Keeping it 'Real'

As I write this, we are in the midst of making history changing decisions regarding the education of our children. The prime minister announced last Sunday that lockdown restrictions, placed on the UK in the wake of the pandemic, are to be relaxed and schools may be re-opening to children as early as June 1st.

Naturally this caused a lot of panic among parents, who are very worried about the safety of their children. At the time of the announcement deaths were still at over six hundred a day, and although reports suggest it is continuing to fall, the fear of a 'second wave' is not unfounded based on what has happened in other countries. It's the middle of May and June does seem too soon. The National Education Union have recommended a '5 Step Test' approach which has been backed by the
British Medical Association.

The wider consequences are not something we can ignore of course. Thousands of children are missing out on their education, parents are trying to provide this and work from home and a number  of these are not going to be equipped to do so, and of course if you are unable to work from home and you haven't been furloughed you probably have some financial issues by now, just to add to the stress. As an aside, I don't believe we should be calling it 'homeschooling' as this implies that it is an easy option to take 'school' into a home, and it is not. A school is a centre where learning takes place. 'Home-educating' sounds a much better description of what is actually taking place, it also should give a license to parents to educate their children in a way they see fit and can manage.

Learning from home has not been an easy transition. Despite the fact that schools have been investing in technology to support their teaching methods in school over the past twenty years, many of these packages are only completely accessible with teacher input. Work online can be readily acquired by anyone with access to a PC, laptop or tablet but without teacher instruction they might not be able to complete the work independently. Not only this, it's a very two-dimensional way for learning to presented and children begin to suffer from screen fatigue.

Children going back to school this week in Brisbane, Australia.

When I used to work in a secondary school I was sometimes 'playfully' ridiculed for my lack of willingness to incorporate technology into my maths coaching sessions. Having relearned maths myself as an adult, I had realised the importance of manipulating numbers on a sheet of paper or whiteboard to enable myself to understand a process. It also struck me that if the students were going to be sitting a pen and paper exam at the end, they should be equipped with all of the skills to be successful at this. It's true that programs have become more interactive as technology has advanced, however learning to use a protractor to measure an angle produces better results when using your actual hands and an actual protractor.

If like me you have been 'Zooming' left right and centre, you will probably be both marvelling at it's ability to connect you with people all over the world, but also at how many times it fails or you lose your connection - usually right at the point where you are just about to deliver the most pivotal words of the lesson. There have been some giggles this week, at the frozen faces, bad lip synching and those moments where you just can't quite get your point across through the screen, but we have adapted for the sake of the students - and glitchy input is better than none at all.

A Classroom in Athens, Greece

With very little notice, it was announced that schools would be 'closing' but teachers were expected to stay in school for the children of keyworkers. At a time when the whole of the UK was told to stay at home for their own safety,  I can only imagine what an incredibly stressful time this was for them. Having spoken to many parents on the subject of the consequences of cancelled GCSE and A-level exams, coming to terms with impact of this on their children's futures was something that had to be carefully navigated. The best advice I could give was to wait and see...

I am sure that the final decisions made around how to grade students was a tough one to make and there was no easy answer, nevertheless it will have left a whole swathe of students feeling cheated as they are ranked in order of how likely they would be to achieve their predicted grades. Although I suspect there were an equal amount who were delighted at the thought of no exams this summer and an extended summer holiday!

Secondary children should be in school, it's where they will get their best learning experiences with people who are trained to prepare them for the exams that come at the end of their school career and it's where their friends are, however I am not sure it is the best place for them right now. Although two months might seem like a long time, it has most likely been the most traumatic two months of their lives so being at home, with their families, where they feel safe is probably the best option right now. This isn't to ignore the children for whom home is not a safe place, but that is a separate issue for another blog.

Early Years Children Returning to School in France

As for primary children, I am not convinced that sending Reception and Year 1 children back to school before September will have any benefit to the children, apart from instilling routine and them being able to see their teacher and their friends again. As the primary education system becomes more target driven, this could be a great opportunity for younger children to take a break from that and re-discover learning through play and creativity. I feel it is unreasonable to expect children of this age to observe 'social distancing' and indeed this might be more detrimental to them emotionally. You can see your friend from a two metre distance, but you can't hold their hand or hug them. 

Of course we won't know the real impact of all of this on our children's mental health or their academic achievements for a while yet, but common sense tells me that our children are probably not in the best mental place to learn at this time. With too many unknowns to think about, the whole future of our society is uncertain and this is something we are waking up to every day. Apart from the fact that we don't really know how 'safe' it is for our children to return to school, we also don't know that they will actually be in a position to learn - so is it worth the risk?

The Playground at a School in France

And what about our school staff? They are real people with families of their own. On Monday a special school in Bristol was closed as it was reported that two of the teachers were diagnosed with Covid-19. There were 18 children at the school, so that's 18 families that have been affected and if any of the children are those of keyworkers then they will now be unable to carry out essential work. Add to this the 30 colleagues and their immediate families who will also need to go into quarantine - based on there being an average of three people in each family that's almost 150 people that have been impacted on, and possibly more.

And that is just 1 school...

Home Educating for Real People

I wasn't quite sure where to start with this post...

there are so many avenues I could take, however as the main idea I want to explore is how do we best support our young people at this time of crisis, I will start with the problem. Some of them are not coping well at all...and neither are some of their parents.

It has occurred to me, that children all over the world are currently witnessing the horror of their parent's apparent fear of something that they cannot control, and they need to keep them safe from. Since I heard from one of the families that I work with that one of them may be presenting with symptoms of Covid-19, I cancelled all of my tuition. I followed the guidance and self-isolated, waiting for signs but also aware that they may not develop and I could still be a carrier - it was the right thing to do.

This was one week before lockdown and the subsequent closing of schools to all but the vulnerable and children of keyworkers. My heart goes out to those individuals in this situation. I myself am in the fortunate position of not having to go out to work, I can work form home and take my tuition online. Although the latter has not really been compatible for many of the SEND students I support, it's still an option.

What my role seems to have adapted to is to offer pastoral support to some of these, and other students that are tutored through the company I work for. I have also been talking to a number of parents who have suddenly found themselves not only working from home everyday, but trying to take on the responsibility of home-educating their children whilst managing the usual life stuff - oh and trying to help prevent the spread of a little known virus that has halted society in its tracks all over the globe.

Now I don't pretend to be an expert on how to manage a situation like this, but in my twenty plus years in education I have learned these things by experience.

• Children are incredibly resilient. If you can reassure them, love them and make them feel safe they can manage stressful situations well. 
• It is also important that they are give the opportunity to express their emotions and these are validated however uncharacteristic their behaviours might be. Helping to understand their emotions can be very empowering.
• Keeping a routine is reassuring to children too. It may be necessary to establish a new routine, so drawing up a timetable and sticking it up somewhere prominent will provide them with some certainty again. 

The activities 'working from home' and 'home educating' might sound like they are inextricably linked, but they are not possible to do at the same time - even if you are a qualified teacher. Some parents are managing this by taking a relaxed approach and responding to their children's moods and immediate needs, however some parents will actually need their children to be occupied whilst they are trying to work.

When the schools closed with little notice and time to prepare, many children were sent home with homework packs which were then superseded by an online regime of timetabled lessons which the students need guidance to complete. It was too much for many children. Suddenly thrust into a world where the tablet screen is their constant companion, they are missing their friends, the park and the myriad of after-schools clubs they seem to attend these days.

One of the students that I support with his dyslexia, his social and emotional well-being, as well as academically, seems lost. Falling behind is not an option for him as he has both a competitive streak and low self-esteem - a worrying combination. He has supportive parents and teachers but the work he is getting is minimal and left to complete it himself, he does the bare minimum.

In our discussion this week, we have decided that it would be good to apply himself to expanding his knowledge as that actually might put him ahead of his peers - his slower processing means he generally needs more time to access information and then to record in it a way that suit his learning style. I hope that this will appeal to his competitive nature but that he will see how he can focus this on self-improvement and this will boost his self-esteem. He doesn't enjoy school, but likes rules and to know what is expected of him.

We are putting together a timetable of lessons for the morning, which addresses the lack of work for every lesson in the normal school day but still gives him much needed structure. As both his parents are working from home, it would be ideal if he could start to develop the skills to be able to work independently for the morning, seeking help at the end of the working day when his parents have time to focus on his school work with him.

Another family I have supported over the years reached crisis point today. The three children are constantly bickering and mum is trying to manage their education, which she has always placed a high value on, on top of that she is attempting to get to grips with a brand new job that she started just prior to 'lockdown.' The children were backwards and forwards into the room she was trying to work, she also mentioned how 'clingy' the youngest child was being and how this was upsetting her too - mum was overwhelmed with responsibility.

We talked about giving the oldest child responsibility for helping the younger ones manage their emotions, as it would help him to have more patience with them. She felt that they could manage a morning of 'school' if their dad was able to check in on them and reinforce their positive attitude to maintaining their learning. After a family lunch, the children would be allowed to choose their activities for the afternoon and any difficulties with their school work could be caught up with at the end of mum's working day. 

A timetable of when mum is working, and should only be interrupted if there was an emergency, combined with their 'school' timetable, should help them to understand the new routine quickly and take some of the pressure off mum. Afternoons off takes the pressure off everyone and provides the children with some balance. It won't work perfectly all the time but it will help to re-establish boundaries. And if the little one needs an 'emergency' cuddle, she knows she can sneak in and get one as long as she doesn't stop mum from working. 

There are some that are of the opinion that all of this home-educating is completely unnecessary and that children will catch up when they need to and one could argue that would be the case for most children. Also that the valuable time they are spending with the rest of their family and learning skills like baking and growing things are lessons that aren't ordinarily in the curriculum will enrich their lives and expand their skill set. 

Whatever individual parents feel is right for their children is what they should do, and if that involves muddling through schoolwork on Monday and Tuesday then a pyjama day in front of the TV on Wednesday, then so be it. We all need to get to the other side of this as whole people - whatever that takes.

DU

Teach the Way they Learn

It's been a while...

we are coming up to the busiest time for tuition and that has been keeping me a little bit busy, however I have been ruminating over many of the issues that are facing our young people in education so thought it might be time to get some of it out of my head and on paper.

This blog post focuses on the children we teach that have learning differences. I would use the more commonly known phrase, 'learning difficulties' but in my twenty plus years of working in education I have come to view the all encompassing SEND student title very differently. It strikes me that there is less of the 'difficulty to learn' in many cases, we are just not providing the right environments for them to thrive. Incidentally, I believe this could be said of most of our students at the moment.

I started out life in special education, as a highly committed teaching assistant. In the late 90s I was part of the structure of support in school that facilitated the success of inclusion. There was time dedicated to preparing and resourcing personalised programmes of study which a student could access, that would underpin the work that their main teacher was doing with them in the classroom. it was about collaboration, team teaching and a multi-agency approach to supporting children who could not access the curriculum as well as their peers, which in turn helped them cope better in class. This is mainly because back then schools had funding for this.

Fast forward to 2020, much of this funding has disappeared and children with significant learning needs are no longer getting the support they need. This is having a disastrous effect on student's progress and self-esteem. It is more than likely one of the contributing factors to the decline in behaviour in schools, and more worryingly their mental health is suffering as a result.

Students with dyslexic brains, which are now believed to be as many as 20% of the UK population, can possess some of the most technically brilliant minds but are often labelled underachievers because of the way they need information to be presented before they can access it. Autistic students can quite easily struggle with sensory overload in a classroom setting, but if allowed to absorb information in calm environment they can also learn at the same rate or exceed the progress of their peers.

I currently have a case load of ten students, all of them possessing some form of learning difference, but not one of them is incapable of achieving academically - and yet they are all 'underachieving' in school. Now as an ex-class teacher myself, I am not suggesting that class teachers are at fault here, I am more than aware of classroom constraints. Both teachers and students need more support in schools, they are both being failed.

It is true that some teachers are better equipped to teach students with a diverse range of needs, but not all - this is something that should perhaps be addressed at initial teacher training level. I was lucky. By the time I had qualified as a primary school teacher, I had spend eight years undergoing various specialist training as a TA and given responsibility for the progress of a number of students in the school. I learned a lot about matching education to children's individual needs and how to support them so they could work more independently in the classroom. I understand the frustration of standing in front of a class of thirty students, knowing that you are not going to reach all of them.

As a specialist home tutor, I spend the bulk of my time assessing the areas that the students are struggling with and finding ways to address this. For this I am afforded the luxury of  'time' and not having to stick rigidly to a curriculum or traditional teaching methods - my creative approach to teaching comes in handy here, although can get a few funny looks when I am singing maths formulae at the top of my voice! I aim to provide my tutees with strategies to overcome the obstacles that they experience in class, but also foster self-belief. They CAN achieve, because I am teaching them the way they learn.

It is sad that currently only children with parents who can afford to pay for a tutor will get this extra support. Although there are some students who do manage to secure funding, this is extremely rare though and is often used as a last resort when the child's resilience is at an all time low and they refuse to attend school. In an ideal world we would teach in a way that allows all students to access the lesson, take a multisensory approach that stimulates young minds, instead we appear to have resorted to incessant information dumping that overwhelms them. Teachers are under so much pressure to cover an often unrealistic amount of content.

I love my job. It's a privilege to work with the young people that I support. Tutoring neuro-diverse students is not without its challenges, and I don't have all the answers, but the rewards can be amazing! And they are amazing too.

DU

Mind Your Language

         

The language we use around young people of all ages is important to get right. From as young as eight months, children are picking up the words and phrases that adults use and assimilating them into their vocabulary. I am sure there are a more than a  few parents out there who can recall the first time they heard their two year-old calmly blurt out a swear word – usually somewhere in a public place.

However this isn’t really a piece about taking care not swear in the presence of young ears, although the title might well suggest this. I am thinking specifically of another kind of ‘bad language’ that we use around students that I believe we need to be mindful of.

In secondary schools up and down the UK, we are letting our students down with just two little words, ‘pass’ and ‘fail.’ Despite a robust grade system, that charts a student’s progress throughout their school years, the language that we are using to describe their progress itself fails to recognise the incremental achievements that students are making, and the effort they are putting in.

A student we worked with in school a few years ago, started Year 11 with a Grade 1 in maths and was already feeling like a failure due to years of being told that she was not ‘good at maths’ and working well behind her peers. Encouraged by a patient teacher and extra coaching sessions, this student was making steady progress by Christmas and achieved a Grade 2 in their mock exam.

Naturally she was pleased to have moved up a grade and this spurred her on to continue to try her best and work hard to achieve that all important door opener – a Grade 4. By the Easter mocks, she was performing significantly better in past papers and seemed to be edging closer and closer to the next grade, this gave her hope that she might reach a Grade 4 by the May exams.

Despite her achievements, she was disappointed by her final GCSE grade on opening her exam results in August. She told me that she had ‘failed miserably’ and was incredibly despondent. Although she did manage to secure a solid Grade 3, she could not see the two grades progress as an achievement and I believe this is partly because of the language she'd been exposed to. We say that anything less that a grade 4 is a fail and so that is how students see themselves.

Of course, I am not trying to negate the fact that there must be a national average for students to work towards and a standard set, I just wish that the system recognised the effort it took this student (and hundreds like her) to achieve the Grade 3. In actual fact many students know that this ‘average’ is really a Grade 5 and that they are still underachieving if they come out with a Grade 4.

Traditionally these students have to re-sit their GCSE until they ‘pass’ which prolongs the agony even longer and further slows down their progress. With maths in particular, the exam doesn’t necessary prove that an individual has good numeracy skills – there are many questions on the paper that they will never have to face in real life. However again, I fully recognise that a standard of numeracy needs to be reached.

Having now taught, coached, mentored and tutored numerous students over the years, I have witnessed first hand the black and white way we are responding to their achievements and the negative impact it is having on our young people. The numbers of students who have low self-esteem, anxiety and other mental health issues, is rising each year. I feel very strongly that we need to change the language we use around them. Of course a student knows if they need a certain grade that they have ‘failed’ if they did not achieve it, but is it really necessary to keep hammering it home? Who does that help in the long run? Certainly not the struggling student who is so worried about their performance in exams that is making them mentally and physically ill.

I have particular concerns about our students with any type of barrier to learning, including special educational needs, and am reminded of this famous quote;

I have the pleasure of knowing some incredibly talented people that this applies to, and they all have major confidence issues that have affected them their whole life due to how the education system mishandled them.

What is particularly worrying though, is that we are meeting children as young as six who already know that they are falling behind in the competitive classroom and Year 6’s who say that they have ‘failed’ their SATs if they get less than 100 on their tests. Over-testing is partially to blame I feel, but also I wonder if we are making them too aware, too young, of the levels they need to achieve. Has our keenness to promote independent learning caused the overburdening of young minds? Are we in danger of squeezing out all of their creativity by asking them to perform for us academically at regular intervals?

I am not suggesting for a minute that we go soft on our students, pushing them to foster a good work ethic and understanding the competitive nature of the world is vital to them achieving success in later life. However, I am concerned with our approach to this. Telling a student that they need to ‘work hard and get good grades’ because it ‘increases their opportunities’ is fine but giving the impression that they ‘have one chance to ‘pass’ their GCSEs’ or their ‘life will be over’ is definitely not.

So what language should we be using? Well ‘pass’ and ‘fail’ have their place in education but we need to re-adopt the shades of grey if we are to stop undermining our student's confidence. I don’t feel those words are appropriate at all in primary school and with secondary aged students they should be used where appropriate. I can’t see what the problem is with sticking to the number system we have recently adopted in favour of the letters G – A/A* and avoiding the words ‘pass’ and ‘fail’ altogether.

It might just be semantics to some, but it also may make the difference between a student feeling as though they are working positively towards the next grade rather than feeling that they are a failure - I think that outcome alone might just be worth it.

         DU