Beyond Good

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.  

With the summer nearly upon us, many colleagues will be turning their attention from teaching students towards planning and organising for the next academic year.  That will especially be the case for anyone who has taken on a role with increased responsibility for next year, whether within their current school, or pastures new, and so in this episode Femi and Matt reflect on what that process is like and each give their top tips for those new to middle leadership.  Some of this advice has been hard won, and both would agree that their younger selves would have found these pointers valuable!  Whether or not you are taking on a new role in September, you should find something of value and interest here, and remember that you can send any questions or comments to @BeyondGoodPod.

In this episode Femi and Matt dive into assessment – specifically how they use short but frequent class tests to inform planning and teaching, and to maximally support student progress.   They compare their different approaches and see how these arise from having slightly different objectives.  They discuss some guiding principles of testing – what they consider to be good and bad practise, including a few words on question level analysis, debate the pros and cons of teacher marking vs self-checking, and deliberate on the extent to which students making corrections or copying down the correct method actually translates into sustained improvement in the absence of further extended practise.  Finally they also touch on summative assessments and share their views on set changes.

In this episode Matt and Femi chat to pastoral legend Helen Sydenham.  Helen is head of year at an inner city school and is known for her skill, tenacity and passion for working with students who often have particularly challenging circumstances and behaviours.  They talk about how Helen tackled an out of control year group that she took on, how she works with parents, managing parental meetings,  dealing with teachers who don’t always get it right, and what she thinks are the most important characteristics that teachers need if they are going to have a big positive impact on student’s lives.  Above all Helen is a champion for the young people she works with and her warmth and no-nonsense approach comes across from the outset and makes for an inspiring conversation.

In this episode of the podcast Femi and Matt explore the topic of ‘discussion in the classroom’.  They try to tease apart nuances such as the difference between pupils having to explain the work to each other because the teacher’s explanation was not good enough versus pupils engaged in a rich discussion that extends thinking from an existing strong foundation of knowledge.  They examine the pros and cons of classroom discussion along with possible traps and pitfalls, teachers asking for silence versus ‘silence just happens naturally’, and ‘casual classrooms’ and what this suggests about the level of challenge and the quality of learning.Towards the end Matt and Femi shift gears slightly to talk about the importance of students ‘learning to learn’ and discuss some ways to create the learning environment that you want in your classroom early on in September.