4, 3, 2, 1 - The Incredible Five Point Scale

I was in a foul mood this morning.  I’d got it into my head that it was going to be a rainy Saturday so I stayed in bed too late only to then discover it was lovely and sunny and it felt like I’d wasted too much of the morning.  Then I was rude to a Jehova’s Witness, which isn’t like me, and I felt bad.  Then I made coffee with gone-off milk.  Throw in general tiredness, weird dreams and inconsiderate neighbours and by the time I left the flat, I was a ‘four’.

If you don’t know the five-point scale, a ‘four’ is close to meltdown.  I use it with my class of autistic boys to reflect on our feelings, learn more about emotions and develop strategies to manage them.  As its name suggests, it runs from one to five.  At ‘one’, we might feel relaxed, blissful, confident and at ease; we smile, laugh, chat, joke, play and it’s easy to focus on our work and learning.  At ‘five’, we might be depressed, distraught, incensed or aggressive; we shout, cry, hide, punch, kick, throw things and it’s impossible to do anything productive.

Every morning at school, we all share our five-point scale ‘score’ and describe our feelings, then throughout the day, we record our ‘score’ and reflect on our changing emotions.  We’re learning new, more nuanced vocabulary for them too and we talk about strategies for managing our emotions.  What does a ‘three’ look, sound and feel like?  What can you do when you’re a ‘three’, you don’t want to become a ‘four’ and you want to de-escalate to a ‘two’ or a ‘one’?  My own five-point scale is on the wall for my students to see.

I pretty much stormed out of the flat this morning after snapping, ‘It’s no good!  I’m just going out!’  It wasn’t until I caught myself shouting at myself in my otherwise empty car with that knotted feeling in my tummy that my own five-point scale kicked in.  Storming out of the flat without knowing where I was going to go was pretty irrational – a heat of the moment impulse.  However, my own five-point scale that I’ve shared with my class – drawn up in more rational moment – tells me what to do: I need to be by myself and it helps to go out for a walk.

So that’s what I did.  I live close to Hengistbury Head - a beautiful nature reserve in Bournemouth with the sea on one side and Christchurch Harbour on the other.  After about twenty minutes walking, I was a ‘three’.  Watching carefree young children play on their bikes and scooters helped.  The bright sunshine falling green through the leaves and the sound of the wind blowing through the trees helped.  The simple smiled greetings from strangers walking their cheerful dogs helped.  It all helped to put things in perspective – a concept, I thought, that it’s important I teach my class.

Above all, the wildlife, especially the birds, helped me.  I paused frequently, listening intently to an unrecognisable bird’s song; it’s fun trying to work out which tree it’s coming from and to find the elusive songster among the leaves and branches.  I watched a stonechat flit from gorse to gorse, egrets striding through a marshy field, a hungry hovering kestrel and gulls battling against the strong wind.  Bright-legged waders sifting through the water with their long bills were especially engaging.  I couldn’t work out what they were – probably redshanks but they looked greyer than the ones in my book.  I lost myself in watching them for about twenty minutes, oblivious to anything else around me.  Focusing so hard on this one thing, simply living in that particular moment without a thought for another was, I realised, a wonderful exercise in mindfulness.  Thus, I became a ‘two’.

I went home feeling much happier, maybe not quite a ‘one’ but not far off.  I think I’ll tell my class this story on Monday.  It will surprise them because they know I rarely reach four or five but perhaps it will also help them to understand that there’s no shame in reaching that stage if we can diminish the impact on those around us and we have strategies that help to manage our emotions.  It was a powerful reminder for me of the value of the five-point scale.  In a simple, numeric score, it sums up and communicates so much but it is also an effective tool for teaching young people about emotions, how to recognise and describe them, how to manage them and in doing so, how to protect their emotional wellbeing.

For more information about the five-point scale, I recommend ‘The Incredible 5-Point Scale: The Significantly Improved and Expanded Second Edition’ by Kari Dunn Buron and Mitzi Curtis.

Defending democracy - My first ever protest

To be honest, it wasn’t much of a protest.  Fifty or so people, a smattering of Lib Dem conference delegates and a few dogs gathered in the sunshine around half a dozen fluttering EU flags.  There were a few feeble chants of ‘This is what democracy looks like!’  Three or four speakers made rambling speeches.  And the ‘march’ through the town centre gardens was more of an uncoordinated, leisurely stroll in the sunshine.

I nearly didn’t take part.  When I arrived, the turnout was so disappointing that I sat on a bench watching a few more late-comers arrive and contemplating a late breakfast somewhere instead.  This matters though, I realised – perhaps more than anything else I’ve ever believed in – and I want to stand up and be counted.  So I clapped as the speakers took their turns, admiring them for having the courage to take the mic when I wouldn’t, and I handed out ‘Brexit is breaking Britain’ leaflets as we ambled toward the seafront.  

I was nervous about joining my first ever protest – fearful of other people’s reaction, and that fear wasn’t entirely unfounded.  As we handed out leaflets, the anger, hostility and rudeness of some Leavers was shocking – all older people, shouting, pointing, swearing, jabbing their middle fingers.  Scarily, it wasn’t difficult to imagine these confrontations becoming violent.

I understand the frustration of those finger-jabbing Leavers who were so angry at our protest yesterday.  They have been massively let down.  Three years on from the referendum, it’s patently obvious that Brexit isn’t as easy as they were told it would be.  It turned out that the politicians who won it had no plan for actually delivering on their promises and still have no plan.  And they were given a date for Brexit that has proved unachievable.

I posted on Facebook that I was taking part in my first ever protest to defend democracy.  How could I claim such a thing, I was asked, if I also advocated ignoring the result of the 2016 referendum.  I understand the point, which is why I want to respect that result.  I voted remain, I was desperately sorry to be in the minority, I’m cynical about people’s reasons for voting Leave, but a majority’s a majority; that’s British democracy for you.  If a good deal can be done with the EU that enables us to leave whilst maintaining a close, positive relationship with our European neighbours, I will sadly accept it.

There must be a deal, however.  Back in 2016, we were told it would be easy to get one; the possibility (wherever you put it on the probability scale) of terrible disruption and economic catastrophe resulting from a no-deal Brexit is too great a risk to take; and the view that we should just take the hit and get it over and done with ignores the fact that the hit could be dreadful, it still won’t be over and done with and the no doubt continually acrimonious debate that will still follow about our future relationship with the EU. 

In the meantime, whilst we await Boris’ miraculous deal, Parliament ought to be doing its job, debating the detail and holding the Government to account, and the rule of law must be upheld.  Boris’ decision to suspend Parliament, his attempt to silence opposition and talk among Ministers of ignoring the law is beyond contempt.  This is not a case of ‘Parliament versus the people’, as some say; I am the people as much as any Leaver is, and I demand to be represented.  Whilst I’m not, I’ll protest for the democracy I believe in and against this appalling assault on our values. 

Notre Dame: Has God moved out?

Since Notre Dame burned, there’s been much emphasis in the news on the officially secular nature of France’s society – analysing the significance of an eight-hundred year old church in what one commentator last night referred to as our ‘Godless society’.  Strangely, it was an expression that made me cringe a little; I’m not especially Godly myself, but I fear what God may have been replaced with in our world, and I’m sad for people with faith in God who it seems are written out of society with such a phrase.

Nonetheless, the blaze at Notre Dame has sparked reactions that get you thinking.  As of this morning, €800million have been raised for the reconstruction of Notre Dame, including enormous donations from wealthy families and their businesses – Gucci, Yves Saint Lauren, Louis Vuitton, L’Oreal and Total among them – and President Macron has boldly pledged that the great Cathedral will be rebuilt in time for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

In this secular, Godless world, what motivates this generosity?  Where does God feature in Macron’s determination and the desires of people all around the world to see that great monument to Him restored to its former glory?

I think I understand some of the emotions that swept around the world as the flames swept through Notre Dame, which have prompted this will to rebuild.  Firstly, there’s that connection to a special (even sacred) place that many will have felt.  Like me, millions have stood in front of those twin towers, gazed in awe at those beautiful stained-glass windows and sat in peaceful silence in that vast nave.  Notre Dame is a place where it feels you can reach out and touch history, and maybe even touch the divine.  Even if you haven’t been there, you know of somewhere special – even spiritual – that it would be devastating to lose.  When these places are gutted by fire, we are all gutted.

Then there’s something elemental and timeless about fire that plays to all the fears that permanently lurk at the back of our minds.  It starts so easily with that one spark and spreads so quickly, out of our control.  It burns so fiercely and indiscriminately, destroying just about everything in its path.  There’s a reason hell is a place of fire and brimstone: fire can seem evil; we fear it more than almost anything.

On Tuesday night, when almost all hope had been lost, the fire at Notre Dame was beaten; evil was defeated.  Fear and despair were replaced with good old Christian feelings of triumph, hope and rejoicing.  The ancient walls of Notre Dame stood strong – an enduring symbol of hope and resilience and, apparently, the strength of French (and even European) culture, faith and society.  It’s no wonder that we all want to see the cathedral rebuilt, phoenix-like.

These same sentiments would almost certainly have played out similarly had Notre Dame been ravaged by fire in any of its nine centuries.  But there would have been another dimension to them: the God dimension.  Had Notre Dame burned in Holy Week a few hundred years ago, a God-fearing society would less have launched an inquiry into how it started as questioned why.  What had they done to provoke such divine retribution?  And their determination to rebuild would have been to the glory of God – the same motivation that sent great cathedrals soaring skyward a millennium ago.

As much as I too want to see Notre Dame rebuilt, there is today something odd about a proudly secular government of a liberal, multi-cultural society pledging to rebuild a grand house of God.  Does this imply that France is actually less secular than we thought or that Notre Dame is these days less a place of God?  Has he moved out?

What too of those benefactors who will help fund the cathedral’s reconstruction?  Once upon a time, they may have believed such generosity to the Church booked them an eventual one-way ticket to paradise.  Is it too cynical to wonder what they think they are buying today?  Validation in the court of public opinion, perhaps.  And how comfortable ought we and the Church be with oil companies and fashion houses funding holy endeavour?  (If that’s what it is.)   I don’t know about the morality of these donations but post-Sackler and once the embers of the Notre Dame fire have died down, it surely won’t be long before someone questions it.

Finally, to use a somewhat hackneyed Christian question, too often asked in school assemblies: What would Jesus do?  Specifically, I wonder what Jesus would do if he suddenly found himself with nigh-on a billion Euros.  It seems quite a pertinent question to ask in Holy Week.  We are told he said, ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy … but store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven.’  (And for ‘moth and rust’, we could as easily read ‘fire’.)  I wonder then, would he want that billion Euros spent on building a great monument to himself or would he want it spent on refugee children like he himself had been, clothing the poor, healing the sick, feeding the hungry and bringing hope to the lonely?  

God knows what the answers to all these questions might be.  Throughout time though, people of all faiths would have seen a calamity like the great fire of Notre Dame as a sort of test.  At this time of year especially, Christians today, sharing faith with those who first built all our ancient churches, must surely see the significance of the fire in the asking of those questions.

Probably like most people of faith in God and of no faith, I want to see a billion Euros spent on rebuilding Notre Dame and at least another billion spent on the poor, homeless, starving, sick and needy this Easter – a practical renewal of ideals you might call Christian, if you like.  I’d like to see Notre Dame restored not only as a magnificent testimony to what can be built in stone but as a shining beacon of what humanity can achieve.

Could I have been a Nazi?

I like a book that gets me thinking and ‘Alone in Berlin’ certainly got me thinking.  ‘Could I have been a Nazi?’ I wondered.

It is Hans Fallada’s brilliantly told tale of Otto and Anna Quangel’s small act of resistance against Hitler’s regime in World War Two Berlin.  His portrayal of Berlin society at that time is terrifying: neighbours spying on neighbours, eager to ingratiate themselves with the Nazi authorities; arrogant young Nazi up-starts indoctrinated in the right of Hitler’s cause; and the ever-present threat of incarceration, torture and murder at the cruel, sadistic and mad hands of the Gestapo.

Into this frightening world step the Quangels and a handful of others intent on resisting the Nazi regime in their own small ways, and for the sake of their integrity more than with any real hope of bringing about the collapse of the Reich.  In fact, the Quangels know from the beginning that they will likely be caught and killed.  Like most of the other resistors in the story, their efforts are tragically futile, except that – as Otto’s cellmate, Reichardt notes near the end – they could hold their heads high, knowing they had maintained their decency until the end.  Hitler’s henchmen could strip them of everything, but not their honour.

Remarkably, there is truth to the Quangels’ story.  There really was a couple in war-torn Berlin who went to their deaths for writing and distributing subversive postcards.  It’s the courage that took that I find remarkable.  Like Fallada’s Quangels, the Hampels surely knew that the odds were stacked against them – every postcard risked their lives – yet this ordinary couple persisted in their far-from-ordinary defiance.  It’s this that got me wondering what I would have done.

Had I lived in terror-ridden Berlin, knowing as I surely would have that I was being watched and listened to and that the slightest utterance against the regime could take me to the Alexanderplatz basement and from there to a concentration camp or the Plotenzee guillotine, I think I may not have had the courage to write one postcard, let alone hundreds.  Moreover, if I’d found one of the postcards, a cowardly shudder may have gone up my spine and maybe I would have handed it in to the Police – an accomplice to the case against the Hampels or the Quangels.

It’s too easy to read a story like ‘Alone in Berlin’ and picture yourself as the brave hero, striking out against authoritarian brutality.  Of course, the reality is that the Third Reich rose because people like me stood meekly by or were easily seduced by power or couldn’t resist the security of Nazi Party membership.  How frighteningly easy it must have actually been to become a Baldur Persicke, an Inspector Escheriche or an Obergruppenfuhrer Prall.

Thank God I never lived through anything so awful, and please God, I’ll never be tested in that way.  Just as it’s too easy to imagine myself as a resistance hero, I fear it’s too easy to imagine that darkness couldn’t descend again.

There’s something a little chilling about the way our post-war rights are often spoken of as taken for granted.  Are we so blasé about them that we could even turn a blind eye as they are set aside?  It occurred to me as I read ‘Alone in Berlin’ that those rights enshrined in the UN Declaration and protected by such things as the UN itself, NATO and the European Union are all post-war constructs, forged while the horrors of that war were still raw in people’s memories.  They are not old and might not be as embedded as we think.  In many of our prosperous, western, liberal democracies, they have not been seriously tested, yet minority groups can still be marginalised, vilified, discriminated against, oppressed and abused.  (Suddenly, we find ourselves seriously asking what is more British: to respect Muslim women and their choice of what to wear or to laugh off crass jokes about them looking like letterboxes and bank robbers.)  Where our rights have been tested elsewhere in the world – be it Palestine, Syria, Rwanda, Bosnia or China – they have been found wanting.  Many people don’t deploy their democratic rights, me included – there have been times I haven’t voted, I deplore injustice and I’ll occasionally write about my concerns to my Member of Parliament or someone, but I’ve never taken part in a serious protest.

Take LGBT+ rights as an example.  Towns the length and breadth of the country have a Pride festival and, whilst they’re colourful, fluffy, glittered-up and fun, thousands of people join in.  Even now though, like the majority of those taking part, you’ll only find me cheering from the sidelines, not proudly marching with my brothers and sisters.  I’ve long thought that the tolerance we celebrate in Pride month teeters on a knife-edge.  Latent homophobia (at best) remains rife – just look at the glittering, red-blooded world of football’s World Cup or England’s Premiership or Championship (and probably – by extension – many children’s leagues) where apparently, there are no gays and a rainbow flag would look decidedly out of place.  Scarily, I doubt it would take much for intolerance and hatred to take hold once more and if Pride marches were met with baton-wielding riot Police and snarling dogs instead of smiling, cheering, flag-waving crowds, how many people would march then?  Where would I be, I wonder?

With direct memories of the Second World War fading and with our links to it becoming ever-more distant and weak, populism is on the rise, extremists reach for the populists’ coat-tails, our rights seem to be questioned more and more and the mechanisms designed to protect them are under threat, whether that’s from Trump, Brexit, Europe’s far-right or Putin.  Are we blindly stumbling into darkness once again?  Where would I stand as it falls?  Would I slink into the shadows, cowardly and complicit, or could I find the courage to confront it like a Quangel, maintaining my decency until the end?

Proud to be a common-sense zombie!

I’m not sure how I feel about some of the to and fro that takes place on Twitter – the replies that turn into lengthy ‘chats’ or debates.  On one hand, it can be quite stimulating; on the other, it feels like there should be better things to do!  This afternoon’s was certainly thought-provoking and at least I was outdoors in the sunshine and the England match had finished.

I’d commented on a piece written for TES (‘Are you teaching zombie lessons?’).  The author was positive about the debunking of various so-called myths of teaching and learning.  Wasn’t it a good thing, he wrote, that we no longer believed in brain-gym, promoting learning through self-discovery, 10% teacher-talk and differentiating tasks to take into account different learning styles, among other things.  And he cited all sorts of evidence to support his argument.  Teachers should not to be tethered to such disproved myths, he said; they should be allowed to fly.

I didn’t entirely disagree but I also didn’t realise we’d stopped believing in these so-called ‘zombie ideas’.  I’d give him brain-gym but there are times, I suggested, that a child’s own questions can be fascinating and the self-learning journey they embark upon – with our support – is extremely valuable and powerful, moreso than what we may have had planned for them.  For some children, they are more motivated by this than by enduring our lessons.  Specifying precisely 10% teacher-talk is errant nonsense but it represents a significant imperative to reduce teacher talk to a point where learners have the opportunity to process what has been said to them and undertake tasks that enable them to practise a skill or apply their learning and so that we don’t drone on and on whilst some children in front of us switch off.  The point was rightly made that good teacher-talk is what is important, but this surely goes hand-in-hand with limiting it.  There are plenty of teachers who like the sound of their own voice a little too much – me included!  It was important that someone pointed this out to me; I forget whether that was with the suggestion that I aim for a particular percentage, but it was good advice.

The debate really raged about learning styles.  What – many hours later - I discovered he meant was giving children a test to ascertain their preferred learning style and then differentiating tasks according to those preferences.  This surprised me; I’ve never been expected to do that and I’ve never known a teacher who has.  In turn, he was surprised, telling me it was policy in most schools in the mid-00s.  (I didn’t dare ask for his evidence of this ‘most schools’ claim!)   I and many of the teachers I know learnt about preferred learning styles, read about the tests that could be done and then adapted it to our own work.  I’ve never grouped children according to whether they had a visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learning preference but I have tried to ensure that lessons incorporate all three approaches and more besides.

It can be important, I argued, to understand what works best for a child and capitalise on their strengths – a good teacher wouldn’t waste time talking through a concept with a child who they know learns better by reading about it for himself.  For some, it’s critically important that we understand what works best for them and that we don’t bang our heads (and theirs) against brick walls insisting they do it differently.  Maybe some of the children excluded from mainstream education (SEN children among them) would have had more success if their teachers had better understood what worked for them.  This isn’t about simply writing off learners’ weaknesses – there should still be opportunities for them to develop a broad range of skills and experience learning in different ways – but I don’t think it’s a bad thing to play to a person’s strengths.  I’m no football pundit but I suspect Gareth Southgate has nurtured his new England heroes by both accepting and playing to their strengths whilst also working on their weaknesses.

I tried to explain that the particular phrase he had chosen for his article could be interpreted in different ways, which seemed self-evident given that I had interpreted it differently from the way he intended.  I suggested that we are duty-bound to take care in how we phrase and explain our points so that they are not misinterpreted.  He was having none of it.  It’s not open to interpretation and it never has been, he said – when we talk about adapting teaching according to learning styles, it means something specific and it’s a myth that has been irrevocably debunked by research.  As proof, he directed me to a Google search relating to this very point.  God knows how many results that search turned up but a quick glance actually showed various interpretations including that there may be three, four, seven or eight preferred learning styles, and the research he had cited himself in his article suggested there might be more than seventy.  I suspect that if I looked hard enough, there was evidence there in support of the very notion he was arguing against.  Look hard enough and there’s probably evidence lurking somewhere in support of encouraging children to discover knowledge for themselves and 10% teacher talk.  I’m sure I remember evidence being quoted a decade ago in support of brain-gym.

Take a broader view of those practices and how they have evolved over the past decade, of the different ways they may have been interpreted and adapted over time and what they might really look like in different classrooms around the country now and there’s probably much good practice that has developed from them.  Dismiss them all outright and there’s a risk of both throwing babies out with bath water and even of defending bad practice.  Research says I can forget about 10% teacher-talk so I all-too-easily slip back into bad habits and blather on endlessly and tiresomely whilst ignoring the fact that the children in front of me are falling asleep.  Evidence says learning through self-discovery is ineffective so I can dismiss children’s questions and miss wonderful chances to engage them in really meaningful learning through which they might even reveal their best work.  Learning styles are out the window so it’s okay for me to disregard what works best for my students and expect them to adapt to what works best for me.  This all does wonders for my workload but I’m a worse teacher for all that evidence and research and the children in my classes are worse-off. 

I honestly don’t know what to do with all the research and evidence that currently bombards us in the teaching profession.  ‘What goes around comes around’ has been said so often it has become a bit of a cliché so there’s an understandable desire to break that cycle and to use research and evidence to determine what works best, as is done in some other fields.  I value it myself.  I read and digest as much as I can and learn from it, it’s interesting and thought-provoking, it often represents the best of academia, it fuels our aspirations and it can be the basis of outstanding teaching and learning.  But when you’re swamped by it, it’s hard to see the wood for the trees and you’re left with niggling doubts that there may well be contradictory advice out there that you haven’t yet uncovered.  Furthermore, we’ve been told the research-backed theories and strategies we were sold at University or earlier in our careers (they weren’t all mere whims) were actually just myths and to ignore them.  How then am I to know that their replacements today won’t go the same way in another five or ten years?  And I’m unnerved by the unquestioning, unbudging zealotry of some teachers armed with their supposedly indisputable evidence who, it feels, we shouldn’t dare to question.

For me, one of the best, most exciting and most motivating things about our profession is that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all model – I don’t think anyone will ever write the definitive teachers’ guide to teaching and learning.  (I don’t worry about AI ever taking over my job, by the way!)  Learners come in all shapes and sizes; what works for one young person doesn’t work for another; sometimes it seems that what broadly worked for one cohort doesn’t work for the next.  We’re always adapting what we teach and the ways we do it.  Ironically, this fascination with the different ways teachers are successful is the reason I embroil myself in infuriating debates on Twitter!

Research and evidence contributes enormously to improving teaching and learning but please let’s not become slaves to it.  Please let’s keep open minds, respect and show interest in each other’s good practice and points of view, and allow space for professional common sense in the classroom. 

How Snow Days help put our crazy world into perspective

There’s a lot to be said for an unexpected day away from the hectic routine of the classroom.  I’ve been able to get creative with lesson planning, turn ideas that I don’t usually have time for into some sort of reality, catch up with marking and indulge in some trashy daytime television.  Above all though, there’s been time and space to think about things, and I got to thinking about the Snow Day itself.

I don’t have much time for those who roll their eyes and moan about school closures in bad weather.  I could rehearse all the arguments about the safety of children and school staff and the awfulness and mayhem of closing a school partway through a day, to say nothing of the stress caused to children and families of doing so, but I think there’s also another well-being case to be made.

There was a feature on the radio yesterday about Headteachers banning children from playing snowballs or even touching the snow.  Apparently, it’s far too dangerous, yet we routinely put several hundred children on a playground together with minimum supervision and throw a few footballs, beanbags and skipping ropes into the mix for good measure!  I’m sure I’m not alone though in thinking this is also really sad.

As I ventured out into the snow this afternoon, I couldn’t help smiling broadly and feeling simply joyous.  I loved the feeling of the freshly fallen snow under my feet and that scrunching sound that you only get with snow underfoot.  I was utterly transfixed by the lightness of the swirling snowflakes.  I played with the mystery of where the path ended and the grass verge began.  I tried to make sense of that strange quiet and calm that only snow brings.  I was on my own but I was aching to play snowballs and build a snowman!

It occurred to me that there is something simply natural and instinctive about wanting to play in the snow – even for some of us grown-ups.  Yes, this has a lot to do with the vagaries of British weather – we don’t often see snow like today’s – but for me, they’re not something to complain about but to celebrate, and all the more reason to make the most of the occasional Snow Day.  Snow isn’t for everyone and there will be children who would rather stay indoors, but I think it’s plain mean to ban everyone from a snowball fight, let alone even touching the snow.  In fact, based on my own experience today and watching children playing snowballs and sledging, I think it could be argued that – so long as we wrap up warm – snow can be good for our emotional well-being, whereas banning games in the snow, when it’s all children want, probably makes them pretty miserable, running counter to their emotional well-being.

I’d go even further.  I shocked a colleague once when I sympathised with parents who kept their children away from school to play in the snow; I would do the same, I told her.  Too many families are torn apart either permanently or by their manic schedules and the pressures of mum and dad’s work, so I think it’s wonderful that snow can bring families together and give them a reason to just play and be silly.  I’m certain the brief escape from whatever pressures and anxieties children experience either at home or at school can only be good for them. 

This doesn’t mean that Snow Days make snowflakes of children.  It just means that we should allow children to be children – to play and have fun and be silly.  And all the better if they do that with their brothers and sisters and their mums and dads.  I don’t believe that a day or two away from school is the end of the world or that it will have dire consequences for children’s futures and the future of the country.  If we think a Snow Day or two is going to have a terrible impact on SATs results or children’s outcomes or the reputation of our schools, we’ve got something dreadfully wrong with the bigger picture.  I’m no economist (only an E at A’ level) but I find it hard to believe that business isn’t resilient enough to cope with parents needing a day off to care for their children or that the economy won’t recover.  And it’s pretty sad if the inconvenience for parents of taking a day off work to spend with their children is such an awful proposition.

I think a Snow Day might just help to put our crazy world into some perspective.

Sucked In

Last night, I got sucked into a Twitter debate about the Government’s new times-tables tests for children in year four.  I don’t have a massive objection to a five-minute on-screen test but I question its necessity.  I was surprised and disappointed by so many teachers’ enthusiasm for the announcement. 

On Twitter, secondary teachers were decrying their intakes for not having quick and easy recall of times-tables facts and pointing out the challenges children then have in studying the key stage three and four curriculums.  This is a fair point, and one to which, I know, many year six teachers will relate, having prepared eleven-year-olds with poor knowledge of basic number facts for their SATs.  Rightly, there is consensus that children should know their times-tables. 

My surprise is because a test, in itself, is not a silver bullet that will suddenly make children better at learning their times-tables and I thought this was something that teachers everywhere would agree upon.  That will continue to depend on the quality of teaching, assessment and learning.  Like primary teachers everywhere, I know the importance of times-tables and have devoted many hours with every class I have ever taught to teaching and testing them in all sorts of ways.  I reckon there are plenty of children who will remember taking home the ‘Mr Parker’s Times-Tables Challenge’ trophy!  I have also devoted many hours to beating my head against a wall over a hardcore for whom nothing seemed to work.  Rather than pile more pressure onto teachers in the form of another test, I would rather there was investment in understanding better why some children struggle to learn their times-tables, what teaching strategies are most effective and in resources to support top-quality teaching.  And if secondary colleagues know how to do it, I wish they would tell us!

Some people believe that it is only with a standardised, national test imposed by Government that teachers will really know which children know their times-tables and which do not.  Really?!  As I posted on Twitter myself, either a child knows her times-tables or she doesn’t and seriously, any teacher who can’t assess this and doesn’t know it probably ought to be for the high jump.

I suppose Nick Gibb has a point when he says that the Phonics Check had the effect of improving children’s learning of phonics by forcing it to the top of schools’ priorities and focusing attention, training and resources on the issue.  (Incidentally, he also says that a lot of schools are doing a good job of teaching times-tables begging the question of what those schools are going to gain from his test and, despite his assurance that school-by-school results will not be published, possibly hinting at an agenda to identify those schools that are not doing so well.)  What I don’t understand is why we need him to do this for us.  The ‘new’ curriculum with its requirement for children in year four to know their times-tables isn’t that new anymore and we already knew there were children finishing primary school with poor times-tables recall.  Judging by the comments on Twitter yesterday, secondary teachers certainly knew about it.  So why haven’t we as a profession done something about it?  Why haven’t primary Headteachers and their staff effectively grasped the nettle? And if the Heads of Maths in secondary schools had so much to complain about, why haven’t they been more effective in working with their primary colleagues to address the issue?

My disappointment is because of the apparent division within the teaching profession – the doubt and lack of faith in each other and the criticism (at least implied) of each other’s teaching and assessment skills.  We ought to be better at supporting each other and at standing up for our professionalism.  Assessment is one of the pillars of teaching but whenever we call for another test – whenever we say we need one to check our own assessments – we imply, at best, our lack of confidence in our own assessment and, at worst, our inability to assess accurately.  When we welcome a test as a means of driving up children’s outcomes, we express doubt in each other’s aspirations and goals for children and in each other’s teaching abilities and we reveal a lack of understanding of the pressures on our colleagues.  When we defer to someone else’s test, we allow that someone else to undermine our professionalism and set the agenda. 

Perhaps that is a large part of the problem: we’ve allowed Government and its agencies to continue setting the agenda for so long that we’ve become divided, it’s become hard to reclaim the agenda for ourselves, we’ve lost the confidence to do so and we’re so busy dancing to someone else’s tune that we don’t have time to compose our own.