get sucked into arguments about pedagogy. Every method has its advantages and disadvantages. Take the good and leave the bad, and try not to roll your eyes too hard when they say "We are no longer going to plan anything. We will get everything we need from the children's own questions" if you are an old fashioned traditionalist sage-on-the-stage (like me), or when the Head says "I want to see students' handwriting exercises on my desk by Thursday!" when you are an avant-garde modern guide-on-the-side kind of teacher. Work out how to provide evidence you have done what has been asked and get on with doing your thing.
Take on your fair share of extra duties and if you can, pair up with another teacher to make the workload more manageable if the project is big or long lasting.
Avoid unproductive whinging with colleagues, and try not to spend too much time with those who do. If you want to change something, collect evidence that there is a problem and offer solutions. Be the change you want to see in the school, to paraphrase Martin Luther King. If, for example, you had little-to-no help settling in when you started, offer to give new teachers a tour of the school, explain the electronic register etc.. and if you are fortunate your kindness will be repaid many times over.
This series of blog posts covers areas that I feel are often missing from the PGCE year and teacher training in general. That's not a criticism - there simply isn't time to cover everything but I have been using my extra pandemic time with the university library and the World Wide Web at my finger tips to search for answers to questions that have been perplexing me for some time. It turns out that many people have thought about these things a lot more than me so I'm excited to be sharing the insights that resonated the most.
...
Bullying, or 'bullismo' as we know it here in Italy, is a funny term. It is very hard to define and means different things to different people in different places around the world. For some it is groups of students ganging up on an individual and and being physically aggressive, for others it's more than that and can include the spreading of rumours, exclusion, harassment, extortion and intimidation and even simply an individual abusing their power. Whatever it means to you, it can be hard to deal with as a teacher as much of it may happen outside of the classroom. The following statistics and information were taken from Understanding School Bullying, its Nature and Prevention Strategies by P.K. Smith which gives a very comprehensive and complex overview of bullying in schools around the world.
Bullying varies with age. Younger children tend to be more physically aggressive, while older children tend to be more verbally aggressive.
The more children are online the more cyberbullying can be a problem. Cyberbullying can be especially perplexing for a teacher as it mostly happens outside of school hours. About half of cyberbullying victims do not know who the bully is but since, more often than not, cyberbullying involves individuals from the same school parents may ask teachers to intervene. Some schools and teachers in this circumstance choose to get involved and others will not.
Mythbusting - Who bullies and gets bullied?
12-15 years of age is the time when children are most likely to bully with students increasingly less sympathetic to victims up until the age of 14 or 15. This means that middle schools are particular hot spots for bullying, with September of the first year being a flash point as a class pecking order has yet to emerge. At Primary School younger children will attack others indiscriminately before finding out which victims make the most rewarding targets (the ones least able to cope).
Sexist bullying is the most common type of bullying but many young people also view homophobic bullying as more acceptable than, for example, racist bullying. Children with special needs are the most likely to be bullied with students with ADHD being up to 8x more likely to be victims as well as 3x more likely to bully. Since bullying is quite a complex social phenomenon it is interesting to note that autistic students may often be victims but that they often find it hard to know when something is bullying or not.
Locations where bullying is most likely to happen are in the least supervised places with the playground, followed by corridors, toilets and the canteen. These days, perhaps due to greater awareness of bullying in schools and better supervision, bullying rates are dropping for traditional bullying but are rising for cyberbullying.
So far perhaps not so surprising. I was most interested in the book's look at the psychological profiles of bullies, victims and defenders. Bullies are often portrayed as not very bright thugs or bully-victims unconsciously acting out their own pain but in reality many bullies are socially intelligent and manipulative although they often have callous and unemotional traits. They may recognise others emotions ('cognitively empathetic' Smith calls it) but do not share and feel other's emotions (affective empathy). Bullies frequently disengage morally from their behaviour, saying things like "I didn't start it," "He deserved it," and "It was just for fun." Bullying for most bullies is a way of increasing social status and power. And it works, children tend to perceive bullies as popular even if they are not well liked by their peers.
Victims may be less socially literate, with lower levels of emotional stability and lower self-esteem. Often victims can have over protective, or especially critical and distant parents but children with bullying siblings are also more likely to be bullied at school. Children and young people who experience bullying are particularly at risk of severe depression if bullied, often because bullying can become a vicious cycle. Bullied girls and victims who bully are most at risk of committing suicide.
Children who are prepared to intervene and stand up for victims of bullying tend to be popular and emotionally stable. Something to bear in mind perhaps, if you are trying to help a victim make new friends!
In one study cited in the book of cases when bullying stopped, 25% of victims said it was because they got help from school, 23% transitioned from one school onto the next level and 11% changed class or school. 20% of students said that changing their coping strategies was the thing that stopped the bullying, like learning new skills, making new friends and trying assertive non aggressive strategies.
It is really important to know that the victim and aggressor roles are not fixed. Especially in the case of girls, bullies can become victims and vice versa over time. The good news for victims of cyberbullying is that it cyberbullying usually lasts for less than a month.
So what can we as individual teachers do about bullying?
Be visible. Make an effort to patrol areas of the playground and school at break time which are harder to supervise. A particularly effective colleague of mine with a difficult class dynamic used to pop up at break time unexpectedly, even if she wasn't on duty, to check that nobody was getting excluded from games.
Be watchful for small acts of bullying like eye rolling, back turning, laughing cruelly and sarcasm amongst groups of students. Bullying isn't always obvious so it's important that you get to know your students really well.
Encourage parents and children to communicate and talk about bullying at school and especially cyberbullying where they must take the lead. Good communication with parents has been shown to be a protective factor for children.
Signal that bullying is unacceptable very clearly and that there are consequences for students who bully.
Create a sense of community. Choose pairs and working groups yourself and break up cliques. After lunch the aforementioned colleague asks pupils who they played with at break time and praises those who played with someone they didn't normally play with.
Keep chats with bullies and victims private and individual.
Respond quickly to incidents of bullying.
Avoid "one off" anti-bullying lessons which may only underline the fact that other pupils may wish to choose to support the bully.
Teach everyone in the class what to do if they witness bullying. Students should know that they should not join in or laugh and should walk away and tell an adult (especially if the bully is violent!) or tell the bully to stop and encourage others to do the same.
Below is an intriguing method also known as the Seven Steps method which, according to Smith, has been shown to be immediately effective in 80% of cases of bullying and 76% of the time stops the bullying. It is controversial because the bully is not made to admit guilt or acknowledge the suffering that they have caused, but is perhaps effective precisely because of this very feature.
The Facilitator talks to the victim privately who shares some account of their suffering (at this point many teachers would get parents involved in order to explain the method they intend to use).
A group meeting of 6-8 students is set up without the victim. This group is a mix of bullies and friends of the victim, some of whom will be nominated by the victim.
The Facilitator explains to the group that the victim is having a difficult time but does not discuss the bullying incident/s.
The Facilitator explains that they are not looking to blame or punish anyone but expects everyone to take some responsibility for improving the victims safety and wellbeing.
Each group member thinks how they can make the victims feel happier or safer...
...and shares their ideas with the group.
Facilitator ends the meeting giving the group responsibility for following through with their ideas and tells the group that they will follow up with everyone and the victim with individual meetings a week later. At this point the facilitator may also contact the victim's parents to tell them how the meeting has gone.
I think that this method is very interesting for older students especially and it would have been interesting to have tried it with a particular middle school class that I had. When confronting teenagers over bullying behaviour the response that I had was that it was everyone's fault but theirs or to deny events. This method puts the focus exactly where I would have liked it: on making things better and moving forwards without stigmatising the victim. I think the strength of this method is also that if it doesn't work you still have the traditional approaches of consequences and sanctions to fall back on.
This series of blog posts covers areas that I feel are often missing from the PGCE year and teacher training in general. That's not a criticism - there simply isn't time to cover everything but I have been using my extra pandemic time with the university library and the World Wide Web at my finger tips to search for answers to questions that have been perplexing me for some time. It turns out that many people have thought about these things a lot more than me so I'm excited to be sharing the insights that resonated the most.
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Today I want to write about vulnerable children and how to help them as a teacher. This was quite a tricky topic to research because children can be vulnerable for many reasons and school and national policies vary widely. I have never once received any training on child protection or safeguarding in Italian schools. In the UK teachers have a duty to report any suspicions of child abuse to the authorities so it goes without saying that wherever you are, you'll need to act in accordance with the local laws and your school's policy (if it has one).
In my experience, children who are experiencing or who have experienced mental illness, trauma, abuse or neglect cannot be categorised by wealth or social standing, so it felt like a really important topic to read up on. Vulnerable children that I have taught have included children who:
are going through a family breakdown, especially if acrimonious;
have experienced trauma and subsequently been adopted;
have experienced mild neglect (e.g. coming to school dirty and without snacks);
have had parents with serious mental illnesses or substance abuse;
have had an immense amount of pressure placed on them due to an unusual talent;
have learning difficulties or language difficulties (multiple blog posts could be written on this topic!);
have been bullied at home or at school;
have seriously ill family members or been seriously ill themselves; or
have been bereaved
but the risk factors that lead to children being especially vulnerable are practically endless.
The question I wanted to ask and answer was:
How can we help them be resilient despite their tough life circumstances when at school and in the classroom?
I started with the book Developing Emotional Intelligence in the Primary School by S. Colverd and B. Hodgkin which I really rated. Not only does it have plenty of ideas for ways to help children grow in emotional development but it has a really good overview of the difficulties vulnerable and traumatised children might face at school. I also read Mental Health Matters by P. Nagel because I felt that the two topics have a great deal of overlap.
It's an intimidating topic so let's start by looking at things that teachers can do which benefit vulnerable children but can help all children in their classroom.
Maintain emotional constancy. This could be a whole blog post on its own because it is so much easier said than done. Be warm. Keep your facial expression pleasant. Smile often and teach with joy as much possible.
Be firm. Be fair. Be clear. Keep public corrections anonymous and use private corrections whenever you can.
Use routines and make them visible.
Create a culture of tolerance and normalise making mistakes. Make it easy and OK to ask for help.
Help everybody feel like a valued member of the group. Give them jobs to do and let them feel useful. Laugh together.
Do not let the clock dictate the lesson. Work at the pace of the slowest.
During discussions to give children plenty of time to think and talk. Listen to them.
Build resilience and self-esteem. Praise wisely (see the post on motivation).
Teach emotions and empathy through cross curricular activities e.g. creative writing, positional drama, experiential play, team building games and classroom delivery and discussion.
Make children feel safe. For younger children, discuss the upcoming day including snacks, lunch break, home time and when they can take toilet breaks. Always introduce new adults. Make it clear you do not tolerate bullying.
Try to give everyone their own little bit of space (their own chair/desk/peg/drawer/locker).
In order to do all of the above you'll need to take care of yourself. Keep an eye on and look after your mental and physical health. If you feel like you can't cope with a child then seek help and fresh ideas from colleagues and the SLT.
Now let's think about vulnerable children and the range of specific problems they might present with.
One thing that the teacher may notice is that the child may come across as unempathetic, aggressive and invade other children's space. This is because children who have experienced neglect or whose primary parent has had serious mental illnesses may find reading other people's expressions and signals very difficult. Often vulnerable children may have low self esteem and appear unresponsive and unmotivated to learn or earn praise. In short, vulnerable children may not be easily likeable but it's important to try to understand them.
Trauma in particular can lead to some extreme behaviours caused by the Fight, Flight or Freeze response. Some very stressed children may seem hyper alert and watchful. For example, they might jump at loud noises, want to be near you as much as possible, have difficulty focussing on and processing information, avoid being singled out even for praise and act in a way that is not appropriate for their age. If they are triggered (and a trigger could be literally anything that reminds them of a trauma event, even a colour) they may enter a state of hyper arousal and soil or wet themselves, breathe fast, shake, pale or flush, be unable to perceive you and your voice, and lash out or seek to escape.
In these cases it is important that you:
Get to know the child and their story. Although it can be hard to hear it's important to know what triggers them and what they are trying to overcome.
Negotiate expectations with the child separately to the rest of the class and as a team and agree what will happen if they cannot sustain the behaviour necessary for class time.
Show them that you understand that they have trouble regulating their feelings and behaviour.
Give the child a way of getting your attention that is not obvious.
If they are triggered treat them in the way you would a scared wild animal, taking them somewhere quiet and calmly reassuring them.
Carry out consequences with the aim of helping them learn to regulate their own behaviour.
Help them name their emotions in their own words.
Reintegrate them into the lesson when they are ready and reaffirm that you didn't like the behaviour but you do like them.
Make sure they are safe at playtime.
Allow them to sit with their back to the wall.
Children with chaotic home environments may dislike unfamiliar calm and seek to create chaos at school. Since they often act out, teachers are not normally in danger of missing their distress signals and will work hard to reduce the disruption with routines and building relationships with the family.
However a child who has experienced trauma might also present quite differently and become an "invisible" child. Children who dissociate from their trauma may become numb, disengaged, have amnesia of traumatic events or have depersonalised events. These children can find it hard to make friends and ask for help. They will not push themselves forward, find it hard to experience joy and may avoid any kind of attention, including praise. Parents or guardians of 'invisible' children often complain that teachers praise their excellent behaviour but fail to engage them in lessons. Teachers need to make a conscious effort to:
Get to know the child and their story. Although it can be hard to hear it's important to know what triggers them and what they are trying to overcome.
Encourage them to socialise, even if it is unsuccessful. At play time suggest they try extra curricular activities if they are available.
Make a special effort to get them to participate in lessons and activities.
Encourage them to come to you if they have a panic attack, are triggered or in trouble.
If you do need to correct them do it privately and be careful not to mistake intense fear and shame for 'dumb insolence'.
Finally, some of your students may not come to you with a back story, but instead experience mental health difficulties during the school year. You may notice changes in behaviour and appearance, the creation of rituals, less concentration and aversion to school, friends or play. If this is the case discuss the changes with your colleagues and their parents to find out what the problem is and how you can help them.
Nagel suggests a 5 Step Assessment in these cases. Ask yourselves:
What can we see?
What have we tried?
What do we know from parents and specialists.
What is the mental health message?
What can we do for this child?
If that sounds like a lot of responsibility, that's because it is. For many children school is their only taste of normality. But remember to stay realistic. You can't cure the child, become their parents' therapist or resolve or remove the child's problems! We can only try to build our students' resilience and self-esteem.
This series of blog posts covers areas that I feel are often missing from the PGCE year and teacher training in general. That's not a criticism - there simply isn't time to cover everything but I have been using my extra pandemic time with the university library and the World Wide Web at my finger tips to search for answers to questions that have been perplexing me for some time. It turns out that many people have thought about these things a lot more than me so I'm excited to be sharing the insights that resonated the most.
...
Dealing with parents has not always been my strong point. In general I used to keep them at arms length and hope that if I didn't bother them, they wouldn't bother me. Sadly it doesn't work quite like that. Although relations were mostly good they were sometimes very strained. Having my own child changed my perspective considerably. My son is so precious to me that within weeks of his birth I began to understand the psychology of the 'overanxious' mums and dads and I began to make changes in the way I communicate with parents almost immediately! However, when I saw that there was a workshop on building better relationships with parents this year at the MITA conference I knew I had to sign up because I still have a lot to learn.I wasn't disappointed. Within about 15 minutes of the workshop I began to understand where I had been going wrong and why.
To start with we thought about what being a parent in 2020 is like in order to approach our relationship building from a place of empathy. We need to recognise that parents these days are often both working full time, working from home as well as at the office and juggling emails, texts, messages, social media and phone calls across different platforms (and yet it is still mainly the mothers who are expected to keep track of their children's school communications and activities and appointments!).
In short, we should assume that parents are doing their best (it may not be your idea of what is best for their child but they will see it differently).
The number one rule that I came away with from the workshop was:
BE PROACTIVE!
Build good relationships before you have any issues right at the beginning of the year. A little extra work should pay off in terms of reduced grief, greater trust and more support for the rest of the year. The course leaders shared some really good ideas for how to do this:
Before school begins ask parents to fill in a little email survey about their child with brief open ended questions such as "What are your goals for your child this year?","What are your expectations of me as a teacher?" and "Is there anything else that I should know about your child?";
Share your own expectations for them as parents and your goals for their child;
Don't delay. Meet with parents you have been told are "difficult" and your class reps right away;
Every Friday call or email two students' families with specific and purely positive updates about their child. It doesn't have to be excellence, even "X was a great partner today" or "Y tried hard in Maths today" is nice to hear so that you will have hopefully had positive contact with home before you have to organise any meetings to talk about difficulties;
Channel their energy. Get parents and grandparents involved (if they want to be!) in celebrations, story time and volunteering; and
Share how parents can help their children at home with their studies. If you want to go the extra mile you can send out newsletters, make a class website or send links to articles of parental interest and curricular materials. As a parent myself I'm not a fan of homework that needs a lot of parental guidance but some parents really want to be involved in their children's studies it so it's better to keep them happy with optional activities. For some reason "Read with your kids more!" doesn't seem to cut it so consider educating your parents about just how important this activity is and be prepared to recommend reading materials.
You'll know that it's working when parents come to you when they have issues they want to discuss rather than go over your head and speak directly to management. In many schools this can make all the difference between an easy and a hard life with your senior leadership team.
Parents' Evening and Tricky Parent Conferences
Parents evenings can be very long indeed, especially in schools without an appointment only policy. Take toilet breaks and keep your blood sugar levels up. If you do have appointments consider using a timer to make sure everybody gets their ten minutes and explain what you are doing and why. Post 2020 I foresee a world where we will continue to do parent conferences over video call instead of in person but I think the following will still apply for any tricky parent conference.
BEFORE:
Pinpoint your focus and email the purpose of the meeting to the parents beforehand, underlining the fact that you would like to work together to find solutions.
Gather evidence and data and examples of the pupil's work along with anonymous examples of other students' work for parents to compare it to (if the issue is academic).
Send a reminder the day before with the time and location.
DURING:
Stick to the plan (using a pro forma will help keep the conversation on track).
Feed them a slug sandwich of PRAISE, PROBLEM, PRAISE
Keep it positive. Avoid complaining. Remind parents you care about their child. Look for solutions.
Apologise if necessary.
Give them a chance to speak.
Listen neutrally and use neutral statements that acknowledge how they feel like "I'm sorry that happened," "Thank you for sharing that" and "I hear you." It's OK to stand up for yourself "I understand that you are angry but please don't speak to me that way." When parents are angry your best defence is listening.
Know when to end the conversation ("I think we aren't moving forward. Let's meet again another day and ask the Head to mediate.")
AFTER:
Follow up with parents with an email.
Document the meeting internally.
Inform leadership if a situation could potentially escalate.
Sometimes parents will try to spring a tricky meeting on you at pick up or drop off time. Keep the phrase
"Let's make an appointment to talk about this when I can give it my full attention"
up your sleeve and don't be afraid to use it.
Often meeting the parents will give you "Ahah!" moments. I once had a student that I used to always start the lesson on a bad note with because his first action on coming into the classroom was to go and stare out the window. My colleague met with his father and the first thing the father said when meeting her was, "Don't mind me. I just want to look out the window. I've never seen my house from this angle!"
Sometimes we just have to accept that meetings with some particular parents are not helping or productive. When it comes to disciplinary matters I always remember the words of a colleague who taught at middle school. When she asked a particularly naughty class, "Do you behave like this at home?!" they answered, "Of course not Miss! They'd never believe what we get up to at school!"
Should you take complaints from parents personally? Well that depends. I've had parents complain both that I am too strict and not strict enough, and sometimes that their child has not made enough progress when they are performing above expectations. In these situations do not take it personally, but if there are times when you have over 10% of parents complaining it may well be worth listening attentively and reviewing what you do or the way that you are communicating about what you do.
This series of blog posts will cover areas that I feel are often missing from the PGCE year and teacher training in general. That's not a criticism - there simply isn't time to cover everything but I have been using my extra pandemic time with the university library and the World Wide Web at my finger tips to search for answers to questions that have been perplexing me for some time. It turns out that many people have thought about these things a lot more than me so I'm excited to be sharing the insights that resonated the most.
...
So without further ado let's talk about time management. In addition to teaching the curriculum and preparing for standardised tests, teachers also have to write reports and mark work, plan lessons and look for resources, make displays, keep track of events and the timetable, attend meetings (so many meetings in Italy!), organise shows, assemblies and extra curricular activities, communicate with parents, do break duty, establish ground rules and follow up on discipline and welfare issues (Beginning Primary Teaching by A. Jacklin et al). That's a lot of things to keep track of!
Up until now I have mostly found work-life balance by working part-time at two separate schools (this makes it much easier to say no to things, because you have your commitments at your other job as an excuse, ha!) but all that is about to change as next year I will be working full time again. Clearly I will have to find more orthodox ways of managing my time! The first place I started was with this video that was recommended to me by my husband, who isn't a teacher, but is very busy.
15 Secrets Successful People Know about Time Management by MotivationHub
This isn't directed at teachers but the principles can surely be applied to most things. I would summarise it like this:
1. Know your priorities because everything starts from there. If you can, work on your Most Important Task in the morning when you are at your mental peak.
2. Use a notebook to jot down ideas and To Do lists but work from your calendar/diary. This makes sense especially for teachers because people are always giving you new things to keep track of (e.g. today we go into the lunch hall from the left door only because there are exams) but ultimately we work to a very tightly scheduled timetable that we have no control over. To Do Lists are useful but there is always too much work that will never be done so it is better not to allow your To Do list to dictate how you spend your time. When you schedule 'communications time' into your day you will automatically batch tasks like responding to parents' emails which will make you more efficient.
3. Help your future self. This can mean getting your photocopies done the day before, or eating, exercising and getting enough sleep.
4. They say "Use a timer. Set it at 25 minutes. Take a break every 5." I say, ensure you take a toilet break and eat a snack at morning break, then try to get 5 minutes of fresh air at lunch on your own somewhere, ideally. But definitely use that timer when writing reports.
5. Schedule your week into Focus days, Buffer Days and Rest Days, or for teachers, focus days with a buffer evening or two and AT LEAST ONE rest day. And crucially STOP when you said you would stop. The work will never be done. You cannot get ahead of yourself by working late tonight. See point 3.
Ms Mae from One Fab Teacher shares her own cautionary tale about trying to get to the end of the work load and gives some great tips.
6. Minutes are valuable (I need to remember this when the temptation strikes to go and hang out in another teacher's classroom after school!). Think about ways you can make common tasks quicker. For example, if you are slow at typing reports - try 10fastfingers.com to improve your typing speed or using a phrase bank. A friend, who I admire for being able to teach, socialise and have time for numerous hobbies, told me that he cut his marking time dramatically by using codes and then gets the students to use the codes to write out their own objectives. Like Miss Mae he also said he never takes marking home "to do in front of the TV."
Teachers with good work life balance, like my friend, often follow the philosophy found in The Lazy Teacher's Handbook by Jim Smith. Sometimes we do too much for our students when we could be giving them agency. If you are interested in helping your students while getting them to take some of your workload then this is the book for you.
Finally I paraphrase the wise words of Jacklin et al, from Beginning Primary Teaching.
Cut corners whenever you can if it will not reduce the quality of your teaching.
So there you are. It was in a book. You have official permission.
So you've decided to do a PGCE? Good for you! It's a noble cause and you whatever your experience level you are going to learn a lot!
Before I started my PGCE this year I was nervous about studying again after a ten year break and so I searched for tips from people who had already done their PGCE. Most of the advice can be summed up as follows:
Look after yourself. Get plenty of sleep. Eat well. Exercise.
Buy plenty of stationary, including an academic diary and ring binders.
Don't worry if you take forever to plan lessons at the beginning. You will get faster.
When you enter the classroom, be confident and fake it 'til you make it.
Collect lots of evidence of students' work.
This is all undoubtedly good advice, with limitations on the third point (let's be honest, writing a great formal lesson plan and a thorough reflection afterward takes time, full stop) but I think I can add a few things.
Academic Reading and Writing
Firstly, there is a lot of reading to do so improve your note taking. I learnt and used the Cornell method. You can watch a tutorial below. I don't know how I got through my BA without this now.
My top tip is to add the page numbers in that left hand column along with key words and ideas, because it will make essay writing so much quicker when you need to cite something.
Secondly, there will be other students who have already read all the texts before starting the course (How?! When?!). Don't feel guilty or behind like I did. I soon found out that if you read the texts before they are recommended, without context and recommended page numbers and chapters you'll be missing key information for your understanding and have to go back and read it again anyway.
Thirdly, when you read texts think critically. For good grades at Post Grad level it's not enough to cite sources. You need to consider their argument, their evidence and its limitations and think about the significance of it as well as putting it all into the context of what else has been written on the topic. I'm still working on this.
Fourthly, plan every paragraph of each section before writing because you'll be so much quicker if you do. You've heard that before, I know. For some reason I still waited to be over 30 before following that advice so it seems worth repeating.
Academic Research
I think I was most nervous about this element of the course but in the end it worked out alright because the University knows that you have probably never carried out academic research in the classroom before and they are going to provide you with plenty of guidance. Therefore:
read instructions carefully;
choose a model of research that realistically fits with the little amount of time you will have for collecting data;
make your data easy to process (take legible notes and tally charts and you will thank yourself later);
narrow your topic of research down as far as you think you can get away with;
read the feedback on your proposal carefully and double check if you didn't quite understand any of the points (I misinterpreted some of my feedback and needlessly made life harder for myself); and
don't do a half-hearted literature review before starting the research. Be clear about the themes and arguments of your sources before getting started on Action Research especially.
The Teaching Practice
Actually, I still haven't finished mine because of the school closures but I still have some advice because I know it's the thing that new teachers worry about the most. I have plenty of classroom experience but I was still horribly nervous before my first observed lessons.
The thing about teaching is that it is impossible to get it right all the time and "right" is subjective anyway so accept that you will make many mistakes, but as long as you are learning from them that's OK.
For this reason jump in at the deep end. Do the thing that you are scared of the most during the first days of the first week. In my case it was an observed Grade 6 Maths lesson. I did it with clammy, trembling hands and a dry mouth. We all survived and afterwards observations felt much less scary.
You mentor will be often really busy so find other teachers who can answer some of your many questions (they won't mind, most teachers love to give advice) and give your mentor a break sometimes from your neediness. You will also get a lot more ideas and view points as well.
Finally, a few words on managing behaviour, because I know that is something many new teachers shed tears/lose sleep over (I certainly used to but I had no one to mentor me!). Many excellent books have been written on the topic and I particularly like Doug Lemov's and Bill Rogers' ideas. I wish I had known the following when I started:
You can plan what you could say if a student doesn't follow directions or refuses to work. Plan what you would do even in that worst nightmare situation (a student starts throwing chairs, say). Keep some consequences for regular misdemeanours up your sleeve and use them. This way you will feel more prepared and more confident;
Treat students as you would wish to be treated. Don't take it personally and don't get personal. Always give the students the benefit of the doubt. Focus on the behaviour ("It's an inappropriate time"), instead of the student ("Do you ever listen?"). If you allow the student to keep their dignity intact with a calm whispered or private correction they are much less likely to challenge you and much more likely to respect you;
The only person you can control is yourself, so stay calm. If that means addressing something later because you are too worked up now, so be it. If you are losing your calm it's because you left it too late. You need to address the behaviours that drive you mad much earlier next time;
Be clear about your expectations. E.g. when students wander around the classroom it really irritates me, but some other teachers don't mind it. Students aren't mind readers so tell them explicitly exactly what you want to see; and
Keep them busy and make it fun whenever you can.
Good luck!
Ps. Maybe warn your friends and family before you start your Teaching Practice that you are about to disappear and will resurface again in 6 weeks.
Here's a little post to explain some of the ways this blog will be changing as my role changes. Up until now this blog has been a way for me to file and share my lesson and unit ideas for teaching English to ESL learners through the medium of storytelling. That part won't change but I will be posting some other kind of content too as I'll increasingly be teaching STEM subjects at Primary level in addition to English at preschool and Primary.
This past academic year has been full of new challenges as I have been studying for a PGCE in the middle of the pandemic. I've had a lot of time to go ahead and do all that extra reading that I've always wanted to do and now I'm excited to have lots of new ideas to try out when schools reopen here in Italy, hopefully, in September.
Over the next few weeks I'll be summarising what I've read (I have four notebooks to go through!) and sharing it with you here. Over the next months I hope to be sharing some books that are suitable for primary ESL learners but which can also be linked to cross curricular topics and activities.
If that sounds interesting, keep popping by. Even if it doesn't, don't worry the rest of the content is staying so you can still keep pinning those other ideas :)
This lesson is designed with teaching the parts of animals in mind. It would be good as an ESL lesson but probably even better if used in conjunction with a unit on animal classification. Children love saying "No, no, no!" along with the book and the author and illustrator are the same as the fabulous Gruffalo stories.
Topic: A butterfly tries to help a little monkey find its mum but they meet many different animals along the way before they find her. Age: 4 -7 will benefit the most from the lesson plan but younger children would certainly enjoy it because of it's family setting. Key Vocabulary: The following words are most useful if leading onto a discussion about animal kingdoms and classification: tail, wings, beak, tusks, trunk, claws, feathers, hairy or furry, slimy, a nest of eggs.
Procedure:
I would start with something to pique the children's interest and get them guessing what animal the story might be about. It could be as simple as this:
Cardboard Keyhole Cutout
Next explain that today we will be learning about different types of animals and that there are some important words that we need to know in order to understand the story. Using flashcards drill the pronunciation and come up with some actions together to represent the words. Play some flashcard games until children are comfortable saying and understand most of the words.
Own Made Flashcards
Read the story and elicit the words from the flashcards as you go.
Do a table-time extension to consolidate the learning if you have time.
Repeat the story on different days, with different extensions to review the vocabulary. You can discuss how you know if each animal is a mammal, reptile, bird, fish etc... if you are tying this story into animal classification.
Extensions: If you have an interactive whiteboard or a large computer screen there are some lovely games and resources on Sheppardsoftware.com for teaching animal classification. I have even used these with middle school students but they are suitable for Primary.
This video does a great job of teaching the difference between fur, hair, feathers, scales and skin.
This is a fun song asking children to guess whose is the tail and it's suitable for preschoolers too.
A great art activity is to get children to invent their own animals and label or describe them using the correct vocabulary. They can also do this collaboratively in threes by secretly drawing the head and neck, folding it back and passing it to a partner who draws the body and the tops of the legs and then folds it back and passes it on to another friend who secretly draws the legs and feet. When they unfold them you generally get a lot of laughs and children enjoy describing and coming up with names for their new animals.
