Proportion is a very important and surprisingly interesting concept. Whether it's the mathematical application, the political idea of a just form of representation, a golden ratio or simply a sense of proportion, it's useful and thought provoking.
Mathematically speaking, do you spend a proportionate amount of time on the different teacherly tasks you approach every day? Is marking and assessment given its due weighting? Is 30 minutes to plan a 45 minute session wise? Perhaps it is, but it's impossible to keep that up. Can you work smarter and prioritise the most vital aspects of your work?
Briefly, imagine if we had PR in this country. Ah. We'd probably have a Tory / UKIP coalition. Maybe the North should secede? You'll want to if you've read that last link, to Wikipedia's most frightening page.
The golden ratio, also known as the divine proportion. It makes a lovely wave like picture. Can we find this in our work? Is there a lesson which perfectly balances didactic instruction with independent learning and focused demonstration of the knowledge and skills developed? I think there is. Try to teach that lesson. Focus on refining and honing that golden lesson structure, different for each class, until you know you're close.
This google search won't get you there. Your own ideas, shared and improved in discussion with real teachers will.
Finally, as sense of proportion. If you don't have one, get one. If you do have one, use it. Each week is thrilling, challenging, thought provoking, inspiring, frustrating and enjoyable. Each lesson, some might say. Whatever happens, remember the words of Rudyard Kipling:
As you are no doubt aware, 'tis four hundred years since Shakespeare's death. And what a four hundred years it's been: imperialism, exploitation, science, football, mobile phones, a racist government or ten, and at the end of it all, the arts still want patronage and involvement from big-eared inbreeds who bring nothing but stupid questions, bad hand-writing and an illegitimate ginger war-mongerer to the national scene.
This video links to both the title of this blog and the ranty, scarcely literate sentence above. Why bring that foolish plant-whispering wasteman onto the stage, in the midst of genuinely talented people?
However, it's the interpretation element that interests me. That line, so famous, yet subtly different with a twist on the stresses.
Your lessons. Successful, but how do you stress a different aspect? How can a subtle change of approach yield different outcomes? The same for your marking, for meetings, for all you do as a professional.
How can you reinterpret your practice?
And finally, the soliloquy in full. Interpret it how you wish. Conscience does make cowards of us all, ultimately, which is why I always choose to take arms against the sea of troubles.
To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover’d country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.–Soft you now! The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember’d.
Guess who's back? With NFl popping off to pop a baby out, I thought I'd pop back on to the blogging platform for a few weeks. That's enough pop for now.
The title of the blog isn't a reference to Peruvian freedom fighters / extremists / guerillas (delete as applicable according to your world view). It's a reference to the path we follow as members of his righteous profession, a reference to the path our pupils follow, and to the path we follow as people in this game called life. And also apt in this spring sun.
Without doubt, it's the obvious key time of the academic year. Our eldest pupils are motoring towards that defining time. However, as I've stated in years gone by, this is the time to ensure we focus on every pupil in every year. Our modest success in the past few years is built on a cohesive, long term view: a relevant curriculum, purposeful lessons, focused assessment, excellent relationships and team work. Simple, really.
We're tasked with the seemingly impossible task of doing more with less - less time, money, support from the government. They want to create greater systemic inequality, to protect that wealth they've been stashing in bricks and slush funds, made from our forebear's labour, all around the globe. We work to undo that, to create hope and opportunity where it lies dormant.
How do we do this? With simple effective systems. Purposeful marking, which focuses on key skills. Relationships with each other and pupils based on trust and respect. By taking collective responsibility for the outcomes of our pupils, recognising that it's not just the year 11 work which secures the outcome, but the combined effort of 5 years labour: conversations on corridors, intervention organised by a key stage manager, coaching, their year 7 teacher. Respectful relationships with all pupils are the key - hold your line and they will respect you, be consistent and fair, but hold your line. Build that momentum from the first and you will be rewarded.
Lessons must be simply structured, powerful and effective. Resources should be shared. Lesson aims should be focused and precise; the goal must be incremental progress, over an extended period of time. Double check - have you nailed a specific skill, covered every eventuality? This can only be done through effective teamwork and listening to others, whoever they may be. For example, are you certain that your year 11s are confident in how to approach a shorter exam writing task? Do they know how to overcome the fear of the first line?
Lightness. A shining path, illuminating a pupil's progress through the challenging adolescent years, meeting challenges head on, as members of this community. This is our school, not anyone else's.
Thank you, one and all, new or old, staying or going, for all of your hard work, all of your great ideas, and every ounce of commitment you have show this year.
Changes have been aplenty over the course of this year, too many to mention in one blog. You have, diligently and as a team, planned a new course for GCSE, plotted AREs for seven and eight, managed a new school day, seen me much less (lots of changes are good ones)... and more.
However, for me the most important changes are to do with the people. We get used to change as teachers; seeing pupils come and go over a five year period is an emotional and brilliant part of the job. There's always some movement of staff, too, but this seems like a key year.
Firstly, we have some new staff. You, 'old timers', have made our new staff feel incredibly welcome, and have helped them to have a significant impact in the short time they have been here. It's really exciting to look at the team, to look at the experience and skills that have been added. Change is a scary thing, but it also presents great opportunity; this can never be ignored. Permanent revolution might not be the most fashionable of ideas these days, but I think it is under-rated. I think Michael Gove may agree with me on this.
On this note, might I quickly refer you back to this blog from August last year. I wasn't joking then, and I'm not joking now. This is the way to buck the system.
I am massively grateful to both the new staff for the seamless way they have taken on their important roles within the team. Thank you.
Next, we have some leavers. One, temporary, I wish good luck. You will be dying to get back after a year of no sleep and nappies!
Next, a star, or rather a comet, on a vast and eccentric orbit through the galaxy, Nibiru style. Quick, and bright and gone. Although not as deadly as the non-existent planet, ripped from Babylonian mythology, beloved of mad people and me. She is off to take up a mid-level training role with the illuminati, one which has the potential to see her running a mid-sized entity like the UK in a couple of decades. Seriously though, your work has been excellent, you have brought a great deal to the metaphorical table in a short time, and you will be missed. We all look forward to seeing you on Question Time using these two years as proof that you have set foot in the real world. We won't contradict you - it's plenty long enough.
Finally, the stalwart. Quite what it will be like working without you, I do not know. I cannot imagine. Your advice, your listening, your friendship, kindness and empathy over the years has been incredible. The impact you have had on the young pupils you have worked with over the years has been immense and immeasurable - food for thought for those reductive league table, score card making idiots in government. Just seeing the two young men from your class, one your coachee, receive their awards last week proves this. From boys like those, to the Oxbridge bound, every person you have taught has received what they deserve. Personally, beyond the support and friendship you have offered, I take your willingness to learn and develop, even during the later stages of your career, as a behaviour I will try to emulate.
You are a legend, and you will be missed.
Changes. It's like there's this, kind of massive, like, wheel, and it just sort of goes round, and round, and round, and we deal with it. But this is a good time to pause, and reflect, and say thank you, to all of you, for being a wonderful group of people to work with.
This will be the last blog I write on here - there's been a much more useful and relevant one written for the last few weeks, and we hope you will all contribute at different times to this. See you all tomorrow for a long walk. Wear appropriate footwear - I don't want changes due to injury.
But to do so, we must ensure that our current hard work (which, as someone who gets to see each strand - the planning, the teaching, the assessing - is amazing) must remain purposeful and relevant. Value driven.
It's not just what we do, or how we do it - it's why we do it. Here's a slightly cheesy quote to end:
“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”
A better tomorrow? Why else would we teach? Why else would the books we choose as our favourites, mostly, be so didactic and idealistic?
In a week, we have a new start, another chance to create that better tomorrow, that new dawn. For over four years now, we've been working towards that. We've travelled a long way - many of you have been welcome recruits on that journey, a few have been there from the start.
This is a triple whammy new start - new staff and new GCSEs, with the chance to refresh and enhance our practice at KS3 too. Let's make this a triumph. (Analyse the poetry in that track and tell me it isn't art of the highest order.) In fact, here's a line which tells me why I do what I do:
Light is provided through sparks of energy from the mind that travel in rhyme form giving sight to the blind.
Let's make the new staff, in their varied roles as teachers and managers, not only feel welcome, but feel empowered to bring their experience and knowledge to bear on the department.
Let's look at the new GCSE as a chance to distill our work on the IGCSE, to refine it into something highly effective, focused and engaging. This is an advantage - a head start on this linear world. We have been analogue while everyone else was digital. Now, they've been dragged back into this Govian memory curriculum. Subvert it. Make it extreme.
What we do at KS3 is, to state something as obvious as the fact that Simon Cowell will look exactly the same in twenty years time, vital to any future success - of the personal, professional kind, or the more important outcomes for our pupils kind. We live in a world were cash rules everything around us. We need a method, man, to protect our necks. We need confident, empowered pupils, able to fight for themselves in an adversarial system. Starting this in year 9 is too late - we have to kick this truth into them from the moment they join us.
Do we do this yet? A bit, a lot, sometimes well... but we must improve.
Can it all be so simple? Let's provide that light.
Several years ago, I started to picture progress in English as a spiral, a helter skelter . Each year, we revisit the same skills and similar ideas in greater depth and complexity. We marry these ideas differently. We combine ideas learnt previously in new ways with new foci. We adapt and move onwards, becoming more skilled and detailed as we do.
Over time, I've come to see progress in English as a double helix, that powerful piece of coding which contains all of the information for life, ready to be downloaded and adapted. I'm not the only weirdo who sees things like this. There are blogs here, here and here which explore these ideas in greater depth and detail than I can be bothered to do. Now, I don't fully agree with all of the writer's points, but there is something to think about in each blog. I also find it amusing that he blusters on about the historical and contextual knowledge required, with hardly a mention of the actual linguistic, literary and grammatical knowledge required to be truly excellent at English. He, ironically, becomes the opposite of what he opposes, rather than reaching a reification, a synthesis of the skills and knowledge dichotomy.
I believe in a powerful, varied, purposeful, politicised curriculum which engages and challenges. The skills for analysing and creating must run alongside through all of the content.
For this reason, the work you've recently produced on age related expectations has been exactly what the doctor ordered. You overstand the idea of having this clear mix run through all that you do. This will ensure that our pupils get what they deserve - and that is what matters. All that matters - droppin' skills and knowledge to achieve our goal.
