Saturday 21 June 2014

Times Festival of Education: Part 2

The Saturday line-up of the festival promised a fantastic day and it did not disappoint.

Early morning at the Festival


Amongst the earliest pedagogical birds, I was lucky enough to see John Tomsett in the first slot talking about the great value of using videos of our own lessons to tweak practice "at the margins": bad teacher habits; things to improve, and negative behaviours that we just do not notice until confronted with the hard visual/audio evidence. The session was enriched by showing some of his own less than perfect lessons (and any of us who think we teach perfect lessons are either abnormal or self-deluded). The concept of "deliberate practice" - which is the idea that we should focus in on an area for improvement and consciously enact improved practice until we embed it in our teaching habits - is one that is an incredibly common-sense path to improvement. His assertion that improving teaching and learning is "all about culture" resonates, and he made much of the idea that a Senior Leadership Team had to lead by example, showing themselves to also be willing to learn and seek to improve.



In the second session, I stayed where I was in the Old Gym and watched the TES Behaviour Guru, Tom Bennett. I have spoken with Tom via Twitter, and I certainly recommend his excellent book "Teacher". Today he unashamedly presented the common sense principles of good classroom management. I hope that others took away the important point that instilling strong classroom discipline is not about "the teacher getting respect" (as an end) but more about insisting on respect for your rules because they are in the best interests of the students. The other important message was that for independent learning to happen, there needs to be self-discipline first, which comes about through internalised discipline (or "compliance" in Tom's words). If this is not provided (in a "loving", but consistent and robust way) by the adult in the room, it is unlikely to happen. Although colleagues at Oakham are teaching in a very different environment to Tom's East London Comprehensive School, his thinking here is simply good teaching and applies to all practitioners, whatever their context.


After a dubious Cappuccino (it was just pretending to be something more than hot water with white froth) I enjoyed watching Kris Boulton argue for there being more of a focus on a teacher's subject knowledge, bringing expectations in line with other professions such as Law or Medicine. Then it was to Old School to hear a humorous but passionate talk by Geoff Barton about "The Habits of Literacy". Much like LHO (Learning Habits at Oakham), he argued that there were so many things regarding literacy that we as subject teachers take for granted and that we do not successfully make them explicit enough to students. The assertion that we have to "normalise" reading is certainly a lesson for all schools to prioritise.

Catching up with Oakham colleagues at lunchtime, David Starkey appeared to have made quite an impact and there were excellent reports on a wide range of other talks. Quite simply, what an amazing event - and one that has certainly offered the staff new ideas, revitalisation and inspiration.