News Archive 2007
News Archive 2007
Exhaustion and work - working 24/7? The growing problem of too few trying to do too much. Link to article here.
Busy start to the new school year - By now all schools in the UK are back to work, with training in our approaches taking place in all 4 UK countries. With Scottish schools returning first in mid-August, our trainers provided a review of the AD system at St Thomas Aquinas School, Glasgow, and at Maxwellton School, Dumfries. Then followed visits to Northfield Academy, Aberdeen, where a group of teachers have completed the AD leaders programme, and an introduction to the AD method at North Coast integrated College, Coleraine, Northern Ireland. Since then schools in England and Wales have had either initial or follow-up sessions with us.
It's been a busy start, with already a few observations to make. What we frequently observe is that schools that have invested in on-going training for their staff, particularly training a group as within-school leaders, are then able to make this method really stick. Otherwise there is the risk of bringing us back every few years at the beginning of a new session to repeat what has mostly been forgotten. That keeps us busy, sure, but we would prefer to see schools that can manage their future training for themselves!
Getting down to the issues - Here is an approach within your training that can help highlight the current issues about classroom management and support professional problem-solving. John Bayley writes from his recent experience -
One of the perennial problems in behaviour management is getting staff to use rules and sanctions in a consistent way in schools. If we had a pound for every time teachers have told us that consistency is the main issue, we would be rich!
Recently, Doreen Sinclair at Charter School in London showed me a technique for getting to grips with this issue and I have used it since with successful results. During a typical training day I ask five or six members to enact a classroom scene. The “teacher” introduces the lesson and the other staff members present her with a range of typical irritations – arriving late, refusing to sit in their allocated seat, messing around with a mobile and so on. At each critical point in the proceedings I “freeze” the role play and invite member of the audience to say what they would do.
At first people are reticent but soon the discussion becomes intense – and sometimes quite heated. It is a way of getting right down to the nitty–gritty on issues like tactical ignoring, use of warnings and room ejections. As a trainer it teaches me that we can listen to a whole day of training and yet still compartmentalise it away from our actual practice in the classroom. The results of this approach are usually positive – it opens up discussion about how to unify practice at classroom and department level.
Eagle Tower, Cheltenham, was again the venue for another successful Assertive Discipline Master Class. With a wide cross section of participants - from those still in training or newly qualified to team leaders and behaviour consultants - Geoff and Elizabeth were able to split up the groups for the practical sessions of skill rehearsal. Already we have had gratifying feedback on the outcomes of this training for classroom practice. Ben wrote to us to say
"Just a quick email to say thank you so much for the course last week. I found it immensely useful and enjoyable. I have already started implementing some of the techniques you taught us, where I have noticed a dramatic difference in response from the kids, as well as several TA’s noticing the difference in the kids and myself. I am looking to put together a disciplinary plan for the new term, as well as playing with several ideas. Once again, thank you for your time."
With a wide range of comfortable and reasonably priced accommodation, excellent shopping and a variety of eating places all within walking distance of Eagle Tower, Cheltenham is proving to be a popular venue for training. As a result we will be offering these courses here again this Autumn term. For teachers in Scotland we will be duplicating the programme at the University of Stirling Management Centre 19th-23rd November, where accommodation is on site (but book early to reserve a place!)
Stormy weather prevented some of our participants getting to our Succeeding with Difficult Students course last month. The severe gales and rain that have disrupted so much of the country meant that teachers in the North of England were unable to travel for the training in Cheltenham - a case of not succeeding with difficult weather? We hope therefore we can add another "SWDS" course to next term's schedule for those who missed out this time - always weather permitting!
Let us know if you are interested in this programme. It provides an approach which is becoming increasingly relevant to today's challenges! This course deals with where we go after Assertive Discipline - how we analyse the mistaken goals of our difficult pupils and how we set up realistic individual behaviour plans for them. This programme is a "must" for all behaviour specialists and consultants. Please indicate your interest in attending by phoning 0870 241 8262 or emailing us at info@behaviour-learning.com
Teachers' Union bothered by 'pupils' voice' - (taken from news release 20th June) A few weeks ago we reported on work being done in a school where our own John Bayley has been teaching pupils how to observe lessons and give accurate and supportive feedback to those of their teachers who chose to volunteer for this 'service from the customer'. Now it appears that the NASUWT - a classroom teachers' union - is challenging this practice together with the idea of pupils sitting on job interview panels. General secretary Chris Keates of the NASUWT said the "student voice" was important but this failed to respect teachers' professionalism.
However John Bayley reports that the careful involvement of pupils' feedback has always proved a positive experience for the teachers. Likewise 'School Councils UK' says that probably most schools now have pupil interviewers of this sort and found it beneficial, and head teachers welcomed the idea.
Ms Keates spoke out after pupils at New College in Leicester started to sit in on job interview panels for all new staff. The policy is part of changes which have seen the school come out of special measures after Ofsted said it was failing. Its principal, Jane Brown, said pupils were in effect the customers and it was important they have a say in how they were taught.
But Ms Keates said: "Regrettably, this is not the first time we have encountered this practice. It demonstrates a failure to respect the professional role and status of teachers and involves youngsters in a way which disempowers and deprofessionalises staff." She added: "At this rate, it will only be a matter of time before someone suggests that pupils be trained as Ofsted inspectors."
Ms Keates said she had had a case in the north-east of England in which a teacher was being taunted by a pupil who had interviewed her, about things that had come up during the interview. The union had advised its members "to challenge and oppose inappropriate student voice strategies" - and would support those who did.
There is no official guidance on the practice. Schools are however recommended to have student councils. The charity School Councils UK, which promotes this sort of pupil participation, says the recruitment process for teachers often involves having them take a lesson.
It would be "naive" to imagine that pupils did not discuss the quality of the lessons they had had, and formalising this was a good idea. "My guess is there would be more schools that are doing it than aren't," said spokesman Asher Jacobsberg. "Far from eroding the relationship between pupils and teacher, it was formalising it...It's unrealistic to stick your head in the sand and say this shouldn't be happening."
But on behalf of the NASUWT Ms Keates said the pendulum was swinging far too far. "We just think the time has come to pause and think what direction are these things taking us in, in terms of the pupil-teacher relationship."
However another teachers' union - the Association of School and College Leaders - disagrees with the NASUWT view. It's general secretary John Dunford said it was not a new development, it was happening in a number of schools with very positive results. "It is understandable that some adults find it daunting to receive pupil feedback, but the vast majority of schools that involve students in this way say that both the pupils and adults benefit. This does not mean the kind of generalised, unhelpful comments found on websites like ratemyteacher.com, but a structured process in which students are asked to make a constructive contribution," he said.
What do you think? We have opened up a discussion forum on all the topics that appear on our website. Use the contact us page to email your own opinions for publication here.
Children's Mental Health - recent research from the National Children's Home charity indicates that one in ten of children have a mental health disorder to a "clinically significant" level. The NCH study found a 100% increase in the prevalence of emotional problems and conduct disorders among young people since the 1930's. defines an "emotionally well" child as one who demonstrates empathy, self awareness, an ability to manage their feelings, motivation and good social skills.
Clare Tickell, chief executive of NCH, said: "The lack of emotional wellbeing amongst our children and young people is undermining the foundations of any social policy to combat social exclusion, deprivation or lack of social mobility."
This finding seems to support our own observations which can be read in Geoff Moss' article on "Social Mediation - Two Worlds" in our new downloads page.
Those views are now being echoed in the concerns about the sort of childhood many of our pupils are now experiencing e.g. see Sunday Times 1st July by India Knight
Doing it properly - We have now completed several longer-term projects with individual schools to help them get the positive Assertive Discipline message embedded into teacher practice. This is an approach we are now actively promoting with senior leaders in our schools. Our experiences have identified the key components of such a School Improvement Plan - which you can now read as our proposal for developing Assertive Discipline in your school.
Developing consultancy – using video for feedback with teachers - The effectiveness of consultancy on behaviour management change in schools is increased when it provides teachers with an opportunity to learn from each other. The benefits of using video to provide feedback are
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it gives teachers acurate feedback on their own performance
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it is based on an understanding of the particular circumstances of the school
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it relates behaviour management to teaching style
John Bayley has been developing a new consultancy approach using video observation for individual feedback and whole staff training. He has developed a national reputation in this area of consultancy through his work on Teachers TV. John will be offering training in these methods for us soon. Meanwhile he says
"Most of my work so far has been with secondary schools. Typically I work with one or two departments, videoing lessons and then giving individual staff members the opportunity to review and discuss their teaching. In these feedback sessions we are able to view teaching as a whole process in which behaviour management and teaching style are analysed together. The video feedback is in the control of the teachers. The professional discussion is confidential and the teachers own the feedback tapes.VHS or DVD copies can be made on request. Teachers sometimes use the videos as part of their professional portfolio. The process can stop at this point if the teacher so desires.
However, we usually go several steps futher. With the agreement of the teachers involved, tapes can be transferred overnight on to Quicktime Movie formats and shared within departments so that staff can compare their practice and learn from each other. This really gets the teaching and learning conversation going within departments. The final stage of the process is to use the video material to form the core of a whole-school training day. In this way positive behaviour management and best teaching practice are embedded in the training. During the course of the day staff members are able to explain their teaching practice in a coaching alliance with the outside trainer. This is a five or ten day process, depending on how many departments are involved.
A final output is a training video that can be used for staff induction or displayed around the school so that parents, students and visitors can appreciate what happens in classrooms. I am keen to extend the work to the primary sector, perhaps working with clusters of schools, or to work with primary and secondary schools together to exhange good practice at the point of transfer.
Recently I have developed the work in two new directions. As we know from our Situational Leadership training, behaviour difficulties often arise in schools because communication between staff can be unclear and confused. Short cameo interviews with staff members focussing on important issues in school can be used to “say the unsayable” in staff training sessions and allow some of the “shadow issues” in school to be discussed openly.
Another development has been the use of video material to train pupils in lesson observation techniques. Teaching staff are sometimes apprehensive at the prospect of student feedback but I have found that they are always enthusiatic and appreciative when it happens. Handled well such feedback sessions from students to teachers are positive and engaging encounters. One of the protocols I teach students is to finish the feedback with a round of applause for the teacher! When they give that applause it is heartfelt. The effect on students is dramatic. As a year 9 student said to me recently, “Now I know how much time teachers spend preparing, I can understand why they hate it so much when people muck about and spoil their lessons”.
If you want John to work in your school, do contact us. John will also soon be running his two day course at Eagle Tower on video observation and feedback. Contact us for further details.
Want to be kept up-to-date with the latest developments? You can register with us on-line at 'contact us'.
Call for additional training consultants - We are looking for additional trainers to join our team - whether full or part-time. We particlarly need additional leaders for our increasing work in Scotland. We would also like to re-establish interest in Cornwall which was once a torch-bearer for our approaches! If you are a registered leader and would like to do training and consultancy work with us, please get in contact.
News Archive from Spring 2007
Situational Leadership® II training leads to distributed leadership - Last week Elizabeth Floyer and Geoff Moss led the 2 day Situational Leadership II programme with a group of 'middle managers' from Biggar High School, who were joined by those primary headteachers in the Learning Community who had missed the earlier training arranged by David Chalmers, head teacher at Biggar High. What gave this programme an added salience was the fact that each head of faculty will now not only be applying these methods in their own leadership work in their departments but can expect that their own line manager will similarly be using the approach with them!
Some of the issues that emerged over the two days were
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the need to be much clearer about what performance we expect of each other in our work.
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the need for openness of process - a shared language with no esoteric business-speak jargon.
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that leadership is mostly a coaching activity. SLII is not something done to others; it is something we do with and for others.
Now the next task is for every member of staff to learn the basic principles of SLII in order to be able to diagnose their own development level for each of the tasks they have to perform, thus to know what sort of 'leadership' they need of their line manager, and thence to 'partner for performance' - confirming key goals, clarifying responsibilities, and structuring the CPD process.
When everyone in the school has this shared understanding of mutual support then distributed leadership can become a practical reality.
More Norwegian educators trained - another 2 day Assertive Discipline® Master Class and one day Assertive Discipline® Leader's Certificate has produced 8 more leaders from Norway. Well done to Anne-Kristin Benson,Turid Anita Granheim,Wencke Opsum,Rachel Hoisaeter,Geir Trahaug, Elisabeth Pedersen, Christine Amlie, and Karsten Arne Krossnes! Their ability to cope with the nuances of behaviour education in the English language is truly impressive. It was also interesting to hear from them that despite differences in government and local administration of education in Norway from the UK they still experience the same sorts of behaviour problems in children and young people - and the same sort of reluctance among some teachers to deal with these growing challenges. The group has now returned to Bergen where they will continue to support and train other teachers in the progressive methods of the latest Assertive Discipline programme. We now have so many Norwegian trainers that we are hoping to set up an additional Norwegian page on the BLM website (if translators are available and willing!).
Meanwhile the home side was well represented by Audrey Booth and Vaughan Ebrahim who are also to be congratulated on completing the leader programme to become accredited trainers themselves. Audrey works at a college for deaf students and her challenge is to convert most of the spoken language of assertiveness to sign language. We hope to report later on her progress with this. In the programme we stress the role of coaching for behaviour in the classroom. As a former sports coach himself Vaughan was able to reinforce our views on this. For trainers the work of coaching pupils also becomes the work of coaching teachers in the method - and the ideas of Situational Leadership II (see below) have proved really helpful for us in this endeavour.
See our new training resource -The Better Behaviour Guide CD - Geoff Moss and John Bayley's groundbreaking series for Managing Schools Today - will soon be available in a revised and expanded version on CD which allows immediate access for every teacher either through your school's intranet or for you to print the relevant advice from it for particular colleagues!
John Bayley has just returned from a fact-finding visit to the USA. Here is his report for us -
"A most interesting visit to Olympic High School in Charlotte North Carolina. The purpose was to make a film for Teachers' TV picking up some of the isues around the small schools movement. Bill and Miranda Gates think that smaller, less impersonal schools are the best way to create trusting learning relationships. They also take the view that the curriculum should be deeper rather than wider, allowing young people to follow up their interest via project-based learning.
A talk with the Principal, Pamela Espinsa, made it clear that policy makers in the United States are extremely concerned at the rate at which China and India are turning out graduates and technically skilled school-leavers. That anxiety sometimes gets expressed in U.K.but not with such intensity. Ms. Espinosa pointed out that it is not a question of turning out more graduates, but graduates who can do something different and more creative - otherwise why pay for a British or American engineer when the job can be done four times cheaper elsewhere?
The school I visited has been divided up into five separate schools, each with less than 400 students and about 30 staff. It certainly did seem to allow for strong relationships between staff and students,although one has to bear in mind that the structure of authority is very different in most American schools - a quarter of the students were in the Officer Training Corps, for example, and every Wednesday afternoon there was a staff-student basketball match, complete with cheer-leaders, in school time.
I saw some extremely high quality teaching . In one class about the Renaissance, children lay on their backs painting the roof of the Sistene Chapel on cartoons pinned to the bottom of their tables, and used semaphore and improvised printing presses to relay messages around the school. In another workshop a teacher was leading students in project-based learning - building quarter and eighth sized versions of real wooden housing.
Undoubtedly this intimacy allowed the school to cater for a wider range of needs than we are able to in many of our schools.
The downsides? Many of the teachers were late career entrants from other professions. In order to teach to this level they put in two or more hour's preparation for each lesson on top of the usual assessment load. I was concerned at the potential burn-out rate. There was also an issue relating to project-based learning and the idea of going deeper rather than wider. At the end of each semester students have to sit State tests and if they don't get the grade they don't go up. So teaching staff were faced with some dilemnas that Scottish and English teachers will recognize - teaching the subject or teaching to the test.
However, I was most impressed with the social and learning atmosphere in the school. The small schools movement is coming to the United Kingdom and it has a lot to recommend it."