What They Don't Teach You During Teacher Training: Part 3 - Vulnerable Children

• Part 1: Time Management

• Part 2: Parents

• Part 3: Vulnerable Children 

• Part 4: Bullying 

• Part 5: Motivation 

• Part 6: Colleagues

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.

1. 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.
2. Be firm. Be fair. Be clear. Keep public corrections anonymous and use private corrections whenever you can. 
3. Use routines and make them visible.
4. Create a culture of tolerance and normalise making mistakes. Make it easy and OK to ask for help.
5. Help everybody feel like a valued member of the group. Give them jobs to do and let them feel useful. Laugh together.
6. Do not let the clock dictate the lesson. Work at the pace of the slowest.
7. During discussions to give children plenty of time to think and talk. Listen to them.
8. Build resilience and self-esteem. Praise wisely (see the post on motivation).
9. Teach emotions and empathy through cross curricular activities e.g. creative writing, positional drama, experiential play, team building games and classroom delivery and discussion.
10. 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.
11. 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:

1. What can we see?
2. What have we tried?
3. What do we know from parents and specialists.
4. What is the mental health message?
5. 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.

What They Don't Teach You During Teacher Training: Part 2 - Parents

• Part 1: Time Management

• Part 2: Parents

• Part 3: Vulnerable Children 

• Part 4: Bullying 

• Part 5: Colleagues

• Part 6: Motivation 

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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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.

What They Don't Teach You During Teacher Training: Part 1 - Time Management

• Part 1: Time Management

• Part 2: Parents

• Part 3: Helping Vulnerable Children 

• Part 4: Bullying

• Part 5: Colleagues 

• Part 6: Motivation

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.

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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?

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.

Update

Hello again!

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 :)