Show and Share

If I want to cheer myself up I go and watch some good teaching.
 
It’s a one of the perks of the job and I have the whole curriculum to choose from.
 
Not that teaching is easy. I still say that the hardest job anybody does in   school is teaching a good lesson. And if you’re not a teacher just imagine what it’s like to plan, prepare and deliver 22 one hour lessons a week. And here’s another thing, the next time you feel annoyed by a gang of teenagers on the bus, Metro or in the shopping centre, just spare a thought for the people who have to teach them iambic pentameter and quadratic equations.
 
And in teaching you can’t spread out the  hard work like you can in some jobs.
 
I know this because  for a few years I wasn’t a teacher. I was a local authority inspector . Now, before you get offended, I am not slagging off the great work done in other occupations. For reasons that I’ve forgotten, I chose to become an adviser for a local education authority and   I just couldn’t deal with the transition from  classroom to  office. So the fault was all mine. Even though working for the town hall  was a fascinatingly varied job, the teacher guilt was awful. I’d find myself sitting at my desk on a Monday afternoon, waiting for the rattle of the tea trolley, thinking (and I know that this is irrational), I should be teaching poetry to 9Z right now – that’s real work not like this pen pushing.
 
Anyway, it got the better of me in the end and I went back into a school  (I even took a drop in salary and, yes, my wife is a saint) because I missed the buzz of of learning.
 
And that special sense of community and teamwork you can get in a really good school.
 
Anyway, I’m leading up to telling you about Show and Share Week which has just ended. One of my ambitions has always been to work in  a school where it’s cool for the staff to talk about teaching and there’s a spirit of sharing good ideas, rather than a lot of cynical hot air like you get in some staff rooms.
 
I know I’m biased but I like to say that we’ve got that at Moorside.
 
One reason why I think that is because Rachel Harding suggested we have a Show and Share Week. She said that Moorside people do come to watch lessons but it’s always to judge them. Why can’t we have a system where you can visit a lesson to learn from someone else’s good practice?
 
Well, I thought that this was inspirational.
 
So we ear marked last week on the calendar as Show and Share Week and then brought out a prospectus of outstanding practice. We did this by asking subjects leaders to identify major strengths in their departments as well as  teachers and lessons where these would be on show. We then published the prospectus to staff who   chose lessons they’d like to visit.
 
(By the way,  I don’t know of any other school that does this and I’d love to hear from you if you do.)
 
And it did get  a bit competitive. I offered an Enrichment Drama lesson and only one punter signed up. Yet superstars like Mike Davis and Barry Marshall sold out immediately with tickets fetching a fortune on E-Bay. What have they got that I haven’t got?
 
Anyway, if you observed a lesson you had to fill in a form saying what you learnt and asking for advice from the observed teacher  – all on a neat user  friendly proforma  designed by our resident genius, Gem Horth.
 
We haven’t evaluated it properly yet, but very nearly all subjects offered access to lessons and 27 staff gave up their non-contact time to observe. So far the feedback has been good, but we’ll find out for certain in a meeting after school on Wednesday.
 
And whatever happens, I think we can say that Mary Hannon was right when she said that the concept of Show and Share Week showed the rich professional culture we have at Moorside.
 

In Praise of the Student Council

Timing is everything.

Take fish and chips.

Fish and chips can be the best meal in the world (and I know that Team IT agree with me because they practically live on the stuff) but the timing has got to be right.

First of all you have to be really hungry and secondly you should have just done something which justifies feasting on something so calorific. My preference would be after a long, cold and wet walk on a Northumberland beach in thick mist, ideally involving some serious sand dune jumping justified by the presence of small children. So you take your self to the brink of exhaustion and hypothermia and then head for a hot ,steamy cafe in Seahouses for haddock, chips and luminous green mushy peas with a jug of tea and thinly sliced white bread and butter served up a by a grumpy woman in a nylon tabard.

Nothing could be finer.

Anyway, just in case you've forgotten, I'm talking about timing and I must say that my timing was impeccable of Friday afternoon.

I'd realised that it had been a while since I'd had some quality time with our student council. Because of the opening of the academy in September, we have two momentous terms ahead of us so I need to be closely in touch with how the students feel. It's also vital that they feel part of the process and that they have a say in the inevitable changes. They’re the reasons why I decided to have an all afternoon meeting with them in The Phoenix Centre.

By the way, you might be surprised to learn that the student council is sometimes on the receiving end of adult criticism. The main complaint is that the group is unrepresentative of the full range of ages and abilities at Moorside. Well, there 's truth in this but it's not the fault of the student councillors. We should thank them for giving up their time every week for meetings and for the contributions they make to self evaluation, recruiting staff and fund raising. If there are any shortcomings, I suppose that they might lie with how we organise the student council. I guess that we could do more to ensure that more students put themselves forward, but for the time being we have to work with those who do volunteer, even though they tend to be female and in the top sets.

And if you'd been with me on Friday afternoon, I guarantee that you would have been impressed by them. Here was a group of young people passionately devoted to their school, united by a desire to improve it, especially it's climate for learning. In fact they were so passionate that Lindsey Bell and I couldn’t shut them up! We only covered half of the agenda, but still made great progress.

I particularly wanted their views on why girls tend to do better in exams. Thanks to them, by the end of the afternoon, I understood much more about what needs to happen in lessons to even up the gender gap. The main outcome was that the student council has agreed to run a workshop on this issue at our next staff training day on February 28. So the students will be teaching the staff which sounds good to me.

So, from my point of view, the timing oft this meeting was perfect because it re-focused me on the core business putting teaching and learning first. And I left work for the weekend reminded of what magnificent students we have at Moorside.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

We Did it Fair and Square

Wednesday was a big day.

Not only did we receive early entry results for English and Maths (brilliant, by the way) , but the government also published the performance league tables for secondary schools for 2010.

Now if you're a regular reader of these ramblings, you'll be thinking, here we go - this week’s edition is going to be another Morris bragfest about the Moorside GCSE scores last year.

Well,OK.

Point taken.

I promise to try to tone it down because I know that some of you get annoyed.

But can I just give you a couple of headlines?

Here we go.

First of all, 5+ A*- C GCSE grades (including English and Maths) - previously the gold standard for schools in this country. Our proportion of 62% ( we think it's 63, but that's for another blog) places us 11th out of 36 County Durham schools. Nearly all of the schools above us serve much more prosperous areas like Durham City, so that's a very good result and is our best ever.

Now the controversial bit - the English Baccalaureate. This is the new gold standard and has been imposed retrospectively by the coalition government. So schools are now judged according the percentage of leavers who gain A*- C in GCSE English, Maths, Science, History or Geography and a language. Believe it or not, the government has ranked schools according to this measure according to 2010 results, even though the EB was only introduced a few weeks ago. So we were preparing kids for a measure we didn't know existed!
Well, as it happens, we've done pretty well. Not surprisingly, the national average for the EB is only 16%. Our figure is 18% which a places us 7th out of 36 Durham schools. This time ALL of the schools above us serve much wealthier catchments. So, once again, we've done well. This wasn’t accidental, although I admit that during the process of designing our curriculum and deciding what subjects to offer we did not see the EB coming. Our EB figure is good because we have not sacrificed academic rigour in the race to gain high exam scores. The EB has been brought in because many secondary schools have sought to raise standards by using GCSE equivalents like BTEC. Frankly, these courses are easier and less reliant on formal exams and they can be used to give your league table placing a massive boost.

They are also much more interesting for certain youngsters. They’re often more relevant because they teach skills which can be applied in the work place and also can give a sense of achievement which can' t be gained for these students from traditional academic subjects like those in the EB.

And we do use them for certain classes, but we do so strategically so that we can ensure that all individuals are on the curriculum and career pathway which suits them. It's called differentiation which has been a watchword in effective schooling for many years now.

So we've done well in the EB because we think that students on course for university should experience the intellectual challenge of studying a modern language. This means that if you're in the top set, you have to take French. Sounds a bit heavy handed but they gain very high grades. We're also fortunate in having a strong Humanities faculty in which History and Geography are popular option subjects with some bright students choosing both. And I think you know how good our English, Maths and Science are.

In other words, Moorside 's results are not massaged upwards by choosing easy courses across the board. We've done it fairly and with the best interests of all of the students in mind so that they are prepared for their next career stage, whatever that might be. We could have taught courses which would have brought us over 90% 5 A*-C (although without English and Maths) but that wasn't right for us.

Now just in case you think I'm being smug, can I venture an opinion?

I'm completely opposed to the EB.

Given the rich wealth of the curriculum to choose from I don't agree that History, Geography and a language are essential or even appropriate for most young people. Design Technology, Art, Music, PE, RE, Drama, Sociology, Psychology... Where do I stop? ...are all equally important. All of them can be fascinating for students of all abilities and all can be intellectually challenging. Yes, even PE before you say anything at the back.

So what would I do?

First of all choose one measure and stick to it, giving schools advance warning. Then assess schools according to students' scores in their best 8 subjects with added weighting for English, Maths, Science and ICT all of which should be compulsory for obvious reasons in the 21st century. That 's a no less rigorous solution, but would allow schools to offer inclusive curriculum offers, tailored to the needs of their own students.

Sounds a bit like what we do already at Moorside to me.

See you next week.

New Year...New Era?

First of all, a happy new year to all of my readers.


As you might know, I’m very good at holidays and I must say that I’ve had a happy (even fun packed) Christmas break and some lovely presents. Books and music in abundance, of course, and a radio controlled helicopter which I crash landed in the dining room. I’m hoping that some of the bright sparks in year 7 will show me how to fly it one lunchtime this week.


Anyway, I like to squeeze every ounce out of my time off, so I’ve just treated myself to an icy solo traverse of the Simonside ridge before resuming normal service tomorrow.

And, as always, I’m dying to get back.

Linda Rodham has produced some fascinating data on year 11 which shows that we might score some very good results again this summer so that will be our main focus. Also, I was bombarded with new ideas by the staff last term, so watch this space for news about what we’re going to do with thinking skills, reading for pleasure, boys dance, I-Pads and, believe it or not, jewellery making.

But the big issue in 2011 will be whether or not we become an academy and the massive changes that might follow.


You’ll know from our home page that an offer of over 20 million pounds has been made by the government for the new building. There’s some doubt that this will be enough for the iconic accommodation for 1700 pupils which the sponsors envisage, but we should know if the offer is accepted by the end of this month.


I just want to restate my commitment that, whatever happens, my staff and I will do our best to make sure that the students come first and that Moorside’s standards continue to rise.


So 2011 might see the start of a new era, with many of us doing different jobs and working in a different way.


But the Moorside spirit will go on.

Student Voice (and meeting Michael Gove)

I sometimes wonder who writes the script for Moorside.

Everyone involved with the proposed Consett Academy is expecting to hear this month about the level of funding the government is prepared to offer to build the new school.

But was I alone in being very surprised to learn that Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, was going to visit Consett to judge things for himself at first hand?

It was all very hush hush and I didn’t receive an invitation to meet the guy until an hour before he arrived, but it was certainly a memorable occasion. He was en route to Alnwick but called into CCSC on his way. There were a couple of high points. He met with some of the staff from Consett and I thought that they were magnificent. They were professional and assertive in the way that impressed on Mr. Gove that the uncertainty for all of us must come to an end as soon as possible.

He also met with a group of CCSC students and they too represented their school very well. The meeting was at his request apparently, so he obviously understands that if you want to make a decision about schooling, you need to listen to those on the receiving end.

Now I know that there are still some educators who are uneasy about asking the kids for their opinions because they fear that they will take the chance to get them into trouble.

Well I can honestly say that I’ve never known that occur.

However, young people are often disarmingly honest and, when you look into it, are usually right.

I mention all this because the best moment of last week was a long overdue meeting I had with our Student Council. For various reasons, this was our first meeting since last term, but I’m determined that we will work much more closely together from now on. They’re in charge of all fund raising, but they also help with appointing staff and with our self evaluation. They’re a powerful and influential group and have determined important actions we’ve taken on many occasions in the past.

It’s also significant that whenever we are inspected, the inspectors make a point of interviewing groups of students. This happens quite a lot because in Durham, schools are inspected by the local authority very regularly. The inspectors always say that our young people, are immensely proud of Moorside and rate our provision very highly.

But they sometimes suggest improvements too and they should always be given a fair hearing.

Snow Rules

At Moorside we talk about snow rules.

This means that you're not allowed to touch the snow and it works well. All kids enjoy playing in the snow, but in a crowded school environment it can get out of hand.

Not that we've had to impose snow rules lately.

In fact, the snow has been ruling us. So much so that we've only managed to open for two days out of the past seven which must have had a drastic impact on learning. That equates to a whole week of schooling or, to put it another way, every pupil has missed 25 lessons, including those in year 11 who are working hard towards their GCSEs.

Of course, extreme weather conditions are nothing new in Consett. Moorside’s 800 feet above sea level and totally exposed to the north wind. Every year we can assume that we're going to lose two or three days to the weather, but that usually happens in January or February - not at the end of November. So we've already more than used up our quota before winter has really started.

And here's another thing.

Deciding to close a school, even for just one day, is a huge matter. We all know that there's a very strong connection between attendance and achievement. I've no doubt that a crucial factor in the steep rise in standards at Moorside is the increase in attendance from 90 to 94%. And we know that the very highest performing schools in the country often have annual attendance rates of 95% and over.

So I guess that deciding to close because of the weather leaves me open to accusations of double standards, especially from those parents with whom I've done some straight talking about booking holidays in term time or allowing their children to stay off school for no good reason. I say repeatedly in reports and in conversations, “We can’t teach them if they’re not here.”

Well, just for the record, this loss of learning is why I find the decision to close because of snow one of the most difficult aspects of headship.

So I don’t do it lightly.

This is what happens.

It's often hard to make the call in advance so I rely on a 6.00 am phone contact with Niqui McConnell in Consett to check out the conditions. Then I'll consult the state of the roads on line and on the radio as well as the weather forecast for the rest of the day. I have to bear in mind whether buses can reach the site and also whether or not staff are going to be able to make it because without them we can't function. I also need the views of the premises staff about the condition of the site (which has been engulfed in snow for the past week and latterly blocked by abandoned cars). Over the past few days, Janet Price, our assistant caretaker has been voluntarily on site from 4.30 am in arctic conditions and on Thursday morning her dedication was rewarded with a nasty bang on the shoulder when she fell on the ice.

There's always the risk that deciding to close is followed by a day of fine weather when it would have been perfectly possible to open. Thankfully, that hasn't happened up to now. Indeed, once the decision's made to close, the Moorside professionalism kicks in with everyone playing their part in Christine Connolly's telephone tree. It's so efficient that the message can reach everyone in less than ten minutes and that includes parents and the local media.

Anyway, I'm writing this on Sunday afternoon trying to take my mind off watching West Brom put three past the boys in black and white. I keep looking at the sky trying to guess what the clouds will bring over night. I’ll be sleeping with my fingers crossed, hoping that we can have a Monday which is something close to normal.

Not that the weather on Tyneside is much of a guide to the Consett micro climate.

Taking it Personally

It doesn’t happen very often, but one of the joys of teaching is when an ex pupil suddenly emerges from the past and you find out about the individual impact you had on them.

It was a few years ago I admit, but my favourite was when I was talking to a trainee English teacher about poetry. She was struggling to find ways of sharing her love of verse with students and I was trying to help out. Then she started talking about her best friend, Beverly. She said that Beverly was really clever and now had a successful career. Apparently, Beverly was the only person she knew who bought poetry books and said that she owed this passionate interest to a keen young English teacher at her school in Sunderland.

And then she let it slip.

“Jonathan, it was you.”

Well, that made me feel very proud and I’ve never forgotten it.
For logistical reasons you have to organise schools into groups: classes, sets, years, houses etc, etc. And one of the challenges for the Consett Academy will be to set up systems to accommodate nearly 2,000 students and ensure that they are all treated as individuals. (And, incidentally, the school where I taught Beverly was, at the time, one of the ten biggest in the country with 2,200 pupils.) And a good school remembers that you’re not dealing with the nameless. Every student has an utterly distinct identity with their own feelings, talents, hopes and dreams which are unique to them. And every single one has a fascinating life history behind and in front of them.


So I like to think that Moorside is pretty good at reaching individuals and bringing out the best in them.

Take our regular case conferences as an example.

Last week’s high point was our year 11 case conference. This is a meeting for all teachers of year 11 and we sit in the big room in The Phoenix Centre and discuss the progress of every year 11 student. So that’ s over 100 young people and it takes ages. If you were a fly on the wall, I guarantee that you’d be impressed by the commitment of the staff to such a time consuming operation. But you’d be even more impressed by the depth of knowledge they have of all individuals and the great care they devote to them.


And it’s not just a talking shop.


The meeting produces a long list of action points for us to follow up with individuals to make sure that their needs are met and they can achieve as highly as possible in their exams.


But we can only guess about the exciting impact that will have on their future life chances.


Let’s hope that, like Beverly, they find a way of telling us what happened because it makes the job worthwhile.