Beyond Good

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.

In this episode of the podcast Femi and Matt are joined by Amy Green -  an English teacher and head of English who has honed her craft in tough inner-city schools.Amy talks about using ‘silent and solo’ with knowledge recall questions to create powerful starts to English lessons, giving students more concrete structures for answering questions than the traditional PEE paragraphs, and how effective English teachers use pause points throughout lessons.  The trio discuss the importance of ‘reading the room’ and putting ‘concrete’ before ‘abstract’, touch on the use technology to help students read, the folly of trying to show progress in lessons, and the importance of having a school-wide culture for behaviour, as well as much more. 

In this episode Femi and Matt are again joined by guest Simon King as they explore the claim that the very best A-level teachers are also, in fact, the teachers achieving the best outcomes with bottom set Year 9, or middle-ability Year 7 students, for example.  Simon provides valuable insight into the differences and similarities between sixth-form teaching and the teaching of younger and less able students, and the trio try to articulate why the elements of teaching that make lessons go well lower down the school (expectations, explanations, differentiation, relationships and routines, for example) only serve to strengthen teaching as students move into Years 12 and 13.

In this episode Femi and Matt discuss lesson observations and lesson visits - the process Femi calls 'walking the shop floor'.  They touch on the bizarre phenomenon of teachers doing something other than 'business as usual' when being observed, the questionable practice of once-per-year observations or departmental reviews, feeding back after lesson visits and the importance of triangulation: looking at books and talking to students.They talk about 'the 3 Bs' and other heuristics (such as 'angle of lean' and 'speed of pen'), about 'closing the loop' (what leaders actually do with all the information they gather in order to improve outcomes for students), problems with whole-school approaches to CPD, alternatives to that model and ways to use departmental time more effectively.  They discuss why oversight for teaching and learning should lie with heads of department and the benefits of 'walking the shop floor' in other departments and other schools.