Perfection is Unobtainable

“Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.” 

Salvador Dalí

A big part of the anxiety created by teaching is the need to be, or at least aim to be, perfect. Every lesson outstanding. All books marked up to date. Every last bit of paperwork completed on time. Personally, I don't think it's possible. Some may disagree with me; I know of some people who colour-code their folders, plan every lesson for hours, and spend their weekends marking. Usually these people are trainees or NQTs. This level of "perfection" is not sustainable. Eventually every teacher comes to the realisation that you cannot obtain perfection, and it is actually counter-productive to try.

Some people see perfection as stringently sticking to an particular way of doing things - an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it mentality". The website 16personalities.com argues that:
"The more [one personality type] preserve fixed order, the more they feel they are performing their duty in a perfect way."
This is as equally flawed way of doing things because teaching is an ever-changing profession and to keep doing things in exactly the same way ad infinitum will result in atrophy.

So, if you can't obtain perfection, but you can't just keep doing the same thing either, then what's the answer? It comes down to a combination of things:
1. Work hard. I covered this in an earlier blog and it is obviously a key part of success.
2. Try new things. This is something I will cover in a future blog and should be quite clear as to the benefits.
3. Don't stress if things go wrong. This is basically the crux of the matter - work hard, try new things, but don't lose sleep if things go wrong.

In her excellent blog on the same topic, Lisa Dabbs far more eloquently explains how it should be about progress, not perfection and how we need to take pleasure in the process. After all, we encourage our students to build resilience, learn from their mistakes, and not expect perfection, so why should we tell ourselves different things (aside from the obvious fact that we're supposed to be "older and wiser")? In her excellent Ted Talk Kate Neligan gives similar hints on how to avoid stress-causing perfection-chasing: it's about enjoying the process, being content with what you have achieved, and taking yourself into account.

So, don't spend that extra hour planning a lesson that you've already spent two hours on; it's fine, it will do. Leave early on a Friday, don't even look at that display that you haven't updated for a month. Give yourself a break once in a while - you will never achieve perfection, so stop worrying so much about it.

Trippin'

I love a good school trip (or, "Learning Outside the Classroom" as it is currently known). As much as I enjoy being in the classroom, there's nothing quite like getting out and seeing things for real rather than projected on the board. Sure, I've had some bad experiences, like the time that one kid on a residential stole ALL of the fruit from the canteen for three days in a row and hid it under his pillow. Or the time that I took a group of year eights to the Natural History Museum and five lads proceeded to "gangsta" around the place and not listen to a word any teacher had to say to them (between them they got 40 days of exclusions and isolations). My experiences are quite benign compared to some: groups of students deciding that they don't want to do the walk any more and setting off for "home", which happens to be 20+ miles away; kids hanging out of hotel windows; fights, drugs, rock and roll. It can be a minefield. That's if you actually manage to get through the miles of red tape involved in planning a trip - in itself enough to turn many teachers off planning even the briefest of sojourns.

The honest truth of the matter is that the planning of the trip is time-consuming and often frustrating, so much so that I don't really want to go through the process here. You will spend several months filling in forms, having meetings with various people, completing risk assessments, sending letters home, and filling in some more forms. But once you're there and you see how much your students are gaining from the trip it becomes worth all the hassle.

The benefits as far as I can see are thus:

1.  They are engaging - allowing students to interact with things which they can't in the classroom.
2.  They broaden horizons - a lot of students rarely get the opportunity to leave their community, so it gives them the chance to see different places.
3.  They can build self-confidence - once a student realises that they can leave their "bubble" and interact effectively with other people, they start to feel more confident.
4.  Linked to the two previous points, they can help increase aspirations - students can begin to see what is possible and develop new ideas about what they want to do with their lives.
5.  Teachers can benefit from them too - my experiences on trips have taught me about how to run a successful trip and aided me in my knowledge of specific subjects.

I have just recently got back from a trip to Belgium and France, looking at the battlefields, monuments, and cemeteries of WWI. This was the fourth time I have been on this trip, and the second time I have planned the trip myself, and I always return in no doubt that the trip was worthwhile and beneficial. One tool I use to keep a record of the trip and highlight the benefits of it is Twitter. As the trip progresses I will tweet photos, videos, and comments from the trip which allow students, parents, and other organisations to see how the trip is progressing. Here are a few examples from my most recent trip...

First stop - Memorial Museum Passchendale. pic.twitter.com/UUFJST9dLE

— DanumHistory (@DanumHistory) February 29, 2016

Students reflect on the scale of the sacrifice at Tyne Cot Cemetery. #FWWCBTP pic.twitter.com/gD9bmEo8yS

— DanumHistory (@DanumHistory) February 29, 2016

The Last Post Ceremony - performed every night since 1928 (minus a bit of a break during WW2). #FWWCBTP pic.twitter.com/5g3egJ5cCa

— DanumHistory (@DanumHistory) February 29, 2016

Lijssenthoek Cemetery was a fitting end to our trip - soldiers from 30 nations highlighting the "World" War. pic.twitter.com/YhQVQG54BY

— DanumHistory (@DanumHistory) March 2, 2016

Other ideas to get the most out of a school trip are:

1.  Have a clear idea about what you want the students to take from the trip overall, and each day (if it is more than one day) specifically. For me on the battlefields trip, I use focus questions for each day such as "Was the Battle of the Somme really a disaster?"
2.  Ensure that there are a good variety of activities. On the battlefields trip, students get sick of ABC (Another Bloody Cemetery!) so try to look for ways to provide an eclectic mix of activities.
3.  Involve the parents. The more involved the parents are, the better the behaviour and the more engaged the students should be on your trip. The threat of "I'll ring your mum" is much scarier if that student knows that you actually know who their mum is.
4.  Don't be afraid to self-aggrandize. Tell the leadership team, try to get something in the local press; video, tweet, and blog. Let people know what you are doing and why it is worthwhile.
5.  Have a plan for what you want to do when you get back. Why stop with just the trip? Why not take the energy and enthusiasm and use it productively? For example, you come back from a battlefields trip and encourage the students to make a memorial garden at school.

Obviously a lot of my ideas are linked directly to history and, in most cases, to my favourite trip on the battlefields. However, it would be easy to apply these ideas to any subject and to any trip. The main thing is to be enthusiastic and creative. It is true to say, as with a great many things in teaching, that the more you put in, the more you get out.

If you have any questions about planning a trip, or just want to troll me, don't hesitate to leave a comment below.

Great Expectations

"Our children can achieve great things when we set high expectations for them."

Jeb Bush

I never thought I'd find myself quoting Jeb Bush, or any of the Bush clan for that matter, but ol' Jeb is absolutely right here. High expectations are the key to success in the classroom. Students actually thrive on it. Maybe it's because some of them don't have any sort of expectations to live up to at home, maybe it's just because secretly, deep down, we all want to live up to other people's expectations of us. Either way, I have found that by setting high expectations for my classes I have to do less in terms of behaviour management later on. Which brings me to my first real point: high expectations and behaviour management are inextricably linked. You just can't have one without the other.

The school I am currently working in has an issue with expectations; so much so that Ofsted specifically referenced it in their report two years ago. It is a large secondary school in a deprived area of the country and the students have very little, or at least believe they have very little, to aspire to. This is not easily fixed and, so far to be honest, my tactic with this issue of aspirations is to be brutally honest: "You are living in a deprived area, so you will have to work harder than everyone else". Once you get over this hurdle of aspirations, you then have to ensure that your expectations are high enough to bring out the best in your students.

The most important thing here is that age old adage - start as you mean to go on. Start at the door - "Good morning, could you tuck your shirt in please? Starter's on the board, let's get straight on with it, thank you." From there state your expectations clearly, in fact use the word "expectations" and let the students know what will happen if they don't meet your expectations (more on this later). Some ways that I have done this in the past, particularly with groups which need the point hammering home, are:

1. A "sign-up" sheet for students and their parents. E.g.

Every student is important in this room. No student is more important than anyone else. Our goal is to achieve the best education we can. To make this happen, we have to obey certain rules. This means you will have to behave in a certain way, so that everyone gets the best education possible. These are the basic rules that everyone must follow. Failure to follow these rules will result in a sanction. Success in following these rules will lead to everyone’s success.

1. The teacher is in charge of the room, and the class. Any reasonable instruction must be followed.

2. No calling out- every student must put their hand up to speak

3. If the teacher is speaking, the class must listen

4. If the teacher has asked anyone else to speak, the class must listen

5. Every student should bring their equipment to all lessons

6. At the beginning of the lesson, students should take their assigned seats, and quickly begin the work given to them.

7. All homework should be recorded in your planner; it must be handed in on time.

8. All work will be completed to the best of your ability.

9. No one is permitted to leave the room, or walk around the room, without permission.

10. All students should show manners to every other member of the class, the teacher, and to any guests in the room.

I agree to abide by these rules, and I understand what I must do in order to uphold them.

Signed________________________________

Parent/ guardian signature _______________________________

Teacher signature _____________________________________

2. "Show me" Cards...Hand these to students as the enter and don't let them leave until they've met your expectations!

Front of the card

Back of the card

3. Use ClassDojo to make it very clear what your expectations are.

Obviously most schools have their own behaviour systems in place, but these examples can be used to reinforce those systems and make your expectations completely explicit. A lot of students don't know what is "right" and "wrong" behaviour, or pretend that they don't know, so making it completely clear will save you a lot of work in the future. 

High expectations is a bit of a cornerstone for me; it is the starting point for all good practice. Do not accept students shouting out or slacking off from their work; reward those students who complete the work, help you out in some way, or go beyond the "norm". As I've already said: hard work early on leads to a much more productive classroom down the line. Much like what Dickens said...

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.”

― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Just Keep Swimming

"When life gets you down, do you wanna know what you've gotta do? Just keep swimming."

Dori, Finding Nemo

It's usually around this time of year that I start to feel a bit wobbly and wonder whether I am really doing the right thing slogging my guts out day in, day out in this seemingly thankless profession. We all have moments like this. Some people don't like Mondays, many others (for reasons I can't fully grasp) hate Tuesdays. Me? I hate going back to school after any time away. It is probably because I realise in that brief respite from the chaos of lessons, children, and tasks that there is such thing as life. 

So, on Sunday, the day on which I have inwardly agreed with myself to blog, with the spectre of returning to school after a week off looming, I decided to forgo anything which reminded me of school. This blog was one of those things which reminded me of school, so it therefore fell victim and no new post was penned. Monday (yesterday) was not an enjoyable day. Not even an outstanding lesson observation from a respected colleague was able to shift me out of my funk. And today, after an unsettled night's sleep, I thought about "accidentally" flinging myself around an icy corner on my bike on the way to work, in the desperate hope of a day off.

I didn't do that. I went to work, and I actually had a good day. Not perfect, not even great, but a good day. My lessons were good, I had a chuckle at one of my students because she is obsessed with "Silent Witness" and, when asked how yesterday's episode was, she looked truly downcast and mumbled that the series had finished. I talked politics with that same class, always a favourite pastime of mine, and found that there were students who not only thought about the world, but actually, actively, cared. Later in the day, I had a productive lesson with my year 11s who are traditionally...erm...a pain in the arse. I found myself buoyed in spite of myself. Sometimes it can happen that way - even if you are in the deepest, blackest mood, a day at school can actually lift you out of the gloom and leave you feeling like all is well with the world.

My fiancée holds to this "look for the positives" mentality and on the whole I do agree with her. She has to listen to me moan about school more than anyone else, so she is in the best position to give me advice; advice that I now pass on to you. She is a teacher as well and obviously has her own off days, but on the whole she manages to boundlessly maintain a sunny disposition. She is, in this way, much like Dori. Not that she's simple, or has a short-term memory, but that she is filled with an unerring optimism based on seeing positives wherever she can. I try to emulate this as often as possible. It's not always easy, but there's a lot to be said for looking for the little positives and, with that to spur you on, keep on truckin' (or swimming, as it were).

Now, I realise that I am actually in the minority of teachers who had their half term last week - which is perhaps why going back to work yesterday felt so wrong - but I think that everyone needs some inspiration at this time of year. So, without further ado, here's Dori...

Work Hard

"Working hard is very important. You're not going to get anywhere without working extremely hard."

George Lucas

It wasn't until I started teaching that I learnt the real value of hard work. I spent my days at school and university doing what I needed to in order to get by, but tried not to work any harder than I thought I had to. These days I am more likely to chastise myself for working too hard rather than for not working hard enough. My default setting is to work hard, even if it can on occasion lead to total exhaustion. This may seem at odds with what I discussed previously about "playing the game", but actually they can and should exist in parallel. It is the is a combination of working hard and working smart that brings success.  

This TED ED talk suggests that you don't have to be smart to succeed, and that the most successful people are actually not A-Grade students. I would take this with a pinch of salt, because I think you have to have a little bit about you to achieve great things, but I would have appreciated some of this advice when I was younger...

Let me give you an idea of what hard work looks like to me - I get to work at least an hour before school starts and leave about two hours after the final bell has gone. On top of that I will work most evenings, at least one day at the weekend, and a portion of each holiday. I have simply accepted this as par for the course, and to succeed in teaching you will have to accept it as well. It is not ideal, and I am sure there will be repercussions in the future (for individuals and the sector as a whole), but for the time being this is the state of things. Work hard or fail. Our very own Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, has suggested that the answer to the workload problem is to stop sending emails after 5pm. This is a noble suggestion, but doesn't actually deal with the main issues at hand which is, most importantly, that to be a successful teacher you will need to work the vast majority of hours that God (or whoever is actually in charge of time) sends.

So, if this is an undeniable truth of teaching, then how can we sustain a 50+ hour work week without going a little bit insane? The simple answer is to make any task meaningful and, as far as possible, enjoyable:

• Lesson planning should bring out the most creative elements of your character and you should look forward to teaching those lessons. If you find yourself becoming disinterested in a lesson or a series of lessons it is better to put it to one side and come back to it later.
• Marking and feedback needs to have real purpose - don't just make it an exercise in "ticking and flicking". Set questions which challenge your students and encourage some independent thought; this way you can, hopefully, take some enjoyment from their answers.
• Ensure that you approach "busy work", all that paper work and bureaucratic rubbish, only when you are feeling entirely up to it. This doesn't mean put it off indefinitely, but be aware that staring a task half-heartedly will never end well.

There are also a hundred other ways to cope with the unavoidable stresses brought on by hard work. Most of these suggestions I try to follow, albeit in a piecemeal fashion. Meditate: from time to time. Sleep well: when I can. Breathe properly: when I remember. Say no: when it's right to. 

There will always be those who actively question the value of hard work, or consider the "misappropriation of energy", but in the end it is difficult to deny that "handwork is the single greatest competitive advantage". All I know is that I would not be where I am today without hard work, or perhaps more interestingly I could be even further forward if I'd started working harder sooner. I'll leave you with another quote which links nicely to the theme of this whole blog: success in teaching is not possible without hard work.

 

Play the Game

"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else."

Albert Einstein

As with anything in life, teaching is about knowing what needs to be done and doing it well. The very best teachers will prioritise what's most important - often this will be the teaching and learning - and put anything superfluous onto the back burner without feeling guilty about it. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean you should be intentionally lazy and ditch any activities which you don't feel like doing. What I'm suggesting is that a teacher's workload is often so massive that to do everything to the best of your ability would leave you broken and gently weeping in a corner.

At the centre of this need to "play the game" is the clear disparity between government and OFSTED expectations and what actually goes on in schools and classrooms. Take this NUT report on teacher workloads, which states:

"The last Government’s response to its workload challenge ignored the central point about reforming the high stakes system of accountability which is driving unnecessary workload for teachers and school leaders."

This highlights that the current obsession with “accountability” and making teachers justify their existence on a daily basis has led to an unsustainable situation where teacher workload often comes at the expense of the teaching and learning. It is, sadly, a very real case of the tail wagging the dog.

Another sad fact is that this will almost certainly not change any time soon. So, what can be done about it? This is where playing the game comes in. Take an example of homework setting at your school:

Your school has a clear policy (often based off OFSTED guidance) that homework should be set once every two weeks for key stage 3 and all homework needs to be logged on the school system. The problem is that you work in a school where student and parent engagement is low and there is no clear system of sanctions for students failing to complete their homework.Your options here are to a) set challenging homework every other week and give the kids hell whenever they don’t do it, maybe even make phone calls home or giving lunchtime detentions. Or, b) you can use homework instead as an opportunity for the higher ability students to do additional research and/or extension activities from the lesson. Those that don’t do their homework will get a verbal reprimand, some form of arbitrary sanction (I use ClassDojo to hand out “negatives”, more on that in another blog), and a threat of “three strikes and you’re out” (or similar). Those that do their homework receive positive praise and some form of reward (school-based system or otherwise).  In doing this you have saved yourself a great deal of time handing out lunchtime detentions, calling home etc. In terms of logging homework - be it in planners, or on an online system - this obviously needs to be done and is where the idea of “playing the game” comes in. Somebody will be checking planners and that online system, so something needs to be there. As previously mentioned though, this can simply be an extension task from the lesson, copied and pasted into the online homework system, or copied down by the students.

Another example is how to deal with the workload surrounding GCSE students and ensuring that they get their expected grades. This is something which teachers are being increasingly held accountable for: student outcomes. In some ways it makes sense, after all why shouldn't we be judged, to some extent, on what grades our students achieve. However, there is still far too much that a classroom teacher cannot account for. Number of absences, failure to engage in revision at home, other external issues in the student’s life to name a few. So, what’s the answer here? Again, it’s to a large extent about playing the game:

Your year 11 group are made up of 50% hardworking students who just need a stable working environment to achieve; 35% are varying degrees of lazy and will only do the work when pushed; 15% are poorly behaved and challenging in every way. In this scenario the first thing which needs to be done is get the “other” 50% of the class onside - that includes the lazies and the baddies. This will involve hard work (see next blog), but once you’ve done this you’re in a much stronger position. To get them onside you need to maintain consistently high expectations and mark the hell out of their work. This links to one of the first “shortcuts”, of a sort. Marking and feedback is an integral part of any classroom, but it shouldn’t just be “ticking and flicking”. Marking and feedback should be an exam-style question, followed by specific teacher feedback, and then student response to feedback. This should be done regularly and students should use this process to figure out where they are and how they can improve. To make this process clear to the students, and to anyone observing a lesson or looking at their books, I have an “assessment book” for my KS4 and KS5 classes - this is, as the name suggests, purely for assessments. This does three things: 1) It looks good - student work ---> teacher feedback ---> student response; just looks right to me. 2) It helps the student improve - they can clearly see what they have done before and what they need to do next time. 3) It saves time - I do not “tick and flick”. My students have folders for their classwork which are to all intents and purposes their responsibility and I only have to focus on their assessment books. I mark these regularly but it never feels like a chore - it feels worthwhile. Another aspect of this scenario is that those students who appear to be falling behind need to have some form of intervention in place. Two things here: 1) You need to have a good record of student grades as evidence of student progress over time. 2) If you intervene in any way for a student then log it on your school system - this means that come results day you can say “Look, I did A, B, C, and D, and still Bob didn’t achieve his grade”.

There are many, many more ways to “play the game”, save time, and do your job more effectively, but at the end of the day it is simply about not making work for yourself. Have to mark 60 year 8 assessments in two days? Why not create a marking crib sheet where you can simply highlight the targets? Whole year 10 class, but one, did shockingly on a mock? Why not use some of the answers from the student who actually did well as exemplars? There are so many ways to work efficiently and play the game, you just have to think logically and not feel guilty for not giving 110% to absolutely everything.

Why Teach?

“We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.”

Stephen King

I love teaching. Even on those cold, dark January days when neither you nor your kids can see the light at the end of the tunnel, or on a Sunday night when you still have lessons to plan. It is a profession, a calling, a raison d'etre; call it what you will. It keeps me guessing, makes me sweat, and keeps me up at night, but all the while I love it. That has to be part of it - it has to be a labour of love. Teachers who don't love it, or at least some part of it, don't succeed. Of course there are plenty of times when I have a moan, say to my fiancée that I really don't want to go to school tomorrow, and wish the holidays could be just a week longer. But whenever I stand in front of a class I get a rush; whenever a student who hasn't spoken for weeks pipes up with a great answer it feels amazing; whenever I see an "A" when they were predicted a "C" it makes me do literal fist-pumps. It's a great job.

So, if it's such a great job, why all the bad press? Whether it's schools purportedly failing to make the grade or a massive teacher shortage looming, it is rare that you read a positive new story about education these days. It is not my intention to get overly political here, so I will simply say that government and press interference with education is, more often than not, damaging. Teachers are trained to do their jobs and work hard for their students and the majority do just that. My advice would be to more or less ignore what you hear in the news about teaching because it has little to no bearing on what actually goes on in schools on a day to day basis.

If you are reading this now the chances are that you are already a teacher, training to be one, or considering joining the profession. You may already feel that it is the best job in the world, or you might have been doing it for decades and need a bit of inspiration to keep going with it. My intention in this blog is to provide something of a guide to life as a modern teacher, with all the good bits and the not so good bits laid bare. A lot of what I will say might be controversial or, in some people's opinions, just plain wrong, but I intend to be as honest as possible. I will also say that I do not claim to have all the answers or any magical secrets for teaching, nor have I been in this gig a very long time comparatively speaking. What I have got though are lots of practical tips and tricks, some sage advice, and, hopefully, some words to inspire and make those long days and weeks more bearable.

In answering the question "why teach?" I always thought I would start from the beginning of my story - when I originally started teaching. As I'm writing now though I actually intend to start with a conversation I had just last night. Over a pint with some friends, we started reminiscing about school - some discussing which teachers they fancied (which is odd to think about now as a teacher) - others relating specific stories about a lesson or what a teacher had once said to them. And it was then that I had one of those realisations (they come and go) that teachers really do have an effect of people's lives. As Stephen King suggests, we can never really know when that will be, who we might influence in some small way, or why, but it is almost certain that as a teacher it will happen at some stage. This is part of the magic for me and almost answers that question of "why teach?" by itself - the ability to affect and influence the lives of young people, hopefully in a positive way.

To trace my steps back a little further, the answer to the question came when I was volunteering in Uganda. I was teaching in a tiny rural school where the class sizes often had over one hundred students and each and every day I felt like I was doing something useful and worthwhile. I have done a few jobs in my life - cleaning, working in a shop, answering phones - but that was one of the first real occasions when I felt like I was really making a difference to other people's lives. That's obviously not to belittle other jobs and professions, but that sense of having a positive influence on other people was what drew me to teaching. It was after my time in Uganda that I came home and decided to train as a teacher. Since then I have been a mentor to trainees, led CPD (continuing professional development for those not in the know) sessions, been consistently judged "outstanding", and I'm now a head of department. It has been a very quick process for me and I have enjoyed almost every minute of it. I feel that the biggest reason I have succeeded in teaching so far is that I have a lot of enthusiasm for the profession and I work very hard for my students.

So, why teach? To make a difference. To do something that matters. To have a positive influence on the lives of young people. I get disheartened sometimes when I read that half of all teachers are thinking about leaving the profession, and it disheartens me further when I realise that I have on occasion thought about it too. But then I see things like this...

...and I remind myself that what I do every single day makes a difference.