Monday 20 March 2017

School Staff Wellbeing - Facing the Challenge - 19th May


Splashed over the media in recent months has been the challenging problem of staff retention in schools. The pressures on teachers at all levels have never been greater, with a multitude of responsibilities, stresses and time pressures. Their ability to simply teach and help children make progress has been hampered by the demands of data, inspections, and lack of resource. Ease Training, school service provider, has announced their first Wellbeing conference that will examine a number of aspects to help schools build the wellbeing of their staff and to offer practical resources to assist in this.
The conference will take place at Gloucestershire International School in Gloucester, Friday 19th May. This fantastic facility has lovely grounds, plenty of space and parking, and Ease Training will create an environment where staff can learn, relax and even enjoy the services of a Chocolatier. It is a serious event which will cover wellbeing from the basic physiological causes of stress, managing workload, mindset and morale, with the afternoon spent with interactive sessions offering ideas on how to improve wellbeing, to reduce stress and finally a session for the delegates themselves to experience first-hand some wellbeing techniques.
Ease Training look forward to providing an event that will be of value to the schools, as a contribution to improving morale in the education sector.
There is an early bird discount until the 31st of March. Full details can be found on our event page.
For further information please contact Richard Levinge on 01242 698809 or email Richard at richard@easetraining.co.uk.

Monday 23 January 2017

Different Language, Different Focus, Same Principles, by Shaw Goodwin of St Christopher's Primary School

Yesterday I sat in the school hall watching my infants taking part in a Yoga lesson.  I watched two boys, who show strong autistic traits, unrolling their yoga mats and having real concerns that the mats would not lie flat; they continued to curl upwards.  For the rest of the class this was not an issue, but for these boys, it was a real problem. 

Whilst I might not have predicted their exact reactions, their behaviour did not come as a surprise to me.  School staff are always watching and assessing how their children react to different stimuli.  Often the children’s responses are what we expect, particularly if we know the children well, but hopefully, as yesterday, we observe and learn something new.  One of the children pondered the problem and decided to flip over the mat.  Good problem solving young man! Maybe not earth shattering to many, but it clearly showed to me that the child had made significant progress in how he reacted and dealt with that challenge.

Despite all the recent changes to school curricula and methods of recording and reporting children’s achievement, the core skills of assessing where a child is in order to plot their next step of learning, has not changed. It remains that same focused ability to observe how a child reacts to learning opportunities.  So when asked to talk on the topic of Implementing Effective Assessment at a regional conference, I did question what I could share that fellow professionals might find useful. 

However, when reflecting on how we have implemented the ‘new’ curriculum and introduced a new tracking system, there have been some significant changes in how and what, we use the assessments for.

  •       Significantly more focus and granularity in recording what each child “can do” against each objective.
  • ·       The ability for Leaders in Learning to analyse and recognise strengths and weaknesses in the year group, class and school learning, has increased.
  • ·       Identifying what each child’s learning gaps are.
  • ·       Using summative assessments to support formative assessment.
  • ·       Gone has the end of term ‘assessment of attainment’ – that process Is now system driven. 


You won’t be surprised to hear that we don’t yet have a documented curriculum or set of objectives for yoga, but if we did he would now be working at 2 developing+, having made 1.5 steps of learning and a target for lying still for more than 15 seconds J.   He contributed positively to the Year group, SEN group and Boys Group outcomes, but this now gives me the headache that the Pupil Premium group has not made as much progress –  had I better start thinking of what intervention I need to put in place?

On a more serious note, I’m looking forward to sharing how we have approached all these changes and challenges; developing and moving our practice forward.  I’m also hopeful of finding some answers, from others, to areas we are still working on.

Wednesday 18 January 2017

No Dry Holes, by Mary Myatt



‘It's so easy to string together a bunch of platitudes and call them a mission statement. But what happens if you actually have a specific mission, a culture in mind, a manifesto for your actions?’

Seth Godin

BP finds oil in two out of three of its drilling explorations. That is three times higher than the industry standard. How do they do this? They came up with the slogan, ‘no dry holes’. Because they realised the waste of drilling in an adhoc way. This had been sustainable in the days of ‘Spindletop oil’ in the early 1900s when huge oil fields were first discovered in Texas, but this is not sustainable when wells were costing up to 40 million dollars to get working. The earlier theory had been, if we are successful in one in ten then that is fine. But with rising costs, strategy needed to be sharper.

So the mantra became ‘no dry holes’. What was the effect of this? It meant that geologists had to make a compelling case before ordering up a rig. Now the geologists at BP probably thought they were doing everything they could already, so what it needed was a shift in thinking. A commitment to doing fewer things in greater depth, literally. This is a tough discipline and it can feel counterintuitive particularly before the results are seen. The temptation is usually to do more of the same in the hope of different results.

How might ‘no dry holes’ translate elsewhere? What might a school look like which adopted this simplified strategy? What would the equivalent of ‘no dry holes’ look like in a school? Well, if we take the example of BP again, the first insight is to ask ‘what is the big piece of work which needs to be done here?’ What is the problem that needs to be addressed? In the oil industry it had been accepted that many attempts at digging wells were needed before reliable sources of oil were found. With rising costs, BP realised that it needed a vision which said, things could be different. So, what is the underlying ‘big, hairy goal’ in a school? In a primary school, it might be, every child a reader. In a secondary, it might be all students at 16 reaching a positive value added score in their GCSEs. What we pay attention to usually changes. Then, we turn it into something which everyone can relate to. Everyone, from adults, to children to school support staff, to the reception staff, canteen staff, cleaners, site staff. Everyone.

In a school which had historically found that some parents were reluctant to come in and meet teachers, the big goal might be translated into ‘everyone welcome’. Now, if everyone really is welcome, what does that mean? Are the receptionists welcoming towards everyone, even the awkward squad? If they are, this doesn't happen by accident. They in turn have been made to feel welcome by leaders of the school. They are appreciated for their work, often difficult, unsung work. And leaders do this by noticing, talking about it and thanking them for the great contribution they make to the school. Everyone appreciates being told they are doing a good job. So it means, that if they have been appreciated for what they have done in the past, they are likely to be open to conversations about how to make things even better.

This moves the agenda away from, how can I get away with the least possible, to how can I give my highest contribution? Because in this thought experiment, the big mantra has been ‘everybody welcome’. It is a phrase which everyone can use, can understand and where it is very clear whether it has happened, or not. It also shifts the focus from helpless to hopeful.

When we have committed to a big mantra, over time, it permeates our behaviour and our attitude to everything. However, it has to be deeply and truly meant and embraced. It is no good paying lip service to it, because lip service stays on the lips. It doesn't change anything. In the same way that ‘no dry holes’ was a phrase to drive all thinking about finding oil, so ‘everyone welcome’ would need to drive all thinking and behaviour within a school. And this is not necessarily easy, because it is one thing to welcome those we like, or those who are like us. But what about those who are not like us and who we don't necessarily like?

That is where the depth comes from. If we are working to these principles, then it has to go deep and embrace the tough stuff as well. And that is when the transformation takes place. And then to the classroom. What does it look like here, if we decide that ‘everyone is welcome’. It means that the teacher and adults working with children, are genuinely pleased to see the children. They talk about this and about how they are looking forward to working with them today. The talk about how all their contributions are welcome.

And they talk about what it means to be made to feel welcome. What it means to make someone else feel welcome. What the difference is between just saying the words and really meaning it. What happens when we are not made to feel welcome? What sort of work are we prepared to do when we feel we are not welcome? How does that compare with feeling welcome. What is the difference? Is it worth it? And if it is, how might we do more of it?

These are big, demanding pieces of work. But what they also have about them is simplicity. They are something which everyone can understand. It is very easy to see whether they are being acted on or not, very easy to check whether it is real. And above all, they have the power to make all of us feel hopeful, not helpless.


From Mary Myatt’s latest book ‘Hopeful Schools’