Hello, my name is The NQT: how to survive your first term as a 'real' teacher

As you might be able to tell from the fact that this is my first blog since those sunkissed, lazy days of the summer holidays, being an NQT has come as quite a shock to the system. Losing the amazing support provided on the York PGCE and its partnership schools made me realised just how much I had taken for granted. Nothing prepared me for losing my evenings, my weekends, my half term – basically all of my free time – in the quest to simply find my feet as a ‘real’ teacher. Now, nearing the Christmas break, I have time (and feel able) to reflect on the challenges of my first (almost) term as an NQT – and to share what I have learned here. For trainee teachers: a warning from the future. For more experienced teachers: a quiet plea for your understanding, as we attempt to fathom the intricacies of SIMS, the school’s communications policy, the difficulties of being a form tutor, and all the other admin that was handled by our mentors and our placement schools during our training. For everyone who is not a teacher: one more voice explaining just how bloody difficult this profession is. But finally, for everyone who reads this: why I still think teaching is the best job in the world.

Challenges and advice

Firstly, I want to outline some of the biggest challenges I have faced, and how I’ve overcome them. I hope this will prove useful to NQTs of the future, as I can’t count how many times I have wished someone had told me about these things!

1. Problem: My work/life balance was approximately 90% work, 10% life. This became absolutely unbearable near the end of the first half term. It is SO important to ensure you are eating and sleeping well, as well as taking time away from teaching or thinking about teaching, to ensure you don’t go totally insane and burn out. That isn’t good for you, or your pupils, in the long run.

How I have dealt with it: I am fortunate to have a mentor who places a huge amount of focus on getting a good work/life balance and is fairly dictatorial about making sure I don’t stay too late at school every day of the week. The best thing that she helped me to do was to re-do my timetable by scheduling activities such as marking and planning into my frees. As long as I stick to this schedule, I can leave school at 5.30 most days, and have almost all of the weekend free.

My advice: 

• Don’t run around after pupils if you are providing help outside of lessons. Schedule a set time each week or fortnight to see groups of pupils (for example, I see the Oxbridge candidates I am coaching for an hour on Mondays and an hour after school on Thursdays). This streamlines extra demands on your time. 
• This also applies to detentions – make a set time that you will hold detentions, and get all the pupils to do their detention in this slot.
• Schedule activities for your free periods and stick to it.

How my life felt before I got my work/life balance under control!

2. Problem: Linked to this, I found I was unable to plan exciting, inventive lessons because of a simple lack of time. I became extremely frustrated and felt as if I had taken a large step backwards in terms of my pedagogy.

How I've dealt with it: I used the departmental resources and adapted the lesson plans in order to make them my own, which greatly reduced time I would have to spend on making resources like worksheets/card sorts etc. It is also a matter of practice makes perfect – I have definitely sped up my planning just because it is now part of my job every day. Additionally, I have stayed in touch with the people from my PGCE and we share resources using www.dropbox.com, as well as maintaining the Facebook group we used during the PGCE.

My advice: 

• Stay in touch with your fellow trainees – 11 brains are better than one!
• Take as much as you can from your placement schools in terms of resources (make sure to give some back, though!) – you never know when those lessons will come in handy.
•  Adapt as much as you can from resources you already have from your PGCE, the department you work in, and any resources from past schools you’ve been in – it’s impossible to create a new lesson plan for every single lesson from scratch.
• TES Resources will become your best friend – but ensure that you post some of your resources on there too, for good karma!

3. Problem: The volume of emails and in-house communication became overwhelming. This caused feelings of stress and panic every time I would receive a new email and have to ‘action’ it – I was unused to this scale of communication, so felt that everything was urgent!

How I've dealt with it: With my mentor, I took the decision to check my emails once before school and once after school. I have also become better at filtering for what is urgent, what is important, and what can be left for an after-school slot to ‘action’.

My advice: 

• Do not check emails throughout the day – check once before school and once after school.
• Arrange a system for ‘filing’ communications into urgent, important, and non-crucial. Deal with them in that order once you have free time, perhaps every day after school.

4. Problem: Ideological differences between the school I trained in and my new school posed one of the most significant challenges . I had trained in a school and on a PGCE which had a highly collaborative group-work focus, and my new school did not seem to embrace this approach. Setting out all Humanities classrooms in rows, with all pupils facing the front, instead of in table groups, is a good example of this. I found it extremely hard to plan for this classroom layout and felt as if I didn’t fit into the school’s ethos.

How I've dealt with it: I immediately started to negotiate with my department to let me change the classroom layout into tables, and it was agreed that I would wait it out for a half term and see if I got used to the rows. I didn’t, and after the October break I changed the classroom into tables. I now feel like my classroom is more my own, and I am able to use many more of the teaching and learning strategies I was trained to use. However, by keeping my head down and giving it a go for the first half term, I was able to see some of the benefits of seating classes in rows (especially for behaviour), and have used some of these in my behaviour management strategies, especially the importance of always looking at the teacher when they are talking.

My advice:

• Keep your head down for the first half term and try not to rock the boat. You will come into the school bursting with creative pedagogical knowledge. There will be plenty of time to share this after you have settled in.
• Negotiate politely and professionally if you wish to make a change. Compromise will be necessary.
• Trust your training and your knowledge – do not be afraid to challenge the status quo (politely!)    

The positives!

Although the issues outlined above have been very challenging, there are more than enough positives every single day to make me thankful that I am a teacher for a living. The rest of this post will reflect on these – because whilst NQT year has given me a bit of a shock, I still leave school every day with a smile on my face.

The best part of being a ‘real’ teacher has to be the feeling of owning your own class. Being alone in that room, with power to inspire, challenge and stimulate the minds of my pupils, is why I became a teacher in the first place and never ceases to give me huge amounts of job satisfaction. A moment where I realised that I truly owned my classes was when I read through the half-term homework I had set to my Year 7 class, which involved reflecting on their experiences of History at secondary school so far. In the vast majority of comments, not just the subject content and activities were mentioned, but they had specifically mentioned my presence, enthusiasm and personality as well (even if an alarming proportion had said ‘Ms Horton is slightly crazy/mad/mental’…)

Being a form tutor, and the pastoral side of my job, is also something I am really enjoying, although having responsibility for the behaviour, attendance and achievement of my form group on a school-wide level is certainly intense.

I have taken on two extra roles within the school involving sixth form. I am tutoring two Oxbridge candidates through the application and interview process and have planned a term’s worth of weekly sessions for them, focusing on the philosophy of history, interview preparation and preparation for the written tests. More formally, I am an Extended Project Qualification supervisor, which entails meeting with the students who’ve opted to do the EPQ and coaching them through the process of creating and writing their independent enquiry or orchestrating their project. I am currently supervising a student organising a fashion show for charity and two essay-writing students – one writing on aspects of the American justice system and one on the sustainability of hydrogen fuel. All of this is exciting and engaging on an intellectual level for me.

I’ve also been successful at teaching Geography for almost half of my timetable – the pupils are making good progress and I have established a positive relationship with all my Geography classes. This has shown me that I really am ‘a teacher of children’, not just ‘a teacher of History’ – and has given me great confidence in my flexibility and general pedagogical skills.

Final thoughts

All of this has served to prove that teaching truly is one of the most exciting jobs there is – where no day is ever the same, and you never get bored! The challenges can be overcome with hard work and tenacity, and the positives are 100% worth the grind. The gap between PGCE (or any other form of training) and your NQT year is enormous, and can seem overwhelming. Despite this, I remain convinced that I am lucky to be a teacher, every single day.

How to teach the Tudors?: podcast style

The Tudor period is an integral part of the KS3 curriculum, but often it's taught in a way that focuses purely on the characters of its soap-star monarchs. How do we get away from this approach and towards a more rigorous scheme of work that teaches about the many changes in Tudor England and the way that it laid the foundations for life today?

To try and answer this question, I made a podcast with the wonderful Mr. Crosby back in April. 


Below is a summary by Helen Snelson, PGCE History Tutor and Head of History at The Mount School, York.

"They provide an overview to help teachers who have little knowledge of this period to see the wood for the trees.  They then discuss where the Tudors could fit into a scheme of work and the way that teachers can progress their students' understanding of the discipline of history through studying 16th century England.  They specifically discuss issues of progress from the common primary school approach to the Tudors.  They suggest specific enquiries.  For example, using Tudor propaganda to progress understanding of historical interpretation. Not just the portraits and engravings, but also some of the personal letters, which are complex but, if acted out first, students can be scaffolded to understand the meat in them.  They point out that there is lovely detail in the early days of the printing press, for example in Foxe's Book of Martyrs.  They also make the link to the work in English lessons on Shakespeare and they use glossaries to help with complex words.  A recommended source is the National Archives.  Also, university linked students can get free access via Athens into State Papers online, an encyclopaedia of all the correspondence ever sent.  There are excellent exhibition catalogues too e.g. from the major galleries and museums.  

What are the merits of learning this period?  Laura explains how the Tudor period is important in order to understand the foundations of modern Britain.  There are also points of resonance, such as in the use of propaganda and celebrity.  They both raise the issue of contextualising the Shakespeare period and the cross-curricula nature of this. The possibilities of exploring the Tudor period using Shakespeare as a source are also discussed. 

Laura expands in detail about how the Tudor period helps progress with the key concepts and processes.  She would take a variety of sources as the basis of a scheme of work on the Tudors.  Her developing enquiry work in this area is about challenging misconceptions about them.  For example, debunking popular statements about Elizabeth using evidence.  She wants to work with the pupils misconceptions, not give them other peoples.  Crucial to this are activities to recreate a church, a court etc via role play to make sure that they have the necessary sense of period to make sense of the specific historical learning. For example, so that pupils understand the King was inaccessible to most people and the consequences of this.  She also plans to use several everyman chararacters as a vehicle for progressing knowledge about continuity and change throughout the period.  

A self-confessed Tudor geek, Laura gives a final flourish about why Wolsey is her hero!"

The Past Is No Longer A Mystery: Horrible Histories as an educational tool

The Horrible Histories TV show craze initially passed me by. Although I had a housemate back in 2010 who intermittently rhapsodised to me about how excellent their songs were, I never really paid attention. That all changed during my PGCE year, when, after an all-nighter trying to finish an assignment just before the Christmas break, we were shown the RAF Pilots' Song as a Christmas treat in one of our curriculum area sessions. Perhaps it was the sleep deprivation. Perhaps it was the RAF uniforms. Or perhaps it was the excellent Take That parody combined with real historical facts - notably, how Douglas Bader came back to the RAF at the start of WW2 "just like Robbie". Whatever it was, I was hooked. And it wasn't just a hit with me - I used this clip to teach about the Crusades to a Year 7 class in March, which subsequently made a child laugh so much that I had to turn it off for fear of physically injuring him.

Now that Horrible Histories has come to an end, after its fifth series, I feel it is a fitting time to write this blog - as a tribute to its particular brand of utterly historically-based sketch silliness. As The Guardian said back in 2012 at the start of its fourth series, "Horrible Histories isn't just the best show on children's television – it's one of the smartest comedies on TV". A hit with children and adults alike, I've tried to explain here why (in my humble opinion) Horrible Histories was so excellent. I think the answer lies in two areas: its entertainment value, and its value for the study of History.

In terms of entertainment, Horrible Histories appeals to an enormous variety of people. Of course, it is targeted at children and played on CBBC, and it has hit its mark time and time again with them. I have seen presentations delivered by pupils in the style of Horrible Histories, where they faithfully download the theme tune and play it to start their presentation. I often wondered where the strange facts pupils would pipe up with came from - now I know! Yet, Horrible Histories appeals to parents too - just look at this thread on Mumsnet for a (slightly disturbing) look into the psyches of middle-class mothers with a thing for Mat Baynton (one of the actors). Mat Baynton has fans all over YouTube too, with hordes of teenage girls commenting all over videos of him performing in Horrible Histories asking him to marry them - and the other performers get their fair share of attention, too. There are YouTube playlists of all the songs Horrible Histories have ever produced, and some clips have over 2 million views (like this one of Henry VIII). This is all testament to the widespread fanbase of the programme.

Mat Baynton performing as Dick Turpin in the song that captured the hearts of mums and teenage girls everywhere..

Its excellent lyrics and parodies have certainly added to the TV show's popularity, making it a joy to watch for history geeks and music lovers alike. Fitting the historical character or event to the pop star (see Australian convicts, Kylie Minogue style - or perhaps Rosa Parks as Aretha Franklin?) has proven incredibly successful, and the parodies of wider pop culture (like MasterChef, Brian Cox and Gok Wan, to name but a few) are equally as funny. The exceptionally talented cast play no small part in the success of this approach. Additionally, the familiarity that the sketch-based format provides, through allowing the audience to access many different characters through recognising the actors' faces each time, ensures that audiences really feel a part of the series and connected to the actors. 

Whilst the entertainment value of the programme is certainly a reason why Horrible Histories flourished, I believe that its attitude to the study of history is the real key to its success. It is extremely historically accurate, meaning that children, parents and (importantly) teachers can trust it. Over all five series, only 8 mistakes have been made, according to the show's historical consultant Greg Jenner. Its approach to history as a discipline is, to my mind, as close to perfect as a subjective subject can be. It embraces a non-chronological approach but still defines each period through innovative title sequences. It covers British history, European history, world history, women's history, the history of minorities, social, political, cultural, technological, religious history... it's all there, in easily accessible bitesize chunks that the audience can piece together for themselves to realise how one event or innovation affected what was to come. The audience are left to make those links for themselves, facilitated by big set-pieces like Bob Hale's Reports (which typically tell the story of a large event in history in a short space of time - perhaps most ambitiously 'The Human Report' which tells the story of mankind in under 4 minutes). Therefore, the series promotes conceptual, higher-level thinking by giving the audience interesting historical facts and the framework into which they fit. It is truly sophisticated, and an excellent resource for parents and teachers alike in not just encouraging an interest in history, but teaching kids how to 'do' history as well. 

However, with all the 'teacher talk' aside, I thought I would end by outlining my Top 5 Horrible Histories moments. Hopefully, if you have seen it before you will smile fondly on these memories, and if you haven't, they will inspire you to buy all the boxsets and get watching! All of these clips are available on YouTube - just search. 

1. ALL OF THE SONGS (especially the aforementioned RAF Pilots' Song, 'I'm Minted' by Crassus (Dizzee Rascal parody), and the Dick Turpin song which is, of course, an Adam & the Ants parody). 2. BOB HALE'S REPORTS 3. STUPID DEATHS 4. HI! I'M A SHOUTY MAN (adverts for various historical products, delivered impeccably by Jim Howick)5. WOLSEY'S APPEARANCE ON HISTORICAL YOU'VE BEEN FRAMED (of course)

PGCE Assignment 3: In Which I Learn That Hard Work Pays Off

May, 2011. It is 3am on a very dark Friday morning. I've been awake for 15 minutes, and am now clutching a large flask of coffee and sitting up in bed with my laptop open, frantically typing the last chapter and conclusion of my 10,000 word dissertation. Why? The deadline is at 2pm that day. 

May, 2013. It's 9am on a sunny Thursday morning. I have been awake for an hour, showered, driven to campus, and am about to knock on the door of my tutor's office and hand in the final assignment of my PGCE. It's been ready to hand in since the previous day (and already electronically submitted to Turnitin) and I managed to get a good night's sleep.

So how did I get from one situation to the other? This blog will focus on what was perhaps one of the biggest personal lessons I learned during my PGCE year - that hard work really does pay off.

I used to be the self-appointed 'queen of the last minute'. At school and during my undergraduate degree, I was 'lucky' enough not to have to revise for more than a day beforehand, or spend more than roughly thirty-six hours writing and referencing an essay, to get top grades. I was mistakenly proud of this ability - believing it meant I was more naturally gifted than my peers - and it did afford me amazing opportunities to multi-task during my time at university in particular (for instance, being able to perform as the lead in a musical during a week-long open exam in my second year, or - memorably - going out to a club in the middle of a thirty-six hour long open exam...) It meant I didn't have to sacrifice my social life, or my extra-curricular interests, which I thought could only be a good thing. I didn't realise, however, that I was sacrificing something else - the satisfying process of doing history, and the time-management, research, and organisational skills that come with it.

Why had I ended up like this? As an ex-grammar school pupil, I strongly believe that the nature of selection by exam at age 11 had a large part to play. By instilling in me at that early age that I was naturally more gifted than others (and therefore given the opportunity to go to my secondary school), the pattern was set. The school did nothing to dispel this myth. As a teacher myself now, I always encourage my pupils to work hard, work on feedback, and constantly push themselves. At my own secondary school, I cannot remember ever being treated formatively in that way. As long as you were getting top grades, by whatever means necessary, the school would not intervene. Praise was sparse, because everybody in the school was a 'high achiever'. I was not taught the value of hard work in increasing self-esteem and self-confidence, and did not know the pleasure of working hard to achieve something. In short, the school created 'entity theorists' - those who believe in fixed intelligence - (Dweck, 1999) out of all its pupils, including me. I then took this belief to university with me, believing that as long as I got a First in every module, the satisfaction would appear. Unsurprisingly, it did not. Sitting at my graduation, I felt absolutely nothing. 

Naturally, when I started my PGCE at Masters-level, I assumed I could play the old tricks and get top grades in all my assignments. Of course, I had matured, and knew I couldn't risk the 'last-minute' approach when planning or doing any work for my placements - and so I definitely put in the hours, managed my time well, and ensured that all of my actual teaching practice and work in a school setting was top-notch. That was crucial to my development away from the 'entity theory'. I was beginning to realise that nobody is 'born' a teacher - they are made, through determination, hard work, and constant reflection and evaluation on your practice. 

I was getting there in my classroom, but still stuck in the same old mindset with assignments.

However, when it came to the assignment part of the course (three 4000 word essays on educational theory and practice), I am now ashamed to admit that I maintained the approach I had always taken to my academic work. In Term One, I took the lead role in a musical at the university, and assumed I would be able to balance that commitment with completing an assignment to Distinction standard (the top grade). In practice, what actually happened was that I found myself frantically printing and electronically submitting the assignment at 5am the morning before it was due. A similar story for the second assignment in Term Two - although the 5am electronic submission backfired as I was so tired that I incorrectly submitted my essay, meaning that my tutor had to appeal to the Board of Examiners on my behalf so that I wasn't penalised for late submission (something I am eternally grateful for). Unsurprisingly, for both these assignments, I did not get my desired Distinction grade - and even did worse in the second essay than the first!

Something had to change. The game was up, and to make matters worse, the third assignment was a 'special study' on a topic of my choosing. I wanted to do justice to my chosen topic (a cost/benefit analysis of learning outside the classroom), but more importantly, the time had come for me to practice what I was preaching on a daily basis to the pupils I taught - that hard work is the key to success. After consultation with both my tutors, I came up with a simple plan. Start the assignment well in advance, work on it steadily every week, and leave myself two clear days for proof-reading at the end. This was all novel to me, but I knew I had to start working hard if I was going to teach children to do so. 

Unusually, this sort of determination is not a common trait of the sort of 'entity-theory' learner I had characterised myself as previously. The desire to master challenges, instead of giving up when faced with perceived failure, is more characteristic of Dweck's 'incremental view' - the belief that effort will actually increase attainment (Dweck, 1999). I had already adapted this view in terms of my 'on-the-job' teaching during the course - now it was time to test it out on the academic side.

To cut a long story short, it worked. Of course - my tutors are truly two of the wisest women I know! I achieved a comfortable Distinction, which anyone present at the time when the mark was put up online will know was one of the happiest moments of my life. However, it was not purely the grade itself which delighted me. It was the satisfaction - that feeling people had told me about, but I hadn't experienced - of working incredibly hard, for a sustained period of time, on a project you intrinsically care about, and that effort being recognised. In addition, the feeling I wrote about at the start of this post - the calm, collected way I handed the assignment in - came a close second to the fulfilment I have just described. I felt satisfied after handing it in, without knowing what grade I would be given. This is a testament to the change in me. My priorities had shifted from only caring about the extrinsic reward of a top grade, to caring about the intrinsic feeling I experienced as a result of really trying. 

The PGCE gave me so much - it helped me start a career I will love, gave me confidence and independence, and helped me really grow up. However, it also shook off a thought pattern and set of beliefs about education and academia that I had held since the age of 11 - for more than half my life. It replaced my self-denigrating, negative and somewhat empty attitude with a positive, energetic and truly fulfilling one. I cannot wait to continue with my Masters with this new mindset - but more than that, I cannot wait to have real conviction in the words I speak to my pupils in the future - when I tell them that hard work really does pay off - academically and personally.

References

Dweck, C.S. (1999). Self-Theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. Philadelphia: The Psychology Press.

Saints Alive: using sculpture to explore historical significance

This blog centres on a visit I made to Michael Landy's 'Saints Alive' exhibition at the National Gallery. The exhibition will run until 24th November 2013 and consists of a series of large-scale moving sculptures representing various saints. The sculptures can be operated by the viewer, if they press a button/turn a wheel, and so on. More information can be found here.

I don't know if you'll have been able to tell, but a real interest of mine is integrating the creative arts with the secondary curriculum, especially the teaching and learning of history. I am proficient in drama and dance, but more out of my comfort zone in the realms of art and art history. This is something I want to develop. The National Curriculum recommends visits to galleries as a curriculum opportunity that should be provided (DfE, 2007, p. 6) and the recent government-commissioned Henley Review suggests that visits to cultural sites like art galleries can "deepen [young people's] understanding of the world around them" (Henley, 2012, p. 8). There are also explicit links between this religious-themed exhibition and the history topics that most schools offer at KS3: medieval beliefs and the structure of the Catholic Church is often a key part of earlier study, leading up to the Reformation. The significance of saints in the lives of ordinary people is often a key part of this. With this in mind, I was eager to visit this exhibition to see if I could marry my passion for religious-themed art with my love of teaching history.

Is this exhibition useful for teaching and learning?

The first aspect I have reflected on is the effectiveness of the interactive nature of the exhibition and its potential to engage pupils. Because the sculptures 'came to life' at the press of a button, pupils would feel they could take ownership of the exhibition, making it more immediately engaging than static portraits may appear at first glance. It's also very memorable - I have no doubt pupils would remember that Saint Apollonia was tortured by having her teeth pulled out after watching a 10-foot high model of said saint extract her own teeth at the press of a button!

This kinaesthetic, memorable aspect links to the second of my reflections. A guide speaking to us when we were waiting to go in made the very valid point that the exhibition had a 'fairground' feel to it, because it was so interactive and over-sized; almost grotesque. This feel could be extremely powerful in teaching about the 'tourism' aspect of medieval sainthood - perhaps with a link to the extreme popularity of the shrine of St. Thomas Becket and the significance the pilgrimage to Canterbury had for centuries after his death. A teacher could link the moving sculptures to attractions at a fairground, and then link this back to the popular appeal the saints had - making the significance of saints to medieval people far more accessible for pupils.

The exhibition is also a valuable tool for accessing higher-order thinking, for example dealing with religious symbology and abstract artistic concepts. In history, the concept of significance could be explored through posing questions like: why has the artist decided to sculpt saints at all? Why these specific saints? Why might people in the past have sculpted saints? What do the motivations of the artist and the people in the past tell us about significance of saints through time?

Similarly, there are strong and complex cross-curricular links brought about by this exhibition which would be highly valuable for a pupil's personal and cultural development as well as their development as a pupil of history. More emphasis on spiritual, moral and cultural development has been placed on schools by Ofsted, and the exhibition's links are therefore a crucial aspect of what makes it so potentially useful as a teaching and learning stimulus (Ofsted, 2013). Its links to Religious Education - the importance of saints, and, more interestingly, the darker issues surrounding their lives and their significance to Catholic people - are complex and could promote really thoughtful discussion. Similarly, the exhibition also included displays and a film focusing on the artist's process. This kind of meta-cognitive information could stimulate art & design-based discussions about choices that artists make and the artistic process. Most excitingly, this process could then be linked back to the process that a historian follows (making choices, finding evidence, compiling it into a structured piece of work for 'display') - highlighting to the pupils the intrinsic similarities between all of the arts. Macaulay - the man who famously likened history to portrait painting at the turn of the 20th century (Macaulay, 1900, p. 17) - would be proud!

I have outlined ways that this visit could be embedded into the KS3 history curriculum below. The National Gallery provides excellent facilities for school visits including an Education Suite, and this exhibition is completely free! More details can be found here. I would thoroughly urge teachers to plan an enrichment visit to this excellent sculpture exhibition if they are in the London area. The exhibition itself would take no more than an hour to visit - perhaps a half-day visit with a session in the Education Suite at the Gallery would be a sensible option.

So how can teachers embed a visit to 'Saints Alive' with the KS3 curriculum?

Prior knowledge needed:	·      The structure of the medieval church ·      The importance of Heaven and Hell in medieval times ·      Some knowledge of what a saint was and how you could become one
Suggestions for activities during the visit:	·      Pupils use sculptures as stimulus to design their own ·      Pupils create a comic book/speech bubbles of the artist’s thought process  when creating the exhibition (really linking into present-day significance) ·      Pupils to review the sculptures using a template sheet to gather information about the saint portrayed and the artist’s interpretation ·      Pupils take photos of sculptures and use device (iPad etc if available) to cut and crop to make their own version of a sculpture. Then annotate to explain why they have made those artistic choices
What could the visit lead on to?:	·      Pilgrimages in medieval times ·      The story of Thomas Becket ·      The Crusades

References

Henley, B. 2012. ‘Cultural Education in England’. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/77941/Cultural_Education_report.pdf

Department for Education, 2007. 'The National Curriculum for History'. http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/secondary/b00199545/history/programme/opportunities

Ofsted, 2013. 'The framework for school inspection'. http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/framework-for-school-inspection

Macaulay, T.B. 1900. Historical nuggets: the essence and art of history. New York: Fords, Howard & Hulbert.

Professional Enrichment: using drama, music and dance in secondary school teaching and learning

Before you read this, it might be worth mentioning that Artis (the company I worked with) give their specialists onomatopoeic names - hence why each specialist's name is followed with a 'code name' in brackets! Mine was 'Bounce'.

As a Secondary History trainee teacher about to qualify, I was given the opportunity to complete two weeks of ‘Professional Enrichment’ in a school-based context of my choosing. As a former actress, this choice, for me, was simple: it had to be an organisation that synthesised creative arts with teaching, learning and professional development. Artis (www.artiseducation.com) immediately ticked all these boxes: through both its holistic approach (fusing drama, music and dance with school curricula, by sending specialists into schools and making excellent use of primary schools’ PPA time) and its Impact programme (focusing on providing training for teachers in how to unlock the potential of the arts in their classroom).

The power of the arts in education has been a subject of much debate, with the recent government-commissioned review, ‘Cultural Education in England’, finding it significantly enhanced teaching and learning (Henley, 2012). No surprises there – I’ve always embraced the arts in my practice and seen first-hand the benefits it has for pupils’ engagement and confidence (look here and here!). However, the review goes further - “The best performing schools bring Cultural Education practitioners into schools, alongside classroom teachers, to share their knowledge with pupils” (Henley, 2012, p. 8). I can think of no better description for Artis Specialists - both skilled practitioners in a range of creative arts, and trained by Artis in behaviour management, lesson planning and other aspects of pedagogy - than ‘cultural educators’.

However, secondary schools are hampered by the fact that they do not have PPA time to spare to facilitate regular programmes run by specialists. I wanted to use my Artis experience to observe and adapt their techniques, so I could use them in my practice as a secondary school history teacher – and share them with my colleagues. What I have learned can be used in the teaching of history, in pastoral care and across the school as a whole – in true Artis style, a completely holistic approach. 

In history, the arts can be used to develop complex, concept –based thought. Alex Kaye (Bash) got pupils at Beecholme Primary School using movement to explain how gravity changes between the Earth and space. Stuart Barter (Chime) used dramatic tableaus at St Paul with St Luke’s to demonstrate changing habitats through time. Inspired by these excellent sessions, I thought about how I could use this in history lessons - how about getting pupils to use facial expressions to create a living graph of reactions to a key event, to illustrate the concept of diversity?

The arts also promote engagement with literacy. Iryna Pizniuk (Snap) used ‘Romeo and Juliet’ as a stimulus for a market-based drama scene and a dance to Prokofiev’s ‘Montagues and Capulets’ with a Year 6 class at St Anne’s Primary School. ‘Disguising’ learning in this kinaesthetic way effectively engages pupils who find it a struggle.

More widely, the benefits the arts have on personal development can be used effectively as a pastoral tool to ease the transition from primary to secondary school. Compiling the proposals for Artis’ summer programmes was inspiring – they use the arts and group work together to ‘break the ice’ between pupils in new Year 7 cohorts, as well as developing the foundations of key PLTS skills that they will need throughout their secondary school education. As a Year 7 form tutor next year, with my own Year 7 Induction Day coming up, this insight was invaluable and I will incorporate it into my pastoral planning in the new academic year.

Although some may fear that the freedom that creativity brings and excellent pupil behaviour are mutually exclusive, my experiences with Artis have shown this is not the case. Through integrating classroom routines, such as ‘silent signals’, Tarika Hidayatullah (Wiggle) at St Bernadette’s RC Primary had the whole (rather challenging) class under her spell! This links to another whole-school issue surrounding the use of the arts – co-operation between staff is crucial in linking creativity to the curriculum to really enhance teaching and learning. Charlotte Farmar (Chortle) at Singlegate Primary had incredibly detailed lesson plans, which had come about as a result of her relationships with the school’s teachers (and her own hard work and research!). She also demonstrated one of the most impressive qualities of Artis Specialists – their constant desire to reflect and improve – by asking me for feedback and taking some of my suggestions on board.

My two weeks with Artis have been invaluable for my development as a creative teacher of history, and I would like to say a huge thank you to the Artis team and all the specialists who have made these two weeks so useful and memorable. I’ll really miss being ‘Bounce’!

References

Henley, B. 2012. ‘Cultural Education in England’. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/77941/Cultural_Education_report.pdf

The joys of YouTube

Further to my ICT-sceptic Nostalgia Blog, I thought I should post this to show you how far I have come from my previous attitude!

We were lucky enough to have a fab session with Mr Dave West (whose blog is here: http://westylish.blogspot.co.uk/ - definitely worth a read, he really embraces technology in the classroom!) During the session, he got us making YouTube videos about historical events, and I made mine about Cardinal Wolsey.

For those of you who don't know, Wolsey is my hero. He is on my phone cover, I collect bric-a-brac that is Wolsey-themed, and my undergraduate dissertation was a defence of the man and his character.

This video is a short introduction to his fall from grace, set to the music of Justin Bieber.

The most dangerous trainee of all time (or, the use of simulation in the classroom)

This is a piece I originally wrote for the PGCE blog, which you can find here: http://yorkpgce.blogspot.co.uk/

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By the end of my first week on main placement, rumours were rife in the corridors that an outbreak of the Black Death had hit the school – and rife in the staffroom that I had been in some sort of brawl the preceding weekend thanks to the purple marks on my face and neck that looked suspiciously like bruises. Was I, in fact, the least professional and most dangerous trainee the school had ever known?

The answer, of course, is no. It was my predilection for using costume, drama and simulation in the classroom that had caused all sorts of gossip in the school. I’d planned my first lesson with Year 7 about the causes and spread of the Black Death as a simulation, where they – as teams of medical experts – would follow learning objectives that were tailored to ‘curing my disease’ and preventing it from spreading around the school, whilst cunningly teaching them historical content and the skills of analysing cause and effect. I decided to dress up, by using red food colouring to create burst buboes, black lipstick to paint purple swellings on myself, and finally by pouring an entire pint of water over myself, in the minutes before I entered the classroom, to give myself a feverish-looking sweat (a note for those of you considering this – water does not mix terribly well with interactive whiteboards!)

Myself looking a bit concerned about the buboes that have appeared on my neck

This is quite an extreme example of ‘simulation’ in the classroom, and to some, the lines between this approach and ‘drama’ are blurred. The difference, though, lies in the roles given to pupils to ensure the whole class is participating to create the simulated scenario. In this instance, I was the victim and they were doctors, nurses and government health officials, each with a specific role in their table groups throughout the lesson to focus them on meeting the learning objectives. This is wholly different to drama, where often only a small proportion of the class (or just the teacher!) is in role. Additionally, in drama, participants are required to immerse themselves into a role, which reduces opportunities for meta-cognition and the subsequent focus on learning objectives. By using a simulation, both the function of the role, and the outcomes created in that role, are apparent to the pupil. For instance, as a doctor in this scenario, the pupil would know that the ‘function’ of their role was to achieve the learning objective of ‘identifying the symptoms of the Black Death’, and they would do this through accessing content relating to these symptoms. Other roles would match other learning objectives and the group could then feedback effectively to ensure everyone in the table group had met all of the objectives.

So why use simulation in the classroom?

Simulation has a wide range of benefits for teachers and pupils alike. The immersion in a fictional scenario inspires and motivates pupils – simply put, it’s exciting and probably different to any other lesson they will have that day! It’s memorable and engaging and thus can go a long way to strengthening your reputation as a teacher and impression on a class, helping to provide a positive classroom environment and thus promote good behaviour. Furthermore, this reputation for the kind of lessons you don’t want to miss tends to spread around the school (I always find it helps if you stand in the corridor to welcome pupils whilst dressed in some kind of outrageous costume)! Another benefit simulation can have for you and your pupils is its structured nature, assigning pupils specific roles that match learning objectives. This can help you, and them, to measure their progress through assessment – in such a subtle way they will not notice they are doing it (for instance, an ‘emergency government meeting’ [in teacher language = verbal feedback] to discuss the causes and spread of the plague throughout Europe!) It suits a huge range of learning styles, as you can incorporate written, visual and kinaesthetic tasks into the simulation, as well as providing a comprehensive and well-structured plan for you as the teacher, where every pupil is participating. To meet the needs of all pupils, differentiation ‘by role’ is easy to achieve, and I often allow pupils to choose their own roles – this allows them to reflect on their strengths as a learner and take ownership of their learning. It can also help you to strengthen your relationships with other members of staff – through Health and Safety negotiations, but also the inclusion of Teaching Assistants in the simulation (by providing them with a plan in advance and an appropriate costume). Lastly, I felt the benefits reaching more widely than just the pupils and staff of the school at a Year 7 Parents’ Evening where I was greeted by one pupil’s parent with the slightly terrifying “I’ve heard about you…” – luckily, they’d heard only good things about how their 11-year-old son had become a doctor in my lessons with him, and wanted to thank me for engaging him in history!

So how could I use this in my classroom?: top tips and suggestions!

Tips for using simulation in the classroom

·      Choose your scenario carefully – obviously avoid things that will be offensive such as a Nazi simulation.

·      Do not over-use this as a classroom tool – firstly, they take absolute ages to plan and resource, and secondly, the ‘novelty’ effect that makes these lessons so engaging will be lost if this is repeated every time you teach.

·      Do not break role for the whole lesson – once you’ve swept them up in the pretence it is easy to carry their attention, but when broken it’ll be hard to reconstruct.

·      To achieve this, you will have to plan for every instruction you give, or resource you give out, to be ‘themed’ along with the scenario. For instance, in my ‘Thomas Becket’ scheme of work, I would only address the class as ‘Detective [Surname]’ and all resources were themed to look like crime scene reports. We also placed sources into freezer bags and labelled them ‘exhibit 1/2/3 etc’ to mimic the real-life procedure that would take place – I strongly advise you spare no detail. The more convincing the scenario, the more engaging it will be.

·      It is helpful to arrange the classroom in table groups of 4, mixing pupils with different skill-sets (creative, good at presenting, good at researching etc). This enables all pupils to have a fulfilling and engaging role.

·      You will probably have to invest a lot more time in planning and creating resources for this sort of lesson, especially if costumes are involved – I remember sitting in the staffroom frantically cutting up bedsheets to create my Pope costume, as I had underestimated the amount of time this would take. Leave yourself ample time!

·      Check with Health & Safety before you plan! – after planning to squeeze 30 Year 9s into a tiny kitchen in order to create an air raid shelter, I was told the night before the lesson that it would be too dangerous and breach Health & Safety policy. Cue frantic re-planning involving borrowing an enormous amount of blackout curtains from the Drama department and a very hectic period before the lesson attempting to set up an air raid shelter in the Learning Support zone!

·      Overall - careful planning is an absolute necessity. You, as the teacher, must have a clear idea of exactly what each ‘role’ will be achieving in terms of the learning objectives. Additionally, strict timing is necessary to ensure that progress is made and assessed.

When used effectively, simulation in the classroom can be an excellent tool for promoting pupil (and teacher!) engagement and enjoyment of lessons – ensuring that they make progress and that your relationship and classroom climate is positively strengthened. I’ll leave you with a list of suggested simulations, some of which I have tried to great effect and some of which I am aiming to use later in my career!

Suggested scenarios

Scenario	Teacher role	Pupil roles
Black Death	Victim	Doctor/nurse/government official/medical researcher
Medieval church	Pope	Cardinal/archbishop/bishop/priest
WW2 = Blitz	Air raid warden	Families (father/mother/children)
Henry VIII & the Reformation (this can be adapted to the court of any monarch studied!)	Henry VIII	Wolsey (Chancellor), More (Chancellor), Anne Boleyn, William Tyndale
French Revolution (fall of monarchy)	Louis XVI	Representatives of the Paris clubs (Jacobins, Cordeliers, Girondins, Hebertistes)
Cold War (Korean War, but could apply to any military event)	Commander-in-Chief at the Pentagon	General, Major, Colonel, Private
Feudal system	King	Lord/knight/peasant/priest
Treaty of Versailles	Secretary of the League of Nations	USA/France/Britain/Germany

… But the possibilities are endless!