It's really important here to understand how the lack of standardisation around SEND determination makes a mess of this. I think lots of people think that there is some process everyone follows and there just isn't. Experienced tchrs I've told this too have been stunned..
..the quasi medical terms and abbreviations make people think terms like "moderate learning difficulty", or "cognition and learning" have some sort of empirical standard to them. They don't! We don't have any shared understanding of these terms. They are largely arbitrary.
Nov 21, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
1. A problem with teaching is it depends on people viewing it as a vocation (deeply personal) but has accountability structures that assume it's a profession (impersonal)..
2. The vocation bit is the hours and the conditions. As in it sort of does rely on people doing more than they are paid for. And we can't have this and then act surprised when people are deeply hurt by challenging feedback even if fair..
Jun 27, 2023 • 20 tweets • 3 min read
1. How much of a driver for our attendance crisis is a breakdown of trust?
School like much of life works on a model of deferred gratification - the idea that if you compromise on what's fun right now you'll be rewarded in the future.
2. This isn't controversial. Relatively few kids would freely choose to go to school and spend five hours a day in lessons being told what to do. This doesn't make them weird. It's how most of us operate.
May 25, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
1. Exams and those who find learning harder.
Today in the midst of exam season I'm struck by the extraordinary resilience and character of those who find learning harder. Sometimes called 'weak', 'low attaining', 'struggling'. Those always framed as a problem.
2. Those who go into exams in a state of hopelessness. Those who know before they even turn open the paper there'll be lots, most, questions they won't know how to do. Those for who school has always been this.
Feb 16, 2023 • 13 tweets • 2 min read
1. Thread on the most positive masculinity I've ever seen.
A few years ago I worked in Leicester and would stop to get a takeaway curry on Narborough Road on way home.
This was probably a Friday but can't be sure.
2. Whatever day it was I stepped out with my bag and saw a man sitting on the kerb. He was dressed nicely. Nice tracksuit. Looked like he used the gym a lot. Twenties or thirties. Shaved head. I wouldn't mess with him.
Feb 10, 2023 • 22 tweets • 3 min read
1. Self quizzing! A thread!
"I don't know how to revise."
😥
"For me revision doesn't work for me. It just doesn't go in."
😭
Dispiriting.
Self quizzing can help!
2. Teach it!
Don't make a big fuss of beginning. Date, title, normal do now. Set questions you reckon your class will struggle on. For once we aren't after Rosenshine's high success rate..
Jan 19, 2023 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
1. School improvement. A thread.
School improvement has to be incremental and gradual.
This is poorly understood because our accountability measures are short term and high stakes. This has allowed transformational high falutin' models to have huge and destructive influence..
2. A myth has developed that it's possible to dramatically improve outcomes in a year. This is bizarre given how few examples of this there are. It's incentivised the system to pursue magic bullet solutions to deep and embedded problems..
Jan 17, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
1. I was about fourteen I think and it was PE. We were playing a practice game. I was OK. Good enough for the football team but nothing to get excited about.
Was playing centre back that day.
My team got a corner. Punted into box, half-heartedly knocked away by defender..
2.. then scooped further away by another. Bobbled towards me on the halfway line. I ran forward and decided to have a swing at it. No particular aim other than to maybe humph it back into the box. Still it was a fair way out so I thought best give it some welly..
Nov 25, 2022 • 20 tweets • 3 min read
Things that have worked for me.
Part 2. 1. Be iterative and granular about what *exactly* you expect children to do in a lesson. E g what does them listening to you look like? Check for understanding on this the same way you would on something you’d taught.
2. Be obsessive about *all* children doing what you have told them to do in exactly the way you have told them. Don’t let this slip. You can give options on how something is done but then these need to be *your* options. E g “spider diagram or bullet point list.”
Nov 25, 2022 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Probably a provocation and happy to be told why I'm wrong but I think PP has caused far more problems than its solved in teaching. Mainly because it allowed a myth that textbooks were bad to take root. We still haven't course corrected enough to fix the damage this did..
..not saying individuals aren't using PP well or it isn't helpful in any circumstance but it fundamentally changed the process of teaching and did so too fast for enough thought about what this meant. It became *the tool* rather than *a tool* almost overnight..
Nov 2, 2022 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
1. Yesterday I taught a lesson I was really pleased with. It was on the Black Death - a topic I've taught many, many times before. This time I taught it differently as a result of reading @IanJamesFM Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England.
2. Years back I had an ace informal mentor. Never was my official mentor but I went to him for advice about teaching history all the time because he gave good advice. Taught me all children wouldn't remember everything I taught. Gave me an analogy of how to plan: coathangers.
Sep 3, 2022 • 27 tweets • 4 min read
1. Thread. An explainer on how and why the meritocracy messes all of us up without us realising and some ways schools might fight this.
⬇️
2. Life sorts meritocratically. The principle is people get what they deserve. If you work hard and are nice then you are rewarded. This means good credentials, good jobs, good health and a better life.
Sep 3, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
1. @TomRees_77 and I are on Session 6 today at @researchED1 and there's a lot we're grappling with. We're speaking on why and how we might benefit from a more affirmative and less medicalised conception of learning difficulty and disability. The questions we're interested in are:
2.
a. To what extent does our systemic framing set some people up to fail?
b. Where do we draw a line between a difficultly learning and what makes someone the person they are?
c. Does a medicalised SEND designation/diagnosis obscure the specific help a young person needs?
Sep 1, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The kettle thing is just the latest nonsensical expression of a belief being poor just *has to be* down to fecklessness and irresponsibility. To some people it's beyond belief it might not be possible to drag yourself out of the gutter with your elbows..
..the reason it seems so ridiculous now is because the scale of the challenge makes it obviously so. But for loads of people it's been ridiculous forever.
May 27, 2022 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
#littlestories. 1. My old English teacher at @DixonsAcademies Mr King told us this. It's about climbing and about different universes existing in the same physical place. Faults in memory mine. But it's worth it a scrolling down.
2 Mr King was a climber and so was his wife. They climbed together as part of a group that did up in mountains and cliffs. One day they roped up and began. Everything went fine. Everyone climbed a huge, huge cliff. Roped in. Safe.
May 27, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
1. When I was about sixteen off the back of older generation nostalgia some friends and I bought tickets to Happy Mondays in Manchester. Part of the ticket was a coach from Bradford.
2. Everyone was older than us but probably younger than I am now. Everyone was drunk. We were sitting behind two blokes who were quieter than the rest but talking intensely.
May 15, 2022 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
Thread. 🚨BIG NEWS 🚨 1. Delighted and a bit scared to be speaking @researchEDLeics next Saturday with @TomRees_77 on something that means a lot to us personally and professionally. Our session is on the new SEND Green Paper. 2. Nobody expects to have a child "different" to "typical" children and for Tom and I it's been a rollercoaster. We're both inexpressibly proud of our children and, like all parents, want and expect the best for them. The very best.
May 14, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The weirdest thing about arguments children don't need rules is the failure to accept rules for adults are stricter and punishments harsher. An important role of schools is to introduce children to rules in more forgiving world than the adult one.
This is obvious even at the lowest level. Think about what happens if a child swears at another child and then compare this to what would happen if you swore at a colleague at work.
Apr 29, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
1. A way we do CPD @lodgeparkacad is to spend time working effortfully on one thing. Over the last year and a half we've worked on Means of Participation, 100% engagement, Checking for Understanding and Responsive Teaching.
2. We do whole staff training, make each a school wide action step and then give time for departments to make the generic subject specific. We only set one school wide action step with the others devolved entirely to departments.
2. Nobody expects to have a child "different" to "typical" children and for Tom and I it's been a rollercoaster. We're both inexpressibly proud of our children and, like all parents, want and expect the best for them. The very best.
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