Monthly Archives: April 2008

Leadership Dilemma: If a child swears at a teacher what should you do?

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Leadership Dilemma: You are the head teacher of a school. A child swears at a teacher in front of other children.  What do you do?

Does such an occurence automatically mean that the child should be excluded from school?

It’s certainly one of the most common reasons for exclusion.

My own point of view has always been to treat every situation as a discrete incident – and make a judgment accordingly. Yet there exists an expectation that where a child swears “directly” at a teacher that classroom order and the digniity of the teacher can only be maintained if the child is punished by a period of exclusion.

What do you reckon?

Using outcome agreements for school improvement

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I came across the concept of a social return on investment last summer when Jim Honan explained the Program Logic Model.

The model seeks to find a way in which public services can actually have a greater impact by focusing upon the things that will actually lead to a return on social investment.  The tendency in education has often been to focus on outputs or activity and to only try to work out the outcome – or success criteria – at the end of the planning process, i.e. there are a legion of initievies and activities which have been implemented in Scottish education which have not had any discernible positive impact.

The model flips this on its head by forcing the service to consider the impact that we wish to have as the starting point for action. I’ve explored this in a number of previous posts but this week we sent out our Service Improvement Framework which schools will use to guide their activity for the coming year.

The Framework tries to make a link with the Council’s corporate plan and priorities but the pages which schools will undoubtedly focus upon are pages 8 and 9 – which set out the outcomes which we will use to judge the level of return we are getting from the investment in education in East Lothian, i.e. £75 million.

Borrowing from the Scottish Government’s concordat with Local Authorities we intend to give much greater flexibility to schools and clusters as to how they will go about achieving these outcomes – what works in one school or community won’t necessarily work in another school or community.

I know how positively I would have responded to such an approach, or as  one head teacher said to me this week – “trust us and we’ll do the business”.

1000th Edubuzz Blog – opening a window

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What is www.edubuzz.org?

Edubuzz.org is the blogging platform set up by East Lothian Council to open a window on our practice and create a networked learning community which extends beyond East Lothian.

Over the last two years Edubuzz has expanded and expanded, with over 250,000 visits in March – up 100% since the March 2007!

Much of this growth is due to the tirless work of David Gilmour – our Edubuzz co-ordinator.

I’ve copied David’s post about the establishment of the 1000th Edubuzz blog.  

Last week blog number 1000 was created for a P7 student at the small rural Innerwick Primary School.

It was part of a set of 7 for the P7 members of Lindy Lynn’s composite P4/5/6/7 class, reflecting the increasing use of blogs to provide web publishing tools to individual students. The blogs will be used by the P7s for a project to reflect on their time at Innerwick, and the group are full of ideas!

Staff are also talking about the possibility offered to get some collaborative work going with other feeder primaries in the Dunbar Grammar School cluster, with the aim of helping the children to get to know some other students who’ll be joining them at the much larger secondary after the summer.

In another sign of the times, due to staff pressures, the P7 group were trained in a 3-hour session, without their class teacher, in how to use the blogs, and – not surprisingly – picked it up very quickly. They’ll now be training their teacher, and supporting one another, to get started in the classroom.

Engaging with our communities – the role of social media

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We held a meeting last week where we explored the potential of weblogs to assist the community planning process – based on the edubuzz model -although not necessarily using the same platform.

Community Planning is a process which helps public agencies to work together with the community to plan and deliver better services which make a real difference to people’s lives.

The aims of Community Planning in Scotland are:

1. making sure people and communities are genuinely engaged in the decisions made on public services which affect them; allied to

2. a commitment from organisations to work together, not apart, in providing better public services.

There are two further key principles in addition to the two main aims outlined above:

3. Community Planning as the key over-arching partnership framework helping to co-ordinate other initiatives and partnerships and where necessary acting to rationalise and simplify a cluttered landscape;

4. the ability of Community Planning to improve the connection between national priorities and those at regional, local and neighbourhood levels.

As we discussed the potential of weblogs it became apparent that this might just be a vehicle which could be of some real use.  If we could encourage key figures and other members of a local community to keep a weblog where they would reflect upon local issues and stimulate a dialogue within a community, the likelihood of planners and public services to take account of these opinions would be greatly enhanced. The old ways of questionnaires, focus groups, community conferences, canvassing do not enable a substantive, two way, on-going dialogue to take place where ideas can be shaped and developed over a period of time.

I know how I am being influenced by being able to read the weblogs of teachers, parents and children – surely this has some possibility for community engagement?

So how might such a scheme work? Let’s take a community like Tranent.  If we established an area where the weblogs of of the community could be accessed and new members could participate we would begin to build up a very rich picture of the strengths, opportunities and needs within the community.  Officers and elected members could engage with this dialogue and perhaps even have their own weblogs to make the decision making process even more transparent and interactive. 

I know some people might feel very threatened by such a suggestion, as it appears to almost encourage anarchy by handing over the “airwaves” to the public – yet surely that is what community planning is about? – a transparent enagagement with the local community to the point where people eventually (it would take some time) begin to believe that they do have a voice and that it is listened to. Even more importantly those who do make the decisions can explain the thought process and reasoning behind decisions – even those decisions which are unpopular (see example).

Last observations:

  • A councillor recently described how no one had attended any of their surgeries in the last four weeks. 
  • Another councillor described how few people had attended their surgeries over a three year period. 
  • East Lothian Council have started to hold some council meetings in the evening to be more available to the public – very few (less than 10 have attended in any one evening) .

Perhaps it really is time to explore alternative vehicles for community interaction?

Composite classes – a pressure point

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I’ve received number of e-mails this week from parents pleading with me not to establish composite classes in their schools. A composite class is one where a primary school class is composed of children from more than one year group, e.g. P3/4 composite class. 

The common theme in all the e-mails is that if I care about children then I can’t allow this to happen.  I should probably point out at the outset that my own children were taught in composite classes.  On first being notified of compositing I have to admit to being concerned – despite my own experience as an educator. As parents we tend to like the status quo – we don’t like the idea of change – especially change which seems intuitively risky. 

Whilst I understand the reflexive reaction that many parents have towards composite classes the issue often has the potential to whip a storm of fury all based upon the supposition that the quality of education will suffer.  When looked at from a certain perspective you can see how this appears to be a convincing and logical argument – which can be captured as follows:

“Children in non-composite class are all the “same age” and can be more effectively taught by a teacher than a class made of of children from two different year groups.”

However, when one considers the reality of this situation most “normal” classes are made up of children who have an age range of 12 months. Yet given the arbitrary way in which we identify cut off dates for entry to school – its very possible for children who are born days apart to be in separate years groupings.

As I have explored before such  range of ages can mean that in child development terms there can be a gap between children of between 24 – 36 months. Chronological age does not equate to stage of development – any of us who have had our own children can testify to that.

The reality is that a composite class will often have a less of an age range than a “year group class” – as we group the class by birth date, e.g. an age spread of a less than 8 months. 

Yet compositing can also strike fear into some teachers – particularly those who have never taught such a class grouping before.  I recently spoke to very experienced head teacher about this and she told me that there is no more differentiation required in a two year group composite class than there is in a single year group class – in fact because of the closer age range there might even be less. Of course some of our smaller East Lothian schools have composite classes composed of up to four years groups – now that is challenging but as I’ve described before can lead to truly stimulating learning situations.

To return to my e-mail correspondence – I do care about children (that’s why I’m in the job). I know it goes with the territory and it’s why I get paid but people seem to think if they apply enough pressure that they can get more money for their own school.  It’s my job to advocate for all children in East Lothian – not just those whose parents might be able to mount a campaign to change a very fair system for allocating teachers to schools.  The reality is that an average teacher’s salary – with on-costs such a pension etc – is £36,000.  One extra teacher for one school means that this money must be taken from another school (93% of our education budget is devolved directly to schools).

Last point –  no parent has ever complained about compositing once their child has moved into such a class – only before.

Kinship Care

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Kinship care means that childten are cared for by members of their extended family in circumstances where their birth paremst are not able to provide care.

Research suggests that kinship care is the most appropriate and helpful arrangement for some children who are unable to live with their parents. Kinship care placements can provide stability, a sense of belonging and identity, and the chance to maintain meaningful relationships with important family members. Currently, the level and nature of the support provided for kinship care placements varies across the country. If we are to achieve good outcomes for all of our looked after children, we must make sure that children are enabled to grow up within their extended families, where this is appropriate, and that kinship care placements are adequately, and consistently, supported.

Expectations?

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It was our anniversary today and we walked up this evening to our friends’ farm.  They have been working flat out for the last four weeks and the fruits of their labours were running all  over the fields.

I love it at this time of year when the lambs gang together and  run as a group from one place to another.  It’s hard to believe that these happy, careless and free spirits transform themselves into “sheep”. It made me wonder about how we treat our own children – do we expect them to be sheep when they are just lambs? Perhaps we need to let children have more space to be themselves before they conform to our adult expectations?

Rugby in paradise

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 Our eldest son is out in Australia playing rugby for Nelson Bay – which is just North of Sydney – and is having a great time.  

He has received an incredible welcome and Nelson Bay seems to be a beautiful place.

We are sorely tempted to try to get out to visit him during the summer but it might cramp his style.

“You never leave the Villa”

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“You never leave the villa” – so said Andy Thorpe, manager of the Lothian Villa, a residential home for challenging and vulnerable teenagers in East Lothian. I was privileged to visit the “Villa” a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been meaning to write up my experiences since that time.

What Andy means by “You never leave the Villa” is that it becomes part of you and you become part of it.  This chimed for me with the ideas which I came across during my visit to the U.S last year when Norman Kunc talked about belonging . For fostering a sense of belonging in these children is at the very heart of what they do at the Villa – this is demonstrated by the fact that adults, who were in the school years ago, still return to their “home” to speak to staff and keep in touch.

A lot of the work being done in the Villa is based upon the work of Sally Wassell and attachment theory – I’m doing more reading in this area at the moment so won’t go into any detail save to say that I think it forms a rich resource for all of us involved in the care and education of children and young people.

The Villa – in Andy’s words – provides “emotional nutrition” for kids who have often been emotionally malnourished throughout their lives. “They deserve the best” and the Villa sets out to provide it.  I spoke to some of the kids and was blown away by how positive they were about the place and the way that they are treated. Yet don’t get the idea that this is a soft regime – quite the opposite in fact – “We care enough about you not to let you be out of control” is a characteristic which permeates the collective approach. They “love” the kids and “tough love” seems to be something to which the young people readily repond.

I had an interesting chat with Andy about how they deal with extreme behaviour – which can at times be violent.  He explained how they often have different consequences for the same behaviour – this intrigued me as schools so often get trapped by having to be “fair” when dealing with misbehaviour by always matching a certain consequence with a certain from of behaviour – i.e. if a pupil swears at a teacher they must be excluded. Andy explained that their consistency comes through judging the reasons behind the behaviour and that consequence will be consistent for the person. 

It was a humbling experience visiting the Villa and seeing a group of people who are so fully committed to an approach.  Andy is a remarkable leader and has developed a culture where everyone valued and seen as a part of the family – staff and children. So often “Children’s Homes” are associated to negative connotations but I found it an enriching environment which is changing lives for the better.

I recommend a visit!!

A Mission

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Over the last 6 weeks I’ve been doing two jobs – the Head of Education and Director of Education and Children’s Services.  We appointed my successor this week in the form of Maureen Jobson, who is the Manager of our Learning and Teaching Team. Maureen is everything I’m not – methodical, practical and reliable. She uses her experience of having been the Head Teacher of three schools to great effect and is highly regarded by all her colleagues.

Effective teams so often depend upon a mix of complimentary skills and Maureen’s skill set will definitely keep me on track and stop some of my more extreme flights of fancy with her no nonsense Sunderland rebuff.

With her appointment I’ve been able to give more thought to what I really want to achieve as Director. It’s possible to let such a big job overwhelm your sense of purpose and for it to become a management post where you simply try to keep the “oil tanker” afloat and on course. Yet as I’ve been giving this more thought the words from our Learning and Teaching policy keep bouncing back into my mind.  Unconditional Positive Regard can sound like any other jargonsitic phrase yet I believe that it should underpin everything we do with young people.

I’ve explored the definition of the term before on this log but it might be worth going over it again and giving it my own twist. Unconditional Positive Regard means that you don’t give up on kids – whatever they do. In many ways it helps to reflect upon the concept from a parental perspective.  If one of my sons did something wrong I would challenge their behaviour, chastise them, and try to help them understand why it was wrong and what the better alternative might have been. But just because they did something wrong did not mean that I was going to treat them any differently from my other son – my love was unconditional.

It took me some time as a teacher to come to terms with this approach – I remember belting kids (corporal punishment) when I first became a teacher, of getting really angry and just wanting kids who misbehaved to be removed from my class. I can’t exactly remember when my attitude changed but I do know that when I shifted from a “conditional” approach to an “unconditional” approach that the response I got from children was incredibly different and the impact that I had a teacher was transformed.

In the last three years I’ve been trying to promote the concept of unconditional positive regard within our Learning and Teaching Policy and it has had some limited impact.  The majority of those involved in education adopt it as their natural approach and you can spot them straight away. Yet for others this idea is something of an anathema – “I’m not paid to like children” was perhaps one the more memorable rejoinders, or the classic “I’m not a bloody social worker”. In other words some people in education feel that they are only there to work with those who want to be there – the rest should be removed from their presence. Well unfortunately there are lots of kids who don’t want to be there. Kids who have to put themselves to bed, who have to witness things at home which they shouldn’t have to witness, kids for whom the very act of getting to school is an achievement.

It is to my great shame that I can recall a science teacher I managed who regularly called a child in his class a “moron”. He felt he was justified in using this word as it accurately described the child’s behaviour – he certainly saw no need to apologise. Yet this same child could go into the class down the corridor and be one of the most enthusiastic and motivated kids in the class. So what did I do about it? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! I rationalised this at the time by saying to myself that it would just make the kid’s life even harder – and it came to the point where we removed the child from the class for his own protection as he would aggressively respond to the demeaning way he would be treated by the teacher to the point where he would be excluded or punished.

So what does all this mean for my new job? Well I think it means that I’m not going to walk away from this any more. I’m going to make it explicit that it will be my expectation that the behaviour of every person employed within Education and Children’s Services can be characterised by a commitment to unconditional positive regard.  I don’t intend to issue blanket edicts or constant memos but I do intend to tackle individuals, regardless of position, who come to my attention as having not treated a child in a manner which is underpinned by unconditional positive regard.

I might be wrong but I think this simple message repeated, and consistently and insistently upheld has the potential to have an exceptionally powerful impact upon the lives of children, families and the culture of Education and Children’s Services in East Lothian.

“And what if people don’t treat kids with unconditional positive regard?”

Then they are in the wrong job!