Beyond Good

In this episode Femi and Matt explore high quality science teaching with Rob Newman.  They discuss the importance of identifying and then observing established good teachers, having quality conversations about teaching, filtering the noise of ‘advice’ coming from all corners and crucially; ignoring the feedback that was not helpful.  Rob talks about where time is wasted in lessons and what good teachers do instead, the power of relentless routines, clarity of teacher talk – concise clear explanations / modelling, lots of practise time and time on task for students.  They discuss the ever present tension between time spent practising vs covering the curriculum and how good science departments develop their curriculum and lessons to best manage this, the features of a good science lesson – retrieval, practise, teacher circulating and supporting students and silent independent work.  Rob explains the difference between checking for listening and checking for understanding, and highlights key features of practicals and demonstrations - emphasising the need for teachers to be absolutely clear on what the purpose is for that practical.  The trio discuss text books, their utility, their lack of prevalence in English science departments, and the need for texts with a good volume of high quality questions for students to work through.

In this episode Matt and Femi discuss how they approach cover lessons.  They cover etiquette for leaving cover, running cover lessons in your own subject and running cover lessons outside of your specialism.  What emerges are a wide variety of useful tips and tricks that teachers can use to take the pain out of cover lessons and achieve better outcomes for all involved!

Femi and Matt are excited to be back after the summer break and kicking off season 2 with an interview with Phil Naylor.  Phil was the long-standing host of the most excellent Naylor’s Natter podcast and he has recently relinquished his seat behind the microphone in order to make time to pursue his writing and his work – he is a full time deputy head in blackpool.  His first book, also called Naylor’s natter, brings this wisdom to the page using a cleverly blended format whereby QR codes throughout the book can be scanned to go directly to related podcast episodes, thus allowing the listener in on the original interview.In this episode we discuss professional development: spending more time in subjects with subject leads leading training, utilising the expertise that is already in schools, building CPD time into the school day, performance management and the appraisal process, behaviour and relationships, behaviour as a curriculum, fake SLT, and having a vision as you move into leadership.  We discuss rules and routines – and what it means to live them as opposed to laminating them, Phil’s plans for his next book and much much more.As always we welcome your comments and questions: you can contact us through twitter - @beyondgoodpod.

In the final episode of season 1 of the podcast, Femi and Matt interview Patrick Ottley-O’Connor.  At the time of recording Patrick was just a few days into his retirement from a fascinating and diverse career in education spanning over 35 years, and including roles from classroom teacher all the way to head and CEO.  His experience encompasses primary, secondary and special educational settings as well as a whopping 21 Ofsted inspections!  Patrick was kind enough to share his experience of education starting in an era that predates the national curriculum, Ofsted and league tables right through to the current day.  In this conversation he also shares his wisdom around leadership, tackling underperformance, professional development, work life balance and well-being. 

This is part 2 of Matt and Femi's interview with Amelia, in which she gives a student perspective on school.  If you haven’t yet listened to the previous episode it is recommended that you start there.  In this episode the trio discuss meta-cognitive strategies, the nature of revision as an individualised process, resilience, fear of failure, making mistakes, paired work and partnering, how teachers help students when they are stuck (and how they sometimes don’t!)  Verbal and written feedback, the starts of lessons, PSHE lessons, the importance of passion from teachers, learning objectives, setting vs mixed ability, relationships and other topics. 

In this episode Matt and Femi speak to former pupil Amelia.  Although Amelia has just finished her A-levels, they mainly discuss secondary school, and are broadly inclusive of all subjects and not just maths.  As you will hear, Amelia is extremely qualified for this role – in addition to being incredibly intelligent, both her parents are in education and so she enjoys, and is well versed in, discussing school matters.  The discussion is presented in two parts, with the second featuring in Episode 21.In this episode they discuss the student view of attending an inner city school with some challenging student behaviours and a high rate of teacher turnover, some characteristics of good teachers, how the differing nature of various subjects lends them to be more or less engaging and more or less easily disrupted by poor behaviour, immediate feedback and the motivating effect of that, the emotional consequences of describing topics in terms of their GCSE grade or level of difficulty, and Amelia's experience of the More Able programme and how that was managed in lessons.

With thoughts inevitably turning to September and planning the return to the classroom, Femi and Matt discuss some of the key aims for the first few lessons of a new academic year and delve into the approaches one might use in order to achieve them.  In particular, thinking of the first week or two with a new group as being all about creating the classroom culture that you want for the rest of the year, and about training students to become very effective learners.  I.e. this period is about ‘learning to learn’ and the actual material, topics and concepts that are covered are less important than the lessons we are teaching students about learning behaviour, making a prompt and silent start to work, being engaged, being fully attentive, producing work of very high quality presentation, checking answers, and so on.Good teachers create effective learners through very deliberate actions, and most of that work takes place very early on in the year.  This is a subtle business because everything hinges on what you place the emphasis on in your classroom but the best teachers do not start the year with the emphasis on students getting the right answers, for example.  So at the heart of today's discussion is really 'what do you place the emphasis on?' and it may well pay to listen through that lens. 

In this episode of the podcast Matt and Femi speak with Sam Strickland.  Sam has had a long and interesting teaching career – he is currently the principal of Duston school where GCSE results have gone from the bottom 20% nationally to the top 20% under his tenure.  Sam is also the author of 3 fantastic books: education exposed, education exposed 2 and his latest work “The behaviour manual”.  In this interview Sam discusses visible leadership, data, teacher workload, centralised behaviour systems, the importance of a school’s mission, vision and values to drive the school improvement plan, implementing new initiatives in schools, staff training, CPD, pathways and performance management.  The trio also talk about big lectures, line-ups, SLT meetings, staff briefings, devolved directed time and much much more.  

On this episode of Beyond Good Matt and Femi talk to Sonia Gill - author of the books ‘Journey to outstanding’ and ‘successful difficult conversations in school’, the latter of which is the primary focus of this episode.Topics covered in this episode include attitudes towards difficult conversations, why we should have them and who loses out when we don’t, structuring the conversation, scripting the opening sentence, reframing, the two worlds technique, outcome vs solution and some other common mistakes along with other advice from Sonia for anyone who would like to have more effective difficult conversations. 

In this episode Femi and Matt pick up where they left off last week with the theme of taking on a new leadership role.  In a more discursive conversation than last time they cover the importance of getting out and about, introducing yourself to students and contacting parents, carefully planning initial team meetings, understanding SLT and working with and not against your line manager.  Femi gives some sound advice regarding talking about your previous achievements, colleague’s loyalty and inertia under a change of leadership and we discuss what superpowers both senior and middle leaders ought to cultivate for success.